by Jacob L. Steenwyk, Nicole King Reconstructing the tree of life remains a central goal in biology. Early methods, which relied on small numbers of morphological or genetic characters, often yielded conflicting evolutionary histories, undermining confidence in the results. Investigations based on phylogenomics, which use hundreds to thousands...

by Sofie De Schrijver, Thomas Decramer, Peter Janssen Neurons responding during action execution and action observation were discovered in the ventral premotor cortex 3 decades ago. However, the visual features that drive the responses of action observation/execution neurons (AOENs) have not been revealed at present. We investigated the neural...

by Ying Wang, Tianzi Wei, Man Zhao, Aima Huang, Fan Sun, Lu Chen, Risheng Lin, Yubao Xie, Ming Zhang, Shiyu Xu, Zhihui Sun, Liang Hong, Rui Wang, Ruilin Tian, Guofeng Li Alkenyl oxindoles have been characterized as autophagosome-tethering compounds (ATTECs), which can target mutant huntingtin protein (mHTT) for lysosomal degradation. In order to...

by Brian P. H. Metzger The relationship between genetic code robustness and protein evolvability is unknown. A new study in PLOS Biology using in silico rewiring of genetic codes and functional protein data identified a positive correlation between code robustness and protein evolvability that is protein-specific. The relationship between...

by Masahiko Haruno How third-party individuals respond to injustices is important for resolving conflict in society. A study in PLOS Biology shows that individuals experiencing acute stress prefer to aid victims over punishing offenders, an opposite pattern to non-stress conditions. How third-party individuals respond to injustices is important...

by Hana Rozhoňová, Carlos Martí-Gómez, David M. McCandlish, Joshua L. Payne The standard genetic code defines the rules of translation for nearly every life form on Earth. It also determines the amino acid changes accessible via single-nucleotide mutations, thus influencing protein evolvability—the ability of mutation to bring forth adaptive variation...