Extreme Fidelity Research Articles

The Source of Tension in the Measurements of the Hubble Constant

Through an analytical approach, we show that the Hubble constant is not unique and has two distinct values. The first of these values is consistent with the measurements by Riess et al., while the second value is consistent with the measurements by the Planck Collaboration. This is a new alternative approach that does not depend on the standard ΛCDM model and its constraints. Our analysis shows that the tension is due to a geometric mismatch in the comparison of the measurements which is equal to the temporal diameter of the surface of last scattering. Since the calculated values are essentially identical to the corresponding measured values, we conclude that the non-congruency of the ending point of the Riess et al. measurement and the starting point of the Planck Collaboration measurement, on the surface of last scattering, is the source of tension in the measurements. Further, the surprising consistency of the calculated values of the Hubble constant with the corresponding measured values confirms both the extreme fidelity of the measurements and the validity of the proposed approach.

Highly diversified habitats and resources influence habitat selection in wintering shorebirds

Habitat selection is an important process in birds that influences individual survival and fitness, and ultimately shapes population dynamics. As a consequence, strong selective pressures apply to favor strategies allowing individuals to choose high-quality habitat for foraging while reducing predation risk and competition. In long-distance migratory birds, such as shorebirds, the non-breeding period is considered as a key period of their annual cycle with reported effects on individual survival and subsequent reproduction. Site selection by non-breeding shorebirds should depend on habitat quality for them to ensure survival until the next breeding season. More specifically, birds should distribute in space and time according to their resource availability and specialize on feeding habitats or/and prey to reduce intraspecific competition. To test this hypothesis, we studied Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) at one of their main non-breeding sites along the French coast. We first used GPS tracking to investigate their foraging and roosting home ranges as well as core sampling to define the diversity of available habitats and their quality as feeding resources. We then compared individual habitat selection in relation to feeding home range sizes and benthic macrofauna abundances. Our results provide the first fine scale definition of shorebird movements and distribution along the non-breeding period. We found that godwits showed an extreme fidelity to restricted feeding areas (about 3.4 km2) during winter, with low overlap between individual feeding home ranges. Each bird appeared to mainly use 4–6 of the 11 available foraging habitats, with a specialization on 1 to 2 main habitats and their associated prey. However, our results did not emphasize a clear relationship between home range sizes and the quality of bird feeding sites. This study thus demonstrates the high specialization of individual non-breeding Bar-tailed godwits relying on specific foraging grounds and habitats, with important implications for the conservation of this species.

Energetics and IC50 based epitope screening in SARS CoV-2 (COVID 19) spike protein by immunoinformatic analysis implicating for a suitable vaccine development

BackgroundThe recent outbreak by SARS-CoV-2 has generated a chaos in global health and economy and claimed/infected a large number of lives. Closely resembling with SARS CoV, the present strain has manifested exceptionally higher degree of spreadability, virulence and stability possibly due to some unidentified mutations. The viral spike glycoprotein is very likely to interact with host Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) and transmits its genetic materials and hijacks host machinery with extreme fidelity for self propagation. Few attempts have been made to develop a suitable vaccine or ACE2 blocker or virus-receptor inhibitor within this short period of time.MethodsHere, attempt was taken to develop some therapeutic and vaccination strategies with a comparison of spike glycoproteins among SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and the SARS-CoV-2. We verified their structure quality (SWISS-MODEL, Phyre2, and Pymol) topology (ProFunc), motifs (MEME Suite, GLAM2Scan), gene ontology based conserved domain (InterPro database) and screened several epitopes (SVMTrip) of SARS CoV-2 based on their energetics, IC50 and antigenicity with regard to their possible glycosylation and MHC/paratope binding (Vaxigen v2.0, HawkDock, ZDOCK Server) effects.ResultsWe screened here few pairs of spike protein epitopic regions and selected their energetic, Inhibitory Concentration50 (IC50), MHC II reactivity and found some of those to be very good target for vaccination. A possible role of glycosylation on epitopic region showed profound effects on epitopic recognition.ConclusionThe present work might be helpful for the urgent development of a suitable vaccination regimen against SARS CoV-2.

