Environmental aging processes, such as oxidation, can substantially modify the physicochemical properties and toxicity of microplastics (MPs). Nevertheless, most studies have focused on pristine MPs, overlooking aged forms that more accurately represent environmental exposure conditions. Understanding the toxicological consequences of oxidative aging is essential for realistic ecological risk assessment. We investigated the toxicological effects of pristine polyethylene (PE) and oxidized polyethylene (OPE) microplastics using a dual-species aquatic model comprising Daphnia magna and zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. Physicochemical characterization revealed that OPE particles exhibited increased surface roughness, a more negative surface charge, and a higher proportion of oxygen-containing functional groups on the particle surface compared with PE. Exposure to OPE induced pronounced lipid accumulation and significantly reduced heart rate in both models. Transcriptomic analysis indicated that OPE downregulated key genes related to lipid transport and metabolism, including mttp, apoea, and apobb. These findings were further validated by quantitative PCR and Oil Red O staining. Notably, zebrafish embryos exposed to OPE displayed developmental impairment even with intact chorions, implying enhanced bioavailability and barrier penetration of oxidized particles. Our findings demonstrate that oxidative aging amplifies the biological toxicity of polyethylene microplastics by disrupting lipid metabolism and developmental processes. This study underscores the importance of considering environmentally aged MPs in ecological risk evaluations, as pristine particles may underestimate their actual hazard potential in aquatic ecosystems.
Potato is an important crop worldwide, yet its production is severely threatened by Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight. Alternatives to the current control strategies are needed, as these rely heavily on environmentally harmful treatments. The recruitment of beneficial microbes by plants upon stress ("cry-for-help" mechanism) may represent an opportunity to find new biocontrol agents but this has not yet been reported for potato. The aim of this study was to analyse whether foliar late blight infection induces shifts in the phyllosphere, rhizosphere and soil bacterial communities associated with two potato cultivars of differing sensitivity to late blight. Moreover, we aimed at isolating plant microbiota members to test whether bacteria putatively recruited upon infection would be particularly active in protecting the plant against late blight. Controlled foliar infection triggered substantial, cultivar-specific shifts in rhizosphere communities across two successive generations. Despite the number of differentially abundant ASVs detected being ten times higher in the second generation than in the first one, the same taxonomic groups were involved in the shifts: Burkholderiales, Flavobacteriales, and Bacillales. Furthermore, the communities linked to the susceptible cultivar consistently shifted more strongly upon infection than the communities linked to the resistant cultivar. The obtained ASV sequences were used to identify 163 corresponding isolates through sequence alignment. Their inhibition potential against P. infestans sporangia and zoospores was assessed through biological assays. These revealed the biocontrol potential of genera otherwise not yet known to inhibit phytopathogenic organisms, such as Advenella, Nocardioides and Phyllobacterium strains. Although we found no correlation between the relative abundance shift of the ASVs upon infection and the activity of the corresponding strains, we observed that the overall activity of strains isolated from the resistant cultivar was higher than that of the strains isolated from the susceptible one. Taken together, the higher activity of the strains isolated from the resistant cultivar, along with its comparatively modest microbiome shifts upon infection suggest that the investigated resistant cultivar might harbour specific microbiota enriched in strains that are able to inhibit pathogen development and possibly contribute to its higher resistance against P. infestans.
Understanding plant adaptation is critical under intensifying global aridification. Succulence, a key drought-resistance innovation, has evolved repeatedly across plant lineages, yet its intrinsic genomic drivers remain underexplored. Integrating comprehensive evidence from genomics, ecology, and morphology, we investigate adaptation to aridity in the tree grape genus, Cyphostemma (Vitaceae), whose species span environmental gradients from rainforests to deserts and exhibit wide genomic and phenotypic variation. Utilising genome assemblies of representative Cyphostemma species, we demonstrate that specific long terminal repeat retrotransposon (LTR-RT) lineages thrived through the radiation of Cyphostemma and led to substantial intron expansion, a phenomenon rarely studied in eudicots. The intronic LTR-RT insertions likely enhanced tolerance of genome structural changes, facilitating succulence evolution. Genomes of succulents were further expanded by intergenic LTR-RTs, which exhibit recurrent evolutionary advantages in arid and seasonal habitats. Our study reveals how genomic landscapes are shaped by both intrinsic LTR-RT dynamics and extrinsic environmental forces. Critically, we suggest that stochastic dynamics of LTR-RT communities enhance genomic evolvability, enabling adaptive evolution in plants.
