As the return to normality in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic enters its early stages, the necessity for accurate, quick, and community-wide surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 has been emphasized. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been used across the world as a tool for monitoring the pandemic, but studies of its efficacy in comparison to the best-known method for surveillance, randomly selected COVID-19 testing, has limited research. This study evaluated the trends and correlations present between SARS-CoV-2 in the effluent wastewater of a large university campus and random COVID-19 testing results published by the university. A moderately strong positive correlation was found between the random testing and WBE surveillance methods (r = 0.63), and this correlation was strengthened when accommodating for lost samples during the experiment (r = 0.74).
An analysis of university flight emissions, carbon neutrality goals, and the global impact of university sanctioned flight.
Fluoroquinolone antibiotics have been known to cause severe, multisystem adverse side effects, termed fluoroquinolone toxicity (FQT). This toxicity syndrome can present with adverse effects that vary from individual to individual, including effects on the musculoskeletal and nervous systems, among others. The mechanism behind FQT in mammals is not known, although various possibilities have been investigated. Among the hypothesized FQT mechanisms, those that could potentially explain multisystem toxicity include off-target mammalian topoisomerase interactions, increased production of reactive oxygen species, oxidative stress, and oxidative damage, as well as metal chelating properties of FQs. This review presents relevant information on fluoroquinolone antibiotics and FQT and explores the mechanisms that have been proposed. A fluoroquinolone-induced increase in reactive oxygen species and subsequent oxidative stress and damage presents the strongest evidence to explain this multisystem toxicity syndrome. Understanding the mechanism of FQT in mammals is important to aid in the prevention and treatment of this condition.
Studies of animal contests often focus solely on a single static measurement of fighting ability, such as the size or the strength of the individual. However, recent studies have highlighted the importance of individual variation in the dynamic behaviors used during a fight, such as, assessment strategies, decision making, and fine motor control, as being strong predictors of the outcome of aggression. Here, I combined morphological and behavioral data to discover how these features interact during aggressing interactions in male virile crayfish, Faxonius virilis. I predicted that individual variation in behavioral skill for decision making (i.e., number of strikes thrown), would determine the outcome of contest success in addition to morphological measurements (e.g. body size, relative claw size). To evaluate this prediction, I filmed staged territorial interactions between male F. virilis and later analyzed trial behaviors (e.g. strike, pinches, and bout time) and aggressive outcomes. I found very little support for skill to predict win/loss outcome in trials. Instead, I found that larger crayfish engaged in aggression for longer compared to smaller crayfish, but that larger crayfish did not engage in a greater number of claw strikes or pinches when controlling for encounter duration. Future studies should continue to investigate the role of skill, by using finer-scale techniques such as 3D tracking software, which could track advanced measurements (e.g. speed, angle, and movement efficiency). Such studies would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relative influence of fighting skill technique on territorial contests.