MSH1 is required for maintenance of the low mutation rates in plant mitochondrial and plastid genomes

Mitochondrial and plastid genomes in land plants exhibit some of the slowest rates of sequence evolution observed in any eukaryotic genome, suggesting an exceptional ability to prevent or correct mutations. However, the mechanisms responsible for this extreme fidelity remain unclear. We tested seven candidate genes involved in cytoplasmic DNA replication, recombination, and repair (POLIA, POLIB, MSH1, RECA3, UNG, FPG, and OGG1) for effects on mutation rates in the model angiosperm Arabidopsis thaliana by applying a highly accurate DNA sequencing technique (duplex sequencing) that can detect newly arisen mitochondrial and plastid mutations even at low heteroplasmic frequencies. We find that disrupting MSH1 (but not the other candidate genes) leads to massive increases in the frequency of point mutations and small indels and changes to the mutation spectrum in mitochondrial and plastid DNA. We also used droplet digital PCR to show transmission of de novo heteroplasmies across generations in msh1 mutants, confirming a contribution to heritable mutation rates. This dual-targeted gene is part of an enigmatic lineage within the mutS mismatch repair family that we find is also present outside of green plants in multiple eukaryotic groups (stramenopiles, alveolates, haptophytes, and cryptomonads), as well as certain bacteria and viruses. MSH1 has previously been shown to limit ectopic recombination in plant cytoplasmic genomes. Our results point to a broader role in recognition and correction of errors in plant mitochondrial and plastid DNA sequence, leading to greatly suppressed mutation rates perhaps via initiation of double-stranded breaks and repair pathways based on faithful homologous recombination.

Monochromatic and Polychromatic Performance: Improvisatory Alteration in Early Nineteenth-Century French Pianism

In the mid-1830s, Le Pianiste, the first French music journal devoted entirely to the piano, was faced with a new performance trend its two writers struggled to understand. When playing a written piece, some professional pianists were no longer improvising, embellishing, or changing their performances from one time to the next. Instead, they were playing a given score exactly as written and playing a piece the same way repeatedly. This manner of performance was so different from what Le Pianiste’s authors were accustomed to that they alleged that the new pianists were not piano players at all, but rather mere piano “pressers” (pressiers).1 Furthermore, their extreme fidelity to the score was causing them to overlook the music and destroy their “natural heat.”2Le Pianiste dubbed this style the “monochromatic school.”3 Over the course of the long nineteenth century, musical ethos shifted from what Jim Samson has called an “event-based” culture of performance to an “object-based” one formed around the work concept.4 The object-based culture remains familiar: it is the “museum of musical works,” as Lydia Goehr has named it, wherein a performer realizes the composer’s ideas as they are expressed in the score, closely following the written musical text.5 In Germany, this approach came to be known as the Werktreue aesthetic—“true to the work”—and its advocates proliferated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.6 It spread beyond Germany soon thereafter.7 In this view, any alterations to the score were deemed an “abuse” because they “disfigured” the intent of the composer.8

The cave bear’s hibernation: reconstructing the physiology and behaviour of an extinct animal

When studying an extinct species such as the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus ROSENMÜLLER 1794), it is possible to apply a variety of molecular biology techniques such as the study of stable isotopes or mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) to infer patterns of behaviour or physiology that would otherwise remain concealed. Throughout Europe and along time, differences in the isotopic values (δ13C and δ15N) of cave bears arise from environmental differences and the Pleistocene climatic evolution. The climate determines the hibernation length, during which the cave bears undergo a particular physiology that can be related to an increase in δ15N during climate cooling. In order to verify whether hibernation affected the isotopic values, we compared cave bears in different ontogenetic stages. The results show that perinatal values reflect the values for mothers during hibernation, while juveniles show differences in maternal investment. A previous study in the literature based on complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of several individuals collected from closely situated caves showed that each cave housed, almost exclusively, a single lineage of haplotypes. This pattern suggests extreme fidelity to the birth site, or homing behaviour, and that cave bears formed stable maternal social groups, at least for the purpose of hibernation. Studies of this type offer unexpected data on the palaeobiology of this extinct animal.

