The plot of sci-fi movie Little Joe may sound like it plays to powerful 1990s anti-GM fears but bigger issues like human freedom may really be at stake

If you want to save Earth, argues a new book, quit sitting around in the present hoping for the best and learn to think really long term, like a geologist

From Kenyan children picking through plastic waste to swathes of Germany laid waste for coal mining, a film shows why we are in a new, human-created epoch

Exciting tales of heroic polar explorers make a great exhibition, but a book on the North Pole shows that times are too changed not to seek deeper narratives

The Good Place, a sitcom on Netflix about an afterlife with characters who represent me at my worst – and best – is over, but I can’t stop rewatching the show, says Chelsea Whyte

Everything from genetic tests to immigration numbers is full of shaky statistics. David Spiegelhalter's new podcast helps separate the factual from the flaky

The second season of podcast The Dream debunks much of the wellness industry, but creating empathy for the people caught up in it is where the show shines

Westworld is soon to return with season three. Four episodes in to the impossibly glamorous, highly urbanised future, I can't wait to find out what's going on, writes Emily Wilson

Is our love affair with AI really about building a new kind of deity to meet human needs no amount of rationality can fill? Max Barry's disturbing novel Providence lays out the case, says Sally Adee

In Vivarium, a young couple in need of a starter home meet an estate agent who is very definitely not what he seems, and nor is the estate he shows them, finds Simon Ings

N. K. Jemisin's latest book sees New York itself come alive to fight off aliens in the first part of a new trilogy with ethnicity at its heart

In Altered Carbon’s version of the future, our identities are stored in chips and can be switched between bodies. The first series was a hoot. The second, however, is a bit too earnest, says Emily Wilson

A podcast called Science Diction looks at the stories behind scientific terms and phrases. Each episode is short and nicely put together, says David Silverberg

Mark O'Connell's book Notes from an Apocalypse is an exploration of doomsday preparation from Mars colonists to fallout shelter estate agents

Japan's Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday its fourth-quarter profit soared 200% due to surging demand for its Switch games console, and that title Animal Crossing: New Horizons shifted a record 13.4 million units in its first six weeks.

Paris and the Netherlands are lending their respective parts of Air France-KLM up to 11 bln euros. The tricky bailout exposes the frailty of the 2004 merger. Ed Cropley reveals how other operators, including Germany’s Lufthansa and Britain’s IAG, could fly into similar problems.

The coronavirus has helped make Big Tech too big to fail. Before the pandemic, political pressure in D.C. and Brussels was mounting on Silicon Valley giants like Facebook. Gina Chon explains how their size has been an asset in a crisis, which will mute arguments to break them up.

North Korea’s portly dictator has dropped out of sight. Concern is rampant: Is he sick with coronavirus? In a coma? Dead? Whatever his condition, Pete Sweeney discusses the country’s succession problem and its implications for the region.

Goldman Sachs shareholders gave lukewarm approval for CEO David Solomon’s $27.5 mln package. It’s similar to what his peers get, and most of it doesn’t come for at least a year. Still, in a time of economic crisis, eight-digit rewards attract extra scrutiny, John Foley suggests.

Shares in Europe’s top banks have plunged as investors fret about a surge in bad debts. Yet most lenders’ capital buffers can absorb a spike three times as bad as the 2009 average. As Liam Proud explains, that makes taxpayer bailouts and widespread equity hikes unlikely.

U.S. billionaire John Malone may merge his Virgin Media broadband outfit with mobile operator O2. A joint venture could see Spain’s Telefonica, O2’s indebted parent, pocketing over 4 billion pounds. Ed Cropley explains how this might mean a lonelier future for rival Vodafone.

Could President Trump refuse to pay back the $1.1 trln the U.S. owes to China? While markets would hate the idea, it’s theoretically possible thanks to broad powers designed for times of emergency. John Foley explains how this dangerous weapon could be used if push came to shove.

Kingsoft Cloud will debut on Nasdaq, testing appetite for Chinese shares a month after the Luckin Coffee scandal. Data demand is booming in China amid Covid-19, and Kingsoft is a strong rival to market leader Alibaba. Robyn Mak explains why New York might like this listing.

