scholarly journals The Less Expensive Choice: Bacterial Strategies to Achieve Successful and Sustainable Reciprocal Interactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrica Pessione
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
Winning Strategies ◽  
Polluted Sites ◽  
Bacterial Biodiversity ◽  
Scarcity Of Resources

Bacteria, the first organisms that appeared on Earth, continue to play a central role in ensuring life on the planet, both as biogeochemical agents and as higher organisms’ symbionts. In the last decades, they have been employed both as bioremediation agents for cleaning polluted sites and as bioconversion effectors for obtaining a variety of products from wastes (including eco-friendly plastics and green energies). However, some recent reports suggest that bacterial biodiversity can be negatively affected by the present environmental crisis (global warming, soil desertification, and ocean acidification). This review analyzes the behaviors positively selected by evolution that render bacteria good models of sustainable practices (urgent in these times of climate change and scarcity of resources). Actually, bacteria display a tendency to optimize rather than maximize, to economize energy and building blocks (by using the same molecule for performing multiple functions), and to recycle and share metabolites, and these are winning strategies when dealing with sustainability. Furthermore, their ability to establish successful reciprocal relationships by means of anticipation, collective actions, and cooperation can also constitute an example highlighting how evolutionary selection favors behaviors that can be strategic to contain the present environmental crisis.

scholarly journals Evolutionary processes in nature, technology and society –a few common trends

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 00063
Author(s):  
Yekaterina Myasnikova ◽  
Aleksandr Spirov
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Crossing Over ◽  
Evolutionary Search ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Evolution Of Technology ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Intelligent Methods

The diversity of branches of knowledge, within which evolutionary approaches are applied to significantly different objects and processes, includes those branches which are especially interesting due to the implementation of the Darwin’s concepts of variation, heredity and selection. This is what is interpreted by some authors as universal selectionism. In this case, objects of evolution may be represented as sequences of symbols, code lines or graphs. This is a method to record heredity of an individual. The recording format allows for mutation (substitution, addition or deletion of certain elements of an individual) and crossing-over during production of offspring from a pair of parent individuals. The approach also allows for a quantitative assessment of the “value” of an individual for evolutionary selection. Such evolution includes, first of all, evolutionary computation, computer-aided modelling of evolution, directed evolution of biomolecules, biological evolution, evolution of technology etc. If we consider the above mentioned examples successively, from computer-based examples to humanitarian one, we can observe definite trends. Firstly, we can see a trend of using “languages” of higher levels to implement an evolutionary problem. Secondly, we can observe a trend of forming “building blocks” in heredity structures as well as a crossing-over mechanism which retains the said blocks. Thirdly, “variation” of an individual is carried out by increasingly high-intelligent methods. Studying of main trends and mutually enriching interchange of experience between such different branches of knowledge may enable to make more reasonable and exact predictions of the results of evolutionary processes and to achieve higher effectiveness of evolutionary search in application areas.

The Dialectical Links Between Environmental Ethics and Sciences

1998 ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
Ricardo Rozzi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Misleading Interpretation ◽  
New Vision ◽  
The One ◽  
Radical Transformation

Ecologists formulate their scientific theories influenced by ethical values, and in turn, environmental ethicists value nature based on scientific theories. Darwinian evolutionary theory provides clear examples of these complex links, illustrating how these reciprocal relationships do not constitute a closed system, but are undetermined and open to the influences of two broader worlds: the sociocultural and the natural environment. On the one hand, the Darwinian conception of a common evolutionary origin and ecological connectedness has promoted a respect for all forms of life. On the other hand, the metaphors of struggle for existence and natural selection appear as problematic because they foist onto nature the Hobbesian model of a liberal state, a Malthusian model of the economy, and the productive practice of artificial selection, all of which reaffirm modern individualism and the profit motive that are at the roots of our current environmental crisis. These metaphors were included in the original definitions of ecology and environmental ethics by Haeckel and Leopold respectively, and are still pervasive among both ecologists and ethicists. To suppose that these Darwinian notions, derived from a modern-liberal worldview, are a fact of nature constitutes a misleading interpretation. Such supposition represents a serious impediment to our aim of transforming our relationship with the natural world in order to overcome the environmental crisis. To achieve a radical transformation in environmental ethics, we need a new vision of nature.

