Past volcanic activity predisposes an endemic threatened seabird to negative anthropogenic impacts.

Humans are regularly cited as the main driver of current biodiversity extinction, but the impact of historic volcanic activity is often overlooked. Pre-human evidence of wildlife abundance and diversity are essential for disentangling anthropogenic impacts from natural events. Réunion Island, with its intense and well-documented volcanic activity, endemic biodiversity, long history of isolation and recent human colonization, provides an opportunity to disentangle these processes.

Uncovering immune checkpoint heterogeneity in oral squamous cell carcinoma using single cell RNA-sequencing data highlights three subgroups of patients with distinct immune phenotypes.

Objectives: In head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors remain inefficient in most patients, which points to the need for better characterization of immune checkpoint (ICP) molecule expression.

Material And Methods: We evaluated the expression of 22 ICP ligands (ICPL) in 2,176 malignant cells from 10 patients in a public single-cell RNA-sequencing dataset and in two cohorts of HNSCC patients for which gene expression data are available.

Results: Based on ICPL expression, malignant cells formed three distinct clusters characterized either by a strong expression of ICPL together with an immune phenotype linked to IFN-γ response (cluster 1) or by a weak ICPL expression and little response to IFN-γ (clusters 2 and 3).

Evaluation of Asphalt Aging Using Multivariate Analysis Applied to Saturates, Aromatics, Resins, and Asphaltene Determinator Data.

Asphalt is subjected to aging, leading to physical and chemical modifications reducing its performance. Recently, the Western Research Institute developed the SAR-AD method that allowed the separation of asphalt into eight fractions (saturates, aromatics 1, aromatics 2, aromatics 3, resins, asphaltenes 1, asphaltene 2, and asphaltenes 3). In this work, this analytical method was used to study asphalt aging processes in greater detail.

Investigation of Oxidation Homogeneity in Asphalt Puck after Simulation of Long-Term Aging (Pressure Aging Vessel).

For decades, it has been known that the creation of oxygenated functional groups, especially carbonyl and sulfoxide, is among the main causes of chemical aging and degradation of asphalt. However, is the oxidation of a bitumen homogeneous? The focus of this paper was to follow the oxidation phenomena through an asphalt puck during a pressure aging vessel (PAV) test. According to the literature, the asphalt oxidation process that leads to the creation of oxygenated functions can be divided into the following successive main steps: the absorption of oxygen in asphalt at the air/asphalt interface, diffusion into the matrix, and reaction with asphalt molecules.

Condensation of the fusion focus by the intrinsically disordered region of the formin Fus1 is essential for cell-cell fusion.

Secretory vesicle clusters transported on actin filaments by myosin V motors for local secretion underlie various cellular processes, such as neurotransmitter release at neuronal synapses, hyphal steering in filamentous fungi, and local cell wall digestion preceding the fusion of yeast gametes. During fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe gamete fusion, the actin fusion focus assembled by the formin Fus1 concentrates secretory vesicles carrying cell wall digestive enzymes. The position and coalescence of the vesicle focus are controlled by local signaling and actin-binding proteins to prevent inappropriate cell wall digestion that would cause lysis, but the mechanisms of focusing have been elusive.