Lack of maternal milk commonly leads to Asian elephant calves' death in captivity. Currently, available supplements seem inefficient. Hence, we aimed at characterizing the composition of Asian elephant milk to provide information on calves' nutritional needs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased exposure to greener environments has been suggested to lead to health benefits in children, but the associated mechanisms in early life, particularly via biological mediators such as altered maternal milk composition, remain largely unexplored. We investigated the associations between properties of the mother's residential green environment, measured as (1) greenness (Normalized Difference Vegetation index, NDVI), (2) Vegetation Cover Diversity (VCDI) and (3) Naturalness Index (NI), and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), known for their immune- and microbiota-related health effects on the infant (N = 795 mothers). We show that HMO diversity increases and concentrations of several individual HMOs and HMO groups change with increased VCDI and NI in residential green environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano in the South Pacific Ocean on January 15, 2022, at about 4:15 UTC, generated a violent explosion, which created atmospheric pressure disturbances in the form of Rayleigh-Lamb waves detected all over the globe. Here we discuss the observation of the Hunga-Tonga shock-wave performed at the Ny-Ålesund Research Station on the Spitsbergen island, by the detectors of the PolarquEEEst experiment and their ancillary sensors. Online pressure data as well as the results of dedicated offline analysis are presented and discussed in details.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Glucocorticoids (GCs), cortisol and cortisone, are essential regulators of many physiological responses, including immunity, stress and mammary gland function. GCs are present in human milk (HM), but whether maternal and infant factors are associated with HM GC concentration following preterm birth is unclear.
Materials And Methods: HM samples were collected on postnatal day 5 and 10 and at 4 months' corrected age (4m CA) in a cohort of moderate- and late-preterm infants.
Background: Many environmental factors are known to hinder breastfeeding, yet the role of the family living environment in this regard is still poorly understood.
Objectives: We used data from a large cohort to identify associations between neighborhood characteristics and breastfeeding behavior.
Methods: Our observational study included 11,038 children (0-2 years) from the Southwest Finland Birth Cohort.