Toxoplasma gondii in raw milk from Sicily

Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites shed in milk of infected animals are a potential source of human infection often underestimated. Furthermore, limited risk assessment studies have been carried out to evaluate the transmission of toxoplasmosis by milk consumption. In this frame the availability of few and often not validated analytical methods can be a major shortcoming when investigating the extent of milk contamination and the parasite viability. To address the issue, 1381 samples of raw milk from unknown sero-status cows, donkeys, sheep and goats were examined for the detection of T. gondii DNA by a real time PCR method targeting the 529bp repeating element. The protozoan DNA was detected in 67 samples of cow’s milk (4,93% and 35% individual and herd prevalence respectively) and in one sample of donkey milk. Allegedly, on farm cats cohabitation as well as extensive management in the cattle farms that tested positive, can be accounted for environmental loading and transmission of T. gondii oocysts that are the unique sources of infection for milk-producing animals. Food safety-wise, results are noteworthy since recently raw cow’s milk consumption has become increasingly popular with the spread of automatic raw milk vending machines. Albeit heating treatment before consumption is mandatory for consumers, neglect of this requirement cannot be ruled out and could lead the way for foodborne infection. This is particularly true in view of evidences that T. gondii tachyzoites in experimentally spiked cow’s milk samples could be able to survive in gastric fluids for long enough (1 h) before reaching the intestine and infect the host

Models for Type Ia supernovae and related astrophysical transients

We give an overview of recent efforts to model Type Ia supernovae and related astrophysical transients resulting from thermonuclear explosions in white dwarfs. In particular we point out the challenges resulting from the multi-physics multi-scale nature of the problem and discuss possible numerical approaches to meet them in hydrodynamical explosion simulations and radiative transfer modeling. We give examples of how these methods are applied to several explosion scenarios that have been proposed to explain distinct subsets or, in some cases, the majority of the observed events. In case we comment on some of the successes and shortcoming of these scenarios and highlight important outstanding issues.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, review published in Space Science Reviews as part of the topical collection on supernovae, replacement corrects typos in the conclusions sectio

Isolated frogs in a crowded world: effects of human-caused habitat loss on frog heterozygosity and fluctuating asymmetry

It is important to develop research methods that will detect deterioration in population health before severe declines occur. Amphibian population declines are widespread; the main causes are anthropogenic and include habitat fragmentation due to agriculture, mining, fires, and urban development. Brazil is the richest country in species of amphibians, and the Brazilian regions with the greatest amphibian diversity are experiencing relatively high rates of habitat destruction. We tested the use of measurements of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) taken on adult frogs, as well as heterozygosity estimates in frog populations, to detect anthropogenic stress. We hypothesized that greater human occupancy in the landscape might result in more stressful conditions for amphibians, which would be reflected in high FA levels and/or reduced heterozygosity. We conducted this study at the Espinhaço mountain range in southeastern Brazil, using an endemic species (Bokermannohyla saxicola, Hylidae) as a model. We found that adult frog FA levels differed among localities but did not find significant correlations between human modification of the landscape and FA levels. In the subsample of localities for which we had genetic data, heterozygosity was significantly inversely correlated with FA in adult frogs, and heterozygosity decreased with increasing human occupancy in the landscape, except for populations with marginal distribution within the species range that already had very low heterozygosity. Our major finding was that reduced heterozygosity may be caused by population isolation resulting from human occupancy (among other causes) and is correlated with increased fluctuating asymmetry, so that either may indicate higher levels of stress in populations of B. saxicola

Multi-center prediction of hemorrhagic transformation in acute ischemic stroke using permeability imaging features

Permeability images derived from magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion images are sensitive to blood–brain barrier derangement of the brain tissue and have been shown to correlate with subsequent development of hemorrhagic transformation (HT) in acute ischemic stroke. This paper presents a multi-center retrospective study that evaluates the predictive power in terms of HT of six permeability MRI measures including contrast slope (CS), final contrast (FC), maximum peak bolus concentration (MPB), peak bolus area (PB), relative recirculation (rR), and percentage recovery (%R). Dynamic T2*-weighted perfusion MR images were collected from 263 acute ischemic stroke patients from four medical centers. An essential aspect of this study is to exploit a classifier-based framework to automatically identify predictive patterns in the overall intensity distribution of the permeability maps. The model is based on normalized intensity histograms that are used as input features to the predictive model. Linear and nonlinear predictive models are evaluated using a cross-validation to measure generalization power on new patients and a comparative analysis is provided for the different types of parameters. Results demonstrate that perfusion imaging in acute ischemic stroke can predict HT with an average accuracy of more than 85% using a predictive model based on a nonlinear regression model. Results also indicate that the permeability feature based on the percentage of recovery performs significantly better than the other features. This novel model may be used to refine treatment decisions in acute stroke