A team working in Brazil’s Amazon National Park has detected DNA from a previously undescribed Bartonella bacterium in local sand flies. The signal clusters genetically near to other species that are already tied to Andean bartonellosis. This serious infection can cause high fever or wart-like skin lesions in people. The finding does not confirm human

Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco, warm valleys, high-altitude Andean plateaus, and snow-capped peaks, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales, a mostly flat region in the east of the country with a diverse non-Andean culture.

In 2023, the city of Wakefield inaugurated a sculpture trail to add some vibrance to the city center.  Most of the sculptures on the trail are generally abstract and uncontroversial, but the Amazonian Caiman God by artist Jason Wilsher-Mills stands out for its unusual postmodern depiction of a tribal deity, and it has drawn much more attention than any other sculpture on the trail.