High warning colour polymorphism inHeliconiushybrid zone roosts

1. Communal roosting behaviour has been documented among a wide range of taxa, particularly among groups of butterflies that display warning colourations. These aggregations of conspecifics and/or other species that share mimetic warning colour patterns can have a large impact on predator learning, and thus the survival of an aposematic form. Yet there has been limited investigation of communal roosting within areas where new and diverse warning colour forms are generated, such as hybrid zones. 2. Here, roosting behaviour was examined in a Heliconius erato hybrid zone in French Guiana between races with divergent warning colourations on their wings. In this hybrid zone, native individuals with nine distinct warning colourations, as well as individuals with altered forms that are not native in the French Guiana population, were marked and observed to determine if divergently coloured individuals participated in communal roosting, and if the proportions of colour pattern forms at roosts differed from the proportions that are found in the population. 3. The results demonstrated that divergently coloured individuals of the same species, including altered, non-native forms, will readily and repeatedly participate in nocturnal communal roosting, often with extreme fidelity to specific perch locations. 4. These findings suggest that roosts composed of polymorphic warning patterns may be common in phenotypic transition zones, which could have major implications on predator training and selection dynamics in hybrid zones.

Ancient DNA reveals differences in behaviour and sociality between brown bears and extinct cave bears.

Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized the study of extinct species and populations, providing insights on phylogeny, phylogeography, admixture and demographic history. However, inferences on behaviour and sociality have been far less frequent. Here, we investigate the complete mitochondrial genomes of extinct Late Pleistocene cave bears and middle Holocene brown bears that each inhabited multiple geographically proximate caves in northern Spain. In cave bears, we find that, although most caves were occupied simultaneously, each cave almost exclusively contains a unique lineage of closely related haplotypes. This remarkable pattern suggests extreme fidelity to their birth site in cave bears, best described as homing behaviour, and that cave bears formed stable maternal social groups at least for hibernation. In contrast, brown bears do not show any strong association of mitochondrial lineage and cave, suggesting that these two closely related species differed in aspects of their behaviour and sociality. This difference is likely to have contributed to cave bear extinction, which occurred at a time in which competition for caves between bears and humans was likely intense and the ability to rapidly colonize new hibernation sites would have been crucial for the survival of a species so dependent on caves for hibernation as cave bears. Our study demonstrates the potential of ancient DNA to uncover patterns of behaviour and sociality in ancient species and populations, even those that went extinct many tens of thousands of years ago.

A Solid-State Conceptualization of Information Transfer from Gene to Message to Protein.

In this review, we describe speculative ideas and early stage research concerning the flow of genetic information from the nuclear residence of genes to the disparate, cytoplasmic sites of protein synthesis. We propose that this process of information transfer is meticulously guided by transient structures formed from protein segments of low sequence complexity/intrinsic disorder. These low complexity domains are ubiquitously associated with regulatory proteins that control gene expression and RNA biogenesis, but they are also found in the central channel of nuclear pores, the nexus points of intermediate filament assembly, and the locations of action of other well-studied cellular proteins and pathways. Upon being organized into localized cellular positions via mechanisms utilizing properly folded protein domains, thereby facilitating elevated local concentration, certain low complexity domains adopt cross-β interactions that are both structurally specific and labile to disassembly. These weakly tethered assemblies, we propose, are built to relay the passage of genetic information from one site to another within a cell, ensuring that the process is of extreme fidelity.

Tamils and the Haunting of Justice: History and Recognition in Malaysia’s Plantations by Andrew C. Willford (review)

