African savanna raptors show evidence of widespread population collapse and a growing dependence on protected areas.

The conversion of natural habitats to farmland is a major cause of biodiversity loss and poses the greatest extinction risk to birds worldwide. Tropical raptors are of particular concern, being relatively slow-breeding apex predators and scavengers, whose disappearance can trigger extensive cascading effects. Many of Africa's raptors are at considerable risk from habitat conversion, prey-base depletion and persecution, driven principally by human population expansion.

Raptor research during the COVID-19 pandemic provides invaluable opportunities for conservation biology.

Research is underway to examine how a wide range of animal species have responded to reduced levels of human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this perspective article, we argue that raptors (i.e.

DNA barcoding identifies cryptic animal tool materials.

Some animals fashion tools or constructions out of plant materials to aid foraging, reproduction, self-maintenance, or protection. Their choice of raw materials can affect the structure and properties of the resulting artifacts, with considerable fitness consequences. Documenting animals' material preferences is challenging, however, as manufacture behavior is often difficult to observe directly, and materials may be processed so heavily that they lack identifying features.

Quantification and Characterization of Ti-, Ce-, and Ag-Nanoparticles in Global Surface Waters and Precipitation.

Nanoparticle (NP) emissions to the environment are increasing as a result of anthropogenic activities, prompting concerns for ecosystems and human health. In order to evaluate the risk of NPs, it is necessary to know their concentrations in various environmental compartments on regional and global scales; however, these data have remained largely elusive due to the analytical difficulties of measuring NPs in complex natural matrices. Here, we measure NP concentrations and sizes for Ti-, Ce-, and Ag-containing NPs in numerous global surface waters and precipitation samples, and we provide insights into their compositions and origins (natural or anthropogenic).

COVID-19 and Nurse-Sensitive Indicators: Using Performance Improvement Teams to Address Quality Indicators During a Pandemic.

Background: Nurse-sensitive quality indicators have historically been used as a metric of nursing care quality in health care organizations.

Problem: At our academic medical center, critically ill COVID-19 patients led to a dramatic change in the organizational standard of care resulting in an increase in nurse-sensitive health care-associated infections.

Approach: Nursing performance improvement teams provided the structure for development of innovative strategies implemented in real time by our frontline clinicians to address the quality and safety issues found with these elevated health care-associated infections.

UK's first NHS high-energy proton beam facility.

With the UK's first high-energy Proton Beam Therapy Centre set to open next year at Manchester's The Christie, young patients with head and neck tumours, cancers close to the skull or spine, or a variety of soft tissue tumours, and adults with cancers difficult to treat using 'conventional' photon-based radiotherapy will, for the first time, be able to receive NHS proton beam therapy (PBT) without having to travel overseas. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, visited the site of The Christie's new £135 million PBT Centre to find out more about the design and construction of a facility which interserve construction director for the North-West, Phil Shaw, describes as one of the most complex and specialist he has worked on.

Candidatus "Scalindua brodae", sp. nov., Candidatus "Scalindua wagneri", sp. nov., two new species of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is both a promising process in wastewater treatment and a long overlooked microbial physiology that can contribute significantly to biological nitrogen cycling in the world's oceans. Anammox is mediated by a monophyletic group of bacteria that branches deeply in the Planctomycetales. Here we describe a new genus and species of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing planctomycetes, discovered in a wastewater treatment plant (wwtp) treating landfill leachate in Pitsea, UK.

Molecular characterisation of bacteria in a wetland used to remove ammoniacal-N from landfill leachate.

Bacteria associated with leachate from a constructed, surface-flow wetland effective at removing ammonium-N, were characterised using molecular methods which bypass the need for cultivation. DNA was extracted from the sample and bacterial 16S rDNA sequences amplified and cloned. Ninety-six individual clones were re-amplified and analysed by restriction digestion and targeted sequencing.