Input: Claim: Panspermia is a hypothesis about the transfer of life between planets. [SEP] Text: Therefore, scientists study bioforming: the seeding of a planet with life. Bioforming a planet There is an alternative method for altering a planet’s environment. suggest that bioforming provides a faster alternative for planet-wide alterations. Here, genetically engineered organisms can be introduced to an inhospitable planet. These cells could gradually modify the surface environment and atmosphere through processes such as excretion of gases or production of proteins whilst utilising whatever materials are available on the planet surface. Ultimately, they could create an environment more suitable for complex forms of life and habitable by humans. This seeding of a planet with life is known as directed panspermia. Nanocraft could travel at 20% the speed of light, making the journey to in just 20 years. Molecular biologists are already well versed in manipulating DNA in simple organisms such as bacteria and viruses. Using various techniques, scientists can find specific DNA code inside a cell and remove or alter it. This enables us to treat and prevent diseases, correct genetic defects and improve crop yields. Scientists are constantly learning more about the environmental conditions on exoplanets, and as telescope technologies improve, it will be possible to make accurate analyses of the atmospheric and surface conditions on distant bodies. Once we know more about a planet, propose that simple biological organisms already found on Earth could be tailored for survival in specific conditions using genetic engineering techniques. There have also been successful examples of completely synthetic DNA made from digitised genome sequences. Whilst scientists are within the earliest stages of synthetic biology and digitally designing a complete microbe, the research team suggest this method would ultimately be the most successful for the creation of the earliest colonisers. Using millions of computer simulations based on the known planetary conditions, scientists could create a synthetic microbial colonist that would be perfectly designed for the environment on an exoplanet. 2020, NASA’s discovered its first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. The find is called TOI 700 d. Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock. com Travelling across the stars As a species, we are only beginning to travel away from our home planet. We have successfully landed on the Moon, the closest planetary body to us, we are just beginning to explore Mars in detail using rovers, and probes have flown past all major planetary bodies. 1 and 2 probes, launched in the 1970s, are currently the only man-made objects to reach interstellar space outside of our solar system.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Proteomics studies the entire set of proteins expressed in a cell. [SEP] Text: Numerous studies have successfully demonstrated the utility of high-resolution electrospray ionization liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS), which allows the highly sensitive identification of hundreds of distinct proteins in a given biomedical sample (Korte, Gaffney & Powell, 2012). Therefore, our current study incorporated LC-ESI-MS/MS label-free shotgun proteomic methodology with the aim of identifying significant changes in the expression levels of plasma proteins from SLE patients compared with healthy controls. The proteins identified as having altered expression levels may serve as potential candidate biomarkers for SLE disease assessment and monitoring of the disease progression. Materials and of SLE samples and healthy control samples A total of 19 SLE patients (female/male; 18/one; mean age 32. 1 ranging from 22 to 54 years) and the same age and gender-matched 12 healthy controls (female/male; nine/three; mean age 32. 9 ranging from 26 to 54 years of age) gave plasma samples that were obtained from the Hospital (CGH), Taipei, Taiwan. The disease assessment of the collected SLE samples was performed according to the classification criteria of the of Rheumatology (Tan et al. , 1982). () scoring method was used to determine the level of SLE disease activity (Bombardier et al. , 1992). Based on the disease activity index parameter results, all of the recruited SLE patients had active disease (more than eight) with high titers of anti-ds DNA antibodies, and the presence of proteinuria and low levels of complement. The demographic characteristics of patients and controls are presented in Table 1. Plasma was prepared from the whole blood samples, which were collected in heparin-containing tubes from both the SLE patients and the healthy controls. All of the patient samples were collected prior to the clinical treatment. The protein concentrations of the collected samples were determined by Bradford protein assay (Zor & Selinger, 1996) and the samples were stored at −80 °C until further analysis. This study obtained approval from the Board (IRB) (Approval code CT-09905) for at the Hospital (CGH), Taipei, Taiwan. Informed consent was provided by all blood donors. Table 1: General and demographic characteristics of the collected SLE patients and healthy controls plasma samples.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: The first order inactivation rate constants, ki were calculated from the equation:lnA= lnA0−kit, where A0 is the initial value of amylase activity and A the value of amylase activity after a time t (min). For the determination of pH stability, the enzyme was incubated in a water bath at 60 °C at varying pH value for 30 min. The residual activity was detected under the same conditions and expressed as the percentage of the activity of untreated control taken as 100%. 3. 7. Effect of metal salts and chelating agentThe effect of metal salts and EDTA on amylase activity was determined by adding 0. 05 to 0. 1% (w/v) of metal salts (CaCl2. 2H2O, MgSO4. 7H2O, FeSO4. 7H2O, NaCl, FeCl3, CuSO4. 5H2O) and EDTA to the standard assay. The effect of metal salts and chelating agent on amylase activity were evaluated by pre-incubating the enzyme in the presence of effectors for 30 min at 60°C. The remaining amylase activity was determined and expressed as the percentage of the activity of untreated control taken as 100%. 3. 8. Analytical methodsCell growth was evaluated by reading the absorbance of culture medium at 600 nm using a Secoman spectrophotometer and numeration of total colony forming unit by 10-fold serial dilution of fermented broth and pour plating on MRS-starch agar (Rogosa and Sharpe medium in which glucose has been replaced by soluble starch (Prolabo-Merck Eurolab, France)). In order to evaluate the capacity of microorganism to acidify the culture medium, the pH of the fermented broth was measured using an electronic pH meter (S20, Japan) The amylolytic power of Lactic acid bacteria was determined using the method of wells by inoculation of 10 μl of microbial strain in 4 mm depth micro-wells on the surface of MRS-starch agar plate. The starch hydrolysis halo was revealed after 48 h of incubation using iodine solution.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Molecules, morphometrics and new fossils provide an integrated view of the evolutionary history of Rhinopomatidae (Mammalia: Chiroptera) 1. We also report the first Neogene fossil record of Rhinopomatidae and discuss the history of this unique family of bats. Figure 1Extant geographic distributions of species of rhinopomatid bats. (after [9, 56]): gray grid – R. hardwickii lineage, dashed line – R. microphyllum, dotted line – R. muscatellum lineage, full line – R. macinnesi. Localities of the DNA samples used in the present paper (comp. Table 1): dots – R. hardwickii lineage, diamonds – R. microphyllum, squares – R. muscatellum lineage, asterisk – fossil Rhinopoma aff. Hardwickii. Type localities of individual named taxa: ar – arabium Thomas, 1913, as – asirensis Nader et Kock, 1982, co – cordofanicum Heuglin, 1877, cy – cystops Thomas, 1903, hd – hadithaensis Khajuria, 1988, hr – harrisoni Schlitter et DeBlase, 1974, hw – hardwickii Gray, 1831, ki – kinneari Wroughton, 1912, le – lepsianum Peters, 1859, ma – macinnesi Hayman, 1937, mi – microphyllum Brünnich, 1782, mu – muscatellum Thomas, 1903, pu – pusillum Thomas, 1920, se – sennaariense Kock, 1969, si – seianum Thomas, 1913, so – sondaicum et De Vree, 1994, su – sumatrae Thomas, 1903, tr – tropicalis Kock, 1969. Full size imageTable 1 Taxonomic structure of Rhinopomatidae: a tabular surveyFull size tableResultsMorphometryDespite using a considerably extended set of morphometrical characters and applying multivariate morphometric analyses (based on 252 specimens, including types of 7 taxa, see [16] for details) our results revealed the same pattern of variation as reported in detail by [9], and Benda et al. [16, 17]. Rhinopoma microphyllum, R.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Gene expression analysis helps understand cellular responses to stimuli. [SEP] Text:  491) 72, 67 Pro-LDBPK_181-100 2(510, 519) - LDBPK_180370 8(23, 33, 147, 634, 640, 767, 1126, 1191) 114, 127, 65 Pro-LDBPK_180-920 2(817, 999) 182 LDBPK_180360 2(1023, 1030) - Pro-LDBPK_180-810 3(230, 827, 1372) - LDBPK_180270 5(54, 310, 698, 892, 988) 194, 96 Pro-LDBPK_180-790 3(327, 651, 757) 106 LDBPK_181100 2(290, 811) - Pro-LDBPK_180-650 9(173, 502, 546, 660, 723, 785, 872, 1098, 1816) 44, 114, 63, 62, 87 LDBPK_181080 7(112, 452, 550, 887, 1403, 2345, 2400) 98, 55 Pro-LDBPK_180-580 3(141, 510, 626) 116 LDBPK_180920 8(223, 257, 308, 1088, 1246, 1282, 1389, 1790) 51, 158, 107 Pro-LDBPK_180-510 9(226, 422, 902, 918, 1106, 1175, 1473, 1586, 1929) 196, 188, 69, 113 LDBPK_180810 5(32, 202, 701, 730, 759) 170 Pro-LDBPK_170-660 1(149) - LDBPK_180790 5(193, 257, 304, 704, 1014) 64, 47 Pro-LDBPK_170-610 3(124, 192, 783) 68 LDBPK_180650 2(53, 403) - Pro-LDBPK_212-210 2(263, 427) 164 LDBPK_180580 2(15, 113) 98 LDBPK_180510 23(305, 554, 560, 631, 722, 1073, 1142, 1243, 1423, 1447, 1484, 15

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: The amylolytic power was defined as the average diameter (mm) of hydrolysis halo provoked by a strain after its inoculation in micro-well on MRS-starch agar plate for 48 h incubation at optimum temperature of growth for three assaysThe activity of amylase both in crude and purified extracts was assayed by iodine method. In a typical run, 5 ml of 1% soluble starch solution and 2 ml of 0. 1M phosphate buffer (pH 6. 0) were mixed and maintained at a desired temperature for 10 min, then 0. 5 ml of appropriately diluted enzyme solution was added. After 30 min the enzyme reaction was stopped by rapidly adding 1ml of 1M HCl into the reaction mixture. For the determination of residual starch, 1 ml of the reaction mixture was added to 2. 4 ml of diluted iodine solution and its optical density was read at 620 nm using a spectrophotometer (Secoman). One unit of amylase activity (U) was defined as the amount of enzyme able to hydrolyse 1 g of soluble starch during 60 min under the experimental condition. The lactic acid was determined according to Kimberley and Taylor [51]. The nature of amylase (endo-acting or exo-acting) was determined according to Ceralpha method (Megazyme) which uses a blocked maltoheptaoside as substratre [57]. The affinity of the enzyme preparation from selected LAB toward raw cassava starch was studied by incubating 0. 2 g of raw cassava flour with 1ml of the enzyme solution at 60 ◦C for 15 min. After centrifugation, the α-amylase activity of the supernatant was measured and the adsorption percentage was calculated as follows: Adsorption (%)=A−BA×100, A is the original α-amylase activity and B is the α-amylase activity in the supernatant after adsorption on raw potato starch granules. For the determination of raw starch digestibility, raw cassava was used and the reaction mixture containing 100 U of α-amylase preparation from the selected LAB and 100 mg of raw cassava starch in a final volume of 10ml dispensed in 100ml Erlenmeyer flasks were incubated in alternative water bath shaker at 60◦C and 150 oscillations per min.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: 2, 3 and 4), and only 0. 5% genetic distance was found between (a) and (b), which are the most distant geographically. In contrast to the inner shallow cline of genetic variation, clade II is separated from the Iranian one (clade I) by a relatively deep genetic gap (8–9%). Deep divergence was also found within the R. muscatellum lineage. haplotypes (clade III) and the haplotypes identified in Iran (clade IV) differ by a genetic distance of about 8–9%. Although the two available specimens of R. microphyllum (clade V) represented very distant geographic regions (Levant vs. India) and the local forms have traditionally been considered to be distinct subspecies or even separate species (R. microphyllum and R. kinneari), their genetic distance was very small (0. 5%). Interestingly, reconstruction of the topology of deep branches within the family using outgroup rooting resulted in sister positions for R. microphyllum and R. muscatellum lineages (Figure 3). The molecular clock analysis provided the minimum estimate of radiation of the family, i. e. the separation of the R. hardwickii lineage, to be approximately 28. 1 Ma. The next step, the splitting of the R. microphyllum and R. muscatellum lineages, was dated minimally to about 20. 9 Ma. The split between clades I and II happened about 14. 1 Ma, and the split between clades III and IV about 10. 0 Ma. Fossil recordWe found a rich sample of fossil remains unquestionably belonging to Rhinopoma sp. in a lithified infilling of a limestone karst cavity in Elaiochoria (Chalkidiki, Greece).

