Spinal deformity in a whale shark, Rhincodon typus (Smith 1828), encountered in the northern Gulf of Mexico, with notes on its movement patterns.

This note details the first formal report of a spinal deformation in whale sharks, Rhincodon typus. An individual whale shark with suspected kypholordoscoliosis was observed at Ewing Bank in the Gulf of Mexico during aggregation events in 2010 and 2013. Despite the significant deformity, the shark was observed feeding on fish eggs at the surface during both encounters.

Making Waves: A justice-centred framework for wastewater-based public health surveillance.

Since 2020 wastewater-based surveillance has quickly been established as an effective and cost-efficient tool for monitoring public health. In this Making Waves article, we argue that these programs must be grounded in principles of justice to achieve global water and health equity. Ethics initiatives to date have focused primarily on privacy, legality, and institutionalised research reviews, often, if not exclusively, in North America and Western Europe.

Sexual Trauma, Polygenic Scores, and Mental Health Diagnoses and Outcomes.

Importance: Leveraging real-world clinical biobanks to investigate the associations between genetic and environmental risk factors for mental illness may help direct clinical screening efforts and evaluate the portability of polygenic scores across environmental contexts.

Objective: To examine the associations between sexual trauma, polygenic liability to mental health outcomes, and clinical diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder in a clinical biobank setting.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This genetic association study was conducted using clinical and genotyping data from 96 002 participants across hospital-linked biobanks located at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Nashville, Tennessee (including 58 262 individuals with high genetic similarity to the 1000 Genomes Project [1KG] Northern European from Utah reference population [1KG-EU-clustered] and 11 047 with high genetic similarity to the 1KG African-ancestry reference population of Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria [1KG-YRI-clustered]), and Mass General Brigham (MGB), Boston, Massachusetts (26 693 individuals with high genetic similarity to the combined European-ancestry superpopulation [1KG-EU-clustered]).

Predicting the Release Mechanism of Amorphous Solid Dispersions: A Combination of Thermodynamic Modeling and In Silico Molecular Simulation.

Background: During the dissolution of amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) formulations, the drug load (DL) often impacts the release mechanism and the occurrence of loss of release (LoR). The ASD/water interfacial gel layer and its specific phase behavior in connection with DL strongly dictate the release mechanism and LoR of ASDs, as reported in the literature. Thermodynamically driven liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) and/or drug crystallization at the interface are the key phase transformations that drive LoR.

Multiancestry transferability of a polygenic risk score for diverticulitis.

Objective: Polygenic risk scores (PRS) for diverticular disease must be evaluated in diverse cohorts. We sought to explore shared genetic predisposition across the phenome and to assess risk stratification in individuals genetically similar to European, African and Admixed-American reference samples.

Methods: A 44-variant PRS was applied to the Research Program.

Communicating research findings as a return of value to All of Us Research Program participants: insights from staff at Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Objectives: Research participants value learning how their data contributions are advancing health research (ie, data stories). The All of Us Research Program gathered insights from program staff to learn what research topics they think are of interest to participants, what support staff need to communicate data stories, and how staff use data story dissemination tools.

Materials And Methods: Using an online 25-item assessment, we collected information from All of Us staff at 7 Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Coarse-Grained Simulation of mRNA-Loaded Lipid Nanoparticle Self-Assembly.

Ionizable lipid-containing lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have enabled the delivery of RNA for a range of therapeutic applications. In order to optimize safe, targeted, and effective LNP-based RNA delivery platforms, an understanding of the role of composition and pH in their structural properties and self-assembly is crucial, yet there have been few computational studies of such phenomena. Here we present a coarse-grained model of ionizable lipid and mRNA-containing LNPs.

Complexation Mechanisms of Aqueous Amylose: Molecular Dynamics Study Using 3-Pentadecylphenol.

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of linear amylose fragments containing 10 to 40 glucose units were used to study the complexation of the prototypical compound, 3-pentadecylphenol (PDP)─a natural product with surfactant-like properties─in aqueous solution. The amylose-PDP binding leverages mainly hydrophobic interactions together with excluded volume effects. It was found that while the most stable complexes contained PDP inside the helical structure of the amylose in the expected guest-host (inclusion) complexation manner, at higher temperatures, the commonly observed PDP-amylose complexes often involved more nonspecific interactions than inclusion complexation.

Short- and Long-Term Predicted and Witnessed Consequences of Digital Surveillance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the deployment of digital technologies for public health surveillance globally. The rapid development and use of these technologies have curtailed opportunities to fully consider their potential impacts (eg, for human rights, civil liberties, privacy, and marginalization of vulnerable groups).

Objective: We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed and gray literature to identify the types and applications of digital technologies used for surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the predicted and witnessed consequences of digital surveillance.

