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LIFE SCIENCES ESSAYS GRADE 10-12

The document provides a clear structure on how to write the essays. This document has been created from information available from the internet and it is not meant for any business purposes (FREE SUPPLY) but to help South African Life sciences Learners by gathering all the important information together. Not for market purposes only meant at assisting the Learners with a simple clear alternative in the essay writing, With a compilation of essays from Grade 12-10. You have to read the essays with understanding and never try to memorize them, as that is never part of learning. We aimed at creating independent and innovative thinkers of the south African as non-profit organization. Sources 1. I’solezwe lesiXhosa, 17 September, 2015 page 11 2. Life Sciences Academics (Facebook page), DR Marian Ross 3. http://www.testtakingpa.com/study/ 4. South African Department Basic Education Exam question papers and memorandums available from WWW.dbe.gov.za 5. Mr. Chaple's Science Class Blog http://chaplescienceclass.blogspot.com/2017/09/dnastructure.html 6. Eastern Cape Department of Education https://www.ecexams.co.za/ExaminationPapers.htm

Related Papers

Life Sciences have always been a fundamental area of science. The exponential increase in the quantity of scientific information and the rate, at which new discoveries are made, require very elaborate, interdisciplinary and up-to-date information and their understanding. This fourth edition of Life sciences, Fundamentals and practice includes extensive revisions of the previous edition. We have attempted to provide an extraordinarily large amount of information from the enormous and ever-growing field in an easily retrievable form. It is written in clear and concise language to enhance self-motivation and strategic learning skill of the students and empowering them with a mechanism to measure and analyze their abilities and the confidence of winning. We have given equal importance to text and illustrations. The fourth edition has a number of new figures to enhance understanding. At the same time, we avoid excess detail, which can obscure the main point of the figure. We have retained the design elements that have evolved through the previous editions to make the book easier to read. Sincere efforts have been made to support textual clarifications and explanations with the help of flow charts, figures and tables to make learning easy and convincing. The chapters have been supplemented with self-tests and questions so as to check one’s own level of understanding. Although the chapters of this book can be read independently of one another, they are arranged in a logical sequence. Each page is carefully laid out to place related text, figures and tables near one another, minimizing the need for page turning while reading a topic. I have given equal importance to text and illustrations as well. We hope you will find this book interesting, relevant and challenging.

Life Sciences have always been a fundamental area of science. The exponential increase in the quantity of scientific information and the rate, at which new discoveries are made, require very elaborate, interdisciplinary and up-to-date information and their understanding. This fourth edition of Life sciences, Fundamentals and practice includes extensive revisions of the previous edition. We have attempted to provide an extraordinarily large amount of information from the enormous and ever-growing field in an easily retrievable form. It is written in clear and concise language to enhance self-motivation and strategic learning skill of the students and empowering them with a mechanism to measure and analyze their abilities and the confidence of winning. We have given equal importance to text and illustrations. The fourth edition has a number of new figures to enhance understanding. At the same time, we avoid excess details, which can obscure the main point of the figure. We have retained the design elements that have evolved through the previous editions to make the book easier to read. Sincere efforts have been made to support textual clarifications and explanations with the help of flow charts, figures and tables to make learning easy and convincing. The chapters have been supplemented with self-tests and questions so as to check one’s own level of understanding. We hope you will find this book interesting, relevant and challenging.

Halus Satriawan

Bekele Gebreamanule

Joyce Wawira

By the end of the course, the learner should be able to: 1. communicate biological information in a precise, clear and logical manner 2. develop an understanding of interrelationships between plants and animals and between humans and their environment 3. apply the knowledge gained to improve and maintain the health of the individual, family and the community 4. relate and apply relevant biological knowledge and understanding to social and economic situations in rural and urban settings 5. observe and identify features of familiar and unfamiliar organisms, record the observations and make deductions about the functions of parts of organisms 6. develop positive attitudes and interest towards biology and the relevant practical skills 7. demonstrate resourcefulness, relevant technical skills and scientific thinking necessary for economic development 8. design and carry out experiments and projects that will enable them understand biological concepts 9. create awareness of the value of cooperation in solving problems 10. acquire a firm foundation of relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes for further education and for training in related scientific field.

Science & Education

Eneku Ronald

Farah Ramzi

TRISNA AMELIA

This book contains concept of biology and the exercise in English language that can help the readers to improve their English skill in biology. There are eight main contents in this book, which are the chemistry of life, an introduction of metabolisms, biotechnology, mechanisms of evolution, classification of living things,reproduction in plant, thermoregulation, and ecology. Hopefully, this book can help the readers to expand their knowledge about English for Biology.

Nature Reviews Genetics

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A Beginner’s Guide: How to Write a Great Life Science Paper

4th Jul 2023

How to Write a Great Life Science Paper

Table of contents, introduction.

• Best Practices
• Choose the hypothesis you want to address
• Experimental Design
• Assessing the Work you've produced
• High impact or low impact?
• Writing in a Concise Way
• How many words should a paper be?
• Format of a life science paper
• Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Approaching Journals
• Journal Submission Requirements
• Be persistent!!

Sitting down for the first time to write your own life science paper can be a daunting prospect. Writing a PhD thesis is hard – but publishing a scientific paper adds another level of difficulty as it exposes us and our research to a greater level of scrutiny and criticism. So we thought we would start this article with two pieces of good news to get you started: 

• You are going to publish a life science paper! That is great news and many congratulations are due for all of your hard work to get to this position. 
• You are reading this article: when each of the scientists at ichorbio set out to write their first papers they had a blank screen: hopefully you can learn from our mistakes through the article below. 

We are mainly focusing our examples for publishing life science articles in the in vivo space as that is the background and strength of ichorbio, but as much as possible we have made sure that our beginner’s guide can be used by all life science fields. A few final points: 

• This has been a group effort, written by all of the R&D staff in ichorbio and we have paid for been reviewed by external consultants with extensive publication experience. So this article is from a “we” perspective, and so we hope it is more balanced and detailed because of it. 
• At the time of the first release our guide to writing a life science paper is just under 40 pages long, but please do not be overwhelmed: the document is double-line spaced to make it easier to read and we have also split it into ~1 page sections to make it more digestible. We have also tried to answer specific and practical questions about how to write a good science paper (for example “how long should a research article be?” and “how do we write a results section?”) – so feel free to skip to the specific part you need help on via the contents section below. We have also provided a pdf version of this document so that you can easily print out the specific pages you want to read in more detail (please be mindful before printing the whole article). 
• You may also be interested in our  lab planning documents - 12 documents to download to help you manage your experiments and workload. 

Before Writing your Life Science Paper: Best Practices

This may seem like an unusual place to start this document but we wanted to spend a little bit of time discussing the sorts of things you should be doing on a day-to-day basis to get yourself into a position to publish your life science paper in a high impact journal. 

Do a thorough literature review 

To ensure that your research is impactful you need to familiarize yourself with the body of research already published. Often there is a large amount of literature available, especially for hot areas of research and sometimes the results from different studies are conflicting. One way to address this could be to hire a group to do a systematic reviews on your behalf: an example is SYRCLE in animal research. Systematic reviews identify and critically evaluate the findings of all the relevant high quality studies that examine a particular research question. Systematic reviews establish to what extent existing research has progressed towards clarifying a particular issue. This can help provide implications for best practice and also shape the direction of future research. 

Choose the question / hypothesis you want to address 

At the start it may feel like you are fishing for research information or research topics to create a life science paper on and that is fine: everybody goes through that when they are trying to prepare for new grants and things. But this kind exploratory work is best suited for a small pilot trial and generally is not for paper format. Maybe it can be used for a presentation and a poster or a short paper at a meeting? It is important to keep evaluating the question you have chosen when you are performing your research: is it still the core question or hypothesis that is driving your main study or does it need to be adjusted? How does it fit into the current research in your field and how can you go about answering it / proving it to be true or false as the case may be? 

Make sure your experimental design is reasonable and appropriate for the study 

It is important that you make decisions about how to design your experiments from the outset so that you do not waste resources. This is of course critically important for animal research – but budget and time constraints affect us all so designing your experiments from the outset will help a lot. Some considerations before starting your experiments: 

• Do you have a clearly defined question? 

As discussed above. 