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Machine learning is increasingly used in predicting protein structures. [SEP] Text: The fact that the dataset was homogeneous (residents of Spain, all of whom were employed) constitutes a limitation of the research. Therefore, it is recommended that a future study be conducted that examines the prediction and importance of criteria and other indices for the prediction of metabolic syndrome in other populations based on additional datasets. The results of the study can be used with clinical informatics considerations, to assist in making monitoring and treatment decisions for patients through digital health systems. interventions can be beneficial for improving systolic blood pressure and anthropometric outcomes like waist circumference. 32 Automatized follow-up and alert systems provide support for the control and reduction of diseases associated with high blood pressure. Integration of new physiological variables for monitoring is feasible, and will broaden the scope for the early detection of chronic diseases including those associated with the metabolic syndrome, which could result in a reduction in their frequency. 33 The use of E-Health apps in most cases is voluntary, but persistence to goals can set the stage for long-term use, thereby promoting more favorable health outcomes. 34 The use of digital health-based lifestyle interventions may increase engagement and persistence in self-healthcare,35 which is essential in the case of the syndrome. ConclusionsIn this study, methods for predicting the syndrome through machine learning were examined. The study, using data drawn from a Spanish sample, examined the optimal number of indices needed to make a reliable prediction of the syndrome, whether each of the five indices for predicting the syndrome are equally important, and if not, what is the order of their importance, whether a reliable prediction can be made using calculated blood pressure indices – estimated mean arterial pressure and pulse pressure – instead of blood pressure indices, and the effect of gender on the indices’ importance and the prediction. According to the definition, at least three criteria are to be selected, with the assumption that all five indices for determination of the syndrome are of equal importance. In this study we show that this may not be the case. Moreover, the indices importance and their prediction quality included indices and other personal information, health habits, anthropometric measurements and blood measurements vary according to gender. Optimal results are obtained by using all five indices for prediction, and even when using just four instead of three indices, good prediction can be attained.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: On the other hand the maximum value of lactic acid was produced at the same temperature. Many other investigators reported that maximum amylase production occurred at the optimum growth temperature [56, 53]. These results are contrary to the findings of Chandra et al. [57] who studied the growth and amylase production of Bacillus licheniformis CUM 305. They have observed that this microorganism grew very well at 30°C, but did not produce α-amylase at that temperature. In addition, Saito and Yamamoto [58] found α-amylase production at 50°C and cell growth at a temperature lower than 45°C for another strain of B. licheniformis. The amylase and lactic acid production by L. fermentum 04BBA19 was influenced significantly by initial pH of culture broth (Fig. 3b). Maximum amylase and lactic acid production was achieved for pH range of 4. 0-6. 5. These results could be explained by the fact that pH generally act by inducing morphological change in microorganism which facilitate enzyme production [59]. 4. 3. Optimisation of amylase and lactic acid productionAmylase production is known to be induced by a variety of carbohydrate, nitrogen compounds and minerals [60, 61]. In order to achieve high enzyme yield, efforts are made to develop a suitable medium for proper growth and maximum secretion of enzyme, using an adequate combination of carbohydrates, nitrogen and minerals [53, 62]. Figure 3. a) Effect of temperature on microbial growth (○), α-amylase (●) and lactic acid () production. (b) Effect of initial pH of culture broth on α-amylase (●) and lactic acid () production. The data shown are averages of triplicate assays within 10% of the mean value. From the use of different carbohydrate sources in the present study, soluble starch proved to be the best inducer of amylase production (Table 1). In the presence of soluble starch at concentration of 1% (w/v), the enzyme yield reached 107. 0±1. 2 U/ml after 48 hours of fermentation, while in the presence of raw cassava starch at the same concentration, the enzyme yield was 67. 1±0. 5 U/ml. These results are in agreement with the reports of Cherry et al.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: The fauna indicates an early Turolian age, (MN 10–11), some 8–10 Ma. The analysis of the record [see Additional files 2 and 3] shows that: (i) the fossil material contains the all the morphological features that clearly distinguish Rhinopomatidae from other chiropteran families and, moreover, it falls within the variation of the Recent forms of the genus; (ii) the morphology corresponds to the hardwickii in the fine details of the dentition, in the shape of the distal epiphysis of the humerus, and in the shape of the proximal epiphysis of the radius; and (iii) the fossil material shows relatively large size variation and seems to exceed the range of variation in the Recent R. hardwickii, both in mean values and in the highest values (comp. Figure 2). DiscussionEven with the present analysis, the family Rhinopomatidae remains an enigmatic group whose history, taxonomic content, patterns of variation and phylogenetic relationships are far of being properly comprehended. Nevertheless, the data summarized here substantially improve the scarce information on these subjects. We will discuss them in regard to (a) composition of the group, (b) possible phylogeographic patterns and (c) evolutionary history. Composition of RhinopomatidaeThe analysis of the family Rhinopomatidae by [9] demonstrated that the genus consists of four species that differ in the shape of the palatal incision, the rostral ridges, the narial swellings, in the relative length of the tail, and in overall body size. The most distinctive in all these characters was R. microphyllum, whereas the differences between the remaining forms were less pronounced, exhibiting a broad measure of overlap in most metrical characters. Our analysis (n = 252) provided the same picture (Figure 2). All of these data suggest that the major phenotypic divergence within the genus is that between R. microphyllum (including R. m. kinneari, R. m. sumatrae and R. m. asirensis) and the remaining forms, which thought to be closely related to a medium-sized species, R. hardwickii (Figure 2c), see [18].

