Nitrogen deficiency influences strigolactone levels in basal parts of shoots and shoot branching phenotype in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Strigolactones (SLs) are allelochemicals attracting both symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and root parasitic plants and a novel class of phytohormones inhibiting lateral shoot branching. In general, nutrient deficiency significantly promotes SL production in roots and exudation into the rhizosphere, and also induces suppressed shoot branching phenotype in host plants of AM fungi including rice, tomato, maize, etc. Nutrient deficiencies also inhibit the shoot branching in Arabidopsis thaliana (hereafter Arabidopsis), a non-host of AM fungi, while the level of carlactone, a non-canonical SL and the SL precursor for the other SLs, was reported to be unaffected.

The utility of drowning site inference through metagenomic diatom analysis.

The diatom test is one of the methods used to diagnose drowning in forensic autopsies. Metagenomic diatom analysis may reveal where a drowning occurred. We evaluated whether metagenomic diatom analysis could be used to infer waters, watersheds, and geographic locations using 166 water samples from 64 locations (freshwater: 55; seawater: 9).

An adult case of large defect of small mesenteric hiatal hernia causing small bowel obstruction.

Background: Small mesenteric hiatal hernias (SMHHs) are defined as a small group of internal hernias (IHs) that frequently diagnosed in children. However, SMHHs are relatively rare in adults. Bowel loop herniation via an abnormal mesenteric defect can lead to strangulated intestinal obstruction.

All-electron first-principles GWΓ simulations for accurately predicting core-electron binding energies considering first-order three-point vertex corrections.

In the conventional GW method, the three-point vertex function (Γ) is approximated to unity (Γ ∼ 1). Here, we developed an all-electron first-principles GWΓ method beyond a conventional GW method by considering a first-order three-point vertex function (Γ(1) = 1 + iGGW) in a one-electron self-energy operator. We applied the GWΓ method to simulate the binding energies (BEs) of B1s, C1s, N1s, O1s, and F1s for 19 small-sized molecules.