The nutrition of vegetables in sand

The yield data available from the author's series of investigations on vegetable nutrition in sand have been plotted against the concentrations of the elements concerned (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), and the curves so obtained have been discussed. Within the ranges of concentrations employed, it is observed that too much available nitrogen or, especially, available phosphorus, causes depressions in yields with the tops and/or roots of certain vegetables, turnip roots being particularly susceptible to too much available phosphorus; no case of over-employment of available potassium, however, is noted. The turnip is recommended as a type plant for indicating the state of soil fertility as regards available (nitric) nitrogen.     

Effects of chorda tympani nerve anesthesia on taste responses in the NST

Human clinical and psychophysical observations suggest that the taste system is able to compensate for losses in peripheral nerve input, since patients do not commonly report decrements in whole mouth taste following chorda tympani nerve damage or anesthesia. Indeed, neurophysiological data from the rat nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) suggests that a release of inhibition (disinhibition) may occur centrally following chorda tympani nerve anesthesia. Our purpose was to study this possibility further. We recorded from 59 multi- and single- unit taste-responsive sites in the rat NST before, during and after recovery from chorda tympani nerve anesthesia. During anesthesia, average anterior tongue responses were eliminated but no compensatory increases in palatal or posterior tongue responses were observed. However, six individual sites displayed increased taste responsiveness during anesthesia. The average increase was 32.9%. Therefore, disinhibition of taste responses was observed, but infrequently and to a small degree in the NST At a subset of sites, chorda tympani-mediated responses decreased while greater superficial petrosal-mediated responses remained the same during anesthesia. Since this effect was accompanied by a decrease in spontaneous activity, we propose that taste compensation may result in part by a change in signal-to-noise ratio at a subset of sites.