An enclosed air-lift photobioreactor (ALPBR) is considered an efficient lab-scale bioreactor for microalgae cell growth and lipid biosynthesis. However, fluid-induced shear stress and mixing are two main factors that affect physiological metabolism in microalgal cell cultures. Herein, a 50-L ALPBR after being designed and manufactured was evaluated for microalgal suspension culture. Moreover, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was used to characterize the hydrodynamics of ALPBR. Specifically, two model microalgae species Chlorella vulgaris and Chlorella protothecoides...

Biological invasions are a major human induced global change that is threatening global biodiversity by homogenizing the world’s fauna and flora. Species spread because humans have moved species across geographic boundaries and have changed ecological factors that structure ecosystems, such as nitrogen deposition, disturbance, etc. Many biological invasions are caused accidentally, as a byproduct of human travel and commerce driven product shipping. However, humans also have spread many species intentionally because of perceived benefits. Of...

Episodic Neoproterozoic magmatic suites in the Altyn Tagh, NW China, are thought to be related break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent. These suites resulted from long-term extension of the lithosphere during orogenic collapse and subsequent rifting. New geochemical and U-Pb-Hf zircon data indicate that the 825 Ma Hongliugou granite displays the characteristics of A-type granites derived from a juvenile source. Gneissic granites (780–760 Ma) are characterized by high Rb (>200 × 10−6), low Zr/Hf (23.28–29.28) and...

In this interview, the psychologist and neuroscientist Olivia Carter (University of Melbourne, Australia) explains how she became interested in the field of consciousness. We discuss how her work on visual perception has led her to study the effect of psychedelics and how this has inspired a multidimensional model of consciousness. We discuss the potential contents of “higher” states of consciousness and argue that the existence of those is an unresolved question. We finish the exchange...

Many organisms use different anti-predator strategies throughout their life, but little is known about the reasons or implications of such changes. For years it has been suggested that selection by predators should favour uniformity in local warning signals. If this is the case, we would expect high resemblance in colour across life stages in aposematic animals where young and adults share similar morphology and habitat. In this study we used shield bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomoidea) to...

Objective: Determining the genetic basis of speech disorders provides insight into the neurobiology of human communication. Despite intensive investigation over the past two decades, the etiology of most children with speech disorder remains unexplained. Here we searched for a genetic etiology in children with severe speech disorder, specifically childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Methods: Precise phenotyping together with research genome or exome analysis were performed on children referred with a primary diagnosis of CAS, as...

Objective: We examined fatal and non-fatal Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) at 14 days within AVERT. Method: A prospective, parallel group, assessor blinded, randomized international clinical trial comparing very early intensive mobilization training (VEM) with usual care (UC); with follow up to 3 months. Included: Patients with ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke within 24 hours of onset and physiological parameters within set limits. Treatment with thrombolytics allowed. Excluded: Patients with severe premorbid disability and/or comorbidities. Interventions continued...

Many animals improve their foraging success by producing signals that exploit the sensory biases of potential prey, but the specific properties that make these sensory traps effective remain unclear. We combine field experiments with phylogenetic comparative analyses to investigate the visual luring properties of different signal designs in web‐building spiders. Our field experiments used cardboard spider models to examine the effects of area of colour patches, colour and pattern on the foraging success of the...

Direct exposure to natural disasters is associated with increased mental disorders. Help-seeking behaviour among Chinese adults is low and the barriers and facilitators of help-seeking among Chinese adults exposed to natural disasters is understudied. Using a person-centred approach, this study describes help-seeking preferences and their correlates in a sample of Chinese college students after experiencing Typhoon Hato, the strongest storm to affect Macao, China in the past 50 years. The baseline sample was collected one...

Juvenile population density has profound effects on subsequent adult development, morphology, and reproductive investment. Yet, little is known about how the juvenile social environment affects adult investment into chemical sexual signalling. Male gumleaf skeletonizer moths, Uraba lugens, facultatively increase investment into antennae (pheromone receiving structures) when reared at low juvenile population densities, but whether there is comparable adjustment by females into pheromone investment is not known. We investigate how juvenile population density influences the ‘calling’...

