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Among the main phenomena that are causing significant changes in ocean waters are warming and acidification, largely due to anthropogenic activities. Growing evidence suggests that climate change is having more substantial and rapid effects on marine communities than on terrestrial ones, triggering several physiological responses in these organisms, including in corals. Here we investigated, for first time in the field, the combined effect of increasing seawater acidification and warming on tissue regeneration rate of three Mediterranean scleractinian coral species characterized by different trophic strategies and growth modes. Balanophyllia europaea (solitary, zooxanthellate), Leptopsammia pruvoti (solitary, non-zooxanthellate) and Astroides calycularis (colonial, non-zooxanthellate) specimens were transplanted, during a cold, intermediate, and warm period, along a natural pH gradient generated by an underwater volcanic crater at Panarea Island (Mediterranean Sea, Italy), characterized by continuous and localized CO 2 emissions at ambient temperature. Our results show a decrease in regenerative capacity, especially in the zooxanthellate species, with increasing seawater temperature and acidification, with demonstrated species-specific differences. This finding suggests that increasing seawater temperature and acidification could have a compounding effect on coral regeneration following injury, potentially hindering the capacity of corals to recover following physical disturbance under predicted climate change., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Zvy Dubinsky reports financial support was provided by Bar-Ilan University., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Objectives: To evaluate the diagnostic performance and clinical utility of the urine Congo red dot test (CRDT) in predicting preeclampsia (PE) within 7 days, 14 days and 28 days of assessment., Study Design: A prospective single center double blind non-intervention study conducted from January 2020 to March 2022. Urine congophilia has been proposed as a point-of-care test for the prediction and rapid identification of PE. In our study, urine CRDT and pregnancy outcomes were assessed in women presenting with clinical features of suspected PE after 20 weeks of gestation., Results: Among the 216 women analyzed, 78 (36.1 %) women developed PE, in which only 7 (9.0 %) of them had a positive urine CRDT test. The median (IQR) interval between the initial test and the diagnosis of PE was significantly shorter for women with a positive urine CRDT compared with women with a negative urine CRDT (1 day (0-5 days) vs 8 days (1-19 days), P = 0.027). The negative predictive value of a negative urine CRDT test for PE within 7 days, 14 days and 28 days of assessment were 83.73 % (95 %CI 81.75 %- 85.54 %), 78.92 % (95 % confidence interval [CI] 77.07 %- 80.71 %) and 71.77 % (95 %CI 70.06 %- 73.42 %) respectively. The sensitivity of the urine CRDT in ruling in PE within 7 days, 14 days and 28 days of assessment were 17.07 % (95 %CI 7.15 %- 32.06 %), 13.73 % (95 %CI 5.70 %- 26.26 %) and 10.61 % (95 %CI 4.37 %- 20.64 %), respectively., Conclusions: Urine CRDT alone has high specificity yet low sensitivity in the short-term prediction of PE in women with suspected PE. Further studies are required to evaluate its clinical utility., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

As tick-borne diseases continue to emerge across the United States, there is need for a better understanding of the tick and pathogen communities in the southern states and of habitat features that influence transmission risk. We surveyed questing and on-host ticks in pine-dominated forests with various fire management regimes in the Sam Houston National Forest, a popular recreation area near Houston, Texas. Four linear transects were established- two with a history of controlled burns, and two unburned. Systematic drag sampling yielded 112 ticks from two species, Ixodes scapularis (n=73) and Amblyomma americanum (n=39), with an additional 106 questing ticks collected opportunistically from drag cloth operators. There was a significant difference in systematically-collected questing tick density between unburned (15 and 18 ticks/1000 m 2 ) and burned (2 and 4 ticks/1000 m 2 ) transects. We captured 106 rodents and found 74 ticks on the rodents, predominantly Dermacentor variabilis. One unburned transect had significantly more ticks per mammal than any of the other three transects. DNA of Rickettsia species was detected in 146/292 on and off-host ticks, including the 'Rickettsial endosymbiont of I. scapularis' and Rickettsia amblyommatis, which are of uncertain pathogenicity to humans. Borrelia lonestari was detected in one A. americanum, while Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, the agent of Lyme disease, was not detected in any tick samples. Neither Borrelia nor Rickettsia spp. were detected in any of the mammal ear biopsies (n=64) or blood samples (n=100) tested via PCR. This study documents a high prevalence in ticks of Rickettsia spp. thought to be endosymbionts, a low prevalence of relapsing fever group Borrelia in ticks, and a lack of detection of Lyme disease-group Borrelia in both ticks and mammals in an east Texas forested recreation area. Additionally, we observed low questing tick density in areas with a history of controlled burns. These results expand knowledge of tick-borne disease ecology in east Texas which can aid in directing future investigative, modeling, and management efforts., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbH.. All rights reserved.)