Synchronous diversification of Sulawesi's iconic artiodactyls driven by recent geological events.

The high degree of endemism on Sulawesi has previously been suggested to have vicariant origins, dating back to 40 Ma. Recent studies, however, suggest that much of Sulawesi's fauna assembled over the last 15 Myr. Here, we test the hypothesis that more recent uplift of previously submerged portions of land on Sulawesi promoted diversification and that much of its faunal assemblage is much younger than the island itself. To do so, we combined palaeogeographical reconstructions with genetic and morphometric datasets derived from Sulawesi's three largest mammals: the babirusa, anoa and Sulawesi warty pig. Our results indicate that although these species most likely colonized the area that is now Sulawesi at different times (14 Ma to 2-3 Ma), they experienced an almost synchronous expansion from the central part of the island. Geological reconstructions indicate that this area was above sea level for most of the last 4 Myr, unlike most parts of the island. We conclude that emergence of land on Sulawesi (approx. 1-2 Myr) may have allowed species to expand synchronously. Altogether, our results indicate that the establishment of the highly endemic faunal assemblage on Sulawesi was driven by geological events over the last few million years.

Communication between parents and their children about sexual health.

BACKGROUND: Communicating about sex with parents has been shown to influence some aspects of sexual behavior in young people. The aim of this study was to investigate how comfortable parents and children find this type of discussion and to compare parental responses with those of their children. STUDY DESIGN: Self-completed questionnaires were distributed to 317 teenagers from a state school in Edinburgh, Scotland, and to 575 of their parents. The questionnaire was designed to appraise relative levels of comfort/discomfort about discussing six sexual health topics. Where a parent and their child had both completed questionnaires, their responses were compared. RESULTS: Three hundred forty-five parents, 162 girls and 155 boys, completed questionnaires. Most parents considered themselves "comfortable" or "very comfortable" discussing sexual health issues with their children, with "boyfriends/girlfriends" as the most comfortable (p< or =.001) and "sexual intercourse" the least comfortable topic (p<.0005). However, many children stated they "definitely would not" talk to parents (19-65% of participants, depending on the topic), citing "embarrassment" as the main reason. Eight-six pairs of parent-child responses were matched and compared showing that on all topics the least communication occurred between fathers and their daughters. CONCLUSIONS: There are clearly barriers to communicating about sexual health issues between parents and their children in this population, and this seems to stem from reluctance on the part of the children rather than of their parents.