The protein meta-structure: a novel concept for chemical and molecular biology

The ultimate goal of bioinformatics or computational chemical biology is the sequence-based prediction of protein functionality. However, due to the degeneracy of the primary sequence code there is no unambiguous relationship. The degeneracy can be partly lifted by going to higher levels of abstraction and, for example, incorporating 3D structural information. However, sometimes even at this conceptual level functional ambiguities often remain. Here a novel conceptual framework is described (the protein meta-structure). At this level of abstraction, the protein structure is viewed as an intricate network of interacting residues. This novel conception offers unique possibilities for chemical (molecular) biology, structural genomics and drug discovery. In this review some prototypical applications will be presented that serve to illustrate the potential of the methodology.     

The particle concept and solid state physics

Zusammenfassung Der Begriff des Elementarteilchens ist zentral in der Struktur der modernen Physik. Sein Ursprung und seine historische Entwicklung werden erläutert. Die Festkörperphysik hat zu dieser Entwicklung einen speziellen Beitrag geleistet; der Beitrag ist das Quasiteilchen, das heisst eine Anregung im Festkörper, die sich wie ein Elementarteilchen verhält. Es ist endlich gezeigt, dass die Unterscheidung zwischen Teilchen und Quasiteilchen nicht gründsätzlich ist.     

The chemical ecology of diabroticites and cucurbitaceae

Summary The coevolutionary association between plants of the family Cucurbitaceae and beetles of the tribe Luperini (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae; Galerucinae) is mediated to a large extent by chemicals of the host plants. The kairomones involved in host selction by the rootworm beetles are the oxygenated tetracyclic triterpenoid cucurbitacins that act as arrestants and feeding stimulants and a number of volatile cyclic plant blossom components that act as long-range orientation cues. The complex ecological and evolutionary factors regulating the chemical ecology of host-plant selection are discussed.     

The concept of intelligibility in modern physics (1948)

This is an English translation of Paul Feyerabend's earliest extant essay “Der Begriff der Verständlichkeit in der modernen Physik” (1948). In it, Feyerabend defends positivism as a progressive framework for scientific research in certain stages of scientific development. He argues that in physics visualizability (Anschaulichkeit) and intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) are time-conditioned concepts: what is deemed visualizable in the development of physical theories is relative to a specific historical context and changes over time. He concludes that from time to time the abandonment of visualizability is crucial for progress in physics, as it is conducive to major theory change, illustrating the point on the basis of advances in atomic theory.     

Geminus and the concept of mean motion in Greco-Latin astronomy

Conclusion Geminus account of lunar motion in chapter 18 of hisIntroductio astronomiae is, in our view, an important contribution to Greco-Latin astronomy because, in attempting to reconstruct arithmetically (the parameters of) the Moon's motion in longitude, he undermines the task astronomers had hitherto set for themselves. This undermining of a commonly acknowledged view of the purpose of astronomy is articulated in a whole new set of questions concerning the nature and place of both observation and mathematical reasoning in the science of the heavens. Yet, one must not overlook the fact thatGeminus reconstruction also indicates resources for addressing these questions. Of these resources, the most powerful proved to be the idea that irregular motion could be quantified as a systematic departure from a mean motion, and the idea that observational data could be organized and structured by means of genetic arithmetical reconstructions.But, since we limit our attention to extant treatises and decline to speculate about works or parts of works that have not survived, we must say that it would takePtolemy to discern the new direction for astronomy thatGeminus opened up and to pursue it. In part, this involved straightening out the conflated conception of mean motion in chapter 18 — the qua arithmetic mean daily displacement can only be anapparent lunar motion in longitude and not one the Moonreally makes, but the same need not be true of the qua periodic mean daily displacement — and determining its proper relation to real and apparent planetary motion. Indeed,Ptolemy's genius lay, we think, in seeing that even though, in assimilating Babylonian astronomy, earlier and contemporary Greco-Latin writers betrayed a confused, inconsistent, and unsophisticated grasp of the proper role of arithmetic, geometry, and observation in astronomical argument [seeBowen 1994], the solution lay in a mathematical reconstruction of the observed celestial motions, in which mean motion played an essential role.     

The chemical nature of the pig blood-group substances dissolved in the serum

Zusammenfassung In Schweineseren finden sich die Blutgruppenantigene A, Na and Nb in gelöster Form. Aus den entsprechenden Schweineseren wurden einerseits die Totallipide, andererseits die Mucoproteide extrahiert und in immunologischen Hemmungstests auf ihre Aktivität im A- und N-System untersucht. Es ergab sich, dass die determinanten Gruppen der Na- und Nb-Antigene an Mucoproteide gebunden sind, während die determinante Gruppe des A-Antigens sowohl an ein Mucoproteid als auch an ein Lipid gebunden ist.     

The source of chemical bonding

Developments in the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of the chemical bond are traced with a view to examining the evolving conception of the covalent bond. Beginning with the first quantum mechanical resolution of the apparent paradox in Lewis’s conception of a shared electron pair bond by Heitler and London, the ensuing account takes up the challenge molecular orbital theory seemed to pose to the classical conception of the bond. We will see that the threat of delocalisation can be overstated, although it is questionable whether this should be seen as reinstating the issue of the existence of the chemical bond. More salient are some recent developments in a longstanding discussion of how to understand the causal aspects of the bonding interaction—the nature of the force involved in the covalent link—which are taken up in the latter part of the paper.     

The chemical structure of capreomycin

Summary The chemical structure of capreomycin, antituberculous peptide antibiotic, was revised from the results of NMR-analysis in comparison with tuberactinomycins. Capreomycin IA and IB were concluded to possess the similar amino acid sequences in their cyclic peptide moieties to those of tuberactionomycins.