Diversity and Ice Nucleation Activity of Microorganisms Collected With a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) in France and the United States.

Many microbes relevant to crops, domestic animals, and humans are transported over long distances through the atmosphere. Some of these atmospheric microbes catalyze the freezing of water at higher temperatures and facilitate the onset of precipitation. We collected microbes from the lower atmosphere in France and the United States with a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS).

Variation in Biological Soil Crust Bacterial Abundance and Diversity as a Function of Climate in Cold Steppe Ecosystems in the Intermountain West, USA.

Biological soil crust (biocrust) is a composite of mosses, lichens, and bacteria that performs many important soil system functions, including increasing soil stability, protecting against wind erosion, reducing nutrient loss, and mediating carbon and nitrogen fixation cycles. These cold desert and steppe ecosystems are expected to experience directional changes in both climate and disturbance. These include increased temperatures, precipitation phase changes, and increased disturbance from anthropogenic land use.

Psychoactive pharmaceuticals as environmental contaminants may disrupt highly inter-connected nodes in an Autism-associated protein-protein interaction network.

Background: Most cases of idiopathic autism spectrum disorder (ASD) likely result from unknown environmental triggers in genetically susceptible individuals. These triggers may include maternal exposure of a fetus to minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals, such as carbamazepine (CBZ), venlafaxine (VNX) and fluoxetine (FLX). Unmetabolized pharmaceuticals reach drinking water through a variety of routes, including ineffectively treated sewage.