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This article argues that the growing variety of new journalistic organizations and their diversification beyond the traditional newsroom may offer a deeper and broader understanding of change and innovation within journalism. Newly emerging organizations play a multifaceted role in journalism: They are both drivers and results of change; they serve as indicators of the ways in which the structures of journalism and its production processes are evolving; they reveal industry trends early on and enable longitudinal research. Despite the emergence of non-traditional organizations in journalism, existing studies on these new entities remain fragmented and have yet to coalesce into a sustained research program. Against this background, this conceptual article aims to contribute to the ongoing theoretical progress in journalism studies in three ways. First, it identifies key factors of why organizational innovations happen. Second, it systemizes recent studies exemplifying the plurality of new organizations in journalism according to different levels from organization studies, including the field level, the level of organizational populations, and the level of the single organization. Finally, the article proposes a research agenda for establishing “organizations as innovations” as a novel conceptual lens for understanding change and innovation in journalism studies.

[EN] City centers experience higher temperatures than surrounding suburban and rural areas due to the urban heat island effect (UHI) (Oke, 1988). Previous studies have observed localized hot and cool spots, large intra-urban temperature differences, and variations of UHI intensity within the city's boundaries (Buyantuyev and Wu, 2010; Heusinkveld et al., 2014). These variations are directly linked to various urban factors, such as land cover, surface characteristics, building size and shape, material properties, anthropogenic heat generated from vehicles, building systems, and industrial activities (Smithers et al., 2018). The primary cause of UHI is the modification in the surface energy balance due to changes in land cover types in urban areas (Oke, 1973). Coupled with climate change, UHI poses a serious threat to the quality of life of the population in urban areas (Iungman et al., 2023). Thus, implementing effective urban heat mitigation strategies is essential for to promote the adaptive capacity of our cities (Pauleit et al., 2020).

The maize root system has been reshaped by indirect selection during global adaptation to new agricultural environments. In this study, we characterized the root systems of more than 9,000 global maize accessions and its wild relatives, defining the geographical signature and genomic basis of variation in seminal root number. We demonstrate that seminal root number has increased during maize domestication followed by a decrease in response to limited water availability in locally adapted varieties. By combining environmental and phenotypic association analyses with linkage mapping, we identified genes linking environmental variation and seminal root number. Functional characterization of the transcription factor ZmHb77 and in silico root modeling provides evidence that reshaping root system architecture by reducing the number of seminal roots and promoting lateral root density is beneficial for the resilience of maize seedlings to drought.

New technologies for monitoring biodiversity such as environmental (e)DNA, passive acoustic monitoring, and optical sensors promise to generate automated spatiotemporal community observations at unprecedented scales and resolutions. Here, we introduce ‘novel community data’ as an umbrella term for these data. We review the emerging field around novel community data, focusing on new ecological questions that could be addressed; the analytical tools available or needed to make best use of these data; and the potential implications of these developments for policy and conservation. We conclude that novel community data offer many opportunities to advance our understanding of fundamental ecological processes, including community assembly, biotic interactions, micro- and macroevolution, and overall ecosystem functioning.

Deceptive flowers, unlike in mutualistic pollination systems, mislead their pollinators by advertising rewards which ultimately are not provided. Although our understanding of deceptive pollination systems increased in recent years, the attractive signals and deceptive strategies in the majority of species remain unknown. This is also true for the genus Aristolochia, famous for its deceptive and fly-pollinated trap flowers. Representatives of this genus were generally assumed to be oviposition-site mimics, imitating vertebrate carrion or mushrooms. However, recent studies found a broader spectrum of strategies, including kleptomyiophily and imitation of invertebrate carrion. A different deceptive strategy is presented here for the western Mediterranean Aristolochia baetica L. We found that this species is mostly pollinated by drosophilid flies (Drosophilidae, mostly Drosophila spp.), which typically feed on fermenting fruit infested by yeasts. The flowers of A. baetica emitted mostly typical yeast volatiles, predominantly the aliphatic compounds acetoin and 2,3-butandiol, and derived acetates, as well as the aromatic compound 2-phenylethanol. Analyses of the absolute configurations of the chiral volatiles revealed weakly (acetoin, 2,3-butanediol) to strongly (mono- and diacetates) biased stereoisomer-ratios. Electrophysiological (GC-EAD) experiments and lab bioassays demonstrated that most of the floral volatiles, although not all stereoisomers of chiral compounds, were physiologically active and attractive in drosophilid pollinators; a synthetic mixture thereof successfully attracted them in field and lab bioassays. We conclude that A. baetica chemically mimics yeast fermentation to deceive its pollinators. This deceptive strategy (scent chemistry, pollinators, trapping function) is also known from more distantly related plants, such as Arum palaestinum Boiss. (Araceae) and Ceropegia spp. (Apocynaceae), suggesting convergent evolution. In contrast to other studies

