The foreign minister asks why the bodies of three Indonesians were thrown overboard.

Georgia summoned its ambassador to Ukraine back to Tbilisi in a sign of its displeasure over Kyiv’s decision to name Mikheil Saakashvili to a government reform body. 

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Several hundred demonstrators have gathered in the Swiss capital, Bern, St Gallen and Zurich to protest against a government-imposed coronavirus...

On 4 December 2018, Eversheds Sutherland’s Elizabeth Shepherd was on a panel providing oral evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee at a one-off session to consider the impact of the proposed Brexit deal on Chemicals Reg...

God’s love for sinners is a well-documented historical fact. Its verification doesn’t hinge on the consensus of theologians, nor does its validation rest on something we feel. The apostle John points us to the cross as the consummate and undeniable proof of divine love.

JAKARTA: Indonesia has summoned China’s ambassador to clarify the deaths of four Indonesian crew from two Chinese-flagged vessels, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, after...

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ADB has approved a $100 million loan for a demonstration project that will help clean up the Xin’an River in Anhui Province in the PRC. The project will also pilot an innovative financing mechanism to reduce rural pollution...

NEW YORK AUTO SHOW – March 23, 2016 – HARMAN International Industries, Incorporated (NYSE:HAR), the premier connected technologies company for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets, will join leading global automakers at the 2016 New York Auto Show...

A Reuters examination has found that widespread crop damage covering millions of acres of Midwestern farmland has its roots in weak regulatory oversight and corporate secrecy.

The Tully Monster is a famously odd 300-million-year-old fossil that looks like an alien, but a new analysis suggests it was a backboned animal like a hagfish or lamprey

The Tully Monster is a famously odd 300-million-year-old fossil that looks like an alien, but a new analysis suggests it was a backboned animal like a hagfish or lamprey

ABSTRACT

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the leading cause of nonbacterial gastroenteritis worldwide. Histo-blood group antigen (HBGA) expression is an important susceptibility factor for HuNoV infection based on controlled human infection models and epidemiologic studies that show an association of secretor status with infection caused by several genotypes. The fucosyltransferase 2 gene (FUT2) affects HBGA expression in intestinal epithelial cells; secretors express a functional FUT2 enzyme, while nonsecretors lack this enzyme and are highly resistant to infection and gastroenteritis caused by many HuNoV strains. These epidemiologic associations are confirmed by infections in stem cell-derived human intestinal enteroid (HIE) cultures. GII.4 HuNoV does not replicate in HIE cultures derived from nonsecretor individuals, while HIEs from secretors are permissive to infection. However, whether FUT2 expression alone is critical for infection remains unproven, since routinely used secretor-positive transformed cell lines are resistant to HuNoV replication. To evaluate the role of FUT2 in HuNoV replication, we used CRISPR or overexpression to genetically manipulate FUT2 gene function to produce isogenic HIE lines with or without FUT2 expression. We show that FUT2 expression alone affects both HuNoV binding to the HIE cell surface and susceptibility to HuNoV infection. These findings indicate that initial binding to a molecule(s) glycosylated by FUT2 is critical for HuNoV infection and that the HuNoV receptor is present in nonsecretor HIEs. In addition to HuNoV studies, these isogenic HIE lines will be useful tools to study other enteric microbes where infection and/or disease outcome is associated with secretor status.

IMPORTANCE Several studies have demonstrated that secretor status is associated with susceptibility to human norovirus (HuNoV) infection; however, previous reports found that FUT2 expression is not sufficient to allow infection with HuNoV in a variety of continuous laboratory cell lines. Which cellular factor(s) regulates susceptibility to HuNoV infection remains unknown. We used genetic manipulation of HIE cultures to show that secretor status determined by FUT2 gene expression is necessary and sufficient to support HuNoV replication based on analyses of isogenic lines that lack or express FUT2. Fucosylation of HBGAs is critical for initial binding and for modification of another putative receptor(s) in HIEs needed for virus uptake or uncoating and necessary for successful infection by GI.1 and several GII HuNoV strains.

In 2015, the M_w 7.8 Gorkha earthquake struck Nepal, triggering thousands of landslides across the central and eastern Himalayas. These landslides had many adverse effects, including causing widespread damage to low-grade transport routes (e.g. tracks, footpaths) in rural regions that depend on tourism for survival. Langtang Valley is a glacial–periglacial landscape located 60 km north of Kathmandu. It is one of the most popular trekking regions in Nepal and has been severely affected by Gorkha earthquake-triggered and monsoon-triggered landsliding. Here, qualitative and quantitative observations from fieldwork and remote sensing are used to describe the materials and geomorphology of the landslides across Langtang Valley, and to quantify the extent to which coseismic and monsoon-triggered landslides have affected Langtang's trekking infrastructure. The dominant bedrock materials involved within Langtang landslides are found to be a range of gneisses and intruded leucogranites. In total, 64 landslides are found to have intersected trekking paths across Langtang, with coseismic and monsoon-triggered landslides having an impact on c. 3 km and 0.8 km of path respectively. It is observed that the practice of reconstructing paths through unstable landslide deposits is leaving the trekking infrastructure across Langtang increasingly vulnerable to future failure.

This anime-style action game about fighting off the creatively-named “others” was one of the many trailers we peeped during Xbox’s big reveal real yesterday. Bandai Namco have announced that Scarlet Nexus is actually coming to PC as well, so we’ll get to do a bit of monster butt-kickin’ too. Is that an evil bouquet of […]

For most of Doom Eternal‘s demonic foes, the best they can expect is to make a nice corpse. A particularly pleasing splash of gore on the Doom Slayer’s boot. But for those lucky few that manage to take down our man in green, a special reward will soon be in store. Doom Eternal’s first major […]

Qubits are often stabilised by being supercooled, which makes quantum computer chips hard to scale up. Now they have been operated at above -272°C for the first time

An enormous rocky planet orbiting a distant star may be a gas giant that has had its atmosphere ripped off, which could help us understand how huge worlds like Jupiter form

Robots that can control puppets could one day learn to manipulate complex physical objects like clothing and flexible sheets

For $10, Shaq will title this podcast. For $20, Manny will read a book on the podcast. For $3000, Anna Marie will cook you dinner....

Defiant US healthcare workers have been praised after silently blocking cars during coronavirus anti-lockdown demonstrations in Colorado.

BBC presenter Jeremy Vine has trialled a "have you had it?" antibody coronavirus test not yet approved by the Government.

The House of Commons echoed with peals of laughter today as Matt Hancock complimented a fellow Tory MP on his lockdown hairdo.

A Labour MP working on the NHS frontline has hit back at Health Secretary Matt Hancock after he told her to watch her "tone" during a debate in the House of Commons.

The sister of a man whose body was found dumped in woodland launched an appeal today on the first anniversary of his disappearance to catch the "monsters" who killed him.

The year-old band also called on Zygnema’s Sidharth Kadadi to produce their second release

The post Exclusive Premiere: Mumbai Metallers Targe Call on The Demonstealer for ‘The Cortege’ appeared first on My Site.

MPs have approved hybrid proceedings in the House of Commons with some MPs set to attend via video link amid the coronavirus lockdown.

The historic "hybrid" sitting of the House of Commons will be the springboard for further modernisation of Westminster, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle told the Standard.

One of Boris Johnson's closest allies quit as a minister today after being found to have breached the MPs' code of conduct by trying to "intimidate" a company chairman involved in a loan row with his father.