November 28, 2023
Image credit: Spyros Lytras & DALL-E 3
11/29/2023
Research Article
For social interaction to be successful, two conditions must be met: the motivation to initiate it and the ability to maintain it. Karolina Rojek-Sito, Ewelina Knapska and co-workers use optogenetic and chemogenetic approaches to reveal the specific neural pathways that selectively influence those two social interaction components. Also read the accompanying Primer by Natália Madeira and Cristina Márquez.
Image credit: pbio.3002343
Current Issue October 2023
11/28/2023
Research Article
Human cognition and action can be influenced by internal bodily processes such as heartbeats. By studying motor excitability and muscle activity across the cardiac cycle of humans, Esra Al, Vadim Nikulin and colleagues reveal previously unknown heart-brain interactions that suggest distinct time windows optimized for either action or perception.
Image credit: pbio.3002393
11/20/2023
Research Article
Understanding how individual memories are reactivated during sleep is essential in understanding memory consolidation. Jing Liu, Tatia Lee, Xiaoqing Hu and co-workers show that during human slow-wave sleep, unobtrusively re-presenting memory reminders elicits fine-grained item-specific neural representations that support the formation of long-term memories.
Image credit: pbio.3002399
11/20/2023
Research Article
How do mother centrioles generate only a single daughter centriole? Zachary Wilmott, Alain Goriely and Jordan Raff show that Polo-like kinase 4 (PLK4), the master regulator of centriole biogenesis, may form a simple two-component Turing-system to allow it to break symmetry and form a single site for daughter centriole assembly.
Image credit: pbio.3002391
11/20/2023
Research Article
Juan Quintana, Neil Mabbott and co-authors show that chronic brain infection with African trypanosomes induces broad meningeal responses resulting in the development of ectopic lymphoid aggregates containing autoreactive B cells; myelin basic protein is one of the autoantigens detected by autoreactive B cells, consistent with the cortical demyelination observed in experimental infections.
Image credit: pbio.3002389
11/20/2023
Research Article
Fear responses to threat represent an essential survival instinct. While previous work has focused primarily on the forebrain and limbic system, Hyoseo Lee, Hannah Weinberg-Wolf, Hae-Lim Lee, Andrii Rudenko, In-Jung Kim and colleagues examine the midbrain visual circuitry, identifying specific molecular mechanisms underlying its organization and fear-related behavioral function.
Image credit: pbio.3002386
11/27/2023
Perspective
Circadian clocks are everywhere, yet we still have not translated the vast knowledge on the properties of circadian clocks into practical applications. Martha Merrow looks at the past, present and future of chronobiology.
Image credit: Pixabay user Gerd Altmann
11/22/2023
Formal Comment
This article challenges a Perspective by Allison Byrne that called for the adoption of compassionate collection practices. Also read this response from the Perspective author.
Image credit: Flickr user Virginia State Park
11/21/2023
Essay
Patrick Keeling and Yana Eglit provide a series of technical diagrams to aid with teaching and communication on the complexity and diversity of microbial eukaryotes.
Image credit: pbio.3002395
11/20/2023
Perspective
How many species are there on Earth? Projections have ranged from the millions to the trillions. John Wiens looks at how a 2011 PLOS Biology study transformed this field and what is still to be done to find a definitive answer.
Image credit: John Wiens
PLOS Biology is 20 and we are celebrating with a collection that contains articles that look back at landmark studies that we published, others that look past and future, and others discussing how publishing and open science have evolved and what is to come.
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This collection explores engineering strategies to help us adapt plants to a changing climate, including breeding techniques, genome engineering, synthetic biology and microbiome engineering.
The green collection explores biological solutions that could be applied to reduce CO2 emissions, get rid of non-degradable plastics, produce food in a sustainable manner or generate energy.
This collection explores potential solutions to mitigate the impacts of human activity on ocean ecosystems to minimize or reverse degradation.
To mark 200 years since the birth of Gregor Mendel, this collection looks back at the impact of his original research and asks how well it stands up to modern views on genetics.
December 2 - 6
Meet Senior Editor Ines Alvarez-Garcia (ialvarez-garcia@plos.org)
December 4 - 7
Meet Magazine Senior Editor Joanna Clarke (jclarke@plos.org)
December 12 - 15
Meet Senior Editor Roli Roberts (rroberts@plos.org)
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