Going Out or Staying In: How the COVID-19 Pandemic has Influenced College Students’ Drinking and Socializing

People’s daily social activities have been altered during the pandemic since they carry risk for contracting COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, drinking socially has been the highlight of many college students’ lives. This study explores how COVID-19 has impacted college students’ drinking and social activities. We examined samples from a large, southern, public university both prior (N=65, Mean age=22.15, SD=2.03, 78.87% female) and during COVID-19 (N=47, Mean age=22.42, SD=1.64, 75.47% female). Students filled out an alcohol-related Timeline Followback measure (TLFB), in which they recalled their drinking over the past 30 days using anchor events inputted into a calendar. The events were qualitatively coded and assigned a COVID-19-risk behavior (CRB) score based on the Texas Medical Association’s 9- point scale. Activities now known to contain risk for COVID-19 contraction were classified as follows: Moderate CRB (ranked 5-6; e.g., visiting friends), Moderate-High CRB (ranked 7; e.g., attending a party), and High CRB (ranked 8-9; e.g., going to a bar). Results revealed that students who engaged in CRBs that were ranked 5 and above were more likely to report greater number of drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days (e.g., peak drinks) and more drinks over the entire month (e.g., total monthly drinks). Although total alcohol consumption (e.g., peak drinks and total monthly drinks) remained unchanged, and students were less likely to partake in the highest ranked CRBs (e.g., ranked 8-9) during the pandemic, those who were participating in the highest ranked CRBs (e.g., ranked 8-9) may have been more likely to contract or spread COVID-19. Keywords: college students, COVID-19 risk behaviors, alcohol consumptio

The Roles and Acting Mechanism of Caenorhabditis elegans DNase II Genes in Apoptotic DNA Degradation and Development

DNase II enzymes are acidic endonucleases that have been implicated in mediating apoptotic DNA degradation, a critical cell death execution event. C. elegans genome contains three DNase II homologues, NUC-1, CRN-6, and CRN-7, but their expression patterns, acting sites, and roles in apoptotic DNA degradation and development are unclear. We have conducted a comprehensive analysis of three C. elegans DNase II genes and found that nuc-1 plays a major role, crn-6 plays an auxiliary role, and crn-7 plays a negligible role in resolving 3′ OH DNA breaks generated in apoptotic cells. Promoter swapping experiments suggest that crn-6 but not crn-7 can partially substitute for nuc-1 in mediating apoptotic DNA degradation and both fail to replace nuc-1 in degrading bacterial DNA in intestine. Despite of their restricted and largely non-overlapping expression patterns, both CRN-6 and NUC-1 can mediate apoptotic DNA degradation in many cells, suggesting that they are likely secreted nucleases that are retaken up by other cells to exert DNA degradation functions. Removal or disruption of NUC-1 secretion signal eliminates NUC-1's ability to mediate DNA degradation across its expression border. Furthermore, blocking cell corpse engulfment does not affect apoptotic DNA degradation mediated by nuc-1, suggesting that NUC-1 acts in apoptotic cells rather than in phagocytes to resolve 3′ OH DNA breaks. Our study illustrates how multiple DNase II nucleases play differential roles in apoptotic DNA degradation and development and reveals an unexpected mode of DNase II action in mediating DNA degradation

Authorised trading centres - an exploratory study

Due to small investors’ complaints that they were turned away by stockbrokers during the stock market bull run of 1993, the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) set up Authorised Trading Centres (ATCs) as an alternative means for share trading. In our analyses, “small investors” are defined as those whose average value per trading transaction is less than or equal to $5,000.BUSINES

Rapid evolution of thermal tolerance in the water flea Daphnia

Global climate is changing rapidly, and the degree to which natural populations respond genetically to these changes is key to predicting ecological responses1, 2, 3. So far, no study has documented evolutionary changes in the thermal tolerance of natural populations as a response to recent temperature increase. Here, we demonstrate genetic change in the capacity of the water flea Daphnia to tolerate higher temperatures using both a selection experiment and the reconstruction of evolution over a period of forty years derived from a layered dormant egg bank. We observed a genetic increase in thermal tolerance in response to a two-year ambient +4 °C selection treatment and in the genotypes of natural populations from the 1960s and 2000s hatched from lake sediments. This demonstrates that natural populations have evolved increased tolerance to higher temperatures, probably associated with the increased frequency of heat waves over the past decades, and possess the capacity to evolve increased tolerance to future warming