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Frontiers news

05 May 2016

Most viewed Neuroscience articles in April 2016

A Heart and A Mind: Self-distancing Facilitates the Association Between Heart Rate Variability and Wise Reasoning Igor Grossmann*, Baljinder K. Sahdra, and Joseph Ciarrochi Human Brain Expansion during Evolution Is Independent of Fire Control and Cooking Alianda M. Cornélio*, Ruben E. de Bittencourt-Navarrete, Ricardo de Bittencourt Brum, Claudio M. Queiroz and Marcos R. Costa* The Association Between Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Meta-Analysis Perspective Farnoosh Emamian, Habibolah Khazaie*, Masoud Tahmasian, Guy D. Leschziner, Mary J. Morrell, Ging-Yuek R. Hsiung, Ivana Rosenzweig and Amir A. Sepehry A Neural Mechanism of Preference Shifting Under Zero Price Condition Mikhail Votinov*, Toshihiko Aso, Hidenao Fukuyama and Tatsuya Mima Decreased Corticospinal Excitability after the Illusion of Missing Part of the Arm Konstantina Kilteni, Jennifer Grau-Sánchez, Misericordia Veciana De Las Heras, Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells and Mel Slater* General Anesthetic Conditions Induce Network Synchrony and Disrupt Sensory Processing in the Cortex Thomas Lissek, Horst A. Obenhaus, Désirée A. W. Ditzel, Takeharu Nagai, Atsushi Miyawaki, Rolf Sprengel and Mazahir T. Hasan* Retinal Remodeling and Metabolic Alterations in Human AMD Bryan W. Jones*, Rebecca L. Pfeiffer, William D. Ferrell, Carl B. Watt, James Tucker and Robert E. Marc Young and Middle-Aged Schoolteachers Differ in the Neural Correlates of Memory Encoding and Cognitive Fatigue: A Functional […]

Frontiers news

05 May 2016

Most viewed Physiology articles in April 2016

Greater Strength Gains after Training with Accentuated Eccentric than Traditional Isoinertial Loads in Already Strength-Trained Men Simon Walker*, Anthony J. Blazevich, G. Gregory Haff, James J. Tufano, Robert U. Newton and Keijo Häkkinen Acute Endurance Exercise Induces Nuclear p53 Abundance in Human Skeletal Muscle Bill Tachtsis, William J. Smiles, Steven C. Lane, John A. Hawley, and Donny M. Camera* Same Performance Changes after Live High-Train Low in Normobaric vs. Hypobaric Hypoxia Jonas J. Saugy, Laurent Schmitt, Anna Hauser, Guillaume Constantin, Roberto Cejuela, Raphael Faiss, Jon P. Wehrlin, Jérémie Rosset, Neil Robinson and Grégoire P. Millet* Time-Course of Neuromuscular Changes during and after Maximal Eccentric Contractions Valentin Doguet, Marc Jubeau*, Sylvain Dorel, Antoine Couturier, Lilian Lacourpaille, Arnaud Guével and Gaël Guilhem Severe Obesity Shifts Metabolic Thresholds but Does Not Attenuate Aerobic Training Adaptations in Zucker Rats Thiago S. Rosa*, Herbert G. Simões, Marcelo M. Rogero, Milton R. Moraes, Benedito S. Denadai, Ricardo M. Arida, Marília S. Andrade and Bruno M. Silva Continuous Aerobic Training in Individualized Intensity Avoids Spontaneous Physical Activity Decline and Improves MCT1 Expression in Oxidative Muscle of Swimming Rats Pedro P. M. Scariot, Fúlvia de Barros Manchado-Gobatto, Adriana S. Torsoni, Ivan G. M. dos Reis, Wladimir R. Beck and Claudio A. Gobatto* Human Dental […]