This editorial introduces readers to the thematic issue on organized interests in the context of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe.

Los grupos humanos que ocuparon el entorno del paleoestuario emporitano durante la Edad del Hierro han sido tradicionalmente marginalizados y convertidos en actores históricos pasivos. El énfasis en su papel como proveedores también ha llevado a que la investigación arqueológica se centre demasiado en sus cultivos y en la forma en que almacenaban los excedentes alimentarios. Combinando diferentes métodos de análisis arqueológico, una serie de actuaciones realizadas en extensas áreas de Muntanya Rodona, Vilanera y Les Corts han aportado nuevas evidencias que permiten dibujar una imagen más rica y compleja sobre las dinámicas que experimentaron los paisajes rurales situados en el entorno de Emporion a lo largo del I milenio a.C. Los datos obtenidos sugieren algunas hipótesis que, aunque son preliminares, permiten ir más allá de la visión excesivamente simplista centrada en los conceptos de chora y jerarquía territorial que, tradicionalmente, han configurado la percepción de los análisis de estos contextos. Este trabajo también analiza los procesos de transformación que tuvieron lugar en esta zona desde una perspectiva de larga duración, examinando así los cambios y pervivencias que influyeron en las estrategias de ocupación y explotación que implementaron diversos grupos humanos establecidos en esta zona., The human populations that lived in the area around the Emporitan palaeoestuary during the Iron Age have historically been marginalized and reduced to supporting roles in history. Archaeological studies have placed too much attention on their crops and methods of food surplus storage as a result of the emphasis placed on their function as providers. A number of archaeological interventions made in large areas of Muntanya Rodona, Vilanera, and Les Corts have produced new evidence that has allowed us to construct a richer and more complex picture of the dynamics that the rural landscapes in the Emporion area experienced during the first millennium BC. The data acquired indicate some first ideas that, while tentative, allow us to move beyond the too simple approach focused on the concepts of chora and territorial hierarchy that have historically dominated the perception of the research of these contexts. The long-term transformation processes in this region are also examined in this paper, along with the changes and continuities that impacted the occupation and exploitation tactics used by diverse human groups established in the area.

Photosynthetic algae have evolved mechanisms to cope with suboptimal light and CO2 conditions. When light energy exceeds CO2 fixation capacity, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii activates photoprotection, mediated by LHCSR1/3 and PSBS, and the CO2 Concentrating Mechanism (CCM). How light and CO2 signals converge to regulate these processes remains unclear. Here, we show that excess light activates photoprotection- and CCM-related genes by altering intracellular CO2 concentrations and that depletion of CO2 drives these responses, even in total darkness. High CO2 levels, derived from respiration or impaired photosynthetic fixation, repress LHCSR3/CCM genes while stabilizing the LHCSR1 protein. Finally, we show that the CCM regulator CIA5 also regulates photoprotection, controlling LHCSR3 and PSBS transcript accumulation while inhibiting LHCSR1 protein accumulation. This work has allowed us to dissect the effect of CO2 and light on CCM and photoprotection, demonstrating that light often indirectly affects these processes by impacting intracellular CO2 levels.

