The New Face of Creationism: The Establishment Clause and the Latest Efforts to Suppress Evolution in Public Schools

Over seventy-five years after the impassioned debate be- tween William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow echoed through a hot Tennessee courtroom, the controversial confrontation over science, religion, law, and education can still be heard in legislative halls, courtrooms, schools, and homes across the nation. The now infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 19253 brought the debate between religious fundamentalism and modern day scientific theory to the forefront and sparked twenty state legislatures to consider measures to prohibit the teaching of evolution in public schools. Nearly a century later, the dispute rages on. Twenty states considered anti-evolution measures in both the 1920s and the 1990s. Whether the incorporation of certain religiously motivated theories of the earth\u27s origin into public schools violates the fundamental separation between church and state is a question that continues to plague this country today. Since Charles Darwin first introduced the concept of evolution in his 1859 book The Origin of Species, Christian fundamentalists have rejected this scientific theory, contending that it conflicts with a literal reading of the Bible and its teachings that all living species were created by divine power. This Biblical-based tenet regarding the earth\u27s origin is commonly known as creationism, and its followers, creationists, have developed various strategies that endeavor to remove the teaching of evolution from public schools and incorporate creationism into science curricula. Despite Supreme Court jurisprudence that laws banning and criminalizing the teaching of evolution, and laws mandating the teaching of creationism, violate the Establishment Clause, creationists continue to develop new tactics to voice their opinions and beliefs. Currently, Christian fundamentalists are using three strategies designed to remove evolution and, in certain instances, incorporate creationist theory into public school curricula. One strategy is to attempt to remove evolution from state science curricula, and correspondingly, from state-mandated tests. Another strategy that creationists have employed is the use of a disclaimer, read before teaching evolution, to caution students that evolutionary theory is not to be taken as fact and is not intended to discount other beliefs that they may have regarding the earth\u27s origin. Thirdly, legislatures across the nation have enacted statutes requiring that evolution be taught as a theory, not a fact. The success of this legislation has fomented a new response to evolution known as Intelligent Design.\u27 This latest movement encourages teachers to present the controversy between Darwinism and creationism, and then point to evolution\u27s inability to provide all scientific answers. The proponents of these three recent strategies have justified their actions as legal by relying on certain language in Supreme Court precedent suggesting that states and local school from state-mandated tests

Partial Purification and Biochemical Characterization of Extracellular Pectinase from Aspergillus Niger Isolated from Groundnut Seeds

To produce and partially purify pectinases from Aspergillus niger isolateJGIm2, characterize the enzymes for potential industrial applications in clarifying fruit juices. Methodology and results: Isolates of Aspergillus niger were screened for ability to produce pectinases by the enzymatic index method. All the 34 isolates screened were producers with isolates JGIm2, JGIm3 and JGIm5 being the best. Optimum enzyme production was found with medium containing 1.5% pectin after 48 h of fermentation. Partial purification of the enzyme was carried out by ethanol precipitation to give two fold purification and 56% yield. The enzyme had pH & temperature optima of 4.0 and 45°C, Km and Vmax values of 0.178 g/dl & 11.62 IU/mg protein, respectively. Clarification of banana and pineapple juice using the partially purified enzyme resulted in 38 and 41% reduction in viscosity as determined spectroscopically

Gel mobility shift scanning of pectin-inducible promoter from Penicillium griseoroseum reveals the involvement of a CCAAT element in the expression of a polygalacturonase gene

Previous reports have described pgg2, a polygalacturonase-encoding gene of Penicillium griseoroseum, as an attractive model for transcriptional regulation studies, due to its high expression throughout several in vitro growth conditions, even in the presence of non-inducing sugars such as sucrose. A search for regulatory motifs in the 5' upstream regulatory sequence of pgg2 identified a putative CCAAT box that could justify this expression profile. This element, located 270 bp upstream of the translational start codon, was tested as binding target for regulatory proteins. Analysis of a 170 bp promoter fragment by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) with nuclear extracts prepared from mycelia grown in pectin-containing culture medium revealed a high mobility complex that was subsequently confirmed by analyzing it with a double-stranded oligonucleotide spanning the CCAAT motif. A substitution in the core sequence for GTAGG partially abolished the formation of specific complexes, showing the involvement of the CCAAT box in the regulation of the polygalacturonase gene studied

Multijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA and determination of α_{s}

Multijet production rates in neutral current deep inelastic scattering have been measured in the range of exchanged boson virtualities 10 5 GeV and –1 < η_{LAB}^{jet} < 2.5. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations describe the data well. The value of the strong coupling constant α_{s} (M_{z}), determined from the ratio of the trijet to dijet cross sections, is α_{s} (M_{z}) = 0.1179 ± 0.0013 (stat.)_{-0.0046}^{+0.0028}(exp.)_{-0.0046}^{+0.0028}(th.)

Observation of isolated high-E_T photons in deep inelastic scattering

First measurements of cross sections for isolated prompt photon production in deep inelastic ep scattering have been made using the ZEUS detector at the HERA electron-proton collider using an integrated luminosity of 121 pb^-1. A signal for isolated photons in the transverse energy and rapidity ranges 5 < E_T^gamma < 10 GeV and -0.7 < eta^gamma < 0.9 was observed for virtualities of the exchanged photon of Q^2 > 35 GeV^2. Cross sections are presented for inclusive prompt photons and for those accompanied by a single jet in the range E_T^jet \geq 6 GeV and -1.5 \leq eta^jet < 1.8. Calculations at order alpha^3alpha_s describe the data reasonably well.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Multijet production in neutral current deep inelastic scattering at HERA and determination of alpha_s

Multijet production rates in neutral current deep inelastic scattering have been measured in the range of exchanged boson virtualities 10 < Q2 < 5000 GeV2. The data were taken at the ep collider HERA with centre-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 318 GeV using the ZEUS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 82.2 pb-1. Jets were identified in the Breit frame using the k_T cluster algorithm in the longitudinally invariant inclusive mode. Measurements of differential dijet and trijet cross sections are presented as functions of jet transverse energy E_{T,B}{jet}, pseudorapidity eta_{LAB}{jet} and Q2 with E_{T,B}{jet} > 5 GeV and -1 < eta_{LAB}{jet} < 2.5. Next-to-leading-order QCD calculations describe the data well. The value of the strong coupling constant alpha_s(M_Z), determined from the ratio of the trijet to dijet cross sections, is alpha_s(M_Z) = 0.1179 pm 0.0013(stat.) {+0.0028}_{-0.0046}(exp.) {+0.0064}_{-0.0046}(th.)Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Fungal enzyme sets for plant polysaccharide degradation

Enzymatic degradation of plant polysaccharides has many industrial applications, such as within the paper, food, and feed industry and for sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. Cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectins are the main components of plant cell wall polysaccharides. These polysaccharides are often tightly packed, contain many different sugar residues, and are branched with a diversity of structures. To enable efficient degradation of these polysaccharides, fungi produce an extensive set of carbohydrate-active enzymes. The variety of the enzyme set differs between fungi and often corresponds to the requirements of its habitat. Carbohydrate-active enzymes can be organized in different families based on the amino acid sequence of the structurally related catalytic modules. Fungal enzymes involved in plant polysaccharide degradation are assigned to at least 35 glycoside hydrolase families, three carbohydrate esterase families and six polysaccharide lyase families. This mini-review will discuss the enzymes needed for complete degradation of plant polysaccharides and will give an overview of the latest developments concerning fungal carbohydrate-active enzymes and their corresponding families