Background Global biodiversity is decreasing at an alarming rate and amphibians are at the forefront of this crisis. Understanding the factors that negatively impact amphibian populations and effectively monitoring their health are fundamental to addressing this epidemic. Plasma glucocorticoids are often used to assess stress in amphibians and other vertebrates, but these hormones can be extremely dynamic and impractical to quantify in small organisms. Transcriptomic responses to stress hormones in amphibians have been largely limited to laboratory models, and there have been few studies on vertebrates that have evaluated the impact of multiple stressors on patterns of gene expression. Here we examined the gene expression patterns in tail tissues of stream-dwelling salamanders ( Eurycea tynerensis ) chronically exposed to the stress hormone corticosterone under different temperature regimes. Results We found unique transcriptional signatures for chronic corticosterone exposure that were independent of temperature variation. Several of the corticosterone responsive genes are known to be involved in immune system response ( LY-6E ), oxidative stress ( GSTM2 and TRX ), and tissue repair ( A2M and FX ) . We also found many genes to be influenced by temperature ( CIRBP, HSC71, HSP40, HSP90, HSP70, ZNF593 ). Furthermore, the expression patterns of some genes ( GSTM2, LY-6E, UMOD, ZNF593, CIRBP, HSP90 ) show interactive effects of temperature and corticosterone exposure, compared to each treatment alone. Through a series of experiments we also showed that stressor induced patterns of expression were largely consistent across ages, life cycle modes, and tissue regeneration. Conclusions Outside of thermal stressors, the application of transcriptomes to monitor the health of non-human vertebrate systems has been vastly underinvestigated. Our study suggests that transcriptomic patterns harbor stressor specific signatures that can be highly informative for monitoring the diverse stressors of amphibian populations. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-019-5814-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Chicanxs Unidxs de Orange County (CU) is a community organisation in Southern California. Founded in 2006, CU is small, multigenerational and multi-ethnic. Its organising has focused predominantly on building community power by focusing on local politics, abusive policing and the gentrification of Chicanx neighbourhoods. This article presents an evidence-based narrative of several CU campaigns (primarily between 2008 and 2016). CU’s tactical aggressiveness and strategic pragmatism forced significant changes to ‘civil gang injunctions’ in California. For decades, California law enforcement has used such injunctions to suppress a generation of young people of colour as ‘gang members’. Minors and adults have been prohibited indefinitely from engaging in otherwise legal activities without due process. CU’s emphasis on the longevity of institutionalised and societal racism, rooted in the colonial conquest, resembles arguments associated with critical race theory (CRT) – though CU was not inspired by CRT. CU’s praxis resembles practices of critical pedagogy – though it was not directly modelled on it either. Rather, we argue that CU’s praxis is embedded in the members’ lived experience and study of the local history of racism, community and social movements. All five of this article’s authors were members of CU and were involved in the organising described in this article. The authors wrote this at the request of the CU membership, and it has been discussed and revised by the full membership.

Solid state batteries, particularly for lithium ion based architecture have been the focus of development for over 20 years and are receiving even more attention today. Utilizing impedance spectroscopy (IS) measurements we investigate the response of conductivity versus incremental pressure increase by a piston-cylinder-type high pressure cell up to 1 GPa for some lithium conducting ceramics: LATP (Li1.3Al0.3Ti1.7(PO4)3), LLTO (Li5La3Ta2O12), LLT (Li0.33La0.55TiO3), LAGP (Li1.5Al0.5Ge1.5P3O12) and LLZO (Li7La3Zr2O12) for non-annealed and annealed samples.Isothermal, incremental pressure increase of powders allows for an in situ observation of the transition state conditions of poorly consolidated ceramic powders and the effects on grain boundary conditions prior to sintering. Specific conductance (σb) increased by several orders of magnitude in some samples, approaching 10-3 S∙cm-1, yet decreased in other samples. The affect of grain boundaries and affects of bulk capacitance as the sample dimensions are altered due to pressure, are attributed to some of this behavior and will be discussed. The understanding of some of these fundamental processes may be valuable in facilitating these and similar ceramics for use in commercial solid state battery systems.

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