Comment in 2019

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  • The process of DNA replication is threatened by many factors, including DNA lesions, and machineries acting as obstacles. Here we discuss and speculate on a recently proposed mechanism of DNA damage response activation in response to lesions that challenge the progression of DNA replication forks.

    • Christopher Bruhn
    • Marco Foiani
    CommentOpen Access
  • The European Space Agency (ESA) recently selected Comet Interceptor as its first ‘fast’ (F-class) mission. It will be developed rapidly to share a launch with another mission and is unique, as it will wait in space for a yet-to-be-discovered comet.

    • Colin Snodgrass
    • Geraint H Jones
    CommentOpen Access
  • As climate change thaws the Arctic’s foundations, new subterranean waterways form and threaten to wash away and decompose carbon once locked in permafrost. In this Comment, Vonk and co-authors outline a cross-disciplinary strategy--with hydrology at the forefront--to better understand the fate of Arctic carbon.

    • J. E. Vonk
    • S. E. Tank
    • M. A. Walvoord
    CommentOpen Access
  • Plastic pollution is a purely anthropogenic problem and cannot be solved without large-scale human action. Motivating mitigation actions requires more realistic assumptions about human decision-making based on empirical evidence from the behavioural sciences enabling the design of more effective interventions.

    • Lili Jia
    • Steve Evans
    • Sander van der Linden
    CommentOpen Access
  • Understanding complex functional materials suffers from needing to capture structural features on many length scales. By quantitatively combining complementary experimental measurements, realistic models can now be generated. Here, I discuss the strengths and limits of this approach, but also advocate focusing on the interactions that drive structural complexity instead.

    • Andrew L. Goodwin
    CommentOpen Access
  • John Fenn’s electrospray mass spectrometry (ESMS) was awarded the chemistry Nobel Prize in 2002 and is now the basis of the entire field of MS-based proteomics. Technological progress continues unabated, enabling single cell sensitivity and clinical applications.

    • Matthias Mann
    CommentOpen Access
  • The establishment of the Orbitrap analyzer as a major player in mass spectrometry based proteomics is traced back to the first public presentation of this technology 20 years ago; when a proof-of-principle application led the way to further advancements and biological applications.

    • Alexander Makarov
    CommentOpen Access
  • Forecasting is beginning to be integrated into decision-making processes for infectious disease outbreak response. We discuss how technologies could accelerate the adoption of forecasting among public health practitioners, improve epidemic management, save lives, and reduce the economic impact of outbreaks.

    • Dylan B. George
    • Wendy Taylor
    • Nicholas G. Reich
    CommentOpen Access
  • While the crisis of statistics has made it to the headlines, that of mathematical modelling hasn’t. Something can be learned comparing the two, and looking at other instances of production of numbers.Sociology of quantification and post-normal science can help.

    • Andrea Saltelli
    CommentOpen Access
  • Using a sensitizing genetic model, Moon and colleagues provide compelling data for a determinant role of microenvironment in tumorigenesis, and lend support to the notion that such influences can be pharmacologically dampened to reduce the onset of cancers.

    • Wa Xian
    • Frank McKeon
    CommentOpen Access
  • The ore-forming magmas in post-subduction copper deposits are thought to be derived from the lower crust. The Au-Te fingerprints of post-subduction magmas reveal an important role for the metasomatized sub-crustal lithospheric mantle in the formation of porphyry and epithermal copper deposits.

    • Zengqian Hou
    • Rui Wang
    CommentOpen Access
  • Thermal radiation is a ubiquitous physical phenomenon that has been usually described with the help of Planck’s law, but recent developments have proven its limitations. Now, experimental advances have demonstrated that the far-field thermal radiation properties of subwavelength objects drastically violate Planck’s law.

    • Juan Carlos Cuevas
    CommentOpen Access
  • Infectious disease modeling has played a prominent role in recent outbreaks, yet integrating these analyses into public health decision-making has been challenging. We recommend establishing ‘outbreak science’ as an inter-disciplinary field to improve applied epidemic modeling.

    • Caitlin Rivers
    • Jean-Paul Chretien
    • Simon Pollett
    CommentOpen Access
  • The genomic and host factors that drive the progression of pre-invasive lesions in non-small cell lung cancer are poorly understood. Studying these factors can advance our knowledge of lung cancer biology, aid in the development of better screening strategies and improve patient outcomes.

    • Siddhartha Devarakonda
    • Ramaswamy Govindan
    CommentOpen Access
  • Qualitative psychological principles are commonly utilized to influence the choices that people make. Can this goal be achieved more efficiently by using quantitative models of choice? Here, we launch an academic competition to compare the effectiveness of these two approaches.

    • Ohad Dan
    • Yonatan Loewenstein
    CommentOpen Access
  • Insufficient purification and incomplete characterization pose a serious problem for attributing photoluminescence properties to carbogenic nanodots, especially those synthesized by bottom-up approaches. Here, we provide a roadmap for the successful future of these nanodots.

    • Navneet C. Verma
    • Aditya Yadav
    • Chayan K. Nandi
    CommentOpen Access
  • Biofoundries provide an integrated infrastructure to enable the rapid design, construction, and testing of genetically reprogrammed organisms for biotechnology applications and research. Many biofoundries are being built and a Global Biofoundry Alliance has recently been established to coordinate activities worldwide.

    • Nathan Hillson
    • Mark Caddick
    • Paul S. Freemont
    CommentOpen Access
  • In research studies, the need for additional samples to obtain sufficient statistical power has often to be balanced with the experimental costs. One approach to this end is to sequentially collect data until you have sufficient measurements, e.g., when the p-value drops below 0.05. I outline that this approach is common, yet that unadjusted sequential sampling leads to severe statistical issues, such as an inflated rate of false positive findings. As a consequence, the results of such studies are untrustworthy. I identify the statistical methods that can be implemented in order to account for sequential sampling.

    • Casper Albers
    CommentOpen Access