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Social media users can harness the interactivity and connectivity of social networking sites to create a sense of place in a digital environment. This article argues that regularly scheduled Twitter chats can function as digital third places, sites of online sociality that both mirror and deviate from physical gathering sites such as bars or clubs. Using Oldenburg’s eight characteristics of (built) third places, this study examines how people collectively identify with others and collaborate in digital gathering sites. Through an investigation of 1 month of multiple, recurring Twitter chats, including over 3,100 tweets, a textual analysis explores Oldenburg’s characteristics of built third places in the context of these digital interactions. The findings add nuance to the application of Oldenburg’s themes in a networked media context and suggest that social networking sites offer the potential for continued thinking about the role of third places in developing connectivity online. Moreover, the findings suggest further opportunities for the study of space—both physical and digital—and the study of time as integral components of digitally mediated interpersonal connection.

[...]with advances in digital technology and the ubiquitous availability of information, the notion of the experience offered by libraries is changing (Jui, 1993; Jiao & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Bertot, McClure, & Jaeger, 2008; Holmberg, Huvila, Kronqvist-Berg, & Widén-Wulff, 2009; Anttiroiko & Savolainen, 2011). Libraries are measuring the value and impact of digital content and pivoting accordingly to meet the needs of patrons. User-Experience Design and the Space of Libraries This article furthers the optimistic approach to the future of libraries (as noted by Giesecke, 2011; Stoffle & Cuiller, 2011) by investigating the ways that user-experience design theories can address the changing roles of contemporary libraries. Donald A. Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group and an academic in cognitive science, design, and usability engineering, offers a design model in his book, Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things (2004). Norman list things such as warmth, comfortable lighting, harmonious music and other sounds, symmetrical objects, smiling faces, or sweet tastes and smells, as things that tend to give rise to positive affect. Because physical features such as look, feel, and sound dominate, a user's response to a product at this level will always inspire love or hate, attractiveness or unattractiveness (Norman, 2004, p. 67). The research revealed attention to physical design of spaces (e.g., color, furniture, and lighting), as well as furnishings present (e.g., music booths, video game equipment, flat-screen TVs). By having brightly painted walls and furnishings and providing teen-approved gaming and computing technology, the library is able to...

At the Protests, Prayers, and Progress exhibit, I'm looking forward being immersed in the experience of the \"separate-but-equal\" classrooms on display, seeing images of a 1960s Greenville captured for national news, and hearing the memories of lawmakers and citizens who lived the struggle shared in their own words.

Summary Contaminants such as heavy metals may contribute to the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by enriching resistance gene determinants via co‐selection mechanisms. In the present study, a survey was performed on soils collected from four areas at the Savannah River Site (SRS), South Carolina, USA, with varying contaminant profiles: relatively pristine (Upper Three Runs), heavy metals (Ash Basins), radionuclides (Pond B) and heavy metal and radionuclides (Tim’s Branch). Using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, we explored the structure and diversity of soil bacterial communities. Sites with legacies of metal and/or radionuclide contamination displayed significantly lower bacterial diversity compared to the reference site. Metagenomic analysis indicated that multidrug and vancomycin antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and metal resistance genes (MRGs) including those associated with copper, arsenic, iron, nickel and zinc were prominent in all soils including the reference site. However, significant differences were found in the relative abundance and diversity of certain ARGs and MRGs in soils with metal/radionuclide contaminated soils compared to the reference site. Co‐occurrence patterns revealed significant ARG/MRG subtypes in predominant soil taxa including Acidobacteriaceae, Bradyrhizobium, Mycobacterium, Streptomyces, Verrumicrobium, Actinomadura and Solirubacterales. Overall, the study emphasizes the potential risk of human activities on the dissemination of AMR in the environment. We present a comprehensive analysis of the soil microbiome in several areas affected by legacies of heavy‐metal and radionuclide contamination. We explore how these contaminants affect bacterial community composition and diversity, and the enrichment of antibiotic, biocide, and metal‐resistance genes. We find that these contaminants can not only have a profound impact on soil microbiome composition, but it can also affect how it functions.

