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Finding meaning in life is a fundamental human motivation. Along with pleasure, meaning is a pillar of happiness and well-being. Yet, despite the centrality of this motive, and despite firms' attempts to appeal to this motive, scant research has investigated how the pursuit of meaning influences consumer choice, especially in comparison to the study of pleasure. While previous perspectives would suggest that the pursuit of meaning tilts consumers toward high-quality products, we predicted and found the opposite. As compared to a pleasure or (no goal) baseline condition, six studies demonstrate that the pursuit of meaning causes people to consider how they can otherwise use their money (opportunity costs) which in turn leads to a preference for less expensive goods. This effect is robust across multiple product categories and usage situations, including both experiential and material purchases, and is obtained even when the more expensive product is perceived to deliver greater meaning. For participants pursuing meaning, making opportunity costs salient has no effect on their choices, and encouraging opportunity cost neglect increases their willingness to pay for a more expensive item. This research thus provides an initial answer as to how the pursuit of meaning shapes consumer choice processes and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20-80 million years the mammalian placenta has taken on a variety of morphologies through both divergent and convergent evolution. Recently we have shown that the human placenta genome has a unique epigenetic pattern of large partially methylated domains (PMDs) and highly methylated domains (HMDs) with gene body DNA methylation positively correlating with level of gene expression. In order to determine the evolutionary conservation of DNA methylation patterns and transcriptional regulatory programs in the placenta, we performed a genome-wide methylome (MethylC-seq) analysis of human, rhesus macaque, squirrel monkey, mouse, dog, horse, and cow placentas as well as opossum extraembryonic membrane. We found that, similar to human placenta, mammalian placentas and opossum extraembryonic membrane have globally lower levels of methylation compared to somatic tissues. Higher relative gene body methylation was the conserved feature across all mammalian placentas, despite differences in PMD/HMDs and absolute methylation levels. Specifically, higher methylation over the bodies of genes involved in mitosis, vesicle-mediated transport, protein phosphorylation, and chromatin modification was observed compared with the rest of the genome. As in human placenta, higher methylation is associated with higher gene expression and is predictive of genic location across species. Analysis of DNA methylation in oocytes and preimplantation embryos shows a conserved pattern of gene body methylation similar to the placenta. Intriguingly, mouse and cow oocytes and mouse early embryos have PMD/HMDs but their placentas do not, suggesting that PMD/HMDs are a feature of early preimplantation methylation patterns that become lost during placental development in some species and following implantation of the embryo.

An engineered anti-carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) diabody (scFv dimer, 55 kDa) was previously constructed from the murine anti-CEA T84.66 antibody. Tumor targeting, imaging and biodistribution studies in nude mice bearing LS174T xenografts with radiolabeled anti-CEA diabody demonstrated rapid tumor uptake and fast blood clearance, which are favorable properties for an imaging agent. Current radiolabeling approaches result in random modification of the protein surface, which may impair immunoreactivity especially for smaller antibody fragments. Site-specific conjugation approaches can direct modifications to reactive groups located away from the binding site. Here, cysteine residues were introduced into the anti-CEA diabody at three different locations, to provide specific thiol groups for chemical modification. One version (with a C-terminal Gly-Gly-Cys) existed exclusively as a disulfide-bonded dimer. This cysteine-modified diabody (Cys-diabody) retained high binding to CEA and demonstrated tumor targeting and biodistribution properties identical to the non-covalent diabody. Furthermore, following reduction of the disulfide bond, the Cys-diabody could be chemically modified using a thiol-specific bifunctional chelating agent, for radiometal labeling. Thus, the Cys-diabody provides a covalently linked alternative to conventional diabodies, which can be reduced and modified site-specifically. This format will provide a versatile platform for targeting a variety of agents to CEA-positive tumors.

The milk composition of mid-lactation samples of Bolivian squirrel monkeys were analyzed and compared with the allomothers milk for the fat, sugar, dry matter, crude protein and fatty acids content.The milk was found to contain high mean general energy.