One- and two-stage anaerobic co-digestion of cucumber waste and sewage sludge.

The demand for uniformly sized and shaped produce that are aesthetically pleasing results in significant food waste throughout the world. Cucumber waste is a major agricultural waste product in a number of countries, especially areas with high pickle production. Opportunity exists for wastewater treatment plants containing anaerobic digesters to utilize cucumber agricultural and industrial waste for biogas production.

Marine tardigrades of the Bahamas with the description of two new species and updated keys to the species of Anisonyches and Archechiniscus.

This is the first survey of subtidal marine tardigrades from the Bahamas, and we compare our results with earlier studies of Bahamian intertidal habitats. In 2011 and 2014 we collected 60 subtidal sand samples from Bimini, the Berry Islands, New Providence, Eleuthera, and the Exumas. We found 11 species only one of which, Dipodarctus subterraneus (Renaud-Debyser, 1959), had been found in the previous intertidal Bahamian collections.

Short-Term Effects of Titanium Dioxide Nanofiber on the Renal Function of Male Sprague Dawley Rats.

Titanium dioxide nanofiber (TDNF) is widely used in the manufacture of various household products, including cosmetics. As a result, the possibility exists for TDNFs to affect human health. Because the kidneys are responsible for filtering out waste from the blood, the goal of the present study was to investigate the short-term effects of TDNF on kidney function of male Sprague Dawley rats.

Three new black (, , ) from eastern North America with notes on selected European species.

We describe three new species of from eastern North America. Of the three, is the rarest, known only from North Carolina and South Carolina, and appears to associate primarily with ectomycorrhizal hardwoods but possibly also with conifers. is widely distributed but disjunct from Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina.

Adaptive population divergence and directional gene flow across steep elevational gradients in a climate-sensitive mammal.

The ecological effects of climate change have been shown in most major taxonomic groups; however, the evolutionary consequences are less well-documented. Adaptation to new climatic conditions offers a potential long-term mechanism for species to maintain viability in rapidly changing environments, but mammalian examples remain scarce. The American pika (Ochotona princeps) has been impacted by recent climate-associated extirpations and range-wide reductions in population sizes, establishing it as a sentinel mammalian species for climate change.

Short-term evaluation of hepatic toxicity of titanium dioxide nanofiber (TDNF).

Various in vitro and in vivo studies have shown titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TDNPs) increase the production of reactive oxygen species and change the expression of genes and proteins involved in the inflammatory response and cell division. Although, the cytotoxicity of TDNPs has been shown to be largely dependent on the characteristics of the particles including shape and surface area. This present study investigates the effects of titanium dioxide nanofibers (TDNFs) with a diameter of 300-800 nm, on the histopathology of liver tissue, changes in feed efficiency and liver weights, changes in hepatic gene expression, and serum biochemical parameters in male Sprague-Dawley rats.

Could seasonally deteriorating environments favour the evolution of autogamous selfing and a drought escape physiology through indirect selection? A test of the time limitation hypothesis using artificial selection in Clarkia.

Background And Aims: The evolution of selfing from outcrossing may be the most common transition in plant reproductive systems and is associated with a variety of ecological circumstances and life history strategies. The most widely discussed explanation for these associations is the reproductive assurance hypothesis - the proposition that selfing is favoured because it increases female fitness when outcross pollen receipt is limited. Here an alternative explanation, the time limitation hypothesis, is addressed, one scenario of which proposes that selfing may evolve as a correlated response to selection for a faster life cycle in seasonally deteriorating environments.

A Hypothesis for the Composition of the Tardigrade Brain and its Implications for Panarthropod Brain Evolution.

Incredibly disparate brain types are found in Metazoa, which raises the question of how this disparity evolved. Ecdysozoa includes representatives that exhibit ring-like brains-the Cycloneuralia-and representatives that exhibit ganglionic brains-the Panarthropoda (Euarthropoda, Onychophora, and Tardigrada). The evolutionary steps leading to these distinct brain types are unclear.

Individual-based analysis of hair corticosterone reveals factors influencing chronic stress in the American pika.

Glucocorticoids are often measured in wildlife to assess physiological responses to environmental or ecological stress. Hair, blood, saliva, or fecal samples are generally used depending on the timescale of the stress response being investigated and species-specific considerations. Here, we report the first use of hair samples to measure long-term corticosterone levels in the climate-sensitive American pika ().

gen. sp. nov. (), a new sequestrate fungus from Cameroon.

gen. sp. nov.

Seed set variation in wild populations: teasing apart the effects of seasonal resource depletion, pollen quality, and pollen quantity.

In habitats where resource availability declines during the growing season selection may favor early-flowering individuals. Under such ephemerally favorable conditions, late-blooming species (and individuals) may be particularly vulnerable to resource limitation of seed production. In California, a region prone to seasonal drought, members of the annual genus are among the last to flower in the spring.

Outcrossing and photosynthetic rates vary independently within two Clarkia species: implications for the joint evolution of drought escape physiology and mating system.

Background and Aims Mating systems of plants are diverse and evolutionarily labile. Abiotic environmental factors, such as seasonal drought, may impose selection on physiological traits that could lead to transitions in mating system if physiological traits are genetically correlated with traits that influence mating system. Within Clarkia, self-fertilizing taxa have higher photosynthetic rates, earlier flowering phenology, faster individual floral development and more compressed flowering periods than their outcrossing sister taxa, potentially reducing the selfing taxa's exposure to drought.

New species of Elaphomyces (Elaphomycetaceae, Eurotiales, Ascomycota) from tropical rainforests of Cameroon and Guyana.

