Publications by authors named "B Scott Ferguson"

Introduction: Crop rotation, a crucial agricultural practice that enhances soil health and crop productivity, is widely used in agriculture worldwide. Soybeans play a crucial role in crop rotation owing to their nitrogen-fixing ability, which is facilitated by symbiotic bacteria in their root systems. The soybean-rapeseed rotation is an effective agricultural practice in the Yangtze River Basin of China.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Humans adopt non-linguistic signals, from smoke signals to Morse code, to communicate. This communicative flexibility emerges early: embedding novel sine-wave tones in a social, communicative exchange permits 6-month-olds to imbue them with communicative status, and to use them in subsequent learning. Here, to specify the mechanism(s) that undergird this capacity, we introduced infants to a novel signal-sine-wave tone sequences-in brief videotaped vignettes with non-human agents, systematically manipulating the socio-communicative cues in each vignette.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs that control gene expression by degrading or repressing mRNA translation into proteins. Research recently suggested that food-derived miRNAs are bioavailable and may be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Since these small RNAs may reach the circulation and organs, possible interactions with host genes will lead to epigenetic effects that alter metabolism.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Plant peptide families share distinct characteristics, and many members are in homologous signalling pathways controlling development and responses to external signals. The root meristem growth factor (RGF) peptides/GOLVEN (GLV)/CLAVATA3-ESR-related like (CLEL) are a family of short signalling peptides that are derived from a precursor protein and undergo post-translational modifications. Their role in root meristem development is well established and recent efforts have identified subtilase processing pathways and several downstream signalling components.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Soft tissue sarcomas typically don’t have links to mutations in the MEN1 gene.
  • A case is presented involving a patient with a sizeable retroperitoneal pleomorphic liposarcoma that has a unique MEN1 mutation not previously documented in relation to soft tissue sarcomas.
  • This finding broadens the understanding of cancers related to MEN1 mutations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF