Escalating demands for water have led to substantial modifications of river systems in arid regions, which coupled with the widespread invasion of nonnative organisms, have increased the vulnerability of native aquatic species to extirpation. Whereas a number of studies have evaluated the role of modified flow regimes and nonnative species on native aquatic assemblages, few have been conducted ...

The age structures of populations of African annual Nothobranchius spp. were examined for the first time. Daily increments in sagittal otoliths of Nothobranchius furzeri, Nothobranchius kadleci, Nothobranchius orthonotus and Nothobranchius rachovii from southern and central Mozambique were used for age determination. Four hypotheses were tested: (1) timing of hatching is consistent with the cal...

Applied to certain problems, neuroevolution frequently gets stuck in local optima with very low fitness; in particular, this is true for some reinforcement learning problems where the input to the controller is a high-dimensional and/or ill-chosen state description. Evidently, some controller inputs are “poisonous”, and their inclusion induce such local optima. Previously, we proposed the memet...

Editorial Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), once a rapidly fatal disease, has become most curable of all leukemias, thanks to the two Chinese wonder drugs, all-trans retinoid acid and arsenic trioxide (AT). PML-RXARa fusion protein is the hallmark and driving force of APL. In the April 9 issue of the journal, Science, Zhang et al. provided new and convincing evidence on how AT, an ancient poi...

1. Certain anaerobically produced autolysates of pneumococcus injected intravenously kill mice in 0.1 to 0.2 cc. quantities in a few hours to 8 days. 2. The symptoms of mice inoculated with these autolysates are weakness and increasing prostration until death. Massive albuminuria is found, appearing 18 hours after injection. During the course of a prolonged intoxication ascites and edema of the...

Ferula communis L., subsp. communis, namely giant fennel, has extensively been used in traditional medicine for a wide range of ailments. Fresh plant materials, crude extracts and isolated components of F. communis showed a wide spectrum of in vitro and in vivo pharmacological properties including antidiabetic, antimicrobial, antiproliferative, and cytotoxic activities. The present paper, revie...

Piperidine alkaloids are acutely toxic to adult livestock species and produce musculoskeletal deformities in neonatal animals. These teratogenic effects include multiple congenital contracture (MCC) deformities and cleft palate in cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. Poisonous plants containing teratogenic piperidine alkaloids include poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), lupine (Lupinus spp.), and tob...

The transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) ion channel is a polymodal receptor that mediates the flux of cations across the membrane in response to several stimuli, including heat, voltage, and ligands. The best known agonist of TRPV1 channels is capsaicin, the pungent component of "hot" chili peppers. In addition, peptides found in the venom of poisonous animals, along with the lipid...