text:
Abstract

Higher cognitive functions are regarded as one of the main distinctive traits of humans. Evidence for the cognitive evolution of human beings is mainly based on fossil records of an expanding cranium and an increasing complexity of material culture artefacts. However, the molecular genetic factors involved in the evolution are still relatively unexplored. Here, we investigated whether genomic regions that underwent positive selection in humans after divergence from Neanderthals are enriched for genetic association with phenotypes related to cognitive functions. We used genome wide association data from a study of college completion (N = 111,114), one of educational attainment (N = 293,623) and two different studies of general cognitive ability (N = 269,867 and 53,949). We found nominally significant polygenic enrichment of associations with college completion (p = 0.025), educational attainment (p = 0.043) and general cognitive ability (p = 0.015 and 0.025, respectively), suggesting that variants influencing these phenotypes are more prevalent in evolutionarily salient regions. The enrichment remained significant after controlling for other known genetic enrichment factors, and for affiliation to genes highly expressed in the brain. These findings support the notion that phenotypes related to higher order cognitive skills typical of humans have a recent genetic component that originated after the separation of the human and Neanderthal lineages.

Introduction

The evolution of cognitive function and brain development is regarded as the result of a complex interplay of nature and nurture, where development seems to be driven by genes and shaped by environment¹. Modern humans have highly complex brains, capable of processing vast information and solving abstract problems. In addition, humans have enhanced cognitive functioning, especially in the domains of cooperation, egalitarianism, theory of mind, language and culture, and achieved new modes of thinking and reasoning that seem to have greatly increased their ability to flourish as a species². Archaeological and fossil records provide evidence suggesting anatomical and morphological evolution of humans and their predecessors3,4. However, we have no direct evidence for the evolution of higher cognitive functions and must rely on cultural artefacts that indirectly suggest behavioural changes⁵.

Several lines of evidence support the idea that humans have developed complex language⁵, executive functioning, and abstract thinking in the process of evolution⁶. Language, and the thoughts that it expresses, arguably constitute the most distinctive features of the modern human mind⁷. With specialized knowledge and means to communicate, humans seem to be able to create efficient tools, codify knowledge, make rules and organize society⁸. While we do not know how Neanderthals would have performed in cognitive tests, cognitive studies comparing humans and chimpanzees have found different patterns of performance across cognitive domains suggesting a role of evolution in specific higher cognitive functions⁹. Anatomically, we observe increased general cephalization, which is said to be associated with greater behavioural complexity, and enlargement and specialization of brain regions adapting to various sensory uses over the course of evolution¹⁰. Language and social skills are said to have evolved together; better language skills would be required to facilitate better cooperation while hunting and foraging as a group. Meanwhile, living in social groups may have helped in the development of the neocortex, or the human “social brain”¹¹.

Evolutionary psychologists discuss whether our cognitive processes and environment co-evolved incrementally, instead of undergoing a dramatic change1,12. Recent studies suggest that Neanderthals could have had some ability to express themselves artistically and some sort of proto culture or religion¹³. This is in line with the notion that human intelligence, while not completely innate, is shaped by natural selection and evolutionary processes which helped the species adapt to the environment. Genes and cultures are suggested to co-evolve¹⁴, as in the case of the human ability to learn as a group, which seems to set them apart from our primate relatives and shaped human specific phenotypes. Social learning could help humans to acquire new skills faster and to enhance them¹⁵. Cognitive function and academic achievement, while influenced by genes, probably need the right environment to achieve full potential¹⁶. Educational attainment (or the ability to complete college) is governed not only by many socio-economic, political and cultural factors17,18 but also by genetic factors that were estimated to account for approximately 20% of the phenotypic variance¹⁹. In twin studies, the heritability of general cognitive function was estimated to be 50–60%20,21. Educational attainment is also related to cognitive performance with a high genetic correlation22,23. Cognitive function is in turn often associated with neuropsychiatric phenotypes, with which it shows some genetic overlap16,24,25,26,27. Finally, several cognitive traits, such as attention, memory and reasoning, are important to succeed in academics.

Neanderthals, considered a sister group of modern humans, are suggested to have split from the human lineage between 500,000 to 750,000 years ago28,29,30. As the closest living relatives to humans, chimpanzees are often used as a reference point for ancestral alleles. Chimpanzees split from humans approximately 6.3 million years ago³¹. The chimpanzee genome was sequenced in 2005, and aligns with 96 to 98% of the human genome32,33 depending on the exact criterion utilized for sequence alignment. Recent studies have found that variants associated with cognitive function are enriched in regions of the genome that are evolutionarily conserved in mammals³⁴. However, these do not provide a human specific time frame. The availability of Neanderthal and chimpanzee genomes makes it possible to determine when in the course of human evolution genomic regions underwent selective pressures by cross-referencing the chimpanzee, human and Neanderthal sequences. This provides a rare opportunity to gain novel insight into the evolutionary processes in humans.

We have previously shown how these available genomes can be used to detail the evolution of schizophrenia, employing the original version²⁹ of the Neanderthal selective sweep score³⁵. Here, we applied the same polygenic enrichment approach in conjunction with a more recent and comprehensive post-Neanderthal selective sweep index³⁶ to study the evolutionary aspects of educational attainment and cognitive function, and determine enrichment in genomic regions that may have undergone recent positive selection in humans. To this end, we analysed genome-wide association (GWAS) summary statistics for two measures of educational attainment, college completion (College)³⁷ and years of educational attainment (EduYears)³⁸, and two measures of fluid intelligence from two studies of general cognitive ability (GCA)39,40. The GCA metric is designed to capture around 40–50% of the variance across diverse cognitive abilities, irrespective of the specific tests used to construct it41,42. We hypothesized that higher cognitive functions are a product of human evolution in line with previous theories⁴³. We compared the cognitive phenotypes to height and body mass index (BMI), two human traits with GWASs of similar size, to assess the specificity of this enrichment.

Results

Utilizing a post-Neanderthal selective sweep (PNSS) index³⁶, we assessed the effect of a variant’s affiliation to the selectively swept regions of the genome on traits related to cognition: College completion (College) (N = 111,114), education attainment (EduYears) (N = 293,623) and two measures of general cognitive ability (GCA), GCA1 (N = 269,867) and GCA2 (N = 53,949)). The PNSS index defines regions that have undergone positive selection in humans after the separation of the human and Neanderthal lineages. We specifically investigated association enrichment, visualized as an upward deflection in fold enrichment plots and a leftward deflection in Q-Q plots (for details, see Methods). The fold enrichment plots (Fig. 1) and conditional Q-Q plots (Supplementary Fig. S1) suggest that the genetic variants in regions that may have undergone positive selection in humans, i.e. the human divergent (HD) regions, are markedly enriched of associations with College, EduYears and GCA1, and to a lesser extent with GCA2.

FIGURE 1
[figure1]

Fold enrichment plots of phenotypes stratified according to Neanderthal selective sweep score. Shown are the fold enrichment plots of GWAS summary statistics _p_-values for body mass index (BMI), college completion (College), educational attainment (EduYears), general cognitive ability (GCA1 and 2) and height stratified based on Neanderthal selective sweep (NSS) score. The human divergent (HD) stratum comprises single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with negative NSS scores. The non-divergent (ND) stratum comprises all SNPs with positive NSS scores. HD SNPs show some upward deflection from ND and all SNPs. This signifies a comparatively higher proportion of low p-values among HD SNPs.

