Input: Claim: Extreme environments on Earth provide insights into the potential for life on other planets. [SEP] Text: An additional interest for our group is providing greater context on the serpentine bodies seen on Mars by expanding our understanding of terrestrial serpentine bodies. What are the goals of the project? The primary goal for our project is to characterize serpentinites in order to understand their history and relationship to surrounding rocks. To do this we will collect samples of rocks and soil from these serpentine bodies. In addition, we will also map their apparent exposure on the ground for comparison with satellite images. Upon return from Sri Lanka, microscopic (petrographic and cathodoluminescence) and geochemical () observations will be combined to texturally, chemically, and mineralogically characterize serpentines and learn about their history. Our field mapping will be compared with visible and infrared images of the bodies to characterize their spectral signature, and look for undiscovered outcrops. wait. . . Thanks to support from our lab, we have funds available that can cover our airfare to the country. However, we still need field supplies (notebooks and sample bags) as well as safety supplies such as mosquito nets and protective snake gear. We also need to ship our samples back to the US for analysis, which can cost up to $5 per pound of material. For all this, we budget $600, about half for the supplies and half for sample shipment. Renting a car to reach the sites will cost $450, and living expenses for both of us for one week will cost $1400. To travel safely, we need protection from tropical diseases while in the country, so we request $220 to cover these medications. Finally, Experiment. com charges a platform fee, we include this here so you know exactly how much of your donation goes directly to the science! Endorsed bySerpentine soils in are unique and close proximity to the martian serpentine soils. Although attempts were made to understand the geochemistry, release of trace metals and toxicity effects for crop growth in the serpentine soils in Sri Lanka, molecular level studies are lacking and will be beneficial to reveal the mechanisms. Being a researcher from with lack of facilities, this collaboration will be helpful in conducting advanced research work. Meththika VithanageSenior LecturerCenter for Research, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of my papers on martian soil processes, role as a NASA review panelist, and NASA-funded projects, I endorse the proposal. serpentine soil will address their limited characterization in island settings.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Bottom picture – natural (a) and post-mining (b) biocrusts following the 96 h incubation. Download 3. 2 Soil properties EC and NO3- were significantly higher in natural biocrusts compared to post-mining biocrusts (EC: t = 2. 89, p<0. 05; NO3-: t = 4, p<0. 01; Table 1). Soil organic matter was also significantly higher in the natural biocrusts (t = 3. 77, p<0. 01; Table 1). pH was slightly higher in natural biocrusts, however, the differences were not statistically significant (pH: t = 1. 41, p = 0. 19; Table 1). Table 1Soil properties for natural and post-mining biocrusts. The numbers represent the means for each property and the standard deviation. Significant differences are marked with an asterisk (* p<0. 05; ** p<0. 01). Version | Download XLSX 3. 3 Chlorophyll a The estimation plot revealed an effect size estimate at 1. 42 (95 CI −0. 432, 3. 03; Fig. 3). In the natural samples, there was no clear clustering according to the soil water content i. e. , dry or hydrated (following 96 h incubation with water). In fact, there was a larger variance between samples collected after incubation (Fig. 3). Hydrated post-mining biocrusts had consistently higher chlorophyll a concentrations compared to dry biocrusts. It is also apparent that the variance between samples was smaller in the post-mining biocrusts (Fig. 3). Figure 3Estimation plots of chlorophyll a concentrations. Dots represent the biocrust samples, and colors represent either dry or incubated soil. Download 3. 4 Sequencing and differential abundance modeling Sequencing resulted in 47 311 reads per sample on average (Table S2) and 10 275 ASVs (Table S3). Following decontamination and filtering, 86 % of the ASVs were removed (Table S3). However, they accounted for only 16 % of the total reads. Out of the remaining 1404 ASVs, 1266 in total were labeled and used for the differential abundance modeling (Table S3).

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: input: U,V,x,τ initialization: e1=0,Δτ1=0,λ1=0,μ=1 Cache Q=(JTJ)−1JT forp=1:ado updateΔτ:Δτp+1=Q(UViT+eT−xi∘τi+1μλP) updatee:ep+1=S1μP(xi∘τi+JiΔτp+1−UViT−1μλP) updateλ:λp+1=λp+μh(ep+1,Δτp+1) updateμ:μ=ρμ if ‖ h(ep+1,Δτp+1) ‖2≤ εtollerance then converge and break the loop end if end for returnΔτ∗=Δτp+1 DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-6 As previously mentioned, the task entails determining the locally optimal transformation matrix for every pixel. Thus, for each image pixel, a 3 × 3 transformation matrix needs to be identified to effectively model the distortions. Rather than focusing on the transformation of individual pixels, it is feasible to model the transformation of a window encompassing the pixel at its center. After the application of the transformation matrix to each window, the value of each transformed pixel ( xi∘τi) within the ith image corresponds to the median value across all windows containing that pixel. To achieve this goal, the sliding windows approach is employed. The dimensions of each window is adaptive depending on the entropy of the window. Initially, the window’s size is set to the minimum size Wmin and it expands until its entropy becomes lower than α percent ( 0<α<1) of the image’s entropy. The maximum size allowed for windows is Wmax. Wmin, Wmax and α constitute the free parameters of the proposed method. Since higher entropy in the image indicates more intricate details, lower entropy (signifying image smoothness) results in greater uncertainty when calculating the transformation matrix. Thus, if the window’s size is expanded to the maximum permissible extent without surpassing α percent of the overall image entropy, the calculation of the transformation matrix for that window is skipped.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Extreme environments on Earth provide insights into the potential for life on other planets. [SEP] Text: That will yield a reference for martian serpentine soil and related challenges as a growth substrate for crop plants by human explorers. My PhD student has published at major venues like the Journal of Geophysical Research. Barbato has excelled in advanced work, including cathodoluminescence analyses. & 70810, USASerpentine soils support a unique ecosystem with much of the microbial and plant life that largely remains to be characterized. These life forms and their interactions hold great promise for pioneering research in the forefront of planetary and biological sciences. As a biologist investigating extremophytes, I am certain that this field expedition will provide a critical resource for studies on extreme life. soils are of great interest for astrobiological studies on Mars. This research team is well equipped to perform this study, they have thoroughly planned their field and lab work and have appropriate contacts in to have this project be successful. As an astrobiologist and geochemist I am excited about this work as it addresses a unique Mars analog system, and it addresses a real human health concern as highly basic serpentine soils have chemistries that are potentially harmful to communities. is a great project that has geochemical and astrobiological implications. The field work is essential to understanding serpentine formation and gives the investigators first hand experience in a site where it forms. This can be applied to the occurrences or suspected occurrences on Mars. has excellent experience in Martian science, so an interesting outcome is ensured. G. of Geophysics and Planetology, University of HawaiiProject TimelineUntil we leave on August 2nd, we will be planning and preparing for our field mission to Sri Lanka. We will spend a week there, visiting sites and collecting samples and other field data. Samples will have to be shipped back, which will take some time to return to the US. Upon the return of the samples, we will begin preparing the samples for examination and getting our first look at the samples. Initial results will be shared at the 2019 Lunar and ConferenceJul 12, 2018Start Experiment. com CampaignJul 12, 2018Project LaunchedAug 02, 2018Depart for Sri LankaSep 01, 2018Samples returned from Sri LankaNov 01, 2018Complete initial characterization of samplesShow more eventsMar 18, 2019Present initial findings at Lunar and ConferenceMeet the TeamDon HoodPh. D. am a 4th year Ph. D. Candidate at LSU, getting my Doctorate in Geology studying planetary science.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Download 4 this study, we examined which groups of the biocrust bacterial communities grow after hydration using an SIP assay and differential abundance and diversity modeling. We hydrated and incubated the biocrusts for 96 h expecting bacterial growth, yet very little growth was detected. Only 3. 9 % of the natural and 7. 7 % of the post-mining biocrusts' ASVs were identified as truly labeled by the stable isotope. Post-mining biocrusts had a slightly higher number of labeled ASVs compared to natural biocrusts, but the differences were not significant. Also, the composition and taxonomic identity of the growing communities did not significantly differ between natural and post-mining biocrusts. Biocrust organisms are known to resume activity quickly following hydration, resuming functions such as damage repair, germination, nutrient cycling, and growth (Harel et al. , 2004; Rajeev et al. , 2013; Green and Proctor, 2016; Thomas et al. , 2022). Hydration was also demonstrated to change the biocrust bacterial communities (Angel and Conrad, 2013; Štovícek and Gillor, 2022). In an H218O SIP assay using the biocrusts from arid and hyperarid regions, samples were hydrated and incubated for 3 weeks at maximum water-holding capacity. Within days, changes in the labeled bacterial community composition and abundance were observed, indicating growth (Angel and Conrad, 2013). Similarly, biocrusts collected in the Highlands during a rain event and subsequent desiccation, demonstrated an increase in Cyanobacteria and decrease in Actinobacteria relative abundance (Baubin et al. , 2021), implying selective activation of bacterial taxa in the hydrated biocrust. In other H218O SIP assays on soil bacterial communities, a quick response to rewetting was observed, and bacterial growth was evident within 24 to 72 h of incubation (Blazewicz et al. , 2014; Aanderud et al. , 2015). Thus, we assumed that hydration and incubation of hyperarid biocrusts under favorable conditions would result in growth.