Anthropologist fired: Stanford plays its China card

The ethical obligations of Western anthropologists working in the People's Republic of China became an issue recently when Stanford University's anthropology department unanimously decided to dismiss doctoral candidate Steven Mosher because of his conduct while in an unnamed Chinese village. Mosher maintains that the dismissal was in retaliation for his publishing an article in a Taiwanese weekly about the practices of forced third trimester abortion and infanticide in the village. Neither Stanford nor Mosher has revealed the specific reasons for the dismissal.     

Expected change: U.S. recombinant DNA guidelines

Continuing the trend towards relaxing controls on recombinant DNA research, the National Institutes of Health published revised guidelines in the Federal Register of 21 April 1982. Although the existing system of mandatory controls and institutional biosafety committees is retained, no class of experiments will be totally prohibited, and the guidelines dealing with containment levels have been greatly simplified.     

0957 + 561 A, B: twin quasistellar objects or gravitational lens?

0957 + 561 A, B are two QSOs of mag 17 with 5.7 arc s separation at redshift 1.405. Their spectra leave little doubt that they are associated. Difficulties arise in describing them as two distinct objects and the possibility that they are two images of the same object formed by a gravitational lens is discussed.     

An independent microbial flora of the epithelium and its role in the ecomicrobiology of the rumen

IT has been suggested that the bacterial flora of the rumen should be considered as three distinct, interacting populations-the bacteria of rumen fluid (the population which has been studied most extensively), the bacteria associated with food particles, and the bacteria adhering to the epithelial wall of the organ(1). Until now, studies of the 'epithelial' population have been restricted to examination of postmortem samples of wall tissue and its attached bacterial flora(2-5). A recently developed technique(6) for feeding young sheep for long periods solely by infusion of protein and other essential nutrients into the abomasum, and of volatile fatty acids and bicarbonate buffer into the rumen, has provided us with an opportunity to study in isolation the role of the bacterial population of the wall in the ecomicrobiology of the rumen in the living animal. Our studies show that this population can exist independently of the other two populations, that it is primarily responsible for urea digestion in the rumen and that it initiates breakdown of dead epithelial tissue. Furthermore, our results point to an inverse relationship between ammonia concentration and ureolytic activity in rumen fluid, which may account for the control which ammonia exerts over flux of urea across the rumen wall(7-9).     

小麦穗光合作用对干旱胁迫的响应

研究了土壤干旱胁迫下小麦（Triticum aestivum L．）穗光合作用的特点．结果表明，干旱胁迫下，穗光合速率下降幅度远小于叶片，类胡萝卜素与叶绿素的比值较高且稳定，PEPC活性诱导增强，暗示穗器官有较强的耐逆性，旗叶是较敏感的器官．     

嗜盐菌的研究新进展

嗜盐菌作为一种新型微生物资源,已经在很多方面得到应用.如：为微生物生理、分类,系统发育学和生命科学研究提供新的课题,因此,嗜盐菌已引起人们的广泛关注.文章主要讨论了嗜盐菌的嗜盐机理和应用方面的研究新进展.     

矿物的荧光性

文章介绍了矿物发光机理的基本概念以及在生活上的应用，分析、研究了不同产地的同种天然萤石光致荧光光谱特性，给出天然萤石荧光机理。