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To test the significance of the enrichment, we conducted a stratified LD score regression analysis⁴⁴. The LD score regression method provides an estimate of the fold enrichment associated with these evolutionary regions, and thus an estimate of enrichment⁴⁵. Specifically, we found significant enrichment for EduYears (fold enrichment = 2.00 vs. expected, p = 0.044), GCA2 (3.48, p = 0.023), College (2.33, p = 0.026) and GCA1 (2.12, p = 0.024) (Table 1). The LD score regression analysis also provides a regression coefficient controlling for affiliation to generic functional categories such as intron, exon, 3′UTR, 5′UTR, and to brain genes in particular (Supplementary Tables S1-S2). Our analysis indicates that affiliation to HD regions significantly contributes to the LD score effect in College (p = 0.019), GCA2 (p = 0.020), GCA1 (p = 0.029) and EduYears (p = 0.046) after controlling for the other covariates.

TABLE 1 POST-NEANDERTHAL SELECTIVE SWEEP ENRICHMENT.
Full size table

To further detail the specificity of the enrichment, we used summary statistics from height and BMI GWASs, which involved sample sizes comparable to or larger than the ones available to the cognitive GWASs. While height and BMI have been associated with some evolutionary pressure in humans46,47, we expect them to show a less pronounced enrichment than the cognitive phenotypes since they are less likely to be human specific compared to cognitive function.

Our fold enrichment plots (Fig. 1) suggest the presence of some enrichment in Height and BMI among variants in HD regions. The deflections are more consistent than observed for GCA2 but less pronounced than seen for College, EduYears and GCA1. The fold enrichment test statistics (BMI: 1.38, p = 0.312; Height: 2.10, p = 0.072) are non-significant, as are the regression coefficients (BMI p = 0.252 and Height p = 0.080). Upon meta-analysing the stratified LD-score enrichment test statistics for anthropometric and cognitive traits, a significant effect is found for the latter (Fisher-combined test p = 4.00 × 10−4) but not for the former (Fisher-combined test p = 0.107).

Given the importance of genes involved in brain function for the phenotypes of interest, and their evolutionary relevance, we performed additional analyses targeting genes with high expression levels in the brain (brain genes) (Fig. 2). Brain genes in HD regions show more pronounced association enrichment than any brain genes or any SNPs in HD regions in the fold enrichment plots. The stratified LD-score regression analysis suggests brain genes in the HD regions (HD Brain) to be more enriched than any SNPs in HD regions (HD) in GCA2 (4.75 vs. 3.48) but not in College, EduYears and GCA1 (College = 2.16 vs. 2.33, EduYears = 1.83 vs. 2.00, GCA1 = 1.68 vs. 2.12). However, the numbers of SNPs in these strata are very low and the stratified LD-score regression analysis does not give conclusive results (Supplementary Table S2).

FIGURE 2
[figure2]

Enrichment of associations with various traits stratified according to their affiliation to Post-Neanderthal selective sweep regions and brain genes. Fold enrichment plots for body mass index (BMI), college completion (College), educational attainment (EduYears), general cognitive ability (GCA1 and 2) and height. Plots are shown for variants annotated to human divergent regions (HD), variants annotated to generic genes (Any), variants annotated to genes with high expression in the brain (Brain), variants in HD regions annotated to genes with high expression in brain (HDBrain), and all variants (All SNPs). The HDBrain category is enriched (upward deflection) compared with the other categories (i.e., presents a higher incidence of associations [lower p -values]).

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Discussion

Applying our Neanderthal polygenic enrichment approach to recent large GWAS data on cognitive traits37,38,39,48, we investigated the hypothesis that higher cognitive functions in humans have a recent evolutionary component. We assessed the extent to which the cognitive phenotypes, College, EduYears, and GCA are affected by genetic variation in regions of the human genome that may have undergone selective sweeps since divergence from the Neanderthals and found nominally significant enrichment with all cognitive traits. Together, these findings lend support to the hypothesis that higher cognitive traits typical of humans have a component that originated after the separation of the human and Neanderthal lineages, in line with previous theories⁴³.

The fold enrichment and Q-Q plots for the three cognitive phenotypes showed various degrees of deflection in the HD stratum (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. S1). The fold enrichment statistics confirmed consistently significant enrichments for College, EduYears, and two independent data sets on GCA. The phenotypes summarized under GCA measure fluid intelligence and capture the shared variance across cognitive traits, irrespective of the tests applied. GCA is also phenotypically and genetically correlated with educational attainment37,49.

The meta-analysis of the stratified LD-score enrichment tests statistics suggests that the enrichments detected here are somewhat specific to cognitive phenotypes. In a previous study, we found Height and BMI to be significantly enriched in HD regions. However, those results were obtained using the original Neanderthal selective sweep score²⁹ and a different statistical method³⁵.

The current study sheds light on the evolutionary architecture of human cognitive traits. These phenotypes are complex and involve many genetic and environmental factors. Our results suggest an underlying evolutionary factor in the genetics of educational attainment and cognitive function. Recent studies have indeed found that genes associated with educational attainment are under selective pressure⁵⁰. Behavioural studies suggest that humans have evolved to outperform other primates in certain higher cognitive abilities, such as learning through imitation and from the mistakes of others, and are also quicker to learn unfamiliar tasks51,52,53,54,55. Paleontological or archaeological findings indicate the increasing complexity of cranial anatomy and material culture during human evolution3,4. Our results constitute further evidence that these traits are related to the evolution of modern humans since the divergence from Neanderthals about 500,000 to 750,000 years ago.

The PNSS region affiliation score is an index of possible positive selection in regions of the human genome after divergence from Neanderthals³⁶, but provides no direct experimental evidence that positive selection occurred at those sites. Nonetheless, the Neanderthal selective sweep score compiled on the first edition of the Neanderthal sequence by Green²⁹, and the subsequent post Neanderthal swept regions identified by Prufer³⁶, proved to be more sensitive than other genomic proxies of positive selection like human accelerated regions and segmental duplications used in our previous studies⁵⁶. The Neanderthal sweep scores are also more specific than other measures of negative selection in mammals³⁴ in detecting association enrichment.

In the evolution of complex traits, polygenic selection involving subtle shifts of allele frequencies at many loci simultaneously may have been more common than major shifts induced by strong forces⁵⁷. Thus, selection acting simultaneously on many standing variants could have been the more efficient mechanism for phenotypic adaptation58,59. The PNSS may therefore not be in the best position to account for genetic drift or other neutral selection forces. However, the distinction between weak and strong selection is not clear. The methods applied in our analyses have been useful in studying several aspects related to polygenic factors in complex human phenotypes before35,56,60,61,62,63. Although the evolutionary proxy, the PNSS, is designed to detect positive selection sweeps rather than polygenic adaptation, the present results are in line with previous theories positing that higher cognitive functions are a product of human evolution⁴³.