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Instead, its value is approximated using the transformation matrix from neighboring windows. Despite distortion implying abrupt shifts in pixel positions, these changes cannot be very drastic. Consequently, a mechanism must be considered for removing transformation matrices that yield substantial pixel displacements. To address this, the mean and variance of all estimated Δτi matrices are calculated. Those matrices exceeding a threshold of β percent, in terms of their distance from the mean value, relative to the total variance, are designated as outliers. Subsequently, pixels with the Δτi matrix that are identified as outliers (pixels with a window size equal to Wmax and those with a Δτi matrix with a drastic value) are assigned the mean value of Δτi matrices from neighboring pixels. Ultimately, the transformation matrix for each window is determined by accumulating the estimated Δτi values from different iterations. ( τik+1=Δτi+τik). Given that the distortion affecting pixels arises from a limited range of distinct transformations, a MOG model is computed using the estimated transformation matrices. This MOG model serves as a representation of all the distortions affecting image pixels. Employing the computed MOG, the final transformation matrix for each window is established as the mean value of the Gaussian model, with the transformation matrix of that window being a member of said Gaussian model. As a reminder, similar to the adaptive determination of the number of Gaussian models for noise (as outlined in Algorithm 1), the number of Gaussian models for distortions is also computed adaptively using the same approach. The comprehensive process of distortion removal is presented in Algorithm 3. Algorithm 3: Removing distortion from image.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Extreme environments on Earth provide insights into the potential for life on other planets. [SEP] Text: In my research, I focus on the martian surface, and how we can understand its history based on the surface chemistry and mineralogy. However, since I am stuck here on Earth, I also like to study locations on this planet that may be similar to those that once existed on Mars, often called "martian analogs". Even the most remote places on Earth are nextdoor compared to Mars, making these analogs much easier to study. The thing about my work that excites me most is that, when we do research, we get to make discoveries and find a truth that nobody has known before. I hope that we can do that in Sri Lanka, and truly discover something new about the history of these rocks. BarbatoI’m a recent graduate from the University (LSU) geology program, and I've always had a love for research, the outdoors and photography. My research projects have spanned across multiple, diverse fields including planetary science, sedimentology and surface process, and metamorphic geochemistry. I've enjoyed representing LSU and presenting my work at multiple conferences around the country. When people ask me where I’m from I simply tell them I’m not from anywhere, but I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. was 3 years old my family moved overseas for 15 years. I became a global nomad, living in multiple countries around the world including de Janeiro, Brazil, the Hague, the Netherlands, and Cairo, Egypt. By living abroad, I was constantly adapting to various cultures and different ways of life. Learning to acclimate through diverse environments has helped me grow as a student and approach difficulties with an open mind and the determination to overcome challenges. Lab Notes5 PostedDay 0: First look at IndikolapelessaSeptember 17, 201829156Return from Field update! August 29, 201801110Full Funding! July 30, 201804181Additional InformationAs a thanks for your support, backers who support us at $50 or more will get to name a sample from our study! We will send you a picture of the sample, and use the name you give in all publications. Backers who support us at higher levels can name one sample for every $50 of support (i. e. $150 = 3 named samples). Since this will be published work, we reserve the right to decline names that are inappropriate for publication.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Previous studies examining the effect of a physical disturbance (repeated trampling) on biocrust communities revealed a decrease in the amount of extractable DNA, lower chlorophyll a, and a decrease in biomass and Cyanobacteria abundance (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). However, these studies investigated a localized disturbance compared to mining disturbance, where the biocrust is completely removed over large spatial scales. Moreover, the previous studies were conducted in environments that were less extreme than the hyperarid Zin Valley. Therefore, we expected the damage to the biocrust in Zin post-mining sites to follow similar patterns but to be more conspicuous than the previously reported disturbed biocrusts (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). Our previous report (Gabay et al. , 2022) supported this notion; we demonstrated differences in bacterial communities in natural and post-mining biocrusts, expecting these differences to be reflected in the proliferating communities of these biocrusts. Our previous survey (2017) also revealed significantly lower abundances of Cyanobacteria and chlorophyll a concentrations in post-mining biocrusts (Gabay et al. , 2022). Out of the four mining sites surveyed, Gov (which was restored in 2007) showed the most considerable shift in biocrust community following mining. However, in the current study, we sampled post-mining biocrusts at a different location in the Gov mining site (∼ 500 m away from the original plot) due to technical constraints. In the new location, we found that the photosynthetic potential of the biocrust in the post-mining plots did not differ from the natural biocrust. These results highlight the importance of microenvironments in shaping the functionality of biocrusts (Garcia-Pichel and Belnap, 1996). The similarities in active communities and photosynthetic potential could be due to more developed biocrusts in the new sampling locations compared to the previous ones. Photosynthetic activity is usually observed in biocrusts within minutes to hours after hydration by either dew or rain (Harel et al. , 2004; Lange, 2003). In our experiment, we hydrated the biocrusts to capacity and then incubated the samples for 96 h.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: input: x,U,V,τ extractsubregionofimagexusingslidingwindowsbasedontheentropyofeach pixel as fjj=1,…,d foreachfj: iffjsatisfyentropycarcumestion calculate Δτj using Algorithm 2 else set Δτj as outlier end if end for using variance and average of all Δτj to detect outlier ones for each fj: if Δτj is outlier calculate Δτj using Δτ matrix of neighboring windows end if end for τj=τj+Δτj estimate MOG using τj and assign mean of MOG models to each windows for each pixel index j in x L = set of all jth pixel exist in all transformed windows jth pixel of x∘τ = median(L) end for return x∘τ DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-7 Selecting a subset of images using the () method Turbulent images can exhibit varying degrees of distortion and blurring due to different conditions and intensities. Consequently, identifying and excluding images that exhibit distinct turbulence patterns can lead to improved outcomes. method is employed within the proposed approach to achieve this objective (refer to Algorithm 4). To accomplish this, a subset of m images (m≪n)) is randomly selected, and the proposed method (as described in Algorithm 5) is applied to this subset, yielding a restored image (denoted as r1). Subsequently, each of the remaining images is processed using Algorithm 5 along with the initial set of m images. This leads to the generation of an output matrix R=UVT, containing m+1 images. Instead of averaging the images, the (m+1)th image is selected as the final image for the process. Algorithm 4: method to best subset image selection.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Cite this book. Beyond UFOs: for Implications for Our Future, Princeton: Press, 2011. Bennett, J. (2011). Beyond UFOs: for Implications for Our Future. Princeton: Press. Bennett, J. 2011. Beyond UFOs: for Implications for Our Future. Princeton: Press. Bennett, Jeffrey. Beyond UFOs: for Implications for Our Future. Princeton: Press, 2011. Bennett J. Beyond UFOs: for Implications for Our Future. Princeton: Press; 2011. Copied to clipboard Copy to clipboard Download: by Press 2011 Purchase book for Implications for Cite this Share this this book The quest for extraterrestrial life doesn't happen only in science fiction. This book describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? How can life be recognized on distant worlds? Is it likely to be microbial, more biologically complex--or even intelligent? What would such a discovery mean for life here on Earth? Come along on this scientific adventure and learn the astonishing implications of discoveries made in this field for the future of the human race. Bennett, who believes that "science is a way of helping people come to agreement," explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can help bridge the divide that sometimes exists between science and religion, defuse public rancor over the teaching of evolution, and quiet the debate over global warming. He likens humanity today to a troubled adolescent teetering on the edge between self-destruction and a future of virtually limitless possibilities. Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars. In a new afterword, Bennett shares the most recent developments in extrasolar research, and discusses how they might further our quest to find alien life. Author Editor information is an astrophysicist, author, and educator. His books include leading college-level textbooks in astrobiology, astronomy, mathematics, and statistics, as well as the award-winning children's book to the Moon.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: During the incubation, most biocrust samples displayed some degree of greening, with more greening in the natural biocrusts (Fig. 2). This indicates that the photosynthetic bacteria in the biocrust were activated upon wetting. Yet, no significant differences were detected between natural and post-mining biocrusts' chlorophyll a concentrations (Fig. 3) or abundances of photosynthesis-related genes (Fig. 6). This implies that similar abundances of photosynthetic bacteria were activated upon wetting in both biocrusts, yet they barely proliferated (Fig. 4). analysis revealed no significant differences in the abundances of genes within any of the function categories examined (Fig. 6). In contrast, a previous study conducted in the Highlands examined active bacterial communities during a rain and subsequent drying (Baubin et al. , 2021). The results indicated an increase in genes related to photosynthesis, light, and sensing following the rain, while the other function categories did not vary significantly. We note that the identity and abundances of the functional genes in the dry biocrusts detected by Baubin et al. (2021) and here (Fig. 6) are similar. Therefore, we propose that the similarity between the post-mining and natural biocrust communities (Fig. 5) reflect similar functional potential (Fig. 6). However, low abundance of active ASVs were used to infer the abundances of functional genes, and large variance between samples in post-mining biocrusts could mask significant differences (Table S5). The growth patterns of biocrust organisms are affected by local environmental conditions (Kim and Or, 2017). Zin mining fields are in a hyperarid region, where extreme heat events are frequent in the summer, and rains are scarce and unpredicted. Moreover, in recent years there were only two or three rain events during each rainy season (Zin factory meteorological data). Hydration is the most important factor affecting biocrust organisms' growth rate, while long desiccation periods negatively affect growth (Zaady et al. , 2016). Also, salinity levels in soils are high (Table 1; Levi et al. , 2021), imposing further stress on the biocrust community.