Infection of laboratory-colonized Anopheles darlingi mosquitoes by Plasmodium vivax.

Anopheles darlingi Root is the most important malaria vector in the Amazonia region of South America. However, continuous propagation of An. darlingi in the laboratory has been elusive, limiting entomological, genetic/genomic, and vector-pathogen interaction studies of this mosquito species. Here, we report the establishment of an An. darlingi colony derived from wild-caught mosquitoes obtained in the northeastern Peruvian Amazon region of Iquitos in the Loreto Department. We show that the numbers of eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults continue to rise at least to the F6 generation. Comparison of feeding Plasmodium vivax ex vivo of F4 and F5 to F1 generation mosquitoes showed the comparable presence of oocysts and sporozoites, with numbers that corresponded to blood-stage asexual parasitemia and gametocytemia, confirming P. vivax vectorial capacity in the colonized mosquitoes. These results provide new avenues for research on An. darlingi biology and study of An. darlingi-Plasmodium interactions

Advancing Parsimonious Deep Learning Weather Prediction using the HEALPix Mesh

We present a parsimonious deep learning weather prediction model on the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization (HEALPix) to forecast seven atmospheric variables for arbitrarily long lead times on a global approximately 110 km mesh at 3h time resolution. In comparison to state-of-the-art machine learning weather forecast models, such as Pangu-Weather and GraphCast, our DLWP-HPX model uses coarser resolution and far fewer prognostic variables. Yet, at one-week lead times its skill is only about one day behind the state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. We report successive forecast improvements resulting from model design and data-related decisions, such as switching from the cubed sphere to the HEALPix mesh, inverting the channel depth of the U-Net, and introducing gated recurrent units (GRU) on each level of the U-Net hierarchy. The consistent east-west orientation of all cells on the HEALPix mesh facilitates the development of location-invariant convolution kernels that are successfully applied to propagate global weather patterns across our planet. Without any loss of spectral power after two days, the model can be unrolled autoregressively for hundreds of steps into the future to generate stable and realistic states of the atmosphere that respect seasonal trends, as showcased in one-year simulations. Our parsimonious DLWP-HPX model is research-friendly and potentially well-suited for sub-seasonal and seasonal forecasting

On the optimal measuring area for pointwise rainfall estimation: a dedicated experiment with 14 laser disdrometers

Laser disdrometers measure the particle size distribution (PSD) of hydrometeors through a small cross-sectional (tens of square centimeters) surface. Such a limited area induces a sampling effect in the estimates of the PSD, which translates to error in the reflectivity–rain-rate (Z–R) relationship used for ground radar estimates of rainfall, estimates of kinetic energy of precipitation, and any other hydrometeorological application relying on particle size information. Here, the results of a dedicated experiment to estimate the extent of the effect of limited area sampling of rainfall are presented. Using 14 Parsivel, version 1 (Parsivel-1), disdrometers placed within 6 m2, it was found that the combined area of at least seven disdrometers is required for the estimates to start converging to a stable value. The results can be used to quantify the degree of over-/underestimation of precipitation parameters for a single instrument due to the limited collecting area effect. It has been found that a single disdrometer may underestimate instantaneous rain rate by 70%.Funding from projects CGL2013- 48367-P, CGL2016-80609-R (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad), UNCM08-1E-086 (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion), and CYTEMA (UCLM) is gratefully acknowledged

Fracture model with variable range of interaction

We introduce a fiber bundle model where the interaction among fibers is modeled by an adjustable stress-transfer function which can interpolate between the two limiting cases of load redistribution, the global and the local load sharing schemes. By varying the range of interaction several features of the model are numerically studied and a crossover from mean field to short range behavior is obtained. The properties of the two regimes and the emergence of the crossover in between are explored by numerically studying the dependence of the ultimate strength of the material on the system size, the distribution of avalanches of breakings, and of the cluster sizes of broken fibers. Finally, we analyze the moments of the cluster size distributions to accurately determine the value at which the crossover is observed.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Two columns revtex format. Final version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Bursts in a fiber bundle model with continuous damage

We study the constitutive behaviour, the damage process, and the properties of bursts in the continuous damage fiber bundle model introduced recently. Depending on its two parameters, the model provides various types of constitutive behaviours including also macroscopic plasticity. Analytic results are obtained to characterize the damage process along the plastic plateau under strain controlled loading, furthermore, for stress controlled experiments we develop a simulation technique and explore numerically the distribution of bursts of fiber breaks assuming infinite range of interaction. Simulations revealed that under certain conditions power law distribution of bursts arises with an exponent significantly different from the mean field exponent 5/2. A phase diagram of the model characterizing the possible burst distributions is constructed.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, APS style, submitted for publicatio

Evolution of CRISPR-associated endonucleases as inferred from resurrected proteins

