The solar dynamo begins near the surface.

The magnetic dynamo cycle of the Sun features a distinct pattern: a propagating region of sunspot emergence appears around 30° latitude and vanishes near the equator every 11 years (ref. ). Moreover, longitudinal flows called torsional oscillations closely shadow sunspot migration, undoubtedly sharing a common cause.

Bacterial selenocysteine synthase structure revealed by single-particle cryoEM.

The 21st amino acid, selenocysteine (Sec), is synthesized on its dedicated transfer RNA (tRNA). In bacteria, Sec is synthesized from Ser-tRNA by Selenocysteine Synthase (SelA), which is a pivotal enzyme in the biosynthesis of Sec. The structural characterization of bacterial SelA is of paramount importance to decipher its catalytic mechanism and its role in the regulation of the Sec-synthesis pathway.

DNA nanopores as artificial membrane channels for bioprotonics.

Biological membrane channels mediate information exchange between cells and facilitate molecular recognition. While tuning the shape and function of membrane channels for precision molecular sensing via de-novo routes is complex, an even more significant challenge is interfacing membrane channels with electronic devices for signal readout, which results in low efficiency of information transfer - one of the major barriers to the continued development of high-performance bioelectronic devices. To this end, we integrate membrane spanning DNA nanopores with bioprotonic contacts to create programmable, modular, and efficient artificial ion-channel interfaces.

Probing the Ion Transport Properties of Ultrashort Carbon Nanotubes Integrated with Supported Lipid Bilayers via Electrochemical Analysis.

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are commonly used to investigate interactions between cell membranes and their environment. These model platforms can be formed on electrode surfaces and analyzed using electrochemical methods for bioapplications. Carbon nanotube porins (CNTPs) integrated with SLBs have emerged as promising artificial ion channel platforms.

Horizontal transmission enables flexible associations with locally adapted symbiont strains in deep-sea hydrothermal vent symbioses.

SignificanceIn marine ecosystems, transmission of microbial symbionts between host generations occurs predominantly through the environment. Yet, it remains largely unknown how host genetics, symbiont competition, environmental conditions, and geography shape the composition of symbionts acquired by individual hosts. To address this question, we applied population genomic approaches to four species of deep-sea hydrothermal vent snails that live in association with chemosynthetic bacteria.

Positive selection in noncoding genomic regions of vocal learning birds is associated with genes implicated in vocal learning and speech functions in humans.

Vocal learning, the ability to imitate sounds from conspecifics and the environment, is a key component of human spoken language and learned song in three independently evolved avian groups-oscine songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Humans and each of these three bird clades exhibit specialized behavioral, neuroanatomical, and brain gene expression convergence related to vocal learning, speech, and song. To understand the evolutionary basis of vocal learning gene specializations and convergence, we searched for and identified accelerated genomic regions (ARs), a marker of positive selection, specific to vocal learning birds.

Quality of Care in US NICUs by Race and Ethnicity.

Background: Summary measures are used to quantify a hospital's quality of care by combining multiple metrics into a single score. We used Baby-MONITOR, a summary quality measure for NICUs, to evaluate quality by race and ethnicity across and within NICUs in the United States.

Methods: Vermont Oxford Network members contributed data from 2015 to 2019 on infants from 25 to 29 weeks' gestation or of 401 to 1500 g birth weight who were inborn or transferred to the reporting hospital within 28 days of birth.

Stopping criteria for ending autonomous, single detector radiological source searches.

While the localization of radiological sources has traditionally been handled with statistical algorithms, such a task can be augmented with advanced machine learning methodologies. The combination of deep and reinforcement learning has provided learning-based navigation to autonomous, single-detector, mobile systems. However, these approaches lacked the capacity to terminate a surveying/search task without outside influence of an operator or perfect knowledge of source location (defeating the purpose of such a system).

Visualization and Manipulation of Bilayer Graphene Quantum Dots with Broken Rotational Symmetry and Nontrivial Topology.

