AMONG THE fantastic creatures that Homer described in the Iliad is the chimera, a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. Biologically, the chimera is unimaginable-a quintessentially mythical creature. Yet as an improbable hybrid, it also served as a model for naming another, very real product of cellular biochemistry in the 1970s. Using a d...

The sarA locus in Staphylococcus aureus controls the expression of many virulence genes. The sarA regulatory molecule, SarA, is a 14.7-kDa protein (124 residues) that binds to the promoter region of target genes. Here we report the 2.6 A-resolution x-ray crystal structure of the dimeric winged helix SarA protein, which differs from the published SarA structure dramatically. In the crystal packi...

In present studies several attempts have been made to reduce the amount of trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors in winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) mutants developed through induced mutation. The low seed TI (trypsin inhibitor) lines comprised long pod-5 and long pod-2 mutant lines. The low tuber TI feature could be noted in the mutant population. Such lines were long pod-5, large leaf/...

The colonization of an introduced plant by soapberry bugs in Florida has resulted in the rapid evolution of a distinctive “host race.” Differences in the synchrony and persistence of local seed crops may have favored interracial differentiation in ßight/life history tactics. To advance previous work, we quantiÞed seed availability in individual native and introduced host plants. We tested the p...

In this paper we describe our attempt to create a nature-like simulation model of artificial creatures. The model includes physical simulation of creatures, their interaction with the environment, their neural network control, and both directed and open-ended evolution. We describe a complex, three-dimensional simulation system, where various fitness criteria can be selected for evolving specie...