Category Archives: Evolution

How pale I look! I should like, I think, to die of consumption because then the women would all say, see that poor Byron how interesting he looks in dying!

Behold the lyrical words of the 19th-century romantic poet Lord Byron, who made this remark while gazing at his reflection. Consumption, as tuberculosis was known then, was treated as a beautiful disease. The paleness, reddish cheeks, slenderness, fragility all signs of physical deterioration and pain were desired, even proclaimed sexually attractive. As Charlotte Bront declared in 1849, Consumption, I am aware, is a flattering malady.

But as the century progressed, the disease, once so clouded in romantic imagery and mystery, was revealed to be much more prosaic, researcher Imogene Clarke wrote. Romantic portrayals and perceptions of consumption were gradually replaced with scientific facts, and the once-mysterious disease was transformed into a public health problem.

Throughout history, pandemics and disease have shaped our romantic preferences. The people we find attractive, qualities that appear favorable, all fall on a dynamic graph of biological and psychological evolution.

In 1985, the two plagues of cholera and love coexisted in Mrquezs city without a name. Now, love in the time of corona is the phrase preserving flesh memories of romance, situationships and the evolving dynamics of who we find attractive during a global pandemic.

***

Some decades ago; masks were seen as a contamination cue, making others think they need to stay away. However, mounting research shows evidence of a change in perception.

Recently, researchers at the U.K.s Cardiff University found how two years of mask-wearing have altered our idea of attraction. The study found that people wearing blue surgical masks were deemed most attractive. This may be because were used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now we associate these with people in caring or medical professions, Michael Lewis, one of the co-authors of the study, told The Guardian. At a time when we feel vulnerable, we may find the wearing of medical masks reassuring and so feel more positive towards the wearer.

The mask wearers covered face becomes shorthand for many things: the person adheres to norms, appears safe, and respects public and social health codes.

Related on The Swaddle:

New Study Shows Mask Wearing Has Changed What We Find Attractive

Disease and evidence of disease can play a big role in mate selection previously any cues to disease would be a big turn-off. Now we can observe a shift in our psychology such that face masks are no longer acting as a contamination cue, Lewis added.

These shifts can be explained by something evolutionary psychologist Mark Schaller called the behavioral immune system, a subconscious messaging that regulates the human response in the presence of an infectious disease. Think of it as a checklist we subconsciously keep to protect ourselves from the threat of pathogens. This other immune system mobilizes cognitive and emotional responses such as fear, anxiety, and disgust to avoid pathogens, explained Schaller.

The purpose of the behavioral immune system is to adapt individual instincts to reduce the likelihood of getting infected. Take, for instance, peoples fear of crowded places or hesitation to touch others today. As a professor of psychology, Manos Tsakiris argued, disgust is an aversion to contact, driven by a fear of contamination. Our hands and mouths are the gatekeepers, the charged body parts whose activities can keep us safe or imperil us.

In the case of tuberculosis, when people found out more facts about the disease, their behavioral immune system recalibrated to think of what were earlier fragile markers of beauty as infectious and threatening. Soon after, as author Carolyn A. Day noted in her book, corsets distanced themselves from signs of thinness tubercular chic to a more curvy form. Curviness suddenly began to be deemed healthy and more attractive.

According to one theory, disgust also forms the fulcrum of our sexual psychology; in that, disgust motivates avoidance of sexual partners who may display signs of infection and potentially risk the health and viability of offspring. Consumption, coitus, and contact are all behaviors regulated by disgust and because of the link to disease all associated with one or more historical foodborne, sexually transmitted, or contact-facilitated pandemics, a paper published in PNAS concluded.

***

I have often wondered what happens to love during such anomalies in time. The temporal experience of love, after all, is an essential aspect of social life So then what happens to romances in times of war, calamities, and diseases? wrote author Ipshita Nath last year.

The answer to her question may also lie in understanding the behavioral immune system. A study conducted pre-Covid19 by researchers at McGill University sought to scrutinize how the risk of infectious diseases changed peoples dating behavior.

People who felt most vulnerable to disease showed lower levels of interest in prospective dates, regardless of how desirable they were, the researchers noted. They noted patterns like reduced eye contact and speaking less. In one instance, the participant remembers wanting to flee the date.

Related on The Swaddle:

The Pandemic Has Changed Intimacy For Good

In another sample survey, young American couples attested to expressing more fear, anger, and sadness during their dating interactions in comparison to pre-2019 levels. In other cases, people with more concerns about Covid19 and infection were found to be more picky and concerned with commitment and future. Researchers also noted an increase in the importance of stability, family commitment, and physical/social attractiveness, as well as fear of being single.

Interestingly, when participants (who were mostly heterosexual) in this study were more acutely aware and anxious about an infectious disease, they were more likely to give weightage to symmetrical faces. Various studies from the last decade have noted that people with symmetrical faces are believed to be healthier themselves. Not only that, but they are also more likely to have children with a stronger immune system. This is evidenced by how people in the African tribe of the Hadza who face a higher risk of infection due to being closer to the equator displayed a stronger preference for facial symmetry than participants in the UK.

***

But this tale of disease and desire also carries hints of prejudice. The unconscious fear of infection shapes many aspects of our psychology (for better or for worse) our perception of love and attraction is just one of them. Beyond disgust for primary contaminants such as blood or rotten food, were also capable of a wider sense of disgust, shaped by social forces, that extends to groups, objects or situations that bear no reliable connection with a real risk of infection, argued Tsakiris. Indias sordid history of untouchability, of designating more than 160 million people as less than human beings, is only one manifestation of the unholy marriage of psychological bias and political structures.

Theories about mate selection, or germ spreading, stigmatize those who are structurally poor and marginalized when placed within the cultural gender roles and social structures. Schaller expressed concern that once it [the bias] is active, it can spill over into new domains beyond the one its meant to be protecting us against.

This relationship between love and disease is as microbial as it is social. Its brilliance lies in how swiftly the fear of contagion catches on to us and primes us for self-preservation. We alter our beliefs, our romantic choices, our desires all in service of survival. But it also hides the terrible rot of prejudice within, feeding hate and bigotry.

The duality is a malady of its own, just not a flattering one.

