Intercostal variation for age estimation--are the standards for the right 4th rib applicable for other ribs?

Age estimation of unknown skeletal remains is very important in forensic medicine. Morphologic methods are fast and easy to use for purpose of age determination. The sternal ends of the ribs are a reliable method of age estimation from late adolescence to old age. Iscan et al developed a phase analysis method for the right 4th rib that was sex and race specific. The purpose of this study is to determine the accuracy of the standards of age estimation from the right 4th and other rib using the phase analysis for the Turkish population. The sample consisted of right and left 3rd, 4th and 5th ribs from 34 Turkish women and 76 men. There were statistically significant variations found on the right 5th, left 3rd, 4th, and 5th ribs according to these standards in men for phases 5, 6, and 7. For women, all the right and left ribs included in this study were in concordance with right 4th rib standards in all phases.     

Are Neglected Plants the Food for the Future?

Malnutrition, poor health, hunger, and even starvation are still the world's greatest challenges. Malnutrition is defined as deficiency of nutrition due to not ingesting the proper amounts of nutrients by simply not eating enough food and/or by consuming nutrient-poor food in respect to the daily nutritional requirements. Moreover, malnutrition and disease are closely associated and incidences of such diet-related diseases increase particularly in low- and middle-income states. While foods of animal origin are often unaffordable to low-income families, various neglected crops can offer an alternative source of micronutrients, vitamins, as well as health-promoting secondary plant metabolites. Therefore, agricultural and horticultural research should develop strategies not only to produce more food, but also to improve access to more nutritious food. In this context, one promising approach is to promote biodiversity in the dietary pattern of low-income people by getting access to nutritional as well as affordable food and providing recommendations for food selection and preparation. Worldwide, a multitude of various plant species are assigned to be consumed as grains, vegetables, and fruits, but only a limited number of these species are used as commercial cash crops. Consequently, numerous neglected and underutilized species offer the potential to diversify not only the human diet, but also increase food production levels, and, thus, enable more sustainable and resilient agro- and horti-food systems. To exploit the potential of neglected plant (NP) species, coordinated approaches on the local, regional, and international level have to be integrated that consequently demand the involvement of numerous multi-stakeholders. Thus, the objective of the present review is to evaluate whether NP species are important as “Future Food” for improving the nutritional status of humans as well as increasing resilience of agro- and horti-food systems.     

Hope for the Best or Prepare for the Worst? Towards a Spatial Cognitive Bias Test for Mice

Cognitive bias, the altered information processing resulting from the background emotional state of an individual, has been suggested as a promising new indicator of animal emotion. Comparable to anxious or depressed humans, animals in a putatively negative emotional state are more likely to judge an ambiguous stimulus as if it predicts a negative event, than those in positive states. The present study aimed to establish a cognitive bias test for mice based on a spatial judgment task and to apply it in a pilot study to serotonin transporter (5-HTT) knockout mice, a well-established mouse model for the study of anxiety- and depression-related behavior. In a first step, we validated that our setup can assess different expectations about the outcome of an ambiguous stimulus: mice having learned to expect something positive within a maze differed significantly in their behavior towards an unfamiliar location than animals having learned to expect something negative. In a second step, the use of spatial location as a discriminatory stimulus was confirmed by showing that mice interpret an ambiguous stimulus depending on its spatial location, with a position exactly midway between a positive and a negative reference point provoking the highest level of ambiguity. Finally, the anxiety- and depression-like phenotype of the 5-HTT knockout mouse model manifested - comparable to human conditions - in a trend for a negatively distorted interpretation of ambiguous information, albeit this effect was not statistically significant. The results suggest that the present cognitive bias test provides a useful basis to study the emotional state in mice, which may not only increase the translational value of animal models in the study of human affective disorders, but which is also a central objective of animal welfare research.     

Who cares for the protons?

It is tempting to use standard protonation states for the analysis of protein-ligand interactions. Two different pK(a) calculation methods, PROPKA (protein pK(a)) and MCCE (multi conformation continuum electrostatics), were applied to challenge this convenient behavior. As data basis, we selected five recently approved drugs for which structural information of the protein-drug complex is available. We analyzed the pK(a) calculations in terms of a measure termed BIPS (binary protonation states) recently introduced by us. Both methods agree in detecting the majority of the sites with atypical BIPS values. However, when using only one method, some of the atypcial BIPS value would have been missed. Therefore, we recommend using both methods to set such an interpretation on a solid basis.     

Statins--a cure-all for the brain?

'Statins' are 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors - oral cholesterol-lowering drugs that are used to treat hypercholesterolaemia. It is widely accepted that statins have anti-inflammatory effects that are independent of their ability to lower cholesterol. Animal studies and observational clinical studies have indicated that statins might also be effective in treating certain neurological diseases - in particular, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and ischaemic stroke. At present, however, results from ongoing prospective, randomized clinical trials are not available.     

Who speaks for the dispossessed?

This commentary articulates three perspectives on race in America: economic determinism, institutionalism and a field-theoretic approach. It argues that William Julius Wilson's masterwork, The Declining Significance of Race, was informed by the first and anticipated the latter two. Wilson's most profound and enduring legacy is his unwavering concern for the dispossessed.     

What Capabilities for the Animal?

In this essay, I defend a bi-constructivist approach to ethology—a constructivist ethology assuming that each animal adopts constructivist strategies. I put it in opposition to what I call a realist-Cartesian approach, which is currently the dominant approach to ethology and comparative psychology. The starting point of the bi-constructivist approach can be formulated as a shift from the classical Aristotelian question “What is an animal?” to the Spinozean question, which is much less classical but which seems to me to be much stronger: “What are the capacities of the animal?”. Is it possible to conceptualize an ethology which insists on interpretation and therefore on invention, innovation and creativity, rather than on causality, the monotony of behavioural routines, and/or genetic or environmental determination? Such an ethology would be based not on the fiction of an absent observer but on fully recognizing the necessity of an observer, who is effectively present in order to get an observation. A pluralistic ethology does not dissociate itself from the marginal epistemologies of practitioners like animal trainers, hunters, stockbreeders etc., or, moreover, non-western experts. An ethology of this kind is not clamped within the boundaries of purely academic epistemology, obsessed by demarcation lines between the human and the animal. My work on the bi-constructivist approach represents a contribution towards the elaboration of an authentically biosemiotic ethology, one which is significantly different from the mechanical ethology of today.     

Proximate perspectives on the evolution of female aggression: good for the gander,good for the goose?

Female–female aggression often functions in competition over reproductive or social benefits, but the proximate mechanisms of this apparently adaptive behaviour are not well understood. The sex steroid hormone testosterone (T) and its metabolites are well-established mediators of male–male aggression, and several lines of evidence suggest that T-mediated mechanisms may apply to females as well. However, a key question is whether mechanisms of female aggression primarily reflect correlated evolutionary responses to selection acting on males, or whether direct selection acting on females has made modifications to these mechanisms that are adaptive in light of female life history. Here, I examine the degree to which female aggression is mediated at the level of T production, target tissue sensitivity to T, or downstream genomic responses in order to test the hypothesis that selection favours mechanisms that facilitate female aggression while minimizing the costs of systemically elevated T. I draw heavily from avian systems, including the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis), as well as other organisms in which these mechanisms have been well studied from an evolutionary/ecological perspective in both sexes. Findings reveal that the sexes share many behavioural and hormonal mechanisms, though several patterns also suggest sex-specific adaptation. I argue that greater attention to multiple levels of analysis—from hormone to receptor to gene network, including analyses of individual variation that represents the raw material of evolutionary change—will be a fruitful path for understanding mechanisms of behavioural regulation and intersexual coevolution.     

Selection for the α-Thalassemia Genes

Extremely high incidences of single and double deletions of α-globin genes are known among Asian populations. To study possible mechanisms for the maintenance of such deletions, mathematical analyses have been conducted. It has been shown that a stable polymorphism can be achieved easily through heterozygote advantage using deterministic models. The results strongly suggest that high incidences of single and double deletion of α-globin genes among Asian populations are maintained by some type of heterozygote advantage.     

Can you still see the cochlea for the molecules?

It is now established that the mammalian cochlea uses active amplification of incoming sound to achieve sensitivity. Cellular details are emerging slowly. Recent studies of sensory hair cells have highlighted the possible molecular bases for amplification and the components of sensitivity regulation within the cochlea: a synthesis is likely to depend on effective and physiologically informed modelling.     

The requirement for the protonated α-amino group for the transport of peptides in Escherichia coli

Many glycine peptides support growth of a glycine auxotroph of Escherichia coli. If the alpha-amino group of these peptides is methylated, the products are still utilized for growth, and also retain comparable ability with the unsubstituted peptides to compete with natural peptides for transport into the cell. In contrast, glycine peptides devoid of an alpha-amino group, or that have the alpha-amino group substituted by one of a number of acyl groups are not utilized, although E. coli possesses intracellular enzymic activity able to release glycine from such compounds; further, these derivatives do not compete with natural peptides for transport into the cell.     

What's on the horizon for macroecology?

Over the last two decades, macroecology – the analysis of large‐scale, multi‐species ecological patterns and processes – has established itself as a major line of biological research. Analyses of statistical links between environmental variables and biotic responses have long and successfully been employed as a main approach, but new developments are due to be utilized. Scanning the horizon of macroecology, we identified four challenges that will probably play a major role in the future. We support our claims by examples and bibliographic analyses. 1) Integrating the past into macroecological analyses, e.g. by using paleontological or phylogenetic information or by applying methods from historical biogeography, will sharpen our understanding of the underlying reasons for contemporary patterns. 2) Explicit consideration of the local processes that lead to the observed larger‐scale patterns is necessary to understand the fine‐grain variability found in nature, and will enable better prediction of future patterns (e.g. under environmental change conditions). 3) Macroecology is dependent on large‐scale, high quality data from a broad spectrum of taxa and regions. More available data sources need to be tapped and new, small‐grain large‐extent data need to be collected. 4) Although macroecology already lead to mainstreaming cutting‐edge statistical analysis techniques, we find that more sophisticated methods are needed to account for the biases inherent to sampling at large scale. Bayesian methods may be particularly suitable to address these challenges. To continue the vigorous development of the macroecological research agenda, it is time to address these challenges and to avoid becoming too complacent with current achievements.