• What is the reference population? 

In the very first sentence in the methods section of a 2017 paper in a high impact journal the authors mention that they used male New Zealand white rabbits. When we look at this our first question is why have they only used males for this: are males actually representative of both males and females? And if not, why were just males used? Likewise the authors have chosen to use New Zealand white rabbits: are these the best model for this particular coronavirus versus others? Are they representative of all rabbits? Are they a good model for humans? And these are the sorts of questions that you should be thinking about when starting to design your experiments. Related questions will be how the groups are created, what are the endpoints of the experiment, what are the group sizes and more. 

• Is bias avoided at every stage? 

Bias distorts the end itself. And it is generally not intentional. People do not start out doing research and plan to have biased results, but it can occur and it can be reduced by blinding: 

In this experiment the individual, if it is a human based study, does not know which treatment group they are in. And the observer who is watching those subjects or dealing with them on a regular basis does not know which group they are in. In addition to this, the person analyzing the data does not know which group they are in and we can blind at a single, double or triple level. Obviously the triple blind scenario is the most robust when you think about quality of papers and publications. We just want to make a little tangential remark about randomization for studies. We need to think about this a lot, not only when you are conducting this study, but you also need to convey this when writing impactful papers: randomization reduces the possibility that unidentified determinants of the outcome will buy us the results of the study. That is why the method used to randomize the study should be described exhaustively in the methods section. Randomization is not the same as haphazard selection. So deciding that you are going to start with, for example, cage number three first and then move on to cage 8 is not randomization. Randomization could be flipping a coin every time a decision has to be made, or it could be done by using a random number list from a statistics textbook or my preferred way is just using a computer generated list from a website like www.random.org.

• Statistical analysis and interpretation 

A  paper published in 2010 was based on a survey of over 270 published papers: they all looked at experimental designs, statistical analysis and reporting of research using animals. In this particular study, they found that only 12% of these publications reported randomization and 14% reported blinding to reduce bias in animal selections and outcome measurements. 

They also found that only 70% of the publications fully described the statistical methods and presented the results with a measure of variability that allows readers to determine the significance of the findings. 

And then finally, less than 60% of the papers stated the hypothesis, the number and the characteristics of animals used. This suggests that there are a lot of areas for improvements and experimental design analysis and reporting. 

Are the right partners involved in the work that is going to be published? 

This is another important question that needs to be continuously asked as your project progresses: do you have all the right contributors for your project or are there skill sets that are perhaps missing? As an example, say we are reading a paper about a new mouse phenotype for a particular disease condition and it involves a lot of pathology analysis. If the authors of the paper are all molecular biologists and there is no comparative pathologists involved there could be credibility issues about the final conclusions of the phenotype. If you ensure that the right collaborators are involved it ensures the highest accuracy of interpretation, lends weight to your findings and can help when submitting your paper to high impact journals. 

Before writing your Life Science Paper: Assessing the Work you have Produced 

Decide what type of the manuscript to write. 

There are at least three options on the type of manuscript: 

• Full articles, or original articles , are the most important and impactful types of papers. Often they are substantial completed pieces of research that are of significance as original research. 
• Letters/rapid communications/short communications are usually published for the quick and early communication of significant and original advances. They are much shorter than full articles (usually strictly limited in size, depending on each journal). 
• Review papers or perspectives summarize recent developments on a specific hot topic, highlighting important points that have previously been reported and introduce no new information. Normally submissions for these are by invitation from the editor of the journal. 

You must self-evaluate your work: Is it sufficient for a full article, or are your results so good that they should be shared as soon as possible? 

It is worth asking your supervisor or a colleague for advice on the type of manuscript to be submitted. Remember also that sometimes outsiders – i.e. colleagues not involved in your research – can see things more clearly than you. 

Whatever type of article you write, plan to submit only one manuscript, not a series of manuscripts. (Normally editors hate this practice, since they have limited space and series of manuscripts consume too many pages for a single topic or an author/group of authors). 

High impact or low impact? 

Your first step in preparing to write a scientific paper is to think about the following: 

• Have we done something new and interesting? 
• Is there anything challenging in our work? 
• Is our work related directly to a current hot topic? 
• Have we provided solutions to some a difficult problem? 
• Could our work help others to progress their research? 

If your answers are all “yes,” then you should find success in submitting your paper to higher impact journals. If any of the responses are “no”, then it is more likely that you will need to submit your paper to a local journal or one with lower Impact Factor. 

Acceptance rates for the journal Nature 

Nature has space to publish only 8% or so of the 200 papers submitted each week, hence its selection criteria are rigorous. Many submissions are declined without being sent for review. 

When responding to these questions, you should keep in mind that reviewers are using questionnaires in which they must respond to criteria such as: 

• Does the paper contain sufficient new material? 
• Is the topic within the scope of the journal? 
• Is it presented concisely and well organized? 
• Are the methods and experiments presented in a way that they can be replicated? 
• Are the results presented adequately? 
• Is the discussion relevant, concise and well documented? 
• Are the conclusions supported by the data presented? 
• Is the language acceptable? 
• Are figures and tables adequate and well designed? 
• Are all references cited in the text included in the references list? 

Writing a Scientific Research Article 

Write the paper in a concise and clear way .

Is there a clear story? Can people follow the flow of the paper? One thing that we have always discussed with graduate students over the years is that you will rarely receive full credit for all the work that is done to pull a paper together: perhaps it took you nine months to learn how to embed tissues, prepare tissue sections and prepare a new immunohistochemistry assay for your lab. You will not get credit for that in the paper. Maybe you will get that in the appendix of your thesis, but it should not go into the paper. 

A common problem is that papers that are submitted are way too long. So you should work very hard at condensing your material and removing any filler words or filler paragraphs to ensure that people can really follow the storyline and connect the dots between the points that you want to make. 

Try to follow the point, proof, comment format for your paragraphs: 

• Tell them what you found in your paper 
• Provide the proof or support for your theory with other papers that have been published in that area 
• Wrap it up in a nice comment that summarizes what the conclusions are for that particular paragraph 

Experts find it really hard to be simple and straightforward when they are writing about things that they are experts in, but as much as possible try to use plain language and avoid jargon when you are writing. This can increase the accessibility of your paper and the audience can be much broader than you imagined. And one thing that is really annoying for reviewers and readers are spelling and grammar mistakes. It is simple to make these types of mistakes, but they are also very easy to fix: from a simple spell check to free apps like Grammarly that can recommend changes in sentence structure and more. If you are unsure whether parts of your article are clear enough, get somebody else to read it for you to make sure these little errors disappear. 

How many words should a life science paper be? 

There is no simple answer to this question and it is very important to look at the Guide for Authors in the life science journal you are looking to publish in. However, it is safe to say that an ideal length for a manuscript is 25 to 40 pages, double spaced, including essential data only. Some general guidelines are listed below:

Title: Short and informative 

Abstract: 1 paragraph (<250 words) 

Introduction: 1.5-2 pages 

Methods: 2-3 pages 

Results: 6-8 pages 

Discussion: 4-6 pages 

Conclusion: 1 paragraph 

Figures: 6-8 (one per page) 

Tables: 1-3 (one per page) 

References: 20-50 papers (2-4 pages) 

What is the format for a life science paper? 

The organization and structure of a scientific manuscript is always the same no matter what journal you want to target. It starts with a Title followed by an Abstract and well-chosen Keywords. 

For the content of the abstract, do not forget that this is what the reviewers get sent by the editors and what they use when they are trying to make a decision as to whether or not to review the paper. Reviewers will make a determination on the quality of your paper based first on the quality of your abstract. 

For the sections after, you should follow the IMRAD format, which is an acronym for the format below: 

• I ntroduction: What did you do compared to what was done before? Why did you undertake this research project? 
• M ethods: How did you do it and what did you use? 
• R esults: What answers did you find? 
• D iscussion: What is the meaning and the perspectives of all this? 

This section of main text is then followed by the Conclusion, Acknowledgements, References and Supporting Materials. 

