The Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay is the ministry of the Government of Uruguay that is responsible for the coordination of national education, the promotion of the country's cultural development, the preservation of the nation's artistic, historical and cultural heritage, as well as innovation, science and technology and the promotion and strengthening of the validity of human rights. It is also responsible for the development of the state communication multimedia system and for promoting the digitized access of the entire population to information.It is also responsible for the formulation and coordination of policies regarding the judicial defense of the interests of the State and for ensuring the necessary information for the correct application of the law. The Ministry is headquartered in the Reconquista Street in Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo. The current Minister of Education and Culture is Pablo Da Silveira, who has held the position since 1 March 2020.
Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, presents a major public health challenge in Central and South America, affecting approximately 8 million people and placing millions more at risk. The T. cruzi life cycle includes transitions between epimastigote, metacyclic trypomastigote, amastigote, and blood trypomastigote stages, each marked by distinct morphological and molecular adaptations to different hosts and environments. Unlike other trypanosomatids such as Trypanosoma brucei, T. cruzi does not employ a monoallelic model of antigenic variation; instead, it relies on a diverse repertoire of cell-surface associated proteins encoded by large multigene families, which are essential for infectivity and immune evasion. This study analyzes cell-specific transcriptomes using single-cell RNA sequencing of amastigote and trypomastigote cells to characterize stage-specific surface protein expression during mammalian infection. Through clustering and identification of cell-specific markers, we assigned cells to distinct parasite developmental forms. Analysis of individual cells revealed that surface protein-coding genes, especially members of the trans-sialidase-like superfamily (TcS), are expressed with greater heterogeneity than single-copy genes. Moreover, no recurrent combinations of TcS genes were observed between individual cells in the population. Remarkably, a small subset of TcS mRNAs, encoded by genes preferentially located in the core genomic compartment, are frequently detected across the cell population, whereas the vast majority of TcS mRNAs show low detection frequencies and are mainly encoded in the disruptive compartment. Our findings thus reveal transcriptomic heterogeneity within trypomastigote populations where each cell displays unique TcS expression profiles. Focusing on the diversity of surface protein expression, this research aims to deepen our understanding of T. cruzi cellular biology and infection strategies.
Synaptic depression is often interpreted as reflecting depletion of the readily releasable pool (RRP) following exocytosis. Such a mechanism predicts little or no depression at low stimulation frequency, as RRP replenishment should then offset the loss of vesicles by exocytosis. Nevertheless, in several types of mammalian central synapses, repetitive presynaptic stimulation at low frequency (< 5 Hz) elicits synaptic depression (low frequency depression, or LFD). In the present work we count the number of synaptic vesicles released at individual active zones to study the RRP and its replenishment during LFD. Contrary to depletion models of synaptic depression, we find that LFD does not depend on previous SV consumption. We find that LFD displays a long recovery time course (tens of seconds) when challenged by isolated stimulations but is immediately reversed by a high frequency train. We suggest that LFD results from undocking, a shift between two classes of synaptic vesicles organized sequentially inside the RRP (replacement vs. docked vesicles) in favor of the upstream (replacement) state. While undocking is apparent hundreds of milliseconds after a stimulation, calcium dependent docking takes only a couple of milliseconds, explaining the fast LFD recovery when stimulating at high frequency. Consistent with the undocking model, we find that double presynaptic stimulations alleviate LFD as they favor vesicular docking and RRP replenishment. Finally, we expand our model to explain how stimulation frequency shapes short-term synaptic depression, changing from depression at low frequency to a facilitation-depression sequence at medium or high frequency trains.
Agricultural intensification and land-use changes have led to an increase in monocultures, reducing the diversity of polliniferous resources. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are particularly sensitive to this reduction, which has been associated with large-scale colony losses worldwide. Reduced pollen diversity impairs nutrient intake and leads to nutritional stress. Eucalyptus grandis monocultures offer a suitable context to study this problem, as their pollen is nutritionally poor, with low protein and lipid content, and a deficiency in essential amino acids. In these environments, colonies suffer nutritional stress, become infected with the microsporidium Nosema ceranae, and weaken, which may lead to colony loss. In this study, we evaluated strategies to mitigate the impact of nutritional stress. Five groups of colonies were placed in an E. grandis plantation and received different protein supplements: Apiprot, Feedbee, and a novel nutritional formulation (UFP). Two control groups were included: one without supplementation and the other supplemented with polyfloral pollen patties. Besides that, all colonies had access to the environmental pollen (mainly E. grandis pollen). Protein supplementation increased brood and adult populations, as well as honey production, compared to negative controls. Interestingly, RNA viral levels were higher in supplemented colonies, although no negative effects on colony strength were observed. These findings suggest that protein supplementation is an effective strategy to mitigate nutritional stress in E. grandis plantations. This work contributes to a better understanding of the impacts of land-use intensification on honey bee health and offers tools for mitigation.
Current retrosynthetic tools function as single-purpose "black boxes" trained on specific reaction classes. We present PROMETHEUS (PRedictive Optimization via MOlecular THEology and Unified Spectral methods), a zero-shot spectral algorithm operating in three distinct modes: (1) Strategic Retrosynthesis for heteroatom disconnections, (2) Cross-Coupling Classification identifying Suzuki-type bi-aryl linkers requiring organometallic synthesis, and (3) Irreducibility Diagnostics flagging molecules unsuitable for retrosynthetic planning. Validated on 249,455 drug-like molecules (ZINC15), PROMETHEUS achieved 100% classification accuracy across all three modes (93.94% Mode 1, 6.0% Mode 2, 0.06% Mode 3) in 6.7 minutes on a standard CPU (619.8 molecules/second). The algorithm autonomously rediscovered Nobel Prize-winning cross-coupling logic without training data, demonstrating that molecular reactivity classification emerges from topological principles encoded in the Fiedler vector. Compared to transformer-based methods, PROMETHEUS requires 400 million times less storage (5 KB vs 2 TB) and 148 times less silicon (3B vs 443B transistors), enabling deployment on commodity hardware for industrial-scale virtual screening.
The relevance of indoor air quality has increased during the last decade, mainly as a consequence of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The academic community has shown growing interest regarding the effects of indoor air quality on health, and this became a global concern in educational buildings as children spent long periods of time indoors. Also, they could be exposed to different agents and could decrease cognitive performance and reduced productivity caused by poor indoor air quality. This initiative aims to evaluate air quality, ventilation, thermal comfort, and microbial loads in elementary schools in Uruguay in a transdisciplinary manner under local winter and spring climate conditions. To achieve this goal, different types of data were collected during 2023 and 2024, including measurements of bacteria and fungi concentrations, air temperature, relative humidity, criteria pollutants, carbon dioxide, as well as surveys on comfort conditions. Results revealed a strong correlation between carbon dioxide, bacterial counts and particulate matter. Interestingly, a discrepancy was found between predicted thermal comfort and actual user-reported comfort. This report represents the first assessment of indoor air quality in Uruguayan schools
