Showing papers in "Current Biology in 2015"

TL;DR: A considerable body of recent progress is reviewed in the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms underlying checkpoint signaling, and a number of unresolved questions are identified.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that cells add a constant volume each generation, irrespective of their newborn sizes, conclusively supporting the so-called constant Δ model, which was introduced for E. coli and recently revisited.

TL;DR: Electroencephalography is used to provide evidence for categorical phoneme-level speech processing by showing that the relationship between continuous speech and neural activity is best described when that speech is represented using both low-level spectrotemporal information and categorical labeling of phonetic features.

TL;DR: This study sequenced DNA from complex sediment and planktonic consortia from an aquifer adjacent to the Colorado River and reconstructed the first complete genomes for Archaea using cultivation-independent methods, which dramatically expand genomic sampling of the domain Archaea and clarify taxonomic designations within a major superphylum.

TL;DR: Accumulating evidence suggests that the roles lipid droplets play in biology are significantly broader than previously anticipated, and the next few years should yield many new mechanistic insights into these novel functions of lipid droplet.

TL;DR: A general statistical model is developed that can detect concerted changes in aligned sequence data and apply it to study regular sound changes in the Turkic language family, demonstrating that a model with no prior knowledge of complex concerted or regular changes can nevertheless infer the historical timings and genealogical placements of events of concerted change from the signals left in contemporary data.

TL;DR: Modern views on endosymbiotic theory in a historical context are framed, highlighting the transformative role DNA sequencing played in solving early problems in eukaryotic cell evolution, and posing key unanswered questions emerging from the age of comparative genomics.

TL;DR: The goal of this minireview is to emphasize the complexity of the locus coeruleus beyond its primary definition as a norepinephrine-producing nucleus, in order to better understand its role in modulating diverse behaviors.

TL;DR: An unprecedented amount of molecular data is used, combined with four fossil calibration strategies, to obtain Bayesian estimates of metazoan divergence times, indicating that the uncertain nature of ancient fossils and violations of the molecular clock impose a limit on the precision that can be achieved in estimates of ancient molecular timescales.

TL;DR: This work shows for the first time that vulnerable nigral DA neurons differ from less vulnerable DA neurons by having a higher basal rate of mitochondrial OXPHOS, a smaller reserve capacity, a higher density of axonal mitochondria, an elevated level of basal oxidative stress, and a considerably more complex axonal arborization.

TL;DR: Recorded striatal neurons in rats found that neurons fired at delays spanning tens of seconds and that this pattern of responding reflected the interaction between time and the animals' ongoing sensorimotor state, suggesting that striatal activity forms a scalable population code for time.

TL;DR: Positive correlation between individual alpha frequency (IAF) peak and the size of the temporal window of the illusion was found, suggesting that alpha oscillations might represent the temporal unit of visual processing that cyclically gates perception and the neurophysiological substrate promoting audio-visual interactions.

TL;DR: Low-frequency brain oscillations play a role in implementing predictive top-down control during continuous speech perception and that top-Down control is largely directed at left auditory cortex, which suggests a close relationship between (left-lateralized) speech production areas and the implementation of top- down control in continuousspeech perception.

TL;DR: The first metagenomic analysis of GM from Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania shows a unique enrichment in metabolic pathways that aligns with the dietary and environmental factors characteristic of their foraging lifestyle, providing a better understanding of the versatility of human life and subsistence.

TL;DR: The layered cortical organization of external versus internal visual processing streams during perception in healthy human subjects is revealed and empirical support for theoretical feedback models such as predictive coding and coherent infomax is provided and the potential of high-resolution fMRI to access internal processing in sub-millimeter human cortex is revealed.

TL;DR: Assessing the relationship between two-flash fusion thresholds (a measure of the temporal resolution of visual perception) and the frequency of eyes-closed and task-related alpha rhythms found that faster alpha frequencies predicted more accurate flash discrimination, providing novel evidence linking alpha frequency to the temporalresolution of perception.

TL;DR: It is shown that during walking, people readily adapt established motor programs to minimize energy use, and that energetic cost is not just an outcome of movement, but also plays a central role in continuously shaping it.

TL;DR: Assessment of consciousness during anesthesia with propofol, xenon, and ketamine, independent of behavioral responsiveness, suggests that brain complexity may be sensitive to the presence of disconnected consciousness in subjects who are considered unconscious based on behavioral responses.

TL;DR: It is shown that motivation by reward breaks this law, by simultaneously invigorating movement and improving response precision, by combining speed and accuracy in a paradoxical effect of reward.

TL;DR: Using microfibers, oligodendrocytes are found to have a remarkable ability to self-regulate the formation of compact, multilamellar myelin and generate sheaths of physiological length, revealing that oligodends have regional identity and generate different sheath lengths that mirror internodes in vivo.

TL;DR: Assessment of effects of UAV flights on movements and heart rate responses of free-roaming American black bears finds consistently strong physiological responses but infrequent behavioral changes.

TL;DR: The uncertainties revealed here should guide future research toward achieving convergence in global species richness estimates for coral reefs and other ecosystems via adaptive learning protocols whereby such estimates can be tested and improved, and their uncertainties reduced, as new knowledge is acquired.

TL;DR: The results show that postreproductive females may boost the fitness of kin through the transfer of ecological knowledge and thereby buffer kin against environmental hardships using a unique long-term dataset on wild resident killer whales.

TL;DR: The directly dated ancient wolf genome is used to recalibrate the molecular timescale of wolves and dogs and finds that the mutation rate is substantially slower than assumed by most previous studies, suggesting that the ancestors of dogs were separated from present-day wolves before the Last Glacial Maximum.

TL;DR: The sleep period consistently occurred during the nighttime period of falling environmental temperature, was not interrupted by extended periods of waking, and terminated, with vasoconstriction, near the nadir of daily ambient temperature.

TL;DR: The transition from single-celled algae to modern-day land plants is outlined, and the bright promise studying the charophyte green algae holds for better understanding plant evolution is highlighted.

TL;DR: The general theoretical model and experimental evolution are teased apart the mechanism that drives their evolution and show that infection risk determines the relative investment in the two arms of defense.

TL;DR: A vision of the future directions in the field of human facial communication within and across cultures is provided, which combines state-of-the-art computer graphics, psychophysics and vision science, cultural psychology and social cognition, and the main knowledge advances it has generated are highlighted.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present high-quality complete genome sequences from two woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) and conclude that the population on Wrangel Island, which was the last surviving woolly mammoth population, was subject to reduced genetic diversity shortly before it became extinct.

TL;DR: The emerging concept of a microscopic, acoelomate, direct-developing ancestor of Spiralia is reviewed and 402 orthologs mined from genome and transcriptome assemblies of 90 taxa are assessed.