A concept for adapting medical education to the next generations via three-staged digital peer teaching key feature cases.

While the core principles of medical education remain the same, the students' socioecological backgrounds, values and learning requirements are constantly changing. Bridging the generation gap between teachers and students is a key challenge of medical didactics. To meet the demands of today's classroom, we piloted a novel three-stage peer teaching and key feature concept. First, an on-demand key feature video case was presented. Second a background video was launched, followed by a self-assessment tool. Third, a live case discussion webinar focusing on clinical reasoning was held. The contents were created by near-peers experienced in medical didactics and checked by clinical experts. The elective format resonated with 652 participating graduate students and 1250 interactions per webinar, suggesting that students' strengths and weaknesses were addressed adequately. We aim to provide educators with input for creating a flexible and integrative learning environment utilising modern technological and didactic tools that shape the healthcare workers of tomorrow.

Mixing alters the lytic activity of viruses in the dark ocean.

In aquatic habitats, viral lysis of prokaryotic cells lowers the overall efficiency of the microbial loop, by which dissolved organic carbon is transfered to higher trophic levels. Mixing of water masses in the dark ocean occurs on a global scale and may have far reaching consequences for the different prokaryotic and virus communities found in these waters by altering the environmental conditions these communities experience. We hypothesize that mixing of deep ocean water masses enhances the lytic activity of viruses infecting prokaryotes. To address this hypothesis, major deep-sea water masses of the Atlantic Ocean such as North Atlantic Deep Water, Mediterranean Sea Overflow Water, Antarctic Intermediate Water, and Antarctic Bottom Water were sampled at five locations. Prokaryotic cells from these samples were collected by filtration and subsequently incubated in virus-reduced water from either the same (control) or a different water mass (transplantation treatment). Additionally, mixtures of prokaryotes obtained from two different water masses were incubated in a mixture of virus-reduced water from the same water masses (control) or in virus-reduced water from the source water masses separately (mixing treatments). Pronounced differences in productivity-related parameters (prokaryotic leucine incorporation, prokaryotic and viral abundance) between water masses caused strong changes in viral lysis of prokaryotes. Often, mixing of water masses increased viral lysis of prokaryotes, indicating that lysogenic viruses were induced into the lytic cycle. Mixing-induced changes in viral lysis had a strong effect on the community composition of prokaryotes and viruses. Our data show that mixing of deep-sea water masses alters levels of viral lysis of prokaryotes and in many cases weakens the efficiency of the microbial loop by enhancing the recycling of organic carbon in the deep ocean.

Exploring novelty: a component trait of behavioural syndromes in a colonial fish.

Individual differences in exploratory behaviour have been shown to be consistent across contexts and suggested to be part of behavioural syndromes in a diversity of species, including fish. Exploration has also been shown to be a key factor in understanding complex ecological processes such as sexual selection and cooperation. Another important question in ecology is why animals breed in colonies. Exploration syndromes, by affecting prospecting behaviour, dispersal and public information use may also contribute to our understanding of coloniality. This study aims at investigating whether an exploration syndrome exists in a colonial fish species, Neolamprologus caudopunctatus. Individuals of this species were subjected to two consecutive tests, a novel environment and a novel object test. Results show that more explorative individuals in a novel environment are also less neophobic in the presence of a novel object, suggesting that the tendency to engage with novelty per se is a consistent trait and part of an exploration syndrome. These results are discussed in light of the contribution of an exploration syndrome to explain colony formation in animals.