Communities conquering COVID-19: Black and Latinx community perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 in regions of Michigan hardest hit by the pandemic.

Introduction: In Michigan, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted Black and Latinx communities. These communities experienced higher rates of exposure, hospitalizations, and deaths compared to Whites. We examine the impact of the pandemic and reasons for the higher burden on communities of color from the perspectives of Black and Latinx community members across four Michigan counties and discuss recommendations to better prepare for future public health emergencies.

Increasing diversity in neuroimaging research: Participant-driven recommendations from a qualitative study of an under-represented sample.

Enhancing the generalizability of neuroimaging studies requires actively engaging participants from under-represented communities. This paper leverages qualitative data to outline participant-driven recommendations for incorporating under-represented populations in neuroimaging protocols. Thirty-one participants, who had participated in neuroimaging research or could be eligible for one as part of an ongoing longitudinal study, engaged in semi-structured one-on-one interviews (84 % under-represented ethnic-racial identities and low-income backgrounds).

An Exploration of the Impact of Racism and Discrimination on the Mental Health of Latinx Youth.

Latinx youth are at high risk of health and health care disparities. They are particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges due to the interplay of racism, health, and health care, which can be overwhelming for Latinx youth and their families to navigate. In this article, we provide an overview of the socio-demographics of Latinx youth living in the United States.

Factors That Impact Effective Public Health Communication With Michigan's Latinx Population in the Context of COVID-19.

The far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx communities is well-documented. This population has higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death compared with non-Latinx White Americans mainly due to long-standing problems related to Social Determinants of Health. Communication about issues such as health threats and safety measures are a vital part of public health, and need to be appropriate to the population of focus.

"Life as We Knew It": Continued Challenges in Getting Up-to-Date COVID-19 Vaccinations Amongst Black and Latinx Michigan Residents.

Background: Minority communities are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. In Michigan in 2024, 59% of Latinx residents, 46% of Black residents, and 57% of White residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine. However, just 7% of Black residents and 6% of Latinx residents report being up-to-date per CDC definition, versus 13% of White residents.

Evaluation of somatic copy number variation detection by NGS technologies and bioinformatics tools on a hyper-diploid cancer genome.

Background: Copy number variation (CNV) is a key genetic characteristic for cancer diagnostics and can be used as a biomarker for the selection of therapeutic treatments. Using data sets established in our previous study, we benchmark the performance of cancer CNV calling by six most recent and commonly used software tools on their detection accuracy, sensitivity, and reproducibility. In comparison to other orthogonal methods, such as microarray and Bionano, we also explore the consistency of CNV calling across different technologies on a challenging genome.

Use of the socio-ecological model to explore trusted sources of COVID-19 information in Black and Latinx communities in Michigan.

Background: Identifying trusted sources of health information and exploring what makes these sources trustworthy is an important aspect of public health. This exploration requires embracing the cultural differences in minoritized communities, which are often treated as homogeneous. This qualitative study identifies and analyze the sources of trusted COVID-19 information among Black and Latinx communities in Michigan and assesses the rationale underlying this trust.

MICEAL Black and Latinx Perspectives on COVID-19 Vaccination: A Mixed-Methods Examination.

Objectives: To describe the differences and similarities in perceptions and attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccination among Black and Latinx Michiganders.

Methods: Utilizing a convergent mixed-methods approach, forty interviews were conducted with 24 Black and 16 Latinx community members between December 2020 and June 2021 across four Michigan counties disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Survey data were collected from a representative sample of 1598 individuals living in Detroit between January and March 2021.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Tobacco Use among Latinx Parents in the USA.

The current study aimed to understand the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and cultural factors on Latinx parents' tobacco use. Tobacco use is the leading cause of death among Latinx individuals in the USA, and parental use has long-term secondary harm for children. Thus, it is important to examine cultural protective factors that could prevent Latinx parents and children from the negative health effects of tobacco use.

The Role of Documentation Status Concerns, Perceived Discrimination, and Social Support on Latinx Adults' Physical and Mental Health.

There is a growing number of immigrants arriving in the USA, with the majority being of Latinx descent. Coupled with this increase, there has also been growing anti-immigration legislation which impacts the experiences this group faces and creates additional concerns for those who are residing in this country without documentation. Experiences of overt and covert discrimination and marginalization have been shown to relate to poorer mental and physical health outcomes.

Expanding and improving nanobody repertoires using a yeast display method: Targeting SARS-CoV-2.

COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, represents a serious worldwide health issue, with continually emerging new variants challenging current therapeutics. One promising alternate therapeutic avenue is represented by nanobodies, small single-chain antibodies derived from camelids with numerous advantageous properties and the potential to neutralize the virus. For identification and characterization of a broad spectrum of anti-SARS-CoV-2 Spike nanobodies, we further optimized a yeast display method, leveraging a previously published mass spectrometry-based method, using B-cell complementary DNA from the same immunized animals as a source of VH sequences.

Total mercury, methylmercury, and selenium concentrations in blue marlin Makaira nigricans from a long-term dataset in the western north Atlantic.

Mercury in seafood is a neurotoxicant that threatens human health. Dynamic rates of mercury emission, re-emission, and atmospheric deposition warrant studies into mercury concentrations in fish because many are consumed by humans and can serve as sentinels of mercury levels in the environment. We modeled trends in total mercury content in an apex marine fish predator, Atlantic blue marlin Makaira nigricans, whose muscle tissues were opportunistically sampled from North Carolina (USA) sportfishing tournaments over a discontinuous time period: between 1975 and 77 and 1998-2021 (n = 148).

Control of division in Chlamydomonas by cyclin B/CDKB1 and the anaphase-promoting complex.

In yeast and animals, cyclin B binds and activates the cyclin-dependent kinase ('CDK') CDK1 to drive entry into mitosis. We show that CYCB1, the sole cyclin B in Chlamydomonas, activates the plant-specific CDKB1 rather than the CDK1 ortholog CDKA1, confirming and extending previous results. Time-lapse microscopy shows that CYCB1 is synthesized before each division in the multiple fission cycle, then is rapidly degraded 3-5 minutes before division occurs.

Systems-wide analysis revealed shared and unique responses to moderate and acute high temperatures in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Different intensities of high temperatures affect the growth of photosynthetic cells in nature. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, we cultivated the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under highly controlled photobioreactor conditions and revealed systems-wide shared and unique responses to 24-hour moderate (35°C) and acute (40°C) high temperatures and subsequent recovery at 25°C. We identified previously overlooked unique elements in response to moderate high temperature.

Latinx adolescents' ethnic-racial discrimination and expected future barriers over time.

Expecting discrimination in one's future occupation is known to have negative implications for adolescents' career pathways. However, little is known about how such discriminatory expectations emerge. The current contentious sociopolitical climate toward immigrants, especially those of Latinx heritage, has contributed to heightened discrimination against adolescents in this group.

Documentation status socialization among Latinx immigrant parents.

Discriminatory legislation targeting Latinx immigrants in the United States has shifted how parents communicate with their children about the hostile political climate. One way that Latinx parents talk about and prepare their children to face prejudice is through ethnic-racial socialization, which can promote children's positive development. Few scholars, however, have focused on how Latinx immigrant families with precarious documentation status socialize their children around issues of immigration, documentation status, and the potential for family separation.

Control of pre-replicative complex during the division cycle in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

DNA replication is fundamental to all living organisms. In yeast and animals, it is triggered by an assembly of pre-replicative complex including ORC, CDC6 and MCMs. Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) regulates both assembly and firing of the pre-replicative complex.

Odour priming of a mosquito-specialist predator's vision-based detouring decisions.

A capacity to execute long detours that are planned ahead of time has cognitive implications pertaining to reliance on internal representation. Here we investigate the detouring behaviour of Evarcha culicivora, an East African salticid spider that specializes at preying on blood-carrying mosquitoes. The findings from our experiments are the first evidence of a salticid making detouring plans based on whether the path chosen leads to more preferred instead of less preferred prey, as well as the first evidence of olfactory priming effects on motivation and selective attention in the context of detouring.

Arthropod Intelligence? The Case for .

Macphail's "null hypothesis," that there are no differences in intelligence, qualitative, or quantitative, between non-human vertebrates has been controversial. This controversy can be useful if it encourages interest in acquiring a detailed understanding of how non-human animals express flexible problem-solving capacity ("intelligence"), but limiting the discussion to vertebrates is too arbitrary. As an example, we focus here on , a spider with an especially intricate predatory strategy and a preference for other spiders as prey.

Illuminating ethnic-racial socialization among undocumented Latinx parents and its implications for adolescent psychosocial functioning.

The purpose of this study is to examine how parents' documentation status informs their ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) practices and the subsequent implications for Latinx youths' psychological adjustment. The mixed-methods approach combined convergent and exploratory sequential designs to explore the breadth and depth of Latinx parents' messages to their children regarding race and ethnicity. Qualitative data were used to generate hypotheses that were tested quantitatively.

Cleavage-furrow formation without F-actin in .

It is widely believed that cleavage-furrow formation during cytokinesis is driven by the contraction of a ring containing F-actin and type-II myosin. However, even in cells that have such rings, they are not always essential for furrow formation. Moreover, many taxonomically diverse eukaryotic cells divide by furrowing but have no type-II myosin, making it unlikely that an actomyosin ring drives furrowing.

Inherently Political? Associations of Parent Ethnic-Racial Socialization and Sociopolitical Discussions with Latinx Youths' Emergent Civic Engagement.

The current study expands on ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) among Latinx families to include sociopolitical discussions as a way to better understand how these practices relate to adolescents' developmental outcomes, including their ethnic-racial identity (ERI) and their sociopolitical development. More specifically, we examined whether there were direct links between parental ERS practices and sociopolitical discussions at home and adolescents' emergent participatory citizenship via their ERI processes (i.e.

Regulation of Multiple Fission and Cell-Cycle-Dependent Gene Expression by CDKA1 and the Rb-E2F Pathway in Chlamydomonas.

The green alga Chlamydomonas proliferates by "multiple fission": a long G1 with >10-fold cell growth followed by multiple rapid divisions. Cells above a critical size threshold are "committed" and will divide independent of light and further cell growth. The number of divisions carried out depends on the initial size of the committed mother cell.