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Similarly, the distances between two noise distributions of the m images and the m+1 images and two transformation matrix distributions (τ)of the m images and the m+1 images are computed using the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. These are respectively termed C2 and C3. If the weighted average of these three criteria (C1, C2, and C3) falls below a predetermined threshold, this image is regarded as a member of the support set of the initial m images. The procedure for calculating the KL divergence between two MOG distributions is elaborated in 3. After this, the previously described procedure is repeated, and the U and V matrices are updated using the calculated xi∘τik values. This iterative process continues until the predetermined stopping condition is met. The complete procedure is visually depicted in Fig. 2. The main part of the proposed method is the calculation of the low rank matrix, which is shown by the green box in the mentioned figure. A detailed algorithmic representation of this part is provided in Algorithm 5. Figure 2: Overall procedure of proposed method. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/fig-2 Experiments and results In this section, we conduct experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed method on both simulated and real datasets. The obtained results are then compared with the performance of several existing algorithms, namely Two-Stage (Oreifej et al. , 2011), BNLTV (Mao & Gilles, 2012), NDL (Zhu & Milanfar, 2012), HVDKR (Xie et al. , 2016), SGL (Lou et al. , 2013), Centroid (Meinhardt-Llopis & Micheli, 2014), RPCA (Lau, Lai & Lui, 2019b), JSUB (Lau, Lai & Lui, 2019a), PCA-Based (Li, Mersereau & Simske, 2007), Lucky-Region (Aubailly et al. , 2009), and UCSPF (Zhang et al. , 2018). For this purpose, in this section, first, the datasets that were utilized for the experiments, are introduced. Subsequently, we evaluate the proposed method’s performance on these datasets and conduct a comparative analysis of the results with the aforementioned algorithms.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Reviews "Bennett describes the search for life beyond the Earth in terms that are accessible to the nonscientist and yet reveal a broad understanding of the evolution of stars, planets, and organisms. The author's optimism is contagious. May it help inspire us to actually accomplish these lofty goals. "—James F. is a rich, slow, and rewarding read. Rich because it is full of some of the most interesting current interdisciplinary science regarding planets and life that you can find, blending astronomy, geology, history, and astrobiology in a single narrative. Slow because each page is so full of interesting content that you don't want to skim. Rewarding because Bennett is simply a fantastic writer and presenter, making the read thoroughly enjoyable. No science expertise required. ---Jennifer Wiseman, Books & CultureBeyond UFOs gives a good impression from the moment you first take it into your hands. It is attractively produced, well written, and very thoroughly proofread. It's an interesting and challenging complement to focused research, and will be particularly enjoyed by anyone who has an appetite for broad science tinged with morals. ---Elizabeth Griffin, The ObservatoryThe old adage 'don't judge a book by its cover' (or, in this case, its title) certainly applies here. While one might expect a book of science fiction, Bennett presents this awe-inspiring topic in a scientifically accurate but personal way. I would recommend it to anyone interested in reading a creative summary of the status of the search for life elsewhere in the universe and would hope that it might provide a starting point to inspire the next generation of astronomers and astrobiologists. ---Lisa Jardine-Wright, EducationParticularly enjoyable is the down-to-earth writing; Bennett, an astrophysicist, author, and educator, tells the reader exactly how he feels about various topics (even the role of God in the scheme of things). Readers may not agree with everything he says, but he does offer food for thought. ---B. R. Parker, ChoiceFinalist for the 2008 Eugene M. walks us through the daunting calculations that lead to the conclusion that the existence of life elsewhere is not only possible, but highly likely. But as we wonder where else life exists and what forms it might take, scientists are forced back to more fundamental questions. What is the nature of life itself? Will we know it if we see it? . . .

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: It is known that in high stress environments, biocrust microorganisms increase nutrient availability and accumulation by resuming carbon and nitrogen fixation upon hydration (Aranibar, 2022). The resulting organic carbon and nitrogen compounds can be consumed during the long desiccation periods (Belnap, 2003; Colesie et al. , 2014). One study examining microbial nitrogen transformations in biocrusts collected from succulent Karoo biome in Namibia and showed that following wetting, nitrogen cycling genes are expressed in biocrust organisms (Maier et al. , 2022). Another study examining biocrust samples taken from the in Utah demonstrated a pulse of metabolite release following controlled wetting (Swenson et al. , 2018). Based on these reports, and due to the extreme conditions in (Levi et al. , 2021), we suggest that hyperarid biocrust communities prioritize functions such as metabolite production, nutrient cycling, and preparation for desiccation over growth. Natural recovery of biocrusts has been long debated and is generally estimated to be a slow process, especially in arid sites that experience very short activity periods for biocrust development, such as the hyperarid Zin mining site (Kidron et al. , 2020; Weber et al. , 2016). The time and trajectory of recovery depend on many factors relating to local climatic conditions and site properties (Belnap and Lange, 2003). One such factor that greatly affects establishment and restoration of biocrusts is the proximity, availability, and dispersal timing of biocrust propagules (Bowker, 2007; Walker et al. , 2007). Thus, the low proliferation rates we observed, particularly in post-mining biocrusts, suggest that restoration processes might be much slower than previously estimated. The topsoil from a stockpile is used to cover the mining pits. This soil may not contain a biocrust seed bank because it was probably destroyed and buried during the mining processes. Further increase in bacterial biomass might highly depend on the dispersal of biocrust propagules to the site from adjacent natural areas by wind or water. Our results further emphasize the need for active restoration measures in the Zin mines. Such measures include soil inoculation with local cyanobacterial propagules (Acea, 2003; Wang et al. , 2009; Zhao et al. , 2016; et al.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: evaluation of the proposed method encompasses both simulated and real datasets. The real datasets consist of the Chimney, Building, Moon-surface, and Water-tower sets, each of which includes corresponding ground truth images (Zhu & Milanfar, 2012). Meanwhile, the simulated datasets encompass the Car-front (Lau, Lai & Lui, 2019a) and Road (Lau, Lai & Lui, 2019a) sets. The simulated dataset is generated using two distinct approaches. The first method involves warping through a Gaussian deformation vector and introducing blurring through Gaussian noise. This dataset is referred to as the Gaussian simulated dataset. The second approach employs inter-modal and spatially correlated Zernike coefficients (Chimitt & Chan, 2020). This dataset is referred to as the Zernike simulated dataset. Further comprehensive information about these datasets is available in 1. The free parameters can be classified into six distinct groups. The first group encompasses the convergence criteria of the EM method. This parameter involves a trade-off between runtime and algorithm accuracy. Given that turbulence removal is not a real-time computation but rather an offline problem, the chosen value strikes a balance between achieving satisfactory accuracy and ensuring a reasonable runtime. The intention is to avoid an excessively stringent threshold that could lead to impractical computation times while still maintaining attainable levels of accuracy. The second group of parameters pertains to the calculation of Δτ matrices and includes α, Wmin, and Wmax,, which are utilized in determining the size of the sliding window. Additionally, β is employed to identify outlier ∆τ. These parameter values were chosen through a process of trial and error, involving thorough examination of the datasets. It is important to note that the value of Wmin should be chosen small enough to encompass local transformation information, while Wmax should not be too large, as it might include a substantial portion of the image, causing the estimated transformation to become out of locality. The third group of free parameters is used to determine the optimal value of ∆τ through the ADMM method. This group comprises parameters ρandεtolerance with their values set to the ones according to the recommendations of He et al. (2014). The fourth group of free parameters pertains to the number of MOG models used in noise and distortion estimation. This group encompasses the maximum number of models and the threshold for model integration, determined through a trial-and-error process.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Bennett offers a host of lessons here not only about global warming and environmental degradation, but our place in the universe as well. ---by planet, moon by moon, [Beyond UFOs] explores the possibility of life elsewhere in this solar system. It then speculates about other solar systems in our galaxy where, according to the prevailing scientific view, simple life almost surely exists and intelligent life is plausible. For the most part, Bennett's search for extraterrestrial life adds up to a very satisfying package. . . . At its core, this book delivers a combination that is hard to beat: solid yet highly speculative science plus accessible prose that add up to an out-of-this-world reading experience. ---Fred Bortz, Seattle TimesIn cogent and entertaining language, astrophysicist and popular writer Bennett explains that the determining factor in whether we can locate intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is whether such a civilization--and our own--can continue long enough to develop the highly sophisticated technology needed for interstellar travel. . . Bennett does a wonderful job of explaining the conditions necessary for simple life, how we might discern its existence and where we should be looking. He then does the same thing for intelligent life. While he is fair to those who believe life is incredibly rare, he makes a compelling case that life is likely to be abundant. "Precise, accurate, lucid, and engaging. This is popular-science writing at its best. I enjoyed reading this book. "—"This is a fascinating book about the living universe, well-written and timely. "—David Morrison, coauthor of System and Voyages to the PlanetsThis is a highly readable and enjoyable book that centers on astrobiology--a discipline that melds astronomy, biology, geology--and a little bit of luck--to explore the prospect of life on other worlds. . . . Bennett is an excellent writer, taking the reader on an exploration quest to find alien life, and how difficult solar system sleuthing can be, such as on Mars, Jupiter's Europa, or on Saturn's Titan. You'll also find an excellent treatment on current activities surrounding the on-going search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Winner of the 2010 US Review of Books's in Culture"With the possible exception of the God question, I can think of no subject that has inspired such wide-eyed wonder and speculation as the matter of whether or not we are alone in the cosmos.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: , 2017) and increased hydration (Morillas and Gallardo, 2015; Zhang et al. , 2018), which were effective in enhancing biocrust establishment and recovery following disturbances (Antoninka et al. , 2020). 