Job: A Christian Sisyphus? Humor and the Triumph o f Humań Experience

Over the past decades humor and laughter have come to be accepted as serious topics in academic research and a number of diverse theories on humor and the role of laughter have been developed. These theories, however, consider laughter mainly in its daily aspects or in normal life situations. Starting ffom Albert Camus’ concept of the happy Sisyphus, this paper considers whether the figurę of Job, who seems to inhabit a comparably absurd situation, could also be considered as happy, even laughing. The paper concludes with a distinctive reading of the divine words found at the end of The Book of Job that ma> be fundamental in linking Sisyphus w.th Job

Conservation of diatom biodiversity: issues and prospects

The diatoms are microscopic unicellular plants, which in spite of their tiny size (normally within the range of 0.01-0.1 mm) play an enormous role in the functioning of the biosphere. Their contribution to the global production of organic matter created on Earth through photosynthesis is estimated as 20-25%. Very recently, the results of sensitive, fine-grained taxonomical, biological and biogeographical studies have provided strong evidence that the widely accepted dogma that microorganisms are predominantly cosmopolitan does not apply in case of the diatoms. Many diatom species may be endemics and some of them seem to be restricted to a small geographical area, which makes conservation of diatoms a significant issue. It is time to realise that efforts to develop realistic conservation strategies for aquatic environments, both at the local and global scale should include the diatoms and possibly also other groups of microorganisms. Some ways of how the diatoms could be involved in this process are presented for discussion

Endothelin XIII

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Ommatidial heterogeneity in the compound eye of the male small white butterfly, Pieris rapae crucivora

The ommatidia in the ventral two-thirds of the compound eye of male Pieris rapae crucivora are not uniform. Each ommatidium contains nine photoreceptor cells. Four cells (R1-4) form the distal two-thirds of the rhabdom, four cells (R5-8) approximately occupy the proximal one-third of the rhabdom, and the ninth cell (R9) takes up a minor basal part of the rhabdom. The R5-8 photoreceptor cells contain clusters of reddish pigment adjacent to the rhabdom. From the position of the pigment clusters, three types of ommatidia can be identified: the trapezoidal (type I), square (type II), and rectangular type (type III). Microspectrophotometry with an epi-illumination microscope has revealed that the reflectance spectra of type I and type III ommatidia peak at 635 nm and those of type II ommatidia peak at 675 nm. The bandwith of the reflectance spectra is 40-50 nm. Type II ommatidia strongly fluoresce under ultra-violet and violet epi-illumination. The three types of ommatidia are randomly distributed. The ommatidial heterogeneity is presumably crucial for color discrimination

Thymoquinone causes endothelium-dependent augmentation of contraction depending on activation of soluble guanylyl cyclase in isolated arteries

Poster - Vascular Responsiveness: no. 4/7INTRODUCTION: Experiments were designed to determine the effects of thymoquinone, an alkaloid with in vivo vasodilator properties, in isolated arteries. METHODS: Rings, with or without endothelium, of rat mesenteric arteries, rat aorta and porcine coronary arteries were suspended in conventional organ chambers for isometric tension recording. Certain rings were incubated with inhibitors of nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor (L-N^G-nitroarginine methyl ester, L-NAME) or soluble guanylyl cyclase (1H-[1,2,4]oxadiazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1-one, ODQ). They were contracted with phenylephrine (rat arteries) or prostaglandin F_2alpha (porcine coronary arteries) and exposed to increasing ...postprin

Liquid Chromatography Electron Capture Dissociation Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-ECD-MS/MS) versus Liquid Chromatography Collision-induced Dissociation Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-CID-MS/MS) for the Identification of Proteins

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) offers many advantages over the more traditional fragmentation techniques for the analysis of peptides and proteins, although the question remains: How suitable is ECD for incorporation within proteomic strategies for the identification of proteins? Here, we compare LC-ECD-MS/MS and LC-CID-MS/MS as techniques for the identification of proteins.Experiments were performed on a hybrid linear ion trap–Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer. Replicate analyses of a six-protein (bovine serum albumin, apo-transferrin,lysozyme, cytochrome c, alcohol dehydrogenase, and β-galactosidase) tryptic digest were performed and the results analyzed on the basis of overall protein sequence coverage and sequence tag lengths within individual peptides. The results show that although protein coverage was lower for LC-ECDMS/MS than for LC-CID-MS/MS, LC-ECD-MS/MS resulted in longer peptide sequence tags,providing greater confidence in protein assignment

Measuring non-polyaminated lipocalin-2 for cardiometabolic risk assessment

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