The Mesoproterozoic is an important era for the development of eukaryotic organisms in oceans. The earliest unambiguous eukaryotic microfossils are reported in late Paleoproterozoic shales from China and Australia. During the Mesoproterozoic, eukaryotes diversified in taxonomy, metabolism and ecology, with the advent of eukaryotic photosynthesis, osmotrophy, multicellularity, and predation. Despite these biological innovations, their fossil record is scarce before the late Mesoproterozoic. Here, we document an assemblage of organic-walled microfossils from the 1590-1270 Ma Dismal...

Songbirds learn their vocalizations during developmental sensitive periods of song memorization and sensorimotor learning. Some seasonal songbirds, called open-ended learners, recapitulate transitions from sensorimotor learning and song crystallization on a seasonal basis during adulthood. In adult male canaries, sensorimotor learning occurs each year in autumn and leads to modifications of the syllable repertoire during successive breeding seasons. We previously showed that perineuronal nets (PNN) expression in song control nuclei decreases during this sensorimotor learning period....

In the last decade, High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS) has revolutionized biology and medicine. This technology allows the sequencing of huge amount of DNA and RNA fragments at a very low price. In medicine, HTS tests for disease diagnostics are already brought into routine practice. However, the adoption in plant health diagnostics is still limited. One of the main bottlenecks is the lack of expertise and consensus on the standardization of the data analysis. The Plant Health...