Characterisation of coral explants: a model organism for cnidarian–dinoflagellate studies

© 2014, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Coral cell cultures made from reef-building scleractinian corals have the potential to aid in the pursuit of understanding of the cnidarian–dinoflagellate symbiosis. Various methods have previously been described for the production of cell cultures in vitro with a range of success and longevity. In this study, viable tissue spheroids containing host tissue and symbionts (coral explants) were grown from the tissues of Fungia granulosa. The cultured explants remained viable for over 2 months and showed morphological similarities in tissue structure and internal microenvironment to reef-building scleractinian corals. The photophysiology of the explants (1 week old) closely matched that of the parent coral F. granulosa. This study provides the first empirical basis for supporting the use of coral explants as laboratory models for studying coral symbioses. In particular, it highlights how these small, self-sustaining, skeleton-free models can be useful for a number of molecular, genetic and physiological analyses necessary for investigating host–symbiont interactions at the microscale

Correspondence - Ralph W. Gardner and P. L. Elliott

Correspondence from Ralph W. Gardner to Phillip Loven Elliott discussing who they would suggest for the speaker for the dedication exercises on Easter [at Gardner-Webb College]. Gardner suggests the Under Secretary of State, Jimmy Webb, but doubts he will be able to attend, busy from the State Department reorganization.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-buildings-and-grounds-o-max-gardner-building/1021/thumbnail.jp

Correspondence - Ralph W. Gardner and P. L. Elliott

Correspondence from Ralph W. Gardner to Phillip Loven Elliott inquiring if Mrs. Vicks and Mr. Fisher have received Senator Broughton has written them, accepting the invitation to speak at Gardner-Webb Collegehttps://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-buildings-and-grounds-o-max-gardner-building/1019/thumbnail.jp

The contribution of executive control to semantic cognition : Convergent evidence from semantic aphasia and executive dysfunction

Semantic cognition, as described by the controlled semantic cognition (CSC) framework (Rogers et al., Neuropsychologia, 76, 220), involves two key components: activation of coherent, generalizable concepts within a heteromodal 'hub' in combination with modality-specific features (spokes), and a constraining mechanism that manipulates and gates this knowledge to generate time- and task-appropriate behaviour. Executive-semantic goal representations, largely supported by executive regions such as frontal and parietal cortex, are thought to allow the generation of non-dominant aspects of knowledge when these are appropriate for the task or context. Semantic aphasia (SA) patients have executive-semantic deficits, and these are correlated with general executive impairment. If the CSC proposal is correct, patients with executive impairment should not only exhibit impaired semantic cognition, but should also show characteristics that align with those observed in SA. This possibility remains largely untested, as patients selected on the basis that they show executive impairment (i.e., with 'dysexecutive syndrome') have not been extensively tested on tasks tapping semantic control and have not been previously compared with SA cases. We explored conceptual processing in 12 patients showing symptoms consistent with dysexecutive syndrome (DYS) and 24 SA patients, using a range of multimodal semantic assessments which manipulated control demands. Patients with executive impairments, despite not being selected to show semantic impairments, nevertheless showed parallel patterns to SA cases. They showed strong effects of distractor strength, cues and miscues, and probe-target distance, plus minimal effects of word frequency on comprehension (unlike semantic dementia patients with degradation of conceptual knowledge). This supports a component process account of semantic cognition in which retrieval is shaped by control processes, and confirms that deficits in SA patients reflect difficulty controlling semantic retrieval

Pollution Control by Effluent Charges: It Works in the Federal Republic of Germany, Why Not in the U.S.

This article describes the recent Federal Republic of Germany effluent charge law and the political and legal background that permitted this law to be enacted. The impact of that law is assessed, although the assessment is necessarily tentative in view of the short experience with the law to date. The economic and legal implications of enacting an effluent charge law in the United States also are analyzed. Included in this discussion are the advantages and disadvantages of state vs. federal enactment, the constitutional objections that might be raised to such a law, and how it might be coordinated with existing water pollution control laws in the United States

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and dimethylated sulphur compounds in coral explants under acute thermal stress

© 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. Coral bleaching is intensifying with global climate change. Although the causes for these catastrophic events are well understood, the cellular mechanism that triggers bleaching is not well established. Our understanding of coral bleaching processes is hindered by the lack of robust methods for studying interactions between host and symbiont at the single-cell level. Here, we exposed coral explants to acute thermal stress and measured oxidative stress, more specifically, reactive oxygen species (ROS), in individual symbiont cells. Furthermore, we measured concentrations of dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO) to elucidate the role of these compounds in coral antioxidant function. This work demonstrates the application of coral explants for investigating coral physiology and biochemistry under thermal stress and delivers a new approach to study host- symbiont interactions at the microscale, allowing us to directly link intracellular ROS with DMSP and DMSO dynamics

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE

Combined search for the quarks of a sequential fourth generation

Results are presented from a search for a fourth generation of quarks produced singly or in pairs in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2011. A novel strategy has been developed for a combined search for quarks of the up and down type in decay channels with at least one isolated muon or electron. Limits on the mass of the fourth-generation quarks and the relevant Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements are derived in the context of a simple extension of the standard model with a sequential fourth generation of fermions. The existence of mass-degenerate fourth-generation quarks with masses below 685 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for minimal off-diagonal mixing between the third- and the fourth-generation quarks. With a mass difference of 25 GeV between the quark masses, the obtained limit on the masses of the fourth-generation quarks shifts by about +/- 20 GeV. These results significantly reduce the allowed parameter space for a fourth generation of fermions.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

The medical student

The Medical Student was published from 1888-1921 by the students of Boston University School of Medicine