803 research outputs found

    Scotland’s beginnings: Scotland through time.

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    Did you know that Scotland began under an iceberg-laden sea near the South Pole hundreds of millions of years ago? The journey north of the land we now call Scotland is an astounding tale of great mountains, subtropical rainforests, coral reefs, howling deserts, ammonite-inhabited seas, high lava plateaus and scouring ice caps. The evidence for this journey is recorded in rocks, peat-bogs and lake muds. When the glaciers withdrew the new land was colonised by animals and plants but when hunters and farmers moved in mass extinction began. This beautifully illustrated guide, full of drawings, paintings and photographs, is an excellent introduction to Scotland’s earliest history

    Harmful and Helpful Therapy Practices with Consensually Non-Monogamous Clients: Toward an Inclusive Framework

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    Drawing on minority stress perspectives, we investigated the therapy experiences of individuals in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships. Method: We recruited a community sample of 249 individuals engaged in CNM relationships across the U.S. and Canada. Confirmatory factor analysis structural equation modeling was used to analyze client perceptions of therapist practices in a number of exemplary practices (affirming of CNM) or inappropriate practices (biased, inadequate, or not affirming of CNM), and their associations with evaluations of therapy. Open-end responses about what clients found very helpful and very unhelpful were also analyzed. Results: Exemplary and inappropriate practices constituted separate but related patterns of therapist conduct. As expected, perceptions of exemplary and inappropriate practices predicted therapist helpfulness ratings and whether participants prematurely terminated their therapeutic relationships. Qualitative results point toward the importance of having/pursuing knowledge about CNM and using affirming, nonjudgmental practices. Conclusions: Therapists are positioned to either combat or perpetuate the minority stress faced by individuals engaged in CNM. The results of this study highlight the need for additional research, training, and guidelines regarding CNM clients and their therapy experiences

    The Taming of the Cat

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    This article discusses research into the evolution of domesticated cats, which is complicated by the fact that they do not appear to serve humans. Although several species are morphologically similar, genetic research focusing on mitochondrial DNA and genetic microsatellites found that domesticated cats descended from F. sylvestris lybica. Archaeological research indicating cats came to live with humans as the prevalence of house mice in agricultural settlements increased is noted. Insets: The House Cat\u27s Ancestor; Early Domestication; From Wild to Mild; The Truth about Cats and Dog

    Skull morphology diverges between urban and rural populations of red foxes mirroring patterns of domestication and macroevolution

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    Human activity is drastically altering the habitat use of natural populations. This has been documented as a driver of phenotypic divergence in a number of wild animal populations. Here, we show that urban and rural populations of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) from London and surrounding boroughs are divergent in skull traits. These changes are primarily found to be involved with snout length, with urban individuals tending to have shorter and wider muzzles relative to rural individuals, smaller braincases and reduced sexual dimorphism. Changes were widespread and related to muscle attachment sites and thus are likely driven by differing biomechanical demands of feeding or cognition between habitats. Through extensive sampling of the genus Vulpes, we found no support for phylogenetic effects on skull morphology, but patterns of divergence found between urban and rural habitats in V. vulpes quantitatively aligned with macroevolutionary divergence between species. The patterns of skull divergence between urban and rural habitats matched the description of morphological changes that can occur during domestication. Specifically, urban populations of foxes show variation consistent with ‘domestication syndrome’. Therefore, we suggest that occurrences of phenotypic divergence in relation to human activity, while interesting themselves, also have the potential to inform us of the conditions and mechanisms that could initiate domestication. Finally, this also suggests that patterns of domestication may be developmentally biased towards larger patterns of interspecific divergence

    Form and function of the musteloids

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    Diets of European polecat Mustela putorius in Great Britain during fifty years of population recovery

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    Following nineteenth-century declines, polecats Mustela putorius are recolonising Great Britain. Polecat diet relates to two potential risks to recovery. First, rabbits Oryctolagus cuniculus, which are important prey for polecats, have experienced extreme population fluctuations, with near extirpation due to myxomatosis in the 1950s, recovery in 1960s–1990s and declines in 1990s–2010s. Second, polecats are secondarily exposed to anticoagulant rodenticides by eating contaminated rodents, and the frequency of polecat exposure to rodenticides is increasing. We analysed stomach contents from 99 polecats collected in 2012–2016 and compared results with earlier studies. Lagomorphs were the most abundant prey (66% frequency of occurrence, 95% confidence interval 53–74%), followed by other mammals (12%, 4–18%), amphibians (10%, 3–16%) and birds (7%, 1–13%). Diet varied seasonally; lagomorph occurrence was highest in spring and summer and lowest in autumn. Dietary niche breadth was greater in the 1960s, when rabbits were scarce, than in other decades, but did not differ between the 1990s and 2010s, indicating that diets have not diversified with recent rabbit declines. This may be because rabbit abundance is not yet low enough to cause dietary diversification or because polecats were collected in areas where rabbits were still abundant. Rodents did not increase in diet between the 1990s and 2010s and still occur with < 10% frequency, indicating that rodents need not contribute much to diet to expose polecats to rodenticides. This potentially limits the effectiveness of management actions designed to minimise polecat exposure to contaminated rodent prey

    ARTISTIC: A randomised trial of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing in primary cervical screening

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    The official published version of the article can be found at the link below.Objectives: Primary cervical screening uses cytology to detect cancer precursor lesions [cervical intraepithelial neoplasia stage 3 or beyond (CIN3+)]. Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing could add sensitivity as an adjunct to cytology or as a first test, reserving cytology for HPV-positive women. This study addresses the questions: Does the combination of cytology and HPV testing achieve a reduction in incident CIN3+?; Is HPV testing cost-effective in primary cervical screening?; Is its use associated with adverse psychosocial or psychosexual effects?; and How would it perform as an initial screening test followed by cytology for HPV positivity? Design: ARTISTIC was a randomised trial of cervical cytology versus cervical cytology plus HPV testing, evaluated over two screening rounds, 3 years apart. Round 1 would detect prevalent disease and round 2 a combination of incident and undetected disease from round 1. Setting: Women undergoing routine cervical screening in the NHS programme in Greater Manchester. Participants: In total 24,510 women aged 20–64 years were enrolled between July 2001 and September 2003. Interventions: HPV testing was performed on the liquid-based cytology (LBC) sample obtained at screening. Women were randomised in a ratio of 3:1 to have the HPV test result revealed and acted upon if persistently positive in cytology-negative cases or concealed. A detailed health economic evaluation and a psychosocial and psychosexual assessment were also performed. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was CIN3+ in round 2. Secondary outcomes included an economic assessment and psychosocial effects. A large HPV genotyping study was also conducted. Results: In round 1 there were 313 CIN3+ lesions, representing a prevalence in the revealed and concealed arms of 1.27% and 1.31% respectively (p = 0.81). Round 2 (30–48 months) involved 14,230 (58.1%) of the women screened in round 1 and only 31 CIN3+ were detected; the CIN3 rate was not significantly different between the revealed and concealed arms. A less restrictive definition of round 2 (26–54 months) increased CIN3+ to 45 and CIN3+ incidence in the arms was significantly different (p = 0.05). There was no difference in CIN3+ between the arms when rounds 1 and 2 were combined. Prevalence of highrisk HPV types was age-dependent. Overall prevalence of HPV16/18 increased with severity of yskaryosis. Mean costs per woman in round 1 were £72 and £56 for the revealed and concealed arms (p < 0.001); an age-adjustment reduced these mean costs to £65 and £52. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for detecting additional CIN3+ by adding HPV testing to LBC screening in round 1 was £38,771. Age-adjusted mean cost for LBC primary screening with HPV triage was £39 compared with £48 for HPV primary screening with LBC triage. HPV testing did not appear to cause significant psychosocial distress. Conclusions: Routine HPV testing did not add significantly to the effectiveness of LBC in this study. No significant adverse psychosocial effects were detected. It would not be cost-effective to screen with cytology and HPV combined but HPV testing, as either triage or initial test triaged by cytology, would be cheaper than cytology without HPV testing. LBC would not benefit from combination with HPV; it is highly effective as primary screening but HPV testing has twin advantages of high negative predictive value and automated platforms enabling high throughput. HPV primary screening would require major contraction and reconfiguration of laboratory services. Follow-up continues in ARTISTIC while maintaining concealment for a further 3-year round of screening, which will help in screening protocol development for the post-vaccination era

    Prevalence of type-specific HPV infection by age and grade of cervical cytology: data from the ARTISTIC trial

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    Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection causes cervical cancer and premalignant dysplasia. Type-specific HPV prevalence data provide a basis for assessing the impact of HPV vaccination programmes on cervical cytology. We report high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) type-specific prevalence data in relation to cervical cytology for 24 510 women (age range: 20–64; mean age 40.2 years) recruited into the ARTISTIC trial, which is being conducted within the routine NHS Cervical Screening Programme in Greater Manchester. The most common HR-HPV types were HPV16, 18, 31, 51 and 52, which accounted for 60% of all HR-HPV types detected. There was a marked decline in the prevalence of HR-HPV infection with age, but the proportion due to each HPV type did not vary greatly with age. Multiple infections were common below the age of 30 years but less so between age 30 and 64 years. Catch-up vaccination of this sexually active cohort would be expected to reduce the number of women with moderate or worse cytology by 45%, but the number with borderline or mild cytology would fall by only 7%, giving an overall reduction of 12% in the number of women with abnormal cytology and 27% in the number with any HR-HPV infection. In the absence of broader cross-protection, the large majority of low-grade and many high-grade abnormalities may still occur in sexually active vaccinated women
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