THE WOUNDED AS WE SEE THEM AT HOME

Aliens — as we know them

Cis-spliced acceptors can be converted to trans-splicing acceptors if the donor site upstream is mutated, and similarly an SL addition site will be cis-spliced if a donor site is inserted upstream. What is the function of SL trans-splicing? SL addition provides the cell with an alternative way of capping mRNAs, a modification required for mRNA stability, transport and translation. The standard ...

What Are Lightness Illusions and Why Do We See Them?

Lightness illusions are fundamental to human perception, and yet why we see them is still the focus of much research. Here we address the question by modelling not human physiology or perception directly as is typically the case but our natural visual world and the need for robust behaviour. Artificial neural networks were trained to predict the reflectance of surfaces in a synthetic ecology co...

Mitochondria as we don't know them.

Biochemistry textbooks depict mitochondria as oxygen-dependent organelles, but many mitochondria can produce ATP without using any oxygen. In fact, several other types of mitochondria exist and they occur in highly diverse groups of eukaryotes - protists as well as metazoans - and possess an often overlooked diversity of pathways to deal with the electrons resulting from carbohydrate oxidation....

Databases, But Not As We Know Them

We can train them, but how can we retain them?

To the Editor: The Department of Surgery at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine is proud of its 100% pass rate in the October 2008 Colleges of Medicine of South Africa examinations held in Durban. Most candidates attended the graduation and joined the 3 who passed in May as registered specialists in general surgery. This represents a stalwart effort on the part of the candidates and their t...