Exploring the Solar Wind-Planetary Interaction at Mars: Implication for Magnetic Reconnection.

The Martian crustal magnetic anomalies present a varied, asymmetric obstacle to the imposing draped interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and solar wind plasma. Magnetic reconnection, a ubiquitous plasma phenomenon responsible for transferring energy and changing magnetic field topology, has been observed throughout the Martian magnetosphere. More specifically, reconnection can occur as a result of the interaction between crustal fields and the IMF, however, the global implications and changes to the overall magnetospheric structure of Mars have yet to be fully understood.

Compositions and Interior Structures of the Large Moons of Uranus and Implications for Future Spacecraft Observations.

The five large moons of Uranus are important targets for future spacecraft missions. To motivate and inform the exploration of these moons, we model their internal evolution, present-day physical structures, and geochemical and geophysical signatures that may be measured by spacecraft. We predict that if the moons preserved liquid until present, it is likely in the form of residual oceans less than 30 km thick in Ariel, Umbriel, and less than 50 km in Titania, and Oberon.

Properties and Acceleration Mechanisms of Electrons Up To 200 keV Associated With a Flux Rope Pair and Reconnection X-Lines Around It in Earth's Plasma Sheet.

The properties and acceleration mechanisms of electrons (<200 keV) associated with a pair of tailward traveling flux ropes and accompanied reconnection X-lines in Earth's plasma sheet are investigated with MMS measurements. Energetic electrons are enhanced on both boundaries and core of the flux ropes. The power-law spectra of energetic electrons near the X-lines and in flux ropes are harder than those on flux rope boundaries.

ADAR1 Biology Can Hinder Effective Antiviral RNA Interference.

Viruses constantly evolve and adapt to the antiviral defenses of their hosts. The biology of viral circumvention of these selective pressures can often be attributed to the acquisition of novel antagonistic gene products or by rapid genome change that prevents host recognition. To study viral evasion of RNA interference (RNAi)-based defenses, we established a robust antiviral system in mammalian cells using recombinant Sendai virus designed to be targeted by endogenous host microRNAs (miRNAs) with perfect complementarity.

Superior mechanical properties of multilayer covalent-organic frameworks enabled by rationally tuning molecular interlayer interactions.

Two-dimensional (2D) covalent-organic frameworks (COFs) with a well-defined and tunable periodic porous skeleton are emerging candidates for lightweight and strong 2D polymeric materials. It remains challenging, however, to retain the superior mechanical properties of monolayer COFs in a multilayer stack. Here, we successfully demonstrated a precise layer control in synthesizing atomically thin COFs, enabling a systematic study of layer-dependent mechanical properties of 2D COFs with two different interlayer interactions.

Good Things Take Time: Tiwary-Seeliger Collaboration for Predictive Pharmacodynamics.

This invited Team Profile was created by the Tiwary group, University of Maryland, College Park (USA) and the Seeliger group, Stony Brook University, New York (USA). They recently published an article on the previously made observation through in-cell screening that the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec has the same binding affinity, yet different dissociation kinetics against wild-type and N368S-mutated Abl kinase. Through all-atom enhanced molecular dynamics simulations guided by statistical mechanics and information theory, they were able to explain the mechanistic basis of this perplexing observation.

A computational musculoskeletal arm model for assessing muscle dysfunction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Computational models have been used extensively to assess diseases and disabilities effects on musculoskeletal system dysfunction. In the current study, we developed a two degree-of-freedom subject-specific second-order task-specific arm model for characterizing upper-extremity function (UEF) to assess muscle dysfunction due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Older adults (65 years or older) with and without COPD and healthy young control participants (18 to 30 years) were recruited.

Sound order discrimination in two species of birds-Taeniopygia guttata and Melopsittacus undulatus.

Recent psychophysical experiments have shown that zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata-a songbird) are surprisingly insensitive to syllable sequence changes in their species-specific motifs while budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus-a psittacine) do much better when tested on exactly the same sounds. This is unexpected since zebra finch males learn the order of syllables in their songs when young and sing the same song throughout adulthood. Here we probe the limits of this species difference by testing birds on an order change involving just two syllables, hereafter called bi-syllable phrases.

Illicit Fentanyl Exposure Among Victims of Violence Treated at a Trauma Center.

Introduction: Opioid overdoses and violent injury are leading causes of death in the United States, yet testing for novel opioids like fentanyl remains uncommon. The purpose of this investigation is to characterize a population of victims of violence who test positive for illicit fentanyl.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of patients treated at a level-one trauma center between January 31, 2019 and February 21, 2020.

Piloting a Telehealth Interprofessional Diabetes Clinic During Covid 19: Continuing patient care and student learning.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a team of faculty from dietetics, nursing, pharmacy, and social work converted a long-standing effective Interprofessional Team Care Clinic (IPTCC) at two outpatient health centers to a telehealth clinic during 2020 and 2021. Preliminary data suggest that this pilot telehealth clinic for patients with diabetes or prediabetes was effective in significantly lowering average hemoglobin A1C levels and increasing students' perceived interprofessional skills. This article describes the pilot telehealth interprofessional model used to educate students and provide patient care, outlines preliminary data about its effectiveness, and makes recommendations for future research and practice.

Preschool-aged children's hair cortisol and parents' behavior, psychopathology, and stress.

Parental factors, including parenting behavior, parent mental health, and parent stress, are associated with child stress. More recently, studies have shown that these parental factors may also be associated with children's hair cortisol concentration (HCC). HCC is a novel biomarker for chronic stress.

