Spheres of argument concerning oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: a crisis of environmental rhetoric?

Rhetorical theorists have frequently attacked the rhetoric of science for relying on expertise, perpetuating a gendered bias, and being used to intentionally manipulate the public. Yet while connections between the rise of scientific rhetoric and the erosion of public knowledge may sound reasonable to the casual observer, the approach taken in this manuscript traces the unintended consequences of lay-expertise on environmental activism and public policy. This essay analyzes two different categories of pro-environmental rhetoric used by actors concerned with preventing oil and natural gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). By examining the public controversy over ANWR, this essay asks: how are technical versus public claims in the debate over ANWR formed? What standards of evidence are required? What does this reveal about the rhetorical strategies used by those concerned with protecting the environment, both in ANWR and as a whole? What does it also disclose about the media and nature of modern public discourse? In doing so, the essay focuses on the importance of science and scientific rhetoric in establishing a sound basis for both public activism and environmental journalism

Kinase Targets for Mycolic Acid Biosynthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Mycolic acids (MAs) are the characteristic, integral building blocks for the mycomembrane belonging to the insidious bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb). These C60-C90 long a-alkyl-ß-hydroxylated fatty acids provide protection to the tubercule bacilli against the outside threats, thus allowing its survival, virulence and resistance to the current antibacterial agents. In the post-genomic era, progress has been made towards understanding the crucial enzymatic machineries involved in the biosynthesis of MAs in M.tb in which two discrete fatty acid synthases systems (FAS-I and FAS-II) were discovered. However, gaps still remain in the exact role of the phosphorylation and dephosphorylation regulatory mechanisms within these systems. To date, a total of 11 serine-threonine protein kinases (STPKs) are found in M.tb. Most enzymes implicated in the MAs synthesis were found to be phosphorylated in vitro and/or in vivo. For instance, phosphorylation of KasA, KasB, mtFabH, HadAB/BC, InhA, MabA, FadD32 and PcA downregulated their enzymatic activity, while phosphorylation of VirS increased its enzymatic activity. These observations suggest that the kinases and phosphatases system could play a role in M.tb adaptive responses and survival mechanisms in the human host. As the mycobacterial STPKs do not share a high sequence homology to the human's, there has been some early drug discovery efforts towards developing potent and selective inhibitors as novel antitubercular agents. Recent updates to the kinases and phosphatases involved in the regulation of MAs biosynthesis will be presented in this minireview, including their known small molecule inhibitors