While the combined analysis of data from the large cognitive and educational GWASs and the Neanderthal genome sequence is unique to this study, it entails some limitations. The power of the different GWASs depends on their size and on the genetic architecture and polygenicity⁶⁴ of the traits analysed. Hence, the differences in detected enrichments are not strictly comparable to one another. The evolutionary enrichment observed for cognitive phenotypes could be influenced by affiliation to brain genes and genetic functional elements such as introns, exons, 5′UTR and 3′UTR. Despite control for these factors in the analyses, they may be overrepresented in the information-rich portions of the Neanderthal DNA that could be reconstructed. Also, while LD was properly accounted for in the statistical analyses, the enrichment in the plots could be influenced by LD-tagging effects. This could be the reason for the discrepancy observed between the visual and the statistical assessments. Given the complexity of cognitive phenotypes, the observed enrichment may be confounded by other factors with a potential evolutionary component. For example, educational attainment is known to be influenced by other pathologies such as ADHD⁶⁵ and genes associated with ADHD may have some evolutionary advantage as well. Future replication of this result is warranted using summary statistics from larger educational attainment GWAS⁶⁶. Our previous experience suggests that increases in sample size tend to enhance polygenic enrichments³⁵.

In conclusion, we demonstrate that the genetic architectures of two measures of educational attainment and two versions of GCA are enriched for genomic regions that were likely subjected to selective sweeps since divergence from Neanderthals. This suggests that some genetic components of higher cognitive functions in humans are driven by more recent evolutionary processes. These findings should be confirmed in independent studies that could also identify the specific genetic variants involved, to inform the biological underpinnings of human cognitive function.

Materials and Methods

Samples

Educational attainment has a well-documented health-education gradient as well as phenotypic and genetic relation to cognitive functioning⁶⁷, and is influenced by environmental and genetic factors19,68. We obtained summary statistics for about ten million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from a GWAS of educational attainment (EduYears)³⁸ (sample N = 328,917 Caucasian individuals from North America, Western Europe and Australia), as well as from UK Biobank GWASs of college or university degree (College)³⁷ (sample N = 111,114) and of general cognitive ability (GCA1)⁴⁰ (sample N = 269,867). The data on GCA1 was based on 269,867 individuals drawn from 14 cohorts, primarily consisting of data from the UK Biobank (sample N = 195,653) and the Cognitive Genomics Consortium (sample N = 35,289). We also obtained summary statistics for the same set of SNPs from a similar GWAS of GCA (i.e., GCA2) in middle and older age by the CHARGE consortium, which included a total of 53,949 individuals³⁹. Finally, we used Height (sample N = 183,727) and BMI (sample N = 339,224) GWAS summary statistics from the GIANT consortium study69,70 as control sets.

Analytical Approach

We employed genetic enrichment methods recently developed to uncover more of the genetic architecture of complex traits60,61,62,71. Specifically, we investigated the enrichment of associations concurrent with the evolutionary affiliations in a covariate-modulated statistical framework⁶¹. We investigated whether variants in evolutionarily salient regions or tagging other variants therein, are more likely associated with measures of education attainment and general cognitive function, as well as with other control phenotypes. The visual displays of enrichment were produced with MATLAB (www.mathworks.com/products/matlab). The enrichment test statistics were computed using the LD-score package⁴⁴.

Cognitive phenotypes

College completion (College) measures the highest level of educational qualification achieved³⁷ while educational attainment (EduYears)³⁸ measures the years of completed schooling. These are used as a proxy for intelligence and they show high genetic correlation⁴⁸. The general cognitive ability is not a specific cognitive skill but a measure of various fluid cognitive ability tests. The measures used in GCA1 and 2 were constructed using the first un-rotated component extracted from a principal component analysis of the individual cognitive test scores that measured general fluid cognitive functions³⁹. These measures of fluid intelligence correlate highly with general cognitive ability40,48,72. The scores used by these two independent phenotypes capture the shared variance across cognitive test batteries measuring fluid cognitive functions, and explain around 40–50% of the variation across cognitive domains. Further details of the tests administered can be found in the original publications37,39,40.

Post-Neanderthal selective sweep regions

The index of the post-Neanderthal selective sweep (PNSS) regions was obtained from the work of Prüfer _et al_.³⁶ and is downloadable from, http://cdna.eva.mpg.de/neandertal/. The authors used a hidden Markov model to identify regions in Neanderthals that differ from modern humans³⁶. Neanderthal and Denisovan genes were used to identify regions that differed from the representative modern human population in the 1000 genomes project variants. The identified regions were assigned a score based on genetic lengths and a cut off was assigned for regions that were most likely to have undergone positive selection in humans.

We assigned all SNPs a value of 0 or 1 based on whether these fell outside or inside the regions of recent positive selection in humans, respectively.

Confounding/mediating effects

We controlled for the following factors while assessing the evolutionary enrichment of cognition/education associations:

Brain genes

We used the protein atlas (http://www.proteinatlas.org/humanproteome/brain) to select all genes that are expressed specifically in the brain of _Homo sapiens_. We identified a total of 4915 genes by filtering for genes that have high expression levels in brain. The 1000 Genomes Project SNPs were then aligned with the identified genes. The ones overlapping with these genes were assigned a “Brain” value of 1, the rest were assigned a “Brain” value of 0. All SNPs were subsequently assigned LD–informed “Brain” scores (see below).

Annotation of genomic regions, LD-based

The SNPs that fall within certain regions of interest may capture only a limited portion of the association signal ascribable to that region. We used an LD-weighted scoring algorithm35,56,71 to identify SNPs that tag specific DNA regions even if they are not situated within them. For each SNP, a pairwise correlation coefficient approximation to LD (_r_²) was extracted for all 1KGP SNPs within a 1,000,000 base pairs (1 Mb). All _r_² values <0.2 were set to 0 and each SNP was assigned an _r_² value of 1.0 with itself. LD-weighted region annotation scores for all DNA regions of interest were computed as the sum of LD _r_² between the tag SNP and all 1KGP SNPs in those regions. Given SNP _i_, its LD-weighted region annotation score was computed as LDscore_i_ = Σ_j_ (_δ__j_ _r__ij_²), where _r__ij_² is the LD _r_² between SNP _i_ and SNP _j_ and _δ__ij_ takes values of 1 or 0 depending on whether the 1KGP SNP_j_ is within the region of interest or not. LD scores were assigned to exons, introns, 3′UTR and 5′UTR35,56,71,73.

Intergenic correction

Intergenic SNPs are defined as having LD-weighted annotation scores for exon, intron, 3′UTR and 5′UTR equal to zero and being in LD with no SNPs in the 1KGP reference panel located within 100,000 base pairs of a protein coding gene, within a non-coding RNA, within a transcription factor binding site or within a miRNA binding site⁷¹. Those singled out in this way are expected to form a collection of non-genic SNPs not belonging to any annotated functional elements and their LD-associated regions within the genome and therefore represent a collection of likely null associations. Intergenic SNPs were used to estimate the inflation of GWAS summary statistics due to cryptic relatedness. We used intergenic SNPs because their relative depletion of associations suggests they provide a set of reliably null SNPs that is less contaminated by polygenic effects. The inflation factor, λGC, was estimated as the median squared z-score of independent sets of intergenic SNPs across one hundred LD-pruning iterations, divided by the expected median of a chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom.

