The role of late-night infotainment comedy in communicating climate change consensus

Climate change is a politically-polarized issue, with conservatives less likely than liberals to support mitigation and adaptation policies needed to reduce its impacts. This study aimed to examine whether John Oliver’s “A Mathematically Representative Climate Change Debate” clip on his program Last Week Tonight polarized or depolarized a politically-diverse audience on climate policy support and behavioral intentions. One hundred and fifty-nine participants, recruited via Amazon MTurk (94 female, 64 male, one not stated, Mage = 51.07, SDage = 16.35), were presented with either John Oliver’s climate change consensus clip, or a humorous video unrelated to climate change. Although the climate change consensus clip did not reduce polarization on mitigation policy support (or increase it), relative to a control, it resulted in larger polarization on support for adaptation policies, and higher climate action intentions among liberals but not conservatives. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

The relationship between the diet, microelements, macronutrients and vitamins on the schizophrenia – literature analysis

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a disease that affects approximately 1% of the population. It begins in adult humans. It turns out that there are factors that predispose to schizophrenia, and by modifying your lifestyle, you can reduce the likelihood of its occurrence. One of such factors is the diet and microelements, macronutrients and vitamins that we consume every day.The aim of the study: The aim of this study was to find out the relationship between the diet, microelements, macronutrients, vitamins and the schizophrenia disease.Material and method: The research of articles was done in the websites such as PubMed and Google Scholar. Description of the state of knowledge: Ketogenic and gluten-free diet are promising tools in decreasing the symptoms of and treating schizophrenia. Micro- and macroelement imbalances are present in schizophrenic patients, but their correlation with development of schizophrenia is not clear. Folate, vitamin D and vitamin B12 supplementation could prove useful in the treatment.Summary: There are many studies that try to combine the implications of a balanced diet and the proper supply of elements and their impact on schizophrenia's occurence and symptomology. Still, futher investigation of these topics is needed to provide the most suitable guidelines and applications of proper nutrition of schizophrenic patients

The p53 target protein Wig-1 binds hnRNP A2/B1 and RNA Helicase A via RNA

AbstractThe p53-induced Wig-1 gene encodes a double stranded RNA-binding zinc finger protein. We generated Saos-2 osteosarcoma cells expressing tetracycline-inducible Flag-tagged human Wig-1. Induction of Wig-1 expression by doxycycline inhibited cell growth in a long-term assay but did not cause any changes in cell cycle distribution nor increased fraction of apoptotic cells. Using co-immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry, we identified two Wig-1-binding proteins, hnRNP A2/B1 and RNA Helicase A, both of which are involved in RNA processing. The binding was dependent on the presence of RNA. Our results establish a link between the p53 tumor suppressor and RNA processing via hnRNPA2/B1 and RNA Helicase A.Structured summaryMINT-6542926, MINT-6542899:WIG1 (uniprotkb:Q9HA38) physically interacts (MI:0218) with hnRNP A2/B1 (uniprotkb:P22626) by anti bait coimmunoprecipitation (MI:0006)MINT-6542945:RHA (uniprotkb:Q08211) physically interacts (MI:0218) with hnRNP A2/B1 (uniprotkb:P22626) by anti bait coimmunoprecipitation (MI:0006)MINT-6542918, MINT-6542891:WIG1 (uniprotkb:Q9HA38) physically interacts (MI:0218) with RHA (uniprotkb:Q08211) by anti bait coimmunoprecipitation (MI:0006)MINT-6542867:WIG1 (uniprotkb:Q9HA38) physically interacts (MI:0218) with RHA (uniprotkb:Q08211) by anti tag coimmunoprecipitation (MI:0007)MINT-6542879:WIG1 (uniprotkb:Q9HA38) physically interacts (MI:0218) with hnRNP A2/B1(uniprotkb:P22626) by anti tag coimmunoprecipitation (MI:0007

Soil moisture remote-sensing applications for identification of flood-prone areas along transport infrastructure

