Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe

Many species are projected to become vulnerable to twenty-first-century climate changes, with consequent effects on the tree of life. If losses were not randomly distributed across the tree of life, climate change could lead to a disproportionate loss of evolutionary history. Here we estimate the consequences of climate change on the phylogenetic diversities of plant, bird and mammal assemblages across Europe. Using a consensus across ensembles of forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2080 and high-resolution phylogenetic trees, we show that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies. Such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions. This is because vulnerable species have neither fewer nor closer relatives than the remaining clades. Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent.     

一个基于孔洞演化机制的韧性断裂预测模型

在韧性断裂中微观孔洞演化机制的基础上,提出了一个基于孔洞演化机制的非耦合型韧性断裂预测模型.模型充分考虑了两种典型的孔洞演化机制:孔洞的长大机制和孔洞的拉长扭转机制.该模型引入了三个具有不同物理意义的材料参数:材料对不同孔洞演化机制的敏感度、应力状态敏感度系数和材料的损伤阈值,并使用等效塑性应变增量表征其对韧性损伤累积过程的驱动作用.为了使模型可以更好地反映三维应力状态对材料韧性断裂性能的影响,将该模型从主应力空间转换到由应力三轴度、罗德参数和临界断裂应变构成的三维空间,得到了由模型确定的三维韧性断裂曲面,并研究了相关参数对三维韧性断裂曲面及平面应力二维韧性断裂曲线的影响.利用5083-O铝合金、TRIP690钢和Docol 600DL双相钢三个典型的轻质高强板材的韧性断裂数据验证了该模型对不同材料和不同应力状态的适用性和准确性.     

What does the tail of the distribution of current stock prices tell us about future economic activity?

This paper proposes three leading indicators of economic conditions estimated using current stock returns. The assumption underlying our approach is that current asset prices reflect all the available information about future states of economy. Each of the proposed indicators is related to the tail of the cross‐sectional distribution of stock returns. The results show that the leading indicators have strong correlation with future economic conditions and usually make better out‐of‐sample predictions than two traditional competitors (random walk and the average of previous observations). Furthermore, quantile regressions reveal that the leading indicators have strong connections with low future economic activity.     

Sequence and analysis of chromosome 1 of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana

The genome of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana has five chromosomes. Here we report the sequence of the largest, chromosome 1, in two contigs of around 14.2 and 14.6 megabases. The contigs extend from the telomeres to the centromeric borders, regions rich in transposons, retrotransposons and repetitive elements such as the 180-base-pair repeat. The chromosome represents 25% of the genome and contains about 6,850 open reading frames, 236 transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and 12 small nuclear RNAs. There are two clusters of tRNA genes at different places on the chromosome. One consists of 27 tRNA(Pro) genes and the other contains 27 tandem repeats of tRNA(Tyr)-tRNA(Tyr)-tRNA(Ser) genes. Chromosome 1 contains about 300 gene families with clustered duplications. There are also many repeat elements, representing 8% of the sequence.     

Circulating Trypanosoma cruzi from the same cloned population show differences in the ability to infect cells and to cause lethal infection in mice

Two subpopulations of circulating parasites displaying different abilities to infect mammalian cells and to cause lethal infection when inoculated into normal mice were demonstrated in the blood of mice acutely infected with T. cruzi. Parasites of one subpopulation rapidly penetrated mouse fibroblasts and were readily phagocytized by normal mouse peritoneal macrophages whereas parasites of the other subpopulation showed little ability to invade non-phagocytic cells and resisted phagocytosis. Inoculation of organisms of this latter population into mice resulted in infections with lower parasitemias and longer time to death as compared to controls inoculated with organisms from a population containing both types of parasites. When a population of parasites containing both types of trypanosomes was cultured in acellular medium at 28 degrees C a decrease in the number of parasites was noted to occur in the initial days of culture. This decrease was not noted when parasites of the subpopulation of trypanosomes resistant to phagocytosis were cultured similarly.