Speciation analysis of fungi by liquid atmospheric pressure MALDI mass spectrometry.

Fungal pathogens pose a growing threat to global health, necessitating rapid and accurate identification methods. Here, liquid atmospheric pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation (LAP-MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS) is applied to fast lipid and protein profiling of Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae from cultured colonies. Species-specific lipid profiles were observed in the m/z 600-1100 range, dominated by phospholipids as confirmed by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS).

The Greatest Extinction Event in 66 Million Years? Contextualising Anthropogenic Extinctions.

Biological communities are changing rapidly in response to human activities, with the high rate of vertebrate species extinction leading many to propose that we are in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event. Five past mass extinction events have commonly been identified across the Phanerozoic, with the last occurring at the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago (Ma). However, life on Earth has always changed and evolved, with most species ever to have existed now extinct.

Investigating sex differences in developmental origins of adolescent depression.

Introduction: Evolutionary hypotheses propose that fetuses show "predictive adaptive" responses to the prenatal environment based on likely continuity with the postnatal environment, and males and females have different adaptive priorities. Female adaptations appear to implicate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis mechanisms moderated by early tactile stimulation. Based on these hypotheses we predict that lack of prenatal-postnatal environmental continuity (mismatch), will be associated with poorer outcomes in females, an effect that will be ameliorated by tactile stimulation.

Hominin glacial-stage occupation 712,000 to 424,000 years ago at Fordwich Pit, Old Park (Canterbury, UK).

Few high-latitude archaeological contexts are older than marine isotope stage (MIS) 15 and even fewer provide evidence of early human occupation during a glacial period. New discoveries at Old Park, Canterbury (UK), provide evidence of both the oldest accessible artefact-bearing sediment in northern Europe and cold-stage adaptation. Radiometric and palaeomagnetic dating places the earliest suggested occupation of this site between 773 thousand years ago (ka) and 607 ka, with hominin presence inferred during MIS 17-16.

Navigating image space.

Navigation means getting from here to there. Unfortunately, for biological navigation, there is no agreed definition of what we might mean by 'here' or 'there'. Computer vision ('Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping', SLAM) uses a 3D world-based coordinate frame but that is a poor model for biological spatial representation.

Gaze-Contingent Musical Attentional Bias Modification: Exploring Feasibility and Clinically-Relevant Changes in Mood.

Attentional bias modification (ABM) is cost-effective, accessible, and could meet the increasing demand for mental-health treatment. However, ABM paradigms that reliably modify attentional biases (AB) and symptoms are still required. Consequently, we examined the feasibility of a novel ABM intervention (gaze-contingent consonant and dissonant music heard when looking at positive and negative faces, respectively).

Trait mediation explains decadal distributional shifts for a wide range of insect taxa.

Shifts in insect distributions have been reported globally, largely attributed to climate and landscape changes. Communities are being reshaped, with species response traits mediating the effects of changing environments. Using a machine-learning approach we model 1252 insect occupancies across three decades in Great Britain.

Lithium solvation and anion-dominated domain structure in water-in-salt electrolytes.

Water-in-Salt (WiS) electrolytes are an emerging class of high concentration aqueous electrolytes with large electrochemical stability windows, making them attractive as green alternatives in next-generation electrochemical energy storage devices. Recent work has highlighted the existence of water-rich and anion-rich domains in WiS electrolytes, but the extent, morphology and importance of these domains are still disputed. Here, we present neutron total scattering measurements of the archetypal WiS, lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, and use empirical potential structure refinement to match the structure of a simulated system to the experimental data for two technologically relevant concentrations, revealing ion solvation, geometric isomerism and long-range structures in unprecedented detail.

Evolution, Complexity, and Life History Theory.

In this article, we revisit the longstanding debate of whether there is a pattern in the evolution of organisms towards greater complexity, and how this hypothesis could be tested using an interdisciplinary lens. We argue that this debate remains alive today due to the lack of a quantitative measure of complexity that is related to the teleonomic (i.e.

Robust impact of tropical Pacific SST trends on global and regional circulation in boreal winter.

Evidence has emerged of a discrepancy in tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) trends over the satellite era, where most coupled climate models struggle to simulate the observed La Niña-like SST trends. Here we highlight wider implications of the tropical Pacific SST trend discrepancy for global circulation trends during boreal winter, using two complementary methods to constrain coupled model SST trends: conditioning near-term climate prediction (hindcast) simulations, and pacemaking coupled climate simulations. The robust circulation trend response to constraining the tropical Pacific SST trend resembles the interannual La Niña response.

Investigating the relationship between gut microbiota and electrocortical signatures of feedback processing: an ERP study.

Rationale: Evaluative processing of action outcome is considered crucial for learning and adaptive adjustments of behaviour. Feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential elicited by feedback presentation, with implicated neural sources in the anterior cingulate cortex. Bidirectional communications within the brain-gut-microbiota axis modulate cognition and behaviour, and microbial composition has been associated with medial prefrontal cortex function and clinical risk for depression.

Recyclable Base-Triggered "Debond-on-Demand" Aliphatic Polyurethane Adhesives: Engineering Adhesion for Use in Inkjet Formulations.

While strong polymeric adhesives are widely valued, their removal can present a significant challenge where substrate recycling is concerned. Recent advancements in "debond-on-demand" adhesives have shown promising enhancements in adhesive strength and debondability. However, they often face a choice between increased adhesive strength or the rate and degree of debonding.

