Oil reservoirs represent a nutrient-rich ecological niche of the deep biosphere. Although most oil reservoirs are occupied by microbial populations, when and how the microbes colonized these environments remains unanswered. To address this question, we compared 11 genomes of Thermotoga maritima-like hyperthermophilic bacteria from two environment types: subsurface oil reservoirs in the North Sea and Japan, and marine sites located in the Kuril Islands, Italy and the Azores. We complemented our genomes with Thermotoga DNA from publicly available subsurface metagenomes from North America and Australia. Our analysis revealed complex non-bifurcating evolutionary history of the isolates' genomes, suggesting high amounts of gene flow across all sampled locations, a conjecture supported by numerous recombination events. Genomes from the same type of environment tend to be more similar, and have exchanged more genes with each other than with geographically close isolates from different types of environments. Hence, Thermotoga populations of oil reservoirs do not appear isolated, a requirement of the 'burial and isolation' hypothesis, under which reservoir bacteria are descendants of the isolated communities buried with sediments that over time became oil reservoirs. Instead, our analysis supports a more complex view, where bacteria from subsurface and marine populations have been continuously migrating into the oil reservoirs and influencing their genetic composition. The Thermotoga spp. in the oil reservoirs in the North Sea and Japan probably entered the reservoirs shortly after they were formed. An Australian oil reservoir, on the other hand, was likely colonized very recently, perhaps during human reservoir development.

Clinical trials show that insulin administered intranasally is a promising drug to treat neurodegenerative diseases, but at high doses its use may result in cerebral insulin resistance. Identifying compounds which could enhance the protective effects of insulin, may be helpful to reduce its effective dose. Our aim was thus to study the efficiency of combined use of insulin and α-tocopherol (α-T) to increase the viability of cultured cortical neurons under oxidative stress conditions and to normalize the metabolic disturbances caused by free radical reaction activation in brain cortex of rats with two-vessel forebrain ischemia/reperfusion injury. Immunoblotting, flow cytometry, colorimetric, and fluorometric techniques were used. α-T enhanced the protective and antioxidative effects of insulin on neurons in oxidative stress, their effects were additive. At the late stages of oxidative stress, the combined action of insulin and α-T increased Akt-kinase activity, inactivated GSK-3beta and normalized ERK1/2 activity in cortical neurons, it was more effective than either drug action. In the brain cortex, ischemia/reperfusion increased the lipid peroxidation product content and caused Na+,K+-ATPase oxidative inactivation. Co-administration of insulin (intranasally, 0.25 IU/rat) and α-T (orally, 50 mg/kg) led to a more pronounced normalization of the levels of Schiff bases, conjugated dienes and trienes and Na+,K+-ATPase activity than administration of each drug alone. Thus, α-T enhances the protective effects of insulin on cultured cortical neurons in oxidative stress and in the brain cortex of rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury.

Packaging waste makes up more than ten percent of the landfilled waste in the U.S. While consumers often want to make environmentally friendly product choices, we find that their perceptions of the environmental friendliness (PEF) of product packaging may systematically deviate from its objective environmental friendliness. Eight studies document the PEF bias whereby consumers judge plastic packaging with additional paper to be more environmentally friendly than identical plastic packaging without the paper. The PEF bias is driven by consumers’ “paper=good, plastic=bad” beliefs, and by proportional reasoning, wherein packaging with a greater paper-to-plastic proportion is judged as more environmentally friendly. We further show that the PEF bias impacts consumers’ willingness to pay and product choice. Importantly, this bias can be mitigated by a “minimal packaging sticker” intervention, which increases the environmental friendliness perceptions of plastic-only packaging, rendering plastic-packaged products to be preferable to their plastic-plus-paper-packaged counterparts. This research contributes to the packaging literature in marketing and to research on sustainability, while offering practical implications for managers and public policy officials.

