Sometimes, a scientific development that might be expected to trigger media frenzy and noisy protest fails to do so. One example was the cloning of Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1996. Given the science fiction background, this event could easily have provoked widespread public alarm and hostility. Dolly's predominantly reasonable reception owed a good deal...

Chlorthalidone (CTD) is the best diuretic for the treatment of hypertension, both in blood pressure–lowering efficacy and, most importantly, in prevention of hypertensionrelated morbidity and mortality. Despite this fact, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) has been and continues to be by far the most frequently prescribed diuretic in the United States.1 Even among patients with resistant hypertension, ...

If you are one who seeks out the Amateur Scientist section in the Scientific American each month for the beauty of the illustrations and ideas presented for the young investigator, you may enjoy this latest addition to the literature illustrating in an applied manner some electronic devices for instrumentation in the behavioral sciences. The investigator working alone in a small laboratory, wit...

The influences of a geographical location on floristic composition, horizontal structure, and biomass of the herb layer in pine and mixed pine forest communities along climatic and pollution gradients in East Germany, Poland, and Belarus were determined. Phytosociological records were collected in permanent plots in May 1995. Each record covered an area of 400 m2. The floristic composition of t...

Flavonoids are among the most widely distributed natural products in plants with 2000 different compounds occuring in free forms or as glycosides. They have assigned differant roles in nature as signalling molecules. The major and general structures are Flavones, Flavonones, Flavonols, Isoflavones and Anthocyanidin. Methylated, acylated, prenylated or sulfated derivatives can also be met. Flavo...

Flavonoids are among the most widely distributed natural products in plants with 2000 different compounds occuring in free forms or as glycosides. They have assigned differant roles in nature as signalling molecules. The major and general structures are Flavones, Flavonones, Flavonols, Isoflavones and Anthocyanidin. Methylated, acylated, prenylated or sulfated derivatives can also be met. Flavo...

Gene targeting in mice is a powerful tool for identifying the in vivo functions of proteins and for producing new animal models of human diseases. In the conventional approach, the gene encoding a protein of interest is disrupted by homologous recombination in embryonic stem (ES) cells. Targeted ES cells are injected into blastocysts to produce chimeric mice, which are then bred to produce knoc...

Phylogenetic analyses of 159 DNA sequences from the nuclear rDNA internal transcribed spacer regionwere conducted to evaluate the monophyly of the herbaceous, perennial genera of Apiaceae subfamily Apioideae endemic to North America (north of Mexico) and to determine the relationships of those elements that currently comprise Cymopterus within the group. The results of a previous phylogenetic s...

We studied the phylogeny of 22 accessions of Daucus and seven accessions in related genera, with DNA sequences from eight nuclear orthologs and one plastid (psbA/trnH) region. Maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses of the concatenated data matrix of 7,212 aligned nucleotides provided excellent bootstrap support for many clades. Concordant with prior molecular results Pseudorlaya pumi...

Animals fed cholesterol accumulate several types of cholesterol-rich lipoproteins in their plasma and ultimately develop cholesteryl ester deposition in tissue macrophages. Previous studies in the cholesterol-fed dog have shown that one class of cholesterol-rich lipoproteins, P-migrating very low density lipoproteins (P-VLDI,, density < 1.006 g/ml), possesses a unique ability to produce cellula...