Detection of Prions in Wild Pigs (Sus scrofa) from Areas with Reported Chronic Wasting Disease Cases, United States.

Using a prion amplification assay, we identified prions in tissues from wild pigs (Sus scrofa) living in areas of the United States with variable chronic wasting disease (CWD) epidemiology. Our findings indicate that scavenging swine could play a role in disseminating CWD and could therefore influence its epidemiology, geographic distribution, and interspecies spread.

A footworm in the door: revising Onchocerca phylogeny with previously unknown cryptic species in wild North American ungulates.

Onchocerca is an important genus of vector-borne filarial nematodes that infect both humans and animals worldwide. Many Onchocerca spp., most of medical and veterinary health relevance, are the focus of a variety of diagnostic and molecular research.

"Luck Be a Lady": Retrospective Study of Disease-Associated Prion (PrPSc) Distribution and Lesions in Captive, Environmentally Exposed Female Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) with 132LL Genotype.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease of cervids caused by an infectious misfolded protein (prion). Several members of the Cervidae, including Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni), are susceptible to CWD. There is no evidence of complete genetic resistance to CWD; the M132L polymorphism in the elk prion protein gene influences the incubation period: longest in 132LL, intermediate in 132ML, and shortest in 132MM elk.

Infection-nutrition feedbacks: fat supports pathogen clearance but pathogens reduce fat in a wild mammal.

Though far less obvious than direct effects (clinical disease or mortality), the indirect influences of pathogens are difficult to estimate but may hold fitness consequences. Here, we disentangle the directional relationships between infection and energetic reserves, evaluating the hypotheses that energetic reserves influence infection status of the host and that infection elicits costs to energetic reserves. Using repeated measures of fat reserves and infection status in individual bighorn sheep () in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we documented that fat influenced ability to clear pathogens () and infection with respiratory pathogens was costly to fat reserves.

Implementing online learning of Diagnostic Criteria for the Temporomandibular Disorders (DC/TMD) protocol in undergraduate dental education.

Introduction: The Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (DC/TMD) is part of the undergraduate dental curriculum. Online teaching has nowadays become common also in dentistry.

Objective: To compare undergraduate students' self-assessed ability and satisfaction with learning DC/TMD Axis I between traditional and online learning and to evaluate the possible gains of online teaching.