Limiting Executive Branch Judo in Federal Stem Cell Research Policies and Regulations

Human embryonic stem cell research has tremendous potential for treating or curing many diseases that cause human suffering. Nevertheless, federal funding for stem cell research has had a controversial history in the United States. While many Americans believe that stem cell research will lead to the development of critical medical technology, others oppose it because of its association with abortion. These ethical issues have made stem cell research a prime target for political posturing, particularly because of how much power presidents have over stem cell research policies. By using vetoes, directives, or executive orders to manipulate stem cell policies, presidents have engaged in executive branch judo to work around the separation of powers and engage in unauthorized lawmaking activity at the expense of the public. This note will analyze the history of the United States’ stem cell research policies and explain how presidents have interfered with its development. Based on the principles of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, presidents have repeatedly manipulated stem cell policies in violation of the Constitution. In light of these violations, this note proposes several methods to curtail the president’s unilateral control over an entire field of scientific research. Human embryonic stem cell research represents the next frontier of biomedical science, but its benefits will only reach the American public if the United States puts an end to the presidential practice of using executive branch judo to manipulate it

3D printed models of congenital heart disease: How accurate and how useful are they?

Three-dimensional (3D) printing in the domain of congenital heart disease (CHD) is still in its infancy. The aim of this editorial is to highlight the key findings of a recently published systematic review and meta-analysis on the accuracy and clinical value of 3D printed heart models (3DPHM). The analysis found that 3DPHM can be generated with high accuracy and the most reported application of 3DPHM is to facilitate pre-operative planning

Mad2 and Mad3 Cooperate to Arrest Budding Yeast in Mitosis

Background: The spindle checkpoint ensures accurate chromosome transmission by delaying chromosome segregation until all chromosomes are correctly aligned on the mitotic spindle. The checkpoint is activated by kinetochores that are not attached to microtubules or are attached but not under tension and arrests cells at metaphase by inhibiting the anaphase-promoting complex (APC) and its coactivator Cdc20. Despite numerous studies, we still do not understand how the checkpoint proteins coordinate with each other to inhibit $APC^{Cdc20}$ activity. Results: To ask how the checkpoint components induce metaphase arrest, we constructed fusions of checkpoint proteins and expressed them in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to mimic possible protein interactions during checkpoint activation. We found that expression of a Mad2-Mad3 protein fusion or noncovalently linked Mad2 and Mad3, but not the overexpression of the two separate proteins, induces metaphase arrest that is independent of functional kinetochores or other checkpoint proteins. We further showed that artificially tethering Mad2 to Cdc20 also arrests cells in metaphase independently of other checkpoint components. Conclusion: Our results suggest that Mad3 is required for the stable binding of Mad2 to Cdc20 in vivo, which is sufficient to inhibit APC activity and is the most downstream event in spindle checkpoint activation.Molecular and Cellular Biolog

Information/Control – Control in the Age of Post-Truth: An Introduction

Guest editors Stacy E. Wood, James Lowry, and Andrew J Lau introduce the issue on Information/Control – Control in the Age of Post-Truth

Using Mobile Cameras to Measure Dye Concentration in Bio-Chemistry Experiments

Many cutting edge chemistry experiments for high ­throughput assays require measuring colored outputs from specially prepared samples. Absorbance from these samples is usually measured with a specialized piece of equipment that adds to the expense, time, and complexity of obtaining experimental results. To make these experiments more accessible, we looked at developing software to allow cell phones or consumer ­grade USB cameras to measure these experiments and quantify the intensity of the output. What we have compiled thus far is research regarding several different color spaces and attempted analysis on the many channels of color spaces such as RGB, HSV, HSL, CIELab, CIELuv, XYZ, and YCrCb, that might be used to measure assay results. We concentrated on analyzing the channels and also manipulating the data to find a relationship between the computed color values and concentrations of dye in the assays. We also have created several programs that assist in extracting the channel values from the assays and to sort our results to make analysis easier

Aerosols, Hurricanes, and their Interactions : A Case Study of Hurricane Sandy

While the effects of aerosols on precipitation have been studied, their effects on more extreme precipitation events like Tropical Cyclones have only been questioned relatively recently. Because of the rarity of the intersection of significant quantities of aerosols and forming/formed tropical cyclones, as well as the possible destruction caused, most experiments about their effects take place in computer models that may not fully simulate the effects of the aerosols. Limitations in satellite sensing make it difficult to track processes and material distributions in hurricanes from afar as well. Hurricane Sandy, a devastating hurricane that formed in October of 2012, may have formed while influenced by relatively smaller but still significant amounts of dust from an African dust event. Since this quantity is different from most heavy polluting scenarios that are simulated, evaluating the extent of the presence, position, and activation of aerosols within this hurricane may give us insight into the potential influences of aerosols in tropical cyclones. MODIS, MISR, AIRS, and CALIPSO data, while having limitations, is analyzed. The extent and possible effects of additional Saharan dust aerosol loading is discussed

Solid friction between soft filaments

Any macroscopic deformation of a filamentous bundle is necessarily accompanied by local sliding and/or stretching of the constituent filaments. Yet the nature of the sliding friction between two aligned filaments interacting through multiple contacts remains largely unexplored. Here, by directly measuring the sliding forces between two bundled F-actin filaments, we show that these frictional forces are unexpectedly large, scale logarithmically with sliding velocity as in solid-like friction, and exhibit complex dependence on the filaments' overlap length. We also show that a reduction of the frictional force by orders of magnitude, associated with a transition from solid-like friction to Stokes' drag, can be induced by coating F-actin with polymeric brushes. Furthermore, we observe similar transitions in filamentous microtubules and bacterial flagella. Our findings demonstrate how altering a filament's elasticity, structure and interactions can be used to engineer interfilament friction and thus tune the properties of fibrous composite materials