FINANCIAL PROSPECTS, BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, AND MANAGEMENT: FARM BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Farm Management,

Spontaneous Tetraploid Melons

Since 1968, three spontaneous 4x melons (Cucumis melo L.) plants were discovered in our field or greenhouse plantings. Two were found in the cultivar Planters Jumbo and one in the virescent marker C879-52. Each of these 4x plants had rounded cotyledons, shorter internodes, thicker stems and leaves, more hairs, and smaller fruits, with larger stem and blossom scars, than their 2x counterparts. Also, their flowers, pollen grains, stomates, and seeds were larger. The discovery of a 4x virescent plant in 1987 allows easier germplasm transfer between ploidy levels. Morphological characteristics of 2x and 4x melons will allow identification without need for chromosome counts

PAT proteins, an ancient family of lipid droplet proteins that regulate cellular lipid stores.

The PAT family of lipid droplet proteins includes 5 members in mammals: perilipin, adipose differentiation-related protein (ADRP), tail-interacting protein of 47 kDa (TIP47), S3-12, and OXPAT. Members of this family are also present in evolutionarily distant organisms, including insects, slime molds and fungi. All PAT proteins share sequence similarity and the ability to bind intracellular lipid droplets, either constitutively or in response to metabolic stimuli, such as increased lipid flux into or out of lipid droplets. Positioned at the lipid droplet surface, PAT proteins manage access of other proteins (lipases) to the lipid esters within the lipid droplet core and can interact with cellular machinery important for lipid droplet biogenesis. Genetic variations in the gene for the best-characterized of the mammalian PAT proteins, perilipin, have been associated with metabolic phenotypes, including type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. In this review, we discuss how the PAT proteins regulate cellular lipid metabolism both in mammals and in model organisms

Emerging Roles of Health Care Providers to Mitigate Climate Change Impacts: A Perspective from East Harlem, New York

Professional associations of health care workers are issuing policy statements on climate change and health with greater frequency, calling on their members to act in their duty to protect and fulfill the right to health. These health care providers’ perceptions of their roles in the intersection of climate and health, however, have not been well-studied. This article presents results from a qualitative study using focus groups conducted with health care providers serving the low-income, ethnic minority population in East Harlem, New York. The focus groups sought to identify and explore providers’ perceived health threats of climate change, as well as their perceived role as frontline disseminators of information and detectors of disease for their patients. Extreme heat events were used to frame the discussion in each group. Three major themes emerged: 1) environmental awareness, 2) an “ecohealth” lens, and 3) heat and health vulnerability. The participants demonstrated their interest in playing a role in climate change adaptation by identifying at-risk patients and helping to tailor clinical care to better serve these individuals

Kaluza-Klein electrically charged black branes in M-theory

We present a class of Kaluza-Klein electrically charged black p-brane solutions of ten-dimensional, type IIA superstring theory. Uplifting to eleven dimensions these solutions are studied in the context of M-theory. They can be interpreted either as a p+1 extended object trapped around the eleventh dimension along which momentum is flowing or as a boost of the following backgrounds: the Schwarzschild black (p+1)-brane or the product of the (10-p)-dimensional Euclidean Schwarzschild manifold with the (p+1)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime.Comment: 16 pages, uses latex and epsf macro, figures include