An experimental study of the uptake and loss of Ra-226 by the tissue of the tropical freshwater musselVelesunio angasi (Sowerby) under varying Ca and Mg water concentrations

Freshwater musselsVelesunio angasi (Sowerby) from Magela Creek, Alligator Rivers Region, Northern Territory, Australia, experimentally exposed to mean elevated Ra-226 water concentrations ranging between 0.95 and 1.85 Bq 1^–1 for 28 days, accumulated Ra-226 in their tissue to mean concentrations ranging from 2.8 to 4.8 Bq per gram of dry tissue. The Ra-226 (log₁₀) was accumulated in a linear pattern over exposure periods of 28 and 56 days. Mussel size and sex had little or no effect on the rates of uptake of Ra-226 per gram of tissue.Increased Ca and Mg water concentrations, both in combination and singly, reduced the rate of uptake of Ra-226 by mussel tissue. The experimental data are consistent with Ra-226 accumulation being inversely proportional to both Ca and Mg water concentrations; for Ca the constant of proportionality i.e. is unity; for Mg it is about 0.1.The results indicate competitive inhibition of the uptake of Ra-226 by Ca, i.e. that the mussel treated Ra-226 as a metabolic analogue of Ca; however, there are other possible interpretations of these results that need not invoke competitive inhibition. For Mg the results suggest involvement of some other mechanism(s) apart from or in addition to competitive inhibition of Ra-226 by Mg.Exposure of mussels that had accumulated Ra-226 under field and laboratory conditions to radium-free water for up to 286 days resulted in no significant loss (P > 0.05) of Ra-226 from the tissue. This indicates a very long biological half-life for Ra-226 in the tissue ofV. angasi.     

Book review

THE EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OF PLANTS, by Karl J. Niklas. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997. ISBN 0–226–58082–2; price $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 0–226–58083–0; price $19.95 (Paper).     

Barrels XXXII meeting report: whiskers in the windy city

Abstract

The 32nd Annual Barrels meeting was hosted at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois on October 17th and 18th, 2019. The annual meeting brings together researchers who utilize the rodent whisker-to-barrel system as a means to understand cortical function and development. This year’s meeting focussed on social behaviours, development and cerebellar functions within the barrel system and beyond.     

Three Human Skeletons From The Pk Burial Sheridan County,Wyoming

Abstract

Fragmentary skeletal material from a burial found near the Big Horn Mountains of north-central Wyoming was determined to constitute the remains of three individuals. The few artifacts in association provide little basis for an assessment of cultural affiliation, however, cranial characteristics suggest a close relationship to previously studied Siouan populations.

In February, 1962 Mr. Donald C. Grey of Sheridan, Wyoming submitted skeletal material recovered from the PK Burial Site in Sheridan County, Wyoming to Dr. William M. Bass for identification. Assistance in the analysis of the material was given by Mr. Donald C. Lacy, a graduate studentinphysicalanthropology. According to Mr. Grey (personal communication February 14, 1962), the PK Burial Site was discovered during the summer of 19 59 by a University of Illinois geology student, a member of a summer field crew based at Sheridan College, Sheridan, Wyoming. He discovered a human skull (See Fig. 1: a, b, and c) exposed in the side of a small hilltop overlooking a rodeo corral on a ranch west of Sheridan. The site is located in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains.     

Book review

The Black Trans‐Atlantic Experience Marc, Stephen, The Black Trans‐Atlantic Experience: Street Life and Culture in Ghana, Jamaica, England and the United States. Photographs by Stephen Marc; Foreword by Marilyn Houlberg; Interview by Alan Cohen. Chicago: Columbia College and the University of Illinois Press, 1992, 160 pp., illus., $49.95.     

