Dating branches on the Tree of Life using DNA

The use of DNA sequences to estimate the timing of evolutionary events is increasingly popular, although it is fraught with practical difficulties. But the exponential growth of relevant information and improved methods of analysis are providing increasingly reliable sequence-derived dates, and it may become possible to reconcile fossil-derived and molecular estimates of divergence times within the next few years.     

Developmental dyslexia: specific phonological deficit or general sensorimotor dysfunction?

Dyslexia research now faces an intriguing paradox. It is becoming increasingly clear that a significant proportion of dyslexics present sensory and/or motor deficits; however, as this 'sensorimotor syndrome' is studied in greater detail, it is also becoming increasingly clear that sensory and motor deficits will ultimately play only a limited role in a causal explanation of specific reading disability.     

The impact of drought and acidification on the chemical exports from a minerotrophic conifer swamp

A seven year chemical budget of a minerotrophic conifer swamp located on the PreCambrian Shield, Ontario, Canada and subjected to anthropogenically acidified deposition is presented. Contrary to other published studies, this swamp retains sulphate during wet years and exports it during dry years. Alkalinity is always retained (acidity is exported) and base cations are almost always exported. It is predicted that if this pattern continues, the cation exchange sites of the swamp will become increasingly saturated with protons and aluminum ions, and the waters passing through the swamp will be increasingly acidified.     

Managing the environmental impact of research

The environmental impact of research increasingly needs to be taken into account in design and execution. This makes good financial sense. However, it is especially in the research world as one of the key reasons for doing health research is to improve our knowledge to improve health. Specifically, doing research in a more sustainable way allows us to generate more knowledge with the same resource. Research not only needs to be done increasingly sustainably, but the content of the research needs to direct how we promote health and deliver healthcare in more sustainable ways.     

Environmental impacts of a highly congested section of the Pan-American highway in Peru using life cycle assessment

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Road construction and transportation generate significant environmental impacts. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the...     

Session Frequency Matters in Neurofeedback Training of Athletes

Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback - Neurofeedback training has been an increasingly used technique and is taking its first steps in sport. Being at an embryonic stage, it is difficult to...     

Approaching MALDI molecular imaging for clinical proteomic research: current state and fields of application

MALDI imaging mass spectrometry ('MALDI imaging') is an increasingly recognized technique for biomarker research. After years of method development in the scientific community, the technique is now increasingly applied in clinical research. In this article, we discuss the use of MALDI imaging in clinical proteomics and put it in context with classical proteomics techniques. We also highlight a number of upcoming challenges for personalized medicine, development of targeted therapies and diagnostic molecular pathology where MALDI imaging could help.     

Parental provisioning, nestling departure decisions and prefledging mass recession in Cassin's auklets

We investigated how parental provisioning and nestling departure behaviour interact to produce prefledging mass recession in Cassin's auklets, Ptychoramphus aleuticus. Under our hypothesis, auklet parents are reluctant provisioners and should be increasingly likely to terminate or reduce provisioning of their single nestling as it matures. For the nestling, remaining in the nest presents a risk of losing mass (if the parent does not provision) but also a possibility of additional provisioning. As the nestling matures and becomes increasingly capable of independence, the benefits of remaining in the nest decrease and nestlings should be increasingly likely to fledge. Nestlings also should be more likely to fledge when the expectation of additional provisioning is low. Data on parental provisioning (based on growth increments) and nestling departure were consistent with our hypothesis. Older and heavier nestlings had smaller growth increments than younger and lighter nestlings, suggesting that parents were reluctant to provision old and heavy nestlings. Older and heavier nestlings also were increasingly likely to fledge. We hypothesized that nestlings might use the intensity of mass loss to gauge parental reluctance to provision, and accordingly, nestlings were increasingly likely to fledge after experiencing a greater amount of mass loss. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.     

The role of wind-tunnel studies in integrative research on migration biology

Wind tunnels allow researchers to investigate animals' flight under controlled conditions, and provide easy access to the animals during flight. These increasingly popular devices can benefit integrative migration biology by allowing us to explore the links between aerodynamic theory and migration as well as the links between flight behavior and physiology. Currently, wind tunnels are being used to investigate many different migratory phenomena, including the relationship between metabolic power and flight speed and carry-over effects between different seasons. Although biotelemetry is also becoming increasingly common, it is unlikely that it will be able to completely supplant wind tunnels because of the difficulty of measuring or varying parameters such as flight speed or temperature in the wild. Wind tunnels and swim tunnels will therefore continue to be important tools we can use for studying integrative migration biology.     

Life cycle assessment and circularity indicators

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - In a context where the transition to a circular economy is increasingly required, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between...     

Sphingosine kinases, sphingosine-1-phosphate and sphingolipidomics

It has become abundantly clear over the past decade that sphingolipids and their metabolites are key signaling molecules. Ceramide, the backbone of all sphingolipids, predominantly inhibits cell growth and induces apoptosis, while its metabolite, sphingosine-1-phosphate promotes growth and survival. Given the interconvertibility of these two opposing signaling molecules, it is essential that any study that examines the effects of one also look at the other. The newly available technology of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy (LC-MS/MS) is increasingly being applied for this purpose, as it can quickly identify and measure many different sphingolipids simultaneously. An added benefit of LC-MS/MS is that it is several orders of magnitude more sensitive than enzymatic methods or more traditional chromatographic techniques, allowing smaller sample sizes and increased throughput. Here, we briefly discuss the importance of LC-MS/MS for measuring sphingolipid metabolites and some future directions researchers may take given the increasingly accessibility to this technology.     