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Coral reefs support a diverse range of marine species. [SEP] Text: However, the ecological context and the hypotheses to elucidate an overall pattern beyond what previous studies have found are not clearly stated. In addition, the network analysis presentation disregards the hosts' functional traits and lacks ecological relevance. The assigned morphological characteristics of the species are not specified and could be biased. The PCO is not discriminated by functional traits (or factors), so observing grouping by sponge functional patterns is impossible. Overall, the discussion of the manuscript lacks the ecological context and background on sponge morphology (incorrect assignments for many species), sponge-host interactions and fails to support the conclusions. The discussion travels too far from the data. It does not focus on what the data prove or demonstrate how the obtained results expand previous knowledge or support and challenge previous paradigms. In addition, the manuscript's English language and writing style needs improvement. Experimental design The experimental design (how many studies and from which locations were finally used for this specific metanalysis? ) is not specified. How many records of host species were assessed per location? What is the bias in terms of replication? Please include this information in the methods. Also, the tables in the with associated fauna and records should be merged, and a column with the location for each study should be included. Validity of the findings PCO figure should be discriminated by functional traits (i. e. , morphology). The network, patterns, and major contributors to the network structure are poorly explained. Overall, the results do not clarify how host-guest interactions vary based on functional groups; what are the major patterns? And how it varies across species. Figure 1. This figure refers to all the records obtained by the network and is not specific to the records used in this study after filtration. I suggest correcting this figure and including only the records used in this study after the data was filtrated (many records come from the same authors, so that you could add numbers or color-code per author). Also, adding the replicates (n= the number of host-species interactions) per location can help to understand the contribution of the studies and the number of records per location. Figure 2- This figure, as it is, lacks the most relevant information related to the functional characteristics of sponges. To explicitly show the functional characteristics of sponges and how they connect to specific hosts, sponges should be divided by functional characteristics such as 1. generalists and specialists, 2.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: 7±0. 5bBeef extract92. 4±0. 5c7. 3±0. 2bPeptone88. 3±1. 7d7. 1±0. 3bTryptone75. 3±0. 5e6. 5±0. 5bSoya bean meal397. 3±0. 4a29. 2±0. 4aAmmonium sulphate95. 4±1. 5c7. 2. ±0. 8bUrea76. 3±0. 3e5. 3±0. 6cMinerals (0. 1% w/v)CaCl2. 2H2O 412. 1±0. 6a33. 2±0. 1aMgSO4. 7H2O315. 1±0. 4b31. 2±0. 5aFeSO4. 7H2O237. 3±0. 7c20. 2±0. 4bNaCl315. 2±0. 9b22. 1±0. 6bCuSO4. 5H2O12. 2±0. 6e3. 2±0. 3dSurfactants (1. 5% w/v)Tween-40209. 5±0. 1b27. 3±0. 4bTween-80215. 1±0. 3a35. 2±0. 3aGelatinized starchy sources (1 %w/v)Corn flour303. 5±0. 2a36. 3±0. 6aCassava flour182. 3±0. 4c24. 2±0. 8dSorghum flour305. 8±0. 7a35. 2±0. 1aRice flour187. 3±0. 8c30. 1±0. 5bTapioca flour237. 4±0. 6b27. 2±0. 7cRaw starchy sourcesCassava starch67. 1±0. 5c21. 3±0. 4aPotato starch87. 2±0. 5a23. 4±0. 1aCocoyam starch78. 6±0. 2b22. 7±0. 4aMediaBasal medium107. 5±0. 38. 7±0.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: This split is supported by morphometric differences (Fig. 2). Recent allopatry is more obvious in this case because clades III and IV are geographically isolated by the Arabian Desert. However, geographic positioning of major genetic breaks in R. hardwickii and R. muscatellum lineages coincides with this division (Fig. 4). With respect to the genetic species concept, it is reasonable to consider species status also for clades III and IV [for taxonomic rearrangements in the R. muscatellum lineage, see Additional file 1]. (iv) Considering the relatively deep genetic divergences within the morphospecies R. hardwickii and R. muscatellum (in the sense of [9]), the surprisingly low degree of geographic divergence of mtDNA in R. microphyllum calls for a comment. At least two qualities of this species are worth discussing in this connection: (i) its larger body size, and (ii) the well-pronounced seasonality of its life cycle and reproduction, including regular seasonal movements [e. g. [27]]. Both of these factors may contribute to increases in vagility and the rate of gene flow. (v) The sister status of the R. microphyllum and R. muscatellum phylogroups contradicts traditional arrangements of the family where R. hardwickii and R. muscatellum are considered as the most closely related taxa based on similarities in narial morphology and body size (Figure 2c) [18, 28]. The morphological polymorphism in genetically uniform populations of R. cystops (clade II) and R. microphyllum (clade I) does, however, indicate that the body size can undergo rapid rearrangement regardless whether in reaction to environmental conditions or as a character displacement due to interspecific interactions. Worth mentioning in this context is the large body size of the fossil Rhinopoma aff. R. hardwickii, which clearly exceeds the limits of the Recent R. hardwickii to which the fossil form is linked by its morphological characters. All these cases suggest that body size, traditionally applied as a significant character in taxonomy of the genus (because of considerable uniformity in other morphological characters) is controlled by ecological factors rather than by a strict taxon-specific developmental constraint.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Phytoplankton produce a significant portion of Earth's oxygen. [SEP] Text: But lab work shows that in gas-phase chemistry, other factors produce isotope variation. It turns out that sulfate, which forms when sulfur is oxidized, is a very complicated molecule in gas-phase reactions. In particular, reaction products that include the 33S isotope are anomalously large compared with those that contain 34S or 32S. Such anomalies are called mass-independent fractionation. On Mars, UV light photolyzes sulfate and leads to fractionation. Laboratory experiments revealed that sulfur isotopes in Martian rocks show a mass-independent distribution. If there were no oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, UV light would get through as well, and similar anomalies would appear in the sulfur isotope record. “We know that sulfur in today's atmosphere gets oxidized by peroxide in ozone,” explains Thiemens. Farquhar did indeed see this isotope variation in 2. 45 billion-year-old Earth rocks. “We realized that this variation existed and the only mechanism we knew of that could produce it was related to gas-phase reactions,” he says. All that remained was to figure out the atmospheric conditions. “The sulfur allows you to see at most how much oxygen there was at the time,” says Thiemens. During the period prior to 2. 45 billion years ago, the photolytic effect can be seen. Then, when there was sufficient oxygen in the atmosphere, normal mass-dependent chemistry appears in the isotope record. Models suggested that this oxygen threshold is about 10 ppm. “We have been able to show fine-scale differences between the [sulfur isotopes] that show up. They fall into bins in different places in Earth's early record, and might give insight to what's happening in the atmosphere and oceans at any given times,” summarizes Farquhar. The sulfur isotope study provided one of the first continuous records that could be used to demonstrate a long-advocated change in oxygen levels. Other studies have used metals to study reactions that might be related to air oxidation states and redox reactions that occur in oceans and during weathering. Earlier or later? “There are polarized views in the geochemical and early Earth community about when oxygenic photosynthesis evolved,” says of the University of British Columbia. One camp insists that oxygen appeared in the atmosphere 2.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: In this respect, this amylase could be used in starch hydrolysis, brewing and baking. Figure 5. a) Effect of temperature on activity (○) and stability (■) of α-amylase from L. fermentum 04BBA19. (b) Effect of pH on activity (╳) and stability (■) of α-amylase from L. fermentum 04BBA19. The data shown are averages of triplicate assays within 10% of the mean value. The metal salts generally act on activity of enzyme through their ions. The enzyme activity was highly improved by Ca2+, while Fe2+, Fe3+, Na+ and Mg2+ had less significant effect. On the contrary Cu2+ and EDTA acted as inhibitors (Fig. 7). The behaviour of the enzyme towards metal ions, particularly calcium, indicates its metalloenzyme nature, which is confirmed by the action of EDTA. Figure 6. Thermostability pattern of α-amylase from L. fermentum 04BBA19, at 80, 90, 100°C without CaCl2. 2H2O (●) and with 0. 1% (w/v) CaCl2. 2H2O (□). The enzyme was pre-incubated at optimum pH, for 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 min at temperatures (80, 90 and 100°C). The remaining activity was determined incubating the enzyme at optimum temperature, 60°C for 30 min. The data shown are averages of triplicate assays with SD within 10% of mean value. Temperatures80 °C90°C100°CCaCl2. 2H2O (% w/v)ki (10-3. min-1)T (min)ki (10-3. min-1)T (min)ki. (10-3. min-1)T (min)03. 4204. 05. 6123. 87. 987. 70. 11. 9364. 82. 6266. 63. 8182. 4Table 3. Inactivation rate constant (ki) and half-live (T) of amylase from L. fermentum 04BBA19 at 80, 90 and 100°C in the absence and the presence of 0. 1% (w/v) CaCl2.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: In that respect it is similar to Megadermatidae (4 genera, 5 species) and Craseonycteridae (1 genus, 1 species), which are the sister clades of Rhinopomatidae according to the recent molecular data [3]. The present paper dates the beginning of radiation of extant clades of Rhinopomatidae (i. e. the separation of the R. hardwickii clade), to about 29 Ma in the Oligocene. Nevertheless, the datum is apparently not relevant for the beginning of the family which arose with the earliest divergence of Rhinolophoidea, which molecular clock studies place at 50–55 My [3, 7]in the Early Eocene. In contrast to other groups of Rhinolophoidea, whose early divergence is well represented in the fossil record, no such information is available for Rhinopomatidae and Craseonycteridae. In contrast to Creaseonycteriae, Rhinopomatidae occupies quite a large range comparable to that of other rhinolophoid families. At least for that reason, the absence of fossil record is unusual and calls for comment, at least as a background story to the discussion on meaning of the first Neogene record of the family reported in this paper. Despite the fact that the fossil record of bats is sometimes regarded as being quite a poor [3], it is actually rich enough to enable discussions on major differences in phylogeny and early paleobiogeography of particular chiropteran clades at least in Europe and northern Africa. The remains of bats, including rich and taxonomically diversified assemblages, have been found in more than 130 European and sites of the Late Eocene, Oligocene and age [29–31] and current views on the structure of chiropteran fauna and the history of particular clades during that period [32] can be considered relevant and reliable. Among Rhinolophoidea, Hipposideridae and Rhinolophidae are particularly rich in their fossil record and, with a number of divergent clades, they have predominated the fossil assemblages in Europe, Africa, and even Australia since the [32–34]. In contrast, no relevant fossil record is available for Craseonycteridae or (until this paper) for Rhinopomatidae.