Frontiers news

04 May 2016

Most viewed Microbiology articles in April 2016

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Vibrio spp. within the Sydney Harbour Estuary Nachshon Siboni*, Varunan Balaraju, Richard Carney, Maurizio Labbate and Justin R. Seymour Reconstruction of Bacterial and Viral Genomes from Multiple Metagenomes Ankit Gupta, Sanjiv Kumar, Vishnu P. K. Prasoodanan, K. Harish, Ashok K. Sharma, and Vineet K. Sharma* K-shell Analysis Reveals Distinct Functional Parts in an Electron Transfer Network and Its Implications for Extracellular Electron Transfer Dewu Ding, Ling Li, Chuanjun Shu and Xiao Sun* Enantioselective Utilization of D-Amino Acids by Deep-Sea Microorganisms Takaaki Kubota*, Tohru Kobayashi, Takuro Nunoura, Fumito Maruyama and Shigeru Deguchi A Putative ABC Transporter Permease Is Necessary for Resistance to Acidified Nitrite and EDTA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa under Aerobic and Anaerobic Planktonic and Biofilm Conditions Cameron McDaniel, Shengchang Su, Warunya Panmanee, Gee W. Lau, Tristan Browne, Kevin Cox, Andrew T. Paul, Seung-Hyun B. Ko, Joel E. Mortensen, Joseph S. Lam, Daniel A. Muruve and Daniel J. Hassett* Coral-Associated Bacterial Diversity Is Conserved across Two Deep-Sea Anthothela Species Stephanie N. Lawler, Christina A. Kellogg*, Scott C. France, Rachel W. Clostio, Sandra D. Brooke and Steve W. Ross Protist-Bacteria Associations: Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria Are Prevalent as Digestion-Resistant Bacteria in Ciliated Protozoa Jun Gong*, Yao Qing, Songbao Zou, Rao Fu, Lei Su, Xiaoli Zhang and Qianqian […]

Life sciences

04 May 2016

Turn up the heat to increase altitude tolerance

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer Altitude training is a popular method for athletes wanting to improve their physical performance. At high altitudes oxygen levels are lowered so our bodies compensate by increasing the number of red blood cells. This enables an enhanced performance at lower altitudes because more oxygen can be delivered to the muscles. Many companies now offer altitude training in specialist chambers (often referred to as normobaric training) as an alternative to traveling to a high altitude country (hypobaric training), which is costly in terms of both time and money. New research reported in the open-access journal Frontiers in Physiology, suggests that heat-based exercise can offer a more efficient means of improving altitude tolerance and physical performance than normobaric altitude training can provide. “We show that when the duration and frequency of training performed in heat or at altitude are the same, the heat-based training can offer a more obtainable and time-efficient method to improving tolerance to altitude,” says Dr. Ben J. Lee, who completed this study as part of his PhD research at the University of Coventry. This is the first investigation that compares the effects of heat and low-oxygen training side by side. Dr. Lee and his co-authors […]

Frontiers news

02 May 2016

Frontiers’ Co-founder receives Shannon Visionary Award

Bell Labs Shannon Visionary Award Professor Henry Markram, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers, was one of five global luminaries and visionaries honored with a Bell Labs Shannon Visionary Award on April 28, 2016. Bell Labs is the birthplace of the digital age. This is where Claude Elwood Shannon developed the idea that information can be represented by “zeroes” and “ones” and established a mathematical theory that explains just how. It is also where the first transistor was invented to electrically generate BITS. The awards, given out in a two day celebration of 100 years since Shannon’s birth, recognized five visionaries of the digital age, including; Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc., Irwin Jacobs, Co-founder of Qualcomm, Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist, Bob Metcalfe, Co-inventor of Ethernet and formulator of Metcalfe’s Law and Henry Markram, founder of the Blue Brain and Human Brain Projects. “We created the Bell Labs Shannon Visionary Awards to recognize pioneering contributions to advancing the current and future digital age that is, and will be, underpinned by Shannon’s seminal work,” says Marcus Weldon, President of Bell Labs and CTO of Nokia. “The award is a tremendous honor because Shannon is not only the father of Information Theory, he […]

Life sciences

29 Apr 2016

Advancing immunology and primary immunodeficiencies in the genomic era: The importance of being collaborative