While this is the structure of what your finalized life science paper will look like, it is actually easier and more logical to write it in a different order: 

1. Figures and tables of a life science paper 

“A picture is worth a thousand words” – and it is especially true in life science. Figures represent what you have worked so hard for and what is going to actually answer your chosen question for your paper. Therefore your data is the first thing to organize for your article. A key question is “what is the best format for figures and tables in your life science paper?” We will try and answer this question below: 

There are two main ways to present your data: as tables or figures. Tables can be very useful to organize and display the raw results of an experiment, whilst figures are visual representations of data and can be used effectively to compare different variables / groups with calculated or theoretical values (Figure 1).

To make a good decision, it is critical to think hard about the main point you are trying to make; however an illustration (table or figure) cannot be used to display an information that has been described elsewhere in the manuscript. And remember: illustrations must be self-explanatory 

Also: keep it simple scientist! Appearances count in life science! 

Below are some other considerations: 

Plots should not be crowded with data sets, lines and symbols (Figure 2), use no more than three or four data sets per figure and use appropriate axis scales, labels and label size 

Figure 2 Do not clutter your graphs with too much data, keep it simple but impactful. 

2. The Methods Section of a Life Science Paper: 2-3 pages 

Here is where you explain how your experiments were conducted. This section is easy to write if you are methodical and kept an up to date and detailed lab note book. Description of your methods must be complete, correct and written in a logical order. This is particularly important since reviewers will pay close attention to its quality and may reject the paper if they are not satisfied. Also, your results need to be reproducible by others. 

This section should describe the research protocol, the materials used (equipment, compounds, antibodies, etc.), how they were prepared / used, how measurements and calculations were performed and very importantly what statistical tests were used to analyze the data. All the compounds used in the study must be identified so you cannot use proprietary or unidentifiable compounds. 

The methods section is not the place to make any comments, describe your results and / or to discuss them.

Remember to keep it simple and brief: for established methods, you do not need to include all the details and it is a very common practice to indicate the previously published procedures. You will need to include them in the References but this can save you time and space in your paper. 

There are some guidelines you can follow to help you be precise and thorough during this process, for example: 

For compounds, you can check the recommendations of the  International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the  IUPAC–IUB Combined Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature . 

For animal use, use accepted taxonomical nomenclature (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature). 

For units of measurement, follow the  International System of Units (SI) . 

3. The Results Section of a Life Science Paper: 6-8 pages 

The results section is where you present all the answers you found to your research question. Tell a compelling story. To that end, think carefully about how you are going to organize this section and describe the data. This will also help tremendously for the discussion later. Present representative results only; we will talk about adding supporting materials later. 

You must organize this section logically. Use sub-headings and keep results that show the same conclusion together. It is more logical and will make it easier to review and read. The publisher’s guide for author contains very helpful tips for this. 

The results section is not the place to include references, you are talking about your results and your results only. Keep that for the discussion. 

Depending on whether or not you choose a print journal, print only journal or an open journal, you are going to be limited in how much and what you can present. Do not repeat identical material, tables, figures and texts. This just lengthens the paper unnecessarily. 

Illustrations should come with legends that allow the reader to fully understand the information that is in that particular figure or table. They need to be standalone and you need to have a really good legend; never assume that the reader will be able to identify objects in your images. So you want to put a little arrow, a letter or a number in there that points the readers to what it is that you want them to see and to get out of that particular image. 

With open journals, we recommend increasingly that people consider using supplementary data. Here you can include the data that may be sort of background or preparatory, not directly relevant to the points that you are making. This is way better and less frustrating than reading “data not shown” when you are trying to compare work between your own lab and others. 

Also think about using the supplementary data you need to have the appropriate statistical information to support the hypothesis. Do not try to “save” data for another paper. Instead use whatever you need to reinforce your conclusion.

Be very careful with your statistical analysis. Here are some rules to follow: 

• Indicate the statistical tests used with all relevant parameters: e.g., mean and standard deviation (SD): 21% (±3); median and interpercentile range: 5 years (2.5 to 7.5 years). 
• Use mean and standard deviation to report normally distributed data. 
• Use median and interpercentile range to report skewed data. 
• For numbers, use two significant digits unless more precision is necessary (3.14, not 3.1385611). 
• Never use percentages for very small samples e.g., “one out of two” should not be replaced by 50%. 

Just a side note about negative results as these are always challenging for us to think about and it continues to be a hotly debated topic. Sometimes these results are not as impactful but they help to address bias and they reduce unnecessary use of animals, equipment and other things. 

It is very common that research groups think that something was never tested before when in fact it was simply because that information cannot be found. This is changing little by little; you can now find online repositories as well as even very high quality journals that allow you to publish negative results – it’s all about how you market them in the title and of course other aspects of your paper. So we would highly recommend to include negative results where you think that the result itself is important. 

4. How to write the Discussion in a Life Science Paper: 4-6 pages 

The discussion is the most important section of your life science paper. In the Results section you tell a story; the Discussion is where you have to sell it! The Discussion is where you explain what the results mean and what are the perspectives of your work. Remember that a weak discussion can lead to the rejection of your manuscript.

As far as organization, you can think of your discussion as an inverted pyramid: start with the general and move on to the specific. First, briefly remind the readers the research problem you are investigating. Then describe your major findings (without reiterating the results) and compare them to similar studies by your peers whether they support yours or not. This is where you can show your ability to think creatively about issues, to interpret your findings based on evidence and your deep understanding of the research question you are investigating. 

Take into account the following tips: 

• Follow a logical stream of thought and do not state anything beyond what the results support 
• Do not introduce new terms, ideas or new results in the discussion 
• Do not rely on imagination for your analysis and interpretation: 
• Describe your major findings (pattern, principles, etc.) and compare them to your own research and the research of others 
• Describe and discuss anything that was unexpected (why do you believe it happened and its potential significance to your study) 
• Identify possible limitations and weaknesses and discuss how it could affect the validity of the results. Be honest but not apologetic 
• Propose recommendations for further research but not anything that could have been easily addressed in your study 
• Do not exaggerate! 

When it comes to revision, remember that it is not just paper work but actually represents lots of actual lab work. You will probably need to repeat and perform further experiments. This is a must when reviewers make critical recommendation that are needed to prove your hypothesis. 

5. How to write the Conclusion in a Life Science Paper: 1 paragraph 

The conclusion consists of a concise summary of the most important implications of your study. This is where you explain why your findings are important and how they contribute to advances in the field. Depending on the journal, it can be a separate section or the last paragraph of the Discussion. 

The conclusion is not a reiteration of the abstract, but a summary of your understanding of the problem. You can also use this opportunity to provide a clear scientific rationale for you study and propose any recommendations for further research. 

Try your best to leave the best possible impression to the reviewers and readers so they can judge your work based on its true merits. 

6. How to write the Introduction in a Life Science Paper: 1.5 – 2 pages 

One thing that is quite common is a lack of distinction between the introduction and the discussion sections of a life science paper. 

So just as a brief reminder, the introduction provides a very brief background and context for this specific line of research. It sets up the hypothesis, the objectives, and the approach for the particular research problem. 

The discussion, on the other hand, interprets and describes the significance of the main findings of the paper in light of previous or similar work in the field. It should outline some limitations of the work that was conducted and then point a way forward for future research. So try to avoid having background material in the discussion and interpretation pieces in the introduction. 

A good introduction should answer the following questions: 

• What is the research question? 
• What is your hypothesis? 
• How do you plan to answer and test it? 
• What are you objectives? 

First, you need to provide background information and context. Remember the inversed pyramid for the Discussion? It applies to the Introduction too. Start with the whole picture and move on to the specifics of your field. Base your study on the right scientific publications. Remember to include original and important studies as well recent review articles and be consistent with the nature and style of the journal you have chosen. 

However, avoid improper citations of too many references that are irrelevant to the work, it is not appreciated among editors, reviewers and readers. 

Here are tips you can follow: 

• Once again, be concise. You are telling a story not writing a novel 
• Keep it logical and remember the place and purpose of each section of your paper. Do not mix them together
• State clearly the hypothesis and objectives at the end of the introduction 
• Again, do not exaggerate. Try to use expressions such as “novel”, “first ever”, and “paradigm-changing” only sparingly. 

7. How to write the Abstract in a Life Science Paper: 1 paragraph 

How to write an abstract can be described in two words: Concise and Impactful. Which is easier said than done! 

