German corona protest mobilizers on Telegram and their relations to the far right: a network and topic analysis

The Querdenken movement, the leading force behind German corona protests, is suspected of being a gateway to far-right attitudes due to radicalizing inward-oriented communication on Telegram. To investigate potential connections of this movement to the far right and alternative media - and to explore key topics of the Querdenken network over time - we analyzed 6,294,955 messages from 578 public Telegram channels via network analysis and structural topic modeling. This analysis revealed that Querdenken's subcommunities preferably forward content from far-right and QAnon communities, while far-right and conspiracy theorist alternative media channels act as content distributors for the movement. Four main topics appeared in the Querdenken network with varying prevalence over time and across different communities: promotion, QAnon, right-wing populism, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Our results highlight potential directions for future research and practical implications, for example, that political decision makers should account for the increasing influence of the QAnon movement on Querdenken mobilizers' Telegram activity

Thirty years after the German reunification - exploring stereotypes about East Germans on Twitter

Although further social category thinking on social media might harm the German democratic public sphere, the stereotyping of East Germans on social media has been under-researched so far. We combined computational text analysis and manual content analysis on N = 106,616 tweets to investigate the area of society to which the stereotypes apply, the kind of threat East Germans are described as, and what exact stereotypes exist. We show that stereotypic tweets about East Germans are relatively rare. East Germans are portrayed as a general political threat and are attributed right-wing attitudes, socioeconomic marginalization, and negative behaviors. The contextual stereotypes we found are in line with previous studies investigating traditional media and suggest that different groups, like Saxons, recur as targets of political stereotypes, depending on the events taking place. Practical implications of the results are discussed

Single Gene Deletions of Orexin, Leptin, Neuropeptide Y, and Ghrelin Do Not Appreciably Alter Food Anticipatory Activity in Mice

Timing activity to match resource availability is a widely conserved ability in nature. Scheduled feeding of a limited amount of food induces increased activity prior to feeding time in animals as diverse as fish and rodents. Typically, food anticipatory activity (FAA) involves temporally restricting unlimited food access (RF) to several hours in the middle of the light cycle, which is a time of day when rodents are not normally active. We compared this model to calorie restriction (CR), giving the mice 60% of their normal daily calorie intake at the same time each day. Measurement of body temperature and home cage behaviors suggests that the RF and CR models are very similar but CR has the advantage of a clearly defined food intake and more stable mean body temperature. Using the CR model, we then attempted to verify the published result that orexin deletion diminishes food anticipatory activity (FAA) but observed little to no diminution in the response to CR and, surprisingly, that orexin KO mice are refractory to body weight loss on a CR diet. Next we tested the orexigenic neuropeptide Y (NPY) and ghrelin and the anorexigenic hormone, leptin, using mouse mutants. NPY deletion did not alter the behavior or physiological response to CR. Leptin deletion impaired FAA in terms of some activity measures, such as walking and rearing, but did not substantially diminish hanging behavior preceding feeding time, suggesting that leptin knockout mice do anticipate daily meal time but do not manifest the full spectrum of activities that typify FAA. Ghrelin knockout mice do not have impaired FAA on a CR diet. Collectively, these results suggest that the individual hormones and neuropepetides tested do not regulate FAA by acting individually but this does not rule out the possibility of their concerted action in mediating FAA

Evolution of the RNA polymerase II C-terminal domain

In recent years a great deal of biochemical and genetic research has focused on the C-terminal domain (CTD) of the largest subunit (RPB1) of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II. This strongly conserved domain of tandemly repeated heptapeptides has been linked functionally to important steps in the initiation and processing of mRNA transcripts in both animals and fungi. Although they are absolutely required for viability in these organisms, C-terminal tandem repeats do not occur in RPB1 sequences from diverse eukaryotic taxa. Here we present phylogenetic analyses of RPB1 sequences showing that canonical CTD heptads are strongly conserved in only a subset of eukaryotic groups, all apparently descended from a single common ancestor. Moreover, eukaryotic groups in which the most complex patterns of ontogenetic development occur are descended from this CTD-containing ancestor. Consistent with the results of genetic and biochemical investigations of CTD function, these analyses suggest that the enhanced control over RNA polymerase II transcription conveyed by acquired CTD protein interactions was an important step in the evolution of intricate patterns of gene expression that are a hallmark of large, developmentally complex eukaryotic organisms. Originally published Proc Natl Acad Sci, Vol. 99, No. 9, Apr 200

Qualitätskontrolle der in den modellhaften Wertschöpfungsketten anfallenden Rohstoffe – Qualitätskriterienkatalog und Datenerhebung für die Anbaujahre 2016, 2017 und 2018

Aufbauend auf den positiven Erfahrungen und den Kontakten des BMEL/BLE-Verbundprojekts „LeguAN – Innovative und ganzheitliche Wertschöpfungskonzepte für funktionelle Lebens- und Futtermittel aus heimischen Körnerleguminosen vom Anbau bis zur Nutzung“ (FKZ: 2815407210), sollten entlang der zu etablierenden Wertschöpfungsketten im modellhaften Demonstrationsvorhaben "Modellhaftes Demonstrationsnetzwerk zur Ausweitung und Ver-besserung des Anbaus und der Verwertung von Leguminosen mit Schwerpunkt Erbsen und Ackerbohnen in Deutschland“ (FKZ: 2815EPS028), Qualitätsdaten für die Rohstoffe, Zwischenprodukte und fertigen Erzeugnissen aus den Bereichen Lebens- und Futtermitteln, erhoben werden. Hierdurch konnte ein Kriterienkatalog entwickelt werden, der die spezifischen Anforderungen an Inhaltsstoffprofile und technofunktionelle Eigenschaften bei der Be- und Verarbeitung berücksichtigt