Conditional quantile-quantile plots

To visualize enrichment, we constructed conditional quantile-quantile (Q-Q) plots where we compared the nominal p-value distribution to the empirical distribution⁷¹. In the presence of null relationships, the nominal p-values form a straight line on a Q-Q plot when plotted against the empirical distribution. We plotted −log₁₀ nominal p-values against −log₁₀ empirical p-values for the two SNP strata subdivided by the PNSS score, as well as for all SNPs. Leftward deflections of the observed distribution from the null line reflect increased tail probabilities in the distribution of test statistics (z-scores) and consequently an over-abundance of low p-values compared to that expected under the null hypothesis⁷¹. Enrichment is present if the line corresponding to the variants of interest has a leftward deflection from the comparison stratum. To assess polygenic effects below the standard GWAS significance threshold, we focused the Q-Q plots on SNPs with nominal −log10(p) < 7.3 (corresponding to p > 5 × 10−8).

Fold enrichment plots

To visually emphasize the association enrichment, we used conditional fold enrichment plots⁷⁴. As for Q-Q plots, the covariate of interest, i.e. the PNSS score, is used to subdivide SNPs into two strata. The plots were obtained by computing the empirical cumulative distribution of −log10(p)-values for SNP association with a given phenotype for all SNPs, and for the two SNPs strata determined by the PNSS score. Then each stratum’s fold enrichment was calculated as the ratio CDFstratum/CDFall between the −log10(p) cumulative distribution for that stratum and the −log10(p) cumulative distribution for all SNPs. The nominal −log10(p) values are plotted on the x-axis, the fold enrichment in the y-axis. To assess polygenic effects below the standard GWAS significance threshold, we focused the fold enrichment plots on SNPs with nominal −log10(p) < 7.3 (corresponding to p > 5 × 10−8). Enrichment is present if the line corresponding to the SNPs of interest has an upward deflection. The plots should be interpreted with caution when the baseline is determined by fewer than 5–10 data points.

Stratified enrichment analysis

To quantify the contribution of variants within the PNSS regions we conducted analyses using an approach⁴⁵ based on stratified LD score regression⁴⁴. We first dichotomized the PNSS scores into binary scores. We used the LD-score tool with the “—h2” option to estimate SNP-based heritability of variants with negative NSS score, controlling for the a set of 53 annotations⁴⁴, including standard genomic annotations such as exon, intron, 3′UTR, 5′UTR, presence of enhancers, total LD score, and brain gene affiliation. Given the complex LD⁷⁵ in the extended major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region (genome build 19 location 25119106–33854733), we excluded SNPs in the MHC region and SNPs in LD (r² > 0.1) with such SNPs from the analysis, to avoid any inflation due to complex correlations. We then used the LD-score tool with the “—l2” option to calculate the total LD of 1,190,321 variants from the HapMap3 project towards the category of variants with negative scores. The pairwise LD r² measures were calculated across 9,997,231 variants from the reference panel (1 kG Phase3 genotypes for individuals with European descent). The effect reported (βPNSS) is the LD score regression coefficient. Its p-value is the probability of the “true” effect size being different from zero based on the standard error estimate of the coefficient.

Data can be obtained from

EduYears: https://www.thessgac.org/data, College: http://www.ccace.ed.ac.uk/node/335, GCA1:https://ctg.cncr.nl/software/summary_statistics, GCA 2: data can be obtained from the CHARGE consortium, BMI and Height:, http://portals.broadinstitute.org/collaboration/giant/index.php/GIANT_consortium_data_files.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway (#223273, #225989, #248778) South-East Norway Health Authority (#2016-064) and KG Jebsen Stiftelsen (#SKGJ-Med-008). GD and IJD are supported by The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and Medical Research Council (MR/K026992/1). WDH is supported by Age UK (Disconnected Mind grant).

Author information

Affiliations

1.

    NORMENT, KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Saurabh Srinivasan, Francesco Bettella, Oleksandr Frei, Yunpeng Wang, Aree Witoelar, Ingrid Melle, Torill Ueland, Olav B. Smeland & Ole A. Andreassen

2.

    Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    Saurabh Srinivasan, Francesco Bettella, Oleksandr Frei, Yunpeng Wang, Aree Witoelar, Ingrid Melle, Torill Ueland, Olav B. Smeland & Ole A. Andreassen

3.

    Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    W. David Hill, Gail Davies & Ian J. Deary

4.

    Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    W. David Hill, Gail Davies & Ian J. Deary

5.

    Multimodal Imaging Laboratory, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Anders M. Dale

6.

    Center for Human Development, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Anders M. Dale

7.

    Institute of Biological Psychiatry, Mental Health Center St. Hans, Mental Health Services Copenhagen, Roskilde, Denmark

    Wesley K. Thompson

8.

    Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Andrew J. Schork & Wesley K. Thompson

9.

    Neuroradiology Section, Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Rahul S. Desikan

10.

    Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Anders M. Dale

11.

    Department of Medical Genetics, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    Srdjan Djurovic

12.

    NORMENT, KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Srdjan Djurovic

Authors

1.

    Saurabh Srinivasan
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2.

    Francesco Bettella
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3.

    Oleksandr Frei
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4.

    W. David Hill
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5.

    Yunpeng Wang
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6.

    Aree Witoelar
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7.

    Andrew J. Schork
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8.

    Wesley K. Thompson
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9.

    Gail Davies
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10.

    Rahul S. Desikan
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11.

    Ian J. Deary
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12.

    Ingrid Melle
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13.

    Torill Ueland
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14.

    Anders M. Dale
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15.

    Srdjan Djurovic
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16.

    Olav B. Smeland
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17.

    Ole A. Andreassen
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Contributions

O.B.S. and O.A.A. designed the study. S.S. and O.F. analysed the data. S.S., F.B., O.B.S. and O.A.A. wrote the manuscript. G.D., I.J.D., W.D.H., S.D., T.U., I.M. and O.A.A. provided data. Y.W., A.W., A.J.S., R.S.D., W.K.T. and A.M.D. provided analytical to

question: When was the article written?

answer: Sometime after 2018, based on the references

question: Where was the article published?

answer: That information can't be found, but it seems to have been retrieved from PubMed

question: What field is the article from?

answer: Evolutionary neuroscience

question: How many authors are credited?

answer: 17

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The article presents new research which found a slight correlation with various measures of cognitive functions and genetic factors which originated after the separation of human and Neanderthal lineages.


split: train

text:
Armand Sylvestre}} ARMAND SYLVESTRE (October 16, 1910 – November 4, 1980) was a lawyer, judge and political figure in Quebec. He represented Berthier in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1944 to 1948 as a Liberal.[1]

Born in Saint-Cuthbert, Quebec, the son of Camille Sylvestre and Marie-Louise Paquette, Sylvestre was educated in Saint-Cuthbert, at the Séminaire de Joliette, the Collège de Berthierville and the Université de Montréal. He was called to the Quebec bar in 1937 and set up practice in Berthierville. Sylvestre was solicitor for the Liquor Commission in Joliette district from 1939 to 1944 and managing director of the _Courrier de Berthier_ from 1945 to 1948. In 1941, he married Mariette Daviault. He was elected in the 1944 Quebec general election, but was defeated when he ran for reelection in 1948, and again in 1952. Sylvestre was judge in the Court of Sessions of the Peace at Montreal from 1962 to 1972. He died at Saint-Thomas at the age of 70.