Reviewed by: Tamils and the Haunting of Justice: History and Recognition in Malaysia’s Plantations by Andrew C. Willford Henry S. Barlow Tamils and the Haunting of Justice: History and Recognition in Malaysia’s Plantations Andrew C. Willford with the collaboration of S. Nagarajan Singapore: NUS Press, 2014. xviii, 318 pp. ISBN 978-9971-69-839-3 The main author, Andrew Willford, an associate professor of anthropology at Cornell University, has previously written extensively on the subject of [End Page 184] the treatment of Indian estate communities by the Malaysian government. This book focuses on the plight of Tamil communities in Selangor, displaced and threatened by displacement when estates, which had been established in many cases over a century ago, are closed down and the land used for housing development. Given the extraordinary speed with which development has taken place recently, this is a timely exposé of problems which have been encountered by the Indian community in Malaysia’s most prosperous state. It is fair to assume that similar problems and pressures, albeit to a lesser extent, face most Indian estate communities along the length of the west coast of the Peninsula. Although Malaysians of Indian ethnic origin comprise less than 10 per cent of the population of Malaysia, they have been concentrated on the west coast of the Peninsula, from the time rubber estates were introduced there in the boom years of the early twentieth century. Since the Malays were reluctant to work on the estates, British estate owners recruited labour from whole villages of impoverished Tamils in southern India to undertake this work. It is the plight of the third and fourth generations of these migrants which is the subject of this book. Like other isolated migrant communities, they have in many cases retained the traditional customs of their original communities with extreme fidelity: so much so that those studying such communities in India have been known to visit the Malaysian Tamil villages to obtain some idea of the customs in India a century ago. Religion observances are therefore fundamental to the life of the community, focused round the temples, in many cases over 100 years old. Moreover, the structure, social fabric and cohesion of the community depend on ties of marriage and peer pressure, which can only be weakened when the community dispersed. The first significant disposals of estate land for development took place in the 1970s and 1980s. In these cases, the author shows that because the intrinsic value of the land, even with conversion permission for housing, was relatively low, well-organized communities were reasonably successful in obtaining alternative housing in areas where the majority of the community could continue to live in fairly close proximity, bringing with them their temple gods. More recent conversions of estate lands for housing have had significantly less satisfactory outcomes for the Tamil communities thus displaced, partly because the underlying value of the land has increased very substantially. There is thus extreme reluctance by either the estate or the developer to set aside land for low-cost housing for displaced workers. Added to this is the strong perception within the Tamil community that those responsible for such large new housing developments wish to reflect a middle-class Islamic culture: hence the building of many mosques and surau, and the extreme reluctance of developers to accommodate any un-Islamic (in this case, Hindu) places of worship. [End Page 185] The legal compensation payable to displaced estate workers is modest and quite inadequate, on its own, to enable the purchase of alternative low-cost accommodation. However, by a process of trial and error, estate communities threatened with displacement, assisted by NGOs and lawyers working pro bono, have learned to use the law to its full extent to delay their eviction. This tactic of exacerbated delay together with the threat of publicity adverse to the developers appears to be the only way by which the displaced Tamil communities can force developers into any sort of reasonable settlement, which takes into account the many years they and their forebears have worked on the land, thus contributing to the prosperity of the country. Deep concern and resentment were also expressed by many Tamils in...

The mitosis-regulating and protein-protein interaction activities of astrin are controlled by aurora-A-induced phosphorylation.

Cells display dramatic morphological changes in mitosis, where numerous factors form regulatory networks to orchestrate the complicated process, resulting in extreme fidelity of the segregation of duplicated chromosomes into two daughter cells. Astrin regulates several aspects of mitosis, such as maintaining the cohesion of sister chromatids by inactivating Separase and stabilizing spindle, aligning and segregating chromosomes, and silencing spindle assembly checkpoint by interacting with Src kinase-associated phosphoprotein (SKAP) and cytoplasmic linker-associated protein-1α (CLASP-1α). To understand how Astrin is regulated in mitosis, we report here that Astrin acts as a mitotic phosphoprotein, and Aurora-A phosphorylates Astrin at Ser(115). The phosphorylation-deficient mutant Astrin S115A abnormally activates spindle assembly checkpoint and delays mitosis progression, decreases spindle stability, and induces chromosome misalignment. Mechanistic analyses reveal that Astrin phosphorylation mimicking mutant S115D, instead of S115A, binds and induces ubiquitination and degradation of securin, which sequentially activates Separase, an enzyme required for the separation of sister chromatids. Moreover, S115A fails to bind mitosis regulators, including SKAP and CLASP-1α, which results in the mitotic defects observed in Astrin S115A-transfected cells. In conclusion, Aurora-A phosphorylates Astrin and guides the binding of Astrin to its cellular partners, which ensures proper progression of mitosis.

Abstract 5150: What is in control of DNA replication timing.

Abstract The initiation of DNA replication at specific sites in the genome is known to be far from perfect, where known initiation sites may or may not fire in a given single cell during specific cell cycle. At the same time, from larger scale perspective, one finds that the timing of DNA replication is highly orchestrated, where specific regions in the genome are copied at specific, reproducible time points throughout S-phase. In an attempt to reconcile these two somewhat discordant observations, many researchers have assumed that a yet unknown, active regulatory mechanism in the cell is responsible for coordinating replication timing. Here we present a mechanistic explanation for genome-wide replication timing patterns. Our model is purely stochastic, does not contain any active control components and reproduces existing replication timing data with extreme fidelity (correlation > 0.9, about the same as the correlation between technical replicates of the experiment). The main findings of our work are • Existence of reproducible genome-wide replication patterns do not logically necessitate existence of a complex, active control system in the cell • Integrative analysis of recently released ENCODE data identifies semi-local chromatin structure as the main determinant of replication timing • Plasticity of replication timing across different cell types are a direct consequence of changes in the chromatin structure between the different cell differentiation states • Replication timing is a “systems” phenomenon emerging from the collective action of many uncoordinated, stochastic replication initiation sites. Replication timing cannot be understood by investigating individual initiation sites: deleting up to 30% of high probability initiation sites does not significantly change replication timing Citation Format: Yevgeniy Gindin, Paul S. Meltzer, Sven Bilke. What is in control of DNA replication timing. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5150. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-5150

Application of the composite adiabatic passage technique in the Landau-Zener model with harmonic interaction modulation

In quantum information processing, an extreme high fidelity is needed. We apply a composite adiabatic passage (CAP) technique in the Landau-Zener model with harmonic interaction modulation in order to study the transition probability of the system with different model parameters. We find that this method could suppress the non-adiabatic oscillations in the transition probability and reduce the admissible error. This method could also enlarge the parameter regimes of high transition probability. Because of these good results, the Landau-Zener model with harmonic interaction modulation and CAP technique could be potentially important tools for ultrahigh-fidelity quantum information processing.

Distribution and activity patterns in an intertidal grazer assemblage: influence of temporal and spatial organization on interspecific associations

In consumer assemblages, the organization of individual foraging behavior, as well as spatial distribution, can largely determine environmental risks, and the intensity of intra- and inter- specific interactions. We characterized distributional and behavioral patterns of the most common benthic grazers coexisting in the rocky shores of central Chile: the chiton Chiton granosus, the pul- monate limpet Siphonaria lessoni, the scurrinid limpet Scurria araucana and the keyhole limpet Fis- surella crassa. C. granosus and F. crassa were strictly nocturnal foragers whereas S. lessoni foraged during daytime. Most S. araucana individuals foraged at night, but daytime foraging was also com- mon. The spatial distribution at resting varied from aggregated for C. granosus and S. lessoni to a more dispersive pattern for F. crassa and S. araucana. C. granosus dispersed slightly from aggrega- tion when foraging whereas S. lessoni foraged in tight conspecific aggregations. Foraging excursions varied from over 60 cm in F. crassa to less than 7 cm in S. araucana. Homing behavior ranged from extreme fidelity in F. crassa to low fidelity in S. lessoni. Positive associations were observed between C. granosus and F. crassa during resting and foraging whereas negative associations were observed between these species and S. lessoni. These general patterns varied little between 2 sites separated by a few kilometers. Interspecific competition might be important in structuring this guild, but it may affect only some species pairs. Direct interference in the use of shelter or while foraging, rather than food exploitation, seems the most likely mechanism. The marked differences in individual behavior among species, despite ample diet overlap, might translate into different functional effects, which should be explored in future experiments.

Breakdown and delayed cospeciation in the arbuscular mycorrhizal mutualism.

The ancient arbuscular mycorrhizal association between the vast majority of plants and the fungal phylum Glomeromycota is a dominant nutritional mutualism worldwide. In the mycorrhizal mutualism, plants exchange photosynthesized carbohydrates for mineral nutrients acquired by fungi from the soil. This widespread cooperative arrangement is broken by 'cheater' plant species that lack the ability to photosynthesize and thus become dependent upon three-partite linkages (cheater-fungus-photosynthetic plant). Using the first fine-level coevolutionary analysis of mycorrhizas, we show that extreme fidelity towards fungi has led cheater plants to lengthy evolutionary codiversification. Remarkably, the plants' evolutionary history closely mirrors that of their considerably older mycorrhizal fungi. This demonstrates that one of the most diffuse mutualistic networks is vulnerable to the emergence, persistence and speciation of highly specific cheaters.