UPDATE: For documentation and to download Version 0.9.7 (09/11/2022) and for more information, see http://wiki.ruiac.org/doku.php

Sexual selection has been proposed to drive the evolution of elaborate phenotypic traits in males, which often confer success in competition or mating. However, in many species both males and females display such traits, although studies investigating selection acting in both sexes are scarce. In this study, we investigated whether plumage ornamentation is sexually selected in female and male lovely fairy-wrens Malurus amabilis, a cooperatively breeding songbird. We found that female and male plumage colour...

The Drosophila montium species group is a clade of 94 named species closely related to the model D. melanogaster species group. The montium species group is distributed over a broad geographic range throughout Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Species of this group possess a wide range of morphologies, mating behaviors, and endosymbiont associations, making this clade useful for comparative analyses. We use genomic data from 42 available species to estimate the phylogeny and relative divergence times...

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common cause of nosocomial diarrhea and can sometimes lead to pseudo-membranous colitis and toxic megacolon. We previously reported that the PCR ribotype 002 was a common C. difficile ribotype in Hong Kong that was associated with increased mortality. In this study, we assessed in vitro bacteriological characteristics and in vivo virulence of ribotype 002 compared to other common ribotypes, including ribotypes 012, 014 and 046. We observed significantly higher...

Assuming that fathers never transmit mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to their offspring, mitochondrial mutations that affect male fitness are invisible to direct selection on males, leading to an accumulation of male-harming alleles in the mitochondrial genome (mother’s curse). However, male phenotypes encoded by mtDNA can still undergo adaptation via kin selection provided that males interact with females carrying related mtDNA, such as their sisters. Here, using experiments with Drosophila melanogaster carrying standardised nuclear DNA but distinct...

Above-ground biomass in forests is critical to the global carbon cycle as it stores and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Climate change will disrupt the carbon cycle hence understanding how climate and other abiotic variables determine forest biomass at broad spatial scales is important for validating and constraining Earth System models and predicting the impacts of climate change on forest carbon stores. We examined the importance of climate and soil variables to explaining above-ground biomass...

The repeated evolution of convergent or analogous traits is often used as evidence for adaptive evolution. Squamate reptiles show a high degree of convergence in a variety of morphological traits; however, the evolutionary mechanisms driving these patterns are not fully understood. Here we investigate the evolution of tail spines, a trait that evolved multiple times in evolutionarily independent clades of lizards. Taking a comparative phylogenetic approach, we use 2877 squamate species to demonstrate that the...

Aim: To infer relationships between populations of the semi-arid, mallee eucalypt, Eucalyptus behriana, to build hypotheses regarding evolution of major disjunctions in the species’ distribution and to expand understanding of the biogeographical history of south-eastern Australia. Location: South-eastern Australia Taxon: Eucalyptus behriana (Myrtaceae, Angiospermae) Methods: We developed a large dataset of anonymous genomic loci for 97 samples from 11 populations of E. behriana using double digest restriction site associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD-seq), to determine genetic...

In this interview, the psychologist and neuroscientist Olivia Carter (University of Melbourne, Australia) explains how she became interested in the field of consciousness. We discuss how her work on visual perception has led her to study the effect of psychedelics and how this has inspired a multidimensional model of consciousness. We discuss the potential contents of “higher” states of consciousness and argue that the existence of those is an unresolved question. We finish the exchange...

A linking interface and database tool to ingest, record and link metadata associated with archival records of Indigenous song.

An enclosed air-lift photobioreactor (ALPBR) is considered an efficient lab-scale bioreactor for microalgae cell growth and lipid biosynthesis. However, fluid-induced shear stress and mixing are two main factors that affect physiological metabolism in microalgal cell cultures. Herein, a 50-L ALPBR after being designed and manufactured was evaluated for microalgal suspension culture. Moreover, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was used to characterize the hydrodynamics of ALPBR. Specifically, two model microalgae species Chlorella vulgaris and Chlorella protothecoides...

Episodic Neoproterozoic magmatic suites in the Altyn Tagh, NW China, are thought to be related break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent. These suites resulted from long-term extension of the lithosphere during orogenic collapse and subsequent rifting. New geochemical and U-Pb-Hf zircon data indicate that the 825 Ma Hongliugou granite displays the characteristics of A-type granites derived from a juvenile source. Gneissic granites (780–760 Ma) are characterized by high Rb (>200 × 10−6), low Zr/Hf (23.28–29.28) and...