Human-controlled survival of nonhumans

Treves et al. are right about the need for morally just preservation of nonhumans. Their suggestions can move us in that direction. But isn’t what only humans are capable of doing in analyzing and solving these problems, in its broadest sense, “anthropocentrism”

Stuck in a Moral Prison: Exploring the Roots of Why Indonesian Students Moralize Literature

This paper explores a belief in Indonesian culture, held by educators and students, that literature teaches morals. While learning literature offers a potential benefit, a problem arises when instilling and/or recycling moral knowledge is recognized as the only reason to learn literature. When identifying established morals becomes the stopping point, other elements may be ignored, such as critical thinking, culture, history, perspectives, and marginalization. Four literature lecturers and seven students were interviewed. Data revealed all participants had varying definitions of “morals,” leading to potential classroom confusion. All participants agreed morals ought to be considered, but only the (majority of) students identified them as the most important in literary study. Additionally, not all students enjoyed finding morals; some were rather bored by examining morals. Lastly, most participants believed Indonesian culture and education contributes to the habit of searching for morals, and valuing them at the expense of other learning benefits

Autonomous space processor for orbital debris

This work continues to develop advanced designs toward the ultimate goal of a GETAWAY SPECIAL to demonstrate economical removal of orbital debris utilizing local resources in orbit. The fundamental technical feasibility was demonstrated last year through theoretical calculations, quantitative computer animation, a solar focal point cutter, a robotic arm design and a subscale model. During this reporting period, several improvements are made in the solar cutter, such as auto track capabilities, better quality reflectors and a more versatile framework. The major advance has been in the design, fabrication and working demonstration of a ROBOTIC ARM that has several degrees of freedom. The functions were specifically tailored for the orbital debris handling. These advances are discussed here. Also a small fraction of the resources were allocated towards research in flame augmentation in SCRAMJETS for the NASP. Here, the fundamental advance was the attainment of Mach numbers up to 0.6 in the flame zone and a vastly improved injection system; the current work is expected to achieve supersonic combustion in the laboratory and an advanced monitoring system

Trypanin is a cytoskeletal linker protein and is required for cell motility in African trypanosomes

The cytoskeleton of eukaryotic cells is comprised of a complex network of distinct but interconnected filament systems that function in cell division, cell motility, and subcellular trafficking of proteins and organelles. A gap in our understanding of this dynamic network is the identification of proteins that connect subsets of cytoskeletal structures. We previously discovered a family of cytoskeleton-associated proteins that includes GAS11, a candidate human tumor suppressor upregulated in growth-arrested cells, and trypanin, a component of the flagellar cytoskeleton of African trypanosomes. Although these proteins are intimately associated with the cytoskeleton, their function has yet to be determined. Here we use double-stranded RNA interference to block trypanin expression in Trypanosoma brucei, and demonstrate that this protein is required for directional cell motility. Trypanin(−) mutants have an active flagellum, but are unable to coordinate flagellar beat. As a consequence, they spin and tumble uncontrollably, occasionally moving backward. Immunofluorescence experiments demonstrate that trypanin is located along the flagellum/flagellum attachment zone and electron microscopic analysis revealed that cytoskeletal connections between the flagellar apparatus and subpellicular cytoskeleton are destabilized in trypanin(−) mutants. These results indicate that trypanin functions as a cytoskeletal linker protein and offer insights into the mechanisms of flagellum-based cell motility

Evaluating the accuracy of a functional SNP annotation system

Many common and chronic diseases are influenced at some level by genetic variation. Research done in population genetics, specifically in the area of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is critical to understanding human genetic variation. A key element in assessing role of a given SNP is determining if the variation is likely to result in change in function. The SNP Integration Tool (SNPit) is a comprehensive tool that integrates diverse, existing predictors of SNP functionality, providing the user with information for improved association study analysis. To evaluate the SNPit system, we developed an alternative gold standard to measure accuracy using sensitivity and specificity. The results of our evaluation demonstrated that our alternative gold standard produced encouraging results

Challenges in integrating Escherichia coli molecular biology data

One key challenge in Systems Biology is to provide mechanisms to collect and integrate the necessary data to be able to meet multiple analysis requirements. Typically, biological contents are scattered over multiple data sources and there is no easy way of comparing heterogeneous data contents. This work discusses ongoing standardisation and interoperability efforts and exposes integration challenges for the model organism Escherichia coli K-12. The goal is to analyse the major obstacles faced by integration processes, suggest ways to systematically identify them, and whenever possible, propose solutions or means to assistmanual curation. Integration of gene, protein and compound data was evaluated by performing comparisons over EcoCyc, KEGG, BRENDA, ChEBI, Entrez Gene and UniProt contents. Cross-links, a number of standard nomenclatures and name information supported the comparisons. Except for the gene integration scenario, in no other scenario an element of integration performed well enough to support the process by itself. Indeed, both the integration of enzyme and compound records imply considerable curation. Results evidenced that, even for a well-studied model organism, source contents are still far from being as standardized as it would be desired and metadata varies considerably from source to source. Before designing any data integration pipeline, researchers should decide on the sources that best fit the purpose of analysis and be aware of existing conflicts/inconsistencies to be able to intervene in their resolution. Moreover, they should be aware of the limits of automatic integration such that they can define the extent of necessary manual curation for each application.Portuguese FCT funded MIT-Portugal Program in Bioengineering (MIT-Pt/BS-BB/0082/2008); PhD grant from FCT (ref. SFRH/BD/22863/2005) to S.

Local Convergence and Global Diversity: From Interpersonal to Social Influence

Axelrod (1997) showed how local convergence in cultural influence can preserve cultural diversity. We argue that central implications of Axelrod's model may change profoundly, if his model is integrated with the assumption of social influence as assumed by an earlier generation of modelers. Axelrod and all follow up studies employed instead the assumption that influence is interpersonal (dyadic). We show how the combination of social influence with homophily allows solving two important problems. Our integration of social influence yields monoculture in small societies and diversity increasing in population size, consistently with empirical evidence but contrary to earlier models. The second problem was identified by Klemm et al.(2003a,b), an extremely narrow window of noise levels in which diversity with local convergence can be obtained at all. Our model with social influence generates stable diversity with local convergence across a much broader interval of noise levels than models based on interpersonal influence.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, Paper presented at American Sociological Association 103rd Annual Meeting, August 1-4, 2008, Boston, MA. Session on Mathematical Sociolog

The C. elegans ephrin EFN-4 functions non-cell autonomously with heparan sulfate proteoglycans to promote axon outgrowth and branching

The Eph receptors and their cognate ephrin ligands play key roles in many aspects of nervous system development. These interactions typically occur within an individual tissue type, serving either to guide axons to their terminal targets or to define boundaries between the rhombomeres of the hindbrain. We have identified a novel role for the Caenorhabditis elegans ephrin EFN-4 in promoting primary neurite outgrowth in AIY interneurons and D-class motor neurons. Rescue experiments reveal that EFN-4 functions non-cell autonomously in the epidermis to promote primary neurite outgrowth. We also find that EFN-4 plays a role in promoting ectopic axon branching in a C. elegans model of X-linked Kallmann syndrome. In this context, EFN-4 functions non-cell autonomously in the body wall muscle, and in parallel with HS biosynthesis genes and HSPG core proteins, which function cell autonomously in the AIY neurons. This is the first report of an epidermal ephrin providing a developmental cue to the nervous system