Although situated ∼400 km from the east coast of Africa, Madagascar exhibits cultural, linguistic, and genetic traits from both Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa. The settlement history remains contentious; we therefore used a grid-based approach to sample at high resolution the genomic diversity (including maternal lineages, paternal lineages, and genome-wide data) across 257 villages and 2,704 Malagasy individuals. We find a common Bantu and Austronesian descent for all Malagasy individuals with a limited paternal contribution from Europe and the Middle East. Admixture and demographic growth happened recently, suggesting a rapid settlement of Madagascar during the last millennium. However, the distribution of African and Asian ancestry across the island reveals that the admixture was sex biased and happened heterogeneously across Madagascar, suggesting independent colonization of Madagascar from Africa and Asia rather than settlement by an already admixed population. In addition, there are geographic influences on the present genomic diversity, independent of the admixture, showing that a few centuries is sufficient to produce detectable genetic structure in human populations.

In this paper we describe our survey methodology for detecting old nesting sites and an extant colony in Syria, and analyse the causes of the decline and current threats. This study was undertaken within the framework of an Italian-funded, FAO-implemented project (GCP/SYR/ 009/ITA) based in Palmyra, Syria, with the aim of assisting the Syrian authorities in promoting biodiversity conservation and developing the first operational protected area, Al Talila, in the country. The search for a possible northern bald ibis colony began in March 2002 on the basis of an account given by a local hunter. A total of 33 field surveys were carried Abstract The eastern population of the northern bald ibis Geronticus eremita had been presumed extinct following the loss of the colony in Birecik, Turkey, in 1989. However, occasional sightings of birds in Yemen, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Israel during the 1980s and 1990s suggested that there was still a colony somewhere in the Middle East. Intensive field surveys in spring 2002, based on the knowledge of Bedouin nomads and local hunters, revealed that the species has never become completely extinct on the Syrian desertic steppe. Following systematic searches 15 old nesting sites were found, one of them still hosting an active breeding colony of seven individuals. The species appears to have been relatively common in the area until 20 years ago, when a combination of overexploitation of rangelands and increasing hunting pressure initiated a dramatic decline.

This is a case–control study of our experience of mid-term follow-up of 40 children who had a transcatheter closure of very large atrial septal defects group (1). All cases had an atrial septal defect device size more than 1.5 times their weight, a ratio considered a contraindication for trans catheter closure (TCC) in some previous reports. The aim of this study is to report the outcomes and mid-term follow-up of transcatheter closure of large atrial septal defects using two-dimensional conventional echocardiography, tissue Doppler imaging, and four-dimensional speckle tracking imaging, and as such to compare results of same echocardiographic examination of age-matched control group of 40 healthy children group (2). Cardiac MRI was performed on cases group (1) only to detect right ventricle and left ventricle volumes and function and early signs of complications. There was no difference between cases and matched healthy controls in terms of the assessment of left ventricle and right ventricle by two-dimensional echocardiography, tissue Doppler imaging, and four-dimensional speckle tracking imaging. Similarly, there was no statistically significant difference between four-dimensional echocardiography and cardiac MRI in their respective assessment of both left ventricle and right ventricle volumes and function. We also detected no complications by echo or by cardiac MRI after a median follow-up period of 2 years and recorded a complete remodelling of right ventricle volumes in all children studied. This points to the safety and efficiency of transcatheter closure of large atrial septal defects in children on mid-term follow-up.