Eurasians have ~2% Neanderthal ancestry, but we lack a comprehensive understanding of the genome-wide influence of Neanderthal introgression on modern human diseases and traits. Here, we quantify the contribution of introgressed alleles to the heritability of more than 400 diverse traits. We show that genomic regions in which detectable Neanderthal ancestry remains are depleted of heritability for all traits considered, except those related to skin and hair. Introgressed variants themselves are also depleted for contributions to the heritability of most traits. However, introgressed variants shared across multiple Neanderthal populations are enriched for heritability and have consistent directions of effect on several traits with potential relevance to human adaptation to non-African environments, including hair and skin traits, autoimmunity, chronotype, bone density, lung capacity, and menopause age. Integrating our results, we propose a model in which selection against introgressed functional variation was the dominant trend (especially for cognitive traits); however, for a few traits, introgressed variants provided beneficial variation via uni-directional (e.g., lightening skin color) or bi-directional (e.g., modulating immune response) effects. We lack a comprehensive understanding of how Neanderthal ancestry influences human traits. This study finds that regions with Neanderthal ancestry are broadly depleted of trait-associated variation; yet, introgressed variants likely contributed to human adaptation in a few traits, like skin color and immune response modulation.

In patients with advanced melanomas with the BRAF V600E mutation, vemurafenib produced a response in nearly half the patients; secondary skin tumors, arthralgia, rash, and fatigue were side effects. Dacarbazine produced a response in 6%. Metastatic melanoma has a poor prognosis, with the median survival for patients with stage IV melanoma ranging from 8 to 18 months after diagnosis, depending on the substage. 1 In the United States last year, 8700 deaths from melanoma were projected, with an estimated rate of death of 2.6 in 100,000. 2 Rates of death from melanoma in Australia and New Zealand are slightly higher (3.5 in 100,000), whereas rates in Western Europe are slightly lower (1.8 in 100,000). 3 In phase 3 studies, dacarbazine, the only chemotherapeutic agent approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, was . . .

To investigate the unique kinds of mentality involved in skilled performance, this paper explores the performance ecology of the Maori haka, a ritual form of song and dance of the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. We respond to a recent proposal to program robots to perform a haka as ‘cultural preservationists’ for ‘intangible cultural heritage’. This ‘Robot Māori Haka’ proposal raises questions about the nature of skill and the transmission of embodied knowledge; about the cognitive and affective experiences cultivated in indigenous practices like haka; and about the role of robots in the archival aspirations of human societies. Reproducing haka, we suggest, requires more than copying physical actions; preserving the ‘intangible’ entails more than programming postures and movements. To make this case, we discuss the history of European responses to the haka, and analyse its diverse performance features in cultural context. Arguing that indigenous movement practices incorporate genuinely embodied knowledge, we claim that skilled performance of haka is deeply mindful, embodying and transmitting dynamic, culturally shared understandings of the natural and social world. The indigenous psychologies incorporated in haka performance are animated by a shared history integrated with its environment. Examining haka performance through the lens of 4E cognitive skill theory for mutual benefit, we discuss the effects of synchrony in collective action, the social and environmental scaffolding of affect and emotion, and the multilayered relations between past and present. Culturally-embedded systems of skilled movement like the Maori haka may, we suggest, constitute specific ways of thinking and feeling.

John W McArthur, Krista Rasmussen, and Gavin Yamey examine how far countries have to go to meet the targets for maternal and child mortality and what needs to be done to help them

Bacteria have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to inhibit the growth of competitors 1 . One such mechanism involves type VI secretion systems, which bacteria can use to inject antibacterial toxins directly into neighbouring cells. Many of these toxins target the integrity of the cell envelope, but the full range of growth inhibitory mechanisms remains unknown 2 . Here we identify a type VI secretion effector, Tas1, in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa . The crystal structure of Tas1 shows that it is similar to enzymes that synthesize (p)ppGpp, a broadly conserved signalling molecule in bacteria that modulates cell growth rate, particularly in response to nutritional stress 3 . However, Tas1 does not synthesize (p)ppGpp; instead, it pyrophosphorylates adenosine nucleotides to produce (p)ppApp at rates of nearly 180,000 molecules per minute. Consequently, the delivery of Tas1 into competitor cells drives rapid accumulation of (p)ppApp, depletion of ATP, and widespread dysregulation of essential metabolic pathways, thereby resulting in target cell death. Our findings reveal a previously undescribed mechanism for interbacterial antagonism and demonstrate a physiological role for the metabolite (p)ppApp in bacteria. The bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa attacks competing bacteria using the toxin Tas1, which pyrophosphorylates adenosine nucleotides to generate (p)ppApp, thereby depleting ATP and disrupting multiple cellular functions.