Safety margins and adaptive capacity of vegetation to climate change

Vegetation is composed of many individual species whose climatic tolerances can be integrated into spatial analyses of climate change risk. Here, we quantify climate change risk to vegetation at a continental scale by calculating the safety margins for warming and drying (i.e., tolerance to projected change in temperature and precipitation respectively) across plants sharing 100km × 100km grid cells (locations). These safety margins measure how much warmer, or drier, a location could become before its ‘typical’ species exceeds its observed climatic limit. We also analyse the potential adaptive capacity of vegetation to temperature and precipitation change (i.e., likelihood of in situ persistence) using median precipitation and temperature breadth across all species in each location. 47% of vegetation across Australia is potentially at risk from increases in mean annual temperature (MAT) by 2070, with tropical regions most vulnerable. Vegetation at high risk from climate change often also exhibited low adaptive capacity. By contrast, 2% of the continent is at risk from reductions in annual precipitation by 2070. Risk from precipitation change was isolated to the southwest of Western Australia where both the safety margin for drier conditions in the typical species is low, and substantial reductions in MAP are projected

The articulation of enkinaesthetic entanglement

In this article I present an argument for the necessary co-articulation of meaning within our felt enkinaesthetic engagement with our world. The argument will be developed through a series of stages, the first of which will be an elaboration of the notion of articulation of and through the body. This will be followed by an examination of enkinaesthetic experiential entanglement and the role it plays in rendering our world meaningful and our actions values-realising. At this stage I will begin to extend Husserl’s notion of intentional transgression to the enkinaesthetic sphere of lived experience, and in support of this claim I will examine the theoretical and practical work of osteopathic manual listening [Gens & Roche 2014] and the ‘felt sense’ in focusing [Gendlin] which makes possible a shift from a somatic articulation to a semantic, and potentially conceptual, one. Throughout, my position will be compatible with Merleau-Ponty’s claim that “Whenever I try to understand myself, the whole fabric of the perceptible world comes too, and with it comes the others who are caught in it.” [Merleau-Ponty 1964a, p.15]

The chronology and tectonic style of landscape evolution along the elevated Atlantic continental margin of South Africa resolved by joint apatite fission track and (U-Th-Sm)/He thermochronology

Atlantic-type continental margins have long been considered “passive” tectonic settings throughout the entire postrift phase. Recent studies question the long-term stability of these margins and have shown that postrift uplift and reactivation of preexisting structures may be a common feature of a continental margin’s evolution. The Namaqualand sector of the western continental margin of South Africa is characterized by a ubiquitously faulted basement but lacks preservation of younger geological strata to constrain postrift tectonic fault activity. Here we present the first systematic study using joint apatite fission track and apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He thermochronology to achieve a better understanding on the chronology and tectonic style of landscape evolution across this region. Apatite fission track ages range from 58.3 ± 2.6 to 132.2 ± 3.6Ma, with mean track lengths between 10.9 ± 0.19 and 14.35 ± 0.22 μm, and mean (U-Th-Sm)/He sample ages range from 55.8 ± 31.3 to 120.6 ± 31.4Ma. Joint inverse modeling of these data reveals two distinct episodes of cooling at approximately 150–130Ma and 110–90Ma with limited cooling during the Cenozoic. Estimates of denudation based on these thermal histories predict approximately 1–3 km of denudation coinciding with two major tectonic events. The first event, during the Early Cretaceous, was driven by continental rifting and the development and removal of synrift topography. The second event, during the Late Cretaceous, includes localized reactivation of basement structures as well as regional mantle-driven uplift. Relative tectonic stability prevailed during the Cenozoic, and regional denudation over this time is constrained to be less than 1 km

The impact of target frequency on intra-individual variability in euthymic bipolar disorder: a comparison of two sustained attention tasks.

Greater intra-individual variability (IIV) in reaction time (RT) on a sustained attention task has been reported in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) compared with healthy controls. However, it is unclear whether IIV is task specific, or whether it represents general crosstask impairment in BD. This study aimed to investigate whether IIV occurs in sustained attention tasks with different parameters. Twenty-two patients with BD (currently euthymic) and 17 controls completed two sustained attention tasks on different occasions: a low target frequency (~20%) Vigil continuous performance test (CPT) and a high target frequency (~70%) CPT version A-X (CPT-AX). Variability measures (individual standard deviation and coefficient of variation) were calculated per participant, and ex-Gaussian modeling was also applied. This was supplemented by Vincentile analysis to characterize RT distributions. Results indicated that participants (patients and controls) were generally slower and more variable when completing the Vigil CPT compared with CPT-AX. Significant group differences were also observed in the Vigil CPT, with euthymic BD patients being more variable than controls. This result suggests that IIV in BD demonstrates some degree of task specificity. Further research should incorporate analysis of additional RT distributional models (drift diffusion and fast Fourier transform) to fully characterize the pattern of IIV in BD, as well as its relationship to cognitive processes

Study of the female sex survival advantage in melanoma—a focus on x-linked epigenetic regulators and immune responses in two cohorts

