Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors

Functional loss of semaphorin 3C and/or semaphorin 3D and their epistatic interaction with ret are critical to hirschsprung disease liability

Innervation of the gut is segmentally lost in Hirschsprung disease (HSCR), a consequence of cell-autonomous and non-autonomous defects in enteric neuronal cell differentiation, proliferation, migration, or survival. Rare, high-penetrance coding variants and common, low-penetrance non-coding variants in 13 genes are known to underlie HSCR risk, with the most frequent variants in the ret proto-oncogene (RET). We used a genome-wide association (220 trios) and replication (429 trios) study to reveal a second non-coding variant distal to RET and a non-coding allele on chromosome 7 within the class 3 Semaphorin gene cluster. Analysis in Ret wild-type and Ret-null mice demonstrates specific expression of Sema3a, Sema3c, and Sema3d in the enteric nervous system (ENS). In zebrafish embryos, sema3 knockdowns show reduction of migratory ENS precursors with complete ablation under conjoint ret loss of function. Seven candidate receptors of Sema3 proteins are also expressed within the mouse ENS and their expression is also lost in the ENS of Ret-null embryos. Sequencing of SEMA3A, SEMA3C, and SEMA3D in 254 HSCR-affected subjects followed by in silico protein structure modeling and functional analyses identified five disease-associated alleles with loss-of-function defects in semaphorin dimerization and binding to their cognate neuropilin and plexin receptors. Thus, semaphorin 3C/3D signaling is an evolutionarily conserved regulator of ENS development whose dys-regulation is a cause of enteric aganglionosis

Review: A critical evaluation of arguments opposing male circumcision for HIV prevention in developed countries

A potential impediment to evidence-based policy development on medical male circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention in all countries worldwide is the uncritical acceptance by some of arguments used by opponents of this procedure. Here we evaluate recent opinion-pieces of 13 individuals opposed to MC. We find that these statements misrepresent good studies, selectively cite references, some containing fallacious information, and draw erroneous conclusions. In marked contrast, the scientific evidence shows MC to be a simple, low-risk procedure with very little or no adverse long-term effect on sexual function, sensitivity, sensation during arousal or overall satisfaction. Unscientific arguments have been recently used to drive ballot measures aimed at banning MC of minors in the USA, eliminate insurance coverage for medical MC for low-income families, and threaten large fines and incarceration for health care providers. Medical MC is a preventative health measure akin to immunisation, given its protective effect against HIV infection, genital cancers and various other conditions. Protection afforded by neonatal MC against a diversity of common medical conditions starts in infancy with urinary tract infections and extends throughout life. Besides protection in adulthood against acquiring HIV, MC also reduces morbidity and mortality from multiple other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and genital cancers in men and their female sexual partners. It is estimated that over their lifetime one-third of uncircumcised males will suffer at least one foreskin-related medical condition. The scientific evidence indicates that medical MC is safe and effective. Its favourable risk/benefit ratio and cost/benefit support the advantages of medical MC

Identification and mitigation of narrow spectral artifacts that degrade searches for persistent gravitational waves in the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO

International audienceSearches are under way in Advanced LIGO and Virgo data for persistent gravitational waves from continuous sources, e.g. rapidly rotating galactic neutron stars, and stochastic sources, e.g. relic gravitational waves from the Big Bang or superposition of distant astrophysical events such as mergers of black holes or neutron stars. These searches can be degraded by the presence of narrow spectral artifacts (lines) due to instrumental or environmental disturbances. We describe a variety of methods used for finding, identifying and mitigating these artifacts, illustrated with particular examples. Results are provided in the form of lists of line artifacts that can safely be treated as non-astrophysical. Such lists are used to improve the efficiencies and sensitivities of continuous and stochastic gravitational wave searches by allowing vetoes of false outliers and permitting data cleaning