U.S. cable firms are in for pain even after the pandemic starts to fade. Sports rights to air football games and other matchups are expected to soar and so will monthly bills. Jennifer Saba explains why non-sports lovers will choose Netflix and Disney+ and ditch their cable.

Like diseases in the past, the pandemic will change intimacy patterns. Covid-19 will make it harder for lovers to swipe right on platforms like $22 bln Match Group’s Tinder with peace of mind. But more engagement, if fewer hookups, may benefit the model, argues Dasha Afanasieva.

A podcast called Science Diction looks at the stories behind scientific terms and phrases. Each episode is short and nicely put together, says David Silverberg

Mark O'Connell's book Notes from an Apocalypse is an exploration of doomsday preparation from Mars colonists to fallout shelter estate agents

Martha Wells's action-packed novel Network Effect puts you inside the head of a Murderbot. It raises fascinating questions you will think about for a long time, says Sally Adee

Telling Lies is a game where you sift through video calls to solve a mystery. Half the time you don't know what you should be doing, but that's part of the fun, says Jacob Aron

U.S. cable firms are in for pain even after the pandemic starts to fade. Sports rights to air football games and other matchups are expected to soar and so will monthly bills. Jennifer Saba explains why non-sports lovers will choose Netflix and Disney+ and ditch their cable.

Title: Gastro Woes More Common in Kids With Autism: Review
Category: Health News
Created: 4/28/2014 9:36:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: New Drug Class Slashes 'Bad' Cholesterol, Review Finds
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: C-Section Rates Drop Slightly With Hospital Review Program
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Take Online Reviews of Plastic Surgeons With a Grain of Salt
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2018 12:00:00 AM

Title: CDC Draft Guidelines For Reopening U.S. Being Reviewed by White House
Category: Health News
Created: 5/1/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 5/1/2020 12:00:00 AM

For any journal issue that has at least one open access or early access article, PMC is now displaying the table of contents (TOC) in advance of the whole issue becoming available. Not to worry, though—only those articles specified for early release are immediately viewable in PMC. As consistent with the terms of access in the journal agreement, the other articles will only become available on their specified release date, as shown in the TOC below.

The journal's accessiblity, as indicated on the PMC Journal list also has not changed; for example, Plant Physiology's embargo period is still 12 months. What has changed is that the issues with “preview” TOCs now additionally appear on the journal's archive page. Publishers and others can rest assured, however, that no access terms for any journal have been changed with the unveiling of this new format.

The PMC Overview and FAQ have been updated to provide more information on the Scientific Quality Review Process for journals that apply to participate in PMC.

In 2014, PMC implemented a scientific and editorial quality review procedure whereby expert consultants from outside the National Library of Medicine (NLM) conduct an independent review of journals seeking to participate in PMC. This was in response to a significant increase in new publishers and journals applying to participate in PMC, many of which are unknown to NLM in terms of quality and publishing practices. The independent review, which was approved by the PMC National Advisory Committee (see minutes from June 10, 2014), follows an assessment by NLM that the journal meets NLM’s criteria for its collection, as outlined in the Collection Development Manual.

PMC also recently updated the minimum requirement on the number of substantive, peer-reviewed articles needed before a journal can apply to PMC. The new 25-article minimum ensures that the reviewers have a sufficient amount of content on which to base their recommendation for inclusion in PMC. The new minimum article requirement takes effect on January 1, 2016. Publishers are encouraged to use the 25-article minimum as a guideline in the interim when submitting applications.

As we kick off a new year, we wanted to take this opportunity to look back on 2017, which was a milestone year for PMC.

Last year, PMC made nearly half a million articles available for the public to access with the support of participating journals, publisher programs, and research funders. Also, in addition to expanding support for public access to research results and the linking of those results to the underlying dataset(s), PMC released several other policy and resource updates. These include:

1. Clearer statement of scope for PMC (see also the updated entry in the NLM Collection Development Manual for “Journals”);
2. Guidance for journals on reapplying to PMC;
3. Policy statements on the scientific, editorial, and technical standards for PMC (including details on the journal reevaluation process), the supply of back content, the eligibility of non-English language journals, and the maintenance of publishing schedules;
4. Production data requirements for PMC-participating journals; and
5. Major update to the PMC Article Previewer, a tool that allows publishers to see or “preview” how articles will appear in PMC and resolve data problems prior to submission.

