On the value of early marine weather observations: The Malaspina expedition (1789–94)

Great advances in meteorological science were made in the late eighteenth century. In particular, meteorological instruments were carried on ships and the first systematic meteorological readings over the oceans were made. One of these collections of instrumental meteorological readings was carried out by the Malaspina expedition (1789–94), organized by the Spanish Crown to study its vast possessions around the world. We have recovered meteorological variables such as air temperature (maximum and minimum), atmospheric pressure (maximum and minimum), wind (intensity and direction), and appearance (state of the sky) from the documentation generated by the explorers during the journey. In total, nearly 13, 000 instrumental data have been digitized and rescued from this maritime expedition. The comparison of daily temperature and pressure observations with reanalysis and weather stations data shows a good overall agreement. Moreover, apparent discrepancies during several anchored periods have allowed for testing the consistency and quality of these early instrumental marine weather readings

Controlling a magnetic Feshbach resonance with laser light

The capability to tune the strength of the elastic interparticle interaction is crucial for many experiments with ultracold gases. Magnetic Feshbach resonances are a tool widely used for this purpose, but future experiments would benefit from additional flexibility such as spatial modulation of the interaction strength on short length scales. Optical Feshbach resonances offer this possibility in principle, but suffer from fast particle loss due to light-induced inelastic collisions. Here we show that light near-resonant with a molecular bound-to-bound transition can be used to shift the magnetic field at which a magnetic Feshbach resonance occurs. This makes it possible to tune the interaction strength with laser light and at the same time induce considerably less loss than an optical Feshbach resonance would do

Real-Time PCR-Based Mismatch Amplification Mutation Assay for Specific Detection of CS6-Expressing Allelic Variants of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and Its Application in Assessing Diarrheal Cases and Asymptomatic Controls

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) expressing the colonization factor CS6 is widespread in many developing countries, including India. The different allelic variants of CS6, caused by point mutations in its structural genes, cssA and cssB, are designated AIBI, AIIBII, AIIIBI, AIBII, and AIIIBII. A simple, reliable, and specific mismatch amplification mutation assay based on real-time quantitative PCR (MAMA-qPCR) was developed for the first time for the detection of CS6-expressing ETEC, along with the identification of allelic variations. The assay was based on mismatched nucleotide incorporation at the penultimate base at the 3' ends of the reverse primers specific for cssA and cssB and was validated using 38 CS6-expressing ETEC isolates. This strategy was effective in detecting all the alleles containing single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Using MAMA-qPCR, we also tested CS6 allelic variants in 145 ETEC isolates from children with acute diarrhea and asymptomatic infections, with the latter serving as controls. We observed that the AIBI and AIIIBI allelic variants were mostly associated with cases rather than controls, whereas the AIIBII variants were detected mostly in controls. In addition, the AIBI and AIIIBI alleles were frequently associated with ETEC harboring the heat-stable toxin gene (est) alone or with the heat-labile toxin gene (elt), whereas the AIIBII allele was predominant in ETEC isolates harboring the elt gene. This study may help in understanding the association of allelic variants in CS6-expressing ETEC with the clinical features of diarrhea, as well as in ETEC vaccine studies

Evaluating amplified rDNA restriction analysis assay for identification of bacterial communities

Amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) and restriction fragment length polymorphism were originally used for strain typing and for screening clone libraries to identify phylogenetic clusters within a microbial community. Here we used ARDRA as a model to examine the capacity of restriction-based techniques for clone identification, and the possibility of deriving phylogenetic information from ARDRA-based dendrograms. ARDRA was performed in silico on 48,759 sequences from the Ribosomal Database Project, and it was found that the fragmentation profiles were not necessarily unique for each sequence in the database, resulting in different species sharing fragmentation profiles. Although ARDRA-based clusters separated clones into different genera, these phylogenetic clusters did not overlap with trees constructed according to sequence alignment, calling into question the intra-genus ARDRA-based phylogeny. It is thus suggested that the prediction power of ARDRA clusters in identifying clone phylogeny be regarded with caution

Dog skin parasite load, TLR-2, IL-10 and TNF-α expression and infectiousness

Visceral leishmaniosis is a zoonotic disease that is transmitted by Lutzomyia longipalpis sandflies. Dogs are the main peri-urban reservoir of the disease, and progression of canine leishmaniosis is dependent on the type of immune response elaborated against the parasite. Type 1 immunity is characterized by effective cellular response, with production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α). In contrast, Type 2 immunity is predominantly humoral, associated with progression of the disease and mediated by anti-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 10 (IL-10). Although seemly important in the dynamics of leishmaniosis, other gene products such as toll-like receptor 2 (TRL-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) exert unclear roles in the determination of the type of immune response. Given that the dog skin serves as a micro-environment for the multiplication of Leishmania spp., we investigated the parasite load and the expression of TLR-2, iNOS, IL-10 and TNF-α in the skin of 29 infected and 8 control dogs. We found that increased parasite load leads to upregulation of TLR-2, IL-10 and TNF-α, indicating that abundance of these transcripts is associated with infection. We also performed a xenodiagnosis to demonstrate that increased parasitism is a risk factor for infectiousness to sandflies

Frequency of breast cancer with hereditary risk features in Spain: Analysis from GEICAM “El Álamo III” retrospective study

Purpose: To determine the frequency of breast cancer (BC) patients with hereditary risk features in a wide retrospective cohort of patients in Spain. Methods: a retrospective analysis was conducted from 10, 638 BC patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2001 in the GEICAM registry “El Álamo III”, dividing them into four groups according to modified ESMO and SEOM hereditary cancer risk criteria: Sporadic breast cancer group (R0); Individual risk group (IR); Familial risk group (FR); Individual and familial risk group (IFR) with both individual and familial risk criteria. Results: 7, 641 patients were evaluable. Of them, 2, 252 patients (29.5%) had at least one hereditary risk criteria, being subclassified in: FR 1.105 (14.5%), IR 970 (12.7%), IFR 177 (2.3%). There was a higher frequency of newly diagnosed metastatic patients in the IR group (5.1% vs 3.2%, p = 0.02). In contrast, in RO were lower proportion of big tumors (> T2) (43.8% vs 47.4%, p = 0.023), nodal involvement (43.4% vs 48.1%, p = 0.004) and lower histological grades (20.9% G3 for the R0 vs 29.8%) when compared to patients with any risk criteria. Conclusions: Almost three out of ten BC patients have at least one hereditary risk cancer feature that would warrant further genetic counseling. Patients with hereditary cancer risk seems to be diagnosed with worse prognosis factors

What is going on around here? Intolerance of uncertainty predicts threat generalization

Attending to stimuli that share perceptual similarity to learned threats is an adaptive strategy. However, prolonged threat generalization to cues signalling safety is considered a core feature of pathological anxiety. One potential factor that may sustain over-generalization is sensitivity to future threat uncertainty. To assess the extent to which Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) predicts threat generalization, we recorded skin conductance in 54 healthy participants during an associative learning paradigm, where threat and safety cues varied in perceptual similarity. Lower IU was associated with stronger discrimination between threat and safety cues during acquisition and extinction. Higher IU, however, was associated with generalized responding to threat and safety cues during acquisition, and delayed discrimination between threat and safety cues during extinction. These results were specific to IU, over and above other measures of anxious disposition. These findings highlight: (1) a critical role of uncertainty-based mechanisms in threat generalization, and (2) IU as a potential risk factor for anxiety disorder development