5 proliferation of biocrust bacteria was detected after wetting, suggesting prolonged recovery times of biocrusts following major mechanical disturbances such as mining. Furthermore, recovery largely depends on site conditions and the ability of biocrust propagules to disperse to post-mining sites. Further research is needed to confirm our hypothesis of low proliferation and thus restoration rates in hyperarid biocrust bacterial communities. Code and data availability All data produced in this study and scripts used for community analysis, functional predictions, and chlorophyll a estimation plot are available at (Gabay, 2023). The raw 16S sequences are available in the NCBI database under 906925 and accession numbers SAMN31937891–SAMN31937900 ( last access: 30 November 2022). supplement related to this 10. 5194/soil-9-231-2023-supplement. Author contributions TG: conception, sample collection, incubation, chlorophyll a and DNA extraction, statistical analysis, visualization, and writing (original draft preparation, reviewing, and editing). EP: DNA-SIP assay, DNA quantification, and PCR amplification. OG and YZ: conception, writing (reviewing and editing), investigation, and supervision. RA: conception, statistical analysis, visualization, supervision, and writing (reviewing and editing). All authors read and approved the paper. Competing interests The contact author has declared that none of the authors has any competing interests. Disclaimer Publisher's note: remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. thank from ICL-Rotem for coordinating sample collection and providing Zin factory maps and meteorological data, for her assistance in sample collection, and for suggestions on statistical analyses. Lastly, we thank ICL-Rotem for their support and funding of this research. Financial support Funding for this research was provided by ICL-Rotem. was supported by the Foundation (grant no. 19-24309Y) and was supported by the of and Sport (SoResearch (grant no. EF16_013/0001782)). Review statement This paper was edited by and reviewed by two anonymous referees. 10. 3389/fmicb. 2015.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: When selecting the value of the integration threshold, ensure that it is not too small, which would preserve similar models, and not excessively large, as it might lead to the merging of dissimilar models. The fifth group of free parameters encompasses the parameters: the parameter m represents the minimum number of images required for the algorithm to function accurately. Through the examination of the datasets, it has been determined that the proposed method can effectively remove turbulence with a set of 25 images. Therefore, the parameter m has been set to 25. Within this group, a threshold value is defined for the purpose of identifying the support set. If the weighted mean of the three criteria introduced in selecting a subset of images using the method section becomes lower than this threshold, the current image is regarded as a member of the support set of the initial set of m images. The value of this threshold is also determined through trial and error. The stopping criteria for the EM method (Algorithm 1), method (Algorithm 4), and calculating low rank matrix (Algorithm 5) are the number of iterations, which are set to 40, 10, and 100 iterations, respectively. The sixth group of free parameters involves the λ parameter applied in the WALS method. The determination of this parameter value was achieved through an iterative process of trial and error, conducted specifically on the applied datasets. Table 1: Free parameters of the proposed method and their values, which have been used in all experiments. name Parameter group MaxIter=40 Number of iterations EM convergence criteria (Algorithm 4) α=0. 56 The ratio of entropy of each window w. r. t. the entropy of the whole image Calculation of Δτ Wmin=max(7,120min(width,height)) Minimum size of sliding window Wmax=max(19,18min(width,height)) Maximum size of sliding window β=1. 3 Coefficient of selecting outlier transformation matrix ρ=2 Penalty amount Finding the optimal value of Δτ by the ADMM method εtollerance=10−7 Threshold of determination of convergence condition ε=0. 15 Merge threshold Number of MOG models in estimating distortion and noise Maxk=10 Number of primary Gaussian models m=25 Number of data choices method C=10 Number of iterations εRansac= 0. 5 Similarity threshold for selecting support set λ = 0. 0001 Regularization parameter WALS method DOI: 10.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence today has almost theological status in terms of its implications, and yet it is a rigorous science conducted by world-class scientists. Jeffrey Bennett's book is one of the finest primers on this burgeoning new field. And even though this can be a technically daunting science, Bennett's highly readable prose invites everyone into the dome to gaze through the telescope to have a look for themselves, for this is a journey we are all on together. "—Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic and columnist for Scientific American[Jeffrey Bennett] has taken a break from the treadmill of updating his textbook and has written a popular book instead, bringing the rest of us up to date on our extraordinary new and expanded universe--and on who else might live in it. . . Beyond UFOs is crammed with neat analogies, startling imagery and mind-blowing illustrations of astronomical concepts. If you want to understand the universe and our place in it, you will not find a better primer. The first diagram alone--which shows how Earth's 10,000-kilometre span of real estate fits into a supercluster of galaxies a billion trillion kilometers across--bear a good 10 minutes of study. This truth is astonishing, and humbling--and Beyond UFOs is a great place to find it. ---Michael Brooks, New ScientistWinner of the 2009 in Cosmology/New ScienceThis exploration of potential alien life is a timely work, just as the steadily increasing discoveries of extra-solar planets makes the possibility of finding alien life more plausible. . . . [Beyond UFOs] is a fully rounded examination of the subject, accessible to all. I guarantee that after reading this book you will be watching space probe results that much more closely. And maybe, you will be watching the skies too! ---and i ix xi 1. Worlds beyond 1 2. It Science? 22 3. Know about 41 4. Life? 62 5. 87 6. of a 111 7. Life in the 137 8. Life among the 161 9. for 184 10. Everybody? 197 207 Afterword to the 209 221 (Deutsch) Share this book Twitter Linkedlogin or register with to order this product. in Language: English Publisher: year: 2011 Edition: With a New afterword by the author Audience: Professional and scholarly;College/higher education; content: 248 Illustrations Other: 8 color illus. 25 halftones.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: : Distribution of Mixotrophy and Mechanisms across in an Community, mSystems, 6, e00786-20, 2021. . , Schrempf, D. , Woodhams, M. D. , von Haeseler, A. , and Lanfear, R. : IQ-TREE 2: for in the Genomic Era, Mol. Biol. Evol. , 37, 1530–1534, 2020. Morillas, L. and Gallardo, A. : Biological soil crusts and wetting events: Effects on soil N and C cycles, Appl. Soil Ecol. , 94, 1–6, 2015. Parada, A. E. , Needham, D. M. , and Fuhrman, J. A. : Every base matters: assessing small subunit rRNA primers for marine microbiomes with mock communities, time series and global field samples, Environ. Microbiol. , 18, 1403–1414, 2016. Pepe-Ranney, C. , Koechli, C. , Potrafka, R. , Andam, C. , Eggleston, E. , Garcia-Pichel, F. , and Buckley, D. H. : Non-cyanobacterial diazotrophs mediate dinitrogen fixation in biological soil crusts during early crust formation, ISME J. , 10, 287–298, 2016. Rajeev, L. , da Rocha, U. N. , Klitgord, N. , Luning, E. G. , Fortney, J. , -Pichel, F. , Brodie, E. L. , Northen, T. R. , and Mukhopadhyay, A. : Dynamic cyanobacterial response to hydration and dehydration in a desert biological soil crust, ISME J. , 7, 2178–2191, 2013. Ritchie, R. J. : of Equations for Acetone, Methanol and Ethanol Solvents, Photosyn. Res. , 89, 27–41, 2006. Schwartz, E. , Hayer, M. , Hungate, B. A. , and Mau, R. L.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-1 Compare the results of the proposed method with the existing methods As mentioned, the results of the proposed method are compared with the results of the other eleven methods. The results of the Gaussian simulated dataset are compared with the Two-and JSUB methods, and the results of the Chimney and Building image sequences are compared with the PCA-Based, Lucky Region, Two-and UCSPF methods. These comparative results are presented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. The results of the proposed method on the sequences of the Moon-surface and Water-tower images are provided in 15. 3815 19. 9009 16. 7093 19. 5172 24. 0959 20. 9223 25. 1344 SSIM 0. 5448 0. 8136 0. 6801 0. 8163 0. 9137 0. 8375 0. 9460 Road PSNR 26. 58 27. 4061 23. 9782 30. 03 33. 8682 32. 1232 32. 0174 SSIM 0. 7822 0. 8036 0. 7638 0. 8608 0. 9063 0. 9005 0. 9226 Mean PSNR 20. 9807 23. 6535 20. 3437 24. 7736 28. 9820 26. 5227 28. 5759 SSIM 0. 6635 0. 8086 0. 7219 0. 8385 0. 91 0. 869 0. 9343 DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-2 Note: The best result in each row is shown in bold. Table 3: The results of the proposed method and other existing methods based on PSNR (first rows) and SSIM (second rows) criteria on the chimney and building sequences. PCA-baced Lucky region Two-stage 16. 2921 31. 0421 30. 6152 31. 4314 31. 0052 32. 0103 28. 4552 24. 0133 31. 0484 30. 8352 SSIM 0. 0539 0. 1137 0. 1193 0. 112 0. 1075 0. 1632 0. 9065 0. 8736 0. 9155 0. 9231 Building PSNR 14. 346 24. 0679 25. 0724 24. 808 26. 2145 26. 4822 15. 8501 24.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: downloadDownload free _right2013 – Life is a : The “Search for Water” evolves into the “Search for Life”Bill SmithThe 2013 data from the gives a current estimate of the number of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars in the Galaxy, as 144 billion. We propose that this estimate has caused a consciousness change in human belief in the probability of life off Earth. This seems to have affected NASA's public statements which are now leaning to the more visionary mission goal of the " Search for Life " rather than the 1975-2012 focus of the " Search for Water ". We propose that the first confirmed Earth-like planet, expected to be announced later this year, be called " " in honour of the visionary USA scientist Bill Borucki, the father of the Kepler Mission. We explore the 2013 status of the Hoyle-of Panspermia, its hypothesis, propositions, experiments and evidence. We use the model for scientific hypotheses(1). Finally we explore Hoyle's vision of a planetary microbe defense system we call the Hoyle Shield. We explore the subsystem components of the shield and assess some options for these components using breakthrough technologies already available. downloadDownload free _rightSee full preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. Loading PreviewSorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. Related papersin the Ointment: Homochirality & Extraterrestrial Origin-Of-Life TheoriesTimothy GordondownloadDownload free _rightLectures in astrobiologyAndreas CorzodownloadDownload free _rightScience and Boarddr padownloadDownload free _rightOf Life: Astrobiologylucian gleiserArxiv preprint arXiv:0811. 1291, 2008downloadDownload free _rightis the Code? A Question of ExtraTerrestrial OriginsTzipe Govezensky2010downloadDownload free _rightof Explorationian crawfordAstrobiology, 2010downloadDownload free _rightOrigin of LifeJoshue EspindownloadDownload free _rightLife's chirality from prebiotic environmentslucian gleiserof Astrobiology, 2012downloadDownload free _rightfrom the Ancient Ironfree _rightDid life come from another world?

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: : Probing of Microorganisms in with H218O, in: Probing, Springer, 129–136, 2019. Sengupta, M. : Environmental impacts of mining: monitoring, restoration, and control, 2nd Edn. , 1 pp. , 2021. Steven, B. , Kuske, C. R. , Gallegos-Graves, L. V. , Reed, S. C. , and Belnap, J. : in. Environ. Microbiol. , 81, 7448–7459, 2015. Štovícek, A. and Gillor, O. : of Communities to Hydration and in Ecosystems, in: Microbiology of Hot Deserts, edited by: Ramond, J. -B. and Cowan, D. A. , Publishing, Cham, 244, 319–339, 2022. Sultana, N. , Zhao, J. , Zheng, Y. , Cai, Y. , Faheem, M. , Peng, X. , Wang, W. , and Jia, Z. : Stable isotope probing of active methane oxidizers in rice field soils from cold regions, Biol. Fertil. Soils, 55, 243–250, 2019. Swenson, T. L. , Karaoz, U. , Swenson, J. M. , Bowen, B. P. , and Northen, T. R. : Linking soil biology and chemistry in biological soil crust using isolate exometabolomics, Nat. Commun. , 9, 19, 2018. R Team: R: A language and environment for statistical computing, Vienna, Austria, (last access: 1 December 2022), 2013. . , Strong, C. L. , Bullard, J. , Webster, R. , and Lan, S. : Soil biocrusts affect metabolic response to hydration on dunes in west Queensland, Australia, Geoderma, 405, 115464, 2022. Velasco Ayuso, S. , Giraldo Silva, A. , Nelson, C. , Barger, N. N. , and Garcia-Pichel, F. : Production of High-Biomass for Restoration of Soils, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. , 83, e02179-16, 2017.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: 0312 25. 3721 28. 4178 SSIM 0. 1858 0. 3271 0. 3882 0. 3855 0. 4857 0. 5137 0. 6449 0. 7214 0. 7926 0. 8802 Mean PSNR 15. 3190 27. 555 27. 8438 28. 1197 28. 6098 29. 2462 22. 1526 24. 0222 28. 2102 29. 6265 SSIM 0. 1198 0. 2204 0. 2537 0. 2487 0. 2966 0. 3384 0. 7757 0. 7975 0. 8540 0. 90165 DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-3 Note: The best result in each row is shown in bold. Table 4: The results of the proposed method based on PSNR (first rows) and SSIM (second rows) criteria on Zernike simulated datasets. Proposed Car-front PSNR 23. 0173 SSIM 0. 9208 Road PSNR 31. 7254 SSIM 0. 9167 Mean PSNR 27. 3714 SSIM 0. 9188 DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/table-4 Figures 3–6 provide visual representations of the restored images obtained from the proposed method and the results of the previous methods. It is evident from these images that the -and UCSPF methods yield higher visual quality in terms of the final restored image compared to the other methods. Figure 3: (A) The reference image of the car-front sequence (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, (D) NDL, (E) SGL, (F) centroid, (G) RPCA, (H) JSUB, and (I) two-stage, on this sequence. Photo credit: Pui Anantrasirichai. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-jbjwg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-08T15:12:34. 214Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false Home >Books >in the Universe >for in the print or eBook [Opens in a new window] Book contents in the Life in the page Acknowledgements1 for Extraterrestrial Life2 Where in the Universe to Look? 3 Evolution – Here and Elsewhere4 Concept of Habitability5 Life in the Solar System6 Life in Systems7 of Extraterrestrial Life8 Intelligence – Here and of 10. 1017/9781009207355. 003 [Opens in a new window] Publisher: publication year: 2022 a Privileged Generation? For many millennia, humans have gazed up in wonder at the night-time sky. The full panoply of the is an awesome sight. The scale of space is immense. Is there life out there somewhere? If so, where, and what form does it take? In the space of a couple of sentences, we’ve already gone from generalized wonder to specific questions. The next step is from questions to hypotheses, or, in other words, proposed answers. Here are two such hypotheses that I’ll flesh out as the book progresses: first, life exists on trillions of planets in the universe; second, it usually follows evolutionary pathways that are broadly similar to – though different in detail from – those taken on Earth. Going from cosmic wonder to questions about alien life and on to hypothetical answers has been possible for a long time. But the final steps – from hypothetical answers to testing the hypotheses to arriving at an understanding of reality – have so far proved beyond humanity’s grasp. That may be about to change. We may be on the threshold of being able to answer the age-old question ‘are we alone in the universe? ’ with a resounding ‘no’. But what is the basis of this claim? The short answer is advancing technology, and in particular advancing design of telescopes. We’ll get to that topic soon. But first, let me reassure you that I’m not alone in my optimism about the imminent discovery of evidence for alien life.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Preprints AbstractDiscussion © Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under the Attribution 4. 0 License. © Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under the Attribution 4. 0 License. Preprints AbstractDiscussionMetrics 09 Jan 2023 | 09 Jan 2023 Only a minority of bacteria grow after wetting in both natural and post-mining biocrusts in a hyperarid, phosphate mine and Abstract. Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are key contributors to desert ecosystem functions; therefore, biocrust restoration following mechanical disturbance is imperative. In the hyperarid regions, phosphate mining has been practiced for over 60 years, destroying soil habitats, and fragmenting the landscape. To understand the effects of mining activity on soil health, we previously characterized the biocrust communities in four phosphate mining sites over spatial (post-mining and natural plots) and temporal (2–10 years since restoration) scales. We showed that bacterial abundance, richness, and diversity in natural plots were significantly higher than in post-mining plots, regardless of temporal scale. In this study, we selected one mining site and used DNA stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) to identify which bacteria grow in post-mining and natural biocrusts. Since biocrust communities activate only after wetting, we incubated the biocrusts with H218O for 96 hours under ambient conditions. We then evaluated the physicochemical soil properties, chlorophyll a concentrations, activation, and functional potential of the biocrusts. The DNA-SIP assay revealed low bacterial activity in both plot types and no significant differences in the proliferated communities’ composition when comparing post-mining and natural biocrusts. We further found no significant differences in the microbial functional potential, photosynthetic rates, or soil properties. Our results suggest that growth of hyperarid biocrust bacteria after wetting is minimal. We hypothesize that due to the harsh climatic conditions, during wetting bacteria devote their meager resources to prepare for the coming drought, by focusing on damage repair, and organic compound synthesis and storage rather than on growth. These low growth rates contribute to the sluggish recovery of desert biocrusts following major disturbances such as mining. Therefore, our findings highlight the need for implementing active restoration practices following mining. How to cite. Gabay, T. , Petrova, E. , Gillor, O.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: 1713/fig-3 Figure 4: (A) The reference image of the road sequence, (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, (D) NDL, (E) SGL, (F) centroid, (G) RPCA, (H) JSUB, and (I) two-stage, on this sequence. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/fig-4 Figure 5: (A) The reference image of the chimney sequence, (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, (D) lucky region, (E) two-stage, (F) BNLTV, (G) NDL, (H) HVDKR, (I) SGL, (J) centroid, (K) UCSPF, and (L) PCA-based, on this sequence. Photo credit: Chiman Kwan. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/fig-5 Figure 6: (A) The reference image of the building sequence, (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, (D) lucky region, (E) two-stage, (F) BNLTV, (G) NDL, (H) HVDKR, (I) SGL, (J) centroid, (K) UCSPF, and (L) PCA-based, on this sequence. Photo credit: Chiman Kwan. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/fig-6 method exhibits a restored image with lower quality compared to other methods. Despite the restoration of the geometric structure, the resulting image appears blurry and overly brightened due to the effects of temporal averaging. The RPCA method, lacking a mechanism to effectively remove distortion, primarily focuses on selecting a subset of turbulent images with minimal distortion and maximal sharpness during the subsampling stage. As a result, the restored image obtained using the RPCA method continues to exhibit some degree of distortion.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: A 2021 paper in the leading scientific journal Nature, by the American physicist and his colleagues, began with the following sentence: ‘Our generation could realistically be the one to discover evidence of life beyond Earth. ’ Its authors clearly share my optimism in this respect. Of course, there’s a question-mark hanging over the meaning of ‘our generation’, as the six authors are varied in age, and their readers even more so. But that’s a small uncertainty in the grand scheme of things. The key point is that many scientists suspect that the first evidence of life beyond Earth will be forthcoming on a timescale of years to decades, not centuries. Even if it takes five decades to acquire the first conclusive evidence, a reasonable proportion of those alive today (regrettably not including me! ) will still be here to see it. In the previous paragraph, I used the phrase ‘many scientists’. But scientists of what type? Science is a broad endeavour, and some parts of it are more relevant to the search for life than others. However, that said, many scientific disciplines have a role to play. They include cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, atmospheric science, geology, ecology, evolutionary biology, genetics, molecular biology, and organic chemistry – and that is far from being an exhaustive list. The principal discipline is astrobiology, which is a mix of some or all of the above, with the exact mix depending on the astrobiologist concerned. Astrobiologists of my generation weren’t trained as such, as there were no courses in the subject, so we’ve migrated towards it from various starting points – in my case evolutionary biology. But there’s a younger cohort of astrobiologists who have indeed been trained in this discipline. Importantly, the ‘many scientists’ who suspect that the first evidence of alien life will be found on the years-to-decades timescale include specialists in all of the disciplines mentioned above, and indeed others too. So this optimism isn’t a passing fad in one particular narrow branch of science.