Wood used by Stradivari and Guarneri

Whether or not the great Italian violin-makers used wood that had been chemically processed in order to preserve it and enhance the instrument's sound quality has long been a contentious issue. Here we use nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy to analyse organic matter in wood taken from antique instruments made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu. Our results indicate that the wood used by the masters could indeed have been chemically treated, a technique that may inspire an approach to violin making that is more chemistry-based.     

BOOK REVIEWS: Partnership and Participation by Ann Taket and Leroy White. Sustainable Development: Economics and Policy by P. K. Rao.

Systemic Practice and Action Research -     

The CRISPR/Cas bacterial immune system cleaves bacteriophage and plasmid DNA

Bacteria and Archaea have developed several defence strategies against foreign nucleic acids such as viral genomes and plasmids. Among them, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) loci together with cas (CRISPR-associated) genes form the CRISPR/Cas immune system, which involves partially palindromic repeats separated by short stretches of DNA called spacers, acquired from extrachromosomal elements. It was recently demonstrated that these variable loci can incorporate spacers from infecting bacteriophages and then provide immunity against subsequent bacteriophage infections in a sequence-specific manner. Here we show that the Streptococcus thermophilus CRISPR1/Cas system can also naturally acquire spacers from a self-replicating plasmid containing an antibiotic-resistance gene, leading to plasmid loss. Acquired spacers that match antibiotic-resistance genes provide a novel means to naturally select bacteria that cannot uptake and disseminate such genes. We also provide in vivo evidence that the CRISPR1/Cas system specifically cleaves plasmid and bacteriophage double-stranded DNA within the proto-spacer, at specific sites. Our data show that the CRISPR/Cas immune system is remarkably adapted to cleave invading DNA rapidly and has the potential for exploitation to generate safer microbial strains.