[1]

title: Armand Sylvestre (MLA)

question: Where was Sylvestre born?

answer: Sylvestre was born in Saint-Cuthbert, Quebec.

question: Where did Sylvestre study?

answer: He studied at the College de Berthierville and the Universite de Montreal.

question: Who did he marry?

answer: He married Mariette Daviault.

question: Did he win the elections?

answer: Yes, he was elected in the 1944 Quebec general elections.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
Armand Sylvestre was a lawyer, judge, and political figure in Quebec. He was born in Saint-Cuthbert, Quebec. He attended College de Berthierville and the Universite de Montreal. He was elected in 1944 in the Quebec general elections but lost when he ran for reelections.

Sylvestre was married to Mariette Daviault.


text:
_VEER GHATOTKACH_ is a 1949 Hindi Indian mythological film, starring Meena Kumari, Shahu Modak, Sumiti Gupta, Vasant Pahelwan, Naranjan Sharma and S. N. Tripathi.[1] Meena Kumari, after her career as a child artist, started doing adult roles as heroines in mythologicals and fantasy genres before she made it in mainstream cinema with _Baiju Bawra_ (1952).[2]

Storyline

While hiding from their vengeful cousins, the Kauravas, the Pandava brothers, Yudhister, Arjun, Bhim, Nakul, and Sahdev enter a forest, and this is where Bhim slays a demon. In order to make amends to the demon's mother, he agrees to marry her daughter, Hidamba, and they subsequently return home. Hidamba gets pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy who she names Ghatotkach, who grows up to be a mighty illusionist, who can fly, became a giant at will, and shape-shift. One day Ghatotkach gets into a confrontation, albeit unknowingly, with Abhimanyu, the son of Arjun, who is on his way to abduct Surekha, the daughter of Balram, who is being married against her will to Lakshman, the semi-senile son of Duryodhan, and ends up killing him. When he finds out that Abhimanyu is his cousin, he brings him back to life with Amrit (Holy Nectar), and decides to join him in his quest. The duo do get away with irritating the Kauravas, almost resulting in a battle between the Yadavs and them, but Krishna intercedes and placates both parties. With Krishna involved, will they succeed in abducting Surekha?

Soundtrack

  Track #   Song                                               Singer(s)                       Lyrics                   Composer
  --------- -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- ------------------------ -------------------
  1         “Aao Sakhi Mangal Gao Ki Shubh Din Aaye Ri”        Saroj, Shanti Sharma            Ramesh Joshi             Shrinath Tripathi
  2         “Ek Naya Sansar Sajao”                             Yashwant Bhatt, Rohini Roy      Ramesh Joshi             Shrinath Tripathi
  3         “Kaha Chali O Brij Ki Bala”                        Rohini Roy, Mohantara Talpade   Moti                     Shrinath Tripathi
  4         “Karman Ki Gati Nyari Jag Me”                                                      Saraswati Kumar Deepak   Shrinath Tripathi
  5         “Mausam Salona Muskaya Mehman Hamare Ghar Aaya”    Saroj, Shanti Sharma            Ramesh Joshi             Shrinath Tripathi
  6         “Mere Daras Diwane Nain Re”                        Saroj, Shanti Sharma            Moti                     Shrinath Tripathi
  7         “Pehli Hi Pehchan Me Naina Naino Ke Mehman Bane”   Mohantara Talpade               Anjum Rehmani            Shrinath Tripathi
  8         “Sandesh Mera Pa Ke Mujhe Daras Dikhana”           Mohantara Talpade               Anjum Rehmani            Shrinath Tripathi
  9         “Gori Ankhiya Se Ankhiya Milao”                    Shanti Sharma, Saroj            Anjum Rehmani            Moti

[1]

[2]

title: Veer Ghatotkach

question: What is Veer Ghatotkach?

answer: It is a Hindi Indian mythological film.

question: List some of the actors that played in this movie.

answer: Meena Kumari, Shahu Modak, Sumiti Gupta, Vasant Pahelwan, Naranjan Sharma, and S. N. Tripathi.

question: What is the movie about?

answer: The movie is about the Kauravas cousins, the Pandava brothers, their sons, and their adventures.

question: Will they abduct Surekha in the end?

answer: Information not found.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The article is about Veer Ghatotkach, a Hindi Indian mythological film. It lists the actors that were in the movie, describes the plot, and lists the soundtrack songs.


text:
SHANNON WAKEMAN (born 15 February 1990), also known by the nickname of _'“TS Wakeman”_, is an Italy international rugby league footballer who last contracted to the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League. He plays as a .[1]

Italy

Wakeman is an Italy international due to having Italian Grandparents.[2]

Background

He played his junior rugby league for the Dapto Canaries.[3] Wakeman played for the St George Illawarra Dragons NYC side for two seasons between 2009 and 2010.[4]

In 2012 he played for the Windsor Wolves in the NSW Cup.[5] He had been with the Penrith Panthers feeder club since 2011.[6]

He then moved on to play for the Illawarra Cutters in the New South Wales Cup from 2013.[7] Wakeman signed with the St. George Illawarra Dragons in the NRL, making the step up from feeder club to the elite level.[8] Whilst he failed to make a first-grade appearance in the NRL, he did attract headlines for his performances for the Cutters in the Intrust Super Premiership.[9] Wakeman was a member of Illawarra's 2016 premiership winning side and also a member of the Illawarra side which won the NRL State Championship match in 2016 against The Burleigh Bears.[10]

Super League Break

In late December 2016 he signed a two-year full-time contract to play for the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League.[11] He was coached by former Newcastle Knights boss, Rick Stone.

Controversy

In October 2017 while playing for Italy in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup, Wakeman allegedly king hit fellow teammate James Tedesco while having drinks at The Pier Bar in Cairns following Italy's shock 36-12 defeat by Ireland. The altercation was reportedly due to Tedesco propositioning Wakeman's girlfriend.[12][13]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

title: Shannon Wakeman

question: Who is Shannon Wakeman?

answer: Shannon Wakeman is an Italy international rugby league footballer who last contracted to the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League.

question: What controversy has Shannon Wakeman been involved in?

answer: In October 2017, Wakeman allegedly hit fellow teammate James Tedesco.

question: What teams has Shannon Wakeman played for?

answer: Dapto Canaries, St. George Illawarra Dragons NYC side, Windsor Wolves, Penrith Panthers, Illawarra Cutters, Huddersfield Giants

question: What is the Super League?

answer: the article does not answer this question

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Shannon Wakeman is an Italy international rugby league footballer who last contracted to the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League.


text:
After a two-year legal battle, journalist Oliver Hotham and Automattic, owners of blogging service Wordpress.com, have emerged victorious against an attempt to use an American copyright law to shut down criticism of a short-lived pressure group call “Straight Pride UK”.

The win, in a Californian district court, sets a rare precedent against attempts to use the the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to take content offline.

The act includes a provision that requires web hosts to remove user-generated content if they are notified that it infringes a third-party’s copyright - or face being held liable for the infringement.

But these DMCA takedown notifications are often abused to force big platform holders to remove content for reasons unrelated to copyright, as Hotham learned in 2013, when he was a student journalist.

In August that year, he posted an interview on his Wordpress blog with Nick Steiner, press officer for an anti-gay group called “Straight Pride UK”. In the interview, Steiner expressed his group’s support for homophobic policies enacted in Russia and a number of African nations, and praised Putin’s crackdown on LGBT rights.

