Microbial DNA extraction method for avian feces and preen oil from diverse species.

As DNA sequencing technology continues to rapidly improve, studies investigating the microbial communities of host organisms (i.e., microbiota) are becoming not only more popular but also more financially accessible.

Explaining contentious political issues promotes open-minded thinking.

Cognitive scientists suggest that inviting people to explain contentious political issues might reduce intergroup toxicity because it exposes people to how poorly they understand the issue. However, whether providing explanations can result in more open-minded political thinking remains unclear. On one hand, inviting people to explain a political issue might make them more impartial and open-minded in their thinking.

Effect of IUCN Red List category on public attention to mammals.

Cultural data is a powerful tool to analyze public awareness of key societal issues, including the conservation of nature. I used two publicly available repositories of cultural data, Google Trends and Google Ngram, to quantify the effect of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List conservation status on public attention toward 4539 mammal species. With Google Trends, I calculated whether Google searches for their common and scientific names have been increasing or decreasing over time.

Melatonin Adjusts the Phase of Mouse Circadian Clocks in the Cornea Both Ex Vivo and In Vivo.

The presence of an endogenous circadian clock within most mammalian cells is associated with the amazing observation that within a given tissue, these clocks are largely in synchrony with each other. Different tissues use a variety of systemic or environmental cues to precisely coordinate the phase of these clocks. The cornea is a unique tissue in that it is largely isolated from the direct blood supply that most tissues experience, it is transparent to visible light, and it is exposed directly to environmental light and temperature.

Attention spreads between students in a learning environment.

We propose a novel phenomenon, defined as the spread of attentive (or inattentive) states among members of a group. We examined attention contagion in a learning environment in which pairs of undergraduate students watched a lecture video. Each pair consisted of a participant and a confederate trained to exhibit attentive behaviors (e.

3D-printed assistive pipetting system for gel electrophoresis for technicians with low acuity vision.

In molecular biology laboratories, many tasks require fine motor control and high acuity vision. For example, lab technicians with visual impairment experience difficulty loading samples into the small wells of a horizontal agarose gel. We have developed a 3D-printable gel loading system which allows technicians with low-contrast vision to load gels correctly.

Novel culture system via wirelessly controllable optical stimulation of the FGF signaling pathway for human and pig pluripotency.

Stem cell fate is largely determined by cellular signaling networks and is heavily dependent on the supplementation of exogenous recombinant proteins into culture media; however, uneven distribution and inconsistent stability of recombinant proteins are closely associated with the spontaneous differentiation of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) and result in significant costs in large-scale manufacturing. Here, we report a novel PSC culture system via wirelessly controllable optical activation of the fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling pathway without the need for supplementation of recombinant FGF2 protein, a key molecule for maintaining pluripotency of PSCs. Using a fusion protein between the cytoplasmic region of the FGF receptor-1 and a light-oxygen-voltage domain, we achieved tunable, blue light-dependent activation of FGF signaling in human and porcine PSCs.

Conspecific olfactory preferences and interspecific divergence in odor cues in a chickadee hybrid zone.

Understanding how mating cues promote reproductive isolation upon secondary contact is important in describing the speciation process in animals. Divergent chemical cues have been shown to act in reproductive isolation across many animal taxa. However, such cues have been overlooked in avian speciation, particularly in passerines, in favor of more traditional signals such as song and plumage.

Hybrid chickadees are deficient in learning and memory.

Identifying the phenotypes underlying postzygotic reproductive isolation is crucial for fully understanding the evolution and maintenance of species. One potential postzygotic isolating barrier that has rarely been examined is learning and memory ability in hybrids. Learning and memory are important fitness-related traits, especially in scatter-hoarding species, where accurate retrieval of hoarded food is vital for winter survival.

The Wisdom in Virtue: Pursuit of Virtue Predicts Wise Reasoning About Personal Conflicts.

Most people can reason relatively wisely about others' social conflicts, but often struggle to do so about their own (i.e., Solomon's paradox).

Emotional complexity: Clarifying definitions and cultural correlates.

There is much debate about the notion of emotional complexity (EC). The debate concerns both the definition and the meaning of ostensible cultural differences in the construct. Some scholars have defined EC as the experience of positive and negative emotions together rather than as opposites, a phenomenon that seems more common in East Asia than North America.

MALDI-TOF MS analysis of proanthocyanidins in two lowland tropical forest species of Cecropia: a first look at their chemical structures.

The structural chemistry of proanthocyanidin molecules has been investigated in temperate zone plants, but few studies have been done with plants of the Amazonian lowland tropical wet forests where herbivore pressure is more extensive and diverse. Using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, we report unique properties of the proanthocyanidin structural chemistry in two neotropical Cecropia species, C. polystachya, a myrmecophyte with mutualistic ants, and C.