The Cost of Self-Defense: Browsing Effects in the Rare Plant Species .

Coevolution between plants and their animal predators has led to diverse defensive adaptations. Multiple theories of defense propose that there are resource allocation costs associated with producing chemical defenses. One leading hypothesis, optimal defense theory (ODT), suggests that natural selection will result in the allocation of resources to defenses that optimize the cost-to-benefit ratio between defense and other functional processes.

Declining ecological resilience and invasion resistance under climate change in the sagebrush region, United States.

In water-limited dryland ecosystems of the Western United States, climate change is intensifying the impacts of heat, drought, and wildfire. Disturbances often lead to increased abundance of invasive species, in part, because dryland restoration and rehabilitation are inhibited by limited moisture and infrequent plant recruitment events. Information on ecological resilience to disturbance (recovery potential) and resistance to invasive species can aid in addressing these challenges by informing long-term restoration and conservation planning.

Trust as Foundation: Can Nigeria's New Health Workforce Policy Stem the Migration Tide?

Nigeria's 2024 National Policy on Health Workforce Migration confronts a fundamental challenge: rebuilding trust between healthcare workers and government. Using Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman's organizational trust framework, this analysis explores how trust shapes healthcare workers' migration decisions. Drawing from comparative African experiences and implementation evidence, this paper argues that without addressing core issues of trust through demonstrated policy implementation, sustained commitment to workforce welfare, and competitive compensation, even well-designed retention policies will struggle to retain Nigeria's health workers.

Measuring and predicting disturbance resilience in ecosystems, with emphasis on fire: A review and meta-analysis.

As disturbance regimes change in response to anthropogenic activities, ecosystem resilience is critically important to the persistence of biodiversity and ecological functions. However, resilience in literature is often treated as an abstract concept, with widely varying definitions. Achieving common and reliable resilience metrics that cross systems and contexts remains elusive.

Opsomyoclonus: A rare complication of West Nile virus.

West Nile virus is a mosquito-borne illness that usually presents as asymptomatic or with a viral syndrome, and normally is treated with supportive care or immunotherapy. However, some patients can develop neurologic symptoms of viral meningoencephalitis. This article describes a patient who developed opsomyoclonus, a rare complication of West Nile virus meningoencephalitis.

Thriving Through Adaptation: Adaptive Sports after Spinal Cord Injury.

This article focuses on identifying how health care providers can support a person with spinal cord injury to pursue and maintain involvement in adaptive sports. Benefits and barriers of sport participation, equipment considerations, and recommendations on how to determine sport appropriateness for a person with spinal cord injury will be provided. The authors emphasize through appropriate medical management and consideration of level of disability, functional performance, psychological readiness, and individual preference, a health care provider can play a valuable role in connecting individuals with spinal cord injury to adaptive sports and recreation.

Respiratory muscle strength pre- and post-maximal apneas in a world champion breath-hold diver.

Maximal static dry, that is, on land, apneas (breath-holds) result in severe hypoxemia and hypercapnia and have easy-going and struggle phases. During the struggle phase, the respiratory muscles involuntarily contract against the closed glottis in increasing frequency and magnitude, that is, involuntary breathing movements (IBMs). IBMs during maximal static apnea have been suggested to fatigue respiratory muscles, but this has yet to be measured.

Multi-session adaptation to audiovisual and sensorimotor biofeedback is heterogeneous among adolescents with cerebral palsy.

Background: There is growing interest in the use of biofeedback-augmented gait training in cerebral palsy (CP). Audiovisual, sensorimotor, and immersive biofeedback paradigms are commonly used to elicit short-term gait improvements; however, outcomes remain variable. Because biofeedback training requires that individuals have the capacity to both adapt their gait in response to feedback and retain improvements across sessions, changes in either capacity may affect outcomes.

Effect of a Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet on Postprandial Sleepiness: A Pilot Study.

Background: Postprandial sleepiness refers to the state of excessive drowsiness that occurs after consuming a meal. This transient phenomenon is experienced by many individuals, often leading to decreased productivity and impaired cognitive performance. This study examined the effect of a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diet on postprandial sleepiness.

Examining Real-World Evidence of Depression-Related Symptom Reduction Through a Comprehensive Holistic Lifestyle Intervention.

Depression is a global health concern, with various treatments available. In this study, participants (n = 430) were self-selected or medically referred to a residential lifestyle program at the Black Hills Health & Education Center (BHHEC), with a mean stay of 19 days. Individualized treatment plans included structured physical activity sessions, counseling sessions, and the provision of a vegan diet.

