Insect herbivory on water mint: you can't get there from here?

Aquatic plants are thought to have fewer herbivore species than their terrestinal counterparts, and possibly to suffer less herbivory I examined herbivory on water mint Mentha aquatica growing in and out of water and tested possible processes determining the observed pattern of leaf damage Plants growing on land had much more herbivore damage than those growing in water The most common herbivore of Mentha at the site (a chrysomelid beetle) showed no p reference for leaves from terrestrial plants over those from aquatic plants Caging aquatic plants to exclude moorhens suggested that these predators were not having a strong effect in removing insect herbivores (though this conclusion is tentative due to low insect numbers) Transplanting aquatic plants to a terrestrial location, while keeping their roots in water, resulted in marked increases in herbivore damage, relative to control aquatic plants The results suggest that the water barrier may prevent effective exploitation of emergent aquatic plants by terrestrial herbivores This may have consequences for observed patterns of herbivore richness on such plants, plant fitness, and a more speculative suggestion, for the mode of reproduction in aquatic plants     

‘No caps,no coconuts,no all-male groups’ … the regulation of Asians in London clubs

Abstract

Until now, British Asian popular music culture and leisure spaces have attracted little sociological investigation. This article redresses the lack of attention paid to this area by focusing on an ethnographic study of the ‘desi’ South Asian club scene in London. It explores the relationship between contemporary discourses of Asianness as they are constructed within an East London desi club space and made to matter through embodied social practices. Asian bodies are disciplined in the making of normative ethnic, gendered and sexual subjectivities, which demonstrates how discourses of difference create complex subjectivities and practices that theories of diaspora and cultural studies have not fully explored. It offers a rethinking of diasporic identities as lived and embodied experiences that are ambivalently constructed and performative projects, neither entirely resistant to white, dominant discourses nor wholly complicit with its existing norms.     

I think autophagy controls the death of my cells: What do I do to get my paper published?

Many people are studying how autophagy intersects with cell death. While most of those studies relate to autophagy acting as a protective mechanism (e.g., to block apoptosis), many papers conclude that autophagy is a death mechanism, and there is a widespread belief that autophagy (in most, but not all cases, we are talking about macroautophagy) can both kill and protect cells depending on the circumstances. Not surprisingly therefore, many of the papers submitted to Autophagy study the relationship between autophagy and cell death.     

Higher-primate phylogeny--why can't we decide?

At present, no definitive agreement on either the correct branching order or differential rates of evolution among the higher primates exists, despite the accumulated integration of decades of morphological, immunological, protein and nucleic acid sequence data, and numerous reasonable theoretical models for the analysis, interpretation, and understanding of those data. Of the three distinct unrooted phylogenetic trees, that joining human with chimpanzee and the gorilla with the orangutan is currently favored, but the two alternatives that group humans with either gorillas or the orangutan rather than with chimpanzees also have support. This paper is a synthetic and critical review of the methodological literature and isolates some 20 specific reasons why uncertainty in the evolutionary understanding of our closest living relatives persists. Many of the difficulties are eliminated or ameliorated by Lake's new methods of phylogenetic invariants and operator metrics. In the companion paper these new methods are used to analyze both the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA of the higher primates.      

It can't happen here - can it?

If scientific advice is to have any value, it must come from sources that are not under any obligation to any organisation, public or private. Most principal scientific organisations in Western countries have similar ideas about the importance of independence but the independence of American science is being eroded.     

Can stitches get wet?

This study was performed to answer the question of whether or not a patient can wet stitches after a minor soft-tissue surgical procedure without increasing the incidence of infection or disruption of the wound. One hundred consecutive patients underwent an excision of a skin or soft-tissue lesion closed either primarily or with a local flap. Monofilament nylon was used. There were 55 benign lesions and 45 malignant lesions. All procedures were performed using local anesthesia on an ambulatory basis. All patients were asked to wash the wounds with soap and water twice a day starting the morning after surgery. All wounds healed without any infections and without any disruption or dehiscence of the wounds.     

How Do I Fatten Thee? Let Me Count the Ways…

Glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) initiates the synthesis of triacylglycerol and phospholipids and, in the process, regulates the formation of several lipid metabolites known to be intracellular signaling molecules. The recent identification of a new GPAT isoform (Cao et al., 2006) suggests a role for GPAT isoforms in nutrient-mediated signaling.     

Invertebrate learning: what can't a worm learn?

The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans can learn and remember the stimuli it encounters, the environment it is in, and its own physiological state. Analyses of mutations in C. elegans that affect different aspects of experience are beginning to address the nature of learning.