X-ray micro-computed tomography in willow reveals tissue patterning of reaction wood and delay in programmed cell death

Background Variation in the reaction wood (RW) response has been shown to be a principle component driving differences in lignocellulosic sugar yield from the bioenergy crop willow. The phenotypic cause(s) behind these differences in sugar yield, beyond their common elicitor, however, remain unclear. Here we use X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) to investigate RW-associated alterations in secondary xylem tissue patterning in three dimensions (3D). Results Major architectural alterations were successfully quantified in 3D and attributed to RW induction. Whilst the frequency of vessels was reduced in tension wood tissue (TW), the total vessel volume was significantly increased. Interestingly, a delay in programmed-cell-death (PCD) associated with TW was also clearly observed and readily quantified by μCT. Conclusions The surprising degree to which the volume of vessels was increased illustrates the substantial xylem tissue remodelling involved in reaction wood formation. The remodelling suggests an important physiological compromise between structural and hydraulic architecture necessary for extensive alteration of biomass and helps to demonstrate the power of improving our perspective of cell and tissue architecture. The precise observation of xylem tissue development and quantification of the extent of delay in PCD provides a valuable and exciting insight into this bioenergy crop trait

Birds of a feather eat plastic together: high levels of plastic ingestion in Great Shearwater adults and juveniles across their annual migratory cycle

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Robuck, A. R., Hudak, C. A., Agvent, L., Emery, G., Ryan, P. G., Perold, V., Powers, K. D., Pedersen, J., Thompson, M. A., Suca, J. J., Moore, M. J., Harms, C. A., Bugoni, L., Shield, G., Glass, T., Wiley, D. N., & Lohmann, R. Birds of a feather eat plastic together: high levels of plastic ingestion in Great Shearwater adults and juveniles across their annual migratory cycle. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2022): 719721, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.719721.Limited work to date has examined plastic ingestion in highly migratory seabirds like Great Shearwaters (Ardenna gravis) across their entire migratory range. We examined 217 Great Shearwaters obtained from 2008–2019 at multiple locations spanning their yearly migration cycle across the Northwest and South Atlantic to assess accumulation of ingested plastic as well as trends over time and between locations. A total of 2328 plastic fragments were documented in the ventriculus portion of the gastrointestinal tract, with an average of 9 plastic fragments per bird. The mass, count, and frequency of plastic occurrence (FO) varied by location, with higher plastic burdens but lower FO in South Atlantic adults and chicks from the breeding colonies. No fragments of the same size or morphology were found in the primary forage fish prey, the Sand Lance (Ammodytes spp., n = 202) that supports Great Shearwaters in Massachusetts Bay, United States, suggesting the birds directly ingest the bulk of their plastic loads rather than accumulating via trophic transfer. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy indicated that low- and high-density polyethylene were the most common polymers ingested, within all years and locations. Individuals from the South Atlantic contained a higher proportion of larger plastic items and fragments compared to analogous life stages in the NW Atlantic, possibly due to increased use of remote, pelagic areas subject to reduced inputs of smaller, more diverse, and potentially less buoyant plastics found adjacent to coastal margins. Different signatures of polymer type, size, and category between similar life stages at different locations suggests rapid turnover of ingested plastics commensurate with migratory stage and location, though more empirical evidence is needed to ground-truth this hypothesis. This work is the first to comprehensively measure the accumulation of ingested plastics by Great Shearwaters over the last decade and across multiple locations spanning their yearly trans-equatorial migration cycle and underscores their utility as sentinels of plastic pollution in Atlantic ecosystems.This project was supported by the NOAA Fisheries National Seabird Program and the Volgenau Foundation. AR acknowledges support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship Program (NOAA Award Number NA17NOS4290028), the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, the STEEP Superfund Research Program (NIEHS Award Number P42ES027706), and the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) program. LB was funded by INCT-Mar COI and PQ Grant No. 311409/2018-0, both by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq). JS was funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship program

Birds of a Feather Eat Plastic Together: High Levels of Plastic Ingestion in Great Shearwater Adults and Juveniles Across Their Annual Migratory Cycle