An abstract is like a movie trailer: it is the first detailed look readers will get of your paper and they will not read your manuscript if the abstract is not interesting. 

The abstract is the last thing you will write in your paper: it includes key points of the Introduction, the Methods, the Results and the Conclusion. Despite that it is also very short so you need to be accurate, consistent and very mindful of the most important and meaningful aspects of your study. 

An abstract is usually organized in the following order: 

• Purpose 
• Study design
• Methodology 
• Major findings 

Do not forget to remove any extra information and make sure you follow guidelines of your target journal as they can vary quite a bit. 

8. Compose a concise and descriptive title 

The title of your research paper is the first thing editors, reviewers and later on readers will see. It will either draw their attention or be judged as not worth their precious time. Readers should deduce what your paper is about and its relevance to them based on the clarity and precision of your title. So this is going to require some serious thought and discussions with your co-authors. 

A good research article title should reflect the content of the study in only a few words and also differentiate it from others in your field. 

Keep the title informative, brief but also attractive. Avoid abbreviations and technical jargon as this will help to keep your readership as large as possible. 

The title is something that the reviewers are going to examine closely. Make sure it makes sense, do not exaggerate or overstate anything. 

8. Select keywords for indexing 

Keywords are what we use every day in search engines to find the information that we need. You need to select them wisely if you want readers to find your paper. You can think of them as the label of your manuscript and choosing the right ones will have a significant impact on the number of readers finding your paper when they are searching for different topics in PubMed or other databases. 

To look for keywords: 

• Follow the guide for authors of your target journal. Some of them require five to eight terms, others have strict rules about the nature of the words 
• Use words that you would use to search for papers in your field and related to your specific area of research
• Avoid words already included in your title, try instead to find alternate terms 
• Also avoid words with a broad meaning, focus on key concepts 
• Use abbreviations only well established in the field 

9. Write the Acknowledgements 

The Acknowledgements section is where you can thank people who have helped in carrying out the research but not to the extent that justifies authorship. Financial support should also be included here. You need to be mindful of who needs to be acknowledged and in what order. As always be concise and maintain the language formal. 

You can mention technical help and assistance with writing and proofreading in this section. Remember to thank your funding agency or the agency giving you a grant or fellowship precisely by including the grant number or reference and the exact name of the organization. 

10. How to write the References section in a life science paper 

The references sections is probably the more common place for mistakes. First make sure to check the guide for authors and find the right format and style that correspond to your target journal policy. 

Then, use the available tools such as software like EndNote or Mendeley to format and include references in your text. 

As mentioned above, even though you must cite all the scientific papers your research is based on, do not use too many of them. Do not to use excessive self-citations or citations from people of the same institution as yours. Finally all cited publications must come from peer-reviewed journals. 

Remember you need to present the references in the correct format: this is your responsibility. It is such a common place for mistakes that editors will really appreciate your effort to make their job easier. Whether or not you use a software to format and include your references in the text, you must check the following: 

• Spelling of author names 
• Year of publications 
• Usages of “ et al .” 
• Punctuation 
• Whether all references are included 

Approaching Journals 

Think carefully about which journals you select for publication .

If you have a lot of data or information you need to really carefully weigh the options; one single major high impact paper versus having two or more smaller, less impactful papers. There can be some pros and cons to each approach.

In general, we try to recommend having a single major high impact paper. You may have to lose a little bit of your data or information to be able to pull that together in a concise format, but it will have much more impact in the long run. 

You want to find your target audience right at the outset. And this really helps to determine which journals are going to be suitable. 

Make sure that you have read the scope for the Journal. This can avoid embarrassing early rejections of papers and then aim high. Of course we all want to publish in high impact places, but realistically appraise your paper and the results to determine whether the quality is really good enough for your first choice. Choose wisely and do not gamble by scattering your manuscript to many journals at the same time. Only submit once and wait for the response of the editor and the reviewers. 

You also want to take into consideration all the submissions and publication fees, whether or not it is open access or if there is an embargo period (six to 12 months). Think about those things when you are thinking about different journals and, which one will best meet your budget and timeframe. 

When your paper is successfully reviewed and accepted for publication, you will want to get it out to the research community as quickly as possible. Some journals will have an early version that people can access after it is accepted. It might be worth it to look at some previous issues of those journals to get a sense of their reputation and to see whether it is worthwhile publishing with them. 

The most common way of selecting the right journal is to look at the articles you have consulted to prepare your manuscript. Probably most of them are concentrated in one or two journals. Read very recent publications in each candidate journal (even in press), and find out the hot topics and the types of articles accepted. 

Finally, consider the high rejection rates of the journals (e.g., Nature, Science, The Lancet and Cell are >90 percent), and if your research is not very challenging, focus in more humble journals with lower Impact Factors. You can find a journal’s Impact Factor on its webpage or via  Science Gateway . 

You can start writing now! Format and structure your paper keeping in mind the guidelines of the journal you want to target. 

Follow the journal submission requirements 

After selecting the journal for submission, go to the web page and download the Guide for Authors, print out it and read the guidelines again and again ! 

They generally include detailed editorial guidelines, submission procedures, fees for publishing open access, and copyright and ethical guidelines. You must apply the Guide for Authors to your manuscript, even the first draft, using the proper text layout, references citation, nomenclature, figures and tables, etc. Following this simple tip will save your time – and the editor’s time. 

You must appreciate that all editors hate wasting time on poorly prepared manuscripts. They may well think that the author shows no respect. 

For the actual submission, you need to follow the requirements. This may seem like a really obvious point but it is something that happens quite often so use the journal checklist to ensure you have not forgotten anything. 

When you forget things this can lead to unnecessary delays in your submission (sometimes up to a month or two) and then all you get in return is a note back from the editorial office stating what is missing. At this point, the editor did not even look at it yet so you will have to go through the submission process from scratch. 

Make sure all your forms are signed and submitted. A common place for errors are in references and reference lists. Make sure you go over the in text citations and the actual listings with a fine tooth comb. 

Make sure the figures and tables are in the correct format and they are sized appropriately for the journal. 

It is particularly important to run a plagiarism check prior to submission when you have multiple authors on your paper. All journals run these plagiarism checks and this can help to avoid embarrassment later on. 

Something that we have found to be important in getting accepted into high impact journals is to write a very brief submission letter to the journal editor or sub-editor: you want to identify two or three bullet points that are really interesting and novel from your paper. And doing a nice little letter like this helps to get the editor interested and gets the paper moving quickly along in the process. 

Another tip is to submit at least two preferred reviewers for your paper. Sometimes the scope of a paper might be quite broad and people may not be aware of specialists or experts in your particular area so you want to make sure that the editors are sending it to the right place. 

Also, do not be afraid to identify anybody who you do not want to be a reviewer: in every field, there are people who may not agree with our particular research approaches or who are a direct competitor. It is fine to identify them. Again, you have to list a bullet point or two just to indicate why they should not be able to review your research. 

Be persistent in getting your life science paper published. 

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better” Samuel Beckett. 

Publishing can be a very humbling experience for everyone. It can take two to three attempts in different journals to get acceptance of a paper or even two to three sets of reviews with any given journal. 

If reviewers are highly critical of your paper, really take time to think deeply and reflect on their comments before starting your responses and use each set of reviewer comments to improve your paper. While you may not agree with every comment, try to address all the reviewer comments in some way. These people have donated their time and they have really thought about the items that you have put forward in your paper. It is only respectful to try to address their comments. 

One last point on this topic. If you have not heard back from the journal for some time after you have submitted don’t be scared to follow up with the editorial office. We all know that editors and the editorial offices are really busy, but it does happen once in a while that a paper is lost in the process. So again give them a sufficient amount of time but do follow up.

"Editor's Note: This post was originally published in March 2022 and was updated in October 2023 for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness."

LIFE SCIENCES GRADE 12 PAPER 1 QUESTIONS - NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS SEPTEMBER 2017

LIFE SCIENCES GRADE 12 PAPER 1  NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS SEPTEMBER 2017

INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION  Read the following instructions carefully before answering the questions.

