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How does thinking differ across cultures? Previously, we reported that Chinese people tend to think more abstractly than Caucasian Americans, as indexed by their propensity to construe actions either abstractly or concretely (Singh et al., 2019). Here we provide further evidence for the cultural diversity of abstract thought: We report action construal data from Japan and South Korea, and compare them to our previous Chinese and American data. Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean patterns of action construal all differed significantly from one another. Whereas Chinese participants construed actions more abstractly than American participants, South Koreans did not differ from Americans, and Japanese participants construed actions less abstractly than Americans. The diversity of these East Asian data challenges the assumption that people from China, Japan, and South Korea have a unified “Eastern” cognitive style. Furthermore, these results challenge the longstanding generalization that Westerners think more abstractly than non-Westerners.

Bitter pit (BP) is a physiological disorder of apples that often appears during or after cold storage. Despite being defined as a calcium deficiency disorder, BP is a complex process that is not only affected by the total Ca2+ content in the fruit but also by the proper cellular Ca2+ homeostasis and partitioning. Early investigations have also suggested that rootstocks could affect BP development and severity. In the present study, rootstock effects on BP development were assessed on 'Honeycrisp' trees that were grafted on 14 different rootstocks (B.10, G.11, G.202, G.214, G.30, G.41, G.935, G.969, M.26 EMLA, M.9, V.1, V.5, V.6, and V.7). We evaluated BP incidence at harvest, and three months after cold storage for four, and three growing seasons, respectively. BP incidence was significantly reduced in 'Honeycrisp' trees on B.10 compared to other rootstocks, whereas trees on V.6 showed the highest percentage of BP at harvest and after cold storage. 'Honeycrisp' apples were collected from three different rootstocks (B.10, G.41, and V.6) two months after cold storage and evaluated for mineral nutrient composition, Ca2+ homeostasis, and cell wall properties, e.g., pectin content, pectin de-esterification rate and pectin methylesterase (PME) activity. Water-soluble and insoluble pectin content was markedly higher in fruits from B.10 than in G.41 and V.6. We also observed increased PME enzyme activity and a greater degree of water-insoluble pectin de-esterification in 'Honeycrisp' apples from V.6 compared to those from B.10. A significantly higher Ca2+ was found in the fruits from B.10 than G.41 and V.6. Higher Ca2+ and lower Mg2+ levels were also observed in the cell wall and water-insoluble pectin fractions of the fruits from B.10 compared to G.41 and V.6. However, the ratio of cell wall-bound Ca2+ to total Ca2+ was lower in B.10 compared to G.41 and V.6. Together, our results indicate that the tolerance of B.10 to BP could be attributed to a reduced PME activity and lower pectin de-esterification level, which in turn reduced the amount of Ca2+ cross-linked with pectin, and probably increased the apoplastic free calcium concentrations that is essential for maintaining cell membrane integrity and reducing BP development. Virginia Apple Research Program; USDA-NIFA; [467404]; [VA-160095]; [VA-136332] Published version Funding This project was partially funded by the Virginia Apple Research Program (# 467404) and USDA-NIFA (# VA-160095, and VA-136332)

The production and usage of biomaterials is no new feat for humanity. We have constantly used the natural resources around us to progress as a species but now that we enter a more advanced age the reliance on primitive biomaterials and their extraction methods has started to become a threat to the way of life to our species. The unsustainable production of materials for use has led us to a resource and climate crisis and the need for more sustainable, renewable, and smarter biomaterials has become one of the priorities for our research and development sectors. Utilising Synthetic Biology and its tools to engineer novel biomaterials has recently started to progress. Engineering microorganisms to synthesis materials that can be used for applications such as sensing-and-responding to their environment to having unique filtration properties able to purify contaminated water sources has recently been achieved. Bacteria from the Acetobacter genus know to produce a biomaterial called bacterial cellulose (BC) have been of increasing interest. One specific Acetobacter species named Komagateaibacter rhaeticus iGEM is a model bacterial cellulose producing organism and is able to synthesis copious amounts of this biomaterial. As it is a genetically amenable strain it allows us to engineer in functionalities and increase the amounts of BC that the organism can produce making it a smarter, engineerable, living biomaterial. In this work we have set out to apply Synthetic Biology principles to K. rhaeticus iGEM strain. By metabolically engineering this organism to overexpress a number of genes in bacterial cellulose synthesis pathway and the fructose utilisation pathway we were able to increase the yield of BC produced by K. rhaeticus. Additionally, we investigated the secretome of the organism in order to utilise its native Sec and Tat secretion pathways in order to secrete reporter proteins to achieve proof-of-concept of the ability to functionalise BC using K. rhaeticus as a secretion platform. This would provide the basis for future work in which one could grow a functional biomaterial capable of bioremediation, biosensing and wound repair with a reduced burden on current energy demanding processes and at both a low and high scale depending on the needs of the situation. Open Access

In Sweden, single accidents are the biggest traffic safety problem for cyclists contributing alone with 80 % of their serious injuries. In this respect, the issue of bicycle infrastructure maintenance received significant attention. Slippery, uneven or in other way problematic road surface is reported as a main contributing factor in about half of the single bicycle accidents [l]. This work explores other causal mechanisms for single accidents, primarily those originating from unsuccessful interactions between cyclists and inftastructure elements as well as other objects and road users on the bicycle path. Interactions with the infrastructure take place at locations of rapid change (often reduction) of the effective space available für cyclists. Such examples could be the narrowing of the bicycle paths at the entrance into a tunnel, speed-reducing gates, parking areas für bicycles and e-scooters, poles, manholes, tree branches and other objects banging over the bicycle paths end forcing cyclists to adjust their travel. In such situations, the cyclist can either collide with the objects directly or lose balance as a result of the rapid speed/direction changes necessary to avoid the collision. Another risk factor is the sharp (and unexpected) tums or lateral displacements of the bicycle path itself that can be observed at the entrances to tunnels (often combined with a steep road descent) or intersections. Collisions between cyclists and pedestrians resulting in severe injuries are relatively few, about 10% of all severe injuries [l]. lt is reasonable, however, to expect that many of such unsuccessful interactions result in single falls rather than direct collisions. lt was shown that about 10% of single accidents bad an interaction with other road users (incl. motor vehicles) as a contributing factor 11]. [from Background]

People from Western and East Asian cultures exhibit systematic differences in perception, attention, and cognition. Why do people from these cultures think differently? According to an influential proposal, psychological differences between Westerners and East Asians reflect, and may derive from, differences between ancient Greek and ancient Chinese philosophies. Here, we critique this proposal in two ways. First, we argue that the way ancient Greek philosophy is represented in the cultural psychology literature is skewed, highlighting differences between ancient Greek and Chinese beliefs, and obscuring similarities. Second, we argue that no causal mechanism has been offered by which ancient philosophies could give rise to modern cross-cultural differences.

According to a long-standing dogma, Westerners are more capable of thinking abstractly than East Asians. Here, we challenge this generalization by comparing US and Chinese adults in a paradigm case of abstract thinking: analogy. Chinese and American participants completed the most difficult set of Raven’s (2003) Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), a widely used test of analogical reasoning. For each item, participants attempted to discern the analogical relationships between parts of an incomplete matrix to identify the correct way to complete it. Chinese participants produced significantly more correct answers on the SPM, indicating more successful analogical reasoning. We replicated this result with a second sample of Chinese participants. This cross-cultural difference remained significant when demographic factors were controlled. We predicted this difference, reasoning that East Asian’s sensitivity to context gives them an advantage over Westerners in various kinds of abstract thinking.