But shortly after Hotham published the interview, he received a message from Straight Pride UK warning him to take down the piece within the week, or the group would use a DMCA takedown to force him to do so.

While both Hotham and Straight Pride UK were based in Britain, Hotham’s American hosts were subject to the law. However, a DMCA takedown notice requires copyright to have been infringed - something that had not happened because Hotham had merely published an interview.

Peter Sidorove, the head of Straight Pride UK’s Moscow-based sister organisation Straight Forward, told the Guardian in August that the interview, sent over in a document titled “Press Release”, was never intended to be published.

‘Censorship using the DMCA’

“Straight Pride UK thought as he was a student that we would add fun to it, dress it up and make him feel like a reporter by adding ‘press release’ to the document. This document also had a notice saying that it was not to be reproduced without consent,” Sidorove said.

But after the group served Automattic with a DCMA notice in an effort to force the company to take down Hotham’s blogpost, Automattic vowed to fight the takedown, calling the notice “censorship using the DMCA”.

In November 2013, it sued Straight Pride UK saying that “while there are no legal consequences (like fines) under the DMCA for copyright abusers, there is a provision that allows victims of censorship (and their web hosts) to bring legal action against those who submit fraudulent DMCA notices”.

Following Automattic’s legal victory against the group, activists hope that more web hosts will be emboldened to fight back against malicious takedown notices. Parker Higgins, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: “Wordpress going to bat was really unusual, and this could encourage others.”

The firm was awarded $22,264 in legal fees and $1,860 for time spent working on the case, which should also go some way to encouraging others to fight similar cases, Higgins added.

But neither Automattic nor Hotham, who was awarded $960 for his work and time, have much hope of being paid the money. Since August 2013, Straight Pride UK seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth. The group’s website has been taken down, and messages to an email address that was its only point of contact are not being answered.

‘Sets the precedent’

Automattic said: “We tried to track down Nick Steiner, but didn’t succeed. We’re disappointed by that and by the fact that he’ll probably never pay the judgment. So DMCA abuse may go unpunished this time. But we’re hearted that our case makes some good new law for future cases. There’s very little case law in this area, and previously no case law about what damages were available if a plaintiff were to win. It’s important here that the court held that we could recover attorneys’ fees and costs of suit, which were by far the biggest piece of damages.”

“This case also sets the precedent that Automattic will stand up for our users, and fight back against DMCA abuse. Hopefully that, along with the rule that victims can collect damages (especially costly attorney’s fees) may cause future DMCA abusers to think twice before they pull the same stunt.”

Hotham said the outcome was “really pleasant”. “It’s great to have made the impact now. I realised we were going to win when I heard that Automattic had hired this big California law firm, and when it was clear that the law was overwhelming on our side, of course. It’s been something I’ve put the back of my mind, so it was great to see it happen this week”.

As for Steiner, Hotham says: “As far as I know I’m not sure he even exists, or even that ‘Straight Pride UK’ was ever anything more than a few bloggers. I doubt I’ll hear from them now.”

question: Who is Oliver Hotham?

answer: He is a journalist who published an interview of Straight Pride UK press officer, Nick Steiner, on his blog but was threatened by the group with a "DMCA takedown" if he didn't unpublish the article.

question: What is Hotham's relationship with Automattic, owners of the blogging service Wordpress.com?

answer: Hotham's blog was hosted on WordPress and Automattic went to bat for Hotham, calling Straight Pride UK's move "censorship using DMCA" and vowing to fight them in court. Automattic sued Straight Pride UK for fraudulently submitting a DMCA notice to pressure Hotham to take his content offline. After a two-year legal battle, Hotham and Automattic won the case.

question: What is the DMCA and how does it work?

answer: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA is a copyright infringement act that includes a provision that requires web hosts to remove user-generated content if they are notified that it infringes a third party's copyright.

question: What happened to Straight Pride UK?

answer: The anti-gay group disappeared from the face of the earth. None of the members can be contacted, and Hotham says that these people may have been using fake names.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: Oliver Hotham and WordPress owners Automattic have won a landmark case against the anti-gay group "Straight Pride UK" after a two-year legal battle. Hotham, a journalist, published an interview he did with Straight Pride UK's press officer, Nick Steiner, about their support for homophobic policies and a crackdown on LGBT rights. Hotham gets a warning from the group to take the content offline or they will use a DMCA takedown to force him to do so. WordPress owners Automattic went to bat for Hotham (his blog was hosted there), calling Straight Pride UK's move "censorship using DMCA" and sued the group for fraudulently submitting a DMCA notice. Automattic and Hotham's win sets a precedent against attempts to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to take content offline.


text:
[]

Dawn raids were carried out at more than 87 homes in Wakefield, Castleford, Normanton and Leeds last Spring to target street dealers and their suppliers. And Operation Elmpond has seen a total of 41 men and women sentenced to 90 years and eight months in jail for trafficking offences, including the supply of crack cocaine and heroin.

Detective Inspector Jon Key of Protective Services (Crime) said: “The conviction of the final defendant at court this week represents a milestone in what has been a long running investigation to take drugs off our streets and put the people dealing them behind bars.

“The past 12 months have seen the courts hand some significant prison sentences to those who thought it was acceptable to deal class A drugs including crack and heroin on our streets.”

Chief Superintendent Mabs Hussain, District Commander of Wakefield Police. Submitted by W Yorks police

The operation finished with a final sentencing at Leeds Crown Court on Wednesday. Craig Moon, 34, of Simpsons Lane, Knottingley, pleaded guilty to drug offences and was given four years in prison.

Of the 41 people convicted, 21 received immediate prison sentences and 19 were given suspended terms.

Chief Superintendent Mabs Hussain, district commander for Wakefield Police, said work was ongoing to take drugs off the streets.

He said: “This has truly been a major operation to tackle drug dealers operating in our communities. I want to commend the hard work of officers who took part and also the members of the public who contacted us with intelligence.

Chief Superintendent Mabs Hussain, District Commander of Wakefield Police. Submitted by W Yorks police

“Despite these many convictions there is much more work to be done and Wakefield detectives are progressing investigations against a number of suspects following several high profile seizures so far in 2016.”

Anyone with any information should contact police on 101.

question: What's the operation called?

answer: Operation Elmpond

question: What's the aim of the operation?

answer: To crackdown on drug dealers and traffickers.

question: How successful was the operation?

answer: The operation has seen 41 people convicted.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A report about drug raids in the north of England and the future plans of the police department trying to get 'drugs off the streets'.


text:
The former district manager at Insys Therapeutics was irate. Several doctors were not prescribing enough of the company’s Subsys painkiller, which contains fentanyl, a powerful and addictive opioid.

So the manager, Jonathan Roper, wrote his sales team a pointed email, saying that “we invest a lot of time, money, blood, sweat, and tears on ‘our guys,’ ” — a reference to doctors who were paid to speak to other physicians about the medicine. “We hire only the best of the best to be a part of our speaker bureau and dropping script counts is what we get in return? This is a slap in the face to all of you and is a good indication as to why NONE of you are climbing in the rankings this quarter.”

Last Thursday, Roper and a former Insys sales rep named Fernando Serrano were arrested and charged with violating federal kickback laws. They allegedly ran a scheme between October 2013 and June 2015 in which doctors were paid thousands of dollars to participate in “sham educational programs” designed to boost Subsys prescriptions, according to Preet Bharara, the federal attorney for New York. The email from Roper two years ago was part of the indictment.

