1,203 research outputs found
Letter to Editor: Monkey Housing: Every Litter Bit Helps
Non-human primates, laboratory housin
Book Review of The Question of Animal Awareness and Animals Are Equal
McGrew reviews two books addressing what lies behind the behavior of nonhuman species. Griffin\u27s book caused considerable discussion when it first appeared five years earlier. The book has become the cornerstone of a new discipline – cognitive ethology. Three new chapters (on mental experiences, semantics, and evolutionary continuity) have been added to the original eight in the first edition. Almost a third of the cited studies have appeared since the first edition\u27s publication, illustrating the unexpected richness of the new findings. Griffin emphasizes that animal communication is the richest source of material, leading to inferences about animal minds. Griffin is careful not to overstate his case. Hall\u27s book is very different, and the two books, while focusing on more-or-less the same topic, could not be more different. However, McGrew argues that both books challenge the long-held assumptions about the mental lives of other species. Direct evidence of animal mental lives may be hard to find, but even the most prudent interpretation of the new research raises ethical implications
Congregations as Social Service Providers: Services, Capacity, Culture, and Organizational Behavior
Social welfare is traditionally discussed as a mixture of public, private, communal, and familial enterprise. Indeed, most textbooks and programs focus on the changing balance between these four circles of care. In the United States, a fifth and recently prominent circle of care exists and plays a major role, namely congregation-based social service provision. In this article, we first explain why faith-based care is so paramount in the United States, including a short discussion about the political developments in faith-based efforts. We then show the scope of congregational involvement in social service provision based on a large study of congregations. The rest of the article is dedicated to key administrative challenges regarding this mode of social service provision with a focus on their capacity, cultural characteristics, and organizational behavior. The latter topic is divided between start-up of new projects by congregations and issues related to running social programs in congregational settings. We conclude with a summary and discussion about the place of congregations as social service providers in the American welfare arena
[Introduction] Cognition in the wild: exploring animal minds with observational evidence
No description supplie
Hyperpolarizability and operational magic wavelength in an optical lattice clock
Optical clocks benefit from tight atomic confinement enabling extended
interrogation times as well as Doppler- and recoil-free operation. However,
these benefits come at the cost of frequency shifts that, if not properly
controlled, may degrade clock accuracy. Numerous theoretical studies have
predicted optical lattice clock frequency shifts that scale nonlinearly with
trap depth. To experimentally observe and constrain these shifts in an
Yb optical lattice clock, we construct a lattice enhancement cavity
that exaggerates the light shifts. We observe an atomic temperature that is
proportional to the optical trap depth, fundamentally altering the scaling of
trap-induced light shifts and simplifying their parametrization. We identify an
"operational" magic wavelength where frequency shifts are insensitive to
changes in trap depth. These measurements and scaling analysis constitute an
essential systematic characterization for clock operation at the
level and beyond.Comment: 5 + 2 pages, 3 figures, added supplementa
Sub-recoil clock-transition laser cooling enabling shallow optical lattice clocks
Laser cooling is a key ingredient for quantum control of atomic systems in a
variety of settings. In divalent atoms, two-stage Doppler cooling is typically
used to bring atoms to the uK regime. Here, we implement a pulsed radial
cooling scheme using the ultranarrow 1S0-3P0 clock transition in ytterbium to
realize sub-recoil temperatures, down to tens of nK. Together with sideband
cooling along the one-dimensional lattice axis, we efficiently prepare atoms in
shallow lattices at an energy of 6 lattice recoils. Under these conditions key
limits on lattice clock accuracy and instability are reduced, opening the door
to dramatic improvements. Furthermore, tunneling shifts in the shallow lattice
do not compromise clock accuracy at the 10-19 level
Species specific differences in use of ANP32 proteins by influenza A virus
Influenza A viruses (IAV) are subject to species barriers that prevent frequent zoonotic transmission and pandemics. One of these barriers is the poor activity of avian IAV polymerases in human cells. Differences between avian and mammalian ANP32 proteins underlie this host range barrier. Human ANP32A and ANP32B homologues both support function of human-adapted influenza polymerase but do not support efficient activity of avian IAV polymerase which requires avian ANP32A. We show here that the gene currently designated as avian ANP32B is evolutionarily distinct from mammalian ANP32B, and that chicken ANP32B does not support IAV polymerase activity even of human-adapted viruses. Consequently, IAV relies solely on chicken ANP32A to support its replication in chicken cells. Amino acids 129I and 130N, accounted for the inactivity of chicken ANP32B. Transfer of these residues to chicken ANP32A abolished support of IAV polymerase. Understanding ANP32 function will help develop antiviral strategies and aid the design of influenza virus resilient genome edited chickens
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