Soil, the living terrestrial skin of the Earth, plays a central role in supporting life and is home to an unimaginable diversity of microorganisms. This review explores key drivers for microbial life in soils under different climates and land-use practices at scales ranging from soil pores to landscapes. We delineate special features of soil as a microbial habitat (focusing on bacteria) and the...

Voltage gated sodium channels (Nav channels) play an important role in nociceptive transmission. They are intimately tied to the genesis and transmission of neuronal firing. Five different isoforms (Nav1.3, Nav1.6, Nav1.7, Nav1.8, and Nav1.9) have been linked to nociceptive responses. A change in the biophysical properties of these channels or in their expression levels occurs in different path...

Pregnancy is considered late term from 41 weeks, 0 days' to 41 weeks, 6 days' gestation, and postterm at 42 weeks' gestation. Early dating of the pregnancy is important for accurately determining when a pregnancy is late- or postterm, and first-trimester ultrasonography should be performed if clinical dating is uncertain. Optimal management of a low-risk, late-term pregnancy should consider mat...

Although there is limited evidence that antepartum testing decreases the risk for fetal death in low-risk pregnancies, women with high-risk factors for stillbirth should undergo antenatal fetal surveillance. The strongest evidence supporting antepartum testing pertains to pregnancies complicated by intrauterine fetal growth restriction secondary to uteroplacental insufficiency. The main ultraso...

Case Report A 24-year-old primigravida was first seen for obstetric care at 13 weeks' gestation. Initially the pregnancy progressed without apparent difficulty, but the fundal height was found to be somewhat small for dates at 38 weeks' gestation. A sonogram obtained at that time showed a 33-week-sized fetus, with all measurements being concordant and no sonographic evidence of intrauterine gro...

Network biologists attempt to extract meaningful relationships among genes or their products from very noisy data. We argue that what we categorize as noisy data may sometimes reflect noisy biology and therefore may shield a hidden meaning about how networks evolve and how matter is organized in the cell. We present practical solutions, based on existing evolutionary and biophysical concepts, t...

Complaints on low-frequency noise were till recently fairly unexplained, but audiological research shed light on the mechanisms that enable perception of frequencies below the threshold of average normal hearing. It was shown that exposure to low-frequency sound may alter the inner ear. This results in an increase of sensitivity to low-frequency sounds, and as a result, previously imperceptible...

Spike timing-dependent plasticity is a fundamental adaptation mechanism of the nervous system. It induces structural changes of synaptic connectivity by regulation of coupling strengths between individual cells depending on their spiking behavior. As a biophysical process its functioning is constantly subjected to natural fluctuations. We study theoretically the influence of noise on a microsco...

In this paper we present an efficient method to generate realistic simulations of extracellular recordings. The method uses a hybrid and computationally simple approach, where the features of the background noise arise naturally from its biophysical process of generation. The generated data resemble the characteristics of real recordings, as quantified by the amplitude and frequency distributio...

Connectivity, or the exchange of individuals among marine populations, is a central topic in marine ecology. For most benthic marine species with complex life cycles, this exchange occurs primarily during the pelagic larval stage. The small size of larvae coupled with the vast and complex fluid environment they occupy hamper our ability to quantify dispersal and connectivity. Evidence from dire...