We describe a spectroscopic survey designed to uncover an estimated ∼40 AM Canum Venaticorum (AM CVn) stars hiding in the photometric data base of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We have constructed a relatively small sample of about 1500 candidates based on a colour selection, which should contain the majority of all AM CVn binaries while remaining small enough that spectroscopic identification ...

Lone star ticks, Amblyomma americanum L. (Acari: Ixodidae),infest multiple hosts such as birds, and mammals of various sizes (rodents to white-tailed deer) and can harbor human pathogens such as Borrelia lonestari and Ehrlichiosis chaffeensis. The population structure of 251 A. americanum ticks, collected from canines and two white-tailed deer in six Arkansas ecoregions, was examined using DNA ...

The medicinal plants are widely used by the traditional medical practitioners for curing various diseases in their day to day practice. In traditional systems of medicine, different parts (leaves, stem, flower, root, seeds and even whole plant) of Ocimum sanctum Linn (known as Tulsi in Hindi), a small herb seen throughout India, have been recommended for the treatment of bronchitis, bronchial a...

THE LARGEST and most expensive medical experiment in history was carried out in 1954. Well over a million young children participated, and the immediate direct costs were over 5 million dollars. The experiment was carried out to assess the effectiveness, if any, of the Salk vaccine as a protection against paralysis or death from poliomyelitis. The study was elaborate in many respects, most prom...

The increasingly widespread use of prescribed burns to manage oak (Quercus spp.)-hickory (Carya spp.) forests in the Missouri Ozarks, USA, has considerable potential to alter the abundance of Amblyomma americanum (L.) (Acari: Ixodidae), the lone star tick, an important vector of several emerging pathogens. In particular, responses of important tick hosts, primarily white-tailed deer (Odocoileus...

Bourbon virus (BRBV) was first isolated in 2014 from a resident of Bourbon County, Kansas, USA, who died of the infection. In 2015, an ill Payne County, Oklahoma, resident tested positive for antibodies to BRBV, before fully recovering. We retrospectively tested for BRBV in 39,096 ticks from northwestern Missouri, located 240 km from Bourbon County, Kansas. We detected BRBV in 3 pools of Amblyo...

Introduction and Aim: The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic since December 2019 has raised serious global health concern. Because rapid human to transmission non-availability clinically proven drugs or vaccines, this created a great threat mankind. Many naturally derived molecules are being investigated for the treatment Covid-19. Ocimum americanum is one such significant medicinal plant possessing...