Efficacy of TrueNat cartridge extracted DNA for detecting drug resistant tuberculosis by line probe assay.

Background: Currently for diagnosing Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its drug resistance, two sputum samples are required. One of them is subjected to TrueNat™ and if positive the other sample is subjected to line probe assay (LPA). This study was done to evaluate whether TrueNat extracted DNA can be directly used for performing LPA in a diagnostic laboratory setting to decrease patient turn-around time.

Are frog calls relatively difficult to locate by mammalian predators?

Frogs call in acoustically dense choruses to attract conspecific females. Their calls can potentially reveal their location to predators, many of which are mammals. However, frogs and mammals have very different acoustic receivers and mechanisms for determining sound source direction.

A dynamic spike threshold with correlated noise predicts observed patterns of negative interval correlations in neuronal spike trains.

Negative correlations in the sequential evolution of interspike intervals (ISIs) are a signature of memory in neuronal spike-trains. They provide coding benefits including firing-rate stabilization, improved detectability of weak sensory signals, and enhanced transmission of information by improving signal-to-noise ratio. Primary electrosensory afferent spike-trains in weakly electric fish fall into two categories based on the pattern of ISI correlations: non-bursting units have negative correlations which remain negative but decay to zero with increasing lags (Type I ISI correlations), and bursting units have oscillatory (alternating sign) correlation which damp to zero with increasing lags (Type II ISI correlations).