‘Job the Dog’: Wounds, Scars and the Biblical Text

One afternoon in the Clos Salembier of Algiers, a young girl leaves her book to answer the doorbell. She does not see the dog coming. She and her brother had been thrilled when their father promise...

Le Philosophique chez Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Individu et vérité by Charlotte CoulombeauLessing im Reinkarnationsdiskurs: Eine Untersuchung zu Kontext und Wirkung von G. E. Lessings Texten zur Seelenwanderung by Daniel Cyranka

MLR, 102.2, 2007 553 positive proof of the outright historical 'scepticism' thatNiefanger (p. 293) sees in them. Gottsched's Parisische Bluthochzeit is a remarkable example of historical theatre,not because it shows amodern 'uncertainty' inhistory (p. 300), but because, through extreme fidelity to itshistorical source, it fails completely as drama. Uncer tainty (as to the guilty party) could be the honest answer to the historical question. But that isnot a satisfactory dramatic answer. Agis is a dull enough work in all con science, but since the action is centred on the hero's determination to return Sparta to the path of Lycurgus, it is rightly singled out as a genuine historical drama. As indeed might be Schlegel's Canut, which shows aman (Ulfo) leftbehind by history. Lessing's Henzi is indeed a speculative fragment,but its main thrust isdramatur gical.When Lessing asserts thathe neither knows nor cares whether Ducret was in (historical) fact the betrayer, he is not relativizing historical truth,but declaring his allegiance, as a trueAristotelian, to the truthof 'Nature'. His 'concept of historical truth' (p. 343) is aworld away fromHayden White's, as a perusal of thecontemporary Lemnius letterswould show.More interesting for the student of drama is the im pact of history on actual behaviour that emerges through the characters' propensity forpatterning themselves on Roman 'heroes'. There is a poignant echo, later,when Odoardo Galotti demonstrates tohis daughter that there still is at least one fatherof the ancient Roman stamp. Klopstock did seek lessons for the present in a 'German' past, but itwas one that lacked substance and yielded no material for a dramatic action worthy of the name. Goethe's Gotz does conjure up a convincingly German heroic age. But that is Sengle's territory(see Friedrich Sengle, Das historischeDrama inDeutschland (Stutt gart:Metzler, I952)). And thisbook isnothing ifnot anAnti-Sengle. NEWCASTLE ALANMENHENNET [ProfessorMenhennet, a regular contributor to MLR, died on i6November 2006.] Le Philosophique chez Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: individu et verite. By CHARLOTTE COULOMBEAU. (Wolfenbiitteler Forschungen, 105)Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 2005. 652 pp. EI28. ISBN 978-3-447-05I88-0. Lessing imReinkarnationsdiskurs: Eine Untersuchung zu Kontext und Wirkung von G. E. Lessings Texten zur Seelenwanderung. By DANIEL CYRANKA. (Kirche Konfession- Religion, 49) Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht. 2005. 522 pp. E62. ISBN 978-3-8997I-I98-I. Charlotte Coulombeau's massive work examines thephilosophical significance of all major areas of Lessing's activity under such headings asmetaphysics, poetry, scho larship, theology,history, and ethics, and identifieshis attitude towards truthas their unifying factor.The author's approach is systematic,with a high degree of abstrac tion and generalization. She defines the relationship between the different areas by analysing such distinctions as theory and practice, ethics and aesthetics, and tran scendence and immanence. In itself, a systematic approach of this kind is perfectly legitimate. But when it claims todiscover a parallel systematicity inLessing's thought, itbecomes more de batable. For although theauthor does on occasion concede thatLessing's writings are full of inconsistencies (e.g. p. 490), she claims to detect an underlying system, fore shadowing those ofGerman idealism, inhismetaphysical writings (p. 264) and even identifies 'une architectonique reconstituee de la pensee lessingienne' in his works as a whole (pp. 54i and 562). This conclusion, which goes against the consensus of Lessing scholarship over the last fifty years thathis thought isunsystematic, becomes 554 Reviews even more problematic when themetaphysical system in question ispieced together fromphilosophical fragments ranging in date from I753 to 1780 (p. 233), and when these unpublished fragments are accorded the same weight asmajor published works such asDie Erziehungdes Menschengeschlechts (pp. 30I and 306). The untypical anti intellectual fragmentGedanken uiberdieHerrnhuter of I750 (ormore probably I75 1, for it is full of echoes of Rousseau's first Discours of that year) is also given undue prominence (pp. 142, 4I0, 543, etc.). There is little sign here of that differentiated treatment of Lessing's works, and of his changes of attitude over the years, which one finds inanother French work towhich the author pays justified homage, Georges Pons's magisterial Lessing et lechristianisme (Paris: Didier, I964). Such weaknesses are compounded by the author's apparent failure to consult the new I2-volume edition of Lessing's Werke und...

