Microalgae cultivation on wastewater is one of the most promising processes in perspective of green and circular economy. This study investigated the economics of integrating the microalgae ...cultivation with the wastewater treatment in perspective of biomass production and wastewater treatment. The cost of integrated process was evaluated for six cases: three cases for domestic wastewater at different stages of treatment including sewage, anaerobically digested domestic effluent, and centrate and three cases for industrial wastewater including agro-industrial wastewater, anaerobically digested piggery effluent, and anaerobically digested abattoir effluent. The cost of biomass production was found ranging from $ 0.39 to $ 0.92/kg with minimum for the anaerobically digested domestic effluent and centrate. The cost of wastewater treatment was found ranging from 0.18 to 1.69/m
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with minimum for the sewage. These costs did not include any credits generated from the biomass or the treated wastewater. The concentration of limiting nutrient, flowrate of wastewater, and the extent of nutrient removal are the major cost-influencing parameters for the integrated process.
Recent advances in understanding the molecular basis of taste physiology in fish could open new opportunities to optimize feeding performance in aquaculture. This is particularly relevant at a time ...when alternative ingredients are being increasingly used, often reducing the digestibility and acceptability of fish diets, even if they are nutritionally balanced. The molecular characterization of fish taste receptors T1Rs and T2Rs revealed common taste discrimination mechanisms among vertebrates. In addition, data so far appear to indicate that taste signaling elements are conserved from fish to mammals. Nevertheless, fundamental differences between ligand specificities of taste receptors, and the presence of multiple T1R2s in fish species, underlines evolutionary adaptations of the T1R2 receptor to sense metabolically important nutrients, with a shift from sugars in mammals to amino acids in teleosts. This fits well with electrophysiological and behavioral studies on ligand specificities and taste preferences in several fish species. On the other hand, synergistic responses between different attractants could result from additive effects of independent receptor sites and response mechanisms, and this knowledge can be of practical interest to specifically design stimulant mixtures to modulate feed intake in aquaculture. Mammalian taste receptors and signaling elements have also been identified in the gastrointestinal tract, where they trigger multiple endocrine and neuronal pathways regulating digestion, nutrient absorption, feeding, and metabolism. Evidence for the existence of these receptors and signaling pathways in fish guts have recently been uncovered, suggesting that sensory properties of the diet might also have functional effects beyond oral taste sensations and palatability.
Rescuers struggle to track what happens to animals once they leave their care
Rescuers struggle to track what happens to animals once they leave their care
Sponges are simple animals with few cell types, but their genomes paradoxically contain a wide variety of developmental transcription factors, including homeobox genes belonging to the Antennapedia ...(ANTP) class, which in bilaterians encompass Hox, ParaHox and NK genes. In the genome of the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica, no Hox or ParaHox genes are present, but NK genes are linked in a tight cluster similar to the NK clusters of bilaterians. It has been proposed that Hox and ParaHox genes originated from NK cluster genes after divergence of sponges from the lineage leading to cnidarians and bilaterians. On the other hand, synteny analysis lends support to the notion that the absence of Hox and ParaHox genes in Amphimedon is a result of secondary loss (the ghost locus hypothesis). Here we analysed complete suites of ANTP-class homeoboxes in two calcareous sponges, Sycon ciliatum and Leucosolenia complicata. Our phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that these calcisponges possess orthologues of bilaterian NK genes (Hex, Hmx and Msx), a varying number of additional NK genes and one ParaHox gene, Cdx. Despite the generation of scaffolds spanning multiple genes, we find no evidence of clustering of Sycon NK genes. All Sycon ANTP-class genes are developmentally expressed, with patterns suggesting their involvement in cell type specification in embryos and adults, metamorphosis and body plan patterning. These results demonstrate that ParaHox genes predate the origin of sponges, thus confirming the ghost locus hypothesis, and highlight the need to analyse the genomes of multiple sponge lineages to obtain a complete picture of the ancestral composition of the first animal genome.
Cellular senescence is a heterogeneous process guided by genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors, characterizing many types of somatic cells. It has been suggested as an aging hallmark that is ...believed to contribute to aging and chronic diseases. Senescent cells (SC) exhibit a specific senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), mainly characterized by the production of proinflammatory and matrix-degrading molecules. When SC accumulate, a chronic, systemic, low-grade inflammation, known as inflammaging, is induced. In turn, this chronic immune system activation results in reduced SC clearance thus establishing a vicious circle that fuels inflammaging. SC accumulation represents a causal factor for various age-related pathologies. Targeting of several aging hallmarks has been suggested as a strategy to ameliorate healthspan and possibly lifespan. Consequently, SC and SASP are viewed as potential therapeutic targets either through the selective killing of SC or the selective SASP blockage, through natural or synthetic compounds. These compounds are members of a family of agents called senotherapeutics divided into senolytics and senomorphics. Few of them are already in clinical trials, possibly representing a future treatment of age-related pathologies including diseases such as atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular diseases, hepatic steatosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and age-related macular degeneration. In this review, we present the already identified senolytics and senomorphics focusing on their redox-sensitive properties. We describe the studies that revealed their effects on cellular senescence and enabled their nomination as novel anti-aging agents. We refer to the senolytics that are already in clinical trials and we present various adverse effects exhibited by senotherapeutics so far. Finally, we discuss aspects of the senotherapeutics that need improvement and we suggest the design of future senotherapeutics to target specific redox-regulated signaling pathways implicated either in the regulation of SASP or in the elimination of SC.
