How accurately can other people infer your thoughts -- and does culture matter?

This research investigated how accurately people infer what others are thinking after observing a brief sample of their behaviour and whether culture/similarity is a relevant factor. Target participants (14 British and 14 Mediterraneans) were cued to think about either positive or negative events they had experienced. Subsequently, perceiver participants (16 British and 16 Mediterraneans) watched videos of the targets thinking about these things. Perceivers (both groups) were significantly accurate in judging when targets had been cued to think of something positive versus something negative, indicating notable inferential ability. Additionally, Mediterranean perceivers were better than British perceivers in making such inferences, irrespective of nationality of the targets, something that was statistically accounted for by corresponding group differences in levels of independently measured collectivism. The results point to the need for further research to investigate the possibility that being reared in a collectivist culture fosters ability in interpreting others’ behaviour

The geology and geophysics of Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth

The Cold Classical Kuiper Belt, a class of small bodies in undisturbed orbits beyond Neptune, are primitive objects preserving information about Solar System formation. The New Horizons spacecraft flew past one of these objects, the 36 km long contact binary (486958) Arrokoth (2014 MU69), in January 2019. Images from the flyby show that Arrokoth has no detectable rings, and no satellites (larger than 180 meters diameter) within a radius of 8000 km, and has a lightly-cratered smooth surface with complex geological features, unlike those on previously visited Solar System bodies. The density of impact craters indicates the surface dates from the formation of the Solar System. The two lobes of the contact binary have closely aligned poles and equators, constraining their accretion mechanism

Genomic and phenotypic characterization of 404 individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders caused by CTNNB1 variants

Purpose: Germline loss-of-function variants in CTNNB1 cause neurodevelopmental disorder with spastic diplegia and visual defects (NEDSDV; OMIM 615075) and are the most frequent, recurrent monogenic cause of cerebral palsy (CP). We investigated the range of clinical phenotypes owing to disruptions of CTNNB1 to determine the association between NEDSDV and CP. Methods: Genetic information from 404 individuals with collectively 392 pathogenic CTNNB1 variants were ascertained for the study. From these, detailed phenotypes for 52 previously unpublished individuals were collected and combined with 68 previously published individuals with comparable clinical information. The functional effects of selected CTNNB1 missense variants were assessed using TOPFlash assay. Results: The phenotypes associated with pathogenic CTNNB1 variants were similar. A diagnosis of CP was not significantly associated with any set of traits that defined a specific phenotypic subgroup, indicating that CP is not additional to NEDSDV. Two CTNNB1 missense variants were dominant negative regulators of WNT signaling, highlighting the utility of the TOPFlash assay to functionally assess variants. Conclusion: NEDSDV is a clinically homogeneous disorder irrespective of initial clinical diagnoses, including CP, or entry points for genetic testing.Sayaka Kayumi, Luis A. Perez-Jurado, María Palomares, Sneha Rangu, Sarah E. Sheppard, Wendy K. Chung, Michael C. Kruer, Mira Kharbanda, David J. Amor, George McGillivray, Julie S. Cohen, Sixto García-Minaúr, Clare L. van Eyk, Kelly Harper, Lachlan A. Jolly, Dani L. Webber, Christopher P. Barnett, Fernando Santos-Simarro, Marta Pacio-Míguez, Angela del Pozo, Somayeh Bakhtiari, Matthew Deardorff, Holly A. Dubbs, Kosuke Izumi, Katheryn Grand, Christopher Gray, Paul R. Mark, Elizabeth J. Bhoj, Dong Li, Xilma R. Ortiz-Gonzalez, Beth Keena, Elaine H. Zackai, Ethan M. Goldberg, Guiomar Perez de Nanclares, Arrate Pereda, Isabel Llano-Rivas, Ignacio Arroyo, María Angeles Fernandez-Cuesta, Christel Thauvin-Robinet, Laurence Faivre, Aurore Garde, Benoit Mazel, Ange-Line Bruel, Michael L. Tress, Eva Brilstra, Amena Smith Fine, Kylie E. Crompton, Alexander P.A. Stegmann, Margje Sinnema, Servi C.J. Stevens, Joost Nicolai, Gaetan Lesca, Laurence Lion-Francois, Damien Haye, Nicolas Chatron, Amelie Piton, Mathilde Nizon, Benjamin Cogne, Siddharth Srivastava, Jennifer Bassetti, Candace Muss, Karen W. Gripp, Rebecca A. Procopio, Francisca Millan, Michelle M. Morrow, Melissa Assaf, Andres Moreno-De-Luca, Shelagh Joss, Mark J. Hamilton, Marta Bertoli, Nicola Foulds, Shane McKee, Alastair H. MacLennan, Jozef Gecz, Mark A. Corbet

Moral courage in the workplace: moving to and from the desire and decision to act

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72135/1/j.1467-8608.2007.00484.x.pd

Biomedical and therapeutic applications of biosurfactants

During the last years, several applications of biosurfactants with medical purposes have been reported. Biosurfactants are considered relevant molecules for applications in combating many diseases and as therapeutic agents due to their antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral activities. Furthermore, their role as anti-adhesive agents against several pathogens illustrate their utility as suitable anti-adhesive coating agents for medical insertional materials leading to a reduction of a large number of hospital infections without the use of synthetic drugs and chemicals. Biomedical and therapeutic perspectives of biosurfactants applications are presented and discussed in this chapter

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits—almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives