Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences最新文献

Many fundamental aspects of New York State's climate have already begun to change, and the changes are projected to continue—and in some cases, accelerate—throughout the 21st century. This chapter explores observed and projected changes in a variety of physical variables that relate directly to weather and climate, starting with average and extreme air temperature and proceeding to the associated effects on precipitation, extreme events, and core properties of New York's coastal and inland waters. These climate attributes and hazards lead to impacts throughout the eight sectors of this assessment.

New York State has nearly 5.3 million buildings, and all of them are vulnerable in some way to the impacts of climate change. Understanding these impacts is critical, because risks to buildings not only threaten individual lives but also pose threats to community-level resilience. This chapter examines the impacts of climate change on buildings and, by extension, the people and communities they shelter and support. It also highlights building types and populations that are at particular risk and presents adaptation strategies to protect the state's existing and future building stock from climate impacts.

Agriculture is a vital industry in New York State, which ranks among the top-producing states for dairy, fruits, and several other commodities. As agriculture depends on the weather and specific climatic conditions, this sector faces extraordinary challenges as New York's climate changes. This chapter explores the many impacts of a changing climate on agriculture, the ways these impacts interact with other challenges that New York farmers and farmworkers face, and opportunities for the agriculture industry to adapt and build resilience.

Evidence shows that gorgonians are more resistant to ocean acidification and rising temperatures than hard corals and are vital to reef health and the reestablishment of disrupted coral reef communities. Gorgonian coral's resilience and its diversity of morphology and environment make it well-suited as a model organism for bioinspired design applied to particle capture. We focus on flow near the polyps, using an updated form of the immersed boundary method to model the fluid–structure interaction of the flexible polyps and the surrounding ocean water. The inlet velocity and the polyp elasticity are simultaneously varied to gain insight into (1) how these parameters affect the emergent reconfiguration of their tentacles and (2) how the interaction of the reconfiguration and inlet velocity impacts passive particle capture. Two main behaviors are observed: a recirculation regime, in which particles recirculate in a region near the oral disk, and a unidirectional regime, in which the particles move unidirectionally through the tentacles without recirculation. Our results show that different regimes support different feeding strategies. We apply these results as bioinspired filtration, discussing how an elastic material could benefit specific engineering applications.

The glucagon receptor antagonist (GRA) volagidemab is the first-in-class fully human monoclonal antibody that inhibits glucagon receptor. GRA can improve glycemia by reducing endogenous glucose production and reduce risks of diabetic ketoacidosis by suppressing ketogenesis. This systematic review and meta-analysis analyzed the efficacy and safety of volagidemab in type-1 diabetes (T1D). Electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving T1D patients receiving volagidemab. The primary outcome was to evaluate changes in total daily dose (TDD) of insulin. The secondary outcomes were to evaluate changes in measures of glycemia, hypoglycemia, and adverse events. Data from 3 RCTs (98 patients) were analyzed. Volagidemab (70 mg/week) was associated with a significant reduction in TDD of insulin requirement (mean difference [MD]: −8.45 units/day (95% confidence interval [CI]: [−12.09, −4.81]); I² = 83%; p < 0.01) and average blood glucose (MD: −21.42 mg/dL (95% CI: [−37.10, −5.74]); I² = 88%; p < 0.01), compared to placebo. Volagidemab use was associated with a significant increase in time in range (blood glucose: 70–180 mg/dL) (MD: 10.93% (95% CI: [6.69, 15.17]); I² = 55%; p < 0.01) and significant reduction in time above range (blood glucose >180 mg/dL) (MD: −11.93% (95% CI: [−14.71, −9.15]); I² = 6%; p < 0.01) without any impact on time below range (blood glucose <70 mg/dL) (MD: 0.14% (95% CI: [−0.56, 0.84]); I² = 0%; p = 0.70), compared to placebo. Occurrence of treatment-emergent adverse events (odds ratio [OR]: 0.96 (95% CI: [0.36, 2.56]); I² = 8%; p = 0.94) and hypoglycemia (OR: 0.56 (95% CI: [0.11, 2.89]); I² = 0%; p = 0.49) were similar among volagidemab users as compared to placebo. Short-term volagidemab use was associated with significant reduction in insulin requirement along with improvement in glycemia.

