Again on euthanasia

Moving on from euthanasia.

It is time to move on from the euthanasia debate. Let’s also move on from “physician-assisted suicide.” Rationally, if a society legalizes the killing of sick people, it should use the group that is most efficient, legal, trained and, at times, paid to kill: the Armed Forces. Want to die? Fill out a chit, and the sniper takes you out from 100 yards. No pain; indeed, you will never even hear the...

Conflicting protestant views on euthanasia.

Sigma and RNA polymerase: an on-again, off-again relationship?

In bacteria, a fundamental level of gene regulation occurs by competitive association of promoter-specificity factors called sigmas with RNA polymerase (RNAP). This sigma cycle paradigm underpins much of our understanding of all transcriptional regulation. Here, we review recent challenges to the sigma cycle paradigm in the context of its essential features and of the structural basis of sigma ...

Telomere stability and carcinogenesis: an off-again, on-again relationship.

Previous studies in mice have demonstrated antagonistic effects of telomerase loss on carcinogenesis. Telomere attrition can promote genome instability, thereby stimulating initiation of early-stage cancers, but can also inhibit tumorigenesis by promoting permanent cell growth arrest or death. Human cancers likely develop in cell lineages with low levels of telomerase, leading to telomere losse...

T helper cell differentiation: on again, off again.

Recent studies raise the possibility that T helper (Th) polarization may be attributable to generalized activation and regulated silencing rather than regulated activation of target cytokine genes. The binding of transcription factors GATA-3 or T-bet to specific enhancers does recruit transcription factors such as NFAT-1 to IL-4 or IFNgamma promoters, respectively; however, GATA-3 also intrinsi...