Neurocysticercosis in patients presenting with epilepsy at St Elizabeth’s Hospital, Lusikisiki

Objective. To survey the prevalence of neurocysticercosis in patients treated for epilepsy in Lusikisiki, E Cape.Design. This was a descriptive study. Variables considered were age, gender, symptoms and type of seizure, serological data,  electroencephalogram and computed tomography (CT) findings, treatment, and ownership of pigs. Prevalence and risk assessment were determined by statistical analysis. Subjects and setting. 113 patients presenting with epilepsy at St Elizabeth’s Hospital, Lusikisiki, E Cape.Outcome measures. Prevalence of neurocysticercosis in patientspresenting with epilepsy.Results. CT scans indicated that 61.1% of the patients hadneurocysticercosis-associated epilepsy, the prevalence beinghighest in the 10 - 19-year-old age group (12.4% of the total).Neuro-imaging studies showed that calcified lesions were frequent, while active lesions were often associated with positive serological results. Non-commercial pig farming was not a significant risk factor for neurocysticercosis in the sample studied.Conclusion. Neurocysticercosis was common in patientspresenting with and undergoing treatment for epilepsy

Arribada nesting of olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) at La Escobilla, Mexico

Olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) present an interesting case study of the conservation of wildlife species that aggregate in high densities and have served as resources for human consumption. Ridleys exhibit synchronized mass-nesting behavior, during events called "arribadas," where thousands of females lay eggs together in a small area over the span of a few consecutive nights. Some of the largest arribadas occur at La Escobilla, Mexico, with over a million nests estimated per season. These aggregations have made olive ridleys vulnerable to negative impacts from harvest and density-dependent influences on nest success. There are many interconnected determinants of nest success, including intraspecific competition for space, temperature, and predation. Nest destruction by conspecifics is an apparent potential impact of high density nesting, as later-arriving turtles often dig up previously laid nests. Nest destruction is the main scientific argument for "sustainable" egg harvest, since local communities could utilize eggs otherwise destroyed as an economic resource. In 2009 at La Escobilla, I explored 1) the historical context of harvest and community members' current perceptions of turtles through 12 semi-structured interviews with key informants; 2) nest destruction rates during arribadas through a field study to quantify nesting behavior. My first objective was to understand the shifting human-turtle relationship and how it informs current community dynamics and future conservation and research at arribada beaches. Historical research and interviews indicated that many local residents are familiar with turtle behavior and agree on the importance of conservation efforts for turtles and the local community. Nevertheless, residents struggle for economic stability within what has largely been an externally-imposed protectionist framework. Future efforts should integrate long-term employment with local involvement in research, conservation, and non-consumptive use. The second objective of my project was to quantify nesting activity and investigate the relationship between nest densities and nest destruction. Nesting behavior of 1293 turtles was observed in 26 sample plots during two consecutive arribadas. Cumulative nest densities estimated over two arribadas ranged from around 1 to 8 nests/m². The odds of a turtle digging up eggs increase 21% for every additional nest in a 1m² area surrounding a nesting turtle. No hatchlings emerged from the arribadas I studied, likely due to unfavorably warm temperatures in 2009 and widespread beetle predation. Estimation of hatchling production at the beach level is necessary for accurate projection of the population's status; the empirical findings and methodologies considered in this project can be used in such future models. My field study illustrates the complexity of predicting hatchling production because of temporal and spatial variation, as indicated by cumulative effects of multiple arribadas on incubating nests

The association of elevated blood pressure during ischaemic exercise with sport performance in Master athletes with and without morbidity

Background An exaggerated exercise blood pressure (BP) is associated with a reduced exercise capacity. However, its connection to physical performance during competition is unknown. Aim To examine BP responses to ischaemic handgrip exercise in Master athletes (MA) with and without underlying morbidities and to assess their association with athletic performance during the World Master Track Cycling Championships 2019. Methods Forty-eight Master cyclists [age 59±13yrs; weekly training volume 10.4±4.1 h/week; handgrip maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) 46.3±11.5 kg] divided into 2 matched groups (24 healthy MA and 24 MA with morbidity) and 10 healthy middle-aged non-athlete controls (age 48.3±8.3 years; MVC 40.4±14.8 kg) performed 5 min of forearm occlusion including 1 min handgrip isometric contraction (40%MVC) followed by 5 min recovery. Continuous beat-by-beat BP was recorded using fnger plethysmography. Age-graded performance (AGP) was calculated to compare race performances among MA. Healthy Master cyclists were further grouped into middle-age (age 46.2±6.4 years; N:12) and old-age (age 65.0±7.7 years; N:12) for comparison with middle-aged non-athlete controls. Results Healthy and morbidity MA groups showed similar BP responses during forearm occlusion and AGP (90.1±4.3% and 91.0±5.3%, p>0.05, respectively). Healthy and morbidity MA showed modest correlation between the BP rising slope for 40%MVC ischaemic exercise and AGP (r=0.5, p<0.05). MA showed accelerated SBP recovery after cessation of ischaemic handgrip exercise compared to healthy non-athlete controls. Conclusion Our fndings associate long-term athletic training with improved BP recovery following ischaemic exercise regardless of age or reported morbidity. Exaggerated BP in Master cyclists during ischaemic exercise was associated with lower AGP during the World Master Cycling Championships

