Investigating the Reliability of Shore Hardness in the Design of Procedural Task Trainers.

The haptic fidelity of biomimetic materials used in the design of procedural task trainers is of growing interest to the medical community. Shore hardness has been proposed as a method for assessing tissue biomechanics and replicating the results as a way to increase the fidelity of biomimetics to tissues. However, there is limited research on the reliability of human tissue measurements using Shore scales.

Knockdown Resistance-Associated Mutations Dominate Populations of the Common Bed Bug (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) Across the South Central United States.

Despite awareness of the mutations conferring insecticide resistance in the bed bug, Cimex lectularius L. (Hemiptera: Cimicidae), within the United States few studies address the distribution and frequency of these. Within the United States, studies have focused on collections made along the East Coast and Midwest, documenting the occurrence of two mutations (V419L and L925I) within the voltage-gated sodium channel α-subunit gene shown to be associated with knockdown resistance (kdr) to pyrethroids.

Predation by ants controls swallow bug (Hemiptera: Cimicidae: Oeciacus vicarius) infestations.

The swallow bug (Oeciacus vicarius) is the only known vector for Buggy Creek virus (BCRV), an alphavirus that circulates in cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) and house sparrows (Passer domesticus) in North America. We discovered ants (Crematogaster lineolata and Formica spp.) preying on swallow bugs at cliff swallow colonies in western Nebraska, U.

Heterochrony repolarized: a phylogenetic analysis of developmental timing in plethodontid salamanders.

Background: Disentangling evolutionary shifts in developmental timing (heterochony) is dependent upon accurate estimates of ancestral patterns. However, many classic assessments of heterochronic patterns predate robust phylogenetic hypotheses and methods for trait reconstruction, and therefore may have been polarized with untested 'primitive' conditions. Here we revisit the heterochronic modes of development that underlie the evolution of metamorphosis, maturation, and paedomorphosis in plethodontid salamanders.