发展中的中国发酵产品市场

作者James E.Flinn系美国历Bio-Endeavors International公司总裁,从事生物制品咨询业务.作者Urs Gloor系瑞士Sino-Info公司总裁,专门收集有关中国科学、工业和经济信息.现征得两位作者和Bio/Technology(现为Nature Biotechnology)编者Susan同意,翻译此文.     

追溯山茱萸科植物的性状进化和生物地理学历史——方法选择的影响?

This study compares results on reconstructing the ancestral state of characters and ancestral areas of distribution in Cornaceae to gain insights into the impact of using different analytical methods. Ancestral character state reconstructions were compared among three methods (parsimony, maximum likelihood, and stochastic character mapping) using MESQUITE and a full Bayesian method in BAYESTRAITS and inferences of ancestral area distribution were compared between the parsimony-based dispersal-vicariance analysis (DIVA) and a newly developed maximum likelihood (ML) method. Results indicated that among the six inflorescence and fruit characters examined, "perfect" binary characters (no homoplasy, no polymorphism within terminals, and no missing data) are little affected by choice of method, while homoplasious characters and missing data are sensitive to methods used. Ancestral areas at deep nodes of the phylogeny are substantially different between DIVA and ML and strikingly different between analyses including and excluding fossils at three deepest nodes. These results, while raising caution in making conclusions on trait evolution and historical biogeography using conventional methods, demonstrate a limitation in our current understanding of character evolution and biogeography. The biogeographic history favored by the ML analyses including fossils suggested the origin and early radiation of Cornus likely occurred in the late Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary in Europe and intercontinental disjunctions in three lineages involved movements across the North Atlantic Land Bridge (BLB) in the early and mid Tertiary. This result is congruent with the role of NALB for post-Eocene migration and in connecting tropical floras in North America and Africa, and in eastern Asia and South America. However, alternative hypotheses with an origin in eastern Asia and early Trans-Beringia migrations of the genus cannot be ruled out.     

德国科学家首次以高分辨率捕获小鼠思维

为了使神经元的微小解剖细节可视化，德国普朗克生物物理化学研究院的KatrinWillig及其团队给小鼠插入可以发出黄光的基因。在使用特殊的显微镜通过头骨上的一个用玻璃封住的窗口观察小鼠大脑时，神经元的信号结点发光了。在这些交叉点上，小的棘状突起从长的分支纤维也称为树突上伸出，并且通过与相邻细胞的突起链接交换信号。     

PNAS：微生物基因测序可提高生物燃料产出效率

据物理学家组织网5月15日（北京时间）报道，美国联合生物能源研究所（JBEI）通过新的实验方法和基因测序分析，发现了细菌耐受有毒盐溶液的生理机制。有望大大提高微生物抵抗生物燃料生产过程中所使用的盐溶液毒性的能力。相关论文发表在5月14日的美国《国家科学院院刊》网站上。     

纳米雕塑范例

T4抗菌素该作品是一个人造的纳米T4抗菌素立体塑像。T4抗菌素是一种具有水蛇腰、六条腿,貌似乌贼的生物体内的病毒。该作品雕刻使用的是一种被称作"聚焦离子束"的技术。T4抗菌素雕塑本身材料为金刚石,基底为晶体硅。抗菌素雕塑的尺寸为真实抗菌素的十倍左右,即高度数百纳米。该作品的形态逼真传神,曾荣获49届国际电子束/离子束/光束技术与纳米加工微观大赛一等奖。     

《现代生物医学进展》杂志简介

《现代生物医学进展》（原《生物磁学》）杂志是一个以生命科学为主的综合性科技期刊，是国家科技部中国科技论文统计源期刊，中国科技核心期刊。1987年创刊，国内统一刊号：cN23—1544／R，国际标准刊号：ISSN1673—6273，邮发代号：14-12，旬刊，每月10、20、30日出版，200页／期，定价：30元／期。