eLife

1 month ago | elifesciences.org | Nicolas Desprat |Monica Gerth |Barbara Ritzl-Rinkenberger |Andrew Farr

eLife Assessment This important study combines convincing evolution experiments with molecular and genetic techniques to study how a genetic lesion in MreB that causes rod-shaped cells to become spherical, with concomitant deleterious fitness effects, can be rescued by natural selection. The detailed mechanistic investigation increases our understanding of how mreB contributes to cell wall synthesis and shows how compensatory mutations may reestablish its homogeneity.

1 month ago | elifesciences.org | Adriana Bankston

Main text Since President Trump took office, we have seen a complete disregard for science and technology. The new administration’s attacks on science will severely harm our nation’s competitiveness and gravely weaken and diminish its scientific workforce, with researchers from underrepresented groups being particularly at risk.

1 month ago | elifesciences.org | Daniel Patrick Gainey |Andrey V Shubin |Craig Hunter |Fangluo Chen

Sodium azide is historically used to preserve transient worm choices in arena chemotaxis assays. In the food choice assay, the effect of the sodium azide can paralyze worms before they enter the bacteria lawn, possibly interfering with their choice. Azide also affects bacteria, potentially affecting the production of molecules that attract or repel worms and thus altering worm choice independent of the paralytic effect on worms.

1 month ago | elifesciences.org | Björn Herrmann |Donald Iain MacDonald |Sean McCracken |David Richter

A new set of 24 stories was generated and participants were presented with 4 stories in each of 6 blocks. Speech-clarity levels were the same as in Experiment 1 (i.e., clear speech and SNRs ranging from +30 to –2 dB SNR). In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to ignore the stories and instead perform a visual 1-back task. In no part of the experiment were participants instructed to attend to the speech.

2 months ago | elifesciences.org | Sytse J Piersma |Shasha Li |Pamela Wong |Michael Bern

eLife Assessment This study on mouse Ly49 receptors expressed on natural killer (NK) cells shows that Ly49A, in the presence of the corresponding MHC class I allele, can lead to NK cell licensing, thereby providing valuable insights into the mechanisms of NK cell modulation by Ly49 receptors. The work may have significant implications for studies of human killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) expressing and other NK cells. Overall, the study was well-developed with convincing evidence.