Sexual selection. Are ducks impressed by drakes' display?

Surprisingly few birds have penises, but among those that do, the Argentine lake duck (Oxyura vittata) tops the bill - the penis of this small stifftail duck from South America is shaped like a corkscrew and, at almost half a metre long, is the largest of any bird measured so far. Factors responsible for the evolution of this remarkable organ could include runaway selection, whereby drakes with longer penises gain dominance and copulate with more females, or preference by females for drakes with longer and more decorated penises.     

Evolutionary biology: evidence for sympatric speciation?

Sympatric speciation is difficult to demonstrate in nature and remains a hotly debated issue. Barluenga et al. present a case of putative sympatric speciation for two cichlid species in the Nicaraguan crater lake Apoyo, but they overlook or reinterpret some key published information on the system. Although sympatric speciation is possible in theory, we show here that, when this information is taken into account, the results of Barluenga et al. do not provide conclusive evidence for sympatric speciation: this is because the null hypothesis of multiple invasion with introgression cannot be rejected.     

An Attributive Clause Or An Adverbial Clause?

The attributive clzuse in English,usedin high frequency,is one of the majorclauses．To the Chinese learners of English,mastering the skills of translating them fromEnglish into Chinese is of great significancein particular．However,the attributive clauseis rather flexible in usage,which addsdifficulty to the translating work of it,because it appears as more than itself at     

Can sequencing shed light on cell cycling?

Every organism must have cells that can replicate indefinitely. Can the draft human genome sequence tell us how the cell cycle works and how it evolved? We studied two protein families--the cyclins and their partners the cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks)--and a conserved regulatory circuit, the spindle checkpoint. Disappointingly, we discovered a few novel cyclins and no new Cdks or components of the spindle checkpoint, and could shed little light on the organization of the cell cycle.     

Plant polar growth in tobacco disturbed by γ-tubulin gene silencing

To further understand the functions of γ-tubulin in plant cells, we conducted a study in which the γ-tubulin gene was down-regulated in tobacco plants (obtained by the Agrobacterium-mediated method). This involved transforming the target fragments, in which the sense and antisense partial γ-tubulin cDNA fragments were ligated together, into Nicotiana tabacum var. Samsun NN. The γ-tubulin downregulated transformants developed multiple meristems or branches with trumpet-shaped leaves; their root generation also appeared abnormal, with the taproots undeveloped, whereas lateral roots were developed. In addition, the content of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and expression of polarity transportation vector PGP1 were aberrant. These results suggest that γ-tubulin gene silencing disturbed the polar growth of tobacco plants, and that this phenomenon was probably correlated with the IAA content and the polar transportation process.     

Evolutionary biology: Sympatric plant speciation in islands?

Comparative studies of populations, particularly with the help of molecular markers, are necessary to understand the mechanisms of speciation in isolated oceanic archipelagos. Savolainen et al. present comparative data on two endemic species of the palm genus Howea in Lord Howe Island, from which they infer that speciation was sympatric--that is, divergence had occurred in the absence of geographic isolation. However, the landscape of oceanic islands changes dramatically over time, with many disappearing under the sea after 6 million years or more, and Lord Howe Island is in a very late stage of its ontogeny. An alternative explanation, therefore, is that these two species did not evolve in situ but instead that they arose allopatrically after becoming geographically isolated at a time when the island was much larger and more diverse ecologically.     

语料库工具与英语词汇教学之light Vs.heavy

本文旨在利用语料库工具来深入对比light和heavy这对词的搭配,限于两词在意义上相反时的情况。根据剑桥在线词典http：//dictio-nary.cambridge.org/dictionary/,我们找到两词表达相反意义的义项。     

An Improved Grid Security Infrastructure by Trusted Computing

Current delegation mechanism of grid security infrastructure （GSI） can＇t satisfy the requirement of dynamic, distributed and practical security in grid virtual organization. To improve this situation, a TC-enabled GSI is discussed in this paper. With TC-enabled GSI, a practical delegation solution is proposed in this paper through enforcing fine granularity policy over distributed platforms with the emerging trusted computing technologies. Here trusted platform module is treated as a tamper-resistance module to improve grid security infrastructure. With the implement of Project Daonity, it is demonstrated that the solution could gain dynamic and distributed security in grid environment.     

Plant genetics: RNA cache or genome trash?

According to classical mendelian genetics, individuals homozygous for an allele always breed true. Lolle et al. report a pattern of non-mendelian inheritance in the hothead (hth) mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana, in which a plant homozygous at a particular locus upon self-crossing produces progeny that are 10% heterozygous; they claim that this is the result of the emerging allele having been reintroduced into the chromosome from a cache of RNA inherited from a previous generation. Here I suggest that these results are equally compatible with a gene conversion that occurred through the use as a template of DNA fragments that were inherited from a previous generation and propagated in archival form in the meristem cells that generate the plant germ lines. This alternative model is compatible with several important observations by Lolle et al..