Read the original:

How Historical Pandemics and Disease Shaped the Evolution of Our Romantic Choices - The Swaddle

Extreme climate change is driving evolution in animals so fast that it is creating distinct changes that can be measured in a matter of weeks, according to a leading biologist.

From Caribbean lizards growing larger toe pads to grip trees more tightly as hurricanes become more frequent, to shrinking squid, to larger damselfly wings in Britain the way nature is adapting is confounding Darwins beliefs about the speed of evolution, says Thor Hanson.

A former park ranger in Alaska, he argues that global warming may have had an even bigger impact on nature than it has on the weather even though the changes may not be as visible to the person on the street.

He also points to the movement of wildlife across the globe in response to a warming planet and expects hammerhead sharks to become a regular feature of the UK coastline.

The American academic and author reveals these changes in a new book, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid How the Natural World is Adapting to Climate Change, published this week.

Animals are not just moving on from their traditional habitats, says Hanson, they are changing their behaviour, for example by adopting new diets.

And, most dramatically, some have even evolved physically to adapt to the new world order which is governed, as always, by the survival of the fittest.

I wasnt surprised to find that climate change is driving evolution but I was surprised you would be able to measure it in such a short period of time and measure it definitively, says Hanson, who lives on the island of San Juan between the US and Canada and has worked with bears in Alaska and gorillas in Uganda.

Charles Darwin was a strong believer of evolution as this slow and incremental process of change. But what were realising is steps in that process can be rapid you can measure distinct evolutionary change in just six weeks, as happened with the Caribbean lizard.

Scientists stumbled on the speedy evolutionary response of lizards while surveying the little anole lizard that lives in the Turks and Caicos islands in the Caribbean, Thor Hanson recounts.

When two categor- four hurricanes hit, they realised it was a rare opportunity to examine the impact the extreme weather had on the lizards.

Subsequent measurements revealed that surviving lizards had grown measurably larger toe pads and stronger front legs for gripping tight to the branches and tree trunks they were holding onto during the high winds.

This trait was being passed down to the next generation to the point where front limb toe pads grew by 9.2 per cent.

The lizards also evolved front legs that are 1.8 per cent longer, and stronger, which helps further with gripping back legs that are 6 per cent shorter, apparently to help reduce drag in the highest winds, says Hanson.

Scientists have discovered the same evolution taking place in response to hurricanes in anole lizards across the Caribbean.

Meanwhile Humboldt squid, referred to in the title of his new book, have shrunk in half, shortened their lifespan and reproduce much earlier to get around the difficulties posed by heat stress in the warming ocean as smaller animals lose heat faster because they have a larger surface-area-to-volume ratio.

Climate change doesnt speed up the process of evolution, per se. But it does create conditions where rapid evolution is more more likely, he says.

Extreme weather events, timing changes, and other climate-driven stressors set the stage for natural selection to act upon variable traits like lizard toe pads. Simply put, when environmental conditions change, species respond, and part of that response will be evolutionary.

Plants are also adapting to climate change, according to Hanson. Bloom time, budburst and other spring events are rapidly advancing as temperatures warm, he says. Wild daffodils in the UK now bloom 40 days earlier than they did in the 1950s, a trend echoed to varying degrees by everything from lilacs to snowdrops to laburnum.

Timing mismatches are becoming common in spring. Many trees are leafing out earlier, for example, casting shade over woodland wildflowers like bluebells that used to enjoy weeks of full sun.

Separately, a study by Cambridge University this week found that plants in the UK are flowering a month earlier on average than they did before the industrial revolution.

The researchers analysed more than 400,000 records of 406 plant species going back to the 18th century.

And they observed that the average first-flowering date from 1987 to 2019 a period that coincides with global warming caused by human activity was a month earlier than the average first-flowering date from 1753 to 1986.

Lead author Professor Ulf Bntgen, from Cambridges department of geography, said: The results are truly alarming, because of the ecological risks associated with earlier flowering times.

When plants flower too early, a late frost can kill them a phenomenon that most gardeners will have experienced at some point. But the even bigger risk is ecological mismatch.

Plants, insects, birds and other wildlife have co-evolved to a point that theyre synchronised in their development stages. A certain plant flowers, it attracts a particular type of insect, which attracts a particular type of bird, and so on.

But if one component responds faster than the others, theres a risk that theyll be out of synch, which can lead species to collapse if they cant adapt quickly enough.

Hansons book looks at how fast some responses to climate change have been. Seeing how widespread the responses are in nature shows us how fast this is actually happening and how extreme it already is, he says.

The response of plants and animals is so great that it is comparable, or possibly even exceeds, changes in the weather.

Evolution is ongoing its happening all the time and all around us, usually in a slow way we cant measure or perceive. But if youre in the right place at the right time, you can see measurable steps play out.

Climate change is also driving significant changes in plant and animal behaviour in the UK, on land, in rivers and the sea. Plants and animals across the country are shifting their ranges as temperatures warm, seeking out the climate conditions theyre used to says Hanson.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of species are affected, from familiar backyard creatures like robins and great tits to lesser known things like ocean plankton, some of which have shifted over 1,100 kilometres north in less than 50 years.

Dragonflies are expanding northward by an average of 50km every decade, while everything from spiders to birds to ground beetles have been clocked shifting at more than 30km per decade.

Climate-driven range shifts are also bringing new arrivals from points south. Hanson points to little egrets that first established breeding colonies in 1996 and are now widespread. Cattle egrets, quail, hobbies, bitterns, and purple herons have also become breeding residents.

Tree bumblebees and ivy bees were first sighted in England and Wales in the early 2000s, he says. Over 30 new moth species have fluttered in since 2000, as well as new damselflies, spiders, and flies.

He expects a wide range of climate immigrants to arrive in the UK in coming years, from black kites and zitting cisticolas (a grassland bird) to hammerhead sharks.

Meanwhile changes are taking place among existing UK residents. Damselflies and bush crickets in Britain, for example, now display larger wings at the northern, expanding edges of their ranges, an evolutionary adaptation, says Hanson.

And the brown argus butterfly has changed its diet, leaving rockrose behind and now laying its eggs on the wild geraniums common in the habitats where its range is expanding.

