Proteomic analysis of the pyrenoid-traversing membranes of reveals novel components.

Pyrenoids are algal CO-fixing organelles that mediate approximately one-third of global carbon fixation and hold the potential to enhance crop growth if engineered into land plants. Most pyrenoids are traversed by membranes that are thought to supply them with concentrated CO. Despite the critical nature of these membranes for pyrenoid function, they are poorly understood, with few protein components known in any species.

BIFROST: A method for registering diverse imaging datasets of the brain.

Imaging methods that span both functional measures in living tissue and anatomical measures in fixed tissue have played critical roles in advancing our understanding of the brain. However, making direct comparisons between different imaging modalities, particularly spanning living and fixed tissue, has remained challenging. For example, comparing brain-wide neural dynamics across experiments and aligning such data to anatomical resources, such as gene expression patterns or connectomes, requires precise alignment to a common set of anatomical coordinates.

Pandemic storytelling and student engagement: how students imagined pandemics before COVID-19 pandemic.

Student engagement is one of the critical issues in science classes. This commentary explores the value of storytelling in microbiology education and student engagement. It is a result of an undergraduate exercise, where students were asked to draft short stories on pandemics before the COVID-19 pandemic (i.

NMDA receptors regulate the firing rate set point of hippocampal circuits without altering single-cell dynamics.

Understanding how neuronal circuits stabilize their activity is a fundamental yet poorly understood aspect of neuroscience. Here, we show that hippocampal network properties, such as firing rate distribution and dimensionality, are actively regulated, despite perturbations and single-cell drift. Continuous inhibition of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) ex vivo lowers the excitation/inhibition ratio and network firing rates while preserving resilience to perturbations.

Mineral-associated organic matter is heterogeneous and structured by hydrophobic, charged, and polar interactions.

The formation of mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM) is a key phenomenon that may explain the slow turnover rates of carbon in soil organic matter (SOM). Despite this, important details pertaining to the structure and dynamics of MAOM remain unknown. In the present study, we use replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations to gain insight into the structure of MAOM on the surface of prototypical phyllosilicate clay and Fe-oxide minerals, montmorillonite and goethite, fine-grained minerals that strongly impact soil carbon dynamics in temperate and tropical regions, respectively.

Scale invariance in early embryonic development.

The expression of a few key genes determines the body plan of the fruit fly. We show that the spatial expression patterns for several of these genes scale precisely with embryo size. Discrete positional markers such as the peaks in striped patterns or the boundaries of expression domains have positions along the embryo's major axis proportional to embryo length, accurate to within 1%.

Folding a single high-genus surface into a repertoire of metamaterial functionalities.

The concepts of origami and kirigami have often been presented separately. Here, we put forth a synergistic approach-the folded kirigami-in which kirigami assemblies are complemented by means of folding, typical of origami patterns. Besides the emerging patterns themselves, the synergistic approach also leads to topological mechanical metamaterials.

Targeted Polariton Flow Through Tailored Photonic Defects.

In non-Hermitian open quantum systems, such as polariton condensates, the local tailoring of gains and losses opens up an interesting possibility to realize functional optical elements. Here, we demonstrate that deliberately introducing losses via a photonic defect, realized by reducing the quality factor of a DBR mirror locally within an ultrahigh-quality microcavity, may be utilized to create directed polariton currents towards the defect. We discuss the role of polariton-polariton interactions in the process and how to tailor the effective decay time of a polariton condensate by coupling it to the defect.

Quorum sensing orchestrates parallel cell death pathways in via Type 6 secretion-dependent and -independent mechanisms.

Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-to-cell communication process that enables bacteria to coordinate group behaviors. In colonies, a program of spatial-temporal cell death is among the QS-controlled traits. Cell death occurs in two phases, first along the colony rim, and subsequently, at the colony center.

Mevalonate secretion is not mediated by a singular non-essential transporter in .

Isoprenoids are highly valued targets for microbial chemical production, allowing the creation of fragrances, biofuels, and pharmaceuticals from renewable carbon feedstocks. To increase isoprenoid production, previous efforts have manipulated pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) bypass pathway flux to increase cytosolic acetyl-coA; however, this results in mevalonate secretion and does not necessarily translate into higher isoprenoid production. Identification and disruption of the transporter mediating mevalonate secretion would allow us to determine whether increasing PDH bypass activity in the absence of secretion improves conversion of mevalonate into downstream isoprenoids.

Extremely rapid, yet noncatastrophic, preservation of the flattened-feathered and 3D dinosaurs of the Early Cretaceous of China.

Northeast China's Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation preserves spectacular fossils that have proved extraordinarily important in testing evolutionary hypotheses involving the origin of birds and the distribution of feathers among nonavian dinosaurs. These fossils occur either flattened with soft tissue preservation (including feathers and color) in laminated lacustrine strata or as three-dimensional (3D) skeletons in "life-like" postures in more massive deposits. The relationships of these deposits to each other, their absolute ages, and the origin of the extraordinary fossil preservation have been vigorously debated for nearly a half century, with the prevailing view being that preservation was linked to violent volcanic eruptions or lahars, similar to processes that preserved human remains at Pompeii.

