Cadmium (Cd) is a highly toxic heavy metal that poses serious environmental and health risks. It reduces soil fertility and can cause renal failure, liver damage, bone fractures, hypercalciuria, and cancer in humans. Cd contamination in soil, originating from both natural and human activities, is especially concerning because it bioaccumulates in plants, entering the food chain and affecting crops like tomatoes, rice, cocoa, a...

Neurodevelopmental disorders are increasing globally, and metal exposure may play a significant role as an environmental factor. This cross-sectional study aimed to identify metal mixture patterns and assess their impact on children’s neurodevelopment. Data from 962 children (aged 4–5 years) participating in the Spanish INMA cohort study were analysed. Urinary metal concentrations (cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), se...

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is the third most common cause of heart failure. The multidisciplinary nature of testing — involving genetics, imaging, or cardiovascular techniques — makes its diagnosis challenging. Novel and reliable biomarkers are needed for early identification and tailored personalized management. Peripheral circular RNAs (circRNAs), a leading research topic, remain mostly unexplored in DCM. We aimed to asses...

Understanding the processes of adaptive divergence, which may ultimately lead to speciation, is a major question in evolutionary biology. Allochronic differentiation refers to a particular situation where gene flow is primarily impeded by temporal isolation between early and late reproducers. This process has been suggested to occur in a large array of organisms, even though it is still overlooked in the literature. We here fo...

Genetic structure can be strongly affected by landscape features and variation through time and space of demographic parameters such as population size and migration rate. The fossorial water vole ( Arvicola terrestris ) is a cyclic species characterized by large demographic fluctuations over short periods of time. The outbreaks do not occur everywhere at the same time but spread as a wave at a regional scale. This leads to a...