Protein coordinated iron-sulfur clusters drive electron flow within metabolic pathways for organisms throughout the tree of life. It is not known how iron-sulfur clusters were first incorporated into proteins. Structural analogies to iron-sulfide minerals present on early Earth, suggest a connection in the evolution of both proteins and minerals. The availability of large protein and mineral crystallographic structure data sets, provides an opportunity to explore co-evolution of proteins and minerals on a large-scale using informatics approaches. However, quantitative comparisons are confounded by the infinite, repeating nature of the mineral lattice, in contrast to metal clusters in proteins, which are finite in size. We address this problem using the Niggli reduction to transform a mineral lattice to a finite, unique structure that when translated reproduces the crystal lattice. Protein and reduced mineral structures were represented as quotient graphs with the edges and nodes corresponding to bonds and atoms, respectively. We developed a graph theory-based method to calculate the maximum common connected edge subgraph (MCCES) between mineral and protein quotient graphs. MCCES can accommodate differences in structural volumes and easily allows additional chemical criteria to be considered when calculating similarity. To account for graph size differences, we use the Tversky similarity index. Using consistent criteria, we found little similarity between putative ancient iron-sulfur protein clusters and iron-sulfur mineral lattices, suggesting these metal sites are not as evolutionarily connected as once thought. We discuss possible evolutionary implications of these findings in addition to suggesting an alternative proxy, mineral surfaces, for better understanding the coevolution of the geosphere and biosphere.

We investigated the impact of pressure on thermophilic, chemolithoautotrophic NO3- reducing bacteria of the phyla Campylobacterota and Aquificota isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Batch incubations at 5 and 20 MPa resulted in decreased NO3- consumption, lower cell concentrations, and overall slower growth in Caminibacter mediatlanticus (Campylobacterota) and Thermovibrio ammonificans (Aquificota), relative to batch incubations near standard pressure (0.2 MPa) conditions. Nitrogen isotope fractionation effects from chemolithoautotrophic NO3- reduction by both microorganisms were, on the contrary, maintained under all pressure conditions. Comparable chemolithoautotrophic NO3- reducing activities between previously reported natural hydrothermal vent fluid microbial communities dominated by Campylobacterota at 25 MPa and Campylobacterota laboratory isolates at 0.2 MPa, suggest robust similarities in cell-specific NO3- reduction rates and doubling times between microbial populations and communities growing maximally under similar temperature conditions. Physiological and metabolic comparisons of our results with other studies of pressure effects on anaerobic chemolithoautotrophic processes (i.e., microbial S-0-oxidation coupled to Fe(III) reduction and hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis) suggest that anaerobic chemolithoautotrophs relying on oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions that yield higher Gibbs energies experience larger shifts in cell-specific respiration rates and doubling times at increased pressures. Overall, our results advance understanding of the role of pressure, its relationship with temperature and redox conditions, and their effects on seafloor chemolithoautotrophic NO3- reduction and other anaerobic chemolithoautotrophic processes.

Providing affordable and nutritious food to a growing and increasingly affluent global population requires multifaceted approaches to target supply and demand aspects. On the supply side, expanding irrigation is key to increase future food production, yet associated needs for storing water and implications of providing that water storage, remain unknown. Here, we quantify biophysical potentials for storage-fed sustainable irrigation-irrigation that neither depletes freshwater resources nor expands croplands but requires water to be stored before use-and study implications for food security and infrastructure. We find that water storage is crucial for future food systems because 460 km3/yr of sustainable blue water, enough to grow food for 1.15 billion people, can only be used for irrigation after storage. Even if all identified future dams were to contribute water to irrigation, water stored in dammed reservoirs could only supply 209 ± 50 km3/yr to irrigation and grow food for 631 ± 145 million people. In the face of this gap and the major socioecologic externalities from future dams, our results highlight limits of gray infrastructure for future irrigation and urge to increase irrigation efficiency, change to less water-intensive cropping systems, and deploy alternative storage solutions at scale.

