Royal Society Publishing

17/10/2024

New in Notes and Records: Alfredo M. Ramalho's correspondence in marine sciences, featuring 181 letters exchanged with 30 scientists across Europe, North America, and Japan. The authors highlight the global network of sea experts from the early 20th century and their significant connections, read the full paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2024.0018

16/10/2024

Variation in moonlight with the moon’s phases impacts the behaviour of tropical forest animals beneath the canopy, new research in Proceedings B reveals: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.0683

Using automatic wildlife cameras spread across three continents, this study explored the activity patterns of tropical forest mammals in relation to moon phases. The results revealed that half of the species studied responded to full moon by either changing their overall level of activity, its timing, or both. Avoidance of full moon was more common than attraction to it, particularly among mammals that are active at night. The findings indicate that the moon’s phases change animal behavior even in some of the darkest places on earth: the floors of tropical forests. Such impacts may be exacerbated in degraded and fragmented forests.

13/10/2024

Biological systems differentiate between molecules using energy-intensive proofreading mechanisms.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen investigate the thermodynamics of Hopfield's energy-relay proofreading, uncovering trade-offs and scaling laws between kinetic and thermodynamic factors. This mechanism operates in three modes: energy relay, mixed relay-Michaelis-Menten, and Michaelis-Menten, based on kinetic and energetic parameters.

The mixed mode shows a dynamic phase transition in error-entropy trade-offs, while the energy relay mode is more energetically efficient than standard kinetic proofreading.

Check out the new paper in Interface: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2024.0232

12/10/2024

Convection-enhanced delivery (CED) bypasses the blood-brain barrier by directly infusing drugs into brain areas via a catheter. However, its effectiveness varies due to the brain's complex structure, making it hard to control drug spread.

A new Interface study uses mathematical modelling to explore how adjusting the catheter's posture can improve drug delivery. Results show that CED can enhance drug transport, however, the enhancement is subject to the orientation of local axons and varies between drugs. These insights could help optimise CED for better treatment outcomes.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2024.0378

10/10/2024

From land to sea – investigating the genetic basis for the evolution of unique limb structures in cetaceans | New research in Proceedings B this week: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.1106

Cetaceans have evolved unique limb structures, such as flippers, due to genetic changes during their transition to aquatic life. However, the full understanding of the genetic and evolutionary mechanisms behind these changes is still developing. The authors here compared genetic changes between whales, and other mammals with unusual limbs such as bats and elephants. Their findings revealed significant changes in limb-related genes. These genetic variations correlated with the diverse and specialized limb details in cetaceans, showing an interplay of relaxed selection and specific mutations in mammalian limb evolution.

09/10/2024

Over the past two decades, origami ("fold-paper" in Japanese) and kirigami ("cut-paper") have been transforming from an art into a science; inspiring the creation of various engineering structures with interesting functionalities that target niche applications. This week's Phil Trans A theme issue summarizes the state-of-the-art in this field of research, with a particular emphasis on modeling, new cutting and folding principles, and novel applications.

The original ideas of origami ("fold-paper" in Japanese) and kirigami ("cut-paper") were simple and elegant: one can cut, fold, and manipulate a piece of paper to create aesthetically appealing designs in the form of flowers, cranes, and butterflies. Slowly, over the past two decades, origami/kiriga...

06/10/2024

Endel Tulving (1927-2023) was an Estonian–Canadian cognitive psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist who transformed the study of human memory. In 1972, he proposed the distinction between episodic and semantic memory—the recall of events vs the knowledge of information. Read more about at their life’s work in the new biographical memoir: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.2024.0017

05/10/2024

Species morphology in pollination systems: a powerful reason to stay together | https://royalsociety.org/blog/2024/10/species-morphology-in-pollination-systems/

Dr. María A. Maglianesi and Professor Catherine H. Graham tell us about their recent paper in Proceedings B, where they investigated the factors that influence the intricate web of interactions between hummingbirds and plants, highlighting the importance of complementary bill and flower morphology.

Read the full paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.1279

Dr. María A. Maglianesi and Professor Catherine H. Graham tell us about their research published in a new Proceedings B paper, a study that investigated the factors that influence the intricate web of interactions in pollination systems, specifically the ones formed by plants and hummingbirds.

