Priority and privilege in scientific discovery

The priority rule in science has been interpreted as a behavior regulator for the scientific community, which benefits society by adequately structuring the distribution of intellectual labor across pre-existing research programs. Further, it has been lauded as an intuitively fair way to reward scientists for their contributions, as a special case of society’s “grand reward scheme”. However, we will argue that the current formal framework utilized to model the priority rule idealizes away important aspects of credit attribution, and does so in a way that impacts the conclusions drawn regarding its function in scientific communities. In particular, we consider the social dynamics of credit attribution in order to show that the priority rule can foster structural disadvantages in socially diverse science, as well as drive the distribution of intellectual labor away from optimal.     

北亚热带毛竹林林冠截留模型研究

对北亚热带毛竹林冠截留影响因素如林外降雨、透流雨强度、叶面积指数、林冠干燥度和蒸发系数等进行观测研究,构建了林冠截留模型。结果表明：当实际截留量较大时,模拟值误差大;当实际截留量小时,模拟效果较佳。为了反映林冠截留模型相对误差分布状况,按照相对误差绝对值从小到大（<5 %、5 %~10 %、10 %~20 %、>20 %）的顺序分为4段进行累加统计,得到的实际截留量分别为4512、6944、4079、1583 mm,模拟截留量分别为4482、677、3514、1161 mm,全年林冠截留相对误差为93 %,小于10 %,模拟效果较理想。     

Induction of formation of presynaptic terminals in neuroblastoma cells by synapsin IIb

The synapsins are a family of closely related phosphoproteins (termed synapsins Ia, Ib, IIa and IIb) associated with synaptic vesicles and implicated in the short-term regulation of neurotransmitter release from nerve endings. During development, expression of the synapsins correlates temporally with synapse formation, but there has been no direct evidence that they are involved in synaptogenesis. Here we report that overexpression of synapsin IIb in the neuroblastoma x glioma hybrid clonal cell line NG108-15 leads, during cell differentiation, to marked increases in the number of neuritic varicosities and in the numbers of small clear vesicles and large dense core vesicles per varicosity, as well as to the appearance of synapse-like cell-cell contacts. Thus, synapsin IIb may be involved in the regulation of synapse formation and, as a result, in long-term neuronal signalling.     

Quantitative determination of adenovirus antigens by means of a fluorescent precipitin test

Zusammenfassung Es wird die Anwendung eines quantitativen Fluoreszenz-Präzipitin-Tests für Adenovirus-Antigene beschrieben. Die Methode wurde für 11 verschiedene Adenoviren angewendet und hat sich als relativ typenspezifisch erwiesen.

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This investigation was supported in part by contract PH43-63-80 from the National Institutes of Health.     

Metagenomic and functional analysis of hindgut microbiota of a wood-feeding higher termite

From the standpoints of both basic research and biotechnology, there is considerable interest in reaching a clearer understanding of the diversity of biological mechanisms employed during lignocellulose degradation. Globally, termites are an extremely successful group of wood-degrading organisms and are therefore important both for their roles in carbon turnover in the environment and as potential sources of biochemical catalysts for efforts aimed at converting wood into biofuels. Only recently have data supported any direct role for the symbiotic bacteria in the gut of the termite in cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Here we use a metagenomic analysis of the bacterial community resident in the hindgut paunch of a wood-feeding 'higher' Nasutitermes species (which do not contain cellulose-fermenting protozoa) to show the presence of a large, diverse set of bacterial genes for cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Many of these genes were expressed in vivo or had cellulase activity in vitro, and further analyses implicate spirochete and fibrobacter species in gut lignocellulose degradation. New insights into other important symbiotic functions including H2 metabolism, CO2-reductive acetogenesis and N2 fixation are also provided by this first system-wide gene analysis of a microbial community specialized towards plant lignocellulose degradation. Our results underscore how complex even a 1-microl environment can be.     

Molecular identification of a human DNA repair gene following DNA-mediated gene transfer

Although it has long been evident that the response of eukaryotes to DNA damaging agents is determined by the effectiveness of a variety of DNA repair systems, there is little detailed knowledge of the nature of these systems or the genes which control them. In humans, a number of hereditary conditions, including xeroderma pigmentosum, ataxia telangiectasia and Fanconi's anaemia, exhibit increased sensitivity to a variety of DNA damaging agents and a predisposition to cancer, suggesting a defect in some aspect of DNA repair. This report describes the identification of a human DNA repair gene following DNA-mediated gene transfer into Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) mutant cells, that like xeroderma pigmentosum cells, are sensitive to a variety of DNA damaging agents and are defective in the initial incision step of DNA repair. The resulting transformants exhibit normal resistance to DNA damaging agents and independent transformants demonstrate a common set of human DNA sequences associated with a human DNA repair gene. These observations provide the basis for the isolation and characterization of the human genes responsible for DNA repair.