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The roles digital media-technologies play in raising public issues relating to emerging technologies and their potential for engaging publics with science and policy assessments is a lively field of inquiry in Science and Technology Studies (STS). This paper presents an analysis of controversies over proposals for the large-scale removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CDR). The study combines a digital method (web-querying) with document analysis to map debates about two CDR approaches: bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and afforestation. In the first step, we locate actors using the web to engage with BECCS and afforestation and map their alignments in relation to competing framings of CDR. In a second step, we examine the devices deployed by UK-based actors to evidence and contest the feasibility of BECCS and afforestation. Our analysis shows that policy distinctions between "natural" and "engineered" CDR are used flexibly in practice and do not map neatly onto actor engagement with BECCS and afforestation. We highlight the predominance of cross-cutting techno-economic expertise and argue that framings of CDR as a solution to governing climate change may contribute to public disengagement from climate policy processes. The paper reflects on methods for studying controversies, publics, and issues emerging around processes of technoscientific assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are increasingly common, chronic forms of inflammatory bowel disease. The behavior of these diseases varies unpredictably among patients. Identification of reliable prognostic biomarkers would enable treatment to be personalized so that patients destined to experience aggressive disease could receive appropriately potent therapies from diagnosis, while those who will experience more indolent disease are not exposed to the risks and side effects of unnecessary immunosuppression. Using transcriptional profiling of circulating T cells isolated from patients with CD and UC, we identified analogous [CD8.sup.+] T cell transcriptional signatures that divided patients into 2 otherwise indistinguishable subgroups. In both UC and CD, patients in these subgroups subsequently experienced very different disease courses. A substantially higher incidence of frequently relapsing disease was experienced by those patients in the subgroup defined by elevated expression of genes involved in antigen-dependent T cell responses, including signaling initiated by both IL-7 and TCR ligation--pathways previously associated with prognosis in unrelated autoimmune diseases. No equivalent correlation was observed with [CD4.sup.+] T cell gene expression. This suggests that the course of otherwise distinct autoimmune and inflammatory conditions may be influenced by common pathways and identifies what we believe to be the first biomarker that can predict prognosis in both UC and CD from diagnosis, a major step toward personalized therapy., Instruction Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that predominantly affect young adults and cause considerable morbidity. UC typically presents with bloody [...]

Follicular helper ([T.sub.FH]) cells provide crucial signals to germinal center B cells undergoing somatic hypermutation and selection that results in affinity maturation. Tight control of [T.sub.FH] numbers maintains self tolerance. We describe a population of [Foxp3.sup.+] [Blimp-1.sup.+] [CD4.sup.+] T cells constituting 10-25% of the CXCR5 high [PD-1.sup.high] [CD4.sup.+] T cells found in the germinal center after immunization with protein antigens. These follicular regulatory T ([T.sub.FR]) cells share phenotypic characteristics with [T.sub.FH] and conventional [Foxp3.sup.+] regulatory T ([T.sub.reg]) cells yet are distinct from both. Similar to [T.sub.FH] cells, [T.sub.FR] cell development depends on Bcl-6, SLAM-associated protein (SAP), CD28 and B cells; however, [T.sub.FR] cells originate from thymic-derived [Foxp3.sup.+] precursors, not naive or [T.sub.FH] cells. [T.sub.FR] cells are suppressive in vitro and limit [T.sub.FH] cell and germinal center B cell numbers in vivo. In the absence of [T.sub.FR] cells, an outgrowth of non--antigen-specific B cells in germinal centers leads to fewer antigen- specific cells. Thus, the [T.sub.FH] differentiation pathway is co-opted by [T.sub.reg] cells to control the germinal center response., Germinal centers are clusters of rapidly dividing B cells formed in secondary lymphoid tissues in response to T-dependent antigens. Within the germinal center, mutation of the B receptor cell V-region [...]