Warmer nights offer no respite for a defensive mutualism

Symbiotes and defensive Mutualism: Moving Target Defense

If we wish to break the continual cycle of patching and replacing our core monoculture systems to defend against attacker evasion tactics, we must redesign the way systems are deployed so that the attacker can no longer glean the information about one system that allows attacking any other like system. Hence, a new poly-culture architecture that provides complete uniqueness for each distinct de...

The Persian Nights Vs. The Arabian Nights

This paper explores the possible origins of some names in 1001 Nights. The names of the major characters of the Night stories, and their borrowed reflexes in Arabic, have been traced back to their ancient Persian roots. Examples from classical works are brought to argue that Shahrāzād, Shahriyār, and Dīnāzād are not only the correct forms but more suitable to the deep structure of the frame-sto...

A respite from chikungunya for now.

A warmer Arctic means change for all.

horrific end, foiling yet another search for a Northwest Passage. Despite dozens of rescue missions in the following years, none of Franklin’s crew was seen alive again. Yet it was those missions that finally led to the mapping of a water route to the Orient— albeit an ice-clogged one. The centuries-long quest for the fabled Northwest Passage proved quixotic for generations of explorers, but wh...

Antibiotic-producing symbionts dynamically transition between plant pathogenicity and insect-defensive mutualism

Pathogenic and mutualistic bacteria associated with eukaryotic hosts often lack distinctive genomic features, suggesting regular transitions between these lifestyles. Here we present evidence supporting a dynamic transition from plant pathogenicity to insect-defensive mutualism in symbiotic Burkholderia gladioli bacteria. In a group of herbivorous beetles, these symbionts protect the vulnerable...