Unmiraculous facultative anaerobes (comment on DOI 10.1002/bies.201600174).

Going retro: Transposable elements, embryonic stem cells, and the mammalian placenta (retrospective on DOI 10.1002/bies.201300059).

Is anti‐viral defence the evolutionary origin of mRNA turnover? (Comment on DOI 10.1002/bies.201600100)

In this issue of BioEssays, Hamid and Makeyev explore an interesting new idea regarding the evolutionary origins of regulated mRNA turnover pathways [1]. One such pathway is nonsensemediated decay (NMD) that detects and targets for degradation a subset of mRNAs including transcripts with premature translation termination codons. The authors develop a model in which these pathways initially evol...

Effects of hyperbaric oxygen on aggressive periodontitis and subgingival anaerobes in Chinese patients

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) on aggressive periodontitis (AgP), and subgingival obligate anaerobes in Chinese patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty cases of Chinese patients with AgP were randomly divided into two groups -the HBO2 group (30 cases) and the control group (30 cases). Study teeth were divided into four groups -: the HBO2 therapy, the HBO2 + sca...

Comment on "Does constructive neutral evolution play an important role in the origin of cellular complexity?" DOI 10.1002/bies.201100010.

Speijer [1] has provided a critique of constructive neutral evolution (CNE) and its role in the origin and evolution of cellular complexity [2, 3]. Not surprisingly, we disagree with his assertions. Because his description of the CNE model does not precisely conform to our view of CNE, as we [2, 4] and Stoltzfus [3] have elaborated it, we briefly re-state the model before addressing Speijer’s o...

Predation between prokaryotes and the origin of eukaryotes.

Accumulating data suggest that the eukaryotic cell originated from a merger of two prokaryotes, an archaeal host and a bacterial endosymbiont. However, since prokaryotes are unable to perform phagocytosis, the means by which the endosymbiont entered its host is an enigma. We suggest that a predatory or parasitic interaction between prokaryotes provides a reasonable explanation for this conundru...