In recent years, a plethora of new synthetic biology tools for use in cyanobacteria have been published; however, their reported characterizations often cannot be reproduced, greatly limiting the comparability of results and hindering their applicability. In this interlaboratory study, the reproducibility of a standard microbiological experiment for the cyanobacterial model organism Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was assessed. Participants from eight different laboratories quantified the fluorescence intensity of mVENUS as a proxy for the transcription activity of the three promoters PJ23100, PrhaBAD, and PpetE over time. In addition, growth rates were measured to compare growth conditions between laboratories. By establishing strict and standardized laboratory protocols, reflecting frequently reported methods, we aimed to identify issues with state-of-the-art procedures and assess their effect on reproducibility. Significant differences in spectrophotometer measurements across laboratories from identical samples were found, suggesting that commonly used reporting practices of optical density values need to be supplemented by cell count or biomass measurements. Further, despite standardized light intensity in the incubators, significantly different growth rates between incubators used in this study were observed, highlighting the need for additional reporting requirements of growth conditions for phototrophic organisms beyond the light intensity and CO2 supply. Despite the use of a regulatory system orthogonal to Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, PrhaBAD, and a high level of protocol standardization, ∼32% variation in promoter activity under induced conditions was found across laboratories, suggesting that the reproducibility of other data in the field of cyanobacteria might be affected similarly

Surface curvature both emerges from, and influences the behavior of, living objects at length scales ranging from cell membranes to single cells to tissues and organs. The relevance of surface curvature in biology is supported by numerous experimental and theoretical investigations in recent years. In this review, first, a brief introduction to the key ideas of surface curvature in the context of biological systems is given and the challenges that arise when measuring surface curvature are discussed. Giving an overview of the emergence of curvature in biological systems, its significance at different length scales becomes apparent. On the other hand, summarizing current findings also shows that both single cells and entire cell sheets, tissues or organisms respond to curvature by modulating their shape and their migration behavior. Finally, the interplay between the distribution of morphogens or micro-organisms and the emergence of curvature across length scales is addressed with examples demonstrating these key mechanistic principles of morphogenesis. Overall, this review highlights that curved interfaces are not merely a passive by-product of the chemical, biological, and mechanical processes but that curvature acts also as a signal that co-determines these processes. © 2023 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Separation of particles by size, morphology, or material identity is of paramount importance in fields such as filtration or bioanalytics. Up to now separation of particles distinguished solely by surface properties or bulk/surface morphology remains a very challenging process. Here a combination of pressure-driven microfluidic flow and local self-phoresis/osmosis are proposed via the light-induced chemical activity of a photoactive azobenzene-surfactant solution. This process induces a vertical displacement of the sedimented particles, which depends on their size and surface properties . Consequently, different colloidal components experience different regions of the ambient microfluidic shear flow. Accordingly, a simple, versatile method for the separation of such can be achieved by elution times in a sense of particle chromatography. The concepts are illustrated via experimental studies, complemented by theoretical analysis, which include the separation of bulk-porous from bulk-compact colloidal particles and the separation of particles distinguished solely by slight differences in their surface physico-chemical properties.

Stress granules (SGs) are highly conserved cytoplasmic condensates that assemble in response to stress and contribute to maintaining protein homeostasis. These membraneless organelles are dynamic, disassembling once the stress is no longer present. Persistence of SGs due to mutations or chronic stress has been often related to age-dependent protein-misfolding diseases in animals. Here, we find that the metacaspase MC1 is dynamically recruited into SGs upon proteotoxic stress in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Two predicted disordered regions, the prodomain and the 360 loop, mediate MC1 recruitment to and release from SGs. Importantly, we show that MC1 has the capacity to clear toxic protein aggregates in vivo and in vitro, acting as a disaggregase. Finally, we demonstrate that overexpressing MC1 delays senescence and this phenotype is dependent on the presence of the 360 loop and an intact catalytic domain. Together, our data indicate that MC1 regulates senescence through its recruitment into SGs and this function could potentially be linked to its remarkable protein aggregate-clearing activity.

