HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: robison1@husc10.harvard.edu (Keith Robison)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: family of Drosophila spp.
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:01:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc.robison1.726814887
Distribution: sci

rambaut@castle.ed.ac.uk (A E Ram aut) writes:

>Please could someone tell me the family of flies that contains the
>genus Drosophila.  This organism is so ubiquitous (in the literature)
>that noone ever seems to give its taxonomy. This is very urgent and I
>have no access to the library for the moment.

>Thanks alot.
>Andrew

>p.s. probably a good idea to email me as I am sure noone else would be
>in the slightest bit interested.

The taxonomy used by GenBank (the US DNA sequence repository) is:

Eukaryotae/Animalia/Metazoa/Arthropoda/Uniramia/Insecta/Pterygota/Neoptera
/Holometabola/Diptera/Brachycera/Cyclorrhapha/Drosophila

There's obviously some additions to Linnaeus' scheme here, but I
believe you can sort it out.

The taxonomies used by GenBank and some other sequence databases are
available via the gopher hole at  merlot.welch.jhu.edu (look under
the "Databases at Welchlab" menu.  These taxonomies should not be used
to resolve disputes amongst friends (i.e. they are valued most for
lending consistency to the databases, not necessarily reflecting the
latest literature), but are useful in a pinch.  There are probably
better taxonomies somewhere else on the net -- but you got me there.


Keith Robison
Harvard University
Department of Cellular & Developmental Biology
Department of Genetics / HHMI

robison@biosun.harvard.edu 


 

 
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: Thomas Bjorkman <Thomas_Bjorkman@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Levels of blood cholesterol & wine/grape juice consumption
X-Xxdate: Wed, 6 Jan 93 13: 03:03 GMT
Nntp-Posting-User: tnb1@cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d7
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:59:07 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.205348.14058@gov.on.ca> Stephen Davies,
daviess@gov.on.ca writes:
>I've heard of a relationship between lowered levels of cholesterol in
>the blood with consumption of wine or grape juice.  If anyone knows of
>technical references or information on this topic I'd like to hear it.

The article that has gotten all the press is:
Siemann and Creasy, Amer. J. Enology and Viticulture 43:49-52 (1992)

It has been known for some time that a compund called resveratrol reduces
serum lipids.  Siemann and Creasy found that there is quite a lot of
resveratrol in red wine (and, later,  in red grape juice).  The
hypothesis is that reseveratrol is the compound that prevents
red-wine-drinking eaters of cheese and cream sauce (aka Frenchmen) from
keeling over at a young age of clogged arteries and heart attacks.  

Resveratrol, by the way is a phytolalexin, essentially a fungicide that
the grapes make.  Grapes from places where fungal diseases do well tend
to have more of it.  New York is such a place (and the authors are from
Cornell).

Remember:  "Life is too short to drink bad wine"  :-)
From: robison1@husc10.harvard.edu (Keith Robison)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: MRNA
Date: 5 Jan 93 04:12:51 GMT

rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:

>In article <C01ws8.CIu@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net 
>    (Ken Easlon) writes:

>As for your auxiliary question, I hope that you weren't planning on
>taking the number of cells and dividing the average person's weight by
>that number.  Much of your body is acellular.

>Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)

And please don't forget that many of the cells in your body ain't human
-- poor Mr. E. coli and friends would get very insulted!


Keith Robison
Harvard University
Department of Cellular & Developmental Biology
Department of Genetics / HHMI

robison@biosun.harvard.edu
From: adrian@stein.u.washington.edu (Adrian Mariano)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Are Buffalo Tongues Rough?
Date: 5 Jan 1993 09:22:45 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
Keywords: buffalo

A friend of mine has heard many times that buffalo tongues are
extremely rough.  Supposedly, if they lick human skin, they will rip
it off.  

He might have been referring to bison rather than buffalo.  

Does anyone know if this is true?  I'd like some references about
this, and why they do or do not have rough tongues.
From: swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Brainsize - the great brain race
Date: 10 Jan 93 18:00:24 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <103884@netnews.upenn.edu>, rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:
|> >Ditto for birds and dinosaurs.  Which is, naturally, why it was the
|> >optic tecta that enlarged in that lineage.  
|> 
|> I'm not so sure about this.  Yes, the optic tecta are relatively large
|> in these lineages, but they're also relatively large in fish and
|> amphibians.

Hmm, could be.  It has been a long time since I reviewed my Comparative
Neuroanatomy.

|> Furthermore, when vision became more important for
|> mammals, it was cortex that enlarged even though our tectum (superior
|> colliculus) is still intimately involved with vision.  In cats and
|> monkeys it's hard to find cortical regions that don't respond to some
|> sort of visual stimulation...

