Regulation of insulin receptor function

Resistance to the biological actions of insulin contributes to the development of type 2 diabetes and risk of cardiovascular disease. A reduced biological response to insulin by tissues results from an impairment in the cascade of phosphorylation events within cells that regulate the activity of enzymes comprising the insulin signaling pathway. In most models of insulin resistance, there is evidence that this decrement in insulin signaling begins with either the activation or substrate kinase activity of the insulin receptor (IR), which is the only component of the pathway that is unique to insulin action. Activation of the IR can be impaired by post-translational modifications of the protein involving serine phosphorylation, or by binding to inhibiting proteins such as PC-1 or members of the SOCS or Grb protein families. The impact of these processes on the conformational changes and phosphorylation events required for full signaling activity, as well as the role of these mechanisms in human disease, is reviewed in this article. Received 3 August 2006; received after revision 1 December 2006; accepted 8 January 2007     

产生快中子的长寿命氚化钛靶

中子束诊断技术在先进制造业、炸药、走私吕检查、医疗和其它工业中都得到了广泛的应用。在轰击能量低的情况下，产生高通量快中子的最佳核反应是＾３Ｈ（ｄ，ｎ）＾４Ｈｅ，即ｄ－Ｔ反应。现在运用ｄ－Ｔ反应的中子发生器的寿命受轰击是氚气从靶上逐渐释出的限制。本文是一篇研究限制氚束粒子取代氚束粒子取代氚，从而防止氚气释放造成中子产额减少的工作进展报告。可以预计，利用固定在高氢热扩散率基片上，如铌基础上的薄氚钛靶，     

Epigenetic asymmetry of imprinted genes in plant gametes

Plant imprinted genes show parent-of-origin expression in seed endosperm, but little is known about the nature of parental imprints in gametes before fertilization. We show here that single differentially methylated regions (DMRs) correlate with allele-specific expression of two maternally expressed genes in the seed and that one DMR is differentially methylated between gametes. Thus, plants seem to have developed similar strategies as mammals to epigenetically mark imprinted genes.     

The life span of the biosphere revisited

A decade ago, Lovelock and Whitfield raised the question of how much longer the biosphere can survive on Earth. They pointed out that, despite the current fossil-fuel induced increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration, the long-term trend should be in the opposite direction: as increased solar luminosity warms the Earth, silicate rocks should weather more readily, causing atmospheric CO2 to decrease. In their model, atmospheric CO2 falls below the critical level for C3 photosynthesis, 150 parts per million (p.p.m.), in only 100 Myr, and this is assumed to mark the demise of the biosphere as a whole. Here, we re-examine this problem using a more elaborate model that includes a more accurate treatment of the greenhouse effect of CO2, a biologically mediated weathering parameterization, and the realization that C4 photosynthesis can persist to much lower concentrations of atmospheric CO2(<10 p.p.m.). We find that a C4-plant-based biosphere could survive for at least another 0.9 Gyr to 1.5 Gyr after the present time, depending respectively on whether CO2 or temperature is the limiting factor. Within an additional 1 Gyr, Earth may lose its water to space, thereby following the path of its sister planet, Venus.     

Magnetoelectrics: is CdCr2S4 a multiferroic relaxor?

Materials showing simultaneous ferroelectric and magnetic ordering are attracting a great deal of interest because of their unusual physics and potential applications. Hemberger et al. have reported relaxor-like dielectric properties and colossal magnetocapacitance (in excess of 500%) for the cubic spinel compound CdCr2S4 and related isomorphs, concluding that CdCr2S4 is a multiferroic relaxor. We argue here, however, that their results might also be explained by a conductive artefact.     

Multimodal fast optical interrogation of neural circuitry

Our understanding of the cellular implementation of systems-level neural processes like action, thought and emotion has been limited by the availability of tools to interrogate specific classes of neural cells within intact, living brain tissue. Here we identify and develop an archaeal light-driven chloride pump (NpHR) from Natronomonas pharaonis for temporally precise optical inhibition of neural activity. NpHR allows either knockout of single action potentials, or sustained blockade of spiking. NpHR is compatible with ChR2, the previous optical excitation technology we have described, in that the two opposing probes operate at similar light powers but with well-separated action spectra. NpHR, like ChR2, functions in mammals without exogenous cofactors, and the two probes can be integrated with calcium imaging in mammalian brain tissue for bidirectional optical modulation and readout of neural activity. Likewise, NpHR and ChR2 can be targeted together to Caenorhabditis elegans muscle and cholinergic motor neurons to control locomotion bidirectionally. NpHR and ChR2 form a complete system for multimodal, high-speed, genetically targeted, all-optical interrogation of living neural circuits.     

A current filamentation mechanism for breaking magnetic field lines during reconnection

During magnetic reconnection, the field lines must break and reconnect to release the energy that drives solar and stellar flares and other explosive events in space and in the laboratory. Exactly how this happens has been unclear, because dissipation is needed to break magnetic field lines and classical collisions are typically weak. Ion-electron drag arising from turbulence, dubbed 'anomalous resistivity', and thermal momentum transport are two mechanisms that have been widely invoked. Measurements of enhanced turbulence near reconnection sites in space and in the laboratory support the anomalous resistivity idea but there has been no demonstration from measurements that this turbulence produces the necessary enhanced drag. Here we report computer simulations that show that neither of the two previously favoured mechanisms controls how magnetic field lines reconnect in the plasmas of greatest interest, those in which the magnetic field dominates the energy budget. Rather, we find that when the current layers that form during magnetic reconnection become too intense, they disintegrate and spread into a complex web of filaments that causes the rate of reconnection to increase abruptly. This filamentary web can be explored in the laboratory or in space with satellites that can measure the resulting electromagnetic turbulence.