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Phytoplankton produce a significant portion of Earth's oxygen. [SEP] Text: ” Additionally, independent genomic analyses help to constrain the evolution of different genes involved directly in oxygenic photosynthesis, as well as of other cyanobacteria elements; these analyses will move us closer to an overall timing constraint. The next big thingA billion years of anoxic oceans followed the Event. Geochemical evidence points to the general oxygenation of the oceans around 635 million years ago, likely requiring a minimum of 10% present atmospheric levels. Whether through cause or effect, the ecosystem began to diversify at around the same time. “Right now, we lack solid constraints on the baseline of atmospheric oxygen leading up to the second rise,” says of Yale University. “That makes it difficult to understand the potential consequence, but also what geochemical change would have induced fundamental changes in oxygen levels. ”But the “boring billion” years between the two major oxygen rises brought with them dropping oxygen levels and constrained evolutionary activity. University of Tasmania geologist analyzed ancient seafloor muds to track trace elements absorbed from the seawater over time in pyrite iron sulfate, a unique mineral that forms in the muds. “Some trace elements are more soluble in the ocean when oxygen increases,” explains Large. “Thus we can use the trends in trace elements in pyrite to predict periods when atmosphere oxygen rose and fell. ” A laser analysis that detects lower levels than was previously possible showed that many nutrient trace elements decrease in the ocean from 1800 to 800 million years ago. Trace elements and oxygen likely declined because tectonics were stable and little erosion occurred on the continents. The lack of nutrients meant a drop in bacteria, leading to less oxygen being liberated to the atmosphere. Ultimately, however, a better global database of samples and laser geochemistry is needed to produce more robust curves for trace elements and oxygen. “We speculate that the increased trace elements [at 750 million years ago] led to a rapid increase in bacteria and plankton in the oceans, which in turn released oxygen to the atmosphere and sped up oxidative erosion of the continents,” says Large. The increased ocean productivity led to increased carbon burial on the sea floor, which drew trace elements and sulfur to the muds as sedimentary pyrites. That burial process increased atmospheric oxygen even more, and the Cambrian explosion of life was primed. Noah's arkThere were definitely no animals before the 2.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: Advertisement AcknowledgementWe gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Ministry of and Brewing society “Société Anonyme des Brasseries du Cameroun” (SABC) who supported this work through Research-Programme. 1. ReddyG. AltafM. NaveeanaB. J. VentkateshwarM. VijayKumar. E. 2008Amylolytic bacterial fermentation. A review. 2622342. AxelssonL. 2004Lactic acid bacteria: classification and physiology. In: Salminen S, von Wright A, Ouwehand A, editors. Lactic acid bacteria: microbiological and functional aspects. 3rd rev. and exp. ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc. ; 2004. 1663. AsoodehA. ChamaniJ. LagzianaM. 2010A novel thermostable, acidophilic α-amylase from a new thermophilic “Bacillus sp. Ferdowsicous” isolated from Ferdows hot mineral spring in Iran: Purification and biochemical characterization. Inter. J. Biol. Macromol. 462892974. SaxenaR. K. DuttK. ArgawalL. NayyarP. 2007A highly thermostable and alkaline amylase from a Bacillus sp PN5. Biores. Technol. 982602655. 2003Developments in industrially important thermostable enzymes: a review. Biores. Technol. 8917346. . 2006Metabolic engineering approaches for lactic acid production. Process Biochem. 4199110007. NguyenT. T. LoiseauG. Icard-VernièreC. RochetteI. TrècheS. GuyotJ. P. 2007Effect of fermentation by amylolytic lactic acid bacteria in process combinations, on characteristics of rice/soybean slurries: A new method for preparing high energy density complementary foods for young children. Food Chem. 1006236318. Songré-OuattaraL. T. Mouquet-RivierC. Icard-VernièreC. HumblotC. DiawaraB. GuyotJ. P.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: The situation with Megadermatidae is more intricate. The first evidence of appearance of true Megaderma in Europe comes from the (MP25 Carrascosa del Campo, Spain [35]; MP29 Saint-Victor-la-Coste, France [36]; MP 29 Herrlingen 9, Germany [37]) and a number of further records are of Miocene and Pliocene age [37]. In contrast to hipposiderids or nycterids, the family is absent from sites (including Fayum or Taquah in Oman [30, 38] but appears in the of Thailand and even in Australia [39]. Eocene to genus Necromantis, often regarded as a megadermatid [31], differs from true megadermatids in several characters (including basisphenoidal pits, a key character of emballonurids, which is invariably absent in rhinolophoids) and most probably does not belong to that stock. The absence of Rhinopomatidae and the late first appearance datum of Megadermatids in the fossil record contrasts with the fact that other groups such as Emballonuridae, Hipposideridae, Rhinolophidae, Molossidae, and Vespertilionidae s. l. are constant components of the western Palaearctic and African fossil record since the late Eocene [31, 29, 40]. All had already produced a number of subclades during the Oligocene and [32, 37, 41]. The absence of any rhinopomatids in the fossil record is surprising because these bats differ from all others in a number of conspicuous dental and skeletal specificities by which they are easily distinguishable, even based on a single fragmentary tooth. Moreover, rhinopomatids are cave-dwellers, which predisposes them to be particularly common in the fossil record. Under such conditions their absence in fossil record can be interpreted as a real fact which most probably reflects actual absence of the group in the western Palaearctics prior to the Miocene.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Deep-sea hydrothermal vents host unique ecosystems reliant on chemosynthesis. [SEP] Text: Products were purified using Millipore-Sigma (St. ) 03010 with a vacuum manifold and quantified using Scientific () QuantIT PicoGreen ds11496 on the BioRad CFX96 Touch Real-. Barcoded samples were combined in equimolar amounts into a single tube and purified with 28104 before submission to Laragen () for 2 × 250 bp paired end analysis on the Illumina MiSeq platform with PhiX addition of 15–20%. MiSeq 16S rRNA sequence data was processed in Ecology (v1. 8. 0). Raw sequence pairs were joined and quality-trimmed using the default parameters in QIIME. Sequences were clustered into de novo operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with 99% similarity using open reference clustering protocol, and then, the most abundant sequence was chosen as representative for each de novo OTU. Taxonomic identification for each representative sequence was assigned using the Silva-119 database, clustered at 99% similarity. A threshold filter was used to remove any OTU that occurred below 0. 01% in the combined samples dataset. Analyses are based on Bray-Curtis distances of fourth-root transformed data, which minimizes errors in the ordination due to PCR bias, while not sacrificing genuine differences between samples. Quantification and statistical analyses are described in the “Results” sections and figure legends. Comparisons were performed using ANOVA and statistical significance was declared at p < 0. 05. Statistical analyses of beta diversity (e. g. , ) were performed with Primer E. The raw Illumina 16S rRNA barcode sequences and metadata collected in this study are available from the (BioProject # PRJNA671766). The processed sequence data, as well as representative sequences, are available on the ( along with representative SUP05 OTUs in 6: DataFile S1). Molecular analysis of the anemone host Ostiactis pearseae Phylogenetic relationships were determined via sequencing of three mitochondrial markers, the 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, and cytochrome oxidase III genes, and the partial nuclear 18S rRNA gene. An 862-bp product of the 12S rRNA gene was amplified via primers ANTMT12SF (5′--3′) and ANTMT12SR (5′--3′) according to [71].

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: 1997Lactic acid fermentation in a recycle batch reactor using immobilized Lactobacillus casei. 558435347. TatsinkouF. B. TaveaF. JiwouaC. NdjouenkeuR. 2009Screening of thermostable amylase producing bacteria and yeasts strains from some cameroonian soils. Afr. J. Microbiol. Res. 3950451448. TatsinkouF. B. TaveaF. JiwouaC. NdjouenkeuR. 2011Simultaneous production of raw starch degrading highly thermostable a-amylase and lactic acid by Lactobacillus fermentum 04BBA19. Afr. J. Biotechol. 10346564657449. SchillingerU. LuKe. F. K. 1987Identification of lactobacilli from meat and meat products. 419920850. DykesG. A. BritzT. J. vonHoly. A. 1994Numerical taxonomy and identification of lactic acid bacteria from spoiled, vacuum packaged Vienna sausages. Journal of 7624625251. KimberleyA. C. TaylorC. 1996A simple colorimetric assay for muramic acid and lactic acid. Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol. 56495852. Miller GL1959Use of dinitrosalicylic acid reagent for determination of reducing sugar. Anal. Chem. 3142642953. GoyalN. GuptaJ. K. SoniS. K. 2005A novel raw starch digesting thermostable α-amylase from Bacillus sp. I-3 and its use in the direct hydrolysis of raw potato starch. Enzyme and Microb. Technol. 3772373454. LiuD. X. XuY. 2008A novel raw starch digesting α-amylase from a newly isolated Bacillus sp YX-1: purification and characterization. Biores. Technol. 994315432055. HillerP. WaseD. EmeryA. N. 1996Production of α-amylase by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens in batch and continuous culture using a defined synthetic medium. Biotechnol. Lett. 1879579956.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Cricetidae) and a considerable contribution of non-mammalian taxa from the Indian and Indomalaysian provinces such as Gavialosuchus, Tomistoma, and Varanidae. The spread of these taxa into Europe has been dated to ca. 18 Ma [46]. Recent paleogeographic analyses [47, 48] supplement the picture with further data that show continuity between the Mediterranean-Iranian and the eastern Indian-east African marine provinces until the final disappearance of the seaway in the Early Miocene. In case of Rhinopomatidae, no such evidence is available. Miocene fossil record reported in this paper is apparently not related to the early history of the clade. Nevertheless, the results of molecular studies provide valuable information. The first dated split within the family (R. hardwickii s. l. vs. R. microphyllum-muscatellum: 28. 1 Ma) shows no phylogeographic signal – both clades are broadly sympatric. Nevertheless, the next cladogenetic events (R. microphyllum vs. R. muscatellum: 20. 9 Ma) have clear phylogeographic correlates. In the later events, the phylogeographic signals are even more pronounced: clades I vs. II (14. 1 Ma): Iran vs. Levant to Africa, and clades IV and III (10 Ma): Iran vs. Yemen. According to traditional biogeography [49, 50], the region with the largest concentration of taxonomic diversity is the most likely candidate for being the source area of the group in question. In the case of rhinopomatids, the present results would suggest Iran to be such a candidate. At the very least, these results suggest that Iran was an area of paleoendemism that played host for the ancestral clades more than 11 Ma ago. Nevertheless, the terrestrial conditions appeared in the respective region first at the time of Oligocene/Miocene transition [51] and thus the source area of the clades that colonized at in that time was apparently situated in other regions.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Sea turtles navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. [SEP] Text: For the readers’ convenience, all the calculations are presented in the compact Table 2. The table shows that the thermocurrents Ilow are all-sufficient, they are able not only generate the main dipole field of Earth В T T l o w but to maintain it for a long time at 3. 64 × 10−5 T level. This value is calculated for the points of Earth on its equator and, as seen, it is close to the real and modern intensity of the EMF. At the same time, the heat, produced by the thermocurrents Ilow, is only Q b c = 2. 25 × 10 14 J per year (2. 