Life sciences: genetics, neuroscience, ecology and molecular biology.
An umbrella review of temperate agroforestry found that more than 65% of assessments reported significantly positive effects on soil carbon and several measures of soil quality. But evidence for productivity and other benefits was more variable, and major gaps remain, including a lack of meta-analyses on cultural benefits.
In male mice, a high-fat diet broadly changed gene activity and largely eliminated the brain’s usual response to high blood sugar. The findings suggest that obesity can impair brain systems involved in detecting glucose.
In healthy adults, a subanesthetic dose of nitrous oxide changed how large brain networks were organized during a visual task. Weaker connections involving the insula, a region involved in integrating bodily and emotional signals, were associated with more unpleasant visual experiences.
A Zenodo article proposes that DNA carries three overlapping information layers: one that specifies amino acids, another that affects how quickly proteins are made and folded, and a third linked to molecular stability and helix shape. An analysis of five human genes found broad compositional patterns at sites where the code allows multiple DNA sequences, with BRCA1 as a reported exception.
Monkeys learned to link arbitrary visual patterns with movements of the left or right hand. As learning progressed, Purkinje cells in two cerebellar regions increasingly distinguished specific visual cue–hand combinations, with the visual cue becoming identifiable before the choice.
A whole-brain model of 90 anatomically connected regions produced a wider range of activity patterns when each region included interacting excitatory and inhibitory cell populations. The researchers also found that the brain’s modeled wiring helped produce fast gamma rhythms whose amplitude changed with slower rhythms.
A practitioner-designed, five-day course was associated with investigators using more science-based interviewing and interrogation tactics. After training, those tactics were linked to greater cooperation, information disclosure and admissions or confessions from suspects.
Maize varieties responded differently to beneficial soil fungi, but mixtures of varieties produced more biomass and captured more phosphorus than single-variety plantings. The results suggest that combining locally adapted maize mixtures with these fungi could support more sustainable production in sub-Saharan agroecological systems.
On a steep hillside in northwestern Benin, circular and rectangular honeycomb-shaped stone arrangements reduced runoff and soil loss compared with ordinary contour stone rows. When paired with reduced fertilizer doses, the circular layout was associated with 87.42% more sorghum grain yield than the standard stone-row treatment.
A study of threespine sticklebacks found that genes with different activity in freshwater fish were enriched for genetic variants previously linked to rapid adaptation. The variants were associated with tissue-specific processes including ion regulation in the gills and fatty acid metabolism in the brain.
A drone-based system combined images, soil readings and weather data to predict how crop stress might develop. In experiments, its irrigation decisions reduced predicted yield vulnerability by 46.6 and increased water-use efficiency by 41.1 compared with rule-based strategies.
A study of historic “Kolchedan amber” from the Iset River suggests that the fossil resin came from plants in the pine family, possibly related to the genus Pseudolarix. Infrared analysis also places it in a distinct and widespread type of Cretaceous resin found across Northern Eurasia.
A study of groundwater from 58 cities in São Paulo State, Brazil, found opportunistic bacteria carrying antibiotic-resistance, metal-tolerance and virulence genes. Five of the 66 isolates recovered were classified as resistant to multiple antibiotics.
A meta-analysis of 79 articles found that winter oilseed rape, also called winter canola, grown between main crops was associated with higher summer-crop yields, improved soil indicators and greater soil-carbon storage. Methane emissions fell, but nitrous oxide emissions rose; overall emissions were similar to fallow systems and lower than wheat-based rotations.
A computational model offers an explanation for how the brain plans sequences of actions without representing them only one step at a time. It reproduces several patterns seen in primate frontal cortex, including simultaneous activity for multiple plan elements and shared activity patterns during forward and backward tasks.