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid How the Natural World is Adapting to Climate Change, by Thor Hanson, is published by Icon Books at 20

Continued here:

Climate change driving evolution so fast that animals are changing in weeks - iNews

What started as a test theater for new films has slowly transformed the arts community in State College The State Theatre, a hub for all things performing arts, has grown alongside Happy Valley.

Warner Brothers originally built the theater in 1938, and it opened on Oct. 15 of that same year. Its purpose was to test new films to see how audiences reacted.

I love it. I think its absolutely awesome, former Director of Operations Kerry Cavanaugh said. I think it is extremely cool that I spend so much time working in an official historic theater.

The building itself was built in just four months, according to The State Theatres website. Test theaters were far and few in between, with only a couple in the state.

Every week, patrons could pick from four different films. Typical prices for feature films were about 30 cents for adults and 15 cents for children, the website said.

Theres nothing like seeing a movie on a big screen in the dark. Its one of my favorite things. Theres no comparison, Greg Gabbard, the theaters current program director, said. The theater is where you want to feel everything. You just let go and watch.

After World War II, someone local bought the building, according to Jay Bartlett, president of The State Theatres board of directors.

The theater was a hotspot in town at first, but then it aged as time went on. In 2001, it was forced to close its doors.

However, in 1999, Mike Negra, a local entertainment business owner, had a vision for what the old theater could become and how it could bring the community even closer. Three others within the borough agreed: Mike Desmond, Roy Love and Teresa Sparacino.

Negra said he originally envisioned the building to seat 560 people in its auditorium. It would be at that very spot where viewers could help support and witness the talent of their town.

The State Theatre is a staple of the downtown State College , Pa. business front. Nestled between several local and chain restaurants on Monday, July 28, 2021, the theatre recently reopened after a long stint of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The thought was to rebuild the cinema as a nonprofit art space that would showcase music, film, drama and dance for both local and national artists.

It was intended to be home for the Pennsylvania Dance Theatre, the Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra, The Next Stage, Inc. and other local organizations.

Its vision was to be a multipurpose performing arts theater one that belonged to the community.

The project, later labeled The State Theatre restoration project, received funding through various grants, donations and federal funding.

The owners of the building, the Friedman family, helped to bring that vision to life by handing over the deed to State Theatre Inc. It was the corporation that wanted to save the local landmark and transform it into a community staple.

The community itself helped to raise as much money as possible, putting on donation events like buying commemorative bricks, which would help to clear the way for reopening.

In 2006, the only professional nonprofit community stage for the performing arts opened its doors.

Immediately, the residents saw an improvement with several of the theaters new upgrades. The stage expanded to 29 feet, and a 31-foot-wide cinema screen was added so even people in the back could get a clear view.

Now, The State Theatre is how Mike Negra envisioned it. Its home to both local and national performers of the arts.

Cavanaugh, who had worked at The State Theatre for seven years, said there are more performing arts services that the theater provides as it continues to grow.

The organization does State Theatre-produced events, Cavanaugh said. We find the talent, we book the event, we sell the tickets. We produce the show from top to bottom. We also provide rental space for local performance groups.

What that means is that local groups can rent us to perform on our stage. These are things like local dance companies, puppeteers, and local musicians. There was a huge gamut of what our local community has to offer.

Bartlett said he understands how significant and unique the theater is to the area not just when it was first built but even today.

The State Theatre advertises the showtime for The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021 in State College, Pa.

There are a lot of small towns with big universities in the middle of nowhere, but this is a rarity, Bartlett said. Very few of those towns have a facility like this, both a venue for bringing culture that you might not usually find to the residents and students and also providing a stage to artistically gifted people in the community.

However, its not the purpose of the building and its staff to serve students, despite wanting to grow the audience. The State Theatres allegiance is to the performing arts community within the greater State College area, Bartlett said.

On campus, there are many areas where students can both participate in and watch concerts, recitals and showcases performed by various groups.

With places like Schwab Auditorium, students and faculty have first dibs on lectures and performances, while the community is shut out, Bartlett said. Here, its the other way around.

Despite having organized many programs and productions over the years, the theater and its staff still believe they need to do more. They said they want to reach out to a wider audience, hoping to show everyone the importance of the arts.

Our audience is not as diverse as wed like, Bartlett said. Once weve reached out to everyone who could come here, then I would say we would be doing our job completely.

Gabbard, who previously ran his own business City Lights Records, now devotes his time to the arts.

Music has always been my thing, and [The State Theatre] is all about music and the arts, Gabbard said.

Gabbard said he has witnessed several amazing acts, concerts and performances over the years working at The State Theatre.

Weve had speakers, weve had authors, its a home for all of those arts, Gabbard said. That is the greatest thing about the theater.

Even though the theater is now more well-rounded, Gabbard said movies are still more popular than some performances.

Despite all of the changes within the community, Gabbard said The State Theatre has remained steadfast within downtown State College because theres nothing like it.

The residents may change. People come in and go out. But this should always be here for everyone who comes to live here, Gabbard said. We should never be without a place like this.

MORE LIFESTYLE CONTENT

To make the transition to Penn State more welcoming for Latino students, Penn State alumnus

If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here.

More here:

Evolution of The State Theatre | Employees reflect on the history, growth of community arts center - The Daily Collegian Online

Steve-O dropped out of college in 1993. He told everyone his plan was to become a famous stuntman with his home video camera. He remembers people feeling genuinely sorry for him. To be fair, he wasn't even sure it would work or that he'd be successful, in the least, he just wanted to amass enough crazy footage so he'd have a legacy to outlive him when he, "Inevitably died young, having failed at life," he said.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Steve-O, born Stephen Glover, has spent his life treating every act as if it's his last. His on-screen bits were shocking and his off-screen antics infamous, culminating in an intervention by Johnny Knoxville and his Jackass family in 2008 and stays in rehab.

So it's as much a surprise to him as anyone that almost 30 years after making that wild proclamation, not only is he alive and "still getting away with it," but he is actually thriving and moving up in the world.

At 47, Steve-O the man who walked on a tightrope over an alligator pit with raw meat in his underwear, snorted lines of wasabi and fish-hooked his own cheek on camera - is nearly 14 years sober with a successful stand-up comedy career, a podcast, a dog, a fianc, a book of wisdom on the way, "A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions," and another " Jackass " movie in theaters.

