Spider silks are among the strongest and toughest known materials, but investigation of these remarkable properties has been confined largely to orb-weaving spiders. We investigated the mechanical performance of silk from the cobweb-weaving spider Latrodectus hesperus. Both silk from the scaffolding region of the web and sticky gumfooted capture lines had material properties similar to the majo...

In this note we calculate the Casimir effect of free thermal gravitons in Einstein universe and discuss how it changes the entropy bound condition proposed recently by Verlinde as a higher dimensional generalization of Cardy’s formula for conformal field theories (CFT). We find that the graviton’s Casimir effect is necessary in order not to violate Verlinde’s bound for weakly coupled CFT. We al...

Nowadays, water pollution has become a matter of great concern in our society. Most of the water pollutions are related to the industrial effluents. Textile industry is the one of the most important industry in all over world and this industry uses large volumes of water in wet processing operations and thereby, generates substantial quantities of wastewater containing large amounts of dissolve...

The patient was an 18-year-old man who developed nephrotic syndrome after a 'wheat spider' bite (Latrodectus mactans). Due to this atypical manifestation of latrodectism, a renal biopsy was performed showing minimal change disease. The nephrotic syndrome subsided after 1 week without specific treatment. This self-limited evolution suggests that the mechanism of podocyte damage was temporary and...

Seven high molecular weight neurotoxins which stimulate secretion of various neurotransmitters were isolated from the venom of black widow spider Latrodectus mactans tredecimauttatus. Among them a-latrotoxin is very specific for vertebrate while latroinsectotoxins are active only for insects, a-latrocrustatoxin affects crustacean nerve endings. Latrotoxin preparation consists of 130 and 8 kD pr...

Various spider species produce dragline silks with different mechanical properties. The primary structure of silk proteins is thought to contribute to the elasticity and strength of the fibres. Previously published work has demonstrated that the dragline silk of Euprosthenops sp. is stiffer then comparable silk of Nephila edulis, Araneus diadematus and Latrodectus mactans. Our studies of Eupros...

This report presents a case of a ten-years-old girl, who suffered myocardial ischemia following by “black widow” spider bite. A few minutes after the bite, her parents saw a small, black and shiny lesion in insect bite. The clinical signs began about 3-4 hours after the bite. The venom of the Latrodectus mactans “black widow” is toxic, resulting about 5-6 % fatality rate. The case of a black wi...

ABSTR•CT.--I assessed patterns of allozymic variation in Larus argentatus (Herring Gulls), L. cachinnans (Yellow-legged Herring Gulls), L. fuscus (Lesser Black-backed Gulls), L. glaucoides (Iceland Gull), L. hyperboreus (Glaucous Gulls), and L. marinus (Greater Black-backed Gull). I surveyed 34 presumed structural gene loci over 479 individuals. All birds were monomorphic and fixed for the same...