XMMSL2 J144605.0+685735: a slow tidal disruption event

Aims. We investigate the evolution of X-ray selected tidal disruption events. Methods. New events are found in near real-time data from XMM-Newton slews, and are monitored by multi-wavelength facilities. Results. In August 2016, X-ray emission was detected from the galaxy XMMSL2 J144605.0+685735 (also known as 2MASX 14460522+6857311), that was 20 times higher than an upper limit from 25 years earlier. The X-ray flux was flat for ∼100 days and then fell by a factor of 100 over the following 500 days. The UV flux was stable for the first 400 days before fading by a magnitude, while the optical (U,B,V) bands were roughly constant for 850 days. Optically, the galaxy appears to be quiescent, at a distance of 127 ± 4 Mpc (z = 0.029 ± 0.001) with a spectrum consisting of a young stellar population of 1–5 Gyr in age, an older population, and a total stellar mass of ∼6 × 109 M⊙. The bolometric luminosity peaked at Lbol ∼ 1043 ergs s−1 with an X-ray spectrum that may be modelled by a power law of Γ ∼ 2.6 or Comptonisation of a low-temperature thermal component by thermal electrons. We consider a tidal disruption event to be the most likely cause of the flare. Radio emission was absent in this event down to < 10 μJy, which limits the total energy of a hypothetical off-axis jet to E <  5 × 1050 ergs. The independent behaviour of the optical, UV, and X-ray light curves challenges models where the UV emission is produced by reprocessing of thermal nuclear emission or by stream-stream collisions. We suggest that the observed UV emission may have been produced from a truncated accretion disc and the X-rays from Compton upscattering of these disc photons

Seroprevalence of Trypanosoma cruzi in Rural Ecuador and Clustering of Seropositivity within Households

We performed a cross-sectional study of Trypanosoma cruzi seroprevalence in 14 communities in three provinces of Ecuador and estimated the magnitude of the association of seropositive individuals within households. A total of 3,286 subjects from 997 households were included. Seroprevalence was 5.7%, 1.0%, and 3.6% in subjects in the Manabí, Guayas, and Loja provinces, respectively. Seroprevalence increased with increasing age in Manabí and Guayas, whereas in Loja, the highest prevalence occurred in children ≤ 10 years of age. In the coastal provinces, clustering of seropositives within households was not observed after adjustment for other household factors. However, in the Andean province of Loja, the odds of seropositivity were more than two times greater for an individual living in a household with another seropositive person. Our results indicate that transmission of T. cruzi is ongoing in Ecuador, although intensity of transmission and mechanisms of interaction between humans and the insect vectors of disease vary between geographic regions

Divergent genomic trajectories predate the origin of animals and fungi

22 pages, 4 figures, supplementary information https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05110-4.-- Data availability: The raw sequence data and assembled genomes generated in this study have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) at EMBL-EBI under accession number PRJEB52884 (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB52884). The genome assemblies are also available in figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19895962.v1). Protein sequences of the species used in this study were downloaded from the GenBank public databases (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/), Uniprot (https://www.uniprot.org/), JGI genome database (https://genome.jgi.doe.gov/portal/) and Ensembl genomes (https://www.ensembl.org). The following specific databases were also used in this study: Pfam A v29 (https://pfam.xfam.org/), EggNOG emapperdb-4.5.1 (http://eggnog5.embl.de) and UniProt reference proteomes release 2016_02 (https://www.uniprot.org/). The supporting data files of this study are available in the following repository: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13140191.v1.-- Code availability: The most relevant custom code developed for this study (the MAPBOS pipeline and the machine learning classifiers) is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6586559Animals and fungi have radically distinct morphologies, yet both evolved within the same eukaryotic supergroup: Opisthokonta1,2. Here we reconstructed the trajectory of genetic changes that accompanied the origin of Metazoa and Fungi since the divergence of Opisthokonta with a dataset that includes four novel genomes from crucial positions in the Opisthokonta phylogeny. We show that animals arose only after the accumulation of genes functionally important for their multicellularity, a tendency that began in the pre-metazoan ancestors and later accelerated in the metazoan root. By contrast, the pre-fungal ancestors experienced net losses of most functional categories, including those gained in the path to Metazoa. On a broad-scale functional level, fungal genomes contain a higher proportion of metabolic genes and diverged less from the last common ancestor of Opisthokonta than did the gene repertoires of Metazoa. Metazoa and Fungi also show differences regarding gene gain mechanisms. Gene fusions are more prevalent in Metazoa, whereas a larger fraction of gene gains were detected as horizontal gene transfers in Fungi and protists, in agreement with the long-standing idea that transfers would be less relevant in Metazoa due to germline isolation3,4,5. Together, our results indicate that animals and fungi evolved under two contrasting trajectories of genetic change that predated the origin of both groups. The gradual establishment of two clearly differentiated genomic contexts thus set the stage for the emergence of Metazoa and FungiE.O.-P. was supported by a predoctoral FPI grant from MINECO (BES-2015-072241) and by ESF Investing in your future. E.O.-P., D.L-E., A.S.A. and I.R.-T. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 616960) and also from grants (BFU2014-57779-P and PID2020-120609GB-I00) by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ‘ERDF A way of making Europe’. E.O.-P. and G.J.Sz. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 714774). T.A.W. was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF\R\201024) and NERC standard grant NE/P00251X/1. This work was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF9741 to T.A.W. and G.J.Sz. J.S.P. and E.B. received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 615274). D.V.T. and cell culturing were supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant no. 18-14-00239, https://rscf.ru/project/18-14-00239/. Culture of P. vietnamica was obtained as the result of field work in Vietnam as part of the project ‘Ecolan 3.2’ of the Russian–Vietnam Tropical Center. P.J.K. is supported by an Investigator Award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (https://doi.org/10.37807/GBMF9201)With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S)Peer reviewe