人造卫星上的生命

在掌握宇宙空间的特别重要的阶段上突破了极端的困难,我们的人造卫星在历史上破天荒第一次潜入星际空间,并围绕地球而运转。紧跟着与宇宙间可以经常保持无线电联系的第一颗人造卫星之后,在天空中又出现了第二颗卫星。第二颗卫星的规模显然大于第一颗,其中装着供研究用的各种仪器,甚而还有活的旅客——狗“莱依卡”。这是为了检验有关许多宇宙空间因素对生物影响的一系列学说和研究对于损伤性或毁灭性因素进行防御的保护措施。在这实验中即将获得的资料对于将来人们到月亮、火星和金星上去     

人造卫星考古之歌

地球问人造卫星:你日夜环绕我旋转,不知探索到了什么? 人造卫星回答:我探索得很深、很深,我获取到极多、极多—知道你有多少山脉,知道你有多少湖泊,知道你有多少森林,知道你有多少沙漠……哦,关于你的某些奥秘,恐怕连你也从未听说。 地球挺有兴趣地提问:你说的是哪些奥秘呢?譬如,关于考古? 人造卫星又回答:对了!我正想告诉你,我靠神目—遥感技术,发现了隐藏的古城废墟— 地球急忙插话:详细情况如何,请你细细叙述。 人造卫星自信地回答:那是在南墨西哥的密林中,有你古代的玛雅城两座。两座古城里既有金字塔,又有千姿百态的石头建筑。这永不消…     

植物生理学与空间利用

自1957年第一颗人造卫星上天以来,经过30多年的努力,航天技术已迈过探测太空和技术实验为主的阶梯,进入以利用对地高远位置资源为主的应用阶段。当前,世界上各空间大国都把建立永久性空间站作为发展目标“‘’不言而喻,空间站对太空资源的开发、空间工业化、商业化和军事化的进展都起着关键作用。今天要确切地预测未来空间利用的具体发展方向还为时过早,但是,有一点却十分清楚,空间利用和人进入空间是分不开的。随着载人航天技术的发展,必将有越来越多的宇航员进入空间工作和生活。如何保障这些宇航员在空间健康地工作和生活,是当…     

磁人类第四生命之源

现代科技研究表明,磁是人类继阳光、空气和水之后的第四生命之源。２０世纪６０年代科学家利用人造卫星探测发现,太阳上连续发射的高能粒子流把地球磁场压缩在一个固定的蛋壳形区域———“磁层”内。在磁层壳内,地球磁场捕获了大量来自太阳和星际空间的带电粒子,构成了两个“幅射带”,在背向太阳的一面,地球磁力线和“壳”中的其他带电粒子一起“流”向延伸到一、二百万公里以外的空间,从而保护了地球生物免遭宇宙高能粒子流的幅射杀伤。人类世世代代生活在地球这个大磁场生物圈内,既依赖天然磁场的恩赐和保护,又在长期的生命进化…     

星辰里的美丽庄园

浩瀚无垠的宇宙,星辰点点之间,建造一个会飞的农场,到太空中务农去!这可不是科幻电影的情节,自从人造卫星发射以来,科学家就开始了太空植物栽培的试验。     

卫星跟踪技术在鸟类迁徙研究中的应用及展望

综述了利用人造卫星跟踪技术进行鸟类迁徙研究的现状和利用卫星遥感技术对鸟类栖息地环境进行分析研究的现状。指出了这两项技术目前存在的问题,提出将这两项技术结合起来将有助于弄清候鸟迁徙定向、迁徙路径选择的机理,揭开候鸟迁徙策略之谜,有助于从景观生态学和保护生物学的角度研究并预测环境变化给候鸟带来的影响。     

为载人航天探路———纪念我国载狗生物火箭成功发射40周年

2006年是中国航天事业开始50周年,也是我国成功发射载狗生物火箭40周年.我国的航天事业在20世纪50年代起步,经历了艰难曲折的发展历程,取得了辉煌的成就.在实现载人航天的探索中,通过探空火箭或人造卫星将动物运载进入高空进行各种生物学试验是一个重要的阶段,对安全和成功的载     

空间条件对辣椒影响的探讨

将辣椒种子塔载于人造卫星及高空气球中,返回陆地后,研究辣椒的各种性状变异.经连续5年田间鉴定与筛选,获得优良辣椒株系87—2、87—3.     

