森林生物技术走出实验室举步艰难

新的、高密度树木种植正在给林业生物技术带来迅速的变化。但是如果不能克服生态风险和经济障碍．这些新的方法或许永远也无法使用——     

电磁场的生物效应

本书是一本关于电磁场生物效应的新著。电磁场可以对各种生物产生影响，包括低频率和高频率及不同强度的电磁场的作用，因此，电磁场的研究和技术应用及环境作用等方面都十分重要。本书的内容很广泛，涉及电磁场的机理、模型化、生物效应、治疗效应、国际标准、照射判别准则等。     

剑桥导游太阳系

本书以最新的视角描述了行星和月亮。开始用短短的篇幅介绍行星的观测和发现历史，然后介绍行星及其卫星的共同特点、演化过程和状况。在各章节中讲述各个行星和太阳系其它天体，包括新近的多种空间任务，从阿波罗探月到近期的木星和火星探测。书中充满了至关重要的事实和信息，以及极其精美的彩色照片。     

Stepwise replication identifies a low-producing lymphotoxin-alpha allele as a major risk factor for early-onset leprosy

Host genetics has an important role in leprosy, and variants in the shared promoter region of PARK2 and PACRG were the first major susceptibility factors identified by positional cloning. Here we report the linkage disequilibrium mapping of the second linkage peak of our previous genome-wide scan, located close to the HLA complex. In both a Vietnamese familial sample and an Indian case-control sample, the low-producing lymphotoxin-alpha (LTA)+80 A allele was significantly associated with an increase in leprosy risk (P = 0.007 and P = 0.01, respectively). Analysis of an additional case-control sample from Brazil and an additional familial sample from Vietnam showed that the LTA+80 effect was much stronger in young individuals. In the combined sample of 298 Vietnamese familial trios, the odds ratio of leprosy for LTA+80 AA/AC versus CC subjects was 2.11 (P = 0.000024), which increased to 5.63 (P = 0.0000004) in the subsample of 121 trios of affected individuals diagnosed before 16 years of age. In addition to identifying LTA as a major gene associated with early-onset leprosy, our study highlights the critical role of case- and population-specific factors in the dissection of susceptibility variants in complex diseases.     

Ionic Conductivity and Dielectric Properties of the PAN-Ion Conducting Polymers

1 Results In this work, the ion conducting films of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) containing lithium triflate (LiCF3SO3) and sodium triflate (NaCF3SO3) were prepared by the solution casting technique. The ionic conductivity measurements were carried out using impedance spectroscopy. The room temperature conductivity for pure polyacrylonitrile film is 1.51×10-11 S·cm-1. The room temperature conductivity for the highest conducting film in the PAN-LiCF3SO3 and PAN-NaCF3SO3 systems is 1.51×10-5 and 7.99×10-6 S·cm-1, respectively. The conductivity-temperature studies were performed in the temperature range between 303 and 373 K. The results for the variation of the conductivity with temperature obeys the VTF law. The increase and decrease in the number of ions can be implied from the plots of dielectric constant, εr-frequency and dielectric loss, εi-frequency.     

Systematic pathway analysis using high-resolution fitness profiling of combinatorial gene deletions

Systematic genetic interaction studies have illuminated many cellular processes. Here we quantitatively examine genetic interactions among 26 Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes conferring resistance to the DNA-damaging agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), as determined by chemogenomic fitness profiling of pooled deletion strains. We constructed 650 double-deletion strains, corresponding to all pairings of these 26 deletions. The fitness of single- and double-deletion strains were measured in the presence and absence of MMS. Genetic interactions were defined by combining principles from both statistical and classical genetics. The resulting network predicts that the Mph1 helicase has a role in resolving homologous recombination-derived DNA intermediates that is similar to (but distinct from) that of the Sgs1 helicase. Our results emphasize the utility of small molecules and multifactorial deletion mutants in uncovering functional relationships and pathway order.     

A genome-wide association study for celiac disease identifies risk variants in the region harboring IL2 and IL21

We tested 310,605 SNPs for association in 778 individuals with celiac disease and 1,422 controls. Outside the HLA region, the most significant finding (rs13119723; P = 2.0 x 10(-7)) was in the KIAA1109-TENR-IL2-IL21 linkage disequilibrium block. We independently confirmed association in two further collections (strongest association at rs6822844, 24 kb 5' of IL21; meta-analysis P = 1.3 x 10(-14), odds ratio = 0.63), suggesting that genetic variation in this region predisposes to celiac disease.