Infants' exploration of scented toys: effects of prior experiences

To evaluate breastfed infants' responses to scented objects, we videotaped the facial and bodily reactions of sixty-three infants as they explored, in succession, three toys that were identical in appearance but different in their characteristic odor. Two of the toys were scented with odorants previously shown to be transmitted to human milk, one with ethanol and the other with vanilla, whereas the third toy was unscented. Each videotape was subjected to frame-by-frame analysis to measure a variety of behaviors that are considered either to be exploratory in nature in that they lead to perceptual information about the object or to reflect the infants' hedonic reaction. Analyses of these behaviors revealed that the infants looked more and vocalized less in the presence of the vanilla-scented toy and spent less time manipulating the ethanol-scented toy when compared with the unscented toy. Moreover, differential exposure to the odors of ethanol and vanilla, as indicated by differential consumption of alcohol by a parent or use of vanilla-scented product by the mother, was related to differential responses to these odors. These findings suggest that human infants are able to detect and retain information about the chemical features of their environment.      

Ventilatory responses to intravenous and airway CO2 administration in anesthetized dogs

The ventilatory responses to steady-state venous CO2 loading (iv CO2) and CO2 inhalation have been observed in chloralose-urethan-anesthetized dogs. Intravenous CO2 was administered by increasing the CO2 fraction of gas ventilating a membrane gas exchanger in an arteriovenous bypass; blood flow rate was fixed at 30 ml/min. During the study, we identified a time-dependent hyperventilation in all 14 experimentally treated dogs and in 4 additional sham-treated dogs. When we tested 8 of these animals with a protocol having small progressive increments in iv CO2 loading rate, we observed a response approaching isocapnia during iv CO2 and a large hypocapnia when we returned to control conditions. The use of a randomized protocol in 6 animals demonstrated the necessity of accounting for this systematic base-line shift, because before doing so the response depended more on the passage of time than on the nature of the CO2 load. After this analytical adjustment was made, there was no significant difference between the respiratory controller gains (delta nu E/delta Paco2) for inhaled and iv CO2.     

Regulation of product formation during glucose or lactose limitation in nongrowing cells of Streptococcus lactis

Nongrowing cells of Streptococcus lactis in a pH-stat were dosed with sugar to allow fermentation at the maximum rate or were fed a continuous supply of sugar at rates less than the maximum. Under anaerobic conditions, rapid fermentation of either glucose or lactose was essentially homolactic. However, with strain ML3, limiting the fermentation rate diverted approximately half of the pyruvate to formate, acetate, and ethanol. At limiting glucose fermentation rates, cells contained lower concentrations of lactate dehydrogenase activator (fructose 1,6-diphosphate) and pyruvate formate-lyase inhibitors (triose phosphates). As a result, pyruvate formate-lyase and pyruvate dehydrogenase play a greater role in pyruvate metabolism. In contrast to strain ML3, strain ML8 did not give the same diversion of products under anaerobic conditions, and cells retained higher concentrations of the above effector compounds. Lactose metabolism under aerobic conditions resulted in pyruvate excretion by both S. lactis ML3 and ML8. At 7% of the maximum utilization rate, pyruvate accounted for 69 and 35% of the lactose metabolized by ML3 and ML8, respectively. Acetate was also a major product, especially with ML8. The data suggest that NADH oxidase is involved in coenzyme recycling in the presence of oxygen and that pyruvate formate-lyase is inactivated, but the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex still functions.     

The significance of wing pattern diversity in the Lycaenidae: mate discrimination by two recently diverged species

Closely related species of lycaenid butterflies are determinable, in part, by subtle differences in wing pattern. We found that female wing patterns can act as an effective mate‐recognition signal in some populations of two recently diverged species. In field experiments, we observed that males from a Lycaeides idas population and an alpine population of L. melissa preferentially initiate courtship with conspecific females. A morphometric study indicated that at least two wing pattern elements were important for distinguishing the two species: hindwing spots and orange crescent‐shaped pattern elements called aurorae. We deceived male L. idas into initiating courtship with computer generated paper models of heterospecific females when these pattern elements were manipulated, indicating that the wing pattern elements that define the diversity of this group can be effective mate recognition signals.