Ethnobotanical Promotion of Fibroblast Growth Using Yerba Santa Extract

Ethnobotany is a promising method for discovering new drugs, drawing on the knowledge of generations of traditional healers. For hundreds of years, the Chumash people have lived in the coastal regions of California, becoming experts on the many uses of its natural resources. One such resource is the Yerba Santa plant (Eriodictyon crassifolium), which was used by the Chumash to treat a myriad of conditions including coughs, chest pain, and fever. It was also used as a poultice on wounds and cuts, suggesting that the plant has a stimulating effect on the growth of skin cells. Because of these qualities, this experiment quantitatively tested the potential of Yerba Santa to encourage fibroblast growth using a goldfish scale keratocyte assay. The extract tested was made by grinding Yerba Santa leaves and storing them overnight in methanol to allow the release of potentially bioactive molecules from the cells. After methanol extraction, the remaining material was then resuspended in a modified solution of PBS (phosphate buffered saline with MgCl, CaCl, and 10% mass by volume dextrose). Individual goldfish (Carassius auratus) scales were then treated with either the modified PBS with extract or the modified PBS alone as a control. After 48 hours, ImageJ software was used to compare the areas of new cell growth. The group treated with extract were found to have enhanced growth relative to the control. The mean growth for control scales was 0.246 mm2 compared to 1.014mm2 for scales treated with the Yerba Santa extract. Mean values were significantly different by a two tailed Student’s t-test, P = 0.0063. These results are consistent with the Chumash’s use of Yerba Santa to treat wounds and skin abrasions indicating that it may be a viable option as a topical treatment of skin disorders

Spectral Statistics in Chiral-Orthogonal Disordered Systems

We describe the singularities in the averaged density of states and the corresponding statistics of the energy levels in two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) chiral symmetric and time-reversal invariant disordered systems, realized in bipartite lattices with real off-diagonal disorder. For off-diagonal disorder of zero mean we obtain a singular density of states in 2D which becomes much less pronounced in 3D, while the level-statistics can be described by semi-Poisson distribution with mostly critical fractal states in 2D and Wigner surmise with mostly delocalized states in 3D. For logarithmic off-diagonal disorder of large strength we find indistinguishable behavior from ordinary disorder with strong localization in any dimension but in addition one-dimensional $1/|E|$ Dyson-like asymptotic spectral singularities. The off-diagonal disorder is also shown to enhance the propagation of two interacting particles similarly to systems with diagonal disorder. Although disordered models with chiral symmetry differ from non-chiral ones due to the presence of spectral singularities, both share the same qualitative localization properties except at the chiral symmetry point E=0 which is critical.Comment: 13 pages, Revtex file, 8 postscript files. It will appear in the special edition of J. Phys. A for Random Matrix Theor

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Human impact on atolls leads to coral loss and community homogenisation : a modeling study

We explore impacts on pristine atolls subjected to anthropogenic near-field (human habitation) and far-field (climate and environmental change) pressure. Using literature data of human impacts on reefs, we parameterize forecast models to evaluate trajectories in coral cover under impact scenarios that primarily act via recruitment and increased mortality of larger corals. From surveys across the Chagos, we investigate the regeneration dynamics of coral populations distant from human habitation after natural disturbances. Using a size-based mathematical model based on a time-series of coral community and population data from 1999–2006, we provide hind- and forecast data for coral population dynamics within lagoons and on ocean-facing reefs verified against monitoring from 1979–2009. Environmental data (currents, temperatures) were used for calibration. The coral community was simplified into growth typologies: branching and encrusting, arboresent and massive corals. Community patterns observed in the field were influenced by bleaching-related mortality, most notably in 1998. Survival had been highest in deep lagoonal settings, which suggests a refuge. Recruitment levels were higher in lagoons than on ocean-facing reefs. When adding stress by direct human pressure, climate and environmental change as increased disturbance frequency and modified recruitment and mortality levels (due to eutrophication, overfishing, pollution, heat, acidification, etc), models suggest steep declines in coral populations and loss of community diversification among habitats. We found it likely that degradation of lagoonal coral populations would impact regeneration potential of all coral populations, also on ocean-facing reefs, thus decreasing reef resilience on the entire atoll

In Search for an Ideal Computer-Assisted Drawing System

Diagram drawing with conventional computer-assisted drawing(CAD) editors often tend to take considerable amount of time despite their seeming ease of use. We analyzed the problems of such systems focusing on the problem of cognitive overload, and observed that 1) the necessity of cognitive planning process in current CAD system causes the problems and that 2) reducing the overload can lead to fundamental improvement in overall drawing efficiency. We have conducted an experiment to verify these observations by comparing a typical drawing system and our prototype drawing system called Interactive Beautification, which combines the ease of freehand drawing and precision of traditional drawing editors by extracting various constraints in input strokes, and generating the desired diagrams automatically. Results show that significant amount of time is spent for cognitive planning process, and reduction of such planning time by Interactive Beautification can significantly improve the efficien..

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