Biology

Establishing how invasive species impact upon pre-existing species is a fundamental question in ecology and conservation biology. The greater white-toothed shrew (Crocidura russula) is an invasive species in Ireland that was first recorded in 2007 and which, according to initial data, may be limiting the abundance/distribution of the pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus), previously Ireland's only shrew species. Because of these concerns, we undertook an intensive live-trapping survey (and used other data from live-trapping, sightings and bird of prey pellets/nest inspections collected between 2006 and 2013) to model the distribution and expansion of C. russula in Ireland and its impacts on Ireland's small mammal community. The main distribution range of C. russula was found to be approximately 7,600 km2 in 2013, with established outlier populations suggesting that the species is dispersing with human assistance within the island. The species is expanding rapidly for a small mammal, w...

In a fundamentally new interpretation, this article examines how the artist Ruth Asawa’s early wire sculptures engaged the poetics of biology as a metaphor for racial equality. Asawa’s overlooked personal papers attest to her ruminations about race and biology while she was a student at Black Mountain College, from 1946 to 1949. There, Asawa’s earliest wire works proliferated from diagrams in her biology class textbooks—The Invertebrata and Winchester Zoology. Over the next decade, and indeed for the remainder of Asawa’s life, the artist’s biomorphic experiments evoked dividing cells and primordial invertebrates—the biological processes and precedents that constitute all life-forms—gesturing to midcentury scientists’ particular notions of racial equality at the biological level. Asawa’s biological gesture thus seems to be an explicit exfoliation of racial hierarchy, and a rebuttal to the mid-century’s racializing characterizations of her art—like one critic’s description of them as “Eastern yeast.”

Antibiotic-producing polyketide synthases (PKSs) are enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis in Streptomyces and related filamentous bacteria of a remarkably broad range of bioactive metabolites, including antitumour aromatic compounds such as mithramycin and macrolide antibiotics such as erythromycin. The molecular basis for the selection of the starter unit on aromatic PKSs is unknown. Here we show that a component of aromatic PKS, previously named 'chain-length factor', is a factor required for polyketide chain initiation and that this factor has decarboxylase activity towards malonyl-ACP (acyl carrier protein). We have re-examined the mechanism of initiation on modular PKSs and have identified as a specific initiation factor a domain of previously unknown function named KSQ, which operates like chain-length factor. Both KSQ and chain-length factor are similar to the ketosynthase domains that catalyse polyketide chain extension in modular multifunctional PKSs and in arom...

The understanding of the effective functionality that governs the enzymatic self-organized processes in cellular conditions is a crucial topic in the post-genomic era. In recent studies, Transfer Entropy has been proposed as a rigorous, robust and self-consistent method for the causal quantification of the functional information flow among nonlinear processes. Here, in order to quantify the functional connectivity for the glycolytic enzymes in dissipative conditions we have analyzed different catalytic patterns using the technique of Transfer Entropy. The data were obtained by means of a yeast glycolytic model formed by three delay differential equations where the enzymatic rate equations of the irreversible stages have been explicitly considered. These enzymatic activity functions were previously modeled and tested experimentally by other different groups. The results show the emergence of a new kind of dynamical functional structure, characterized by changing connectivity flows an...

This is a short statement on perspectives for years to come. Discussing the attacks against women in Germany on January first 2016 is our trigger, not the cause for the discussion. This is the second update since first publishing of this document in 2015. This second update comes after talks with police officers in Germany and also after a debate on www.academia.edu We are engaged in a new type and a new dimension of war.

This book is the definitive text for professional students of molecular biology of the cell: the very essence of life.  This huge book (1600 pages) was never designed for the general public but it does contain much invaluable information for anyone who wishes to understand the foundations of life. My goal is to understand life from a systems perspective.  So, I have written a series of essays for the general reader to help understand ourselves.  This book has been incredibly useful in following this path.  Now the world is facing a global infectious crisis, it seems appropriate for me to attempt to explain this vital area to the non-experts.  There have been enormous leaps in our understanding of viral infections over the last 20 years and few medical professionals have kept up with these developments. 

This book's fifth edition added an extra 330 pages (as a DVD) to the prior 1270 pages to cover the latest findings in this massively expanding field.  This new information covers all forms of threats to any human at the cellular level that are too small to see but can still kill many.  For many years now, science has been justified on the grounds that "knowledge is power" - this is why I wish to share this specialized medical information with the many.  This book takes its title seriously; it approaches the cell (all forms) from the 'bottom-up'.  It starts with atoms and physics and then works up from there.  This makes the book almost impossible for any general reader who has not studied some physics and much chemistry.  This results in a comprehensive, academically solid presentation for future experts.  But, I have presented its information in a more 'top-down' manner: the systems view looks at the parts in terms of their functions: what they do and why?  This paper only revisits one chapter of this text but organized around the major threats to humans by these invisible invaders we call Pathogens.  Some brave readers may wish to learn from this initially rather than attempt to scale the monster texts that professionals must read.  Others may use this as an introduction.  This essay uses one of mankind's oldest activities - WAR - as a metaphor to describe human immunity: the ancient, ongoing fight for the survival of the human species.  This billion-year war is vital to everyone but occurs at a scale of our cells and smaller, so it is invisible to normal senses.

2018 on epigenetics evaluation instead of epigenetics corruption:

There is an emerging line of evidence that exposure to trauma and violence leaves an “epigenetic” mark in the brain as well as peripheral white blood cells DNA. The aim of this research is to provide preliminary evidence for the plausibility of objective “epigenetic” DNA methylation based markers of trauma and empathy. The practical outcome of this research is the ability to provide scientifically accurate tools to diagnosis “state of affairs” via a simple blood sampling. The aim is to be able to diagnose a true toll of trauma on members of groups of people that were subjected to unusual conditions such as i.e. due to forced migration.

Research-target is the assessment of politics on how to deal with i.e. migration-phenomena in the context of violence-osmosis and permeability to violence of and in different societies. Building up resilience against the system of violence is possible when accurate assessments are done. Follow up and development of behavioral intervention is far more accurate and precise when it is formed based on objective “epigenetic” evidence.

Hypoempathy is a highly contagious disease, which has not yet been understood by social and political elites in the Western world. They still think, they can get away using violence.