生物工程将改变石油化工的面貌

世界各国人民现在都面临着20世纪新的技术革命,新的产业革命的挑战。赵总理早在1983年10月9日就向我们提出了迎接这个新挑战和研究我们的对策的重要思想。这对加速赶上和超过世界先进水平,提前实现四个现代化的宏伟目标起了重大作用。 本世纪电子计算机的诞生、大规模集成电路的出现、人造卫星的上天以及生物工程的兴起,都标志着新时代的到来。     

天然与人工

进入20世纪以来,人类似乎变得特别聪明能干起来．尤其是城市人．于是人类也就沾染上更多自高自大,自作聪明的毛病。现代人一切都推崇人造的,从人造棉．人造革、人造花卉、人造石头、到人造鸡蛋、人造卫星;现在．连人们自己身体的部件也人工制造起来：人造双眼皮、人造高鼻梁、人造乳房、直到人造心脏……也许有一天我们全都用上人造大脑．脖儿梗上长出一个数字化的”电脑”来。到了那时．连制造人的人都是人造的了．真人没有了,那究竟是福是祸还真说不清!     

Statistical analysis of mediator release from the cyto-neural junction of the posterior canal of the labyrinth isolated from the frog]

The transmitter release mechanism was investigated at the cyto-neural junction of the frog labyrinth posterior canal. Low frequency (less than 100/s) non overlapping EPSPs were intracellularly recorded both at rest and during inhibitory mechanical stimulation of the canal (2-8 deg/s2). Recordings were obtained: in control solution; in the presence of increased external Ca2+ (9 mM); in Ca-free EGTA (5 mM) solution and during electrical activation at 50 Hz of the posterior canal inhibitory efferent system. Individual synaptic potentials were digitized and their peak amplitudes, their time integrals as well as the time intervals between them were evaluated. The time intervals proved to be exponentially distributed, suggesting a random EPSP occurrence. The analytical reconstruction of the EPSP waveform indicated that a gamma- function fitted reasonably well both the single and averaged events. As regards the averaged event, despite the scatter in the values of the gamma-function exponential factor (range 1.1-2.2), in the EPSP time-to-peak (0.6-1.2 ms) and peak amplitude (0.9-2.7 mV) displayed by the units, no significant differences were observed in the same fibre between control and test conditions. Moreover, the event peak amplitude distribution represented by cumulative plots or amplitude histograms was fitted by a lognormal function. The distributions obtained for the same unit in control solution proved to be not significantly different from those successively obtained under test conditions. The unimodal and continuous EPSP distributions, together with the unvarying characteristics of the single events, strongly suggest that the observed potentials are true mEPSPs due to the release of single quanta of transmitter.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The Stroop effect on Slovak-Hungarian bilinguists

We studied the processes of interference vs language automatisms in a group of Slovak-Hungarian bilinguists (N = 19, age 13 years) and compared their performance in the Stroop test with two control groups - Slovak (N = 24) and Hungarian (N = 31) monolinguists of the same age. - The Stroop effect, whose essence is an interfering effect of the meaning of the word on its physical characteristic - colour, proved to be a suitable method in the study of information processing in the semantic memory of bilinguists as well as in determining dominance of one language over the other. Slovak-Hungarian bilinguists showed, as a rule, shorter times in Hungarian and approximated in their performance Hungarian monolinguists. It can be assumed that reaction times in the Stroop test are conditioned not only by interference of the other language but also by language automatisms, whereby interference and speech automatisms are in an indirect correlation. - The results thus indicate that processes of interference and language automatisms cannot be separated. Dominance of one language structure over the other (Hungarian over Slovak) was confirmed not only in our experimental method but also in the subjective rating.     

Exercise and recovery ventilatory and VO2 responses of patients with McArdle's disease

This study was designed to determine whether patients with McArdle's disease, who do not increase their blood lactate levels during and after maximal exercise, have a slow "lactacid" component to their recovery O2 consumption (VO2) response after high-intensity exercise. VO2 was measured breath by breath during 6 min of rest before exercise, a progressive maximal cycle ergometer test, and 15 min of recovery in five McArdle's patients, six age-matched control subjects, and six maximal O2 consumption- (VO2 max) matched control subjects. The McArdle's patients' ventilatory threshold occurred at the same relative exercise intensity [71 +/- 7% (SD) VO2max] as in the control groups (60 +/- 13 and 70 +/- 10% VO2max) despite no increase and a 20% decrease in the McArdle's patients' arterialized blood lactate and H+ levels, respectively. The recovery VO2 responses of all three groups were better fit by a two-, than a one-, component exponential model, and the parameters of the slow component of the recovery VO2 response were the same in the three groups. The presence of the same slow component of the recovery VO2 response in the McArdle's patients and the control subjects, despite the lack of an increase in blood lactate or H+ levels during maximal exercise and recovery in the patients, provides evidence that this portion of the recovery VO2 response is not the result of a lactacid mechanism. In addition, it appears that the hyperventilation that accompanies high-intensity exercise may be the result of some mechanism other than acidosis or lung CO2 flux.     

Serological diagnosis of brucellosis caused by Brucella canis

Blood serum samples from 2,328 dogs were tested to detect antibodies against Brucella canis with the agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) and 2-mercaptoethanol slide agglutination test (ME-SAT) using Brucella ovis as the antigen. All blood serum samples were also evaluated for antibodies against Brucella abortus and Brucella melitensis using the Rose Bengal test. Twentyfive (1.07%) of the sera evaluated were considered positive with AGID test. Only 4 (16%) of these blood serum samples were positive when evaluated with ME-SAT. The 25 AGID positive samples and 25 AGID negative serum samples were also examined by: the complement fixation test (CFT) using B. ovis hot saline extract (HSE) as the antigen, indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunoblotting (IB) using B. canis and B. ovis HSE antigens. Two positive canine sera from culture positive dogs and the serum of an experimentally RM6/66 B. canis-infected rabbit were employed as positive controls and one serum from a known uninfected dog as a negative control. ELISA with B. canis antigen gave 9 (18%) positive results (6 AGID-positive and 3 AGID-negative sera). ELISA performed with B. ovis antigen detected 15 (30%) positive samples (10 AGID-positive, 5 AGID-negative and 8 B. canis ELISA positive sera). IB analysis of known positive controls sera employing B. canis antigen detected bands with molecular weights of 94-80, 64-50, 35, 32-30, 28, 23, 20-18, 15-12 kDa. The same sera tested with B. ovis antigen revealed bands of 35, 32-30, 25, 23, 20-18, 15-12 kDa. No bands were observed with the negative control serum and the 50 canine tested sera.     

The Effect of Prevention of Flowering on the Vegetative Growth of Inoculated Pea Plants

The removal of the apical buds from the top of inoculated pea ptants before flowering caused the axillary buds of the stem leaves to develop and thus further to branch. The vegetative growth of the test plants continued to be luxuriant when blooming was delayed. While the control ptants formed seeds and ripined. the vegetative growth of the stem of the test ptants increased at most eight-fold during the same time. A new, additional red part grew at the same time in the root nodules, which had already partly become green. The new red part branched later so that the imusuatty large nodules appeared quite odd. The weight of the branched, large nodules had at the same time increased on the average six-fold and the vegetatively grown test plants synthesized even eight times more nitrogen than did the control plants. The concentration of teghaemoglobin in the nodules formed by the bacterial strain used in the experiment was not inereased, but the absolute amount of the pigment was raised six-fold as a result of the increased nodule mass. While the vegetative growth was going on, oxidation of the leghaemoglobin was delayed. Analyses of nitrogen and amino acids were made for both test and control plants. The total length of the branches in the largest test plant was 32 m compared with the unbranched control plant which was 1.30 m.     

