Microtopographical guidance of macropinocytic signaling patches

In fast-moving cells such as amoeba and immune cells, dendritic actin filaments are spatiotemporally regulated to shape large-scale plasma membrane protrusions. Despite their importance in migration, as well as in particle and liquid ingestion, how their dynamics are affected by micrometer-scale features of the contact surface is still poorly understood. Here, through quantitative image analysis of Dictyostelium on microfabricated surfaces, we show that there is a distinct mode of topographical guidance directed by the macropinocytic membrane cup. Unlike other topographical guidance known to date that depends on nanometer-scale curvature sensing protein or stress fibers, the macropinocytic membrane cup is driven by the Ras/PI3K/F-actin signaling patch and its dependency on the micrometer-scale topographical features, namely PI3K/F-actin–independent accumulation of Ras-GTP at the convex curved surface, PI3K-dependent patch propagation along the convex edge, and its actomyosin-dependent constriction at the concave edge. Mathematical model simulations demonstrate that the topographically dependent initiation, in combination with the mutually defining patch patterning and the membrane deformation, gives rise to the topographical guidance. Our results suggest that the macropinocytic cup is a self-enclosing structure that can support liquid ingestion by default; however, in the presence of structured surfaces, it is directed to faithfully trace bent and bifurcating ridges for particle ingestion and cell guidance.

New Species of Chloroidium (Trebouxiophyceae, Chlorophyta) from East Asia

Chlorella-like green algae that reproduce only asexually by immotile autospores or motile zoospores are the most typical inhabitants of non-aquatic environments. They have a simple morphology that hampers their differentiation, but algae of such habit represent a diverse array of lineages, which are mostly in the classes Chlorophyceae and Trebouxiophyceae. One of these lineages is the order Watanabeales (Watanabea clade; Trebouxiophyceae), which comprises 10 genera that share a distinct mode of reproduction through unequally sized autospores. Most of these genera account for a few species that are rarely recorded in nature. In contrast, the genus Chloroidium is one of the most species-rich and widely distributed members of the order. Three strains of coccoid green alga were isolated during a study of soil algae in the temperate monsoon climate zone of Asia. These strains are described here as a new species, Chloroidium orientalis. SSU and ITS rDNA sequence data, morphological characteristics, and life cycle features differentiate these strains from known members of the genus.

Ethacridine inhibits SARS-CoV-2 by inactivating viral particles

The respiratory disease COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Here we report the discovery of ethacridine as a potent drug against SARS-CoV-2 (EC50 ~ 0.08 μM). Ethacridine was identified via high-throughput screening of an FDA-approved drug library in living cells using a fluorescence assay. Plaque assays, RT-PCR and immunofluorescence imaging at various stages of viral infection demonstrate that the main mode of action of ethacridine is through inactivation of viral particles, preventing their binding to the host cells. Consistently, ethacridine is effective in various cell types, including primary human nasal epithelial cells that are cultured in an air-liquid interface. Taken together, our work identifies a promising, potent, and new use of the old drug via a distinct mode of action for inhibiting SARS-CoV-2.

SARS-CoV-2: lessons from both the history of medicine and from the biological behavior of other well-known viruses

SARS-CoV-2 is the etiological agent of the current pandemic worldwide and its associated disease COVID-19. In this review, we have analyzed SARS-CoV-2 characteristics and those ones of other well-known RNA viruses viz. HIV, HCV and Influenza viruses, collecting their historical data, clinical manifestations and pathogenetic mechanisms. The aim of the work is obtaining useful insights and lessons for a better understanding of SARS-CoV-2. These pathogens present a distinct mode of transmission, as SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza viruses are airborne, whereas HIV and HCV are bloodborne. However, these viruses exhibit some potential similar clinical manifestations and pathogenetic mechanisms and their understanding may contribute to establishing preventive measures and new therapies against SARS-CoV-2.

Chinese Bureaucracy Through Three Lenses: Weberian, Confucian, and Marchian

ABSTRACT Chinese bureaucracy, with its long history and distinctive characteristics, has provided the organizational basis of governance and played a pivotal role in the economic takeoff in recent decades. Chinese bureaucracy also shows intriguing dualism between entrepreneurial activism and bureaucratic inertia, between formal rules and informal institutions, and between high responsiveness and noticeable loose coupling. In this study, I explore these distinctive features of Chinese bureaucracy through three lenses: Weber's comparative-historical approach helps locate Chinese bureaucracy in a distinct mode of domination; the Confucian lens identifies the prevalence of informal institutions that underlie bureaucratic behaviors; and the Marchian lens sheds light on the organized anarchy and set of mechanisms that shape the key characteristics of Chinese bureaucracy.