Development of an ethanol model using social insects: V. Honeybee foraging decisions under the influence of alcohol

We examined the effect of ethanol on a complex decision process in honeybees. In many contexts (e.g., flower patches containing both blue and white flowers), honeybees have been shown to make decisions concerning which flowers to visit based on the reward's caloric value offered by competing flower types. However, under some contexts (e.g., flower patches containing both blue and yellow flowers) honeybees ignore the energetic differences that exist between rewards. When this occurs, some bees show extreme fidelity to one flower type, and other bees simultaneously show extreme loyalty to the competing flower type. In this set of experiments we use different combinations of flower colors to elicit these different context-specific behaviors, and examine response under the influence of ethanol in conditions with rewards differing in either quality or quantity. Alcohol affected the same decision situation differently in the alternative contexts we gave foragers. In the blue-white dimorphic flower patch context, foragers in the alcohol condition no longer followed the species' typical behavior of selectively choosing the higher energetic reward; they chose flowers randomly as if rewards did not differ between flower colors. However, in the blue-yellow dimorphic flower patch context, foragers in the alcohol condition continued their species-typical behavior of favoring their initial flower-color choice. That is, alcohol had no effect on behavior in the latter context. This pattern of context-dependent effects of alcohol was not associated with motor impairment in either context because flower visitation rate increased when bees were given ethanol. The brain regions responsible for alternative context behaviors (using the Drosophila model), or at least receptors within the same region responsible for these context-dependent behaviors, have very different sensitivities to alcohol, which suggests that differing neural processes are involved.

Algunas consideraciones sobre la Tabulatio Senecae y su traducción catalana

In this study, the structure and purpose of the sentence compilation carried out by the Florentine Dominican Luca Manelli is analised. The writing of the ≪Tabulatio≫ is framed within the peculiar diffusion of the philosopher in Occident during the Middle Ages. This fact explains the existence of a Catalan version and its extreme fidelity to the original. The analysis of the translation system used and the addition of some samples confirms the above suggested.

Genetic analysis of the population structure of socially organized oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) using microsatellites.

On the island of Schiermonnikoog (The Netherlands), the breeding population of oystercatchers can be divided into two groups: 'residents' and 'leapfrogs', based on their distinct social characteristics and limited probabilities of status change between breeding seasons. In order to investigate whether this social organization has caused local genetic differentiation, leapfrogs and residents were compared at eight polymorphic microsatellite loci. No significant genetic subdivision between residents and leapfrogs was observed (theta = 0.0000; 95% confidence interval (CI), -0.0027-0.0033), indicating that the oystercatcher population on the island of Schiermonnikoog has to be considered as one panmictic unit. Investigation of three additional locations in the northern part of The Netherlands did not reveal significant genetic population subdivision either (theta = -0.0005; 95% CI, -0.0045-0.0037), despite the fact that adult osytercatchers show extreme fidelity to their breeding localities. These results indicate panmixis and considerable levels of gene flow within the northern part of The Netherlands. Thus, the results from genetical analyses do not seem to be in agreement with observational data on the dispersal behaviour of breeding individuals. It is argued that the lack of population structure, locally on Schiermonnikoog as well as across larger geographical distances, is to be attributed to high levels of gene flow through dispersal of juvenile birds.