AbstractThe expected increase in precipitation and temperature in Scandinavia, and especially short-time heavy precipitation, will increase the frequency of flooding. Urban areas are the most vulnerable, and specifically, the road infrastructure. The accumulation of large volumes of water and sediments on road-stream intersections gets severe consequences for the road drainage structures. This study integrates the spatial and temporal soil moisture properties into the research about flood prediction methods by a case study of two areas in Sweden, Västra Götaland and Värmland, which was affected by severe flooding in August 2014. Soil moisture data are derived from remote-sensing techniques, with a focus on the soil moisture-specific satellites ASCAT and SMOS. Furthermore, several physical catchments descriptors (PCDs) are analyzed and the result shows that larger slopes and drainage density, in general, mean a higher risk of flooding. The precipitation is the same; however, it can be concluded that more precipitation in most cases gives higher soil moisture values. The lack, or the dimensioning, of road drainage structures seems to have a large impact on the flood risk as more sediment and water can be accumulated at the road-stream intersection. The results show that the method implementing soil moisture satellite data is promising for improving the reliability of flooding

Crises, Rumours and Reposts: Journalists’ Social Media Content Gathering and Verification Practices in Breaking News Situations

Social media (SoMe) platforms provide potentially important information for news journalists during everyday work and in crisis-related contexts. The aims of this study were (a) to map central journalistic challenges and emerging practices related to using SoMe for collecting and validating newsworthy content; and (b) to investigate how practices may contribute to a user-friendly design of a web-based SoMe content validation toolset. Interviews were carried out with 22 journalists from three European countries. Information about journalistic work tasks was also collected during a crisis training scenario (N = 5). Results showed that participants experienced challenges with filtering and estimating trustworthiness of SoMe content. These challenges were especially due to the vast overall amount of information, and the need to monitor several platforms simultaneously. To support improved situational awareness in journalistic work during crises, a user-friendly tool should provide content search results representing several media formats and gathered from a diversity of platforms, presented in easy-to-approach visualizations. The final decision-making about content and source trustworthiness should, however, remain as a manual journalistic task, as the sample would not trust an automated estimation based on tool algorithms.Peer reviewe

Hop Mice Display Synchronous Hindlimb Locomotion and a Ventrally Fused Lumbar Spinal Cord Caused by a Point Mutation in Ttc26

Identifying the spinal circuits controlling locomotion is critical for unravelling the mechanisms controlling the production of gaits. Development of the circuits governing left-right coordination relies on axon guidance molecules such as ephrins and netrins. To date, no other class of proteins have been shown to play a role during this process. Here, we have analyzed hop mice, which walk with a characteristic hopping gait using their hindlimbs in synchrony. Fictive locomotion experiments suggest that a local defect in the ventral spinal cord contributes to the aberrant locomotor phenotype. Hop mutant spinal cords had severe morphologic defects, including the absence of the ventral midline and a poorly defined border between white and gray matter. The hop mice represent the first model where, exclusively found in the lumbar domain, the left and right components of the central pattern generators (CPGs) are fused with a synchronous hindlimb gait as a functional consequence. These defects were associated with abnormal developmental processes, including a misplaced notochord and reduced induction of ventral progenitor domains. Whereas the underlying mutation in hop mice has been suggested to lie within the Ttc26 gene, other genes in close vicinity have been associated with gait defects. Mouse embryos carrying a CRISPR replicated point mutation within Ttc26 displayed an identical morphologic phenotype. Thus, our data suggest that the assembly of the lumbar CPG network is dependent on fully functional TTC26 protein

General method for atomistic spin-lattice dynamics with first-principles accuracy

We present a computationally efficient and general first-principles based method for spin-lattice simulations for solids and clusters. The method is based on a coupling of atomistic spin dynamics and molecular dynamics simulations, expressed through a spin-lattice Hamiltonian, where the bilinear magnetic term is expanded up to second order in displacement. The effect of first-order spin-lattice coupling on the magnon and phonon dispersion in bcc Fe is reported as an example, and we observe good agreement with previous simulations. We also illustrate the coupled spin-lattice dynamics method on a more conceptual level, by exploring dissipation-free spin and lattice motion of small magnetic clusters (a dimer, trimer, and tetramer). The method discussed here opens the door for a quantitative description and understanding of the microscopic origin of many fundamental phenomena of contemporary interest, such as ultrafast demagnetization, magnetocalorics, and spincaloritronics