Purple People Eater Words

Peter Newby\u27s November 1995 Word Ways article The Anglo-American Hyphen arrived in the same mail until the 2 Dec 1995 issue of Science News. In the Biology column of the latter (page 178), this headline appeared: A TREATMENT PLANT-FISH HATCHERY IN ONE -- reminiscent, perhaps, of a medical facility for plant-fish. But since Providence has provided two symbols to clarify such ambiguities, the following is better: A TREATMENT-PLANT/FISH-HATCHERY IN ONE. With loyal fealty, the article followed the style of its title. It began with a 21 year-word/single-sentence paragraph, almost half of which was a 10-word name: East Chicago Sanitary District Wastewater Treatment Plan near Lake Michigan

Proper Names, Improper Uses

Leonard R. N. Ashley presented a quiz titled The Proper Name in the Proper Use in the February 1995 issue of Word Ways. I worked it. I did my best, and although my answers differ somewhat from Ashley\u27s anyone who has (or has had) a teenage daughter and/or son will surely agree that my answers come as close to the mark (whoever she is) as Ashley\u27s

Surface and Temporal Biosignatures

Recent discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets have ignited the prospect of spectroscopic investigations of exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres for signs of life. This chapter provides an overview of potential surface and temporal exoplanet biosignatures, reviewing Earth analogues and proposed applications based on observations and models. The vegetation red-edge (VRE) remains the most well-studied surface biosignature. Extensions of the VRE, spectral "edges" produced in part by photosynthetic or nonphotosynthetic pigments, may likewise present potential evidence of life. Polarization signatures have the capacity to discriminate between biotic and abiotic "edge" features in the face of false positives from band-gap generating material. Temporal biosignatures -- modulations in measurable quantities such as gas abundances (e.g., CO2), surface features, or emission of light (e.g., fluorescence, bioluminescence) that can be directly linked to the actions of a biosphere -- are in general less well studied than surface or gaseous biosignatures. However, remote observations of Earth's biosphere nonetheless provide proofs of concept for these techniques and are reviewed here. Surface and temporal biosignatures provide complementary information to gaseous biosignatures, and while likely more challenging to observe, would contribute information inaccessible from study of the time-averaged atmospheric composition alone.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, review to appear in Handbook of Exoplanets. Fixed figure conversion error

Cathelicidin-like Helminth Defence Molecules (HDMs) Absence of Cytotoxic, Anti-microbial and Anti-protozoan Activities Imply a Specific Adaptation to Immune Modulation

Host defence peptides (HDPs) are expressed throughout the animal and plant kingdoms. They have multifunctional roles in the defence against infectious agents of mammals, possessing both bactericidal and immune-modulatory activities. We have identified a novel family of molecules secreted by helminth parasites (helminth defence molecules; HDMs) that exhibit similar structural and biochemical characteristics to the HDPs. Here, we have analyzed the functional activities of four HDMs derived from Schistosoma mansoni and Fasciola hepatica and compared them to human, mouse, bovine and sheep HDPs. Unlike the mammalian HDPs the helminth-derived HDMs show no antimicrobial activity and are non-cytotoxic to mammalian cells (macrophages and red blood cells). However, both the mammalian- and helminth-derived peptides suppress the activation of macrophages by microbial stimuli and alter the response of B cells to cytokine stimulation. Therefore, we hypothesise that HDMs represent a novel family of HDPs that evolved to regulate the immune responses of their mammalian hosts by retaining potent immune modulatory properties without causing deleterious cytotoxic effects. © 2013 Thivierge et al

The Stutter Game

Ross Eckler\u27s article Wright, Write, \u27Rite\u27 Right in the February 1997 Word Ways reminded me of a game I and a friend, Scott Hancock, invented over rum and cokes about ten years ago. Inspiration was provided by a very pretty young woman. Helen Solis, a musician in the El Paso Symphony Orchestra along with Scott. During a break she asked if anyone had heard about the zookeeper Neumann who had nursed a pregnant wildebeest through birth: as a consequence, the NEW GNU KNEW NEUmann

p53 Down-Regulates CHK1 through p21 and the Retinoblastoma Protein

Both fission yeast and mammalian cells require the function of the checkpoint kinase CHK1 for G(2) arrest after DNA damage. The tumor suppressor p53, a well-studied stress response factor, has also been shown to play a role in DNA damage G(2) arrest, although in a manner that is probably independent of CHK1. p53, however, can be phosphorylated and regulated by both CHK1 as well as another checkpoint kinase, hCds1 (also called CHK2). It was therefore of interest to determine whether reciprocally, p53 affects either CHK1 or CHK2. We found that induction of p53 either by diverse stress signals or ectopically using a tetracycline-regulated promoter causes a marked reduction in CHK1 protein levels. CHK1 downregulation by p53 occurs as a result of reduced CHK1 RNA accumulation, indicating that repression occurs at the level of transcription. Repression of CHK1 by p53 requires p21, since p21 alone is sufficient for this to occur and cells lacking p21 cannot downregulate CHK1. Interestingly, pRB is also required for CHK1 downregulation, suggesting the possible involvement of E2F-dependent transcription in the regulation of CHK1. Our results identify a new repression target of p53 and suggest that p53 and CHK1 play interdependent and complementary roles in regulating both the arrest and resumption of G(2) after DNA damage