In September, NLM recognized the achievements to date in the Wellcome Trust and NLM Biomedical Journal Digitization project, which has added a dozen new historical titles and more than a half million pages to the PMC archive. The PMC archive now includes content from as far back as the late 18th century.

Many thanks all our participants and users for a wonderful year!

Peer review documents, including review reports and editor decision letters, are increasingly being published along with the articles they review. This practice is intended to make the publishing process more transparent. To support these efforts, PMC’s Tagging Guidelines have been updated to include the tagging of peer review documents. NLM encourages PMC-participating publishers, journals, and data providers to review this guidance. Please contact us at pubmedcentral@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov if you have any questions.

Field evidence shows that emplacement of Devonian granites in northern England overlaps in space and time with the end of the supposed Acadian deformation in their country rocks. The age of this Acadian event in England and Wales is in need of review because of revised Rb-Sr and K-Ar decay constants and recently acquired radiometric ages on the granites.

Published K-Ar and Ar-Ar cleavage ages recalculated to the new decay constants range from 404 to 394 Ma (Emsian, Early Devonian). Emplacement of the Skiddaw and Weardale granites at 398.8 ± 0.4 and 399.3 ± 0.7 Ma respectively is indicated by U-Pb zircon ages, and is compatible with the field evidence. However, emplacement of the Shap Granite at a Re-Os molybdenite age of 405.2 ± 1.8 Ma and at the youngest U-Pb zircon age of 403 ± 8 Ma matches the field evidence less well. The apparent paradox in these ages is resolved if the K-Ar ages record only the end of millions of years of cleavage formation. An earlier cluster of K-Ar and Ar-Ar cleavage ages at 426–420 Ma (Ludlow to Přídolí, late Silurian) dates a pre-Acadian resetting event soon after Iapetus closure, an event of uncertain significance.

Ion microprobe U-Pb zircon ages for the Shap Granite have a mean of 415.6 ± 1.4 Ma but a range of 428–403 Ma, compatible with a long magmatic history. Thermal considerations suggest that this history was not at the upper crustal emplacement site but in a mid-crustal mush zone, now preserved at about 10 km depth as a component of the Lake District and North Pennine batholiths.

Despite advances in oral health care, inequalities in oral health outcomes persist due to problems in access. With proper training, primary care providers can mitigate this inequality by providing oral health education, screening, and referral to advanced dental treatment. Diverging sets of oral health competencies and guidelines have been released or endorsed by multiple primary care disciplines. The aim of this study was to transform multiple sets of competencies into Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for oral health integration into primary care training. A scoping review of the literature between January 2000 and December 2016 was conducted according to PRISMA methodology to identify all existing sets of competencies. The following primary care disciplines were included in the search: allopathic/osteopathic medical schools and residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics; physician assistant programs; and nurse practitioner programs. Competencies were compared using the Health Resources and Services Administration Integration of Oral Health and Primary Care Practice competencies as the foundational set and translated into EPAs. The resulting EPAs were tested with a reactor panel. The scoping review produced 1,466 references, of which 114 were selected for full text review. Fourteen competencies were identified as being central to the integration of oral health into primary care. These were converted to seven EPAs for oral health integration into primary care and were mapped onto Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education residency competency domains as well to the Association of American Medical Colleges EPAs for graduating medical students. The resulting EPAs delineate the essential, observable work required of primary care providers to ensure that oral health is treated as a critical determinant of overall health.