Swingedouw, D., Bily, A., Esquerdo, C., Borchert, L. F., Sgubin, G., Mignot, J., & Menary, M. (2021). On the risk of abrupt changes in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre in CMIP6 models. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1504(1), 187–201.

Figure 1, line 2, contains an error. “SPG (70–20°W, 45–60°N)” should have been “SPG (50–10°W, 45–60°N)”.

We apologize for this error.

Comparative animal studies have identified a trend toward a more global structural organization as brains become larger, suggesting that brain regions grow in sync as predicted by the concerted model of brain evolution. At the same time, brain plasticity studies have identified a boost in local brain structure triggered by the environment, suggesting that brain regions grow independently, as predicted by the mosaic model. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the environment can also trigger shifts toward a more global brain structure, that is, whether phenotypic plasticity proceeds in a concerted fashion. Here, we examined the impact of radically different rearing environments on brain organization in a teleost fish, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). We computed novel indices of local and global brain structure across groups reared in the two environments and entered them as predictors of differences in brain and body sizes. Changes in local brain structure predicted differences in both body and brain sizes, whereas changes in global brain structure only predicted differences in brain size. Our findings highlight the emergence of brain plasticity in a population as local and global changes that are both compatible with the concerted model.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) raises ethical questions concerning moral and legal responsibility—specifically, the attributions of credit and blame for AI-generated content. For example, if a human invests minimal skill or effort to produce a beneficial output with an AI tool, can the human still take credit? How does the answer change if the AI has been personalized (i.e., fine-tuned) on previous outputs produced without AI assistance by the same human? We conducted a preregistered experiment with representative sampling (N = 1802) repeated in four countries (United States, United Kingdom, China, and Singapore). We investigated laypeople's attributions of credit and blame to human users for producing beneficial or harmful outputs with a standard large language model (LLM), a personalized LLM, or no AI assistance (control condition). Participants generally attributed more credit to human users of personalized versus standard LLMs for beneficial outputs, whereas LLM type did not significantly affect blame attributions for harmful outputs, with a partial exception among Chinese participants. In addition, UK participants attributed more blame for using any type of LLM versus no LLM. Practical, ethical, and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

In mammals, fertilization is followed by extensive reprogramming and reorganization of the chromatin accompanying the transcriptional activation of the embryo. This reprogramming results in blastomeres with the ability to give rise to all cell types and a complete organism, including extra-embryonic tissues, and is known as totipotency. Transcriptional activation occurs in a process known as zygotic genome activation (ZGA) and is tightly linked to the expression of transposable elements, including endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) such as endogenous retrovirus with leucine tRNA primer (ERVL). Recent studies discovered the importance of ERVs in this process, yet the race to decipher the network surrounding these elements is still ongoing, and the molecular mechanism behind their involvement remains a mystery. Amid a recent surge of studies reporting the discovery of various factors and pathways involved in the regulation of ERVs, this review provides an overview of the knowns and unknowns in the field, with a particular emphasis on the chromatin landscape and how ERVs shape preimplantation development in mammals. In so doing, we highlight recent discoveries that have advanced our understanding of how these elements are involved in transforming the quiescent zygote into the most powerful cell type in mammals.

The combination of social and environmental stressors significantly influences psychological and physical health in males and females, and contributes to both depression and cardiovascular diseases. Animal models support these findings. Voluntary exercise may protect against some forms of stress; however, the protective effects of exercise against social stressors require further investigation. This study evaluated the influence of exercise on the impact of combined social and environmental stressors in socially monogamous prairie voles. Following a period of social isolation plus additional chronic environmental stress, prairie voles were either allowed access to a running wheel in a larger cage for 2 weeks or remained in sedentary conditions. A behavioral stress task was conducted prior to and following exercise or sedentary conditions. Heart rate (HR) and HR variability were evaluated after exercise or sedentary conditions. Group-based analyses indicated that exercise prevented elevated resting HR and promoted autonomic control of the heart. Exercise was also effective against social and environmental stress-induced forced swim test immobility. Some minor sex differences in behavior were observed in response to exercise intensity. This research informs our understanding of the protective influence of physical exercise against social and environmental stressors in male and female humans.