An assessment of federal alcohol policies in Canada and priority recommendations: Results from the 3rd Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation Project.

Objective: To systematically assess the Canadian federal government's current alcohol policies in relation to public health best practices.

Methods: The 2022 Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) Project assessed federal alcohol policies across 10 domains. Policy domains were weighted according to evidence for their relative impact, including effectiveness and scope.

Manipulation of Gaseous Ions with Acoustic Fields at Atmospheric Pressure.

The ability to controllably move gaseous ions is an essential aspect of ion-based spectrometry (, mass spectrometry and ion mobility spectrometry) as well as materials processing. At higher pressures, ion motion is largely governed by diffusion and multiple collisions with neutral gas molecules. Thus, high-pressure ion optics based on electrostatics require large fields, radio frequency drives, complicated geometries, and/or partially transmissive grids that become contaminated.

Addressing Climate Health: A Practical Guide to Quantifying and Reducing Health Care-Associated Emissions.

Objective: The objective was to quantify annual greenhouse gas emissions from a surgical specialty hospital and identify high-yield areas to reduce emissions associated with patient care.

Study Design: Pre-post study, greenhouse gas inventory.

Setting: Specialty hospital.

Retraction speed and chronic poststernotomy pain: A randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: Approximately 30% of patients develop chronic poststernotomy pain (CPSP) following cardiac surgery with sternal retraction. Risk factors have been described but no causal determinants identified. Investigators hypothesized that opening the sternum slowly would impart less force (and thereby less nerve/tissue damage) and translate to a reduced incidence of CPSP.

Dobutamine and Goal-Directed Fluid Therapy for Improving Tissue Oxygenation in Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator (DIEP) Flap Breast Reconstruction Surgery: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Breast reconstruction is an integral part of breast cancer care. There are 2 main types of breast reconstruction: alloplastic (using implants) and autologous (using the patient's own tissue). The latter creates a more natural breast mound and avoids the long-term need for surgical revision-more often associated with implant-based surgery.

Genome-wide association study of prostate-specific antigen levels in 392,522 men identifies new loci and improves cross-ancestry prediction.

We conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in 296,754 men (211,342 European ancestry; 58,236 African ancestry; 23,546 Hispanic/Latino; 3,630 Asian ancestry; 96.5% of participants were from the Million Veteran Program). We identified 318 independent genome-wide significant (p≤5e-8) variants, 184 of which were novel.

Flavobacterium covae is the predominant species of columnaris-causing bacteria impacting the Channel Catfish industry in the southeastern United States.

Objective: Columnaris disease is a leading cause of disease-related losses in the catfish industry of the southeastern United States. The term "columnaris-causing bacteria" (CCB) has been coined in reference to the four described species that cause columnaris disease: Flavobacterium columnare, F. covae, F.

Drug Aggregation of Sparingly-Soluble Ionizable Drugs: Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Papaverine and Prostaglandin F2α.

Aggregation in aqueous solution can have important implications on both the exposure of a drug and its pharmaceutical manufacturability. However, the drug aggregates formed can be very small and, thus, difficult to interrogate experimentally. On the other hand, at higher supersaturations where larger aggregates are supported, the chemical system is inherently metastable and therefore likewise challenging to study from an experimental standpoint.

Clinical consequences of a polygenic predisposition to benign lower white blood cell counts: Consequences of benign WBC count genetics.

Polygenic variation unrelated to disease contributes to interindividual variation in baseline white blood cell (WBC) counts, but its clinical significance is undefined. We investigated the clinical consequences of a genetic predisposition toward lower WBC counts among 89,559 biobank participants from tertiary care centers using a polygenic score for WBC count (PGS) comprising single nucleotide polymorphisms not associated with disease. A predisposition to lower WBC counts was associated with a decreased risk of identifying pathology on a bone marrow biopsy performed for a low WBC count (odds-ratio=0.

Characterization of a Low-Temperature Plasma (LTP) Ambient Ionization Source Using Temporally Resolved Monochromatic Imaging Spectrometry.

The low-temperature plasma (LTP) probe is a common plasma-based source used for ambient desorption-ionization mass spectrometry (MS). While the LTP probe has been characterized in detail with MS, relatively few studies have used optical spectroscopy. In this paper, two-dimensional (2D) imaging at selected wavelengths is used to visualize important species in the LTP plasma jet.

"No one went into pharmacy … to sell a lot of Coca-Cola. It's just sort of a necessary evil" - Community pharmacists' perceptions of front-of-store sales and ethical tensions in the retail environment.

Background: Community pharmacists are expected to uphold ethical duties to patients and society while maintaining independent businesses or fulfilling expectations of corporate owners. Canadian pharmacy colleges provide only indirect guidance on the retail setting of the profession. Little is known about whether pharmacists identify ethical issues in retail pharmacy or around the sales of non-drug products.