Background: Survival from melanoma is strongly related to patient sex, with females having a survival rate almost twice that of males. Many explanations have been proposed but have not withstood critical scrutiny. Prior analysis of different cancers with a sex bias has identified six X-linked genes that escape X chromosome inactivation in females and are, therefore, potentially involved in sex differences in survival. Four of the genes are well-known epigenetic regulators that are known to influence the expression of hundreds of other genes and signaling pathways in cancer. Methods: Survival and interaction analysis were performed on the skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) cohort in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), comparing high vs. low expression of KDM6A, ATRX, KDM5C, and DDX3X. The Leeds melanoma cohort (LMC) on 678 patients with primary melanoma was used as a validation cohort. Results: Analysis of TCGA data revealed that two of these genes—KDM6A and ATRX—were associated with improved survival from melanoma. Tumoral KDM6A was expressed at higher levels in females and was associated with inferred lymphoid infiltration into melanoma. Gene set analysis of high KDM6A showed strong associations with immune responses and downregulation of genes associated with Myc and other oncogenic pathways. The LMC analysis confirmed the prognostic significance of KDM6A and its interaction with EZH2 but also revealed the expression of KDM5C and DDX3X to be prognostically significant. The analysis also confirmed a partial correlation of KDM6A with immune tumor infiltrates. Conclusion: When considered together, the results from these two series are consistent with the involvement of X-linked epigenetic regulators in the improved survival of females from melanoma. The identification of gene signatures associated with their expression presents insights into the development of new treatment initiatives but provides a basis for exploration in future studies

En compagnie de la guerre

The dissolution of Acéphale marked the beginning of the war as well as Bataille’s commitment to “the inner experience”. Through this surrender to ecstasy, Bataille never ceased – even with chance encounters – to agitate morals and heighten the value of sin. Of the relationship between community and sovereignty, what’s left to examine? That is the question this article seeks to answer.Die Auflösung des Geheimbundes L’Acéphale fällt mit dem Anfang des Krieges zusammen, und mit dem Beginn eines neuen Verfahrens für Georges Bataille: die „innere Erfahrung“

A coding and non-coding transcriptomic perspective on the genomics of human metabolic disease

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS), relying on hundreds of thousands of individuals, have revealed > 200 genomic loci linked to metabolic disease (MD). Loss of insulin sensitivity (IS) is a key component of MD and we hypothesized that discovery of a robust IS transcriptome would help reveal the underlying genomic structure of MD. Using 1,012 human skeletal muscle samples, detailed physiology and a tissue-optimized approach for the quantification of coding (> 18,000) and non-coding (> 15,000) RNA (ncRNA), we identified 332 fasting IS-related genes (CORE-IS). Over 200 had a proven role in the biochemistry of insulin and/or metabolism or were located at GWAS MD loci. Over 50% of the CORE-IS genes responded to clinical treatment; 16 quantitatively tracking changes in IS across four independent studies (P = 0.0000053: negatively: AGL, G0S2, KPNA2, PGM2, RND3 and TSPAN9 and positively: ALDH6A1, DHTKD1, ECHDC3, MCCC1, OARD1, PCYT2, PRRX1, SGCG, SLC43A1 and SMIM8). A network of ncRNA positively related to IS and interacted with RNA coding for viral response proteins (P < 1 × 10−48), while reduced amino acid catabolic gene expression occurred without a change in expression of oxidative-phosphorylation genes. We illustrate that combining in-depth physiological phenotyping with robust RNA profiling methods, identifies molecular networks which are highly consistent with the genetics and biochemistry of human metabolic disease

The photochemical mediated ring contraction of 4H-1,2,6-thiadiazines to afford 1,2,5-thiadiazol-3(2H)-one 1-oxides

E.B. and C.G.T. are grateful to Heriot-Watt University and the EPSRC CRITICAT Centre for Doctoral Training (E.B. Ph.D. Studentship: EP/L016419/1, C.G.T Ph.D. Studentship: EP/LO14419/1) for funding and training. C.G.T. is grateful to the Heriot-Watt Annual Fund for financial support. P.A.K. and A.S.K. thank the University of Cyprus for the Internal Grant “Thiadiazine-Based Organic Photovoltaics”, and the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation (Grant Nos. ΣΤΡΑΤΗΙΙ/0308/06, NEKYP/0308/02 ΥΓΕΙΑ/0506/19, and ΕΝΙΣΧ/0308/83). M.J.P. thanks the EPSRC for funding (Grant Nos. EP/T021675 and EP/V006746), and the Leverhulme Trust (Grant No. PG-2020-208). S.A.M. thanks the EPSRC for funding (Grant No. EP/T019867/1).1,2,6-Thiadiazines treated with visible light and 3O2 under ambient conditions are converted into difficult-to-access 1,2,5-thiadiazole 1-oxides (35 examples, yields of 39–100%). Experimental and theoretical studies reveal that 1,2,6-thiadiazines act as triplet photosensitizers that produce 1O2 and then undergo a chemoselective [3 + 2] cycloaddition to give an endoperoxide that ring contracts with selective carbon atom excision and complete atom economy. The reaction was optimized under both batch and continuous-flow conditions and is also efficient in green solvents.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Modelling Hepatic Endoderm Development: Highly Efficient Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Functional Hepatic Endoderm Requires ActivinA and Wnt3a Signalling.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are a valuable source of pluripotential primary cells. However, their homogeneous cellular differentiation to specific cell types _in vitro_ has proven difficult thus far. Wnt signalling has been shown to play important roles in coordinating development and we demonstrate that Wnt3a is differentially expressed at critical stages of human liver development _in vivo_. The essential role of Wnt3a in hepatocyte differentiation from hESCs is paralleled by our _in vitro_ model, demonstrating the importance of a physiological approach to cellular differentiation. Our studies provide compelling evidence that Wnt3a signaling is important for coordinated hepato-cellular function _in vitro_ and _in vivo_. In addition, we demonstrate Wnt3a facilitates clonal plating of hESCs capable of hepatic endoderm differentiation. These studies represent an important step forward toward the use of hESC-derived hepatocytes in biomedical applications and has opened the door to high through-put metabolic analysis of human liver function