Impacts of Thunderstorm-Generated Gravity Waves on the Ionosphere-Thermosphere Using TIEGCM-NG/MAGIC Simulations and Comparisons With GNSS TEC, ICON, and COSMIC-2 Observations.

We use the TIEGCM-NG nudged by MAGIC gravity waves to study the impacts of a severe thunderstorm system, with a hundred tornado touchdowns, on the ionospheric and thermospheric disturbances. The generated waves induce a distinct concentric ring pattern on GNSS TIDs with horizontal scales of 150-400 km and phase speeds of 150-300 m/s, which is well simulated by the model. The waves show substantial vertical evolution in period, initially dominated by 0.

Survey for spp. in wildlife in the eastern United States.

is a diverse genus of piroplasms that parasitize the red blood cells of a wide variety of mammals and avian species, including humans. There is a lack of knowledge on the species of carnivores and mesomammals in the eastern United States and the potential impacts of these species on the health of humans and domestic animals. We surveyed 786 wild mammals in the eastern United States by testing blood, spleen, and heart samples with PCR targeting the 18S rRNA region of apicomplexan parasites.

Impact of morphology and oxygen vacancy content in Ni, Fe co-doped ceria for efficient electrocatalyst based water splitting.

Designing a highly efficient, low-cost, sustainable electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) through water splitting is a current challenge for renewable energy technologies. This work presents a modified sol-gel route to prepare metal-ion(s) doped cerium oxide nanostructures as an efficient electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. Nickle (Ni) and iron (Fe) co-doping impacts the morphology in cerium oxide resulting in 5 nm nanoparticles with a mesoporous-like microstructure.

Does terminology matter when measuring stigmatizing attitudes about weight? Validation of a brief, modified attitudes toward obese persons scale.

Objective: Commonly used terms like "obese person" have been identified as stigmatizing by those with lived experience. Thus, this study sought to revise a commonly used measure of weight stigmatizing attitudes, the Attitudes Toward Obese Persons (ATOP) scale.

Methods: The original terminology in the 20-item ATOP (e.

Maternal behaviors influence survival of ungulate neonates under heavy predation risk.

Predators impose top-down forces on prey populations, with the strength of those effects often varying over space and time and among demographic groups. In ungulates, predation risk is typically greatest for neonatal offspring, with some suggesting that predators can key in on adult activity to locate hidden neonates. However, few field studies to date have been able to directly assess the influence of maternal care on ungulate neonate survival.

The tale of the rattle: Using rattle size to understand growth and sexual dimorphism in an insular population of rattlesnakes ().

Islands have played a key role in our understanding of rapid evolution. A large body of literature has examined morphological changes in response to insularity and isolation, which has yielded useful generalizations about how animals can adapt to live in very small geographic areas. However, understanding the evolution of morphological variation in insular populations often requires detailed data sets on longitudinal patterns of growth and development, and such studies typically necessitate long-term mark-recapture on a large sample of individuals.

Resource pulses shape seasonal and individual variation in the diet of an omnivorous carnivore.

Resource pulses are ecologically important phenomenon that occur in most ecosystems globally. Following optimal foraging theory, many consumers switch to pulsatile foods when available, examples of which include fruit mast and vulnerable young prey. Yet how the availability of resource pulses shapes the ecology of predators is still an emerging area of research; and how much individual variation there is in response to pulses is not well understood.

Cutting-edge developments in zinc oxide nanoparticles: synthesis and applications for enhanced antimicrobial and UV protection in healthcare solutions.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of recent advancements in utilizing zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) to enhance antimicrobial and UV protective properties in healthcare solutions. It delves into the synthesis techniques of ZnO NPs and elucidates their antimicrobial efficacy, exploring the underlying mechanisms governing their action against a spectrum of pathogens. Factors impacting the antimicrobial performance of ZnO NPs, including size, surface characteristics, and environmental variables, are extensively analyzed.

Conservation genomics assessment of Tharp's bluestar () with comparisons to widespread () and narrowly endemic () congeners.

Land-use change and habitat fragmentation are threats to biodiversity. The decrease in available habitat, increase in isolation, and mating within populations can lead to elevated inbreeding, lower genetic diversity, and poor fitness. Here we investigate the genetics of two rare and threatened plant species, and , and we compare them to a widespread congener .

Molecular diversity of Diplura in southern High Appalachian leaf litter.

The fauna of Diplura, the two-pronged bristletails (Hexapoda), of the southern Appalachians has received little focused systematic attention. Existing literature suggests the fauna to comprise around a dozen species. Based on a broader DNA barcode-based survey of high elevation litter arthropods in the region, we suggest the fauna to be much richer, with automated species delimitation methods hypothesising as many as 35 species, most highly restricted to single or closely proximate localities.

Adaptive generalization in pollination systems: Hawkmoths increase fitness to long-tubed flowers, but secondary pollinators remain important.

Selection on floral traits by animal pollinators is important in the evolution of flowering plants, yet whether floral divergence requires specialized pollination remains uncertain. Longer floral tubes, a trait associated with long-tongued pollinators, can also exclude other pollinators from accessing rewards, a potential mechanism for specialization. Across most of its range, displays much longer corollas than most species, though tube length varies geographically and correlates partially with hawkmoth visitation.

Past Disparities in Advance Care Planning Across Sociodemographic Characteristics and Cognition Levels in the United States.

We aimed to examine past advance care planning (ACP) in U.S. older adults across different sociodemographic characteristics and cognition levels.

