Did the political climate exacerbate the pandemic in the U.S.?

The global pandemic that began in the United States in early 2020 continues to be a topic of controversy. The added aspect of affect polarization in the country’s political realm may have exacerbated the effects of COVID-19. In their published article in Nature Human Behaviour, Gollwitzer et. al. found that it was possible to link voting partisanship, physical distancing, and COVID-19 outcomes showing that a county’s partisanship might be used to predict the degree to which that county would socially distance and then, therefore, the rate of cases and fatalities in that error on a lagged timescale. This researcher attempted to replicate and validate the findings of an analysis conducted in the earliest months of the pandemic using approximately the same variables, models, and covariates, but over a longer span of time in the pandemic. Three possible mediator variables (physical distancing data, mask mandate data, and online sentiment data) were gathered and tested for usability in the main mediation analysis. Preliminary analysis of the data gathered did not support the assertion of sentiment or masking data would be useful to the mediation analysis due to insufficient data. Though the distancing data was significantly linked to partisanship to become a proxy, mixed models showed that pandemic dates after the period of the original analysis could not support physical distancing as a mediator for partisanship. Only the segment of the final dataset which matched the dates of the original work were processed through the same mediation analysis in STATA. Significant effects of partisanship on case growth rates were discovered, but not to the same degree as the original work

Color separation of galaxy types in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data

We study the optical colors of 147,920 galaxies brighter than g* = 21, observed in five bands by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) over similar to 100 deg(2) of high Galactic latitude sky along the celestial equator. The distribution of galaxies in the g*-r* versus u*-g* color-color diagram is strongly bimodal, with an optimal color separator of u*-r* = 2.22. We use visual morphology and spectral classification of subsamples of 287 and 500 galaxies, respectively, to show that the two peaks correspond roughly to early- (E, S0, and Sa) and late-type (Sb, Sc, and Irr) galaxies, as expected from their different stellar populations. We also find that the colors of galaxies are correlated with their radial profiles, as measured by the concentration index and by the likelihoods of exponential and de Vaucouleurs' profile fits. While it is well known that late-type galaxies are bluer than early-type galaxies, this is the first detection of a local minimum in their color distribution. In all SDSS bands, the counts versus apparent magnitude relations for the two color types are significantly different and demonstrate that the fraction of blue galaxies increases toward the faint end

Human-Mediated Emergence as a Weed and Invasive Radiation in the Wild of the CD Genome Allotetraploid Rice Species (Oryza, Poaceae) in the Neotropics

BACKGROUND: The genus Oryza is being used as a model in plant genomic studies although there are several issues still to be resolved regarding the spatio-temporal evolution of this ancient genus. Particularly contentious is whether undated transoceanic natural dispersal or recent human interference has been the principal agent determining its present distribution and differentiation. In this context, we studied the origin and distribution history of the allotetraploid CD rice genome. It is endemic to the Neotropics but the genus is thought to have originated in the Paleotropics, and there is relatively little genetic divergence between some orthologous sequences of the C genome component and their Old World counterparts. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Because of its allotetraploidy, there are several potential pitfalls in trying to date the formation of the CD genome using molecular data and this could lead to erroneous estimates. Therefore, we rather chose to rely on historical evidence to determine whether or not the CD genome was present in the Neotropics before the arrival of Columbus. We searched early collections of herbarium specimens and studied the reports of explorers of the tropical Americas for references to rice. In spite of numerous collectors traveling inland and collecting Oryza, plants determined as CD genome species were not observed away from cultivated rice fields until 1869. Various arguments suggest that they only consisted of weedy forms until that time. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The spatio-temporal distribution of herbarium collections fits a simple biogeographical scenario for the emergence in cultivated rice fields followed by radiation in the wild of the CD genome in the Neotropics during the last four centuries. This probably occurred from species introduced to the Americas by humans and we found no evidence that the CD genome pre-existed in the Old World. We therefore propose a new evolutionary hypothesis for such a recent origin of the CD genome. Moreover, we exemplify how an historical approach can provide potentially important information and help to disentangle the timing of evolutionary events in the history of the Oryza genomes

Stochastic Modeling of B Lymphocyte Terminal Differentiation and Its Suppression by Dioxin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Upon antigen encounter, naïve B lymphocytes differentiate into antibody-secreting plasma cells. This humoral immune response is suppressed by the environmental contaminant 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and other dioxin-like compounds, which belong to the family of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To achieve a better understanding of the immunotoxicity of AhR agonists and their associated health risks, we have used computer simulations to study the behavior of the gene regulatory network underlying B cell terminal differentiation. The core of this network consists of two coupled double-negative feedback loops involving transcriptional repressors Bcl-6, Blimp-1, and Pax5. Bifurcation analysis indicates that the feedback network can constitute a bistable system with two mutually exclusive transcriptional profiles corresponding to naïve B cells and plasma cells. Although individual B cells switch to the plasma cell state in an all-or-none fashion when stimulated by the polyclonal activator lipopolysaccharide (LPS), stochastic fluctuations in gene expression make the switching event probabilistic, leading to heterogeneous differentiation response among individual B cells. Moreover, stochastic gene expression renders the dose-response behavior of a population of B cells substantially graded, a result that is consistent with experimental observations. The steepness of the dose response curve for the number of plasma cells formed vs. LPS dose, as evaluated by the apparent Hill coefficient, is found to be inversely correlated to the noise level in Blimp-1 gene expression. Simulations illustrate how, through AhR-mediated repression of the AP-1 protein, TCDD reduces the probability of LPS-stimulated B cell differentiation. Interestingly, stochastic simulations predict that TCDD may destabilize the plasma cell state, possibly leading to a reversal to the B cell phenotype.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest that stochasticity in gene expression, which renders a graded response at the cell population level, may have been exploited by the immune system to launch humoral immune response of a magnitude appropriately tuned to the antigen dose. In addition to suppressing the initiation of the humoral immune response, dioxin-like compounds may also disrupt the maintenance of the acquired immunity.</p

Marine Biodiversity in the Caribbean: Regional Estimates and Distribution Patterns

This paper provides an analysis of the distribution patterns of marine biodiversity and summarizes the major activities of the Census of Marine Life program in the Caribbean region. The coastal Caribbean region is a large marine ecosystem (LME) characterized by coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrasses, but including other environments, such as sandy beaches and rocky shores. These tropical ecosystems incorporate a high diversity of associated flora and fauna, and the nations that border the Caribbean collectively encompass a major global marine biodiversity hot spot. We analyze the state of knowledge of marine biodiversity based on the geographic distribution of georeferenced species records and regional taxonomic lists. A total of 12,046 marine species are reported in this paper for the Caribbean region. These include representatives from 31 animal phyla, two plant phyla, one group of Chromista, and three groups of Protoctista. Sampling effort has been greatest in shallow, nearshore waters, where there is relatively good coverage of species records; offshore and deep environments have been less studied. Additionally, we found that the currently accepted classification of marine ecoregions of the Caribbean did not apply for the benthic distributions of five relatively well known taxonomic groups. Coastal species richness tends to concentrate along the Antillean arc (Cuba to the southernmost Antilles) and the northern coast of South America (Venezuela – Colombia), while no pattern can be observed in the deep sea with the available data. Several factors make it impossible to determine the extent to which these distribution patterns accurately reflect the true situation for marine biodiversity in general: (1) highly localized concentrations of collecting effort and a lack of collecting in many areas and ecosystems, (2) high variability among collecting methods, (3) limited taxonomic expertise for many groups, and (4) differing levels of activity in the study of different taxa