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The arrests come amid intensifying controversy over the abuse and misuse of prescription painkillers and the extent to which these are appropriately prescribed. Federal health officials recently released new guidelinesurging doctors to restrict their prescribing and some lawmakers want to pressure the Chinese government to toughen its laws to stop the illicit export to the United States.

The problem gained additional notoriety recently when Prince, the celebrated musician, died of an overdose of fentanyl, although it was not clear which form of the drug he was taking.

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“Fentanyl is an incredibly dangerous and highly addictive drug that is finding its way into, and destroying, too many lives in our communities,” Bharara said in a statement announcing the arrests. Roper and Serrano, he said, “helped feed this devastating surge of opioid addictions by tapping into another age-old addiction, greed.”

An attorney for Serrano did not immediately return a request for comment. Neither did Insys. Roper could not be reached for comment.

This is not the first time that Insys has been named in connection with illegal activities designed to boost prescriptions for Subsys, which was approved in 2012 to treat cancer pain and generated nearly $330 million in sales last year.

Last February, a former Insys Therapeutics sales rep pleaded guilty to violating federal kickback laws in connection with an alleged scheme to boost sales of the opioid painkiller. And the drug maker is being probed by various federal and state agencies that are examining whether doctors were encouraged to prescribe the drug for unapproved uses.

The indictment, which was filed in federal court in New York, revealed details of how the former employees hoped to boost Subsys prescriptions.

For instance, the company arranged “social gatherings at high-end restaurants in Manhattan” that were supposed to involve teaching doctors about Subsys but did not really involve any education. Doctors were enlisted to speak at these events, but often “lacked an appropriate audience of health care professionals,” according to the indictment. To make them appear legitimate, sign-in sheets were sometimes forged by adding names of doctors who did not attend.

Some docs were later treated to sojourns at strip clubs.

Doctors who wrote numerous prescriptions were rewarded with lucrative speaking fees. In 2014 alone, Insys paid one physician $147,000 and another, $112,000. These were also two of the largest Subsys prescribers in the US that year, writing prescriptions worth more than $3 million and $2 million, respectively. The prescriptions were paid for by both private insurers and Medicare, which spent more than $1 million on them.

Also worth noting: One doctor wrote 300 to 500 prescriptions for the painkiller, but was not an oncologist, according to the indictment.

Insys sales reps, meanwhile, benefited from their relationships with high-prescribing doctors.

Serrano and other reps received bonuses based, in large part, on the volume of Subsys prescriptions written by the doctors they were assigned to work with, according to the indictment. Serrano received a $70,000 bonus in the first quarter of 2014, which was the eighth-largest bonus among Insys reps at the time.  In the fourth quarter of 2013, his bonus was about $100,000, the fifth-largest among Insys reps.

question: What does the text say about the amount of fentanyl found in the Subsys painkiller?

question: What does the text say about Jonathan Roper?

answer: Jonathan Roper was the former district manager at Insys. He was in charge of a sales team that pushed the company's Subsys painkiller (which contains the powerful and addictive opioid fentanyl) to get doctors to prescribe it more. Roper was arrested and charged with violating federal kickback laws.

question: Summarize the details of Roper and Serrano's scheme?

answer: Roper and Serrano ran the scheme between October 2013 and June 2015. Doctors were paid thousands of dollars to participate in "sham educational programs" designed to boost Subsys prescriptions. Sales reps like Serrano received bonuses based on the volume of doctor's prescriptions. This resulted in the abuse and misuse of the prescription painkiller.

question: What does the text say about Insys Therapeutics track record?

answer: The Roper and Serrano scheme wasn't the first time Insys Therapeutics was involved in illegal activities. Another Insys sales rep pleaded guilty to violating federal kickback laws in connection with an alleged scheme to boost sales of the opioid painkiller. Doctors who wrote numerous prescriptions were treated to strip clubs, high-end restaurants, and were rewarded with lucrative speaking fees. The speaking engagements at restaurants often lacked the appropriate audience of health care professionals. In 2014 alone, Insys paid one doctor $147,000 and another $112,000 in speaking fees. The two physicians were the largest Subsys prescribers that year, writing prescriptions amounting to $3 million and $2 million, respectively.


text:
I struck her to onto velvet carpet of our living room with a small handgun clenched tightly in my hand, my index finger over the trigger, teeth grinding and sweat whitening y face in the incandescent glow of a tall lamp that sat silently, only lighting up the velvet walls decorated with faces of happier times within plastic walls.
 When she fell she shattered a small flower pot, the soil and flower strewn beside her, brown and white spill that what would be considered as decor.

*"Don't! Why are you doing this- It wasn't my intent!"* she wailed on the floor with a hand raised to the muzzle as if it would stop a bullet.

**Do it! She hates you, she wants you dead like the others; the men before her meant nothing, and neither do you!** A burly voiced cried in my head, a voice that was not of my own logic. It speaks to me in evil tongues and for a while I listened. I listened very well.

**Kill her, you have all the bullets in the world, KILL HER**

I was going to do it.

**KILL HER! NOW**

indefinitely.

**KILL, FIRE THE BULLETS; NOW!**

I fried one shot. It screamed through the home before silence came down upon the household. With the one shot, someone had died, and only one person would leave when the police and paramedics showed up later that evening.

In the house would lay one body. But with two souls.

I killed it. I promised myself I would kill it, and by God i knew I would do it. My wife thought I had gone insane, and told the police i felt guilty so i shot myself. No. I had the moment to end its life while it thought it controlled me. No, I'm the master. And now it is dead, silenced by me; silenced me.

Perhaps it thinks that it won the war, now that both of us are silenced forever.
But no. That will never be true.

I love you Elise, thought it took me away. But always remember a time when it was me and you; just Me and Her.

*Return to your hell devil, for the power of God has given me life again.*

title: Me and Her [A Short-Short. A Climax and and End]

question: Who does the narrator shoot?

answer: It is implied he shot himself

question: Who are the main characters?

answer: The narrator and his wife

question: What is the antagonist?

answer: A demon in the narrator's head

question: Why does the narrator's wife say, "it wasn't my intent?"

answer: That information can't be found

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: He narrator is in his living room, pointing a gun at his wife, who is on the floor. A voice in his head tells him to kill her. Instead, he shoots himself to silence the voice.


text:
He looked up as Dr. Sun walked into the office. He was nervous; his wife hadn’t been the same lately. He could see that something was wrong. At first he thought nothing of it, but once the quakes started happening he knew she needed to be taken in to see the doctor.

“I’m afraid I have negative news to report to you sir. She’s very ill. She appears to have some sort of parasites on her. They are incredibly destructive. At first her body didn’t recognize them, but now that it has, it’s trying too hard to fight them off.  You may have noticed this. I’m sorry Mr. Neptune, she has a very slim chance of living. She is still very contagious. Try to keep yourself and your family protected.”