A review of Nearctic (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae), with revision and descriptions of new flightless species from the mountains of the southeastern U.S.

Species of the genus Gravenhorst (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae) from North America north of Mexico are reviewed and 41 species are recognized. Morphology and mitochondrial COI sequence data were used to guide species designations in three flightless lineages endemic to the southern Appalachian Mountains, a biologically diverse region known for cryptic diversity. Using a combination of phylogeny, algorithm-based species delimitation analyses, and genitalic morphology, five new cryptic species are described and possible biogeographic scenarios for their speciation hypothesized: Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, Five additional species are described: Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , Haberski & Caterino, , and Haberski & Caterino, Two species are transferred from to Casey: (LeConte, 1880), and (Casey, 1905), Twenty-six names are reduced to synonymy.

Modeling and optimization of transesterification of Jatropha oil to fatty acid methyl ester: application of response surface methodology (CCD) and Taguchi orthogonal method.

The study effectively optimized the transesterification process of Jatropha oil to fatty acid methyl ester using response surface methodology (CCD) and Taguchi orthogonal method, leading to enhanced efficiency and product quality. The optimization of five process parameters was conducted to predict the biodiesel yield (%) from the transesterification of Jatropha oil. The procedure was made easier with the use of a nanocatalyst made from calcium oxide obtained from snail shells using the hydrothermal technique.

Incomplete recovery of tree community composition and rare species after 120 years of tropical forest succession in Panama.

Determining how fully tropical forests regenerating on abandoned land recover characteristics of old-growth forests is increasingly important for understanding their role in conserving rare species and maintaining ecosystem services. Despite this, our understanding of forest structure and community composition recovery throughout succession is incomplete, as many tropical chronosequences do not extend beyond the first 50 years of succession. Here, we examined trajectories of forest recovery across eight 1-hectare plots in middle and later stages of forest succession (40-120 years) and five 1-hectare old-growth plots, in the Barro Colorado Nature Monument (BCNM), Panama.

Understanding retort processing: A review.

Retort processing is a food preservation technique to address the challenge posed by for commercial sterility of a food product to get microbiologically safe and stable products by heating. This review aims to explore the journey of retort processing, starting from its early use in single-batch canned foods and progressing to its contemporary applications with different types of containers and heating mediums. Additionally, it will delve into the adaptability of retort equipment, including its ability to operate in stationary and various agitation states, as well as its flexibility in processing speed for both single-batch and continuous operations.

An investigation of the shelf life of cold brew coffee and the influence of extraction temperature using chemical, microbial, and sensory analysis.

Unlabelled: The shelf-life of cold and hot water extraction coffees based on sensory and chemical profiles and microbial growth was examined, which also allowed the study of the influence of extraction temperature on the chemical and sensorial profiles of coffee. The shelf life of refrigerated cold- and hot-brewed coffee was limited not by microbial stability but rather by deterioration in sensory attributes. Further work is recommended to elucidate the mechanisms of coffee staling in a refrigerated environment, with particular interest in the degradation products of chlorogenic acid, as a significant decline in chlorogenic acid concentration was found over the storage period.

Molecular modulation strategies for two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide-based high-performance electrodes for metal-ion batteries.

In the past few decades, great efforts have been made to develop advanced transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials as metal-ion battery electrodes. However, due to existing conversion reactions, they still suffer from structural aggregation and restacking, unsatisfactory cycling reversibility, and limited ion storage dynamics during electrochemical cycling. To address these issues, extensive research has focused on molecular modulation strategies to optimize the physical and chemical properties of TMDs, including phase engineering, defect engineering, interlayer spacing expansion, heteroatom doping, alloy engineering, and bond modulation.

A second species of the pill millipede genus Wesener, 2012 (Diplopoda, Glomerida) from the Great Smoky Mountains, USA.

We describe a second species of Wesener, 2012, a genus of pill millipede endemic to the southern Appalachians, based on morphological and molecular evidence. The fauna of Glomerida in America is characterized by its low diversity, and is only the fifth species of the order known from the eastern United States. Our phylogenetic analyses based on COI sequences recover a tentatively monophyletic lineage including both eastern American genera Cook, 1896 and , with a common ancestor in the Late Cretaceous to Mid Eocene and extant diversity within genera dating back to the Miocene.

Molecular diversity of Protura in southern High Appalachian leaf litter.

The higher elevations of the southern Appalachian Mountains, U.S.A.

Molecular diversity of Pseudoscorpiones in southern High Appalachian leaf litter.

The Pseudoscorpiones fauna of North America is diverse, but in regions like the southern Appalachian Mountains, they are still poorly documented with respect to their species diversity, distributions and ecology. Several families have been reported from these mountains and neighbouring areas. Here we analyse barcoding data of 136 specimens collected in leaf litter, most of them from high-elevation coniferous forest.

Temperature variation generates interspecific synchrony but spatial asynchrony in survival for freshwater fish communities.

Identifying environmental drivers of demographic variation is key to predicting community-level impacts in response to global change. Climate conditions can synchronize population trends and can occur both spatially for populations of the same species, and across multiple species within the same local community. The aim of this study was to investigate patterns of temporal variation in survival for freshwater fish communities in two geographically close but isolated sites and to understand the amount of variation accounted for by abiotic covariates including metrics of water temperature and stream flow.

Hepatozoon spp. infection in wild canids in the eastern United States.

Background: Hepatozoon spp. are apicomplexan parasites known to cause musculoskeletal disease in a variety of animals. Two species are known to infect wild and domestic canids in the US: Hepatozoon canis and H.