Category: Featured Database

Author: Killinger, B. A., Madaj, Z., Sikora, J. W., Rey, N., Haas, A. J., Vepa, Y., Lindqvist, D., Chen, H., Thomas, P. M., Brundin, P., Brundin, L., & Labrie, V. Description: The pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) involves the accumulation of aggregated a-synuclein, which has been suggested to begin in the gastrointestinal tract. Here, we determined the capacity of the appendix to modify PD risk and influence pathogenesis. In two independent epidemiological datasets, involving more than 1.6 million individuals and over 91 million person-years, we observed that removal of the…

Author: Rothschild, Z. K., Landau, M. J., Sullivan, D., & Keefer, L. A. Description: The authors present a model that specifies 2 psychological motives underlying scapegoating, defined as attributing inordinate blame for a negative outcome to a target individual or group, (a) maintaining perceived personal moral value by minimizing feelings of guilt over one’s responsibility for a negative outcome and (b) maintaining perceived personal control by obtaining a clear explanation for a negative outcome that otherwise seems inexplicable. Three studies supported hypotheses derived from this dual-motive model. Framing a negative…

Author: Miller, W. R., & Moyers, T. B. Description: AIMS: Increased expectations for the use of evidence-based methods in addiction treatment have fueled a debate regarding the relative importance of ‘specific’ versus ‘common’ factors in treatment outcome. This review explores the influence of these factors on addiction treatment outcome. METHODS: The authors review and link findings from four decades of research on specific and general factors in addiction treatment outcome research. FINDINGS: Although few would argue that what one does in addiction treatment is immaterial, outcome studies tend to find…

Author: Springmann, M., Clark, M., Mason-D’Croz, D., Wiebe, K., Bodirsky, B. L., Lassaletta, L., de Vries, W., Vermeulen, S. J., Herrero, M., Carlson, K. M., Jonell, M., Troell, M., DeClerck, F., Gordon, L. J., Zurayk, R., Scarborough, P., Rayner, M., Loken, B., Fanzo, J., Godfray, H. C. J., Tilman, D., Rockström, J., & Willett, W. Description: The food system is a major driver of climate change, changes in land use, depletion of freshwater resources, and pollution of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through excessive nitrogen and phosphorus inputs. Here we show…

Author: Diffenbaugh, N. S., Singh, D., Mankin, J. S., Horton, D. E., Swain, D. L., Touma, D., Charland, A., Liu, Y., Haugen, M., Tsiang, M., & Rajaratnam, B. Description: Efforts to understand the influence of historical global warming on individual extreme climate events have increased over the past decade. However, despite substantial progress, events that are unprecedented in the local observational record remain a persistent challenge. Leveraging observations and a large climate model ensemble, we quantify uncertainty in the influence of global warming on the severity and probability of the…

Author: Kumar, A., & Epley, N. Description: Expressing gratitude improves well-being for both expressers and recipients, but we suggest that an egocentric bias may lead expressers to systematically undervalue its positive impact on recipients in a way that could keep people from expressing gratitude more often in everyday life. Participants in three experiments wrote gratitude letters and then predicted how surprised, happy, and awkward recipients would feel. Recipients then reported how receiving an expression of gratitude actually made them feel. Expressers significantly underestimated how surprised recipients would be about why…

Author: Samuelson, A. E., Gill, R. J., Brown, M. J. F., & Leadbeater, E. Description: Urbanization represents a rapidly growing driver of land-use change. While it is clear that urbanization impacts species abundance and diversity, direct effects of urban land use on animal reproductive success are rarely documented. Here, we show that urban land use is linked to long-term colony reproductive output in a key pollinator. We reared colonies from wild-caught bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens, placed them at sites characterized by varying degrees of urbanization from inner city to rural…

Author: Miglianico, M., Eldering, M., Slater, H., Ferguson, N., Ambrose, P., Lees, R. S., Koolen, K. M. J., Pruzinova, K., Jancarova, M., Volf, P., Koenraadt, C. J. M., Duerr, H.-P., Trevitt, G., Yang, B., Chatterjee, A. K., Wisler, J., Sturm, A., Bousema, T., Sauerwein, R. W., Schultz, P. G., Tremblay, M. S., & Dechering, K. J. Description: Isoxazolines are oral insecticidal drugs currently licensed for ectoparasite control in companion animals. Here we propose their use in humans for the reduction of vector-borne disease incidence. Fluralaner and afoxolaner rapidly killed Anopheles,…

Author: Savage, J. E., Jansen, P. R., Stringer, S., Watanabe, K., Bryois, J., de Leeuw, C. A., Nagel, M., Awasthi, S., Barr, P. B., Coleman, J. R. I., Grasby, K. L., Hammerschlag, A. R., Kaminski, J. A., Karlsson, R., Krapohl, E., Lam, M., Nygaard, M., Reynolds, C. A., Trampush, J. W., Young, H., Zabaneh, D., Hägg, S., Hansell, N. K., Karlsson, I. K., Linnarsson, S., Montgomery, G. W., Muñoz-Manchado, A. B., Quinlan, E. B., Schumann, G., Skene, N. G., Webb, B. T., White, T., Arking, D. E., Avramopoulos, D., Bilder,…

Author: Centola, D., Becker, J., Brackbill, D., & Baronchelli, A. Description: Theoretical models of critical mass have shown how minority groups can initiate social change dynamics in the emergence of new social conventions. Here, we study an artificial system of social conventions in which human subjects interact to establish a new coordination equilibrium. The findings provide direct empirical demonstration of the existence of a tipping point in the dynamics of changing social conventions. When minority groups reached the critical mass-that is, the critical group size for initiating social change-they were…