The effect of Wolbachia on the viability and antimicrobial activity of the ectoparasitoid Habrobracon hebetor was evaluated in laboratory experiments. Two lines of the parasitoid, Wolbachia-infected (W+) and Wolbachia-free (W−), were used. Parasitoid larvae were fed with a host orally infected with a sublethal dose of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and on the host uninfected with Bt. Parasitoid survival was assessed at developmental stages from second-instar larvae to adults. At all developmental stages, there were no statistically significant differences in survival between lines W+ and W−, regardless of host Bt infection. In both W+ and W− lines, the expression of lysozyme-like proteins, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), and Hsp70 genes was analysed in fourth-instar larvae fed with an infected and uninfected host. In addition, lysozyme-like activity and antibacterial activity were evaluated. The expression of AMPs was significantly higher in W− larvae and did not get induced during the feeding on the Bt-infected host. mRNA expression of lysozyme-like proteins and lysozyme activity were significantly higher in W+ larvae than in W− larvae and did not get induced when the larvae were fed with the infected host. In whole-body homogenates of H. hebetor larvae fed with the uninfected host, antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus cereus and Bacillus subtilis) was significantly higher in the W+ line and did not get induced during the feeding with the Bt-infected host. Therefore, there is no obvious immunostimulatory effect of Wolbachia in H. hebetor larvae when they feed on a host infected with an entomopathogenic bacterium.

Rewards are rewarding owing to their hedonic or metabolic value. Individual differences in sensitivity to rewards are predictive of mental health problems but may reflect variation in metabolic types. We have assessed the association of two distinguishable aspects of reward sensitivity, openness to rewards (the striving towards multiple rewards) and insatiability by reward (the strong pursuit and fixation to a particular reward), with measures of metabolism and activity in a longitudinal study of representative birth cohort samples. We used data of the Estonian Children Personality Behaviour and Health Study (original n = 1238) collected at age 15, 18 and 25. Reward sensitivity and physical activity were self-reported during a laboratory visit, when also blood sampling, measurement of blood pressure, height and weight, aerobic exercise testing and the diet interview, after the participants had kept food diary, took place. In the younger cohort, physical activity was also assessed by accelerometry at age 18 and 25. Across adolescence and young adulthood, openness to rewards was positively associated with physical activity and negatively with blood pressure and serum levels of glucose, insulin and cholesterol levels. In contrast, insatiability by reward was positively associated with serum triglyceride levels and negatively with energy intake and cardiorespiratory fitness. In conclusion, the two facets of reward sensitivity have a fairly different association with a variety of metabolic and health-related measures. This may explain the variable findings in literature, and suggests that individual differences in reward sensitivity are part of a complex physiological variability, including energy expenditure profiles.

On 1 March 2018, President Trump declared a 25% tariff on certain steel imports by invoking Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. The tariff pitted two of America’s most storied and interconnected industries, steel and auto producers, against one another and made allies out of longtime bitter political opponents on Capitol Hill. Later that same year, President Trump doubled down on the steel tariff when he initiated a Section 232 investigation on auto and auto parts imports. The auto industry blasted the proposal, while steel offered its strong support. This paper examines the congressional response to President Trump’s proposed auto tariff. Specifically, we explain why 159 MCs signed a letter opposing the tariff. After controlling for other factors, such as district interests and campaign contributions, we find that ideology matters more than party affiliation on whether legislators signed the auto letter. We also find the second dimension of the DW-NOMINATE score to matter, suggesting the strong presence of intra-party cleavages. Our findings highlight the complex nature of trade policy as a domain of bipartisan agreement amidst broader political polarization and at a time when traditional party platforms on the issue are rapidly changing.

Each year, twice a year, musicians flock to the Catskill Mountain hamlet of East Durham, New York, transforming this otherwise sleepy town into a bustling site of music, dancing, and parties. East Durham is home to multiple Irish cultural festivals a year, but two stand out for their focus on Irish traditional music: the Catskills Irish Arts Week and the Northeast Tionól. These festivals, affectionately referred to collectively as “the Catskills,” are curious in their allure. Sprawled across a three-mile stretch of rural highway, most festival facilities are rundown and date to the heyday of the region in the first half of the twentieth century, when East Durham was an enclave of Irish American resort vacationers. Dotting the side of the road are more vacant and dilapidated buildings than there are in use. Yet, musicians attend each year with fervor, citing both the difficulties of the location and its pleasurable potentials as core to the “Catskills” experience. Drawing upon ethnographic observations and interviews, I examine this affective ambivalence and how it is structured by sensory qualities unique to the physical geography and infrastructure of the Catskill Mountains. Though these sensory experiences are characterized with a negative valence, they generate positive musical experiences, creative production, and deep sociality. I argue that this affective transformation occurs because the sensational features of the Catskills provoke reflexive encounters among musicians that resonate with and amplify values central to Irish traditional music making.

Since the emergence of the Thule culture (AD 1200), dog sledding has been perceived as a central means of transportation in traditional Inuit life in the Arctic. However, there is an absence of research concerning Inuit dog-sled technology and the tradition of the craft. This study investigates the Inuit dog-sled technocomplex using enskilment methodologiesby employing experimental and ethno-archaeological observations to explore the relationship between knowledge and technical practice. It involves the reconstruction of a historical West Greenlandic dog sled, shedding light on carpentry techniques and construction processes. This method emphasizes the interaction between humans, technology, and time, providing essential practical data for future archaeological and historical research, particularly for comprehending fragmented archaeological remains. By focusing on process rather than end product, this research provides insight into understanding Inuit dog sled technology and the complexity of the practice. The connection between artifacts and materially situated practice is demonstrated through the reconstruction of a dog sled, which illustrates the value of physicality in enskilment. It highlights how experimental archaeology can improve our insights into the historical and prehistoric Arctic societies’ technologies, economies, and practices.

Alfred Marshall used an evolutionary theory of race to ground individual psychology and explain economic behavior. The psychological theory, drawn from Herbert Spencer, explained British and US industrial leadership by the innate excellences of Anglo-Saxon workers and entrepreneurs, without invoking colonialism or other uses of state power. It also asserted the internal solidarity of Anglo-Saxons. Because they were inclined to help each other, argued Marshall, Anglo-Saxons could handle laissez-faire. The paper situates Marshall in conversation with Anglican liberals like F. D. Maurice, and argues that a shared racial consciousness worked as a common ground among Coleridgean Romantics and radicals like Mill and Spencer who needed a category of the nation that did not rely on the state.

We analyze a countable support product of a free Suslin tree which turns it into a highly rigid Kurepa tree with no Aronszajn subtree. In the process, we introduce a new rigidity property for trees, which says roughly speaking that any non-trivial strictly increasing function from a section of the tree into itself maps into a cofinal branch.