Carboxydotrophic growth of <i>Geobacter sulfurreducens</i>

This study shows that Geobacter sulfurreducensgrows on carbon monoxide (CO) as electron donor with fumarateas electron acceptor. Geobacter sulfurreducens wastolerant to high CO levels, with up to 150 kPa in the headspacetested. During growth, hydrogen was detected in very slightamounts (~5 Pa). In assays with cell-free extract of cellsgrown with CO and fumarate, production of hydrogen fromCO was not observed, and hydrogenase activity with benzylviologen as electron acceptor was very low. Taken together,this suggested that CO is not utilized via hydrogen as intermediate.In the presence of CO, reduction of NADP+ wasobserved at a rate comparable to CO oxidation coupled tofumarate reduction in vivo. The G. sulfurreducens genomecontains a single putative carbon monoxide dehydrogenaseencodinggene. The gene is part of a predicted operon alsocomprising a putative Fe–S cluster-binding subunit (CooF)and a FAD–NAD(P) oxidoreductase and is preceded by aputative CO-sensing transcription factor. This cluster may beinvolved in a novel pathway for CO oxidation, but furtherstudies are necessary to ascertain this. Similar gene clustersare present in several other species belonging to theDeltaproteobacteria and Firmicutes, for which CO utilizationis currently not known

A new method of prenatal alcohol classification accounting for dose, pattern, and timing of exposure: Improving our ability to examine fetal effects from low to moderate exposure

Background: When examining the association between prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal effects, the timing and intensity of exposure have been ignored in epidemiological studies. The effect of using dose, pattern and timing of consumption (“composite” method) was investigated in this study, to examine the association between prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal effects. Methods: The composite method resulted in six categories of exposure (abstinent, low, moderate, binge <weekly, binge 1–2×/week and heavy). The odds of language delay and child behaviour problems were calculated for the composite method and then compared with an analysis using averaged estimates of <1 and 1+ drinks per day and with stratification by quantity ignoring dose per occasion. Data used for the analyses were from a 10% random sample of non-Indigenous women delivering a live infant in Western Australia (1995–1997). Participants from the 1995-1996 cohort were invited to participate in an 8-year longitudinal survey (78% response rate n=2224; 85% were followed-up at 2 years, 73% at 5 years and 61% at 8 years). Results: The effect of moderate and binge levels of exposure was only evident with the composite method; anxiety/depression following first-trimester moderate exposure (OR 2.24, 95% CI 1.16 to 4.34), and following late pregnancy moderate (aggressive behaviour OR 1.93, 95% CI 0.91 to 4.09) and binge (language delay OR 3.00, 95% CI 0.90 to 9.93) exposures. Results for heavy levels of exposure were similar with each method. The estimates for late pregnancy were imprecise due to small numbers. Conclusion: The composite method of classification more closely reflects real-life drinking patterns and better discriminates maternal drinking than the other methods, particularly low, moderate and binge levels

Wat extremisten met elkaar en met de mainstream westerse maatschappij gemeen hebben

Jihadisme en rechts-extremisme in het Westen zijn geen ultieme anderen van elkaar noch van de maatschappij. Zij zijn in elk geval ten dele het product van laat-moderne samenlevingen en vertonen opvallende gelijkenissen met elkaar en de bredere samenleving. Ten aanzien van de ontologische onzekerheden in de laat-moderne samenleving biedt hun extremisme voorts een dubbele redding: zowel van hun gemeenschap als voor zichzelf.Security and Global Affair

De betekenis van territorialiteit in Europese strafrechtelijke rechtshandhaving

Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

Hydrogen producing microbial communities of the biocathode in a microbial electrolysis cell

In the search for alternatives for fossil fuels and the reuse of the energy from waste streams, the microbial electrolysis cell is a promising technique. The microbial electrolysis cell is a two electrode system in which at the anode organic substances, including waste water, are used by microorganisms that release the terminal electrons to the electrode. These electrons are subsequently used at the cathode resulting in the production of a current. By addition of a small voltage, hydrogen gas can be produced by combining electrons and protons at the cathode. To catalyse the hydrogen evolution reaction at the cathode, expensive catalysts such as platinum are required. Recently, the use of biocathodes has shown great potential as an alternative for platinum. The microbial community responsible for the hydrogen evolution in such systems is, however, not well understood. In this study we focused on the characterization of the microbial communities of the microbial electrolysis cell biocathode using molecular techniques. The results show that the microbial community consists of 44% Proteobacteria, 27% Firmicutes, 18% Bacteriodetes and 12% related to other phyla. Within the major phylogenetic groups we found several clusters of uncultured species belonging to novel taxonomic groups at genus level. These novel taxonomic groups developed under environmentally unusual conditions and might have properties that have not been described before. Therefore it is of great interest to study those novel groups further. Within the Proteobacteria a major cluster belonged to the Deltaproteobacteria and based on the known characteristics of the closest related cultured species, we suggest a mechanism for microbial electron transfer for the production of hydrogen at the cathode