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\"In a world where any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder--or the craziest stalker\"-- Provided by publisher.

Ammonium dinitramide (ADN), which has the advantages of high energy density, no halogen and low characteristic signal, is not only considered as a new high-energy oxidizer that is expected to replace the traditional oxidizer ammonium perchlorate (AP) in solid propellants, but also a good performance explosive in itself. However, due to the strong hygroscopicity of ADN, its application in solid propellants and explosives is greatly limited. Solving the hygroscopicity of ADN is the key to realize the wide application of ADN. In this paper, we systematically review the research progress of anti-hygroscopic strategies of ADN coating. The surface coating methods are focusing on solvent volatilization, solvent-non-solvent, melt crystallization and atomic layer deposition technology. The characteristics of the different methods are compared and analyzed, and the basis for the classification and selection of the coating materials are introduced in detail. In addition, the feasibility of material for surface coating of ADN is evaluated by several compatibility analysis methods. It is highly expected that the liquid phase method (solvent volatilization method, solvent-non-solvent method) would be the promising method for future ADN coating because of its effective, safety and facile operation. Furthermore, polymer materials, are the preferred coating materials due to their high viscosity, easy adhesion, good anti-hygroscopic effect, and heat resistance, which make ADN weak hygroscopicity, less sensitive, easier to preserve and good compatibility.

Born into a large, well-educated, and loving family in London, Rosalind grew up with a keen desire to do things that would better the lives of others. By the age of 15, she knew she wanted to be a scientist. Less than 20 years later, she took the world's first photograph of DNA, changing the future of science forever. This inspiring story of the pioneering scientist features a fact and photo section at the back.

Monitoring communities of fish is important for the management and sustainability of fisheries and marine ecosystems. Baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVs) are among the most effective nondestructive techniques for sampling bony fishes and elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates). However, BRUVs sample visually conspicuous biota; hence, some taxa are undersampled or not recorded at all. We compared the diversity of fishes characterized using BRUVs with diversity detected via environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding. We sampled seawater and captured BRUVs imagery at 48 locales that included reef and seagrass beds inside and outside a marine reserve (Jurien Bay in Western Australia). Eighty-two fish genera from 13 orders were detected, and the community of fishes described using eDNA and BRUVs combined yielded >30% more generic richness than when either method was used alone. Rather than detecting a homogenous genetic signature, the eDNA assemblages mirrored the BRUVs’ spatial explicitness; differentiation of taxa between seagrass and reef was clear despite the relatively small geographical scale of the study site (~35 km²). Taxa that were not sampled by one approach, due to limitations and biases intrinsic to the method, were often detected with the other. Therefore, using BRUVs and eDNA in concert provides a more holistic view of vertebrate marine communities across habitats. Both methods are noninvasive, which enhances their potential for widespread implementation in the surveillance of marine ecosystems. El monitoreo de comunidades de peces es importante para el manejo y sustentabilidad de las pesquerías y los ecosistemas marinos. Los sistemas remotos de video submarino con carnada (SRVSC) están entre las técnicas no destructivas más efectivas para el muestreo de peces óseos y elasmobranquios (tiburones, mantarrayas y rayas). Sin embargo, los SRVSC muestrean biota que es conspicua visiblemente; entonces, algunos taxones están mal muestreados o simplemente no se registran en los muestreos. Comparamos la diversidad de peces caracterizada usando SRVSC con la diversidad detectada por medio del metacódigo de barras de ADN ambiental (eDNA, en inglés). Muestreamos el agua de mar y capturamos imágenes con SRVSC en 48 localidades que incluyeron el arrecife y los pastos marinos dentro y fuera de una reserva marina (Bahía Jurien en el oeste de Australia). Se detectaron 83 géneros de peces de 13 órdenes, y la comunidad de peces descrita con el uso combinado del eDNA y el SRVSC produjo >30% riqueza más genérica que cuando cualquiera de los dos métodos se usó individualmente. En lugar de detectar una firma genética homogénea, los ensamblados de eDNA reflejaron la claridad espacial del SRVSC; la diferenciación de los taxones entre los pastos marinos y el arrecife fue clara a pesar la escala geográfica relativamente pequeña del sitio de estudio (~35 km²). Los taxones que no fueron muestreados por uno de los métodos, por causa de limitaciones y sesgos intrínsecos al método, casi siempre fueron detectados usando el otro método. Por lo tanto, el uso de SRVSC y el eDNA en concreto proporciona una visión más holística de las comunidades marinas de vertebrados en todos los hábitats. Ambos métodos son no invasivos, lo que incrementa su potencial para ser una implementación de uso amplio en la vigilancia de los ecosistemas marinos.

