10 possíveis próximos passos da evolução humana

 

A evolução humana não é somente algo do passado. Embora tenhamos mesmo evoluído durantes todos esses milhões de anos, ainda não paramos de evoluir. Isso significa que ainda há muito espaço para melhoras, e, se a civilização continuar no mesmo caminho que trilha hoje, algumas grandes mudanças podem ser esperadas para os próximos 200.000 anos. Confira dez delas: De onde viemos: a fabulosa árvore genealógica humana 1 – Monoetnia Multiculturalismo é a essência da sociedade moderna. Não deve ser surpresa, então, que os seres humanos evoluam para um único grupo étnico, se a mistura das culturas continuar. Conforme a miscigenação se tornar mais comum, os seres humanos perderão lentamente as características distintivas de sua etnia, e assumirão características de diversas partes do mundo. Uma pesquisa até indicou que todos se parecerão como os brasileiros (um povo bastante miscigenado) em “pouco” tempo. Há uma vantagem óbvia nisso: “raça” já não será mais um problema. 2 – Sistema imunológico fraco Conforme os seres humanos tornam-se mais e mais dependentes de medicamentos para a sobrevivência, o sistema imunológico vai enfraquecendo lentamente. A melhor maneira de explicar isso é com um exemplo: o uso de hormônios. Imagine um futuro em que, com a ajuda de suplementos, você possa regular seus hormônios para maximizar o seu bem-estar. Com o tempo, seu corpo se tornaria dependente dos hormônios adicionais, ao ponto de parar de fazer por si mesmo o que os suplementos podem fazer em seu lugar. Os processos que criam hormônios se tornariam menos importantes para a sobrevivência, uma vez que o seu corpo sempre tem o suficiente, graças aos suplementos. Depois de dezenas de milhares de anos, é provável que os seres humanos evoluam ao ponto de hormônios não serem mais criados organicamente dentro de nosso corpo. Se ajuda externa fosse inteiramente responsável pela nossa sobrevivência, muitas de nossas funções internas poderiam se tornar obsoletas. Por que o seu corpo precisaria de um poderoso sistema imunológico se todos os patógenos pudessem ser curados com medicação? De fato, é uma desvantagem da utilização de medicamentos para combater doenças. 3 – Menos massa muscular Há duas causas previsíveis para o enfraquecimento físico gradual da raça humana. A primeira é a nossa crescente dependência da tecnologia – e de máquinas, em particular – para fazer o nosso trabalho sujo. Quanto menos cada geração depender da força física, mais provável é que toda a espécie fique mais fraca. A segunda causa possível para a atrofia muscular é um pouco mais impressionante: envolve um cenário em que nós temos que mudar para o espaço. Em tal cenário, a força física é quase desnecessária para o dia-a-dia. Eventualmente, perderíamos a maioria de nossa massa muscular. 4 – Mais altura A altura humana tem crescido rapidamente nos últimos dois séculos. Ao longo dos últimos 150 anos, a altura média da espécie aumentou 10 centímetros. Acredita-se que a principal força motriz por trás deste crescimento é a abundância de nutrição disponível para muitos de nós. Quanto mais a criança tem para comer, mais energia ele ou ela tem para crescer. Enquanto tivermos a capacidade de comer em excesso, a espécie vai continuar a crescer (e ficar mais alta). Se o céu é o limite, ou se a biologia vai nos parar em algum lugar, só o tempo – e a evolução – dirá. Os 10 maiores mistérios da evolução humana 5 – Menos pelo Já perdemos a maior parte do pelo do nosso corpo por uma série de razões. Seguindo esse caminho, é provável que os seres humanos se tornem ainda mais carecas ao longo do tempo. As mulheres, em particular, são frequentemente vistas como mais atraentes com menos pelo em várias partes de seus corpos. Como esse traço oferece vantagem a um indivíduo quando se trata de atratividade sexual, podemos postular que, ao longo do tempo, as mulheres evoluam para ter menos pelo. O mesmo pode ser dito para os homens, mas como há menos pressão social para que tenham pele lisa, a mudança permanente provavelmente ocorrerá mais lentamente. 