In early 2022, an unprecedented flood event in Lismore, New South Wales plunged an entire community into trauma and chaos. I draw upon this event to highlight the imperative for climate activism in ...the academy. Activist research, and activist teaching in law classrooms, are already reshaping the law of the Holocene in response to the climate crisis and will increasingly do so. I suggest that, in light of their ecological privilege, academics must also modify their personal and professional conduct. We must all be climate activists, if only because climate will spare none of us.
In this paper I draw upon fictional and legal texts in order to elucidate the complexity of intergenerational care in the context of the climate crisis, exploring both the familial dimensions and the ...broader social and political meaning of this concept. I am adopting an anthropocentric perspective and focusing upon intra-species intergenerational care, as distinct from intergenerational care from a multi-species perspective, although there are compelling reasons to believe that intra and inter-species obligations are intrinsically connected.
It was previously assumed that brown adipose tissue (BAT) is present in humans only for a short period following birth, the time in which mechanisms of generating heat by way of shivering are not yet ...developed. Although BAT is maximally recruited in early infancy, findings in recent years have led to a new consensus that metabolically active BAT remains present in most children and many adult humans. Evidence to date supports a slow and steady decline in BAT activity throughout life, with the exception of an intriguing spike in the prevalence and volume of BAT around the time of puberty that remains poorly understood. Because BAT activity is more commonly observed in individuals with a lower body mass index, an association seen in both adult and pediatric populations, there is the exciting possibility that BAT is protective against childhood and adult obesity. Indeed, the function and metabolic relevance of human BAT is currently an area of vigorous research. The goal of this review is to summarize what is currently known about changes that occur in BAT during various stages of life, with a particular emphasis on puberty and aging.
The chemical diversity and known safety profiles of drugs previously tested in humans make them a valuable set of compounds to explore potential therapeutic utility in indications outside those ...originally targeted, especially neglected tropical diseases. This practice of “drug repurposing” has become commonplace in academic and other nonprofit drug-discovery efforts, with the appeal that significantly less time and resources are required to advance a candidate into the clinic. Here, we report a comprehensive open-access, drug repositioning screening set of 12,000 compounds (termed ReFRAME; Repurposing, Focused Rescue, and Accelerated Medchem) that was assembled by combining three widely used commercial drug competitive intelligence databases (Clarivate Integrity, GVK Excelra GoStar, and Citeline Pharmaprojects), together with extensive patent mining of small molecules that have been dosed in humans. To date, 12,000 compounds (∼80% of compounds identified from data mining) have been purchased or synthesized and subsequently plated for screening. To exemplify its utility, this collection was screened against Cryptosporidium spp., a major cause of childhood diarrhea in the developing world, and two active compounds previously tested in humans for other therapeutic indications were identified. Both compounds, VB-201 and a structurally related analog of ASP-7962, were subsequently shown to be efficacious in animal models of Cryptosporidium infection at clinically relevant doses, based on available human doses. In addition, an open-access data portal (https://reframedb.org) has been developed to share ReFRAME screen hits to encourage additional follow-up and maximize the impact of the ReFRAME screening collection.
Summary
Insulin sensitivity deteriorates with age, but mechanisms remain unclear. Age‐related changes in the function of subcutaneous white adipose tissue (sWAT) are less characterized than those in ...visceral WAT. We hypothesized that metabolic alterations in sWAT, which in contrast to epididymal WAT, harbors a subpopulation of energy‐dissipating UCP1+ brown adipocytes, promote age‐dependent progression toward insulin resistance. Indeed, we show that a predominant consequence of aging in murine sWAT is loss of ‘browning’. sWAT from young mice is histologically similar to brown adipose tissue (multilocular, UCP1+), but becomes morphologically white by 12 months of age. Correspondingly, sWAT expression of ucp1 precipitously declines (~300‐fold) between 3 and 12 months. Loss continues into old age (24 months) and is inversely correlated with the development of insulin resistance. Additional age‐dependent changes in sWAT include lower expression of adbr3 and higher expression of maoa, suggesting reduced local adrenergic tone as a potential mechanism. Indeed, treatment with a β3‐adrenergic agonist to compensate for reduced tone rescues the aged sWAT phenotype. Age‐related changes in sWAT are not explained by the differences in body weight; mice subjected to 40% caloric restriction for 12 months are of body weight similar to 3‐month‐old ad lib fed mice, but display sWAT resembling that of age‐matched ad lib fed mice (devoid of brown adipose‐like morphology). Overall, findings identify the loss of ‘browning’ in sWAT as a new aging phenomenon and provide insight into the pathogenesis of age‐associated metabolic disease by revealing novel molecular changes tied to systemic metabolic dysfunction.
