The safety of using ethanol-based products for hygienic hand disinfection in healthcare workers is controlled by restricting air levels. This raises the question of whether these workers are sufficiently protected against potential dermal absorption. The study aim was to determine the contribution of the dermal route to the total uptake of ethanol. A laboratory-controlled study of 25 sequential alcohol-based-hand-rubs (ABHRs)...

Lifestyle-related factors may affect cognition and increase the risk of developing dementia. However, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the effect of lifestyle-related factors on the brain are not yet fully understood. Myelin, a vital element of brain health, has previously been shown to be involved in dementia-related cognitive decline. However, whether it plays a role in the relation between lifestyle-related factors...

Centromeres provide the chromosomal scaffold for the assembly of the kinetochore complex, thereby linking replicated sister chromatids to the mitotic spindle, driving their segregation into nascent daughter cells. The location and maintenance of centromeres rely, in large part, on a unique conserved chromatin domain, defined by nucleosomes containing the histone H3 variant, Centromere Protein A (CENP-A), whose discovery 40 yea...

In the spirit of so‐called “sightability models” for estimating population abundance, we developed a Bayesian hierarchical model that combines survey counts for animals (or plants) and a separate data set for detection to account for individuals that were missed during surveys. Our case study consisted of harbor seal ( Phoca vitulina richardii ) aerial survey counts from 1996 to 2023 for the Prince William Sound (PWS) stock in...

Viral contamination of bivalve molluscs, such as oysters, is a well-recognized food safety risk. The aim of this study was to assess virological hazards in market-ready oysters on the Dutch market. Non-targeted metagenome analysis was first performed on norovirus spiked-in samples showing linear and sensitive detection of norovirus GI.2 and GII.4 down to 14 and 5 genome copies per reaction, respectively. Subsequently, metageno...

Background Human pressures are driving the emergence of unprecedented, ‘novel’, ecological and environmental systems. The concept of novel (eco)systems is well accepted by the scientific community, but the use and measurement of novelty has outgrown initial definitions and critiques. There are still unresolved methodological and conceptual differences in quantifying novelty that prevent a unified research approach. Framework H...

The gut microbiome can modulate systemic inflammation and is therefore target for immunomodulation. Immunomodulating effects of EDP1815, a bacterial commensal strain of Prevotella histicola , were studied in healthy participants. Effects on adaptive immunity were evaluated by a neo-antigen challenge with keyhole limpet haemocyanin (KLH), while effects on innate immunity were evaluated by topical toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) ago...

Reliable maps of species distributions are fundamental for biodiversity research and conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) range maps are widely recognized as authoritative representations of species’ geographic limits, yet they might not always align with actual occurrence data. In recent area of habitat (AOH) maps, areas that are not habitat have been removed from IUCN ranges to reduce commi...

Plant species occupy distinct niches along a nitrogen‐to‐phosphorus (N:P) gradient, yet there is no general framework for belowground nutrient acquisition traits in relation to N or P limitation. We retrieved several belowground traits from databases, placed them in the “root economics space” framework, and linked these to a dataset of 991 plots in Eurasian herbaceous plant communities, containing plant species composition, ab...