"I'm beside myself with gratitude," he said in a Zoom call from his tour bus. It's actually an RV, he wants to clarify, but it's a "fun Class A RV" wrapped with "obnoxious" Steve-O art that's causing a bit of a stir with passersby trying to take photos.

But he likes it. He is, he knows, a bit of an "attention whore."

"I say that in a bit of a self-deprecating way, but it's true," he said. "At my core, I'm an exhibitionist and the idea of entertaining people, of communicating authentically is really what I'm all about."

For the past decade, Steve-O has been grinding through comedy clubs, building his act in which he reveals all about his wild life. The pandemic provided a break from the grueling touring lifestyle, and he was able to focus on building his podcast and merchandising. When he started back up again, he'd crossed an important threshold for any comic: He'd graduated from clubs to theaters. His first sold-out theater gig was at the Paramount in Austin, Texas, which seats 1,200.

"I was on the verge of tears," he said. "I was so emotional about it."

But it was "Jackass," of course, that made Steve-O a name. The raucous MTV show started in 2000 and birthed a franchise of spinoffs and movies in which the cast blended comedy with dangerous, sometimes outrageous, stunts. And in even in this mad bunch, Steve-O managed to stand out as one of the craziest.

He was certain that the third film, "Jackass 3D," released in 2010 and filmed when he was newly sober, was their last. In fact, he's been certain that every film has been their last Knoxville has always made a point of saying so in interviews. So he wasn't expecting "the captain," as he calls Knoxville, to propose a fourth. It had been 10 years and they were all now in their late 40s and early 50s. He worried a bit that it might be "creepy" for an audience to see them getting hurt like they used to.

But Knoxville felt strongly that the older they got, the funnier it got.

"The whole formula is that we all get together and try to make each other laugh. Once we got together, the chemistry was evidently there. It was like we had never stopped filming," he said. "We were as crazy as ever. What we learned is that we get knocked out more easily and our bones break a lot easier too."

Knoxville has said that this is the last movie he's going to risk his life for (a stunt with a bull left him with brain hemorrhage, a concussion, a broken wrist and a broken rib). But, Steve-O noted, this is actually the first time he hasn't said that the franchise is done.

"He very much left the door open to there being another Jackass movie. Who knows, maybe that was the plan all along by enlisting these younger, fresher faces as new cast members," he laughed. "For all I know, this is just an exercise in us recruiting our replacements."

Back when the first season of Jackass finished, Steve-O and the guys were at the wrap party at a bar and decided they didn't want it to end at last call. They made up a game called "I'm not leaving" and the idea was that no one was allowed to walk out on their own two feet. No punches were allowed, but they were going to do everything they could to resist make themselves dead weight, hang on to furniture, each other. It became a tradition and a kind of symbol for their whole improbable run.

"Every act in my career has been my last," Steve-O said. "If not officially, I think I've approached it as such."

Soon he'll announce another leg on his "Bucket List" tour, in which he'll be on the bus traveling from Miami to Los Angeles, doing gigs along the way. And though he thought he'd mined every last thing for this show, he recently got an idea for another.

"It'll be the Steve-O's Gone Too Far Tour," he said with a smile. "And I cannot imagine any possible way to follow that up. So that's going to be my last."

-

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr: http://www.twitter.com/ldbahr

Read the original here:

The evolution of Steve-O, where every act is his last - Minneapolis Star Tribune

The importance of adaptive immunity has been highlighted by the protection afforded by vaccination in the face of the current coronavirus pandemic. Much has been learned about the origins and subsequent evolution of the antigen-specific receptors used by this crucial arm of the immune response. Among recent discoveries are the early appearance of three lymphocyte lineages in vertebrates with antigen-specific receptors based on leucine-rich repeats in jawless fish but on immunoglobulin (Ig) domains in jawed vertebrates (1), and the proto-RAG transposon which created split genes that could recombine to generate diversity in the three antigen-specific receptors of jawed vertebrates (2). In contrast, there has been little agreement on the origin and subsequent evolution of cell surface molecules encoded by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), which play central roles in adaptive immunity as the targets of T cell recognition. By discovering the W genes as a proposed intermediate in the evolution of MHC class I and class II genes, the paper by Okamura etal. (3) in PNAS provides a welcome advance.

To appreciate this story, one must understand some aspects of the MHC molecules and the cells that recognize them (4). With well over 10,000 alleles among humans, the classical MHC molecules form the most polymorphic system currently known. Having been discovered as transplantation antigens, their true function is resistance to infectious pathogens and cancers. The high polymorphism is primarily due to a molecular arms race with pathogens, highlighting their importance in resistance to infectious disease. In addition, nonclassical class I molecules have evolved to carry out a wide variety of specialized functions. For example, natural killer (NK) cells of the innate immune system recognize certain classical and nonclassical class I molecules for both immune and nonimmune functions, the latter including placental blood supply for pregnancy (4, 5).

Classical MHC molecules bind peptides within cells for presentation to T cells with T cell receptors (TCRs) composed of - and -chains (4, 6). The T cells bearing the coreceptor CD8 recognize classical class I molecules bound to peptides originating primarily in the cytoplasm and nucleus where viruses (and a few intracellular bacteria) replicate. CD8 T cells are cytotoxic T lymphocytes which kill infected cells, preventing the release of new viruses. In contrast, the peptides presented by class II molecules originate largely from intracellular vesicles in contact with the extracellular space where most pathogens can be found, so responses by CD4 T cells are more varied and nuanced, including crucial roles in regulation of most immune responses.

Class I and class II molecules are built of similar protein domains but differ in the organization of these domains (Fig. 1), reflected in the intronexon structure of their genes (711). Class II molecules are heterodimers of - and -glycoproteins (encoded by A and B genes), each with a membrane-distal domain and membrane-proximal Ig-constant (Ig-C) domain, a transmembrane (TM) region, and a short cytoplasmic tail. In contrast, class I molecules are composed of one small Ig-C protein, 2-microglobulin (2m), in noncovalent association with a large (or heavy) glycoprotein chain with two membrane-distal domains followed by a membrane-proximal Ig-C domain, a TM region, and a cytoplasmic tail (4, 79). For both class I and class II molecules, the two membrane-distal domains together form a pair of broken -helices atop a platform of -strands (sometimes called an open-face sandwich or MHC fold) (8, 9). The groove between the -helices and the -sheet is where most of the polymorphic positions are found, in which each classical MHC allele binds a different set of peptides (4). The TCRs of T cells and the killer-Ig receptors of human NK cells recognize the peptide and -helices of the MHC molecules (4, 8, 9).

