We measure empirical relationships between the local star formation rate (SFR) and properties of the star-forming molecular gas on 1.5 kpc scales across 80 nearby galaxies. These relationships, commonly referred to as "star formation laws," aim at predicting the local SFR surface density from various combinations of molecular gas surface density, galactic orbital time, molecular cloud free fall time, and the interstellar medium dynamical equilibrium pressure. Leveraging a multiwavelength database built for the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) survey, we measure these quantities consistently across all galaxies and quantify systematic uncertainties stemming from choices of SFR calibrations and the CO-to-H-2 conversion factors. The star formation laws we examine show 0.3-0.4 dex of intrinsic scatter, among which the molecular Kennicutt-Schmidt relation shows a similar to 10% larger scatter than the other three. The slope of this relation ranges beta approximate to 0.9-1.2, implying that the molecular gas depletion time remains roughly constant across the environments probed in our sample. The other relations have shallower slopes (beta approximate to 0.6-1.0), suggesting that the star formation efficiency per orbital time, the star formation efficiency per free fall time, and the pressure-to-SFR surface density ratio (i.e., the feedback yield) vary systematically with local molecular gas and SFR surface densities. Last but not least, the shapes of the star formation laws depend sensitively on methodological choices. Different choices of SFR calibrations can introduce systematic uncertainties of at least 10%-15% in the star formation law slopes and 0.15-0.25 dex in their normalization, while the CO-to-H-2 conversion factors can additionally produce uncertainties of 20%-25% for the slope and 0.10-0.20 dex for the normalization.

Highly potent animal stem cells either self renew or launch complex differentiation programs, using mechanisms that are only partly understood. Drosophila female germline stem cells (GSC) perpetuate without change over evolutionary time and generate cystoblast daughters that develop into nurse cells and oocytes. Cystoblasts initiate differentiation by generating a transient syncytial state, the germline cyst, and by increasing pericentromeric H3K9me3 modification, actions likely to suppress transposable element activity. Relatively open GSC chromatin is further restricted by Polycomb repression of testis or somatic cell-expressed genes briefly active in early female germ cells. Subsequently, Neijre/CBP and Myc help upregulate growth and reprogram GSC metabolism by altering mitochondrial transmembrane transport, gluconeogenesis and other processes. In all these respects GSC differentiation resembles development of the totipotent zygote. We propose that the totipotent stem cells state was shaped by the need to resist transposon activity over evolutionary time scales.

Proteins are workhorses in the cell; they form stable and more often dynamic, transient protein-protein interactions, assemblies, and networks and have an intimate interplay with DNA and RNA. These network interactions underlie fundamental biological processes and play essential roles in cellular function. The proximity-dependent biotinylation labeling approach combined with mass spectrometry (PL-MS) has recently emerged as a powerful technique to dissect the complex cellular network at the molecular level. In PL-MS, by fusing a genetically encoded proximity-labeling (PL) enzyme to a protein or a localization signal peptide, the enzyme is targeted to a protein complex of interest or to an organelle, allowing labeling of proximity proteins within a zoom radius. These biotinylated proteins can then be captured by streptavidin beads and identified and quantified by mass spectrometry. Recently engineered PL enzymes such as TurboID have a much-improved enzymatic activity, enabling spatiotemporal mapping with a dramatically increased signal-to-noise ratio. PL-MS has revolutionized the way we perform proteomics by overcoming several hurdles imposed by traditional technology, such as biochemical fractionation and affinity purification mass spectrometry. In this review, we focus on biotin ligase-based PL-MS applications that have been, or are likely to be, adopted by the plant field. We discuss the experimental designs and review the different choices for engineered biotin ligases, enrichment, and quantification strategies. Lastly, we review the validation and discuss future perspectives.

Coral reefs are highly diverse ecosystems of immense ecological, economic, and aesthetic importance built on the calcium-carbonate-based skeletons of stony corals. The formation of these skeletons is threatened by increasing ocean temperatures and acidification, and a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved may assist efforts to mitigate the effects of such anthropogenic stressors. In this study, we focused on the role of the predicted bicarbonate transporter SLC4gamma, which was suggested in previous studies to be a product of gene duplication and to have a role in coral-skeleton formation. Our comparative-genomics study using 30 coral species and 15 outgroups indicates that SLC4gamma is present throughout the stony corals, but not in their non-skeleton-forming relatives, and apparently arose by gene duplication at the onset of stony-coral evolution. Our expression studies show that SLC4gamma, but not the closely related and apparently ancestral SLC4beta, is highly upregulated during coral development coincident with the onset of skeleton deposition. Moreover, we show that juvenile coral polyps carrying CRISPR/Cas9-induced mutations in SLC4gamma are defective in skeleton formation, with the severity of the defect in individual animals correlated with their frequencies of SLC4gamma mutations. Taken together, the results suggest that the evolution of the stony corals involved the neofunctionalization of the newly arisen SLC4gamma for a unique role in the provision of concentrated bicarbonate for calcium-carbonate deposition. The results also demonstrate the feasibility of reverse-genetic studies of ecologically important traits in adult corals.

