Dental evidence for extended growth in early Homo from Dmanisi.

Human life history is characterized by an extended period of immaturity during which there is a disjunction between cerebral and somatic growth rates. This mode of ontogeny is thought to be essential for the acquisition of advanced cognitive capabilities in a socially complex environment while the brain is still growing. Key information about when and how this pattern evolved can be gleaned from the teeth of fossil hominins because dental development informs about the pace of life history.

Stool and blood metabolomics in the metabolic syndrome: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction/objectives: Changes in the stool metabolome have been poorly studied in the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Moreover, few studies have explored the relationship of stool metabolites with circulating metabolites. Here, we investigated the associations between stool and blood metabolites, the MetS and systemic inflammation.

Shaft structure of the first metatarsal contains a strong phylogenetic signal in apes and humans.

Objectives: Metatarsal bones constitute a key functional unit of the foot in primates. While the form-function relationships of metatarsals have been extensively studied, particularly in relation to the loss of the grasping ability of the foot in humans in contrast to apes, the effect of phyletic history on the metatarsal morphology and its variability remains largely unknown.

Materials And Methods: Here, we evaluate how the strength of the phylogenetic signal varies from the first to the fifth metatarsal in humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons, and Japanese macaques.

Drug-target identification in COVID-19 disease mechanisms using computational systems biology approaches.

Introduction: The COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing.

Methods: Extensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms.

Quantifying water-use efficiency in plant canopies with varying leaf angle and density distribution.

Background And Aims: Variation in architectural traits related to the spatial and angular distribution of leaf area can have considerable impacts on canopy-scale fluxes contributing to water-use efficiency (WUE). These architectural traits are frequent targets for crop improvement and for improving the understanding and predictions of net ecosystem carbon and water fluxes.

Methods: A three-dimensional, leaf-resolving model along with a range of virtually generated hypothetical canopies were used to quantify interactions between canopy structure and WUE by examining its response to variation of leaf inclination independent of leaf azimuth, canopy heterogeneity, vegetation density and physiological parameters.