Human aging cannot be fully understood in terms of the constrained genetic setting. Epigenetic drift is an alternative means of explaining age-associated alterations. To address this issue, we performed whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) of newborn and centenarian genomes. The centenarian DNA had a lower DNA methylation content and a reduced correlation in the methylation status of neighboring cytosine—phosphate—guanine (CpGs) throughout the genome in comparison with the more homogeneously methylated newborn DNA. The more hypomethylated CpGs observed in the centenarian DNA compared with the neonate covered all genomic compartments, such as promoters, exonic, intronic, and intergenic regions. For regulatory regions, the most hypomethylated sequences in the centenarian DNA were present mainly at CpG-poor promoters and in tissue-specific genes, whereas a greater level of DNA methylation was observed in CpG island promoters. We extended the study to a larger cohort of newborn and nonagenarian samples using a 450,000 CpG-site DNA methylation microarray that reinforced the observation of more hypomethylated DNA sequences in the advanced age group. WGBS and 450,000 analyses of middle-age individuals demonstrated DNA methylomes in the crossroad between the newborn and the nonagenarian/centenarian groups. Our study constitutes a unique DNA methylation analysis of the extreme points of human life at a single-nucleotide resolution level.

In the last few years, the study of environmental DNA (eDNA) has drawn attention for many reasons, including its advantages for monitoring and conservation purposes. So far, in aquatic environments, most of eDNA research has focused on the detection of single species using species-specific markers. Recently, species inventories based on the analysis of a single generalist marker targeting a larger taxonomic group (eDNA metabarcoding) have proven useful for bony fish and amphibian biodiversity surveys. This approach involves in situ filtering of large volumes of water followed by amplification and sequencing of a short discriminative fragment from the 12S rDNA mitochondrial gene. In this study, we went one step further by investigating the spatial representativeness (i.e. ecological reliability and signal variability in space) of eDNA metabarcoding for large-scale fish biodiversity assessment in a freshwater system including lentic and lotic environments. We tested the ability of this approach to characterize large-scale organization of fish communities along a longitudinal gradient, from a lake to the outflowing river. First, our results confirm that eDNA metabarcoding is more efficient than a single traditional sampling campaign to detect species presence, especially in rivers. Second, the species list obtained using this approach is comparable to the one obtained when cumulating all traditional sampling sessions since 1995 and 1988 for the lake and the river, respectively. In conclusion, eDNA metabarcoding gives a faithful description of local fish biodiversity in the study system, more specifically within a range of a few kilometers along the river in our study conditions, i.e. longer than a traditional fish sampling site.

The untold story of the rise of the new scientific field of ancient DNA research, and how Jurassic Park and popular media influenced its development Ancient DNA research-the recovery of genetic material from long-dead organisms-is a discipline that developed from science fiction into a reality between the 1980s and today. Drawing on scientific, historical, and archival material, as well as original interviews with more than fifty researchers worldwide, Elizabeth Jones explores the field's formation and explains its relationship with the media by examining its close connection to de-extinction, the science and technology of resurrecting extinct species. She reveals how the search for DNA from fossils flourished under the influence of intense press and public interest, particularly as this new line of research coincided with the book and movie Jurassic Park . Ancient DNA is the first account to trace the historical and sociological interplay between science and celebrity in the rise of this new research field. In the process, Jones argues that ancient DNA research is more than a public-facing science: it is a celebrity science.

