National Park Service nonnative plant control in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Invasive plants have become a growing threat to plant diversity and hydrology in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Invasive plants compete with native plants for nutrients and sunlight, and certain invasive species have been known to completely take over certain areas of wetlands, nearly destroying entire ecosystems. The Dunes Lakeshore contains over 1,400 plants species and is one of the top ten most diverse national parks in the United States. The mission statement of the National Park Service is to “preserve for the educational, inspirational, and recreational use of the public certain portions of the Indiana Dunes.” In order to properly maintain this unique habitat for future generations, a variety of techniques have been implemented to reduce the growth and germination of many nonnative plants in high quality areas such as Cowles Bog, West Beach, and Tolleston Dunes. We focused on depleting the seed bank of invasive plants by targeting certain species such as garlic mustard, Dame’s Rocket, and Crown Vetch before they seeded. Backpack sprayers, brush cutters and loppers were used to kill invasive plants within the park and GPS was used to monitor our progress

The Impact of Preaching the Image of God as Disability-Inclusive

According to Howard (2010), the North American Mission Board (NAMB) considers the disabled community in America to be unreached by the church. Hardwick (2021) also writes, “The disability community is the most unique community, the largest minority group in the world” (p. 12). This quantitative descriptive research study explored the frequency of preaching the biblical principle imago Dei, found in Genesis 1:27, in a way that includes the disabled, and how this preaching may impact disability-inclusivity in the church. The Word of God states, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them” (New International Version, 2011, Genesis 1:27). The biblical principle of imago Dei is inclusive of the disabled. Disability-inclusivity is also necessary for the church to be true to its original design and purpose to fulfill the Great Commission and the Greatest Commandments. The role of the pastor is significant in the initiating of a disability-inclusivity mindset by setting an example through his own attitudes and preaching. Solid foundational preaching on how imago Dei is disability-inclusive is necessary for the church to value the disabled from a biblical worldview and be motivated to reach them with the Gospel. This study included the collection of quantitative data from a random sample population of 131 Southern Baptist senior pastors in the state of South Carolina. Data was collected via a survey to determine the frequency Genesis 1:27 is preached and whether the preaching is intentionally disability-inclusive. The majority of survey participants indicated that they preach on Genesis 1:27 once a year (29.37%) or more than once a year (38.89%). However, when surveyed on preaching this passage as intentionally disability-inclusive, 69.87% of survey participants answered “yes”, while 30.16% answered “no”. There is much to be done in the church to change the current trajectory

Impact of ferroptosis induction on iron metabolism in cancer cells harboring TP53 mutations

The tumor suppressor gene TP53 is the most commonly mutated gene in human cancer, but mutations in TP53 do not just result in loss of tumor suppressor function, they can also promote cancer progression by altering cellular iron acquisition and metabolism. A newly identified role for wild-type TP53 in the mediation of iron homeostasis and cancer cell survival lies in its ability to protect against ferroptosis, a form of iron mediated cell death. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which TP53 mutation status effects iron-mediated cell death in response to ferroptosis induction. Using H1299 cells that are null for TP53, we generated cell lines expressing either a tetracycline-inducible wild-type TP53 gene, or a representative mutated TP53 gene from exemplary “hotspot” mutations in the DNA binding domain (248Q, 249S, 273H, 282W, 175H and 245S). These six mutation types were selected because they represent 25% of all TP53 mutations in human cancer. TP53 mutants 248Q, 273H, 245S, and 249S were more sensitive to ferroptosis than WT TP53. As iron-mediated lipid peroxidation is critical for ferroptosis induction, we hypothesized that iron acquisition pathways would be upregulated in mutant TP53 expressing cells. However, only cells expressing the 248Q, 175H, and 245S TP53 mutation types exhibited significant increases in spontaneous iron regulatory protein (IRP) RNA binding activity following ferroptosis activation. Moreover, changes in the expression of targets (e.g. TFRC and FTH1) were inconsistent with the observed differences in sensitivity to ferroptosis. These findings indicate that canonical iron regulatory pathways are bypassed during ferroptotic cell death. These results also indicate that induction of ferroptosis may be an effective therapeutic approach for tumor cells expressing distinct TP53 mutation types

Housing and Urban Hennepin County.

Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota

A Partnership to Improve Health Care in Kosovo: Dartmouth Medical School and Kosovar nurses worked together on a two-year project to rebuild primary health care in the postconflict city of Gjilan

Partnership between a health municipality in Kosova, in the former Republic of Yugoslavia and Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire, to rebuild the primary care system after the war. The project, which included nurses from both countries, is described, focusing on the changing roles of nurses

Does believing something to be fiction allow a form of moral licencing or a 'fictive pass' in understanding others' actions?

Introduction: The human capacity to engage with fictional worlds raises important psychological questions about the mechanisms that make this possible. Of particular interest is whether people respond differently to fictional stories compared to factual ones in terms of how immersed they become and how they view the characters involved and their actions. It has been suggested that fiction provides us with a ‘fictive pass’ that allows us to evaluate in a more balanced, detached way the morality of a character’s behaviour. Methods: We use a randomised controlled experimental design to test this. Results and discussion: We show that, although knowing whether a substantial film clip is fact or fiction does not affect how engaged with (‘transported’ by) a troubling story an observer becomes, it does grant them a ‘fictive pass’ to empathise with a moral transgressor. However, a fictive pass does not override the capacity to judge the causes of a character’s moral transgression (at least as indexed by a causal attribution task)

Storytelling Morality: Ecofeminism, Agrarianism, and Pigs in the Field

Understanding our relationships with and obligations to the natural world through the labor and practice of food production is central to our development as moral beings and environmental citizens. Both ecofeminism and agrarianism—in their overlap and distance—can offer ideas about how best to express our environmental and citizenship ethics through the everyday act of growing, eating, and engaging with food. Raymond Anthony (2009) reminds us that a narrative ethics approach—embraced by both ecofeminism and agrarianism as a meaningful source of ethical wisdom—when applied to animal agriculture helps to build a more inclusive moral community. But Anthony cautions that the predominant agricultural storyline is made up of incompatible camps. He proposes a new story for agriculture, one that offers reconciliation or revitalization. In the spirit of this revitalization, we offer two stories of our material practice of raising pigs on an educational organic farm to illuminate what we see as important ethical, social, and environmental context for our new agricultural narrative. Through these stories we aim to give context to the theoretical ecofeminist and agrarian dialogue about ethics rooted in the land, so we might better understand what appropriate relationships with nonhuman others and natural systems might look like in practice

Nest location preferences in zoo-housed orangutans

Nest building is an advanced and complex activity that wild orangutans engage in, yet they do so on a daily basis and with potential safety consequences. Like their wild counterparts, zoo-housed orangutans also make nests when given adequate materials, yet comparatively little research has documented the nesting habits of captive orangutans, including potential social and environmental influences of nest site selections. We documented the night nesting behavior of six adult orangutans housed at the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park (NZP), identifying preferred nest locations and proximity to conspecifics, comparing observed patterns to those reported in a nest behavior survey of orangutan facilities throughout the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Survey results reveal that in addition to several universal patterns of nesting behaviors, as in the wild, the sharing of night nests by captive adult orangutans occurs only rarely (2 of 31 surveyed facilities). Data collected at NZP indicate that night nearest neighbor associations among nesting conspecifics may be a useful proxy for actual nearest neighbor data taken during daytime social interactions and may offer a more feasible alternative for determining social relationships among large groups of socially housed orangutans