Thirty thousand years of vegetation development and climate change in Angola (Ocean Drilling Program Site 1078)

ODP Site 1078 situated under the coast of Angola provides the first record of the vegetation history for Angola. The upper 11 m of the core covers the past 30 thousand years, which has been analysed palynologically in decadal to centennial resolution. Alkenone sea surface temperature estimates were analysed in centennial resolution. We studied sea surface temperatures and vegetation development during full glacial, deglacial, and interglacial conditions. During the glacial the vegetation in Angola was very open consisting of grass and heath lands, deserts and semi-deserts, which suggests a cool and dry climate. A change to warmer and more humid conditions is indicated by forest expansion starting in step with the earliest temperature rise in Antarctica, 22 thousand years ago. We infer that around the period of Heinrich Event 1, a northward excursion of the Angola Benguela Front and the Congo Air Boundary resulted in cool sea surface temperatures but rain forest remained present in the northern lowlands of Angola. Rain forest and dry forest area increase 15 thousand years ago. During the Holocene, dry forests and Miombo woodlands expanded. Also in Angola globally recognised climate changes at 8 thousand and 4 thousand years ago had an impact on the vegetation. During the past 2 thousand years, savannah vegetation became dominant

Drug Predictive Cues Activate Aversion-Sensitive Striatal Neurons That Encode Drug Seeking

Drug-associated cues have profound effects on an addict’s emotional state and drug-seeking behavior. Although this influence must involve the motivational neural system that initiates and encodes the drug-seeking act, surprisingly little is known about the nature of such physiological events and their motivational consequences. Three experiments investigated the effect of a cocaine-predictive stimulus on dopamine signaling, neuronal activity, and reinstatement of cocaine seeking. In all experiments, rats were divided into two groups (paired and unpaired), and trained to self-administer cocaine in the presence of a tone that signaled the immediate availability of the drug. For rats in the paired group, self-administration sessions were preceded by a taste cue that signaled delayed drug availability. Assessments of hedonic responses indicated that this delay cue became aversive during training. Both the self-administration behavior and the immediate cue were subsequently extinguished in the absence of cocaine. After extinction of self-administration behavior, the presentation of the aversive delay cue reinstated drug seeking. In vivo electrophysiology and voltammetry recordings in the nucleus accumbens measured the neural responses to both the delay and immediate drug cues after extinction. Interestingly, the presentation of the delay cue simultaneously decreased dopamine signaling and increased excitatory encoding of the immediate cue. Most importantly, the delay cue selectively enhanced the baseline activity of neurons that would later encode drug seeking. Together these observations reveal how cocaine cues can modulate not only affective state, but also the neurochemical and downstream neurophysiological environment of striatal circuits in a manner that promotes drug seeking

Corrigendum to "Thirty thousand years of vegetation development and climate change in Angola (Ocean Drilling Program Site 1078)" published in Clim. Past, 4, 107–124, 2008

No abstract available

Treatment of travellers' diarrhoea with fleroxacin: a case study

A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of fleroxacin for one or two days as treatment for patients with travellers' diarrhoea. A total of 195 patients who were suffering with acute diarrhoea of less than six days' duration were enrolled. One hundred and fifty-one patients, of whom 49 received placebo, 54 received fleroxacin 400 mg for one day and 48 received fleroxacin 400 mg for two days, were included in the analysis of efficacy. The results showed that fleroxacin was significantly superior to placebo, but that there was no significant difference in terms of efficacy between the one- and two-day regimens. Adverse events, particularly minor neuropsychiatric disturbances such as headache and insomnia, were significantly more common amongst patients receiving active treatment. In conclusion, a single dose of fleroxacin 400 mg could be recommended as self-treatment for visitors to high-risk countries who develop travellers' diarrhoe

Human Health Effects Assays

Discussion of the exponential increase in environmental toxicological information and an approach for organizing and using the information was presented by Lu and Wassom.1 A user\u27s guide to the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS) was published by NIOSH2 that defines the record layouts and describes the types of data contained in the computer tape version of the 1984 Edition of the RTECS.3 A text summarizing information on approximately 800 toxic chemicals was edited by Sittig.4 Milestone publications concerning fundamentals of toxicology with environmental applications included the works of Gentile,5 Ashby,6 Mortel mans,7 Thacker,8 and Ruppert.9 Brusick and Auletta10 discussed the developmental status of bioassays in genetic toxicology reviewed by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Gene-Tox Work Groups

