High levels of hTERC and the identified other TTAGs might be part of the established alteration in the eutopic endometrial telomerase biology in women with endometriosis in the secretory phase of the endometrium and our data informs future research to unravel the fundamental involvement of telomerase in the pathogenesis of endometriosis.The present contribution evaluates the methods of degradation and stabilization of alum-containing paper with a focus on the alkaline environment achieved by deacidification procedures. In terms of reviewed subjects, the contribution focuses on alum-rosin sized paper, which is still used as a carrier of knowledge and information; however, it also mentions cellulose itself and other brands of paper. The contribution summarizes the results on the homogeneity of the distribution of alum and rosin in the paper mass and on the paper surface. It provides the knowledge gained in the field of alkaline hydrolysis and oxidation with special regard to transition metal species. It shows the values of alkaline reserves achieved in the main mass-deacidification processes. On the basis of the acquired knowledge, the contribution emphasizes the procedures of paper stabilization. Criteria of "increased mechanical permanence and lifetime prolongation" adopted to evaluate and compare the efficacy of individual mass-deacidification processes were applied and corresponding data are introduced. The contribution also draws attention to the existence of open issues in the area of paper degradation and stabilization.Environmental conditions strongly affect experimental animals. As a model organism, zebrafish has become important in life science studies. However, the potential effect of living environment on their behavior and physiology is often overlooked. This work aimed to determine whether tank size affects zebrafish behavior and physiology. Tests on shelter leaving, shelter seeking, shoaling, stamina, and pepsin and cortisol levels were conducted. Results showed that zebrafish behavior is easily affected by changes on the tank size. Fish that lived in small tanks behaved less boldly, had poor stamina, and spent much time on movement. Sex differences in behavior were only evident in the shelter seeking tests. Tank size had no effect on pepsin and cortisol, but cortisol concentrations in males were lower than those in females. This study suggests that zebrafish behavior is easily influenced by their living environment, and future related studies should consider their living space.Non-perforating abomasal lesions occur with a high prevalence in slaughtered dairy cattle. Ante mortem diagnosis is a challenge, but the presence of occult blood in feces is suggested as a diagnostic criterion. The lower detection limit of Hemo-Fec® (Med-Kjemi, Asker, Norway) and Hemoccult II® SENSA® (Beckman Coulter, Brea, California, USA) for fecal occult blood were estimated. The Hemo-Fec® and Hemoccult II® SENSA® could detect 1-2 mL and 2-4.5 mL of blood in 1000 g of feces, respectively. Therefore, the Hemo-Fec® test was selected to access hemoglobin degradation in the rumen to establish if blood from outside the gastrointestinal tract could result in false-positive tests and an observational study to estimate the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. CDK inhibitor Rumen microbiota did not degrade hemoglobin in a 1% blood concentration in vitro during 48 h of fermentation. The Hemo-Fec® test was only able to detect cattle with ≥4 acute lesions (diagnostic sensitivity 0.40 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.32-0.48] and ≥4 chronic lesions (sensitivity 0.44 [95% CI 0.35-0.52]). The Hemo-Fec® test had no diagnostic potential to detect superficial erosions or scar tissue in abomasa. Furthermore, the specificity was 0.71 [95% CI 0.68-0.75%], and a positive test is thus not equivalent with abomasal lesions in cattle.The postmortem interval (PMI) of victims is a key parameter in criminal investigations. However, effective methods for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains have not been established because it is determined by various factors, including environmental conditions. To identify effective parameters for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains, we investigated the change in bone focusing on the amount of DNA, element concentrations, and bone density that occurred in the bone samples of bovine femurs, each maintained under one of five simulated environmental conditions (seawater, freshwater, underground, outdoors, and indoors) for 1 year. The amount of extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA; 404 bp fragment) decreased over time, and significant DNA degradation (p less then 0.01), as estimated by a comparison with amplification results for a shorter fragment (128 bp), was detected between 1 month and 3 months. Eleven of 30 elements were detected in samples by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, and Na and Ba showed significant quantitative differences in terms of environmental conditions and time (p less then 0.01). This preliminary study suggests that the level of DNA degradation determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction and element concentrations determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission may be useful indices for estimating the PMI of victims under a wide range of environmental conditions. However, this study is a limited experimental research and not applicable to forensic cases as it is. Further studies of human bone with longer observation periods are required to verify these findings and to establish effective methods for PMI estimation.The Zika virus was introduced in Brazil in 2015 and, shortly after, spread all over the Americas. Nowadays, it remains present in more than 80 countries and represents a major threat due to some singularities among other flaviviruses. Due to its easy transmission, high percentage of silent cases, the severity of its associated complications, and the lack of prophylactic methods and effective treatments, it is essential to develop reliable and rapid diagnostic tests for early containment of the infection. Nonstructural protein 1 (NS1), a glycoprotein involved in all flavivirus infections, is secreted since the beginning of the infection into the blood stream and has proven to be a valuable biomarker for the early diagnosis of other flaviviral infections. Here, we describe the development of a highly sensitive nanobody ELISA for the detection of the NS1 protein in serum samples. Nanobodies were selected from a library generated from a llama immunized with Zika NS1 (ZVNS1) by a two-step high-throughput screening geared to identify the most sensitive and specific nanobody pairs.