Maternal condition does not influence birth sex ratios in anubis baboons (Papio anubis).

Trivers and Willard predicted that when parental condition has differential effects on the fitness of male and female offspring, parents who are in good condition will bias investment toward the sex that benefits most from additional investment. Efforts to test predictions derived from Trivers and Willard's model have had mixed results, perhaps because most studies have relied on proxy measures of parental condition, such as dominance rank. Here, we examine the effects of female baboons condition on birth sex ratios and post-natal investment, based on visual assessments of maternal body condition.

Neutrino spectroscopy can probe the dark matter content in the Sun.

After being gravitationally captured, low-mass cold dark-matter particles (mass range from 5 to ~50 × 10(9) electron volts) are thought to drift to the center of the Sun and affect its internal structure. Solar neutrinos provide a way to probe the physical processes occurring in the Sun's core. Solar neutrino spectroscopy, in particular, is expected to measure the neutrino fluxes produced in nuclear reactions in the Sun.

Strong and consistent social bonds enhance the longevity of female baboons.

Longevity is a major component of variation in fitness in long-lived iteroparous species [1-4]. Among female baboons, variation in breeding lifespan accounts for approximately 50% of the variation in lifetime fitness [5, 6]. However, we know little about the causes of variation in longevity in primates or other long-lived mammals.

Nothing to fear? Neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths.

Active avoidance involving controlling and modifying threatening situations characterizes many forms of clinical pathology, particularly childhood anxiety. Presently our understanding of the neural systems supporting human avoidance is largely based on nonhuman research. Establishing the generality of nonhuman findings to healthy children is a needed first step towards advancing developmental affective neuroscience research on avoidance in childhood anxiety.

T cell receptor CDR3 loops influence alphabeta pairing.

T cell receptor transfer is an attractive strategy for the generation of antigen specific T cells to target infection and malignancy. Cross pairing of the transduced and endogenous TCR chains produces new and potentially auto-reactive specificities and dilutes the therapeutic TCR. This is further complicated as the efficiency of pairing for each alphabeta pair is unpredictable and the factors which influence it are not well characterized.

Tracking of Arctic terns Sterna paradisaea reveals longest animal migration.

The study of long-distance migration provides insights into the habits and performance of organisms at the limit of their physical abilities. The Arctic tern Sterna paradisaea is the epitome of such behavior; despite its small size (<125 g), banding recoveries and at-sea surveys suggest that its annual migration from boreal and high Arctic breeding grounds to the Southern Ocean may be the longest seasonal movement of any animal. Our tracking of 11 Arctic terns fitted with miniature (1.

Recent advances in processing and presentation of CD1 bound lipid antigens.

It is well established that different populations of alphabeta T lymphocytes can recognize not only peptides in the context of MHC class I and class II molecules, but also foreign and self-lipids in association with CD1 proteins, which share structural similarities with MHC class I molecules. CD1 molecules are comprised of five isoforms, known as group 1 (CD1a, b, c, e) and group 2 (CD1d) CD1, presenting lipid antigens to conventional T lymphocytes or innate-like T cells bearing an invariant T cell receptor (TCR) and known as invariant NKT (iNKT) cells. During the last couple of years, several papers have been published describing important aspects of the mechanisms controlling the processing and presentation of endogenous and exogenous CD1 lipid antigens, which will be the main focus of this review.

Utilizing Ecological Momentary Assessment in pediatric obesity to quantify behavior, emotion, and sleep.

This study examined the feasibility of using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to examine important domains relevant to interregulatory health processes in overweight adolescent females in their natural environments. Participants were 20 overweight adolescent females engaged in a cognitive-behavioral and motivational interviewing intervention aimed at weight loss and improving mood (11-19 years old, 80% white, 15% African American, mean BMI = 39). During this EMA protocol, participants were asked to report their physical activity (PA), nutrition, mood, and sleep during 14 cellular phone calls over three extended weekends (Thursday to Monday).

Fearful faces influence attentional control processes in anxious youth and adults.

This study examined the effects of trait anxiety and age on performance of an emotional working memory task designed to investigate attentional control processes in the context of emotion. Participants included children, adolescents, and adults (8-30 years old). They performed the Emotional Face N-Back (EFNBACK) task, a modified n-back working memory task with four emotional distracter types (no picture, neutral, fearful, and happy) and two memory-load conditions (0-back and 2-back), and completed self-report trait anxiety measures.

Nepotistic cooperation in non-human primate groups.

Darwin was struck by the many similarities between humans and other primates and believed that these similarities were the product of common ancestry. He would be even more impressed by the similarities if he had known what we have learned about primates over the last 50 years. Genetic kinship has emerged as the primary organizing force in the evolution of primate social organization and the patterning of social behaviour in non-human primate groups.

Kerr black holes as particle accelerators to arbitrarily high energy.

We show that intermediate mass black holes conjectured to be the early precursors of supermassive black holes and surrounded by relic cold dark matter density spikes can act as particle accelerators with collisions, in principle, at arbitrarily high center-of-mass energies in the case of Kerr black holes. While the ejecta from such interactions will be highly redshifted, we may anticipate the possibility of a unique probe of Planck-scale physics.

Cooperatively breeding cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) do not donate rewards to their long-term mates.