Lipid metabolism in cultured cells. XVI. Lipoprotein binding and HMG CoA reductase levels in normal and tumor virus-transformed human fibroblasts.

The loss in feedback control of cholesterol biosynthesis in tumor cells was examined in tissue culture. Human fibroblasts from normal subjects, SV40 tumor virus-transformed cell lines, and homozygous familial hypercholesterolemic cells as reference, were grown in tissue culture. Experiments were conducted to relate the regulatory enzyme for cholesterol biosynthesis, HMG CoA reductase, and the membrane-located binding receptors for low density lipoproteins (LDL) that mediate feedback control in normal cells. Monolayers of virus-transformed tumor cells exhibited specific (125)I-labeled LDL binding of 152 +/- 21 ng/mg cell protein, which was essentially the same as that of normal fibroblasts (135 +/- 20 ng/mg). Binding of LDL by familial hypercholesterolemic cells used as controls was only 8 +/- 3 ng/mg under the same test conditions. Basal levels of HMG CoA reductase in tumor cells of 45.2 +/- 6.5 units/mg cell protein were about twice those of normal cells. However, in contrast to the lack of feedback control of this enzyme observed with tumors in vivo, in both the normal and the transformed cells in vitro, activity of the enzyme decreased about fourfold when serum lipids were added. These findings demonstrate that tumor cells growing in vitro contain a normal complement of the membrane-located binding receptors for low density lipoproteins and, although the basal levels are higher than normal, an effective feedback regulation of the enzyme HMG CoA reductase is retained.     

Effect of dietary fiber on absorption of B-6 vitamers in a rat jejunal perfusion study

Previous research has indicated that dietary fiber may affect the absorption and utilization of certain nutrients. To determine the effect of certain fiber materials on the absorption of B-6 vitamers, jejunal segments from young male adult rats were perfused in situ with a control solution containing 0.02 mM pyridoxine (PN), 0.02 mM pyridoxal (PL), and 0.02 mM pyridoxamine (PM), followed by a test solution containing the same vitamin B-6 mixture and one of five fiber-rich test materials (cellulose, pectin, lignin, homogenized fresh carrot, or carrot homogenized after 10 min boiling) added at a concentration of 1-3%. The mean absorption rates of PL, PN, and PM from the control solution were, respectively, 3.66 +/- 0.23, 2.06 +/- 0.23, and 1.74 +/- 0.37 nmole/min/20 cm jejunal segment. There were no significant differences between the absorption rates of B-6 vitamers from control and test solutions containing cellulose, pectin, and lignin. The absorption rates of PM and PL were significantly depressed (P less than 0.05 and P less than 0.01, respectively) by the presence of fresh or cooked carrot. The absorption rate of PN in presence of cooked carrot was also decreased relative to the control value but the difference was only marginally significant (P less than 0.10). When the concentration of fresh carrot in the test solution was increased to 10% by weight and the perfusion rate was decreased from 1.91 to 0.49 ml/min in a second perfusion experiment, there was a significant increase in variability and the differences between absorption rates of the B-6 vitamers in control and test solutions were not statistically significant. The limited evidence of adverse effect of carrot on absorption of vitamin B-6 suggested the need for further clarification of the influence of dietary fiber in an unrefined state on the bioavailability of vitamin B-6.     

