The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many have expressed concern about the effects of false stories (“fake news”), circulated largely through social media. We discuss the economics of fake news and present new data on its consumption prior to the election. Drawing on web browsing data, archives of fact-checking websites, and results from a new online survey, we find: (i) social media was an important but not dominant source of election news, with 14 percent of Americans calling social media their “most important” source; (ii) of the known false news stories that appeared in the three months before the election, those favoring Trump were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook, while those favoring Clinton were shared 8 million times; (iii) the average American adult saw on the order of one or perhaps several fake news stories in the months around the election, with just over half of those who recalled seeing them believing them; and (iv) people are much more likely to believe stories that favor their preferred candidate, especially if they have ideologically segregated social media networks.

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Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election

The talk with present the key results of the IPCC Working Group III 5th assessment report. Concluding four years of intense scientific collaboration by hundreds of authors from around the world, the report responds to the request of the world's governments for a comprehensive, objective and policy neutral assessment of the current scientific knowledge on mitigating climate change. The report has been extensively reviewed by experts and governments to ensure quality and comprehensiveness.

Climate change 2014 - Mitigation of climate change

Endogenous neuromodulatory molecules are commonly coupled to specific metabolic enzymes to ensure rapid signal inactivation. Thus, acetylcholine is hydrolysed by acetylcholine esterase and tryptamine neurotransmitters like serotonin are degraded by monoamine oxidases. Previously, we reported the structure and sleep-inducing properties of cis-9-octadecenamide, a lipid isolated from the cerebrospinal fluid of sleep-deprived cats. cis-9-Octadecenamide, or oleamide, has since been shown to affect serotonergic systems and block gap-junction communication in glial cells (our unpublished results). We also identified a membrane-bound enzyme activity that hydrolyses oleamide to its inactive acid, oleic acid. We now report the mechanism-based isolation, cloning and expression of this enzyme activity, originally named oleamide hydrolase, from rat liver plasma membranes. We also show that oleamide hydrolase converts anandamide, a fatty-acid amide identified as the endogenous ligand for the cannabinoid receptor, to arachidonic acid, indicating that oleamide hydrolase may serve as the general inactivating enzyme for a growing family of bioactive signalling molecules, the fatty-acid amides. Therefore we will hereafter refer to oleamide hydrolase as fatty-acid amide hydrolase, in recognition of the plurality of fatty-acid amides that the enzyme can accept as substrates.

Molecular characterization of an enzyme that degrades neuromodulatory fatty-acid amides

Uranium solution-mineral equilibria at low temperatures with applications to sedimentary ore deposits

Effect of L-histidine on the catabolism of nitrogenous compounds in Aspergillus nidulans.

Kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of naringenin, hesperetin, 3-hydroxychromone and 3-hydroxyflavone with a pseudo first order excess of iron(III) have been investigated in aqueous solution at 25°C and an ionic strength of 0.5 M. Mechanisms have been proposed which account satisfactorily for the kinetic data. These are consistent with a mechanism in which a 1 : 1 metal : ligand complex is formed in each case. For naringenin and hesperetin, the main reaction path involves reaction of the ligand with the monohydroxy species Fe(OH)2+, however the iron hydroxo dimer proved to be most reactive in the reactions with 3-hydroxyflavone and 3-hydroxychromone. The 1 : 1 iron(III) : naringenin and iron(III) : hesperetin complexes did not undergo subsequent electron-transfer based decomposition while both the iron(III) : 3-hydroxyflavone and iron(III) : 3-hydroxychromone complexes decompose rather slowly in an electron-transfer step. The reactions were monitored using UV–visible spectrophotometry. The suggested ...

The kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of iron(III) with naringenin, hesperetin, 3-hydroxychromone and 3-hydroxyflavone. A comparison of the coordination power of 3-hydroxychromone and 5-hydroxychromone

A procedure using open digestion followed by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry is described for measuring the selenium content of cereal-based animal feed. Accurate and precise data can be obtained after careful preparation of the samples prior to analysis. The limits of detection and quantitation were 1 ng and 2.5 ng Se, respectively. The signal response was linear over the range of 2.5 to 250 ng Se, and the average recovery from the spiked samples was 102.5%. The validated method was used to measure the Se content of wheat flour standard reference material resulting in 1.21 ± 0.035 mg/kg (n = 3) which is in good agreement with the certified level of 1.23 ± 0.09 mg/kg.

Determination of selenium in animal feed by hydride generation AAS: Validation of analytical method

Metal toxicity: complexing of alkyltin species with low-Mr ligands in aqueous solution

Extracts and preparations of the desert plant Yucca schidigera Roezl ex Ortgies (Mohave yucca), family Lillaceae, have a variety of beneficial effects when included in the diet of humans and domestic animals. Such effects include reduced gastrointestinal and faecal ammonia levels. A proposed mode of action is inhibition of microfloral urease (urea amidohydrolase; EC 3.5.1.5). We describe a rigorous method of in vitro urcase assay, in the presence of potential effectors such as Y schidigera preparations, using the phenolindophenol reaction to measure the ammonia product. The urease of Bacillus pasteurii was characterised in order to determine its suitability as a model bacterial urease. K-phosphate, but not K-HEPES or K-citrate, was found to inhibit this bacterial urease, particularly at low pH, as previously reported for other plant and bacterial ureases. B pasteurii urease was found to have a Michaelis-Menten constant, Km, of 10.5 ± 3.2 mM in 150 mM K-HEPES, pH 65 and 0.89 M KCl, total ionic strength = 0.90 M at 30°C. It was therefore concluded that B pasteuriiurease is indeed a typical bacterial urease, suitable for studying the influence of Y schidigera preparations. For comparison, the effects of Y schidigera preparations on the activity of β-galactosidase (β-D-galactoside galactohydrolase; EC 3.2.1.23) from Aspergillus or yzae, an unrelated hydrolase, were also determined. Urease and β-galactosidase were both weakly and non-specifically inhibited, in a fashion linearly related to the concentration of γ schidigera preparation. Linear regression of the relationship between γ schidigera preparation and enzyme activity yielded inhibition ratios of 3.2 ± 0.4 and 5.4 ± 1.6 nkat ml−1 preparation for urease and β-galactosidase respectively. By comparing with reported in vivo rates of urea degradation in mammals it was concluded that the observed inhibitory properties of Y schidigera preparations are much too low to account for their in vivo effects at feed inclusion levels of as little as 100 g tonne−1.

Michael J. Hynes

Papers

Effect of L-histidine on the catabolism of nitrogenous compounds in Aspergillus nidulans.

The kinetics and mechanisms of the reactions of iron(III) with naringenin, hesperetin, 3-hydroxychromone and 3-hydroxyflavone. A comparison of the coordination power of 3-hydroxychromone and 5-hydroxychromone

Determination of selenium in animal feed by hydride generation AAS: Validation of analytical method

Metal toxicity: complexing of alkyltin species with low-Mr ligands in aqueous solution

Influence of Yucca schidigera preparations on the activity of urease from Bacillus pasteurii