Fatty acid synthesis inTrichophyton rubrum

Analysis of the fatty acid content ofT. rubrum showed that the organism is capable of synthesizing a variety of saturated and unsaturated long-chain fatty acids (Kostiw, Vicher &Lyon, 1966). The present study was undertaken to determine the mechanism of synthesis of these fatty acids. Experimental data point to the presence of two mechanisms of fatty acid synthesis inT. rubrum:de novo synthesis and chain elongation. The presence of both mechanisms is suggested by the nature of the enzyme preparation, by the cofactor requirements for either pathway, and by the reaction products.University of Illinois at the Medical Center, and Chicago Medical School, Chicago, Illinois. Presented in part at the International Society of Mycology Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, August 1967.     

Book reviews

Stephen Cornell, THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE: AMERICAN INDIAN POLITICAL RESURGENCE, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, 278 pp., $29.95.

Jack D. Forbes, BLACK AFRICANS AND NATIVE AMERICANS: COLOR, RACE AND CASTE IN THE EVOLUTION OF RED‐BLACK PEOPLES, Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988, 334 pp., £35.00.

Maryon McDonald, ’WE ARE NOT FRENCH!’: LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN BRITTANY, London: Routledge, 1989, 384 pp., £40.00.

Ronald Grigor Suny, THE MAKING OF THE GEORGIAN NATION, London: I. B. Taurus and Co. Ltd., 1989, ix‐395 pp., £29.50.

Shlomo Deshen, THE MELLAH SOCIETY: JEWISH COMMUNITY LIFE IN SHERIFIAN MOROCCO, translated and revised from the Hebrew by the author. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989, xii + 152 pp., £23.95 and £9.50 (paper).

Roger Waldinger, Howard Aldrich, Robin Ward and Associates, ETHNIC ENTREPRENEURS: IMMIGRANT BUSINESS IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES, Sage Series on Race and Ethnic Relations, vol. 1., Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990, 226 pp., £29.25 and £13.95 (paper).

Saul Dubow, RACIAL SEGREGATION AND THE ORIGINS OF APARTHEID IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1919–36, St Antony's and Macmillan, London, 1989, xi and 250 pp., £35.00.

Mark Duffield, BLACK RADICALISM AND THE POLITICS OF DE‐INDUSTRIALISATION: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF INDIAN FOUNDRY WORKERS, Avebury, 1988, 226 pp., £24.50.

John Eade, THE POLITICS OF COMMUNITY: THE BANGLADESHI COMMUNITY IN EAST LONDON, Avebury, 1989, 213 pp., £24.00.

Nicole Hahn Rafter (ed.), WHITE TRASH: THE EUGENICS FAMILY STUDIES 1877–1919, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988, 382 pp., £36.00.

Neil R. McMillen, DARK JOURNEY ‐ BLACK MISSISSIPPIANS IN THE AGE OF JIM CROW, Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press, 1989, N.P.L.     

Site 39Lm219 In The Big Bend Reservoir,South Dakota

Abstract

Site 39LM219, an earth-lodge village located in the neck of the Big Bend of the Missouri River in Lyman County, South Dakota, is assigned to the Chouteau Aspect and is presumed to date at about A. D. 1700. Probably the site is part of the Crazy Bull Site previously described in this journal.     

The effect of stable strontium on the incorporation and metabolism of radioactive strontium in young and adult rabbit bones.

The experiments were performed on 5-, 8-, 12- and 14 months old rabbits. The effect of stable strontium enriched diet on the bone tissue formation (apposition) and on physiocochemical processes consisting in ion exchange were studied using radioactive isotopes: Sr-85 and Ra-226 and tetracycline. The results of kinetic and autoradiographic studies and micoscopical analysis of bone preparations suggest that stable strontium inhibits the mineralization of newly formed bone tissue without affecting the physico-chemical processes related to ion exchange.     

