Retraction Note: Exploring the potential effect of COVID-19 on an endangered great ape

You have full access to this article via your institution. For the foreseeable future, the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will continue evolving into new variants that lead to waves of infections. In 2020 and 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the emergence of variants of concern by giving them names from the Greek alphabet. But this year, Omicron has remained in the spotlight, with members of its family — subvariants — fuelling surges as they evade antibodies that people have generated from previous infections and vaccines. For example, the Omicron subvariant BA.2.12.1 is gaining ground in North America, now accounting for about 26% of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes submitted to the GISAID data initiative, and BA.4 and BA.5 are spreading rapidly in South Africa, comprising more than 90% of genomes sequenced.

Correction to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06840-1, Published online 07 April 2022. The original version of this Article contained errors in Table 2, where the LSU and EF GenBank accession numbers for the species 'F. crissum', 'F. falciforme' and 'F. keratoplasticum' were omitted. Table 2 Fusarium strains included in the phylogenetic analyses.

Hundreds of new archaeological sites have been discovered beneath the trees. You have full access to this article via your institution. Pyramids and canals built by an ancient civilisation have been discovered beneath the forests of the Bolivian Amazon. LiDAR technology allowed archaeologists to see through the canopy to reveal hundreds of previously unknown structures and settlements from the Casarabe culture of 500-1400 AD. In this film archaeologist Heiko Prümers describes his work in a region long thought to be unable to support complex ancient societies.

Caloric restriction is known to extend lifespan in animal models; however, the causal factors underlying this effect have been unclear. New research published in Science has begun to address this issue.

Correction to: Scientific Data https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01312-7, published online 10 May 2022. In this article the funding information relating to support from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 was omitted. The original article has been corrected.

A massive crater known as the “mouth to hell” began opening in the 1960s. Now, over 60 years later, the crater continues to grow, swallowing everything in its path. The most worrying part, though, is that scientists have no idea how to stop it. Russia’s “mouth to hell”...

People with less-severe Ebola virus disease may go undiagnosed, but they can still suffer long-term sequelae; this highlights the public health value of testing close contacts to identify and adequately treat all infections. Karen O’Leary is an Associate Research Analysis Editor with Nature Medicine. Ebola virus infection can cause...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia encountered in clinical practice. It is associated with the risk of developing some adverse cardiovascular events, including cerebral embolism and heart failure [1]. The development of AF depends on a variety of risk factors, including age, sex, race, hypertension, heart failure, coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease [2]. Among these risk factors, hypertension has been established to be the most important factor [3, 4] In addition, in patients with AF, hypertension is one of the risk factors for the development of cerebral embolism [5]. In this regard, the Japanese guideline on pharmacotherapy of cardiac arrhythmias recommends the use of the CHADS2 score for the risk assessment of thromboembolism in patients with AF, in which "H" indicates hypertension [6]. An early diagnosis and the subsequent initiation of appropriate treatment for AF, including anticoagulation therapy, is strongly required in hypertensive patients. However, the diagnosis of AF is not easy in the clinical setting. Almost 40% of AF patients are asymptomatic [7]. Most of these patients are diagnosed as having AF at annual health check-up examinations [7]. The type of AF that is diagnosed at health check-up examinations is mostly the persistent type. Paroxysmal and asymptomatic AF is difficult to diagnose because there are few chances to detect AF by standard 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) [8]. Some of these patients unfortunately develop cerebral embolism before the diagnosis of AF. Although detailed assessment with 24-h Holter ECG is needed to detect AF, the chance of detection is limited [9]. On the other hand, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is currently considered the most accurate method for diagnosing hypertension [10, 11]. Several institutions have recommended that most or all subjects with suspected hypertension undergo ABPM [12]. Notably, an ABPM device that especially implements an algorithm to automatically detect AF during each blood pressure measurement has been developed in recent years. In fact, Kollias et al. [13] demonstrated the high diagnostic accuracy of detecting AF using 24-h ABPM devices with AF detection algorithms.

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a chronic and severe cardiopulmonary disorder characterized by increased pulmonary vascular resistance, often resulting in the development of right ventricular failure. Proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) of small pulmonary arteries is a major contributor to pulmonary artery remodelling in PAH. New research shows that different Notch ligands have opposing roles in regulating the proliferation and differentiation of VSMCs in the pulmonary vasculature in PAH. Notably, blocking Jagged 1 (JAG1)-mediated NOTCH3 signalling with a selective monoclonal antibody reversed pulmonary hypertensive vasculopathy without toxic effects in mouse and rat models, suggesting that selectively targeting JAG1"“NOTCH3 signalling might be an effective and safe strategy for the treatment of PAH.

Mass infections in wild birds pose a significant risk to vulnerable species, are hard to contain and increase the opportunity for the virus to spillover into people. You have full access to this article via your institution. A highly infectious and deadly strain of avian influenza virus has infected tens...

A WARNING has been issued over a dangerous dolphin that has separated swimming children from their parents off the coast. It has also isolated pets from their owners in the water, prompting wildlife experts to urge the public to avoid the dolphin at all costs. Biologists report that aggressive behavior...

