As Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it... Show moreAs Earth's climate has varied strongly through geological time, studying the impacts of past climate change on biodiversity helps to understand the risks from future climate change. However, it remains unclear how paleoclimate shapes spatial variation in biodiversity. Here, we assessed the influence of Quaternary climate change on spatial dissimilarity in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional composition among neighboring 200-kilometer cells (beta-diversity) for angiosperm trees worldwide. We found that larger glacial-interglacial temperature change was strongly associated with lower spatial turnover (species replacements) and higher nestedness (richness changes) components of beta-diversity across all three biodiversity facets. Moreover, phylogenetic and functional turnover was lower and nestedness higher than random expectations based on taxonomic beta-diversity in regions that experienced large temperature change, reflecting phylogenetically and functionally selective processes in species replacement, extinction, and colonization during glacial-interglacial oscillations. Our results suggest that future human-driven climate change could cause local homogenization and reduction in taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity of angiosperm trees worldwide. Show less
Mycosis fungoides (MF) is a rare type of cancer that involves the skin. Symptoms may vary between patients and MF can be mistaken for other skin conditions. This means that MF can be difficult to... Show moreMycosis fungoides (MF) is a rare type of cancer that involves the skin. Symptoms may vary between patients and MF can be mistaken for other skin conditions. This means that MF can be difficult to diagnose, and doctors may not send patients to specialist clinics straightaway. As a result, there is often a long delay before patients receive appropriate treatment. This delay can cause anxiety for patients who may not receive treatment before the disease gets worse, or may be treated for the wrong condition. It has become clear that more education is needed to increase doctors' awareness of MF and its symptoms. A panel of specialists in the diagnosis and treatment of MF discussed the steps needed to help doctors quickly suspect and correctly determine that a patient has MF. This review summarizes the advice from these experts. To confirm a diagnosis of MF, doctors need to carefully examine a patient for symptoms, including patches of abnormal skin (often called lesions), and take biopsy samples from these lesions for pathology testing. The experts created 2 easy-to-use checklists to help doctors recognize signs of MF and decide which patients should be seen by a specialist. This expert advice together with the checklists can enable doctors to diagnose MF sooner and allow patients to receive the most appropriate treatment as early as possible. Show less
The Human Metabolome Database or HMDB (https://hmdb.ca) has been providing comprehensive reference information about human metabolites and their associated biological, physiological and chemical... Show moreThe Human Metabolome Database or HMDB (https://hmdb.ca) has been providing comprehensive reference information about human metabolites and their associated biological, physiological and chemical properties since 2007. Over the past 15 years, the HMDB has grown and evolved significantly to meet the needs of the metabolomics community and respond to continuing changes in internet and computing technology. This year's update, HMDB 5.0, brings a number of important improvements and upgrades to the database. These should make the HMDB more useful and more appealing to a larger cross-section of users. In particular, these improvements include: (i) a significant increase in the number of metabolite entries (from 114 100 to 217 920 compounds); (ii) enhancements to the quality and depth of metabolite descriptions; (iii) the addition of new structure, spectral and pathway visualization tools; (iv) the inclusion of many new and much more accurately predicted spectral data sets, including predicted NMR spectra, more accurately predicted MS spectra, predicted retention indices and predicted collision cross section data and (v) enhancements to the HMDB's search functions to facilitate better compound identification. Many other minor improvements and updates to the content, the interface, and general performance of the HMDB website have also been made. Overall, we believe these upgrades and updates should greatly enhance the HMDB's ease of use and its potential applications not only in human metabolomics but also in exposomics, lipidomics, nutritional science, biochemistry and clinical chemistry. Show less
Osteoarthritis affects over 300 million people worldwide. Here, we conduct a genome-wide association study meta-analysis across 826,690 individuals (177,517 with osteoarthritis) and identify 100... Show moreOsteoarthritis affects over 300 million people worldwide. Here, we conduct a genome-wide association study meta-analysis across 826,690 individuals (177,517 with osteoarthritis) and identify 100 independently associated risk variants across 11 osteoarthritis phenotypes, 52 of which have not been associated with the disease before. We report thumb and spine osteoarthritis risk variants and identify differences in genetic effects between weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing joints. We identify sex-specific and early age-at-onset osteoarthritis risk loci. We integrate functional genomics data from primary patient tissues (including articular cartilage, subchondral bone, and osteophytic cartilage) and identify high-confidence effector genes. We provide evidence for genetic correlation with phenotypes related to pain, the main disease symptom, and identify likely causal genes linked to neuronal processes. Our results provide insights into key molecular players in disease processes and highlight attractive drug targets to accelerate translation. Show less
PtRh alloys are used as versatile multipurpose catalysts for a number of industrial applications, including fertilizer production and ammonia slip catalysts for NOx abatement purposes. For the... Show morePtRh alloys are used as versatile multipurpose catalysts for a number of industrial applications, including fertilizer production and ammonia slip catalysts for NOx abatement purposes. For the latter, ammonia is oxidized to nitrogen at intermediate temperatures. To optimize the PtRh-alloyed catalysts and explain the role of Pt and Rh for future intermediate-temperature ammonia oxidation operando studies, we prepared a series of distinct RhPt model surfaces. We explore postannealing and high-temperature deposition as two routes for preparation of surface alloys and compare results with literature examples. Scanning tunneling microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy provide detailed information on surface morphology and composition and demonstrate excellent temperature stability of RhPt/Pt(111) in the temperature range targeted for operando catalytic studies. A detailed roadmap summarizes preparation conditions to achieve a broad variety of surface structures. Show less
