Is Mitigation Translocation an Effective Strategy for Conserving Common Chuckwallas?

Mitigation translocation remains a popular conservation tool despite ongoing debate regarding its utility for population conservation. To add to the understanding of the effectiveness of mitigation translocation, in 2017 and 2018 we monitored a population of protected common chuckwallas (Sauromalus ater) following translocation away from the area of construction of a new highway near the South Mountains, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. We removed chuckwallas from the construction right-of-way, paint-marked and pit-tagged them, and then released them in a nearby municipal preserve. We deployed very high frequency radio-telemetry transmitters on a sub-sample of 15 translocated adult chuckwallas. We monitored the radio-marked chuckwallas once a day at 1- to 3-day intervals for up to 46 days to document survival, body mass, and post-release movements. The average distance moved following translocation was 359 ± 53 m. Using minimum convex polygons, the average home range size of translocated lizards was 0.9 ± 0.3 ha, which was 18–45 times larger than expected for the species. Following translocations, we surveyed the translocation sites 1 month later and again 1 year later to determine the presence of translocated chuckwallas. Translocated individuals were rarely observed a second time: in 2017, only 11 of 160 translocated chuckwallas were seen again, and in 2018, only 11 of 192 translocated chuckwallas were detected. In the light of low recapture rate, consistent loss of body mass, and large movements of marked lizards, we conclude that survival of translocated chuckwallas was low over a single year. In the future, efficacy of mitigation translocation could be better evaluated by assessing the spatial ecology of both resident and translocated individuals simultaneously using radio-telemetry

The Comedy of Trauma: Confidence, Complicity, and Coercion in Modern Romance

Stories engage a form of virtual play. Though they incorporate language and abstractions, stories engage many of the same biological systems and produce many of the same anatomical responses as simpler games. Like peek-a-boo or tickle play, stories stage dangerous or unpleasant scenarios in a controlled setting. In this way, they help develop cognitive strategies to tolerate, manage, and even enjoy uncertainty. One means is by inspiring confidence in difficult situations by tactical self-distraction. Another is to reframe negative or uncertain situations as learning opportunities, that is, to ascribe meaning to them. While both strategies are useful, each has limitations. In William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a king succumbs to the desire to make meaning where there is none, and nearly ruins himself in a self-composed tragedy. His friend restores his confidence and enables a happy ending—but only by deceiving him. This deception is benign, but the heroine of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa is nearly ruined by her abductor’s confidence game. Her “happy ending” is made possible only by reframing her rape and death as redemptive transfiguration—which, as many of her readers suggest, is a dubious affair. The hero of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man spends the first half of the novel eliciting his companions’ confidence in order to swindle them, and the second half trying to inspire himself with the same confidence. The novel ends with an ominous impasse: one must trust, but one ought not to. For Samuel Beckett, this impasse is productive. In his middle novels, thought itself emerges from the interplay of spontaneous bouts of irrational confidence and distortive, after-the-fact impositions of spurious meaning. Stories create (illusory) identities, elicit (dubious) hopes, and reinforce (false) assumptions in order to help us cope with the agonies of anticipation and loss, and to transform misfortune, accident, and misery into reward, retribution, and meaning—that is, in a comedy of trauma

The geographic range of Uma scoparia Cope, 1894 (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae) in Arizona

Surveys dedicated to better describing the distribution of Uma scoparia in Arizona are reported. These extend this species' distribution in La Paz County, Arizona, 20 km further to the south than previously described. Six records on the outside of a confused range are presented alongside data from 170 captures within this range. This species is well known from California but its Arizona distribution is little understood and less well studied than other members of its genus. Concern about the conservation status of the disjunct Arizona population makes this report valuable to resource managers. Lizards were observed with ease and in large numbers at nearly all sites surveyed

The geographic range of Uma scoparia Cope, 1894 (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae) in Arizona

Surveys dedicated to better describing the distribution of Uma scoparia in Arizona are reported. These extend this species’ distribution in La Paz County, Arizona, 20 km further to the south than previously described. Six records on the outside of a confused range are presented alongside data from 170 captures within this range. This species is well known from California but its Arizona distribution is little understood and less well studied than other members of its genus. Concern about the conservation status of the disjunct Arizona population makes this report valuable to resource managers. Lizards were observed with ease and in large numbers at nearly all sites surveyed

Children\u27s Perception of Gender-Role-Congruent and -Incongruent Behavior in Peers: Fisher-Price meets Price Waterhouse

This study evaluated whether traditional gender-role stereotypes still pervade children\u27s judgments of peers. One hundred seventy-three predominantly Caucasian, middle class boys and girls (ages 7 to 12) watched either a female or a male dyad discuss fundraising activities on videotape. In each dyad, one actor portrayed either masculine or feminine stereotyped behavior, whereas the other actor was neutral. Results indicated that performance judgments of a girl who behaves in a stereotypically masculine fashion are positive, but that personality ratings are more negative

Children\u27s Perception of Gender-Role-Congruent and -Incongruent Behavior in Peers: Fisher-Price meets Price Waterhouse

This study evaluated whether traditional gender-role stereotypes still pervade children\u27s judgments of peers. One hundred seventy-three predominantly Caucasian, middle class boys and girls (ages 7 to 12) watched either a female or a male dyad discuss fundraising activities on videotape. In each dyad, one actor portrayed either masculine or feminine stereotyped behavior, whereas the other actor was neutral. Results indicated that performance judgments of a girl who behaves in a stereotypically masculine fashion are positive, but that personality ratings are more negative

Neither vaginal nor buccal administration of 800 μg misoprostol alters mucosal and systemic immune activation or the cervicovaginal microbiome: a pilot study

<p><b>Objectives:</b> The aim of the study was to assess the extent to which misoprostol alters mucosal or systemic immune responses following either buccal or vaginal administration.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> This was a prospective, crossover pilot study of 15 healthy, reproductive-age women. Women first received 800 μg misoprostol either via buccal or vaginal administration and were crossed over 1 month later to receive the drug via the other route. Cervicovaginal lavage samples, cervical Cytobrush samples, cervicovaginal swabs, urine and blood were obtained immediately prior to drug administration and the following day. Parameters assessed included urine and cervicovaginal misoprostol levels, whole blood cytokine responses (by ELISA) to immune stimulation with lipopolysaccharide, peripheral blood and cervical lymphocyte phenotyping by flow cytometry, cervicovaginal antimicrobial peptide measurement by ELISA and vaginal microbial ecology assessment by 16S rRNA sequencing.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Neither buccal nor vaginal misoprostol significantly altered local or systemic immune and microbiological parameters.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> In this pilot study, we did not observe significant alteration of mucosal or systemic immunology or vaginal microbial ecology 1 day after drug administration following either the buccal or vaginal route.</p