hints to chromosomal instability after irradiation

Background Total body irradiation (TBI) has been part of standard conditioning regimens before allogeneic stem cell transplantation for many years. Its effect on normal tissue in these patients has not been studied extensively. Method We studied the in vivo cytogenetic effects of TBI and high-dose chemotherapy on skin fibroblasts from 35 allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) patients. Biopsies were obtained prospectively (n = 18 patients) before, 3 and 12 months after allogeneic SCT and retrospectively (n = 17 patients) 23–65 months after SCT for G-banded chromosome analysis. Results Chromosomal aberrations were detected in 2/18 patients (11 %) before allogeneic SCT, in 12/13 patients (92 %) after 3 months, in all patients after 12 months and in all patients in the retrospective group after allogeneic SCT. The percentage of aberrant cells was significantly higher at all times after allogeneic SCT compared to baseline analysis. Reciprocal translocations were the most common aberrations, but all other types of stable, structural chromosomal aberrations were also observed. Clonal aberrations were observed, but only in three cases they were detected in independently cultured flasks. A tendency to non-random clustering throughout the genome was observed. The percentage of aberrant cells was not different between patients with and without secondary malignancies in this study group. Conclusion High-dose chemotherapy and TBI leads to severe chromosomal damage in skin fibroblasts of patients after SCT. Our long-term data suggest that this damage increases with time, possibly due to in vivo radiation-induced chromosomal instability

Underperforming policy networks : the biopesticides network in the United Kingdom

Loosely integrated and incomplete policy networks have been neglected in the literature. They are important to consider in terms of understanding network underperformance. The effective delivery and formulation of policy requires networks that are not incomplete or underperforming. The biopesticides policy network in the United Kingdom is considered and its components identified with an emphasis on the lack of integration of retailers and environmental groups. The nature of the network constrains the actions of its agents and frustrates the achievement of policy goals. A study of this relatively immature policy network also allows for a focus on network formation. The state, via an external central government department, has been a key factor in the development of the network. Therefore, it is important to incorporate such factors more systematically into understandings of network formation. Feedback efforts from policy have increased interactions between productionist actors but the sphere of consumption remains insufficiently articulated

End-Triassic calcification crisis and blooms of organic-walled 'disaster species'

The Triassic–Jurassic (T–J) mass-extinction event is marked by isotope anomalies in organic (δ13Corg) and carbonate carbon (δ13Ccarb) reservoirs. These have been attributed to a (rapid) 4-fold rise in pCO2 as a result of massive flood basalt volcanism and/or methane hydrate dissociation. Here we examine the response of marine photosynthetic phytoplankton to the proposed perturbation in the carbon cycle. Our high-resolution micropalaeontological analysis of T–J boundary beds at St Audrie's Bay in Somerset, UK, provides evidence for a bio-calcification crisis that is characterized by (1) extinction and malformation in calcareous nannoplankton and (2) contemporaneous blooms of organic-walled, green algal 'disaster' species which comprise in one case > 70% of the total palynomorph fraction. Blooms of prasinophytes and acritarchs occur at the onset and in association with a prominent negative shift in δ13Corg values close to the first appearance of the Early Jurassic ammonite Psiloceras planorbis. Across the same interval we obtained palaeotemperature and palaeosalinity estimates from oyster low-Mg calcite based on Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca and δ18O records. The results of our palynological and geochemical analyses strongly suggest that shallow marine basins in NW Europe during this period became salinity stratified, inducing anoxic conditions. The T–J boundary event shows similarities with the Permian–Triassic (P–T) mass-extinction event, which was also marked by extensive flood basalt volcanism, negative excursions in carbon isotope records, a bio-calcification crisis, the development of shallow-marine anoxia and mass abundances of acritarchs in the Early Triassic. This leads us to suggest that the proliferation of green algal phytoplankton may be symptomatic of elevated carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and oceans during mass-extinction events

Agency, qualia and life: connecting mind and body biologically

Many believe that a suitably programmed computer could act for its own goals and experience feelings. I challenge this view and argue that agency, mental causation and qualia are all founded in the unique, homeostatic nature of living matter. The theory was formulated for coherence with the concept of an agent, neuroscientific data and laws of physics. By this method, I infer that a successful action is homeostatic for its agent and can be caused by a feeling - which does not motivate as a force, but as a control signal. From brain research and the locality principle of physics, I surmise that qualia are a fundamental, biological form of energy generated in specialized neurons. Subjectivity is explained as thermodynamically necessary on the supposition that, by converting action potentials to feelings, the neural cells avert damage from the electrochemical pulses. In exchange for this entropic benefit, phenomenal energy is spent as and where it is produced - which precludes the objective observation of qualia

Magnetism, FeS colloids, and Origins of Life

A number of features of living systems: reversible interactions and weak bonds underlying motor-dynamics; gel-sol transitions; cellular connected fractal organization; asymmetry in interactions and organization; quantum coherent phenomena; to name some, can have a natural accounting via $physical$ interactions, which we therefore seek to incorporate by expanding the horizons of `chemistry-only' approaches to the origins of life. It is suggested that the magnetic 'face' of the minerals from the inorganic world, recognized to have played a pivotal role in initiating Life, may throw light on some of these issues. A magnetic environment in the form of rocks in the Hadean Ocean could have enabled the accretion and therefore an ordered confinement of super-paramagnetic colloids within a structured phase. A moderate H-field can help magnetic nano-particles to not only overcome thermal fluctuations but also harness them. Such controlled dynamics brings in the possibility of accessing quantum effects, which together with frustrations in magnetic ordering and hysteresis (a natural mechanism for a primitive memory) could throw light on the birth of biological information which, as Abel argues, requires a combination of order and complexity. This scenario gains strength from observations of scale-free framboidal forms of the greigite mineral, with a magnetic basis of assembly. And greigite's metabolic potential plays a key role in the mound scenario of Russell and coworkers-an expansion of which is suggested for including magnetism.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, to be published in A.R. Memorial volume, Ed Krishnaswami Alladi, Springer 201

A new, large-bodied omnivorous bat (Noctilionoidea: Mystacinidae) reveals lost morphological and ecological diversity since the Miocene in New Zealand

A new genus and species of fossil bat is described from New Zealand's only pre-Pleistocene Cenozoic terrestrial fauna, the early Miocene St Bathans Fauna of Central Otago, South Island. Bayesian total evidence phylogenetic analysis places this new Southern Hemisphere taxon among the burrowing bats (mystacinids) of New Zealand and Australia, although its lower dentition also resembles Africa's endemic sucker-footed bats (myzopodids). As the first new bat genus to be added to New Zealand's fauna in more than 150 years, it provides new insight into the original diversity of chiropterans in Australasia. It also underscores the significant decline in morphological diversity that has taken place in the highly distinctive, semi-terrestrial bat family Mystacinidae since the Miocene. This bat was relatively large, with an estimated body mass of ~40 g, and its dentition suggests it had an omnivorous diet. Its striking dental autapomorphies, including development of a large hypocone, signal a shift of diet compared with other mystacinids, and may provide evidence of an adaptive radiation in feeding strategy in this group of noctilionoid bats

Relative sea-level rise around East Antarctica during Oligocene glaciation

During the middle and late Eocene (∼48-34 Myr ago), the Earth's climate cooled and an ice sheet built up on Antarctica. The stepwise expansion of ice on Antarcticainduced crustal deformation and gravitational perturbations around the continent. Close to the ice sheet, sea level rosedespite an overall reduction in the mass of the ocean caused by the transfer of water to the ice sheet. Here we identify the crustal response to ice-sheet growth by forcing a glacial-hydro isostatic adjustment model with an Antarctic ice-sheet model. We find that the shelf areas around East Antarctica first shoaled as upper mantle material upwelled and a peripheral forebulge developed. The inner shelf subsequently subsided as lithosphere flexure extended outwards from the ice-sheet margins. Consequently the coasts experienced a progressive relative sea-level rise. Our analysis of sediment cores from the vicinity of the Antarctic ice sheet are in agreement with the spatial patterns of relative sea-level change indicated by our simulations. Our results are consistent with the suggestion that near-field processes such as local sea-level change influence the equilibrium state obtained by an icesheet grounding line

Psychoanalytic sociology and the traumas of history: Alexander Mitscherlich between the disciplines

