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Stop codon context modulates NMD efficiency through translation termination kinetics
Get PDFNonsense-mediated mRNA decay efficiency varies unpredictably across transcriptscontaining premature termination codons. A new study demonstrates that glycineresidues preceding stop codons create an extended translation termination windowthat enhances NMD activity, offering new mechanistic explanations for NMD variability and improved clinical variant interpretation
Assessment of the public health risk of novel reassortant H3N3 avian influenza viruses that emerged in chickens
Get PDFInfluenza A (H3N2) viruses are historically responsible for the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic. Since then, H3N2 has continued to circulate as a seasonal influenza virus in humans. Public health concerns were raised in 2022 when human infections with novel reassortant H3N8 influenza viruses originating from chickens were first reported in China. Here, we conducted a systematic surveillance of H3 avian influenza viruses (AIVs) circulating in poultry and assessed the public health risk of emergent H3 reassortants. We found that H3 AIVs were prevalent in both ducks and chickens. Notably, in December 2022, a novel chicken-derived H3N3 subtype virus was identified, which gradually replaced the previously predominant H3N8 virus and became prevalent in chickens. Genetic analysis demonstrated that the novel H3N3 virus is a triple-reassortment strain with the H3 gene segment from chicken H3N8 virus, the N3 gene segment from the H10N3 virus, and internal gene segments derived from H9N2 viruses. Compared with chicken H3N8 and duck H3N3 viruses, the novel chicken H3N3 viruses produced higher yields and induced greater pathogenicity in human respiratory epithelial cells and mammalian models (mouse and ferret). Importantly, the chicken H3N3 viruses could be transmitted efficiently between ferrets through direct contact. The polymerase activity of the chicken H3N3 viruses in mammalian cells was markedly increased by the PA gene originating from the H9N2 virus. Our findings indicate that the circulation of novel chicken H3N3 viruses poses a threat to both the poultry industry and human public health.IMPORTANCEThe H3Ny subtype influenza A virus can infect a wide range of hosts. In addition to circulating among wild birds and poultry, the virus can also infect humans and a variety of mammals. Here, we found that H3Ny subtype AIVs were widely prevalent in domestic chickens and ducks. Novel H3N3 reassortant viruses emerged as a result of the genetic reassortment of the chicken-derived H3N8 AIVs with H10N3 and H9N2 AIVs. The novel H3N3 subtype AIVs are gradually displacing H3N8 AIVs and becoming prevalent in chickens. Furthermore, these novel H3N3 AIVs exhibited enhanced infection ability and efficient transmissibility in mammalian models, indicating a growing potential public health ris
Do microbes mediate rhythmic malaria parasite–mosquito vector interactions?
Get PDFDaily rhythms in the blood-feeding activity of insect vectors determine the time of day that parasites transmit between hosts and vectors. Within the vector, parasites are exposed to myriad physiological rhythms, including in immunity and nutrition, which affect transmission success. Recently discovered rhythmicity in gut microbes, coupled with the knowledge that microbes mediate malaria transmission by modulating vector immunity and metabolism, and via direct interactions with parasites, suggest that microbes have an underappreciated influence on rhythms in parasite–vector interactions. We integrate chronobiology with evolutionary ecology to propose that microbes mediate rhythmicity in mosquito susceptibility and malaria parasite development. Understanding how the time of day transmission occurs influences the spread of malaria transmission is urgently needed, given that rhythmic activities of mosquito microbiota are likely affected by changes in mosquito biting rhythms
A Shift in Perspective on Causality in Domain Generalization
Get PDFThe promise that causal modelling can lead to robust AI generalization has been challenged in recent work on domain generalization (DG) benchmarks. We revisit the claims of the causality and DG literature, reconciling apparent contradictions and advocating for a more nuanced theory of the role of causality in generalization. We also provide an interactive demo at this URL
Social rights and the origins of the social constitution:From collective natural rights to the social state
Get PDFThis Foreword revisits the commonly understood origin story of social rights and the social constitution. It challenges the predominant thesis that social rights were a conceptual by-product of the rise of the welfare state. Instead, it argues that, in the nineteenth century, social rights - which have longer and deeper historical lineages than previously recognized - became a compelling register through which a new imaginary of a social state was constructed. It argues that social rights ideas emerged as "collective natural rights"and were used to articulate a concept of the state as a public power that represented the interests of the whole of society, not just the propertied, and to assert the state's purpose in upholding the equal right of all to a fair share of the wealth produced by the social whole. For this reason, social rights played a distinctive role in the articulation of the transformative ambitions of revolutionary movements and post-colonial states. This Foreword concludes that recovering this historical understanding of social rights and the social constitution is valuable, and potentially useful, in an epoch of galloping inequality, intensifying concentrations of private wealth and power, and downward social mobility for many
Game-based simulation for ethics understanding
Get PDFThough games have been proposed as potentially useful tools for research ethics education, designs have tended to focus on content-oriented understanding, ethics reasoning, and compliance. We explore a game in which contexts and pressures that tend to complicate typical research ethics decision-making were simulated. Preliminary findings suggest that the simulation was better than a traditional, video-based training in helping students realize the socially situated factors influencing ethical research decisions
AIpology:When saying sorry is the hardest string to compute
