Time memory in social insects with a special focus on honey bees.

The ability to associate time and location with food sources is an evolutionary advantage for foraging animals. We find highly sophisticated time memory capabilities especially in social insects, which require efficient foraging capabilities for colony provisioning. Honey bees are perfectly suitable to study time memory mechanisms: they possess an elaborated time memory combined with a relatively simple neuronal clock network and a smaller gene set compared with the mouse model organism.

Multiscale simulations reveal architecture of NOTCH protein and ligand specific features.

NOTCH, a single-pass transmembrane protein, plays a crucial role in cell fate determination through cell-to-cell communication. It interacts with two canonical ligands, Delta-like (DLL) and Jagged (JAG), located on neighboring cells to regulate diverse cellular processes. Despite extensive studies on the functional roles of NOTCH and its ligands in cellular growth, the structural details of full-length NOTCH and its ligands remain poorly understood.

Single-cell transcriptomics of vomeronasal neuroepithelium reveals a differential endoplasmic reticulum environment amongst neuronal subtypes.

Specialized chemosensory signals elicit innate social behaviors in individuals of several vertebrate species, a process that is mediated via the accessory olfactory system (AOS). The AOS comprising the peripheral sensory vomeronasal organ has evolved elaborate molecular and cellular mechanisms to detect chemo signals. To gain insight into the cell types, developmental gene expression patterns, and functional differences amongst neurons, we performed single-cell transcriptomics of the mouse vomeronasal sensory epithelium.

The structure-dynamics feedback mechanism governs the glassy dynamics in epithelial monolayers.

The glass-like slow dynamics in confluent epithelial monolayers is crucial for wound healing, embryogenesis, cancer progression, Experiments have indicated several unusual properties in these systems. Unlike ordinary glasses, the glassiness in cellular systems strongly correlates with their static properties and is sub-Arrhenius. These results imply that the slow dynamics in epithelial monolayers is either not glassy or the underlying mechanism is different from ordinary glasses.

High sensitivity direct magnetic field detection based metrology for ultra-thin magnetic films and Li-ion cells.

Ultra-low magnetic field sensing is emerging as a tool for materials' diagnostics, particularly for the operando studies of electrochemical systems. A magnetic metrology system having the capability of sensing fields as low as ∼1.88 pT has been setup for such studies using a commercial atomic magnetometer.

Machine Learning-based Prognostic Subgrouping of Glioblastoma: A Multi-center Study.

Background: Glioblastoma is the most aggressive adult primary brain cancer, characterized by significant heterogeneity, posing challenges for patient management, treatment planning, and clinical trial stratification.

Methods: We developed a highly reproducible, personalized prognostication and clinical subgrouping system using machine learning (ML) on routine clinical data, MRI, and molecular measures from 2,838 demographically diverse patients across 22 institutions and 3 continents. Patients were stratified into favorable, intermediate, and poor prognostic subgroups (I, II, III) using Kaplan-Meier analysis (Cox proportional model and hazard ratios [HR]).

Interplay of niche and respiratory network in shaping bacterial colonization.

The human body is an intricate ensemble of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and this coexistence relies on the interplay of many biotic and abiotic factors. The inhabiting microbial population has to maintain its physiological homeostasis under highly dynamic and often hostile host environments. While bacterial colonization primarily relies on the metabolic suitability for the niche, there are reports of active remodeling of niche microenvironments to create favorable habitats, especially in the context of pathogenic settlement.

Engineering skyrmion from spin spiral in transition metal multilayers.

Skyrmions having topologically protected field configurations with particle-like properties play an important role in various fields of science. Our present study focus on the generation of skyrmion from spin spiral in the magnetic multilayers of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) with 4d = Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Ru, Rh. Here we investigate the impact of 4d transition metals on the isotropic Heisenberg exchanges and anti-symmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions originating from the broken inversion symmetry at the interface of 4d/Fe/Ir(111) multilayers.

Tetra-benzimidazoles flanking divinyl-phenothiazine: AIEgens as aza-Michael acceptors in concentration-tuned responses to biogenic amine vapors.

Tetra-benzimidazole rotors flanking a divinyl-phenothiazine stator are realized as red AIEgens and newly identified as efficient aza-Michael acceptors for the identification of biogenic amine vapors. Weakly red-emissive solids display a blue-shifted turn-on emission by rapid aza-Michael addition and simultaneous reverse Knoevenagel reactions. Concentration variation imposes better crystallinity and facilitates radiative decay, offering distinct emissions.