This study tested the hypothesis that cooperative breeding facilitates the emergence of prosocial behavior by presenting cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) with the option to provide food rewards to pair-bonded mates. In Experiment 1, tamarins could provide rewards to mates at no additional cost while obtaining rewards for themselves. Contrary to the hypothesis, tamarins did not demonstrate a preference to donate rewards, behaving similar to chimpanzees in previous studies.

Aberrant selection and function of invariant NKT cells in the absence of AP-1 transcription factor Fra-2.

The transcription factors mediating the development of CD1d-restricted invariant NKT (iNKT) cells remain incompletely described. Here, we show that loss of the AP-1 transcription factor Fra-2 causes a marked increase in the number of both thymic and peripheral iNKT cells, without affecting the development of other T-lineage cells. The defect is cell-autonomous and is evident in the earliest iNKT precursors.

Exploring dark matter with Milky Way substructure.

The unambiguous detection of dark matter annihilation in our Galaxy would unravel one of the most outstanding puzzles in particle physics and cosmology. Recent observations have motivated models in which the annihilation rate is boosted by the Sommerfeld effect, a nonperturbative enhancement arising from a long-range attractive force. We applied the Sommerfeld correction to Via Lactea II, a high-resolution N-body simulation of a Milky Way-sized galaxy, to investigate the phase-space structure of the galactic halo.

The role of black holes in galaxy formation and evolution.

Virtually all massive galaxies, including our own, host central black holes ranging in mass from millions to billions of solar masses. The growth of these black holes releases vast amounts of energy that powers quasars and other weaker active galactic nuclei. A tiny fraction of this energy, if absorbed by the host galaxy, could halt star formation by heating and ejecting ambient gas.

The benefits of social capital: close social bonds among female baboons enhance offspring survival.

Sociality has evolved in many animal taxa, but primates are unusual because they establish highly differentiated bonds with other group members. Such bonds are particularly pronounced among females in species like baboons, with female philopatry and male dispersal. These relationships seem to confer a number of short-term benefits on females, and sociality enhances infant survival in some populations.

A longitudinal study of childhood depression and anxiety in relation to weight gain.

Adult mood disturbances are highly correlated with obesity, although little is known about the developmental relationship between mood disorders and weight. This study investigated the relationship between childhood psychopathology and weight over the course of 3 years. Body Mass Index (BMI) percentiles and demographic data of children (ages 8-18) with depression (n = 143) or anxiety (n = 43) were compared to healthy controls (n = 99).

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) do not develop contingent reciprocity in an experimental task.

Chimpanzees provide help to unrelated individuals in a broad range of situations. The pattern of helping within pairs suggests that contingent reciprocity may have been an important mechanism in the evolution of altruism in chimpanzees. However, correlational analyses of the cumulative pattern of interactions over time do not demonstrate that helping is contingent upon previous acts of altruism, as required by the theory of reciprocal altruism.

Nonglycosidic agonists of invariant NKT cells for use as vaccine adjuvants.

Based on the crystal structures of human alpha-GalCer-CD1d and iNKT-alpha-GalCer-CD1d complexes, nonglycosidic analogues of alpha-GalCer were synthesized. They activate iNKT cells resulting in dendritic cell maturation and the priming of antigen-specific T and B cells. Therefore, they are attractive adjuvants in vaccination strategies for cancer and infectious diseases.

Pubertal changes in emotional information processing: pupillary, behavioral, and subjective evidence during emotional word identification.

This study investigated pupillary and behavioral responses to an emotional word valence identification paradigm among 32 pre-/early pubertal and 34 mid-/late pubertal typically developing children and adolescents. Participants were asked to identify the valence of positive, negative, and neutral words while pupil dilation was assessed using an eyetracker. Mid-/late pubertal children showed greater peak pupillary reactivity to words presented during the emotional word identification task than pre-/early pubertal children, regardless of word valence.

Expressed emotion in mothers of currently depressed, remitted, high-risk, and low-risk youth: links to child depression status and longitudinal course.

This study examined expressed emotion in the families of children and adolescents who were (a) in a current episode of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), (b) in remission from a past episode of MDD, (c) at high familial risk for developing MDD, and (d) low-risk controls. Participants were 109 mother-child dyads (children ages 8-19). Expressed emotion was assessed using the Five Minute Speech Sample, and psychiatric follow-ups were conducted annually.

Harnessing invariant NKT cells in vaccination strategies.

To optimize vaccination strategies, it is important to use protocols that can 'jump-start' immune responses by harnessing cells of the innate immune system to assist the expansion of antigen-specific B and T cells. In this Review, we discuss the evidence indicating that invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells can positively modulate dendritic cells and B cells, and that their pharmacological activation in the presence of antigenic proteins can enhance antigen-specific B- and T-cell responses. In addition, we describe structural and kinetic analyses that assist in the design of optimal iNKT-cell agonists that could be used in the clinical setting as vaccine adjuvants.

Altered striatal activation predicting real-world positive affect in adolescent major depressive disorder.

Objective: Alterations in reward-related brain function and phenomenological aspects of positive affect are increasingly examined in the development of major depressive disorder. The authors tested differences in reward-related brain function in healthy and depressed adolescents, and the authors examined direct links between reward-related brain function and positive mood that occurred in real-world contexts.

Method: Fifteen adolescents with major depressive disorder and 28 adolescents with no history of psychiatric disorder, ages 8-17 years, completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging guessing task involving monetary reward.