Family-level leaf nitrogen and phosphorus stoichiometry of global terrestrial plants.

Leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations are critical for photosynthesis, growth, reproduction and other ecological processes of plants. Previous studies on large-scale biogeographic patterns of leaf N and P stoichiometric relationships were mostly conducted using data pooled across taxa, while family/genus-level analyses are rarely reported. Here, we examined global patterns of family-specific leaf N and P stoichiometry using a global data set of 12,716 paired leaf N and P records which includes 204 families, 1,305 genera, and 3,420 species.

NMDA receptor antagonists traxoprodil and lanicemine improve hippocampal-prefrontal coupling and reward-related networks in rats.

Rationale: The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine is known to have not only a rapid antidepressant effect but also dissociative side effects. Traxoprodil and lanicemine, also NMDA antagonists, are candidate antidepressant drugs with fewer side effects.

Objectives: In order to understand their mechanism of action, we investigated the acute effects of traxoprodil and lanicemine on brain connectivity using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).

[Bleeding as a Leading Symptom in the Interdisciplinary Emergency Department].

Acute bleeding is a common and challenging condition in the emergency room. The need for staff and medical resources in these patients depends on the clinical status and extent of the bleeding. The causes of acute bleeding are heterogeneous.

Plant diversity increases N removal in constructed wetlands when multiple rather than single N processes are considered.

Biodiversity has a close relationship with ecosystem functioning. For most biodiversity-ecosystem-functioning studies, biodiversity has been linked to a single indicator variable of ecosystem functioning. However, there are generally multiple ecosystem processes contributing to ecosystem functioning and they differ in their dependence on biodiversity.

On the psychology and economics of antisocial personality.

How do fundamental concepts from economics, such as individuals' preferences and beliefs, relate to equally fundamental concepts from psychology, such as relatively stable personality traits? Can personality traits help us better understand economic behavior across strategic contexts? We identify an antisocial personality profile and examine the role of strategic context (the "situation"), personality traits (the "person"), and their interaction on beliefs and behaviors in trust games. Antisocial individuals exhibit a specific combination of beliefs and preferences that is difficult to reconcile with a rational choice approach that assumes that beliefs about others' behaviors are formed rationally and therefore, independently from preferences. Variations in antisocial personality are associated with effect sizes that are as large as strong variations in strategic context.

Living with plague: Lessons from the Soviet Union's antiplague system.

Zoonoses, such as plague, are primarily animal diseases that spill over into human populations. While the goal of eradicating such diseases is enticing, historical experience validates abandoning eradication in favor of ecologically based control strategies (which reduce morbidity and mortality to a locally accepted risk level). During the 20th century, one of the most extensive plague-eradication efforts in recorded history was undertaken to enable large-scale changes in land use in the former Soviet Union (including vast areas of central Asia).

In vitro efficacy of antifungal agents alone and in shampoo formulation against dandruff-associated Malassezia spp. and Staphylococcus spp.

Objective: Dandruff is a complex skin condition characterized by unpleasant itching and flaking of the scalp. It is primarily attributed to the over colonization of Malassezia yeasts such as Malassezia globosa and Malassezia restricta. Some studies also suggest the involvement of staphylococci bacteria in dandruff disease pathogenesis.

How Many O-Donor Groups in Enterobactin Does It Take to Bind a Metal Cation?

The E. coli siderophore enterobactin, the strongest Fe chelator known to date, forms hexacoordinate complexes with Si , Ge , and Ti . Synthetic protocols have been developed to prepare non-symmetric enterobactin analogues with varying denticities.

Epidemiology of a bubonic plague outbreak in Glasgow, Scotland in 1900.

On 3 August 1900, bubonic plague () broke out in Glasgow for the first time during the Third Pandemic. The local sanitary authorities rigorously tracked the spread of the disease and they found that nearly all of the 35 cases could be linked by contact with a previous case. Despite trapping hundreds of rats in the area, there was no evidence of a rat epizootic and the investigators speculated that the outbreak could be due to human-to-human transmission of bubonic plague.

Permeability analyses and three dimensional imaging of interferon gamma-induced barrier disintegration in intestinal organoids.

The aberrant regulation of the epithelial barrier integrity is involved in many diseases of the digestive tract, including inflammatory bowel diseases and colorectal cancer. Intestinal epithelial cell organoid cultures provide new perspectives for analyses of the intestinal barrier in vitro. However, established methods of barrier function analyses from two dimensional cultures have to be adjusted to the analysis of three dimensional organoid structures.

