Yellow band disease (YBD) has had severe impacts on major reef-building corals throughout the Caribbean. Recent data from Bonaire indicates that this disease remains in an epidemic phase showing similar trends compared to the late 1990s. Ten meter belt transects taken at varied depths of Montastraea spp. indicate high indices of yellow band lesions. At 5m depth, yellow band rings and lesions we...

Palaeobiogeographical and palaeodiversity patterns of scleractinian reef corals are generally biased due to uncertain taxonomy and a loss of taxonomic characters through dissolution and recrystallization of the skeletal aragonite in shallow marine limestones. Herein, we describe a fossil lobophylliid coral in mouldic preservation from the early middle Miocene Leitha Limestone of the Central Par...

This paper has three parts. In the first part, we bring to the fore an ancient Vedic concept of mesocosm and discuss its religious and cosmic significance within Indian religion. This part also brings an initial approach towards philosophy of spirituality by focusing on the role of breath within the very concept of mesocosm. In the second part, based on our preliminary analysis, we present an o...

This paper begins by pointing out a new generalization regarding the distribution of transitive need throughout Indo-European. It is shown that only those Indo-European languages that have a transitive verb have used to express possession (i.e., HAVElanguages) may also have a transitive verb need. No Indo-European BE-language has a transitive verb need. In light of this generalization, we argue...

OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of genetic variation in KCNJ11 on the risk of Type 2 diabetes mellitus in Trinidadians. METHODS The coding and bordering intron-exon regions of the KCNJ11 gene were sequenced in 168 diabetic and 61 non-diabetic subjects who historically were thought to be of South Asian Indian ancestry as well as 66 diabetic and 59 non-diabetic subjects of African ancestry. All...

There is a widespread belief that coronary arteries are smaller in Indo-Asians. The aim of the present study was to compare the size of atheroma-free proximal and distal epicardial coronary arteries of Indo-Asians and Caucasians. We analysed normal coronary angiograms from 77 Caucasians and 39 Indo-Asians. The two groups were comparable for dominance of the coronary arteries. Indo-Asian patient...

Phylogenetic and paleontological analyses are combined to reveal patterns of species origination and divergence and to define the significance of potential and actual barriers to dispersal in Conus, a species-rich genus of predatory gastropods distributed throughout the world's tropical oceans. Species-level phylogenetic hypotheses are based on nucleotide sequences from the nuclear calmodulin a...

Myanmar and Thailand often experience severe droughts and floods that cause irreparable damage to the socio-economy condition of both countries. In this study, the Southeastern Asian Summer Monsoon variation is found to be the main element of interannual precipitation variation of the region, more than the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The ENSO influence is evident only during the boreal...

Indo-Asian ethnicity is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) that is not reconciled by conventional risk factors (1,2). In a recent study (3), we found that pregnant Indo-Asian women exhibited strikingly low serum levels of adiponectin, a protein with putative insulinsensitizing and antiatherogenic activity. Hypoadiponectinemia has since been dem...

Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) populations have experienced global decline because of a history of intense commercial exploitation for shell and stuffed taxidermied whole animals, and harvest for eggs and meat. Improved understanding of genetic diversity and phylogeography is needed to aid conservation. In this study, we analyzed the most geographically comprehensive sample of hawksb...