We report the discovery of a new "changing-look" active galactic nucleus (CLAGN) event, in the quasar SDSS J162829.17+432948.5 at z = 0.2603, identified through repeat spectroscopy from the fifth Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V). Optical photometry taken during 2020-2021 shows a dramatic dimming of Delta g approximate to 1 mag, followed by a rapid recovery on a timescale of several months, with the less than or similar to 2 month period of rebrightening captured in new SDSS-V and Las Cumbres Observatory spectroscopy. This is one of the fastest CLAGN transitions observed to date. Archival observations suggest that the object experienced a much more gradual dimming over the period of 2011-2013. Our spectroscopy shows that the photometric changes were accompanied by dramatic variations in the quasar-like continuum and broad-line emission. The excellent agreement between the pre- and postdip photometric and spectroscopic appearances of the source, as well as the fact that the dimmest spectra can be reproduced by applying a single extinction law to the brighter spectral states, favor a variable line-of-sight obscuration as the driver of the observed transitions. Such an interpretation faces several theoretical challenges, and thus an alternative accretion-driven scenario cannot be excluded. The recent events observed in this quasar highlight the importance of spectroscopic monitoring of large active galactic nucleus samples on weeks-to-months timescales, which the SDSS-V is designed to achieve.

The Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, harvests its luminous symbiont, Vibrio fischeri, from the surrounding seawater within hours of hatching. During embryogenesis, the host animal develops a nascent light organ with ciliated fields on each lateral surface. We hypothesized that these fields function to increase the efficiency of symbiont colonization of host tissues. Within minutes of hatching from the egg, the host's ciliated fields shed copious amounts of mucus in a non-specific response to bacterial surface molecules, specifically peptidoglycan (PGN), from the bacterioplankton in the surrounding seawater. Experimental manipulation of the system provided evidence that nitric oxide in the mucus drives an increase in ciliary beat frequency (CBF), and exposure to even small numbers of V. fischeri cells for short periods resulted in an additional increase in CBF. These results indicate that the light-organ ciliated fields respond specifically, sensitively, and rapidly, to the presence of nonspecific PGN as well as symbiont cells in the ambient seawater. Notably, the study provides the first evidence that this induction of an increase in CBF occurs as part of a thus far undiscovered initial phase in colonization of the squid host by its symbiont, i.e., host recognition of V. fischeri cues in the environment within minutes. Using a biophysics-based mathematical analysis, we showed that this rapid induction of increased CBF, while accelerating bacterial advection, is unlikely to be signaled by V. fischeri cells interacting directly with the organ surface. These overall changes in CBF were shown to significantly impact the efficiency of V. fischeri colonization of the host organ. Further, once V. fischeri has fully colonized the host tissues, i.e., about 12-24 h after initial host-symbiont interactions, the symbionts drove an attenuation of mucus shedding from the ciliated fields, concomitant with an attenuation of the CBF. Taken together, these findings offer a window into the very first interactions of ciliated surfaces with their coevolved microbial partners.

Being able to quantify nutrient stoichiometry in the waterbodies is especially important given its strong effects on a variety of ecological processes. China has made huge progress in the improvement of surface water quality, but the accompanying changes to water nutrient stoichiometry and implications are not well understood yet. Our results have shown that the water nutrient cycles have been decoupled in China's populated regions, and population density and GDP values in the same catchment are useful in explaining the variances of lake N:P stoichiometry in East China Lake Region. In other regions, water N and P tend to respond to the selected parameters in a similar way, leading to the poor prediction of N:P stoichiometry. With the progress of water management in China, a similar change of water nutrients and their stoichiometry as the developed countries is occurring, i.e., faster decrease of TP concentrations than TN, and continuing increase of N:P ratios. It is necessary for the managers to be aware of the quick and large-scale changes of nutrient stoichiometry in the water, since the ecological risk caused by the changes to the aquatic systems is still not well known. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We present a blind time-delay cosmographic analysis for the lens system DES J0408-5354. This system is extraordinary for the presence of two sets of multiple images at different redshifts, which provide the opportunity to obtain more information at the cost of increased modelling complexity with respect to previously analysed systems. We perform detailed modelling of the mass distribution for this lens system using three band Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We combine themeasured time delays, line-of-sight central velocity dispersion of the deflector, and statistically constrained external convergence with our lens models to estimate two cosmological distances. We measure the 'effective' time-delay distance corresponding to the redshifts of the deflector and the lensed quasar D-Delta t(eff) = 3382(-115)(+146) Mpc and the angular diameter distance to the deflector D-d = 1711(-280)(+376) Mpc, with covariance between the two distances. From these constraints on the cosmological distances, we infer the Hubble constant H-0 = 74.2(-3.0)(+2.7) km s(-1) Mpc(-1) assuming a flat Lambda CDM cosmology and a uniform prior for Omega(m) as Omega(m) similar to U(0.05, 0.5). This measurement gives the most precise constraint on H-0 to date from a single lens. Our measurement is consistent with that obtained from the previous sample of six lenses analysed by the H-0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring (H0LiCOW) collaboration. It is also consistent with measurements of H-0 based on the local distance ladder, reinforcing the tension with the inference from early Universe probes, for example, with 2.2 sigma discrepancy from the cosmic microwave background measurement.

Group V elements in crystal structure isostructural to black phosphorus with unique puckered two-dimensional layers exhibit exciting physical and chemical phenomena. However, as the first element of group V, nitrogen has never been found in the black phosphorus structure. Here, we report the synthesis of the black phosphorus-structured nitrogen at 146 GPa and 2200 K. Metastable black phosphorus-structured nitrogen was retained after quenching it to room temperature under compression and characterized in situ during decompression to 48 GPa, using synchrotron x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. We show that the original molecular nitrogen is transformed into extended single-bonded structure through gauche and trans conformations. Raman spectroscopy shows that black phosphorus-structured nitrogen is strongly anisotropic and exhibits high Raman intensities in two A(g) normal modes. Synthesis of black phosphorus-structured nitrogen provides a firm base for exploring new type of high-energy-density nitrogen and a new direction of two-dimensional nitrogen.

We report the discovery of TOI 694 b and TIC 220568520 b, two low-mass stellar companions in eccentric orbits around metal-rich Sun-like stars, first detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TOI 694 b has an orbital period of 48.05131 +/- 0.00019 days and eccentricity of 0.51946 +/- 0.00081, and we derive a mass of 89.0 +/- 5.3 M-Jup (0.0849 +/- 0.0051 M-circle dot) and radius of 1.111 +/- 0.017 R-Jup (0.1142 +/- 0.0017 R-circle dot). TIC 220568520 b has an orbital period of 18.55769 +/- 0.00039 days and eccentricity of 0.0964 +/- 0.0032, and we derive a mass of 107.2 +/- 5.2 M-Jup (0.1023 +/- 0.0050 M-circle dot) and radius of 1.248 +/- 0.018 R-Jup (0.1282 +/- 0.0019 R-circle dot). Both binary companions lie close to and above the hydrogen-burning mass threshold that separates brown dwarfs and the lowest-mass stars, with TOI 694 b being 2s above the canonical mass threshold of 0.075 M-circle dot. The relatively long periods of the systems mean that the magnetic fields of the low-mass companions are not expected to inhibit convection and inflate the radius, which according to one leading theory is common in similar objects residing in short-period tidally synchronized binary systems. Indeed we do not find radius inflation for these two objects when compared to theoretical isochrones. These two new objects add to the short but growing list of low-mass stars with well-measured masses and radii, and highlight the potential of the TESS mission for detecting such rare objects orbiting bright stars.

We present the second public data release of the Dark Energy Survey, DES DR2, based on optical/near-infrared imaging by the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the 4 m Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. DES DR2 consists of reduced single-epoch and coadded images, a source catalog derived from coadded images, and associated data products assembled from 6 yr of DES science operations. This release includes data from the DES wide-area survey covering similar to 5000 deg(2) of the southern Galactic cap in five broad photometric bands, grizY. DES DR2 has a median delivered point-spread function FWHM of g = 1.11 '', r = 0.95 '', i = 0.88 '', z = 0.83 '', and Y = 0.'' 90, photometric uniformity with a standard deviation of < 3 mmag with respect to Gaia DR2 G band, a photometric accuracy of similar to 11 mmag, and a median internal astrometric precision of similar to 27 mas. The median coadded catalog depth for a 1.'' 95 diameter aperture at signal-to-noise ratio = 10 is g = 24.7, r = 24.4, i = 23.8, z = 23.1, and Y = 21.7 mag. DES DR2 includes similar to 691 million distinct astronomical objects detected in 10,169 coadded image tiles of size 0.534 deg(2) produced from 76,217 single-epoch images. After a basic quality selection, benchmark galaxy and stellar samples contain 543 million and 145 million objects, respectively. These data are accessible through several interfaces, including interactive image visualization tools, web-based query clients, image cutout servers, and Jupyter notebooks. DES DR2 constitutes the largest photometric data set to date at the achieved depth and photometric precision.