We celebrate the day of Immunology with an interview with Sergio Rosenzweig, Deputy Chief of the Immunology Service at the Clinical Center, NIH and the Co-Director of the Primary Immunodeficiency Clinic, NIAID, NIH and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Immunology and for Frontiers in Pediatrics. After more than 20 years of experience as pediatrician and researcher in the field of primary immunodeficiencies, Dr Rosenzweig has no doubt: the best is yet to come. “It is a fascinating time to be practicing medicine: if you take into consideration that the first genome was sequenced in 2003 and just six years later, in 2009, the first patient that diagnosed using next-generation sequencing, with a test cost reduction of 1 million times (from approximately 1billion dollars to 1 thousand dollars, that is just amazing” he said. Through omics technologies, the field of primary immunodeficiencies field is evolving at an exponential rate “We discover, on average, more than one new gene associated with primary immunodeficiencies per month”, he explained, “and this is teaching us so much: we thought we knew about those diseases, but now we are completely rethinking the way we study them.” Can you tell us a bit more about primary […]

Life sciences

27 Apr 2016

Decoding Zika virus to fight future outbreaks

By Fernando Bolaños, Frontiers science writer The constant emergence of viral outbreaks has become a permanent threat to human health. Last year, Zika virus infected thousands of people in the Americas. It is also associated to several cases of neurological disorders and has raised worldwide public health alerts. Now due to the urgency, researchers are detailing the characteristics of the virus to find solutions. The study completed by a group of researchers from the Department of Biotechnology of the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria in Madrid, was published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology. It reveals the challenges humanity could face because of the increasingly frequent and devastating viral outbreaks. “Zika is spread by mosquitoes Aedes Ae. Aegypti, and Ae. Albopictus. They are considered the most invasive species in the world due to their adaptability to different climates. This has facilitated the rapid spread of the virus to five continents during the last 30 to 40 years. The virus was first detected in 1947 in Nigeria, but because it had a low affect on people´s health, not much was done until the recent huge outbreaks in the Americas,” explains researcher Juan Carlos Saiz. We already […]

Life sciences

27 Apr 2016

Are brain-training apps effective?

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of smartphone apps aimed at ‘brain training’. These games often make confident statements about improving our mental performance, but there is little scientific evidence to show that they do. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience has investigated why consumers decide to download these apps, how they use them and what they think their benefits may be. “While the evidence of the effectiveness of brain training remains controversial, our results suggest that the public is interested in learning more about the actual science behind the claims made by the app developers,”says Dr. John Torous, a clinical psychiatrist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, lead author of the study. Young people and those with internet access tend to have high rates of smartphone ownership, so Dr. Torous and his co-authors designed a survey targeted at this group. They asked participants about their thoughts, use and experience of brain-training apps. Over three thousand people responded, making this the largest internet survey to date asking consumers about these apps; the results were insightful. Over two thirds of those that responded […]

Life sciences

25 Apr 2016

Study shows attitude makes a champion

By K.E.D. Coan, Frontiers science writer On the path to greatness, why do some become champions while others fall short? Coaches, parents, and aspiring athletes have all sought to answer this question. In their search for the optimal path to greatness, some believe that the path should be smoothed of all obstacles, while others say that such challenges are instrumental to talent development. Now, a recent study suggests that what really distinguishes champions is how they face and overcome such obstacles. “We’ve found that there are universal psychological characteristics amongst those who are aspiring to get to the top,” says Professor Dave Collins, lead author of the study, as well as Chair and Director of the Institute of Coaching and Performance at the University of Central Lancashire. “We have a good idea of what makes people excellent and how we can help them reach peak performance.” By interviewing athletes from varied sports such as soccer, rowing, skiing, and combat sports, Collins and his collaborators sought to find distinguishing characteristics between the best of the best, the good, and those that didn’t quite make the cut. For each participant, they collected information about career trajectory, perceived challenges and the participant’s reactions […]

Frontiers news

22 Apr 2016

Frontiers internships provide a stepping stone for career success

Many rewarding careers have been launched through a paid internship at Frontiers. As one of the leading open-access publishers that is constantly developing innovations to enable knowledge to flow freely, we give early career academics the opportunity to branch out from research into research communication. “Doing an internship at Frontiers has been one of the best decisions I have made in my short career. I have had many internships but I was still unsure what career I would pursue. After 2 months at Frontiers not only did I know that I wanted a career in publishing, I also realized that I was good at it and enjoyed it,” said one intern who is now a fulltime member of the Frontiers editorial team. The best way to learn about an organization is to be immersed in it: interns are immediately considered part of our team and the work they do matters. “I was surrounded by supportive colleagues, challenged to think differently and given the opportunity to actively help shape the future of publishing. I’m not sure I would have had the same opportunities elsewhere,” said an intern. Depending on their interest and expertise, Frontiers interns have the chance to work with the […]

