全球性挑战:可持续发展如何实现?

<正>气候变化问题政府间专门小组(IPCC)报告称,过去一年二氧化碳排放量的增速比2000～2004年间最糟糕的年份还要快。政府如不采取新的行动,那么到2030年,温室气体排放量将比2000年增加25%～90%。目前,海洋和森林对碳的吸收能量为每年大约30～35亿吨,人类活动每年增加碳量70亿吨。人类的消费大于自然界再生或吸收"生态脚印"能力的25%。     

喀什市城市生态环境质量评价研究

 以1997~2008期间12a的生态环境时间序列数据为数据源,建立了喀什市生态环境质量综合评价指标体系,运用层次分析法确定了各生态因子的权重,得出了影响因子的重要性排序并计算出了生态环境质量综合指数,最终对喀什市生态环境质量进行了评价.研究表明:喀什市生态环境质量综合指数呈现波动性的变化特征,2002年前后的变化状况有区别,2002年以前生态环境综合指数比较低,而且总体上呈现下降趋势,表明生态环境综合质量以下降趋势为主;2002年以后指数既有上升也有下降趋势,但指数比2002年以前的高,表明生态环境质量有所好转,但总的趋势并不理想.生态环境质量评价结果显示,喀什市生态环境综合质量整体上比较差,生态环境形势不乐观,因此喀什市必须要采取措施,加强生态环境建设方面的工作力度.     

和田茴香籽中黄酮类化合物提取工艺研究

采用正交设计法对新疆和田茴香籽中的黄酮类化合物提取工艺参数进行优化.结果表明:最佳提取工艺为70 ml 60％乙醇在70℃下提取2.5h.本实验采用分光光度法,以芦丁标准品测定新疆和田茴香籽提取物中总黄酮的含量,总黄酮含量为1.58％.该工艺稳定、简便、快速,可作为检测茴香籽提取物中黄酮含量的一种手段.     

Cell-to-cell spread of HIV permits ongoing replication despite antiretroviral therapy

Latency and ongoing replication have both been proposed to explain the drug-insensitive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reservoir maintained during antiretroviral therapy. Here we explore a novel mechanism for ongoing HIV replication in the face of antiretroviral drugs. We propose a model whereby multiple infections per cell lead to reduced sensitivity to drugs without requiring drug-resistant mutations, and experimentally validate the model using multiple infections per cell by cell-free HIV in the presence of the drug tenofovir. We then examine the drug sensitivity of cell-to-cell spread of HIV, a mode of HIV transmission that can lead to multiple infection events per target cell. Infections originating from cell-free virus decrease strongly in the presence of antiretrovirals tenofovir and efavirenz whereas infections involving cell-to-cell spread are markedly less sensitive to the drugs. The reduction in sensitivity is sufficient to keep multiple rounds of infection from terminating in the presence of drugs. We examine replication from cell-to-cell spread in the presence of clinical drug concentrations using a stochastic infection model and find that replication is intermittent, without substantial accumulation of mutations. If cell-to-cell spread has the same properties in vivo, it may have adverse consequences for the immune system, lead to therapy failure in individuals with risk factors, and potentially contribute to viral persistence and hence be a barrier to curing HIV infection.     

Cryptic genetic variation promotes rapid evolutionary adaptation in an RNA enzyme

Cryptic variation is caused by the robustness of phenotypes to mutations. Cryptic variation has no effect on phenotypes in a given genetic or environmental background, but it can have effects after mutations or environmental change. Because evolutionary adaptation by natural selection requires phenotypic variation, phenotypically revealed cryptic genetic variation may facilitate evolutionary adaptation. This is possible if the cryptic variation happens to be pre-adapted, or "exapted", to a new environment, and is thus advantageous once revealed. However, this facilitating role for cryptic variation has not been proven, partly because most pertinent work focuses on complex phenotypes of whole organisms whose genetic basis is incompletely understood. Here we show that populations of RNA enzymes with accumulated cryptic variation adapt more rapidly to a new substrate than a population without cryptic variation. A detailed analysis of our evolving RNA populations in genotype space shows that cryptic variation allows a population to explore new genotypes that become adaptive only in a new environment. Our observations show that cryptic variation contains new genotypes pre-adapted to a changed environment. Our results highlight the positive role that robustness and epistasis can have in adaptive evolution.     

Evidence for a spin-aligned neutron-proton paired phase from the level structure of (92)Pd

Shell structure and magic numbers in atomic nuclei were generally explained by pioneering work that introduced a strong spin-orbit interaction to the nuclear shell model potential. However, knowledge of nuclear forces and the mechanisms governing the structure of nuclei, in particular far from stability, is still incomplete. In nuclei with equal neutron and proton numbers (N = Z), enhanced correlations arise between neutrons and protons (two distinct types of fermions) that occupy orbitals with the same quantum numbers. Such correlations have been predicted to favour an unusual type of nuclear superfluidity, termed isoscalar neutron-proton pairing, in addition to normal isovector pairing. Despite many experimental efforts, these predictions have not been confirmed. Here we report the experimental observation of excited states in the N = Z = 46 nucleus (92)Pd. Gamma rays emitted following the (58)Ni((36)Ar,2n)(92)Pd fusion-evaporation reaction were identified using a combination of state-of-the-art high-resolution γ-ray, charged-particle and neutron detector systems. Our results reveal evidence for a spin-aligned, isoscalar neutron-proton coupling scheme, different from the previous prediction. We suggest that this coupling scheme replaces normal superfluidity (characterized by seniority coupling) in the ground and low-lying excited states of the heaviest N = Z nuclei. Such strong, isoscalar neutron-proton correlations would have a considerable impact on the nuclear level structure and possibly influence the dynamics of rapid proton capture in stellar nucleosynthesis.