Get PDFApologies play an important role in trust recovery in post-conflict scenarios. As we increasingly interact with autonomous systems, HCI researchers too have discovered the power of apologies for situations where AIs or robots violated justified expectations of the humans they interact with. But are AIs the type of entity that can meaningfully apologise? Drawing on conceptions of apologies across a range of legal field, the chapter identifies requirements for robot-generated apologies that ensure not only their ethically sound deployment, but also, potentially, their recognition in law
The gut microbiota of Labrador Retriever puppies: a longitudinal cohort study
No full textBackgroundMost research into the development of the canine gut microbiota has featured cross-sectional studies, and there has been limited exploratory research into how it is affected by external factors. We aimed to longitudinally characterise the gut microbiota and its development in Labrador Retriever puppies and identify whether alterations in the gut microbiota are associated with factors related to demography, lifestyle, antibiotic usage and gastrointestinal health.Results76 Labrador Retriever puppies were recruited via Dogslife, a UK-based online cohort study. Faecal samples were collected at three to four, seven, and 12 months of age and analysed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing alongside questionnaire data. Alpha and beta diversity were assessed using linear mixed effects models and permutational multivariate analysis, accounting for repeated measures. Differential abundance was evaluated using multivariable association with linear models. Associations were identified between puppies’ gut microbiota and age, sex, coat colour, household smoking status, dietary indiscretions (e.g. household waste, coprophagia), contact with other dogs and horses, recent oral/injected antibiotic use, and recent vomiting and diarrhoea. The greatest source of variation was individual identity, explaining approximately 25% of alpha diversity and 50% of beta diversity. Alpha diversity declined between three and 12 months, with age-related shifts in community composition and dispersion. Coprophagia was associated with increased alpha diversity and contributed to variation in community structure. Antibiotic use was associated with reduced alpha diversity, altered composition, and changes in taxa across Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Tenericutes. These effects were largely transient, with the largest shifts occurring within one week of treatment. Puppies with recent diarrhoea showed increased alpha diversity and differential abundance in several taxa within four weeks of the episode. Helicobacter was more frequently detected in samples from puppies with recent diarrhoea.ConclusionsThis longitudinal study characterises the development of gut microbiota in Labrador Retriever puppies and identifies associations with demographic, environmental, and health-related factors. These findings underscore the value of longitudinal sampling in microbiome research, offer novel insights for owners and veterinarians, and lay a foundation for future studies investigating causal mechanisms and potential interventions.<br/
The Trowel and the shaping of worlds: Humble handtools, time and imagination
No full textIn this contribution, the authors explore, with illumination from Ingold, the material and sensory worlds revealed and constructed by both archaeologists and eco-builders in these times of climate change. We begin with a humble hand tool found in both their practices, the trowel; we consider how trowels might act as prisms in both the uncovering of the past and the building of the future. As we watch the archaeologist scrape away the layers of time, we see the counter-movement of the eco-builder who adds layers of earthen plaster to the wall they have raised. Our discussion follows how portraits of these tools-in-use, these simple technologies, might speak to the relation between reality and the imagined, between feeling, perception, making and imagining. As the archaeologist and the builder work, we see them making things manifest and skillfully attending to their crafts and acknowledge their creativity within streams of material and the flux of the environment-world that we are within and that we share with the other-than or more-than-human. Our discussion notes the political dimensions of their activities, technologies and temporality, and the radicalism of both other ways of doing and writing about these other ways of doing. We draw upon them to think about the necessity, as both academics and as citizens of a shared world, of going along alternative routes and across non-professionalised and non-/inter-disciplinary activities and grounds in order to cut what is still a hopeful path through these landscapes of the Anthropocene.</p
Temporary urban environment changes to promote physical activity in urban populations:A scoping review
No full textObjectiveTo examine what is known about the role of Temporary Urban Environment Changes (TUECs) in promoting physical activity in urban contexts.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. We systematically searched MEDLINE (Ovid), Web of Science, PubMed, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, Scopus and PsycINFO, with screening and selection based on predefined criteria. Searches were completed in September 2024.ResultsForty-two studies met the inclusion criteria, mostly published after 2019 and set in high- income countries (primarily the United States and Europe). Five TUECs categories were identified: Open/Play Streets and Ciclovía, pop-up cycle lanes, pop-up parks, parklets/plazas, and other. Walking and cycling were the most frequently supported activities; 38 studies reported a beneficial direction of effect on physical activity and 4 were inconclusive. The evidence base is dominated by observational or cross-sectional designs, with inconsistent theoretical framing and heterogeneous physical-activity measures (mostly self-report or on-site observation, with few device-based measures). Equity dimensions, including reach among inactive groups, deprivation, disability and age, were rarely examined.ConclusionTUECs offer a flexible and increasingly relevant approach to supporting physical activity in urban environments. This review consolidates a fragmented evidence base and proposes a coherent lens for understanding how temporary spatial interventions are conceptualised, operationalised, and evaluated. As urban areas seek scalable, health-oriented solutions, TUECs deserve closer attention—not as isolated experiments, but as strategic tools within broader public health and urban planning agendas
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