25 × 1021 erg per year) and is comparable to the heat of the thermocurrents Itop. The Earth’s magnetic moment was also calculated as M = 4 π R G 2 I l o w. At the current Ilow of 3. 52 × 109 А and spherical surface with the solid core’s radius of RG = 1400 km (see in Table 2) it is 8. 67 × 1022 Table 2. Calculation of electrical and magnetic parameters of Earth’s metal core. А・m2, which is close to the known value М = 8. 2 × 10 22 А ⋅ m 2. Let us briefly note, that a toroidal magnetic field forms within the metal core. The field’s field lines are spherical circles that do not leave the conducting core (Figure 1(a) and Figure 1(b)). The centrifugal force F C f and the thermo e. m. f. ЕТ have been generating a through channel with electron deficit for 3. 5 billion years in the toroidal field in the core center. The channel is the entrance/exit for the poloidal magnetic field which is self-generating in the conductive medium. The field is definitely dipole and it has local poles with diameter to 500 km for entrance/exit of the field lines bundles of the poloidal field with tilt of 900 - 890. There is a confirmation for it [39]. 4.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: BurhanA. NisaU. GökhanC. ÔmerC. AshabilOsman. G. 2003Enzymatic properties of a novel thermostable, thermophilic, alkaline amylase and chelator resistant amylase from an alkaliphilic Bacillus sp isolate ANT-6. Process Biochem. 381397140357. ChandraA. K. MeddaS. BhadraA. K. 1980Production of extracellular thermostable α-amylase by Bacillus licheniformis. J. Ferment. Technol. 5811058. SaitoN. YamamotoK. 1975Regulatory factors affecting α-amylase production in Bacillus licheniformis. J. Bacteriol. 12184885659. GuptaR. GigrasP. MohapatraH. GoswamiV. K. ChauhanB. 2003Microbial α-amylases: a biotechnological perspective. Process Biochem. 381599161660. MuralikrishnaG. NirmalaM. 2005Cereal α-amylase-an overview. Carbohydrate polymer 6019317361. GangadharanD. SivaramakrishnaK. . 2008Response surface methodology for the optimisation of alpha amylase production by Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. Biores. Technol. 994597460262. SodhiH. K. SharmaK. GuptaJ. K. SoniS. K. 2005Production of a thermostable-amylase from Bacillus sp PS-7 by solid state fermentation and its synergistic use in the hydrolysis of malt starch for alcohol production. Process Biochem. 4052553463. CherryH. M. HussainT. AnwarM. N. 2004Extracellular glucoamylase from isolate of Aspergillus fumigates. Pak. J. Biol. Sci. 7111988199264. 2000Culture conditions for the production of thermostable amylase by Bacillus sp. Brazilian J. Microbiol. 3129830265. HalsetineC. RolfsmeierM. BlumP.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Skip to content Menu AGU. org to by AGU for dropdown menu Space & & & & dropdown menu ’ Highlights Editors’ Eos en Español Eos 简体中文版 to for: inClues to Tibetan Plateau’s bones of ancient rhinos, elephants, and fish constrain when the rose high enough to prevent migration, a move that forced animals to adapt to high-altitude conditions. by Kimberly M. S. Cartier 12 December 201726 January 2023 Share this:Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) A fossil skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), an extinct species that once roamed the Eurasian continent. Fossils of this species’s Tibetan cousins (Coelodonta thibetana) are now helping scientists reconstruct the elevation history of the Tibetan Plateau. Credit: -SA 4. 0 Called the Rooftop of the World, the perches high above the surrounding terrain, surpassed only by the Himalayan mountains that mark its southern border. But when and how the plateau reached its high elevation has remained unclear. For one scientist and his team, tracing the evolution of the now has a much-needed clue: vertebrate fossils—woolly rhinos, shovel-tusked elephants, and climbing perch, to be precise. “Vertebrates are very sensitive to climatic and environmental changes. ” “Most modern vertebrate fauna of the have long histories living in this plateau,” said Deng Tao, deputy director of the of of and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and lead scientist on the study. What’s more, “vertebrates are very sensitive to climatic and environmental changes,” he said. Could the story of the plateau’s evolution lie in their bones? Deng’s answer is yes. After examining fossils of animals that lived and died on the plateau over the past 34 million years, he and his team could trace when the plateau’s elevation was low enough to allow animals to migrate across it. This newsletter rocks.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Cave paintings offer a glimpse into prehistoric human expression. [SEP] Text: 2000); and Foissac Cave, France (García and Duday 1983), dated in the Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Chalcolithic, respectively, are not associated with symbolic elements. was quarried for clay in the Chalcolithic. The deep zone of (United States) was also used for mining activities (Kennedy and Watson 1997; Willey et al. 2009). However, the prehistoric traces in (Tennessee, USA) are more interesting for our case study. Watson et al. (2005) documented a single visit by a group of nine individuals about 4500 BP. The cave was never used for any specific purpose, so the tracks represent an isolated event. The footprint site in Sala and Galerías de las Huellas similarly represents a single event, a simple exploration, but its surroundings, Laberinto Otilio, and Galería del Cacique, were explored earlier several times. They are in the eastern part of Palomera Cave, where different types of evidence and human activities have been identified over a distance of more than a kilometre in length. They show that during prehistory, the inhabitants of this karst transited and explored the cave until they met the sediment plug in the San Bernabé cirque, leaving marks in the underground landscape, small hearths, torches, stones or rock art, graves, etc. This indicates that the exploration of the interior of this cave system was an activity that was carried out with certain normality. This exploration must have represented an initial contact of the underground world that they wanted to conquer and then select at a later time the different symbolic places that have contributed to the singularity of this site, which has been designated as Heritage since 1972. ConclusionThe human footprint site of Sala and Galerías de las Huellas is one of the most important sites in the Ojo Guareña Cave system, located about 1200 m from Palomera Cave. It is dated in about 4600–4200 calBP, a range that suggests a use of the dark area of the cave in the Chalcolithic, although intensive human traffic in the immediate environment (Laberinto Otilio-Sala Negra-Sala del Cacique) is documented during the Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: 1996The glucose effect and regulation of α-amylase synthesis in the hyperthermophilic archeon Sulfolobus solfataricus. J. Bacteriol. 17894595066. GaoL. YangH. WangX. HuangZ. IshiiM. IgarashiY. CuiZ. 2008Raw straw fermentation using lactic acid bacteria. Biores. Technol. 992742274867. MSTanyildiziOzer. D. EbiolM. 2005Optimisation of α-amylase production by Bacillus sp using response surface methodology. Processs Biochem. 402291229668. WuW. X. MabinadjiJ. TatsinkouF. B. 1999Effect of culture conditions on the production of an extracellular thermostable alpha-amylase from an isolate of Bacillus sp. J. Sci 2540440869. ReddyP. R. ReddyG. SeenayyaG. 1999Enhance production of thermostable β-amylase and pullulanase in the presence of surfactant by Clostridium thermosulfurogenes SV2. Process Biochem. 34879270. AguilarG. Morlon-GuyotJ. Trejo-AguilarB. GuyotJ. P. 2000Purification and Characterization of an extracellular alpha-amylase produced by Lactobacillus manihotivorans LMG 18010T, an amylolytic lactic bacterium. Enzyme Microb. Technol. 2740641371. UnderkofferL. 1976Microbial enzyme B. Litsky W. (Eds). Industrial Microbiology. Mc Graw-Hill, New York. 72. 1992Purification and characterisation of a thermostable alpha amylase from Bacillus licheniformis. J. of Bacteriol. 2827728973. VihinenM. MantsalaP. 1990Characterization of a thermostable Bacillus stearothermophilus alpha-amylase. Biotechnol. Appl. Biochem. 1242743574. CanganellaF. AndradeC. AntranikianG.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Get the most fascinating science news stories of the week in your inbox every Friday. Sign up now “The uplift of the was an important factor of global climate change during the late Cenozoic [era],” Deng said, “and it strongly influenced the development of the Asian monsoon system. ” Pinpointing the timing and speed of the plateau’s uplift will help scientists better understand the geophysical processes that shaped southern Asia’s landscape and the forces that influenced the paleoclimate in the region. Their study, which Deng will present Thursday, 14 December, at the 2017 Meeting in New Orleans, La. , suggests that the region hit its last growth spurt approximately 20 million years ago. This early uplift time frame agrees well with most isotopic records. Fossils as a Window into Plateau, the youngest and highest in the world, rises approximately 5,000 meters above sea level, nearly one third of the way to the tropopause. Its height and location shape atmospheric flow and climate in the region. At present, the supports a diverse range of ecosystems, including deserts, forests, and tundra, all adapted to its high-altitude environment. Modern topographical map of the and the surrounding region showing areas of low (green) to high (red and white) elevation. Credit: Darekk2, GLOBE, and ETOPO1, CC BY-SA 4. 0 In the same way, past fauna would have reflected past environments, the researchers figured. To test this, Deng and his team examined newly excavated as well as archived fossils of ancient fish and mammals from the plateau that date to the late Oligocene (34–23 million years ago (Ma)) through the mid-Miocene (23–5. 3 Ma) and Pliocene (5. 3–2. 6 Ma) epochs. They analyzed fossils of rodents, fish, Tibetan woolly rhinoceroses, shovel-tusked elephants, and ancestral relatives of arctic foxes, snow leopards, and bighorn sheep. Although previously published results by the team parse out analyses of separate species, the results on display at the 2017 aggregate these studies, other research, and new fossil analysis into one comprehensive view. And what they found painted a clear picture.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Cognitive biases can significantly influence decision-making. [SEP] Text: In the same study, BED subjects had lower medial orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatal volumes relative to non-BED obese subjects—a group difference that was lost with the inclusion of the Two-step task outcome as a covariate of no interest, suggesting that these neural regions may mediate the impairment in goal-directed behaviors. More crucially, the same study analyzed perseverative behaviors, showing that BED subjects were markedly more likely to choose the same stimulus irrespective of the outcome. Overall, these findings suggest a shift toward behavioral inflexibility, or choosing the same stimuli whether they have (habit formation) or have not (perseveration) been previously reinforced, rather than being guided by goals and changing outcomes. recent study focused on the construct of exploration, in which subjects either favored restricted exploitative choices in which the action-outcome contingencies were known or explored the environment in which the contingencies were unknown. Reference Frank, Doll, Oas-Terpstra and Moreno 39 Thus, exploration occurred as a function of tolerance of uncertainty. In the task, subjects chose the time in which to stop a clock, which then resulted in either random wins or losses. The tendency to stay and exploit the same time choice or explore alternate times was assessed. The study showed a reduction in exploratory behaviors in alcohol use disorders across both gain and loss valences. and Voon 40 In this same study, although neither obese BED nor obese non-BED subjects scored differently from healthy volunteers when compared to each other, BED were more exploratory in the loss domain compared to non-BED subjects. These findings suggest that BED subjects were less avoidant of uncertainty and more exploratory in the context of losses compared to obese non-BED subjects. Summary of compulsivity studies Thus, BED appears to be impaired across multiple domains of compulsivity. BED subjects have greater impairments in set shifting compared to non-BED obese controls, particularly with low BMI with similar impairments across both groups with higher BMIs. BED is also impaired in habit formation and perseveration. In contrast, compared to obese subjects without is associated with greater exploratory tendencies, particularly in a loss context, which may be related to greater tolerance of uncertain losses rather than specifically to enhanced exploratory tendencies. Attentional and to Attentional bias provides a measure of the motivational salience of a stimulus.