• Answer ALL the questions. 
• Write ALL the answers in your ANSWER BOOK. 
• Start the answers to EACH question at the top of a NEW page. 
• Number the answers correctly according to the numbering system used in this  question paper. 
• Present your answers according to the instructions of each question.
• ALL drawings must be done in pencil and labelled in blue or black ink.
• Draw diagrams, flow charts or tables ONLY when asked to do so.
• The diagrams in this question paper are NOT necessarily drawn to scale.
• Do NOT use graph paper.
• You must use a non-programmable calculator, protractor and a compass  where necessary.
• Write neatly and legibly. 
• Round off all calculations to two decimals after the comma.

SECTION A  QUESTION 1  1.1 Various options are provided as possible answers to the following questions.  Write down the question number (1.1.1–1.1.10) and choose the answer by writing the letter (A–D) next to the question number (1.1.1–1.1.10) in the  ANSWER BOOK, for example 1.1.11 D.  1.1.1 Before copulation the male sperm is stored temporarily in the … 

• seminal vesicles.
• prostate gland.
• epididymis. 

1.1.2 An increased growth of algae due to too many nutrients in the water is  known as … 

•  bleaching.
• eutrophication.
• ionisation.

1.1.3 The photoreceptors stimulated by dim light: 

• Lens and rods
• Rods and cones

1.1.4 The average length of human gestation (from fertilisation to birth) is … 

QUESTION 1.1.5 AND QUESTION 1.1.6 REFERS TO THE  DIAGRAM BELOW. THE DIAGRAM REPRESENTS THE HUMAN  BRAIN AND PART OF THE SPINAL CORD. 

1.1.5 Which part of the brain is associated with balance and co-ordinating  muscle movement? 

1.1.6 Which part controls rate of breathing and heartbeat? 

1.1.7 During the development of the embryo the function of the amnion is  to … 

• serve as reserve food.
• give rise to the placenta.
• prevent the developing foetus from moving about.
• hold the fluid which protects the embryo against injury. 

1.1.8 Which ONE of the following features of genetically modified crops has  the potential of improving food security?  GM crops … 

•  increase the number of alien plant species.
• increase yield.
• increase the reliance on pesticides. 
• decrease genetic diversity. 

1.1.9 Parents will often tell children NOT, for even a few minutes, to stare at  the sun because … 

• bright light causes damage to the retina.
• the bright light will damage the lens.
• it dries out the aqueous humour.
• the light energy changes to heat energy in the eye. 

1.1.10 One of the functions of hormone, progesterone, is to … 

• prepare the uterine wall for implantation of the embryo.
• speed up the development of the follicles. 
• bring about the formation of the corpus luteum.
• stimulate the secretion of sweat. (10 × 2) (20) 

1.2 Give the correct biological term for each of the following descriptions. Write  only the term next to the question number (1.2.1–1.2.10) in the  ANSWER BOOK. 

1.2.1 A process by which a molecule of DNA forms a copy of itself  1.2.2 The structure in the head of a sperm cell that contains enzymes which  break down the membrane surrounding the ovum  1.2.3 The division of cytoplasm during the process of meiosis  1.2.4 A change in the internal or external environment that will be detected  by a receptor and converted into an impulse  1.2.5 The replanting of trees and shrubs in a forest  1.2.6 The hormone which is responsible for development of secondary sexual  characteristics in males  1.2.7 A layer of earth or rock that holds water  1.2.8 Structures found only in animal cells and lower plant cells that form the  spindle during cell division  1.2.9 Process by which a region becomes progressively drier and drier  1.2.10 That part of the nervous system which consists of cranial and spinal  nerves (10 × 1) (10)

1.3 Indicate whether each of the statements in COLUMN І applies to A ONLY,  B ONLY, BOTH A and B or NONE of the items in COLUMN ІІ. Write A only,  B only, Both A and B or None next to the question number (1.3.1–1.3.3) in the  ANSWER BOOK. 

• The type of cell division (mitosis or meiosis) in which this process  takes place (1)
• The process taking place at C (1) 
• The phase in which the process mentioned in QUESTION 1.4.1(b)  takes place (1) 
• The structure that holds the two chromatids together (1)
• The region marked F (1)
• The phase that follows the phase represented in the diagrams  above (1) 

1.5.1 What type of dump site is shown by the photo? (1) 1.5.2 Name a useful gas that may be obtained from this type of dump site. (1) 1.5.3 Give ONE use of the gas mentioned in QUESTION 1.5.2. (1)  1.5.4 State the name of the process where products from this dump site are  collected to be re-used again. (1)  1.5.5 Name ONE of the waste components that cannot be decomposed by  natural methods. (1)  1.5.6 Give the collective name given to gases causing global warming. (1)  1.5.7 Identify a health risk that poor management of this dump site can have  on the community living close by. (1) 

TOTAL SECTION A: 50

SECTION B  QUESTION 2  2.1 The diagram shows two eyes (X and Y) focused on objects (represented by  arrows) at different distances from the eye. Objects A and C were 3 metres  away from the eye. Objects B and D were 8 metres away from the eye.  NB: The diagrams are not drawn to scale 

2.1.1 Write down the LETTER ONLY of the object that:  

• Eye Y is focused on (1)
• Eye X is focused on (1) 
• Name the eye defect which results from the inability of the Eye Y to focus on Object D. (1) 
• Name the type of lens used to rectify the defect mentioned in  QUESTION 2.1.2(a). (1) 

The blood glucose level is regulated to a range of 70–110 mg per 100 mℓ blood in a normal person. If it rises above this level for an extended period the  person may have diabetes mellitus. 

2.2.1 Name the chemical substance secreted by the pancreas that will ensure  that the glucose level in a healthy person is not higher than 110 mg per  100 mℓ blood. (1)  2.2.2 Explain how the malfunctioning of the pancreas will affect the  maintenance of the correct level of glucose in the blood. (3)  2.2.3 Explain the possible negative influence on the body cells if the glucose  level is above 110 mg per 100 mℓ blood for a long time. (2) 

2.3 A Grade 12 learner performed an investigation to determine the effect of light  on the growth of plant shoots. The learner divided the plants that were used into  three groups as follows: 

• Group A The tip of the shoot was intact.
• Group B The tip of the shoot was removed.
• Group C The tip of the shoot was covered by a cap that does not allow light  to pass through. 

2.3.1 Name the dependent variable in this investigation. (1) 2.3.2 Which plant hormone is being investigated in this experiment? (1) 2.3.3 State TWO factors that must be kept constant during this investigation. (2) 2.3.4 Explain the results observed in: 

• investigation A (3) 
• investigation C (3) 

2.3.5 State TWO ways in which the learner could improve the reliability of this  investigation. (2) 

2.4.2 State ONE the function of each part: 

2.4.3 Explain why the brain is not initially involved in a reflex action shown  above. (3)  2.4.4 Explain what the effect will be, in the action shown in the diagram  above, if a person is suffering from multiple sclerosis. (2)  2.4.5 Explain the effect on the body if the part labelled D is cut/severed. (4)

QUESTION 3  3.1 The diagram below shows the development of an ovum in an ovary of a female.  2n and n refer to the chromosome number (2n is diploid and n is haploid). 

3.1.1 Name the processes taking place at:  

3.1.2 Explain the effect on the ovarian cycle shown above if a contraceptive  containing progesterone is injected before the cycle starts. (3)  3.1.3 Describe the changes that occurs from 1 to 2 in the diagram under the  influence of hormones. (6) 

3.2 Records of human fertility for the period 1941 to 1990 have shown changes in  the sperm count of normal men. The table below summarises the changing  percentages of men with high or low sperm count over a period of 50 years. 

3.2.1 During which time period was there: 

• The highest percentage of men with low sperm count (1)
• The lowest percentage of men with high sperm count (1) 

3.2.2 Calculate the percentage increase of men with low sperm counts from  1971 to 1990. (2)  3.2.3 Draw a bar graph to show the percentages of men with a high sperm  count for the period indicated in the table. (6) 

3.3.1 Give the letter of the part that absorbs extra pressure/vibration set up  in the cochlea. (1)  3.3.2 A surgeon place a tube called a “grommet” into the structure marked A.  Once in place the child should not go swimming. Explain this  instruction. (2)  3.3.3 Explain the significance of the positions of the structures labelled B. (3)  3.3.4 Name the tube connecting the middle ear to the throat and explain what  role it plays regarding pressure in the ear. (2) 

3.4 Study the extract below and answer the questions: 

3.4.1 From the passage, name the mineral found in mine dumps causing  ground water to be acidic. (1)  3.4.2 From the passage, describe the formation of acidic water in mines. (2) 3.4.3 Explain how acid mine drainage could affect: 

• The infrastructure in a nearby town (2) 
• Agricultural production on a nearby farm (2) 

3.4.4 Explain why abandoned gold and coal mines could affect food chains  in ponds/rivers/dams. (4)

[40]  TOTAL SECTION B: 80

SECTION C  QUESTION 4  A marathon runner took only 1 liter of water with him when he set off on a race on a  hot day. Describe the changes in his body to try to maintain normal body temperature.  Describe the role of the hypothalamus in regulating the water balance of his body. 

