CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES - COMMERCE CLAUSE-PROPRIETARY INTEREST OF STATE IN ITS NATURAL RESOURCES

Plaintiffs, residents of Georgia, sued to enjoin the enforcement of a South Carolina statute imposing on shrimp boats a license fee one-hundred times greater for nonresident owners than for resident owners, and requiring all shrimp to be unloaded, packed, and stamped in South Carolina before shipments into other states. The suit was based on the alleged contravention of the privileges and immunities and commerce clauses of the Constitution of the United States. Plaintiff\u27s petition was dismissed by the trial court. On appeal, held, reversed. The disparity in resident and nonresident license fees constituted discrimination against nonresidents in violation of interstate privileges and immunities; to require that all shrimp be unloaded, packed, and stamped in South Carolina burdened interstate commerce in a manner forbidden to the states. Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 68 S.Ct. 1156 (1948)

FUTURE INTERESTS-CONTINGENT CONSTRUCTION OF REMAINDER GIFT TO CHARITY

Testator left property in trust to use the income, and such portions of principal as might be necessary, for the support, maintenance and education of his granddaughter during her life. Upon the death of the life tenant, the trustee was directed to pay unto the Methodist Protestant University of Kansas City, Kansas, all the unexpended principal and interest thereof, if any, to have and to hold the same forever.\u27\u27 Subsequent to the testator\u27s death in 1904, but prior to the death of the life tenant, the remainderman assigned its interest to appellant\u27s assignor, and then went out of existence. In 1945 the life tenant died, and the trustee sued to terminate the trust and ascertain the beneficiaries. The lower court found an implied condition precedent that the beneficiary survive the life tenant, and directed the trustees to pay to the residuary legatees. On appeal, held, affirmed. Horton v. Board of Education of the Methodist Protestant Church, (Wash. 1948) 201 P (2d) 163

NEGLIGENCE-TAKING THE ISSUE OF NEGLIGENCE FROM THE JURY IN PUBLIC UTILITY CASES

After boarding a trolley owned and operated by defendant, plaintiff-dropped her return slip. Holding a package in one hand, she stooped to pick up the slip. Plaintiff testified that although defendant\u27s operator saw her in this position, he started the trolley with a very fast jerk which threw plaintiff to the floor and caused certain injuries. At the conclusion of plaintiff\u27s evidence, which consisted of her uncorroborated testimony, the trial court directed a verdict for defendant. On appeal, held, affirmed. Przborowski v. Baltimore Transit Co., (Md. 1948) 59 A. (2d) 687

ATTORNEYS -TAXATION - UNAUTHORIZED PRACTICE OF INCOME TAX LAW BY CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS

The accepted law in the United States is that laymen may not engage in the practice of law. However, the enigma of what constitutes the practice of law has plagued laymen, lawyers and the courts for many years. Attempts to find the answer have engendered intense friction between various professional groups, each arguing that its jurisdiction extends further than the other admits. The greatest animosity has developed between lawyers and certified public accountants in the dispute as to their respective functions in the income tax field

High-latitude Tertiary Migrations of an Exclusively Tropical Clade: Evidence from Malpighiaceae

Explanations of tropical intercontinental disjunctions involving South America and Africa typically invoke vicariance of western Gondwanan biotas or long-distance dispersal. However, many plant groups originated and diversified well after the last direct connection between Africa and South America (ca. 105 million years before the present [mybp]), and it is unlikely that long-distance dispersal accounts for the distribution of all of these. A less commonly invoked explanation, the boreotropics hypothesis, indicates that some tropical disjunctions arose during the Tertiary via high-latitude land connections when northern forests supported tropical vegetation. Malpighiaceae are widely distributed across Africa and South America and have been explained as ancient "Gondwanian aborigines" (i.e., vicariants of western Gondwanan biotas) or more recent "American colonists" (i.e., long-distance dispersalists from South America into the Old World). Fossil and phylogenetic evidence from clock-independent estimates of molecular divergence times indicate that Malpighiaceae originated in South America during the latest Cretaceous (ca. 68 mybp), in isolation from Africa, and that six amphi-Atlantic disjunctions within the family occurred during three major episodes: late Paleocene (ca. 60 mybp), latest Eocene-earliest Oligocene (ca. 34-31 mybp), and early Miocene (ca. 21-17 mybp). These age estimates reject a Gondwanan origin for Malpighiaceae, and strict dispersal scenarios ignore paleoclimate, paleoland configurations, and fossil evidence that indicates that the family once inhabited northern latitudes. Instead, these data suggest that Paleocene-Oligocene amphi-Atlantic disjunct groups in Malpighiaceae moved into North America from South America via the Caribbean Basin, crossed the North Atlantic into Eurasia, and subsequently reached the Old World Tropics during warm intervals when land configurations would have facilitated this migration. Whether Miocene migrations of evergreen thermophilic Malpighiaceae proceeded via northern latitudes or long-distance dispersal is less clear.Organismic and Evolutionary Biolog

Phylogeny and biogeography of Morinaceae (Dipsacales) based on nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences