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Response: I added literature regarding physical trampling and how they might compare to the mining disturbance in the hyper-arid (L358 – L370):…” Previous studies examining the effect of a physical disturbance (repeated trampling) on biocrust communities, revealed a decrease in the amount of extractable DNA, lower chlorophyll a, and a decrease in biomass and cyanobacteria abundance (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). However, these studies investigated a localized disturbance compared to mining disturbance, where the biocrust is completely removed over large spatial scales. Moreover, the previous studies were conducted in environments that were less extreme than the hyper-arid Zin Valley. Therefore, we expected the damage to the biocrust in Zin post-mining sites to follow similar patterns but to be more conspicuous than the previously reported disturbed biocrusts (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). Our previous report (Gabay et al. , 2022) supported this notion; we demonstrated differences in bacterial communities in natural and post-mining biocrusts, expecting these differences to be reflected in the proliferating communities of these biocrusts. "Similarly, transcriptomic studies that show the genes that are expressed during a wetting pulse and have documented metabolic a physiological changes in the bacterial community in a wetting pulse. These studies show where resources may be going to rather than growth, and should probably be at least mentioned in this text. Response: I added previous studies that showed expression of nitrogen cycling genes and metabolite production following wetting (L417 – L425):…” One study examining microbial nitrogen transformations in biocrusts collected from biome in Namibia and showed that following wetting, nitrogen cycling genes are expressed in biocrust organisms (Maier et al. , 2022). another study examining biocrust samples taken from the in Utah demonstrated a pulse of metabolite release following controlled wetting (Swenson et al. , 2018). Based on these reports (Maier et al. , 2022; Swenson et al. , 2018) and due to the extreme conditions in (Levi et al. , 2021), we suggest that hyperarid biocrust communities prioritize functions such as metabolite production, nutrient cycling and preparation for desiccation over growth.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Nonetheless, due to its emphasis on the selection of a subset of sharp images and using the appropriate energy function to merge these subsampled images, coupled with the application of the blind deconvolution method, the restored image has little blur. The JSUB method closely resembles the RPCA method except that its energy function uses TV regularization, the L2 norm, and adaptive Gaussian noise for joint subsampling. This method also lacks a blind deconvolution step, resulting in a mildly distorted but blurred image. The Two-Stage method’s deficiency caused by from the generation of an unsuitable reference image through the averaging process, leading to errors during the registration stage and ultimately resulting in a blurred final image. Similar to the Two-Stage method, the NDL method also suffers from the impact of the erroneous reference image generated through the averaging process. This issue substantially affects the performance of the registration stage, and even though the method employs the blind deconvolution technique, the resulting image lacks clarity in terms of capturing image details. HVDKR uses the RPCA method to generate a reference image with reduced blur and distortion. This approach then further enhances the reference image using a variational model. Employing deformation-guided fusion the method not only models and mitigates the impact of the image but also effectively reduces blurriness in the final restored image. But since it is a step-by-step process, the interaction between the two factors of blur and distortion has not been taken into account. As a result, while the output images may exhibit relatively improved sharpness, the overall restored image tends to retain some level of blurriness and distortion, and also the fine details in the image are not well-defined. In the UCSPF method, by separating the phase and magnitude components in the frequency domain, structural information and brightness intensity are separated to process the two distortion and blur factors separately. Through multiscale and multidimensional operations applied to these distinct components, the UCSPF method effectively produces an output image characterized by reduced levels of distortion and blur. Moreover, this approach facilitates the preservation of sufficient image details. Nonetheless, the processing conducted in the frequency domain lacks access to spatial information. For this reason, frequency-domain processing, although well-restored in detail in high-energy areas, has caused fluctuations in the brightness intensity in smooth regions.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Telescopes of Galileo’s day were great for astronomy – especially when compared with the naked eye – but they weren’t much use for astrobiology. In contrast, today’s telescopes have the capability of addressing hypotheses about alien life. For example, we can now use telescopes to examine the atmospheres of distant exoplanets. We can search for signs of oxygen, which is regarded as a biosignature. In particular, it may be a signature of photosynthesis by microbes and plants. It’s true that oxygen may come to exist in planetary atmospheres by abiotic means. However, as we’ll see in 3. 7 centimetres, Newton’s (in 1668) 2. 5 centimetres. They’re not directly comparable because Galileo’s was a refractor (a telescope that uses lenses) while Newton’s was a reflector (a telescope that uses mirrors), but they were both tiny by current standards. Today’s large telescopes have mirrors with diameters measured in metres rather than centimetres. For example, the Canarias, situated on the Spanish island of La Palma, has an aperture of 10. 4 metres. The increase in telescope size has been continuous from the 1600s to the 2000s, though it has speeded up significantly since 1900. The largest telescope in the world at the end of the nineteenth century was the Leviathan of Parsonstown in County Offaly, Ireland, which had a diameter of 1. 83 metres. This size was exceeded in 1917 with the construction of the on in southern California, with a diameter of 2. 5 metres. So the last 100 years have seen the largest increase – more than 8 metres between the early twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. However, these measurements in metres don’t quite suffice to explain just how much more powerful modern telescopes are than their ancient forerunners. The light-collecting capability of a telescope scales not with the diameter of its primary mirror but with its surface area. So, in terms of functionality, a 10-metre mirror is not 10 times as good as a 1-metre mirror; rather it’s better by a factor of 100.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: I wonder if one reason for the lack of photosynthetic potential difference between post-mining and natural biocrusts is because the biocrust in the post-mining site has been already recovered. For example, soil colonizacion by cyanobacteria can be faster than thought. L369-370. There is little discussion on the results of the Picrust analysis. It would be nice to compare the results of this study with other studies that have also examined functional genes in biocrusts to see if abundances of the functional genes at this site greatly differ from those of biocrusts of other regions. L379-381. It is hypothesised that the low bacterial growth in harsh environments like this one could be because biocrusts prioritize activation and preparation for desiccation over growth. However, this hypothesis cannot be fully demonstrated with the reported results. Could you add 401. Is there any practical experience of the application of cyanobacteria inoculation to restore this mining site in Israel? If so, it would be nice to add a few sentences regarding the potential of this technique to restore biocrust in the current mining site. Table 1. Values should include also the standard deviation. Citation: AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Talia Gabay, 20 Mar 2023 This study is interesting as it identifies which bacteria proliferate in biocrusts from natural and postmining areas and examines functional gene abundances, unlike previous studies that have focused on characterizing the microbial community composition of natural and post-mining biocrusts. This, I consider the approach novel. Nonetheless, I have a few comments that should be addressed: AbstractL19-23. I recommend deleting this sentence because it refers to a previous study, and the abstract should focus on the objectives and results of the present study. Then, in the Introduction or the Discussion, it is fine if mention to previous results is done. Response: I removed the section from the abstract. M&ML103-105. It is not clear the predominant p109. Add a short description of the biocrust sampled (thickness, cover, composition, …. ). Were there differences in the biocrust from natural and post-mining sites?