Big fish can't jump? Allometry of terrestrial jumping in cyprinodontiform fishes.

Teleost fishes that emerge onto land must produce effective terrestrial movements to return to the water. Using the Cyprinodontiformes as a model system, we examined a terrestrial behavior termed the tail-flip jump across a size range of individuals representing three species of aquatic killifishes (Gambusia affinis, Poecilia mexicana, and Jordanella floridae) and two species of amphibious killifishes (Kryptolebias marmoratus and Fundulus heteroclitus) to identify potential effects of size (mass) on jumping performance. The ballistic trajectory equation was used to partition the contributions of velocity (determined by acceleration and contact time) and takeoff angle to jump distance.

Turtle Girdles: Comparing the Relationships Between Environment and Behavior on Forelimb Function in Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta) and River Cooters (Pseudemys concinna).

Locomotion in water and on land impose dramatically different demands, yet many animals successfully move in both environments. Most turtle species perform both aquatic and terrestrial locomotion but vary in how they use their limbs. Freshwater turtles use anteroposterior movements of the limbs during walking and swimming with contralateral fore- and hindlimbs moving in synchrony.

Interdisciplinary Rheumatoid Arthritis Research and Patient Care: An Introduction and Critique of the Biopsychosocial Model of Disease Experience in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a debilitating autoimmune disease, affects approximately 78 million people globally. RA is often managed solely by rheumatology providers, but an interdisciplinary approach to RA may be the key to improving health equity and outcomes. An interdisciplinary model is an important step towards this goal.

Basal area and hillslope position impacts to hydraulic redistribution in a coast redwood forest.

In forest ecosystems, the interplay among plant-driven processes and anthropogenic activities profoundly influences water balance dynamics. Hydraulic redistribution is one plant-driven process that can provide a large proportion of a plant's daily water. However, critical gaps exist in our knowledge of hydraulic redistribution including how forest management processes, like thinning, and site-specific factors like basal area and hillslope position, may affect it.

Word Choice Affects Social Judgments: Relational Messages Containing Low-Frequency Words Get Low Evaluations.

Prior research found a : Authors who use complex words are less favorably received when writing academic essays, business letters, and other relatively formal communications. The present study tested if word choice affects evaluations of messages between friends (Experiments 1-2) and spoken messages (Experiment 2). Three widespread dimensions of social judgments were studied - namely, persuasiveness, competence, and sincerity.

Perspectives of psychiatric nurses on the stigmatization of mental healthcare in Ghana: a qualitative study.

Background: Stigma surrounding mental illness has been identified as a major bane of psychiatric care in many low- and middle-income countries. Mental illness stigma affects both the sufferer and their care providers, including families and psychiatric care providers. In Ghana, attention toward psychiatric care is limited.

Microbiome science of human excrement composting.

Linear waste management systems are unsustainable and contribute to environmental degradation, economic inequity, and health disparities. Among the array of environmental challenges stemming from anthropogenic impacts, the management of human excrement (human feces and urine) stands as a significant concern. Over two billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation, signifying a global public health crisis.

Regional fire-greening positive feedback loops in Alaskan Arctic tundra.

Arctic tundra has experienced rapid warming, outpacing global averages, leading to significant greening whose primary drivers include widespread shrubification. Here we confirm that a fire-greening positive feedback loop is evident across the Alaskan tundra, and evidence suggests that this feedback loop is dominated by the fire-shrub interactions. We show that tundra wildfires, especially those with higher severity, play a critical role in boosting the overall greening of the tundra, often by enhancing upright deciduous shrub growth or establishment but sometimes by inducing increases in other vascular biomass.

A large-scale evaluation of therapeutic alliance and symptom trajectories of depression and anxiety in blended care therapy.

This study sought to conduct a large-scale examination (N = 14,951) into the associations between therapeutic alliance and anxiety and depression symptom trajectories within a blended care therapy (BCT) program. Clients receiving blended care services completed weekly outcome measures for anxiety and depression and therapeutic alliance ratings every other therapy session. Using a retrospective, pragmatic study design, latent change score (LCS) analysis captured individual differences in initial therapeutic alliance scores and change in alliance.

Decreased accuracy of forensic DNA mixture analysis for groups with lower genetic diversity.

Forensic investigation of DNA samples from multiple contributors has become commonplace. These complex analyses use statistical frameworks accounting for multiple levels of uncertainty in allelic contributions from different individuals, particularly for samples containing few molecules of DNA. These methods have been thoroughly tested along some axes of variation, but less attention has been paid to accuracy across human genetic variation.