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Presented here is a magnetic hydrogel particle enabled workflow for capturing and concentrating SARS-CoV-2 from diagnostic remnant swab samples that significantly improves sequencing results using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION sequencing platform. Our approach utilizes a novel affinity-based magnetic hydrogel particle, circumventing low input sample volumes and allowing for both rapid manual and automated high throughput workflows that are compatible with Nanopore sequencing. This approach enhances standard RNA extraction protocols, providing up to 40 × improvements in viral mapped reads, and improves sequencing coverage by 20–80% from lower titer diagnostic remnant samples. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this approach works for contrived influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus samples, suggesting that it can be used to identify and improve sequencing results of multiple viruses in VTM samples. These methods can be performed manually or on a KingFisher automation platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present a rapid and versatile method for capturing and concentrating SARS-CoV-2 from contrived transport medium and saliva samples using affinity-capture magnetic hydrogel particles. We demonstrate that the method concentrates virus from 1 mL samples prior to RNA extraction, substantially improving detection of virus using real-time RT-PCR across a range of viral titers (100–1,000,000 viral copies/mL) and enabling detection of virus using the 2019 nCoV CDC EUA Kit down to 100 viral copies/mL. This method is compatible with commercially available nucleic acid extraction kits (i.e., from Qiagen) and a simple heat and detergent method that extracts viral RNA directly off the particle, allowing a sample processing time of 10 min. We furthermore tested our method in transport medium diagnostic remnant samples that previously had been tested for SARS-CoV-2, showing that our method not only correctly identified all positive samples but also substantially improved detection of the virus in low viral load samples. The average improvement in cycle threshold value across all viral titers tested was 3.1. Finally, we illustrate that our method could potentially be used to enable pooled testing, as we observed considerable improvement in the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from sample volumes of up to 10 mL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is expected to increase droughts and heatwaves, and consequently fire danger in southern Europe in the forthcoming decades. However, an assessment of the uncertainties associated with this general trend at regional scales, relevant to decision-making, is still missing. This study aims at assessing potential climate change impacts on fire danger over France through the projection of the widely used Fire Weather Index (FWI) and at quantifying the different sources of climate-driven uncertainty associated with these projections. We used daily climate experiments covering the 1995–2098 period under two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) provided by the EURO-CORDEX initiative. Our results show an overall increase in FWI throughout the century, with the largest absolute increases in the Mediterranean area. Model uncertainty was very high in western France, previously identified as a potential fire-prone region under future climate. In contrast, large increases in FWI in the Mediterranean area showed low uncertainty across models. Besides, analyzing the natural variability of FWI revealed that extreme years under present-day climate could become much more frequent by the end of the century. The FWI is projected to emerge from the background of natural variability by mid-twenty-first century with a summer elevated fire danger three times more likely when summer temperature anomaly exceeds + 2 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent benthonic foraminifera respond to even minor changes in environmental conditions. On the basis of statistical analyses of both foraminiferal population and bottom sediments, a new morphological terminology for the Lagoon of Venice is presented. The various geomorphic units are here differentiated on the basis of the relative occurrence of subpopulations that respond to local physicochemical and biological parameters. This reduces the need to evaluate the tolerance limits of each individual species, necessary to identify environments in terms of species or groups of species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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