1. Pollinators benefit from increasing floral resources in agricultural landscapes, which could be an underexplored co-benefit of mass-flowering crop cultivation. However, the impacts of mass-flowering crops on pollinator communities are complex and appear to be context-dependent, mediated by factors such as crop flowering time and the availability of other flower resources in the landscape. A synthesis of research is needed to develop management recommendations for effective pollinator conservation in agroecosystems. 2. By combining 22 datasets from 13 publications conducted in nine temperate countries (20 European, 2 North American), we investigated if mass-flowering crop flowering time (early or late season), bloom state (during or after crop flowering) and extent of non-crop habitat cover in the landscape moderated the effect of mass-flowering crop cover on wild pollinator abundance and species richness in mass-flowering crop and non-crop habitats. 3. During bloom, wild bee abundance and richness are negatively related to mass-flowering crop cover. Dilution effects were predominant in crop habitats and early in the season, except for bumblebees, which declined with mass-flowering crop cover irrespective of habitat or season. Late in the season and in non-crop habitats, several of these negative relationships were either absent or reversed. Late-season mass-flowering crop cover is positively related to honeybee abundance in crop habitats and to other bee abundance in non-crop habitats. These results indicate that crop-adapted species, like honeybees, move to forage and concentrate on late-season mass-flowering crops at a time when flower availability in the landscape is limited, potentially alleviating competition for flower resources in non-crop habitats. We found no evidence of pollinators moving from mass-flowering crop to non-crop habitats after crop bloom. 4. Synthesis and applications: Our results confirm that increasing early-season mass-flowering crop cov

Leads play an important role in the exchange of heat, gases, vapour, and particles between seawater and the atmosphere in ice-covered polar oceans. In summer, these processes can be modified significantly by the formation of a meltwater layer at the surface, yet we know little about the dynamics of meltwater layer formation and persistence. During the drift campaign of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), we examined how variation in lead width, re-freezing, and mixing events affected the vertical structure of lead waters during late summer in the central Arctic. At the beginning of the 4-week survey period, a meltwater layer occupied the surface 0.8 m of the lead, and temperature and salinity showed strong vertical gradients. Stable oxygen isotopes indicate that the meltwater consisted mainly of sea ice meltwater rather than snow meltwater. During the first half of the survey period (before freezing), the meltwater layer thickness decreased rapidly as lead width increased and stretched the layer horizontally. During the latter half of the survey period (after freezing of the lead surface), stratification weakened and the meltwater layer became thinner before disappearing completely due to surface ice formation and mixing processes. Removal of meltwater during surface ice formation explained about 43% of the reduction in thickness of the meltwater layer. The remaining approximate 57% could be explained by mixing within the water column initiated by disturbance of the lower boundary of the meltwater layer through wind-induced ice floe drift. These results indicate that rapid, dynamic changes to lead water structure can have potentially significant effects on the exchange of physical and biogeochemical components throughout the atmosphere–lead–underlying seawater system

In 2018, a well-constructed cist-type grave was discovered at Ba‘ja, a Neolithic village (7,400–6,800 BCE) in Southern Jordan. Underneath multiple grave layers, an 8-year-old child was buried in a fetal position. Over 2,500 beads were found on the chest and neck, along with a double perforated stone pendant and a delicately engraved mother-of-pearl ring discovered among the concentration of beads. The first was found behind the neck, and the second on the chest. The meticulous documentation of the bead distribution indicated that the assemblage was a composite ornament that had gradually collapsed, partly due to the burying position. Our aim was to challenge time degradation and to reimagine the initial composition in order to best explore the significance of this symbolic category of material culture, not as mere group of beads, but as an ornamental creation with further aesthetic, artisanal and socioeconomic implications. The reconstruction results exceeded our expectations as it revealed an imposing multi-row necklace of complex structure and attractive design. Through multiple lines of evidence, we suggest that the necklace was created at Ba‘ja, although significant parts of beads were made from exotic shells and stones, including fossil amber, an unprecedented material never attested before for this period. The retrieval of such an ornament from life and its attribution to a young dead child highlights the significant social status of this individual. Beyond the symbolic functions related to identity, the necklace is believed to have played a key role in performing the inhumation rituals, understood as a public event gathering families, relatives, and people from other villages. In this sense, the necklace is not seen as belonging completely to the realm of death but rather to the world of the living, materializing a collective memory and shared moments of emotions and social cohesion.

