Floral Provisioning for Wild Bee Pollinators in Winter Squash and Muskmelon

When we talk about pollination, the image that comes to mind most frequently is the honeybee. Honeybees do provide the majority of pollination services in our current agricultural system. However, there are wild bees pollinating flowering crops at the same time and these bees are capable of providing a significant portion of the pollination services required of many crops. In fact, in some instances, wild bees may be better pollinators than managed honeybees

Aging in Hamilton: Planning for the Future, A Community Needs Assessment

Like many communities across Massachusetts, the population in the Town of Hamilton is aging. According to projections created by the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts, a trend toward an older population is expected. Donahue Institute vintage projections suggest that by 2035, more than one out of each three Hamilton residents will be age 60 or older—32% of the Town’s population will be between the ages of 60 and 79, with an additional 9% age 80 and older. As the demographics of Hamilton shift toward a population that is older and living longer, the demand for programs and services that address aging-related needs will likely increase as well. The Town’s Council on Aging serves as an important and valued resource that is a central point of contact for many older residents. Planning is necessary to ensure that the Town is adequately prepared to meet the challenges and to capitalize on opportunities that an aging population will present. In addition, it is increasingly relevant and necessary for those who provide services and amenities in the Town to recognize opportunities for collaboration and coordination to ensure that residents have the opportunity to age well in their community. This report presents research findings from a study conducted by the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston), in collaboration with the Town of Hamilton. The purpose of this study was to investigate and document current and future needs and preferences of Hamilton’s older residents. To this end, we conducted a web-based survey of residents as well as four key-informant interviews with the aim of identifying concerns related to aging in Hamilton, with the added benefit of learning about the preferences and intentions of residents as they relate to programming and services offered by the Hamilton Council on Aging (COA). The contents of this report are intended primarily to inform planning by the Hamilton COA and other municipal departments. In addition, contents may be of interest to community stakeholders in other public and private organizations that operate programs, provide services, and/or advocate for older adult residents in and around the Town of Hamilton

Handing on the Charism: Reporting on an Oral History Project

“Handing on the Charism,” part of a larger oral history project, was a series of interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 among the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, their associates, and other women the Sisters helped or influenced. The article gives this New Jersey community’s history, explains the project’s methodology, and provides long excerpts from the interview transcripts. It provides conclusions about how the Sisters’ charism is being passed down as well as recommendations for how to further include the laity in it

Interactive Video: A Report from the ACE Western Regional Workshop

The ACE workgroup involved communicators, educators and subject specialists from a number of states and Canada

Mechanics of Graded Wrinkling

The properties and behavior of a surface as well as its interaction with surrounding media depend on the inherent material constituency and the surface topography. Structured surface topography can be achieved via surface wrinkling. Through the buckling of a thin film of stiff material bonded to a substrate of a softer material, wrinkled patterns can be created by inducing compressive stress states in the thin film. Using this same principle, we show the ability to create wrinkled topologies consisting of a highly structured gradient in amplitude and wavelength, and one which can be actively tuned. The mechanics of graded wrinkling are revealed through analytical modeling and finite element analysis, and further demonstrated with experiments.Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUP

Myosin II Motors and F-Actin Dynamics Drive the Coordinated Movement of the Centrosome and Soma during CNS Glial-Guided Neuronal Migration

SummaryLamination of cortical regions of the vertebrate brain depends on glial-guided neuronal migration. The conserved polarity protein Par6α localizes to the centrosome and coordinates forward movement of the centrosome and soma in migrating neurons. The cytoskeletal components that produce this unique form of cell polarity and their relationship to polarity signaling cascades are unknown. We show that F-actin and Myosin II motors are enriched in the neuronal leading process and that Myosin II activity is necessary for leading process actin dynamics. Inhibition of Myosin II decreased the speed of centrosome and somal movement, whereas Myosin II activation increased coordinated movement. Ectopic expression or silencing of Par6α inhibited Myosin II motors by decreasing Myosin light-chain phosphorylation. These findings suggest leading-process Myosin II may function to “pull” the centrosome and soma forward during glial-guided migration by a mechanism involving the conserved polarity protein Par6α

The importance of identifying and protecting coastal wildness

Conservation of coastal biodiversity and associated ecosystem services requires protection and management for attributes of coastal wildness, which we define to include physical and ecological intactness and connectivity, native species and habitat diversity, and limited human disturbance. Coastal wildness is threatened by high demand for access to and development of coastal margins; sea level rise exacerbates this threat. As a case study, California (USA), a biodiversity hotspot, has a network of marine and terrestrial protected areas along the coast and strong coastal policy. While 35% of California’s coast has wildness attributes, only 9% of California’s coast is characterized as wild and also protected on both land and in the adjacent waters. A multi-tiered approach is needed to incorporate wild coast attributes into conservation planning and protection of coastal areas. A coastal wildness designation is needed, as well as policies that manage for wildness attributes in existing protected areas

Psychological well-being and cognitive aging in Black, Native American, and White Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center participants

Psychological well-being is associated with cognition in later life but has not been examined across diverse populations—including minoritized communities at disproportionately high risk of dementia. Further, most previous work has not been able to examine links between specific facets of psychological well-being and performance within distinct cognitive domains that can capture subclinical impairment. Using a well-characterized sample followed through enrollment in an NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Center, we sought to test these associations within three racial groups at baseline. Participants were N = 529 cognitively unimpaired Black, American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), and white middle-aged and older adults (mean age = 63.6, SD = 8.1, range = 45–88 years) enrolled in the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center’s Clinical Core. Predictors included validated NIH Toolbox Emotion Battery scales assessing positive affect, general life satisfaction, and meaning and purpose. Outcomes included performance on widely used tests of executive functioning and episodic memory. We conducted race-stratified regression models to assess within-group relationships. Black and AI/AN participants reported lower life satisfaction than white participants. Racial disparities were not observed for positive affect or meaning and purpose scores. Across groups, life satisfaction predicted better executive functioning. Similar associations were observed for positive affect in Black and AI/AN samples but not among whites. In general, well-being measures were not related to performance on tests of episodic memory. Our results highlight well-being as a potentially important determinant of late-life cognitive health, particularly executive functioning, that is modifiable if older adults are connected with appropriate resources and supports. Further, psychological well-being may represent a potent target for brain health interventions tailored for Black and Native communities