Estimates of carbon flux to the deep oceans are essential for our understanding of global carbon budgets. Sinking of detrital material (“biological pump”) is usually thought to be the main biological component of this flux. Here, we identify an additional biological mechanism, the seasonal “lipid pump,” which is highly efficient...

Decades of research demonstrate that roads impact wildlife and suggest traffic noise as a primary cause of population declines near roads. We created a “phantom road” using an array of speakers to apply traffic noise to a roadless landscape, directly testing the effect of noise alone on an entire songbird...

Chemical cues regulate key ecological interactions in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. They are particularly important in terrestrial plant–herbivore interactions, where they mediate both herbivore foraging and plant defense. Although well described for terrestrial interactions, the identity and ecological importance of herbivore foraging cues in marine ecosystems remain unknown. Here we...

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts)—communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria, and heterotrophs living at the soil surface—are fundamental components of drylands worldwide, and destruction of biocrusts dramatically alters biogeochemical processes, hydrology, surface energy balance, and vegetation cover. Although there has been long-standing concern over impacts of physical disturbances on biocrusts (e.g., trampling...

Light-induced material phase transitions enable the formation of shapes and patterns from the nano- to the macroscale. From lithographic techniques that enable high-density silicon circuit integration, to laser cutting and welding, light–matter interactions are pervasive in everyday materials fabrication and transformation. These noncontact patterning techniques are ideally suited to reshape...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is a potent neurotoxin that is biomagnified approximately 1–10 million-fold in aquatic carnivores such as the Northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris), whose excreta and molted pelage, in turn, constitute a source of environmental MeHg contamination at the base of marine food chains. The potential for this top-down contamination...

Point centromeres are specified by a short consensus sequence that seeds kinetochore formation, whereas regional centromeres lack a conserved sequence and instead are epigenetically inherited. Regional centromeres are generally flanked by heterochromatin that ensures high levels of cohesin and promotes faithful chromosome segregation. However, it is not known whether regional...

B cells respond to antigens by engagement of their B-cell antigen receptor (BCR) and of coreceptors through which signals from helper T cells or pathogen-associated molecular patterns are delivered. We show that the proliferative response of B cells to the latter stimuli is controlled by BCR-dependent activation of phosphoinositidyl 3-kinase...

T lymphocytes are highly motile cells that decelerate upon antigen recognition. These cells can either completely stop or maintain a low level of motility, forming contacts referred to as synapses or kinapses, respectively. Whether similar or distinct molecular mechanisms regulate T-cell deceleration during synapses or kinapses is unclear. Here, we...

Advances in protein therapy are hindered by the poor stability, inadequate pharmacokinetic (PK) profiles, and immunogenicity of many therapeutic proteins. Polyethylene glycol conjugation (PEGylation) is the most successful strategy to date to overcome these shortcomings, and more than 10 PEGylated proteins have been brought to market. However, anti-PEG antibodies induced...

It is unclear how physical activity stimulates new bone synthesis. We explored whether irisin, a newly discovered myokine released upon physical activity, displays anabolic actions on the skeleton. Young male mice were injected with vehicle or recombinant irisin (r-irisin) at a low cumulative weekly dose of 100 µg kg−1. We...

Pathologic ocular neovascularization commonly causes blindness. It is critical to identify the factors altered in pathologically proliferating versus normally quiescent vessels to develop effective targeted therapeutics. MicroRNAs regulate both physiological and pathological angiogenesis through modulating expression of gene targets at the posttranscriptional level. However, it is not completely understood if...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder caused by a point mutation in the β-globin gene, leading to the production of abnormally shaped red blood cells. Sickle cells are prone to hemolysis and thereby release free heme into plasma, causing oxidative stress and inflammation that in turn result in...

There is a great demand for precisely quantitating the expression of genes of interest in synthetic and systems biotechnology as new and fascinating insights into the genetics of streptomycetes have come to light. Here, we developed, for the first time to our knowledge, a quantitative method based on flow cytometry...

Whether seeing a movie, listening to a song, or feeling a breeze on the skin, we coherently experience these stimuli as continuous, seamless percepts. However, there are rare perceptual phenomena that argue against continuous perception but, instead, suggest discrete processing of sensory input. Empirical evidence supporting such a discrete mechanism,...

Use-dependent movement therapies can lead to partial recovery of motor function after neurological injury. We attempted to improve recovery by developing a neuroprosthetic intervention that enhances movement therapy by directing spike timing-dependent plasticity in spared motor pathways. Using a recurrent neural–computer interface in rats with a cervical contusion of the...

The timing of cortical neurogenesis has a major effect on the size and organization of the mature cortex. The deletion of the LIM-homeodomain transcription factor Lhx2 in cortical progenitors by Nestin-cre leads to a dramatically smaller cortex. Here we report that Lhx2 regulates the cortex size by maintaining the cortical...

We show that hard, convex, lithographic, prismatic kite platelets, each having three 72° vertices and one 144° vertex, preferentially form a disordered and arrested 2D glass when concentrated quasi-statically in a monolayer while experiencing thermal Brownian fluctuations. By contrast with 2D systems of other hard convex shapes, such as squares,...

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated degradation (ERAD) is an essential part of an ER-localized protein quality-control system for eliminating terminally misfolded proteins. Recent studies have demonstrated that the ERAD machinery is conserved among yeast, animals, and plants; however, it remains unknown if the plant ERAD system involves plant-specific components. Here we report...

Growing plant cells need to rigorously coordinate external signals with internal processes. For instance, the maintenance of cell wall (CW) integrity requires the coordination of CW sensing with CW remodeling and biosynthesis to avoid growth arrest or integrity loss. Despite the involvement of receptor-like kinases (RLKs) of the Catharanthus roseus...