Benthic foraminifera show some resilience to ocean acidification in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico.

The version on PEARL: Corrected proofs are Articles in Press that contain the authors' corrections. Final citation details, e.g., volume/issue number, publication year and page numbers, still need to be added and the text might change before final publication. Although corrected proofs do not have all bibliographic details available yet, they can already be cited using the year of online publication and the DOI , as follows: author(s), article title, journal (year), DOIExtensive CO2 vents have been discovered in the Wagner Basin, northern Gulf of California, where they create large areas with lowered seawater pH. Such areas are suitable for investigations of long-term biological effects of ocean acidification and effects of CO2 leakage from subsea carbon capture storage. Here, we show responses of benthic foraminifera to seawater pH gradients at 74-207m water depth. Living (rose Bengal stained) benthic foraminifera included Nonionella basispinata, Epistominella bradyana and Bulimina marginata. Studies on foraminifera at CO2 vents in the Mediterranean and off Papua New Guinea have shown dramatic long-term effects of acidified seawater. We found living calcareous benthic foraminifera in low pH conditions in the northern Gulf of California, although there was an impoverished species assemblage and evidence of post-mortem test dissolution

Effects of caffeine and/or nasal CPAP treatment on laryngeal chemoreflexes in preterm lambs

Current knowledge suggests that laryngeal chemoreflexes (LCR) are involved in the occurrence of certain neonatal apneas/bradycardias, especially in the preterm newborn. While caffeine and/or nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) are the most frequent options used for treating apneas in preterm newborns, their effects on LCR-related apneas/bradycardias are virtually unknown. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that caffeine and/or nCPAP decreases LCR-related cardiorespiratory inhibition in a preterm ovine model. Seven preterm lambs were born vaginally on gestational day 133 (normal gestation: 147 days) after intramuscular injections of betamethasone and mifepristone. Five days after birth, a chronic surgical instrumentation was performed to record states of alertness, electrocardiogram, systemic arterial pressure, and electromyographic activity of a laryngeal constrictor muscle, as well as to insert a transcutaneous supraglottal catheter. LCR were induced in quiet sleep under four conditions: 1) control (without caffeine or nCPAP); 2) nCPAP (5 cmH2O, without caffeine); 3) caffeine (10 mg/kg infused intravenously for 30 min, without nCPAP); and 4) nCPAP + caffeine. Our results showed that nCPAP consistently blunted LCR-related cardiorespiratory inhibition vs. control condition, contrary to caffeine whose overall effect was nonsignificant. In addition, nCPAP condition was characterized by a more consistent and rapid arousal after HCl injection. No significant differences were observed between all tested conditions with regard to swallowing and cough. It is concluded that nCPAP should be further assessed for its usefulness in treating neonatal apneas linked to LCR

Beyond the Refugee Crisis how the UK news media represent asylum seekers across national boundaries

Migration is one of the most pressing, divisive issues in global politics today, and media play a crucial role in how communities understand and respond. This study examines how UK newspapers (n = 974) and popular news websites (n = 1044) reported on asylum seekers throughout 2017. It contributes to previous literature in two important ways. First, by examining the ‘new normal’ of daily news coverage in the wake of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe. Second, by looking at how asylum seekers from different regions are represented. The content analysis finds significant variations in how asylum seekers are reported, including terminology use and topics they are associated with. The paper also identifies important commonalities in how all asylum seekers are represented - most notably, the dominance of political elites as sources across all media content. It argues that Entman’s ‘cascade network model’ can help to explain this, with elites in one country able to influence transnational reports

Physical Stress, Not Biotic Interactions, Preclude an Invasive Grass from Establishing in Forb-Dominated Salt Marshes

Biological invasions have become the focus of considerable concern and ecological research, yet the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors in controlling the invasibility of habitats to exotic species is not well understood. Spartina species are highly invasive plants in coastal wetlands; however, studies on the factors that control the success or failure of Spartina invasions across multiple habitat types are rare and inconclusive.We examined the roles of physical stress and plant interactions in mediating the establishment of the smooth cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, in a variety of coastal habitats in northern China. Field transplant experiments showed that cordgrass can invade mudflats and low estuarine marshes with low salinity and frequent flooding, but cannot survive in salt marshes and high estuarine marshes with hypersaline soils and infrequent flooding. The dominant native plant Suaeda salsa had neither competitive nor facilitative effects on cordgrass. A common garden experiment revealed that cordgrass performed significantly better when flooded every other day than when flooded weekly. These results suggest that physical stress rather than plant interactions limits cordgrass invasions in northern China.We conclude that Spartina invasions are likely to be constrained to tidal flats and low estuarine marshes in the Yellow River Delta. Due to harsh physical conditions, salt marshes and high estuarine marshes are unlikely to be invaded. These findings have implications for understanding Spartina invasions in northern China and on other coasts with similar biotic and abiotic environments