Metabolic Photofragmentation Kinetics for a Minimal Protocell: Rate-Limiting Factors, Efficiency, and Implications for Evolution

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Knutson ◽  
Gil Benkö ◽  
Tristan Rocheleau ◽  
Fouzi Mouffouk ◽  
Jerzy Maselko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Equations ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Reaction Rates ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Metabolic System ◽  
Evolutionary Selection ◽  
Gene Replication ◽  
Analytical Approximations ◽  
Rate Limiting ◽  
Analytical Expressions

A key requirement of an autonomous self-replicating molecular machine, a protocell, is the ability to digest resources and turn them into building blocks. Thus a protocell needs a set of metabolic processes fueled by external free energy in the form of available chemical redox potential or light. We introduce and investigate a minimal photodriven metabolic system, which is based on photofragmentation of resource molecules catalyzed by genetic molecules. We represent and analyze the full metabolic set of reaction-kinetic equations and, through a set of approximations, simplify the reaction kinetics so that analytical expressions can be obtained for the building block production. The analytical approximations are compared with the full equation set and with corresponding experimental results to the extent they are available. It should be noted, however, that the proposed metabolic system has not been experimentally implemented, so this investigation is conducted to obtain a deeper understanding of its dynamics and perhaps to anticipate its limitations. We demonstrate that this type of minimal photodriven metabolic scheme is typically rate-limited by the front-end photoexcitation process, while its yield is determined by the genetic catalysis. We further predict that gene-catalyzed metabolic reactions can undergo evolutionary selection only for certain combinations of the involved reaction rates due to their intricate interactions. We finally discuss how the expected range of metabolic rates likely affects other key protocellular processes such as container growth and division as well as gene replication.

scholarly journals Potential Use of Microbial Enzymes for the Conversion of Plastic Waste Into Value-Added Products: A Viable Solution

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Tamoor ◽  
Nadia A. Samak ◽  
Yunpu Jia ◽  
Muhammad Umar Mushtaq ◽  
Hassan Sher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Value Added ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Waste Recycling ◽  
Plastic Waste ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Thermomyces Lanuginosus ◽  
Microbial Enzymes ◽  
Value Added Products

The widespread use of commercial polymers composed of a mixture of polylactic acid and polyethene terephthalate (PLA-PET) in bottles and other packaging materials has caused a massive environmental crisis. The valorization of these contaminants via cost-effective technologies is urgently needed to achieve a circular economy. The enzymatic hydrolysis of PLA-PET contaminants plays a vital role in environmentally friendly strategies for plastic waste recycling and degradation. In this review, the potential roles of microbial enzymes for solving this critical problem are highlighted. Various enzymes involved in PLA-PET recycling and bioconversion, such as PETase and MHETase produced by Ideonella sakaiensis; esterases produced by Bacillus and Nocardia; lipases produced by Thermomyces lanuginosus, Candida antarctica, Triticum aestivum, and Burkholderia spp.; and leaf-branch compost cutinases are critically discussed. Strategies for the utilization of PLA-PET’s carbon content as C1 building blocks were investigated for the production of new plastic monomers and different value-added products, such as cyclic acetals, 1,3-propanediol, and vanillin. The bioconversion of PET-PLA degradation monomers to polyhydroxyalkanoate biopolymers by Pseudomonas and Halomonas strains was addressed in detail. Different solutions to the production of biodegradable plastics from food waste, agricultural residues, and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)-accumulating bacteria were discussed. Fuel oil production via PLA-PET thermal pyrolysis and possible hybrid integration techniques for the incorporation of thermostable plastic degradation enzymes for the conversion into fuel oil is explained in detail.

scholarly journals Research Roundup: Brain Research: Who, What, When, Where, Why?

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Betsy Diamant-Cohen ◽  
Annette Y. Goldsmith
Keyword(s):  
Brain Research ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Healthy Children ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Reciprocal Relationships ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Library Programming

Within the past twenty years, it has become more common for children’s librarians to look at brain research to explain the importance of what they are doing, since “the exceptionally strong influence of early experiences on brain architecture makes the early years a period of both great opportunity and great vulnerability for development.”1Responsive caregiving, like a volleyball game, involves reciprocal interactions (often referred to as “serve and return”) that affect intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development. This is especially important during the first three years of life when children depend on the adults in their lives for safety, survival, and socialization.2 Science tells us that healthy children develop in an environment of loving reciprocal relationships with the important adults in their lives; because of this, library programming has expanded to include children under age three, and preschool programs now include adults as well as children.