Electrostatically defined quantum dots (QDs) in Bernal stacked bilayer graphene (BLG) are a promising quantum information platform because of their long spin decoherence times, high sample quality, and tunability. Importantly, the shape of QD states determines the electron energy spectrum, the interactions between electrons, and the coupling of electrons to their environment, all of which are relevant for quantum information processing. Despite its importance, the shape of BLG QD states remains experimentally unexamined.

Kernel-based Gaussian process for anomaly detection in sparse gamma-ray data.

In radioactive source surveying protocols, a number of task-inherent features degrade the quality of collected gamma ray spectra, including: limited dwell times, a fluctuating background, a large distance to the source, weak source activity, and the low sensitivity of mobile detectors. Thus, collected gamma ray spectra are expected to be sparse and noise dominated. For extremely sparse spectra, direct background subtraction is infeasible and many background estimation techniques do not apply.

Return to the Sea, Get Huge, Beat Cancer: An Analysis of Cetacean Genomes Including an Assembly for the Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).

Cetaceans are a clade of highly specialized aquatic mammals that include the largest animals that have ever lived. The largest whales can have ∼1,000× more cells than a human, with long lifespans, leaving them theoretically susceptible to cancer. However, large-bodied and long-lived animals do not suffer higher risks of cancer mortality than humans-an observation known as Peto's Paradox.

MEK-ERK signaling is a therapeutic target in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer.

Background: Metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is incurable and progression after drugs that target the androgen receptor-signaling axis is inevitable. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop more effective treatments beyond hormonal manipulation. We sought to identify activated kinases in mCRPC as therapeutic targets for existing, approved agents, with the goal of identifying candidate drugs for rapid translation into proof of concept Phase II trials in mCRPC.

Point Pair Feature-Based Pose Estimation with Multiple Edge Appearance Models (PPF-MEAM) for Robotic Bin Picking.

Automation of the bin picking task with robots entails the key step of pose estimation, which identifies and locates objects so that the robot can pick and manipulate the object in an accurate and reliable way. This paper proposes a novel point pair feature-based descriptor named Boundary-to-Boundary-using-Tangent-Line (B2B-TL) to estimate the pose of industrial parts including some parts whose point clouds lack key details, for example, the point cloud of the ridges of a part. The proposed descriptor utilizes the 3D point cloud data and 2D image data of the scene simultaneously, and the 2D image data could compensate the missing key details of the point cloud.

Evaluating recovery potential of the northern white rhinoceros from cryopreserved somatic cells.

The critically endangered northern white rhinoceros is believed to be extinct in the wild, with the recent death of the last male leaving only two remaining individuals in captivity. Its extinction would appear inevitable, but the development of advanced cell and reproductive technologies such as cloning by nuclear transfer and the artificial production of gametes via stem cells differentiation offer a second chance for its survival. In this work, we analyzed genome-wide levels of genetic diversity, inbreeding, population history, and demography of the white rhinoceros sequenced from cryopreserved somatic cells, with the goal of informing how genetically valuable individuals could be used in future efforts toward the genetic rescue of the northern white rhinoceros.

CRISPR off-target analysis in genetically engineered rats and mice.

Despite widespread use of CRISPR, comprehensive data on the frequency and impact of Cas9-mediated off-targets in modified rodents are limited. Here we present deep-sequencing data from 81 genome-editing projects on mouse and rat genomes at 1,423 predicted off-target sites, 32 of which were confirmed, and show that high-fidelity Cas9 versions reduced off-target mutation rates in vivo. Using whole-genome sequencing data from ten mouse embryos, treated with a single guide RNA (sgRNA), and from their genetic parents, we found 43 off-targets, 30 of which were predicted by an adapted version of GUIDE-seq.

