Comprehension of Role Reversal in Chimpanzees: Evidence of Empathy?

Four chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, were individually trained to cooperate with a human partner on a task that allowed both participants to obtain food rewards. In each chimpanzee-human dyad, one of the participants (the informant) could see which pair of food trays on a four-choice apparatus was baited, but had no means of obtaining it. The other participant (the operator) could pull one of four handles to bring a pair of the trays within reach of both participants, but could not see which choice was correct. Two of the chimpanzees were initially trained as informants and adopted spontaneous gestures to indicate the location of the food. The two other chimpanzees were trained as operators and learned-to respond to the pointing of their human partner. After the chimpanzee subjects reached near perfect performance, the roles in each chimpanzee-human dyad were reversed. Three of the four chimpanzees showed immediate evidence of comprehension of their new social role. The results are discussed in the context of cognitive empathy and the potential for future research on social attribution in non-human primates

Condensation of a tetrahedra rigid-body libration mode in HoBaCo4O7 : the origin of phase transition at 355 K

Rietveld profiles, Moessbauer spectra and x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) were analyzed through the structural phase transition at Ts = 355 K in HoBaCo4O7. Excess of the oxygen content over O7 was avoided via annealing the samples in argon flow at 600 degree C. Space groups (S.G.) Pbn21c and P63mc were used to refine the structure parameters in the low- and high-temperature phases, respectively. Additionally, the Cmc21 symmetry was considered as a concurrent model of structure of the low-temperature phase. In the high-temperature phase, severe anisotropy of thermal motion of the major part of the oxygen atoms was observed. This anisotropic motion turns to be quenched as the sample is cooled below Ts. The variation of quadrupole splitting near Ts is not similar to a steplike anomaly frequently seen at the charge-ordering transition. We observe instead a dip-like anomaly of the average quadrupole splitting near Ts. Narrow distribution of the electric field gradient (EFG) over different cobalt sites is observed and explained on the basis of point-charge model. XAFS spectra show no evidence of significant difference between YBaCo4O7 (T > Ts) and HoBaCo4O7 (T < Ts). The origin of the transition at Ts is ascribed to the condensation of the libration phonon mode associated with the rigid-body rotational movements of the starlike tetrahedral units, the building blocks of kagome network. It is shown that the condensation of the libration mode is not compatible with translation symmetry for the hexagonal S.G., but compatible for the orthorhombic S.G. The orthorhombic lattice parameters and EFG components (Vxx, Vyy, Vzz) vary smoothly with temperature at approaching Ts and closely follow each other.Comment: 13 figure

Use of decongestants may disrupt cell signaling pathways that control Tbx gene expression, leading to hypoplastic left heart syndrome

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) collectively refers to a range of congenital heart defects, all involving some degree of left ventricular hypoplasia, or underdevelopment of the left ventricle. Additionally, HLHS often involves coarctation of the aorta, and can also include hypoplasia of the ascending aorta, as well as mitral and/or aortic valve stenosis or atresia. HLHS is extremely rare, as it has been reported to occur in only 1 in 5000 live births each year. The cause of HLHS is currently unknown, however much research is being done to discover how and why these defects occur. HLHS is known to be familially inherited in some instances and is also associated with many well-characterized genetic disorders, including Holt-Oram syndrome, Turner’s syndrome, Noonan syndrome, Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, as well as trisomies 13, 18, and 21. Additionally, an autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance has been found amongst some siblings, however, no specific genes have been implicated. Incidence of HLHS also varies significantly in certain geographical regions and some studies have found a seasonal correlation in HLHS, indicating a possible environmental cause

A prospective multicentre study in Sweden and Norway of mental distress and psychiatric morbidity in head and neck cancer patients

