Book Reviews

Reviews of the following books: Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England by Thomas C. Hubka; American Farm Families and the Houses: Vernacular Design and Social Change in the Rural North by Sally McMurry; History of Islesboro, Maine, 1893-1983 by the Islesboro Historical Society; Thomas Lefebvre et le fief Kouesanouskek by Honorius Provost, ptre. Translated by Shirley P. Barrett; Rebuilding the Pulp and Paper Workers’ Union, 1933-1961 by Robert H. Ziege

Community structure and function of high-temperature chlorophototrophic microbial mats inhabiting diverse geothermal environments

Six phototrophic microbial mat communities from different geothermal springs (YNP) were studied using metagenome sequencing and geochemical analyses. The primary goals of this work were to determine differences in community composition of high-temperature phototrophic mats distributed across the Yellowstone geothermal ecosystem, and to identify metabolic attributes of predominant organisms present in these communities that may correlate with environmental attributes important in niche differentiation. Random shotgun metagenome sequences from six phototrophic communities (average~ 53 Mbp/site) were subjected to multiple taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional analyses. All methods, including G+C content distribution, MEGAN analyses and oligonucleotide frequency-based clustering, provided strong support for the dominant community members present in each site. Cyanobacteria were only observed in non-sulfidic sites; de novo assemblies were obtained for Synechococcus-like populations at Chocolate Pots (CP_7) and Fischerella-like populations at White Creek (WC_6). Chloroflexi-like sequences (esp. Roseiflexus and/or Chloroflexus spp.) were observed in all six samples and contained genes involved in bacteriochlorophyll biosynthesis and the 3-hydroxypropionate carbon fixation pathway. Other major sequence assemblies were obtained for a Chlorobiales population from CP_7 (proposed family Thermochlorobacteriaceae), and an anoxygenic, sulfur-oxidizing Thermochromatium-like (Gamma-proteobacteria) population from Bath Lake Vista Annex (BLVA_20). Additional sequence coverage is necessary to establish more complete assemblies of other novel bacteria in these sites (e.g., Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes); however, current assemblies suggested that several of these organisms play important roles in heterotrophic and fermentative metabolisms. Definitive linkages were established between several of the dominant phylotypes present in these habitats and important functional processes such a

Rethinking Sustainability to Meet the Climate Change Challenge

A group of environmental law professors formed the Environmental Law Collaborative with the goal of engaging environmental law scholars in the thorny issues of the day. The members of the Collaborative gathered in the summer of 2012 to produce an intensive and collective assessment of sustainability in the age of climate change. Their writings examine the process of adapting the principles and application of sustainability to the demands of climate change, including framing the term sustainability in climate change discussions; coordinating sustainable practices across disciplines such as law, economics, ethics, and the hard sciences; and conceptualizing the role of sustainability in formulating adaptation and resiliency strategies. Their work also contemplates the role of law and legal systems in crafting effective climate change adaptation strategies and considers feasible strategies in the context of specific examples

Exoplanet Biosignatures: Understanding Oxygen as a Biosignature in the Context of Its Environment

Here we review how environmental context can be used to interpret whether O2 is a biosignature in extrasolar planetary observations. This paper builds on the overview of current biosignature research discussed in Schwieterman et al. (2017), and provides an in-depth, interdisciplinary example of biosignature identification and observation that serves as a basis for the development of the general framework for biosignature assessment described in Catling et al., (2017). O2 is a potentially strong biosignature that was originally thought to be an unambiguous indicator for life at high-abundance. We describe the coevolution of life with the early Earth's environment, and how the interplay of sources and sinks in the planetary environment may have resulted in suppression of O2 release into the atmosphere for several billion years, a false negative for biologically generated O2. False positives may also be possible, with recent research showing potential mechanisms in exoplanet environments that may generate relatively high abundances of atmospheric O2 without a biosphere being present. These studies suggest that planetary characteristics that may enhance false negatives should be considered when selecting targets for biosignature searches. Similarly our ability to interpret O2 observed in an exoplanetary atmosphere is also crucially dependent on environmental context to rule out false positive mechanisms. We describe future photometric, spectroscopic and time-dependent observations of O2 and the planetary environment that could increase our confidence that any observed O2 is a biosignature, and help discriminate it from potential false positives. By observing and understanding O2 in its planetary context we can increase our confidence in the remote detection of life, and provide a model for biosignature development for other proposed biosignatures.Comment: 55 pages. The paper is the second in a series of 5 review manuscripts of the NExSS Exoplanet Biosignatures Workshop. Community commenting is solicited at https://nexss.info/groups/ebww

Life Beyond the Solar System: Remotely Detectable Biosignatures

For the first time in human history, we will soon be able to apply to the scientific method to the question "Are We Alone?" The rapid advance of exoplanet discovery, planetary systems science, and telescope technology will soon allow scientists to search for life beyond our Solar System through direct observation of extrasolar planets. This endeavor will occur alongside searches for habitable environments and signs of life within our Solar System. While these searches are thematically related and will inform each other, they will require separate observational techniques. The search for life on exoplanets holds potential through the great diversity of worlds to be explored beyond our Solar System. However, there are also unique challenges related to the relatively limited data this search will obtain on any individual world