The role of vision and proprioception in the aversion of rats to the open arms of an elevated plus-maze

The elevated plus-maze test is usually run with a short edge surrounding the open arms in order to prevent the rats from falling. The present experiment investigated the role of transparent edges differing in heights: 1 (used as control), 5, 10, 20 and 40 cm, the latter the same height as the closed arm walls. Additionally, this 40-cm high transparent edge was also studied covered by white translucent or black opaque paper. The data show that the time spent in the open arms was significantly greater when the edge height was 5, 10 or 40 cm covered by the white or black paper. However, there were no differences from the 1-cm control edge when the height was 40 cm transparent. A similar effect was observed when entries in the open arms and total entries were analyzed. The facts that there were no differences when the open arms were surrounded by 1- or 40-cm transparent edges (which allow thigmotaxis) and that the same 40-cm edge caused increases in exploratory behavior when covered by papers indicate that vision triggers aversion to open spaces.     

Water content alters viscoelastic behaviour of the normal adolescent rabbit medial collateral ligament.

Testing environment is an important factor in the outcome of mechanical tests on connective tissue. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effect of ligament water content on ligament mechanical behaviour by altering the test environment. Water content of medial collateral ligament (MCLs) from 19 three-month-old New Zealand White rabbits was varied in subsets of ligaments pairs by means of immersion in 2, 10 or 25% sucrose or 0.9% phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solutions for 1 h. One knee joint was cycled 50 times in the designated solution (experimental), while the contralateral knee (uncycled control) was simultaneously soaked in the same tank. Following cycling, the water contents of both test and control ligaments were determined. Water contents of 22 normal MCLs were determined immediately post-sacrifice and served as 'normal water content' controls. Normalized peak cyclic load changes were used as a measure of the viscoelastic behaviour of each MCL. Results demonstrated that only ligaments soaked (but not cycled) in a 10% sucrose solution had water contents (60.5 +/- 2.5%) which were statistically similar to the 22 fresh normal MCLs (63.9 +/- 6.0%). Ligaments soaked in PBS (74.0 +/- 1.3%) or 2% sucrose (69.2 +/- 2.3%) had significantly higher water contents compared to fresh normal MCLs. Ligaments with higher water contents (e.g. soaked in PBS or 2% sucrose) demonstrated greater cyclic load relaxation compared to ligaments with lower contents (e.g. soaked in 25 or 10% sucrose). Different fluid test environments can significantly alter ligament water content and, in turn, significantly affect ligament viscoelastic behaviour.     

Thresholds for sweet, salt, and sour taste stimuli in cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus)

Little is known about avian taste perception and how taste affects food choice. We designed a study to determine the concentrations of aqueous solutions of common chemical taste stimuli that result in altered consumption patterns. Using two-choice taste-preference tests, we studied the taste thresholds of caged cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) for aqueous solutions of potassium chloride, a phosphate buffer (to test pH), fructose, and glucose. First, the preferred and nonpreferred bottle locations were determined for each bird. Then, depending on the compound, the test solutions were placed in bottles in either the preferred or the nonpreferred locations and water was placed in the opposite bottle. Four parameters were measured at the end of 3-day test periods (total consumption, consumption from water side, consumption from test solution side, and proportion of nonpreferred side consumption to total consumption). Experiments were repeated with increasing concentrations of test flavors until intake variables were significantly affected (P < 0.05). Cockatiels distinguished (P < 0.05) between purified water and 0.16 mol L(-1) potassium chloride, 0.40 mol L(-1) fructose, or 0.16 mol L(-1) glucose. The test birds did not distinguish between water and 0.05 mol L(-1) mono- and dibasic sodium phosphate buffer solution at any tested pH within the range of 4.9-7.7. When these findings are compared to previous experiments with the same birds, it becomes clear that the gustatory reactions of cockatiels for two different stimuli (e.g., NaCl and KCl) from the same general taste category (salt, sweet, sour) can vary widely. This variation in the responses to related stimuli could be the result of a number of factors including anion effects (for salts and acids) as well as nongustatory physiological processes (e.g., as renal control of blood osmolarity). Zoo Biol 20:1-13, 2001. Copyright 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.