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Decadal Trends in the Zooplankton Community of the Western Mediterranean

Decadal trends in the zooplankton community were seasonally investigated in multiple monitoring transects of the western Mediterranean Sea during a period of increasing and record-high water temperatures. The transition area around the Baleares archipelago can be separated into two regions: the Alborán Sea and the Balearic Sea. Differences were found in the abundance and structure of the dominant zooplankton groups: the cladocerans and copepods. The highest zooplankton abundances were found during the stratified summer season, when cladoceran numbers peaked. However, copepods were more abundant during the winter. A marked seasonality was found in all groups and the dominant taxa: 114 species of copepods and 5 species of cladocerans were identified, but less than 8 species of copepods and 2 species of cladocerans dominated the populations. During the 2007–2017 study, warm and salty waters were observed in the Balearic Sea. In the Alborán Sea, cool and fresh waters were observed, along with a decline in chlorophyll. Irregular group and species trends were observed in both regions, exhibiting both increases and decreases depending on region and season. Trends differed, often oppositely, for the Alborán versus the Balearic Sea, with the transition region between them mirroring one or the other, switching with the seasons. The most dominant species, including Penilia avirostris and Clausocalanus arcuicornis, but also Evadne spinifera, C. lividus, C. furcatus, Paracalanus parvus, Acartia clausi, Centropages typicus, Subeucalanus monachus, and Calanus helgolandicus, are proposed as biological tracers to be used in further studies on climate and zooplankton community changes in the western Mediterranean Sea.

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Laboratory-acquired infections and pathogen escapes worldwide between 2000 and 2021: a scoping review

Laboratory-acquired infections (LAIs) and accidental pathogen escape from laboratory settings (APELS) are major concerns for the community. A risk-based approach for pathogen research management within a standard biosafety management framework is recommended but is challenging due to reasons such as inconsistency in risk tolerance and perception. Here, we performed a scoping review using publicly available, peer-reviewed journal and media reports of LAIs and instances of APELS between 2000 and 2021. We identified LAIs in 309 individuals in 94 reports for 51 pathogens. Eight fatalities (2·6% of all LAIs) were caused by infection with Neisseria meningitidis (n=3, 37·5%), Yersinia pestis (n=2, 25%), Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium (S Typhimurium; n=1, 12·5%), or Ebola virus (n=1, 12·5%) or were due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (n=1, 12·5%). The top five LAI pathogens were STyphimurium (n=154, 49·8%), Salmonella enteritidis (n=21, 6·8%), vaccinia virus (n=13, 4·2%), Brucella spp (n=12, 3·9%), and Brucella melitensis (n=11, 3·6%). 16 APELS were reported, including those for Bacillus anthracis, SARS-CoV, and poliovirus (n=3 each, 18·8%); Brucella spp and foot and mouth disease virus (n=2 each, 12·5%); and variola virus, Burkholderia pseudomallei, and influenza virus H5N1 (n=1 each, 6·3%). Continual improvement in LAI and APELS management via their root cause analysis and thorough investigation of such incidents is essential to prevent future occurrences. The results are biased due to the reliance on publicly available information, which emphasises the need for formalised global LAIs and APELS reporting to better understand the frequency of and circumstances surrounding these incidents.

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Changes in industry marketing of electronic nicotine delivery systems on social media following FDA's prioritized enforcement policy: a content analysis of Instagram and Twitter posts

BackgroundIn February 2020, FDA prioritized enforcement of flavored (other than tobacco- or menthol-flavored) cartridge-based electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) without premarket authorization. To explore potential marketing changes, we conducted a content analysis of brands' social media posts, comparing devices and flavors before/after the policy.MethodsWe sampled up to three posts before (November 6, 2019–February 5, 2020) and after the policy (February 6–May 6, 2020) from brands' Instagram (n = 33) and Twitter (n = 30) accounts (N = 302 posts). Two analysts coded posts for device type and flavor. We summarized coded frequencies by device, flavor, and device-flavor combination, and by platform.ResultsIn posts mentioning devices and flavors, those featuring flavored (other than tobacco- or menthol-flavored) cartridge-based devices (before: 2.5%; after: 0%) or tobacco- or menthol-flavored cartridge-based devices (before: 0%; after: 2.8%) were uncommon while any flavor disposables were most common (before: 10.8%; after: 14.6%) particularly after the policy. Half of posts featured devices without flavor (before: 50.0%; after: 50.0%) and one-fifth had no device or flavor references (before: 21.5%; after: 18.8%).ConclusionsIn the months before and after the policy, it appears ENDS brands were not using social media to market flavored (excluding tobacco- or menthol-flavored) cartridge-based ENDS (i.e., explicitly prioritized) or tobacco- or menthol-flavored cartridge-based devices (i.e., explicitly not prioritized). Brands were largely not advertising specific flavored products, but rather devices without mentioning flavor (e.g., open/refillable, disposable devices). We presented a snapshot of what consumers saw on social media around the time of the policy, which is important to understanding strategies to reach consumers in an evolving ENDS landscape.

