How are caregivers involved in treatment decision-making for older people with dementia and a new diagnosis of cancer?

Objective: To explore how caregivers are involved in making treatment decisions for older people living with dementia and a new diagnosis of cancer. Method: A systematic review of PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Scopus databases was conducted. Studies recruiting formal or informal caregivers for older people with dementia and a diagnosis of cancer were considered for inclusion. Results: Of 1761 articles screened, 36 full texts were assessed for eligibility and 6 were included in the review. This review has identified that health care professionals (HCPs) are often unaware of the co-existence or severity of dementia in cancer patients, and therefore fail to properly address care needs as a result. While caregivers are relied on to help make decisions, they have unmet information needs and feel excluded from decision-making. Conclusion: Treatment decision-making in the context of older adults with dementia and a new diagnosis of cancer needs further research. This will help HCPs to understand their needs and improve the experience of decision-making for both caregivers and the people that they care for

Environmental coupling of selection and heritability limits evolution

There has recently been great interest in applying theoretical quantitative genetic models to empirical studies of evolution in wild populations. However, while classical models assume environmental constancy, most natural populations exist in variable environments. Here, we applied a novel analytical technique to a long-term study of birthweight in wild sheep and examined, for the first time, how variation in environmental quality simultaneously influences the strength of natural selection and the genetic basis of trait variability. In addition to demonstrating that selection and genetic variance vary dramatically across environments, our results show that environmental heterogeneity induces a negative correlation between these two parameters. Harsh environmental conditions were associated with strong selection for increased birthweight but low genetic variance, and vice versa. Consequently, the potential for microevolution in this population is constrained by either a lack of heritable variation ( in poor environments) or by a reduced strength of selection ( in good environments). More generally, environmental dependence of this nature may act to limit rates of evolution, maintain genetic variance, and favour phenotypic stasis in many natural systems. Assumptions of environmental constancy are likely to be violated in natural systems, and failure to acknowledge this may generate highly misleading expectations for phenotypic microevolution

Confirmation of low genetic diversity and multiple breeding females in a social group of Eurasian badgers from microsatellite and field data

The Eurasian badger ( Meles meles ) is a facultatively social carnivore that shows only rudimentary co-operative behaviour and a poorly defined social hierarchy. Behavioural evidence and limited genetic data have suggested that more than one female may breed in a social group. We combine pregnancy detection by ultrasound and microsatellite locus scores from a well-studied badger population from Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK, to demonstrate that multiple females reproduce within a social group. We found that at least three of seven potential mothers reproduced in a group that contained 11 reproductive age females and nine offspring. Twelve primers showed variability across the species range and only five of these were variable in Wytham. The microsatellites showed a reduced repeat number, a significantly higher number of nonperfect repeats, and moderate heterozygosity levels in Wytham. The high frequency of imperfect repeats and demographic phenomena might be responsible for the reduced levels of variability observed in the badger

What Have Long-Term Field Studies Taught Us About Population Dynamics?

Long-term studies have been crucial to the advancement of population biology, especially our understanding of population dynamics. We argue that this progress arises from three key characteristics of long-term research. First, long-term data are necessary to observe the heterogeneity that drives most population processes. Second, long-term studies often inherently lead to novel insights. Finally, long-term field studies can serve as model systems for population biology, allowing for theory and methods to be tested under well-characterized conditions. We illustrate these ideas in three long-term field systems that have made outsized contributions to our understanding of population ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. We then highlight three emerging areas to which long-term field studies are well positioned to contribute in the future: ecological forecasting, genomics, and macrosystems ecology. Overcoming the obstacles associated with maintaining long-term studies requires continued emphasis on recognizing the benefits of such studies to ensure that long-term research continues to have a substantial impact on elucidating population biology

Organic aerosol formation downwind from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

A large fraction of atmospheric aerosols are derived from organic compounds with various volatilities. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) WP-3D research aircraft made airborne measurements of the gaseous and aerosol composition of air over the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred from April to August 2010. A narrow plume of hydrocarbons was observed downwind of DWH that is attributed to the evaporation of fresh oil on the sea surface. A much wider plume with high concentrations of organic aerosol (>25 micrograms per cubic meter) was attributed to the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from unmeasured, less volatile hydrocarbons that were emitted from a wider area around DWH. These observations provide direct and compelling evidence for the importance of formation of SOA from less volatile hydrocarbons

Atmospheric emissions from the deepwater Horizon spill constrain air-water partitioning, hydrocarbon fate, and leak rate