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: 1994Characterization of amylolytic and pullulytic enzymes from thermophilic archea and from a new Ferividobacterium species. Appl. Microb. Biotechnol. 4223924575. KwakY. AkebaT. KudoT. 1998Purification and characterization of enzyme from hyperthermophilic archeon Thermococcus profundus, which hydrolyses both α-1-4 and α-1-6 glucosidic linkages. J. Ferment. Bioeng, 8636336776. PrakashB. VidyagarM. MSMadhukumarMuralikrishna. G. SreeramuluK. 2009Production, purification and characterization of two extrememely halotolerant thermostable, and alkaline stable α- amylases from Chromohalobacter sp TVSP 101. Process Biochem. 4421021577. BayramogluG. YilmazM. AricaY. 2003Immobilization of a thermostable a-amylase onto reactive membranes: kinetics characterization and application to continuous starch hydrolysis. Food chem. 57839078. LeeHs. SeG. CarterS. 2001Amylolytic cultures of Lactobacillus acidophilus: potential probiotics to improve dietary starch utilization. J food Sci. 66:2. 79. OhkouchiY. InoueY. 2006Direct production of L(+)-lactic acid from starch and food wastes using Lactobacillus manihotivorans LMG18011. Bioresour. Technol 9715546280. MetteHedegaard. ThomsenGuyot. J. P. KielP. Batch fermentations on synthetic mixed sugar and starch medium with amylolytic lactic acid bacteria. Biotechnol 200774540681. KrishnanS. BhattacharyaS. KaranthN. G. 1998Media optimization for production of lactic acid by Lactobacillus plantarum NCIM 2084 using response surface methodology. 121052182. JunyaNarita. NakaharaS. FukudaH. KondoA. 2004Efficient production of L-(+)-lactic acid from raw starch by Streptococcus bovis 148.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: During the late Oligocene, large mammals like the Tibetan woolly rhinoceros and shovel-tusked elephant roamed from northwestern China to the Indian subcontinent, Deng explained. The distribution of their fossils north and south of Tibet during the Oligocene indicates that the plateau’s elevation was low enough to allow migration across the continent. In addition, the team found fossils suggesting that lowland species like the ancestors of climbing perch likewise made their homes in Tibet during the late Oligocene. fossil of Eoanabas thibetana, an ancestor of the modern-day climbing perch, collected in central Tibet and used to constrain the latest period of a low-elevation Tibet. Credit: Wu et al. , 2017, CC BY 4. 0 Adapt or Perish in High-By the early Miocene, however, fossil records suggest that the plateau was elevated enough that large mammals who lived just north of Tibet had to curtail their southward migration, Deng explained. For example, although paleontologists have found shovel-tusked elephant fossils from the mid-Miocene northward of the plateau, none exist within or south of the plateau during that epoch. (top) Skull and (bottom) mandible fossils from a Tibetan woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta thibetana), a cold-adapted mammal from the Pliocene. These fossils were discovered in the in the Tibetan Plateau. Credit: Deng and Ding, 2015, Vertebrates that were trapped on the now-elevated either evolved to survive in a high-altitude cryosphere or died out. Lowland-adapted species of fish and rodents perished, and their fossils disappeared. For vertebrates that survived, including the ancestral forms of the woolly rhinoceros, snow leopard, arctic fox, and bighorn sheep, their Pliocene fossils show that the animals had long since adapted to freezing temperatures at high elevations, Deng said. The plateau must have uplifted a few million years prior to the most recent ice age at the end of the Pliocene, the researchers argue, for the animals to have been well adapted to the cold by then.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: Cognitive biases can significantly influence decision-making. [SEP] Text: The capacity to inhibit motor responses appears to be impaired to a greater extent in BED compared to non-BED obese controls, only in the context of a motivationally salient food cues. BED subjects exhibit enhanced behavioral inflexibility across multiple domains, with impairments in set shifting, habit formation, and perseveration. The presence of food cues was associated with enhanced motivation and impaired self-regulation with multiple attentional and early and late inhibitory impairments in BED, including enhanced ERP responses, longer gaze duration, difficulties with saccade away from the cue, and motor response inhibition both with action restraint and cancellation. Thus, food cues appear to impair self-control particularly in BED, possibly through attentional mechanisms, working memory, or cognitive load. An investigational specific mu-receptor opioid antagonist has been shown to influence late inhibitory processes and motivational responses to food cues, with a mixed influence on subjective hedonic ratings suggesting a potential mechanistic role for the mu-opioid receptor in mediating these processes. However, the role of mu-opioid receptor antagonists is not clear as randomized controlled trials report a mixed effect on binge eating. Thus, rather than flexible responding guided by changing environmental outcomes, binge eating is characterized by enhanced attention and memory biases and impaired self-regulation in the context food cues, along with impulsive choices and difficulties across multiple domains of behavioral inflexibility. These findings suggest critical cognitive domains that may guide therapeutic interventions. Voon does not have anything to disclose. 1. . The prevalence and correlates of eating disorders in the Survey Replication. Biol Psychiatry. 2007; 61(3): 348–358. 2. The prevalence and correlates of binge eating disorder in the. Biol Psychiatry. 2013; 73(9): 904–914. 3. Innovative solutions to novel drug development in mental health. Rev. 2013; 37(10 Pt 1): 2438–2444. 4. Research domain criteria (RDoC): toward a new classification framework for research on mental disorders. Psychiatry. 2010; 167(7): 748–751. 5. . Binge eating disorder and food addiction. Abuse Rev. 2011; 4(3): 201–207. 6. “Eating addiction”, rather than “food addiction”, better captures addictive-like eating behavior. Rev. 2014; 47: 295–306. CrossRef7.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: A mol of pyruvate could be excreted as succinate due to TCA cycle oxidation (indicating respiration), manifesting as excess electrons relative to the amount of succinate produced (as additional pyruvate would have to be used to make OAA). Conversely, succinate could be due to electron disposal via a reductive pathway (indicating fermentation). Lacking good carbon or electron recovery, neither can be ruled out, though the non-respiratory reductive pathway is most logical. 6) Table 1/line 403-: The low YATP in cells using EET is a possible 'different energy conversion strategy'. (Side note- an energy spilling/Russell mechanism would be an 'ATP-dissipating', not -accumulating). I'd suggest uncoupling of acid production from growth by low pH seems likely. In most strains, simple glycolytic pathway functions at low external pH, but complex protein synthesis and replication processes become inhibited, ATP from substrate turnover is needed to maintain pmf and internal pH, and high internal organic acids become toxic. Citable yield/pH data can be hard to locate as it comes from the 80's in the age of calling every lactic acid bacterium a Streptococcus, but since the non-EET cultures at neutral pH got close to the Bauchop and Elsden YATP, and EET cultures at pH 4 were a fraction of this, these data look like common behaviour of many lactic acid bacteria. In future comparisons, pH control could help estimate energy yields from EET. The first paper I found in a quick search to illustrate pH effects was: Russell and Dombrowski, DOI: 10. 1128/aem. 39. 3. 604-610. 1980. 7) The value for Geobacter ATP/substrate yield in Table S2 seemed very high. Mahadevan says Geobacter produces 0. 5 mol ATP/mol acetate when using extracellular acceptors (3x higher when using internal acceptors like fumarate). understand the adjustment for 6-carbon compounds, would this make the value for Geobacter using EET to be 1. 5 mol ATP/mol 6-C substrate? Reviewer #2 (Recommendations for the authors): Line 21 – acronyms like this make our field more challenging to understand and are unnecessary.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: That uplift timing supports that theory the Tibetan Plateau’s rise to the top resulted from the collision of the Indian and Eurasian continental plates that occurred 40–50 Ma. The evolutionary history suggested by this timing also agrees with the past environmental conditions suggested by isotope ratios of oxygen, hydrogen, and calcium found in carbonate rocks that surround the fossils. and his team, the geographic locations of the fossil deposits and their stratigraphic origins tell a single story: a low-elevation Tibet in the late Oligocene, a constant uplift in the early Miocene, and a modern-elevation by the middle to late Miocene. “Fossils are really valuable and probably an underused source of insights. ” “Fossils are really valuable and probably an underused source of insights,” said about resolving the controversy surrounding the timing of the uplift. Freeman is an isotope biogeochemist and a professor of geosciences at University in University Park. “Although their record can be discontinuous, they would be excellent for marking changes on broad time and spatial scales. ” She added that she “certainly welcome[s] this additional perspective on a tricky problem. ” However, not all paleoelevation proxies agree with the early Miocene rise suggested by fossils and stable isotope measurements. For example, isotope studies of tooth enamel found in fossils from the high Himalayas dating to the late Miocene show signatures consistent with the animals chewing C4 grasses, plants species that thrive in warmer conditions. Those results indicate that Tibetan climate in the late Miocene might have been much warmer, suggesting that elevations were likely much lower than they are today and contradicting the recent fossil-based analysis. How do you resolve this discrepancy? “We want to find more fossil records from Cenozoic basins in the Tibetan Plateau,” Deng said. More fossils, the team thinks, will clear up the fuzzier details of the plateau’s past. —Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@AstroKimCartier), Citation: Cartier, K. M. S. (2017), Fossils provide new clues to Tibetan Plateau’s evolution, Eos, 98, Published on 12 December 2017. Text © 2017. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: The dual-process theory explains intuitive vs. analytical thinking. [SEP] Text: In contrast, studies in which analytical thinking was found to be superior (e. g. , MacGregor et al. , 1988; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) used abstract deliberative tasks that involved numerical stimuli and presented an objective criterion as well as logical rules. To conclude, we propose that the debate as to whether decision quality is best when using intuitive or analytical thinking might be clarified once each thinking mode is examined within a task that favors such thinking.