Spatial variation of human influences on grassland biomass on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

An improved understanding of increased human influence on ecosystems is needed for predicting ecosystem processes and sustainable ecosystem management. We studied spatial variation of human influence on grassland ecosystems at two scales across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), where increased human activities may have led to ecosystem degradation. At the 10 km scale, we mapped human-influenced spatial patterns based on a hypothesis that spatial patterns of biomass that could not be attributed to environmental variables were likely correlated to human activities.

Generation of two isogenic iPSC lines with either a heterozygous or a homozygous E280A mutation in the PSEN1 gene.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. Mutations in the gene PSEN1 encoding Presenilin1 are known to cause familial forms of AD with early age of onset. The most common mutation in the PSEN1 gene is the E280A mutation.

Generation of a set of isogenic, gene-edited iPSC lines homozygous for all main APOE variants and an APOE knock-out line.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most frequent neurodegenerative disease amongst the elderly. The SNPs rs429358 and rs7412 in the APOE gene are the most common risk factor for sporadic AD, and there are three different alleles commonly referred to as APOE-ε2, APOE-ε3 and APOE-ε4. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great promise to model AD as such cells can be differentiated in vitro to the required cell type.

Increasing water availability and facilitation weaken biodiversity-biomass relationships in shrublands.

Positive biodiversity-ecosystem-functioning (BEF) relationships are commonly found in experimental and observational studies, but how they vary in different environmental contexts and under the influence of coexisting life forms is still controversial. Investigating these variations is important for making predictions regarding the dynamics of plant communities and carbon pools under global change. We conducted this study across 433 shrubland sites in northern China.

Plant interactions shape pollination networks via nonadditive effects.

Plants grow in communities where they interact with other plants and with other living organisms such as pollinators. On the one hand, studies of plant-plant interactions rarely consider how plants interact with other trophic levels such as pollinators. On the other, studies of plant-animal interactions rarely deal with interactions within trophic levels such as plant-plant competition and facilitation.

Generation of two iPSC lines with either a heterozygous V717I or a heterozygous KM670/671NL mutation in the APP gene.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, affecting millions of people worldwide. Mutations in the genes PSEN1, PSEN2 or APP are known to cause familial forms of AD with an early age of onset. In this study, specific pathogenic mutations in the APP gene were introduced into an iPSC line from a healthy individual by the use of CRISPR-Cas9.

Response to Comment on "Impacts of species richness on productivity in a large-scale subtropical forest experiment".

Yang have raised criticism that the results reported by us would not be relevant for natural forests. We argue that productivity is positively related to species richness also in subtropical natural forests, and that both the species pools and the range of tree species richness used in our experiment are representative of many natural forests of this biome.

Feedbacks of plant identity and diversity on the diversity and community composition of rhizosphere microbiomes from a long-term biodiversity experiment.

Soil microbes are known to be key drivers of several essential ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, plant productivity and the maintenance of plant species diversity. However, how plant species diversity and identity affect soil microbial diversity and community composition in the rhizosphere is largely unknown. We tested whether, over the course of 11 years, distinct soil bacterial communities developed under plant monocultures and mixtures, and if over this time frame plants with a monoculture or mixture history changed in the bacterial communities they associated with.

Integrative approach using genomes to revisit the historical landscape of plague during the Medieval Period.

Over the last few years, genomic studies on , the causative agent of all known plague epidemics, have considerably increased in numbers, spanning a period of about 5,000 y. Nonetheless, questions concerning historical reservoirs and routes of transmission remain open. Here, we present and describe five genomes from the second half of the 14th century and reconstruct the evolutionary history of by reanalyzing previously published genomes and by building a comprehensive phylogeny focused on strains attributed to the Second Plague Pandemic (14th to 18th century).

Contribution of epigenetic variation to adaptation in Arabidopsis.

In plants, transgenerational inheritance of some epialleles has been demonstrated but it remains controversial whether epigenetic variation is subject to selection and contributes to adaptation. Simulating selection in a rapidly changing environment, we compare phenotypic traits and epigenetic variation between Arabidopsis thaliana populations grown for five generations under selection and their genetically nearly identical ancestors. Selected populations of two distinct genotypes show significant differences in flowering time and plant architecture, which are maintained for at least 2-3 generations in the absence of selection.