Increased emphasis on forest complexity, resilience, and biodiversity has renewed interest in northern hardwood forests. In parallel, there is concern of impacts of traditional, timber-oriented ...regeneration methods on successional trajectories and tree communities. To ensure compatibility of emerging goals with site biological capacity, assessment of common silvicultural methods across forest conditions is imperative. This work utilizes a long-term dataset of 407 sampling plots from the Bartlett Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, USA, over 70 years. Topographic and meteorological variables were utilized to test the effects of site conditions and silviculture on tree species diversity and composition. Results show a decline in diversity over time that reflects a shift toward dominance of late successional species, which vary with site-specific conditions. The effect of silviculture was not detectable, and differences in tree communities were attributed to pre-existing conditions of site variables prior to installation of experimental treatments. Tree diversity and composition for both 1932 and 2003 measurements were correlated with solar insolation, local wind speed, and hydrological catchment area. The collective findings highlight the long-term stability of species under past silvicultural regimes, that some areas are more facilitative/limiting to goals of enhancing tree biodiversity and emerging technologies can capture species–site interactions in northern hardwoods.
Climate change activism is a complex topic, not least because, as performance studies theorist Baz Kershaw argues eloquently, ecological activism of any form is "inevitably riddled with paradox." ...Does the paradoxical nature of this particular cultural phenomenon represent its most fundamental failing, ensuring that the many forms and facets of climate change activism are reducible to a well-intentioned but futile last-ditch stand against the inexorable march of climate change catastrophe? Or can the paradoxical nature of climate change activism be viewed in a different light? Climate change activism may be effective precisely because it is replete with paradoxes and these paradoxes mirror those of the global predicament of climate change and humanity's response to it. In light of the interently unstable and climate catastrophe-prone nature of our current geological era, which has been termed the Anthropocene, we need to question the way we reason, the way we process information and respond to it, the way we interact with and are part of the so-called natural world, and the fundamental limitations in our current thought systems and cultural and social structures, including our legal systems. It is not only paradoxical and irrational but patently irresponsible to cling to cultural patterns, forms of...
Menopause, an age-related loss of ovarian hormone production, promotes increased adiposity and insulin resistance. However, the diet-independent mechanism by which loss of ovarian function promotes ...increased adipose tissue mass and associated metabolic pathologies remains unclear. To address this question, we monitored food intake and weight gain of ovariectomized (OVX) mice and sham OVX (SHM) mice for 12 wk. Although food intake was similar, OVX mice gained 25% more weight than SHM mice. Moreover, the OVX mice accumulated 4.7- and 4.4-fold more perigonadal and inguinal adipose tissue by weight, respectively, with 4.4-fold (perigonadal, P < 0.001) and 5.3-fold (inguinal, P < 0.01) larger adipocytes and no change in adipocyte cell number. OVX-induced adiposity was coincident with an 18% decrease in metabolic rate during the dark phase (P = 0.001) as well as an 11% decrease during the light phase (P = 0.03). In addition, ambulatory activity levels of OVX mice were decreased only during the dark phase (40%, P = 0.008). OVX mice displayed evidence of immune infiltration and inflammation in adipose tissue, because perigonadal and inguinal adipose depots from OVX mice had increased expression of TNFα, iNOS, CD11c, and other hallmarks of adipose tissue inflammation. In contrast, expression of the T cell marker CD3 (3.5-fold, P = 0.03) and Th1 cytokine interferon-γ (IFNγ) (2.6-fold, P = 0.02) were elevated in perigonadal but not sc fat. Finally, histology revealed OVX-specific liver hepatic steatosis, coincident with increased PPARγ gene expression and downstream lipogenic gene expression. In summary, OVX in mice decreases energy expenditure, without altering energy intake, resulting in adipocyte hypertrophy, adipose tissue inflammation, and hepatic steatosis.