6 – Mudanças cerebrais A tecnologia já afetou a forma como a nossa memória funciona. O cérebro humano, sendo uma máquina em busca da máxima eficiência, tipicamente memoriza o ponto onde a informação é armazenada, em vez de a própria informação. É muito mais fácil de lembrar onde você colocou o livro com as informações do que recordar o conteúdo real do livro, não é mesmo? Na era da internet, essa peculiaridade mental tornou-se especialmente importante. Nós não tentamos mais decorar números de telefones, simplesmente os buscamos. Não tentamos lembrar de respostas, as pesquisamos na web,e assim por diante. Conforme a tecnologia se torna mais avançada, o nosso cérebro vai se adaptar a fim de maximizar sua eficiência, talvez em detrimento de nossa memória. 7 – Dentes menores A mudança mais óbvia em nossos maxilares será o desaparecimento dos dentes do siso, que não tem mais utilidade aos seres humanos modernos. Muitos grupos étnicos já têm baixas taxas de ocorrência desse tipo de dente. Além disso, também podemos esperar que os nossos dentes fiquem menores. Ao longo da evolução do homem, tem havido uma tendência geral para dentes pequenos. Evidências mostram que nos últimos 100.000 anos, nossos dentes reduziram pela metade em tamanho. Nossos maxilares também encolheram. A tendência deve continuar, especialmente porque nossa comida é cada vez mais facilmente digerível. 8 – Menos dedos do pé Antes dos humanos andarem eretos, nossos dedos eram usados para a luta, assim como nossas mãos. Conforme dependemos menos da escalada e mais de ficar de pé, nossos pés têm lentamente se reduziram ao seu tamanho atual. A evolução agora caminha para livrar-nos do nosso quinto dedo do pé, o menor. Em comparação com os dedos maiores que servem para nos dar equilíbrio e andar, os pequenos não servem de nada, e podemos sobreviver muito bem sem eles. Devido a isso, e por causa dos problemas que surgem a partir de sua existência desnecessária – como serem frequentemente esmagados em sapatos e em esbarrões com objetos -, podemos esperar que os humanos se tornem uma criatura de quatro dedos. 9 – Crânios menores ou maiores Duas escolas de pensamento existem sobre a questão do volume do nosso crânio. Uma, que conta com o apoio de muitos cientistas, afirma que nosso crânio está no limite de seu tamanho. Qualquer pessoa que tenha dado à luz sabe que a cabeça de uma criança já é, para falar diplomaticamente, bastante grande. Por esta razão, muitos biólogos acreditam que uma cabeça maior tornaria o nascimento impossível – algo que o processo evolutivo eliminaria gradualmente rapidamente, sem dúvida. A grande cabeça no nascimento é também mais propensa a ferir ou matar a mãe. Assim, parece inevitável que o tamanho da nossa cabeça fique o mesmo, ou até menor. No entanto, isso ignora o fato de que cesarianas são comuns e oferecem oportunidades para a sobrevivência de crianças com grandes cabeças. Na verdade, alguns acreditam que a cesárea acabará por ser mais segura do que o parto natural no futuro, o que leva à possibilidade de que as crianças com cabeças pequenas, naturalmente entregues, sobrevivam menos. Mas tal dependência seria perigosa para os seres humanos. Se humanos “cabeçudos” perdessem a capacidade de realizar cesarianas, poderíamos esperar uma extinção rápida. 10 – Autoevolução Os seres humanos podem, eventualmente, chegar a um ponto no qual “forcem” a evolução em si mesmos através do uso da tecnologia. Seja através de órgãos biônicos, por exemplo, ou por meio de seleção genética, na qual futuros pais escolhem as características de seu filho antes do nascimento, a evolução humana deverá caminhar por essa estrada. A seleção genética, em particular, pode levar rapidamente a um boom de “bebês projetados”, nos quais todos os defeitos e traços indesejáveis podem ser removidos. Se isso se generalizar, poderia potencialmente forçar muitos traços humanos (negativos ou não) à extinção.[Listverse] http://hypescience.com/10-possiveis-proximos-passos-da-evolucao-humana/

