Respiratory syncytial virus vaccine effectiveness among US veterans, September, 2023 to March, 2024: a target trial emulation study.

Background: New respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines have been approved in the USA for the prevention of RSV-associated lower respiratory tract disease in adults aged 60 years and older. Information on the real-world effectiveness of these vaccines is needed.

Methods: We used electronic health records in the Veterans Health Administration to emulate a target trial comparing a single dose of a recombinant stabilised prefusion F protein RSV vaccine versus no vaccination among veterans aged 60 years and older.

Seagrass wasting disease prevalence and lesion area increase with invertebrate grazing across the northeastern Pacific.

Disease is a key driver of community and ecosystem structure, especially when it strikes foundation species. In the widespread marine foundation species eelgrass (Zostera marina), outbreaks of wasting disease have caused large-scale meadow collapse in the past, and the causative pathogen, Labyrinthula zosterae, is commonly found in meadows globally. Research to date has mainly focused on abiotic environmental drivers of seagrass wasting disease, but there is strong evidence from other systems that biotic interactions such as herbivory can facilitate plant diseases.

Microbial carbon oxidation in seawater below the hypoxic threshold.

Global oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) often reach hypoxia but seldom reach anoxia. Recently it was reported that Michaelis Menten constants (K) of oxidative enzymes are orders of magnitude higher than respiratory K values, and in the Hypoxic Barrier Hypothesis it was proposed that, in ecosystems experiencing falling oxygen, oxygenase enzyme activities become oxygen-limited long before respiration. We conducted a mesocosm experiment with a phytoplankton bloom as an organic carbon source and controlled dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in the dark to determine whether hypoxia slows carbon oxidation and oxygen decline.

Food availability has direct and delayed effects on structural growth and body reserves in garter snakes.

Phenotypic plasticity in body growth enables organisms to cope with unpredictable paucities in resource availability. Growth traits influence survival and reproductive success, and thereby, population persistence, and early-life resource availability may govern lifetime patterns in growth, reproductive success, and survival. The influence of early-life environment is decidedly consequential for indeterminately growing ectotherms, which rely on available resources and ambient temperatures to maximize fitness throughout life.

Promotion of healthy aging through the nexus of gut microbiota and dietary phytochemicals.

Aging is associated with the decline of tissue and cellular functions, which can promote the development of age-related diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and disorders of the musculoskeletal and immune systems. Healthspan is the length of time an individual is in good health and free from chronic diseases and disabilities associated with aging. Two modifiable factors that can influence healthspan, promote healthy aging, and prevent the development of age-related diseases, are the diet and microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract (gut microbiota).

Case report: FGF4L1 retrogene insertion is lacking in the tall dachshund phenotype.

Two retrogene insertions, FGF4L1 (formerly 18-FGF4, colloquially CDPA) and FGF4L2 (formerly 12-FGF4, colloquially CDDY), have recently been discovered as determinants of short leg phenotype in dogs. This case study is comprised of a family of standard wirehaired dachshunds in which the dogs lacking the FGF4L1 gene exhibit a tall phenotype. The tall phenotype in the dachshunds of this report precludes the dog's working function of den work.

Population Genomics Reveals Local Adaptation Related to Temperature Variation in Two Stream Frog Species: Implications for Vulnerability to Climate Warming.

Identifying populations at highest risk from climate change is a critical component of conservation efforts. However, vulnerability assessments are usually applied at the species level, even though intraspecific variation in exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity play a crucial role in determining vulnerability. Genomic data can inform intraspecific vulnerability by identifying signatures of local adaptation that reflect population-level variation in sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

Liquid-infused nanostructured composite as a high-performance thermal interface material for effective cooling.

Effective heat dissipation remains a grand challenge for energy-dense devices and systems. As heterogeneous integration becomes increasingly inevitable in electronics, thermal resistance at interfaces has emerged as a critical bottleneck for thermal management. However, existing thermal interface solutions are constrained by either high thermal resistance or poor reliability.

Accuracy and Performance Characteristics of Administrative Codes for the Diagnosis of Autoinflammatory Syndromes: A Discovery and Validation Study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate and validate the accuracy and performance characteristics of administrative codes in diagnosing autoinflammatory syndromes (AISs).

Methods: We identified potential AIS patients from the electronic medical records at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics and the Stead Family Children's Hospital using a screening filter based on the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes and interleukin-1 antagonists. Diagnostic criteria for adult-onset Still disease, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, Behçet disease (BD), familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS), and SAPHO (synovitis, acne, pustulosis, hyperostosis, and osteitis) syndrome and chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis (SAPHO-CNO) were reviewed for each patient.

Adjusting for bias due to measurement error in functional quantile regression models with error-prone functional and scalar covariates.

Wearable devices enable the continuous monitoring of physical activity (PA) but generate complex functional data with poorly characterized errors. Most work on functional data views the data as smooth, latent curves obtained at discrete time intervals with some random noise with mean zero and constant variance. Viewing this noise as homoscedastic and independent ignores potential serial correlations.

Seasonal productivity of the equatorial Atlantic shaped by distinct wind-driven processes.

The eastern equatorial Atlantic hosts a productive marine ecosystem that depends on upward supply of nitrate, the primary limiting nutrient in this region. The annual productivity peak, indicated by elevated surface chlorophyll levels, occurs in the Northern Hemisphere summer, roughly coinciding with strengthened easterly winds. For enhanced productivity in the equatorial Atlantic, nitrate-rich water must rise into the turbulent layer above the Equatorial Undercurrent.