Background music is commonly played in operating theatres and is perceived by many health care professionals (HCP) to reduce stress and fatigue. However, objective psychological and physiological evidence supporting these benefits remains limited, leaving a gap between HCPs' perceptions and the measured experience. The Background Auditory Conditions in Healthcare (BACH) study aims to qualitatively explore HCPs' experiences, beliefs and perspectives regarding the use of background music in the operating theatre. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven HCPs including surgeons, anaesthetists, and theatre nurses recruited via purposive and snowball sampling between February and November 2024. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis, with themes developed through open coding, collaborative review, and iterative refinement using a critical realist epistemology. Three surgeons, two anaesthetists, and two nurses from general, vascular, and ENT specialties participated in interviews. Five major themes were identified: (1) Team cohesion reflected in music (2) Music contributes to therapeutic space, (3) Music is not a panacea, (4) Power and protection play out through music and (5) Music as an environmental cue, encompassing nine subthemes. This study highlights the multifaceted role of music in the operating theatre, as perceived by HCPs. While music promoted team cohesion, elevated shared mood and was identified to have therapeutic value for patients and staff, it was also perceived to create or exacerbate interpersonal tension, reinforce hierarchy and disproportionately impact some individuals negatively. Background music also functioned as a situational cue, helping HCPs interpret the immediate OT environment.
Human fetuses and young infants behave spontaneously before the emergence of explicit goals and rewards. These behaviors, though appearing random at first glance, give rise to regulated sensorimotor interactions through the developing body and its environment, thereby contributing to neural circuit maturation and later development. In this chapter, we propose a framework that treats early development as the progressive structuring of sensorimotor information. We call this emerging regularity the sensorimotor information structure (SMIS), defined as the dynamic pattern of information flow among motor output and sensory input such as muscle activity, proprioception, touch, and vision. We review evidence that spontaneous activity and activity-dependent plasticity play central roles in early development and that embodiment provides strong constraints that organize these signals. We then present an empirical approach to early spontaneous movements that combines quantitative analysis with a biologically grounded musculoskeletal model. This approach enables the estimation of whole-body muscle activity and proprioceptive signals, revealing modular sensorimotor organization and recurrent state transitions during spontaneous movements. These SMIS patterns exhibit developmental changes over the first three months after birth, reflecting spontaneous exploration, which we term sensorimotor wandering. To move from description to mechanism, we introduce a constructive approach based on an embodied simulation that integrates a musculoskeletal model, multimodal sensory models, and spontaneous spinal activity, enabling key aspects of SMIS to be reproduced and their roles to be examined. Finally, we propose that early SMIS can serve as a developmental prior for later learning and provide a computational bridge from spontaneous movement to the emergence of agency and goal-directed behavior.