Green Roof Study in New York City

 

A green roof in New York City, constructed as part of an ongoing study by researchers at Columbia University and the Earth Institute. Information gleaned from the study will be used to help develop the best strategies for the design and spatial distribution of urban green roofs in the future. To better understand urban green roof behavior, a team of researchers at Columbia University, in partnership with Columbia's Office of Environmental Stewardship and the Earth Institute's Urban Design Lab, coordinated the building of a number of green roofs throughout New York City. Green roofs are an environmental system in which plants are grown on a roof's surface to provide natural insulation, absorb rain water--thus reducing the need for costly drainage systems, and provide green space for city-dwelling people and animals. The concept of green roofs has been around for centuries in Europe but has taken off slowly in the U.S. since the 1960s. Green roofs are built in layers that consist of the following: Specialized waterproofing, root-resistant materials, drainage and/or water storage, and a growing medium such as rocks or soil. All of the layers support carefully selected rooftop plants. The vegetation and soil act like a sponge, absorbing and filtering water that would normally pour down gutters and wash through the streets below. In any city, most roofs are made of asphalt or black tar or are gravel-ballasted. Dark roofs radiate and/or trap heat, increasing urban heating. Some U.S. cities offer incentives for building green roofs, with the notion they are beneficial for the city. However, a clearer understanding and further information is needed regarding how the roofs perform under natural conditions. In response to this need, the researchers from Columbia and the Earth Institute initiated the building of a number of green roofs in New York. The researchers measured roof runoff, plant evapo-transpiration, carbon dioxide flux, temperature of the growing medium, moisture gradients, local particle counts, and roof albedo for roofs across the city. Findings from the study as of summer 2013 confirm the multiple environmental co-benefits of green roofs to the point that they should be considered a proven, viable new green "infrastructure" technology available for adoption in urban areas. Their cost-benefit ratios will undoubtedly improve over time and in some cases, such as combined-sewage overflow (CSO) mitigation, may already be one of the most cost-effective approaches compared to more traditional "gray infrastructure" approaches, such as enormous storm water detention tanks. Green roofs are also effectively reducing vertical summer and winter rooftop heat flows, as well as eliminating the searing surface temperatures of dark asphalt roofs, which can exceed 170 degrees Fahrenheit during the daytime. The research is ongoing and will look at issues like design improvements, ecosystem benefits and water quality benefits, among other questions. The information gleaned from this study will be used to help develop the best strategies for the design and spatial distribution of urban green roofs and will provide scientific guidance to the green roof industry, government, local communities and other urban stakeholders in the development of green roof technologies, design and placement strategies. [Research supported by National Science Foundation grant CMMI 09-28604.] Credit: Stuart Gaffin and Shaily Kedia, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University General Restrictions: Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only. Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation. Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.   http://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/mmg_disp.jsp?med_id=74667

Fatty Acids in the Brain Hasten Alzheimer’s

 

