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METTL3 safeguards cell identity and epigenome of human trophoblast stem cells

The olfactory bulb endocast as a proxy for mammalian olfaction

Olfaction is a critical sense for tetrapods, playing a key role in survival and reproduction by aiding in food detection, predator avoidance, and social interactions. Olfactory performance has been experimentally tested in only a few taxa, so comparative analyses rely on anatomical and genomic proxies. Among anatomical proxies, the olfactory bulb endocast is widely used, particularly in extinct species, where it is often the only preserved proxy and can be reconstructed even in million-year-old fossils. While the functional significance of chemoreceptor genes has received attention, the extent to which the olfactory bulb endocast correlates with genomic proxies remains unclear. Using brain endocasts across all mammalian orders, we investigated the relationship between the absolute (absOB) and relative (relatOB) volumes of the olfactory bulb endocast and the number of intact chemoreceptor genes. While no clear correlations were found between absOB and the genomic proxies tested, we identified a significant correlation between relatOB and the total number of combined intact chemoreceptor genes (CombChemo), primarily driven by olfactory receptor genes (OR). Leveraging this correlation, and aiming to infer olfactory capabilities in taxa for which only the skull is available, we estimated OR numbers for three mammalian orders lacking genomic data, as well as for five extinct mammals. Building on studies that have established a link between intact OR and olfactory sensitivity and discrimination, we conclude that relatOB enables inference of olfactory capabilities in mammals. This provides a basis to investigate sensory evolution and opens perspectives for interpreting paleoecology and behavior of extinct mammals.

An innovative determination approach for the support strength of stope roof: a case study

Architected continuum mixed ionic and electronic conducting alloy negative electrode for fast-charging all-solid-state lithium batteries

The littler things that run the little things that run the world

Enhanced adsorption of ranitidine onto activated carbon‑modified zeolite composite and investigation of the removal mechanism

ABA-independent PP2C-binding in PYLs traces to bacterial origins and persists in land plants

Abstract Land plants have evolved strategies to survive water deficiency. Among these adaptations, the “drying without dying” strategy evolved in early land plants and is maintained in the desiccated seeds of angiosperms. This process is regulated by a family of ABA receptors known as the PYR/PYL/RCAR (PYL) family, which can bind to clade A protein phosphatases 2Cs (PP2Cs) and suppress their inhibition of water stress responses. ABA-independent PYLs first emerged in an aquatic algal lineage; however, their evolutionary origins and the mechanistic basis of ABA-independent PYL variants in land plants remain poorly characterized. Here, we characterize ABA-independent PYL-like proteins from bacteria, algae, and land plants that retain constitutive PP2C binding but lack ABA-enhanced inhibitory activity, supporting their putative bacterial origin via horizontal gene transfer. We identified a bacterial PYL homolog (PrPYL) in Paraburkholderia rhynchosiae with PP2C-binding ability, three PP2C-inhibiting PYL homologs in Zygnematales algae, and ABA-independent PYL-like proteins in seed plants (e.g., AtPYL13 and AtPYL13-like proteins). AtPYL13 -like genes in dicots exhibited high expression during seed maturation and in desiccated seeds, suggesting a functional shift from canonical ABA receptors to ABA-independent PYL-like proteins following gene family expansion. Two invariant residues underlie ABA dependence in canonical PYL receptors. Transcription factor ABI3 mediates AtPYL13 expression during the mature seed stage, thereby locally restricting constitutively activated stress signaling. Our findings indicate that ABA-independent PYL -like genes likely originated via horizontal transfer from bacteria and function in basal stress signaling in seed plants.

Chatbot Voting Advice Applications inform but seldom sway young unaligned voters

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are interactive tools that communicate information about elections, yet their effectiveness in enhancing political knowledge and participation remains understudied. Moreover, traditional VAAs may disproportionately attract politically engaged users with already well-formed ideological views, limiting their potential to inform a broader and less engaged electorate. This paper introduces a “VAA Bot” that employs large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation to deliver balanced, personalized information drawn from official party platforms and public documents. We evaluate the VAA Bot’s impact across three experimental studies aimed at young politically unaffiliated adults. The findings provide evidence that the VAA Bot improves knowledge of party stances on issues of great importance to each user. However, the VAA Bot produces weak effects on downstream outcomes such as vote preferences and party evaluations among respondents whose primary issue position aligns closely with one of the parties. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about the role of political information in shaping behavior and clarify both the promise and the limitations of LLM-based tools for civic learning.

