Climate change can disproportionately reduce habitats of stream fishes with restricted ranges in southern South America.

Freshwater fishes are among the most threatened taxa worldwide owing to changes in land use, species introductions, and climate change. Although more than half of the freshwater fishes in the Chilean Mediterranean ecoregion are considered vulnerable or endangered, still little is known about their biogeography. Fishes of the family Perciliidae are endemic of this region and ideal cases to study potential implications of global warming given their endangered conservation status, small size, restricted range, and limited dispersal capacity in fragmented habitats.

Iron, copper and immunocompetence.

Microminerals including copper and iron are essential to immunity and health in human beings. The development of powerful tools in analytical cell biology and molecular genetics has facilitated efforts to identify specific cellular and molecular functions of trace elements in the maturation, activation and functions of host defence mechanisms. Selected recent reports about the role of copper and iron nutrition on immune functions are critically analysed here.

[Transvaginal ultrasonography in 27 confirmed cases of ectopic pregnancy].

Twenty seven patients having Ectopic Pregnancies were studied prospectively with transvaginal sonography. Ten of them were treated surgically, thirteen with injection of methotrexate and four with expectant management. Ultrasound images were well correlated with clinics, surgical findings and pathology.

[The significance of meconium in the intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy].

1. We studied 202 pregnant women who were porter of pregnancy intrahepatic cholestasis (CIE). They were attended at the High Risk Fetus Unity (FAR) at the Hospital Salvador Maternity.