Article
Genetics & Heredity
Yun-Mei Wang, Saber Khederzadeh, Shi-Rong Li, Newton Otieno Otecko, David M. Irwin, Mukesh Thakur, Xiao-Die Ren, Ming-Shan Wang, Dong-Dong Wu, Ya-Ping Zhang
Summary: Piao chicken, a rare Chinese native poultry breed, lacks primary tail structures and the molecular mechanisms underlying tail absence in this breed remain unclear. This study employed comparative transcriptomic and genomic analyses to uncover potential genetic underpinnings of rumplessness in Piao chicken, revealing biological factors involved in tail development and genomic regions under strong positive selection. Candidate genes associated with rumplessness and the hypothesis that strong selection pressures on regulatory elements may lead to tail truncation were also discussed.
GENOMICS PROTEOMICS & BIOINFORMATICS
(2021)
Editorial Material
Health Care Sciences & Services
Mirja Mittermaier, Marium M. Raza, Joseph C. Kvedar
Summary: Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in healthcare, particularly in surgery. While it holds promise in predicting outcomes and guiding surgeons, AI systems can also be biased, exacerbating existing inequalities. This impacts disadvantaged populations, who may receive less accurate algorithmic predictions or underestimate their need for care. Detecting and mitigating bias is crucial for creating fair and generalizable AI technology. This article discusses a recent study that developed a new strategy to address bias in surgical AI systems.
NPJ DIGITAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Maite Rivollat, Adam Benjamin Rohrlach, Harald Ringbauer, Ainash Childebayeva, Fanny Mendisco, Rodrigo Barquera, Andras Szolek, Melie Le Roy, Heidi Colleran, Jonathan Tuke, Franziska Aron, Marie-Helene Pemonge, Ellen Spaeth, Philippe Telouk, Leonie Rey, Gwenaelle Goude, Vincent Balter, Johannes Krause, Stephane Rottier, Marie-France Deguilloux, Wolfgang Haak
Summary: This study uses ancient DNA, isotope, and contextual data to reveal the kinship and social structure of a burial community in France. The findings suggest that the community was composed of two main pedigrees, passed down through generations, with male dominance and exchange of females with neighboring groups. Additionally, the study provides insights into social structure, living conditions, and site occupation. The results indicate that the site was only used for a few decades, shedding light on shifting sedentary farming practices during the European Neolithic.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abduallah Gamal, Ibrahim M. Hezam, Karam M. Sallam
Summary: Due to the extensive usage of fossil fuels, the need for clean, renewable energy has become necessary. Solar photovoltaic energy production is seen as a promising technology due to its safety and lack of environmental impact. However, there are risks associated with the adoption of photovoltaic systems. This paper examines these risks through a case study and proposes a hybrid multicriteria decision-making approach to prioritize and address them.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH
(2023)
Review
Food Science & Technology
Maanasa Mudoor Sooresh, Benjamin P. Willing, Benjamin C. T. Bourrie
Summary: Spontaneous fermentations have played an important role in the early development of society and are still widely practiced today. Research on spontaneous fermentations is currently limited to observation and description, but further understanding of microbial community assembly and its impact on fermentation dynamics is crucial. This review discusses the factors influencing microbial community assembly, focusing on yeasts and bacteria isolated from spontaneously fermenting food and beverages. Controlled culture experiments provide insight into microbial interactions, and there is a need for research on the role of core microbiota and strain-level implications in fermentation outcomes. Translating these findings can improve fermentation systems and ensure consistent and high-quality products.
Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Bart de Laat, Jocelyn Hoye, Heather Liu, Evan D. Morris
Summary: The study introduced voxel-level images of drug occupancy from PET and created an EC50 image from human data to evaluate regional differences in drug affinity. Results showed spatial variation in apparent drug affinity with higher EC50 values in areas of low drug occupancy. The EC50 image could potentially enhance early-phase drug development by identifying regional differences in affinity and guiding dose selection for later-phase trials.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE AND MOLECULAR IMAGING
(2022)
Article
Medical Laboratory Technology
Janne Cadamuro
Summary: Since the beginning of medical diagnostics, laboratory specialists have continuously improved the quality, scope, and speed of laboratory tests, making significant contributions to medical decision making. The field of laboratory medicine is now facing disruptive innovations, such as the increasing availability and use of artificial intelligence. Therefore, laboratory specialists need to develop strategies to adapt to these evolving technologies and demands in order to provide their expertise and ensure the quality of patient care.
CLINICAL CHEMISTRY AND LABORATORY MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Dorte Krause-Jensen, Carlos M. Duarte, Kaj Sand-Jensen, Jacob Carstensen
Summary: Eelgrass ecosystems have been threatened by eutrophication and deterioration of the light environment over the 20th century, leading to major declines in Western Baltic Sea meadows despite efforts to reduce nutrient input. Shallow colonization depths and increasing light requirements for eelgrass suggest that recovery is limited by additional stressors. Bottom trawling and warming continue to suppress eelgrass recovery, with future management needing to address these challenges to increase resilience and limit warming by meeting global climate change goals.
