Atypical presentation of gouty tophi in a resource-limited setting.

A man in his early 50s from Tanzania presented with chronic nodular skin lesions and joint pain, likely due to gout complicated by obesity, after over 15 years of misdiagnosis and ineffective treatment. Despite various therapies for leprosy, tuberculosis and steroid use, his condition worsened, leading to hyperglycaemia and significant financial strain. Missed opportunities to use simple, low-cost diagnostic tests such as ultrasound and examining nodule fluid for urate crystals led to delays in diagnosis.

Genome Sequence of Three Siphoviruses in the EE, GA and EA5 Actinobacteriophage Clusters: Biscayne, Bush and GreenIvy.

Bacteriophages Biscayne, Bush and GreenIvy were isolated from soil samples in Miami, FL using NRRL B-24224 as host. Transmission electron microscopy shows siphoviral morphologies for all three phages. Based on gene content similarity to other actinobacteriophages, they are assigned to the EE, GA and EA5 clusters, respectively.

Variation in faecal testosterone levels in male gray whales on a foraging ground relative to maturity and timing.

Understanding wildlife reproductive seasonality is crucial for effective management and long-term monitoring of species. This study investigates the seasonal variability of testosterone in male Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) gray whales, using an eight-year dataset (2016-2023) of individual sightings, drone-based photogrammetry and endocrine analysis of faecal samples. We analyzed the relationship between faecal testosterone levels and total body length (TL), body condition (body area index, BAI), sexual maturity and day of the year using generalized additive mixed models.

Optimizing automated photo identification for population assessments.

Several legal acts mandate that management agencies regularly assess biological populations. For species with distinct markings, these assessments can be conducted noninvasively via capture-recapture and photographic identification (photo-ID), which involves processing considerable quantities of photographic data. To ease this burden, agencies increasingly rely on automated identification (ID) algorithms.

Hypomethylating agents for patients with VEXAS without myelodysplastic syndrome: Clinical outcome and longitudinal follow-up of vacuolization and UBA1 clonal dynamics.

VEXAS syndrome is a haemato-inflammatory disease caused by somatic UBA1 mutations and characterized by cytoplasmic vacuoles in myeloid and erythroid precursor cells. Although there is currently no standard treatment algorithm for VEXAS, patients are generally treated with anti-inflammatory therapies focused on symptom management, with only partial effectiveness. Hypomethylating agents (HMA) have shown promise in VEXAS patients with concomitant myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), while the efficacy of HMA in VEXAS patients without MDS is largely unknown.