Reactive multilayer systems are nanostructures of great interest for various technological applications because of their high energy release rate during the self-propagating reaction of their components. Therefore, many efforts are aimed at controlling the propagation velocity of these reactions. Herein, reactive multilayer systems of Al/Ni in the shape of free-standing foils with a wavelike surface morphology prepared by using sacrificial substrates with well-aligned waves are presented and the propagation of the reaction along different directions of the reproduced waves is analyzed. During the ignition test, the propagation front is recorded with a high-speed camera, and the maximum temperature is measured using a pyrometer. The propagation of the reaction is favored in the direction of the waves, which points out the influence of the anisotropy generated by this morphology and how it affects the propagation dynamics and the resulting microstructure. Furthermore, compared to their counterparts fabricated on flat substrates, these reactive multilayers with wavelike morphology exhibit a remarkable reduction in the propagation velocity of the reaction of about 50%, without significantly affecting the maximum temperature registered during the reaction.

Comparative extinction risk analysis—which predicts species extinction risk from correlation with traits or geographical characteristics—has gained research attention as a promising tool to support extinction risk assessment in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. However, its uptake has been very limited so far, possibly because existing models only predict a species' Red List category, without indicating which Red List criteria may be triggered. This prevents such approaches to be integrated into Red List assessments. We overcome this implementation gap by developing models that predict the probability of species meeting individual Red List criteria. Using data on the world's birds, we evaluated the predictive performance of our criterion-specific models and compared it with the typical criterion-blind modelling approach. We compiled data on biological traits (e.g. range size, clutch size) and external drivers (e.g. change in canopy cover) often associated with extinction risk. For each specific criterion, we modelled the relationship between extinction risk predictors and species' Red List category under that criterion using ordinal regression models. We found criterion-specific models were better at identifying threatened species compared to a criterion-blind model (higher sensitivity), but less good at identifying not threatened species (lower specificity). As expected, different covariates were important for predicting extinction risk under different criteria. Change in annual temperature was important for criteria related to population trends, while high forest dependency was important for criteria related to restricted area of occupancy or small population size. Our criteria-specific method can support Red List assessors by producing outputs that identify species likely to meet specific criteria, and which are the most important predictors. These species can then be prioritised for re-evaluation. We expect this new approach to increase the uptake of exti

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is a central tool for extinction risk monitoring and influences global biodiversity policy and action. But, to be effective, it is crucial that it consistently accounts for each driver of extinction. Climate change is rapidly becoming a key extinction driver, but consideration of climate change information remains challenging for the IUCN. Several methods can be used to predict species’ future decline, but they often fail to provide estimates of the symptoms of endangerment used by IUCN. We devised a standardized method to measure climate change impact in terms of change in habitat quality to inform criterion A3 on future population reduction. Using terrestrial nonvolant tetrapods as a case study, we measured this impact as the difference between the current and the future species climatic niche, defined based on current and future bioclimatic variables under alternative model algorithms, dispersal scenarios, emission scenarios, and climate models. Our models identified 171 species (13% out of those analyzed) for which their current red-list category could worsen under criterion A3 if they cannot disperse beyond their current range in the future. Categories for 14 species (1.5%) could worsen if maximum dispersal is possible. Although ours is a simulation exercise and not a formal red-list assessment, our results suggest that considering climate change impacts may reduce misclassification and strengthen consistency and comprehensiveness of IUCN Red List assessments.

We report on the first proton-induced single proton- and neutron-removal reactions from the neutron-deficient O14 nucleus with large Fermi-surface asymmetry Sn-Sp=18.6 MeV at ∼100 MeV/nucleon, a widely used energy regime for rare-isotope studies. The measured inclusive cross sections and parallel momentum distributions of the N13 and O13 residues are compared to the state-of-the-art reaction models, with nuclear structure inputs from many-body shell-model calculations. Our results provide the first quantitative contributions of multiple reaction mechanisms including the quasifree knockout, inelastic scattering, and nucleon transfer processes. It is shown that the inelastic scattering and nucleon transfer, usually neglected at such energy regime, contribute about 50% and 30% to the loosely bound proton and deeply bound neutron removal, respectively. These multiple reaction mechanisms should be considered in analyses of inclusive one-nucleon removal cross sections measured at intermediate energies for quantitative investigation of single-particle strengths and correlations in atomic nuclei.

