The relationship between initial dispersal from Africa to East Asia and the orbitally paced evolution of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM)-currently the largest monsoon system-remains underexplored due to lack of coordinated synthesis of both Asian paleoanthropological and paleoclimatic data. Here, we investigate orbital-scale ASM dynamics during the last 280 thousand years (kyr) and their likely influences on early dispersal to East Asia, through a unique integration of i) new centennial-resolution ASM records from the Chinese Loess Plateau, ii) model-based East Asian hydroclimatic reconstructions, iii) paleoanthropological data compilations, and iv) global habitat suitability simulations. Our combined proxy- and model-based reconstructions suggest that ASM precipitation responded to a combination of Northern Hemisphere ice volume, greenhouse gas, and regional summer insolation forcing, with cooccurring primary orbital cycles of ~100-kyr, 41-kyr, and ~20-kyr.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We aimed to investigate how the presence of fetal anomalies and different X chromosome variants influences Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) screening results for monosomy X.
Methods: From a multicenter retrospective survey on 673 pregnancies with prenatally suspected or confirmed Turner syndrome, we analyzed the subgroup for which prenatal cfDNA screening and karyotype results were available. A cfDNA screening result was defined as true positive (TP) when confirmatory testing showed 45,X or an X-chromosome variant.
Objective: Omphalocele is known to be associated with genetic anomalies like trisomy 13, 18 and Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, but not with Turner syndrome (TS). Our aim was to assess the incidence of omphalocele in fetuses with TS, the phenotype of this association with other anomalies, their karyotype, and the fetal outcomes.
Method: Retrospective multicenter study of fetuses with confirmed diagnosis of TS.
Mirror syndrome is a rare and serious maternal condition associated with immune and non-immune fetal hydrops after 16 weeks of gestational age. Subjacent conditions associated with fetal hydrops may carry different risks for Mirror syndrome. Fetuses with Turner syndrome are frequently found to be hydropic on ultrasound.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2021
Migration allows animals to exploit spatially separated and seasonally available resources at a continental to global scale. However, responding to global climatic changes might prove challenging, especially for long-distance intercontinental migrants. During glacial periods, when conditions became too harsh for breeding in the north, avian migrants have been hypothesized to retract their distribution to reside within small refugial areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurated global climate data have been generated from climate model outputs for the last 120,000 years, whereas reconstructions going back even further have been lacking due to the high computational cost of climate simulations. Here, we present a statistically-derived global terrestrial climate dataset for every 1,000 years of the last 800,000 years. It is based on a set of linear regressions between 72 existing HadCM3 climate simulations of the last 120,000 years and external forcings consisting of CO, orbital parameters, and land type.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhilst an African origin of modern humans is well established, the timings and routes of their expansions into Eurasia are the subject of heated debate, due to the scarcity of fossils and the lack of suitably old ancient DNA. Here, we use high-resolution palaeoclimate reconstructions to estimate how difficult it would have been for humans in terms of rainfall availability to leave the African continent in the past 300k years. We then combine these results with an anthropologically and ecologically motivated estimate of the minimum level of rainfall required by hunter-gatherers to survive, allowing us to reconstruct when, and along which geographic paths, expansions out of Africa would have been climatically feasible.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasing body and brain size constitutes a key macro-evolutionary pattern in the hominin lineage, yet the mechanisms behind these changes remain debated. Hypothesized drivers include environmental, demographic, social, dietary, and technological factors. Here we test the influence of environmental factors on the evolution of body and brain size in the genus Homo over the last one million years using a large fossil dataset combined with global paleoclimatic reconstructions and formalized hypotheses tested in a quantitative statistical framework.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe coronavirus pandemic and the associated containment measures are likely to have serious effects on housing. In the short term, the German Federal Government has reacted with temporary exemptions for subject-oriented instruments as well as for rental and lending regulations. However, it has become apparent that further temporary regulations are needed within the scope of social security of housing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe variability of climate has profoundly impacted a wide range of macroecological processes in the Late Quaternary. Our understanding of these has greatly benefited from palaeoclimate simulations, however, high-quality reconstructions of ecologically relevant climatic variables have thus far been limited to a few selected time periods. Here, we present a 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Congenital corrected transposition of the great arteries (ccTGA) is a rare congenital cardiac anomaly which remains difficult to diagnose prenatally. We aim to investigate the natural history, associated anomalies and the outcome of patients in prenatally diagnosed ccTGA.
Method: This was an international multicenter retrospective analysis of fetuses with a diagnosis of ccTGA from 2002 to 2017.
