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• Projects with more transdisciplinary principles in research design and implementation make more diverse contributions. • Projects employing more transdisciplinary elements can leverage more diverse mechanisms of change. • By leveraging diverse contributions and mechanisms, projects have greater potential influence across more impact pathways. • Theory of change and the Quality Assessment Framework are comprehensive and complementary tools for theory-based evaluation. More and more effective research is needed to help address complex sustainability problems. Many research approaches have adopted more transdisciplinary characteristics as a way to improve effectiveness. However, empirical evidence of the extent to which and how transdisciplinary research design and implementation contribute to (more) effective scientific and social outcomes remains limited. This paper reports a comparative analysis of five research-for-development projects implemented in Peru and Indonesia to: characterize the extent to which projects employed transdisciplinary principles; assess the extent to which and how intended project outcomes were achieved; analyze the relationship between transdisciplinary research approaches and outcomes; and provide lessons from the experience of using a theory-based approach to evaluate a set of case studies. Our analysis demonstrates that the projects employing more transdisciplinary principles in their design and implementation make more diverse contributions and have a greater breadth of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance color vision, animals adapt diverse strategies according to their environmental conditions. For instance, zebrafish use clever retinal circuits to encode spectral information in aquatic environments. Other species, such as birds, develop colored oil droplets to expand their plethora of distinguishable colors. Studies on these species provide insights into each strategy. Nevertheless, there is no data on retinas using both strategies simultaneously. In this work, we combine our knowledge of colored oil droplets and circuits for efficient spectral coding in different species to explore the outcome of retinas exhibiting both strategies simultaneously. Our findings suggest the existence of a trade-off between coding efficiency and color-space area in zebrafish-like retinal circuits. More specifically, we find that spectral encoding becomes compromised with the presence of colored oil droplets while the accessible color space expands significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to marine protected areas (MPA) for conservation and sustainability purposes has increased in Colombia in the recent decades. This shift is a result of the commitment of Colombia with international conventions and treaties (e.g., CBD, Aichi Target 11) and the realization by public and private research organizations of the fast rate of marine biodiversity loss and fisheries decline. This paper presents an examination of the situation of MPAs in Colombia and identifies barriers and opportunities to improve MPA governance. The analysis of documents, semi-structured interviews with environmental organizations (n = 13) and community representatives (n = 56), and focus groups (n = 6) provides a comprehensive understanding of the Colombia MPA system and the challenges for improving its governance. The adoption of international conservation policies and planning tools is driving the increasing numbers of MPAs. Yet, the governance effectiveness of the MPAs, particularly under the current top-down approach, deserves consideration. Barriers and opportunities for improving MPA governance are related to both government and coastal community stakeholders, and include lack of implementation of participatory policies, limited institutional and community organization capacity, loss of self-regulatory fishing practices, and violence among others. Partnerships among NGOs, private organizations, communities and government together with recent afro-descendant community organization and leadership represent key opportunities for fostering meaningful participation of communities in MPA planning/management and for improving MPA governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity is defined as excess fat accumulation in white adipose tissue. In opposition to this storage function, brown adipose tissue (BAT) counters obesity, by consuming fat through thermogenesis. Obese individuals display lower BAT mitochondrial oxidative capacity and altered mitochondrial morphology. A promising strategy to fight obesity is dietary polyphenols, which increase BAT mass and function, stimulating energy expenditure (EE). Calafate, a polyphenol-rich Chilean native fruit, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant characteristics. The effect of a Calafate extract (50 mg [total polyphenols]/kg body weight/day) on EE and mitochondrial function and morphology in BAT from obese mice was assessed. Adult male C57BL/6J mice were subdivided into four treatments for 18 weeks: control diet (C), control diet + Calafate (CC), high-fat diet (HF), high-fat diet + Calafate (HFC). Calafate extract decreased high-fat diet-induced body weight gain from week 6 of treatment (p<0,05) and increased EE at rest (p = 0.03). In BAT, Calafate extract reversed the decrease in UCP-1 protein levels generated by the high-fat diet (p = 0.004). Also, Calafate extract improved mitochondrial transmembrane potential (p = 0.04). The extract did not substantially modify mitochondrial morphology, although it increased the expression of optic atrophy protein 1 (p = 0.01), a mitochondrial fusion-related protein. In sum, consumption of a polyphenol-rich Calafate extract prevents high-fat diet-induced obesity, concomitant with higher energy expenditure, and improved BAT mitochondrial function in obese mice. [Display omitted] • A polyphenol-rich Calafate extract prevented diet-induced obesity in mice. • This prevention is associated with high energy expenditure. • Also recovers blunted brown adipose tissue mitochondrial function and dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This experiment examined the impact of messages about uniqueness and similarity between groups of people on Black and Latino children''s social attitudes. Children (ages 11–14) read two brief science books embedded with a similarities message (“all people are basically the same”), unique message (“each person is unique”), combined similar-unique message (“all people are the same in a way, but each person is also unique”), or no additional message (control). Relative to the other conditions, the combined condition increased general social tolerance and decreased desired social distance from White children. No message appeared to negatively impact participants'' attitudes toward their own group. Implications of these results for basic and applied anti-bias work on promoting similarities, differences, or both are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]