Since February 2020, the world has been facing a global pandemic of the SARS-CoV2 virus. All over the world, people have been urged to take protective measures. It is hoped that the implementation of widespread vaccination campaigns will defeat the pandemic in the long term. While many people are eager to be vaccinated against Covid-19, other voices in the population are highly critical of vaccination and protective measures, circulating much misinformation on social media. The movements opposing pandemic response measures are heterogeneous, including right-wing groups, spiritualists who deny science, citizens with existential fears, and those who equate vaccination with a loss of individual freedom. This study aims to map and compare the social media communication of anti-vaccination movements that defy social cohesion and circulate online misinformation in Germany and Brazil. By following a grounded theory approach suggested by Webb and Mallon (2007), we coded content from social media communication of opinion leaders on Twitter with extended narrative analysis methodology finding different narratives that were mapped within the inhomogeneous anti-vaccination movements. The results show that both countries’ main narratives against vaccination are very similar, but the main difference stems from Brazil’s stronger politicization of vaccines.

Recent literature on comparative welfare states has recognised the central role international financial institutions (IFIs) play in shaping social policy. Particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), where constraints often lead to reliance on foreign resources, IFIs can act as agenda‐setters, transferring their ideas to vulnerable governments. The neoliberal model promoted by IFIs at the end of the 20th century reveals their influence on domestic policy in South America. This study analyses the impact of World Bank (WB) prescriptions on healthcare reform legislation in five South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru. In doing so, it attempts to answer the following questions: Are LMICs receptive to IFIs’ healthcare system prescriptions? More precisely, have WB policy prescriptions been adopted in healthcare reform legislation in South American countries? If so, in what way? Through content analysis, this study examines domestic healthcare legislation vis‐à‐vis the WB’s prescriptions. The main findings show that countries are receptive to IFIs prescriptions, making them a legitimate source of policy recommendations. Further, the results suggest a correlation between economic development and reliance on foreign resources and the degree to which countries adhere to IFIs prescriptions.

[EN] Further knowledge on aspects of social behaviour in the wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), including the link to reproduction, could possibly point to new ways to improve housing and breeding conditions in rabbit farming. In this review, I present some results of our long-term study on a 2-hectare field enclosure population of wild rabbits (University of Bayreuth, Germany), exploring group-level and individual-level differences in agonistic behaviour of females and their potential associations with reproductive traits, including offspring survival. The frequency of agonistic behaviour in which females were involved, increased with increasing group size, and was lower in groups with a more heterogeneous age structure. At the individual level, reproducing females were involved in more agonistic interactions when groupmates gave birth and thus built their burrows and nests at around the same time, and higher-ranking mothers were particularly aggressive when other females approached close to their nursery burrows. Associations between females social environment and reproduction were evident, as the numbers of litters and offspring per female were lower at higher female densities, high-ranking females produced more offspring and had a lower offspring mortality than low-ranking ones, and cases of infanticide were lower in more stable groups, which we quantified by the more heterogeneous age structure of the females rank hierarchy in such groups. Furthermore, perinatal offspring mortality was increased in females with a delayed burrow and nest building activity, i.e. does that dug their nursery burrow and built their nest only during the last 24 h pre-partum, possibly driven by the more unfavourable social environment experienced by such females. Most importantly, our studies highlight the importance of the presence of litter siblings in improving an individual s social environment, which resulted in an earlier onset of breeding in such females. Higher levels of pos

As the only oxygenic phototrophs among prokaryotes, cyanobacteria employ intricate mechanisms to regulate common metabolic pathways. These mechanisms include small protein inhibitors exerting their function by protein–protein interaction with key metabolic enzymes and regulatory small RNAs (sRNAs). Here we show that the sRNA NsiR4, which is highly expressed under nitrogen limiting conditions, interacts with the mRNA of the recently described small protein PirA in the model strain Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. In particular, NsiR4 targets the pirA 5ʹUTR close to the ribosome binding site. Heterologous reporter assays confirmed that this interaction interferes with pirA translation. PirA negatively impacts arginine synthesis under ammonium excess by competing with the central carbon/nitrogen regulator PII that binds to and thereby activates the key enzyme of arginine synthesis, N-acetyl-L-glutamate-kinase (NAGK). Consistently, ectopic nsiR4 expression in Synechocystis resulted in lowered PirA accumulation in response to ammonium upshifts, which also affected intracellular arginine pools. As NsiR4 and PirA are inversely regulated by the global nitrogen transcriptional regulator NtcA, this regulatory axis enables fine tuning of arginine synthesis and conveys additional metabolic flexibility under highly fluctuating nitrogen regimes. Pairs of small protein inhibitors and of sRNAs that control the abundance of these enzyme effectors at the post-transcriptional level appear as fundamental building blocks in the regulation of primary metabolism in cyanobacteria.