Photochemical Evolution of Interstellar/Precometary Organic Material

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 23-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis J. Allamandola ◽  
Max P. Bernstein ◽  
Scott A. Sandford
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Complex Species ◽  
Infrared Observations ◽  
Interstellar Ice ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic ◽  
Ultraviolet Photolysis ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Simple Molecules ◽  
Complex Organic

AbstractInfrared observations, combined with realistic laboratory simulations, have revolutionized our understanding of interstellar ice and dust, the building blocks of comets. Since comets are thought to be a major source of the volatiles on the primative earth, their organic inventory is of central importance to questions concerning the origin of life. Ices in molecular clouds contain the very simple molecules H2O, CH3OH, CO, CO2, CH4, H2, and probably some NH3and H2CO, as well as more complex species including nitriles, ketones, and esters. The evidence for these, as well as carbonrich materials such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), microdiamonds, and amorphous carbon is briefly reviewed. This is followed by a detailed summary of interstellar/precometary ice photochemical evolution based on laboratory studies of realistic polar ice analogs. Ultraviolet photolysis of these ices produces H2, H2CO, CO2, CO, CH4, HCO, and the moderately complex organic molecules: CH3CH2OH (ethanol), HC(= O)NH2(formamide), CH3C(= O)NH2(acetamide), R-CN (nitriles), and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT, C6H12N4), as well as more complex species including polyoxymethylene and related species (POMs), amides, and ketones. The ready formation of these organic species from simple starting mixtures, the ice chemistry that ensues when these ices are mildly warmed, plus the observation that the more complex refractory photoproducts show lipid-like behavior and readily self organize into droplets upon exposure to liquid water suggest that comets may have played an important role in the origin of life.

Laboratory and in-situ analysis of comet dust

1988 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
D.E. Brownlee ◽  
A.L. Albee
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Laboratory Study ◽  
Isotopic Analysis ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Sem Analysis ◽  
Early Solar System ◽  
Cometary Material ◽  
Comet Dust

Comets are primitive, kilometer-sized bodies that formed in the outer regions of the solar system. Composed of ice and dust, comets are generally believed to be relic building blocks of the outer solar system that have been preserved at cryogenic temperatures since the formation of the Sun and planets. The analysis of cometary material is particularly important because the properties of cometary material provide direct information on the processes and environments that formed and influenced solid matter both in the early solar system and in the interstellar environments that preceded it.The first direct analyses of proven comet dust were made during the Soviet and European spacecraft encounters with Comet Halley in 1986. These missions carried time-of-flight mass spectrometers that measured mass spectra of individual micron and smaller particles. The Halley measurements were semi-quantitative but they showed that comet dust is a complex fine-grained mixture of silicates and organic material. A full understanding of comet dust will require detailed morphological, mineralogical, elemental and isotopic analysis at the finest possible scale. Electron microscopy and related microbeam techniques will play key roles in the analysis. The present and future of electron microscopy of comet samples involves laboratory study of micrometeorites collected in the stratosphere, in-situ SEM analysis of particles collected at a comet and laboratory study of samples collected from a comet and returned to the Earth for detailed study.

Cryo-TEM of amphiphilic polymer and amphiphile/polymer solutions

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 876-877
Author(s):  
Yeshayahu Talmon
Keyword(s):  
Microstructural Characterization ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Specimen Preparation ◽  
Time Resolved ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Temperature And Humidity ◽  
Microstructured Fluids ◽  
Air Streams

To achieve complete microstructural characterization of self-aggregating systems, one needs direct images in addition to quantitative information from non-imaging, e.g., scattering or Theological measurements, techniques. Cryo-TEM enables us to image fluid microstructures at better than one nanometer resolution, with minimal specimen preparation artifacts. Direct images are used to determine the “building blocks” of the fluid microstructure; these are used to build reliable physical models with which quantitative information from techniques such as small-angle x-ray or neutron scattering can be analyzed.To prepare vitrified specimens of microstructured fluids, we have developed the Controlled Environment Vitrification System (CEVS), that enables us to prepare samples under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, thus minimizing microstructural rearrangement due to volatile evaporation or temperature changes. The CEVS may be used to trigger on-the-grid processes to induce formation of new phases, or to study intermediate, transient structures during change of phase (“time-resolved cryo-TEM”). Recently we have developed a new CEVS, where temperature and humidity are controlled by continuous flow of a mixture of humidified and dry air streams.

Emotional Variability Predicts Tiredness in Daily Life

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aire Mill ◽  
Anu Realo ◽  
Jüri Allik
Keyword(s):  
Sampling Method ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Experience Sampling Method ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Intraindividual Variability ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
Over Time

Abstract. Intraindividual variability, along with the more frequently studied between-person variability, has been argued to be one of the basic building blocks of emotional experience. The aim of the current study is to examine whether intraindividual variability in affect predicts tiredness in daily life. Intraindividual variability in affect was studied with the experience sampling method in a group of 110 participants (aged between 19 and 84 years) during 14 consecutive days on seven randomly determined occasions per day. The results suggest that affect variability is a stable construct over time and situations. Our findings also demonstrate that intraindividual variability in affect has a unique role in predicting increased levels of tiredness at the momentary level as well at the level of individuals.

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