Context Revealing the mechanism of intermolecular interactions in dinitroamine ammonium (ADN)-based liquid propellants and exploring the reasons for their performance changes, multi-perspective interaction analyses of ADN and ADN-water (H 2 O)-methanol (CH 3 OH) solutions have been conducted via theoretical methods. The band structure, density of states (DOS), surface electrostatic potential (ESP), Hirshfeld surface, reduced density gradient (RDG), AIM topological analysis, and detonation performance were studied and the results showed that both the ADN and ADN-H 2 O-CH 3 OH solutions had hydrogen bonds and van der Waals interactions. By introducing the small molecules H 2 O and CH 3 OH, the detonation performance of the ADN-H 2 O-CH 3 OH solution slightly decreased, but its sensitivity also decreased. Overall, the comprehensive performance of the ADN-H 2 O-CH 3 OH solution has improved, and the application range has expanded. These results are helpful for obtaining a deeper understanding of ADN-based liquid propellants at the atomic level and contribute to the development of new liquid propellants. Methods The ADN and ADN-H 2 O-CH 3 OH solutions were constructed by Amorphous cell module and optimized via GGA with PBE methods in the Dmol3 module of the Materials Studio, and their electronic properties were calculated. Hirshfeld surfaces were generated with CrystalExplorer 3.0. A topological analysis of a variety of molecular clusters was performed via QTAIM. The QTAIM and RDG analyses in this work were generated by Multiwfn 3.0.

Ammonium dinitramide (ADN), a new-generation green high-energy oxidizer, faces application challenges due to its strong hygroscopicity and poor compatibility with polymer binders. This study proposes a double-shell structure with ADN as the core, graphene oxide (GO) as the intermediate layer, and a binder as the outer shell. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to investigate composite systems using nitrocellulose (NC), cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB), polystyrene (PS), and their blends NC/CAB and NC/PS as binders. The results demonstrate that GO acts as a “molecular double-sided adhesive”, significantly enhancing the interfacial interaction between ADN and the binders. The NC/PS blend binder exhibits the best overall performance, with the binding energy increased by 1.13 times. Analysis revealed that the NC/PS system establishes the strongest intermolecular interactions among ADN, GO, and the binder via mechanisms like π-π stacking and multiple hydrogen bonds. The glass transition temperature reaches 400.93 K, indicating excellent thermal stability and potential safety/reliability. Mechanical property analysis shows that the NC/PS composite system imparts a better comprehensive balance of stiffness, shear performance, and structural isotropy to the ADN-based polymer-bonded explosive (PBX). This research elucidates the enhancement mechanism of GO and the regulation principles of binders at the molecular scale, providing a theoretical foundation for designing high-performance energetic material.

The fall armyworm, (J. E. Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is an important insect pest of maize and numerous other crops throughout the world. In this study, the genetic diversity and structure of three Mexican populations of , collected from three maize-producing areas in the states of Sinaloa (Sf-SIN), Michoacán (Sf-MICH), and Chiapas (Sf-CHI), were evaluated using the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase (COI) gene. Neighbor-joining analysis showed that the sequences of our study were grouped, with 99 % branch support, with reference sequences from Canada, United States of America, and Mexico. Sf-SIN and Sf-CHI sequences were closely related to other Mexican reference sequences, while Sf-MICH sequences formed a well-supported separate clade. AMOVA analysis showed that most of the genetic variability was within populations. The highest correlation between genetic distance and haplotypical frequency was observed between Sf-CHI and Sf-MICH populations. Ten haplotypes were detected considering the three areas sampled and the haplotype diversity was higher in Sf-MICH and Sf-SIN populations. The haplotypic network indicates that two and one individuals from Sf-CHI and Sf-SIN populations, respectively, belonged to the same group. We concluded that the genetic diversity among populations was more influenced by the variability within individuals of the same population than individuals of different populations. In addition, the presence of shared haplotypes between northwest (Sf-SIN) and southeast (Sf-CHI) individuals possibly indicate a moderate genetic exchange between populations. This diversity is essential for their ability to survive and adapt to environmental changes, which can influence how pest populations respond to control methods.