A distal region of the human TGM1 promoter is required for expression in transgenic mice and cultured keratinocytes

BACKGROUND: TGM1(transglutaminase 1) is an enzyme that crosslinks the cornified envelope of mature keratinocytes. Appropriate expression of the TGM1 gene is crucial for proper keratinocyte function as inactivating mutations lead to the debilitating skin disease, lamellar ichthyosis. TGM1 is also expressed in squamous metaplasia, a consequence in some epithelia of vitamin A deficiency or toxic insult that can lead to neoplasia. An understanding of the regulation of this gene in normal and abnormal differentiation states may contribute to better disease diagnosis and treatment. METHODS: In vivo requirements for expression of the TGM1 gene were studied by fusing various lengths of promoter DNA to a reporter and injecting the DNA into mouse embryos to generate transgenic animals. Expression of the reporter was ascertained by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry. Further delineation of a transcriptionally important distal region was determined by transfections of progressively shortened or mutated promoter DNA into cultured keratinocytes. RESULTS: In vivo analysis of a reporter transgene driven by the TGM1 promoter revealed that 1.6 kilobases, but not 1.1 kilobases, of DNA was sufficient to confer tissue-specific and cell layer-specific expression. This same region was responsible for reporter expression in tissues undergoing squamous metaplasia as a response to vitamin A deprivation. Mutation of a distal promoter AP1 site or proximal promoter CRE site, both identified as important transcriptional elements in transfection assays, did not prevent appropriate expression. Further searching for transcriptional elements using electrophoretic mobility shift (EMSA) and transfection assays in cultured keratinocytes identified two Sp1 elements in a transcriptionally active region between -1.6 and -1.4 kilobases. While mutation of either Sp1 site or the AP1 site singly had only a small effect, mutation of all three sites eliminated nearly all the transcriptional activity. CONCLUSIONS: A distal region of the TGM1 gene promoter, containing AP1 and Sp1 binding sites, is evolutionarily conserved and responsible for high level expression in transgenic mice and in transfected keratinocyte cultures

Evidence for early life in Earth’s oldest hydrothermal vent precipitates

Although it is not known when or where life on Earth began, some of the earliest habitable environments may have been submarine-hydrothermal vents. Here we describe putative fossilized microorganisms that are at least 3,770 million and possibly 4,280 million years old in ferruginous sedimentary rocks, interpreted as seafloor-hydrothermal vent-related precipitates, from the Nuvvuagittuq belt in Quebec, Canada. These structures occur as micrometre-scale haematite tubes and filaments with morphologies and mineral assemblages similar to those of filamentous microorganisms from modern hydrothermal vent precipitates and analogous microfossils in younger rocks. The Nuvvuagittuq rocks contain isotopically light carbon in carbonate and carbonaceous material, which occurs as graphitic inclusions in diagenetic carbonate rosettes, apatite blades intergrown among carbonate rosettes and magnetite–haematite granules, and is associated with carbonate in direct contact with the putative microfossils. Collectively, these observations are consistent with an oxidized biomass and provide evidence for biological activity in submarine-hydrothermal environments more than 3,770 million years ago

Bernanke’s Paradox: Can He Reconcile His Position on the Federal Budget with His Recent Charge to Prevent Deflation?

This paper examines Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's recipe for deflation fighting and the specific policy actions he took in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Both in his academic and in his policy work, Bernanke has made the case that monetary policy is able to stem deflationary forces largely because of its fiscal components, and that governments like those in the United States or Japan face no constraints in financing these fiscal components. On the other hand, he has recently expressed strong concerns about the size of the federal budget deficit, calling for its reversal in the name of financial sustainability. The paper argues that these positions are fundamentally at odds with each other, and resolves the paradox by arguing on theoretical and technical grounds that there are no fundamental differences in financing conventional government spending programs and what Bernanke considers to be the fiscal components of monetary policy

Population Genomics of Intron Splicing in 38 Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genome Sequences

Introns are a ubiquitous feature of eukaryotic genomes, and the dynamics of intron evolution between species has been extensively studied. However, comparatively few analyses have focused on the evolutionary forces shaping patterns of intron variation within species. To better understand the population genetic characteristics of introns, we performed an extensive population genetics analysis on key intron splice sequences obtained from 38 strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. As expected, we found that purifying selection is the dominant force governing intron splice sequence evolution in yeast, formally confirming that intron-containing alleles are a mutational liability. In addition, through extensive coalescent simulations, we obtain quantitative estimates of the strength of purifying selection (2Nes ≈ 19) and use diffusion approximations to provide insights into the evolutionary dynamics and sojourn times of newly arising splice sequence mutations in natural yeast populations. In contrast to previous functional studies, evolutionary analyses comparing the prevalence of introns in essential and nonessential genes suggest that introns in nonribosomal protein genes are functionally important and tend to be actively maintained in natural populations of S. cerevisiae. Finally, we demonstrate that heritable variation in splicing efficiency is common in intron-containing genes with splice sequence polymorphisms. More generally, our study highlights the advantages of population genomics analyses for exploring the forces that have generated extant patterns of genome variation and for illuminating basic biological processes