Searching for Magnetic Monopoles with Earth's Magnetic Field.

Magnetic monopoles have long been predicted in theory and could exist as a stable object in our Universe. As they move around in galaxies, magnetic monopoles could be captured by astrophysical objects like stars and planets. Here, we provide a novel method to search for magnetic monopoles by detecting the monopole moment of Earth's magnetic field. Using over six years of public geomagnetic field data obtained by the Swarm satellites, we apply Gauss's law to measure the total magnetic flux, which is proportional to the total magnetic charge inside Earth. To account for the secular variation of satellite altitudes, we define an altitude-rescaled magnetic flux to reduce the dominant magnetic dipole contribution. The measured magnetic flux is consistent with the existing magnetic field model that does not contain a monopole moment term. We therefore set an upper limit on the magnetic field strength at Earth's surface from magnetic monopoles to be |B_{m}|<0.13 nT at 95% confidence level, which is less than 2×10^{-6} of Earth's magnetic field strength. This constrains the abundance of magnetically charged objects, including magnetic black holes with large magnetic charges.

Genomic New Insights Into Emergence and Clinical Therapy of Multidrug-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in Infected Pancreatic Necrosis.

Infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is a key risk factor in the progression of severe acute pancreatitis, and use of antibiotics is one of the main clinical actions. However, early prophylactic or unreasonable use of antibiotics promotes drug resistance in bacteria and also delays optimum treatment. To explore genomic evidence of rational antibiotic use in intensive care units, we isolated Klebsiella pneumoniae from IPN samples that showed the highest positive-culture rate in 758 patients. Based on whole-genome sequencing from eight strains, 42 antibiotic-resistant genes were identified in the chromatin and 27 in the plasmid, which included classic resistance-mechanism factors such as ß-lactamases [16.67% (7/42) in the chromatin and 25.93% (7/27) in the plasmid]. The K. pneumoniae isolates were identified to be resistant to multiple antibiotics used in clinics. In vivo and in vitro, ceftazidime-avibactam (CZA) plus aztreonam (ATM) (2.5:1) showed more significant antibacterial effectiveness than CZA alone. The isolated K. pneumoniae were of three different types according to the resistance phenotypes for CZA and ATM. Those co-harboring bla NDM-5, bla CTX-M-15, bla OXA-1, and bla SHV-187 showed higher resistance to CAZ than bla NDM-5. Those co-harboring bla CTX-M-65, bla SHV-182, and bla TEM-181 were significantly less resistant to ß-lactam than to other extended-spectrum ß-lactamases. However, ß-lactamases were inhibited by avibactam (AVI), except for NDM-5. ATM plus AVI showed a significant inhibitory effect on K. pneumoniae, and the minimum dosage of ATM was < 1 mg/L. In conclusion, we propose that ATM plus AVI could be a major therapy for complex infectious diseases caused by multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae.