December 4, 2018
Image credit: Flickr users Jocelyn & Brian Gratwicke
12/03/2018
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Sam Norman-Haignere and Josh McDermott use synthetic sounds engineered to produce the same response as natural sounds in a computational model of auditory cortex; these provide evidence of hierarchical computation.
Image credit: Flickr user Larry Ziffle
Current Issue November 2018
12/04/2018
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Andrew Brooks, Sambhawa Priya, Ran Blekhman and Seth Bordenstein show that the abundance and taxonomic composition of members of the gut microbiome are consistently different between ethnicities in American adults; these differences are reproducible across study populations, and could result from sociocultural, dietary and genetic factors, potentially mediating health disparities.
Image credit: pbio.2006842
12/05/2018
Primer
This Primer by Arno Müller discusses recent research showing that the midgut epithelium of the adult fruit fly differs dramatically from the canonical modes of epithelial cell polarity in main features of its cytoarchitecture and its molecular control mechanisms. Read the related Research Article.
Image credit: pbio.3000082
12/05/2018
Primer
What is the function of the Casparian strip, a plant structure first described in 1865? This Primer by Michael Palmgren explores the implications of a new study which reports that loss of the Casparian strip in root endodermis affects the ability of the plant to take up ammonium and allocate it to the shoots. Read the related Research Article.
Image credit: Robert Caspary
11/26/2018
Research Article
A comparison of Hox gene regulation during the development of limbs in birds and mammals, by Nayuta Yakushiji-Kaminatsui, Denis Duboule and colleagues, reveals that the bimodal regulatory system based on large chromatin domains is largely conserved, but there are some differences in the way this is implemented in these morphologically distinct structures.
Image credit: pbio.3000004
11/29/2018
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Christian Pfaller, Roberto Cattaneo and colleagues show that adenosine-to-inosine editing of dsRNA structures by ADAR1 prevents innate immunity activation by destabilising the duplexes; this mechanism favours infection, except when inaccurate viral replication generates large amounts of duplex RNA.
Image credit: Christian Pfaller
11/27/2018
METHODS AND RESOURCES
Comprehensive genome-wide CRISPR screens for resistance to Shiga toxins and Ricin reveal novel Golgi proteins critical for glycolipid synthesis and regulation of glycosylation levels.
Image credit: pbio.2006951
11/27/2018
Primer
This Primer explores a new study that connects viral DNA-looping and transcription of human papillomavirus oncogenes at different stages of the viral life cycle. Read the related Research Article.
Image credit: pbio.2005752 & RCSB PDB
11/26/2018
Community Page
This Community Page article describes how the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative offers an unprecedented opportunity for the development and application of new technologies to enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain.
Image credit: pbio.1002209
11/20/2018
RESEARCH ARTICLE
New approaches to measuring the complexity of acoustic, behavioural, and colour ornaments reveal correlated evolution of signals in birds-of-paradise, suggesting functional integration of ornamental traits into a composite unit.
Image credit: Tim Laman
On the eve of the UN General Assembly meeting on TB, Christoph Grundner urged the need to consider basic research as an essential component of any future anti-TB strategy.
Norman Pace remembers the early days of what became known as "metagenomics," as experienced by the author during his development as a scientist.
Rodrigo Almeida argues that considering the social context of emerging plant diseases and effective science communication are essential for the management epidemics.
Oswald Schmitz suggests that studying how species produce ecological functions can be like watching jazz musicians improvise as they respond and adapt to one another to create their music.
Meta-research may not be as click-worthy as a meta-pug – a pug dog dressed up in a pug costume – but it is crucial to understanding research, says Lisa Bero in this Research Matters article.
Meet Managing Editor Hashi Wijayatilake in San Diego, CA.
December 8-12, 2018
Meet Senior Editor Ines Alvarez-Garcia in Roscoff, France.
November 19-23, 2018
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