Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) pups spend the first weeks of life exclusively or mainly ashore. They are exposed to intense solar radiation and high temperatures for long time periods, which results in temperatures up to at least 80°C on their black natal coat. To test the hypothesis that the natal coat has a crucial function in coping with these extreme conditions, we investigated the ...

Objective: To assess emotional and social aspects in the experience of abortion and the diagnosis of major depression, comparing women from two Brazilian cities (São Paulo – SP, Natal – RN). Methods: A transversal study was carried out from January 2009 to May 2010, through semi-directed interviews with women undergoing an abortion (up to 22 weeks gestation) treated at university hospitals in S...

s of the International Mine Water Conference 19 – 23 October 2009 Proceedings ISBN Number: 978-0-9802623-5-3 Pretoria, South Africa Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies cc Conference organised by: Cilla Taylor Conferences BIOREMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED WATER SOURCES WITH SULPHATE-REDUCING BACTERIA D.G. TECLU, M.D. LAING and F.M. WALLIS Discipline of Microbiology, University of KwaZ...

Female green turtles exhibit strong nest-site fidelity as adults, but whether the nesting beach is the natal site is not known. Under the natal homing hypothesis, females return to their natal beach to nest, whereas under the social facilitation model, virgin females follow experienced breeders to nesting beaches and after a "favorable" nesting experience, fix on that site for future nestings. ...

Both pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria were isolated from fish, both salmonid and non-salmonid, from selected river systems in Natal. Pasteurella pisicida was isolated for the first time from fish in South Africa. The isolation of Yersinia ruckeri, Aeromonas salmonicida, and Edwardsiella tarda were recorded for the first time from fish in Natal. A. hydrophila and Flexibacter columnaris wer...

Landmark-based high-dimensional diffeomorphic maps of the hippocampus (although accurate) is highly-dependent on rater's anatomic knowledge of the hippocampus in the magnetic resonance images. It is therefore vulnerable to rater drift and errors if substantial amount of effort is not spent on quality assurance, training, and re-training. A fully-automated, FreeSurfer-initialized large-deformati...

Information on drivers of dispersal is critical for wildlife conservation but is rare for long-lived marine mammal species with large geographic ranges. We fit multi-state mark-recapture models to resighting data of 369 known-aged Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) females marked as pups on their natal rookeries in southeastern Alaska from 1994-2005 and monitored from 2001-15. We estimated p...

Post-natal exposure to air pollution is associated with diminished lung growth during school age. The current authors aimed to determine whether pre-natal exposure to air pollution is associated with lung function changes in the newborn. In a prospective birth cohort of 241 healthy term-born neonates, tidal breathing, lung volume, ventilation inhomogeneity and exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) were me...

We analyzed more than 1,600 dispersal events from two populations of a North American cooperatively breeding woodpecker species to determine what factors influence natal dispersal distance and whether distance traveled affects reproduction later in life. We found significant heritability of natal dispersal distance, in both males and females, indicating substantial additive genetic variance for...

Many mathematical models have been published with the purpose of explaining aspects of T-cell development in the thymus. In this manuscript we adapted a four-compartment model of the thymus and used a range of mathematical approaches with the aim of explaining the dynamics of the four main thymocyte populations in the mouse thymus, from the emergence of the first fetal thymocyte until the death...