Human dexterity and brains evolved hand in hand.

Large brains and dexterous hands are considered pivotal in human evolution, together making possible technology, culture and colonisation of diverse environments. Despite suggestions that hands and brains coevolved, evidence remains circumstantial. Here, we reveal a significant relationship between relatively longer thumbs - a key feature of precision grasping - and larger brains across 95 fossil and extant primates using Bayesian phylogenetic methods.

Utilization of Immersive Virtual Reality in Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (IVR-CST) for elderly with mild cognitive impairment: A randomized controlled pilot study protocol.

Objectives: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects about 11.4% of the elderly population in Hong Kong. This study mainly investigates the feasibility and efficacy of immersive virtual reality-based cognitive stimulation therapy (IVR-CST) on MCI, and the use of eye-tracking technology in studying treatment outcome.

Stable isotope analysis of ectoparasites as a tool for understanding trophic interactions with mammalian hosts.

Climate change is expected to expand the geographic ranges of ectoparasites, increasing the transmission of vector-borne diseases and necessitating a better understanding of ectoparasite-host trophic dynamics. Haematophagous ectoparasites can serve as valuable subsamples of their hosts, retaining isotopic values that reflect dietary information in both their blood meals and tissues. However, differences in the life histories and feeding strategies of lice, fleas and ticks may influence how host isotopic composition is preserved.

Elevated autistic features in Parkinson's disease and other motor disorders.

Biological accounts have suggested an overlap between Parkinson's disease and autism despite their being studied largely at opposite ends of the life course. Characterising this overlap can identify potentially shared aetiologies and care pathways for these conditions. However, this overlap has so far only been tested in older autistic adults who show greater Parkinson's disease traits.

Neural correlates of human fear conditioning and sources of variability in 2199 individuals.

Pavlovian fear conditioning is a fundamental process in both health and disease. We investigate its neural correlates and sources of variability using harmonized functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 2199 individuals across nine countries, including 1888 healthy individuals and 311 with anxiety-related or depressive disorders. Using mega-analysis and normative modeling, we show that fear conditioning consistently engages brain regions within the "central autonomic-interoceptive" or "salience" network.

Stress response variability can cause up to 3-fold increase in the thermal resistance of Salmonella strains.

The variability in the bacterial stress response has received plenty of attention during the last years, partly due to its relevance to microbial risk assessment. Although the microbial response is affected by numerous variability sources, previous studies focused mostly on strain variability (inherent differences between strains of the same bacterial species) under optimal growth conditions. Here, we analyze a variability source relatively unexplored within microbial risk assessment: stress response variability.

Acute cannabidiol (CBD), tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and their mixture (THC:CBD) exert differential effects on brain activity and blood flow in rats: A translational neuroimaging study.

Background: Cannabis constituents, including Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), show distinct pharmacological profiles with therapeutic relevance for neurological and psychiatric conditions. THC exerts euphoric effects primarily via CB1 receptor activation, while CBD displays non-euphoric properties affecting various pathways.

Aims: This study evaluated the effects of THC, CBD, and their combination on brain functional connectivity (FC) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) using multimodal neuroimaging.

Systematic biases over the equatorial Indian Ocean and their influence on seasonal forecasts of the IOD.

Accurate seasonal prediction of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is crucial given its socioeconomic impacts on countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. Using hindcasts from the Met Office Global Seasonal Forecasting System (GloSea6), coupled mean-state biases in the western and eastern equatorial Indian Ocean (WEIO and EEIO) and their impacts on IOD prediction are examined. Results show that GloSea6 exhibits a pronounced cold bias in the EEIO that rapidly develops after the monsoon onset in boreal summer (JJA, July-August) and persists into autumn (SON, September-November).

Typical Perceptual Sensitivity to Changes in Interpersonal Distance in Developmental Prosopagnosia.

Social perception research has traditionally sought to elucidate the visual processing engaged by the faces and bodies of individuals. Recently, however, there has been growing interest in how we perceive dyadic interactions between people. Early findings suggest that dyads arranged face-to-face may engage neurocognitive processing similar to that recruited by faces.

Effects of protein source and seaweed supplementation on mineral intake, milk mineral concentrations, and iodine transfer efficiency from feed to milk in lactating dairy cows.

The objective of this experiment was to study the effects of protein source and seaweed supplementation on intake, milk concentration, and transfer efficiency of minerals from feed to cow milk. Twelve multiparous Nordic Red cows were used in a cyclic change-over study with a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments. The cows were divided into block 1 (DIM 151 ± 12.

New Models for Risk-Adjusted Monitoring of Postsurgical Complications and Mortality in Adult Congenital Heart Disease in England and Wales.

Background: Routine monitoring of surgical outcomes can improve service quality. Risk-adjusted monitoring tools for adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) in England and Wales are lacking.

Methods: Using national audit data of all adult CHD surgical procedures in public hospitals from 2015 to 2022, we developed logistic regression models for mortality at 30 days and 90 days and a 30-day complications outcome.

Rapid and accurate biological sex estimation by LAP-MALDI MS analysis of child teeth.

We recently introduced a new rapid workflow for biological sex estimation of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites based on LAP-MALDI MS and MS/MS analysis of amelogenin peptides extracted from tooth enamel. With this workflow, a simple classification rule for biological sex estimation was established using panels of MS and MS/MS ion signals. Importantly, the employed LAP-MALDI analysis required only a single 1 μL sample droplet and no further peptide separation.