Scientific perspectives on lunar exploration in Europe.

The Moon is a geological history book, preserving information about the history of the Solar System, including the formation and early evolution of the terrestrial planets and their bombardment histories, as well as providing insight into other fundamental Solar System processes. These topics form the basis for science "of the Moon", but the lunar surface is also a platform for science "on the Moon" and "from the Moon"-including astronomical observations, fundamental physics, and life science investigations. Recently, the Moon has become a destination for technology research and development-in particular for developing in situ resources, human exploration, and habitation, and for its potential use as a waypoint for the human exploration of Mars.

The small GTPase Sar1, control centre of COPII trafficking.

Sar1 is a small GTPase of the ARF family. Upon exchange of GDP for GTP, Sar1 associates with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane and recruits COPII components, orchestrating cargo concentration and membrane deformation. Many aspects of the role of Sar1 and regulation of its GTP cycle remain unclear, especially as complexity increases in higher organisms that secrete a wider range of cargoes.

Evolutionary remodelling of N-terminal domain loops fine-tunes SARS-CoV-2 spike.

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants has exacerbated the COVID-19 global health crisis. Thus far, all variants carry mutations in the spike glycoprotein, which is a critical determinant of viral transmission being responsible for attachment, receptor engagement and membrane fusion, and an important target of immunity. Variants frequently bear truncations of flexible loops in the N-terminal domain (NTD) of spike; the functional importance of these modifications has remained poorly characterised.

Metabolically diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth's oldest seafloor-hydrothermal jasper.

The oldest putative fossils occur as hematite filaments and tubes in jasper-carbonate banded iron formations from the 4280- to 3750-Ma Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, Québec. If biological in origin, these filaments might have affinities with modern descendants; however, if abiotic, they could indicate complex prebiotic forms on early Earth. Here, we report images of centimeter-size, autochthonous hematite filaments that are pectinate-branching, parallel-aligned, undulated, and containing Fe-oxides.

Cyanobacteria and microalgae in supporting human habitation on Mars.

Establishing the first human presence on Mars will be the most technically challenging undertaking yet in the exploration beyond our planet. The remoteness of Mars from Earth, the inhospitable surface conditions including low atmospheric pressure and cold temperatures, and the need for basic resources including water, pose a formidable challenge to this endeavour. The intersection of multiple disciplines will be required to provide solutions for temporary and eventually permanent Martian habitation.

Extensive primary production promoted the recovery of the Ediacaran Shuram excursion.

Member IV of the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation records the recovery from the most negative carbon isotope excursion in Earth history. However, the main biogeochemical controls that ultimately drove this recovery have yet to be elucidated. Here, we report new carbon and nitrogen isotope and concentration data from the Nanhua Basin (South China), where δC values of carbonates (δC) rise from - 7‰ to -1‰ and δN values decrease from +5.

The Role of Language and Cultural Engagement in Emotional Fit with Culture: an Experiment Comparing Chinese-English Bilinguals to British and Chinese Monolinguals.

Unlabelled: The current study investigated to what extent language and culture shape emotional experience. Specifically, we randomly assigned 178 Chinese English bilinguals to report on emotional situations, cultural exposure, engagement, and language proficiency in either English as a foreign language (LX) or Chinese (L1). We established their fit with both the typical patterns of emotions among British and Chinese monolinguals and predicted these fit indices from the survey language, cultural exposure, and engagement.

Understanding differing outcomes from semantic and phonological interventions with children with word-finding difficulties: A group and case series study.

Developmental Language Disorder occurs in up to 10% of children and many of these children have difficulty retrieving words in their receptive vocabulary. Such word-finding difficulties (WFD) can impact social development and educational outcomes. This research aims to develop the evidence-base for supporting children with WFD and inform the design and analysis of intervention studies.

Full-length TDP-43 and its C-terminal domain form filaments having non-amyloid properties.

Accumulation of ubiquitin-positive, tau- and α-synuclein-negative intracellular inclusions of TDP-43 in the central nervous system represents the major hallmark correlated to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin-positive inclusions (FTLD-U). Such inclusions have variably been described as amorphous aggregates or more structured deposits having amyloid properties. Here we have purified full-length TDP-43 (FL TDP-43) and its C-terminal domain (Ct TDP-43) to investigate the morphological, structural and tinctorial features of aggregates formed by them at pH 7.

Miro clusters regulate ER-mitochondria contact sites and link cristae organization to the mitochondrial transport machinery.

Mitochondrial Rho (Miro) GTPases localize to the outer mitochondrial membrane and are essential machinery for the regulated trafficking of mitochondria to defined subcellular locations. However, their sub-mitochondrial localization and relationship with other critical mitochondrial complexes remains poorly understood. Here, using super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, we report that Miro proteins form nanometer-sized clusters along the mitochondrial outer membrane in association with the Mitochondrial Contact Site and Cristae Organizing System (MICOS).

Probing the dynamic stalk region of the ribosome using solution NMR.

We describe an NMR approach based on the measurement of residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) to probe the structural and motional properties of the dynamic regions of the ribosome. Alignment of intact 70S ribosomes in filamentous bacteriophage enabled measurement of RDCs in the mobile C-terminal domain (CTD) of the stalk protein bL12. A structural refinement of this domain using the observed RDCs did not show large changes relative to the isolated protein in the absence of the ribosome, and we also found that alignment of the CTD was almost independent of the presence of the core ribosome particle, indicating that the inter-domain linker has significant flexibility.

Cryo-EM of amyloid fibrils and cellular aggregates.

Neurodegenerative and other protein misfolding diseases are associated with the aggregation of a protein, which may be mutated in genetic forms of disease, or the wild type form in late onset sporadic disease. A wide variety of proteins and peptides can be involved, with aggregation originating from a natively folded or a natively unstructured species. Large deposits of amyloid fibrils are typically associated with cell death in late stage pathology.

