A blueprint for the countryside

Much of the UK (and some of Western Europe) consists of ancient farmland and thus conservation effort is concentrated on maintaining intermediate levels of intervention. Conservation therefore differs markedly from that in much of the rest of the world. The future of farmland birds depends upon the success of agri-environment schemes and the changes in agriculture resulting from the development of new technologies. The experience of agri-environment schemes shows that they have patchy success. An alternative approach is to align conservation with the other external benefits to society of natural and semi-natural landscapes, such as health, flood protection, water purification and tourism and then restore natural ecosystems. Many of the biodiversity objectives are then produced while achieving other objectives and reducing expenditure. Within this framework it may also be possible, based on use of Vera's interpretation of landscape history, to create a few areas of natural ecosystem functioning. The expected future changes in EU agricultural support could provide the opportunity to achieve this.     

A plea for the heart

Martyn Evans believes that it is a 'shocking feature' of brain-centred conceptions of death that they require us to regard as dead a person whose heart may continue to beat spontaneously. When it comes to neocortical conceptions of death, we might even be burying or cremating a 'breathing corpse'. If proponents of neocortical definitions of death suggest active interventions to stop the remaining spontaneous functions, in what sense, asks Evans, is this different from killing? Also, does it make sense to accept, as many proponents of brain-centred conceptions of death do, that it is proper to 'explant' organs from 'beating-heart cadavers', whilst squirming at the thought of cremating a 'breathing corpse'?     

A New Process for the Production of Coenzyme A

A new process has been described for the preparation of coenzyme A of high purity from the cultured broth of Brevibacterium ammoniagenes IFO 12071. The product was obtained in a high yield by the use of Duolite S–30, charcoal, and Dowex 1×2, and identified chemically and enzymatically. This method is simple, rapid, and compact, requires no special equipment, and has been shown to be adaptable for preparing large amounts of highly pure coenzyme A.     

A menu-shell for the GCG programs

We provide a menu-driven integration of the genetic programsof the Genetics Computer Group (GCG). This allows inexperiencedusers a very simple access to all GCG programs regardless ofthe system environment. No modifications to the GCG packageare necessary. Received on October 25, 1990; accepted on March 14, 1991