Background: Reproductive isolation can result from adaptive processes (e.g., ecological speciation and mutation-order speciation) or stochastic processes such as "system drift" model. Ecological speciation predicts barriers to gene flow between populations ...
The hypothesis that the evolution of humans involves hybridization between diverged species has been actively debated in recent years. We present the following novel evidence in support of this hypothesis: the analysis of nuclear pseudogenes of mtDNA ("NUM ...
Zero knowledge plays a central role in cryptography and complexity. The seminal work of Ben-Or et al. (STOC 1988) shows that zero knowledge can be achieved unconditionally for any language in NEXP, as long as one is willing to make a suitable physical assu ...
Soil micro-organisms drive the global carbon and nutrient cycles that underlie essential ecosystem functions. Yet, we are only beginning to grasp the drivers of terrestrial microbial diversity and biogeography, which presents a substantial barrier to under ...
Understanding macroevolutionary patterns is central to evolutionary biology. This involves the process of divergence within a species, which starts at the microevolutionary level, for instance, when two sub populations evolve towards different phenotypic o ...
Genetic variation is the fuel of evolution, with standing genetic variation especially important for short-term evolution and local adaptation. To date, studies of spatiotemporal patterns of genetic variation in natural populations have been challenging, a ...
A von Hamos geometry based wavelength dispersive spectrometer combined with an in situ reactor cell has been developed to measure non-resonant sulfur K alpha emission for the in situ speciation of low concentrations of sulfur. The spectrometer operates at ...
Uranium (U) contamination of ground and surface waters poses an acute hazard on the ecosystem and human health. Since the discovery of microbial U(VI) reduction, U bioremediation has been explored as a promising and cost-effective method compared to tradit ...
Background: Microsporidia are spore-forming obligate intracellular parasites that include both emerging pathogens and economically important disease agents. However, little is known about the genetic diversity of microsporidia. Here, we investigated patter ...
Motivation: Comparative genomics aims to understand the structure and function of genomes by translating knowledge gained about some genomes to the object of study. Early approaches used pairwise comparisons, but today researchers are attempting to leverag ...
With the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies, large data sets of several thousand loci from multiple conspecific individuals are available. Such data sets should make it possible to obtain accurate estimates of population genetic parameters, ...
The quantities of natural organic matter (NOM) and associated iron (Fe) in soil extracts are known to increase with increasing extractant pH. However, it was unclear how the extraction pH affects Fe speciation for particles below 30 nm. We used flow field- ...
Bio synthetic natural gas (Bio-SNG) is being proposed as an alternative to the natural gas of fossil origin (NG) [1]. Bio-SNG consists mainly of CH4 (at least 95%mol), has a high heating value (e.g. 10 kWh/m3N), and respects the quality standards of the NG ...
Understanding the genetic basis of adaptation in response to environmental variation is fundamental as adaptation plays a key role in the extension of ecological niches to marginal habitats and in ecological speciation. Based on the assumption that some ge ...
The present study examines the effect of humic acid on the uptake kinetics of Cd(II), Cu(II), and Pb(II) by the freshwater alga Chlorella kesslerii. The results demonstrated that the relative proportion of Pb in the cell wall layer is greater than that of ...
Background/aims: Complement factor H ( CFH) Y402H polymorphism shows a strong association with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Although the phenotypic concordance of AMD has been shown in sibling/twin studies, little is known about the genotype phe ...
In order to better understand the relationship between lead speciation and its bioavailability in natural waters, the interactions between Pb(II), fulvic acid and the freshwater alga, Chlorella kesslerii were studied at different algal cell densities. An i ...
