Guest editorials, commentaries, challenges, and accomplishments

GUEST COMMENTARIES Diffusion in Biofilms

When microorganisms are grown in planktonic culture, diffusion is usually of little consequence. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that planktonic cultures are generally agitated, and the resulting fluid flow transports solutes rapidly, resulting in a well-mixed system. Transport that occurs as a solute is carried by the bulk flow of a fluid (convection) is generally much fast...

IPCC: accomplishments, controversies and challenges

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has successfully produced four assessment reports since 1990 along with a number of special reports and greenhouse gas inventory guidelines. It has very rigorous and robust procedures and guidelines for preparing the assessment reports largely based on synthesis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature. IPCC has attracted controve...

Chiral surfaces: accomplishments and challenges.

Chiral surfaces serve as media for enantioselective chemical processes. Their chirality is dictated by atomic- and molecular-level structure, and their enantioselectivity is determined by their enantiospecific interactions with chiral adsorbates. This Perspective describes three types of chiral metal surfaces: those modified by adsorption of chiral molecules, those templated by chiral lattices ...

GUEST COMMENTARIES A Unique Sensor Histidine Kinase

Sporulation initiation in Bacillus species is controlled by an extended version of two-component signal transduction systems, termed phosphorelay (4). The cascade of His3Asp3 His3Asp phosphotransfer is typically initiated by the ATPdependent autophosphorylation of the histidine kinase domain. In this issue, Scaramozzino et al. (11) reported that a sporulation histidine kinase, BA2291, in Bacill...

GUEST COMMENTARIES Prokaryotic Glycoproteins: Unexplored but Important