What is a War Crime?

What is a war crime? The question appears to have a simple answer: a war crime is a violation of the law of war. But do all violations of the law of war qualify as war crimes? And are all war crimes violations of the law of war? These questions are not new. In 1942, Hersch Lauterpacht, a leading international lawyer who assisted the prosecution of the Nazis for war crimes at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, wrote a memo in which he asked, “Is there a definition of war crimes?” More than seven decades later, the answer to his question remains unsettled

Data-driven honeybee antennal lobe model suggests how stimulus-onset asynchrony can aid odour segregation

Insects have a remarkable ability to identify and track odour sources in multi-odour backgrounds. Recent behavioural experiments show that this ability relies on detecting millisecond stimulus asynchronies between odourants that originate from different sources. Honeybees, Apis mellifera , are able to distinguish mixtures where both odourants arrive at the same time (synchronous mixtures) from those where odourant onsets are staggered (asynchronous mixtures) down to an onset delay of only 6 ms. In this paper we explore this surprising ability in a model of the insects' primary olfactory brain area, the antennal lobe. We hypothesize that a winner-take-all inhibitory network of local neurons in the antennal lobe has a symmetry-breaking effect, such that the response pattern in projection neurons to an asynchronous mixture is different from the response pattern to the corresponding synchronous mixture for an extended period of time beyond the initial odourant onset where the two mixture conditions actually differ. The prolonged difference between response patterns to synchronous and asynchronous mixtures could facilitate odour segregation in downstream circuits of the olfactory pathway. We present a detailed data-driven model of the bee antennal lobe that reproduces a large data set of experimentally observed physiological odour responses, successfully implements the hypothesised symmetry-breaking mechanism and so demonstrates that this mechanism is consistent with our current knowledge of the olfactory circuits in the bee brain

Quasi-elastic polarization-transfer measurements on the deuteron in anti-parallel kinematics

We present measurements of the polarization-transfer components in the $^2$H$(\vec e,e'\vec p)$ reaction, covering a previously unexplored kinematic region with large positive (anti-parallel) missing momentum, $p_{\rm miss}$, up to 220 MeV$/c$, and $Q^2=0.65$ $({\rm GeV}/c)^2$. These measurements, performed at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI), were motivated by theoretical calculations which predict small final-state interaction (FSI) effects in these kinematics, making them favorable for searching for medium modifications of bound nucleons in nuclei. We find in this kinematic region that the measured polarization-transfer components $P_x$ and $P_z$ and their ratio agree with the theoretical calculations, which use free-proton form factors. Using this, we establish upper limits on possible medium effects that modify the bound proton's form factor ratio $G_E/G_M$ at the level of a few percent. We also compare the measured polarization-transfer components and their ratio for $^2$H to those of a free (moving) proton. We find that the universal behavior of $^2$H, $^4$He and $^{12}$C in the double ratio $\frac{(P_x/P_z)^A}{(P_x/P_z)^{^1\rm H}}$ is maintained in the positive missing-momentum region

A Soluble Form of B Cell Maturation Antigen, a Receptor for the Tumor Necrosis Factor Family Member April, Inhibits Tumor Cell Growth

A proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL) is a ligand of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family that stimulates tumor cell growth in vitro and in vivo. Expression of APRIL is highly upregulated in many tumors including colon and prostate carcinomas. Here we identify B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) and transmembrane activator and calcium modulator and cyclophilin ligand (CAML) interactor (TACI), two predicted members of the TNF receptor family, as receptors for APRIL. APRIL binds BCMA with higher affinity than TACI. A soluble form of BCMA, which inhibits the proliferative activity of APRIL in vitro, decreases tumor cell proliferation in nude mice. Growth of HT29 colon carcinoma cells is blocked when mice are treated once per week with the soluble receptor. These results suggest an important role for APRIL in tumorigenesis and point towards a novel anticancer strategy

Hormonal Signal Amplification Mediates Environmental Conditions during Development and Controls an Irreversible Commitment to Adulthood

Many animals can choose between different developmental fates to maximize fitness. Despite the complexity of environmental cues and life history, different developmental fates are executed in a robust fashion. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans serves as a powerful model to examine this phenomenon because it can adopt one of two developmental fates (adulthood or diapause) depending on environmental conditions. The steroid hormone dafachronic acid (DA) directs development to adulthood by regulating the transcriptional activity of the nuclear hormone receptor DAF-12. The known role of DA suggests that it may be the molecular mediator of environmental condition effects on the developmental fate decision, although the mechanism is yet unknown. We used a combination of physiological and molecular biology techniques to demonstrate that commitment to reproductive adult development occurs when DA levels, produced in the neuroendocrine XXX cells, exceed a threshold. Furthermore, imaging and cell ablation experiments demonstrate that the XXX cells act as a source of DA, which, upon commitment to adult development, is amplified and propagated in the epidermis in a DAF-12 dependent manner. This positive feedback loop increases DA levels and drives adult programs in the gonad and epidermis, thus conferring the irreversibility of the decision. We show that the positive feedback loop canalizes development by ensuring that sufficient amounts of DA are dispersed throughout the body and serves as a robust fate-locking mechanism to enforce an organism-wide binary decision, despite noisy and complex environmental cues. These mechanisms are not only relevant to C. elegans but may be extended to other hormonal-based decision-making mechanisms in insects and mammals

Novel multiple sclerosis susceptibility loci implicated in epigenetic regulation

We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility in German cohorts with 4888 cases and 10,395 controls. In addition to associations within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region, 15 non-MHC loci reached genome-wide significance. Four of these loci are novel MS susceptibility loci. They map to the genes L3MBTL3, MAZ, ERG, and SHMT1. The lead variant at SHMT1 was replicated in an independent Sardinian cohort. Products of the genes L3MBTL3, MAZ, and ERG play important roles in immune cell regulation. SHMT1 encodes a serine hydroxymethyltransferase catalyzing the transfer of a carbon unit to the folate cycle. This reaction is required for regulation of methylation homeostasis, which is important for establishment and maintenance of epigenetic signatures. Our GWAS approach in a defined population with limited genetic substructure detected associations not found in larger, more heterogeneous cohorts, thus providing new clues regarding MS pathogenesis