Life History Modulates Effects of Inducible Defenses on Consumer-Resource Dynamics.

AbstractInducible defenses can affect the persistence, structure, and stability of consumer-resource systems. Theory shows that these effects depend on characteristics of the inducible defense, including timing, costs, efficacy, and sensitivity to consumer density. However, the expression and costs of inducible defenses often vary among life stages, which has not been captured in previous unstructured models.

Observational Analyses of Ex Vivo Native American Platelet Responses.

Platelet activation plays an essential role in clot formation to prevent blood loss following vascular damage. In pathologic conditions, platelet activation can lead to obstructive clots, disrupting blood flow and resulting in thrombosis. Native Americans suffer disproportionately from arterial disease and previous research has shown that Blacks are enriched in genetic polymorphisms that correlate with higher platelet reactivity contributing to an increased risk for thrombosis.

Long-living transients in ecological models: Recent progress, new challenges, and open questions.

Traditionally, mathematical models in ecology placed an emphasis on asymptotic, long-term dynamics. However, a large number of recent studies highlighted the importance of transient dynamics in ecological and eco-evolutionary systems, in particular 'long transients' that can last for hundreds of generations or even longer. Many models as well as empirical studies indicated that a system can function for a long time in a certain state or regime (a 'metastable regime') but later exhibits an abrupt transition to another regime not preceded by any parameter change (or following the change that occurred long before the transition).

It gives you a really great feeling, knowing that what you are doing is making somebody's day: Provider perspectives on implementing the individualized positive psychosocial interaction.

The Individualized Positive Psychosocial Interaction (IPPI) is an evidence-based program that supports engaging people living with dementia and their care partners in the nursing home (NH). IPPIs are brief, one-to-one, preference-based activities to improve well-being and decrease behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia. The purpose of this study was to understand barriers and facilitators to implementing the IPPI program from the perspective of NH provider champions.

Site of breast cancer metastasis is independent of single nutrient levels.

Cancer metastasis is a major contributor to patient morbidity and mortality, yet the factors that determine the organs where cancers can metastasize are incompletely understood. In this study, we quantify the absolute levels of over 100 nutrients available across multiple tissues in mice and investigate how this relates to the ability of breast cancer cells to grow in different organs. We engineered breast cancer cells with broad metastatic potential to be auxotrophic for specific nutrients and assessed their ability to colonize different organs.