We investigated the stability of polymeric CO2 over a wide range of pressures, temperatures, and chemical environments. We find that the I (4) over bar 2d polymeric structure, consisting of a three-dimensional network of corner sharing CO4 tetrahedra, forms at 40-140 GPa and from a CO-N-2 mixture at 39 GPa. An exceptional stability field of 0-286 GPa and 100-2500 K is documented for this structure, making it a viable candidate for planetary interiors. The stability of the tetrahedral polymeric motif of CO2-V is a consequence of the rigidity of sp(3) hybridized orbitals of carbon in a closed-packed oxygen sublattice.

The release of phosphorus (P) from crustal rocks during weathering plays a key role in determining the size of Earth's biosphere, yet the concentration of P in crustal rocks over time remains controversial. Here, we combine spatial, temporal, and chemical measurements of preserved rocks to reconstruct the lithological and chemical evolution of Earth's continental crust. We identify a threefold increase in average crustal P concentrations across the Neoproterozoic-Phanerozoic boundary (600 to 400 million years), showing that preferential biomass burial on shelves acted to progressively concentrate P within continental crust. Rapid compositional change was made possible by massive removal of ancient P-poor rock and deposition of young P-rich sediment during an episode of enhanced global erosion. Subsequent weathering of newly P-rich crust led to increased riverine P fluxes to the ocean. Our results suggest that global erosion coupled to sedimentary P-enrichment forged a markedly nutri-ent-rich crust at the dawn of the Phanerozoic.

The open data movement has brought revolutionary changes to the field of mineralogy. With a growing number of datasets made available through community efforts, researchers are now able to explore new scientific topics such as mineral ecology, mineral evolution and new classification systems. The recent results have shown that the necessary open data coupled with data science skills and expertise in mineralogy will lead to impressive new scientific discoveries. Yet, feedback from researchers also reflects the needs for better FAIRness of open data, that is, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable for both humans and machines. In this paper, we present our recent work on building the open data service of Mindat, one of the largest mineral databases in the world. In the past years, Mindat has supported numerous scientific studies but a machine interface for data access has never been established. Through the OpenMindat project we have achieved solid progress on two activities: (1) cleanse data and improve data quality, and (2) build a data sharing platform and establish a machine interface for data query and access. We hope OpenMindat will help address the increasing data needs from researchers in mineralogy for an internationally recognized authoritative database that is fully compliant with the FAIR guiding principles and helps accelerate scientific discoveries.

We report the results of observations of p-mode oscillations in the G0 subgiant star HD 35833 in both radial velocities and photometry with NEID and TESS, respectively. We achieve separate, robust detections of the oscillation signal with both instruments (radial velocity amplitude A (RV) = 1.11 +/- 0.09 m s(-1), photometric amplitude A (phot) = 6.42 +/- 0.60 ppm, frequency of maximum power nu(max)=595.71 +/- 17.28 mu Hz, and mode spacing delta nu = 36.65 +/- 0.96 mu Hz) as well as a nondetection in a TESS sector concurrent with the NEID observations. These data shed light on our ability to mitigate the correlated noise impact of oscillations with radial velocities alone and on the robustness of commonly used asteroseismic scaling relations. The NEID data are used to validate models for the attenuation of oscillation signals for exposure times t 4 sigma, hinting at gaps in the underlying physical models.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission detected a companion orbiting TIC 71268730, categorized it as a planet candidate, and designated the system TOI-5375. Our follow-up analysis using radial-velocity data from the Habitable-zone Planet Finder, photometric data from Red Buttes Observatory, and speckle imaging with NN-EXPLORE Exoplanet Stellar Speckle Imager determined that the companion is a very low mass star near the hydrogen-burning mass limit with a mass of 0.080 +/- 0.002M(circle dot) (83.81 +/- 2.10M(J)), a radius of 0.1114(-0.0050)(+0.0048)R(circle dot) (1.0841(0.0487)(0.0467)R(J)), and brightness temperature of 2600 +/- 70 K. This object orbits with a period of 1.721553 +/- 0.000001 days around an early M dwarf star (0.62 +/- 0.016M(circle dot)). TESS photometry shows regular variations in the host star's TESS light curve, which we interpreted as an activity-induced variation of similar to 2%, and used this variability to measure the host star's stellar rotation period of 1.9716(-0.0083)(+0.0080) days. The TOI-5375 system provides tight constraints on stellar models of low-mass stars at the hydrogen-burning limit and adds to the population in this important region.