Plant-microbe interactions in tropical and subtropical ecosystems.

Microbes regulate many dimensions of plant performance with multiscale implications for plant fitness, competition, coexistence, and ecosystem functioning. Yet, this fascinating and diverse arena of study has been limited to a few thematic areas, ecosystems, and regions. In particular, despite growing evidence that microbes may be critical players in the dynamics of plant communities in tropical and subtropical ecosystems, these regions remain poorly represented in studies of plant-microbe interactions.

Negative contribution from defects responsible for low Young's modulus of graphene oxide at small defect densities.

Graphene oxide has been extensively employed as an additive in several nanocomposites to enhance their mechanical stability even though its Young's modulus is significantly smaller than that of pristine graphene. In the past decade, various chemical functionalizations have been attempted to enhance the mechanical strength of graphene oxide. In this work, we analyze the atomic contributions to the Young's modulus (YM) of graphene oxide with relevant models to decouple the role of the defects and the oxygen functionalities.

Protein translation can fluidize bacterial cytoplasm.

The cytoplasm of bacterial cells is densely packed with highly polydisperse macromolecules that exhibit size-dependent glassy dynamics. Recent research has revealed that metabolic activities in living cells can counteract the glassy nature of these macromolecules, allowing the cell to maintain critical fluidity for its growth and function. While it has been proposed that the crowded cytoplasm is responsible for this glassy behavior, a detailed analysis of the size-dependent nature of the glassy dynamics and an explanation for how cellular activity induces its fluidization remains elusive.

Prevalence of hypothyroidism in older adults and its association with cognition: a cross-sectional study from a South Indian ageing urban cohort.

The study conducted on a South Indian urban cohort aimed to emphasize the prevalence and patterns of hypothyroidism and its association with cognition among individuals aged 45 years and above. A cross-sectional design was adopted, utilizing data from the Tata Longitudinal Study of Aging cohort, comprising 1201 non-demented participants in Bangalore, South India. The study contains detailed clinical assessments, including medical history, physical examination and cognitive tests such as the COGNITO battery, Hindi Mental State Examination and Addenbrooke's Cognition Examination III.

Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation in the Asia-Pacific region: APBMT Activity Survey 2020/2021.

COVID-19 became a global pandemic in 2020 and significantly affected the activity of hematopoietic cell transplants (HCT) worldwide. Despite these challenges, a total of 28,793 transplants, including 18,518 allogeneic and 10,275 autologous transplants, were performed in 719 facilities in 2020 in the Asia-Pacific (AP) region. This represented a 5.

Gut Microbiome and Its Role in Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) afflicted more than 8.5 million people globally in 2019, as the prevalence of the condition more than doubled during the preceding 25 years. Both non-motor symptoms, such as mood disorders and cognitive impairment, and motor symptoms, such as tremors and rigidity, are indicative of this progressive neurodegenerative disease.

Two new taxa of brush-footed butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) from the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, southern India.

A new species, Amathusia travancorica sp. nov. (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae: Amathusiini), and a new subspecies, Athyma inara sahyadriensis ssp.

Avenues towards reconciling wild and managed bee proponents.

Bees are crucial for food security and biodiversity. However, managed bees are increasingly considered drivers of wild bee declines, leading to stakeholder conflicts and restrictive policies. We propose avenues to reconcile wild and managed bee proponents and point out knowledge gaps that hinder the development of evidence-based policies.

Clinical outcomes of abbreviated high dose-rate brachytherapy in locally advanced cervical cancer: lessons from the COVID pandemic for high dose-rate fractionation.

Purpose: To evaluate outcomes of cervical cancer patients treated with abbreviated high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT) that used 2-implants and delivered 4-5 fractions over 7-12 days rather than 21-28 days.

Materials And Methods: Patients with stage IB2-IVA cervical cancer, treated with external beam radiation (EBRT) ± chemotherapy followed by abbreviated MR/CT-based HDR-BT were included. The planning aim was to achieve > 70Gy equivalent doses in 2Gy (EQD2) at Point A dose in patients undergoing intracavitary BT (ICBT) and > 85Gy EQD2 to the HRCTV in intracavitary-interstitial BT (IC-ISBT).

Reconstructing the population history of the Nicobarese.

The Nicobarese are the major tribal groups in the Nicobar district, situated south of the Andaman group of Islands. Linguistic phylogeny suggests that the linguistic ancestors of the Nicobarese settled the Nicobar archipelago in the early Holocene. So far, genetic research on them is low-resolution and restricted to the haploid DNA markers.