Men who Sell Sex in Peru: Evolving Technology and Sexual Cultures.

Men who sell sex in Peru today comprise an extremely diverse group. The ways in which they work, and the meanings their work carries, are similarly varied. Moreover, these men have adapted rapidly to recent changes in communication technologies with concomitant effects on aspects of sexual culture

Ecological selection of siderophore-producing microbial taxa in response to heavy metal contamination

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Some microbial public goods can provide both individual and community-wide benefits, and are open to exploitation by non-producing species. One such example is the production of metal-detoxifying siderophores. Here, we investigate whether conflicting selection pressures on siderophore production by heavy metals - a detoxifying effect of siderophores, and exploitation of this detoxifying effect - result in a net increase or decrease. We show that the proportion of siderophore-producing taxa increases along a natural heavy metal gradient. A causal link between metal contamination and siderophore production was subsequently demonstrated in a microcosm experiment in compost, in which we observed changes in community composition towards taxa that produce relatively more siderophores following copper contamination. We confirmed the selective benefit of siderophores by showing that taxa producing large amounts of siderophore suffered less growth inhibition in toxic copper. Our results suggest that ecological selection will favour siderophore-mediated decontamination, with important consequences for potential remediation strategies.This work was funded by the AXA Research Fund and BBSRC (BB/K003240) and NERC (NE/P001130) research councils to AB. SOB was funded by a “Bridging the Gaps” award and PhD scholarship from the University of Exeter. NT was funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement (656647). AML was supported by Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships within the EU Seventh Framework Programme. AB acknowledges support from the Royal Society

Stress causes interspecific facilitation within a compost community

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this record. Data availability: The data supporting the results are archived in Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5072/zenodo.835531Ecological theory predicts interactions between species to become more positive under abiotic stress, while competition should prevail in more benign environments. However, experimental tests of this stress gradient hypothesis in natural microbial communities are lacking. We test this hypothesis by measuring interactions between 10 different members of a bacterial community inhabiting potting compost in the presence or absence of toxic copper stress. We found that copper stress caused significant net changes in species interaction signs, shifting the net balance towards more positive interactions. This pattern was at least in part driven by copper-sensitive isolates – that produced relatively small amounts of metaldetoxifying siderophores – benefitting from the presence of other species that produce extracellular detoxifying agents. As well as providing support for the stress gradient hypothesis, our results highlight the importance of community-wide public goods in shaping microbial community compositionNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)University of ExeterAXA Research FundFP7 People: MarieCurie Action

Developing an award program for children's settings to support healthy eating and physical activity and reduce the risk of overweight and obesity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This paper aimed to identify the best way to engage, motivate and support early childhood services (ECS) and primary schools (PS) to create policy and practise changes to promote healthy eating and physical activity. This information would be used to develop a suitable program to implement within these children's settings to reduce the risk of childhood overweight and obesity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Medical Research Council's (UK) framework for the design and evaluation of complex interventions was used to guide the development of the healthy eating and physical activity program suitable for ECS and PS. Within this framework a range of evaluation methods, including stakeholder planning, in-depth interviews with ECS and PS staff and acceptability and feasibility trials in one local government area, were used to ascertain the best way to engage and support positive changes in these children's settings.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both ECS and PS identified that they had a role to play to improve children's healthy eating and physical activity. ECS identified their role in promoting healthy eating and physical activity as important for children's health, and instilling healthy habits for life. PS felt that these were health issues, rather than educational issues; however, schools saw the link between healthy eating and physical activity and student learning outcomes. These settings identified that a program that provides a simple guide that recognises good practise in these settings, such as an award scheme using a health promoting schools approach, as a feasible and acceptable way for them to support children's healthy eating and physical activity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Through the process of design and evaluation a program - <it>Kids - 'Go for your life'</it>, was developed to promote and support children's healthy eating and physical activity and reduce the risk of childhood overweight and obesity. <it>Kids - 'Go for your life' </it>used an award program, based on a health promoting schools approach, which was demonstrated to be a suitable model to engage ECS and PS and was acceptable and feasible to create policy and practise changes to support healthy eating and physical activity for children.</p

Cellular composition characterizing postnatal development and maturation of the mouse brain and spinal cord

The process of development, maturation, and regression in the central nervous system (CNS) are genetically programmed and influenced by environment. Hitherto, most research efforts have focused on either the early development of the CNS or the late changes associated with aging, whereas an important period corresponding to adolescence has been overlooked. In this study, we searched for age-dependent changes in the number of cells that compose the CNS (divided into isocortex, hippocampus, olfactory bulb, cerebellum, ‘rest of the brain’, and spinal cord) and the pituitary gland in 4–40-week-old C57BL6 mice, using the isotropic fractionator method in combination with neuronal nuclear protein as a marker for neuronal cells. We found that all CNS structures, except for the isocortex, increased in mass in the period of 4–15 weeks. Over the same period, the absolute number of neurons significantly increased in the olfactory bulb and cerebellum while non-neuronal cell numbers increased in the ‘rest of the brain’ and isocortex. Along with the gain in body length and weight, the pituitary gland also increased in mass and cell number, the latter correlating well with changes of the brain and spinal cord mass. The majority of the age-dependent alterations (e.g., somatic parameters, relative brain mass, number of pituitary cells, and cellular composition of the cerebellum, isocortex, rest of the brain, and spinal cord) occur rapidly between the 4th and 11th postnatal weeks. This period includes murine adolescence, underscoring the significance of this stage in the postnatal development of the mouse CNS

