Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto

Extremophiles and Extreme Environments

Over the last decades, the study of extremophiles has providing ground breaking discoveries that challenge the paradigms of modern biology and make us rethink intriguing questions such as what is life?, what are the limits of life?, and what are the fundamental features of life?. These findings and possibilities have made the study of life in extreme environments one of the most exciting areas of research in recent decades. However, despite the latest advances we are just in the beginning of exploring and characterizing the world of extremophiles. This special issue discusses several aspects of these fascinating organisms, exploring their habitats, biodiversity, ecology, evolution, genetics, biochemistry, and biotechnological applications in a collection of exciting reviews and original articles written by leading experts and research groups in the field. [...].

Platelets: Still a Therapeutical Target for Haemostatic Disorders

Platelets are cytoplasmatic fragments from bone marrow megakaryocytes present in blood. In this work, we review the basis of platelet mechanisms, their participation in syndromes and in arterial thrombosis, and their potential as a target for designing new antithrombotic agents. The option of new biotechnological sources is also explored.

Opening up Peer Review in Life: Towards a Transparent and Reliable Process.

As an advocate of the transparency on the peer review process, during the last months, Ive been working with MDPI to implant a new system of open peer review, under which the peer-review reports and authors responses are published as an integral part of the final version of each article. This new model of publishing associated with the open access platform of MDPI result in one of the most transparent, unbiased, democratic and reliable assessment of research currently available. Life is the first MDPI journal to make this courageous step towards open peer-review in order to demonstrate the rigorous, fair and efficient standard of our editorial work. The first paper published under this new policy was a manuscript written by a Nobelist and reviewed by three experts in the field, as highlighted in this editorial.

Mycoses and Antifungals: reviewing the basis of a current problem that still is a biotechnological target for marine products

Currently, the limited number of antifungals available for treating fungal infections, the increased multiresistance, and the adverse effects are the major obstacles for fungal infection therapy. Recently, emergent opportunistic fungus infections have been described and reinforced the requirement of researches aimed at the discovery of novel antifungal agents. Herein we reviewed the main topics about fungi and its related infections, the antifungals available, their mechanism of action and resistance profile. In this work, we pointed fungi as a biotechnological target for finding new options in alternative sources such as marine products with new mechanisms of action to allow treating these dangerous infections.

Dosimetria esporular: Bacillus subtilis TKJ6312 como biossensor de radiação solar biologicamente ativa

Since 2000, spore dosimetry and spectral photometry have been performed in parallel at the Southern Space Observatory, Sao Martinho da Serra (Southern Brazil). A comparative study involving data from Punta Arenas - Chile (53.2o S), Sao Martinho da Serra (29.5o S), Padang - Indonesia (0.9oS), Brussels - Belgium (50.9o N) and Kiyotake - Japan (31.9o N) from 2000 to 2006 is presented. The Spore Inactivation Doses presented the higher values in summer (973 ± 73 for Punta Arenas and 4,369 ± 202 for Sao Martinho da Serra, as well 1,402 ± 170 and 3,400 ± 1,674 for Brussels and Kiyotake, respectively). The simplicity, robustness and high resistance of bacterial spores makes the biosensor an potential biological tool for UV-B monitoring.

Letter from the New Editor-in-Chief

It is my great pleasure to serve as the new Editor-in-Chief of Life, a journal concerned with fundamental questions on the origins and nature of life, evolution of biosystems and astrobiology. With my experience as Executive Editor, Senior Editor and Guest Editor of so many successful special issues (some of them in MDPI journals [1-6]), I am committed to making the journal a success, with the launch of exciting special issues, publication of high quality papers, as well as inclusion of the journal in major indexing and abstracting services. In this editorial, I present my view and plans for the journal. [...].

Polar Microbiology: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Polar microbiology is a thriving branch of science with the potential to provide new insights into a wide range of basic and applied issues in biology. In this context, it is timely to review and highlight the progress so far and discuss exciting future perspectives. In this special issue, some of the leaders in the field have described their work, ideas and findings in a collection of reviews and original research articles with studies ranging from one of the oldest permafrost areas on Earth, located in Siberia, to the accretion ice of Lake Vostok, located in Antarctica. Altogether, these articles provide a comprehensive and reliable source of information on the current advances and future perspectives in this exciting field of research. In this Editorial, I present a brief overview on the theme [...]

Reconstruction and searching ozone data periodicities in southern Brazil (29ºS, 53ºW)

Ozone plays a very important role in the nature due its characteristics as a natural filter of ultraviolet solar radiation. Thus, it is pertinent for the scientific community to understand all natural influence factors involving ozone along with a large time series. In this work, a reconstruction of ozone time series obtained by Brewer spectrophotometer from 1994 to 2008 at the Southern Space Observatory (SSO) - 29oS, 53oW - Southern Brazil is presented. TOMS-OMI data were used to follow the days without data, where a coefficient of correlation between TOMS-OMI and Brewer is acceptable around r = 0.89. Besides, wavelet analysis to determine the temporal evolution of the frequencies and the amplitudes was applied. Moreover, wavelet analysis aiming to determine the temporal evolution of the frequencies and the amplitudes was performed. The results pointed a period of 365 days (1 yr) for the seasonal variation of ozone, of 600 days attributed for a possible QBO influence and two periods of 2000 and other 4000 days regarding possibly to the second harmonic of the 11-year solar cycle.