PARENTAL LOVE PILLS: SOME ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

It may soon be possible to develop pills that allow parents to induce in themselves more loving behaviour, attitudes and emotions towards their children. In this paper, I consider whether pharmacologically induced parental love can satisfy reasonable conditions of authenticity; why anyone would be interested in taking such parental love pills at all, and whether inducing parental love pharmacologically promotes narcissism or results in self‐instrumentalization. I also examine how the availability of such pills may affect the duty to love a child.     

Leptin increases hepatic triglyceride export via a vagal mechanism in humans

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Uncertain recovery of the North Atlantic right whale in a changing ocean

Human activities have placed populations of many endangered species at risk and mitigation efforts typically focus on reducing anthropogenic sources of mortality. However, failing to recognize the additional role of environmental factors in regulating birth and mortality rates can lead to erroneous demographic analyses and conclusions. The North Atlantic right whale population is currently the focus of conservation efforts aimed at reducing mortality rates associated with ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. Consistent monitoring of the population since 1980 has revealed evidence that climate‐associated changes in prey availability have played an important role in the population's recovery. The considerable interdecadal differences observed in population growth coincide with remote Arctic and North Atlantic oceanographic processes that link to the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Here, we build capture‐recapture models to quantify the role of prey availability on right whale demographic transitional probabilities and use a corresponding demographic model to project population growth rates into the next century. Contrary to previous predictions, the right whale population is projected to recover in the future as long as prey availability and mortality rates remain within the ranges observed during 1980–2012. However, recent events indicate a northward range shift in right whale prey, potentially resulting in decreased prey availability and/or an expansion of right whale habitat into unprotected waters. An annual increase in the number of whale deaths comparable to that observed during the summer 2017 mass mortality event may cause a decline to extinction even under conditions of normal prey availability. This study highlights the importance of understanding the oceanographic context for observed population changes when evaluating the efficacy of conservation management plans for endangered marine species.     

Assessing the lethality of ship strikes on whales using simple biophysical models

Studies of ship strikes on whales often focus on large vessels (>20 m), with attention to their speeds and the resulting risk of lethality. Smaller coastal vessels also co-occur with whales, resulting in collisions that merit study. To cast light on injuries caused by vessels of all sizes, we used knowledge of right whale anatomy and Newtonian mechanics to construct simple models that predict the mechanical stresses experienced by whales during collisions. By comparing our predictions with published models and with data from ship strikes on various whale species, we developed a model for lethal injury as a function of several vessel and whale properties, finding that collisions that create stresses in excess of 0.241 MPa were likely to cause lethal injuries to large whales. Furthermore, this model has revealed that (1) vessels of all sizes can yield stresses higher than this critical level, and (2) large vessels produce stresses much larger than this even when travelling at reduced speeds (i.e., 10 knots). The model is fast enough to power an interactive GUI-based tool (in R) and flexible enough to simulate strikes by vessels of different masses and speeds upon whales of different species, sizes, and physical conditions.     

Transposon Tn3-mediated replicon fusion

To investigate inter-replicon transposition of Tn3, we used the cosmid-phage λ packaging system coupled with density gradient fractionation and isolated recombinant molecules of different sizes.Cosmids derived from ampicillin-resistance-transducing phage were classified into four groups: (1) cosmid-Tn3 donor cointegrates considered as Tn3 transposition intermediates, (2) similar cointegrates carrying deletions of one copy of Tn3 and of adjacent cosmid DNA sequences, (3) cosmids carrying a single Tn3 insertion, and (4) cosmids carrying two independent Tn3 insertions.Genetic and biochemical studies indicated that cosmids isolated from ampicillin-resistance transductants were derived from the authentic cosmid-Tn3 donor cointegrate intermediates.     

Further studies on absorption changes arising in dye-stained nerves during excitation

Summary Changes in light absorption during nerve excitation (absorption responses) were detected from the crab leg nerve, the rabbit vagus, and the rat superior cervical ganglion (SCG) stained with a merocyanine-rhodanine. Dependences of the responses on the wavelength and polarization of the incident light (absorption spectra) showed characteristic features with the respective nerves. In the crab nerve, the pattern of response spectra was precisely analyzed based on the previously proposed scheme, which included the shift of absorption bands and the statistical reorientation of absorption oscillators of the dye molecules in the membrane matrix during nerve excitation. Different patterns of the response spectra between the crab nerve and the rabbit vagus suggested that distinct physicochemical environments of the dye occurred in these two classes of membranes. On the other hand, the characteristic pattern that arose in the rat SCG was explained by its morphological form, that is, unlike those in a bundle of axons, the membrane elements in the ganglion were randomly oriented with respect to the direction of the light polarization.