The tar genes directing the synthesis of poly(ribitol phosphate), the main teichoic acid in Bacillus subtilis strain W23, were sequenced. They are organized in two divergently transcribed operons, tarABIJKL and tarDF, as are the tag genes specifying poly(glycerol phosphate) synthesis in B. subtilis 168. The features of the tar genes as well as the putative participation of their products in the...

The advent of affordable sequencing technology provides for a new generation of explorers who probe the world's microbial diversity. Projects such as Tara Oceans, Moorea Biocode Project and Gut Microbiome rely on sequencing technologies to probe community diversity. Either targeted gene surveys (also known as community surveys) or complete metagenomes are evaluated. The former, being the less c...

The development of antioxidant-active packaging has numerous advantages, such as the reduction of synthetic additives in food, the reduction of plastic waste and food protection against oxidation reactions. Different concentrations of extracts of the plants Caesalpinia decapetala (CD) and Caesalpinia spinosa "Tara" (CS) were incorporated into gelatine films as natural antioxidants. The physical...

In the May 22, 2015 issue of Science magazine, several articles (including the editorial, research papers, and perspectives) were published on the Tara Oceans Project and studies related to ocean microbes [1–8]. This represents truly a milestone for studies in both ocean ecology and microbial communities. As stated on the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) website (http://www.embl.de/...

13 The Tara Oceans Expedition has provided large, publicly-accessible microbial metagenomic 14 datasets from a circumnavigation of the globe. Utilizing several size fractions from the samples 15 originating in the Mediterranean Sea, we have used current assembly and binning techniques to 16 reconstruct 290 putative high-quality metagenome-assembled bacterial and archaeal genomes, 17 with an est...

Acquiring the raindrop size distribution (DSD) from radar data is still a challenge. For profiling radar, this distribution can be estimated from the Doppler spectra. However the Doppler spectrum is not a direct measure of the DSD. The radial component of the wind shifts the Doppler spectrum related to the raindrop size distribution along the Doppler velocity interval. Furthermore, the Doppler ...

Genes of the Drosophila Polycomb and trithorax groups (PcG and trxG, respectively) influence gene expression by modulating chromatin structure. Segmental expression of homeotic loci (HOM) initiated in early embryogenesis is maintained by a balance of antagonistic PcG (repressor) and trxG (activator) activities. Here we identify a novel trxG family member, taranis (tara), on the basis of the fol...

A matrilineal descent system practiced In and around the city of Calicut In southern India has had far-reaching Implications for the structure of the local built environment. The tarawad system, practiced by the Moplah Muslim, Hindu Nayar and Nambudrl Brahmin communities, has created a residential pattern of clan houses, also called tarawads, that sometimes contain as many as one hundred reside...

A surprise that has emerged from transcriptomics is the prevalence of genomic antisense transcription, which occurs counter to gene orientation. While frequent, the roles of antisense transcription in regulation are poorly understood. We built a synthetic system in Escherichia coli to study how antisense transcription can change the expression of a gene and tune the response characteristics of ...

Snow crystals consist of many different types of ice particles. Typical radar measurements observe only bulk properties of all types of ice particles present in a radar volume. Due to their difference in cross-section, large particles will reflect more power of the transmitted radar signal than small particles. If small and large particles are present in the same radar volume with comparable vo...