Evans v. Michigan: The Impact of Judicial Error on Double Jeopardy Protection

This commentary previews an upcoming Supreme Court case, Evans v. Michigan, in which the Court has an opportunity to clarify the bounds of the prohibition on double jeopardy. More specifically, the Court will determine what, if any, impact judicial error has on double jeopardy protection under the Fifth Amendment

Pathogen-origin horizontally transferred genes contribute to the evolution of Lepidopteran insects

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), a source of genetic variation, is generally considered to facilitate hosts' adaptability to environments. However, convincing evidence supporting the significant contribution of the transferred genes to the evolution of metazoan recipients is rare.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, based on sequence data accumulated to date, we used a unified method consisting of similarity search and phylogenetic analysis to detect horizontally transferred genes (HTGs) between prokaryotes and five insect species including <it>Drosophila melanogaster</it>, <it>Anopheles gambiae</it>, <it>Bombyx mori</it>, <it>Tribolium castaneum </it>and <it>Apis mellifera</it>. Unexpectedly, the candidate HTGs were not detected in <it>D. melanogaster</it>, <it>An. gambiae </it>and <it>T. castaneum</it>, and 79 genes in <it>Ap. mellifera </it>sieved by the same method were considered as contamination based on other information. Consequently, 14 types of 22 HTGs were detected only in the silkworm. Additionally, 13 types of the detected silkworm HTGs share homologous sequences in species of other Lepidopteran superfamilies, suggesting that the majority of these HTGs were derived from ancient transfer events before the radiation of Ditrysia clade. On the basis of phylogenetic topologies and BLAST search results, donor bacteria of these genes were inferred, respectively. At least half of the predicted donor organisms may be entomopathogenic bacteria. The predicted biochemical functions of these genes include four categories: glycosyl hydrolase family, oxidoreductase family, amino acid metabolism, and others.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The products of HTGs detected in this study may take part in comprehensive physiological metabolism. These genes potentially contributed to functional innovation and adaptability of Lepidopteran hosts in their ancient lineages associated with the diversification of angiosperms. Importantly, our results imply that pathogens may be advantageous to the subsistence and prosperity of hosts through effective HGT events at a large evolutionary scale.</p

(9H-Carbazol-9-ylmeth­yl)diethyl­amine

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C17H20N2, contains two mol­ecules, whose bond lengths and angles differ only slightly. In the crystal, neighbouring mol­ecules form pillar structures via edge-to-face π–π stacking inter­actions [edge-to-face distances = 3.538 (3) and 3.496 (3)Å]

2-(2-Methoxy­phen­yl)butane­dinitrile

In the title compound, C11H10N2O, the butane­dinitrile unit adopts a synclinal conformation. The crystal packing is stabilized by weak inter­molecular C—H⋯N hydrogen bonding