Fri, 08/28/2015 - 5:30pm Greg Watry, Digital Reporter People with Alzheimer's disease have fat deposits in the brain. For the first time since the disease was described 109 years ago, researchers affiliated with the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) have discovered accumulations of fat droplets in the brain of patients who died from the disease and have identified the nature of the fat. Image: Meritxell Garcia, CC by-nc-ndIn 1906 at the 37th Conference of South-West German Psychiatrists in Tübingen, German physician Dr. Alois Alzheimer elucidated symptoms of a disease that would later be named after him. He described the case of 51-year-old woman Auguste D., and her progressive symptoms of cognitive impairment, hallucinations and delusions. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, upon autopsy of Auguste D.’s brain, Alzheimer found “dramatic shrinkage and abnormal deposits in and around nerve cells.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 47.5 million people worldwide have dementia, with Alzheimer’s disease responsible for between 60 and 70% of cases. According to research published in Cell Stem Cell, accumulations of fat droplets in the brain, which have been identified in deceased patients, may spur and hasten the development of the disease. Researchers affiliated with the Univ. of Montreal Hospital Research Centre found significantly more fat droplets in the brains of nine patients with Alzheimer’s disease when compared with five healthy brains. A team of chemists used advanced mass spectrometry, and identified the fat deposits as “triglycerides enriched with specific fatty acids, which can also be found in animals fats and vegetable oils,” according to the university. “We discovered these fatty acids are produced by the brain, that they build up slowly with normal aging, but that the process is accelerated significantly in the presence of genes that predispose to Alzheimer’s disease,” said co-author Karl Fernandes. “In mice predisposed to the disease, we showed these fatty acids accumulate very early on, at two months of age, which corresponds to the early twenties in humans. Therefore, we think that the build-up of fatty acids is not a consequence. but rather a cause of accelerator of the disease.” Pharmacological inhibitors of fatty acid-producing enzymes do exist. Such molecules are being tested to determine their efficacy against fighting obesity.     According to Fernandes, the team successfully prevented the accumulation of fatty acids in the brains of mice predisposed to Alzheimer’s. “It significantly increased stem cell activity,” said Fernandes. “This is very promising because stem cells play an important role in learning, memory and regeneration.” The university said the study supports the idea Alzheimer’s is a metabolic brain disease. Currently, no treatments exist to suppress the disease’s progression, or reverse it, according to the WHO.   http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2015/08/fatty-acids-brain-hasten-alzheimers

Artificial leaf harnesses sunlight for efficient fuel production

 

A highly efficient photoelectrochemical (PEC) device uses the power of the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The stand-alone prototype includes two chambers separated by a semi-permeable membrane that allows collection of both gas products. Credit: Lance Hayashida/Caltech Generating and storing renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, is a key barrier to a clean-energy economy. When the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) was established at Caltech and its partnering institutions in 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub had one main goal: a cost-effective method of producing fuels using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, mimicking the natural process of photosynthesis in plants and storing energy in the form of chemical fuels for use on demand. Over the past five years, researchers at JCAP have made major advances toward this goal, and they now report the development of the first complete, efficient, safe, integrated solar-driven system for splitting water to create hydrogen fuels. "This result was a stretch project milestone for the entire five years of JCAP as a whole, and not only have we achieved this goal, we also achieved it on time and on budget," says Caltech's Nate Lewis, George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry, and the JCAP scientific director. The new solar fuel generation system, or artificial leaf, is described in the August 24 online issue of the journal Energy and Environmental Science. The work was done by researchers in the laboratories of Lewis and Harry Atwater, director of JCAP and Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science. "This accomplishment drew on the knowledge, insights and capabilities of JCAP, which illustrates what can be achieved in a Hub-scale effort by an integrated team," Atwater says. "The device reported here grew out of a multi-year, large-scale effort to define the design and materials components needed for an integrated solar fuels generator." The new system consists of three main components: two electrodes--one photoanode and one photocathode--and a membrane. The photoanode uses sunlight to oxidize water molecules, generating protons and electrons as well as oxygen gas. The photocathode recombines the protons and electrons to form hydrogen gas. A key part of the JCAP design is the plastic membrane, which keeps the oxygen and hydrogen gases separate. If the two gases are allowed to mix and are accidentally ignited, an explosion can occur; the membrane lets the hydrogen fuel be separately collected under pressure and safely pushed into a pipeline. Semiconductors such as silicon or gallium arsenide absorb light efficiently and are therefore used in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface when exposed to water, so cannot be used to directly generate fuel. A major advance that allowed the integrated system to be developed was previous work in Lewis's laboratory, which showed that adding a nanometers-thick layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2)--a material found in white paint and many toothpastes and sunscreens--onto the electrodes could prevent them from corroding while still allowing light and electrons to pass through. The new complete solar fuel generation system developed by Lewis and colleagues uses such a 62.5-nanometer-thick TiO2 layer to effectively prevent corrosion and improve the stability of a gallium arsenide-based photoelectrode. Another key advance is the use of active, inexpensive catalysts for fuel production. The photoanode requires a catalyst to drive the essential water-splitting reaction. Rare and expensive metals such as platinum can serve as effective catalysts, but in its work the team discovered that it could create a much cheaper, active catalyst by adding a 2-nanometer-thick layer of nickel to the surface of the TiO2. This catalyst is among the most active known catalysts for splitting water molecules into oxygen, protons, and electrons and is a key to the high efficiency displayed by the device. The photoanode was grown onto a photocathode, which also contains a highly active, inexpensive, nickel-molybdenum catalyst, to create a fully integrated single material that serves as a complete solar-driven water-splitting system. A critical component that contributes to the efficiency and safety of the new system is the special plastic membrane that separates the gases and prevents the possibility of an explosion, while still allowing the ions to flow seamlessly to complete the electrical circuit in the cell. All of the components are stable under the same conditions and work together to produce a high-performance, fully integrated system. The demonstration system is approximately one square centimeter in area, converts 10 percent of the energy in sunlight into stored energy in the chemical fuel, and can operate for more than 40 hours continuously. "This new system shatters all of the combined safety, performance, and stability records for artificial leaf technology by factors of 5 to 10 or more ," Lewis says. "Our work shows that it is indeed possible to produce fuels from sunlight safely and efficiently in an integrated system with inexpensive components," Lewis adds, "Of course, we still have work to do to extend the lifetime of the system and to develop methods for cost-effectively manufacturing full systems, both of which are in progress." Because the work assembled various components that were developed by multiple teams within JCAP, coauthor Chengxiang Xiang, who is co-leader of the JCAP prototyping and scale-up project, says that the successful end result was a collaborative effort. "JCAP's research and development in device design, simulation, and materials discovery and integration all funneled into the demonstration of this new device," Xiang says. Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by California Institute of Technology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Erik Verlage, Shu Hu, Rui Liu, Ryan J. R. Jones, Ke Sun, Chengxiang Xiang, Nathan S. Lewis, Harry A. Atwater. A monolithically integrated, intrinsically safe, 10% efficient, solar-driven water-splitting system based on active, stable earth-abundant electrocatalysts in conjunction with tandem III–V light absorbers protected by amorphous TiO2films.Energy Environ. Sci., 2015; DOI: 10.1039/C5EE01786F California Institute of Technology. "Artificial leaf harnesses sunlight for efficient fuel production." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 August 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150828142940.htm>.

