The normal development of the lung is dependent on signal transduction and communication within and between cells. A major family of proteins known as guanine nucleotide regulatory proteins (G proteins) is used in translating extracellular signals into intracellular events [1–3]. In particular, the high molecular weight G proteins, which are heterotrimers composed of α, β and γ subunits, have b...

In developing countries, foetal wastage from slaughtered ruminants and the associated economic losses appear to be substantial. However, only a limited number of studies have comprehensively evaluated these trends. In the current study, secondary (retrospective) and primary data were collected and evaluated to estimate the prevalence of foetal wastage from cattle, sheep and goats slaughtered at...

Over a century ago Bennewitz (1828), when delivering a diabetic woman, observed that the giant foetus whose head had been born but whose shoulders were stuck fast 'seemed anxious and sighed with a clear voice'. In this depressed state the infant died, as so many of his kind have done since. Pregnancy complicating diabetes and the development of children born to diabetic women became problems on...