What caves and underground lakes lack in sunlight and plants, they make up for with an astonishing diversity of fauna: intricately shaped arthropods and other invertebrates, many of which might be new to science. If you’re a subterranean biologist like me, you have to be a competent caver as well as a committed scientist. In…

Abstract Within ice core science, woman-led studies contain 20% more women co-authors than man-led studies, and exceed the estimated proportion of women within the community by nearly 10%. We conclude that collaboration with other women is a key factor in closing gender gaps in science. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your…

Abstract Previous surveys suggests that body mass index (BMI) may be positively related to development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, this association might be altered by metabolic syndrome. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the association of metabolic health status with CKD. The present cross-sectional study was carried out on 3322 representative sample of Iranian…

With the UK’s approval of Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ exagamglogene autotemcel (Casgevy) for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia in November, expectations are high that the FDA will soon follow suit with their first green light for a gene-editing modality. But while the CRISPR–Cas9 editor that exa-cel uses is getting much of the credit, the therapy…

Higher education and research institutions are critical to the well-being and success of societies, meaning their financial support is strongly in the public interest. At the same time, value-for-money principles demand that such investment delivers. Unfortunately, these principles are currently violated by one of the biggest sources of public funding inefficiency: sexism. Before she helped…

Abstract The mosquito Anopheles gambiae s.s. is a primary malaria vector throughout sub-Saharan Africa including the islands of the Comoros archipelago (Anjouan, Grande Comore, Mayotte and Mohéli). These islands are located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in eastern Africa. Previous studies have shown a relatively high degree of genetic isolation between the…

Abstract During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the USA experienced a crisis of increasing psychological distress that was associated with rising morbidity and mortality, especially among young people. The increasing distress probably arose from changing economic, social, technological and political conditions that, unabated, may continue to progress in coming years. The increasing…

Abstract Bacteria often function as a community, called the microbiota, consisting of many different bacterial species. The accurate identification of bacterial types and the simultaneous quantification of the cells of each bacterial type will advance our understanding of microbiota; however, this cannot be performed by conventional 16S rRNA sequencing methods as they only identify and…