Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time, and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space. While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes, vast areas of the tropics remain understudied. In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity, but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases. To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge, it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Effect of initial seminal plasma fructose concentration on goat semen storage at 5 o c

Twenty-four goat semen samples were collected and divided into four aliquots, diluted with the citrate-egg yolk (CY), TRIS-egg yolk (TY) or industrialized coconut water with egg yolk (ICW-Y) extenders. The fourth aliquot was centrifuged to analyze fructose concentration and PLA 2 activity on SP. The semen was stored at 5 o C and evaluated at times fresh, 2, 24 and 48 h, in each time was evaluated the vigor, sperm motility and total morphological alterations. The animals were divided into two groups: group I- fructose concentration >710 mg/dL and group II- fructose concentration <480 mg/dL. The ICW-Y extender presented inferior results. The effect of the group was observed only in the ICW-Y. CY and TY worked similarly in the two groups. No significant difference in the activity of PLA 2 was found between the groups. However, ICW-Y should not be used for the storage of goat semen.Foram coletadas 24 amostras de sêmen capri- no. Cada ejaculado foi dividido em 4 alíquotas, e foram diluídas em citrato-gema de ovo (CG), TRIS- gema de ovo (TG) e água de coco industrializada- gema de ovo (ACI-G), a quarta, foi centrifugada para determinação da concentração de frutose e atividade da FLA 2 no PS. O sêmen foi conservado a 5 oC e avaliado a fresco, 2, 24 e 48 h, em cada tempo foi avaliado o vigor, motilidade e alterações morfológicas. Os reprodutores foram divididos em dois grupos: grupo I-concentração de frutose >710 mg/dL e o grupo II-concentração de frutose <480 mg/dL. O sêmen diluído em ACI-G apresentou resultados inferiores. O efeito de grupo foi obser- vado apenas no sêmen diluído em ACI-G. CG e TG funcionaram de forma similar nos dois grupos. Nenhuma diferença na atividade da FLA 2 foi en- contrada entre os grupos. Por outro lado, a ACI- G não deve ser utilizada para a conservação do sêmen caprino

Effects of estragole on the compound action potential of the rat sciatic nerve

Estragole, a relatively nontoxic terpenoid ether, is an important constituent of many essential oils with widespread applications in folk medicine and aromatherapy and known to have potent local anesthetic activity. We investigated the effects of estragole on the compound action potential (CAP) of the rat sciatic nerve. The experiments were carried out on sciatic nerves dissected from Wistar rats. Nerves, mounted in a moist chamber, were stimulated at a frequency of 0.2 Hz, with electric pulses of 50-100-µs duration at 10-20 V, and evoked CAP were monitored on an oscilloscope and recorded on a computer. CAP control parameters were: peak-to-peak amplitude (PPA), 9.9 ± 0.55 mV (N = 15), conduction velocity, 92.2 ± 4.36 m/s (N = 15), chronaxy, 45.6 ± 3.74 µs (N = 5), and rheobase, 3.9 ± 0.78 V (N = 5). Estragole induced a dose-dependent blockade of the CAP. At 0.6 mM, estragole had no demonstrable effect. At 2.0 and 6.0 mM estragole, PPA was significantly reduced at the end of 180-min exposure of the nerve to the drug to 85.6 ± 3.96 and 13.04 ± 1.80% of control, respectively. At 4.0 mM, estragole significantly altered PPA, conduction velocity, chronaxy, and rheobase (P <= 0.05, ANOVA; N = 5) to 49.3 ± 6.21 and 77.7 ± 3.84, 125.9 ± 10.43 and 116.7 ± 4.59%, of control, respectively. All of these effects developed slowly and were reversible upon a 300-min wash-out. The data show that estragole dose-dependently blocks nerve excitability

A New Boson with a Mass of 125 GeV Observed with the CMS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

The Higgs boson was postulated nearly five decades ago within the framework of the standard model of particle physics and has been the subject of numerous searches at accelerators around the world. Its discovery would verify the existence of a complex scalar field thought to give mass to three of the carriers of the electroweak force-the W+, W-, and Z(0) bosons-as well as to the fundamental quarks and leptons. The CMS Collaboration has observed, with a statistical significance of five standard deviations, a new particle produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The evidence is strongest in the diphoton and four-lepton (electrons and/or muons) final states, which provide the best mass resolution in the CMS detector. The probability of the observed signal being due to a random fluctuation of the background is about 1 in 3 x 10(6). The new particle is a boson with spin not equal to 1 and has a mass of about 1.25 giga-electron volts. Although its measured properties are, within the uncertainties of the present data, consistent with those expected of the Higgs boson, more data are needed to elucidate the precise nature of the new particle

Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC

The article is the pre-print version of the final publishing paper that is available from the link below.Results are presented from searches for the standard model Higgs boson in proton–proton collisions At √s = 7 and 8 TeV in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the LHC, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb−1 at 7TeV and 5.3 fb−1 at 8 TeV. The search is performed in five decay modes: γγ, ZZ, W+W−, τ+τ−, and bb. An excess of events is observed above the expected background, with a local significance of 5.0 standard deviations, at a mass near 125 GeV, signalling the production of a new particle. The expected significance for a standard model Higgs boson of that mass is 5.8 standard deviations. The excess is most significant in the two decay modes with the best mass resolution, γγ and ZZ; a fit to these signals gives a mass of 125.3±0.4(stat.)±0.5(syst.) GeV. The decay to two photons indicates that the new particle is a boson with spin different from one