Proposed evolutionary scenario from the ancestral molecule to class II and W molecules, with subsequent evolution from W molecules to class I molecules. The ancestral, class II, and W molecules all have two chains of roughly equal size (-chain in blue, -chain in green, membrane in yellow), while the class I molecule has rearranged the domains (2m in blue, heavy chain in blue and then green). The ancestral molecule has nearly invariant tryptophans between the -sheets of both membrane-proximal Ig-C domains (W in gray), which are maintained in the class II molecule but are replaced by other hydrophobic residues in the W 2 domain and 2m. Among the other changes are tryptophans involved in interdomain interaction (W in black): one in the 2 domain of class II molecules and ones in the W 2 domain and 2m.

Although originally envisaged as symmetrical molecules (10), in fact, the Ig-C domain of the class II -chain and the equivalent 2m are wedged under the -sheet of the membrane-distal domains (8, 9), perhaps to allow the grooves to breathe as they test many peptides for those with appropriate binding. A detailed analysis by coauthor Dijkstra and coworkers (12, 13) identified key attributes of class I and class II molecules, including interdomain contacts, hydrophobic core residues, and sequence indels. Among many examples are three involving tryptophan (single letter code W): one in 2m to interact with the membrane-distal 1 and 2 domains of the class I heavy chain, the replacement of one in 2m that is otherwise nearly invariant among Ig domains, and one in the membrane-proximal 2 domain of class II molecules to interact with the membrane-distal 1 domain (Fig. 1).

The first sequences of class I and class II molecules revealed their descent from a common ancestor. Once the genes were characterized, a simple evolutionary scenario was evident (10, 11). Since most class II molecules are encoded by AB gene pairs in opposite transcriptional orientation, an inversion would lead to a class I -chain gene and a gene encoding an Ig-C domain with a TM region and a cytoplasmic tail, which could give rise to 2m by a single mutation. This scenario is supported by the location of the 2m gene in the MHC of sharks (14), being cartilaginous fish which are the most primitive living jawed vertebrates, although the 2m genes in other jawed vertebrates are located outside of the MHC. An alternative proposal was that class I molecules are ancestral, with the exons encoding peptide-binding domains of a chaperone gene being transferred in front of an exon encoding an Ig-C domain to form the class I -chain. This tempting scenario was based on proposed sequence similarities between class I molecules and chaperones (15, 16), which became implausible once the completely different structures of the two were determined (11).

The easiest way to determine the evolutionary scenario would be to look at these genes through phylogeny, but there is a gap in the vertebrates between the jawless fish and the jawed vertebrates, where there is a fossil record but no animals surviving to the present day (17). Unfortunately, the important events leading to the emergence of the adaptive immune system of both jawless fish and the jawed vertebrates happened in this gap (11). Without the appropriate living animals, inference based on existing genes and molecules has been the only tool available.

Since discovering the first traces of the W genes some 30 y ago (18), Hashimoto and coworkers (3) have characterized these genes in jawed vertebrates from sharks to salamanders, amassing an enormous amount of data. They show that the WA and WB genes are found in pairs and are expressed as heterodimers, each chain of which has two extracellular domains followed by a TM region and a cytoplasmic tail, just like class II molecules (Fig. 1). In addition, some amino acid positions are in common with class II molecules, including the distinctive pattern of glycines that allows the two TM regions to pack together. However, many key residues are like class I molecules (Fig. 1), including those involved in the interfaces of the extracellular domains such as the tryptophan for which the new group is named, and in the intradomain packing such as the replacement of the nearly invariant tryptophan in common with 2m. This loss of tryptophan in 2m and the W 2 domain shows that they are both derived from a class IIlike ancestor. In addition, phylogenetic analysis groups the W 2 domain with 2m, and groups the W 2 domain with the class I 3 domain, showing that the special aspects of class I domain interaction were present in a class IIlike heterodimer before the emergence of the class I domain organization.

Every new discovery leads to more questions. What do these current W molecules do? Thus far (3), there is no evidence in existing W molecules for the key residues that coordinate peptide binding in either classical class I or class II MHC molecules, or evidence for high levels of polymorphism. However, there is sequence variation between W genes within species, suggesting various W molecules with different functions. The fact that nonclassical MHC molecules include many class I but few class II molecules may be due to structural reasons (11). The W molecules might provide a test of whether the particular mode of domain interaction contributes to the greater evolvability of class I compared to class II molecules.

Another important question is what the original W molecules did. A radical thought would be to link the function of the original W genes with another enigma, the original function of T cells with TCRs composed of - and -chains. In mammals, T cells are found largely (but not exclusively) in mucosal tissues, recognizing a wide variety of ligands, including certain nonclassical class I molecules, class II molecules, and butyrophilins (4, 19, 20). Is it possible that T cells acquired an enhanced taste for these various ligands once their original ligands, the W molecules, were accidentally lost in most tetrapod lineages? The tissue distribution of W gene expression might be a first step to examine this conjecture.

And, of course, the origins of the MHC fold and the odd configuration of the two Ig-C domains of MHC molecules remain to be understood. The discovery and characterization of W genes by Okamura etal. (3) provides a stepping stone to answer these questions and many others in the exciting years to come.

Author contributions: J.K. wrote the paper.

The author declares no competing interest.

See companion article, Discovery of an ancient MHC category with both class I and class II features, 10.1073/pnas.2108104118.

View post:

The new W family reconstructs the evolution of MHC genes - pnas.org

The Portland Trail Blazers executed a pretty underwhelming trade yesterday, sending out Norman Powell and Robert Covington for modest returns from the Los Angeles ClippersEric Bledsoe, Justise Winslow, and Keon Johnsonplus a second round pick. The deal also created a $6.5 million trade exception.

