Female reproduction bears no survival cost in captivity for gray mouse lemurs.

The survival cost of reproduction has been revealed in many free-ranging vertebrates. However, recent studies on captive populations failed to detect this cost. Theoretically, this lack of survival/reproduction trade-off is expected when resources are not limiting, but these studies may have failed to detect the cost, as they may not have fully accounted for potential confounding effects, in particular interindividual heterogeneity.

Influence of the residence time of street trees and their soils on trace element contamination in Paris (France).

With the actual increasing interest for urban soils, the evaluation of soil contamination by trace elements and the dynamics of this contamination appear mandatory to preserve plant and thereby human health. Street trees and the associated soil placed in pits located nearby roads could represent convenient indicators of urban and vehicle traffic influences on soils and plants. However, data on these soils remain scarce, many studies investigating park soils rather than street tree soils.

Early stage litter decomposition across biomes.

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litter and methodologies, adding major uncertainty to syntheses, comparisons and meta-analyses across different experiments and sites.

Indoor mould exposure, asthma and rhinitis: findings from systematic reviews and recent longitudinal studies.

Starting from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and World Health Organization (WHO) reports, this review provides an overview of the literature published from 2006 to 2017 on the associations between indoor mould exposure and asthma and rhinitis separately in children and adults with a focus on longitudinal epidemiological studies.A systematic search of peer-reviewed literature was performed, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, longitudinal, incident case-control and panel studies. 61 publications were identified reporting visible mould or mould odour or quantitative assessment of culturable fungi or mould species.

Age at menarche and lung function: a Mendelian randomization study.

A trend towards earlier menarche in women has been associated with childhood factors (e.g. obesity) and hypothesised environmental exposures (e.

Buckling of elastomer sheets under non-uniform electro-actuation.

Dielectric elastomer sheets undergo in-plane expansion when stimulated by a transverse electric field. We study experimentally how dielectric plates subjected to a non-uniform voltage distribution undergo buckling instabilities. Two different configurations involving circular plates are investigated: plates freely floating on a bath of water, and plates clamped on a frame.

Assessment of trace metal air pollution in Paris using slurry-TXRF analysis on cemetery mosses.

Mosses are useful, ubiquitous accumulation biomonitors and as such can be used for biomonitoring surveys. However, the biomonitoring of atmospheric pollution can be compromised in urban contexts if the targeted biomonitors are regularly disturbed, irregularly distributed, or are difficult to access. Here, we test the hypothesis that cemeteries are appropriate moss sampling sites for the evaluation of air pollution in urban areas.

Competition with wind-pollinated plant species alters floral traits of insect-pollinated plant species.

Plant traits related to attractiveness to pollinators (e.g. flowers and nectar) can be sensitive to abiotic or biotic conditions.

Hfq protein deficiency in Escherichia coli affects ColE1-like but not λ plasmid DNA replication.

Hfq is a nucleic acid-binding protein involved in controlling several aspects of RNA metabolism. It achieves this regulatory function by modulating the translational activity and stability of different mRNAs, generally via interactions with stress-related small regulatory sRNAs. However, besides its role in the coordination of translation of bacterial mRNA, Hfq is also a nucleoid-associated DNA-binding protein.

Schelling segregation in an open city: a kinetically constrained Blume-Emery-Griffiths spin-1 system.

In the 70s Schelling introduced a multiagent model to describe the segregation dynamics that may occur with individuals having only weak preferences for "similar" neighbors. Recently variants of this model have been discussed, in particular, with emphasis on the links with statistical physics models. Whereas these models consider a fixed number of agents moving on a lattice, here, we present a version allowing for exchanges with an external reservoir of agents.

Insights into the phylogeny or arylamine N-acetyltransferases in fungi.

Previous studies have shown that Eumycetes fungi can acylate arylamine thanks to arylamine N-acetyltransferases, xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes also found in animals and bacteria. In this article, we present the results of mining 96 available fungal genome sequences for arylamine N-acetyltransferase genes and propose their phylogeny. The filamentous Pezizomycotina are shown to possess many putative N-acetyltransferases, whilst these are often lacking in other fungal groups.

Human arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1: a drug-metabolizing enzyme and a drug target?

Human arylamine N-acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) is a phase II xenobiotic-metabolizing enzyme (XME) involved in the biotransformation of many aromatic and heterocyclic amines. This XME plays key roles in both the detoxification and/or bioactivation of numerous drugs and carcinogens. NAT1 is polymorphic and displays a large tissue distribution.

Role of Paris PM(2.5) components in the pro-inflammatory response induced in airway epithelial cells.

Particulate matter (PM) is suspected to play a role in environmentally-induced pathologies. Due to its complex composition, the contribution of each PM components to PM-induced biological effects remains unclear. Four samples of Paris PM(2.

Arylamine N-acetyltransferase activity in bronchial epithelial cells and its inhibition by cellular oxidants.

Bronchial epithelial cells express xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes (XMEs) that are involved in the biotransformation of inhaled toxic compounds. The activities of these XMEs in the lung may modulate respiratory toxicity and have been linked to several diseases of the airways. Arylamine N-acetyltransferases (NAT) are conjugating XMEs that play a key role in the biotransformation of aromatic amine pollutants such as the tobacco-smoke carcinogens 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP) and beta-naphthylamine (beta-NA).