Suchergebnisse

During the first half of 2008, China suffered three natural disasters: a heavy snow storm, an outbreak of hand‐foot‐mouth disease, and a severe earthquake. The aim of the present study is to explore how low‐probability/high‐consequence events influence overconfidence. In Study 1, opportunity samples were obtained by recruiting residents in three different types of disaster‐hit areas to answer a peer‐comparison probability judgment questionnaire about 1 month after the corresponding disaster occurred. The performance of 539 participants in disaster‐hit areas was compared with that of 142 residents in a nondisaster area. The findings indicate that residents in disaster‐hit areas were less overconfident than those in the nondisaster area on both positive and negative events. In Study 2, we surveyed a total of 336 quake‐victims 4 and 11 months after the earthquake to examine whether the impact of disasters on overconfidence would decay with time. The resulting data indicate that the disaster victims became more overconfident as time elapsed. The overall findings suggest that low‐probability/high‐consequence events could make people less overconfident and more rational and seem to serve as a function of debiasing.

Horseback riding was a transformative force in the ancient world, prompting radical shifts in human mobility, warfare, trade, and interaction. In China, domestic horses laid the foundation for trade, communication, and state infrastructure along the ancient Silk Road, while also stimulating key military, social, and political changes in Chinese society. Nonetheless, the emergence and adoption of mounted horseback riding in China is still poorly understood, particularly due to a lack of direct archaeological data. Here we present a detailed osteological study of eight horse skeletons dated to ca. 350 BCE from the sites of Shirenzigou and Xigou in Xinjiang, northwest China, prior to the formalization of Silk Road trade across this key region. Our analyses reveal characteristic osteological changes associated with equestrian practices on all specimens. Alongside other relevant archaeological evidence, these data provide direct evidence for mounted horseback riding, horse equipment, and mounted archery in northwest China by the late first millennium BCE. Most importantly, our results suggest that this region may have played a crucial role in the spread of equestrian technologies from the Eurasian interior to the settled civilizations of early China, where horses facilitated the rise of the first united Chinese empires and the emergence of transcontinental trade networks.

AbstractAs a rare disease leading to male infertility, idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (IHH) has strong heterogeneity of clinical phenotype and gene mutation. At present, there is no effective diagnosis and treatment method for this disease. This study is to explore the possible new pathogenic gene of idiopathic hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism and the pathological mechanism affecting its occurrence. We performed a whole-exome sequencing on 9 patients with normosmic idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (nIHH), 19 varicocele patients with asthenospermia, oligospermia, or azoospermia, 5 patients with simple nonobstructive azoospermia, and 13 normal healthy adult males and carried out comparative analysis, channel analysis, etc. After preliminary sequencing screening, 309–431 genes harbouring variants, including SNPs and indels, were predicted to be harmful per single patient in each group. In genetic variations of nIHH patients' analysis, variants were detected in 10 loci and nine genes in nine patients. And in co-analysis of the three patient groups, nine nIHH patients, 19 VC patients, and five SN patients shared 116 variants, with 28 variant-harbouring genes detected in five or more patients. We found that the NEFH, CCDC177, and PCLO genes and the Gene Ontology pathways GO:0051301: cell division and GO:0090066: regulation of anatomical structure size may be key factors in the pathogenic mechanism of IHH. Our results suggest that the pathogenic mechanism of IHH is not limited to the central nervous system effects of GnRH but may involve other heterogeneous pathogenic genetic variants that affect peripheral organs.

Genome analysis of the pico-eukaryotic marine green alga Prasinoderma coloniale CCMP 1413 unveils the existence of a novel phylum within green plants (Viridiplantae), the Prasinodermophyta, which diverged before the split of Chlorophyta and Streptophyta. Structural features of the genome and gene family comparisons revealed an intermediate position of the P. coloniale genome (25.3 Mb) between the extremely compact, small genomes of picoplanktonic Mamiellophyceae (Chlorophyta) and the larger, more complex genomes of early-diverging streptophyte algae. Reconstruction of the minimal core genome of Viridiplantae allowed identification of an ancestral toolkit of transcription factors and flagellar proteins. Adaptations of P. coloniale to its deep-water, oligotrophic environment involved expansion of light-harvesting proteins, reduction of early light-induced proteins, evolution of a distinct type of C4 photosynthesis and carbon-concentrating mechanism, synthesis of the metal-complexing metabolite picolinic acid, and vitamin B1, B7 and B12 auxotrophy. The P. coloniale genome provides first insights into the dawn of green plant evolution. ; Data availability: Whole-genome assemblies, annotation and raw data for P. coloniale in this study are deposited at the CNGB Nucleotide Sequence Archive92 (CNSA: http://db.cngb. org/cnsa, accession no. CNP0000924). ; The Shenzhen Municipal Government of China and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Read and Write. ; http://www.nature.com/natecolevol ; am2021 ; Biochemistry ; Genetics ; Microbiology and Plant Pathology

Mounting evidence suggests that terrestrialization of plants started in streptophyte green algae, favoured by their dual existence in freshwater and subaerial/terrestrial environments. Here, we present the genomes of Mesostigma viride and Chlorokybus atmophyticus, two sister taxa in the earliest-diverging clade of streptophyte algae dwelling in freshwater and subaerial/terrestrial environments, respectively. We provide evidence that the common ancestor of M. viride and C. atmophyticus (and thus of streptophytes) had already developed traits associated with a subaerial/terrestrial environment, such as embryophyte-type photorespiration, canonical plant phytochrome, several phytohormones and transcription factors involved in responses to environmental stresses, and evolution of cellulose synthase and cellulose synthase-like genes characteristic of embryophytes. Both genomes differed markedly in genome size and structure, and in gene family composition, revealing their dynamic nature, presumably in response to adaptations to their contrasting environments. The ancestor of M. viride possibly lost several genomic traits associated with a subaerial/terrestrial environment following transition to a freshwater habitat. ; This work is part of the 10KP project led by BGI-Shenzhen and China National GeneBank. ; We thank G. Günther (http://www.mikroskopia.de/index.html), who took microscopic images of M. viride and C. atmophyticus. Financial support was provided by the Shenzhen Municipal Government of China (grant nos. JCYJ20151015162041454 and JCYJ20160531194327655) and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Read and Write (grant no. 2017B030301011). This work is part of the 10KP project led by BGI-Shenzhen and China National GeneBank. ; The Shenzhen Municipal Government of China and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Read and Write. ; http://www.nature.com/natureplants ; am2021 ; Biochemistry ; Genetics ; Microbiology and Plant Pathology