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Analysis of elemental impurities in cannabis following vaporization

The use of vaporizers to inhale cannabis is a technique that has risen in popularity among the American public. There is a general perception that vaporizers are “safer” when compared to more traditional cannabis smoking via combustion (i.e., cigarettes). The inherent use of heated air in vaporizers might reduce the respiratory toxicants or protein toxins by heating cannabis to a temperature where active compounds form in vapor phase. Yet this temperature is below the point of combustion where smoke and associated toxicants are produced. The elemental impurities are a general concern in all botanical products including cannabis and cannabis-derived products (CCDPs). This study aimed to investigate the potential transfer of those metallic elements from cannabis material to cannabis vapor through the vaporization process. A Volcano Digit Vaporizer (Storz & Bickel) was used as the heating device to perform the vaporization. Three cannabis plant materials were evaluated with varying contents of cannabinoids, including a cannabis placebo (<0.01 % Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Cannabidiol (CBD) & Cannabinol (CBN)), cannabis with low potency (2.0 % THC/ 0.02 % CBD/ 0.47 % CBN) and high potency (6.7 % THC/ non detectable CBD/ 0.49 % CBN). Baseline elemental impurity levels were evaluated for all cannabis plant materials. Four different types of heat treatment, namely no heat, 30 seconds (s), and 70 s heat treatment, and finally 70 s heat treatment with air flow, were developed for the three cannabis materials and the experimental samples after vaporization were analyzed by an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) system. The results showed that sixteen elemental impurities were detected, and all have similar concentration, between 10 ng/g and 8 × 106 ng/g, in the three types of cannabis materials, where Mg was measured with the highest content. Within the four heating treatments evaluated no significant changes of these metallic elements (elemental impurities) were found when compared to the plant materials. This preliminary experimental study evaluated a single vaporizer and three cannabis plant materials suggesting a transfer of metallic elements from cannabis material to cannabis vapor may not occur during the vaporization process under these study conditions.

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First release of the Pelagic Size Structure database: Global datasets of marine size spectra obtained from plankton imaging devices

Abstract. In marine ecosystems, most physiological, ecological, or physical processes are size-dependent. These include metabolic rates, uptake of carbon and other nutrients, swimming and sinking velocities, and trophic interactions, which eventually determine the stocks of commercial species, as well as biogeochemical cycles and carbon sequestration. As such, broad scale observations of plankton size distribution are important indicators of the general functioning and state of pelagic ecosystems under anthropogenic pressures. Here, we present the first global datasets of the Pelagic Size Structure database (PSSdb), generated from plankton imaging devices. This release includes the bulk particle Normalized Biovolume Size Spectrum (NBSS) and bulk Particle Size Distribution (PSD), along with their related parameters (slope, intercept, and R2) measured within the epipelagic layer (0–200 m) by three imaging sensors: the Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), the Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP) and benchtop scanners. Collectively, these instruments effectively image organisms and detrital material in the 7–10,000 μm size range. A total of 92,472 IFCB samples, 3,068 UVP profiles, and 2,411 scans passed our quality control and were standardized to produce consistent instrument-specific size spectra averaged in 1x1° latitude/longitude, and by year and month. Our instrument-specific datasets span all major ocean basins, except for the IFCB which was exclusively deployed in northern latitudes, and cover decadal time periods (2013–2022 for IFCB, 2008–2021 for UVP, and 1996–2022 for scanners), allowing for a further assessment of the pelagic size spectrum in space and time. The datasets that constitute PSSdb’s first release are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10150020 (Dugenne et al., 2023).

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