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•Senescent cells exhibit a senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP).•Senomorphics are small molecules that can suppress SASP.•Senolytics are agents that selectively eliminate senescent cells.•Various natural compounds and drugs are potential senolytics and/or senomorphics.•Future senotherapeutics to target specific redox-regulated signaling pathways.
Deforestation and climate change may be helping Oropouche virus spread far beyond the Amazon Basin
Deforestation and climate change may be helping Oropouche virus spread far beyond the Amazon Basin
Abstract
eggNOG is a public database of orthology relationships, gene evolutionary histories and functional annotations. Here, we present version 5.0, featuring a major update of the underlying ...genome sets, which have been expanded to 4445 representative bacteria and 168 archaea derived from 25 038 genomes, as well as 477 eukaryotic organisms and 2502 viral proteomes that were selected for diversity and filtered by genome quality. In total, 4.4M orthologous groups (OGs) distributed across 379 taxonomic levels were computed together with their associated sequence alignments, phylogenies, HMM models and functional descriptors. Precomputed evolutionary analysis provides fine-grained resolution of duplication/speciation events within each OG. Our benchmarks show that, despite doubling the amount of genomes, the quality of orthology assignments and functional annotations (80% coverage) has persisted without significant changes across this update. Finally, we improved eggNOG online services for fast functional annotation and orthology prediction of custom genomics or metagenomics datasets. All precomputed data are publicly available for downloading or via API queries at http://eggnog.embl.de
This paper studies the relationship between public investment and private investment in a sample of 21 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries between 2000 and 2019. ...Using panel data nonlinear threshold regression models, the empirical results show that there exist threshold levels for the share of public investment in private investment, the real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate and the real interest rate that affect the relationship between public and private investment. All estimates support a crowding‐in effect of public investment on private investment. In terms of policy prescriptions, by increasing public investment, OECD governments can expect positive spillovers to private investment.
In recent years, there has been a growing research interest towards exploring the benefit of Child–Robot Interaction for educational purposes through the use of social robotics. Despite the label, ...such robots are typically only social within scripted activities. The current study takes a critical look at the case of a robotic tutor which was implemented in an elementary school for 3.5 months, where children repeatedly took turns interacting with the robot individually as well as in pairs. The aim of the study was to explore what caused breakdowns in children's interactions with the robotic tutor. In this qualitative study, over 14 h of video recordings of children's interaction sessions were analyzed in-depth through interaction analysis and thematic analysis. The results comprise four themes to explain why children's interactions with the robotic tutor break down: (1) the robot's inability to evoke initial engagement and identify misunderstandings, (2) confusing scaffolding, (3) lack of consistency and fairness, and finally, (4) controller problems. The implications of these breakdowns for the educational use of robots are discussed, and it is concluded that several challenges need to be rigorously addressed in order for robotic tutors to be able to feature in education.
•A robot's inability to evoke children's initial engagement leads to breakdowns.•A robot's inability to identify misunderstandings causes further breakdowns.•A robot's scaffolding can be confusing and result in breakdowns in CRI.•Inconsistencies and perceived lack of fairness causes breakdowns in CRI.•CRI breaks down when a robot, or its associated technologies, malfunction.
To accommodate daily recurring environmental changes, animals show cyclic variations in behaviour and physiology, which include prominent behavioural states such as sleep-wake cycles but also a host ...of less conspicuous oscillations in neurological, metabolic, endocrine, cardiovascular and immune functions. Circadian rhythmicity is created endogenously by genetically encoded molecular clocks, whose components cooperate to generate cyclic changes in their own abundance and activity, with a periodicity of about a day. Throughout the body, such molecular clocks convey temporal control to the function of organs and tissues by regulating pertinent downstream programmes. Synchrony between the different circadian oscillators and resonance with the solar day is largely enabled by a neural pacemaker, which is directly responsive to certain environmental cues and able to transmit internal time-of-day representations to the entire body. In this Review, we discuss aspects of the circadian clock in Drosophila melanogaster and mammals, including the components of these molecular oscillators, the function and mechanisms of action of central and peripheral clocks, their synchronization and their relevance to human health.
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