Phospholipase C-β4 Is Essential for the Progression of the Normal Sleep Sequence and Ultradian Body Temperature Rhythms in Mice

BACKGROUND: THE SLEEP SEQUENCE: i) non-REM sleep, ii) REM sleep, and iii) wakefulness, is stable and widely preserved in mammals, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. It has been shown that this sequence is disrupted by sudden REM sleep onset during active wakefulness (i.e., narcolepsy) in orexin-deficient mutant animals. Phospholipase C (PLC) mediates the signaling of numerous metabotropic receptors, including orexin receptors. Among the several PLC subtypes, the beta4 subtype is uniquely localized in the geniculate nucleus of thalamus which is hypothesized to have a critical role in the transition and maintenance of sleep stages. In fact, we have reported irregular theta wave frequency during REM sleep in PLC-beta4-deficient mutant (PLC-beta4-/-) mice. Daily behavioral phenotypes and metabotropic receptors involved have not been analyzed in detail in PLC-beta4-/- mice, however. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Therefore, we analyzed 24-h sleep electroencephalogram in PLC-beta4-/- mice. PLC-beta4-/- mice exhibited normal non-REM sleep both during the day and nighttime. PLC-beta4-/- mice, however, exhibited increased REM sleep during the night, their active period. Also, their sleep was fragmented with unusual wake-to-REM sleep transitions, both during the day and nighttime. In addition, PLC-beta4-/- mice reduced ultradian body temperature rhythms and elevated body temperatures during the daytime, but had normal homeothermal response to acute shifts in ambient temperatures (22 degrees C-4 degrees C). Within the most likely brain areas to produce these behavioral phenotypes, we found that, not orexin, but group-1 metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR)-mediated Ca(2+) mobilization was significantly reduced in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGNd) of PLC-beta4-/- mice. Voltage clamp recordings revealed that group-1 mGluR-mediated currents in LGNd relay neurons (inward in wild-type mice) were outward in PLC-beta4-/- mice. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These lines of evidence indicate that impaired LGNd relay, possibly mediated via group-1 mGluR, may underlie irregular sleep sequences and ultradian body temperature rhythms in PLC-beta4-/- mice

Fulani cattle productivity and management in the Kachia grazing reserve, Nigeria

Kachia Grazing Reserve (KGR) in northern Nigeria was home to some 10,000 Fulani pastoralists and their 40,000 cattle in June 2011. This study examines productivity and management of cattle belonging to livestock keepers within the reserve before and after a mass immigration event when 3,000 refugees moved into the reserve with their cattle to escape inter-community violence during May 2011. Data, on livestock management strategies (transhumance) and production parameters (herd size, composition, fertility, dynamics), were collected in March, June and October 2011.Cattle productivity in KGR is geared to supporting Fulani households while maintaining herd wealth. High offtake of young animals, especially the selling of heifers, was an unusual finding and may indicate that KGR pastoralists have been restricting their herd size voluntarily as well as limiting milk production to household requirements. This is probably due to the absence of a commercial milk market and a higher reliance on the sale of young stock to meet cash needs.Despite the widespread perception that grazing reserves are promoting sedentarisation of Fulani pastoralists and curbing transhumance, the inhabitants of the KGR were observed to practise wide-ranging transhumance both during wet and dry seasons driven by the limited availability of grazing. Some households selected a sub-sample of animals for transhumance rather than sending their whole herd, and some maintained cattle on alternative land-holdings outside the reserve. KGR households described modifying their usual transhumance practices in response to the mass immigration event and insecurity.Nevertheless, the herd demography results from this study are broadly similar to data obtained from other studies over the past 40 years, indicating that productivity and management practices have remained relatively unchanged

CORRIE: enzyme sequence annotation with confidence estimates

Using a previously developed automated method for enzyme annotation, we report the re-annotation of the ENZYME database and the analysis of local error rates per class. In control experiments, we demonstrate that the method is able to correctly re-annotate 91% of all Enzyme Classification (EC) classes with high coverage (755 out of 827). Only 44 enzyme classes are found to contain false positives, while the remaining 28 enzyme classes are not represented. We also show cases where the re-annotation procedure results in partial overlaps for those few enzyme classes where a certain inconsistency might appear between homologous proteins, mostly due to function specificity. Our results allow the interactive exploration of the EC hierarchy for known enzyme families as well as putative enzyme sequences that may need to be classified within the EC hierarchy. These aspects of our framework have been incorporated into a web-server, called CORRIE, which stands for Correspondence Indicator Estimation and allows the interactive prediction of a functional class for putative enzymes from sequence alone, supported by probabilistic measures in the context of the pre-calculated Correspondence Indicators of known enzymes with the functional classes of the EC hierarchy. The CORRIE server is available at:

Tightening slip knots in raw and degummed silk to increase toughness without losing strength

NMP is supported by the European Research Council (ERC StG Ideas 2011 BIHSNAM n. 279985 on “Bio-Inspired hierarchical super-nanomaterials”, ERC PoC 2013-1 REPLICA2 n. 619448 on “Large-area replication of biological anti-adhesive nanosurfaces”, ERC PoC 2013-2 KNOTOUGH n. 632277 on “Super-tough knotted fibres”), by the European Commission under the Graphene Flagship (WP10 “Nanocomposites”, n. 604391) and by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (“Graphene Nanocomposites”, n. S116/2012-242637 and reg.delib. n. 2266)