Dellusion

Transition metal chalcogenides and halides (TMCs and TMHs) have been extensively used and reported as electrode materials in diverse primary and secondary batteries. This review summarizes the suitability of TMCs and TMHs as electrode materials focusing on thermal batteries (utilized for defense applications) and energy storage systems like mono- and multivalent rechargeable batteries. The report also identifies the specific physicochemical properties that need to be achieved for the same materials to be employed as cathode materials in thermal batteries and anode materials in monovalent rechargeable systems...

Determining the fitness of specific microbial genotypes has extensive application in microbial genetics, evolution, and biotechnology. While estimates from growth curves are simple and allow high throughput, they are inaccurate and do not account for interactions between costs and benefits accruing over different parts of a growth cycle. For this reason, pairwise competition experiments are the current "gold standard" for accurate estimation of fitness. However, competition experiments require distinct markers, making them difficult to perform between isolates derived from a common ancestor or between isolates of nonmodel organisms...

Stress-induced mutagenesis is a widely observed phenomenon. Theoretical models have shown that stress-induced mutagenesis can be favoured by natural selection due to the beneficial mutations it generates. These models, however, assumed an error-free regulation of mutation rate in response to stress. Here, we explore the effects of errors in the regulation of mutagenesis on the evolution of stress-induced mutagenesis, and consider the role of cell-to-cell signalling. Using theoretical models, we show (i) that stress-induced mutagenesis can be disadvantageous if errors are common; and (ii) that cell-to-cell signalling can allow stress-induced mutagenesis to be favoured by selection even when error rates are high...

INTRODUCTION: Antibiotic resistance is an important public health issue, and vast resources are invested in researching new ways to fight it. Recent experimental works have shown that resistance to some antibiotics can result in increased susceptibility to others, namely induce cross-sensitivity. This phenomenon could be utilized to increase efficiency of antibiotic treatment strategies that minimize resistance. However, as conditions in experimental settings and in the clinic may differ substantially, the implications of cross-sensitivity for clinical settings are not guaranteed and should be examined...

Epistasis is a key factor in evolution since it determines which combinations of mutations provide adaptive solutions and which mutational pathways toward these solutions are accessible by natural selection. There is growing evidence for the pervasiveness of sign epistasis--a complete reversion of mutational effects, particularly in protein evolution--yet its molecular basis remains poorly understood. We describe the structural basis of sign epistasis between G238S and R164S, two adaptive mutations in TEM-1 β-lactamase--an enzyme that endows antibiotics resistance...