‘U OK hun’? Classed femininities, meme culture and locating humour in the celebrity ‘hun’

This article examines ‘huns’ – specifically celebrity huns in the public spotlight – as memetic ‘figures’ who are defined by their loud, tongue-in-cheek and humorous display of British femininities coded as working class. Unlike other female figures routinely mocked and laughed at in contemporary popular culture (such as the ‘chav[ette]’ in Britain and ‘Karens’ in America), huns have been celebrated online in a seemingly more progressive and supposedly politically aware sociocultural context. However, this article argues that laughter aimed at the celebrity hun, though deemed inclusive by her fans, is ultimately ambivalent, polysemic and multifarious. Transformations online have led to the discursive creation of the hun through her ‘memeability’. Therefore, I will analyse this new classed and gendered figure via social media. Using the Instagram account ‘loveofhuns’ as a case study, I examine three memes from this page to showcase how huns are represented in complex and competing ways. Overall, this article questions whether the humour in memes uplifts huns or reinforces stereotypes of this typically derided image of (classed) femininity

Purification and Characterization of Enterovirus 71 Viral Particles Produced from Vero Cells Grown in a Serum-Free Microcarrier Bioreactor System

[[abstract]]Background: Enterovirus 71 (EV71) infections manifest most commonly as a childhood exanthema known as hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) and can cause neurological disease during acute infection. Principal Finding: In this study, we describe the production, purification and characterization of EV71 virus produced from Vero cells grown in a five-liter serum-free bioreactor system containing 5 g/L Cytodex 1 microcarrier. The viral titer was >106 TCID50/mL by 6 days post infection when a MOI of 10?5 was used at the initial infection. Two EV71 virus fractions were separated and detected when the harvested EV71 virus concentrate was purified by sucrose gradient zonal ultracentrifugation. The EV71 viral particles detected in the 24–28% sucrose fractions had an icosahedral structure 30–31 nm in diameter and had low viral infectivity and RNA content. Three major viral proteins (VP0, VP1 and VP3) were observed by SDS-PAGE. The EV71 viral particles detected in the fractions containing 35–38% sucrose were 33–35 nm in size, had high viral infectivity and RNA content, and were composed of four viral proteins (VP1, VP2, VP3 and VP4), as shown by SDS-PAGE analyses. The two virus fractions were formalin-inactivated and induced high virus neutralizing antibody responses in mouse immunogenicity studies. Both mouse antisera recognized the immunodominant linear neutralization epitope of VP1 (residues 211–225). Conclusion:These results provide important information for cell-based EV71 vaccine development, particularly for the preparation of working standards for viral antigen quantification

Efficacy and adverse effects of intravenous lignocaine therapy in fibromyalgia syndrome

BACKGROUND: To investigate the effects of intravenous lignocaine infusions (IV lignocaine) in fibromyalgia. METHODS: Prospective study of the adverse effects of IV lignocaine in 106 patients with fibromyalgia; retrospective questionnaire study of the efficacy of IV lignocaine in 50 patients with fibromyalgia. RESULTS: Prospective study: Two major (pulmonary oedema and supraventricular tachycardia) and 42 minor side-effects were reported. None had long-term sequelae. The commonest was hypotension (17 cases). Retrospective study: Pain and a range of psychosocial measures (on single 11-point scales) improved significantly after treatment. There was no effect of the treatment on work status. The average duration of pain relief after the 6-day course of treatment was 11.5 ± 6.5 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: Intravenous lignocaine appears to be both safe and of benefit in improving pain and quality of life for patients with fibromyalgia. This needs to be confirmed in prospective randomised controlled trials

Recombination between Polioviruses and Co-Circulating Coxsackie A Viruses: Role in the Emergence of Pathogenic Vaccine-Derived Polioviruses

Ten outbreaks of poliomyelitis caused by pathogenic circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) have recently been reported in different regions of the world. Two of these outbreaks occurred in Madagascar. Most cVDPVs were recombinants of mutated poliovaccine strains and other unidentified enteroviruses of species C. We previously reported that a type 2 cVDPV isolated during an outbreak in Madagascar was co-circulating with coxsackieviruses A17 (CA17) and that sequences in the 3′ half of the cVDPV and CA17 genomes were related. The goal of this study was to investigate whether these CA17 isolates can act as recombination partners of poliovirus and subsequently to evaluate the major effects of recombination events on the phenotype of the recombinants. We first cloned the infectious cDNA of a Madagascar CA17 isolate. We then generated recombinant constructs combining the genetic material of this CA17 isolate with that of the type 2 vaccine strain and that of the type 2 cVDPV. Our results showed that poliovirus/CA17 recombinants are viable. The recombinant in which the 3′ half of the vaccine strain genome had been replaced by that of the CA17 genome yielded larger plaques and was less temperature sensitive than its parental strains. The virus in which the 3′ portion of the cVDPV genome was replaced by the 3′ half of the CA17 genome was almost as neurovirulent as the cVDPV in transgenic mice expressing the poliovirus cellular receptor gene. The co-circulation in children and genetic recombination of viruses, differing in their pathogenicity for humans and in certain other biological properties such as receptor usage, can lead to the generation of pathogenic recombinants, thus constituting an interesting model of viral evolution and emergence

Globally invariant metabolism but density-diversity mismatch in springtails

Soil life supports the functioning and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Springtails (Collembola) are among the most abundant soil arthropods regulating soil fertility and flow of energy through above- and belowground food webs. However, the global distribution of springtail diversity and density, and how these relate to energy fluxes remains unknown. Here, using a global dataset representing 2470 sites, we estimate the total soil springtail biomass at 27.5 megatons carbon, which is threefold higher than wild terrestrial vertebrates, and record peak densities up to 2 million individuals per square meter in the tundra. Despite a 20-fold biomass difference between the tundra and the tropics, springtail energy use (community metabolism) remains similar across the latitudinal gradient, owing to the changes in temperature with latitude. Neither springtail density nor community metabolism is predicted by local species richness, which is high in the tropics, but comparably high in some temperate forests and even tundra. Changes in springtail activity may emerge from latitudinal gradients in temperature, predation and resource limitation in soil communities. Contrasting relationships of biomass, diversity and activity of springtail communities with temperature suggest that climate warming will alter fundamental soil biodiversity metrics in different directions, potentially restructuring terrestrial food webs and affecting soil functioning.fals

Global fine-resolution data on springtail abundance and community structure

Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised. Despite covering all continents, most of the sample-level data come from the European continent (82.5% of all samples) and represent four habitats: woodlands (57.4%), grasslands (14.0%), agrosystems (13.7%) and scrublands (9.0%). We included sampling by soil layers, and across seasons and years, representing temporal and spatial within-site variation in springtail communities. We also provided data use and sharing guidelines and R code to facilitate the use of the database by other researchers. This data paper describes a static version of the database at the publication date, but the database will be further expanded to include underrepresented regions and linked with trait data.fals