Dibutyl phthalate, benzyl butyl phthalate, and di-2-ethylhexyl phthalates leach from consumer and medical products, leading to chronic daily exposure in women. Phthalates are associated with impaired ovarian function and metabolic syndrome in women. In mice, oral exposure to human relevant levels of a mixture of these phthalates disrupted the ovarian follicle proteome causing dysregulation of lipid metabolism proteins. This study aimed to establish the consequences of those alterations on the follicular lipid profile and identify relevant systemic impacts of phthalates. Adult CD-1 female mice were pipet fed vehicle (corn oil) or the phthalate mixture (32µg/kg/day) for 10 days. Antral follicles were isolated and subjected to targeted lipid profiling, neutral lipid and triglyceride quantification, and expression analyses of key lipid homeostasis enzymes. Liver and serum samples were also tested for systemic effects. Lipid profiling revealed that phthalate-treated mice had significantly increased follicular free fatty acid (FFA), acylcarnitine, and lysophospholipid content with some changes also observed in liver and serum. Neutral lipid content was unaffected, but decreased follicle and increased hepatic triglyceride content were observed in phthalate-treated mice. Phthalate exposure increased follicular fatty acid synthase expression, decreased carnitine o-palmitoyltransferase 2 and altered some key triglyceride hydrolysis enzymes. These results strongly suggest that human relevant phthalate mixture exposure leads to lipid, gene and protein changes consistent with increased FFA synthesis, impaired beta oxidation, and decreased triglyceride abundance in antral follicles. These findings add key mechanistic information to the poorly understood associations between phthalate burden, antral follicle function, and metabolic dysfunction in women.
Climate-driven changes in floral resource quantity, timing, and nutritional quality can modulate access to essential nutrients for bees, with consequences for development, reproduction, physiology, and sensitivity to other stressors. Although most nutritionally focused research has centred on managed social bees, most bee species are solitary or non-eusocial and therefore experience nutritional landscapes in fundamentally different ways. Here, we examine how sociality and life-history strategy shapes sensitivity to nutritional stress under climate change, and how climate-driven nutritional change could alter the costs and benefits of social behaviours. We argue that social organisation, nesting strategy, diet breadth, foraging range, body size, and colony demography shape exposure to nutritional stress, the capacity to respond to nutritional stress, and its interactions with other stressors. Integrating nutritional ecology with life-history theory will therefore be essential for improving predictions of bee vulnerability and designing conservation strategies that support a broad range of bee taxa.
For precision assembly tasks, the accuracy and efficiency of robotic arm trajectory planning directly impact product quality and production efficiency in manufacturing, making it a core technology driving industrial automation upgrades. This research endeavors to establish a sophisticated multi-objective trajectory planning model, specifically engineered to cater to the intricate demands of precision assembly scenarios. The model optimizes for "maximum efficiency, minimum energy consumption, and minimal impact," quantifying time costs, energy expenditure, and the influence of mechanical impact on assembly precision during the process. To enhance the performance of traditional multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), this study proposes an improved CEMOPSO algorithm. This approach enhances initial population diversity by incorporating Chebyshev mapping strategies, dynamically adjusts particle search directions through evolutionary elimination mechanisms, and optimizes constraint handling capabilities via a designed infeasibility evaluation function. Engineering experiments using pyrotechnic grain assembly as a typical scenario validate CEMOPSO's practical application value. Implementing this algorithm increased robotic arm assembly efficiency by 15.2%, reduced energy consumption by 20.4%, and decreased impact by 26.4%. This demonstrates the effectiveness and engineering applicability of the theoretical methods developed in this study for complex precision assembly tasks.
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Viral infections cause deep changes in the host transcriptome, triggering a complex antiviral immune response that involves multiple proteins and molecular and cellular signaling pathways. Traditionally, Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) have been identified for their vital role in protein synthesis, and recent investigations have determined different small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs), such as transfer RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs), such as tRNA-derived fragments (tRFs), and tRNA-derived stress-induced RNAs (tiRNAs), that also known as a new class of regulatory molecules with crucial roles during viral infection. Current evidence reveals that tsRNAs play key functions at the host-pathogen interface, controlling viral infection through various antiviral mechanisms, including gene silencing, epigenetic regulation, as well as transcriptional and post-transcriptional control. Moreover, the differential expression of tsRNAs has promise for their application as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers in viral diseases. This review explores current insights into the roles of tsRNAs in viral infections, highlighting their involvement in host-virus interactions. Further, we will be discussing the broader implications of tsRNAs by emphasizing the importance of understanding their diverse regulatory functions in biological processes and human diseases to advance their potential as biomarkers and personalized therapeutic markers.
