Distance Teaching in Chemistry: Opportunities and Limitations.

Remote teaching in the tertiary education sector is a relatively common practice, and the implementation of digital solutions in chemistry teaching offers many new opportunities and tools. A survey was conducted after 3 months of emergency remote teaching linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and showed that half of the students estimated it was difficult to study remotely, and reported they had to invest more time compared to classroom teaching, which led to a drop in motivation. Professors also noted that the time necessary to invest in order to produce digital teaching content was enormous. Massive open online laboratories (MOOLs) and process simulators are interesting tools, but practical lab work and related know-how cannot fully be replaced by digital techniques. Finally, it appeared that the professor-student interaction is very important in the distance-learning process, and that a high level of pedagogical (inter)activity is mandatory to maintain motivation and better quality of teaching and learning.

Interdisciplinary Projects Applied to Chemistry Lessons: Example of Chemistry Linked to Food Science.

An interdisciplinary project regarding the effect of ascorbic acid on bread dough's physico-chemical properties was proposed to bachelor students in chemistry and food sciences. Such an approach was proposed to develop both scientific and soft skills, in order to prepare students for their future working environment. Together, students deepened their knowledge regarding food science and chemistry. They were then able to plan and design experiments demonstrating the impact of gluten network formation and ascorbic acid influence onto bread dough and finished product characteristics. This way of teaching was very appreciated by students, nevertheless it highlighted the fact that the professors' investment was considerably high, and that good organization, alignment and preparation prior to the start of this project is key.

Mayaro virus: complete nucleotide sequence and phylogenetic relationships with other alphaviruses.

Mayaro (MAY) virus is a member of the genus Alphavirus in the family Togaviridae. Alphaviruses are distributed throughout the world and cause a wide range of diseases in humans and animals. Here, we determined the complete nucleotide sequence of MAY from a viral strain isolated from a French Guianese patient. The deduced MAY genome was 11,429 nucleotides in length, excluding the 5' cap nucleotide and 3' poly(A) tail. Nucleotide and amino acid homologies, as well as phylogenetic analyses of the obtained sequence confirmed that MAY is not a recombinant virus and belongs to the Semliki Forest complex according to the antigenic complex classification. Furthermore, analyses based on the E1 region revealed that MAY is closely related to Una virus, the only other South American virus clustering with the Old World viruses. On the basis of our results and of the alphaviruses diversity and pathogenicity, we suggest that alphaviruses may have an Old World origin.