04/10/2024

Urban areas often experience more frequent lightning, which is known as ‘lightning enhancement’. J. Pablo Narvaez and colleagues analysed how likely and strong this phenomenon is by studying the geographic, climatic, and urban variables of 349 cities worldwide.

They found that cities with higher temperatures and precipitation than their surroundings are more likely to show lightning enhancement, especially in warmer and wetter regions. The strongest enhancement effects were also in cities with higher urban precipitation and temperatures, as well as larger urban areas and nearer the equator. These findings suggest that urban heat and high urban precipitation are critical drivers of city lightning enhancement.

Take a look at the paper in Interface: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2024.0257

03/10/2024

The Lyon and the mouse | the new volume of Royal Society Biographical Memoirs features the story of Mary Lyon’s discovery of X chromosome inactivation, aka Lyonization—a key 20th Century achievement in genetics and developmental biology.

Read about this and other highlights from the new volume: https://royalsociety.org/blog/2024/10/the-lyon-and-the-mouse-biographical-memoirs-volume-77/

02/10/2024

Sea turtle hatchlings ‘swim’ through sand to emerge from buried nests, as revealed by new research in Proceedings B this week: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2024.1702

When sea turtles hatch from their eggs, they are buried below 4,500 cubic centimetres of sand, and they must dig vertically 30 - 80 cm over 3 - 7 days to reach the surface. This hatching-to-emergence stage is cryptic and poorly understood. Using accelerometers, the authors here provide the first observations of hatchlings during this stage within their natural environment. They find that hatchlings pitch forwards and backwards as they climb through the sand. Their movement bouts are short (

01/10/2024

In the course of evolution, plants and algae have diversified into a rich array of forms with astounding properties, including the ability to produce a bouquet of compounds. These fulfil a whole range of functions, from attracting pollinators and repelling foes, to giving structure to the plant body and communicating across a single plant and between different individuals. Yet, we are only beginning to grasp the complex nature of this chemical diversity and its tangled evolutionary history. In this new theme issue, scientists from diverse field have come together to present their recent finding and thoughts on the evolution of plant chemical diversity. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2024/379/1914

01/10/2024

Mohammadamin Saraei, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, has published a paper in a recent theme issue of Philosophical Transactions B. The study looks at behaviour during an Islamic congregational ritual in order to understand how coordinated actions are occurring. Read the blog post:

Behaviour during an Islamic congregational ritual in order to understand how coordinated actions are occurring.

30/09/2024

We're seeking students and postdocs to join the Open Biology's Preprint Team as editorial members! If you're keen to dive into preprints and the publishing process, learn more about joining us here:https://royalsocietypublishing.org/pb-assets/OBassets/OpenBiologyPreprintTeam_Sept_2024-1727573965.pdf

29/09/2024

Apicomplexans are a diverse group of animal symbionts, including important human pathogens. While we know much about the biomedically relevant apicomplexans, some groups are very understudied. Using single-cell methods we collected genomic data from 12 species of one such group, the archigregarines. A research team based at University of British Columbia showed that archigregarines are early-diverging gregarines and fall into four distinct groups with specific marine invertebrate animal hosts. The team established three new genera to reflect their distinct evolutionary history, diversity, and host range. Find out more in Open Biology https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.240141

28/09/2024

Vaccination campaigns have both direct and indirect effects that act to control an infectious disease as it spreads through a population. Indirect effects arise when vaccinated individuals block disease transmission in any infection chains they are part of, and this in turn can benefit both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

Indirect effects are difficult to quantify in practice, but here, working with the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model, they are analytically calculated in important cases, through pivoting on the Final Size formula for epidemics. Their relationship to herd immunity is also clarified. Furthermore, the authors identify the important distinction between quantifying indirect effects of vaccination at the ‘population level’ versus the ‘per capita’ individual level, which often results in radically different conclusions. As an important example, the analysis unpacks why population-level indirect effect can appear significantly larger than its per capita analogue. In addition, they consider a recently proposed epidemiological non-pharmaceutical intervention used during the COVID-19 pandemic, referred to as ‘shielding’, and study its impact in their mathematical analysis. The shielding scheme is extended to include imperfect vaccination.