The fate of deepwater releases of gas and oil mixtures is initially determined by solubility and volatility of individual hydrocarbon species; these attributes determine partitioning between air and water. Quantifying this partitioning is necessary to constrain simulations of gas and oil transport, to predict marine bioavailability of different fractions of the gas-oil mixture, and to develop a comprehensive picture of the fate of leaked hydrocarbons in the marine environment. Analysis of airborne atmospheric data shows massive amounts (∼258,000 kg/day) of hydrocarbons evaporating promptly from the Deepwater Horizon spill; these data collected during two research flights constrain air-water partitioning, thus bioavailability and fate, of the leaked fluid. This analysis quantifies the fraction of surfacing hydrocarbons that dissolves in the water column (∼33% by mass), the fraction that does not dissolve, and the fraction that evaporates promptly after surfacing (∼14% by mass). We do not quantify the leaked fraction lacking a surface expression; therefore, calculation of atmospheric mass fluxes provides a lower limit to the total hydrocarbon leak rate of 32,600 to 47,700 barrels of fluid per day, depending on reservoir fluid composition information. This study demonstrates a new approach for rapid-response airborne assessment of future oil spills. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union

Ecological impacts of time-variable exposure regimes to the fungicide azoxystrobin on freshwater communities in outdoor microcosms

This paper evaluates the effects of different time-varying exposure patterns of the strobilurin fungicide azoxystrobin on freshwater microsocosm communities. These exposure patterns included two treatments with a similar peak but different time-weighted average (TWA) concentrations, and two treatments with similar TWA but different peak concentrations. The experiment was carried out in outdoor microcosms under four different exposure regimes; (1) a continuous application treatment of 10 μg/L (CAT10) for 42 days (2), a continuous application treatment of 33 μg/L (CAT33) for 42 days (3), a single application treatment of 33 μg/L (SAT33) and (4) a four application treatment of 16 μg/L (FAT16), with a time interval of 10 days. Mean measured 42-d TWA concentrations in the different treatments were 9.4 μg/L (CAT10), 32.8 μg/L (CAT33), 14.9 μg/L (SAT33) and 14.7 μg/L (FAT16). Multivariate analyses demonstrated significant changes in zooplankton community structure in all but the CAT10 treated microcosms relative to that of controls. The largest adverse effects were reported for zooplankton taxa belonging to Copepoda and Cladocera. By the end of the experimental period (day 42 after treatment), community effects were of similar magnitude for the pulsed treatment regimes, although the magnitude of the initial effect was larger in the SAT33 treatment. This indicates that for long-term effects the TWA is more important for most zooplankton species in the test system than the peak concentration. Azoxystrobin only slightly affected some species of the macroinvertebrate, phytoplankton and macrophyte assemblages. The overall no observed ecologically adverse effect concentrations (NOEAEC) in this study was 10 µg/L

Design as a provocation to support discussion about euthanasia: The Plug

Design as a provocation to support discussion about euthanasia: The Plu

Taxonomic Chauvinism Revisited: Insight from Parental Care Research

Parental care (any non-genetic contribution by a parent that appears likely to increase the fitness of its offspring) is a widespread trait exhibited by a broad range of animal taxa. In addition to influencing the fitness of parent(s) and offspring, parental care may be inextricably involved in other evolutionary processes, such as sexual selection and the evolution of endothermy. Yet, recent work has demonstrated that bias related to taxonomy is prevalent across many biological disciplines, and research in parental care may be similarly burdened. Thus, I used parental care articles published in six leading journals of fundamental behavioral sciences (Animal Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Ethology, Hormones and Behavior, and Physiology & Behavior) from 2001–2010 (n = 712) to examine the year-to-year dynamics of two types of bias related to taxonomy across animals: (1) taxonomic bias, which exists when research output is not proportional to the frequency of organisms in nature, and (2) taxonomic citation bias, which is a proxy for the breadth of a given article—specifically, the proportion of articles cited that refer solely to the studied taxon. I demonstrate that research on birds likely represents a disproportionate amount of parental care research and, thus, exhibits taxonomic bias. Parental care research on birds and mammals also refers to a relatively narrow range of taxonomic groups when discussing its context and, thus, exhibits taxonomic citation bias. Further, the levels of taxonomic bias and taxonomic citation bias have not declined over the past decade despite cautionary messages about similar bias in related disciplines— in fact, taxonomic bias may have increased. As in Bonnet et al. (2002), my results should not be interpreted as evidence of an ‘ornithological Mafia’ conspiring to suppress other taxonomic groups. Rather, I generate several rational hypotheses to determine why bias persists and to guide future work

The ethics of biobanking: key issues and controversies

The ethics of biobanking is one of the most controversial issues in current bioethics and public health debates. For some, biobanks offer the possibility of unprecedented advances which will revolutionise research and improve the health of future generations. For others they are worrying repositories of personal information and tissue which will be used without sufficient respect for those from whom they came. Wherever one stands on this spectrum, from an ethics perspective biobanks are revolutionary. Traditional ethical safeguards of informed consent and confidentiality, for example, simply don’t work for the governance of biobanks and as a result new ethical structures are required. Thus it is not too great a claim to say that biobanks require a rethinking of our ethical assumptions and frameworks which we have applied generally to other issues in ethics. This paper maps the key challenges and controversies of biobanking ethics; it considers; informed consent (its problems in biobanking and possibilities of participants’ withdrawal), broad consent, the problems of confidentiality, ownership, property and comercialisation issues, feedback to participants and the ethics of re-contact