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Mulugeta Russom, Iyassu Bahta, Merhawi Debesai
Summary: Eritrea has successfully established a robust pharmacovigilance system, becoming one of the top reporting countries in Africa. They have submitted a high number of individual case safety reports and detected multiple safety signals, while also gaining significant political commitment. The monitoring of product quality through the system has also proven to be effective in identifying substandard or falsified medical products.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Maximilian Moser, Andrew Wadsworth, Nicola Gasparini, Iain McCulloch
Summary: Advancements in organic photovoltaic materials have led to significant improvements in device performance, but commercial viability remains a challenge. The limitations in high performing blends focus on industrial upscaling considerations, where the use of Y-series nonfullerene acceptors and synthetically simple materials are found to be most effective in maximizing efficiency.
ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Hui Guo, Wen-Tao Shi, Biliang Zhang, Yan-Hui Xu, Jian Jiao, Chang-Fu Tian
Summary: This study establishes a common garden approach to study ecological interactions between xenogeneic genes and transposable insertion sequences (ISs) in a prokaryote genome. The results reveal that niche differentiation among IS community members plays a significant role in genetic stability.
Review
Cell & Tissue Engineering
Hyun Lee, Tae-Sik Jang, Ginam Han, Hae-Won Kim, Hyun-Do Jung
Summary: Freeform 3D printing has significantly advanced the fabrication of artificial tissues with vascularized structures, utilizing a supporting matrix to optimize the printing quality and performance. The technique is potentially applicable for complex 3D objects with curved and irregular shaped vascular networks, but requires careful consideration of material properties and challenges for effective design and selection.
JOURNAL OF TISSUE ENGINEERING
(2021)
Review
Chemistry, Physical
Fanfan Liu, Zhiwen Zhang, Shufen Ye, Yu Yao, Yan Yu
Summary: The Li metal anode is considered promising for next-generation high energy density batteries, but operational issues such as dendritic growth need to be addressed with advanced strategies.
ACTA PHYSICO-CHIMICA SINICA
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Shi-Rui Yu, Yuan-Ye Zhang, Quan-Guo Zhang
Summary: The potential for artificial selection at the community level to improve ecosystem functions has attracted attention, but the conditions for successful artificial community selection are still unclear. We propose six hypotheses about factors that determine the effectiveness of artificial microbial community selection. A meta-analysis of published experiments shows that the responses to community selection vary greatly among experiments, with no significant overall effect. Artificial community selection is more effective when there is no migration among communities and a larger number of replicated communities are subjected to selection. The success of artificial community selection may depend on multiple necessary conditions.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Mei Matsuzaki, Noritaka Hirohashi, Masaoki Tsudzuki, Mohammad Ibrahim Haqani, Teruo Maeda, Shusei Mizushima, Tomohiro Sasanami
Summary: Research has shown that in birds, sperm from the dominant black (DB) strain has a better ability to enter the sperm storage tubules (SST), resulting in higher fertilization success. This may be due to the longer flagellum and midpiece of DB sperm, allowing them to swim faster in a high viscosity medium.
Article
Biology
Babak Momeni, Li Xie, Wenying Shou
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Samuel F. M. Hart, Hanbing Mi, Robin Green, Li Xie, Jose Mario Bello Pineda, Babak Momeni, Wenying Shou
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Lori Niehaus, Ian Boland, Minghao Liu, Kevin Chen, David Fu, Catherine Henckel, Kaitlin Chaung, Suyen Espinoza Miranda, Samantha Dyckman, Matthew Crum, Sandra Dedrick, Wenying Shou, Babak Momeni
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2019)
Article
Biology
Samuel Frederick Mock Hart, Jose Mario Bello Pineda, Chi-Chun Chen, Robin Green, Wenying Shou
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Robin Green, Sonal, Lin Wang, Samuel F. M. Hart, Wenyun Lu, David Skelding, Justin C. Burton, Hanbing Mi, Aric Capel, Hung Alex Chen, Aaron Lin, Arvind R. Subramaniam, Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Wenying Shou
Article
Biology
Samuel Frederick Mock Hart, Chi-Chun Chen, Wenying Shou
Summary: The study demonstrates that pleiotropic 'win-win' mutations can evolve rapidly to promote cooperation even under unfavorable conditions. Experiment revealed the emergence of ecm21 mutations in engineered yeast cooperative communities, benefiting both self and partner, and enhancing the growth rate of the community as a whole.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Li Xie, Wenying Shou
Summary: Microbial communities perform important functions through inter-species interactions. In order to improve community function, effective selection strategies are designed in silico to enhance community fitness and overcome counter-intuitive evolutionary dynamics. Experimental manipulations are devised to shift the evolutionary path towards higher heritability, accelerating community function improvement even in high-dimensional or unknown landscapes.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Review
Biology
Alex Eric Yuan, Wenying Shou
Summary: This article provides a critical review of three statistical causal discovery methods and their applications in ecological processes. The review examines what each method tests for, the causal statements it implies, and the potential for misinterpretation. The authors introduce new visualization techniques and highlight the limitations of so-called "model-free" causality tests. The goal of the review is to encourage thoughtful application of these methods, facilitate interdisciplinary communication, and promote explicit assumptions.
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
Samuel F. M. Hart, David Skelding, Adam J. Waite, Justin C. Burton, Wenying Shou
QUANTITATIVE BIOLOGY
(2019)
Article
Mathematical & Computational Biology
David Skelding, Samuel F. M. Hart, Thejas Vidyasagar, Alexander E. Pozhitkov, Wenying Shou
QUANTITATIVE BIOLOGY
(2018)