This article examines the way aspects of recent history were excluded in key studies emerging from psychoanalytic social psychology of the mid-twentieth century. It draws on work by Erikson, Marcuse and Fromm, but focuses in particular on Alexander Mitscherlich. Mitscherlich, a social psychologist associated with the later Frankfurt school, was also the most important psychoanalytic figure in postwar Germany. This makes his work significant for tracing ways in which historical experience of the war and Nazism was filtered out of psychosocial narratives in this period, in favour of more structural analyses of the dynamics of social authority. Mitscherlich?s 1967 work The Inability to Mourn, co-authored with Margarete Mitscherlich, is often cited as the point at which the ?missing? historical experience flooded back into psychoanalytic accounts of society. I argue that this landmark publication doesn?t hail the shift towards the psychoanalysis of historical experience with which it is often associated. These more sociological writers of the mid-century were writing before the impact of several trends occurring in the 1980s-90s which decisively shifted psychoanalytic attention away from the investigation of social authority and towards a focus on historical trauma. Ultimately this is also a narrative about the transformations which occur when psychoanalysis moves across disciplines

Frequent induction of chromosomal aberrations in in vivo skin fibroblasts after allogeneic stem cell transplantation: hints to chromosomal instability after irradiation

BACKGROUND: Total body irradiation (TBI) has been part of standard conditioning regimens before allogeneic stem cell transplantation for many years. Its effect on normal tissue in these patients has not been studied extensively. METHOD: We studied the in vivo cytogenetic effects of TBI and high-dose chemotherapy on skin fibroblasts from 35 allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) patients. Biopsies were obtained prospectively (n = 18 patients) before, 3 and 12 months after allogeneic SCT and retrospectively (n = 17 patients) 23-65 months after SCT for G-banded chromosome analysis. RESULTS: Chromosomal aberrations were detected in 2/18 patients (11 %) before allogeneic SCT, in 12/13 patients (92 %) after 3 months, in all patients after 12 months and in all patients in the retrospective group after allogeneic SCT. The percentage of aberrant cells was significantly higher at all times after allogeneic SCT compared to baseline analysis. Reciprocal translocations were the most common aberrations, but all other types of stable, structural chromosomal aberrations were also observed. Clonal aberrations were observed, but only in three cases they were detected in independently cultured flasks. A tendency to non-random clustering throughout the genome was observed. The percentage of aberrant cells was not different between patients with and without secondary malignancies in this study group. CONCLUSION: High-dose chemotherapy and TBI leads to severe chromosomal damage in skin fibroblasts of patients after SCT. Our long-term data suggest that this damage increases with time, possibly due to in vivo radiation-induced chromosomal instability

Comparative electroencephalography analysis: marathon runners during tapering versus sedentary controls reveals no significant differences

Introduction Previous studies described various adaptive neuroplastic brain changes associated with physical activity (PA). EEG studies focused mostly on effects during or shortly after short bouts of exercise. This is the first study to investigate the capability of EEG to display PA-induced long-lasting plasticity in runners compared to a sedentary control group. Methods Thirty trained runners and 30 age- and sex-matched sedentary controls (SC) were included as a subpopulation of the ReCaP (Running effects on Cognition and Plasticity) study. PA was measured with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Resting-state EEG of the runners was recorded in the tapering phase of the training for the Munich marathon 2017. Power spectrum analyses were conducted using standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) and included the following frequency bands: delta: 1.5–6 Hz, theta: 6.5–8.0 Hz, alpha1: 8.5–10 Hz, alpha2: 10.5–12.0 Hz, beta1: 12.5–18.0 Hz, beta2: 18.5–21.0 Hz, beta3: 21.5–30.0 Hz, and total power (1.5–30 Hz). Results PA (IPAQ) and BMI differed significantly between the groups. The other included demographic parameters were comparable. Statistical nonparametric mapping showed no significant power differences in EEG between the groups. Discussion Heterogeneity in study protocols, especially in time intervals between exercise cessation and EEG recordings and juxtaposition of acute exercise-induced effects on EEG in previous studies, could be possible reasons for the differences in results. Future studies should record EEG at different time points after exercise cessation and in a broader spectrum of exercise intensities and forms to further explore the capability of EEG in displaying long-term exercise-induced plasticity