Understanding the role of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) in stent restenosis.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading disorders with the highest mortality rate. Percutaneous angioplasty and stent implantation are the currently available standard methods for the treatment of obstructive coronary artery disease. However, the stent being an exogenous substance causes several complications by promoting the proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells, immune responses and neointima formation after implantation, leading to post-stent restenosis (ISR) and late thrombosis.

Single-cell nanobiopsy reveals compartmentalization of mRNAs within neuronal cells.

In highly polarized cells such as neurons, compartmentalization of mRNA and of local protein synthesis enables remarkably fast, precise, and local responses to external stimuli. These responses are highly important for neuron growth cone guidance, synapse formation, and regeneration following injury. Because an altered spatial distribution of mRNA can result in mental retardation or neurodegenerative diseases, subcellular transcriptome analysis of neurons could be a useful tool for studying these conditions, but current techniques, such as hybridization, bulk microarray, and RNA-Seq, impose tradeoffs between spatial resolution and multiplexing.

Weakly non-Boussinesq convection in a gaseous spherical shell.

We examine the dynamics associated with weakly compressible convection in a spherical shell by running 3D direct numerical simulations using the Boussinesq formalism [Spiegel and Veronis, Astrophys. J. 131, 442 (1960)AJLEEY0004-637X10.

Transcutical imaging with cellular and subcellular resolution.

We demonstrate transcutical structural and functional imaging of neurons labeled with genetically encoded red fluorescent proteins and calcium indicators in the living brain with cellular and subcellular resolution.

Targeted Capture Sequencing in Whitebark Pine Reveals Range-Wide Demographic and Adaptive Patterns Despite Challenges of a Large, Repetitive Genome.

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) inhabits an expansive range in western North America, and it is a keystone species of subalpine environments. Whitebark is susceptible to multiple threats - climate change, white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetle, and fire exclusion - and it is suffering significant mortality range-wide, prompting the tree to be listed as 'globally endangered' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and 'endangered' by the Canadian government. Conservation collections (in situ and ex situ) are being initiated to preserve the genetic legacy of the species.

Proton mediated control of biochemical reactions with bioelectronic pH modulation.

In Nature, protons (H(+)) can mediate metabolic process through enzymatic reactions. Examples include glucose oxidation with glucose dehydrogenase to regulate blood glucose level, alcohol dissolution into carboxylic acid through alcohol dehydrogenase, and voltage-regulated H(+) channels activating bioluminescence in firefly and jellyfish. Artificial devices that control H(+) currents and H(+) concentration (pH) are able to actively influence biochemical processes.

N-Myc Drives Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer Initiated from Human Prostate Epithelial Cells.

MYCN amplification and overexpression are common in neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC). However, the impact of aberrant N-Myc expression in prostate tumorigenesis and the cellular origin of NEPC have not been established. We define N-Myc and activated AKT1 as oncogenic components sufficient to transform human prostate epithelial cells to prostate adenocarcinoma and NEPC with phenotypic and molecular features of aggressive, late-stage human disease.

Phononic crystal surface mode coupling and its use in acoustic Doppler velocimetry.

It is numerically shown that surface modes of two-dimensional phononic crystals, which are Bloch modes bound to the interface between the phononic crystal and the surrounding host, can couple back and forth between the surfaces in a length scale determined by the separation of two surfaces and frequency. Supercell band structure computations through the finite-element method reveal that the surface band of an isolated surface splits into two bands which support either symmetric or antisymmetric hybrid modes. When the surface separation is 3.

Sharp bends of phononic crystal surface modes.

Sharp bending of surface waves at the interface of a two-dimensional phononic crystal (PnC) of steel cylinders in air and the method of using a diagonally offset cylindrical scatterer are numerically demonstrated by finite-element method simulations. The radii of the diagonally offset scatterer and the cylinder at the PnC corner, along with the distance between them, are treated as optimization parameters in the genetic algorithm optimization of sharp bends. Surface wave transmittance of at most 5% for the unmodified sharp bend is significantly enhanced to approximately 75% as a result of optimization.