NIH nominee draws scrutiny

Under Scrutiny

How evolution draws trade-offs

Recent empirical evidence suggest that tradeoff shapes can evolve, challenging the classica image of their high entrenchment. Here we model the evolution of the physiological mechanism that controls the allocation of resources to two traits, by mutating the expression and the conformation of its constitutive hormones and receptors. We show that trade-off shapes do indeed evolve in this model th...

A protease draws first blood

8 intact protein antigens. But, presumably, lysosomal proteases must work in concert to deliver a carefully orchestrated series of cuts if the correct peptide is to be generated. Antigen-presenting cells from knockout mice lacking cathepsins D, B or L show no obvious defects in antigen presentation, indicating that other proteases are involved in both removing Ii and converting the antigen into...

Folic acid under scrutiny

A consideration of the absorption and metabolism of folic acid in human subjects is timely, owing to the recent recommendation by the UK Government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition that a mandatory folic acid fortification programme be implemented in the UK. In this issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Wright et al. take us through the processes of absorption and metabolism of...

Scrutiny of Einstein’s Causality

In the present paper, the so-called Einstein’s causality is scrutinized and proven to be an illusion, a sort of mathematical fiction, and the causality as a well-established universal principle would be absolutely valid for subluminal, luminal and superluminal signals under any natural and/or artificial circumstances. It is also shown that any attempt to apply special relativity theory to super...