AbstractThe Morinaceae (Dipsacales) contains 13 species placed in Acanthocalyx, Cryptothladia or Morina, and is distributed from the mountains of southeastern Europe through the Himalayas to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, mainly in alpine habitats. Sequence data from two chloroplast regions (the trnK intron and the trnL-F region) and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of nuclear ribosomal DNA were used to infer phylogenetic relationships of Morinaceae and related Dipsacales. Both the nuclear and chloroplast datasets, as well as the combined data, provide strong support for relationships within the Valerina clade, placing Morinaceae as the sister group of a clade containing Valerianaceae and Dipsacaceae plus Triplostegia. The Morinaceae, Acanthocalyx, Cryptothladia, and a clade containing Morina and Cryptothladia, are all supported as monophyletic. However, Morina was found to be paraphyletic in several of our analyses, with Morina longifolia more closely related to Cryptothladia than to other Morina species. There is some evidence that Morina longifolia produces cleistogamous flowers, as do Cryptothladia species. Dispersal-vicariance analyses support the view that Valerina radiated initially within Asia, with subsequent movement into Europe in Morinaceae, Dipsacaceae, and Valerianaceae, and into the New World in Valerianaceae. For Morinaceae, as for a number of plant groups, the Brahmaputra river drainage marks a significant biogeographic divide, although this has been spanned within Acanthocalyx and the Morina-Cryptothladia lineage

PHYLOGENY OF ACRIDOCARPUS-BRACHYLOPHON (MALPIGHIACEAE): IMPLICATIONS FOR TERTIARY TROPICAL FLORAS AND AFROASIAN BIOGEOGRAPHY

A major tenet of African Tertiary biogeography posits that lowland rainforest dominated much of Africa in the late Cretaceous and was replaced by xeric vegetation as a response to continental uplift and consequent widespread aridification beginning in the late Paleogene. The aridification of Africa is thought to have been a major factor in the extinction of many African humid-tropical lineages, and in the present-day disparity of species diversity between Africa and other tropical regions. This primarily geologically based model can be tested with independent phylogenetic evidence from widespread African plant groups containing both humid- and xeric-adapted species. We estimated the phylogeny and lineage divergence times within one such angiosperm group, the acridocarpoid clade (Malpighiaceae), with combined ITS, ndhF , and trnL-F data from 15 species that encompass the range of morphological and geographic variation within the group. Dispersal-vicariance analysis and divergence-time estimates suggest that the basal acridocarpoid divergence occurred between African and Southeast Asian lineages approximately 50 million years ago (mya), perhaps after a southward ancestral retreat from high-latitude tropical forests in response to intermittent Eocene cooling. Dispersion of Acridocarpus from Africa to Madagascar is inferred between approximately 50 and 35 mya, when lowland humid tropical forest was nearly continuous between these landmasses. A single dispersal event within Acridocarpus is inferred from western Africa to eastern Africa between approximately 23 and 17 mya, coincident with the widespread replacement of humid forests by savannas in eastern Africa. Although the spread of xeric environments resulted in the extinction of many African plant groups, our data suggest that for others it provided an opportunity for further diversification.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72798/1/j.0014-3820.2002.tb00165.x.pd

Cophylogeny and Biogeography of the Fungal Parasite Cyttaria and Its Host Nothofagus, Southern Beech

The obligate, biotrophic association among species of the fungal genus Cyttaria and their hosts in the plant genus Nothofagus often is cited as a classic example of cophylogeny and is one of the few cases in which the biogeography of a fungus is commonly mentioned or included in biogeographic analyses. In this study molecular and morphological data are used to examine hypotheses regarding the cophylogeny and biogeography of the 12 species of Cyttaria and their hosts, the 11 species of Nothofagus subgenera Lophozonia and Nothofagus. Our results indicate highly significant overall cophylogenetic structure, despite the fact that the associations between species of Cyttaria and Nothofagus usually do not correspond in a simple one to one relationship. Two major lineages of Cyttaria are confined to a single Nothofagus subgenus, a specificity that might account for a minimum of two codivergences. We hypothesize other major codivergences. Numerous extinction also are assumed, as are an independent parasite divergence followed by host switching to account for C. berteroi. Considering the historical association of Cyttaria and Nothofagus, our hypothesis may support the vicariance hypothesis for the trans-Antarctic distribution between Australasian and South American species of Cyttaria species hosted by subgenus Lophozonia. It also supports the hypothesis of transoceanic long distance dispersal to account for the relatively recent relationship between Australian and New Zealand Cyttaria species, which we estimate to have occurred 44.6–28.5 mya. Thus the history of these organisms is not only a reflection of the breakup of Gondwana but also of other events that have contributed to the distributions of many other southern hemisphere plants and fungi.Organismic and Evolutionary BiologyOther Research Uni

Diffuse Galactic Gamma Rays from Shock-Accelerated Cosmic Rays

A shock-accelerated particle flux \propto p^-s, where p is the particle momentum, follows from simple theoretical considerations of cosmic-ray acceleration at nonrelativistic shocks followed by rigidity-dependent escape into the Galactic halo. A flux of shock-accelerated cosmic-ray protons with s ~ 2.8 provides an adequate fit to the Fermi-LAT gamma-ray emission spectra of high-latitude and molecular cloud gas when uncertainties in nuclear production models are considered. A break in the spectrum of cosmic-ray protons claimed by Neronov, Semikoz, & Taylor (PRL, 108, 051105, 2012) when fitting the gamma-ray spectra of high-latitude molecular clouds is a consequence of using a cosmic-ray proton flux described by a power law in kinetic energy.Comment: Version to correspond to published letter in PRL; corrected Fig.