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Despite the visually satisfactory quality of the final images, it is noteworthy that the computed PSNR and SSIM values are lower than expected. As evident in Figs. 3–6, the resulting images from the proposed method exhibit sharper edges and finer details in comparison to those generated by other methods. The smooth regions within the ground truth images are returned as smoothly in the output images. The distortion is removed as much as possible, but the brightness of the output image in the Chimney sequence produced by the proposed method appears slightly darker compared to the corresponding ground truth image. Figure 7 presents the restored images generated by the proposed method on the Zernike turbulence dataset. A visual comparison of both Gaussian and Zernike turbulence images reveals that blurring is more obvious than distortion in the Zernike images. While the proposed method effectively restores Zernike turbulence images with notable accuracy, as evident in Fig. 7F, it is worth noting that the details of the asphalt road are not fully restored to their original quality. Figure 7: (A) The reference image of the car-front sequence (B) one Zernike simulated image, and (C) the qualitative results of the proposed method, (D) the reference image of the road sequence (E) one Zernike simulated image (F) the qualitative results of the proposed method. Photo credit: Pui Anantrasirichai. Download full-size image DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/fig-7 Indeed, conventional images typically exhibit characteristics of low-frequency signals, rendering them low rank. Distortion, characterized by sudden change in the signal changes, introduces high-frequency components that elevate the signal’s rank. The time-varying blur in an image sequence from a single scene results in images that are distinct from one another. Consequently, the overall diversity of the image sequence increases. This phenomenon elevates their temporal rank. Turbulence images, caused by both distortion and spatiotemporal varying blur, possess high ranks. Consequently, by generating a low-rank matrix, it becomes possible to obtain an image that encompasses all high-rank images derived from it. This image aims to closely resemble the reference (turbulence-free) image. Consequently, the creation of a low-rank matrix can be used to eliminate turbulence. Accordingly, the LRMF method was adopted for this particular objective.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: You compare graphs of amount of light received versus wavelength for the two occasions (Figure 1. 1). Dips in the amount of light at particular wavelengths when the planet is in front of the star are interpreted as resulting from absorption of light by gases in the planet’s atmosphere. Since different gases have different characteristic patterns of absorption, you can identify them. Figure 1. 1 Detecting gases in exoplanet atmospheres. Left: amount of light received by a space telescope when the planet is ‘off to one side’ from our perspective. Right: amount of light received when the planet is in a direct line between its host star and the Earth. Note the dip in the amount of light received at a particular wavelength in the right-hand panel. If instead of looking at this graph you were looking at the light itself, after it had been split into its various colours by a prism, you would see a dark band at the wavelength (= colour) concerned. Such a dip (or band) is interpreted as the result of absorption by a particular gas in the planet’s atmosphere, and is known as an absorption band. Since different gases have different patterns of absorption centred on different wavelengths – in other words different ‘signatures’ – they can be identified. Some gases, notably oxygen, are regarded as biosignatures. As we will see later (in 2020. It gave its name to the famous Arecibo message broadcast by it into space in 1974. There are also large arrays of radio telescopes – for example ASKAP (Pathfinder), located about 700 kilometres north of the city of Perth, which started observing the sky in 2012. A of are about to feel the multidisciplinary nature of the search for extraterrestrial life that I mentioned at the outset, because we are about to move from the astronomical realm to its biological counterpart. In particular, we are going to move from the telescopes used in the search for habitable planets – and ultimately the life that’s on some of them – to the search for a workable definition of life. How can we search for life if we can’t define it? And yet the task of defining life is not an easy one – even in the restricted context of planet Earth (are viruses alive? ). It’s more difficult again to attempt a definition that will work in a cosmic context. But an imperfect definition is better than nothing – so here goes.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Response: I added a description of the biocrusts in Gov mining site (L106 – L109):“…Biocrusts were sampled either from the post-mining site or the adjacent natural area. The biocrusts in Gov are thin (between 1. 5 - 2. 5 mm deep), and smooth. The site is characterized by areas covered in biocrusts or desert pavement. In each sampling site, we sampled along a 100 m strip at approximately 10 m intervals (Fig. 1). ”ResultsRegarding the results of the proliferated bacterial community composition, it would be nice to include a figure with the relative abundances of the different bacteria phylum for natural and post-mining biocrusts to make the results clearer. Response: Added a bar plot of Phyla relative abundances to the PCoA ordination in figure 5 (labeled ‘a’ and ‘b’) and statistical data in the supplementary file (Table S4). DiscussionL354-357. Can you remind here when was the sampled post-mining site restored? Was it at 2007? I wonder if one reason for the lack of photosynthetic potential difference between post-mining and natural biocrusts is because the biocrust in the post-mining site has been already recovered. For example, soil colonization by cyanobacteria can be faster than thought. Response: I mentioned the restoration year in L375. I agree that it is likely that the biocrusts we sampled have a significant cyanobacterial community, however we hypothesize that the recovery of the biocrust differs even within the mining site, emphasizing the importance of microenvironments, where certain areas have more developed biocrusts and others have less developed biocrust even within the same post-mining plot. I referenced this in the discussion (L376 – L383): “…However, in the current study, we sampled post-mining biocrusts at a different location in the Gov mining site (~500 m away from the original plot) due to technical constraints. In the new location we found that the photosynthetic potential of the biocrust in the post-mining plots did not differ from the natural biocrust. These results highlight the importance of microenvironments in shaping the functionality of biocrusts (Garcia-Pichel and Belnap, 1996).

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Through the iterative integration of these two techniques within the LRMF method, a comprehensive framework has been established. This framework is capable of generating turbulence-free images while minimizing the presence of turbulence. The performance of the proposed method was assessed in terms of the PSNR and SSIM criteria using the t-test statistical method. To accomplish this, the maximum values obtained from the previous methods were compared with those of the proposed method. The outcome of the PSNR-based t-test indicated a 50% similarity, signifying that the proposed method’s accuracy is on par with the best outcomes of the previous methods. Conversely, the t-test conducted based on the SSIM yielded a result of 95%, underscoring the superior accuracy of the proposed method in comparison to the preceding previous methods. Since the PSNR criterion is based on MSE, even slight changes in the image’s brightness can lead to a decrease in the numerical values of this criterion. Therefore, the relative darkening observed in the results of the proposed method might contribute to the decrease in the numerical values of this criterion. On the other hand, SSIM is a perception-based criterion that, like the human visual system, considers structural, luminance, and contrast similarities between the two images. Therefore, higher numerical values of this criterion in the results of the proposed method indicate a high perceptual similarity between the resultant images and the reference images. Further detailed evaluation of the proposed method is provided in 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-1 Code and Dataset. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-2 Download (A) The reference image of the Water tower sequence, (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, (D) Centroid, (E) NDL, (F) RPCA, (G) SGL, and (H) Two-Stage, on this sequence. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-3 Download (A) The reference image of the Moon surface sequence, (B) one observed image, and the qualitative results of (C) the proposed method, and (D) NDL, on this sequence. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-4 of different turbulence impact on Desert sequence.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: The discovery of exoplanets has expanded the search for extraterrestrial life. [SEP] Text: Second, a group of questions that I think of as being about the biology of alien life. These are questions about the nature of life forms, wherever they are found. For example: Is life usually (or always) based on carbon? Is it usually dependent on water? Is life usually made of cells or cell-like units? Are large life forms common, and do they usually arise from the evolution of multicellularity rather than by some other means? Are there features of large multicellular life forms that are to be expected to occur widely across multiple planets, for example skeletons? How does intelligent life arise from unintelligent beginnings, and are there parallels in the evolution of intelligence from one planet to another? Although these two groups of questions are reasonably distinct from each other, they are not without overlap and interaction, as I mentioned earlier. For example, by now we are fairly sure that, Earth aside, there are no multicellular life forms in the solar system, even though the possibility of microbial life having evolved on some local body – for example Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus – remains a possibility, as we’ll see in 5. In contrast, it seems highly probable that there are plenty of rocky bodies scattered across our galaxy that have large life forms as well as microbes. Some authors have argued against this – notably the American scientists in their 2000 book Rare Earth. These authors argued that Earth possessed a combination of unique features that was unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. However, that was before the discovery of Earth-like exoplanets, and their argument no longer seems tenable. As we proceed, these two groups of questions – about the geography and biology of alien life – will always both be at least in the background. In particular 1. 1 Detecting gases in exoplanet atmospheres. Left: amount of light received by a space telescope when the planet is ‘off to one side’ from our perspective. Right: amount of light received when the planet is in a direct line between its host star and the Earth. Note the dip in the amount of light received at a particular wavelength in the right-hand panel. If instead of looking at this graph you were looking at the light itself, after it had been split into its various colours by a prism, you would see a dark band at the wavelength (= colour) concerned.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: I address the need for active restoration measures in Zin mining sites (including cyanobacteria inoculation) in L439 – L444:“…Our results further emphasize the need for active restoration measures in the Zin mines. Such measures include soil inoculation with local cyanobacterial propagules (Acea, 2003, Wang et al. , 2009, Zhao et al. , 2016, et al. , 2017) and increased hydration (Morillas & Gallardo, 2015, Zhang et al. , 2018), which were effective in enhancing biocrust establishment and recovery following disturbances (Antoninka et al. , 2020). ”Table 1. Values should also include the standard deviation. Response: I added SD values to the table (L254 – L254). Citation: Report abuse × Please provide a reason why you see this comment as being abusive. You might include your name and email but you can also stay anonymous. Please provide a reason why you see this comment as being abusive. Please confirm reCaptcha. Comment* Name: Email: discussion Status: closed Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-1510', #1, 03 Feb 2023 The manuscript “Only a minority of bacteria grow after wetting in both natural and post-mining biocrusts in a hyperarid, phosphate mine” presents the results of a H2-18-O stable isotope probing assay of the growing community members in hyperarid biocrusts that have been disturbed, or not, by mining activities. Overall, the manuscript is well conceived, written, and presented. The conclusions are sound and justified. I do have a concern that the authors have missed a swath of the literature that reports the response of biocrusts to physical disturbances, such as chronic physical trampling. These data show that physical disturbances differ from other disturbances and may affect the recovery of the biocrust community. I think some of this literature should be discussed in the context of what these authors see, and how it may be unique in these hyperarid sites. Similarly, transcriptomic studies that show the genes that are expressed during a wetting pulse and have documented metabolic a physiological changes in the bacterial community in a wetting pulse.