 He began to weep, thinking about his family. Together they had six children and a dog, how would he cope without her. He walked into her room and looked at her. Her big beautiful green eyes looked dead, only her salty tears confirmed she was still alive.

title: Mother

question: Is the woman in a hospital?

answer: Unclear; it could be a hospital, a clinic, or the patient's home.

question: What are the parasites?

answer: N/A

question: What are the stakes of the illness?

answer: She could infect others, and her probable death will have an emotional impact on her family.

question: What is the relationship between the woman and the person being addressed?

answer: They are married.

question: Describe symptoms of the illness.

answer: Quakes

question: Who is speaking?

answer: Dr. Sun.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: In the doctor's office, Dr. Sun tells Mr. Neptune that parasites are the cause of his wife's illness. She isn't dead yet but she looks it, and she is contagious. With their six children, Mr. Neptune doesn't know how he will carry on without her.


text:
On August 2, six months after Washington initiated the withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the USSR and the US in 1987, the treaty has been terminated for all parties: the US, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

This means that a key treaty for establishing the regional and global security architecture no longer exists. Under the INF Treaty, the parties eliminated two classes of nuclear armaments: land-based intermediate-range and shorter range missiles. The missile launchers and all the associated support facilities and equipment were also destroyed.

Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty has dealt a great blow to the arms control system, which took decades to build. Far-reaching negative consequences for the entire architecture of global security and strategic stability are inevitable.

The US is entirely to blame for this. It was the American side that buried the INF Treaty by launching and completing the procedure for its unilateral withdrawal, while Russia consistently protected the treaty until the very end. In fact, it is completely incorrect to say that Russia has also withdrawn from the treaty and shares the responsibility, as some foreign officials and several media do.

Russia did everything possible to save the INF Treaty. In recent years, as soon as the US began moving towards the withdrawal from the treaty, we tried many times to start a constructive conversation with the Americans. We proposed a number of initiatives that would have made it possible to resolve the claims from both sides and save the INF Treaty. Russia was transparent beyond the treaty’s provisions.

However, all our efforts were ignored or turned down by Washington. Unfortunately, the US’s true goal was not to keep the INF Treaty but to get rid of the bans and restrictions on the buildup of the US missile potential. The US was purposefully working to untie its hands so that it can use an unlimited range of military tools to exert military pressure on any rival or opponent in the world.

The US deliberately plunged the INF Treaty into a crisis that was almost impossible to overcome in order to cover its actions. Instead of a professional and detailed discussion of the acute issues we were insisting on, they decided to dramatically escalate the situation. A misleading and irresponsible propaganda campaign was launched against us as a smokescreen as Washington tried to distort everything and present the matter as if the US is withdrawing from the Treaty due to Russia’s behaviour.

The US made another awkward attempt to justify its actions on the eve of the treaty termination date. On July 30, a so-called fact sheet with totally facts was published on the Department of State’s website. It was another propagandist-planted lie that has little to do with reality.

The reality is that the US has presented no evidence of Russia violating the INF Treaty over the years of discussing all the treaty-related problems. Nevertheless, the US gave an ultimatum that it would only return to the treaty if Russia completely and verifiably destroyed all the 9M729 missiles allegedly prohibited by the treaty, as well as all the launchers and associated equipment, and agree to future inspections. It is clear that this position is unacceptable for us.

I would like to repeat that the 9M729 land-based cruise missile, the existence of which we have never hidden, was not designed or tested for the prohibited range. Russia has fully complied with the INF Treaty since the day it came into effect. We have refuted all the US’s allegations, which are completely groundless.

In fact, the US never took the necessary actions to address all its violations of the treaty, above all the deployment of Mk 41 launchers that have the capability to launch intermediate-range cruise missiles, which is prohibited by the treaty. There has also been no breakthrough regarding the target missiles the US launches to test their missile defence system but with properties equivalent to those of ballistic intermediate-range missiles, as well as regarding missile drones that fully meet the definition of a “land-based cruise missile.”

Washington began to undermine the INF Treaty long ago and has finally destroyed it. We can see that the US is trying to do away with all the international agreements that do not suit it in some way. The collapse of the INF Treaty, which is similar to the US’s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 on the scale of destructive consequences, means that Washington’s dismantling of the existing nuclear missile control system is speeding up.

This dangerous trend is accompanied by US officials’ statements on their readiness to build up nuclear armaments. The uncertainty about the future of the last Russian-US restricting and verifying mechanism in the nuclear arms sphere, the New START that expires in February 2021, also fits this trend.

Of course, in the face of new threats from the US, we will take comprehensive measures to ensure our own security. And, as President of Russia Vladimir Putin said on February 2, Russia will not deploy land-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe or other regions unless the US places armaments of the same class there.

We call on the United States to show responsibility and, following Russia’s example, to renounce deploying missiles of these classes, which the Pentagon has been actively discussing. Russia remains open to equitable and constructive dialogue with the United States on the INF Treaty and other issues related to the strategic security based on mutual trust and consideration of each other’s interests. We hope that the United States adopts a responsible approach to this matter. The Russian-US consultations on arms control with an emphasis on nuclear missiles that resumed in Geneva on July 17 must continue.

Thank you for your attention.

I am ready to answer your questions.

question: What does the text say about how the US tried to justify its actions?

answer: The article claims the US plunged the INF treaty into a crisis that was impossible to overcome in order to justify its actions. They did this instead of have a professional and detailed discussion. They also launched a propaganda campaign against Russia that made it seem the US was withdrawing from the treaty due to Russia's behavior. On the eve of the termination date, the US created and released a supposed fact sheet about the situation, but it was just another lie to justify what they're doing.

question: What does the text say about what Washington's withdrawal means?

answer: Washington's withdrawal from the treaty means a few things according to the article. It means that a key treaty for establishing the regional and global security architecture no longer exists, and that there will be a great blow to the arms control system. The article claims that now there are far-reaching negative consequences for the entire architecture of global security and strategic stability that are inevitable. Russia also claims that the US is doing this so they can use an unlimited range of military tools to exert military pressure against its rivals, and that their dismantling of the existing nuclear missile control system is now speeding up.

question: What does the text say about how Russia will face the new threats from the US?

answer: Russia says they refute all of US's allegations. The article claims Russia will be taking comprehensive measures to ensure their own security. They will not be deploying land-based intermediate-range and shorter range missiles in other region sunless the US places armaments of the same class there. In response to the threats, they make it clear they remain open to constructive dialogue with the US over the treaty and other issues. They also call on the US to show responsibility, and renounce deploying missiles of the classes they listed.

question: What does the text say about Donald Trump?


text:
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[Keep Track of Employees and Manage Leave Time With Comprehensive Leave Manager]
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THERE IS A BETTER WAY TO MANAGE LEAVE TIME

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Managing leave transactions doesn’t need to be time-consuming or challenging. Streamline leave management by adding an affordable, simple tool to Microsoft Dynamics GP. Contact Integrity Data to learn how easy it is to manage leave time and prepare for vacation season.

[]

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question: What is Microsoft Dynamics GP?

answer: Not answered, seems to be some sort of software company.

question: How do employees usually go about taking time off from work?

answer: Employees usually make a request for time off, the managers approve it, the time is then represented on a timesheet, the used time off is counted.

question: What features does Comprehensive Leave Manager offer?

answer: Comprehensive Leave Manager can automate accrual schedules, add and change leave plans quickly, and track leave transaction history.

question: Does the program cost money?

answer: Not answered.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article gives a description of Comprehensive Leave Manager, a program that allows employers to keep track of leave time more easily.