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The western fertility decline is arguably the most significant demographic change to have occurred in the past 200 years, yet its causes and processes are still shrouded in ambiguity due to a lack of individual-level longitudinal data. A growing body of research has helped improve our understanding of the decline's causes by examining the development of socioeconomic differences in fertility using

This paper analyses an impact of religious practice on the development of the tense system, in particular the future tense. There have been rich typological studies on the tense, which reveal that a basic tense distinction is either past vs. non-past or past vs. present vs. future in most languages. From evolutionary/historical perspectives, the former case is older than the latter one, i.e. the f

Effectors of the innate immune system, the anti-bacterial peptides, have pivotal roles in preventing infection at epithelial surfaces. Here we show that proteinases of the significant human pathogens Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis, Proteus mirabilis and Streptococcus pyogenes, degrade the antibacterial peptide LL-37. Analysis by mass spectrometry of fragments generated by P. aerugin

c-jun activation has been implicated not only in neuronal apoptosis, but also in survival and regeneration. This Janus facet of c-Jun activation could be related to neuronal cell type or to the developmental stage of the neuron. We investigated c-Jun activation in E18 sensory neurons. Cultures of rat dorsal root ganglia neurons were maintained with or without the addition of nerve growth factor or

The wake structures of a bat in flight have a number of characteristics not associated with any of the bird species studied to this point. Unique features include discrete vortex rings generating negative lift at the end of the upstroke at medium and high speeds, each wing generating its own vortex loop, and a systematic variation in the circulation of the start and stop vortices along the wingspa

We use agarose gel electrophoresis to characterize how the monovalent catioinic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) compacts double-stranded DNA, which is detected as a reduction in electrophoretic DNA velocity. The velocity reaches a plateau at a ratio R = 1.8 of CTAB to DNA-phosphate charges, i.e., above the neutralization point, and the complexes retain a net negative charge at lea

[1] Mires are key landscape elements at high latitudes and have certainly accumulated carbon during the Holocene, but their current carbon balance at the present time is very unclear. The major carbon flux is the land-atmosphere CO2 exchange and full-year data are still limited. Here we present data from 3 a (2001-2003) of continuous Eddy Covariance measurements at Degero Stormyr (64 degrees 11'N,

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of treatment, visual function, and other factors on vision-targeted health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with early glaucoma. Design: Randomized clinical trial. Participants: Two hundred fifty-five patients with newly detected open-angle glaucoma and repeatable early visual field (VF) defects, 50 to 80 years old (66% female). Methods: Patients were ran

Nocturnal animals relying on vision typically have eyes that are optically and morphologically adapted for both increased sensitivity and greater information capacity in dim light [1]. Here, we investigate whether adaptations for increased sensitivity also are found in their photoreceptors by using closely related and fast-flying nocturnal and diurnal bees as model animals. The nocturnal bee Megal

Maternal hormones can have substantial phenotypic effects in the progeny of many vertebrates. It has been proposed that mothers adaptively adjust hormone levels experienced by particular young to optimize their reproductive output. In birds, systematic variation in egg hormone levels has been related to different female reproductive strategies. Because in many bird species prospects of the offspri