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Abstract Does stepping back to evaluate a situation from a distanced perspective lead us to be selfish or fair? This question has been of philosophical interest for centuries, and, more recently, the focus of extensive empirical inquiry. Yet, extant research reveals a puzzle: some studies suggest that adopting a distanced perspective will produce more rationally self-interested behavior, whereas others suggest that it will produce more impartial behavior. Here we adjudicate between these perspectives by testing the effects of adopting a third-person perspective on decision making in a task that pits rational self-interest against impartiality: the dictator game. Aggregating across three experiments (N = 774), participants who used third-person (i.e., distanced) vs. first-person (i.e., immersed) self-talk during the dictator game kept more money for themselves. We discuss these results in light of prior research showing that psychological distance can promote cooperation and fairmindedness and how the effect of psychological distance on moral decision-making may be sensitive to social context.

Passive microwave measurements from space are known to be sensitive to the freeze/thaw (F/T) state of the land surface. These measurements are at a coarse spatial resolution (~15–50 km) and the spatial variability of the microwave emissions within a pixel can have important effects on the interpretation of the signal. An L-band ground-based microwave radiometer campaign was conducted in the Canadian Prairies during winter 2014–2015 to examine the spatial variability of surface emissions during frozen and thawed periods. Seven different sites within the Kenaston soil monitoring network were sampled five times between October 2014 and April 2015 with a mobile ground-based L-band radiometer system at approximately monthly intervals. The radiometer measurements showed that in a seemingly homogenous prairie landscape, the spatial variability of brightness temperature (TB) is non-negligible during both frozen and unfrozen soil conditions. Under frozen soil conditions, TB was negatively correlated with soil permittivity (εG). This correlation was related to soil moisture conditions before the main freezing event, showing that the soil ice volumetric content at least partly affects TB. However, because of the effect of snow on L-Band emission, the correlation between TB and εG decreased with snow accumulation. When compared to satellite measurements, the average TB of the seven plots were well correlated with the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) TB with a root mean square difference of 8.1 K and consistent representation of the strong F/T signal (i.e., TB increases and decreases when soil freezing and thawing, respectively). This study allows better quantitative understanding of the spatial variability in L-Band emissions related to landscape F/T, and will help the calibration and validation of satellite-based F/T retrieval algorithms.

Experiments using controlled manipulation of climate variables in the field are critical for developing and testing mechanistic models of ecosystem responses to climate change. Despite rapid changes in climate observed in many high latitude and high altitude environments, controlled manipulations in these remote regions have largely been limited to passive experimental methods with variable effects on environmental factors. In this study, we tested a method of controlled soil warming suitable for remote field locations that can be powered using alternative energy sources. The design was tested in high latitude, alpine tundra of southern Yukon Territory, Canada, in 2010 and 2011. Electrical warming probes were inserted vertically in the near-surface soil and powered with photovoltaics attached to a monitoring and control system. The warming manipulation achieved a stable target warming of 1.3 to 2 °C in 1 m(2) plots while minimizing disturbance to soil and vegetation. Active control of power output in the warming plots allowed the treatment to closely match spatial and temporal variations in soil temperature while optimizing system performance during periods of low power supply. Active soil heating with vertical electric probes powered by alternative energy is a viable option for remote sites and presents a low-disturbance option for soil warming experiments. This active heating design provides a valuable tool for examining the impacts of soil warming on ecosystem processes.

Nature Communications 6: Article number:7074 (2015); Published: 05 June 2015; Updated: 29 Marrch 2016 The financial support for this article was not fully acknowledged. The Acknowledgements should have included the following: PLB was supported by the National Institute for Health Research BiomedicalResearch Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust and University College London.

The toxicity by 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is thought to be caused by activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). However, our understanding of how AHR activation by TCDD leads to toxic effects is poor. Ideally we would like to manipulate AHR activity in specific tissues and at specific times. One route to this is expressing dominant negative AHRs (dnAHRs). This work describes the construction and characterization of dominant negative forms of the zebrafish Ahr2 in which the C-terminal transactivation domain was either removed, or replaced with the inhibitory domain from the Drosophila engrailed repressor protein. One of these dnAhr2s was selected for expression from the ubiquitously active e2fα promoter in transgenic zebrafish. We found that these transgenic zebrafish expressing dnAhr2 had reduced TCDD induction of the Ahr2 target gene cyp1a, as measured by 7-ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase activity. Furthermore, the cardiotoxicity produced by TCDD, pericardial edema, heart malformation, and reduced blood flow, were all mitigated in the zebrafish expressing the dnAhr2. These results provide in vivo proof-of-principle results demonstrating the effectiveness of dnAHRs in manipulating AHR activity in vivo, and demonstrating that this approach can be a means for blocking TCDD toxicity.