CO Adsorption on a Single-Atom Catalyst Stably Embedded in Graphene.

Confined single metal atoms in graphene-based materials have proven to be excellent catalysts for several reactions and promising gas sensing systems. However, whether the chemical activity arises from the specific type of metal atom or is a direct consequence of the confinement itself remains unclear.

Single-Larva RNA Sequencing Reveals That Red Sea Urchin Larvae Are Vulnerable to Co-Occurring Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia.

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing rapidly in recent years, driving pH and oxygen levels to record low concentrations in the oceans. Eastern boundary upwelling systems such as the California Current System (CCS) experience exacerbated ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH) due to the physical and chemical properties of the transported deeper waters. Research efforts have significantly increased in recent years to investigate the deleterious effects of climate change on marine species, but have not focused on the impacts of simultaneous OAH stressor exposure.

Double Trouble for Native Species Under Climate Change: Habitat Loss and Increased Environmental Overlap With Non-Native Species.

Climate change and biological invasions are affecting natural ecosystems globally. The effects of these stressors on native species' biogeography have been studied separately, but their combined effects remain overlooked. Here, we develop a framework to assess how climate change influences both the range and niche overlap of native and non-native species using ecological niche models.

Welfare Status in Dairy Cows during Confined and Grazing Periods in the North American Pacific Northwest using Blood Parameters and Visual Assessments.

Grazing is usually associated with higher well-being in dairy cows. However, current research on the welfare of grazing cows lacks validation via blood profiling. We monitored four dairy farms that seasonally graze in the temperate North American Pacific Northwest, USA, to address this gap.

Divergent Transport Dynamics of Alkylated versus Unsubstituted Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons at the Air-Water and Sediment-Water Interfaces at a Legacy Creosote Site.

Alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are abundant constituents of many PAH mixtures and contribute to risk at contaminated sites. Despite their abundance, the movement of alkylated PAHs remains understudied relative to unsubstituted PAHs. In the present study, passive sampling devices were deployed in the air, water, and sediments at 11 locations across multiple seasons to capture spatial and temporal variability in the abundance and movement of alkylated PAHs at a Brownsfield creosote site in Oregon, USA.

An Expert Consensus Statement for Implementing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Nightmares in Adults.

Objectives: Research supports cognitive behavioral therapies for nightmares (CBT-N) in adults. However, the nuances of implementation and unstandardized nomenclature for treatment components has created confusion in the field. To provide clarification, an expert consensus panel convened to review treatment manual components and to develop guidelines for the standardized implementation and terminology of CBT-N.

Causal analysis for multivariate integrated clinical and environmental exposures data.

Electronic health records (EHRs) provide a rich source of observational patient data that can be explored to infer underlying causal relationships. These causal relationships can be applied to augment medical decision-making or suggest hypotheses for healthcare research. In this study, we explored a large-scale EHR dataset on patients with asthma or related conditions (N = 14,937).

Enhanced mercury deposition in Arctic Alaskan lake sediments coincides with early Holocene hydroclimate shift.

Substantial amounts of mercury (Hg) are projected to be released into Arctic watersheds as permafrost thaws amid warmer and wetter conditions. This may have far-reaching consequences because the highly toxic methylated form of Hg biomagnifies rapidly in ecosystems. However, understanding how climate change affects Hg dynamics in permafrost regions is limited due to the lack of long-term Arctic Hg records.

Ecosystem Drivers of Freshwater Mercury Bioaccumulation Are Context-Dependent: Insights from Continental-Scale Modeling.

Significant variation in mercury (Hg) bioaccumulation is observed across the diversity of freshwater ecosystems in North America. While there is support for the major drivers of Hg bioaccumulation, the relative influence of different external factors can vary widely among waterbodies, which makes predicting Hg risk across large spatial scales particularly challenging. We modeled Hg bioaccumulation by coupling Hg concentrations in more than 21,000 dragonflies collected across the United States from 2008 to 2021 with a suite of chemical (e.

CBTI implementation outcomes: one-year follow up.

Insomnia is a common and debilitating disorder that is often undiagnosed and untreated. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) is the first-line treatment for insomnia, though the lack of trained providers is a major barrier to accessibility. To address this issue, an online provider training platform, CBTI, was launched in April 2020.

Unusual Iron-Independent Ferroptosis-like Cell Death Induced by Photoactivation of a Typical Iridium Complex for Hypoxia Photodynamic Therapy.

Ferroptosis is a unique cell death mode that relies on iron and lipid peroxidation (LPO) and is extensively utilized to treat drug-resistant tumor. However, like the other antitumor model, requirement of oxygen limited its application in treating the malignant tumors in anaerobic environments, just as photodynamic therapy, a very promising anticancer therapy. Here, we show that an iridium(III) complex (Ir-dF), which was often used in proton-coupled electron transport (PCET) process, can induce efficient cell death upon photo irradiation, which can be effectively protected by the typical ferroptosis inhibitor Fer-1 but not by the classic iron chelating agents and ROS scavengers.

High throughput method for simultaneous screening of membrane permeability and toxicity for discovery of new cryoprotective agents.

Cryoprotective agent (CPA) toxicity is the most limiting factor impeding cryopreservation of critically needed tissues and organs for transplantation and medical research. This limitation is in part due to the challenge of rapidly screening compounds to identify candidate molecules that are highly membrane permeable and non-toxic at high concentrations. Such a combination would facilitate rapid CPA permeation throughout the sample, enabling ice-free cryopreservation with minimal toxicity.