A new study explores the connection between protecting mature trees in national forests and objectives related to habitat conservation, forest resilience and climate change mitigation. "We suggest policy to keep existing forest carbon stores out of the… atmosphere and accumulate additional amounts while protecting habitat and biodiversity." The study, "Protect large trees for climate mitigation, biodiversity, and forest resilience," was published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.

Long-chain fatty acids have tails of 13 to 21 carbons. The team studied how two ELOVL4 mutants, one associated with brain disorders and the other with skin disease in humans, elongate a precursor fatty acid. They found that both these mutations had some limited capacity to elongate PUFA precursors to VLC-PUFA but blunted the enzyme’s capability to biosynthesize VLC-SFAs. “Because we know which VLCFAs go down with the different ELOVL mutations, we could recommend personalized dietary supplementations as part of the treatment.”

Some variation of the AR-15 has been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in recent years, including the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde last year, which left 19 students and two teachers dead. This makes firearms a flashpoint in American life, and yet the motivations underlying their ownership have been generally understudied by psychologists. Research from across the social sciences explores what psychological utility people receive from gun ownership.

Researchers have used laboratory simulations to recreate the conditions of early Earth and have discovered that the evolution of ancient proteins into all forms of life on the planet, including plants, animals, and humans, would not have been possible without specific amino acids. In the lab, the researchers mimicked primordial protein synthesis of 4 billion years ago by using an alternative set of amino acids that were highly abundant before life arose on Earth. They found ancient organic compounds integrated the amino acids best suited for protein folding into their biochemistry.

In terms of measuring telomere length at individual chromosomal ends or to characterize the length distribution of individual telomeres, the new telomere length measurement technique has the added advantage of being easy to use and producing high throughput estimates—up to 72 patient samples in a single run so far. Steps are then taken to enrich the telomere repeat-containing genomic DNA fragments using these telobaits in PacBio high fidelity sequencing.

In terms of measuring telomere length at individual chromosomal ends or to characterize the length distribution of individual telomeres, the new telomere length measurement technique has the added advantage of being easy to use and producing high throughput estimates—up to 72 patient samples in a single run so far. Steps are then taken to enrich the telomere repeat-containing genomic DNA fragments using these telobaits in PacBio high fidelity sequencing.

Each and every organism present on Earth has amino acids. A new study describes the events that shaped why that ancestor got the amino acids that it did. In other words, life evolved on Earth because some amino acids were available and simple to synthesize in prehistoric settings. Others arrived via special delivery by meteorites, which brought a variety of components and completed a set of 10 “early” amino acids that helped life on Earth.

“Liver cells need these fatty acids to grow and divide,” says study leader Prof. Klaus-Peter Janssen from the Department of Surgery of the Klinikum rechts der Isar. Prof. Janssen and his team conducted experiments on mice to determine how a disrupted microbiome affects liver regeneration. In mice lacking gut bacteria, no regeneration took place. “We then investigated the processes with human liver cells and tissue samples,” says Yuhan Yin, who is also a first author of the study. “SCD1 is also active in humans when the liver regenerates.”

Intensity of Chinese terms translated as “shame” or “guilt”, Study 1. Differences of social characteristics between the shame-like and guilt-like term clusters, Study 1. Our rationale was that if a Chinese term showed similar social characteristics with English shame/guilt in Study 1, suggesting equivalence between them, then in response to the Chinese term’s corresponding scenario, English speakers would be more likely to endorse shame/guilt than the other term.