Lipid rafts regulate the initiation of cellular metabolic and signaling pathways by organizing the pathway components in ordered microdomains on the cell surface. Cellular responses regulated by lipid rafts range from physiological to pathological, and the success of a therapeutic approach targeting "pathological" lipid rafts depends on the ability of a remedial agent to recognize them and disrupt pathological lipid rafts without affecting normal raft-dependent cellular functions. In this article, concluding the Thematic Review Series on Biology of Lipid Rafts, we review current experimental therapies targeting pathological lipid rafts, including examples of inflammarafts and clusters of apoptotic signaling molecule-enriched rafts. The corrective approaches include regulation of cholesterol and sphingolipid metabolism and membrane trafficking by using HDL and its mimetics, LXR agonists, ABCA1 overexpression, and cyclodextrins, as well as a more targeted intervention with apoA-I binding protein. Among others, we highlight the design of antagonists that target inflammatory receptors only in their activated form of homo- or heterodimers, when receptor dimerization occurs in pathological lipid rafts. Other therapies aim to promote raft-dependent physiological functions, such as augmenting caveolae-dependent tissue repair. The overview of this highly dynamic field will provide readers with a view on the emerging concept of targeting lipid rafts as a therapeutic strategy.

Cellular membranes are not homogenous mixtures of proteins; rather, they are segregated into microdomains on the basis of preferential association between specific lipids and proteins. These microdomains, called lipid rafts, are well known for their role in receptor signaling on the plasma membrane (PM) and are essential to such cellular functions as signal transduction and spatial organization of the PM. A number of disease states, including atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular disorders, may be caused by dysfunctional maintenance of lipid rafts. Lipid rafts do not occur only in the PM but also have been found in intracellular membranes and extracellular vesicles (EVs). Here, we focus on discussing newly discovered functions of lipid rafts and microdomains in intracellular membranes, including lipid and protein trafficking from the ER, Golgi bodies, and endosomes to the PM, and we examine lipid raft involvement in the production and composition of EVs. Because lipid rafts are small and transient, visualization remains challenging. Future work with advanced techniques will continue to expand our knowledge about the roles of lipid rafts in cellular functioning.

Lipid rafts are highly ordered regions of the plasma membrane that are enriched in cholesterol and sphingolipids and play important roles in many cells. In hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), lipid rafts house receptors critical for normal hematopoiesis. Lipid rafts also can bind and sequester kinases that induce negative feedback pathways to limit proliferative cytokine receptor cycling back to the cell membrane. Modulation of lipid rafts occurs through an array of mechanisms, with optimal cholesterol efflux one of the major regulators. As such, cholesterol homeostasis also regulates hematopoiesis. Increased lipid raft content, which occurs in response to changes in cholesterol efflux in the membrane, can result in prolonged receptor occupancy in the cell membrane and enhanced signaling. In addition, certain diseases, like diabetes, may contribute to lipid raft formation and affect cholesterol retention in rafts. In this review, we explore the role of lipid raft-related mechanisms in hematopoiesis and CVD (specifically, atherosclerosis) and discuss how defective cholesterol efflux pathways in HSPCs contribute to expansion of lipid rafts, thereby promoting myelopoiesis and thrombopoiesis. We also discuss the utility of cholesterol acceptors in contributing to lipid raft regulation and disruption, and highlight the potential to manipulate these pathways for therapeutic gain in CVD as well as other disorders with aberrant hematopoiesis.

Activation of microglia and astrocytes secondary to inflammatory processes contributes to the development and perpetuation of pain with a neuropathic phenotype. This pain state presents as a chronic debilitating condition and affects a large population of patients with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, or after surgery, trauma, or chemotherapy. Here, we review the regulation of lipid rafts in glial cells and the role they play as a key component of neuroinflammatory sensitization of central pain signaling pathways. In this context, we introduce the concept of an inflammaraft (i-raft), enlarged lipid rafts harboring activated receptors and adaptor molecules and serving as an organizing platform to initiate inflammatory signaling and the cellular response. Characteristics of the inflammaraft include increased relative abundance of lipid rafts in inflammatory cells, increased content of cholesterol per raft, and increased levels of inflammatory receptors, such as toll-like receptor (TLR)4, adaptor molecules, ion channels, and enzymes in lipid rafts. This inflammaraft motif serves an important role in the membrane assembly of protein complexes, for example, TLR4 dimerization. Operating within this framework, we demonstrate the involvement of inflammatory receptors, redox molecules, and ion channels in the inflammaraft formation and the regulation of cholesterol and sphingolipid metabolism in the inflammaraft maintenance and disruption. Strategies for targeting inflammarafts, without affecting the integrity of lipid rafts in noninflammatory cells, may lead to developing novel therapies for neuropathic pain states and other neuroinflammatory conditions.