Ovariectomy in mice results in reduced energy expenditure and increased adiposity resulting in up-regulation of inflammatory mediators in adipose tissue and hepatic steatosis.
Male and female pattern hair loss affects a large percentage of the population, and patients frequently present for treatment of this to their dermatologist. Here we review the many treatments ...available for hair loss. We review the evidence for each, and outline the most effective treatment strategies for both men and women. Learning objective: At the conclusion of this article, the reader should be able to describe the most effective treatments for hair loss, understand their mechanism(s) of action, and explain which treatments are the best in different settings.
Understanding the influence of post‐disturbance forest management on tree regeneration is critical for assessing ecosystem recovery and guiding future responses. In particular, the influx of elevated ...coarse woody material (CWM) following wind disturbance, if left in situ, may impede herbivore access, thereby protecting saplings from browsing damage through a natural ‘exclosure effect’.
In 2013, a tornado in northcentral Maine, United States and subsequent salvage logging operations created three clear ‘treatments’ for evaluation of the exclosure effect: blowdown, blowdown plus salvage logging and an undamaged control. Nine years post‐tornado, we inventoried tree regeneration within these treatments to evaluate differences in sapling abundance, species composition, size structure and browsing intensity. We also inventoried CWM, including the height above forest floor.
Results revealed significant differences in sapling composition and browsing intensity among treatments. The salvage treatment had the highest proportion of browsed saplings (56 ± 28%; mean ± standard error), followed by the control (9 ± 10%) and blowdown (5 ± 8%). Blowdown had by far the greatest mean (50 ± 9 cm) and average maximum (169 ± 43 cm) heights for CWM. Binomial generalized linear models revealed that browsing probability was a function of mean CWM height and an interaction between sapling density and proportion of sapling hardwoods. Thus, browsing damage was less likely in plots with greater CWM heights and more likely in plots with greater sapling density and more hardwood saplings.
Synthesis and applications. This study furthers our understanding of ecosystem recovery following blowdown and salvage logging. Results suggest that salvage logging created important differences in coarse woody material (CWM) abundance and height distribution, when compared to un‐salvaged areas, and that these differences in turn altered sapling size structure and browsing intensity. These findings highlight the potential long‐term effects of successive disturbances, as the differences evident in these early stages may persist for decades or longer. Importantly, we provide evidence of the exclosure effect, suggesting that CWM retained in the un‐salvaged area protected saplings from moose browsing. Thus, in post‐disturbance areas where browsing threatens regeneration, we recommend that managers consider retaining CWM to serve as a natural exclosure.
This study furthers our understanding of ecosystem recovery following blowdown and salvage logging. Results suggest that salvage logging created important differences in coarse woody material (CWM) abundance and height distribution, when compared to un‐salvaged areas, and that these differences in turn altered sapling size structure and browsing intensity. These findings highlight the potential long‐term effects of successive disturbances, as the differences evident in these early stages may persist for decades or longer. Importantly, we provide evidence of the exclosure effect, suggesting that CWM retained in the un‐salvaged area protected saplings from moose browsing. Thus, in post‐disturbance areas where browsing threatens regeneration, we recommend that managers consider retaining CWM to serve as a natural exclosure.
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