Differential-phase-sensitive neurons in the electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL) of the African electric fish, Gymnarchus niloticus, are sensitive to time disparities on the order of microseconds between afferent action potentials. These action potentials fire in a phase-locked manner in response to the animal's own wave-type electric organ discharges (EODs) (). The time disparity is one of t...

An investigation is currently underway to explain an outbreak of food-borne botulism in Scotland. Three children in the same family were confirmed as having botulism following consumption of a meal made with a jar of korma sauce. Residual sauce from the jar, the jar lid and a remnant of the meal, all tested positive for Clostridium botulinum type A toxin. The children are recovering, although t...

We determined the effect of performing antimicrobial susceptibility tests in five different anaerobic incubation systems: GasPak jar, large GasPak jar, evacuated-gassed anaerobic jar, anaerobic chamber, and Bio-Bag. Growth of the anaerobes was equivalent in all five incubation systems. The results of testing 38 anaerobes against 11 antimicrobial agents were comparable for the anaerobic jars and...

Recent molecular analysis of pathogenic bacterial DNA recovered from a dental abscess in the mummified head of a woman more than sixty years old, buried in K95 in Dra Abu el Naga in the necropolis of western Thebes, has identified Corynebacteria as one of the pathogens present in the New Kingdom, c. 1550-1080 BC, either in the original inhabitant of the tomb or in a later, intrusive New Kingdom...

An atmosphere with reduced oxygen tension is required for the primary isolation of Campylobacter fetus subsp. jejuni. Therefore, we compared use of the conventional atmosphere of 5% oxygen and 8% carbon dioxide with use of a candle jar (17% oxygen and 3% carbon dioxide) for primary isolation of C. fetus subsp. jejuni from 263 positive canine, cattle, and turkey fecal or cecal specimens. At an i...

We develop an approach to utilize anisotropic metamaterials to solve one of the fundamental problems of modern plasmonics--parasitic scattering of surface waves into free-space modes, opening the road to truly two-dimensional plasmonic optics. We illustrate the developed formalism on the examples of plasmonic refractor and plasmonic crystal, and discuss limitations of the developed technique an...

The success of seedling establishment of desert plants is determined by seedling emergence response to an unpredictable precipitation regime. Sand burial is a crucial and frequent environmental stress that impacts seedling establishment on sand dunes. However, little is known about the ecological role of seed mucilage in seedling emergence in arid sandy environments. We hypothesized that seed m...

Correct interactions with extracellular matrix are essential to human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) to maintain their pluripotent self-renewal capacity during in vitro culture. hPSCs secrete laminin 511/521, one of the most important functional basement membrane components, and they can be maintained on human laminin 511 and 521 in defined culture conditions. However, large-scale production of ...