Radial distribution of Fe XIV emission in the Cygnus Loop

The one dimensional distribution of Fe 14 emission has been determined along a radius of the Cygnus Loop through the use of a tilting filter photometer. The observed emission extends at least 5 arc minutes outside the optical filaments. A simple Sedov solution model of the temperature and density distribution behind the shock agrees with the observations if the shock front is near the extent of the Fe 14 emission, the shock velocity is from 300 to 250/kms and the density external to the remnant is about 0.7-1.4 cm to three minus 3 power. These parameters are in reasonable agreement with X-ray maps and optical radial velocities

Review of current interest and research in water hyacinth-based wastewater treatment

The status of activity in the user community for water hyacinth-based wastewater treatment was evaluated. The principal technique used was that of interviewing people who either (1) were known to be engaged in hyacinth research or development or (2) had made inquiry to NASA about hyacinth systems. About 40 non-research organizations and a similar number of research organizations were contacted. As a result of the interviews and a review of the relevant literature, it was concluded that hyacinth systems have the potential for providing a lower cost way for small cities to meet increasingly stringent effluent requirements. A limited amount of full-scale demonstration of hyacinth systems has been carried out during the past two years, but the yield of design data has been small. Several organizations are currently planning construction of experimental full-scale hyacinth-based wastewater treatment systems during 1977-1978

Consideration of space applications transfer centers for the NASA office of applications

The concept of Space Applications Transfer Centers is examined to consider the design of the first of these facilities. The questions to be considered are listed

Preliminary assessment of industrial needs for an advanced ocean technology

A quick-look review of selected ocean industries is presented for the purpose of providing NASA OSTA with an assessment of technology needs and market potential. The size and growth potential, needs and problem areas, technology presently used and its suppliers, are given for industries involved in deep ocean mining, petrochemicals ocean energy conversion. Supporting services such as ocean bottom surveying; underwater transportation, data collection, and work systems; and inspection and diving services are included. Examples of key problem areas that are amenable to advanced technology solutions are included. Major companies are listed

Evolutionary ecology of pipefish brooding structures:embryo survival and growth do not improve with a pouch

For animals that reproduce in water, many adaptations in life-history traits such as egg size, parental care, and behaviors that relate to embryo oxygenation are still poorly understood. In pipefishes, seahorses and seadragons, males care for the embryos either in some sort of brood pouch, or attached ventrally to the skin on their belly or tail. Typically, egg size is larger in the brood pouch group and it has been suggested that oxygen supplied via the pouch buffers the developing embryos against hypoxia and as such is an adaptation that has facilitated the evolution of larger eggs. Here, using four pipefish species, we tested whether the presence or absence of brood pouch relates to how male behavior, embryo size, and survival are affected by hypoxia, with normoxia as control. Two of our studied species Entelurus aequoreus and Nerophis ophidion (both having small eggs) have simple ventral attachment of eggs onto the male trunk, and the other two, Syngnathus typhle (large eggs) and S. rostellatus (small eggs), have fully enclosed brood pouches on the tail. Under hypoxia, all species showed lower embryo survival, while species with brood pouches suffered greater embryo mortality compared to pouchless species, irrespective of oxygen treatment. Behaviorally, species without pouches spent more time closer to the surface, possibly to improve oxygenation. Overall, we found no significant benefits of brood pouches in terms of embryo survival and size under hypoxia. Instead, our results suggest negative effects of large egg size, despite the protection of brood pouches

Growth gradients in fish larvae *

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72250/1/j.1095-8649.1983.tb02886.x.pd

Comparison of lipid membrane-water partitioning with various organic solvent-water partitions of neutral species and ionic species: Uniqueness of cerasome as a model for the stratum corneum in partition processes

YesLipid membrane-water partitions (e.g., immobilized artificial membrane systems where the lipid membrane is a neutral phospholipid monolayer bound to gel beads) were compared to various organic solvent-water partitions using linear free energy relationships. To this end, we also measured the retention factors of 36 compounds (including neutral and ionic species) from water to liposomes made up of 3-sn-phosphatidylcholine and 3-sn-phosphatidyl-l-serine (80:20, mol/mol), employing liposome electrokinetic chromatography in this work. The results show that lipid membranes exhibit a considerably different chemical environment from those of organic solvents. For both neutral species and ionic species, partitions into the more polar hydroxylic solvents are chemically closer to partition into the lipid membrane as compared to partitions into the less polar hydroxylic solvents and into aprotic solvents. This means that solutes partition into the polar parts of lipid membranes, regardless of whether they are charged or not. In addition, cerasome (i.e., liposome composed mainly of stratum corneum lipids) was compared with regular phospholipid liposomes as a possible model for human stratum corneum in partitions. It was found that the cerasome-water partition exhibits a better chemical similarity to skin permeation. This is probably due to the unique structures of ceramides that occur in cerasome and in the stratum corneum lipid domain. We further show that membranes in membrane-water partitions exhibit very different properties

Comparative genomics in cyprinids: common carp ESTs help the annotation of the zebrafish genome

BACKGROUND: Automatic annotation of sequenced eukaryotic genomes integrates a combination of methodologies such as ab-initio methods and alignment of homologous genes and/or proteins. For example, annotation of the zebrafish genome within Ensembl relies heavily on available cDNA and protein sequences from two distantly related fish species and other vertebrates that have diverged several hundred million years ago. The scarcity of genomic information from other cyprinids provides the impetus to leverage EST collections to understand gene structures in this diverse teleost group. RESULTS: We have generated 6,050 ESTs from the differentiating testis of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and clustered them with 9,303 non-gonadal ESTs from CarpBase as well as 1,317 ESTs and 652 common carp mRNAs from GenBank. Over 28% of the resulting 8,663 unique transcripts are exclusively testis-derived ESTs. Moreover, 974 of these transcripts did not match any sequence in the zebrafish or fathead minnow EST collection. A total of 1,843 unique common carp sequences could be stringently mapped to the zebrafish genome (version 5), of which 1,752 matched coding sequences of zebrafish genes with or without potential splice variants. We show that 91 common carp transcripts map to intergenic and intronic regions on the zebrafish genome assembly and regions annotated with non-teleost sequences. Interestingly, an additional 42 common carp transcripts indicate the potential presence of new splicing variants not found in zebrafish databases so far. The fact that common carp transcripts help the identification or confirmation of these coding regions in zebrafish exemplifies the usefulness of sequences from closely related species for the annotation of model genomes. We also demonstrate that 5' UTR sequences of common carp and zebrafish orthologs share a significant level of similarity based on preservation of motif arrangements for as many as 10 ab-initio motifs. CONCLUSION: Our data show that there is sufficient homology between the transcribed sequences of common carp and zebrafish to warrant an even deeper cyprinid transcriptome comparison. On the other hand, the comparative analysis illustrates the value in utilizing partially sequenced transcriptomes to understand gene structure in this diverse teleost group. We highlight the need for integrated resources to leverage the wealth of fragmented genomic data