Prevalence and Clinical Implications of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria Isolation and Infection among Patients with Bronchiectasis in the Jerusalem Area.

Background: Bronchiectasis is an obstructive chronic lung disease characterized by structural changes in large and small airways, namely permanent widening of bronchial lumen resulting in chronic inflammation and infection. Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are environmental mycobacteria that may cause human infection or colonization with over 150 species identified to date. Bronchiectasis with NTM colonization or infection is often encountered but with varying prevalence and unknown clinical or prognostic significance.

Assembling an arsenal, the scorpion way.

Background: For survival, scorpions depend on a wide array of short neurotoxic polypeptides. The venoms of scorpions from the most studied group, the Buthida, are a rich source of small, 23-78 amino acid-long peptides, well packed by either three or four disulfide bridges that affect ion channel function in excitable and non-excitable cells.

Results: In this work, by constructing a toxin transcripts data set from the venom gland of the scorpion Buthus occitanus israelis, we were able to follow the evolutionary path leading to mature toxin diversification and suggest a mechanism for leader peptide hyper-conservation.

The thin line between reality and imagination: attachment orientations and the effects of relationship threats on sexual fantasies.

The authors examined the effects of relationship threats on sexual fantasies. In two studies, participants described a sexual fantasy following an imagination task and reported their attachment orientations. In Study 1, participants imagined relationship or nonrelationship threat scenes.