The changing global distribution and prevalence of canine transmissible venereal tumour.

BACKGROUND: The canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) is a contagious cancer that is naturally transmitted between dogs by the allogeneic transfer of living cancer cells during coitus. CTVT first arose several thousand years ago and has been reported in dog populations worldwide; however, its precise distribution patterns and prevalence remain unclear. RESULTS: We analysed historical literature and obtained CTVT prevalence information from 645 veterinarians and animal health workers in 109 countries in order to estimate CTVT's former and current global distribution and prevalence. This analysis confirmed that CTVT is endemic in at least 90 countries worldwide across all inhabited continents. CTVT is estimated to be present at a prevalence of one percent or more in dogs in at least 13 countries in South and Central America as well as in at least 11 countries in Africa and 8 countries in Asia. In the United States and Australia, CTVT was reported to be endemic only in remote indigenous communities. Comparison of current and historical reports of CTVT indicated that its prevalence has declined in Northern Europe, possibly due to changes in dog control laws during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analysis of factors influencing CTVT prevalence showed that presence of free-roaming dogs was associated with increased CTVT prevalence, while dog spaying and neutering were associated with reduced CTVT prevalence. Our analysis indicated no gender bias for CTVT and we found no evidence that animals with CTVT frequently harbour concurrent infectious diseases. Vincristine was widely reported to be the most effective therapy for CTVT. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide a survey of the current global distribution of CTVT, confirming that CTVT is endemic in at least 90 countries worldwide. Additionally, our analysis highlights factors that continue to modify CTVT's prevalence around the world and implicates free-roaming dogs as a reservoir for the disease. Our analysis also documents the disappearance of the disease from the United Kingdom during the twentieth century, which appears to have been an unintentional result of the introduction of dog control policies.This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final version of this article has been published by BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/10/168

How Common is Common Human Reason?:The Plurality of Moral Perspectives and Kant’s Ethics

In his practical philosophy, Kant aims to systematize and ground a conception of morality that every human being already in some form is supposedly committed to in virtue of her common human reason. While Kantians especially in the last few years have explicitly acknowledged the central role of common human reason for a correct understanding of Kant’s ethics, there has been very little detailed critical discussion of the very notion of a common human reason as Kant envisages it. Sticker critically discusses in what ways Kant is committed to the notion that there are certain rational insights and rational capacities that all humans share, and thus investigates critically how Kant thinks moral normativity appears to the common human being, the rational agent who did not enjoy special education or philosophical training

Didactical use of a remote lab: a qualitative reflection of a teacher

This work describes the teacher reflections about a didactical implementation using a remote laboratory and their impact on his practice. These reflections are analyzed from three different perspectives: how the literature review influenced the design of the didactical implementation (namely the first); how his reflection upon his practice influenced its modifications; how his research activity impacted and affected his teaching practices in the subsequent implementations and guided the modifications made. The remote lab was introduced in a Physics Course in an Engineering degree and was intended to be a learning space where students had the opportunity to practice before the lab class, supporting the development of experimental competences, fundamental in an engineer profile. After the first implementation in 2016/17 academic year it has undergone two subsequent editions with adjustments and modifications. Some features previously reported in literature such as: teacher’s experience with VISIR, the importance of an introductory activity and defining VISIR tasks objectives, were corroborated by the teacher during his practice and research. Others, such as the difficulty some students have in understanding the difference between simulation and remote labs appeared directly from his practice and were pursued in his research in order to deeply understand its implications

Seasonality and scenario dependence of rapid Arctic sea ice loss events in CMIP6 simulations

The end-of-summer Arctic Ocean is projected to face at least one occurrence of practically ice-free conditions (sea ice extent &lt;1×106 km2) by the middle of the century under all Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) scenarios. Climate models indicate that this transition toward a practically ice-free Arctic Ocean in late summer will be punctuated by rapid ice loss events (RILEs), i.e., year-to-year reductions in total sea ice extent that occur at a much faster rate than expected from the forced contribution. The extreme sea ice loss associated with RILEs in climate models exceeds any observed rates of sea ice loss since the start of the satellite era, including the highest observed rate of -0.28×106 km2 yr−1 during 2001–2008. As such, there could be a much faster transition toward practically ice-free conditions than expected based on a linear trend of past observations. However, RILEs are not well understood, and it is currently impossible to predict their occurrence a season to several years ahead. It is therefore essential to improve our understanding of these events. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of RILEs in a diverse set of 26 CMIP6 models, including five large ensembles, following both low- and high-warming scenarios over the period from 1970 to 2100. Our analysis shows that RILEs are expected to occur year-round, but the timing and duration of these events are found to be season-dependent, with less frequent but longer-lived RILEs in winter and spring and more frequent but shorter-lived RILEs in summer and fall under a high-emission scenario. In addition, we find that the warming scenario has a greater influence on RILE characteristics in the winter–spring season than in the summer–fall season. Our results also emphasize that model uncertainty is larger regarding the probability and characteristics of RILEs for winter–spring events compared to summer–fall ones. Finally, while the initial sea ice extent at which RILEs are triggered depends on whether they occur in September or March, the initial sea ice volume is similar for both months, which emphasizes the critical role of sea ice thickness as a preconditioning factor for RILEs. Based on CMIP6 models, there is an approximately 60 % chance that at least one summer RILE will start in September before 2030. This study of RILEs is particularly opportune as CMIP6 models suggest that, following a period of relative stability in Arctic sea ice, the probability of a rapid sea ice reduction will increase. Given the relatively stable conditions observed between 2015 and 2024, the current summer Arctic sea ice state may have an increased probability of being on the verge of a rapid sea ice loss event.</p

100 years of Rous sarcoma virus

In celebration of the centennial of the publication of Peyton Rous’s JEM paper on Rous sarcoma virus, this Perspective illustrates Rous’s broad and long-lasting influence on studies of tumor virology, oncogenes, and the molecular basis of carcinogenesis

An Environment-Sensitive Synthetic Microbial Ecosystem

Microbial ecosystems have been widely used in industrial production, but the inter-relationships of organisms within them haven't been completely clarified due to complex composition and structure of natural microbial ecosystems. So it is challenging for ecologists to get deep insights on how ecosystems function and interplay with surrounding environments. But the recent progresses in synthetic biology show that construction of artificial ecosystems where relationships of species are comparatively clear could help us further uncover the meadow of those tiny societies. By using two quorum-sensing signal transduction circuits, this research designed, simulated and constructed a synthetic ecosystem where various population dynamics formed by changing environmental factors. Coherent experimental data and mathematical simulation in our study show that different antibiotics levels and initial cell densities can result in correlated population dynamics such as extinction, obligatory mutualism, facultative mutualism and commensalism. This synthetic ecosystem provides valuable information for addressing questions in ecology and may act as a chassis for construction of more complex microbial ecosystems