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) breeding must accelerate to meet increasing global demand, yet traditional field-based programs remain a major bottleneck. While speed breeding (SB) and speed vernalization (SV) have emerged as transformative tools for generation acceleration, their practical application for official cultivar release through comprehensive field validation remains remarkably limited. We developed the new high-yielding bread wheat cultivar 'Irum' using an integrated speed breeding (ISB) system that combines SV with SB protocols. The ISB system facilitated the rapid advancement of F1 to F5 generations within only 15 months, effectively reducing the total breeding cycle from 128 months to 80 months, representing a significant 4-year reduction. Principal component analysis confirmed that the ISB-advanced population maintained the trait diversity required for effective selection, allowing for the strategic identification of elite lines. Multi-year and multi-environment field trials demonstrated that 'Irum' exhibited a consistent agronomic performance across environments, achieving a significant 14.6% yield increase over the check cultivar 'Keumgang'. Furthermore, 'Irum' exhibited enhanced bread-making quality, producing a significantly larger loaf volume and lower crumb firmness than the high-quality check 'Baekkang'. As the first official cultivar released through the ISB system in South Korea, to our knowledge, 'Irum' demonstrates a successful 'lab-to-field' transition and provides a robust, high-efficiency framework for rapidly delivering high-performance cultivars to the wheat industry.
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University students are at elevated risk of psychological distress, underscoring the need for interventions that promote resilience. Psychological resilience refers to the capacity to withstand or recover from stress. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the effects of meditation-only interventions on resilience in university students compared with active and passive controls and examined whether effects varied by meditation style, intervention intensity, delivery mode or follow-up length. A literature search of MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science identified randomised controlled trials involving university students who participated in meditation-only interventions and reported resilience-related outcomes. Pairwise random-effects models, mixed-effects meta-regression and network meta-analysis were used to estimate standardised mean differences (SMDs) at postintervention. Eighty-eight studies with 8728 participants were included. The overall effect was -0.11 (95% CI = -0.63 to 0.41, I2 = 59%) for resilience scales, 0.27 (95% CI = 0.20-0.35, I2 = 40%) for resilience-related mental health outcomes and 0.54 (95% CI = 0.34-0.73, I2 = 76%) for resilience factors. These findings suggest that meditation-only interventions may improve resilience-related mental health outcomes and resilience factors, but evidence for direct effects on resilience scales remains limited. Interpretation is constrained by heterogeneity and limited power in moderation analyses.
Lilium is an economically important genus widely cultivated for ornamental and commercial use. In this study, we report the identification and characterization of a novel mitovirus, designated Lily Bulb Virus-1 (LbV-1), detected in commercial lily bulb stocks. This virus represents a previously uncharacterized member of the mitochondrial RNA virus group associated with lily crops. A survey of 50 commercially cultivated lily bulbs, including Lilium longiflorum varieties, revealed LbV-1 infection in a single cultivar, indicating a low but detectable incidence under the tested conditions. Although infected plants exhibited no visible symptoms during in vitro cultivation, the presence of LbV-1 was confirmed through PCR amplification, small RNA (sRNA) sequencing, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and mechanical inoculation assays. A total of 9,122,220 unique sRNA reads were identified, with 21-22 nt virus-derived small RNAs mapping to the LbV-1 genome, supporting active host-virus interaction. Additionally, transcriptome-based analyses indicated efficient bulb-mediated transmission, with an infection rate of up to 45% in progeny plants. Comparative transcriptomic analysis of infected and healthy bulbs yielded over 30 million high-quality reads, resulting in the assembly of 3,671,77 transcripts and 168,004 unigenes with an average length of 1,445bp. Differential expression analysis identified eight candidate genes (Li-PCP, Li-DUF, Li-UBD, Li-FRC, Li-CF, Li-APD, Li1-UN, and Li7-UN) that were significantly upregulated in response to LbV-1 infection and validated across three developmental stages using RT-qPCR. Functional analysis demonstrated that seven of these genes enhanced viral resistance when expressed in susceptible lily plants. These findings provide new insights into the molecular biology, transmission dynamics, and host defense responses associated with LbV-1. This study highlights the importance of systematic screening of commercial lily bulb stocks to prevent the unnoticed spread of latent viral infections and to safeguard sustainable lily production systems. ations for commercial cultivation and plant performance.
