New insights into parental effects and toxicity: mate availability and diet in the parental environment affect offspring responses to contaminants.

Parental effects manifest as alterations in offspring phenotype resulting from the parental phenotype and/or parental environment. We evaluated the effects of parental diet quality and mating strategy on the toxicant tolerance of offspring in Biomphalaria glabrata snails. We raised snails either individually (self-fertilizing) or in groups of three (outcrossing) on a diet of uncooked lettuce, fish food, cooked lettuce, or cooked lettuce plus fish food.

Transgenerational cross-tolerance to stress: parental exposure to predators increases offspring contaminant tolerance.

Transgenerational effects of stressors can have important implications for offspring fitness and the responses of offspring to future stressful conditions. Parental effects, a common type of transgenerational effect, are non-genetic influences on offspring phenotype that result from parental phenotypes or environments. Little is known, however, about how parental exposure to a stressor effects offspring responses to other stressors despite this type of multi-stressor scenario being common.

Multidisciplinary mock codes: dream it, plan it, do it, rate it.

A mock code program using the nursing process was developed to teach nurses to cope with code situations. In addition, the program was designed to increase staff feelings of competency and effectiveness in response to a code, and provide a review of procedures, equipment, and roles during a code. The mock code program began with a multidisciplinary 2-hour minishop followed by a 6-month pilot project of prescheduled, and "briefed" mock codes.