Keeping the ions close: A new activity

 

Understanding the conditions and pathways that position populations of isolated ions and shared proton species as they react in water allows scientists to better understand the chemistry of concentrated hydrogen chloride solutions, which has implications in chemical processes ranging from refining oil to building longer-lasting batteries. Here, the reaction shows hydrogen chloride dissociating in water. The chloride ion is green, hydrogen is white, and oxygen is red. Credit: Image courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Improving chemical reactions ranging from refining oil to building longer-lasting batteries means understanding the chemistry of acids and bases. Researchers discovered that when a strong acid such as hydrochloric acid (HCl) is mixed with water, the negative anion and positive cation remain close and create an unexpected structure. These results provide a better understanding of the complexity of acid/base chemistry in concentrated, non-ideal chemical solutions. This new study -- detailing the important role of the counter ion (chloride in the case of HCl) in the reaction network of acids behavior -- provides a template to connect structure and function. The connection can help scientists develop a deeper understanding of the most basic concepts in chemistry and provide foundational information for use in battery applications. Introductory chemistry textbooks state that when an acid is added to water that the positive and negatively charged ions quickly separate from each other based on research with low acidic concentrations. With strong acids, such as hydrochloric acid (HCl), it was thought to be the same situation: the positive ions of hydrogen (H+) diffuse -- creating the acidity of the solution, neutralizing basic substances, corroding metals and/or reacting with organic substances -- and then quickly associate with water to become a hydronium ion or H3O+, while the chloride counter ion (Cl-) forms independent, negatively charged solvated fragments. However, the fundamental properties of the counter ions surrounded by water have not been thoroughly experimentally studied. Now researchers using computational and experimental methods examine low, medium, and high concentrations of HCl in liquid water and discovered that the negatively charged Cl- and the positively charged H+ actually remain closer to each other in an unexpected structure throughout the entire concentration range studied. The researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory combined extended X-ray absorption fine structure, neutron diffraction, and X-ray diffraction measurements using the Argonne Advanced Photon Source with state-of-the-art density functional theory simulations. Specifically, the researchers measured the distance and geometry between the chloride ion and the oxygen in the hydronium ion comprising the contact ion pair -- finding that it was significantly shorter than the interaction between chloride and the oxygen of water as expected in an ideal dissociation picture. These structures differed significantly from those studied in the gas phases, which were used in prior computational models. The team is now examining more complex ions with the idea of tuning them to specific purposes. Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Department of Energy, Office of Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Marcel D. Baer, John L. Fulton, Mahalingam Balasubramanian, Gregory K. Schenter, Christopher J. Mundy. Persistent Ion Pairing in Aqueous Hydrochloric Acid. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2014; 118 (26): 7211 DOI: 10.1021/jp501091h   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150828143104.htm