According to recent studies, the importance of MLS (macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin) resistance phenotypes and genes in enterococci are reflected in the fact that they represent reservoirs of MLS resistance genes. The aim of this study was to investigate distribution of MLS resistance genes and phenotypes in community- and hospital-acquired enterococcal isolates and to determine their prevalence. The MLS resistance phenotypes (cMLSb, iMLSb, M/MSb, and L/LSa) were determined in 245 enterococcal isolates were characterized using the double-disc diffusion method. Specific primers were chosen from database sequences for detection of the MLS resistance genes (ermA, ermB, ermC, msrA/B, lnuA, lnuB, and lsaA) in 60 isolates of enterococci by end-point PCR. There was no linezolid-resistant enterococcal isolate. Only one vancomycin-resistant (0.6%) isolate was found and it occurred in a community-acquired enterococcal isolate. The most frequent MLS resistance phenotype among enterococcal isolates was cMLSb (79.7% community- and 67.9% hospital-acquired). The most common identified MLS resistance genes among enterococcal isolates were lsaA (52.9% community- and 33.3% hospital-acquired) and ermB (17.6% community- and 33.3% hospital-acquired). The most prevalent MLS gene combination was lnuA"‰+"‰lsaA (five enterococcal isolates). The ermB gene encoded cMLSb phenotype, and it was identified in only one isolate that displayed iMLSb resistance phenotype. Based on the results obtained, we can conclude that the most frequent MLS resistance phenotype among enterococcal isolates was cMLSb. Surprisingly, a vancomycin-resistant enterococcal isolate was identified in a community-acquired enterococcal isolate. This study shows that enterococci may represent a major reservoir of ermB, lsaA, and lnuA genes.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a common mental disorder characterized by recurrent mood episodes, which causes major socioeconomic burdens globally. Though its disease pathogenesis is largely unknown, the high heritability of BD indicates strong contributions from genetic factors. In this review, we summarize the recent achievements in the genetics of BD, particularly those from genome-wide association study (GWAS) of common variants and next-generation sequencing analysis of rare variants. These include the identification of dozens of robust disease-associated loci, deepening of our understanding of the biology of BD, objective description of correlations with other psychiatric disorders and behavioral traits, formulation of methods for predicting disease risk and drug response, and the discovery of a single gene associated with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia spectrum with a large effect size. On the other hand, the findings to date have not yet made a clear contribution to the improvement of clinical psychiatry of BD. We overview the remaining challenges as well as possible paths to resolve them, referring to studies of other major neuropsychiatric disorders.

A major advance in neuroendocrinology in the past 20 years was the discovery that kisspeptin neurons of the arcuate nucleus (ARC), termed KNDy neurons because of their co-expression of kisspeptin, neurokinin B (NKB) and dynorphin, are key oscillators driving pulsatile release of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). The ARC had been implicated in pulsatile LH secretion since the 1970s, but the specific neurons involved remained a mystery. Co-expression of the three KNDy peptides, first demonstrated in 2007, provided a key clue, but the role of KNDy neurons in pulse generation has its roots in earlier work and, in fact, starts at the end of the acronym 'KNDy' with 'Dy', which signifies dynorphin, an endogenous opioid peptide (EOP).

Despite a significant disease burden and potential to cause blindness, primary angle closure disease (PACD) does not have a population-based screening programme. Biometric indices using ultrasound A-scan is a potential tool for glaucoma case-detection. Given that genetic and environmental factors influence these parameters and paucity of data on their discrimination thresholds in Indian populace, we conducted a matched case-control study to determine the biometric indices and their discrimination thresholds associated with PACD.

Sub-100-mV switching at the nanosecond timescale is achieved in ferroelectric devices by approaching bulk-like perfection in prototypical BaTiO3 thin films. In ferroelectrics, spontaneous electrical polarization is switchable by application of an external electric field, making these materials attractive for energy-efficient logic and memory device applications. Low-power voltage control of a memory element is a great asset in contrast to the highly energy-dissipative spin-polarized currents required to manipulate magnetic elements in magnetoresistive random access memories1.

Following the discovery in 1999 of ghrelin, the endogenous ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue (GHS) receptor (GHSR-1A)), there was much expectation that ghrelin would be found to have a role in the neuroendocrine regulatory network governing pulsatile GH secretion, with beneficial (GH-mediated) effects on bone and metabolism. Many studies had described the powerful effects of synthetic GHS (that is, ghrelin mimetics) in driving a GH response, including amplification of the response induced by GH-releasing hormone (GHRH).

The technology used to process titanomagnetite is currently limited to the rotary kiln-electric furnace. Other techniques are being developed, including the separation of iron in the form of iron nugget from the reduction of titanomagnetite with coal without any flux addition. The effect of different temperature patterns on the formation of iron nuggets from titanomagnetite was studied. The initial temperature was varied from 700 to 1380 °C, while the final temperature was kept constant at 1380 °C. The experiment results showed that the initial temperature affected the formation of iron nuggets. Initial temperatures of 700"“1100 °C produced many iron nuggets up to 3 mm in size and an initial temperature of 1200 °C produced one nugget with a size of about 4 mm. Initial temperatures of 1300 and 1380 °C did not produce any iron nuggets due to the formation of metallic iron crust on the surface of the reduced briquettes. The optimum initial temperature was 1000 °C to achieve high iron recovery in the nuggets.

ClearCorrect is recognised across the dental profession as a clinically-proven solution that delivers excellent results in cases of mild to moderate anterior crowding. The Straumann Group team behind the brand were on hand at BDCDS to share some of the latest news and features of the system, including:. The new...

The first biosimilar of ranibizumab (Byooviz, Biogen, USA) has received approval from the United States- Food and Drug Administration (US-FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently [1, 2]. And the International Retina Biosimilar Study Group (Inter BIOS Group) has conducted a survey (Bio-USER- unpublished data) which has revealed that many retinal physicians from Europe and the US have concerns regarding the safety of biosimilars. Safety is predominantly related to drug-induced intraocular inflammation (IOI) apart from nonocular safety parameters. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factors (Anti-VEGF) are biologics under the category of monoclonal antibodies. Biologics are exogenous proteins and thus, inherently have the potential to cause immunogenicity [3].