eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Small deviations in kinematics and body form dictate muscle performances in the finely tuned avian downstroke

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Marc E Deetjen
   2. Diana D Chin
   3. Ashley M Heers
   4. Bret W Tobalske
   5. David Lentink

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study combines experiments and mathematical modelling to enhance our understanding of the interplay between the two flight muscles in birds during slow flight. The evidence for the findings is compelling, derived from new methods for measuring wing shape and force production combined with previously validated methods in muscle physiology. This work will be of broad interest to comparative biomechanists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Mouthparts of the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) exhibit poor acuity for the detection of pesticides in nectar

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Rachel H Parkinson
   2. Jennifer Scott
   3. Anna L Dorling
   4. Hannah Jones
   5. Martha Haslam
   6. Alex E McDermott-Roberts
   7. Geraldine A Wright

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable set of experiments to test whether Bombus terrestris bumblebees can detect lethal-level doses of a series of pesticides in nectar-mimicking sugary solutions. Behavioural essays were coupled with electrophysiological measurements to show that B. terrestris mouthparts cannot detect high levels of the tested pesticides. If confirmed using pesticide formulas, and other bumblebee species, the study will be of general interest in environmental science research. Most experimental data are compelling, and the conclusions are sound, but the write-up would benefit from a broader ecological context.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Landing force reveals new form of motion-induced sound camouflage in a wild predator

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Kim Schalcher
   2. Estelle Milliet
   3. Robin Séchaud
   4. Roman Bühler
   5. Bettina Almasi
   6. Simon Potier
   7. Paolo Becciu
   8. Alexandre Roulin
   9. Emily LC Shepard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of animals' foraging behaviour by monitoring the movement and body posture of barn owls in high resolution and assessing their foraging success. With a large dataset, the evidence supporting the main conclusions is compelling. This work provides new corroboration for motion-induced sound camouflage and has broad implications for understanding predator-prey interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Overburdened ferroptotic stress impairs tooth morphogenesis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Haisheng Wang
   2. Xiaofeng Wang
   3. Liuyan Huang
   4. Chenglin Wang
   5. Fanyuan Yu
   6. Ling Ye

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study time elegantly demonstrates that ferroptotic stress may play critical roles in regulating tooth germ development. The evidence presented is compelling, based on an explant model and providing novel mechanistic insights into tooth development.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Unsupervised discovery of family specific vocal usage in the Mongolian gerbil

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Ralph E Peterson
   2. Aman Choudhri
   3. Catalin Mitelut
   4. Aramis Tanelus
   5. Athena Capo-Battaglia
   6. Alex H Williams
   7. David M Schneider
   8. Dan H Sanes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study provides an experimental paradigm and state-of-the-art analysis method for studying the existence of call types and transition differences among Mongolian gerbil families in a naturalistic environment. The analyses are convincing, with a thorough treatment of the acoustic data and a demonstration of the robustness of the observed effect across days. The work will likely be of interest to the auditory neuroscience and neuroethology communities.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. WRNIP1 prevents transcription-associated genomic instability

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pasquale Valenzisi
   2. Veronica Marabitti
   3. Pietro Pichierri
   4. Annapaola Franchitto

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable paper examines the role of the WRNIP1 AAA+ ATPase in regulating R-loop formation, which induces a conflict with active replication forks and transcription. The authors provide convincing evidence to support a role of the ubiquitin-binding UBZ domain of WRNIP1 in R-loop suppression generated by this conflict. The work is of interest to researchers who work on genome stability/instability.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. An engineered biosensor enables dynamic aspartate measurements in living cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Kristian Davidsen
   2. Jonathan S Marvin
   3. Abhi Aggarwal
   4. Timothy A Brown
   5. Lucas B Sullivan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reports jAspSnFR3, a biosensor that enables high spatiotemporal resolution of aspartate levels in living cells. To develop this sensor, the authors used a structurally guided amino acid substitution in a glutamate/aspartate periplasmic binding protein to switch its specificity towards aspartate. The in vitro and in cellulo functional characterization of the biosensor is convincing, but evidence of the sensor's effectiveness in detecting small perturbations of aspartate levels and information on its behavior in response to acute aspartate elevations in the cytosol are still lacking.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. An open-source, high-resolution, automated fluorescence microscope

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ando Christian Zehrer
   2. Ana Martin-Villalba
   3. Benedict Diederich
   4. Helge Ewers

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study provides compelling evidence that the low-cost and open-hardware UC2 microscopy framework can be expanded to enable single-molecule localization microscopy. The authors managed to fit the instrumentation and control thereof in a unit that can be placed in a small stage-top-incubator. Together with providing adapted software for data acquisition and data analysis, the UC.STORM setup can rival the capabilities of comparable commercial instruments at a fraction of the costs.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Task-specific invariant representation in auditory cortex

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Charles R Heller
   2. Gregory R Hamersky
   3. Stephen V David

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study provides insights into how the brain constructs categorical neural representations during a difficult auditory target detection task. Through recordings of simultaneous single-unit activity in primary and secondary auditory areas, compelling evidence is provided that categorical neural representations emerge in a secondary auditory area, i.e., PEG. The study is of interest to neuroscientists and can also potentially shed light on human psychological studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Multi-level processing of emotions in life motion signals revealed through pupil responses

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Tian Yuan
    2. Li Wang
    3. Yi Jiang

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study provides convincing evidence that emotional information in biological motion can induce different patterns of pupil responses, which could serve as a behavioral marker of an autistic trait. These results broaden our understanding of how emotional biological motion can automatically trigger physiological changes and reveal the potential of using emotional-modulated pupil response to facilitate the diagnosis of social cognitive disorders. The work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscience, psychology, affective neuroscience, and vision science.

    Reviewed by eLife