Borderline personality traits linked to lowered empathy

 

Those with borderline personality disorder, or BPD, a mental illness marked by unstable moods, often experience trouble maintaining interpersonal relationships. New research from the University of Georgia indicates that this may have to do with lowered brain activity in regions important for empathy in individuals with borderline personality traits. The findings were recently published in the journal Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment. "Our results showed that people with BPD traits had reduced activity in brain regions that support empathy," said the study's lead author Brian Haas, an assistant professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences psychology department. "This reduced activation may suggest that people with more BPD traits have a more difficult time understanding and/or predicting how others feel, at least compared to individuals with fewer BPD traits." For the study, Haas recruited over 80 participants and asked them to take a questionnaire, called the Five Factor Borderline Inventory, to determine the degree to which they had various traits associated with borderline personality disorder. The researchers then used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity in each of the participants. During the fMRI, participants were asked to do an empathetic processing task, which tapped into their ability to think about the emotional states of other people, while the fMRI measured their simultaneous brain activity. In the empathetic processing task, participants would match the emotion of faces to a situation's context. As a control, Haas and study co-author Joshua Miller also included shapes, like squares and circles, that participants would have to match from emotion of the faces to the situation. "We found that for those with more BPD traits, these empathetic processes aren't as easily activated," said Miller, a psychology professor and director of the Clinical Training Program. Haas chose to look at those who scored high on the Five Factor Borderline Inventory, instead of simply working with those previously diagnosed with the disorder. By using the inventory, Haas was able to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between empathic processing, BPD traits and high levels of neuroticism and openness, as well as lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. "Oftentimes, borderline personality disorder is considered a binary phenomenon. Either you have it or you don't," said Haas, who runs the Gene-Brain-Social Behavioral Lab. "But for our study, we conceptualized and measured it in a more continuous way such that individuals can vary along a continuum of no traits to very many BPD traits." Haas found a link between those with high borderline personality traits and a decreased use of neural activity in two parts of the brain: the temporoparietal junction and the superior temporal sulcus, two brain regions implicated to be critically important during empathic processing. The research provides new insight into individuals susceptible to experiencing the disorder and how they process emotions. "Borderline personality disorder is considered one of the most severe and troubling personality disorders," Miller said. "BPD can make it difficult to have successful friendships and romantic relationships. These findings could help explain why that is." In the future, Haas would like to study BPD traits in a more naturalistic setting. "In this study, we looked at participants who had a relatively high amount of BPD traits. I think it'd be great to study this situation in a real life scenario, such as having people with BPD traits read the emotional states of their partners," he said.   Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Georgia. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Haas BW, Miller JD. Borderline Personality Traits and Brain Activity During Emotional Perspective Taking. Personal Disord., 2015 [link]   University of Georgia. "Borderline personality traits linked to lowered empathy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 August 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150829123819.htm>.