Recovery of Sea Urchin Diadema Antillarum Populations is Correlated to Increased Coral and Reduced Macroalgal Cover

We surveyed the benthic community structure and population density of the long-spined sea urchinDiadema antillarum on the shallow fore-reefs of the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge, Caribbean Costa Rica, in September and October 2004. In zones with high densities of D. antillarum (\u3e0.6 ind. m–2), the cover of non-calcareous macroalgae, known coral competitors, was low and that of live coral was high, whereas the opposite occurred in zones with low densities of D. antillarum (D. antillarum density was not related to the coverage of calcareous macroalgae, which are not viewed as coral competitors. Mean density of D. antillarum was 0.2 ind. m–2 and the total area covered by live coral was 14%. D. antillarum density and area covered by live coral were 2 and 7 times larger, respectively, than those reported 4 yr earlier for the study site. Within the same period, the proportion contributed by non-calcareous macroalgae to total algal cover declined from ~79 to 48%. Results indicate that various families of scleractinian corals in the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica have increased in abundance, that non-calcareous macroalgae have declined, and that recovering D. antillarum densities are correlated with these observations

Nuevas Voces: Creating the World of the Play

In Fall 2017 Jim Blair founded Northeastern’s inaugural 10-Minute Playwriting festival and contest entitled Nuevas Voces or “new voices” in collaboration with Sarah Fabian from the CMT Department and Christie Miller from CAPE: Community and Professional Education. Working to celebrate all new voices, the new play festival is structured to feature the work in three categories: current high school students, current college students (ages 17-28), and the greater community (anyone who is 29+). This year’s Nuevas Voces did not disappoint! Judges included: Assistant Professors Sarah Fabian, and Adam Goldstein, Professor Emeritus Rodney Higginbotham, and recent NEIU graduate and prior Nuevas Voces winner Becca Peterson. Adam Goldstein directed this year’s festival in October. Our plan for the Symposium is to feature Ariel Notterman’s brilliant and provocative third-place entry--Frosted through a live performance by student actors Susana Acevedo and Paloma Lozano. Ms. Notterman is a recent NEIU graduate (May 2019), majoring in Communication, Media, and Theatre. Her work demonstrates what a student is capable of accomplishing. In addition and most importantly, it exemplifies and highlights what good writing, research, and revision can produce. Playwriting, as well as poetry, offers everyone the opportunity to not only refine their writing skills, but also an opportunity for them to express their ideas. Excellence in writing skills and practices is paramount among communication skills everyone uses in life. The ten-minute format is a more accessible and less intimidating approach to playwriting compared to trying to write a full-length play. After featuring her work, we will bring all faculty, students, and audience members together to engage in a productive discussion focused on the playwriting process and creativity while highlighting Ariel’s accomplishments. We will lead the group through a short playwriting exercise

Misremembering pain: A memory blindness approach to adding a better end.

How people remember feeling in the past informs future decisions; however, memory for past emotion is subject to a number of biases. Previous research on choice blindness has shown that people often fail to notice when they are exposed to misinformation about their own decisions, preferences, and memories. This type of misinformation can influence how they later remember past events. In the present study, we examined the memory blindness effect in a new domain: memory for pain. Participants (N = 269) underwent a cold-pressor task and rated how much pain, distress, and positive and negative affect they had experienced. Later, participants were shown their pain ratings and asked to explain them. Some of the participants were shown lower pain ratings than they had actually made. In a second session, participants recalled how painful the task had been and how much distress and positive and negative affect they remembered experiencing. The results indicated that the majority of participants who were exposed to misinformation failed to detect the manipulation, and subsequently remembered the task as being less painful. The participants in the misinformation condition were not overall more willing to repeat the study tasks, but the participants who recalled less distress, less negative affect, and more positive affect were more willing to repeat the study tasks again in a future experiment. These results demonstrate the malleability of memory for painful experiences and that willingness to repeat aversive experiences may depend more on memory for affective reactions to the original experience than on memory for the physical pain itself

Long Distance Movements and Disjunct Spatial Use of Harbor Seals (Phoca Vitulina) in the Inland Waters of the Pacific Northwest

Background Worldwide, adult harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) typically limit their movements and activity toresult, the ecological impact of harbor seals is viewed as limited to relatively small spatial scales. Harbor seals in the Pacific Northwest are believed to remainsite, one of several contributing factors to the current stock designation. However, movement patterns within the region are not well understood because previous studies have used radio-telemetry, which has range limitations. Our objective was to use satellite-telemetry to determine the regional spatial scale of movements. Methodology Satellite tags were deployed on 20 adult seals (n=16 males and 4 females) from two rocky reefs and a mudflat-bay during April–May 2007. Standard filtering algorithms were used to remove outliers, resulting in an average (± SD) of 693 (±377) locations per seal over 110 (±32) days. A particle filter was implemented to interpolate locations temporally and decrease erroneous locations on land. Minimum over-water distances were calculated between filtered locations and each seal\u27s capture site to show movement of seals over time relative to their capture site, and we estimated utilization distributions from kernel density analysis to reflect spatial use. Eight males moved \u3e100 km from their capture site at least once, two of which traveled round trip to and from the Pacific coast, a total distance \u3e400 km. Disjunct spatial use patterns observed provide new insight into general harbor seal behavior. Conclusions/Significance Long-distance movements and disjunct spatial use of adult harbor seals have not been reported for the study region and are rare worldwide in such a large proportion of tagged individuals. Thus, the ecological influence of individual seals may reach farther than previously assumed

