Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This study makes the valuable claim that people track, specifically, the elasticity of control (that is, the degree to which outcome depends on how many resources - such as money - are invested), and that control elasticity is impaired in certain types of psychopathologies. A novel task is introduced that provides solid evidence that this learning process occurs and that human behavior is sensitive to changes in the elasticity of control. Evidence that elasticity inference is distinct from more general learning mechanisms and is related to psychopathology remains incomplete.

eLife Assessment

In this valuable study, Seidel et al. identify and characterize a novel subset of hepatocellular carcinoma patient-derived xenograft models defined by active Jagged 1-Notch2 signaling and a distinctive progenitor-like gene expression profile. Within the limitations of the PDX system they used, their methods are state-of-the-art, their data are strong and believable, and their conclusions are convincing. However, the ability to identify HCC patients that might respond is limited, and the mechanistic assessment downstream of JAG1/NOTCH2 is relatively descriptive. Some additional clarifications and experiments would strengthen the paper.

eLife Assessment

The authors have demonstrated the use of adenine base editors delivered via adeno-associated viruses to introduce edits in the mitochondrial genome. The manuscript describes the methodology well, and the conclusions are convincingly supported by the results. The valuable results highlight the potential of these base editors to model mtDNA variations in somatic tissues in animal models.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript presents a useful analysis of the relationship between climate variables and malaria incidence, for local temperature and rainfall and the global climate driver of ENSO from 2008 to 2019 in a lowland region of East Africa, with wavelet analyses and linear regressions after time series decomposition. The paper is convincing albeit not novel in its application of wavelets to the analysis of this type of time series data for a vector-borne infection. It is less persuasive on what is learned about the role of climate variability (non-seasonal climate effects), and it is also unclear how the analysis informs climate change and malaria, and this motivation for the work is not warranted as it pertains to longer time scales than those considered. The work should be better placed in the context of what is known for malaria in East Africa and in different transmission settings.

eLife Assessment

Shah and colleagues take advantage of the presence of maternal and somatic ribosomes in zebrafish and confirm their differential expression during development. The authors convincingly show that ribosomes previously found expressed during oogenesis are also expressed in primordial germ cells and that hybrid maternal and somatic ribosomes are formed during development. The question of ribosome heterogeneity, the expression and function of maternal versus somatically provided ribosomes are of broad interest and this fundamental work sets new directions for future functional studies of this interesting phenomenon.

eLife Assessment

This work derives a valuable general theory unifying theories of efficient information transmission in the brain with population homeostasis. The general theory provides an explanation for firing rate homeostasis at the level of neural clusters with firing rate heterogeneity within clusters. Applying this theory to the primary visual cortex, the authors present solid evidence that accounts for stimulus-specific and neuron-specific adaptation. Reviewers have provided additional suggestions for improving the readability of the manuscript, as well as discussing previous results on adapting coding as well as those aspects of experimental data that are not fully explained by the present theory.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable study, tackling the long-standing issue of the difficulty in imaging the inferior olive and addressing the most relevant questions with a rigorous approach. The technological advance allowed the authors to generate solid experimental evidence with high-quality data. The results are presented clearly and the analyses are rigorous.

eLife Assessment

The authors developed a new Agbl5 KO allele, extending the deletion to the N-terminus of CCP5 to explore its function in mouse ependymal cells and trachea. They show that the KO mice exhibit severe hydrocephalus due to mislocated basal bodies and impaired ciliary beating. The findings are valuable with implications in the subfield of cell biology. The evidence is solid in that the methods, data and analyses largely support the claims with only a few remaining weaknesses.