Confusion between firearms and electrical weapons as a factor in police shootings.

Conducted electrical weapons (CEW) have risks including trauma associated with uncontrolled falls, probes penetrating the eye, and fume ignition. A lesser-known risk is weapon-confusion error with officers mistakenly discharging their firearm when they intended to deploy their electrical weapon. We searched for incidents of possible weapon confusion with the TASER® brand CEWs via open-source media, litigation filings, and a survey of CEW law enforcement master instructors. We found 19 incidents of possible CEW weapon confusion in law enforcement field uses from January 2001 to April 2021. We eliminated a case as not meeting our criteria for probable weapons confusion leaving 18 cases, thus giving a demonstrated CEW discharge risk of 3.9 per million with confidence limits (2.4-6.2 per million) by Wilson score interval. Ipsilateral carry of the weapons was historically correlated with increased risk vs. contralateral carry. Officer gender was not a predictor of weapon confusion. The psychological issues behind weapon confusion under stress are discussed. The concurrent carry of electrical weapons and firearms presents a very small but real risk of injury and death from confusion between an electrical weapon and a firearm.

Next-generation transcriptome assembly.

Transcriptomics studies often rely on partial reference transcriptomes that fail to capture the full catalogue of transcripts and their variations. Recent advances in sequencing technologies and assembly algorithms have facilitated the reconstruction of the entire transcriptome by deep RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), even without a reference genome. However, transcriptome assembly from billions of RNA-seq reads, which are often very short, poses a significant informatics challenge. This Review summarizes the recent developments in transcriptome assembly approaches - reference-based, de novo and combined strategies - along with some perspectives on transcriptome assembly in the near future.

De novo transcriptome assembly of drought tolerant CAM plants, Agave deserti and Agave tequilana.

BACKGROUND: Agaves are succulent monocotyledonous plants native to xeric environments of North America. Because of their adaptations to their environment, including crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM, a water-efficient form of photosynthesis), and existing technologies for ethanol production, agaves have gained attention both as potential lignocellulosic bioenergy feedstocks and models for exploring plant responses to abiotic stress. However, the lack of comprehensive Agave sequence datasets limits the scope of investigations into the molecular-genetic basis of Agave traits. RESULTS: Here, we present comprehensive, high quality de novo transcriptome assemblies of two Agave species, A. tequilana and A. deserti, built from short-read RNA-seq data. Our analyses support completeness and accuracy of the de novo transcriptome assemblies, with each species having a minimum of approximately 35,000 protein-coding genes. Comparison of agave proteomes to those of additional plant species identifies biological functions of gene families displaying sequence divergence in agave species. Additionally, a focus on the transcriptomics of the A. deserti juvenile leaf confirms evolutionary conservation of monocotyledonous leaf physiology and development along the proximal-distal axis. CONCLUSIONS: Our work presents a comprehensive transcriptome resource for two Agave species and provides insight into their biology and physiology. These resources are a foundation for further investigation of agave biology and their improvement for bioenergy development.

A near complete snapshot of the Zea mays seedling transcriptome revealed from ultra-deep sequencing.

RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) enables in-depth exploration of transcriptomes, but typical sequencing depth often limits its comprehensiveness. In this study, we generated nearly 3 billion RNA-Seq reads, totaling 341 Gb of sequence, from a Zea mays seedling sample. At this depth, a near complete snapshot of the transcriptome was observed consisting of over 90% of the annotated transcripts, including lowly expressed transcription factors. A novel hybrid strategy combining de novo and reference-based assemblies yielded a transcriptome consisting of 126,708 transcripts with 88% of expressed known genes assembled to full-length. We improved current annotations by adding 4,842 previously unannotated transcript variants and many new features, including 212 maize transcripts, 201 genes, 10 genes with undocumented potential roles in seedlings as well as maize lineage specific gene fusion events. We demonstrated the power of deep sequencing for large transcriptome studies by generating a high quality transcriptome, which provides a rich resource for the research community.

Evolution of extreme resistance to ionizing radiation via genetic adaptation of DNA repair.

By directed evolution in the laboratory, we previously generated populations of Escherichia coli that exhibit a complex new phenotype, extreme resistance to ionizing radiation (IR). The molecular basis of this extremophile phenotype, involving strain isolates with a 3-4 order of magnitude increase in IR resistance at 3000 Gy, is now addressed. Of 69 mutations identified in one of our most highly adapted isolates, functional experiments demonstrate that the IR resistance phenotype is almost entirely accounted for by only three of these nucleotide changes, in the DNA metabolism genes recA, dnaB, and yfjK. Four additional genetic changes make small but measurable contributions. Whereas multiple contributions to IR resistance are evident in this study, our results highlight a particular adaptation mechanism not adequately considered in studies to date: Genetic innovations involving pre-existing DNA repair functions can play a predominant role in the acquisition of an IR resistance phenotype. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01322.001.