Content: (17)  Synthesis: (3) 

NOTE: No marks will be awarded for answers in the form of a charts or diagrams. 

TOTAL SECTION C: 20  GRAND TOTAL: 150

Related items

• Mathematics Grade 12 Investigation 2023 Term 1
• TECHNICAL SCIENCES PAPER 2 GRADE 12 QUESTIONS - NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS JUNE 2022
• TECHNICAL SCIENCES PAPER 1 GRADE 12 QUESTIONS - NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS JUNE 2022
• MATHEMATICS LITERACY PAPER 2 GRADE 12 MEMORANDUM - NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS JUNE 2022
• MATHEMATICS LITERACY PAPER 2 GRADE 12 QUESTIONS - NSC PAST PAPERS AND MEMOS JUNE 2022

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Collection  12 March 2020

Top 50 Life and Biological Sciences Articles

We are pleased to share with you the 50 most read Nature Communications  articles* in life and biological sciences published in 2019. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

Browse all Top 50 subject area collections here .

*Based on data from Google Analytics, covering January-December 2019 (data has been normalised to account for articles published later in the year)

Genome-wide analysis identifies molecular systems and 149 genetic loci associated with income

Household income is used as a marker of socioeconomic position, a trait that is associated with better physical and mental health. Here, Hill et al. report a genome-wide association study for household income in the UK and explore its relationship with intelligence in post-GWAS analyses including Mendelian randomization.

• W. David Hill
• Neil M. Davies
• Ian J. Deary

A 5700 year-old human genome and oral microbiome from chewed birch pitch

Birch pitch is thought to have been used in prehistoric times as hafting material or antiseptic and tooth imprints suggest that it was chewed. Here, the authors report a 5,700 year-old piece of chewed birch pitch from Denmark from which they successfully recovered a complete ancient human genome and oral microbiome DNA.

• Theis Z. T. Jensen
• Jonas Niemann
• Hannes Schroeder

A short translational ramp determines the efficiency of protein synthesis

Several factors contribute to the efficiency of protein expression. Here the authors show that the identity of amino acids encoded by codons at position 3–5 significantly impact translation efficiency and protein expression levels.

• Manasvi Verma
• Junhong Choi
• Sergej Djuranovic

Early coauthorship with top scientists predicts success in academic careers

By examining publication records of scientists from four disciplines, the authors show that coauthoring a paper with a top-cited scientist early in one's career predicts lasting increases in career success, especially for researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions.

• Tomaso Aste
• Giacomo Livan

Ancient DNA from the skeletons of Roopkund Lake reveals Mediterranean migrants in India

Remains of several hundred humans are scattered around Roopkund Lake, situated over 5,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains. Here the authors analyze genome-wide data from 38 skeletons and find 3 clusters with different ancestries and dates, showing the people were desposited in multiple catastrophic events.

• Éadaoin Harney
• Ayushi Nayak

Ketamine can reduce harmful drinking by pharmacologically rewriting drinking memories

Memories linking environmental cues to alcohol reward are involved in the development and maintenance of heavy drinking. Here, the authors show that a single dose of ketamine, given after retrieval of alcohol-reward memories, disrupts the reconsolidation of these memories and reduces drinking in humans.

• Ravi K. Das
• Sunjeev K. Kamboj

Sequential LASER ART and CRISPR Treatments Eliminate HIV-1 in a Subset of Infected Humanized Mice

Here, the authors show that sequential treatment with long-acting slow-effective release ART and AAV9- based delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 results in undetectable levels of virus and integrated DNA in a subset of humanized HIV-1 infected mice. This proof-of-concept study suggests that HIV-1 elimination is possible.

• Prasanta K. Dash
• Rafal Kaminski
• Howard E. Gendelman

XX sex chromosome complement promotes atherosclerosis in mice

Men and women differ in their risk of developing coronary artery disease, in part due to differences in their levels of sex hormones. Here, AlSiraj et al. show that the XX sex genotype regulates lipid metabolism and promotes atherosclerosis independently of sex hormones in mice.

• Yasir AlSiraj
• Lisa A. Cassis

Early-career setback and future career impact

Little is known about the long-term effects of early-career setback. Here, the authors compare junior scientists who were awarded a NIH grant to those with similar track records, who were not, and find that individuals with the early setback systematically performed better in the longer term.

• Benjamin F. Jones
• Dashun Wang

Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle

How do liberals and conservatives differ in their expression of compassion and moral concern? The authors show that conservatives tend to express concern toward smaller, more well-defined, and less permeable social circles, while liberals express concern toward larger, less well-defined, and more permeable social circles.

• Jesse Graham

A metabolic profile of all-cause mortality risk identified in an observational study of 44,168 individuals

Biomarkers that predict mortality are of interest for clinical as well as research applications. Here, the authors analyze metabolomics data from 44,168 individuals and identify key metabolites independently associated with all-cause mortality risk.

• Joris Deelen
• Johannes Kettunen
• P. Eline Slagboom

New insects feeding on dinosaur feathers in mid-Cretaceous amber

Numerous feathered dinosaurs and early birds have been discovered from the Jurassic and Cretaceous, but the early evolution of feather-feeding insects is not clear. Here, Gao et al. describe a new family of ectoparasitic insects from 10 specimens found associated with feathers in mid-Cretaceous amber.

• Taiping Gao
• Xiangchu Yin

Acoustic enrichment can enhance fish community development on degraded coral reef habitat

Healthy coral reefs have an acoustic signature known to be attractive to coral and fish larvae during settlement. Here the authors use playback experiments in the field to show that healthy reef sounds can increase recruitment of juvenile fishes to degraded coral reef habitat, suggesting that acoustic playback could be used as a reef management strategy.

• Timothy A. C. Gordon
• Andrew N. Radford
• Stephen D. Simpson

Phagocytosis-like cell engulfment by a planctomycete bacterium

Phagocytosis is a typically eukaryotic feature that could be behind the origin of eukaryotic cells. Here, the authors describe a bacterium that can engulf other bacteria and small eukaryotic cells through a phagocytosis-like mechanism.

• Takashi Shiratori
• Shigekatsu Suzuki
• Ken-ichiro Ishida

Hippocampal clock regulates memory retrieval via Dopamine and PKA-induced GluA1 phosphorylation

The neural mechanisms that lead to a relative deficit in memory retrieval in the afternoon are unclear. Here, the authors show that the circadian - dependent transcription factor BMAL1 regulates retrieval through dopamine and glutamate receptor phosphorylation.

• Shunsuke Hasegawa
• Hotaka Fukushima
• Satoshi Kida

Agreement between two large pan-cancer CRISPR-Cas9 gene dependency data sets

Integrating independent large-scale pharmacogenomic screens can enable unprecedented characterization of genetic vulnerabilities in cancers. Here, the authors show that the two largest independent CRISPR-Cas9 gene-dependency screens are concordant, paving the way for joint analysis of the data sets.

• Joshua M. Dempster
• Clare Pacini
• Francesco Iorio

Phylogenomics of 10,575 genomes reveals evolutionary proximity between domains Bacteria and Archaea

The authors build a reference phylogeny of 10,575 evenly-sampled bacterial and archaeal genomes, based on 381 markers. The results indicate a remarkably closer evolutionary proximity between Archaea and Bacteria than previous estimates that used fewer “core” genes, such as the ribosomal proteins.

Pan-cancer molecular subtypes revealed by mass-spectrometry-based proteomic characterization of more than 500 human cancers

Mass-spectrometry-based profiling can be used to stratify tumours into molecular subtypes. Here, by classifying over 500 tumours, the authors show that this approach reveals proteomic subgroups which cut across tumour types.

• Fengju Chen
• Darshan S. Chandrashekar
• Chad J. Creighton

CRISPR-Switch regulates sgRNA activity by Cre recombination for sequential editing of two loci

Inducible genome editing systems often suffer from leakiness or reduced activity. Here the authors develop CRISPR-Switch, a Cre recombinase ON/OFF-controlled sgRNA cassette that allows consecutive editing of two loci.

• Krzysztof Chylinski
• Maria Hubmann
• Ulrich Elling

CRISPR-Cas3 induces broad and unidirectional genome editing in human cells

Class 1 CRISPR systems are not as developed for genome editing as Class 2 systems are. Here the authors show that Cas3 can be used to generate functional knockouts and knock-ins, as well as Cas3-mediated exon-skipping in DMD cells.

• Hiroyuki Morisaka
• Kazuto Yoshimi
• Tomoji Mashimo

Genetic evidence for assortative mating on alcohol consumption in the UK Biobank

From observational studies, alcohol consumption behaviours are known to be correlated in spouses. Here, Howe et al. use partners’ genotypic information in a Mendelian randomization framework and show that a SNP in the ADH1B gene associates with partner’s alcohol consumption, suggesting that alcohol consumption affects mate choice.

• Laurence J. Howe
• Daniel J. Lawson
• Gibran Hemani

The autophagy receptor p62/SQST-1 promotes proteostasis and longevity in C. elegans by inducing autophagy

While the cellular recycling process autophagy has been linked to aging, the impact of selective autophagy on lifespan remains unclear. Here Kumsta et al. show that the autophagy receptor p62/SQSTM1 is required for hormetic benefits and p62/SQSTM1 overexpression is sufficient to extend C. elegans lifespan and improve proteostasis.

• Caroline Kumsta
• Jessica T. Chang
• Malene Hansen

The coincidence of ecological opportunity with hybridization explains rapid adaptive radiation in Lake Mweru cichlid fishes

Recent studies have suggested that hybridization can facilitate adaptive radiations. Here, the authors show that opportunity for hybridization differentiates Lake Mweru, where cichlids radiated, and Lake Bangweulu, where cichlids did not radiate despite ecological opportunity in both lakes.

• Joana I. Meier
• Rike B. Stelkens
• Ole Seehausen

Flagellin-elicited adaptive immunity suppresses flagellated microbiota and vaccinates against chronic inflammatory diseases

Gut microbiota alterations, including enrichment of flagellated bacteria, are associated with metabolic syndrome and chronic inflammatory diseases. Here, Tran et al. show, in mice, that elicitation of mucosal anti-flagellin antibodies protects against experimental colitis and ameliorates diet-induced obesity.

• Hao Q. Tran
• Ruth E. Ley
• Benoit Chassaing

Possible role of L-form switching in recurrent urinary tract infection

The reservoir for recurrent urinary tract infection in humans is unclear. Here, Mickiewicz et al. detect cell-wall deficient (L-form) E. coli in fresh urine from patients, and show that the isolated bacteria readily switch between walled and L-form states.

• Katarzyna M. Mickiewicz
• Yoshikazu Kawai
• Jeff Errington

Dual microglia effects on blood brain barrier permeability induced by systemic inflammation

Although it is known that microglia respond to injury and systemic disease in the brain, it is unclear if they modulate blood–brain barrier (BBB) integrity, which is critical for regulating neuroinflammatory responses. Here authors demonstrate that microglia respond to inflammation by migrating towards and accumulating around cerebral vessels, where they initially maintain BBB integrity via expression of the tight-junction protein Claudin-5 before switching, during sustained inflammation, to phagocytically remove astrocytic end-feet resulting in impaired BBB function

• Koichiro Haruwaka
• Ako Ikegami
• Hiroaki Wake

Mice with hyper-long telomeres show less metabolic aging and longer lifespans

Telomere shortening is associated with aging. Here the authors analyze mice with hyperlong telomeres and demonstrate that longer telomeres than normal have beneficial effects such as delayed metabolic aging, increased longevity and less incidence of cancer.

• Miguel A. Muñoz-Lorente
• Alba C. Cano-Martin
• Maria A. Blasco

Extracellular matrix hydrogel derived from decellularized tissues enables endodermal organoid culture

Organoid cultures have been developed from multiple tissues, opening new possibilities for regenerative medicine. Here the authors demonstrate the derivation of GMP-compliant hydrogels from decellularized porcine small intestine which support formation and growth of human gastric, liver, pancreatic and small intestinal organoids.

• Giovanni Giuseppe Giobbe
• Claire Crowley
• Paolo De Coppi

Engineered E. coli Nissle 1917 for the delivery of matrix-tethered therapeutic domains to the gut

Anti-inflammatory treatments for gastrointestinal diseases can often have detrimental side effects. Here the authors engineer E. coli Nissle 1917 to create a fibrous matrix that has a protective effect in DSS-induced colitis mice.

• Pichet Praveschotinunt
• Anna M. Duraj-Thatte
• Neel S. Joshi

Ambient black carbon particles reach the fetal side of human placenta

Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy has been associated with impaired birth outcomes. Here, Bové et al. report evidence of black carbon particle deposition on the fetal side of human placentae, including at early stages of pregnancy, suggesting air pollution could affect birth outcome through direct effects on the fetus.

• Hannelore Bové
• Eva Bongaerts
• Tim S. Nawrot

Real-time decoding of question-and-answer speech dialogue using human cortical activity

Speech neuroprosthetic devices should be capable of restoring a patient’s ability to participate in interactive dialogue. Here, the authors demonstrate that the context of a verbal exchange can be used to enhance neural decoder performance in real time.

• David A. Moses
• Matthew K. Leonard
• Edward F. Chang

In-cell identification and measurement of RNA-protein interactions

RNA-interacting proteome can be identified by RNA affinity purification followed by mass spectrometry. Here the authors developed a different RNA-centric technology that combines high-throughput immunoprecipitation of RNA binding proteins and luciferase-based detection of their interaction with the RNA.

• Antoine Graindorge
• Inês Pinheiro
• Alena Shkumatava

A bacterial gene-drive system efficiently edits and inactivates a high copy number antibiotic resistance locus

Genedrives bias the inheritance of alleles in diploid organisms. Here, the authors develop a gene-drive analogous system for bacteria, selectively editing and clearing plasmids.

• J. Andrés Valderrama
• Surashree S. Kulkarni

Flavonoid intake is associated with lower mortality in the Danish Diet Cancer and Health Cohort

The studies showing health benefits of flavonoids and their impact on cancer mortality are incomplete. Here, the authors perform a prospective cohort study in Danish participants and demonstrate an inverse association between regular flavonoid intake and both cardiovascular and cancer related mortality.

• Nicola P. Bondonno
• Frederik Dalgaard
• Jonathan M. Hodgson

Senescent cell turnover slows with age providing an explanation for the Gompertz law

One of the underlying causes of aging is the accumulation of senescent cells, but their turnover rates and dynamics during ageing are unknown. Here the authors measure and model senescent cell production and removal and explore implications for mortality.

• Amit Agrawal

Optimizing agent behavior over long time scales by transporting value

People are able to mentally time travel to distant memories and reflect on the consequences of those past events. Here, the authors show how a mechanism that connects learning from delayed rewards with memory retrieval can enable AI agents to discover links between past events to help decide better courses of action in the future.

• Chia-Chun Hung
• Timothy Lillicrap

Mutant p53 drives clonal hematopoiesis through modulating epigenetic pathway

Ageing is associated with clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), which is linked to increased risks of hematological malignancies. Here the authors uncover an epigenetic mechanism through which mutant p53 drives clonal hematopoiesis through interaction with EZH2.

A systematic evaluation of single cell RNA-seq analysis pipelines

There has been a rapid rise in single cell RNA-seq methods and associated pipelines. Here the authors use simulated data to systematically evaluate the performance of 3000 possible pipelines to derive recommendations for data processing and analysis of different types of scRNA-seq experiments.

