Preliminary Investigation into Developing the Use of Swabs for Skin Cortisol Analysis for the Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola).

The ocean sunfish (mola; Mola mola) is the heaviest bony fish in the world. This slow-moving fish often is injured by fishing boats that use drift gillnets attributing to its listing as Vulnerable by the IUCN. The Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey, CA, USA) has a program that brings in smaller molas from the ocean and acclimates them for an exhibit. When they grow too large for the million-gallon Open Seas exhibit, they are returned to Monterey Bay through a "reverse" acclimatization. Our overall goal was to use skin swabs to evaluate mola stress physiology to better understand the effects of this program. Our objectives were to validate this non-invasive method by taking opportunistic swabs throughout acclimatization and during stressful events. We swabbed each individual (n = 12) in three different body locations. Swabs were analyzed using a cortisol enzyme immunoassay. We averaged the three swabs and examined the absolute change of cortisol from the first taken upon handling to during treatments and the different acclimation stages. We considered elevated cortisol concentrations to be ≥1.5-fold higher than the first sample. Overall, mean (±SEM) cortisol varied among individuals (564.2 ± 191.5 pg/mL swab (range, 18.3-7012.0 pg/mL swab). The majority (four of six) of molas swabbed within the first week or month had elevated skin cortisol compared to their first sample. All seven molas that were being treated for an injury or illness had elevated skin cortisol (range, 1.7- to 127.6-fold higher) compared to their post-acclimation sample. This is the first step in validating the use of non-invasive skin swabs for glucocorticoid analysis in the mola. Further biochemical analysis is needed to determine the specific steroids that are being measured.

Preschool Children's Processing of Events during Verb Learning: Is the Focus on People (Faces) or Their Actions (Hands)?

Verbs are central to the syntactic structure of sentences, and, thus, important for learning one's native language. This study examined how children visually inspect events as they hear, and do not hear, a new verb. Specifically, there is evidence that children may focus on the agent of the action or may prioritize attention to the action being performed; to date, little evidence is available. This study used an eye tracker to track 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds' looking to the agent (i.e., face) vs. action (i.e., hands) while viewing events linked to a new verb as well as distractor events. A Tobii X30 eye tracker recorded children's fixations to AOIs (head/face and hands) as they watched three target events and two distractor events in different orders during the learning phase, and pointed to one of two events in two test trials. This was repeated for a second novel verb. Pointing results show that children in all age groups were able to learn and extend the new verbs to new events at test. Additionally, across age groups, when viewing target events, children increased their looking to the hands (where the action is taking place) as those trials progressed and decreased their looking to the agents' face, which is less informative for learning a new verb's meaning. In contrast, when viewing distractor events, children decreased their looking to hands over trials and maintained their attention to the face. In summary, children's visual attention to agents' faces and hands differed depending on whether the events cooccurred with the new verb. These results are important as this is the first study to show this pattern of visual attention during verb learning, and, thus, these results help reveal underlying attentional strategies children may use when learning verbs.

Robust age estimation of southern sea otters from multiple morphometrics.

Reliable age estimation is an essential tool to assess the status of wildlife populations and inform successful management. Aging methods, however, are often limited by too few data, skewed demographic representation, and by single or uncertain morphometric relationships. In this study, we synthesize age estimates in southern sea otters Enhydra lutris nereis from 761 individuals across 34 years of study, using multiple noninvasive techniques and capturing all life stages from 0 to 17 years of age. From wild, stranded, and captive individuals, we describe tooth eruptions, tooth wear, body length, nose scarring, and pelage coloration across ontogeny and fit sex-based growth functions to the data. Dental eruption schedules provided reliable and identifiable metrics spanning 0.3-9 months. Tooth wear was the most reliable predictor of age of individuals aged 1-15 years, which when combined with total length, explained >93% of observed age. Beyond age estimation, dental attrition also indicated the maximum lifespan of adult teeth is 13‒17 years, corresponding with previous estimates of life expectancy. Von Bertalanffy growth function model simulations of length at age gave consistent estimates of asymptotic lengths (male Loo  = 126.0‒126.8 cm, female Loo  = 115.3‒115.7 cm), biologically realistic gestation periods (t 0 = 115 days, SD = 10.2), and somatic growth (male k = 1.8, SD = 0.1; female k = 2.1, SD = 0.1). Though exploratory, we describe how field radiographic imaging of epiphyseal plate development or fusions may improve aging of immature sea otters. Together, our results highlight the value of integrating information from multiple and diverse datasets to help resolve conservation problems.

Breastfeed4Ghana: Design and evaluation of an innovative social media campaign.

Although targeting health behaviour change through social media campaigns has gained traction in recent years, few studies have focused on breastfeeding social media campaigns. Within the context of rising social media utilization and recent declines in exclusive breastfeeding practices in Ghana, we implemented Breastfeed4Ghana, a Facebook- and Twitter-based breastfeeding social media campaign. This study determined feasibility of implementing Breastfeed4Ghana and evaluated its impact on breastfeeding knowledge in Ghana. Key performance indicators of the campaign were monitored on social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter. An online cross-sectional survey conducted across three time points (n = 451) assessed breastfeeding knowledge, campaign exposure, and understanding and acceptability of Breastfeed4Ghana among Ghanaian adults. Modified Poisson models were used to assess the relationship between campaign exposure and breastfeeding knowledge, adjusting for survey time point, sex, and parenthood status. The campaign acquired 4,832 followers. Based on follower demographics collected from Facebook and Twitter analytics, the target population was successfully reached. Campaign exposure among survey participants was 42.3% and 48.7% at midline and endline, respectively. Campaign acceptability was high (>90%), and >44% of those exposed to the campaign also shared the campaign with others. However, 61.0% of those exposed did not know or could not remember the purpose of the campaign. Campaign exposure was not associated with higher breastfeeding knowledge (APR [95% confidence interval] = 0.96 [0.73, 1.26]). Breastfeed4Ghana was highly feasible. However, campaign understanding yielded mixed findings and may explain the limited impact on breastfeeding knowledge.