In Brief: Females with obesity may experience infertility and can improve their fertility through exercise. This review found that most exercise interventions improve fertility outcomes regardless of technique, intensity, or duration. More detailed reporting through the lens of exercise prescription should be included in future studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRebecca Maher's career followed a 'squiggly path' through practice, industry, marketing and on to her next challenge - applying consumer psychology to veterinary businesses through her own startup company.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFViruses can affect coral health by infecting their symbiotic dinoflagellate partners (Symbiodiniaceae). Yet, viral dynamics in coral colonies exposed to environmental stress have not been studied at the reef scale, particularly within individual viral lineages. We sequenced the viral major capsid protein (mcp) gene of positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses known to infect symbiotic dinoflagellates ('dinoRNAVs') to analyze their dynamics in the reef-building coral, Porites lobata.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanomedicine is currently focused on the design and development of nanocarriers that enhance drug delivery to the brain to address unmet clinical needs for treating neuropsychiatric disorders and neurological diseases. Polymer and lipid-based drug carriers are advantageous for delivery to the central nervous system (CNS) due to their safety profiles, drug-loading capacity, and controlled-release properties. Polymer and lipid-based nanoparticles (NPs) are reported to penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and have been extensively assessed in in vitro and animal models of glioblastoma, epilepsy, and neurodegenerative disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This paper examined whether the criterion validity of step count (SC), energy expenditure (EE), and heart rate (HR) varied across studies depending on the average age, body mass index (BMI), and predominant gender of participants.
Methods: Data from 1536 studies examining the validity of various wearable devices were used. Separate multilevel regression models examined the associations among age, gender, and BMI with device criterion validity assessed using mean absolute percent error (MAPE) at the study level.
Background: Blackleg disease, caused by the fungal pathogen Leptosphaeria maculans, is a serious threat to canola (Brassica napus) production worldwide. Quantitative resistance to this disease is a highly desirable trait but is difficult to precisely phenotype. Visual scores can be subjective and are prone to assessor bias.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile studies show that nutrient pollution shifts reef trophic interactions between fish, macroalgae, and corals, we know less about how the microbiomes associated with these organisms react to such disturbances. To investigate how microbiome dynamics are affected during nutrient pollution, we exposed replicate corals colonized by the fish , which farm an algal matrix on the coral, to a pulse of nutrient enrichment over a two-month period and examined the microbiome of each partner using 16S amplicon analysis. We found 51 amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) shared among the three hosts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Coral-associated microbial communities are sensitive to multiple environmental and biotic stressors that can lead to dysbiosis and mortality. Although the processes contributing to these microbial shifts remain inadequately understood, a number of potential mechanisms have been identified. For example, predation by various corallivore species, including ecologically-important taxa such as parrotfishes, may disrupt coral microbiomes via bite-induced transmission and/or enrichment of potentially opportunistic bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHolobiont phenotype results from a combination of host and symbiont genotypes as well as from prevailing environmental conditions that alter the relationships among symbiotic members. Corals exemplify this concept, where shifts in the algal symbiont community can lead to some corals becoming more or less thermally tolerant. Despite linkage between coral bleaching and disease, the roles of symbiotic bacteria in holobiont resistance and susceptibility to disease remains less well understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCorals are in decline worldwide due to local anthropogenic stressors, such as nutrient loading, and global stressors, such as ocean warming. Anthropogenic nutrient loading, which is often rich in nitrate, inhibits coral growth and worsens corals' response to warming while natural sources of nitrogen, such as ammonium from fish excretion, promotes coral growth. Although the effects of nutrient loading and ocean warming have been well-studied, it remains unclear how these factors may interact with biotic processes, such as corallivory, to alter coral health and the coral microbiome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerturbations in natural systems generally are the combination of multiple interactions among individual stressors. However, methods to interpret the effects of interacting stressors remain challenging and are biased to identifying synergies which are prioritized in conservation. Therefore we conducted a multiple stressor experiment (no stress, single, double, triple) on the coral Pocillopora meandrina to evaluate how its microbiome changes compositionally with increasing levels of perturbation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioerosion, the removal of calcium carbonate from coral frameworks by living organisms, influences a variety of reef features, from their topographic complexity to the net balance of carbonate budgets. Little is known, however, about how macroborers, which bore into reef substrates leaving traces greater than 0.1 mm diameter, are distributed across coral reefs, particularly reef systems with high (>50%) stony coral cover or at mesophotic depths (≥30 m).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMutations in epigenetic modifiers and signaling factors often co-occur in myeloid malignancies, including TET2 and NRAS mutations. Concurrent Tet2 loss and Nras expression in hematopoietic cells induced myeloid transformation, with a fully penetrant, lethal chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), which was serially transplantable. Tet2 loss and Nras mutation cooperatively led to decrease in negative regulators of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation, including Spry2, thereby causing synergistic activation of MAPK signaling by epigenetic silencing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is growing evidence that creative arts interventions improve perceived physical and mental. However, there is little research into arts interventions in relation to palliative care and the published studies in arts and health have focussed on visual arts with little attention to dance.
Aim: A one year clinical audit was followed by a ten week pilot research study explored whether creative movement enabled people to feel more connected to themselves and each other, whether it supported the development of their collective voice and their ability to advocate for themselves and their peers.
Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol
June 2015
Huddling and nest building are two methods of behavioral thermoregulation used by mice under cold stress. In the laboratory, mice are typically housed at an ambient temperature (Ta) of 20°C, well below the lower end of their thermoneutral zone. We tested the hypothesis that the thermoregulatory benefits of huddling and nest building at a Ta of 20°C would ameliorate this cold stress compared with being singly housed at 20°C as assessed by heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), triiodothyronine (T3), brown adipose (BAT) expression of Elovl3 mRNA, and BAT lipid content.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSafe transitioning of high-risk infants from hospital to home requires these essential elements: (1) a thorough understanding and adherence to infant-identified discharge criteria; (2) the coordination and progression of educational activities that prepare families for care at home; (3) the appropriate identification and utilization of referral services, both during hospitalization and in the community; (4) the involvement of community healthcare providers well versed in the care and follow-up of infants born ill or prematurely; (5) the psychosocial adaptations parents make as they accept their role as independent caregiver. A family Social assessment, Advocacy by all healthcare team members for the safety and well-being of the infant, strong Family involvement, and accessible Environmental resources contribute to the success of a SAFE discharge.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF