COVID-19 vaccination attitudes and acceptance among people with serious mental illness.

Objective: This study examines attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination among a diverse cohort of adults with serious mental illness (SMI), participant characteristics that are associated with vaccine acceptance, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccination among this population.

Methods: A 28-item questionnaire was administered to 185 adults with SMI receiving care at a university-based outpatient psychiatric clinic. Variables included demographics, health behaviors, and vaccination status.

Vole hunting: novel predatory and carnivorous behavior by California ground squirrels.

Unlabelled: Dietary flexibility allows animals to respond adaptively to food pulses in the environment. Here we document the novel emergence of widespread hunting of California voles and carnivorous feeding behavior by California ground squirrels. Over two months in the twelfth year of a long-term study on the squirrel population, we document 74 events of juvenile and adult ground squirrels of both sexes depredating, consuming, and/or competing over vole prey.

A multiplexed, single-cell sequencing screen identifies compounds that increase neurogenic reprogramming of murine Muller glia.

Retinal degeneration in mammals causes permanent loss of vision, due to an inability to regenerate naturally. Some non-mammalian vertebrates show robust regeneration, via Muller glia (MG). We have recently made significant progress in stimulating adult mouse MG to regenerate functional neurons by transgenic expression of the proneural transcription factor Ascl1.

Development and use of two Xenopus laevis spleen stromal cell lines to study the role of splenic stromal cells in anuran immune processes.

The spleen is an important immune organ in adult Xenopus laevis, supporting the differentiation of B cells and acting as the main peripheral lymphoid organ. Key to these processes are the supporting non-hematopoietic cells, or stromal cells, within the spleen tissue. Despite the importance of the spleen to frog immunity, few frog cell lines originating from spleen tissue have been reported.

Regulating the formation of Müller glia-derived progenitor cells in the retina.

We summarize recent findings in different animal models regarding the different cell-signaling pathways and gene networks that influence the reprogramming of Müller glia into proliferating, neurogenic progenitor cells in the retina. Not surprisingly, most of the cell-signaling pathways that guide the proliferation and differentiation of embryonic retinal progenitors also influence the ability of Müller glia to become proliferating Müller glia-derived progenitor cells (MGPCs). Further, the neuronal differentiation of MGPC progeny is potently inhibited by networks of neurogenesis-suppressing genes in chick and mouse models but occurs freely in zebrafish.