An unusually brilliant transient in the galaxy M85

Historically, variable and transient sources have both surprised astronomers and provided new views of the heavens. Here we report the discovery of an optical transient in the outskirts of the lenticular galaxy Messier 85 in the Virgo cluster. With a peak absolute R magnitude of -12, this event is distinctly brighter than novae, but fainter than type Ia supernovae (which are expected in a population of old stars in lenticular galaxies). Archival images of the field do not show a luminous star at that position with an upper limit in the g filter of about -4.1 mag, so it is unlikely to be a giant eruption from a luminous blue variable star. Over a two-month period, the transient source emitted radiation energy of almost 10(47) erg and subsequently faded in the optical sky. It is similar to, but six times more luminous at peak than, an enigmatic transient in the galaxy M31 (ref. 1). A possible origin of M85 OT2006-1 is a stellar merger. If so, searches for similar events in nearby galaxies will not only allow study of the physics of hyper-Eddington sources, but also probe an important phase in the evolution of stellar binary systems.     

Localization of a human system for sustained attention by positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomographic (PET) studies of human attention have begun to dissect isolable components of this complex higher brain function, including a midline attentional system in a region of the anterior cingulate cortex. The right hemisphere may play a special part in human attention; neglect, an important phenomenon associated with damage to attentional systems, is more severe, extensive and long-lasting after lesions to the right hemisphere. Here we use PET measurements of brain blood flow in healthy subjects to identify changes in regional brain activity during simple visual and somatosensory tasks of sustained attention or vigilance. We find localized increases in blood flow in the prefrontal and superior parietal cortex primarily in the right hemisphere, regardless of the modality or laterality of sensory input. The anterior cingulate was not activated during either task. These data localize the vigilance aspects of normal human attention to sensory stimuli, thereby clarifying the biology underlying asymmetries of attention to such stimuli that have been reported in clinical lesions.     

The free amino acid pools of two aquatic hyphomycetes

Résumé Les masses communes des amino-acides libres chezTetracladium setigerum etHeliscus submersus ont été analysées par des méthodes chromatographiques utilisant une couche mince de cellulose. Elles sont typiques pour la plupart des mycètes. Les amino-acides libres n'apparaissant que rarement ont été: l'hydroxyproline chezT. setigerum cultivé sur de l'acide glutamique, l'éthanolamine chezT. setigerum etH. submersus cultivé sur l'acide glutamique et enfin l'acide -aminobutyrique chezH. submersus avec comme nutrition la tyrosine.     

Thermal polymerization of amino acids and a theory of biochemical origins

Zusammenfassung Bei überschuss von Glutamins?ure und Asparagins?ure werden zahlreiche Aminos?uren thermisch kopolymerisiert. Das Studium der Reaktionen und Nebenreaktionen führt zu einer Theorie über den thermischen Ursprung biochemischer Systeme.

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Presented at a symposium on Biochemical Origins at the 133^rd meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Francisco, April 17 1958. The research has been aided by Grant C-3971 of the National Institutes of Health, U. S. Public Health Service, Grant G-4566 of the National Science Foundation, and by the General Foods Corporation. Contribution No. 109 of the Oceanographic Institute of The Florida State University.     

Multiple conformations of a protein demonstrated by magnetization transfer NMR spectroscopy

It is generally accepted that a globular protein in its native state adopts a single, well-defined conformation. However, there have been several reports that some proteins may exist in more than one distinct folded form in equilibrium. In the case of staphylococcal nuclease, evidence for multiple conformations has come from electrophoretic and NMR studies, although there has been some controversy as to whether these are actually interconvertible forms of the same molecular species. Recently, magnetization transfer (MT)-NMR has been developed as a means of studying the kinetics of conformational transitions in proteins. In the study reported here, this approach has been extended and used to demonstrate the presence of at least two native forms of nuclease in equilibrium and to study their interconversion with the unfolded state under the conditions of the thermal unfolding transition. The experiments reveal that two distinct native forms of the protein fold and unfold independently and that these can interconvert directly as well as via the unfolded state. The spectra of the different forms suggest that they are structurally similar but the MT experiments show that the kinetics of folding and unfolding are quite different. Characterization of this behaviour will, therefore, have important implications for our understanding of the relationship between structure and folding kinetics.     

Sexual selection for sensory exploitation in the frog Physalaemus pustulosus

The sensory bases of species and population mate preferences are well known; in frogs properties of the female auditory system influence such preferences. By contrast, there is little understanding of how sensory characteristics could result in sexual selection within a population. One possible mechanism is that females are more sensitive to male courtship signals that deviate from the population mean. We document this mechanism in the frog Physalaemus pustulosus. Female basilar papilla tuning is biased toward lower-than-average frequencies in the 'chuck' portion of the male's call, explaining female preference for the lower-frequency chucks produced by larger males. The tuning does not differ between P. pustulosus and its close relative P. coloradorum, a species in which males never evolved the ability to produce chucks; thus the female tuning evolved before the chuck and therefore the chuck played no role in the evolution of the preference. This allows us to reject two popular hypotheses for the evolution of this female preference (runaway sexual selection and natural selection) in favour of a third: sexual selection for sensory exploitation.