The Meander Site (39Lm20L) In Fort Randall Reservoir,South Dakota

Abstract

The Meander Site (39LM20l) is located on the left bank of the White River in Lyman County, South Dakota, about eight miles above the junction of the White and Missouri rivers. Test excavations at the site were conducted in 1953 by Harold A. Hus cher of the Smithsonian Institution, River BasinSurveys. Though few in number, the artifacts recovered indicate the occupation belongs to the Chouteau Aspect. Ceramic analysis suggests the site was occupied at a time somewhat prior to the occupation of the Crazy Bull Site (Frantz 1962).     

An interview with Olivia Gude about connecting school and community arts practice

ABSTRACT

Olivia Gude has a long and distinguished career as both a public artist and an art educator. She is currently the Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor and Chair of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she works with graduate and undergraduate students to prepare for working as artist educators in school and community settings. Her scholarly work includes a number of articles and book chapters about art education and community art. Prof. Gude has worked as a community public artist for many years and has created over 30 large-scale mural and mosaic projects, working with intergenerational groups, teens, elders, and children. I interviewed Prof. Gude at the SAIC building in downtown Chicago to discuss how her school, university, and community art engagement as well as her work with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, might offer suggestions for transforming arts education for the twenty-first century and provide authentic connections between school and community. Prof. Gude discusses important enduring understandings and big ideas from the new Visual Arts National Core Arts Standards, the Spiral Workshop youth art and research project she created while at University of Illinois at Chicago, and how her experience as a community artist informs her work with students in classroom settings.     

Biofilms of Halobacterium salinarum as a tool for phenanthrene bioremediation

Abstract

The use of hyperhalophilic microorganisms is emerging as a sustainable alternative to clean hydrocarbon-polluted hypersaline water bodies. In line with this practice, this work reports on the ability of the archaeon Halobacterium salinarum to develop biofilms on a solid surface conditioned by the presence of phenanthrene crystals, which results in the removal of the contaminating compound. The cell surface hydrophobicity does not change during the removal process and this organism is shown to constitutively produce a surfactant molecule with specific action on aromatic hydrocarbons, both indicating that phenanthrene removal might proceed through a non-contact mechanism. A new approach is presented to follow the process in situ through epifluorescence microscopy by monitoring phenanthrene auto-fluorescence.     

Inversion of Transfer Modes and Sex Factor-Chromosome Interactions in Conjugation in Escherichia coli

A study was made of the mating properties of an unusual system of interconvertible donor strains of Escherichia coli K-12: Ra-1, Ra-2, and RaF⁺. The Ra-1 and Ra-2 strains are Hfr strains whose origins are widely separated on the chromosome and whose transfer modes proceed in the opposite direction from one another. When Ra-1 cells were mated with females, a small fraction of the donors transferred markers via the Ra-2 mode. This effect was enhanced by preconjugal ultraviolet (UV) treatment of the Ra-1 cells. Among the survivors of UV-treated Ra-1 cells, a few stable Ra-2 cells were found. When Ra-2 cells were used as the donors, some of them were found to mate via the Ra-1 mode, in analogy with the Ra-1 to Ra-2 alteration with inversion of F mentioned above. Related experiments suggested that the inversion occurs by detachment of the F factor from one Hfr origin locus, followed by reassociation of the F factor with the other Hfr origin locus. Both the Ra-1 and Ra-2 strains reverted spontaneously to an F⁺ strain, called RaF⁺. Cultures of RaF⁺ cells were found to mate primarily according to the Ra-1 and Ra-2 transfer modes, with smaller contributions also coming from transfer modes with origins elsewhere on the chromosome in a way which is similar to the transfer of markers from a normal F⁺ strain. The RaF⁺ sex factor was found to be wild type, whereas the chromosome was found to carry irregularities (sex factor affinity loci) at the locations of the Ra-1 and Ra-2 origins. Only about 10% of the donor capacity of the RaF⁺ strain was due to stable spontaneous Hfr cells in cultures of RaF⁺ cells.     