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Российский научно-исследовательский нейрохирургический институт имени профессора А. Л. Поленова, филиал Федерального государственного бюджетного учреждения «Национальный медицинский исследовательский центр им. В.А. Алмазова» Минздрава России, Санкт-Петербург, Россия 2 Федеральное государственное бюджетное учреждение науки «Институт эволюционной физиологии и биохимии им. И.М. Сеченова» Российской академии наук,

UDC 535.37The spectral characteristics of various forms (neutral, anionic, and cationic) of o-and p-cresols in water have been investigated by electron-absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence, and quantum-chemistry methods. The presence of a methyl substituent in cresol in the orthostate enhances the acid and base properties of this substance in the excited state as compared to those of cresol in the parastate. The difference between the mechanisms of formation of cationic o-and p-cresols is explained by the inversion of electron levels in the system of electron-excited states. Ionic cresols have a low quantum yield of fluorescence (≤10 -2 ) because the efficiency of intercombination conversion in them is higher as compared to that of neutral cresols.Introduction. The spectroscopy, photophysics, and photochemistry of phenols has attracted considerable interest among investigators. A large number of recent investigations of these molecules by high-resolution fluorescence and spectroscopy methods were carried out in an attempt to appreciate the fluorescent properties of tyrosine in proteins and polypeptides [1] and to solve ecological problems of the hydrosphere.Phenol compounds differ in their toxicological and organoleptic properties. Volatile, low-molecular phenols, among them monophenols, cresols, xylenols, thymols, and other compounds, are the most toxic. It is known that substituents present in substituted phenols and their position in the phenol ring significantly influence the degree of transformation of these phenols. For example, a methyl substituent that can exert an electron-donor induction action activates the aromatic ring of phenol, increases the degree of its transformation in the process of oxidation in pyrolusite [2], and diminishes the acidic properties of this substance [3,4]. It is known [5-8] that the acidity of aromatic compounds containing the OH group (ArOH) increases when they are spectrosopically excited from the S 0 state. The intermolecular transfer of protons from the excited acid molecules (solvated state [9]) is characterized by a pK a value six units smaller than that of the corresponding reaction in these compounds in the ground state. The acidity of the indicated compounds in the excited state increases since the intramolecular charge transfer from the oxygen atoms to the phenol ring enhances on excitation. The change in the relative quantum yield of fluorescence of the base and the linked acid is determined by the acid-base equilibrium constants of an aromatic compound in the ground and singlet excited states and the competition between the direct and inverse reactions and the deactivation of the excited base and the linked acid. The large change in pK a of aromatic compounds on excitation is well understood for objects possessing convenient spectral characteristics [10][11][12][13][14]. However, to this point the possibility of formation of cationic forms of cresols has not been discussed in the literature, despite the fact that both anthropogenic [15] and natural cresols [16] ar...

РЕЗЮМЕ Актуальность. За последние 20 лет в России описано в литературе 48 случаев норвежской чесотки. Опрос 319 дерматологов России свидетельствует, что она встречалась в практике у трети специалистов. Заболевание наиболее часто регистрируется у больных в психоневрологических стационарах. Основные диагностические критерии норвежской чесотки, систематизированные ранее в монографиях «Чесотка» (1989 г.), «Паразитарные дерматозы: чесотка и крысиный клещевой дерматит» (2003 г.) и пособии «Чесотка» (2018 г.), дополнены новыми данными. Описан новый случай норвежской чесотки у больной с сенильной деменцией. Цель исследования-повысить информированность врачей о частоте регистрации и особенностях течения норвежской чесотки в России на основании данных литературы и собственных клинических наблюдений. Материал и методы. Систематизированы данные научных публикаций о норвежской чесотке за последние 20 лет. Обобщен материал многолетних собственных исследований. Для подбора литературы использованы поисковые системы сети Интернет Google Scholar, Сyberleninka, eLibrary, Sigla. Результаты. Дерматовенерологи РФ описали 48 случаев норвежской чесотки. Из 32 больных в Свердловской области 78% проживали в психоневрологических интернатах и домах инвалидов. Впервые выявлены 3 случая реинфекции. В настоящее время норвежская чесотка развивается у больных с коморбидной патологией. Описано 15 диагностических критериев норвежской чесотки. Применение их на практике даст возможность избежать диагностических ошибок. Вывод. Норвежская чесотка-нередкое заболевание, встречающееся на фоне коморбидной патологии. Основные диагностические критерии-чесоточные ходы и корки, дополнительный-эритродермия. Лечение длительное, базируется на комбинации скабицидов и кератолитических препаратов. Эффективность терапии оценивается по динамике клиники заболевания и лабораторно (гибель возбудителя). Наличие морфологически неизмененных клещей и яиц указывает на необходимость продолжения лечения скабицидами.

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