Shaq's father never bought into the hype, warning early on that chasing the NBA too soon could cost more than it gives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied group I introns in sterile cultures of selected groups of lichen photobionts, focusing on Trebouxia species associated with Xanthoria s. lat. (including Xanthomendoza spp.; lichen-forming ascomycetes). Group I introns were found inserted after position 798 ( Escherichia coli numbering) in the large subunit ( LSU) r RNA in representatives of the green algal genera Trebouxia and Asterochloris. The 798 intron was found in about 25% of Xanthoria photobionts including several reference strains obtained from algal culture collections. An alignment of LSU-encoded r DNA intron sequences revealed high similarity of these sequences allowing their phylogenetic analysis. The 798 group I intron phylogeny was largely congruent with a phylogeny of the internal transcribed spacer region, indicating that the insertion of the intron most likely occurred in the common ancestor of the genera Trebouxia and Asterochloris. The intron was vertically inherited in some taxa, but lost in others. The high-sequence similarity of this intron to one found in Chlorella angustoellipsoidea suggests that the 798 intron was either present in the common ancestor of Trebouxiophyceae, or that its present distribution results from more recent horizontal transfers, followed by vertical inheritance and loss. Analysis of another group I intron shared by these photobionts at small subunit position 1512 supports the hypothesis of repeated lateral transfers of this intron among some taxa, but loss among others. Our data confirm that the history of group I introns is characterized by repeated horizontal transfers, and suggests that some of these introns have ancient origins within Chlorophyta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates fungi associations in Culex poicilipes mosquitoes which have been collected from Erbil City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. A total of 155 adult mosquitoes were analyzed, with 18% showing fungal infections. Molecular analysis using COI and LSU genes identified three Aspergillus species (A. niger, A. inflatus, and A. tubingensis). Sequences were submitted to GenBank and all of them recorded under the accession number, PV085519.1, PV085520.1 and PV085521.1 respectively. Phylogenetic analysis and secondary RNA structure prediction confirmed species-level relationships and showed genetic polymorphism. The study concludes that C. poicilipes may act as a vector for Aspergillus spp., with implications for public health.

Phylogenetic relationships, limits of species, and genera within Lycoperdaceae, were inferred by use of ITS and LSU nu-rDNA sequence data. Lycoperdaceae was confirmed as monophyletic, and Mycenastrum corium as a sister taxon to the ingroup. Four major clades were identified and received weak to moderate support and correspond with the genera Lycoperdon, Bovista, Calvatia, and Disciseda. The Lycoperdon clade includes species from Lycoperdon, Vascellum, Morganella, Handkea, Bovistella, and Calvatia. The structure within the Lycoperdon clade is unresolved and several clades are more or less unsupported, which suggests treating the supported Lycoperdon clade as the genus Lycoperdon. L. nigrescens and L. caudatum occur on single branches and their phylogenetic positions could not be resolved. The phylogenetic analyses identified 31 species of Lycoperdon, 11 species of Bovista, six species of Calvatia, and two species of Disciseda. In Lycoperdon three new species were recognized. A new species closely related to B. limosa is identified and discussed. A classification of Lycoperdaceae is proposed based on the results of the phylogenetic analyses. Morphological characters of species within and among identified clades are discussed.

The Sonajil region, renowned as a part the global copper belt, is situated within Eastern Azerbaijan province of Iran. Encircling the Sonajil copper belt are distinct halos, including potassic, phyllic, argillic, and propylitic alterations. This research employs remote sensing techniques to investigate the potential presence of porphyry mineralization in this area. Initially, the required pre-processing, including geometric and radiometric corrections, was performed on the Sonajil ASTER image. Following that, a range of alteration detection techniques was applied to the ASTER data, encompassing image-based methods such as band ratioing, as well as spectrum-based approaches including Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Spectral Information Divergence (SID), Mixture-Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF), Linear Spectral Unmixing (LSU), and binary coding (BE). The results of the extracted alterations from the utilized techniques are consistent and compatible with the region's rock formations, including quartz monzonite, granodiorite, and andesite. Therefore, the possible existence of a Cu-Au porphyry deposit is confirmed by remote sensing studies. For subsequent analyses, geochemical and geophysical studies are proposed for the Sonajil area to demonstrate the existence of the porphyry deposit. The research findings and the proposed approach hold promise for identifying and targeting hydrothermally altered zones in other high-potential regions worldwide, providing a valuable tool for exploration geologists in their quest to map prospective ore deposits.

Previous studies using the nuclear SSU rDNA and partial LSU rDNA have demonstrated that the euglenoid loricate taxa form a monophyletic clade within the photosynthetic euglenoid lineage. It was unclear, however, whether the loricate genera Trachelomonas and Strombomonas were monophyletic. In order to determine the relationships among the loricate taxa, SSU and LSU nuclear rDNA sequences were obtained for eight Strombomonas and 25 Trachelomonas strains and combined in a multigene phylogenetic analysis. Conserved regions of the aligned data set were used to generate maximum-likelihood (ML) and Bayesian phylogenies. Both methods recovered a strongly supported monophyletic loricate clade with Strombomonas and Trachelomonas species separated into two sister clades. Taxa in the genus Strombomonas sorted into three subclades. Within the genus Trachelomonas, five strongly supported subclades were recovered in all analyses. Key morphological features could be attributed to each of the subclades, with the major separation being that all of the spine-bearing taxa were located in two sister subclades, while the more rounded, spineless taxa formed the remaining three subclades. The separation of genera and subclades was supported by 42 distinct molecular signatures (33 in Trachelomonas and nine in Strombomonas). The morphological and molecular data supported the retention of Trachelomonas and Strombomonas as separate loricate genera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]