Mining Associated Malaria Epidemics

Tropical alluvial gold and gem miners are often an especially at-risk population for malaria infection. Geographical areas of mining-associated malaria epidemics in the recent past include Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar); the Amazon basin (Brazil, French Guyana, Suriname, Columbia, and Peru); and tropical Africa. Mobile populations of young adult men engaged in the hard labor of mining may experience severe malaria especially if they lack preexisting immunity and are irregularly consuming antimalarial drugs. Particular problems occur because much of this informal mining activity is illegal and done in isolated areas without access to health services and with evidence of emerging antimalarial drug resistance. Concentrating vulnerable populations in an ecologically disturbed landscape is often conducive to epidemics, which can then spread as these highly mobile workers return to their homes. Mining-associated malaria endangers malaria elimination efforts and miners need to be addressed as a group of particular concern.

Filling the gaps in Leishmania naiffi and Leishmania guyanensis genome plasticity

Insufficient and irregular data reports on Leishmaniasis, issuing from the developing world, have left much to be desired in terms of understanding the molecular signatures producing distinct infectious phenotypes of the disease. Herein, we report on the complete genome sequencing of Leishmania naiffi and Leishmania guyanensis, sampled from patients in regions of Colombia and Venezuela. In this study, the isolates of cutaneous lesions from both species presented limited structural variation at the chromosomal level, low gene copy number variation, and high genetic heterogeneity. We compared these sequences to the reference genomes hitherto related from Brazil and French Guyana. Although of the same species, we note a consequential genomic disparity between the Venezuelan and French Guyanese isolates of L. guyanensis. Although less significant on the global schema of cutaneous and mucosal disease, such genomic studies of L. naiffi and L. guyanensis substantiate the gaps in understanding of the molecular architecture and multivariate clinical pictures of Leishmaniasis, on an international scale.

BepiColombo – Mercury Swing-Bys

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>The BepiColombo spacecraft was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport in French Guyana and is currently on its way to Mercury. On its way, the spacecraft will swing-by Mercury six times in its stacked configuration, before releasing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) in their corresponding orbits around the target planet.</p> <p><strong>Introduction</strong></p> <p>Mercury is in many ways a very different planet from what we were expecting. On 20 October 2018 the BepiColombo spacecraft [1] started its 7 year journey to the innermost terrestrial planet to investigate on the fundamental questions about its evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere.</p> <p>BepiColombo is a joint project between the Euro- pean Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aero- space Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Mission con- sists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). From their dedicated orbits the two space- craft will be studying the planet and its environment.</p> <p>The mission has been named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920–1984), who was a brilliant Italian mathematician, who made many significant contributions to planetary research and celestial mechanics.</p> <p>During the cruise phase, the spacecraft flies in a stacked configuration: the MMO and MPO are mounted ontop of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). As a consequence, most remote sensing instruments onboard the MPO are mounted towards the MTM and have a fully obstructed field-of-view. The MMO instrumentation is shielded by a protection shield (MOSIF) and several instruments still await the deployment on measurement booms.</p> <p>Despite the reduced instrument availability, scientific and engineering operations will be scheduled during the cruise phase, especially during the swing-bys.</p> <p><strong>Mercury Swing-bys</strong></p> <p>Following the Earth and two Venus swing-bys, six Mercury swing-bys are foreseen from October 2021 until 9 January 2025. The poster will discuss the flyby geometries and potential operation opportunities, in comparison with the three MESSENGER Mercury swing-bys from 2008 and 2009 [2][3].</p> <p><strong>References: </strong>[1] Benkhoff, J., et al. (2010) <em>Planet. Space Sci. </em>58, 2-20. [2] Baker, D.N. et al. (2011) Planet. Space Sci 59, 2066-2074. [3] McNutt, R.L. et al. (2010), Acta Astronautica V67, Iss 7-8, p 681-687</p>

Cruise and flyby operations of BepiColombo – first results and planned activities

<p>BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport Kourou in French Guyana and is now on route to Mercury to unveil Mercury’s secrets. BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere. BepiColombo is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). </p> <p>On its way BepiColombo will travel 18 times around the Sun until the spacecraft will be put into an polar orbit around Mercury. During its long way through the inner solar system, BepiColombo will perform nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury). However, since the spacecraft is in a stacked configuration during the flybys only some of the instruments on both spacecraft will perform scientific observations. In addition there are plenty of opportunities for further science operations (testing Einstein’s theory during solar conjunctions, listening to gamma ray bursts, or investigation of the solar environment).</p> <p>A status of the mission and instruments, science operations plans during cruise, and first results of measurements taken in the first three years since launch will be given.</p>