Frontiers news

22 Apr 2016

Space Robotics open for submissions

Space Robotics is a new specialty section available through the community-run open-access journals Frontiers in Robotics and AI and Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. The new section Space Robotics is led by Specialty Chief Editor Prof Panagiotis Tsiotras from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Space robotics is broadly defined as the intersection of control, articulated mechanisms, artificial intelligence, path-planning, computer vision, astrodynamics and orbital and space sciences. In the foreseeable future, most space missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will depend heavily on robotic systems. Even for manned space missions, robotic systems are envisioned to play a major role and act as “co-workers” helping astronauts perform complex tasks. Due to the increased interest in robotic and autonomous systems for operations in a space environment ‒ either in the vicinity of Earth or on other planets and asteroids ‒ we encourage submissions covering these topics, including – but not limited to – in-orbit satellite servicing and inspection, assembly, refueling, rendezvous and docking. Robotic monitoring and exploration of planets and asteroids are also of great interest to this journal. As part of the Space Robotics section we welcome submissions that investigate new algorithms for robotic mechanisms, autonomous satellites and spacecraft that deal with the peculiarities and challenges of the […]

Life sciences

22 Apr 2016

DNA proves mammoths mated beyond species boundaries

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiers science writer Several species of mammoth are thought to have roamed across the North American continent. A new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, provides DNA evidence to show that these mammoths, which should only mate within their species boundaries, were in fact likely to be interbreeding. A species can be defined as a group of similar animals that can successfully breed and produce fertile offspring. By using differences in the size and shape of their fossilized teeth, a number of North American mammoth species have been identified. But, some scientists are not confident this method of species categorization tells the whole story. “Species boundaries can be very blurry. We might find differences in features of the teeth or skeleton that closely correspond to what we think are real species boundaries. But other features may not correspond to those boundaries, suggesting that what we formerly regarded as separate species are in fact not at all,” explains Hendrik Poinar, a Professor at McMaster University in Canada, who co-led the new study with his former graduate student Jake Enk and collaborator Ross MacPhee, a Professor at the American Museum of Natural History. Professor Poinar […]

Frontiers news

18 Apr 2016

Early career scientists: time for a Labor Union? AIRIcerca and the Italian case

Is being a scientist a real job? If you have a tenure track position the answer is certainly “yes.” Otherwise, welcome to the dark side of early career scientists. They make up the majority of the workforce in research, they are the ones who actually design experiments and produce scientific data and they invest the best years of their lives trying to find new ideas and create new opportunities for science. Without them, the job of many other fully recognized employees (such as lab technicians, research administrative staff and principal investigators themselves) would make little or no sense. Nonetheless in most of cases (though the situation is different depending on the country and on the specific work contract) they are still struggling to see their rights fully acknowledged: maternity/paternity leave, pension, sick leave, or simply defined working time are often still considered a luxury. We have been taught to believe that science is collective enterprise, but early career scientists are actually often left alone. The issue has been (and still is) widely debated, but what are early career researchers doing to improve their own working conditions? As the saying goes “you only get what you give,” but when it comes to labor rights you actually only get what you ask for. […]

Health

13 Apr 2016

Study shows lifestyle changes might mean more than losing weight

by Jacqueline Eckert, Frontiers science writer A recent study shows that for most people switching to a healthier lifestyle can produce a body weight that is healthy for that person overtime. Contrary to popular beliefs, this does not necessarily mean that one must lose weight. “We decided to do a study on this based on our perception about traditional interventions for overweight and obese people,” said Mariana Dimitrov Ulian, lead author of the study. “These involve, most of the time, diet and physical activity, and they base their success on the immediate weight loss of the participants. While short-term results are observed, long-term results, when it comes to weight loss, are only maintained by a small number of people.” The results of their “Health and Wellness in Obesity Study” were published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Nutrition and the study focuses on implementing the Health at Every Size® (HAES®) philosophy for obese women. The HAES® philosophy approach aims to encourage healthy behavior in people of all body sizes, independent of whether weight loss is a consequence of those behavioral changes or not. The research concluded that non-prescriptive interventions in a person’s behavior improved the participant’s self-esteem and overall body […]