The alphaviruses: gene expression, replication, and evolution.

The alphaviruses are a genus of 26 enveloped viruses that cause disease in humans and domestic animals. Mosquitoes or other hematophagous arthropods serve as vectors for these viruses. The complete sequences of the +/- 11.7-kb plus-strand RNA genomes of eight alphaviruses have been determined, and partial sequences are known for several others; this has made possible evolutionary comparisons between different alphaviruses as well as comparisons of this group of viruses with other animal and plant viruses. Full-length cDNA clones from which infectious RNA can be recovered have been constructed for four alphaviruses; these clones have facilitated many molecular genetic studies as well as the development of these viruses as expression vectors. From these and studies involving biochemical approaches, many details of the replication cycle of the alphaviruses are known. The interactions of the viruses with host cells and host organisms have been exclusively studied, and the molecular basis of virulence and recovery from viral infection have been addressed in a large number of recent papers. The structure of the viruses has been determined to about 2.5 nm, making them the best-characterized enveloped virus to date. Because of the wealth of data that has appeared, these viruses represent a well-characterized system that tell us much about the evolution of RNA viruses, their replication, and their interactions with their hosts. This review summarizes our current knowledge of this group of viruses.     

The fungal vacuole: composition, function, and biogenesis.

The fungal vacuole is an extremely complex organelle that is involved in a wide variety of functions. The vacuole not only carries out degradative processes, the role most often ascribed to it, but also is the primary storage site for certain small molecules and biosynthetic precursors such as basic amino acids and polyphosphate, plays a role in osmoregulation, and is involved in the precise homeostatic regulation of cytosolic ion and basic amino acid concentration and intracellular pH. These many functions necessitate an intricate interaction between the vacuole and the rest of the cell; the vacuole is part of both the secretory and endocytic pathways and is also directly accessible from the cytosol. Because of the various roles and properties of the vacuole, it has been possible to isolate mutants which are defective in various vacuolar functions including the storage and uptake of metabolites, regulation of pH, sorting and processing of vacuolar proteins, and vacuole biogenesis. These mutants show a remarkable degree of genetic overlap, suggesting that these functions are not individual, discrete properties of the vacuole but, rather, are closely interrelated.     

The Internet and medicine: past,present, and future.

The enormous growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web has made these two technologies an important potential adjunct to cost-effective health care research and delivery. This article surveys some recent developments in telecommunications, networking and artificial intelligence that are likely to have a significant impact on improving the efficiency and quality of future health care. Issues discussed include: clinical record keeping on the Internet, Internet-assisted medical diagnosis, privacy and security matters, financial transactions, digital money, bandwidth concerns, multimedia (music, audio and video) information delivery via the Internet, intellectual property, and the concept of Information Philanthropy.     

The simplest walking model: stability, complexity, and scaling.

We demonstrate that an irreducibly simple, uncontrolled, two-dimensional, two-link model, vaguely resembling human legs, can walk down a shallow slope, powered only by gravity. This model is the simplest special case of the passive-dynamic models pioneered by McGeer (1990a). It has two rigid massless legs hinged at the hip, a point-mass at the hip, and infinitesimal point-masses at the feet. The feet have plastic (no-slip, no-bounce) collisions with the slope surface, except during forward swinging, when geometric interference (foot scuffing) is ignored. After nondimensionalizing the governing equations, the model has only one free parameter, the ramp slope gamma. This model shows stable walking modes similar to more elaborate models, but allows some use of analytic methods to study its dynamics. The analytic calculations find initial conditions and stability estimates for period-one gait limit cycles. The model exhibits two period-one gait cycles, one of which is stable when 0 < gamma < 0.015 rad. With increasing gamma, stable cycles of higher periods appear, and the walking-like motions apparently become chaotic through a sequence of period doublings. Scaling laws for the model predict that walking speed is proportional to stance angle, stance angle is proportional to gamma 1/3, and that the gravitational power used is proportional to v4 where v is the velocity along the slope.     

The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture.

The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture. Stephen Gudeman. Williston, VT: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.189 pp.