Browse Articles

Natural selection shapes the evolution of all organisms, and one question of interest is whether natural selection will reach a "stopping point": a stable, ideal, value for any particular trait. Madhan and Kanagavel tackle this question by building a computer simulation of trait evolution in organisms.

Berberine is a natural quaternary alkaloid that has anti-microbial and anti-cancer effects. This compound can bind to Guanine Quadruplex (G4) DNA secondary complexes to help inhibit cancer cell proliferation. In this study, the authors investigate whether incorporating large aromatic rings helps to stabilize berberine-G4 interactions.

Here, seeking to develop an understanding of the properties that determine the viability of piezoelectric flexible materials for applications in electro-mechanical sensors, the authors investigated the effects of the inclusion BaTiO₃ nanoparticles in electrospun Polyvinyledene Fluoride. They found the voltage generated had a piecewise linear dependence on the applied force at a few temperatures.

In this study, the authors investigate whether phototaxis and odortaxis in Drosophila melanogaster occurs through linear summation of cues including light and attractive odorants.

Here the authors investigated the motivation of a short squeeze of GameStop stock where users of the internet forum Reddit drove a sudden increase in GameStop stock price during the start of 2021. They relied on both qualitative and quantitative analyses where they tracked activity on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit in relation to mentions of GameStop. With these methods they found that while initially the short squeeze was driven by financial motivations, later on emotional motivations became more important. They suggest that social phenomena can be dynamic and evolve necessitating mixed method approaches to study them.

With monitoring of climate change and the evolving properties of the atmosphere more critical than ever, the authors of this study take sea salt aerosols into consideration. These sea salt aerosols, sourced from the bubbles found at the surface of the sea, serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and are effective for the formation of clouds, light scattering in the atmosphere, and cooling of the climate. With amines being involved in the process of CCN formation, the authors explore the effects of alkylamines on the properties of sea salt aerosols and their potential relevance to climate change.

In this study, the authors investigated the time-dependent cytokine secretion ability of phyto-hemagglutinin (PHA)-activated T cells derived from human peripheral (PB) and cord blood (CB). They hypothesized that the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-10, and pro-inflammatory cytokine, TNFα, levels would be higher in PHA-activated T cells obtained from PB as compared to the levels obtained from CB and would decrease over time. Upon PHA-activation, the IL-10 levels were relatively high while the TNFα levels decreased, making these findings applicable in therapeutic treatments e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and organ transplantation.

Cell segmentation is the task of identifying cell nuclei instances in fluorescence microscopy images. The goal of this paper is to benchmark the performance of representative deep learning techniques for cell nuclei segmentation using standard datasets and common evaluation criteria. This research establishes an important baseline for cell nuclei segmentation, enabling researchers to continually refine and deploy neural models for real-world clinical applications.

Here, the authors characterize how silver ions nucleate a star-block copolymer to generate nano-sized silver particles.

Numerous organisms, including the marine bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri, produce light. This bioluminescence is involved in many important symbioses and may one day be an important source of light for humans. In this study, the authors investigated ways to increase bioluminescence production from the model organism E. coli.