Trace fossils from the Upper Cretaceous Capacete Formation, Sanfranciscana Basin, Central Brazil

The Upper Cretaceous Capacete Formation, from the intracratonic Sanfranciscana Basin, central Brazil, consists of epiclastic sediments with a significant aeolian contribution. This unit has been traditionally interpreted as deposited by alluvial fans distally grading to braided rivers in an arid- to semiarid climate within the central part of southwestern Gondwana. Locally, some expositions with wide lateral extension show architectural ele-ments indicative of deposition in meandering rivers, such as floodplain fines (FF) interbedded with crevasse splay (CR), lateral-accretion macroforms (LA), and channels (CH). Bioturbation within the meandering fluvial deposits is commonly associated with the floodplain element, mainly occurring in fine-grained sandstone and mudstone. The lateral-accretion elements and channel deposits are barren of trace fossils. Sandstone with climbing ripples (Sr) from the element CR show low bioturbation of meniscate trace fossils assigned to Taenidium, Beaconites, and Scoyenia ichnogenera. Simple vertical and horizontal burrows identified as Skolithos and Palaeophycus occur associated with Taenidium and Camborygma in sandstone facies (Sr, St and Sh), as well as rhizoliths, representing the Scoyenia ichnofacies. The predominance of trace fossils related to the FF and CR architectural elements attests to the colonization mostly by insects in episodic and vegetated flood plains of the meandering river system from the Capacete Formation. Thus, despite the primarily arid to semiarid conditions interpreted for the inner parts of the newly formed South American continent during the Upper Cretaceous, our new data support deposition under humid conditions in some intervals of the Capacete Formation from the Sanfranciscana Basin

Inseminação artificial em tempo fixo em cabras com estro sincronizado com cloprostenol associado à gonodrofina coriônica equina.

Resultados satisfatórios são alcançados na sincronização de estro em cabras cíclicas com o uso de duas doses de cloprostenol intervaladas de 7,5 dias. A hipótese do presente estudo é que associar uma dose de gonadotrofina coriônica equina (eCG) poderia evocar maior sincronia estral e também sincronia ovulatória em função de sua atividade no crescimento folicular ovariano, possibilitando aplicar inseminação artificial em tempo fixo (IATF). Assim, o objetivo do presente estudo foi avaliar a eficiência do protocolo de IATF proposto sobre a taxa de gestação, bem como caracterizar a dinâmica folicular ovulatória dos animais desafiados

Developing country consumers’ acceptance of biofortified foods: a synthesis

The success of biofortified staple crops depends on whether they are accepted and consumed by target populations. In the past 8 years, several studies were undertaken to understand consumers’ acceptance of foods made with biofortified staple crops. Consumer acceptance is measured in terms of their sensory evaluation and economic valuation of biofortified varieties vis-à-vis conventional ones. These studies apply expert sensory panel and hedonic trait analyses methods adopted from food sciences literature, as well as various preference elicitation methods (including experimental auctions, revealed choice experiments, and stated choice experiments) adopted from experimental economics literature. These studies also test the impact of various levers on consumers’ evaluation and valuation for biofortified foods. These levers include (i) nutrition information and the media through which such information is conveyed; (ii) the length and content of nutrition information; (iii) different branding options; (iv) the nature (national or international) of the branding/certification agency that is endorsing the biofortified staple food; and (v) the nature (national or international) of the agency that is delivering the biofortified staple food. This paper brings together evidence on consumer acceptance of biofortified crops on 5 crops across 7 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The results of these studies are expected to aid in the development of biofortified crops that consumers like, as well as in the development of appropriate marketing and consumer awareness or information campaigns to encourage the switch in consumption from traditional staples to biofortified ones

Immunity to Lutzomyia intermedia Saliva Modulates the Inflammatory Environment Induced by Leishmania braziliensis

Transmission of Leishmania parasites occurs during blood feeding, when infected female sand flies inject humans with parasites and saliva. Chemokines and cytokines are secreted proteins that regulate the initial immune responses and have the potential of attracting and activating cells. Herein, we studied the expression of such molecules and the cellular recruitment induced by salivary proteins of the Lutzomyia intermedia sand fly. Of note, Lutzomyia intermedia is the main vector of Leishmania braziliensis, a parasite species that causes cutaneous leishmaniasis, a disease associated with the development of destructive skin lesions that can be fatal if left untreated. We observed that L. intermedia salivary proteins induce a potent cellular recruitment and modify the expression profile of chemokines and cytokines in mice. More importantly, in mice previously immunized with L. intermedia saliva, the alteration in the initial inflammatory response was even more pronounced, in terms of the number of cells recruited and in terms of gene expression pattern. These findings indicate that an existing immunity to L. intermedia sand fly induces an important modulation in the initial immune response that may, in turn, promote parasite multiplication, leading to the development of cutaneous leishmaniasis

Parasites and immunotherapy: with or against?

Immunotherapy is a sort of therapy in which antibody or antigen administrates to the patient in order to treat or reduce the severity of complications of disease. This kind of treatment practiced in a wide variety of diseases including infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, cancers and allergy. Successful and unsuccessful immunotherapeutic strategies have been practiced in variety of parasitic infections. On the other hand parasites or parasite antigens have also been considered for immunotherapy against other diseases such as cancer, asthma and multiple sclerosis. In this paper immunotherapy against common parasitic infections, and also immunotherapy of cancer, asthma and multiple sclerosis with parasites or parasite antigens have been reviewe

Analysis of events with b-jets and a pair of leptons of the same charge in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

An analysis is presented of events containing jets including at least one b-tagged jet, sizeable missing transverse momentum, and at least two leptons including a pair of the same electric charge, with the scalar sum of the jet and lepton transverse momenta being large. A data sample with an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1 of pp collisions at √s=8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used. Standard Model processes rarely produce these final states, but there are several models of physics beyond the Standard Model that predict an enhanced rate of production of such events; the ones considered here are production of vector-like quarks, enhanced four-top-quark production, pair production of chiral b′-quarks, and production of two positively charged top quarks. Eleven signal regions are defined; subsets of these regions are combined when searching for each class of models. In the three signal regions primarily sensitive to positively charged top quark pair production, the data yield is consistent with the background expectation. There are more data events than expected from background in the set of eight signal regions defined for searching for vector-like quarks and chiral b′-quarks, but the significance of the discrepancy is less than two standard deviations. The discrepancy reaches 2.5 standard deviations in the set of five signal regions defined for searching for four-top-quark production. The results are used to set 95% CL limits on various models

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016