Prewetting transition on a weakly disordered substrate : evidence for a creeping film dynamics

We present the first microscopic images of the prewetting transition of a liquid film on a solid surface. Pictures of the local coverage map of a helium film on a cesium metal surface are taken while the temperature is raised through the transition. The film edge is found to advance at constant temperature by successive avalanches in a creep motion with a macroscopic correlation length. The creep velocity varies strongly in a narrow temperature range. The retreat motion is obtained only at much lower temperature, conforming to the strong hysteresis observed for prewetting transition on a disordered surface. Prewetting transition on such disordered surfaces appears to give rise to dynamical phenomena similar to what is observed for domain wall motions in 2D magnets.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Euro.Phys.Let

Bird pollination of Canary Island endemic plants

The Canary Islands are home to a guild of endemic, threatened bird pollinated plants. Previous work has suggested that these plants evolved floral traits as adaptations to pollination by flower specialist sunbirds, but subsequently they appear to be have co-opted passerine birds as sub-optimal pollinators. To test this idea we carried out a quantitative study of the pollination biology of three of the bird pollinated plants, Canarina canariensis (Campanulaceae), Isoplexis canariensis (Veronicaceae) and Lotus berthelotii (Fabaceae), on the island of Tenerife. Using colour vision models, we predicted the detectability of flowers to bird and bee pollinators. We measured pollinator visitation rates, nectar standing crops, as well as seed set and pollen removal and deposition. These data showed that the plants are effectively pollinated by non-flower specialist passerine birds that only occasionally visit flowers. The large nectar standing crops and extended flower longevities (>10days) of Canarina and Isoplexis suggests that they have evolved bird pollination system that effectively exploits these low frequency non-specialist pollen vectors and is in no way suboptimal. Seed set in two of the three species was high, and was significantly reduced or zero in flowers where pollinator access was restricted. In L. berthelotii, however, no fruit set was observed, probably because the plants were self incompatible horticultural clones of a single genet. We also show that, while all three species are easily detectable for birds, the orange Canarina and the red Lotus (but less so the yellow-orange Isoplexis) should be difficult to detect for insect pollinators without specialised red receptors, such as bumblebees. Contrary to expectations if we accept that the flowers are primarily adapted to sunbird pollination, the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus canariensis) was an effective pollinator of these species

Mental Health Needs and Services Utilization among Undergraduate and Graduate Students in Texas during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 created a global crisis, exacerbating disparities in social determinants of health (SDOH) and mental health (MH). Research on pandemic-related MH and help-seeking is scarce, especially among high-risk populations such as college/university students. We examined self-rated MH and psychological distress, the perceived need for MH services/support, and the use of MH services across the SDOH among college/university students during the start of the pandemic. Data from the COVID-19 Texas College Student Experiences Survey (n = 746) include full- and part-time undergraduate/graduate students. Regressions examined self-rated MH, psychological distress, perceived need, and service use across SDOH, controlling for pre-pandemic MH, age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Economic stability was associated with higher risk of poor MH and need for MH services/support. Aspects of the social/community context protected student MH, especially among foreign-born students. Racial discrimination was associated with both greater psychological distress and use of services. Finally, beliefs related to the sufficiency of available institutional MH resources shaped perceived need for and use of services. Although the worst of the pandemic is behind us, the inequitable distribution of the SDOH among students is unwavering. Demand for MH support is high, requiring higher education institutions to better mobilize MH services to meet the needs of students from diverse social contexts

Cloning, Expression, and Purification of a Nitric Oxide Synthase-Like Protein from Bacillus cereus

The nitric oxide synthase-like protein from Bacillus cereus (bcNOS) has been cloned, expressed, and characterized. This small hemeprotein (356 amino acids in length) has a mass of 43 kDa and forms a dimer. The recombinant protein showed similar spectral shifts to the mammalian NOS proteins and could bind the substrates L-arginine and NG-hydroxy-L-arginine as well as the ligand imidazole. Low levels of activity were recorded for the hydrogen peroxide-dependent oxidation of NG-hydroxy-L-arginine and L-arginine by bcNOS, while a reconstituted system with the rat neuronal NOS reductase domain showed no activity. The recombinant bcNOS protein adds to the complement of bacterial NOS-like proteins that are used for the investigation of the mechanism and function of NO in microorganisms