Agronomic solutions to decrease arsenic concentrations in rice.

Rice plants accumulate arsenic (As), a toxic metalloid found both naturally and as a form of anthropogenic pollution in rice fields. Arsenic concentrations in rice grain may pose human health risks, particularly when consumed regularly or used in food products for infants and young children. The purpose of this review is to summarize evidence-based mitigation strategies for minimizing the As content of rice and establish recommendations for their implementation.

Comparative Study of the Bending Free Energies of C- and G-Based DNA: A-, B-, and Z-DNA and Associated Mismatched Trinucleotide Repeats.

DNA's structural flexibility plays a crucial role in various biological functions such as gene replication, repair, and regulation as well as DNA-protein recognition. We investigate the bending free energy of short DNA helices, including d(5'-(CG)C-3') in A-, B-, and Z-forms, and C- and G-rich trinucleotide repeat helices, using orientation quaternions with enhanced sampling methods. The orientation quaternion technique provides an effective method to induce rotational transformations or to restrain the orientation of certain domains of biomolecular systems.

Every Hue Has Its Fan Club: Diverse Patterns of Color-Dependent Flower Visitation across Lepidoptera.

Floral color plays a critical role in shaping plant-pollinator interactions, yet the extent to which lepidopteran flower visitation is color-dependent remains underexplored. Using over 8,000 community-science observations from the southwestern Ozarks, central United States, from 2002-2024, we assessed whether butterflies and moths visit flowers randomly or according to color preferences, and how these preferences vary across taxa. Our results reveal that flower visitation by Lepidoptera is both flower color-dependent and Lepidoptera taxon-specific.

A Multilevel Latent Class Analysis of Adolescent Engagement in Interpersonal Violence: The Role of Stressful Life Events, School Climate, and School Characteristics.

Objective: Little is known about the role of school-level factors in adolescent violence. Using multilevel latent class analysis, we identified groups of adolescents and schools based on adolescent involvement in violent behaviors and assessed how these group memberships differed by individual and school characteristics.

Method: We used baseline data from a randomized controlled trial of a school-based violence prevention program.

Narratives or not? Examining the roles of message format and individuals' stages of change in the context of HPV vaccination promotion.

Narrative persuasion has been widely used in health communication campaigns and persuasive message design. However, several meta-analyses showed that the relative effectiveness of narratives in promoting behavior change was not consistently observed in the existing literature. With the goal of exploring boundary conditions of narrative effects, this study investigates the interaction effects of narrative persuasion and stages of change on promoting behavior change in the context of encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against human papillomavirus (HPV).

Diversification of cnidarian mechanosensory neurons across life cycle phases: evidence from Hydrozoa.

Over the course of more than half a billion years of independent evolution, cnidarians (e.g., sea anemones, corals and jellyfishes) have evolved diverse, multicellular, mechanosensory structures ranging from tentacles of hydroids to gravity-sensors of moon jellyfish.

A dual-fluorescence assay for gene delivery vehicle screening in macrophages with an inflammation-inducible reporter construct.

Background: Macrophages are a promising target for therapeutics in various applications such as regenerative medicine and immunotherapy for cancer. Due to their plastic nature, macrophages can switch from a non-activated state to activated with the smallest environmental change. For macrophages to be effective in their respective applications, screening for phenotypic changes is necessary to elucidate the cell response to different delivery vehicles, vaccines, small molecules, and other stimuli.

A Colorimetric Biosensor Integrating Rotifer-Mimicking Magnetic Separation with RAA/CRISPR-Cas12a for Rapid and Sensitive Detection of .

Efficient detection of foodborne bacteria is crucial for ensuring food safety, yet current methods often fall short in balancing speed, accuracy, sensitivity, and cost. This study presents an integrated biosensing platform for the rapid and sensitive detection of in large-volume food samples. The platform incorporates a Rotifer-Mimicking Magnetic Separator (RMMS) that enhances the sample pretreatment by effectively mixing and isolating the bacteria from the sample.

Do we need a standardized 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing analysis protocol for poultry microbiota research?

Bacteria are the major component of poultry gastrointestinal tract (GIT) microbiota and play an important role in host health, nutrition, physiology regulation, intestinal development, and growth. Bacterial community profiling based on the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene amplicon sequencing approach has become the most popular method to determine the taxonomic composition and diversity of the poultry microbiota. The 16S rRNA gene profiling involves numerous steps, including sample collection and storage, DNA isolation, 16S rRNA gene primer selection, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), library preparation, sequencing, raw sequencing reads processing, taxonomic classification, α- and β-diversity calculations, and statistical analysis.

Acoustofluidics-Based Intracellular Nanoparticle Delivery.

Controlled intracellular delivery of biomolecular cargo is critical for developing targeted therapeutics and cell reprogramming. Conventional delivery approaches (e.g.

Feasibility of applying Bacillus amyloliquefaciens-derived solid state fermentation products into the hatch cabinet environment as a method to mitigate the microbial bloom during the hatching phase.

Formaldehyde has been used to control microbial contamination in commercial hatch cabinets. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of spray application of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens solid state fermentation products on the microbial load in the hatch cabinet, pioneer colonization of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), and early performance compared to formaldehyde fumigation. An environmental challenge model was used to simulate the microbial bloom to compare the application of two B.

Wearable Photonic Device for Multiple Biomarker Sampling and Detection without Blood Draws.

