Aging ebbs the flow of thought: Adult age differences in mind wandering, executive control, and self-evaluation

Abstract: Two experiments examined the relations among adult aging, mind wandering, and executive-task performance, following from surprising laboratory findings that older adults report fewer taskunrelated thoughts (TUTs) than do younger adults (e.g., aging | mind wandering | executive control | consciousness | working memory

The Effect of Mindfulness-based Programs on Cognitive Function in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This is the first meta-analysis of objective cognitive outcomes across multiple domains from randomized MBP studies of adults. Seven databases were systematically searched to January 2020. Fifty-six unique studies (n = 2,931) were included, of which 45 (n = 2,238) were synthesized using robust variance estimation meta-analysis. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses evaluated moderators. Pooling data across cognitive domains, the summary effect size for all studies favored MBPs over comparators and was small in magnitude (g = 0.15; [0.05, 0.24]). Across subgroup analyses of individual cognitive domains/subdomains, MBPs outperformed comparators for executive function (g = 0.15; [0.02, 0.27]) and working memory outcomes (g = 0.23; [0.11, 0.36]) only. Subgroup analyses identified significant effects for studies of non-clinical samples, as well as for adults aged over 60. Across all studies, MBPs outperformed inactive, but not active comparators. Limitations include the primarily unclear within-study risk of bias (only a minority of studies were considered low risk), and that statistical constraints rendered some p-values unreliable. Together, results partially corroborate the hypothesized link between mindfulness practices and cognitive performance. This review was registered with PROSPERO [CRD42018100904]

Adaptation of sea turtles to climate warming: Will phenological responses be sufficient to counteract changes in reproductive output?

Sea turtles are vulnerable to climate change since their reproductive output is influenced by incubating temperatures, with warmer temperatures causing lower hatching success and increased feminization of embryos. Their ability to cope with projected increases in ambient temperatures will depend on their capacity to adapt to shifts in climatic regimes. Here, we assessed the extent to which phenological shifts could mitigate impacts from increases in ambient temperatures (from 1.5 to 3°C in air temperatures and from 1.4 to 2.3°C in sea surface temperatures by 2100 at our sites) on four species of sea turtles, under a “middle of the road” scenario (SSP2-4.5). Sand temperatures at sea turtle nesting sites are projected to increase from 0.58 to 4.17°C by 2100 and expected shifts in nesting of 26–43 days earlier will not be sufficient to maintain current incubation temperatures at 7 (29%) of our sites, hatching success rates at 10 (42%) of our sites, with current trends in hatchling sex ratio being able to be maintained at half of the sites. We also calculated the phenological shifts that would be required (both backward for an earlier shift in nesting and forward for a later shift) to keep up with present-day incubation temperatures, hatching success rates, and sex ratios. The required shifts backward in nesting for incubation temperatures ranged from −20 to −191 days, whereas the required shifts forward ranged from +54 to +180 days. However, for half of the sites, no matter the shift the median incubation temperature will always be warmer than the 75th percentile of current ranges. Given that phenological shifts will not be able to ameliorate predicted changes in temperature, hatching success and sex ratio at most sites, turtles may need to use other adaptive responses and/or there is the need to enhance sea turtle resilience to climate warming.18 página

Adaptation of sea turtles to climate warming: Will phenological responses be sufficient to counteract changes in reproductive output?

© 2023 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Sea turtles are vulnerable to climate change since their reproductive output is influenced by incubating temperatures, with warmer temperatures causing lower hatching success and increased feminization of embryos. Their ability to cope with projected increases in ambient temperatures will depend on their capacity to adapt to shifts in climatic regimes. Here, we assessed the extent to which phenological shifts could mitigate impacts from increases in ambient temperatures (from 1.5 to 3°C in air temperatures and from 1.4 to 2.3°C in sea surface temperatures by 2100 at our sites) on four species of sea turtles, under a “middle of the road” scenario (SSP2-4.5). Sand temperatures at sea turtle nesting sites are projected to increase from 0.58 to 4.17°C by 2100 and expected shifts in nesting of 26–43 days earlier will not be sufficient to maintain current incubation temperatures at 7 (29%) of our sites, hatching success rates at 10 (42%) of our sites, with current trends in hatchling sex ratio being able to be maintained at half of the sites. We also calculated the phenological shifts that would be required (both backward for an earlier shift in nesting and forward for a later shift) to keep up with present-day incubation temperatures, hatching success rates, and sex ratios. The required shifts backward in nesting for incubation temperatures ranged from −20 to −191 days, whereas the required shifts forward ranged from +54 to +180 days. However, for half of the sites, no matter the shift the median incubation temperature will always be warmer than the 75th percentile of current ranges. Given that phenological shifts will not be able to ameliorate predicted changes in temperature, hatching success and sex ratio at most sites, turtles may need to use other adaptive responses and/or there is the need to enhance sea turtle resilience to climate warming.Peer reviewe

From the Bataille's Law to the Am-recycling integral experiments, overview of 25 years of RandD in CEA on Minor Actinides Partitioning Processes

International audienceIn Dec.1991, French Parliament voted the first French waste management Act which among others, requests the launching of a large RetD program to study the potential partitioning and transmutation of long-lived radionuclides (LLRN) in order to decrease the waste long-term toxicity and volume. Indeed, LLRN transmutation was thought to be able to reduce the half-life of most of the waste to be buried to a couple of hundred years, overcoming the concerns of the public related to the long-life of the waste. This research has been supported since that date by the successive French governments. First it allows France to demonstrate that recycling the long lived fission products is not worth to be done, and in the new Waste Management Act voted in 2006, it was decided to focus the work on the sole minor actinides. This research effort was very significant and was for a significant part conducted within the well-known Atalante nuclear facility in Marcoule. Over the 25 years of development, different types of strategies were studied, from the early multi-stage and complex DIAMEX-SANEX-SESAME processes to the most recent innovative SANEX, covering both the grouped extraction of MA within the GANEX process and the most recent sole-Americium recycling within the EXAm process. These developments were supported by a robust and long-standing approach allowing successively the screening of the potential extractants, the quantification of their extractive properties, the development of relevant chemical models to model the actinides-extracting molecules interactions the development of specific separation equipments. At the end, all these processes were successively qualified on a few kg of spent nuclear fuel within the Atalante CBP facility. This wide research program allows France to get in hands a flexible portfolio of MA recycling processes for different types of strategies that could in the future be industrially deployed after an industrial upscaling phase. In order to complete this large program, CEA initiated in 2010 a demonstration experiment, the so-called integral experiment, which aims to re-irradiate in a Material Testing Reactor some fuel pellet manufactured from recycled Americium. A few grams of americium have already been recovered from commercial spent nuclear fuel thanks to the EXAm process and is now going to be converted in powder and pellets.This large research program also associated the European scientific community thanks to successive European Research Projects which were selected and funded by the European Commission under the coordination of CEA. With this long-standing research program, France demonstrated the feasibility of recycling minor actinides for transmutation within 4th generation fast neutrons reactors. A general overview of these 25 years of successful and innovative research history will be synthesised in this presentation