Comparing psychedelic and meditation experience reports with natural language processing

The ribosome derives the energy to translocate and unwind mRNA from EF-G binding

Abstract The GTPase EF-G catalyzes translocation of mRNA and tRNAs relative to the ribosome and helps maintain the reading frame during protein synthesis. Which events directly require EF-G-mediated GTP hydrolysis during translocation are still debated. Using high-resolution optical tweezers endowed with single-molecule fluorescence detection, we simultaneously monitored binding of fluorescently-labeled EF-G to ribosomes and either mRNA unwinding or mRNA translocation relative to the body domain of the small ribosomal subunit. Using EF-G mutants and GTP analogs, we find that neither mRNA unwinding nor translocation require GTP hydrolysis and that these are independent events that may or may not temporally coincide. We propose that “tight binding” of EF-G to the ribosome triggers mRNA unwinding and translocation of mRNA relative to the 30S body domain and that while GTP hydrolysis kinetically accelerates translocation, it is thermodynamically required only to liberate the tightly bound EF-G from the ribosome.

Evolved birth physiology meets modern birth practice: Sustained effects of planned cesarean delivery on child hair cortisol in Brazil

Cesarean section (CS) is the most common major surgery worldwide and, by enabling birth outside physiologic labor, is an evolutionary novelty. Labor-related mechanical and hormonal stimuli, shaped by natural selection, facilitate neonatal adaptation to extrauterine life. While prior work has emphasized the biological impacts of altered microbial exposure following CS, the developmental implications of missing labor are less explored. We evaluated whether birth without labor was associated with differences in child hair cortisol, an integrated measure of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal activity that influences growth, metabolism, immunity, and behavior. Using longitudinal data from singleton births in the 2015 Pelotas Birth Cohort in Brazil ( N = 6 , 136 observations from 3,537 participants), we found that 4 to 7 y old children born through planned CS before labor had 6.6% lower hair cortisol than children born vaginally ( P = 0.002 ) and 4.4% lower cortisol than children born from unplanned CS after labor ( P = 0.017 ). There were no significant differences in hair cortisol levels between children born vaginally and through CS after labor, suggesting that labor exposure, rather than CS delivery, is associated with the observed differences. A significant interaction between labor experience and gestational age indicated that differences were most pronounced among children born without labor at earlier gestational ages; adjusted differences between planned CS and vaginal delivery were significant before 39.5 wk gestation. These findings support the hypothesis that labor is an evolved developmental exposure and that bypassing it may have unintended biological consequences.

Hybrid GNN–LSTM defense with differential privacy and secure multi-party computation for edge-optimized neuromorphic autonomous systems

Abstract Neuromorphic computing, which is based on spiking neural networks (SNNs) and event cameras, can provide energy-efficient autonomous vehicle (AV) perception, yet is exceedingly susceptible to adversarial perturbations, fault injections, and data poisoning. Conventional defences may prove inadequate on the spot scenarios with a small amount of edge resources. The systemic security solution proposed in the paper consists of a Hybrid Graph Neural Network-Long Short-Term Memory (GNN-LSTM) attack detection model with a Differential Privacy (DP) and Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) solution to privacy and threat-reduction respectively. Quantization and pruning are also used to optimise the framework to support edge deployment. KITTI multimodal experiment results indicate 94.3 percent accuracy and lower the attack success rate by 30 percent. The neuromorphic N-Caltech101 experiments reach an accuracy of 92.4 percent with a drop of 27 percent. These results confirm that the proposed solution can offer substantial, privacy-conscious and resource-efficient security of next-generation neuromorphic autonomous systems against trained adversarial attacks.

MAT2A promotes atherosclerotic plaque vulnerability by mediating epigenetic reprogramming of macrophages

Convection can enhance the capacitive charging of porous electrodes

Charge transport in porous electrodes is foundational for modern energy storage technologies like supercapacitors, fuel cells, and batteries. Supercapacitors in particular rely solely on storing energy in charged pores. Here, we simulate the charging of a single electrolyte-filled pore using the modified Poisson–Nernst–Planck and Navier–Stokes equations. We find that electroconvection can substantially speed up the charging dynamics. We uncover the fundamental mechanism of electroconvection during pore charging through an analytical model that predicts the induced flow field and the electric current arising due to convection. Our findings suggest that convection is especially important in the limit of slender pores with thin electric double layers, and becomes significant beyond a certain threshold voltage that is an inherent electrolyte property.