The chaperone SecB has been implicated in de novo protein folding and translocation across the membrane, but it remains unclear which nascent polypeptides SecB binds, when during translation SecB acts, how SecB function is coordinated with other chaperones and targeting factors, and how polypeptide engagement contributes to protein biogenesis. Using selective ribosome profiling, we show that SecB binds many nascent cytoplasmic and translocated proteins generally late during translation and controlled by the chaperone trigger factor. Revealing an uncharted role in co-translational translocation, inner membrane proteins (IMPs) are the most prominent nascent SecB interactors. Unlike other substrates, IMPs are bound early during translation, following the membrane targeting by the signal recognition particle. SecB remains bound until translation is terminated, and contributes to membrane insertion. Our study establishes a role of SecB in the co-translational maturation of proteins from all cellular compartments and functionally implicates cytosolic chaperones in membrane protein biogenesis.

Diazonium reactions with carbon nanotubes form optical sp3 defects that can be used in optical and electrical circuits. We investigate a direct on-device reaction supported by confined laser irradiation and present a technique where an arbitrary carbon nanotube can be preferentially functionalized within a device by matching the light frequency with its transition energy. An exemplary reaction was carried out between (9,7) nanotube and 4-bromobenzenediazonium tetrafluoroborate. The substrate supported nanotubes of multiple semiconducting chiralities were locally exposed to laser light while monitoring the reaction kinetics in situ via Raman spectroscopy. The chiral selectivity of the reaction was confirmed by resonant Raman spectroscopy, reporting a 10 meV E22 transition energy red-shift only of the targeted species. We further demonstrated this method on a single tube (9,7) electroluminescent device and show a 25 meV red-shifted emission of the ground state E11 compared to the emission from the pristine tubes.

In the current Anthropocene Era, with numerous escalating challenges for biodiversity conservation, the inclusion of the social dimension into management decisions regarding wildlife and protected areas is critical to their success. By conducting 354 questionnaires in a Mediterranean protected area (the Biosphere Reserve of Bardenas Reales, Northern Spain), we aim to determine sociodemographic factors influencing knowledge levels and perceptions of species and functional groups as, emblematic and threatened. We found that hunters and animal husbandry workers knew more species than other social actors. Additionally, the perception of functional groups as threatened or emblematic differed between social actor groups, with statistically significant associations between perceptions and the characteristics of respondents. Interestingly, we found that although elusive steppe species are globally considered as endangered, these species were the least known by all social actor groups and rarely perceived as emblematic. This research is a novel approach and provides a better understanding of how perceptions can facilitate conservation decisions, particularly regarding endangered species.

Background: Little is known about the global distribution and environmental drivers of key microbial functional traits such as antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Soils are one of Earth’s largest reservoirs of ARGs, which are integral for soil microbial competition, and have potential implications for plant and human health. Yet, their diversity and global patterns remain poorly described. Here, we analyzed 285 ARGs in soils from 1012 sites across all continents and created the first global atlas with the distributions of topsoil ARGs. Results: We show that ARGs peaked in high latitude cold and boreal forests. Climatic seasonality and mobile genetic elements, associated with the transmission of antibiotic resistance, were also key drivers of their global distribution. Dominant ARGs were mainly related to multidrug resistance genes and efflux pump machineries. We further pinpointed the global hotspots of the diversity and proportions of soil ARGs. Conclusions: Together, our work provides the foundation for a better understanding of the ecology and global distribution of the environmental soil antibiotic resistome.