Oligonucleotide Directed Mutagenesis of the E. coli hisS Gene: Introduction of an Ncoi Restriction Site at the Initiating GTG and Cloning of the Mutated Gene to the Expression Vector pKK 233–2

Abstract

Site directed mutagenesis of the E. coli his gene with a double mismatch primer changed the initiation codon GTG to ATG and introduced an Ncol restriction site at the start codon. The promoter-deleted structural gene was cloned to the expression vector pKK 233–2.     

The Gillette Site (39ST23), Oahe Reservoir,South Dakota

Abstract

Fieldwork at the Gillette Site primarily cons is ted of the partial excavation ofthreecircular houses, across section of a fortification ditch, and the removal of a buriaL The latest occupation, Component A, is identified as a manifestation of the Stanley or Snake Butte focus, dating from about 1700 to 1800 A. D. Component B represents a circular house tradition probably belonging to an earlier period in the Coalescent Tradition than does Component A. The limited data from Component C implies a village occupation of an indeterminate cultural affiliation earlier than Component B.     

Laboratory characterization of residual sludge from natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing in the Burgos Basin,Mexico

Abstract

Pollutants and microbiota present in the residual sludge of hydraulic fracturing were determined and characterized physicochemically. Analyses included determination of pH, electric conductivity, organic matter percentage, as well as total carbonates, inorganic nitrogen and extractable phosphorous. In addition, presence of hydrocarbons by gas chromatography, potentially toxic elements (PTEs) by atomic absorption and presence of radioactive isotopes by gamma spectrometry were determined. Moreover, fungi and bacteria present in the residual sludge were classified taxonomically to the level of genus. Medium and heavy hydrocarbon fractions were found in concentrations above the maximum limits permitted (MLP) by Mexican environmental norms. Cu, Pb, Zn, Fe and Mg, however, were below the MLP. Likewise, gamma spectrometry analysis revealed naturally occurring Ac²²⁸, Ra²²⁶ and K⁴⁰. The microbiological analysis found presence of the bacteria Bacillus spp., Micrococcus sp., Diplococcus sp. and Staphylococcus sp. and the fungi Trichoderma sp., Aspergillus sp. and Penicillium spp.     

Änderung der zeitlich-räumlichen Verteilung von228Ra und224Ra im RES und markfreien Skelet nach Inkorporierung von kolloidalem ThO2 (Thorotrast)

Summary Animal experiments were done in order toanswer the question for the variation with time of both the distribution of Th-232 and its daughters and the activity ratios between the radionuclides of the thorium decay chain immediately fter incorporation ofthorotrast.The results of these investigations indicate a continuous elimination of Ra-224 from ThO₂-aggregates in the organs of the RES, liver, spleen, and red bonemarrow. According to the variation with time of the activity ratio between Ra-224 and Th-228, even from the first day after incorporation, about 35% of the Ra-224 atoms formed in the aggregates may leave the aggregates due to recoil at -decay of Th-228 and will be eliminated from the organs of the RES. This means that at least at that time the process of aggregation of the ThO²-particles within the organs of the RES has to be finished.This portion of Ra-224 being eliminated from the RES is partly translocated into the marrow-free skeleton. The same is true for the portion of Ra-224 and R-228 in ionic form at the total activity of the suspension, that means, according to the range of the Ra-228 and Ra-224 recoil atoms within the ThO²-particles, for 80% to 90% of the total Ra-228 and Ra-224 activity of the suspension.From the variation with time of the specific Ra-228 activity of marrow-free bone it could be seen that Ra-228 and Ra-224 being fixed in the marrow-free skeleton in ionic form at the time of incorporation is eliminated from the skeleton according to a potential function. As consequence of a continuous translocation of Ra-224 to the skeleton due to decay of Th-228 within the organs of the RES the specific Ra-224 activity of marrow-free bone proved to be constant between 10 nd about 100 days fter incorporation ofthorotrast, considering decay of Ra-224 within the skeleton and its elimination from the skeleton.The experimental results were correlated to those of a theoretical model describing translocation of Ra-224 from the RES to the marrow-free skeleton and its excretion from the skeleton and the body.