For many, the instinctive reactions to the package were disbelief and disappointment. Both totally reasonable feelings. The only thing I would say to these people is, there are still five days left before the trade deadline, lets not jump to any premature conclusions and call for anyones head to roll. I honestly cant believe some are calling for an Interim General Manager to be sacked after one deal.

You probably already know Eric Bledsoe. Steve Dewald wrote a nice piece on Keon Johnson yesterday. So lets take look at Winslow. You remember him? That Duke guy taken amid much fanfare by the Miami Heat with the 10th pick in 2015.

The Boston Celtics reportedly offered the Charlotte Hornets four first round picks to move up from pick 16 to snare Winslow. Somehow the Hornets said no and chose Frank Kaminsky with the ninth pick, possibly one of the biggest mistakes in the franchises short history. Miami got their man.

A bigger wing, a decent defender with genuine ball handling skills but without much of a shot, Winslow has shown glimpses of talent and production. His biggest obstacle has been his body. During his six full seasons in the league, the 25-year-old has averaged roughly 44 games a season, battling knee, hamstring, quadriceps, ankle, back and hip issues.

But before the injuries derailed Winslows early career, his numbers werent completely awful his 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons stand out in particular.

While the pre-Jimmy Butler Heat remained a middling Eastern Conference team during this two-year stretch, Winslow began to deliver on his draft hype.

In 2017-18, he became a presence off the Miami bench, contributing 7.8 points on 38 percent three point shooting and 42 percent from the field. He also averaged 24.7 minutes in 68 games to go along with 5.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 0.8 steals. The team finished sixth, losing in the first round to the Philadelphia 76ers in five games.

By 2018-19, Winslow was predominantly a starter, finishing the year averaging 29.7 minutes and 12.6 points on 37 percent three point shooting and 43 percent from the field. He also put up 5.4 boards, 4.3 assists and 1.1 steals in 66 games however the team missed out on the playoffs, finishing 10th in the east.

After five years in South Beach, Winslow was dealt to the Memphis Grizzlies at the 2020 trade deadline before signing with the Clippers as a free agent last summer.

A year later, a hip injury kept him out of the Grizzlies Orlando Bubble campaign. He was then used sparingly in Memphis during the 2020-21 season.

In August, he signed with a Clippers team still waiting for the return of Kawhi Leonard. Unlike his Heat and Grizzlies tenures playing small/point forward, Winslow has spent the past 37 games almost exclusively at power forward or small-ball center at around 12 minutes a night. This could be a reason why his three point shooting has been relatively dismal at 17 percent this season.

Depending on what happens over the next few days, Winslow will almost certainly be given as many minutes as he can handle at the four with Portlands frontcourt rotation currently consisting of Jusuf Nurkic, Larry Nance Jr., Trendon Watford and Greg Brown III.

Financially, the left-hander is no burden on the payroll, owed $3.9 million this year and almost $4.1 million next season.

The Blazers probably wont mind running an experimental frontcourt, though. They still have a lot of work to do to contend with the likes of the Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder who are still streets ahead when it comes to ping pong ball odds.

If Portland has any real chance at claiming Jabari Smith, Chet Holmgren or Paolo Banchero in June, the losses need to pile up. Currently owning the ninth worst record in the league, the Blazers would have a 4.5 percent chance at the number one pick if the draft was held today.

Conclusion

Fans are allowed to feel down about the trade but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. The 2021-22 incarnation of the Blazers is not yet complete, with Interim General Manager Joe Cronin himself telling The Washington Posts Ben Golliver that the trade was setting the team up for more moves.

Cap flexibility. The opportunity to clean our books up a little and just create more opportunities for this coming week and beyond, through the draft and free agency.

Winslow will probably stay in Portland the rest of the season and will see a heck of a lot of court time while hes here. He has a unique skillset that really hasnt been able to shine since his penultimate season in Miami.

Winslow is a big body for the Blazers. He can defend, facilitate and, if the situation is right, score. If anything, an opportunity with a re-tooling team might be the best way for him to rehabilitate his reputation and improve his trade value this summer, a win for both Winslow and the Blazers. Hes also still young with plenty of time to get his body right and his shooting percentages back up.

Here is the original post:

The Evolution of Justise Winslow - Blazer's Edge

PHOENIX The Phoenix Suns need to get better.

That sentence might trip you up, because with a 41-10 record this season, they have proven they are the best team in the NBA right now.

Will they hold that claim going into the postseason? Through the postseason? It all comes down to those sentences. The championship teams improve over the course of the regular season. Fifty-one games in, that has held true for the Suns. They need to keep it going.

From an individual standpoint, theres one guy to look at on the Suns, and its Mikal Bridges.

Bridges is in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year and with Tony Allen as my witness, he better be First Team All-Defense. Hes taken a few steps forward in that part of his game he was already rather great at.

Offensively, however, we did not quite see the breakthrough season some had anticipated. There still is no primary third option in this offense, as Deandre Aytons success in his current role is mostly predicated on getting set up by Chris Paul. And that dude Devin Booker is Devin Booker.

The obvious choice for a third option was always Bridges, but his scoring is actually down from 13.5 points per game last season to 12.9. His shooting percentages are not the reason. His 3-point percentage has dipped a bit from 42.5% to 37.2%, but his field goal percentage is still an excellent 52.0%.

I made a case for a Bridges breakout in the preseason, and despite his skill and efficiency in all three scoring areas of the floor, it has not come to fruition yet.

Yet.

Thursday marked Bridges third straight game scoring 20-plus points, the first time in his three-and-a-half NBA seasons hes ever had a streak like that.

Now, for someone like Bridges who attempts nearly four three-pointers a game, maybe it was some hot shooting.

But it wasnt that, and this is where a week-long sample size gets encouraging.

Bridges had 30 field goals across those three outings and only five of them were 3s. The variety in those is exciting, because of not only how replicated the shots can be, but of the new ways head coach Monty Williams is using Bridges.

Lets start with what weve known.

Bridges is a fixture in the Suns nearly endless variations of sets on the elbow. The one youll recognize easily is when he gets a screen and slips to the rim. This is absolutely on the scouting report by now so I dont know how guys are still not sitting on this, but alas, its working.

Theyll run this in the half-court too, where Bridges can use a dribble handoff with Paul as a decoy.

Theres attacking closeouts, where Bridges was acting like he was shot out of a cannon earlier in the season before that aggression started to fade a bit. A finger injury probably did not help matters.

