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The relationships among the Neotropical Diplotaxini and homology of revised and new taxa are revisited with parsimony analyses based on morphological characters, and probabilistic analyses based on concatenated ITS2 and COI genes. Neotropical Diplotaxini is now composed of five monophyletic genera: Pacuvia, Pachrodema, Homalochilus, Liogenys , and Careocallus gen. nov.. Pseudodiplotaxis is here transferred to incertae sedis of Melolonthinae. Careocallus is the sister genus of Liogenys and is composed of Careocallus tehuelche sp. nov. and Careocallus densicollis sp. nov. Sister phylogenetic relationship between Homalochilus and the rest of genera except Pacuvia is revealed. Homalochilus sensu nov. is comprised by Homalochilus punctatostriatus and Homalochilus nigripennis sp. nov. This genus recovered its monophyly by transferring Homalochilus niger to Liogenys , as Liogenys niger comb. nov. and this name is also synonymized with L. morio. The type species of Homalochilus is emended to be H. punctatostriatus. A neotype (Liogenys morio) and lectotypes (H. punctatostriatus, H. niger) are designated. Dichotomious key to Neotropical Diplotaxini genera and to species of Homalochilus and Careocallus are presented. Sequences and phylogenetic signals for Neotropical melolonthines are reported for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeological sequence at Kasteelberg B, in the Western Cape of South Africa, spans a millennium and covers several distinct occupational phases in the early pastoralist settlement history of the region. Attempts to understand that history through coordinating archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence have proved problematic. The refined programme of radiocarbon dating presented here sheds further light on the different phases of occupation. More remarkably, it suggests, despite changes in material culture, the persistence of a single population over time, rather than population replacement as has been previously conjectured. Keywords: South Africa, south-western Cape, San, Khoekhoe, pastoralist, AMS radiocarbon dating, Bayesian modelling, Introduction Five centuries ago, the first European mariners rounding the Cape of Good Hope encountered Khoekhoe-speaking people who occasionally supplied beef and mutton in return for iron, tobacco, alcohol and [...]

Omicron and its subvariants have steadily gained greater capability of immune escape compared to other variants of concern, resulting in an increased incidence of reinfections even among vaccinated individuals. We evaluated the antibody response to Omicron BA.1, BA.2, and BA.4/5 in US military members vaccinated with the primary 2-dose series of Moderna mRNA-1273 in a cross-sectional study. While nearly all vaccinated participants had sustained spike (S) IgG and neutralizing antibodies (ND50) to the ancestral strain, only 7.7% participants had detectable ND50 to Omicron BA.1 at 8 months postvaccination. The neutralizing antibody response to BA.2 and BA.5 was similarly reduced. The reduced antibody neutralization of Omicron correlated with the decreased antibody binding to the receptor-binding domain. The participants' seropositivity to the nuclear protein positively correlated with ND50. Our data emphasizes the need for continuous vigilance in monitoring for emerging variants and the need to identify potential alternative targets for vaccine design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]