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: Does the work presented actually support 'energy conservation'? Growth seems to occur after EET activity takes place rather than with it as discussed below. Line 27 – 'fermentation yield' referring to biomass yield or fermentation product yield? Line 29, Line 45, Line 75, Line 86, Line 479 – blending fermentation and respiration has been known for over a decade in Shewanella (see Hunt et al. , 2010, JBact). The description on Line 517 regarding the major finding from this reference is incorrect. PMF is not used by S. oneidensis anaerobically to generate ATP as demonstrated by the robust anaerobic growth of an ATP synthase mutant. Line 61 – implied here is that LAB are auxotrophic for heme and menaquinone, but should be explicitly stated. Page 8 (top) – the comparison to other organisms is not particularly helpful unless current per unit cell or unit biomass is quantified, nor does it seem particularly relevant to the overall theme of this manuscript. Line 152 – predicted to encode Line 182 – predicted to encode Line 183 – under the condition tested. Line 200 – isn't this already known from the Listeria work? Line 206 – unclear what 'extracellular redox potential' is, unclear to me if any differences are significant in Figure 3B. I guess this is a measurement of Fe(II) Fe(III) in the medium? Figure 3D – did the authors include a strain that lacked the cluster? Line 252 – unclear to me how ICP-MS can distinguish between iron inside a cell and associated with the cell surface. Line 256 – have other metals been tested? Frequently manganese substitutes for iron in enzymes from non-iron dependent bacteria. Manganese oxide is also a known substrate for EET in Geobacter and Shewanella and could be nutritionally significant to LAB. Line 262 – does this mean a large amount of the cells that grew are now dead? Figure 4 (and Figure 1) – I don't understand why maximum current output is completely decoupled from when biomass spikes. At 24h (maximum current), basically no growth has occurred. At 2 days and 5 days, when biomass is the greatest (in the WT culture), very little current is produced. This seems like direct evidence that EET is not coupled with metabolism in these bacteria.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: A phylogenomic and microsynteny analysis on 60 plant genomes generated clues about how evolutionary processes (genome diversification) leads to differential biochemical properties, distinctive gene expression patterns, and specific-gene expansion [32], shedding light on the contribution of evolutionary mechanisms to plant adaptations in restrictive environments. Phylogeny and a microsynteny network approach on 171 fully sequenced genomes from the Tree of Life unravelled the evolutionary history of TMBIM protein family. Synteny revealed that some groups of genes from monocots transposed to another genomic context during evolution; specific patterns of gene duplication in angiosperms were also observed [33]. Recently, [34] an in-depth network-based phylogenomic synteny analysis on 87 mammalians and 107 angiosperm genomes identified long-term conservation and several lineage-specific patterns of evolution related to the genomic context of genes. Interestingly, several “rebel-genes” that transpose to another genomic context in mammalian genomes and conserved single-copy genes in angiosperms were detected. We provide a phylogenetic overview of FIB proteins across the Tree of Life by using 1049 available complete sequenced genomes spanning viruses, Bacteria, Archaea, protists, fungi, plants, and animals. Additionally, we applied a novel microsynteny network approach on fungi, plants, and animals to unravel the evolution of genome structure and its consequences on FIB dynamics. Our goal is to identify patterns of genome evolution to provide insights into how genome dynamics may have contributed to trait evolution. Our evolutionary analyses provide the first comprehensive survey of FIB proteins over four billion years of evolutionary history. fibrillarin family through the tree of life: General trends We performed a homology search for FIB proteins across 1049 completely genome-sequenced organisms from the three domains of life (Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya) and viruses (For discussion about the fourth domain please see [35]).

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: The search for extraterrestrial life involves studying extremophiles on Earth. [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: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: The ATP measurements were made at 24h, where OD of the mutant is decreasing (thus less ATP would be expected). Same issue with NAD/NADH measurement. Figure 4C – Lines are undefined in the figure legend. Also, growth should be plotted on a semi-log scale, see: Figure 5 – based on the growth curve shown in Figure 4, the OC culture lags behind and does not reach maximum OD until day 5. What do these measurements look like at day 5 (or 6)? It seems likely that the authors are drawing conclusions from cells in two different states (stationary phase vs exponential phase) rather than focusing on the finding that having an external electron acceptor appears to accelerate the metabolism of cells. Line 465 – Description of the experiment setup in 2B does not include addition of flavins for the iron reduction assay, so it is unclear why the authors claim that both flavins and quinones are necessary for EET in diverse LAB species. Line 473 – Iron and electrode reduction is dependent on addition of DHNA. Are these cells likely to ever encounter 20 ug/mL DHNA in the environment? Is the EET activity observed relevant to normal physiology for these organisms, or a lab artifact caused by providing a non-native electron carrier? The argument beginning on line 491 underscores the artificial nature to me. Line 559 – none of the 412. doi: 10. 1111/mmi. 12566. Emde R, Schink B. Formation by Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp. freudenreichii in a Three-Culture System. Microbiol. 1990 Sep;56(9):2771-6. doi: 10. 1128/aem. 56. 9. 2771-2776. 1990. And other 865. doi: 10. 1016/j. tibtech. 2016. 04. 009. . Anodic electro-fermentation: Empowering anaerobic production processes via anodic respiration. Biotechnol Adv. 2021 May-Jun;48:107728. doi: 10. 1016/j. biotechadv. 2021. 107728. 1A to Figure 3A, the extent of Fe3+ reduction seems quite different. Were the conditions the same for these two experiments? If so, an explanation should be added to the text.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Prototheria and Metatheria species contain only one FIB protein each, but the Xenarthra species D. novemcinctus (basal Eutheria species) has two FIB sequences. The Afrotheria, Laurasiatheria, and Euarchontoglires maintain a very marked pattern of two FIB Proteins each (Fig 2E). Phylogenomic microsynteny-network approach to elucidate the evolutionary history of FIB proteins in higher eukaryotes For all detected orthologous and paralogous FIBs sequences, we identified all syntenic FIB genes by pairwise inter- and intra-species microsynteny block detection. To decipher the evolutionary history of FIB genes in major eukaryotic lineages, we implemented a microsynteny-network approach coupled to phylogenetic profiling (“phylogenomic synteny profiling” as described by [34]) on fungi, plants, and animals. In these networks, nodes represent genes and edges represent a syntenic relationship between them. As reported by [34], some clades (such as primates and Brassicaceae) were overrepresented due to research sampling biases. Fig 3 depicts the general topology of the clustered microsynteny networks for fungi, plants, and animals. Download: PPTPowerPoint slidePNGlarger imageTIFForiginal imageFig 3. Microsynteny networks of FIB genes of the three major Eukaryotic taxa. a) Microsynteny networks of FIB genes in Fungi. Nine microsynteny communities from three different phyla (Mucoromycota, Basidiomycota, and Ascomycota). b) Microsynteny networks of FIB genes in plants formed six synteny clusters: a synteny supercluster for all angiosperms (purple nodes), and five small synteny clusters for specific clade such as Rosids (green nodes), Fabaceae (blue nodes), (orange nodes), Oryza-specific cluster (red nodes), and a small Fabaceae group (pink nodes) that poorly linked to the Angiosperm supercluster (one link). c) Microsynteny networks of FIB genes in animals.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: The search for extraterrestrial life involves studying extremophiles on Earth. [SEP] Text: You’ll be pleased to know that I’m absolutely not going to go down that road. However, I am going to briefly consider each of the three components of RIM. Since these three things are crucial in allowing us to distinguish life forms from inert entities – potentially throughout the universe – it simply won’t work if we’re fuzzy about their meanings. This point was brought home to me when I was reading the Introduction to astrobiology written by the planetary scientist David C. Catling in 2013. With regard to metabolism, Catling says the following: ‘All life metabolizes but so does my car. ’ I don’t agree with him, but I see what he means. The burning of a fuel such as petrol powers a car in much the same way as the burning of a fuel such as glucose powers a living organism. is right to see a parallel. But he’s wrong – in my view – to equate automotive and biological ‘metabolism’. I have an instinctive feeling that the two are different in some fundamental way, and perhaps you do too. But what is it? Of course, the fuels are different, but that’s not the best approach to this issue, because we can’t guarantee that the fuel of alien life is glucose. Here’s a better approach. A life form metabolizes right from the start; a car doesn’t. An organism is not simply a collection of cells, membranes, vesicles, filaments, and so on, that is inert until some point in its life when it gets fired up with an infusion of glucose or some other fuel. In contrast, a car is an object of precisely this latter sort. It’s a collection of metal and plastic parts that gets built in stages and hasn’t a whiff of ‘metabolism’ until after it’s complete – or has reached its ‘adult’ stage, to stretch the use of that term – and someone turns on the ignition. So, to be a life form from a metabolic perspective you need to be metabolizing right from the start. Even the very first cell of a new human or other animal – the zygote – metabolizes. An organism is an intrinsically metabolizing thing. Its default state is to metabolize.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: Lines 104-106: Can DHNA itself be used as an electron shuttle? This should be addressed. Line 137: Where the authors compare current density capacity for L. plantarum to that of S. oneidensis--are the quoted values for S. oneidensis using (an) endogenously produced shuttle(s), or are they for S. oneidensis + (an) added shuttle(s)? This should be clarified, because L. plantarum has no current density capacity without added DHNA. Line 139: "current production was not dependent on the carbon source or growth medium, and current increased after supplementation of riboflavin in the growth medium". Both of these claims are hard to evaluate because the plots in figure 1 and figure1-—figure supplement 2 are shown for different lengths of time, different carbon sources (electron donors), and different media. To make it easier for the reader to compare, it would help to have the name of the medium as a title for each current density plot. To judge whether riboflavin truly increases current, we should compare figure 1c to figure 1-—figure supplement 2D. In figure 1c, with no riboflavin added, current increases to ~120 uA/cm2 at around 1 day. In the supplemental figure, this increase is not seen until after riboflavin is added. Without a control, it is hard to know whether this increase was dependent on the riboflavin addition. Line 154: Please define homofermentative. Line 160: "the percentage of" should be removed figure 2-—figure supplement 2C: I am confused about how this experiment controls for the possibility that reduction of soluble iron (i. e. , the ferric ammonium citrate ), which wouldn't necessarily require EET, contributes to the higher levels of ferrous iron observed when DHNA and ferric ammonium citrate are both added. Maybe a control with no ferrihydrite added would tell us whether ferric ammonium citrate is being reduced. Line 194: more background should be provided for the FLEET-inducing conditions Lines 304-309: More background information is needed to understand the motivation behind these experiments. Were oxygen and nitrate available as electron acceptors?

