Evolution of abilities to regenerate neurons in central nervous systems

This work was supported by a Kappa Kappa Gamma Graduate Fellowship Award to C. E. H. and NIH grant NS-11861 and RCDA NS-00070 to G. D. B.Neuroscienc

A Discrete and Cosmopolitan Minority: The Loyalists, the Atlantic World, and the Origins of Judicial Review

Historical interest in popular constitutionalism has enlivened the search for the origins of judicial review. Several precursors of judicial review in the state courts during the 1780s, in particular, demand explanation. If early modern Anglo-Americans did not perceive courts as enforcers of constitutional limits on legislatures, what explains these attempts by judges to curtail statutes in the critical period before the Philadelphia Convention? This article argues that these cases involved antiloyalist legislation and related laws that violated the Peace Treaty of 1783 or the law of nations, or otherwise obstructed diplomatic and commercial relations with the other empires of the Atlantic world. Lawyers and judges drew on available legal scripts—such as the customary liberties of Englishmen and the notion of imperial supremacy—to argue that courts had the power to curb state legislation that infringed on these superior sources of law. This use of the courts fitted into a larger, Federalist constitutional program that was designed to reintegrate the United States into the Atlantic world

Somerset’s Case at the Bar: Securing the “Pure Air” of English Jurisdiction Within the British Empire

This essay explores what this environmental conceit meant as a legal fact to the legal professionals involved in the case in 1772. It was important to them. Many of us are also legal professionals, and the case remains important to us. But the case meant something different for them, who could not see the future, than it does today for us, who see their future as our history. It is a mistake, then, to attribute too much weight to this one legal decision-to read into Mansfield\u27s opinion the whole history of liberation

Being Seen Like a State: How Americans (and Britons) Built the Constitutional Infrastructure of a Developing Nation

This Article develops the argument that the Federal Constitution of 1787 was conceptualized, drafted, and put into operation not only for American citizens but also for foreign audiences. In a world without supranational governing institutions, a constitution—at least, the Federal Constitution—might serve to promote peaceable international relations based on reciprocal trade and open credit. That at least was the Enlightenment-inflected hope. Did it work? If early Americans engaged in constitution-making in large part to demonstrate their capacity for self-government, selfdiscipline, and commercial openness to foreign audiences, did anyone notice? Or was it all, regardless of diplomatic purposes and consistent with the conventional account of the American Founding, just an intramural affair? This Article argues that many foreigners did notice, not least because some of them had participated in the process of reform. Although no foreigners intervened directly in drafting or ratification, international demands, incentives, and reactions shaped the way that leading American Framers pursued constitutionmaking. After a “foreign ratification debate” that stretched into the first years of the Washington Administration, Britain normalized diplomatic relations with the United States and substantial capital investment followed. In 1791, the British Board of Trade approvingly analyzed the Constitution in a report designed to guide the Privy Council as it drafted instructions for its first official envoy to the United States. Within fifteen years, Britons were the largest holders of foreign investment in the United States, including state and federal “domestic debt,” or the restructured wartime certificates and loans that had floated the Revolution. In sum, Britons ultimately financed much of the project of American independence, and contemporaries believed that these credit relations would reduce, without eliminating, the prospect of renewed war

Civics 2000: Process Constitutionalism at Yale

One or another form of historical fidelity has long been in the repetoire of constitutional interpretation, and during the last two decades conservative jurists have searched for the original intent of various clauses. Increasingly, however, it is liberal law professors who are turning to history to make sense of American constitutionalism. What they find there is not a document listing eternal rights or duties but rather a multidimensional structure of government, captured as much in practice as on paper, that has metamorphosed over time. It seems we have, in that familiar phrase, a living Constitution. But interest is shifting from noun to adjective: how, and why, has the Constitution changed? Two recent explorations are Bruce Ackerman\u27s We the People: Transformations, the second volume of his epic trilogy of American constitutional history, and Akhil Reed Amar\u27s The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction, also part of a larger project. Each of these well-written books is a rich contribution to the historical and theoretical literature of the Constitution and deserves a large readership. Although they differ in style and substance, both convey the same main point: the federal Constitution is premised on popular sovereignty, made by the People and for the People. The People have legitimately altered the document over the past two centuries, through the Article V amendment process and otherwise; it has also been interpreted, rightly and wrongly, along the way. In short, there has been and will continue to be good and bad constitutional change. Professors Ackerman and Amar try to distinguish one from the other and offer guidance on how to make better choices in the future. Though they occasionally criticize particular alterations and doctrines on their merits, the focus is on how such changes are made. They are more concerned with the procedures of constitutional changes than their consequences - though they imply, as Ackerman has written before, that form [i]s substance. Together, their books signal the rise of a new strand of constitutional studies, what might be called constitutional process. Ackerman and Amar are at the center of this movement but are not alone

Evaluation of Canine Pancreas-Specific Lipase Activity, Lipase Activity, and Trypsin-Like Immunoreactivity in an Experimental Model of Acute Kidney Injury in Dogs.

BackgroundDiagnosis of pancreatitis in dogs is complicated by extrapancreatic disorders that can alter the results of laboratory tests. Extrapancreatic disorders can also affect the diagnosis of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI). The effects of acute kidney injury (AKI) on pancreas-specific lipase activity (Spec cPL(®) Test), serum lipase activity and trypsin-like immunoreactivity (TLI) in dogs have not been evaluated.Hypothesis/objectivesSerum Spec cPL, lipase activity, and TLI concentrations will increase secondary to decreased kidney function.AnimalsFive purpose-bred dogs.MethodsExperimental prospective study. Gentamicin was used to induce AKI in 5 purpose-bred dogs. Serum samples were collected for measurement of creatinine, Spec cPL, lipase activity and TLI over 60 days, during both induction of, and recovery from, AKI.ResultsAll dogs developed and recovered from AKI. Six of 52 (12%) serum Spec cPL concentrations were increased (2 in the equivocal zone and 4 consistent with pancreatitis) in 2 of 5 (40%) dogs. Two of 51 (4%) serum lipase activity values were increased in 2 of 5 dogs. Serum TLI was increased above the reference range in 17 of 50 (34%) samples in 3 of 5 dogs. For all biomarkers, there was no consistent correlation with increases in serum creatinine concentration.Conclusions and clinical importanceDecreased renal excretion during experimental AKI did not cause consistent and correlated increases in serum Spec cPL, lipase activity, or TLI in this cohort of dogs