Myth-Historical Tensions

Chapter 1 examines the origins of “myth-history” as a narrative category and the purposes for which it is employed. The term myth-history has been used by some physicists to self-consciously distinguish the informal stories they tell from scholarly histories. These scientist-storytellers are not admitting wrongdoing. They are aware of the deficiencies in rigor underlying their myth-histories, yet they reserve the right to filter out historical details for science’s greater good. This chapter sets the context for the rest of the book by establishing scientists’ diverse intents and justifications for writing myth-histories. The discussion is careful not to depict the relationship between myth and history as a polarized conflict. Instead, a more reflective discourse is sought, a common ground to appreciate the power of myth-histories as a distinct mode of storytelling. This framing challenges scientist-storytellers and historians to think critically about the effects of the stories they tell.

It’s no joke: The critical power of a laughing chorus

There is no known time in history, nor known human community without laughter. Laughter imbues our social life. Laughter dominates our daily interactions, perhaps more visibly so on social media, where it is now a weapon wielded frequently against marketers. Yet, marketing theory paid little attention to laughter as a social phenomenon or a collective consumer (re)action. This article begins to address this neglect through an integrative review of theories of laughter and specifically by introducing Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of a laughing chorus. I engage the notion as a way to understand the internet publics’ rowdy laughter directed at marketing. I show that seemingly nihilistic, irresponsible and discordant laughter is nonetheless an efficacious and notably polyvocal social commentary. To probe further the power of a laughing chorus, I draw on the works of Henri Bergson and Alenka Zupancic and elaborate on laughter as a form of expression that does not depend on reason and argumentation for its effects. I contend that a critical impetus of a laughing chorus may not always be in its content, but in the comic element, centred on repetition. That is, collective, excessive laughter involves a distinct mode of critique, which is not premised on discursive deliberation. I conclude with a reflection on theoretical and methodological opportunities in taking laughter seriously in marketing and consumer culture studies.

Rhizome

The concept of the rhizome was first articulated in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, published in French in 1975 and translated into English in 1986. Here the term emerges from a reading of Kafka’s description of movements in his novels and short stories, but it is also tied to a mode of reading and of composition. In Mille Plateaux (1980), translated into English as A Thousand Plateaus in 1987, the term has both a broad reference towards modes of thinking and analyzing that are nonhierarchical and decentered, and a more specifically literary sense of styles of writing. In A Thousand Plateaus, the term is introduced in order to describe a mode of composition that is distinct from the book, and a theory of language that is opposed to a basic structure, logic, or grammar from which variations develop. Languages and dialects do not emerge from a central grammar; instead, everything begins with variations of sound and sense. There is no universal grammar; every language has its distinct mode of growth. It is therefore illegitimate to talk of grammar “trees,” and far better to think of variation without a center. Rather than a linear development or progression, a rhizomatic text is composed of multiple points of entry. A rhizome is a lateral, decentered, proliferating, and interconnected web of relations and is therefore unlike the hierarchical (root, branch, offshoots) model of a tree.

Taxometric evidence for a dimensional latent structure of hypnotic suggestibility

Hypnotic suggestibility denotes a capacity to respond positively to direct verbal suggestions in an involuntary manner in the context of hypnosis. Elucidating the characteristics of this ability has bearing on responsiveness to suggestions in a variety of clinical and non-clinical contexts. A considerable amount of research has focused on a small subgroup of individuals who display strong responsiveness to hypnotic suggestions. However, it remains poorly understood whether these highly suggestible individuals constitute a discrete subgroup (taxon) that is characterized by a qualitatively distinct mode of responding from the remainder of the population or whether hypnotic suggestibility is better modelled as a dimensional ability. In this study, we applied taxometric analysis, a statistical method for distinguishing between dimensional and categorical models of a psychological ability, to behavioural and involuntariness subscale scores of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form A (HGSHS:A) in a sample of neurotypical individuals (N=584). Analyses of HGSHS:A behavioural and involuntariness subscale scores with different a priori taxon base rates yielded consistent evidence for a dimensional structure. These results suggest that hypnotic suggestibility, as measured by the HGSHS:A, is dimensional and have implications for current understanding of individual differences in responsiveness to direct verbal suggestions.