Hypermutator emergence in experimental populations is stress-type dependent.

Genotypes exhibiting an increased mutation rate, called hypermutators, can propagate in microbial populations because they can have an advantage due to the higher supply of beneficial mutations needed for adaptation. Although this is a frequently observed phenomenon in natural and laboratory populations, little is known about the influence of parameters such as the degree of maladaptation, stress intensity, and the genetic architecture for adaptation on the emergence of hypermutators. To address this knowledge gap, we measured the emergence of hypermutators over ~1,000 generations in experimental populations exposed to different levels of osmotic or antibiotic stress.

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations.

Structural variants (SVs) (i.e., deletions, insertions, duplications, and inversions) are now known to play an important role in phenotypic variation, and consequently in processes such as disease determination or adaptation to a new environment.

Read between the Lines: Diversity of Nontranslational Selection Pressures on Local Codon Usage.

Protein coding genes can contain specific motifs within their nucleotide sequence that function as a signal for various biological pathways. The presence of such sequence motifs within a gene can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the phenotype and fitness of an organism, and this can lead to the enrichment or avoidance of this sequence motif. The degeneracy of the genetic code allows for the existence of alternative synonymous sequences that exclude or include these motifs, while keeping the encoded amino acid sequence intact.

Hyperostosis frontalis interna in ancient populations from the Carpathian Basin - A possible relationship between lifestyle and risk of development.

Objective: The prevalence of hyperostosis frontalis interna (HFI) was examined in different periods of the Carpathian Basin from 4900 BCE to 17th century AD. The study seeks to evaluate temporal changes in HFI and the possible impact of lifestyle on it.

Materials: The studied material consisted of 4668 crania from Hungary and Serbia.

Regulation of cellular sphingosine-1-phosphate by sphingosine kinase 1 and sphingosine-1-phopshate lyase determines chemotherapy resistance in gastroesophageal cancer.

Background: Resistance to chemotherapy is common in gastroesophageal cancer. Mechanisms of resistance are incompletely characterised and there are no predictive biomarkers in clinical practice for cytotoxic drugs. We used new cell line models to characterise novel chemotherapy resistance mechanisms and validated them in tumour specimens to identify new targets and biomarkers for gastroesophageal cancer.

Titania nanorods curve to lower their energy.

Spontaneous formation of curved nanorods is generally unexpected, since curvature introduces strain energy. However, electron microscopy shows that under hydrothermal conditions, some nanorods grown by oriented attachment of small anatase particles on {101} surfaces are curved and dislocation free. Molecular dynamics simulations show that the lattice energy of a curved anatase rod is actually lower than that of a linear rod due to more attractive long-range interatomic Coulombic interactions among atoms in the curved rod.

Influence of surface potential on aggregation and transport of titania nanoparticles.

To investigate the effect of pH on nanoparticle aggregation and transport in porous media, we quantified nanoparticle transport in two-dimensional structures. Titania was used as a model compound to explore the effects of surface potential on particle mobility in the subsurface. Results show that pH, and therefore, surface potential and aggregate size, dominate nanoparticle interactions with each other and surfaces.

Human remains sold to the highest bidder! A snapshot of the buying and selling of human skeletal remains on eBay, an Internet auction site.

Internet auction sites have become increasingly popular, with diverse items up for sale to the public worldwide. The purposes of this paper are to inform the forensic community that human skeletal remains, old and new, are for sale on the eBay internet auction site, and to advise forensic scientists that eBay does not use a forensic anthropologist to assess photographs of these materials. Over the last few years, this website was "surfed," with numerous auctions during this period.

Special phase transformation and crystal growth pathways observed in nanoparticles†.

Phase transformation and crystal growth in nanoparticles may happen mechanisms distinct from those in bulk materials. We combine experimental studies of as-synthesized and hydrothermally coarsened titania (TiO) and zinc sulfide (ZnS) with thermodynamic analysis, kinetic modeling and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The samples were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, synchrotron X-ray absorption and scattering, and UV-vis spectroscopy.

Electronic, Magnetic, and Redox Properties of [MFe(3)S(4)] Clusters (M = Cd, Cu, Cr) in Pyrococcus furiosus Ferredoxin.

The ground- and excited-state properties of heterometallic [CuFe(3)S(4)](2+,+), [CdFe(3)S(4)](2+,+), and [CrFe(3)S(4)](2+,+) cubane clusters assembled in Pyrococcus furiosus ferredoxin have been investigated by the combination of EPR and variable-temperature/variable-field magnetic circular dichroism (MCD) studies. The results indicate Cd(2+) incorporation into [Fe(3)S(4)](0,-) cluster fragments to yield S = 2 [CdFe(3)S(4)](2+) and S = (5)/(2) [CdFe(3)S(4)](+) clusters and Cu(+) incorporation into [Fe(3)S(4)](+,0) cluster fragments to yield S = (1)/(2) [CuFe(3)S(4)](2+) and S = 2 [CuFe(3)S(4)](+) clusters. This is the first report of the preparation of cubane type [CrFe(3)S(4)](2+,+) clusters, and the combination of EPR and MCD results indicates S = 0 and S = (3)/(2) ground states for the oxidized and reduced forms, respectively.