A two-domain folding intermediate of RuBisCO in complex with the GroEL chaperonin.

The chaperonins (GroEL and GroES in Escherichia coli) are ubiquitous molecular chaperones that assist a subset of essential substrate proteins to undergo productive folding to the native state. Using single particle cryo EM and image processing we have examined complexes of E. coli GroEL with the stringently GroE-dependent substrate enzyme RuBisCO from Rhodospirillum rubrum.

Intervention for children with word-finding difficulties: a parallel group randomised control trial.

Purpose: The study investigated the outcome of a word-web intervention for children diagnosed with word-finding difficulties (WFDs).

Method: Twenty children age 6-8 years with WFDs confirmed by a discrepancy between comprehension and production on the Test of Word Finding-2, were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 11) and waiting control (n = 9) groups. The intervention group had six sessions of intervention which used word-webs and targeted children's meta-cognitive awareness and word-retrieval.

Non-ASD outcomes at 36 months in siblings at familial risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD): A baby siblings research consortium (BSRC) study.

We characterized developmental outcomes of a large sample of siblings at familial high-risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who themselves did not have ASD (n = 859), and low-risk controls with no family history of ASD (n = 473). We report outcomes at age 3 years using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and adaptive functioning on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. Around 11% of high-risk siblings had mild-to-moderate levels of developmental delay, a rate higher than the low-risk controls.

Cyanobacteria use micro-optics to sense light direction.

Bacterial phototaxis was first recognized over a century ago, but the method by which such small cells can sense the direction of illumination has remained puzzling. The unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 moves with Type IV pili and measures light intensity and color with a range of photoreceptors.

Novel Missense Mutation A789V in IQSEC2 Underlies X-Linked Intellectual Disability in the MRX78 Family.

Disease gene discovery in neurodevelopmental disorders, including X-linked intellectual disability (XLID) has recently been accelerated by next-generation DNA sequencing approaches. To date, more than 100 human X chromosome genes involved in neuronal signaling pathways and networks implicated in cognitive function have been identified. Despite these advances, the mutations underlying disease in a large number of XLID families remained unresolved.

Whole-Brain In-vivo Measurements of the Axonal G-Ratio in a Group of 37 Healthy Volunteers.

The g-ratio, quantifying the ratio between the inner and outer diameters of a fiber, is an important microstructural characteristic of fiber pathways and is functionally related to conduction velocity. We introduce a novel method for estimating the MR g-ratio non-invasively across the whole brain using high-fidelity magnetization transfer (MT) imaging and single-shell diffusion MRI. These methods enabled us to map the MR g-ratio in vivo across the brain's prominent fiber pathways in a group of 37 healthy volunteers and to estimate the inter-subject variability.

Voluntary control of a phantom limb.

Voluntary actions are often accompanied by a conscious experience of intention. The content of this experience, and its neural basis, remain controversial. On one view, the mind just retrospectively ascribes intentions to explain the occurrence of actions that lack obvious triggering stimuli.

Can Neurotypical Individuals Read Autistic Facial Expressions? Atypical Production of Emotional Facial Expressions in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The difficulties encountered by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when interacting with neurotypical (NT, i.e. nonautistic) individuals are usually attributed to failure to recognize the emotions and mental states of their NT interaction partner.

Video game experience and its influence on visual attention parameters: an investigation using the framework of the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA).

Experts with video game experience, in contrast to non-experienced persons, are superior in multiple domains of visual attention. However, it is an open question which basic aspects of attention underlie this superiority. We approached this question using the framework of Theory of Visual Attention (TVA) with tools that allowed us to assess various parameters that are related to different visual attention aspects (e.

Intervening to alleviate word-finding difficulties in children: case series data and a computational modelling foundation.

We evaluated a simple computational model of productive vocabulary acquisition, applied to simulating two case studies of 7-year-old children with developmental word-finding difficulties across four core behavioural tasks. Developmental models were created, which captured the deficits of each child. In order to predict the effects of intervention, we exposed the computational models to simulated behavioural interventions of two types, targeting the improvement of either phonological or semantic knowledge.

DNA induces conformational changes in a recombinant human minichromosome maintenance complex.

ATP-dependent DNA unwinding activity has been demonstrated for recombinant archaeal homohexameric minichromosome maintenance (MCM) complexes and their yeast heterohexameric counterparts, but in higher eukaryotes such as Drosophila, MCM-associated DNA helicase activity has been observed only in the context of a co-purified Cdc45-MCM-GINS complex. Here, we describe the production of the recombinant human MCM (hMCM) complex in Escherichia coli. This protein displays ATP hydrolysis activity and is capable of unwinding duplex DNA.

Chaperone machines for protein folding, unfolding and disaggregation.

Molecular chaperones are diverse families of multidomain proteins that have evolved to assist nascent proteins to reach their native fold, protect subunits from heat shock during the assembly of complexes, prevent protein aggregation or mediate targeted unfolding and disassembly. Their increased expression in response to stress is a key factor in the health of the cell and longevity of an organism. Unlike enzymes with their precise and finely tuned active sites, chaperones are heavy-duty molecular machines that operate on a wide range of substrates.

Structure and allostery of the chaperonin GroEL.

Chaperonins are intricate allosteric machines formed of two back-to-back, stacked rings of subunits presenting end cavities lined with hydrophobic binding sites for nonnative polypeptides. Once bound, substrates are subjected to forceful, concerted movements that result in their ejection from the binding surface and simultaneous encapsulation inside a hydrophilic chamber that favors their folding. Here, we review the allosteric machine movements that are choreographed by ATP binding, which triggers concerted tilting and twisting of subunit domains.