Patient safety incidents (PSIs), defined as unintended or unexpected events that could have or did lead to patient harm, can have profound effects on general practitioners (GPs). Understanding how GPs experience and recover from PSIs is important for workforce wellbeing and patient safety in primary care. To explore how GPs experience PSIs, how they move on, and how they use available support. Qualitative study with GPs in England. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 GPs. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants were eligible if they had been involved in a PSI in general practice, spanning near misses to events resulting in patient harm. Themes were developed inductively and mapped onto the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to identify cognitive, social, and environmental influences on learning, help-seeking, and recovery. Three themes were generated: personal and professional consequences, recovery and learning processes, and barriers to healing. GPs described emotional responses, including guilt, self-doubt, and fear of reputational or regulatory consequences. Peer support was valued, but access to structured support was limited. Formal investigations were experienced as distressing and compounded emotional impact. Recovery and learning were facilitated by empathetic, systems-focused cultures, protected time for reflection, and structured opportunities to learn from incidents. GPs rely on informal and self-directed strategies to recover from PSIs, with variable access to formal support. Recovery is shaped by individual and organisational factors. Findings highlight importance of compassionate, non-punitive support systems and psychologically safe environments to enable recovery and promote learning.
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Reproductive efficiency in Nellore heifers is fundamental to the profitability and sustainability of beef production in tropical regions, where environmental stress can cause genotype-environment (G×E) interactions that affect fertility. Using 200,258 and 299,885 phenotypic records for heifer early pregnancy (HP) and heifer rebreeding (HR), respectively, we investigated the genetic basis of reproductive plasticity via single-step genomic reaction norms across a continuous environmental gradient (EG) defined from yearling weight records as a proxy for environmental quality. Genomic analyses included 22,556 animals (21,456 females and 1,100 sires) with genotypes imputed to 409,617 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We then performed genome-wide association analyses of the reaction norm intercept (genetic merit) and slope (environmental sensitivity), followed by multi-trait summary analyses and Bayesian fine-mapping of significant loci using imputed whole-genome sequence variants within ±100 kb windows around lead SNPs. Heritability for both traits increased with environmental quality, indicating environment-dependent expression of genetic variance. Genetic correlations for HP and HR across the environmental gradient ranged from 0.15 to 0.98, supporting substantial G×E interactions and reranking between low and high environmental conditions. Multi-trait analyses of reaction norm parameters identified 482 significant signals for the intercept and 700 for the slope. Intercept-associated loci were enriched for lipid metabolism, embryonic development, estrous regulation, and hypothalamic-pituitary signaling, whereas slope-associated loci highlighted endocrine signaling, metabolic plasticity, and neuroendocrine feedback responsive to contrasting post-weaning nutritional and management conditions captured by the EG. Fine-mapping refined associations to 146 (intercept) and 149 (slope) putative loci for HP, and 117 (intercept) and 167 (slope) for HR, supported by high posterior probabilities and Bayes factors. Candidate variants mapped to endocrine and metabolic regulators, including IGF1, LEP, GHRL, GNRHR, KISS1, MAPK3, PLAG1, INSR, and LHCGR. G × E interactions play a key role in shaping the genetic architecture of reproductive efficiency in Nellore heifers. Integrating reaction norm, multi-trait GWAS, and fine-mapping highlighted loci, affecting both genetic merit and environmental sensitivity of fertility, providing targets to select more resilient Nellore females for tropical systems.