A Swedish/Norwegian head and neck cancer study was designed to assess prospectively the levels of mental distress and psychiatric morbidity in a heterogeneous sample of newly diagnosed head and neck cancer patients. A total of 357 patients were included. The mean age was 63 years, and 72% were males. The patients were asked to answer the HAD scale (the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale) six times during 1 year. The number of possible or probable cases of anxiety or depression disorder was calculated according to standardized cut-offs. Approximately one-third of the patients scored as a possible or probable case of a major mood disorder at each measurement point during the study year. There were new cases of anxiety or depression at each time point. The anxiety level was highest at diagnosis, while depression was most common during treatment. Females were more anxious than males at diagnosis, and patients under 65 years of age scored higher than those over 65. Patients with lower performance status and more advanced disease reported higher levels of mental distress and more often scored as a probable or possible cases of psychiatric disorder. Our psychometric analyses supported the two-dimensional structure and stability of the HAD scale. The HAD scale seems to be the method of choice for getting valid information about the probability of mood disorder in head and neck cancer populations. The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity found in this study emphasizes the importance of improved diagnosis and treatment

Role of interfacial hydrophobic residues in the stabilization of the leucine zipper structures of the transcription factors c-Fos and c-Jun

This study documents a new and versatile experimental approach to study the relative stabilization energetics of recombinant polypeptide and protein mutants. In particular, the effect of temperature change over the range of T = 278-338 K on the thermodynamics of interaction of several leucine zipper coiled-coil polypeptides related to the transcription factors, c-Fos and c-Jun, following binding to immobilized n-octyl ligands has been determined. Plots of the change in heat capacity, DeltaC(P)(0), versus T, in combination with the corresponding van't Hoff plots, allow the energetics of the interaction of polypeptides with n-octyl ligands to be rationalized and the respective mid-point transition temperatures, T-m values, determined for the melting of their supramolecular structures. The derived experimental data correlated well with information available from other procedures, confirming that this new approach provides complementary insight into the interaction thermodynamics and the molecular nature of the thermal stability of recombinant polypeptides in non-polar or other types of chemical environments

The Effects of Carbon Dioxide Removal on the Carbon Cycle

Increasing atmospheric CO2 is having detrimental effects on the Earth system. Societies have recognized that anthropogenic CO2 release must be rapidly reduced to avoid potentially catastrophic impacts. Achieving this via emissions reductions alone will be very difficult. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has been suggested to complement and compensate for insufficient emissions reductions, through increasing natural carbon sinks, engineering new carbon sinks, or combining natural uptake with engineered storage. Here, we review the carbon cycle responses to different CDR approaches and highlight the often-overlooked interaction and feedbacks between carbon reservoirs that ultimately determines CDR efficacy. We also identify future research that will be needed if CDR is to play a role in climate change mitigation, these include coordinated studies to better understand (i) the underlying mechanisms of each method, (ii) how they could be explicitly simulated, (iii) how reversible changes in the climate and carbon cycle are, and (iv) how to evaluate and monitor CDR

A blind detection of a large, complex, Sunyaev--Zel'dovich structure

We present an interesting Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) detection in the first of the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) 'blind', degree-square fields to have been observed down to our target sensitivity of 100{\mu}Jy/beam. In follow-up deep pointed observations the SZ effect is detected with a maximum peak decrement greater than 8 \times the thermal noise. No corresponding emission is visible in the ROSAT all-sky X-ray survey and no cluster is evident in the Palomar all-sky optical survey. Compared with existing SZ images of distant clusters, the extent is large (\approx 10') and complex; our analysis favours a model containing two clusters rather than a single cluster. Our Bayesian analysis is currently limited to modelling each cluster with an ellipsoidal or spherical beta-model, which do not do justice to this decrement. Fitting an ellipsoid to the deeper candidate we find the following. (a) Assuming that the Evrard et al. (2002) approximation to Press & Schechter (1974) correctly gives the number density of clusters as a function of mass and redshift, then, in the search area, the formal Bayesian probability ratio of the AMI detection of this cluster is 7.9 \times 10^4:1; alternatively assuming Jenkins et al. (2001) as the true prior, the formal Bayesian probability ratio of detection is 2.1 \times 10^5:1. (b) The cluster mass is MT,200 = 5.5+1.2\times 10^14h-1M\odot. (c) Abandoning a physical model with num- -1.3 70 ber density prior and instead simply modelling the SZ decrement using a phenomenological {\beta}-model of temperature decrement as a function of angular distance, we find a central SZ temperature decrement of -295+36 {\mu}K - this allows for CMB primary anisotropies, receiver -15 noise and radio sources. We are unsure if the cluster system we observe is a merging system or two separate clusters.Comment: accepted MNRAS. 12 pages, 9 figure