Esterase polymorphism in vitreous fluid of Pacific hake, Merluccius productus

Three regions of esterase activity designated I, II, and III were found on zymograms of vitreous fluids. Region I, the most anodal, exhibited two zones, one of which (the slower) was in all samples, occasionally accompanied by a second band which moved just ahead of it. Likewise, Region III, the most cathodal, exhibited two phenotypes, a common one-band and a rare two-band phenotype. Region II was occupied by one- and two-banded combinations of five different zones (a, b, c, d and e), which indicated that each band was the product of an allelic series of genes (EsII ^a, EsII ^b, etc.).
Only 11 of 15 expected phenotypes were encountered because of the rarity of alleles EsII ^a and EsII ^c. The most common allele, EsII ^b, had a frequency of 0.83 in Puget Sound hake and 0.60 in Pacific Ocean hake; this difference was highly significant. In the Pacific Ocean population agreement was good between observed and expected numbers, assuming Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. In the Puget Sound samples deviations from expected frequencies did not appear in females or first-year fish, but deviations were significant in males 2 years and older; these deviations occurred as a marked deficiency of bd males combined with an excess of bb and dd males, particularly the latter. Inhibition tests indicated that these isozymes are B esterases. Estimations of molecular weight for the isozymes of Region II based on chromatographic and ultracentrifugation methods were 70,000 and 73,500, respectively.     

Review of invertebrate biological control agent regulation in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA: recommendations for a harmonized European system

Europe lags far behind Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA in terms of implementing regulatory procedures for the import and release of invertebrate biological control agents (IBCAs). A number of standards, documents and guidelines have been produced over recent years in an attempt to harmonize regulation of IBCA introduction into Europe. Despite these efforts, the number of member countries implementing any form of IBCA regulation remains low, with many industries, biological practitioners and regulators fearing that a regulatory system would render the process of approval for IBCA introduction into a country costly and time consuming. Europe’s priority is therefore to formulate a regulatory system that will be readily approved of and adopted by all member countries. In this paper we review the current regulatory processes operating in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. There is potential for Europe to benefit from the years of experience that these countries have in IBCA regulation. We therefore propose recommendations based on features of the regulatory processes in each of the four countries that work well and that could be adopted to generate a workable Europe‐wide regulatory system.     

Similarity-based gene detection: using COGs to find evolutionarily-conserved ORFs

Background  

Experimental verification of gene products has not kept pace with the rapid growth of microbial sequence information. However, existing annotations of gene locations contain sufficient information to screen for probable errors. Furthermore, comparisons among genomes become more informative as more genomes are examined. We studied all open reading frames (ORFs) of at least 30 codons from the genomes of 27 sequenced bacterial strains. We grouped the potential peptide sequences encoded from the ORFs by forming Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs). We used this grouping in order to find homologous relationships that would not be distinguishable from noise when using simple BLAST searches. Although COG analysis was initially developed to group annotated genes, we applied it to the task of grouping anonymous DNA sequences that may encode proteins.     

Human Love Styles and Attitudes toward Pets

Pets have a positive influence on humans’ physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as their close relationships. In general, people who hold a positive view of people in turn hold a favorable view of pets. Despite this, previous studies on the relationship between love toward people and love toward pets were inconclusive. In this study, we take a fresh look at the nexus of the domains of love and pets by exploring whether people’s views of love with a romantic partner are associated with attitudes toward their pets. To answer this question, we administered scales to assess human love styles and attitudes toward pets. Participants completed measures on their attitudes toward romantic love, romantic relationship satisfaction, amount of social support, self-esteem, and attitudes toward pets. Human love styles assessed include Eros (passionate), Ludus (game-playing), Storge (friendship), Pragma (practical), Mania (obsessive), and Agape (selfless). Factor analyses of the pet attitudes measure revealed two factors—positive and negative attitudes toward pets. An erotic love style was linked to the endorsement of favorable pet attitudes, while a ludic love style was associated with the endorsement of unfavorable pet attitudes. Subsequent gender-specific correlations indicated that favorable pet attitudes were associated with high levels of social support for men, but low levels of support for women. Future research might address whether pets are instrumental in the development of love styles, whether love styles change after adoption of a pet, and if attitudes toward a romantic partner are similar to attitudes toward a particularly close companion animal.     

Mycoplasma pneumoniae respiratory disease symposium: summation and significance

The symposium on M. pneumoniae respiratory disease has examined the clinical expression of infection in adults and children, the pathophysiologic disturbances which occur, and the laboratory diagnosis by isolation and serology. That these infections are very common has been well documented; however, a variable incidence over periods of several years tends to minimize importance of the disease for many clinicians. While good laboratory diagnostic methods exist, they provide retrospective insight predominantly and are not useful for early diagnosis or therapeutic decision making. Development of rapid diagnostic methods which are sensitive and specific is an important goal for future research. Success would facilitate our understanding and control of M. pneumoniae disease.