The intricate interplay among soil physicochemical properties, root physiological traits, and flowering gene expression fundamentally influences rice reproductive success and grain yield. This study elucidates the effects of the Aerobic and water-controlled irrigation (AWCI) method on rhizosphere soil parameters, root biochemical responses, pollen viability, and temporal expression of the circadian-related flowering gene OsFKF1 during the heading and flowering stage, illuminating their integrated impact on rice productivity. Application of the AWCI regime modulated soil pH and nitrogen dynamics at critical growth intervals, enhanced rhizosphere oxygen availability, and shifted redox potential, thereby contributing to nutrient bioavailability. Simultaneously, AWCI treatment influenced root antioxidant enzyme activities-including peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT)-as well as abscisic acid (ABA) and MDA concentrations, which positively correlated with elevated pollen viability and upregulated OsFKF1 expression. Multivariate analyses identified key determinants of yield enhancement, notably augmented root surface area during the jointing-booting phase, balanced soil nitrogen content, and finely regulated oxidative stress markers at the mid-tillering stage. Hierarchical clustering robustly designated the T3 treatment as a promising candidate AWCI protocol for maximizing reproductive performance and grain yield. Collectively, these findings underscore the pivotal nexus among irrigation management, soil biochemical milieu, root physiology, and floral gene regulation in modulating rice yield, offering a theoretical foundation for precision water management strategies tailored to sustainable productivity enhancement. Future research should extend to encompass additional flowering-related genes and a broader spectrum of rice cultivars to generalize these mechanistic insights under multiple abiotic stresses, including heat and drought combination.
Human cognitive development unfolds through complex, non-linear interactions among the brain, body, and environment, producing diverse developmental trajectories across individuals and contexts. Capturing such variability requires a generative account that explains how cognition emerges and reorganizes over time, rather than models that describe isolated functions or static developmental stages. In this chapter, we propose Embodied Predictive Processing as a unifying generative framework for cognitive development. Building on predictive processing as a principle of brain function, we extend it to encompass bodily dynamics and social interaction, conceptualizing development as distributed prediction error minimization across brain-body-environment systems. Through integrative evidence from developmental studies and constructive robotic models, we demonstrate how brain-body co-development, body-grounded multimodal integration, and socially coordinated interaction jointly give rise to both developmental change and individual diversity. These findings position embodied predictive processing not only as a theoretical framework for understanding cognitive development, but also as a mechanistic and empirically testable generative account of developmental dynamics.
The correct prescription of aquatic treadmill training for equine athletes depends on understanding the muscular changes generated by working in the water. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that the inclusion of a water treadmill in a routine training protocol would alter muscle mass of show jumping horses. Six fit-to-compete horses were trained for 10 weeks with a water treadmill (twice a week, 20 minutes, water level at the carpus), in addition to regular physical exercise. Body composition, infrared thermography (IRT) of propulsive muscles (m. brachiocephalic, m. semitendinosus and m. semimembranosus) and field jumping tests for aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and creatine kinase (CK) analysis and kinematic parameters were assessed before and after the protocol. Data was analyzed using paired t-test (p<0.05). Body weight altered (550.5 ± 14.5 vs. 587.0 ± 41.9 kg), related to a fat-free mass gain (485.1 ± 19.1 vs. 520.1 ± 42.2 kg). Fat mass remained unchanged (65.4 ± 11.4 vs. 66.9 ± 10.3 kg), as no significant changes were observed for rump fat thickness (0.69 ± 0.45 vs. 0.59 ± 0.40 cm). IRT temperature of the selected muscles and AST and CK levels increased after training. Improvements in strike power (2.53 ± 0.38 vs. 3.18 ± 0.38 G), take-off angle (20.0 ± 5.0° vs. 24.5 ± 5.4°) and the aerial phase duration (665.3 ± 179.2 vs. 765.3 ± 41.1 ms) for the vertical jumps and in take-off angle (21.7 ± 6.4° vs. 26.1 ± 5.8°) for oxer jumps. These results suggest that the inclusion of the water treadmill promoted muscular recruitment and gain in muscle mass, contributing to a greater strength in the core muscles, to elevate the forehand, and in the propulsive hind limb muscles, to increase strike power.