A quantitative characterization of antibiotic resistance and its influencing factors in hospital wastewaters across Lebanon

TRIM37–PARP1–TET1 axis maintains stemness and prevents osteoporosis by inhibiting DNMT1 alternative splicing via 5hmC regulation

Neuromodulatory control of energy reserves in dopaminergic neurons

The brain is a metabolically vulnerable organ as neurons have both high resting metabolic rates and the need for local rapid conversion of carbon sources to ATP during activity. Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to be particularly vulnerable to metabolic perturbations, as a subset of these are the first to undergo degeneration in Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder long suspected to be in part driven by deficits in mid-brain bioenergetics. In skeletal muscle, energy homeostasis under varying demands is achieved in part by its ability to rely on glycogen as a fuel store, whose conversion to ATP is under hormonal regulatory control. In neurons, however, the absence of easily observable glycogen granules has cast doubt on whether this fuel store is operational, even though brain neurons express the key regulatory enzymes associated with building or burning glycogen. We show here that in primary mid-brain dopaminergic neurons, glycogen availability is under the control of dopamine autoreceptors, such that dopamine itself provides a signal to store glycogen. We find that when glycogen stores are present, they provide remarkable resilience to dopamine nerve terminal function under extreme hypometabolic conditions, but loss of this dopamine-derived signal, or impairment of access to glycogen, makes them hypersensitive to fuel deprivation. These data show that neurons can use an extracellular cue to regulate local metabolism and suggest that loss of dopamine secretion might make dopamine neurons particularly subject to neurodegeneration driven by metabolic stress.

Research on the impact of ecological additives on selected parameters and the microbiological distribution of marine engine oil

Abstract The article presents the impact of ecological additives on selected parameters and the microbiological distribution of marine engine oil (Marinol). With the development of industry and the automotive sector in general, it has become apparent that the problem of microbial contamination is still relevant and is becoming increasingly widespread. The author decided to investigate the impact of additives, namely silver and effective microorganisms with a 2% percentage share in marine engine oil (Marinol), on selected parameters and on slowing down the growth of bacteria and fungi. The article presents the impact of additives on selected engine oil parameters, including flash point, water content, acid and base numbers, density and kinematic viscosity. In addition, the oil was also tested for the effect of additives on the inhibition of microbial decomposition in the tested oil. It was found that the best additive with a positive effect on engine oil parameters and microbial decomposition was a silver solution and effective microorganisms in the form of ceramics. The addition of effective microorganisms in liquid form and silver solution to used oil resulted in an increase in temperature of approximately 1 °C compared to the ignition temperature of oil without additives. For the addition of colloidal nanosilver, a temperature of 225.22 °C was obtained. For used oil, the water content increased to 0.16% from 0.1% for new oil. The addition of liquid effective microorganisms caused the largest increase in water content to 0.58%, while EM in the form of ceramics did not contribute to the increase in water content due to its composition. The addition of silver solution contributed to an increase in water content to 0.47% and colloidal silver to 0.53%. The base number of used motor oil without additives decreased from 11.82 mgKOH/g for fresh oil to 11.52 mgKOH/g. After the application of ceramic effective microorganisms, a lower base number was obtained compared to oil without additives, which is 11.34 mgKOH/g, while liquid effective microorganisms reduced the base number the most, to 11.27 mgKOH/g. Each of the additives caused a decrease in bacteria and fungi compared to used oil without additives. The use of these additives is an original solution that has a positive effect on the microbial degradation process, while maintaining the original performance parameters of the engine oil. In the next stage, it would be desirable to confirm the results obtained under actual operating conditions.

Real-time artificial intelligence for solid-state lithium metal batteries

Eliminating air pollution disparities requires more than emission reduction

In the United States, people of color are disproportionately and unjustly exposed to air pollution. Historically, environmental policy has emphasized aggregate emission reductions, yet major emission reduction scenarios do not sufficiently mitigate relative exposure disparities. Here, we show that without focusing on relative disparity (percent difference) in exposure, the only way to improve air quality and eliminate absolute exposure disparity is to eliminate all emissions (an unlikely outcome). We demonstrate that the relative disparity metric is ethically important and also a controllable societal feature that can reduce absolute disparity in exposure. We illustrate a range of approaches to air pollution policy that go beyond traditional emission reductions to meaningfully address exposure disparities. These strategies should be at the center of the future US environmental policy.