Approaching MALDI molecular imaging for clinical proteomic research: current state and fields of application

MALDI imaging mass spectrometry (‘MALDI imaging’) is an increasingly recognized technique for biomarker research. After years of method development in the scientific community, the technique is now increasingly applied in clinical research. In this article, we discuss the use of MALDI imaging in clinical proteomics and put it in context with classical proteomics techniques. We also highlight a number of upcoming challenges for personalized medicine, development of targeted therapies and diagnostic molecular pathology where MALDI imaging could help.     

Natural hierarchy emerges from energy dispersal

Hierarchical organization of ‘systems within systems’ is an apparent characteristic of nature. For many biotic and abiotic systems it is known how the nested structural and functional order builds up, yet the general principle why matter evolves to hierarchies has remained unfamiliar to many. We clarify that increasingly larger integrated systems result from the quest to decrease free energy according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The argumentation is based on the recently derived equation of motion for natural processes. Hierarchically organized energy transduction machinery emerges naturally when it provides increased rates of energy dispersal. Likewise, a hierarchical system will dismantle into its constituents when they as independent systems will provide higher rates of entropy increase. Since energy flows via interactions, decreasing strengths of interactions over increasingly larges lengths scales mark natural boundaries for nested integrated systems.     

Immunotoxins: status and prospects.

Immunotoxins, which are conjugates of cell-binding antibodies and toxins, show considerable promise in the treatment of certain cancers. Genetic engineering is increasingly being used to refine and modify these conjugates, and it is now possible to design, express and purify completely recombinant therapeutic molecules.     

With the worms: Soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

The role of soil as a carbon sink, nutrient recycler and pollutant remover is becoming increasingly apparent. But it is the animals and microbes that live in the soil that enable all these activities. Do we know enough about these systems to prevent permanent damage?     

Fatal Disseminated Infection by Trichosporon asahii Under Voriconazole Therapy in a Patient with Acute Myeloid Leukemia: A Review of Breakthrough Infections by Trichosporon spp.

Mycopathologia - Cases of invasive Trichosporon infections have increasingly emerged; it is now the second leading cause of yeast bloodstream infections after Candida spp., particularly in the...     

Inside FlyBase: Biocuration as a career

As research in the biological sciences continues to advance at a rapid pace, it is increasingly important that the data be captured, standardized, organized, and made accessible to the scientific community. This is the job of a biocurator. Here we describe the process of biocuration from our perspective as FlyBase curators.     

Immune monitoring: it's prudent to adopt current quality regulations

The United States Food and Drug Administration and its international governmental counterparts provide strict guidelines for product manufacture, quality control and clinical practice, but no regulations exist for immune monitoring. This is not surprising because it is a relatively new field that is increasingly applied in clinical trials of immunotherapy. Immune monitoring is experimental in nature, usually performed in an R&D laboratory, and is typically not integrated into an organization's quality assessment system. With the proliferation of immunotherapy studies and immunogenicity testing, regulatory agencies will progressively increasingly demand that quality regulations be applied to immune monitoring in the future. Here, I highlight the relevance of existing regulations, which, I believe, should be prospectively tied into the development and performance of immune monitoring methods.     

The developmental emergence of coupled activity as cooperative aggregation in rat pups.

Rat pups (Rattus norvegicus) are born blind and deaf yet manage to wriggle about in a huddle, dynamically adjusting their positions and thereby displaying thermoregulation and energy conservation at the level of the group. As pups develop, their activity and mobility outpace the development of their visual and auditory systems making it increasingly difficult to aggregate and maintain aggregation while still blind and deaf. The developmental emergence of coupled activity may be one mechanism that facilitates aggregation. Our previous research has shown that the activity of a seven-day-old pup is independent of the activity of the litter mates it contacts. However, we hypothesized that, by day 10, more active and mobile pups will exhibit coupled activity, becoming increasingly quiescent when in contact with other behaviourally quiescent pups. In order to test this hypothesis, we used individual-based modelling. Because the structure of the model was complex, we used a Darwinian algorithm for evolving a model that behaved like ten-day-old pups aggregating in an arena. Sensitivity to quiescent individuals was manifested in some litters by the transitory spreading of quiescence across aggregates of both real and virtual pups (a contagion effect). As pups develop, individual behaviour becomes increasingly contingent on the behaviour of others revealing what may be a basic component in the development of cooperative behaviour.     

The role of chitosan in wool finishing

The application of the biopolymer chitosan as an alternative to the conventional contaminating processes in textiles was studied. As chitosan is produced by biomass, it is biodegradable and bioadsorbable. These properties are increasingly important given the current environmental legislation. The main aim of chitosan treatment of oxidised wool fabrics is to improve felting properties and dyeing behaviour.