But the aggression is back now.

Speaking of that extra pep in his step, hes arguably the best cutter in basketball.

He will always get open shots because of the attention Booker and Paul get.

And then theres transition, where Bridges has more room to take advantage of his ridiculous 83% conversion rate at the rim and utilize his elite speed.

Or, if he seeks it out enough, his great 45% mark on midrange shots. Thats a notable number since Bridges percentage of total shots from the midrange is up from 22% a season ago to 35%, per Cleaning the Glass. Thats rare.

Heres whats new or more prominent in the last week.

Bridges has been deployed as a screener more, which is another way for him to get that type of transition space where its easier for him to get off middies or shots at the basket.

I think watching (Torrey) Craig last year, playing that role as the 5, how he was rolling and stuff, Bridges said Sunday of getting in that role more. It looked really good. In high school, I was the biggest one so Im used to rolling it sometimes. In my last year of college, I was posting up a little bit more, so I know how to play down there a little bit.

This can be used when the Suns go small or even when a center is still on the floor.

Hes gotten so much better Hes gotten used to setting screens and making plays out of that, Williams said of Bridges on Sunday. I think for us, its an environment we can live in from time to time when they try to put defenders on him that, at times, arent the best defenders because theyre typically on Chris and Book.

Great point, coach! Speaking of that, to attack it recently, the Suns have had Bridges sealing for deep post position and just shooting over those guards not on Booker or Paul with his great touch. Or just straight-up clearing out for Bridges on the block.

Williams said Thursday that hasnt been a particular focus going into the game and that its probably just a read Paul and Bridges make together, a read Williams wants the guy in his offense to have the freedom to execute.

Lastly, if Bridges is playing with this chutzpah, Williams will run more sets for him. Again, thats even better when a team like Atlanta is trying to get away with having Trae Young on him. Some of these previous clips were examples of that already and here are a few more.

This is getting ahead of myself, but if Bridges is this type of scoring presence, it opens up his playmaking in these new spaces. He has already proven he is a capable passer, so if teams are ready for that quick slip off a screen, the dump-off pass for him is no sweat.

If Bridges can be more of a 15-18 PPG scorer in the back-half of the season after the All-Star break, it could truly push the Suns over the top to a title. They already have a championship-caliber defense, as they showed last year, but what fell off was on the offensive side of the ball.

They went 17 straight quarters in the Western Conference Finals without reaching 30 points.

Booker and Paul were incredible in Game 1 in the first of two NBA Finals victories. Game 2 saw Phoenix hit 20 3s. In three of the four losses to the Milwaukee Bucks, the Suns scored 103 points or less. Booker had to carry just about the whole offense on his back in Games 4 and 5 and nearly did it with back-to-back 40 burgers before everyone was out of gas by Game 6.

If the Suns dont add another ball-handler at the trade deadline, that extra juice offensively will need to come from someone else on the roster. Bridges is the best bet.

Read the original:

Next step in Suns evolution offensively starts with Mikal Bridges - Arizona Sports

Researchers from UConn Heath and Yale University have made new advances connecting the evolution of pregnancy and cancer metastasis.

Publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Yasir Suhail, a postdoctoral researcher working alongside Kshitiz, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, uncovered regulatory sequences in the genomes of mammals including cows, pigs, horses, and humans that explain how endometrium is invaded by the placenta, and how normal tissue is invaded by cancer.

Suhail and Kshitiz were joined in their efforts by Gunter Wagner, professor in evolutionary biology and ecology at Yale University.

In many mammals including humans, the placenta invades the wall of the uterus during pregnancy in the same way that cancer cells invade surrounding tissues.

When you look at a picture of placentation, it looks eerily similar to cancer in any other part of the body, says Kshitiz, Even the molecular mechanisms are quite similar. This is quite a contrast from cows and horses, where the placenta does not invade into the mother. In these mammals, cancer cells also do not invade into their surroundings as they do in humans.

Kshitiz, along with Gunter Wagner and Andre Levchenko at Yale first drew the comparison between cancer metastasizing in cows and humans in a seminal finding in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Looking at cells from the endometrium of various species, Kshitiz found that in order to resist invasion of the placenta, certain species have evolved over time to make their stromal cellsthe connective tissue cells in an organhighly resistant to any invasion.

The latest research is a deeper dive into the comparative genetics between mammals, which shows how changes in genetic regulation informs this resistance in cows and horses and makes humans vulnerable to cancer malignancy. With comparative data generated by Wagner and Jamie Maziarz at Yale, Suhail developed a model to identify how the binding of transcription factorsthe proteins that regulate the expression of genesexplain changes in resistance to invasion across different species of mammals.

Our new framework identifies key transcription factors and examines how their targets differ from cows, pigs, and horses to humans, says Suhail. What we learned from other species has direct applications in advancing our understanding of human cancer.

Suhail used the genomic sequences and gene expression information to predict specific signaling proteins that drive the expression of genes that decrease the susceptibility of invasion in human cells. Using a custom fabricated bio chip, the researchers were able to confirm that these predicted proteins did in fact decrease the invasion of both cancer and placental cells. Evolutionary predictions across species are difficult to test experimentally, so confirmation of the theory experimentally is very satisfying to the researchers.

We all think about human cancers are an outcome of cancer cells themselves. But what weve proposed is that mammals have very different mechanisms to resist cancer spread, and that these mechanisms have actually been derived to resist fetal invasion into the mother, Kshitiz says. To be vulnerable to malignancy may partly be an evolutionary compromise to allow an invasive pregnancy.

While other researchers are targeting cancer and immune cells, Kshitizs lab focuses on how healthy cells limit cancer growth around them. This approach can help us rethink the way we approach cancer therapies.

This study identifies specific genetic regulatory mechanisms which explain these differences, and point us towards many directions to rethink about anti-cancer therapy, from those that kill cancer to creating new therapies which contain cancer within its boundaries.

The paper was authored byYasir Suhail (UConn), Jamie D. Maziarz (Yale University), Ashkan Novin (UConn), Anasuya Dighe (Yale University), Junaid Afzal (University of California, San Francisco), Gunter Wagner (Yale University), and Kshitiz (UConn).