Combatting melioidosis with chemical synthetic lethality.

has emerged as a nonpathogenic surrogate for , the causative agent of melioidosis, and an important Gram-negative model bacterium for studying the biosynthesis and regulation of secondary metabolism. We recently reported that subinhibitory concentrations of trimethoprim induce vast changes in both the primary and secondary metabolome of . In the current work, we show that the folate biosynthetic enzyme FolE2 is permissive under standard growth conditions but essential for in the presence of subinhibitory doses of trimethoprim.

An integrated view of the structure and function of the human 4D nucleome.

The dynamic three-dimensional (3D) organization of the human genome (the "4D Nucleome") is closely linked to genome function. Here, we integrate a wide variety of genomic data generated by the 4D Nucleome Project to provide a detailed view of human 3D genome organization in widely used embryonic stem cells (H1-hESCs) and immortalized fibroblasts (HFFc6). We provide extensive benchmarking of 3D genome mapping assays and integrate these diverse datasets to annotate spatial genomic features across scales.

Repeated Shifts in Sociality Are Associated With Fine-tuning of Highly Conserved and Lineage-Specific Enhancers in a Socially Flexible Bee.

Comparative genomic studies of social insects suggest that changes in gene regulation are associated with evolutionary transitions in social behavior, but the activity of predicted regulatory regions has not been tested empirically. We used self-transcribing active regulatory region sequencing, a high-throughput enhancer discovery tool, to identify and measure the activity of enhancers in the socially variable sweat bee, Lasioglossum albipes. We identified over 36,000 enhancers in the L.

A multiscale hybrid modelling methodology for cell cultures enabled by enzyme-constrained dynamic metabolic flux analysis under uncertainty.

Mammalian cell cultures make a significant contribution to the pharmaceutical industry. They produce many of the biopharmaceuticals obtaining FDA-approval each year. Motivated by quality-by-design principles, various modelling methodologies are frequently trialled to gain insight into these bioprocesses.

Surface Defects Control Bulk Carrier Densities in Polycrystalline Pb-Halide Perovskites.

The (opto)electronic behavior of semiconductors depends on their (quasi-)free electronic carrier densities. These are regulated by semiconductor doping, i.e.

Impact of water solvation on the charge carrier dynamics of organic heterojunction photocatalyst nanoparticle dispersions.

Organic heterojunction nanoparticles (NP) have recently gained significant interest as photocatalysts for visible light-driven hydrogen production. Whilst promising photocatalytic efficiencies have been reported for aqueous NP dispersions, the underlying dynamics of photogenerated charges in such organic heterojunction photocatalysts and how these might differ from more widely studied dry heterojunction films remain relatively unexplored. In this study, we combine transient optical spectroscopies over twelve orders of magnitude in time, using pulsed and continuous light illumination, to elucidate the differences in the charge carrier dynamics of heterojunction NP dispersions, dried NP films, and bulk heterojunction films prepared by spin coating.

Differential neural mechanisms underlie cortical gating of visual spatial attention mediated by alpha-band oscillations.

Selective attention relies on neural mechanisms that facilitate processing of behaviorally relevant sensory information while suppressing irrelevant information, consistently linked to alpha-band oscillations in human M/EEG studies. We analyzed cortical alpha responses from intracranial electrodes implanted in eight epilepsy patients, who performed a visual spatial attention task. Electrocorticographic data revealed a spatiotemporal dissociation between attention-modulated alpha desynchronization, associated with the enhancement of sensory processing, and alpha synchronization, associated with the suppression of sensory processing, during the cue-target interval.

Distributed feather-inspired flow control mitigates stall and expands flight envelope.

Multiple rows of feathers, known as the covert feathers, contour the upper and lower surfaces of bird wings. These feathers have been observed to deploy passively during high angle of attack maneuvers and are suggested to play an aerodynamic role. However, there have been limited attempts to capture their underlying flow physics or assess the function of multiple covert rows.

Pilot microbial electrolysis cell closes the hydrogen loop for hydrothermal wet waste conversion to jet fuel.

The global shift toward net-zero emissions necessitates resource recovery from wet waste. In this study, we demonstrate the first feasibility of combining pilot-scale microbial electrolytic cells (MECs) with hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) for simultaneous post-hydrothermal liquefaction wastewater (PHW) treatment and efficient hydrogen (H₂) production to meet biocrude upgrading requirements. Long-term single reactor operation revealed that fixed anode potential enabled rapid startup, and low catholyte pH and high salinity were effective in suppression of cathodic methanogenesis and acetogenesis - resulting in high current density of 16.

Drugs Targeting Sirtuin 2 Exhibit Broad-Spectrum Anti-Infective Activity.

Direct-acting anti-infective drugs target pathogen-coded gene products and are a highly successful therapeutic paradigm. However, they generally target a single pathogen or family of pathogens, and the targeted organisms can readily evolve resistance. Host-targeted agents can overcome these limitations.

Bacterial defense and phage counterdefense lead to coexistence in a modeled ecosystem.

Bacteria have evolved many defenses against invading viruses (phage). Despite the many bacterial defenses and phage counterdefenses, in most environments, bacteria and phage coexist, with neither driving the other to extinction. How is coexistence realized in the context of the bacteria/phage arms race, and how are immune repertoire sizes determined in conditions of coexistence? Here we develop a simple mathematical model to consider the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of competing bacteria and phage with different immune/counterimmune repertoires.