The climatic changes of the past thousand years

Résumé Exposé des données historiques et naturelles attestant des fluctuations de climat dans l'hémisphère nord au cours du dernier millénaire. Dans la zone tempérée, il y eut depuis les environs de l'an 1000 cinq époques climatiques: 1° 1000–1250, climat doux et sec. 2° 1250–1400, pluvieux et orageux. 3° 1400–1600 plus froid, moins orageux. 4° 1600–1850, avance des glaciers. 5° réchauffement progressif. Les causes de ces changements sont discutées à la fin de l'article.     

柴达木盆地苏干湖年纹层岩芯摇蚊记录的过去1000年干旱区湿度变化及其意义

利用柴达木盆地苏干湖具有年纹层的沉积岩芯, 以摇蚊亚化石分析恢复了研究区近千年来10年分辨率的湿度演变历史. 研究表明, 苏干湖岩芯中的摇蚊亚化石主要由高咸水属种Psectrocladius barbimanus-type和Orthocladius/Cricotopus与低咸水属种Procladius和Psectrocladius sordidellus-type组成, 依据其相对丰度的变化, 结合摇蚊-盐度转换函数重建的盐度波动, 区域过去1000年湿度变化可划分为3个阶段: 990~1550 AD为气候整体干旱期、1550~1840 AD为气候整体湿润期、1840~2000 AD为全球变暖下的气候再次干旱期. 高分辨率的记录还发现, 在年代际到百年尺度上, 存在1200~1230 AD干旱背景下的湿润阶段和1590~1700 AD湿润小冰期内部的干旱阶段; 就气候变率而言, 湿润小冰期时段摇蚊种群组合及重建的盐度变化幅度增大, 频率加快, 指示出小冰期气候的不稳定性特征. 该记录得到西风环流影响区的其他古湿度资料支持. 苏干湖高分辨率摇蚊记录的湿润小冰期气候与中国东部季风区降水变化存在明显的差异, 表明中国内陆干旱区和东部季风区湿度变化即使在近1000年来也存在相位差.     

High potassium intake increases the plasma concentration and urinary excretion of vasopressin in the rat

The effect of alterations of dietary potassium intake on the plasma concentration and the urinary excretion of vasopressin was studied in male rats. Ingestion of a high potassium diet resulted in increases in the plasma concentrations of potassium and vasopressin, systolic blood pressure, urine flow, and urinary vasopressin excretion. Ingestion of a low potassium diet had little effect on the plasma vasopressin concentration and systolic blood pressure but caused decreases in the plasma potassium concentration and urinary vasopressin excretion. The results indicate that physiological changes in the plasma potassium concentration or some other consequence of altered dietary potassium intake can affect vasopressin release and excretion.     

Creation of human tumour cells with defined genetic elements.

During malignant transformation, cancer cells acquire genetic mutations that override the normal mechanisms controlling cellular proliferation. Primary rodent cells are efficiently converted into tumorigenic cells by the coexpression of cooperating oncogenes. However, similar experiments with human cells have consistently failed to yield tumorigenic transformants, indicating a fundamental difference in the biology of human and rodent cells. The few reported successes in the creation of human tumour cells have depended on the use of chemical or physical agents to achieve immortalization, the selection of rare, spontaneously arising immortalized cells, or the use of an entire viral genome. We show here that the ectopic expression of the telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT) in combination with two oncogenes (the simian virus 40 large-T oncoprotein and an oncogenic allele of H-ras) results in direct tumorigenic conversion of normal human epithelial and fibroblast cells. These results demonstrate that disruption of the intracellular pathways regulated by large-T, oncogenic ras and telomerase suffices to create a human tumor cell.     

A Double‐threshold GARCH Model for the French Franc/Deutschmark exchange rate

This paper combines and generalizes a number of recent time series models of daily exchange rate series by using a SETAR model which also allows the variance equation of a GARCH specification for the error terms to be drawn from more than one regime. An application of the model to the French Franc/Deutschmark exchange rate demonstrates that out‐of‐sample forecasts for the exchange rate volatility are also improved when the restriction that the data it is drawn from a single regime is removed. This result highlights the importance of considering both types of regime shift (i.e. thresholds in variance as well as in mean) when analysing financial time series. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolutionary genetics: evolution of mate choice in the wild

Qvarnstr?m et al. test whether the preference of female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) for males with large forehead patches could have evolved as a by-product of selection acting on male patch size. They find that the crucial genetic correlation between female choice and male patch size is not significant, and conclude that preference for large patches must have been shaped directly by selection. However, their use of the patch size of a female's social partner as a measure of choice is incomplete, and will result in low estimates of the potential for direct selection to shape female preference. Their study is therefore unable to resolve the question of how female preference for large forehead patches has evolved.     

High-quality male field crickets invest heavily in sexual display but die young

Only high-quality males can bear the costs of an extreme sexual display. As a consequence, such males are not only more attractive, but they often live longer than average. Recent theory predicts, however, that high-quality males should sometimes invest so heavily in sexual displays that they die sooner than lower quality males. We manipulated the phenotypic quality of field crickets, Teleogryllus commodus, by altering the protein content of their diet. Here we show that nymphs and adult females reared on a high-protein diet lived longer than those on a low-protein diet. In contrast, adult males reared on a high-protein diet died sooner than those on low-protein diets because they invested more energy in calling during early adulthood. Our findings uphold the theoretical prediction that the relationship between longevity and sexual advertisement may be dynamic (that is, either positive or negative), depending on local conditions such as resource availability. Moreover, they caution the use of longevity as a proxy for fitness in sexual selection studies, and suggest avenues for future research on the relationship between sexual attractiveness and ageing.     

Comparative analyses of multi-species sequences from targeted genomic regions

The systematic comparison of genomic sequences from different organisms represents a central focus of contemporary genome analysis. Comparative analyses of vertebrate sequences can identify coding and conserved non-coding regions, including regulatory elements, and provide insight into the forces that have rendered modern-day genomes. As a complement to whole-genome sequencing efforts, we are sequencing and comparing targeted genomic regions in multiple, evolutionarily diverse vertebrates. Here we report the generation and analysis of over 12 megabases (Mb) of sequence from 12 species, all derived from the genomic region orthologous to a segment of about 1.8 Mb on human chromosome 7 containing ten genes, including the gene mutated in cystic fibrosis. These sequences show conservation reflecting both functional constraints and the neutral mutational events that shaped this genomic region. In particular, we identify substantial numbers of conserved non-coding segments beyond those previously identified experimentally, most of which are not detectable by pair-wise sequence comparisons alone. Analysis of transposable element insertions highlights the variation in genome dynamics among these species and confirms the placement of rodents as a sister group to the primates.