• Beate Vieth
• Swati Parekh
• Ines Hellmann

Cryo-EM structure and polymorphism of Aβ amyloid fibrils purified from Alzheimer’s brain tissue

Alzheimer’s disease is characterised by the deposition of Aβ amyloid fibrils and tau protein neurofibrillary tangles. Here the authors use cryo-EM to structurally characterise brain derived Aβ amyloid fibrils and find that they are polymorphic and right-hand twisted, which differs from in vitro generated Aβ fibrils.

• Marius Kollmer
• William Close
• Marcus Fändrich

Droplet Tn-Seq combines microfluidics with Tn-Seq for identifying complex single-cell phenotypes

Culturing transposon-mutant libraries in pools can mask complex phenotypes. Here the authors present microfluidics mediated droplet Tn-Seq, which encapsulates individual mutants, promotes isolated growth and enables cell-cell interaction analyses.

• Derek Thibault
• Paul A. Jensen
• Tim van Opijnen

An artificial metalloenzyme biosensor can detect ethylene gas in fruits and Arabidopsis leaves

Existing methods to detect ethylene in plant tissue typically require gas chromatography or use ethylene-dependent gene expression as a proxy. Here Vong et al . show that an artificial metalloenzyme-based ethylene probe can be used to detect ethylene in plants with improved spatiotemporal resolution.

• Kenward Vong
• Katsunori Tanaka

Artificially cloaked viral nanovaccine for cancer immunotherapy

Cancer therapy using oncolytic virus has shown pre-clinical and clinical efficacy. Here, the authors report ExtraCRAd, an oncolytic virus cloaked with tumour cell membrane and report its therapeutic effects in vitro and in vivo in multiple mouse tumour models.

• Manlio Fusciello
• Flavia Fontana
• Vincenzo Cerullo

A transposable element insertion is associated with an alternative life history strategy

Tradeoffs are central to life history theory and evolutionary biology, yet almost nothing is known about their mechanistic basis. Here the authors characterize one such mechanism and find a transposable element insertion is associated with the switch between alternative life history strategies.

• Alyssa Woronik
• Kalle Tunström
• Christopher W. Wheat

Patterns of genetic differentiation and the footprints of historical migrations in the Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula has a complex history. Here, the authors analyse the genetic structure of the modern Iberian population at fine scale, revealing historical population movements associated with the time of Muslim rule.

• Clare Bycroft
• Ceres Fernandez-Rozadilla
• Simon Myers

Single-cell transcriptomics of human T cells reveals tissue and activation signatures in health and disease

Immune cells are shaped by the tissue environment, yet the states of healthy human T cells are mainly studied in the blood. Here, the authors perform single cell RNA-seq of T cells from tissues and blood of healthy donors and show its utility as a reference map for comparison of human T cell states in disease.

• Peter A. Szabo
• Hanna Mendes Levitin
• Peter A. Sims

Genomic risk score offers predictive performance comparable to clinical risk factors for ischaemic stroke

Stroke risk is influenced by genetic and lifestyle factors and previously a genomic risk score (GRS) for stroke was proposed, albeit with limited predictive power. Here, Abraham et al. develop a metaGRS that is composed of several stroke-related GRSs and demonstrate improved predictive power compared with individual GRS or classic risk factors.

• Gad Abraham
• Rainer Malik
• Martin Dichgans

Mitochondrial oxidative capacity and NAD + biosynthesis are reduced in human sarcopenia across ethnicities

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass and strength associated with physical disability during ageing. Here, the authors analyse muscle biopsies from 119 patients with sarcopenia and age-matched controls of different ethnic groups and find transcriptional signatures indicating mitochondrial dysfunction, associated with reduced mitochondria numbers and lower NAD +  levels in older individuals with sarcopenia.

• Eugenia Migliavacca
• Stacey K. H. Tay
• Jerome N. Feige

NAD + augmentation restores mitophagy and limits accelerated aging in Werner syndrome

The molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial dysfunction in the premature ageing Werner syndrome were elusive. Here the authors show that NAD + depletion-induced impaired mitophagy contributes to this phenomenon, shedding light on potential therapeutics.

• Evandro F. Fang
• Vilhelm A. Bohr

Novel approach reveals genomic landscapes of single-strand DNA breaks with nucleotide resolution in human cells

Single strand breaks represent the most common form of DNA damage yet no methods to map them in a genome-wide fashion at single nucleotide resolution exist. Here the authors develop such a method and apply to uncover patterns of single-strand DNA “breakome” in different biological conditions.

• Lorena Salazar-García
• Philipp Kapranov

Evaluation of 16S rRNA gene sequencing for species and strain-level microbiome analysis

Here, the authors explore the potential of the 16S gene for discriminating bacterial taxa and show that full-length sequencing combined with appropriate clustering of intragenomic sequence variation can provide accurate representation of bacterial species in microbiome datasets.

• Jethro S. Johnson
• Daniel J. Spakowicz
• George M. Weinstock

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CS 224C Final Project Details

Stanford / spring 2024.

The final project is the main assignment of the course. Projects are required to be related in a reasonable way to at least one of the central topics of the course or related to other social science topics via the lens of computation. Final projects can be done in groups of 1–3 people; in our experience, groups of 3 lead to the best outcomes, so we encourage you to form a team of that size. Each project team will be assigned a mentor (a member of the teaching team), who will provide feedback on all their project-related work and generally be available.

Submission Format

The literature review, experiment protocol, and final paper must use the ACL submission format and abide by all the ACL requirements except where we have specified otherwise.

1. Literature Review: Due Apr 25th, 23:59pm PT

• General problem/task definition : What are these papers trying to solve, and why?
• Concise summaries of the articles : Do not simply copy the article text in full. We can read them ourselves. Put in your own words the major contributions of each article.
• Compare and contrast : Point out the similarities and differences of the papers. Do they agree with each other? Are results seemingly in conflict? If the papers address different subtasks, how are they related? (If they are not related, then you may have made poor choices for a lit review...). This section is probably the most valuable for the final project, as it can become the basis for a literature review section. .
• Future work : Make several suggestions for how the work can be extended. Are there open questions to answer? How do the papers relate to your final project idea?
• References section : The entries should appear alphabetically and give at least full author name(s), year of publication, title, and outlet if applicable (e.g., journal name or proceedings name). Beyond that, we are not picky about the format. Electronic references are fine but need to include the above information in addition to the link.

2. Experiment Protocol (Due May 14, 23:59pm PT)

Required sections:

• Research Questions : A statement of the project's core research questions.
• Data : A description of the dataset(s) that the project will use for either the analyses or evaluations.
• Methods or Approaches : A description of the methods or approaches that you'll be using, and a preliminary description of the approach that will be the focus of your investigation. At this early stage, some aspects of these approaches might not yet be worked out, so preliminary descriptions are fine.
• General Reasoning or Discussion : An explanation of how the data and approach come together to help answer or evaluate your core research questions.
• Summary of Progress : what you have been done, what you still need to do, and any obstacles or concerns that might prevent your project from coming to fruition.
• References : In the same format as for literature review.

3. Final Paper (Due Friday Jun 7, 23:59pm PT)

The final paper should be 8 pages long, in ACL submission format and adhering to ACL guidelines concerning references, layout, supplementary materials, and so forth. We'll provide additional guidance on writing up final papers. The course readings include many exceptionally good examples of NLP+CSS papers in this format.

There are two required paper sections that are special to our course:

Ethical Consideration : Please write an explicit discussion section of any potential ethical issues, such as around the ethical implication of the project, the use of the data, and potential applications of your work. Here are some recommendations from ACL's ethics guideline : "Ethical questions may arise when working with a variety of types of computational work with language, including (but not limited to) the collection and release of data, inference of information or judgments about individuals, real-world impact of the deployment of language technologies, and environmental consequences of large-scale computation."

• Authorship statement : At the end of your paper (after the 'Acknowledgments' section in the template), please include a brief authorship statement, explaining how the individual authors contributed to the project. You are free to include whatever information you deem important to convey. For guidance, see the second page, right column, of this guidance for PNAS authors (p. 12). We are requiring this largely because we think it is a good policy in general. This statement is required even for singly-authored papers, because we want to know whether your project is a collaboration with people outside of the class. Only in extreme cases, and after discussion with the team, would we consider giving separate grades to team members based on this statement.