Revisiting global biogeography of freshwater diatoms: new insights from molecular data

The high-dispersal rates of microorganisms have driven to the expectation of their cosmopolitan geographic distribution. However, recent studies demonstrate that microorganisms instead show particular biogeography. Despite the existence of cosmopolitan species, geographically limited microbial groups have been found in aquatic and terrestrial environments worldwide. Diatoms are long time used model to study the biogeography of microorganisms. They are unicellular eukaryotic microalgae that contribute significantly to the aquatic primary production and have huge taxonomic diversity and marked species-specific ecological preferences. Several authors considered that diatoms have no limits in dispersion and are ubiquitously present. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that endemism exists for several genera, and species may have low dispersal capacity. However, all these studies are based on data obtained by microscopy and therefore suffer from the many well-identified biases associated with the optical identification of microorganisms at large scale. Metabarcoding technologies provide an access to taxonomic precision with a higher resolution compared to microscopy and open therefore the possibility of analyzing microbial diversity at genetic level. Recent bioinformatics tools allow reliable and standardized comparison of large datasets originating from distant geographic regions, overcoming issues related to biases in species identification. In this study we used metabarcoding data to revisit central questions in freshwater diatom biogeography. We assembled a large dataset of samples of benthic diatoms collected from rivers in seven different geographic regions. These regions cover the subpolar (Fennoscandia), temperate (France Mainland) and tropical (West Africa, French Guyana, New Caledonia, Tahiti island and Mayotte island) climate zones. The selected geographic regions can also be classified into four continental areas (Fennoscandia, France Mainland, West Africa, and French Guyana) and three islands (New Caledonia, Tahiti and Mayotte). We analyzed diatom alpha, beta and gamma diversity patterns in this dataset to address two main questions: 1) the presence of a latitudinal gradient in diatom diversity and 2) the cosmopolitanism of diatoms. Similarly to results previously reported by Soininen et al. 2016, our data showed a decrease in diatom richness with a decrease in latitude. However, testing the effect of land type (island vs. mainland) showed that this factor explains the actual variability of richness along the climatic gradient and the effect of latitude is not significant. Differences in community structure between regions and climate zones were significant. In multivariate analysis, tropical samples did not overlap with any of the other climate zones, suggesting the specificity of these communities.

Influence of Ecological Restoration on Mercury Mobility and Microbial Activities on Former Guyanese Mining Sites

As rehabilitation efforts in Guyana are recent, there is little information on the effect of different ecological rehabilitation protocols for Guyana’s mining sites on biogeochemical cycles and mercury mobility. This study was conducted to assess the impact of different ecological restoration protocols on soil quality with the use of soil microbial indicators and by estimating the mercury mobility. We sampled soil from six rehabilitated mining sites in French Guyana with different ecological restoration procedures. We carried out measurements of enzymatic activities and an analysis of mercury environmental speciation to assess its potential toxicity according to a mobility gradient. The results obtained in this study show that the rehabilitation of mining sites has been carried out in a heterogeneous manner and soil quality is very variable, even in nearby sites. Sites that have been rehabilitated with fabaceous species have positive soil quality indicators. In addition, the results highlight a change in mercury mobility that is 82.1% correlated after co-inertia analysis with soil texture properties, which also confirms a direct effect of rehabilitation on mercury mobility. The non-restored sites had a much higher potential of mercury mobility and toxicity than the sites where ecological restoration was successful. These results highlight the positive effect of controlled rehabilitation and ecological restoration on microbiological activities and the potential toxicity of mercury.

Three New Species of Neocalyptrocalyx (Capparaceae) for South America

Neocalyptrocalyx (Capparaceae) is a Neotropical genus that comprises eleven species that occur in the lowlands of Brazil, Guyana, French Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and Ecuador. The study of collections deposited in herbaria added to field observations allowed the recognition of three species as new to science, and those are formally presented here: Neocalyptrocalyx aequatoriensis, known only from eastern Ecuador, Neocalyptrocalyx atlanticum from the Atlantic Forest, and Neocalyptrocalyx polycataphyllus from the Brazilian Amazonia. Neocalyptrocalyx aequatoriensis represents the new westernmost boundary for the genus and the first generic record for Ecuador. We present diagnoses, descriptions, ink illustrations, field photos, distribution maps, notes on ecology, habitat, morphology, phenology, conservation status, and a key to distinguish the new species from related species.