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated Cas9 is an effector protein that targets invading DNA and plays a major role in the prokaryotic adaptive immune system. Although Streptococcus pyogenes CRISPR–Cas9 has been widely studied and repurposed for applications including genome editing, its origin and evolution are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the evolution of Cas9 from resurrected ancient nucleases (anCas) in extinct firmicutes species that last lived 2.6 billion years before the present. We demonstrate that these ancient forms were much more flexible in their guide RNA and protospacer-adjacent motif requirements compared with modern-day Cas9 enzymes. Furthermore, anCas portrays a gradual palaeoenzymatic adaptation from nickase to double-strand break activity, exhibits high levels of activity with both single-stranded DNA and single-stranded RNA targets and is capable of editing activity in human cells. Prediction and characterization of anCas with a resurrected protein approach uncovers an evolutionary trajectory leading to functionally flexible ancient enzymes.This work has been supported by grant nos. PID2019-109087RB-I00 (to R.P.-J.) and RTI2018-101223-B-I00 and PID2021-127644OB-I00 (to L.M.) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 964764 (to R.P.-J.). The content presented in this document represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect to the content. We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Foundation for the Promotion of Research of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. A.F. acknowledges Spanish Center for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERE) intramural funds (no. ER19P5AC756/2021). F.J.M.M. acknowledges research support by Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport from Generalitat Valenciana, research project nos. PROMETEO/2017/129 and PROMETEO/2021/057. M.M. acknowledges funding from CIBERER (grant no. ER19P5AC728/2021). The work has received funding from the Regional Government of Madrid (grant no. B2017/BMD3721 to M.A.M.-P.) and from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, cofounded with the European Regional Development Fund ‘A way to make Europe’ within the National Plans for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2017–2020 and 2021–2024 (nos. PI17/1659, PI20/0429 and IMP/00009; to M.A.M.-P. B.P.K. was supported by an MGH ECOR Howard M. Goodman Award and NIH P01 HL142494

Demonstration of Zero-touch Device and L3-VPN Service Management using the TeraFlow Cloud-native SDN Controller

We demonstrate zero-touch device bootstrapping, monitoring, and L3-VPN service management using the novel TeraFlow OS SDN controller prototype. TeraFlow aims at producing a cloud-native carrier-grade SDN controller offering scalability, extensibility, high-performance, and high-availability features

Bioremediation of Olive Mill Wastewater sediments in evaporation ponds through in situ composting assisted by bioaugmentation

The common method for the disposal of olive oil mill wastewater (OMW) has been its accumulation in evaporation ponds where OMW sediments concentrate. Due to the phytotoxic and antimicrobial effect of OMW, leaks from ponds can pollute soils and water bodies. This work focuses on the search for microorganisms that can be used as inocula for bioremediation of polluted matrices in OMW ponds by means of in situ composting. Two fungi isolated from OMW sediments, Aspergillus ochraceus H2 and Scedosporium apiospermum H16, presented suitable capabilities for this use as a consortium. Composting eliminated the phyto- and ecotoxicity of OMW sediments by depleting their main toxic components. Inoculation with the fungal consortium improved the bioremediation efficacy of the technique by hastening the decrease of phytotoxicity and ecotoxicity and enhancing phytostimulant property of compost produced. This procedure constitutes a promising strategy for bioremediation of OMW polluted sites

A human genome editing-based MLL::AF4 B-cell ALL model recapitulates key cellular and molecular leukemogenic features

The cellular ontogeny and location of the MLL-breakpoint influence the capacity of MLL-edited CD34+ HSPCs to initiate pro-B-ALL, and recapitulate the molecular features of MLL-AF4+ infant B-ALL patients. We provide key insights into the cellular-molecular leukemogenic determinants of MLL-AF4+ infant B-ALL

The Obesity and Fatty Liver Are Reduced by Plant-Derived Pediococcus pentosaceus LP28 in High Fat Diet-Induced Obese Mice

We evaluated the effect of an oral administration of a plant-derived lactic acid bacterium, Pediococcus pentosaceus LP28 (LP28), on metabolic syndrome by using high fat diet-induced obese mice. The obese mice were divided into 2 groups and fed either a high fat or regular diet for 8 weeks. Each group was further divided into 3 groups, which took LP28, another plant-derived Lactobacillus plantarum SN13T (SN13T) or no lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The lean control mice were fed a regular diet without inducing obesity prior to the experiment. LP28 reduced body weight gain and liver lipid contents (triglyceride and cholesterol), in mice fed a high fat diet for 8 weeks (40%, 54%, and 70% less than those of the control group without LAB, and P = 0.018, P<0.001, and P = 0.021, respectively), whereas SN13T and the heat treated LP28 at 121°C for 15 min were ineffective. Abdominal visceral fat in the high fat diet mice fed with LP28 was also lower than that without LAB by 44%, although it was not significant but borderline (P = 0.076). The sizes of the adipocytes and the lipid droplets in the livers were obviously decreased. A real-time PCR analyses showed that lipid metabolism-related genes, such as CD36 (P = 0.013), SCD1 encoding stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (not significant but borderline, P = 0.066), and PPARγ encoding peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (P = 0.039), were down-regulated by taking LP28 continuously, when compared with those of the control group. In conclusion, LP28 may be a useful LAB strain for the prevention and reduction of the metabolic syndrome