This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In northern ecosystems, winter carbon loss is estimated to exceed growing season carbon uptake, primarily because of microbial decomposition. Viruses in soil alter microbial carbon cycling by affecting metabolic pathways and killing their hosts, but whether viruses are active under anoxic and sub-freezing soil conditions remains unknown. To find out, a recent study used stable isotope probing (SIP) targeted metagenomics to investigate active microbes in Alaskan Arctic peat soils under simulated winter conditions, with a particular focus on viruses and virus-host dynamics. Overall, 46 bacterial and 243 viral populations actively took up soil water labeled with ¹⁸O and respired CO₂. Active bacteria represented a small proportion of the total microbial community but were able to ferment and degrade organic matter. In contrast, a large diversity of viruses were found to be active, one-third of which were linked to active bacteria..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In the absence of oxygen, some prokaryotes can degrade organic matter via anaerobic digestion. This occurs in natural settings, like wetlands, and industrial ones, like wastewater treatment or biogas production. But what about viruses? Bacteriophages can impact their hosts’ community structure through selective pressure and have been used to influence microbial communities, such as through pathogen control. A recent study examined the virome of anaerobic digestion communities undergoing prophage- inducing environmental stresses. The virome was almost entirely composed of tailed bacteriophages of the order Caudovirales. Metagenome reconstruction revealed 1,092 viral genomes and 120 prokaryotic genomes, and over half of the prokaryotic genomes contained a provirus in their genomic sequence. In general, species of viruses and prokaryotes could be grouped by having similar reactions to stressors. Archaea had the most pronounced reactions to stressors and featured behaviors unique to those species..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"SARS-CoV-2 is the notorious virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Like other viruses, it coexists with a multitude of other microorganisms that could influence our susceptibility to infection. Thus, identifying associations between bacteria and SARS-CoV-2 could lend critical insight for the development of strategies for COVID-19 prevention and treatment. To meet this need, researchers recently characterized the microbial communities associated with COVID-19 patients, health care providers, and indoor surfaces in the hospital environment using 16S rRNA sequencing. They found SARS-CoV-2 RNA on 16% of the surfaces in COVID-19 patient rooms, with the highest prevalence in floor samples and lower prevalence on bed rails. SARS-CoV-2-positive samples had higher bacterial diversity than SARS-CoV-2-negative samples. Interestingly, bacteria in the genus Rothia were commonly found in the samples containing SARS-CoV-2, suggesting the existence of an association between these microorganisms..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe how viruses were first discovered and how they are detectedDiscuss three hypotheses about how viruses evolvedRecognize the basic shapes of virusesUnderstand past and emerging classification systems for viruses

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microbiomes are more than just prokaryotes and viruses; they also contain important eukaryotes, including fungi and protists. However, eukaryotes are difficult to study using ‘shotgun’ metagenomics, as their signal is often overwhelmed by the prokaryotes. Some methods use eukaryote-specific marker genes, but they can’t detect eukaryotes that aren’t in the reference marker gene set, and such methods are not compatible with web-based tools for downstream analysis. But CORRAL (Clustering Of Related Reference ALignments) is designed to close those gaps. CORRAL identifies eukaryotes in metagenomic data based on alignments to eukaryote-specific marker genes and Markov clustering. It can detect microbial eukaryotes that are not included in the marker gene reference set. The process is even automated and can be carried out at scale. A recent paper demonstrates CORRAL’s sensitivity and accuracy with simulated datasets, mock community standards, and human microbiome datasets..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Viral infection can be devastating. But some viruses are an important part of therapies for fighting diseases like cancer. Adenoviruses are one example – they deliver deadly payloads to cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. Or do they? A recent study suggests that adenovirus infection could promote the formation of glioma stem cells, the self-renewing cells that keep brain tumors alive and spreading. Experiments on glioma cells derived from human patients showed that adenovirus infection promoted the formation of tumorspheres, solid, spherical formations that develop from self-renewing glioma stem cells. When transplanted into mice grafted with glioma tumors, these formations promoted tumor growth. A closer look revealed three signaling molecules that adenoviruses activate during this process: TLR9, a pro-inflammatory receptor, NEAT1, a non-coding RNA frequently overexpressed in human tumors, and STAT3, a protein linked to tumor formation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Spaceflight affects the human body in numerous ways, but one underexplored area is the mouth. The mouth is home to rich populations of bacteria and fungi which, studies have hinted, can undergo shifts during long and even short space missions. For the first time, researchers have tracked changes in the oral microbiome during and after spaceflight and examined how those changes might reawaken dormant viruses — a phenomenon long known to affect astronauts. The team analyzed saliva samples from 10 male astronauts for microbial makeup and for the presence of Epstein-Barr, herpes simplex, and varicella zoster virus. Only Epstein-Barr virus counts appeared to track with changes in microbial composition during spaceflight. For example, increased virus counts coincided with increased numbers of bacteria of the genus Gracilibacteria, while low counts coincided with increased numbers of members of Oribacteria and Hemophilus..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Most human infectious viral diseases – including COVID-19 and Ebola – originated in animals. As the largest group of mammalian species, rodents are natural reservoirs for many diverse zoonotic viruses. Better understanding the core rodent virome will reduce the risk of future emergence or re-emergence of rodent-borne pathogens. A recent study focused on viruses found in the lungs of rodents in Mainland Southeast Asia, a hotspot for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. Lung samples were collected from 3,284 rodents and insectivores throughout Thailand, Lao PDR, and Cambodia. Using metatranscriptomics, researchers outlined unique characteristics of the rodent viruses identified. Many mammalian- or arthropod-related viruses from distinct evolutionary lineages were reported for the first time, and viruses related to known pathogens were found..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the most destructive virus in crustacean aquaculture, causing huge economic losses. Preventing the initial entry of the virus into host cells is likely the most economical way to control WSSV infection. However, the exact mechanism of virus invasion isn’t clear. To learn more, researchers recently investigated how WSSV evades the host immune system in the crayfish Procambrus clarkii. They found that the enzyme TRIM was significantly upregulated in WSSV-infected crayfish. A recombinant TRIM protein inhibited WSSV replication in the crayfish, while blocking TRIM promoted it, suggesting that this enzyme plays a protective role. Further experiments revealed that TRIM interacts with the viral protein VP26. This interaction keeps the host protein AP-1 from entering the nucleus and driving the expression of dynamin. Without dynamin, WSSV can’t enter the host cell via membrane vesicles..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This lesson describes the major components and functions of the immune system and the role of engineers in keeping the body healthy (e.g., vaccinations and antibiotics, among other things). This lesson also discusses how an astronaut's immune system is suppressed during spaceflight due to stress and other environmental factors.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are photosynthetic bacteria that live in water and are important oxygen producers. Human-driven changes are a major factor causing seasonal cyanobacterial blooms, which can cause mass death of aquatic animals. Bacteria-infecting viruses, called phages, could potentially be used to control these outbreaks with minimal environmental disruption. But to date few freshwater ‘cyanophages’ have been isolated or had their genomes sequenced. Recently, researchers isolated a strain of cyanobacteria from Lake Chaohu, a massive lake in China with seasonal cyanobacterial blooms. Using the new cyanobacteria strain, they isolated five new freshwater cyanophages with varying tail structures from the same lake. While viruses can have RNA genomes or even single-stranded DNA genomes, all five isolated phages had double-stranded DNA genomes. Further analysis suggested that they all use different DNA packaging mechanisms and are evolutionarily distinct..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Buried within glaciers is a history of ancient ecosystems, including microbes and viruses past. Some of the airborne microbes and viruses that populate our atmosphere are often carried by snowflakes or dust onto the surface of glaciers. By studying glacial ice cores, scientists can reconstruct histories of microbes and viruses and the climatic and environmental conditions they experienced. Two problems that plague current methods of analyzing ice cores are contamination and low microbe biomass. To address these challenges, researchers recently developed a method for decontaminating ice core surfaces and extracting clean inner ice to study microbes and viruses. When applied to ice from the Guliya ice cap on the Tibetan Plateau in China, the method revealed a unique viral community of mostly novel taxa, providing the first window into viral genomes, communities, and functions in ancient glacier environments..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn about water poverty and how water engineers can develop appropriate solutions to a problem that is plaguing nearly a sixth of the world's population. Students follow the engineering design process to design a gravity-fed water system. They choose between different system parameters such as pipe sizes, elevation differentials between entry and exit pipes, pipe lengths and tube locations to find a design that provides the maximum flow and minimum water turbidity (cloudiness) at the point of use. In this activity, students play the role of water engineers by designing and building model gravity-fed water systems, learning the key elements necessary for viable projects that help improve the lives people in developing communities.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Influenza infection can be tough to fight on its own, but secondary bacterial infections can make influenza even more serious, especially among elderly and immunocompromised individuals. These bacteria have the potential to become antibiotic resistant, making treatment even more complicated. Unfortunately, the expression of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) by microbes in the respiratory tract is not well understood. A recent study sought to characterize ARG expression in microbes during influenza infection. Researchers evaluated nasal swab samples and blood samples from 37 influenza-infected patients. Sequencing revealed that ARG expression was particularly common in S. aureus and S. pneumoniae species in the airway, and host transcriptome profiling identified several host key regulators involved in the influenza response, suggesting that the respiratory tract may be an important reservoir of ARGs in humans..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"An effective, tightly regulated immune response is critical for patients to recover from viral infections like COVID-19. Understanding immune regulation can allow researchers to develop better therapeutics and management techniques for patients. One class of factors involved with immune regulation are soluble immune mediators, which play roles in the dynamic interactions between ligands and membrane-bound receptors. Normally, soluble immune mediators help maintain and restore health after pathological events, but sometimes their dysregulation causes pathology instead. SARS-CoV-2 infection impacts many of these soluble immune mediators and, through them, many physiological processes. Thus, dysregulated shifts in the concentration of some of these molecules could be playing a significant role in COVID-19 severity and mortality..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.