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We report the results of a second six-year study of the macromoths in a village-edge garden in southern England. 121 additional species were recorded, mainly by light trapping, but also by daytime recording (including pheromones) or early stages. One-third were likely to be residents nearby and a few were migrants from overseas, but the majority were considered likely wanderers from more distant locations in England. Species previously identified as expanding or declining nationally generally showed similar patterns in our garden, but with a few striking exceptions. The rate of species addition with time showed no sign of levelling off and trapping when the night-time maximum temperature exceeded 20°C was identified as the most effective way to record low-frequency wanderers and thus add further species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the unusual sighting of four Orange-tip Anthocharis cardamines butterflies in Cambridgeshire, England, which otherwise are found in ones or twos. Topics discussed include physiology observation of the insect included mixed gynandromorph, courtship and mating behavior of insects of the Pieridae species, and chart on appearance of male and female butterflies.

The article reports that the Butterfly Conservation's E-moth newsletter showed the progress of the National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS) towards its planned Atlas of the Great Britain Britain and Ireland's Larger Moths. It mentions that according to the Butterfly Conservation's report "The State of Britain's Larger Moths 2013" there is an decline in percentage of moths. It states that species like Cryphia algae have breeding populations in southern England.

British population history has been shaped by a series of immigrations, including the early Anglo-Saxon migrations after 400 CE. It remains an open question how these events affected the genetic composition of the current British population. Here, we present whole-genome sequences from 10 individuals excavated close to Cambridge in the East of England, ranging from the late Iron Age to the middle Anglo-Saxon period. By analysing shared rare variants with hundreds of modern samples from Britain and Europe, we estimate that on average the contemporary East English population derives 38% of its ancestry from Anglo-Saxon migrations. We gain further insight with a new method, rarecoal, which infers population history and identifies fine-scale genetic ancestry from rare variants. Using rarecoal we find that the Anglo-Saxon samples are closely related to modern Dutch and Danish populations, while the Iron Age samples share ancestors with multiple Northern European populations including Britain.

The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic showed the speed with which a novel respiratory virus can spread and the ability of a generally mild infection to induce severe morbidity and mortality in a subset of the population. Recent in vitro studies show that the interferon-inducible transmembrane (IFITM) protein family members potently restrict the replication of multiple pathogenic viruses. Both the magnitude and breadth of the IFITM proteins' in vitro effects suggest that they are critical for intrinsic resistance to such viruses, including influenza viruses. Using a knockout mouse model, we now test this hypothesis directly and find that IFITM3 is essential for defending the host against influenza A virus in vivo. Mice lacking Ifitm3 display fulminant viral pneumonia when challenged with a normally low-pathogenicity influenza virus, mirroring the destruction inflicted by the highly pathogenic 1918 'Spanish' influenza. Similar increased viral replication is seen in vitro, with protection rescued by the re-introduction of Ifitm3. To test the role of IFITM3 in human influenza virus infection, we assessed the IFITM3 alleles of individuals hospitalized with seasonal or pandemic influenza H1N1/09 viruses. We find that a statistically significant number of hospitalized subjects show enrichment for a minor IFITM3 allele (SNP rs12252-C) that alters a splice acceptor site, and functional assays show the minor CC genotype IFITM3 has reduced influenza virus restriction in vitro. Together these data reveal that the action of a single intrinsic immune effector, IFITM3, profoundly alters the course of influenza virus infection in mouse and humans.

The presence of Africans in Britain has been recorded since Roman times, but has left no apparent genetic trace among modern inhabitants. Y chromosomes belonging to the deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny, haplogroup (hg) A, are regarded as African-specific, and no examples have been reported from Britain or elsewhere in Western Europe. We describe the presence of an hgA1 chromosome in an indigenous British male; comparison with African examples suggests a Western African origin. Seven out of 18 men carrying the same rare east-Yorkshire surname as the original male also carry hgA1 chromosomes, and documentary research resolves them into two genealogies with most-recent-common-ancestors living in Yorkshire in the late 18th century. Analysis using 77 Y-short tandem repeats (STRs) is consistent with coalescence a few generations earlier. Our findings represent the first genetic evidence of Africans among 'indigenous' British, and emphasize the complexity of human migration history as well as the pitfalls of assigning geographical origin from Y-chromosomal haplotypes.