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: retrieved and grouped FIBs from each Mammalia synteny community (Fig 7B) and replotted the number of exons per syntenic cluster. Surprisingly, the number of exons is specific to the syntenic community: 82% of FIB genes from the mammals syntenic cluster A contained 9 exons while among the FIB-like genes from mammal cluster B, 56% of genes contained a unique exon and 35% contained 2 exons (summing a 91% of FIBs with one or two exons; Fig 7C). Both microsynteny communities in mammals possess distinctive genomic features that were dependent on their origin. When plotting the syntenic clusters (S. Cluster) on the ML tree (Fig 7D), we found that FIB cluster (S. Cluster A) remains syntenic to Monodelphis domestica, a species from the Metatheria clade (S15 Fig). This syntenic link shows evidence that the FIB cluster comes from the Theria clade (e. g. , marsupials), and also shows evidence for a duplication event before the Eutheria split (e. g. , ruminants, felines, rodents, primates). Therefore, the FIB group remains syntenic to Theria species, unlike the FIB-like group. This finding is in accordance with the number of shared exons between Theria species and members of the mammal cluster A (the group of FIB syntelogs). Furthermore, the FIB-like S. (clade) had no syntenic relationship to any Theria species. The branches of both clades of mammals (and B) presented bootstrap values above 70 percent (S15A and S15B Fig). To better understand the evolutionary divergence of these syntenic communities, we determined the rate of synonymous substitutions (Ks), along with coding sequences (codon alignment strategy) by pairwise comparison of each group of syntelogs (Fig 7E). The distribution of synonymous substitutions among FIB and FIB-like proteins have a different rate of divergence (Ks) according to their genomic context. FIB proteins (S. Cluster A) contained a mean Ks value of 0. 52 (Fst_Qu = 0. 4 & Trd_Qu = 0. 59) compared to FIB-like group (S.

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: The search for extraterrestrial life involves studying extremophiles on Earth. [SEP] Text: In contrast, searching for the technosignatures of intelligent civilizations is centred on longer wavelengths – those of the radio range. I’m going to use radio as a pragmatic way of defining intelligence from a SETI perspective. But let’s first look at the span of intelligences among animals on Earth from a different perspective. Intelligence is a continuous variable, not a binary one. Life forms here, and probably elsewhere too, show a wide range of behaviours that can be interpreted as indicating a wide range of intelligence underlying them. The construction of a scale for the measurement of intelligence is notoriously difficult, even within the confines of a particular species – humans. How intelligent someone is cannot be completely captured on a single scale; intelligence is a multidimensional property. Paradoxically, though, in a multi-species context the job actually gets easier rather than harder. The reason for this is that the differences we’re dealing with are much greater. A scale for intelligence in the context of life on Earth starts from zero and extends indefinitely upwards. Organisms that lack nervous systems are deemed to have no intelligence. These include all microbes and plants, as well as the most primitive of animals – sponges and a little-known group called placozoans (which translates as ‘flat animals’). Slightly more advanced animals such as jellyfish have diffuse nervous systems but lack brains, and don’t really exhibit any behaviour that merits the description intelligent. There are many animals that have small brains, including insects and arachnids. These typically have rather fixed, instinctive behaviour patterns, but some seem more intelligent than others. Jumping spiders – for example those of the genus Portia – have been put forward as the most intelligent arthropods, owing to their complex patterns of hunting behaviour. The most intelligent invertebrates of all are octopuses; there’s a great book about octopus intelligence by Peter Godfrey-Smith, called Other Minds. Many studies on these wonderful creatures, both in the lab and in the field, have illustrated complex behaviours that are clearly learned rather than instinctive. Octopuses exceed many vertebrates in intelligence. However, some groups of birds seem to be particularly intelligent – notably crows and parrots. And many mammalian groups show high intelligence, especially cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and primates.

Output: contrast


Input: Claim: Lactic acid bacteria are important for fermentation processes. [SEP] Text: We revised claims to more precisely reflect our findings and, for other claims, provided additional experimental data to further support them as follows: (1) We provide new data on formate and pyruvate and the implications of those data on yield of ATP and fermentation products (discussed in our response to point 1 above). (2) We provide new evidence that L. plantarum performs EET with physiologically-relevant (low) concentrations of DHNA (concern raised by Reviewers #2 and #3). DHNA is present at a range of concentrations (0. 09-0. 5 ug/mL) in foods and other environments inhabited by L. plantarum. Our new data (Figure 1—figure supplement 3) shows that L. plantarum supplied with 0. 010 ug/mL DHNA, which is on the lower end of this range, still produces significant current and iron reduction. Additionally, we now show that this DHNA-dependent EET causes a significant decrease in pH (Figure 1—figure supplement 3), indicating EET affects the physiology of L. plantarum. Lastly, while these data indicate that physiologically relevant levels of DHNA have physiological effects on L. plantarum in laboratory culture media, we also qualify our conclusions to explain that the extent and physiological impact of EET will depend on the environmental and nutritional conditions of the niche L. plantarum is inhabiting (lines 153-162). (3) More background information is provided on the rationale and need for measuring oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) (concern raised by Reviewers #1 and 2) (lines 213-217). Appropriate statistical tests are also now applied to the ORP data. Lastly, new data are included (Figure 3B and Figure 3—figure supplement 1) showing that DHNA supplementation is required for robust ORP reduction by wild-type L. plantarum, further linking EET activity to its ability to modulate extracellular ORP during fermentation. (4) Reviewer #3 suggested that the claim that EET proceeds independently of respiration may be overstated. We now explain our current understanding and the limits on that understanding. Our results show EET proceeds via a respiratory protein, but ATP generation during EET is mainly produced by substrate-level phosphorylation, not oxidative phosphorylation.

Output: pass


Input: Claim: Fossils provide insights into the evolutionary history of life. [SEP] Text: Plant FIBs: A conserved genomic context on a very shifting genomic history We observed a single large microsynteny cluster in plants that implies a local genomic region that is less accessible to genomic alterations leading to a higher degree of conservation on these portions of genomic DNA. We detected a conserved genomic context of FIB across plants, even between monocots and eudicots. This conservation was surprising, as plants have undergone several rounds of ancient paleopolyploidization events (ζ, ε, γ, τ, σ, ρ WGD; [47, 61, 62] and several lineage-specific WGD (At-α, At-β, Br-α, Musa-α, Musa-β, among others; [63, 64]. The duplication events resulted in highly fractionated and reshuffled genomes that can lead to several clade-specific syntenic communities. However, this was not the case for FIBs. Recently, [34] carried out a broad microsynteny comparative analysis of all coding genes across 107 plant genomes and found conservation in only 8. 7% of all syntenic clusters between monocots and eudicots. The FIB family is within this small percentage of syntenic clusters. Our analysis shows a considerable increase in gene content in taxa that underwent recent specific WGDs as the case of Brassicaceae family, and specifically the Brassica genus. Recent work in Glucosinolates (GS) found that gene family expansion has taken place due to the retention of duplicated genes, and most of them (≥70%) are actively expressed in globally or in specific tissues, with different expression patterns [65]. Variation in gene copy numbers, retention of duplicated copies, and posterior sub- neofunctionalization play an essential role in the environmental adaptation and can lead to beneficial or necessary functions as occurs in the salt-tolerant species E. salsugineum [66]. These results highlight the key role of WGD on gene family expansion and gene functional diversification among plant families. A clear example of results from WGD/WGT is the Brassicaceae genomes; this clade has a mix of duplicated and triplicated regions that occurred after the eudicot paleohexaploidization event (At-γ). These events have played a significant role in Brassicaceae evolution [67, 68].

Output: corroborate


Input: Claim: All mushrooms have medicinal properties. [SEP] Text: Acasa > Reviste de specialitate > Farmacist. ro > Ciuperci medicinale cu proprietăţi imunostimulatoare şi antitumorale (II) NUTRIŢIE Ciuperci medicinale cu proprietăţi imunostimulatoare şi antitumorale (II) Medicinal mushrooms with immunostimulating and antitumor properties (II) Gabriela Vlăsceanu First published: 20 septembrie 2024 Editorial Group: : 10. 26416/Farm. 218. 3. 2024. 10048 have been an integral part of diet and medicinal practices since ancient times. In ancient Chinese culture, they were valued for both their nutritional properties and medicinal benefits. The first book on remedies belonging to the Chinese civilization mentions the therapeutic effects of various species of mushrooms. In the last three decades, researchers from all over the world, especially from countries such as Japan, China, Korea, the USA and Canada, have conducted numerous studies that have confirmed the beneficial effects of mushrooms on human health. These studies have highlighted their immunological, antioxidant, anti-tumor, and anti-inflammatory properties. The discovery of penicillin in 1928, derived from the mold Penicillium notatum (a lower fungus), was a watershed moment in medical history, revolutionizing the treatment of bacterial infections and saving millions of lives. This discovery also opened doors for the synthesis of other exceptional drugs. Over the past three decades, interest in medicinal mushrooms and their therapeutic properties has grown significantly. These mushrooms have been studied for their potential in treating immunological conditions and cancer. Thus, medicinal mushrooms have become the subject of intensive research in the field of complementary medicine. Keywords medicinal, immune-stimulating, anti-tumor mushrooms au fost parte integrantă a dietei şi a practicilor medicinale încă din cele mai vechi timpuri. În cultura chineză antică, acestea erau valorificate atât pentru proprietăţile lor nutritive, cât şi pentru beneficiile medicinale.

Output: contrast