Estimating and mitigating amplification bias in qualitative and quantitative arthropod metabarcoding.

Amplicon based metabarcoding promises rapid and cost-efficient analyses of species composition. However, it is disputed whether abundance estimates can be derived from metabarcoding due to taxon specific PCR amplification biases. PCR-free approaches have been suggested to mitigate this problem, but come with considerable increases in workload and cost.

The influence of bubbles on the perception carbonation bite.

Although many people naively assume that the bite of carbonation is due to tactile stimulation of the oral cavity by bubbles, it has become increasingly clear that carbonation bite comes mainly from formation of carbonic acid in the oral mucosa. In Experiment 1, we asked whether bubbles were in fact required to perceive carbonation bite. Subjects rated oral pungency from several concentrations of carbonated water both at normal atmospheric pressure (at which bubbles could form) and at 2.