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: (A) Desert sequence reference image, (B) a weak turbulence sample, and (C) a severe turbulence sample DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-5 effect of the turbulence rate on the accuracy of the proposed method (PSNR). Sequences with the smaller number represent the images with weaker turbulence. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-6 effect of the alpha parameter on the accuracy of the proposed method. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-7 effect of putting aside the (A) distortion factor, (B) blurring factor, and (C) on the performance of the proposed method on the Car-front sequence. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-8 of symbols and variables. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-9 Simulation Parameters. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-10 information about the datasets employed in experiments. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-11 results of the proposed method on the Moon-surface and Water-tower sequences. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-12 comparison of the results of the proposed method by putting aside different components on the Car-front sequence based on the SSIM and PSNR criteria. DOI: 10. 7717/peerj-cs. 1713/supp-13 Information and authors declare that they have no competing interests. conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, performed the computation work, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the 2018. Key challenges and resolutions for atmospheric turbulence effect removal. of Grid and 11(11):39-52. 2009. Automated video enhancement from a stream of atmospherically-distorted images: the lucky-region fusion approach. . 2004. Convex optimization. Cambridge: Press. . 2011. Distributed optimization and statistical learning via the alternating direction method of multipliers. Delft: Inc. . 2021. Subsampled turbulence removal network. Mathematics, Computation and Geometry of Data 1(1):1-33 Chimitt N, Chan SH. 2020.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Proteins can fold into their functional forms due to specific sequences of amino acids. [SEP] Text: (C) Parts of the MNNL and DSL sequences showing the contact amino acids (boxed), the divergent amino acids of DLL1 (red) and DLL4 (blue), and the sequence of ligands with amino acid exchanges (complete sequences of the changed MNNL and DSL domains are shown in Figure 1—figure supplement 1B). The N-glycosylation site at residue N109 of DLL4 is indicated in green. (D) N1/N2 activation ratios of ligands with exchanged N1 contact amino acids. D1contD4 does not show changes in receptor selectivity compared to DLL1. Replacing the contact residues of DLL4 with those of DLL1 only reduces N1/N2 activation ratio to ~13. Elimination of the N-glycosylation site of DLL4 with the N109G mutation (the corresponding amino acid of DLL1) does not change DLL4 receptor selectivity. Each dot represents the mean of N1 (relative luciferase units; Figure 5—source data 1)/N2 (relative luciferase units; Figure 5—source data 2) of n ≥ 3 measurements per clone of a given ligand construct. Bars represent the Mean ± SD of n ≥ 3 clones per construct (Figure 5—source data 3). Figure 5—source data 1 Raw data (RLUs) of luciferase activity in co-cultures with N1rep cells used to generate the graph in Figure 5—figure supplement 1A. Values represent relative luciferase activity (units) after subtraction of E14 background RLUs. Download elife-40045-fig5-data1-v2. xlsx Figure 5—source data 2 Raw data (RLUs) of luciferase activity in co-cultures with N1rep cells used to generate the graph in Figure 5—figure supplement 1B. Values represent relative luciferase activity (units) after subtraction of E14 background RLUs. Download elife-40045-fig5-data2-v2. xlsx Figure 5—source data 3 N1/N2 activation ratios. Values represent N1/N2 activation ratio. Values were used for generation of graphs in Figure 5A and D.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: These studies show where resources may be going to rather than growth, and should probably be at least mentioned in this text. Minor concerns:Title: I am not sure the comma is needed between hyperarid and phosphateLine 210: picrust should be 2Line 214: I think this should be spelled out more completely. It just sends the reader to a reference. This is a specialized set of functional annotations. I think it would help the reader interpret Figure 6 and where the annotations are coming from. Citation: AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Talia Gabay, 20 Mar 2023 The manuscript “Only a minority of bacteria grow after wetting in both natural and post-mining biocrusts in a hyperarid, phosphate mine” presents the results of a H2-18-O stable isotope probing assay of the growing community members in hyperarid biocrusts that have been disturbed, or not, by mining activities. Overall, the manuscript is well conceived, written, and presented. The conclusions are sound and justified. I do have a concern that the authors have missed a swath of the literature that reports the response of biocrusts to physical disturbances, such as chronic physical trampling. These data show that physical disturbances differ from other disturbances and may affect the recovery of the biocrust community. I think some of this literature should be discussed in the context of what these authors see, and how it may be unique in these hyperarid sites. Response: I added literature regarding physical trampling and how they might compare to the mining disturbance in the hyper-arid (L358 – L370):…” Previous studies examining the effect of a physical disturbance (repeated trampling) on biocrust communities, revealed a decrease in the amount of extractable DNA, lower chlorophyll a, and a decrease in biomass and cyanobacteria abundance (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). However, these studies investigated a localized disturbance compared to mining disturbance, where the biocrust is completely removed over large spatial scales. Moreover, the previous studies were conducted in environments that were less extreme than the hyper-arid Zin Valley.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: All planets have been thoroughly explored and documented. [SEP] Text: Simulating anisoplanatic turbulence by sampling intermodal and spatially correlated Zernike coefficients. 59(8):83101. 1977. Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm. Journal of the Society: (Methodological) 39(1):1-22. 1981. Random sample consensus: a paradigm for model fitting with applications to image analysis and automated cartography. Communications of the ACM 24(6):381-395. 2014. optimization for robust image alignment. Image and 32(10):800-813. 2020. Removing atmospheric turbulence effects via geometric distortion and blur representation. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and 9:1-13. 2019a. Variational models for joint subsampling and reconstruction of turbulence-degraded images. Journal of 78(3):1488-1525. 2019b. Restoration of atmospheric turbulence-distorted images via RPCA and quasiconformal maps. 35(7):74002. 2007. Atmospheric turbulence-degraded image restoration using principal components analysis. IEEE Geoscience and Letters 4(3):340-344. 2013. Video stabilization of atmospheric turbulence distortion. & Imaging 7(3):839-861. 2020. Image reconstruction of static and dynamic scenes through anisoplanatic turbulence. IEEE Transactions on 6:1415-1428 Mao Y, Gilles J. 2012. Non rigid geometric distortions correction-application to atmospheric turbulence stabilization. & Imaging 6(3):531-546 Meinhardt-Llopis E, Micheli M. 2014. Implementation of the centroid method for the correction of turbulence. on Line 4:187-195. 2013. Robust matrix factorization with unknown noise. . 2011. A two-stage reconstruction approach for seeing through water. . 2008. One-class collaborative filtering. . 2012. RASL: robust alignment by sparse and low-rank decomposition for linearly correlated images. IEEE Transactions on 34(11):2233-2246 Pernechele C. 2005. Adaptive optics. In: Encyclopedia of Modern Optics. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 197-204. 1990. A pipeline algorithm for detection and tracking of pixel-sized target trajectories. Signal and data processing of small targets. . 2016. Removing turbulence effect via hybrid total variation and deformation-guided kernel regression.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Bioengineered yeast can produce biofuels from sugars. [SEP] Text: This is in accordance with low l-Phe accumulation in the culture medium when the CM12-5 strain was grown with fructose instead of glucose as the sole C source (not shown). This may be due to the high phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) and energy requirements for the fructose intake through the PTS active transport system [35, 36]. The lower yield agrees with the fact that glucose and fructose were not consumed completely after 48 h; in fact, on average, only 30% of glucose was depleted, while 5% of the fructose was consumed (not shown). Table 3 2-PE production from corn syrup (CS) in Pseudomonas putida CM12-5 derivative strainsFull size tableTherefore, industrial substrates such as corn syrup (1G substrate), and corn stover and sugar-cane straw hydrolysates (2G substrates) are suitable for using in 2-PE production in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way; however, amongst its components, glucose is preferably consumed over fructose or xylose, and the presence fructose may slow this process down. DiscussionThe interest in the development of technology for green chemistry increased after a series of studies revealed that nearly two thirds of all chemical products in use could be made through the fermentation of sugars obtained from seeds (i. e. , corn, wheat, and others), plant residues, organic waste and lignin [37,38,39,40]. The OECD and other agencies are aiming to transition 30% of the total petrochemical industry to renewable sources by 2050 [41,42,43,44]. Several research groups have put great effort into developing Pseudomonas putida as a chassis for the biochemical production of aromatic compounds because of its metabolic properties, and its ability to tolerate stress and high concentrations of solvents [24, 33, 45,46,47,48,49]. Our specific overall aim is the construction of solvent-tolerant Pseudomonas strains that can perform optimally and achieve high yields of industrially valuable chemicals, such as 2-PE, trans-cinnamic acid and styrene. We have estimated that these cell factories can reduce CO2 emissions by about 90% compared to current petrochemical-based methods. In this study, the molecular basis for 2-PE production when Pseudomonas is used as a chassis were analyzed.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Plants can only grow in soil and cannot thrive in alternative methods like hydroponics or aeroponics. [SEP] Text: Therefore, we expected the damage to the biocrust in Zin post-mining sites to follow similar patterns but to be more conspicuous than the previously reported disturbed biocrusts (Kuske et al. , 2012; Steven et al. , 2015; Chung et al. , 2019). Our previous report (Gabay et al. , 2022) supported this notion; we demonstrated differences in bacterial communities in natural and post-mining biocrusts, expecting these differences to be reflected in the proliferating communities of these biocrusts. "Similarly, transcriptomic studies that show the genes that are expressed during a wetting pulse and have documented metabolic a physiological changes in the bacterial community in a wetting pulse. These studies show where resources may be going to rather than growth, and should probably be at least mentioned in this text. Response: I added previous studies that showed expression of nitrogen cycling genes and metabolite production following wetting (L417 – L425):…” One study examining microbial nitrogen transformations in biocrusts collected from biome in Namibia and showed that following wetting, nitrogen cycling genes are expressed in biocrust organisms (Maier et al. , 2022). another study examining biocrust samples taken from the in Utah demonstrated a pulse of metabolite release following controlled wetting (Swenson et al. , 2018). Based on these reports (Maier et al. , 2022; Swenson et al. , 2018) and due to the extreme conditions in (Levi et al. , 2021), we suggest that hyperarid biocrust communities prioritize functions such as metabolite production, nutrient cycling and preparation for desiccation over growth. ”Minor concerns:Title: I am not sure the comma is needed between hyperarid and phosphateResponse: I removed the commaLine 210: picrust should be 2Response: corrected (L208). Line 214: I think this should be spelled out more completely. It just sends the reader to a reference. This is a specialized set of functional annotations. I think it would help the reader interpret Figure 6 and where the annotations are coming from. Response: I added a description of the referenced study and explained the source of the functional annotations (L213 – L218):“…The function categories were chosen based on Meier et al. (2021). In their study, Meier et al.

Output: contrast