Take a look at the paper in Interface: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2024.0299

27/09/2024

To celebrate Peer Review Week, we've added over 1,600 historical peer review reports to our Science in the Making platform, enabling researchers to retrace the history of scientific peer review and reflect on the innovative and technological advancements made over the years: https://royalsociety.org/blog/2024/09/peer-to-peer/

26/09/2024

Evolution of odorant receptor repertoires across Hymenoptera – including bees, wasps and ants - is not linked to the evolution of eusociality—new research in Proceedings B this week: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.1280

Communication is an essential need for any society, and social insects primarily use scent for sharing information. Some have hypothesized that eusocial insects should have more extensive abilities to recognize odors than solitary organisms, but this idea has not been tested across a diverse sample of species. Here, the authors analyzed genomic and neuroanatomical data across a broad sample of Hymenoptera, and found no evidence that that the size and evolutionary rates of odorant receptor repertoires is related to eusociality. However, there is a complex pattern of variation, and further work is needed to elucidate the evolutionary drivers of olfactory abilities.

25/09/2024

Society is facing the challenge of providing essential chemicals and materials from sustainable resources. We need a chemical industry based on non-fossil carbon that can manufacture these products in a net-zero future.

This week's Phil. Trans. A. theme issue brings together scientists and engineers to define the advances needed to tackle this crucial problem.

Society is facing the unavoidable challenge of providing essential chemicals and materials from sustainable resources. We need a chemical industry based on non-fossil carbon that can manufacture these products in a net-zero future. This theme issue is based on talks given at a Royal Society Discussi...

25/09/2024

Peer Review Week’s 2024 theme of innovation and technology offers an opportunity to explore how the landscape of peer review rewards is evolving across the publishing industry to attract and retain talented reviewers, and to maintain the rigor of scientific discourse. Read more in this blog post: https://royalsociety.org/blog/2024/09/publisher-led-peer-reviewer-rewards/

23/09/2024

We’re celebrating Peer Review Week 2024! The academic landscape is evolving, with significant emphasis on research integrity and the integration of AI, and so this year’s focus is on innovation and technology.

Follow our feed throughout the week where we’ll be sharing various resources engaging with this theme.

22/09/2024

Sir David Cox FRS (1924 — 2022) was the leading statistical scientist of his generation.

He made influential contributions to the fields of experimental design, stochastic processes, statistical methodology, foundations of inference, statistics in medicine and public health, and more.

Read about this Fellow’s life’s work in the new biographical memoir: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbm.2023.0052

20/09/2024

The resolution of evolutionary conflicts within species—a new Special Feature in Proceedings B: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/topic/special-collections/the-resolution-of-evolutionary-conflicts

Evolutionary conflicts of interest occur at all levels, scales and forms of biological organization. They are a fundamental component of the living world and range from conflicts between genetic elements and cells, to conflicts between the sexes and between competing individuals. Yet, the existence of admirably well functioning genomes, bodies, mating pairs and societies suggests that processes must exist to resolve or mitigate such conflicts. This Special Feature aims to encourage the flow of knowledge between fields that traditionally have often taken different approaches to study evolutionary conflicts. Contributed papers discuss data from bacteria, plants and animals (including humans) and present theory, molecular mechanisms and population dynamics of how conflicts are resolved in nature. Together, they contribute to a synthetic theory of conflict resolution.

19/09/2024

Six personas to adopt when framing theoretical research questions in biology—a new biological science practices paper in Proceedings B this week: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.0803

Theory is a critical part of biological research, yet few biologists are trained in how to frame theoretical questions or evaluate theory done by others. The authors here, from the University of Minnesota, present a guide for framing theoretical models in biology, by describing six ‘personas’ one can adopt as a theorist: the “Advocate”, “Explainer”, “Instigator”, “Mediator”, “Semantician”, and “Tinkerer”. We use these to debunk common misconceptions of theory: simplifying assumptions are bad, more detail is better, models show anything you want, and modelling requires substantial math knowledge. Finally, we provide a blueprint that researchers new to theoretical research can use for their own theoretical research projects.

18/09/2024

In a new theme issue we revisit, explore, challenge, and extend concepts of mental time travel and understand how current research in this area reshapes our understanding of episodic memory more widely. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2024/379/1913