Our understanding of how global climatic changes are translated into ice-sheet fluctuations and sea-level change is currently limited by a lack of knowledge of the configuration of ice sheets prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Here, we compile a synthesis of empirical data and numerical modelling results related to pre-LGM ice sheets to produce new hypotheses regarding their extent in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) at 17 time-slices that span the Quaternary. Our reconstructions illustrate pronounced ice-sheet asymmetry within the last glacial cycle and significant variations in ice-marginal positions between older glacial cycles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWild horses thrived across Eurasia until the Last Glacial Maximum to collapse after the beginning of the Holocene. The interplay of climate change, species adaptability to different environments, and human domestication in horse history is still lacking coherent continental-scale analysis integrating different lines of evidence. We assembled temporal and geographical information on 3070 horse occurrences across Eurasia, frequency data for 1120 archeological layers in Europe, and matched them to paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental simulations for the Late Quaternary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the 1980s, it was demonstrated that semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) accumulate in plant leaves. Plants are at the base of the food chain, and therefore a starting point for transfer of PCBs to animals and related human exposure. For two decades, the Environment Agency of the German federal state of Bavaria (LfU) has been operating long-term monitoring stations to measure the impact of organic air pollutants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To scrutinize the characteristics of all cases with antenatally established diagnosis of cephalocele in two tertiary referral centers.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 65 cases diagnosed with cephaloceles and tabulated sonographic findings and autopsy recordings as well as medical charts of all survivors in terms of clinical outcome.
Results: The case notes of 65 fetuses were available for final analysis.
Objective: The objective of this study was to analyze the spectrum of prenatally diagnosed absent pulmonary valve syndrome (APVS) and the outcome from diagnosis onwards. Fetuses with APVS and tetralogy of Fallot (TOF/APVS) and with APVS and intact ventricular septum (APVS/IVS) were included.
Method: Multicenter retrospective study of the International Prenatal Cardiology Collaboration Group.
Background: Disease-independent sources of biomarker variability include pre-analytical, analytical and biological variance. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether the pre-analytical phase has any impact on the emerging heart disease TWEAK and HMGB1 protein markers and miRNA biomarkers, and whether peptidome profiling allows the identification of pre-analytical quality markers.
Methods: An assessment was made of sample type (serum, EDTA-Plasma, Citrate-Plasma, ACD-plasma, Heparin-plasma), temperature of sample storage (room temperature or refrigerated), time of sample storage (0.
Validation of biomarkers is essential to advance the translational process to clinical application. Although there exists an increasing number of reports on small non-coding RNAs (microRNAs) as minimally-invasive markers from blood, serum or plasma, just a limited number is verified in follow-up studies. We used qRT-PCR to evaluate a known miRNA signature measured from blood that allowed for separation between patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), COPD and healthy controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol
December 2015
Objective: To evaluate patterns of fluid allocations in different etiologies of hydrops fetalis.
Study Design: This report is a retrospective cohort study on 20,395 fetal sonographic evaluations in a single tertiary center from 2000 to 2014. Special emphasis was placed on the exact description of the distinct fluid allocation sites in each fetus.
Background & Patient: Data from 3 008 patients, who underwent single-nucleotide-polymorphism (SNP)-based noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) are presented.
Method: The PanoramaTM test (Natera, San Carlos, CA) was used to analyze cell-free fetal DNA from maternal blood for trisomies 21, 18, and 13, triploidy and sex-chromosome aneuploidies.
Result: In 2 942 (97.
The introduction of first trimester screening has changed the attitude towards and the number of invasive procedures in prenatal medicine. We evaluated the indications in patients who underwent an invasive procedure before the introduction of the analysis of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma in prenatal medicine. 680 pregnant women between the 10th and 35th week of gestation were included in the study from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2013.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The aim of the study was to describe the response of fetal lung vasculature to maternal hyperoxygenation (MH) in the case of prenatally diagnosed hypoplastic left heart (HLH) with intact or restrictive (IAS/RAS) and without restriction of the atrial septum. Furthermore, the ability of MH to differentiate between newborns with HLH who do not require immediate atrial septostomy and newborns who will undergo immediate left atrial septoplasty after birth was evaluated.
Materials And Methods: Cross-sectional prospective study of fetuses ≥ 26 weeks of gestation with prenatally diagnosed HLH.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to classify pregnancy loss and fetal loss as well as the influence of maternal risk factors in multiple pregnancies.
Methods And Materials: Details of the procedure and pregnancy outcome of all patients were extracted from the clinical audit database of two tertiary centers. The files were collected in the time from January 1993 to May 2011.