Educational Differences in Fertility Among Female Same-Sex Couples

Same-sex couples increasingly often live in legally recognized unions and have children as a couple. The accessibility of parenthood, however, depends on intersecting contextual and couple-level characteristics. Using Finnish register data on female same-sex couples who registered their partnership in 2006–2015, during which important legal reforms regarding same-sex parenthood took place, we explore how education and the existence of prior children predict childbearing within the same-sex partnership. Female same-sex couples’ likelihood of having a child within five years of registering a partnership increased from 34% to 43% over the observation window. This increase was not universal. For couples educated to tertiary level, the increase was from 39% to 52%. For primary and lower-secondary levels, the likelihood decreased from 26% to 8%. Couples with the highest level of education and no prior children were most likely to have a child, and couples with low education and a prior child born before the partnership were least likely to do so. These results highlight how intersectional factors shape female same-sex couples’ fertility behavior. Intensifying educational differences in couples’ fertility may reflect changes in couple-level characteristics as well as institutional barriers to childbearing that need more attention

Population genetics of purple saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia) in the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard

Peer reviewe

Biodiversity of pollen in indoor air samples as revealed by DNA metabarcoding

We conducted DNA metabarcoding (based on the nuclear ITS2 region) to characterize indoor pollen samples (possibly accompanied by other plant fragments) and to discover whether there are seasonal changes in their taxonomic diversity. It was shown that DNA metabarcoding has potential to allow a good discovery of taxonomic diversity. The number of spermatophyte families and genera varied greatly among sampling sites (pooled results per building) and times, between 9-40 and 10-66, respectively. Comparable Shannon's diversity indices equaled 0.33-2.76 and 0.94-3.16. The total number of spermatophyte genera found during the study was 187, of which 43.9, 39.6, 7.5 and 9.1% represented wild, garden/crop and indoor house plants, and non-domestic fruit or other plant material, respectively. Comparable proportions of individual sequences equaled 77.4, 18.8, 2.7 and 1.1%, respectively. When comparing plant diversities and taxonomic composition among buildings or between seasons, no obvious pattern was detected, except for the second summer, when pollen coming from outdoors was highly dominant and the proportions of likely allergens, birch, grass, alder and mugwort pollen, were very high. The average pairwise values of SOrensen(Chao) indices that were used to compare similarities for taxon composition between samples among the samples from the two university buildings, two nurseries and farmhouse equaled 0.514, 0.109, 0.564, 0.865 and 0.867, respectively, while the mean similarity index for all samples was 0.524. Cleaning frequency may strongly contribute to the observed diversity. The discovery of considerable diversities, including pollen coming from outside, in both winter and summer shows that substantial amounts of pollen produced in summer enter buildings and stay there throughout the year.Peer reviewe

Diversity of indoor fungi as revealed by DNA metabarcoding

In the present study, we conducted DNA metabarcoding (the nuclear ITS2 region) for indoor fungal samples originating from two nursery schools with a suspected mould problem (sampling before and after renovation), from two university buildings, and from an old farmhouse. Good-quality sequences were obtained, and the results showed that DNA metabarcoding provides high resolution in fungal identification. The pooled proportions of sequences representing filamentous ascomycetes, filamentous basidiomycetes, yeasts, and other fungi equalled 62.3%, 8.0%, 28.3%, and 1.4%, respectively, and the total number of fungal genera found during the study was 585. When comparing fungal diversities and taxonomic composition between different types of buildings, no obvious pattern was detected. The average pairwise values of Sorensen(Chao) indices that were used to compare similarities for taxon composition between samples among the samples from the two university buildings, two nurseries, and farmhouse equaled 0.693, 0.736, 0.852, 0.928, and 0.981, respectively, while the mean similarity index for all samples was 0.864. We discovered that making explicit conclusions on the relationship between the indoor air quality and mycoflora is complicated by the lack of appropriate indicators for air quality and by the occurrence of wide spatial and temporal changes in diversity and compositions among samples.Peer reviewe

Engineered mesoporous silica reduces long-term blood glucose and HbA1c, and improves metabolic parameters in prediabetics

Aim: To investigate the effect of oral consumption of engineered mesoporous silica particles, SiPore15 (R), on long-term blood glucose levels and other metabolic parameters in individuals with prediabetes and newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes. Method: An open-label, single-arm, multicenter trial was conducted in which SiPore15 was consumed three times daily for 12 weeks. Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c, primary end point) and an array of metabolic parameters were measured at baseline and throughout the trial. Result: SiPore15 treatment significantly reduced HbA1c by a clinically meaningful degree and improved several disease-associated parameters with minimal side effects. Conclusion: The results from this study demonstrate the potential use of SiPore15 as a treatment for prediabetes that may also delay or prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes.Peer reviewe

A southern bottlenose whale examined in the Antarctic

This paper mainly concerns the dissection of a lactating female southern bottlenose whale Hyperoodon planifrons especially shot and worked up for the author in the Antarctic 61°09'S, 86°44'E on 10 March 1948. The skeleton is in the British Museum (Natural History). A comparison with what is known of the female northern bottlenose whale H. ampullatus shows no differences in morphometry, body colour, external characters, digestive system and reproductive system, parasites and the vertebral formula and the digital formula of the flipper. There remain acknowledged differences in the skull which may be reduced or perhaps even disappear when further comparisons are attempted between skulls from males and females of similar ages. There is also the confusion when identifying ziphiid whales at sea. These observations have suggested to the author that there may be only one Hyperoodon species with a continuous distribution north and south. But Dalebout et al. (2004), applying DNA sequencies in molecular taxonomy, have now shown that all 21 species of ziphiid whales are valid

Growth Patterns in Young Adult Monozygotic Twin Pairs Discordant and Concordant for Obesity

Telah dl1akukan penelotian kemungkinan penggunaan pati ketela rambat sebahaibahan penghancur pembuatan tablet

FinnTwin16 : A Longitudinal Study from Age 16 of a Population-Based Finnish Twin Cohort

The purpose of this review is to provide a detailed and updated description of the FinnTwin16 (FT16) study and its future directions. The Finnish Twin Cohort comprises three different cohorts: the Older Twin Cohort established in the 1970s and the FinnTwin12 and FT16 initiated in the 1990s. FT16 was initiated in 1991 to identify the genetic and environmental precursors of alcoholism, but later the scope of the project expanded to studying the determinants of various health-related behaviors and diseases in different stages of life. The main areas addressed are alcohol use and its consequences, smoking, physical activity, overall physical health, eating behaviors and eating disorders, weight development, obesity, life satisfaction and personality. To date, five waves of data collection have been completed and the sixth is now planned. Data from the FT16 cohort have contributed to several hundred studies and many substudies, with more detailed phenotyping and collection of omics data completed or underway. FT16 has also contributed to many national and international collaborations.Peer reviewe