Background
As part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the United States Food and Drug Administration charged the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee with developing a report and recommendations regarding the effect of menthol in cigarettes on the public health. The purpose of this study was to examine smoking behaviors, biomarkers of exposure and subjective responses when switching from a novel menthol cigarette to a non-menthol cigarette to isolate the effect of menthol and to approximate the effect a menthol ban might have on smokers.
Methods
Thirty two adult smokers completed this 35-day randomized, open-label, laboratory study. After a 5-day baseline period, participants were randomized to the experimental group (n=22) where they would smoke menthol Camel Crush for 15 days followed by 15 days of non-menthol Camel Crush, or the control group (n=10) where they smoked their own brand cigarette across all periods. Participants attended study visits every five days and completed measures of smoking rate, smoking topography, biomarkers of exposure, and subjective responses.
Results
Although total puff volume tended to increase when the experimental group switched from menthol to non-menthol (p=0.06), there were no corresponding increases in cigarette consumption or biomarkers of exposure (ps>0.1). Subjective ratings related to taste and smell decreased during the non-menthol period (ps<0.01), compared to the menthol.
Conclusions
Results suggest menthol has minimal impact on smoking behaviors, biomarkers of exposure and subjective ratings.
Impact
When controlling for all other cigarette design features, menthol in cigarettes had minimal effect on outcome measures.
Given that global warming is the greatest threat to coral reefs, coral restoration projects have expanded worldwide with the goal of replenishing habitats whose reef-building corals succumbed to various stressors. In many cases, however, these efforts will be futile if outplanted corals are unable to withstand warmer oceans and an increased frequency of extreme temperature events. Stress-hardening is one approach proposed to increase the thermal tolerance of coral genotypes currently grown for restoration. Previous studies have shown that corals from environments with natural temperature variability experience less bleaching when exposed to thermal stress, though it remains unclear if this localized acclimatization or adaptation to variable temperatures can be operationalized for enhancing restoration efforts. To evaluate this approach, fragments from six source colonies of nursery-raised Caribbean staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) were treated with a variable temperature regime (oscillating twice per day from 28 to 31ºC) or static temperatures (28ºC) in the laboratory for 89 days. Following this, fragments were subjected to a heat-stress assay (32ºC) for two weeks. Corals treated with variable temperatures manifested signs of severe thermal stress later than static temperature laboratory controls as well as untreated field controls collected from the nursery. Furthermore, there was a stark contrast in the physiological response to heat stress, whereby the laboratory and field control groups had a significantly higher incidence of rapid tissue sloughing and necrosis, while the variable temperature-treated corals succumbed to bleaching more gradually. Overall, our data show that pre-acclimation to a variable temperature regime improves acroporid thermotolerance. As corals continue to be outplanted back onto Florida's changing reef scape, understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying this enhanced thermal tolerance and its endurance in situ will be critical for future research and restoration applications.
An evolutionary debate contrasts the importance of genetic convergence versus genetic redundancy. In genetic convergence, the same adaptive trait evolves because of similar genetic changes. In genetic redundancy, the adaptive trait evolves using different genetic combinations, and populations might not share the same genetic changes. Here we address this debate by examining single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with rapid evolution of character displacement in Anolis carolinensis populations inhabiting replicate islands with and without a competitor species (1Spp and 2Spp islands, respectively). We identify 215-outliers SNPs that have improbably large FST values, low nucleotide variation, greater linkage than expected and that are enriched for genes underlying animal movement. The pattern of SNP divergence between 1Spp and 2Spp populations supports both genetic convergence and genetic redundancy for character displacement. In support of genetic convergence: all 215-outliers SNPs are shared among at least three of the five 2Spp island populations, and 23% of outlier SNPS are shared among all five 2Spp island populations. In contrast, in support of genetic redundancy: many outlier SNPs only have meaningful allele frequency differences between 1Spp and 2Spp islands on a few 2Spp islands. That is, on at least one of the 2Spp islands, 77% of outlier SNPs have allele frequencies more similar to those on 1Spp islands than to those on 2Spp islands. Focusing on genetic convergence is scientifically rigorous because it relies on replication. Yet, this focus distracts from the possibility that there are multiple, redundant genetic solutions that enhance the rate and stability of adaptive change.
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