Monitoring the courtship flight trajectory of Latham's snipe () using microphone arrays.

This study is the first to quantitatively measure the courtship display flights of Latham's snipe (), which is a "near threatened" species as of 2022 (IUCN red list of threatened species). By using a 16-channel microphone array and 8-channel microphone arrays, we localized the fine-scale movements of courtship flights of one male performing at high altitude and high speed, and we estimated the direction from which each sound arrived using robot audition. Preliminary analyses of the azimuthal and elevation angles of the courtship flights partially revealed a fine-scale flight trajectory.

Public Opinion and Sentiment Before and at the Beginning of COVID-19 Vaccinations in Japan: Twitter Analysis.

Background: COVID-19 vaccines are considered one of the most effective ways for containing the COVID-19 pandemic, but Japan lagged behind other countries in vaccination in the early stages. A deeper understanding of the slow progress of vaccination in Japan can be instructive for COVID-19 booster vaccination and vaccinations during future pandemics.

Objective: This retrospective study aims to analyze the slow progress of early-stage vaccination in Japan by exploring opinions and sentiment toward the COVID-19 vaccine in Japanese tweets before and at the beginning of vaccination.

Roosting ecology of endangered plant-roosting bats on Okinawa Island: Implications for bat-friendly forestry practices.

Roosting information is crucial to guiding bat conservation and bat-friendly forestry practices. The Ryukyu tube-nosed bat (Endangered) and Yanbaru whiskered bat (Critically Endangered) are forest-dwelling bats endemic to the central Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. Despite their threatened status, little is known about the roosting ecology of these species and the characteristics of natural maternity roosts are unknown.

Development of Helical Myofiber Tracts in the Human Fetal Heart: Analysis of Myocardial Fiber Formation in the Left Ventricle From the Late Human Embryonic Period Using Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Background Detection of the fiber orientation pattern of the myocardium using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging lags ≈12 weeks of gestational age (WGA) behind fetal myocardial remodeling with invasion by the developing coronary vasculature (8 WGA). We aimed to use diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging tractography to characterize the evolution of fiber architecture in the developing human heart from the later embryonic period. Methods and Results Twenty human specimens (8-24 WGA) from the Kyoto Collection of Human Embryos and Fetuses, including specimens from the embryonic period (Carnegie stages 20-23), were used.

Wetland environmental bioreactor system contributes to the decomposition of cellulose.

Recently, numerous species of aquatic invertebrates inhabiting wetlands have been shown to possess endogenous cellulase, following the discovery that termites have cellulase genes encoded in their own genome rather than relying on symbiotic bacteria for decomposing cellulose. Wetlands have been empirically shown to play an important role in the decomposition of land-originating hard-to-degrade polysaccharides such as cellulose. However, the mechanism that connects the cellulase producer and the wetlands remains unknown, which makes it very difficult to evaluate the ecological function of wetlands.