This study was supported by NCI Grant R37CA248161-01 and NCI Center for Systems Biology at Yale Grant U54CA209992.

Read this article:

Researchers Look at the Evolution of Mammals to Uncover Gene Regulation Connecting Pregnancy and Cancer Metastasis - UConn Today - UConn Today

The last 30 years have seen dramatic reductions in global poverty, spurred by strong catch-up growth in developing countries, especially in Asia. By 2015, some 729 million people, 10% of the population, lived under the $1.90 a day poverty line, greatly exceeding the Millennium Development Goal target of halving poverty. From 2012 to 2013, at the peak of global poverty reduction, the global poverty headcount fell by 130 million poor people.

This success story was dominated by China and India. In December 2020, China declared it had eliminated extreme poverty completely. India represents a more recent success story. Strong economic growth drove poverty rates down to 77 million, or 6% of the population, in 2019. India will, however, experience a short-term spike in poverty due to COVID-19, before resuming a strong downward path. By 2030, India is likely to essentially eliminate extreme poverty, with less than 5 million people living below the $1.90 line. By 2030, the only Asian countries that are unlikely to meet the goal of ending extreme poverty are Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, and North Korea.

In other parts of the world, poverty trends are disappointing. In Latin America, poverty fell rapidly at the beginning of this century but has been rising since 2015, with no substantial reductions forecast by the end of this decade. In Africa, poverty has been rising steadily, thanks to rapid population growth and stagnant economic growth. Exacerbated by a pandemic-induced rise in poverty of 11%, African poverty shows little signs of decline through 2030.

These trends point to the emergence of a very different poverty landscape. Whereas in 1990, poverty was concentrated in low-income, Asian countries, todays (and tomorrows) poverty is largely found in sub-Saharan Africa and fragile and conflict-affected states. By 2030, sub-Saharan African countries will account for 9 of the top 10 countries by poverty headcount. Sixty percent of the global poor will live in fragile and conflict-affected states. Many of the top poverty destinations in the next decade will fall into both of these categories: Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique and Somalia. Global efforts to achieve the SDGs by 2030, including eliminating extreme poverty, will be complicated by the concentration of poverty in these fragile and hard-to-reach contexts.

By 2030, poverty will be associated not just with countries, but with specific places within countries. Middle-income countries will be home to almost half of the global poor, a dramatic shift from just 40 years earlier. Nigeria is now the global face of poverty, overtaking India as the top poverty destination in 2019. (While India temporarily regained its title due to COVID-19, which pushed many vulnerable Indians back below the poverty line, Nigeria will reclaim the top spot by 2022.) In 2015, Nigeria was home to 80 million poor people, or 11% of global poverty; by 2030, this number could grow to 18%, or 107 million.

Poverty numbers and trends have traditionally been reported on a country-by-country basis. However, today we see that low-income countries have significant corridors of prosperity, while middle-income countries can have large pockets of poverty. With advances in geospatial and sub-national data, there is a growing push to move from country-wide metrics to sub-national data, in order to better identify and target these poverty hotspots.

Download the full working paper

Read more:

The evolution of global poverty, 1990-2030 - Brookings Institution

After a landmark year in which she released her debut album, played her first big concert and broke streaming records, the rise of Olivia Rodrigo has only just begun.

The promising Disney starlet-turned-international pop star who has been named Billboards Woman of the Year for the 2022 Women in Music Awards has said shes been singing all her life, but began honing her craft at age 5 by taking singing lessons and performing at (and winning) local talent competitions before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the spotlight.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

Ahead of the 2022 Billboard Women in Music Awards on March 2 at the YouTube Theater at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif., see how Rodrigo has grown as a singer over the years, from performing covers of classics to the self-written tunes shes now known for.

A very little, pigtailed Rodrigo rocked the stage at the 2010 NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show in Anaheim, Calif.. She nailed the rock-star attitude during her performance of Journeys Dont Stop Believin.

Highlight: Slowly raising her arm ( la Glee) as she held the high note in the pre-chorus, followed by an adorable little strut during the guitar solo.

One of the singing competitions Rodrigo performed at on at least two occasions was her towns local Boys & Girls Club Idol in 2011. You can see the payoff in her singing lessons as she showed off her range in Dont Rain on My Parade, made famous by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. Rodrigos rendition earned her first place in her age group. Watch her take the stage here.

Highlight: The pout on her face and vibrato in her voice as she sang Your turn at bat, sir/ At least I didnt fake it/ Hat, sir, I guess I didnt make it!

I like singing because its the funnest thing since everything, Rodrigo shyly laughs in a video clip before taking the stage at 2013s Boys & Girls Club Idol. Her somewhat reserved demeanor does a complete 180 as soon as she belts the first note of Jessie Js Mama Knows Best, which again won her the top prize at the competition. Watch her performance here.

Highlight: She shows off her riffing abilities throughout the song, but her jazzy scat is wholly impressive after just five years of singing lessons.

Rodrigo brought out a guitar for her acoustic rendition of Adeles Hello. The preteen perfects her crescendos and tone as she hits the low notes in the verses and belts the high notes in the chorus.

Highlight: Her riffs during the bridge. Nuff said.

A couple of months following the release of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series in December 2019, Rodrigo delivered a somber performance of All I Want, which she self-wrote for her character on the show. Only her voice and the keyboard shes playing fill the minimalist room as she beautifully sings the ballad.

Highlight: Her riff when she sings, We fell in love but it didnt last.

The Tonight Show hosted Rodrigo for the TV debut of her eight-week Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper drivers license. She hits all the right notes in her moody performance as she plays a grand piano, later joined by a string quartet.

Highlight: Her powerful start to the bridge Red lights, stop signs as the soft white lasers that light the stage turn red.

For one of the last performances wrapping up her huge debut year, Rodrigo played a set of at the annual Austin City Limits festival. She has officially nailed the pop-star persona as she sings the fourth single from Sour alongside an all-girl band to an audience of fans mouthing all the lyrics: You betrayed me/ And I know that youll never feel sorry/ For the way I hurt, yeah.

Highlight: Belting the lyric traitor has she sings the chorus the final time and stands center stage.

Read this article:

The Evolution of Olivia Rodrigos Voice, From Age 6 to 18 - Billboard