Lipid rafts are small, dynamic membrane areas characterized by the clustering of selected membrane lipids as the result of the spontaneous separation of glycolipids, sphingolipids, and cholesterol in a liquid-ordered phase. The exact dynamics underlying phase separation of membrane lipids in the complex biological membranes are still not fully understood. Nevertheless, alterations in the membrane lipid composition affect the lateral organization of molecules belonging to lipid rafts. Neural lipid rafts are found in brain cells, including neurons, astrocytes, and microglia, and are characterized by a high enrichment of specific lipids depending on the cell type. These lipid rafts seem to organize and determine the function of multiprotein complexes involved in several aspects of signal transduction, thus regulating the homeostasis of the brain. The progressive decline of brain performance along with physiological aging is at least in part associated with alterations in the composition and structure of neural lipid rafts. In addition, neurodegenerative conditions, such as lysosomal storage disorders, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases, are frequently characterized by dysregulated lipid metabolism, which in turn affects the structure of lipid rafts. Several events underlying the pathogenesis of these diseases appear to depend on the altered composition of lipid rafts. Thus, the structure and function of lipid rafts play a central role in the pathogenesis of many common neurodegenerative diseases.

Cholesterol/sphingolipid-rich membrane domains, known as lipid rafts or membrane rafts, play a critical role in the compartmentalization of signaling pathways. Physical segregation of proteins in lipid rafts may modulate the accessibility of proteins to regulatory or effector molecules. Thus, lipid rafts serve as sorting platforms and hubs for signal transduction proteins. Cancer cells contain higher levels of intracellular cholesterol and lipid rafts than their normal non-tumorigenic counterparts. Many signal transduction processes involved in cancer development (insulin-like growth factor system and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-AKT) and metastasis [cluster of differentiation (CD)44] are dependent on or modulated by lipid rafts. Additional proteins playing an important role in several malignant cancers (e.g., transmembrane glycoprotein mucin 1) are also being detected in association with lipid rafts, suggesting a major role of lipid rafts in tumor progression. Conversely, lipid rafts also serve as scaffolds for the recruitment and clustering of Fas/CD95 death receptors and downstream signaling molecules leading to cell death-promoting raft platforms. The partition of death receptors and downstream signaling molecules in aggregated lipid rafts has led to the formation of the so-called cluster of apoptotic signaling molecule-enriched rafts, or CASMER, which leads to apoptosis amplification and can be pharmacologically modulated. These death-promoting rafts can be viewed as a linchpin from which apoptotic signals are launched. In this review, we discuss the involvement of lipid rafts in major signaling processes in cancer cells, including cell survival, cell death, and metastasis, and we consider the potential of lipid raft modulation as a promising target in cancer therapy.

Lipid rafts, solid regions of the plasma membrane enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipids, are essential parts of a cell. Functionally, lipid rafts present a platform that facilitates interaction of cells with the outside world. However, the unique properties of lipid rafts required to fulfill this function at the same time make them susceptible to exploitation by pathogens. Many steps of pathogen interaction with host cells, and sometimes all steps within the entire lifecycle of various pathogens, rely on host lipid rafts. Such steps as binding of pathogens to the host cells, invasion of intracellular parasites into the cell, the intracellular dwelling of parasites, microbial assembly and exit from the host cell, and microbe transfer from one cell to another all involve lipid rafts. Interaction also includes modification of lipid rafts in host cells, inflicted by pathogens from both inside and outside the cell, through contact or remotely, to advance pathogen replication, to utilize cellular resources, and/or to mitigate immune response. Here, we provide a systematic overview of how and why pathogens interact with and exploit host lipid rafts, as well as the consequences of this interaction for the host, locally and systemically, and for the microbe. We also raise the possibility of modulation of lipid rafts as a therapeutic approach against a variety of infectious agents.