FT-Raman and FT-IR spectroscopy and Raman microscopy were employed to identify the structural characteristics of one amorphous and three crystalline phases of nifedipine, a common antihypertension drug of the 1,4-dihydropyridine family. A significant fraction of the nifedipine molecules in the glass are found to be frozen into metastable rotational conformations as a result of melt quenching. Moreover, the effect of relative humidity .RH = 20-80%/ on the onset and rate of crystallization was studied at 40 • C by means of in situ IR and Raman microscopy employing a controlled humidity cell. The nature and the relative abundance of the various crystallization products were analysed on the basis of the corresponding spectra of the neat compounds. Glassy nifedipine is found to crystallize to the thermodynamically stable a-polymorph via a transient metastable b-nifedipine phase. Increasing RH in the range 20-60% is found to favour the surface crystallization of the glass to b-nifedipine. At high RH (80%), b-nifedipine is rapidly converted to a-nifedipine.

Hantaviruses are zoonotic viruses with a complex evolutionary history of virus–host coevolution and cross-species transmission. Although hantaviruses have a broad reservoir host range, virus–host relationships were previously thought to be strict, with a single virus species infecting a single host species. Here, we describe Bruges virus, a novel hantavirus harbored by the European mole (Talpa europaea), which is the well-known host of Nova virus. Phylogenetic analyses of all three genomic segments showed tree topology inconsistencies, suggesting that Bruges virus has emerged from cross-species transmission and ancient reassortment events. A high number of coinfections with Bruges and Nova viruses was detected, but no evidence was found for reassortment between these two hantaviruses. These findings highlight the complexity of hantavirus evolution and the importance of further investigation of hantavirus–reservoir relationships.

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