Post-mortem brain analyses of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936:Extending lifetime cognitive and brain phenotyping to the level of the synapse

INTRODUCTION: Non-pathological, age-related cognitive decline varies markedly between individuals andplaces significant financial and emotional strain on people, their families and society as a whole.Understanding the differential age-related decline in brain function is critical not only for the development oftherapeutics to prolong cognitive health into old age, but also to gain insight into pathological ageing suchas Alzheimer’s disease. The Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936 (LBC1936) comprises a rare group of people forwhom there are childhood cognitive test scores and longitudinal cognitive data during older age, detailedstructural brain MRI, genome-wide genotyping, and a multitude of other biological, psycho-social, andepidemiological data. Synaptic integrity is a strong indicator of cognitive health in the human brain;however, until recently, it was prohibitively difficult to perform detailed analyses of synaptic and axonalstructure in human tissue sections. We have adapted a novel method of tissue preparation at autopsy toallow the study of human synapses from the LBC1936 cohort in unprecedented morphological andmolecular detail, using the high-resolution imaging techniques of array tomography and electronmicroscopy. This allows us to analyze the brain at sub-micron resolution to assess density, proteincomposition and health of synapses. Here we present data from the first donated LBC1936 brain andcompare our findings to Alzheimer’s diseased tissue to highlight the differences between healthy andpathological brain ageing. RESULTS: Our data indicates that compared to an Alzheimer’s disease patient, the cognitively normalLBC1936 participant had a remarkable degree of preservation of synaptic structures. However,morphological and molecular markers of degeneration in areas of the brain associated with cognition(prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and superior temporal gyrus) were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Our novel post-mortem protocol facilitates high-resolution neuropathological analysis of the well-characterized LBC1936 cohort, extending phenotyping beyond cognition and in vivo imaging to nowinclude neuropathological changes, at the level of single synapses. This approach offers an unprecedentedopportunity to study synaptic and axonal integrity during ageing and how it contributes to differences in agerelatedcognitive change. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40478-015-0232-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

High-temperature performance of ferritic steels in fireside corrosion regimes: temperature and deposits

The paper reports high temperature resistance of ferritic steels in fireside corrosion regime in terms of temperature and deposits aggressiveness. Four candidate power plant steels: 15Mo3, T22, T23 and T91 were exposed under simulated air-fired combustion environment for 1000 h. The tests were conducted at 600, 650 and 700 °C according to deposit-recoat test method. Post-exposed samples were examined via dimensional metrology (the main route to quantify metal loss), and mass change data were recorded to perform the study of kinetic behavior at elevated temperatures. Microstructural investigations using ESEM-EDX were performed in order to investigate corrosion degradation and thickness of the scales. The ranking of the steels from most to the least damage was 15Mo3 > T22 > T23 > T91 in all three temperatures. The highest rate of corrosion in all temperatures occurred under the screening deposit

Leptin Activates Anorexigenic POMC Neurons through a Neural Network in the Arcuate Nucleus

The administration of leptin to leptin-deficient humans, and the analogous Lepob/Lepob mice, effectively reduces hyperphagia and obesity. But common obesity is associated with elevated leptin, which suggests that obese humans are resistant to this adipocyte hormone. In addition to regulating long-term energy balance, leptin also rapidly affects neuronal activity. Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and neuropeptide-Y types of neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus7 are both principal sites of leptin receptor expression and the source of potent neuropeptide modulators, melanocortins and neuropeptide Y, which exert opposing effects on feeding and metabolism. These neurons are therefore ideal for characterizing leptin action and the mechanism of leptin resistance; however, their diffuse distribution makes them difficult to study. Here we report electrophysiological recordings on POMC neurons, which we identified by targeted expression of green fluorescent protein in transgenic mice. Leptin increases the frequency of action potentials in the anorexigenic POMC neurons by two mechanisms: depolarization through a nonspecific cation channel; and reduced inhibition by local orexigenic neuropeptide-Y/GABA (g-aminobutyric acid) neurons. Furthermore, we show that melanocortin peptides have an autoinhibitory effect on this circuit. On the basis of our results, we propose an integrated model of leptin action and neuronal architecture in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamu