The Coward

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. Yes, sir, I\u27m glad about one thing - the thing has finally come to a real war. Fat, puffy fingers twirled the drink round and round on the table. I only wish I were young enough to be with our young men. They\u27ll be sorry they ever tangled with us! I have a nephew -here he wiped his nose on his sleeve- that\u27s gettin\u27 all the adventure I\u27d be dying to have. To the young fellas belongs the vengeance. Lucky young dog. Ha, there\u27ll be no holdin\u27 him when he comes back. Why I bet ..

A Solidification Phenomenon in Random Packings

We prove that uniformly random packings of copies of a certain simply-connected figure in the plane exhibit global connectedness at all sufficiently high densities, but not at low densities

Kinetics and Inhibition Studies of the L205R Mutant of cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase Involved in Cushing’s Syndrome

Overproduction of cortisol by the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal hormone system results in the clinical disorder known as Cushing\u27s syndrome. Genomics studies have identified a key mutation (L205R) in the α‐isoform of the catalytic subunit of cAMP‐dependent protein kinase (PKACα) in adrenal adenomas of patients with adrenocorticotropic hormone‐independent Cushing\u27s syndrome. Here, we conducted kinetics and inhibition studies on the L205R‐PKACα mutant. We have found that the L205R mutation affects the kinetics of both Kemptide and ATP as substrates, decreasing the catalytic efficiency (kcat/KM) for each substrate by 12‐fold and 4.5‐fold, respectively. We have also determined the IC50 and Ki for the peptide substrate‐competitive inhibitor PKI(5–24) and the ATP‐competitive inhibitor H89. The L205R mutation had no effect on the potency of H89, but causes a \u3e 250‐fold loss in potency for PKI(5–24). Collectively, these data provide insights for the development of L205R‐PKACα inhibitors as potential therapeutics