Fish consumption by harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the San Juan Islands, Washington

The harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) is a large-bodied and abundant predator in the Salish Sea ecosystem, and its population has recovered since the 1970s after passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the cessation of bounties. Little is known about how this large predator population may affect the recovery of fish stocks in the Salish Sea, where candidate marine protected areas are being proposed. We used a bioenergetics model to calculate baseline consumption rates in the San Juan Islands, Washington. Salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) and herring (Clupeidae) were the 2 most energetically important prey groups for biomass consumed by harbor seals. Estimated consumption of salmonids was 783 (±380 standard deviation [SD]) metric tons (t) in the breeding season and 675 (±388 SD t in the nonbreeding season. Estimated consumption of herring was 646 (±303 SD) t in the breeding season and 2151 (±706 SD) t in the nonbreeding season. Rockfish, a depressed fish stock currently in need of population recovery, composed one of the minor prey groups consumed by harbor seals (84 [±26 SD] t in the nonbreeding season). The variables of seal body mass and proportion of prey in seal diet explained >80% of the total variation in model outputs. Prey groups, such as rockfish, that are targeted for recovery may still be affected by even low levels of predation. This study highlights the importance of salmonids and herring for the seal population and provides a framework for refining consumption estimates and their confidence intervals with future data

Deficiency of the zinc finger protein ZFP106 causes motor and sensory neurodegeneration

Acknowledgements We are indebted to Jim Humphries, JennyCorrigan, LizDarley, Elizabeth Joynson, Natalie Walters, Sara Wells and the whole necropsy, histology, genotyping and MLC ward 6 teams at MRC Harwell for excellent technical assistance. We thank the staff of the WTSI Illumina Bespoke Team for the RNA-seq data, the Sanger Mouse Genetics Project for the initial mouse characterization and Dr David Adams for critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank KOMP for the mouse embryonic stem cells carrying the knockout first promoter-less allele (tm1a(KOMP)Wtsi) within Zfp016. Conflict of Interest statement. None declared. Funding This work was funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) to A.A.-A. and a Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) project grant to A.A.-A. and EMCF. D.L.H.B. is a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Scientist Fellow and P.F. is a MRC/MNDA Lady Edith Wolfson Clinician Scientist Fellow. Funding to pay the Open Access publication charges for this article was provided by the MRC grant number: MC_UP_A390_1106.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

IGF-1 receptor antagonism inhibits autophagy

Inhibition of the insulin/insulin-like growth factor signalling pathway increases lifespan and protects against neurodegeneration in model organisms, and has been considered as a potential therapeutic target. This pathway is upstream of mTORC1, a negative regulator of autophagy. Thus, we expected autophagy to be activated by insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) inhibition, which could account for many of its beneficial effects. Paradoxically, we found that IGF-1 inhibition attenuates autophagosome formation. The reduced amount of autophagosomes present in IGF-1R depleted cells can be, at least in part, explained by a reduced formation of autophagosomal precursors at the plasma membrane. In particular, IGF-1R depletion inhibits mTORC2, which, in turn, reduces the activity of protein kinase C (PKCa/b). This perturbs the actin cytoskeleton dynamics and decreases the rate of clathrin-dependent endocytosis, which impacts autophagosome precursor formation. Finally, with important implications for human diseases, we demonstrate that pharmacological inhibition of the IGF-1R signalling cascade reduces autophagy also in zebrafish and mice models. The novel link we describe here has important consequences for the interpretation of genetic experiments in mammalian systems and for evaluating the potential of targeting the IGF-1R receptor or modulating its signalling through the downstream pathway for therapeutic purposes under clinically relevant conditions, such as neurodegenerative diseases, where autophagy stimulation is considered beneficial.This is the version of the manuscript that was first published on line. The final version can be found published in Human Molecular Genetics by OUP here: http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/22/4528.full.pdf+html

Identification of the Correct Disposal of the Waste Generated by COVID-19 in Colombia Applying Systemic Design

Introduction: the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) has represented a significant increase in the use of disposable masks worldwide; particularly in Colombia, it has been evident that there is no knowledge about the disposal of these residues, this is reflected in high pollution rates. Objective: to propose a methodological guide to improve the disposal cycles of disposable masks, involving stakeholders and applying the Systemic Design methodology. Materials and methods: the methodology used included the collection of data through a Kano survey applied in different departments of Colombia. Remote interviews were conducted with experts in waste management. From these activities, it was possible to identify the different disposal methods used in Colombia. Results: a methodological guide that allows the correct arrangement of the masks, based on what was obtained with the application of the phases of Systemic Design, and the construction of the circular graphic that allows waste to return to the system. Conclusions: the research made it possible to identify that the correct disposition of the masks does not depend exclusively on the awareness of the communities, but also on the commitment of the industries involved; we hope that this study will be useful for future research