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Creators/Authors contains: "Thomas, C."

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  1. ; ; ; ; ; ( , Scientific Reports)
    Abstract Water unavailability is an abiotic stress causing unfavourable conditions for life. Nevertheless, some animals evolved anhydrobiosis, a strategy allowing for the reversible organism dehydration and suspension of metabolism as a direct response to habitat desiccation. Anhydrobiotic animals undergo biochemical changes synthesizing bioprotectants to help combat desiccation stresses. One stress is the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, the eutardigrade Paramacrobiotus spatialis was used to investigate the occurrence of ROS associated with the desiccation process. We observed that the production of ROS significantly increases as a function of time spent in anhydrobiosis and represents a direct demonstrationmore »of oxidative stress in tardigrades. The degree of involvement of bioprotectants, including those combating ROS, in the P. spatialis was evaluated by perturbing their gene functions using RNA interference and assessing the successful recovery of animals after desiccation/rehydration. Targeting the glutathione peroxidase gene compromised survival during drying and rehydration, providing evidence for the role of the gene in desiccation tolerance. Targeting genes encoding glutathione reductase and catalase indicated that these molecules play roles during rehydration. Our study also confirms the involvement of aquaporins 3 and 10 during rehydration. Therefore, desiccation tolerance depends on the synergistic action of many different molecules working together.« less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available December 1, 2023
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Biophysics reviews)
    The diversity of multicellular organisms is, in large part, due to the fact that multicellularity has evolved many times independently. Nonetheless, multicellular organisms all share a universal biophysical trait: cells are attached to each other. All mechanisms of cellular attachment belong to one of two broad classes; intercellular bonds are either re-formable, or they are not. Both classes of multicellular assembly are common in nature, having evolved dozens of times independently. In this review, we detail these varied mechanisms as they exist in multicellular organisms. We also discuss the evolutionary implications of different intercellular attachment mechanisms on nascent multicellular organisms.more »The type of intercellular bond present during early steps in the transition to multicellularity constrains future evolutionary and biophysical dynamics for the lineage, affecting the origin of multicellular life cycles, cell-cell communication, cellular differentiation, and multicellular morphogenesis. The types of intercellular bonds used by multicellular organisms may thus result in some of the most impactful historical constraints on the evolution of multicellularity.« less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available July 1, 2023
  3. ; ; ( , Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences)
    Rigid origami, with applications ranging from nano-robots to unfolding solar sails in space, describes when a material is folded along straight crease line segments while keeping the regions between the creases planar. Prior work has found explicit equations for the folding angles of a flat-foldable degree-4 origami vertex and some cases of degree-6 vertices. We extend this work to generalized symmetries of the degree-6 vertex where all sector angles equal 60 ∘ . We enumerate the different viable rigid folding modes of these degree-6 crease patterns and then use second-order Taylor expansions and prior rigid folding techniques to find algebraicmore »folding angle relationships between the creases. This allows us to explicitly compute the configuration space of these degree-6 vertices, and in the process we uncover new explanations for the effectiveness of Weierstrass substitutions in modelling rigid origami. These results expand the toolbox of rigid origami mechanisms that engineers and materials scientists may use in origami-inspired designs.« less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2023
  4. ; ; ; ( , Atmospheric Research)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2023
  5. ; ( , Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 16, 2023
  6. ; ; ; ( , Biochemistry)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2023
  7. ; ; ; ( , Limnology and Oceanography)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2023
  8. ; ; ; ; ( , Global Change Biology)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2023
  9. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Ecological Applications)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2023
  10. ; ; ; ; ; ( , Transactions of the American Mathematical Society)
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available January 1, 2023