Natural variation in yeast reveals multiple paths for acquiring higher stress resistance.

Background: Organisms frequently experience environmental stresses that occur in predictable patterns and combinations. For wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast growing in natural environments, cells may experience high osmotic stress when they first enter broken fruit, followed by high ethanol levels during fermentation, and then finally high levels of oxidative stress resulting from respiration of ethanol. Yeast have adapted to these patterns by evolving sophisticated "cross protection" mechanisms, where mild 'primary' doses of one stress can enhance tolerance to severe doses of a different 'secondary' stress.

Quantifying relative virulence: when fails and AUC alone just is not enough.

A challenge in virology is quantifying relative virulence () between two (or more) viruses that exhibit different replication dynamics in a given susceptible host. Host is often used to mathematically characterize virus-host interactions and to quantify the magnitude of detriment to host due to viral infection. Quantifying using canonical parameters, like maximum specific growth rate (), can fail to provide reliable information regarding virulence.

Host-Dependent Differences in Replication Strategy of the Spindle-Shaped Virus Strain SSV9 (a.k.a., SSVK1): Infection Profiles in Hosts of the Family Sulfolobaceae.

The Spindle-shaped Virus (SSV) system has become a model for studying thermophilic virus biology, including archaeal host-virus interactions and biogeography. Several factors make the SSV system amenable to studying archaeal genetic mechanisms (e.g.