0000000000341272
AUTHOR
David Jordan
The Palaeoanthropocene – The beginnings of anthropogenic environmental change
Abstract As efforts to recognize the Anthropocene as a new epoch of geological time are mounting, the controversial debate about the time of its beginning continues. Here, we suggest the term Palaeoanthropocene for the period between the first, barely recognizable, anthropogenic environmental changes and the industrial revolution when anthropogenically induced changes of climate, land use and biodiversity began to increase very rapidly. The concept of the Palaeoanthropocene recognizes that humans are an integral part of the Earth system rather than merely an external forcing factor. The delineation of the beginning of the Palaeoanthropocene will require an increase in the understanding and …
Translational adaptation to heat stress is mediated by RNA 5‐methylcytosine in Caenorhabditis elegans
Abstract Methylation of carbon‐5 of cytosines (m5C) is a post‐transcriptional nucleotide modification of RNA found in all kingdoms of life. While individual m5C‐methyltransferases have been studied, the impact of the global cytosine‐5 methylome on development, homeostasis and stress remains unknown. Here, using Caenorhabditis elegans, we generated the first organism devoid of m5C in RNA, demonstrating that this modification is non‐essential. Using this genetic tool, we determine the localisation and enzymatic specificity of m5C sites in the RNome in vivo. We find that NSUN‐4 acts as a dual rRNA and tRNA methyltransferase in C. elegans mitochondria. In agreement with leucine and proline bein…
A new method for the identification of archaeological soils by their spectral signatures in the vis-NIR region
Abstract This paper introduces a statistical method to identify spectral signatures of buried archaeological remains and distinguish them from spectra of the background soil in the visible to near infrared region. The proposed method is based on the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The difference between an archaeological spectrum and non-archaeological soil spectra is quantified by a so-called R value. R values larger than 1 indicate that the spectrum represents an archaeological material. The method is successfully applied to samples from five study sites in Italy and Hungary with special conditions. The reflection spectra are taken in a time-efficient way with a field spectrometer. Th…
Translational adaptation to heat stress is mediated by 5-methylcytosine RNA modification in Caenorhabditis elegans
ABSTRACTMethylation of carbon-5 of cytosines (m5C) is a post-transcriptional nucleotide modification of RNA found in all kingdoms of life. While individual m5C-methyltransferases have been studied, the impact of the global cytosine-5 methylome on development, homeostasis and stress remains unknown. Here, usingCaenorhabditis elegans, we generated the first organism devoid of m5C in RNA, demonstrating that this modification is non-essential. We determined the localisation and enzymatic specificity of m5C sites in RNAin vivoand showed that animals devoid of m5C are sensitive to temperature stress. At the molecular level, we showed that loss of m5C specifically impacts decoding of leucine and p…