Exploring the functional composition of the human microbiome using a hand-curated microbial trait database.

Background: Even when microbial communities vary wildly in their taxonomic composition, their functional composition is often surprisingly stable. This suggests that a functional perspective could provide much deeper insight into the principles governing microbiome assembly. Much work to date analyzing the functional composition of microbial communities, however, relies heavily on inference from genomic features.

Injection of oral medication into the skin confirmed by infrared spectroscopy.

"Skin popping" refers to the practice of injecting drugs, most commonly heroin, subcutaneously or into granulation tissue. Pharmaceutical tablets meant for oral consumption are modified into solutions for injection. Excipients-inactive substances that serve as vehicles for medication-are often not filtered out before injection and result in abscess formation, granulomatous inflammation, and scarring.

Trait-based analysis of the human skin microbiome.

Background: The past decade of microbiome research has concentrated on cataloging the diversity of taxa in different environments. The next decade is poised to focus on microbial traits and function. Most existing methods for doing this perform pathway analysis using reference databases.

Gaining awareness: Cultivating clinical reflection in nursing students.

Earlier this year, in an article published in Nurse Education in Practice, a nurse educator in our school of nursing described an activity designed to refresh and inspire undergraduate nursing students who feel fatigued at the end of the day, and/or anxious, pressured, or overwhelmed during their clinical practice experiences (Andersen, 2016). We are some of those students who participated in this activity during some of our therapeutic debriefing and reflective discussions and we would like to respond by describing our experiences.