Efficiency of the OcluchMAD in the treatment of patients with OSAS and its association with craniofacial morphology.

Objective: This study uses polysomnography and the Epworth sleepiness scale to assess the efficiency of the OcluchMAD in patients with Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAS), on overall respiratory disturbance indices (RDI), supine respiratory disturbance index (SRDI), minimum oxygen saturation, microarousals, CT90 (or ID90), sleep efficacy and snoring. These data are associated with skeletal class and facial biotype in order to establish predictive parameters for its effectiveness according to craniofacial morphology.

Methods: 22 adult patients (between 38 and 60 years of age) of both sexes (7 women, 15 men) diagnosed with OSAS in the Hospital de Carabineros de Chile (HOSCAR) Neurology Unit were recruited and given the Ocluch MAD in the hospital's dental clinic, for its use during a three-month period.

Geographic variation of persistent organic pollutant levels in humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) feeding areas of the North Pacific and North Atlantic.

Seasonal feeding behavior and high fidelity to feeding areas allow humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to be used as biological indicators of regional contamination. Biopsy blubber samples from male individuals (n = 67) were collected through SPLASH, a multinational research project, in eight North Pacific feeding grounds. Additional male samples (n = 20) were collected from one North Atlantic feeding ground.

The world's smallest whale population?

The North Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica) was heavily exploited by both nineteenth century whaling and recent (1960s) illegal Soviet catches. Today, the species remains extremely rare especially in the eastern North Pacific. Here, we use photographic and genotype data to calculate the first mark-recapture estimates of abundance for right whales in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands.