Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

To holistically understand the biology of animals, we must unravel the complexities and specificities of host-microbe interactions across animal taxa. Birds represent enigmatic and scientifically compelling hosts in which to understand these interactions. Here, we present a brief summary of a series of conversations among avian microbiome researchers regarding methodological challenges facing the avian microbiome field, where most research to date has focused on bacterial communities of the gut. Collectively, we acknowledged a commonly shared but underreported issue facing the avian microbiome field: that of difficulty in obtaining high-quality and high-yield microbial DNA from avian fecal samples. We discuss some of the potential reasons underlying low DNA yields, such as inhibitory compounds and rapid DNA degradation, and provide recommendations for how researchers in the avian microbiome field might cope with these methodological challenges. Collective and dedicated efforts to address these challenges will be required for a robust understanding of host-microbe interactions in avian systems.

The magnitude of the problem of sickle cell disease (SCD) in India is very large and diverse. For people living with SCD there are several unmet health care needs making it pertinent to focus on recognizing the important public health burden of SCD in the country. In a bid to achieve this goal, the Indian College of Hematology (ICH) of the Indian Society of Hematology and Blood Transfusion (ISHBT) in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has formulated a Guideline on Management and Control of Sickle Cell Disease in India. This was achieved by a national taskforce comprising top experts from the field who held multiple sessions to deliberate on different aspects and form consensus on preparing a comprehensive document on SCD care in India. The taskforce has presented its recommendations on various aspects of SCD in India, all of which have been evaluated based on the best evidence. Where the evidence was weak, the recommendations have been based on consensus among the experts. This review which is adapted from the comprehensive guideline document gives a concise treatise on various aspects of sickle cell disease in India along with specific recommendations. The section on screening and diagnosis provides an evidence-based background to scientifically select the most appropriate and feasible test option(s) in various Indian practice settings. The other aspects covered in this review are management of SCD in stable condition, iron overload and chelation therapy, vaso-occlusive crisis, management of other complications of SCD, blood transfusion in SCD, haematopoietic stem cell transplant and gene therapy in SCD, immunization and antibiotic prophylaxis in SCD and monitoring of patients with SCD. It also gives guidance on special circumstances such as pregnancy and surgery in SCD. It concludes with a note on prevention and control of SCD in India with an outline of a defined roadmap to make this possible.

Calcium oxalate stones comprise greater than 70% of all kidney stones. In the current conceptual framework, the initial stone nidus is thought to include the aggregation of inorganic crystallites, the formation of which is favored by elevated concentrations of dissolved constituents. Here, we show that this highly prevalent stone type comprises a form of organic-inorganic polycrystalline biocomposite with integrated bacterial biofilms. Evidence from electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy reveal the unanticipated internal structure of kidney stones from human patients, where bacterial biofilms are intercalated between polycrystalline mineral layers, even in stones identified as "noninfectious" clinically, including those in patients without underlying urinary tract infections. We observe similar bacterial biofilm architectures on the surfaces of stone fragments obtained due to lithotripsy, suggesting that bacteria are intrinsic to the process of nephrolithiasis. Crystallites proximal to biofilm layers exhibit significantly smaller grain sizes, which indicate a larger local concentration of nucleation sites. Staining reveals that biofilm areas of these stones are enriched with bacterial DNA. That bacteria are now observed so broadly in kidney stones (including even in less prevalent struvite stones) may be conceptually salient: Based on the evidence adduced here, we propose a model in which the urine-rich environment of the kidney can impinge on bacterial calcium homeostasis and amplify bacterial production of nucleation templates such as extracellular DNA. The resultant counterion condensation intrinsic to polyelectrolytes charged beyond the Manning criterion (such as DNA) drastically enhances the probability of heterogeneous nucleation, thereby amplifying calcium oxalate stone formation.

Species descriptions remain the foundation of biodiversity science, but alpha taxonomy faces a twofold challenge: accelerating the pace of species discovery while ensuring that descriptions produce data that are usable, comparable, and reproducible. This is particularly acute for “dark taxa”—small, hyperdiverse, and morphologically challenging groups—for which morphology-based workflows alone often fail to deliver scalable and reliable identifications. As a result, most species remain undescribed, and many described species are difficult or impossible to identify. We argue that species descriptions must be integrative in a way that meets the practical requirements of modern taxonomy, including scalability, reliable identification, reproducibility, and applicability across life stages. At present, standardized molecular data in the form of DNA barcoding is the only approach that consistently satisfies these criteria. Emerging approaches based on robotics, imaging and artificial intelligence may eventually provide complementary frameworks, but currently lack the standardization and interoperability required for routine application at scale. In contrast, barcode data already enable high-throughput species delimitation, straightforward identification, and direct comparability across studies, supported by global reference libraries and standardized protocols. We therefore propose that DNA barcodes be treated as a baseline component of species descriptions for invertebrates. Standardizing molecular data in taxonomy will accelerate species discovery, improve reproducibility and stability, and ensure that newly described taxa remain accessible in an increasingly DNA-based research landscape.

Consciousness is often treated as an evolutionary anomaly, a costly capacity with unclear adaptive origins. Here, cognition and consciousness are distinguished as separate evolutionary lineages, with consciousness arising when an organism must coordinate otherwise distinct regulatory processes to resolve competing demands affecting its own viability. Its functional precursors predate nervous systems, emerging first in boundary-preserving chemical and metabolic regulation. An evolutionary ladder is developed in which proto-control preserves boundaries by selectively permitting, inhibiting, and localizing destruction; meta-control arbitrates among competing local controllers; and settlement control resolves conflict by making competing regulatory demands comparable and jointly binding for policy selection. It follows that artificial consciousness will not emerge from greater cognitive sophistication alone; it will require self-maintaining systems that settle competing demands under real constraint. The framework yields six falsifiable predictions spanning comparative biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. On this view, consciousness is not evolution’s anomaly but its solution: self-anchored, cross-domain settlement under constraint.