Needle-based blood draws or phlebotomy practice in clinics for centuries, often causing pain, discomfort, and inconvenience. Here, a wearable photonic device is presented by integrating a microlens array (MLA) and an optic microneedle array (OMNA) functionalized with immunobinding for safe and needle-free biomarker sampling and detection. The MLA-integrated OMNA amplifies and transmits LED light at 595 nm into skin through the OMNA, bypassing the light-absorbing melanin in the epidermal layer, and evenly distributing it in the capillary-enriched dermis independent of the skin colors.

Genome wide association study of Fusarium wilt resistance in Spinacia turkestanica.

Fusarium wilt of spinach, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae (Fos), leads to substantial losses in spinach (Spinacia oleracea) seed production in the only region of the USA suitable for growing spinach seed crops, the maritime Pacific Northwest.

Heterogeneous Condensation on Simplified Viral Envelope Protein Structures.

Elucidating the mechanisms of heterogeneous condensation on viral and bacterial envelopes is crucial for understanding biothreat transport phenomena and optimizing capture efficiency in condensation-based detection devices. We investigate the impact of viral envelope geometric parameters [e.g.

Unique physiological and regulatory activity drives divergent toxin and non-toxin gene expression in rattlesnake accessory venom glands.

Understanding the mechanisms by which organs and tissues evolve new physiological functions is central to understanding the evolution of novelty. This is particularly interesting in the context of related tissues that evolve specialized, yet complementary, functions. Snake venom glands are an attractive system to test hypotheses related to the evolution and specialization of novel physiological function, as these modified salivary glands have evolved over ∼60 MY to synthesize and store venom.

Comprehensive Insights into the Cholesterol-Mediated Modulation of Membrane Function through Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

Cholesterol plays an essential role in biological membranes and is crucial for maintaining their stability and functionality. It is necessary for a variety of membranes, including planar bilayers, liposomes, curved bilayers, nanodiscs, and proteoliposomes. Cholesterol regulates membrane properties by influencing the density of lipids, phase separation into liquid-ordered (Lo) and liquid-disordered (Ld) areas, and stability of protein-membrane interactions.

A Novel in an Bat from Nairobi, Kenya.

Most human emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, originating in animal hosts prior to spillover to humans. Prioritizing the surveillance of wildlife that overlaps with humans and human activities can increase the likelihood of detecting viruses with a high potential for human infection. Here, we obtained fecal swabs from two fruit bat species- ( = 6) and ( = 43) (family Pteropodidae)-in peridomestic habitats in Nairobi, Kenya, and used metagenome sequencing to detect microorganisms.

The Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin Mediates -Induced Chicken Necrotic Enteritis Attenuated by Secondary Bile Acid Deoxycholic Acid.

is a prevalent gut bacterial pathogen in humans and animals. This study investigated the role of the mechanistic targets of rapamycin (mTOR) and deoxycholic acid (DCA) on intestinal infection. Chickens were sequentially infected with and received the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin and DCA.

Transient Thermal Energy Harvesting at a Single Temperature Using Nonlinearity.

The authors present an in-depth theoretical study of two nonlinear circuits capable of transient thermal energy harvesting at one temperature. The first circuit has a storage capacitor and diode connected in series. The second circuit has three storage capacitors, and two diodes arranged for full wave rectification.

Effects of Citric Acid, Synbiotic, and Probiotic Supplementation Through Drinking Water on Growth Performance, Carcass Yield, and Blood Biochemistry of Broiler Chickens.

A study was undertaken to investigate the effects of non-antibiotic additives-citric acid, synbiotics, and probiotics-administered through drinking water on broiler growth performance, carcass characteristics, and blood biochemical profiles. A total of 400 one-day-old Cobb 500 broiler chicks were randomly divided into four treatment groups: Control; no additives administered (CON); Citric acid @2.5 g/L water (CA); Synbiotic @0.

Effectiveness of sanitizers on different biofilm-forming microorganisms associated with the poultry drinking water system.

The sanitation of the poultry drinking water system (DWS) is essential to controlling pathogens and biofilms in the DWS. Intervention approaches including several sanitizers have been developed, but there is limited information on the efficacy of some of these sanitizers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of peracid-based (PAB), peroxide-based (PB), and hypochlorite-based (HB) sanitizers against field-isolated Salmonella (10), E.

Evaluation of the incremental effect of fasting length on pH, select cecal microbial groups, cecal volatile fatty acid concentrations, and secretory IgA excretion in roosters.

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of incremental fasting time on the gastrointestinal tract in chickens. Adult White Leghorn roosters with intact ceca were provided a nutrient-adequate corn-soybean meal diet ad libitum for 3 weeks. Prior to initiation of the experimental phase, ad libitum feed intake was recorded for 8 h and immediately after the fasting period commenced.

Morphogenesis of spin cycloids in a noncollinear antiferromagnet.

Pattern formation in spin systems with continuous-rotational symmetry (CRS) provides a powerful platform to study emergent complex magnetic phases and topological defects in condensed-matter physics. However, its understanding and correlation with unconventional magnetic order along with high-resolution nanoscale imaging are challenging. Here, we employ scanning nitrogen vacancy (NV) magnetometry to unveil the morphogenesis of spin cycloids at both the local and global scales within a single ferroelectric domain of (111)-oriented BiFeO, which is a noncollinear antiferromagnet, resulting in formation of a glassy labyrinthine pattern.

Selection for Improved Water Efficiency in Broiler Breeder Lines Does Not Negatively Impact Immune Response Capabilities to Gram and Gram Bacterial Components and a Killed- Enteritidis Vaccine.

Selection for water consumption could impact broiler breeders' immune capabilities. To assess these impacts of selection based on the water conversion ratio (WCR), three trials were conducted using broiler breeders from the modern random bred (MRB), low (L)WCR, and high (H)WCR lines. Ten- to 11-week-old male broilers received intradermal (i.