As Earth evolved over the last 4.5 billion years, its mineralogy changed. As we peer back through Earth’s history, it seems logical to think that our lens would grow increasingly fogged and our light ever more dim. How do we see beyond the oldest preserved rocks and minerals, after billions of years of volcanism, plate tectonics, and weathering? How do we see past the Moon-forming collision, wh...

Studies suggest that the ability to have biological children is of great importance to many people. The cancer and its treatment often pose a threat to fertility. Rates of permanent infertility and compromised fertility after cancer treatment vary and depend on many factors. Male infertility can result from the disease itself (best documented in patients with testicular cancer and Hodgkin’s lym...

Preservation of cell architecture under physically stressful conditions is a basic requirement for many biological processes and is critical for mechanosensory systems built to translate subtle changes in cell shape into changes in organism behaviour. A new study reveals how an extracellular protein--Spam--helps mechanosensory organs in the fruit fly to withstand the effects of the water loss t...

Cryoelectron tomography opens a window into the inner space of cells. It combines the potential of three-dimensional imaging with a close-to-life preservation of biological samples. Tomograms with molecular resolution are essentially images of the cellular proteome and, in conjunction with advanced pattern recognition techniques, they can be used to map the molecular landscape inside organelles...

Oil production, as well the transportation of oil and gas through pipeline systems, cause destruction man-made transformation natural ecosystems Northern Eurasia, an increase in area disturbed lands, a reduction habitats specially protected plant species. In this regard, most significant measures for biological diversity are identification conditions growth populations rare plants biotopes deve...

In this paper, we discuss the usefulness of topology preservation in an on-line learning neural control system. We discuss biological and information processing arguments. Then, we propose an experiment performed on a mobile robot that shows that with a Probabilistic Topological Map (PTM) much less information needs to be learned than using a Winner Take All.

These notes derive a number of technical results on nonlinear contraction theory, a comparatively recent tool for system stability analysis. In particular, they provide new results on the preservation of contraction through system combinations, a property of interest in modelling biological systems.

BACKGROUND/AIM Histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) solution is the most frequently used solution for the preservation of abdominal organs by leading transplant centers worldwide. The aim of the study was to investigate whether it is possible to prepare this kind of perfusion solution in the hospital pharmacy. In the hospital pharmacy setting we prepared HTK preservation solution and tested...