The antibacterial activities of eight snake crude venom (Macrovipera lebetina obtusa, Pseudocerastes persicus, Pseudocerastes urarachnoides, Echis carinatus sochureki, Gloydius halys caucasicus, Naja (naja) oxiana, and two species of true sea snakes Enhydrina schistose and Hydrophis cyanocinctus) were assessed against five important standard pathogenic bacterial strains (Escherichia coli, ...

Environmental insecurity is a source and outcome of biodiversity declines and social conflict. One challenge to scaling insecurity reduction policies is that empirical evidence about local attitudes is overwhelmingly missing. We set three objectives: determine how local people rank risk associated with different sources of environmental insecurity; assess perceptions of environmental insecurity...

Madagascar's flora and fauna are remarkable both for their diversity and supraspecific endemism. Moreover, many taxa contain large numbers of species with limited distributions. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this high level of microendemism, including 1) riverine barrier, 2) mountain refuge, and 3) watershed contraction hypotheses, the latter 2 of which center on fragmentatio...

Between 1991-2000, Leishmania species were isolated and characterized by isoenzyme and molecular analysis from rodents caught in various parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In areas endemic for cutaneous leishmaniasis, parasites were observed by direct microscopy in smears from 18.6% of 566 specimens. L. major was isolated from 4 species: Rhombomys opimus, Meriones libycus, Tatera indica and...

In this issue of Neuron, Harwell et al. (2012) identify a new role for the secreted molecule Shh and its receptor Boc in synapse formation. These results add an unexpected new player to the expanding list of extracellular cues regulating the spatial specificity of synapse formation.

platelet aggregation inhibitory effect and anticoagulant properties of fractions separated from the venoms of cerastes persicus fieldi and echis carinatus were investigated. the partial fractionation was performed on a sephadex g-100 column. two fractions separated from cerastes persicus fieldi showed anti platelet aggregation activity on adp (200 µm)-induced platelet aggregation (ca 80% inhibi...

Structureactivity relationships of nine thiophenes, 2,2': 5',2″-terthiophene (1), 2-chloro-4-[5-(penta-1,3-diyn-1-yl)thiophen-2-yl]but-3-yn-1-yl acetate (2), 4-(2,2'-bithiophen-5-yl)but-3-yne-1,2-diyl diacetate (3), 4-[5-(penta-1,3-diyn-1-yl)thiophen-2-yl]but-3-yne-1,2-diyl diacetate (4), 4-(2,2'-bithiophen-5-yl)-2-hydroxybut-3-yn-1-yl acetate (5), 2-hydroxy-4-[5-(penta-1,3-diyn-1-yl)thiophen-...