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1. Early‐breeding females experience greater telomere loss

   https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.14952  

   Graham, Jessica L.; Bauer, Carolyn M.; Heidinger, Britt J.; Ketterson, Ellen D.; Greives, Timothy J. (January 2019, Molecular Ecology)

   Abstract Annual reproductive success is often highest in individuals that initiate breeding early, yet relatively few individuals start breeding during this apparently optimal time. This suggests that individuals, particularly females who ultimately dictate when offspring are born, incur costs by initiating reproduction early in the season. We hypothesized that increases in the ageing rate of somatic cells may be one such cost. Telomeres, the repetitive DNA sequences on the ends of chromosomes, may be good proxies of biological wear and tear as they shorten with age and in response to stress. Using historical data from a long‐term study population of dark‐eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), we found that telomere loss between years was greater in earlier breeding females, regardless of chronological age. There was no relationship between telomere loss and the annual number of eggs laid or chicks that reached independence. However, telomere loss was greater when temperatures were cooler, and cooler temperatures generally occur early in the season. This suggests that environmental conditions could be the primary cause of accelerated telomere loss in early breeders. 

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2. Greater climate sensitivity implied by anvil cloud thinning.

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01420-6  

   Sokol, Adam B; Wall, Casey J; Hartmann, Dennis L (May 2024, Nature Geoscience)
3. Mind Melds: Verbal Labels Induce Greater Representational Alignment

   https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00153  

   Suffill, Ellise; van_Paridon, Jeroen; Lupyan, Gary (January 2024, Open Mind)

   What determines whether two people represent something in a similar way? We examined the role of verbal labels in promoting representational alignment. Across two experiments, three groups of participants sorted novel shapes from two visually dissimilar categories. Prior to sorting, participants in two of the groups were pre-exposed to the shapes using a simple visual matching task designed to reinforce the visual category structure. In one of these groups, participants additionally heard one of two nonsense category labels accompanying the shapes. Exposure to these redundant labels led people to represent the shapes in a more categorical way, which led to greater alignment between sorters. We found this effect of label-induced alignment despite the two categories being highly visually distinct and despite participants in both pre-exposure conditions receiving identical visual experience with the shapes. Experiment 2 replicated this basic result using more even more stringent testing conditions. The results hint at the possibly extensive role that labels may play in aligning people’s mental representations. 

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4. Toward greater scavenger congestion control deployment: implementations and interfaces

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3472305.3472323  

   Meng, Tong; Cai, Christopher; Godfrey, Brighten; Schapira, Michael (July 2021, ACM/IRTF Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW))
5. Drivers of forest change in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

   https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.13141  

   Blomdahl, Erika M.; Speer, James H.; Kaye, Margot; Zampieri, Nicole E.; Rochner, Maegen; Currey, Bryce; Alving, Denise; Cahalan, Gabriel D.; Hagedorn, Ben; Li, Hang; et al (July 2022, Journal of Vegetation Science)