在科学方面科学同大学的相互影响

许多大学的行政领导人似乎相信,由学校教工进行的研究工作可以通过专利和发明被用来为他们的机构带来巨大的经济收入。国家科学院出版社最近出版的一份报告提供了关于工业同大学相互影响的对比看法。该报告是一份访问17名高级工业职员的谈话总结。将可获利的产品推向市场,这要求一套与创造和普及知识不同的动机、组织和文化。企业也注意到,对花费在研究上的每1美元需要投入10美元用于开发,100美元用于设计和建造工厂。这些活动的许多方面都需要有目的明确的跨学科人员的参与。在许多工业部门,主要的活动在于改善现有产品的质量或加工方法。这往往是通过一点一点的累积起     

矿物燃料之后的能源会怎样?--《没有天燃气的时代》作者古德斯坦访谈录

美国加利福尼亚技术学院物理系教授戴维·古德斯坦(DavidGoodstein)最近出版了他的第6本著作——《没有天燃气的时代》。他在书中指出,21世纪注定会成为文明的一个转折点:在不太遥远的将来,随着矿物燃料的逐渐耗尽,迫使人类社会去开发其他的新能源。该书对许多问题作了一个扼要的评述,并提出了一些解决办法。不久前,《美国科学家》记者戴维·施奈德(DavidSchneider)采访了古德斯坦,就书中提出的某些问题请他作进一步的阐述。     

数字窄播系统:互联网上的多媒体信息发布网络

互联网和数字窄播系统的产生自从人类有了语言和文字 ,就开始了不断的信息交流和沟通 ,从秦始皇利用烽火台传递敌人入侵的信号 ,到西门子公司第一次使用跨海电缆把电文传递到大洋彼岸 ;从古代的帝王君主通过张贴告示颁布法令 ,到现代企业通过报纸、电视、网络等各种媒体做产品的广告宣传 ,人们早已熟悉了各种信息传递的方式。而社会的文明程度越高 ,需要交流的信息就越多 ,信息发布的渠道就越广 ,同时信息传递的速度也越快。正因为如此 ,新世纪的世界将会是一个高度发达的信息化社会 ,一个海量信息飞速传递和交换的世界。正是由于这样大量的…     

征收碳税 还利于民

<正>一方面,劳动力和企业利润是社会经济繁荣的动力,政府从中获取税收;另一方面,资源的耗竭——可能是经济健康发展的最大威胁——却仍未触及税收的调整,这显然是不公平的。当思考如何重建业已受到威胁的经济时,全面征收碳税应该提到议事日程上来。     

汽车工业如何适应人类社会可持续发展——丹尼尔·斯珀林访谈录

汽车是构成人类社会最大的威胁之一，尽管这种看法存在一定争议。”加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校工程学教授、该校交通研究所首任所长丹尼尔·斯珀林（Danjel SPerljng）在与政策评论家德博拉·戈登（Deborah Gordon）合著的《20亿辆汽车》一书中指出，新技术、燃料、石油和汽车工业的改革以及最新形成的汽车文化，能够造就一个内含集成交通系统的安全、繁荣而有效率的世界。     

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.     

Common variants at TRAF3IP2 are associated with susceptibility to psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is an inflammatory joint disease that is distinct from other chronic arthritides and which is frequently accompanied by psoriasis vulgaris (PsV) and seronegativity for rheumatoid factor. We conducted a genome-wide association study in 609 German individuals with PsA (cases) and 990 controls with replication in 6 European cohorts including a total of 5,488 individuals. We replicated PsA associations at HLA-C and IL12B and identified a new association at TRAF3IP2 (rs13190932, P = 8.56 × 10?1?). TRAF3IP2 was also associated with PsV in a German cohort including 2,040 individuals (rs13190932, P = 1.95 × 10?3). Sequencing of the exons of TRAF3IP2 identified a coding variant (p.Asp10Asn, rs33980500) as the most significantly associated SNP (P = 1.13 × 10?2?, odds ratio = 1.95). Functional assays showed reduced binding of this TRAF3IP2 variant to TRAF6, suggesting altered modulation of immunoregulatory signals through altered TRAF interactions as a new and shared pathway for PsA and PsV.     

Pneumococcal genome sequencing tracks a vaccine escape variant formed through a multi-fragment recombination event

Streptococcus pneumoniae ('pneumococcus') causes an estimated 14.5 million cases of serious disease and 826,000 deaths annually in children under 5 years of age(1). The highly effective introduction of the PCV7 pneumococcal vaccine in 2000 in the United States(2,3) provided an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the response of an important pathogen to widespread, vaccine-induced selective pressure. Here, we use array-based sequencing of 62 isolates from a US national monitoring program to study five independent instances of vaccine escape recombination(4), showing the simultaneous transfer of multiple and often large (up to at least 44 kb) DNA fragments. We show that one such new strain quickly became established, spreading from east to west across the United States. These observations clarify the roles of recombination and selection in the population genomics of pneumococcus and provide proof of principle of the considerable value of combining genomic and epidemiological information in the surveillance and enhanced understanding of infectious diseases.