Wheat Pore-Forming Toxin-Like Protein Confers Broad-Spectrum Resistance to Fungal Pathogens in .

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused by the hemibiotrophic fungus , is one of the major threats to global wheat productivity. A wheat pore-forming toxin-like (PFT) protein was previously reported to underlie , the most widely used quantitative trait locus in FHB breeding programs worldwide. In the present work, wheat PFT was ectopically expressed in the model dicot plant .

Bicistronic Expression of a High-Performance Calcium Indicator and Opsin for All-Optical Stimulation and Imaging at Cellular Resolution.

State-of-the-art all-optical systems promise unprecedented access to neural activity , using multiphoton optogenetics to allow simultaneous imaging and control of activity in selected neurons at cellular resolution. However, to achieve wide use of all-optical stimulation and imaging, simple strategies are needed to robustly and stably express opsins and indicators in the same cells. Here, we describe a bicistronic adeno-associated virus (AAV) that expresses both the fast and bright calcium indicator jGCaMP8s, and a soma-targeted (st) and two-photon-activatable opsin, ChrimsonR.

Similarities and Differences in Alcohol & Other Drug Dependence Among Hispanic/Latino Subgroups: A Disaggregation Approach.

Background: Hispanic/Latino (H/L) heritage civilians out-number all other non-White ethnic groups in the United States. When studied as one group, H/L diversity is ignored, including rates of drug misuse. This study's aim was to examine H/L diversity regarding drug dependence by disaggregating how the burdens of active alcohol or other drug dependence (AODD) might change if we were to address syndromes drug by drug.

Effect of Cultural Management and Plant Age on the Yield, °Brix, and Antioxidant Content of Grown in Maryland.

is a fruiting plant that has the potential of becoming the next-generation superfood. The fruit contains high concentrations of flavonoids, polyphenols, and anthocyanins, which are known to be powerful antioxidants. The fruit is regarded for its potential to treat oxidative stress diseases like cancer.

Controls and variability of soil respiration temperature sensitivity across China.

Understanding the temperature sensitivity (Q) of soil respiration is critical for benchmarking the potential intensity of regional and global terrestrial soil carbon fluxes-climate feedbacks. Although field observations have demonstrated the strong spatial heterogeneity of Q, a significant knowledge gap still exists regarding to the factors driving spatial and temporal variabilities of Q at regional scales. Therefore, we used a machine learning approach to predict Q from 1994 to 2016 with a spatial resolution of 1 km across China from 515 field observations at 5 cm soil depth using climate, soil and vegetation variables.

Performance of methods for SARS-CoV-2 variant detection and abundance estimation within mixed population samples.

Background: The accurate identification of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2) variants and estimation of their abundance in mixed population samples (, air or wastewater) is imperative for successful surveillance of community level trends. Assessing the performance of SC2 variant composition estimators (VCEs) should improve our confidence in public health decision making. Here, we introduce a linear regression based VCE and compare its performance to four other VCEs: two re-purposed DNA sequence read classifiers (Kallisto and Kraken2), a maximum-likelihood based method (Lineage deComposition for Sars-Cov-2 pooled samples (LCS)), and a regression based method (Freyja).

Rationing scarce healthcare capacity: A study of the ventilator allocation guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the United States, even though national guidelines for allocating scarce healthcare resources are lacking, 26 states have specific ventilator allocation guidelines to be invoked in case of a shortage. While several states developed their guidelines in response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, New York State developed these guidelines in 2015 as "pandemic influenza is a foreseeable threat, one that we cannot ignore." The primary objective of this study is to assess the existing procedures and priority rules in place for allocating/rationing scarce ventilator capacity and propose alternative (and improved) priority schemes.

Latitudinal shifts of soil microbial biomass seasonality.

Soil microbes ultimately drive the mineralization of soil organic carbon and thus ecosystem functions. We compiled a dataset of the seasonality of microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and developed a semi-mechanistic model to map monthly MBC across the globe. MBC exhibits an equatorially symmetric seasonality between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Pollinator and host sharing lead to hybridization and introgression in Panamanian free-standing figs, but not in their pollinator wasps.

Obligate pollination mutualisms, in which plant and pollinator lineages depend on each other for reproduction, often exhibit high levels of species specificity. However, cases in which two or more pollinator species share a single host species (host sharing), or two or more host species share a single pollinator species (pollinator sharing), are known to occur in current ecological time. Further, evidence for host switching in evolutionary time is increasingly being recognized in these systems.

Construction of a genome-wide genetic linkage map and identification of quantitative trait loci for powdery mildew resistance in daisy.

Powdery mildew (PM) is a common fungal disease in many important crops. The PM caused by has been the most challenging problem in commercial () production globally, often leading to severe losses of crop yield and quality. A small number of PM-resistant breeding lines and cultivars have been reported in , but the underlying genetics for PM resistance in is largely unknown.

Sprayable tissue adhesive with biodegradation tuned for prevention of postoperative abdominal adhesions.

Adhesions are dense, fibrous bridges that adjoin tissue surfaces due to uncontrolled inflammation following postoperative mesothelial injury. A widely used adhesion barrier material in Seprafilm often fails to prevent transverse scar tissue deposition because of its poor mechanical properties, rapid degradation profile, and difficulty in precise application. Solution blow spinning (SBS), a polymer fiber deposition technique, allows for the placement of in situ tissue-conforming and tissue-adherent scaffolds with exceptional mechanical properties.