Limited work to date has examined plastic ingestion in highly migratory seabirds like Great Shearwaters (Ardenna gravis) across their entire migratory range. We examined 217 Great Shearwaters obtained from 2008–2019 at multiple locations spanning their yearly migration cycle across the Northwest and South Atlantic to assess accumulation of ingested plastic as well as trends over time and between locations. A total of 2328 plastic fragments were documented in the ventriculus portion of the gastrointestinal tract, with an average of 9 plastic fragments per bird. The mass, count, and frequency of plastic occurrence (FO) varied by location, with higher plastic burdens but lower FO in South Atlantic adults and chicks from the breeding colonies. No fragments of the same size or morphology were found in the primary forage fish prey, the Sand Lance (Ammodytes spp., n = 202) that supports Great Shearwaters in Massachusetts Bay, United States, suggesting the birds directly ingest the bulk of their plastic loads rather than accumulating via trophic transfer. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy indicated that low- and high-density polyethylene were the most common polymers ingested, within all years and locations. Individuals from the South Atlantic contained a higher proportion of larger plastic items and fragments compared to analogous life stages in the NW Atlantic, possibly due to increased use of remote, pelagic areas subject to reduced inputs of smaller, more diverse, and potentially less buoyant plastics found adjacent to coastal margins. Different signatures of polymer type, size, and category between similar life stages at different locations suggests rapid turnover of ingested plastics commensurate with migratory stage and location, though more empirical evidence is needed to ground-truth this hypothesis. This work is the first to comprehensively measure the accumulation of ingested plastics by Great Shearwaters over the last decade and across multiple locations spanning their yearly trans-equatorial migration cycle and underscores their utility as sentinels of plastic pollution in Atlantic ecosystems

Secondary somatic mutations restoring RAD51C and RAD51D associated with acquired resistance to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib in high-grade ovarian carcinoma

High-grade epithelial ovarian carcinomas (OC) containing mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) homologous recombination (HR) genes are sensitive to platinum-based chemotherapy and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi), while restoration of HR function due to secondary mutations in BRCA1/2 has been recognized as an important resistance mechanism. We sequenced core HR pathway genes in 12 pairs of pre-treatment and post-progression tumor biopsy samples collected from patients in ARIEL2 Part 1, a phase 2 study of the PARPi rucaparib as treatment for platinum-sensitive, relapsed OC. In six of 12 pre-treatment biopsies, a truncation mutation in BRCA1, RAD51C or RAD51D was identified. In five of six paired post-progression biopsies, one or more secondary mutations restored the open reading frame. Four distinct secondary mutations and spatial heterogeneity were observed for RAD51C. In vitro complementation assays and a patient-derived xenograft (PDX), as well as predictive molecular modeling, confirmed that resistance to rucaparib was associated with secondary mutations

The global proportion and volume of unrecorded alcohol in 2015.

Alcohol consumption is associated with elevated risks of disease and injury, and the best indicator of the level of consumption in a country is total alcohol per capita (APC) consumption among adults which comprises recorded consumption and unrecorded consumption. While recorded consumption can be assessed with small measurement bias via taxation or other governmental records, unrecorded consumption is more difficult to assess. The objectives of this study were to estimate the country-specific proportion and volume of unrecorded APC in 2015, to identify main sources of unrecorded alcohol and to assess to what extent experts perceive unrecorded alcohol as a public health, social, and financial problem. Estimates of unrecorded APC were based on a multilevel fractional response regression model using data from World Health Organization's (WHO) STEPwise approach to surveillance surveys (16 countries, 66 188 participants), estimates from the routine WHO reporting on key indicators of alcohol use (189 countries), and a nominal group expert assessment (42 countries, 129 experts). Expert assessments also included data on the sources of unrecorded alcohol and the perception of unrecorded alcohol as a public health, social, and financial problem. The volume of global unrecorded APC was 1.6 L pure alcohol, representing 25% of the total APC. The volume of unrecorded APC was highest in Europe (2.1 L per capita), while the proportion of unrecorded APC was highest in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region (57% of the total alcohol). In countries with available data, homemade alcohol was identified as a major source of unrecorded alcohol. The majority of experts considered unrecorded alcohol to be a public health (62%), social (60%), and financial problem (54%). High volumes of unrecorded alcohol are consumed globally; however, the volumes consumed and the sources of the unrecorded alcohol exhibit large geographical variation

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde