Background: Harlequin ichthyosis (HI) is a severe and rare autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis, characterized by hyperkeratosis, extensive fissuring massive, diamond-shaped scales which limit the child’s movements. The term harlequin comes from baby’s facial expression pattern of like 17th century entertainers, harlequins. underlying genetic abnormality has been identified as mutation in ...

In the midto late 1990s, nearly a decade after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, female harlequin ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) suffered reduced winter survival in oiled areas of Prince William Sound, Alaska, USA, relative to unoiled areas. We conducted follow-up studies from winters 2000–2001 to 2002–2003 to determine whether differential survival persisted and to evaluate whether individua...

In the preceding paper (paper I), we presented HI absorption spectra towards radio sources very close to the lines of sight towards 25 bright stars against which optical absorption spectra had been obtained earlier. In this paper we analyse the results and draw some conclusions. To summarize briefly, in most cases we found HI absorption at velocities corresponding to the optical absorption feat...