The sequestrate false truffles Elaphomyces favosus, E. iuppitercellus, and E. labyrinthinus spp.

Hiking: A Low-Cost, Accessible Intervention to Promote Health Benefits.

Research has connected sedentary lifestyles with numerous negative health outcomes, including a significant increased risk for mortality. Many health care professionals seek ways to help clients meet physical activity guidelines recommended by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the World Health Organization, and the American College of Sports Medicine in order to promote active lifestyles and improve overall wellness. Hiking is a cost-effective intervention that encourages people to be physically active while spending time in nature.

Urinary Phthalate Metabolites in American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) from Selected Florida Wetlands.

Phthalates have been shown to cause endocrine disruption in laboratory animals and are associated with altered development of the reproductive system in humans. Further, human have significant exposure to phthalates. However, little is known concerning the exposure of wildlife to phthalates.

New sequestrate fungi from Guyana: Jimtrappea guyanensis gen. sp. nov., Castellanea pakaraimophila gen. sp. nov., and Costatisporus cyanescens gen. sp. nov. (Boletaceae, Boletales).

Jimtrappea guyanensis gen. sp. nov.

The Zoogeography of Marine Tardigrada.

This monograph describes the global records of marine water bears (Phylum Tardigrada). We provide a comprehensive list of marine tardigrades recorded from around the world, providing an up-to-date taxonomy and a complete bibliography accompanied by geographic co-ordinates, habitat, substrate and biogeographic comments. A link is provided to an on-line interactive map where all occurrences for each species are shown.

Australasian Sequestrate Fungi 19: Hysterangium colossum sp. nov.

Hysterangium colossum sp. nov., with extraordinarily large basidiomata for the genus, is described from dry Eucalyptus woodlands in the Australian Capital Territory and southeastern New South Wales.

Seasonal changes in physiological performance in wild Clarkia xantiana populations: Implications for the evolution of a compressed life cycle and self-fertilization.

Premise Of The Study: One explanation for the evolution of selfing, the drought escape hypothesis, proposes that self-fertilization may evolve under conditions of intensifying seasonal drought as part of a suite of traits that enable plants to accelerate the completion of their life cycle, thereby escaping late-season drought. Here, we test two fundamental assumptions of this hypothesis in Clarkia xantiana: (1) that a seasonal decline in precipitation causes an increase in drought stress and (2) that this results in changes in physiological performance, reflecting these deteriorating conditions.

Methods: We examined seasonal and interannual variation in abiotic environmental conditions (estimated by ambient temperature, relative humidity, predawn leaf water potentials, and carbon isotope ratios) and physiological traits (photosynthesis, conductance, transpiration, instantaneous water-use efficiency, ascorbate peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities, quantum yield of photosystem II, PSII potential efficiency) in field populations of C.

New records of marine tardigrades from Moorea, French Polynesia, with the description of Styraconyx turbinarium sp. nov. (Arthrotardigrada, Halechiniscidae).

Five marine arthrotardigrade species are recorded from Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia. Four were collected from coral sand; two, Dipodarctus anaholiensis Pollock, 1995 and Florarctus kwoni Chang & Rho, 1997, are new records for the region, and two, Halechiniscus perfectus Schulz, 1955 and Styraconyx kristenseni kristenseni Renaud-Mornant, 1981, have been previously reported. The fifth, a new species Styraconyx turbinarium sp.

Spatial variation in hyperthermia emergency department visits among those with employer-based insurance in the United States - a case-crossover analysis.

Background: Predictions of intense heat waves across the United States will lead to localized health impacts, most of which are preventable. There is a need to better understand the spatial variation in the morbidity impacts associated with extreme heat across the country to prevent such adverse health outcomes.

Methods: Hyperthermia-related emergency department (ED) visits were obtained from the Truven Health MarketScan(®) Research dataset for 2000-2010.

The best and the brightest: exploiting tryptophan-sensitized Tb(3+) luminescence to engineer lanthanide-binding tags.

Consider the lanthanide metals, comprising lanthanum through lutetium. Lanthanides form stable cations with a +3 charge, and these ions exhibit a variety of useful physical properties (long-lifetime luminescence, paramagnetism, anomalous X-ray scattering) that are amenable to studies of biomolecules. The absence of lanthanide ions in living systems means that background signals are generally a nonissue; however, to exploit the advantageous properties it is necessary to engineer a robust lanthanide-binding sequence that can be appended to any macromolecules of interest.

From navigation to negotiation: an examination of the lived experiences of Black gay male alumni of historically Black colleges and universities.

This research presents an examination of Black gay men and their lived experiences while undergraduates at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Based on 10 in-depth interviews with self-identified Black gay men, the author presents four emergent themes, which reveal the complex ways in which Black gay men navigate and negotiate the intersections of their multiple identities as related to race, sexual orientation, and gender at HBCUs. The findings of this research have implications for larger discussions of community, Black masculinity, and gay identity in predominantly Black and non-Black contexts.

The genus Milnesium (Tardigrada: Eutardigrada: Milnesiidae) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (North Carolina and Tennessee, USA), with the description of Milnesium bohleberi sp. nov.

For many decades the genus Milnesium was thought to consist of a single, cosmopolitan species: Milnesium tardigradum Doyère, 1840. However, recently the genus has been re-evaluated, and numerous new species have been described. Currently, over twenty extant species and one fossil are recognised, and most appear to have very narrow geographic ranges.

Aquatic tardigrades in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, U.S.A., with the description of a new species of Thulinius (Tardigrada, Isohypsibiidae).

As part of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (http://www.dlia.org), an extensive survey of tardigrades has been conducted in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) in Tennessee and North Carolina, U.