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Die Untersuchungen wurden z. T. mit finanzieller Unterstützung der Europäischen Atomgemeinschaft EURATOM (Forschungsvertrag 031-67-3 PSTD) und des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaftliche Forschung durchgeführt, wofür auch an dieser Stelle gedankt sei.

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Auszugsweise vorgetragen auf der 6. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Nuklearmedizin e.V. vom 26. bis 28. September 1968 in Wiesbaden.     

Different properties of two types of auxin-binding sites in membranes from maize coleoptiles

Two types of auxin-binding sites (sites I and II) in membranes from maize (Zea mays L.) coleoptiles were characterized. Site I was a protein with a relative molecular mass of 21 000, and the distribution of site I protein on sucrose density gradient fractionation coincided with that of NADH-cytochrome-c reductase (EC 1.6.99.3), a marker enzyme of the endoplasmic reticulum. Immunoprecipitation and immunoblotting studies showed that the content of site I protein in maize coleoptiles was approx. 2 g·(g FW)^-1. Site II occurred in higher-density fractions and also differed immunologically from site I. Site I was present at the early developmental stage of the coleoptile and increased only twice during coleoptile growth between day 2 and 4. Site II activity was low at the early stage and increased more substantially between day 3 and 4, a period of rapid growth of the coleoptile. Both sites decreased concurrently after day 4, followed by a reduction in the growth rate of the coleoptile. Coleoptiles with the outer epidermis removed showed a lower site I activity than intact coleoptiles, indicating that site I was concentrated in the outer epidermis. Site II, in contrast, remained constant after removal of the outer epidermis. The results indicate that site I is not a precursor of site II and that the two sites are involved in different cellular functions.Abbreviations FW fresh weight - M _r relative molecular mass - 1-NAA 1-naphthaleneacetic acid - 2-NAA 2-naphthaleneacetic acid - SDS-PAGE sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis     

An Application of Delaware's Risk-Based Corrective Action Program: To a Site with MTBE Contamination

MTBE is a gasoline additive addressed in Delaware's Risk-Based Corrective Action Program. Due to inconclusive toxicological data, MTBE is difficult to address in a risk-based fashion pertaining to actual cancer risk. MTBE action levels in Delaware's Risk-Based Corrective Action Program (DERBCAP) are based on the low end of the aesthetic range of the contaminant (10 ppb), not a health-based number. Addressing MTBE in this manner can make it very amenable to risk-based decision making. When MTBE concentrations exceed Tier 1 RBSL values, the site must be remediated to those values or modeled in Tier 2 to calculate Site Specific Target Levels (SSTLs) and demonstrate a stable and shrinking plume. A case study is provided to evaluate the applicability of MTBE in DERBCAP at a site where several shallow, private supply wells were contaminated with MTBE following a gasoline release several hundred feet up-gradient. Following well replacement and site characterization, Tier 2 modeling was performed to establish clean-up goals (RBCA Toolkit). By using initial concentrations at the POC wells and forward calculating concentrations down-gradient, clean up goals were established for the 180 and 230 m POCs at 500 and 1100 ppb, respectively. These clean up goals will be protective of the 10 ppb maximum exposure limit (MEL) established at the down-gradient point of exposure (POE). Modflow (WHI) and MT3D (Zheng 1990) were used to determine if the pump and treat remediation schedule set forth by the consultant was sufficient to remediate to the calculated clean up levels. Transient simulations showed that pumping from wells on the leading and trailing edge of the plume “core” for 1 week each month for 2 years resulted in a drop in POE and source concentrations of 40 to 60%. Although the drop is significant, the down-gradient POE would still be in jeopardy of exceeding the MEL. This suggests that additional and/or more frequent remediation may be necessary.