The Slottsmøya marine reptile Lagerstätte: depositional environments, taphonomy and diagenesis

The Late Jurassic Slottsmøya Member Lagerstätte on Spitsbergen offers a unique opportunity to study the relationships between vertebrate fossil preservation, invertebrate occurrences and depositional environment. In this study, 21 plesiosaurian and 17 ichthyosaur specimens are described with respect to articulation, landing mode, preservation, and possible predation and scavenging. The stratigraphic distribution of marine reptiles in the Slottsmøya Member is analysed, and a correlation between high total organic content, low oxygen levels, few benthic invertebrates and optimal reptile preservation is observed. A new model for 3D preservation of vertebrates in highly compacted organic shales is explained

Near Resonant Spatial Images of Confined Bose-Einstein Condensates in the '4D' Magnetic Bottle

We present quantitative measurements of the spatial density profile of Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms confined in a new '4D' magnetic bottle. The condensates are imaged in transmission with near resonant laser light. We demonstrate that the Thomas-Fermi surface of a condensate can be determined to better than 1%. More generally, we obtain excellent agreement with mean-field theory. We conclude that precision measurements of atomic scattering lengths and interactions between phase separated cold atoms in a harmonic trap can be measured with high precision using this method.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. Submitted 10/30/97, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. A Rapid Com

Polyautoimmunity in patients with cutaneous lupus erythematosus:A nationwide sex- and age-matched cohort study from Denmark

BACKGROUND: Polyautoimmunity is defined as having 2 or more autoimmune diseases. Little is known about polyautoimmunity in patients with cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE).OBJECTIVES: To estimate prevalence and 5-year incidence of non-lupus erythematosus (LE) autoimmune diseases in patients with CLE.METHODS: Patients with CLE were identified In the Danish National Patient Registry and each patient was age- and sex-matched with 10 general population controls. Outcome information on non-LE autoimmune diseases was obtained by register-linkage between Danish National Patient Registry and the National Prescription Register. The risk ratio (RR) for prevalent non-LE autoimmune disease at time of CLE diagnosis was calculated in modified Poisson regression; and hazard ratios (HRs) for incident non-LE autoimmune disease were estimated in Cox regression analyses.RESULTS: Overall, 1674 patients with CLE had a higher prevalence of a non-LE autoimmune disease than the comparators (18.5 vs 7.9%; RR 2.4; 95% CI, 2.1 to 2.6). Correspondingly, the cumulative incidence of a non-LE autoimmune disease during 5 years of follow-up was increased for the patients with CLE: HR 3.5 (95% CI, 3.0 to 4.0).LIMITATIONS: Risk of detection and misclassification bias, mainly pertaining to the CLE group.CONCLUSION: Patients with CLE had higher prevalence and 5-year cumulative incidence of a non-LE autoimmune disease than the general population.</p

Intakes of culinary herbs and spices from a food frequency questionnaire evaluated against 28-days estimated records

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Worldwide, herbs and spices are much used food flavourings. However, little data exist regarding actual dietary intake of culinary herbs and spices. We developed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for the assessment of habitual diet the preceding year, with focus on phytochemical rich food, including herbs and spices. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the intakes of herbs and spices from the FFQ with estimates of intake from another dietary assessment method. Thus we compared the intake estimates from the FFQ with 28 days of estimated records of herb and spice consumption as a reference method.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The evaluation study was conducted among 146 free living adults, who filled in the FFQ and 2-4 weeks later carried out 28 days recording of herb and spice consumption. The FFQ included a section with questions about 27 individual culinary herbs and spices, while the records were open ended records for recording of herbs and spice consumption exclusively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our study showed that the FFQ obtained slightly higher estimates of total intake of herbs and spices than the total intake assessed by the Herbs and Spice Records (HSR). The correlation between the two assessment methods with regard to total intake was good (r = 0.5), and the cross-classification suggests that the FFQ may be used to classify subjects according to total herb and spice intake. For the 8 most frequently consumed individual herbs and spices, the FFQ obtained good estimates of median frequency of intake for 2 herbs/spices, while good estimates of portion sizes were obtained for 4 out of 8 herbs/spices.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results suggested that the FFQ was able to give good estimates of frequency of intake and portion sizes on group level for several of the most frequently used herbs and spices. The FFQ was only able to fairly rank subjects according to frequency of intake of the 8 most frequently consumed herbs and spices. Other studies are warranted to further explore the intakes of culinary spices and herbs.</p

Impaired NDRG1 functions in Schwann cells cause demyelinating neuropathy in a dog model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 4D

Mutations in the N-myc downstream-regulated gene 1 (NDRG1) cause degenerative polyneuropathy in ways that are poorly understood. We have investigated Alaskan Malamute dogs with neuropathy caused by a missense mutation in NDRG1. In affected animals, nerve levels of NDRG1 protein were reduced by more than 70% (p < 0.03). Nerve fibers were thinly myelinated, loss of large myelinated fibers was pronounced and teased fiber preparations showed both demyelination and remyelination. Inclusions of filamentous material containing actin were present in adaxonal Schwann cell cytoplasm and Schmidt-Lanterman clefts. This condition strongly resembles the human Charcot-MarieTooth type 4D. However, the focally folded myelin with adaxonal infoldings segregating the axon found in this study are ultrastructural changes not described in the human disease. Furthermore, lipidomic analysis revealed a profound loss of peripheral nerve lipids. Our data suggest that the low levels of mutant NDRG1 is insufficient to support Schwann cells in maintaining myelin homeostasis. (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license