I would argue that this was due tot he cerbral cortex already being dominant
in mammals, and thus being the prefered location for new functionality.
[Or at least so I would speculate].

|> >Though the upper diencephalon (the optic and auditory tecta)
|> 
|> Sorry to pick nits, but you mean mesencephalon.  Diencephalon refers
|> to thalamic structures.

Oops, you're right!  Got my brain regions off by one!
[Well, actually the diencephalon *also* includes the hypothalamus].

|> 
|> P.S.  Stan there's a person over in k12.ed.science who works as an
|> illustrator of paleo-animals and plants.  She (or he, the first name
|> is Dana) is currently writing a paper about _Allosaurus atrox_ and is
|> soliciting opinions as to whether or not it could grasp with its
|> hands.  E-mail me if you'd like me to send you a copy of her article
|> (the posted one, not the one she's publishing).

Sounds like an interesting article, but I doubt I am really qualified to make
such a judgement for a formal paper.
[My comparative anatomy is rather stale - I do not use it enough].

-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Subject: Re: Krebs cycle
Reply-To: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Nashua NH
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:26:52 GMT


In article <1993Jan8.174736.11471@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
kksng@leland.Stanford.EDU (Kenneth Kai-Sing Ng) writes:
|>
|>A second role of the TCA cycle is to generate, again from
|>acetyl-CoA, four carbon building blocks for the synthesis of amino acids and
|>glucose.

Some microorganisms (particularly the cyanobacteria) are capable of running
the TCA cycle backwards to generate pyruvate (and hence eventually glucose)
from acetyl-CoA.  This doesn't happen in most organisms, though.  Man and I
think all other mammals are incapable of net new glucose formation from
acetyl-CoA.  The seeds of plants, which are very active in such synthesis,
don't do so using the TCA cycle.  They use a shunt called the glyoxylate
cycle.  Most organisms lack two key enzymes necessary to run the glyoxylate
pathway and thus generate new glucose from acetate.

--PSW 
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: MRNA
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:49:06 GMT

In article <103684@netnews.upenn.edu> ,
rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:

>So where are you headed with this? 

A few weeks ago I made a wild statement in another news group
(comp.ai.philosophy) that the brain might well be the dumbest organ in the
body.

This idea was based on the concept that cells-as-computers can be seen as
more than an analogy or metaphor, that cells actually perform in ways that
are very similar to other digitally controlled systems, under the direction
of DNA.  

The brain statement is based on the fact that neurons have less DNA per
unit weight than other kinds of cells (eggs-cluding eggs and who knows what
other special cases).  Neurons which survive just keep growing and
branching, adding an additional burden on the existing nucleus.  

If cellular smarts is important to the survival of the organism, then one
kind of brain smarts diminishes with age.  Of course the synaptic
organization type of smarts continues to develop with age, up to a point,
and I'm sure it adds more survivability to the organism than is lost in DNA
power.

Anyway, the dumb brain statement was meant as a joke, but in the process of
defending the argument I developed the need to know a few molecular
biological basics such as the rate at which the nucleus issues instructions
to the cellular machinery.

If we take Sean Eddy's estimate of the mRNA data rate of 200 kilobytes per
second per cell (article <eddy.725706161@beagle>), and if we figure one
codon triplet equals one computer type instruction, then I get 3 x 10^5
instructions per second per cell.  With the human body's cell count at
10^14 (plus or minus), that comes to about 3 x 10^19 cellular instructions
per second.  

At 100 billion neurons per human nervous system, the cellular computing
power would be about 3 x 10^16 or about .1% of the body's total cellular
computing power.  Not terribly impressive since the nervous system probably
accounts for about 2% of the body weight (That's using the familiar 3 lb
quote in the popular literature, I don't know what percentage is glial
cells).

By comparison, Hans Moravec estimates brain (synaptic) power at 1 x 10^13
computations per second, but of course that's apples and oranges.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who responded.

--
Ken Easlon                | "...somebody spoke and I went into a dream..."
ken@holonet.net           |    -Paul McCartney
Pleasantly Unaffiliated   |

Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: jssloka@monet.uwaterloo.ca (Scott Sloka)
Subject: Modelling the Brain as a System
Keywords: Brain, System
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:12:46 GMT


Howdy.  I am a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering and I am exploring
modelling the brain as a system using standard systems theory (or not-so-standard
systems theory).  I was wondering if there is any current research being pursued
in this area and if there are any good references (texts, papers...) on this 
subject.  I would appreciate any information at all and I thank you very much
in advance.

			-Scott
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: arandia@panix.com (Joel Arandia)
Subject: Re: Human Genome Project Status?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:10:05 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1993Jan4.153008.29359@mks.com> david@mks.com (David Rowley) writes:

>Where would I find out the current status of the project to
>map and sequence the Human (and other) genomes?

This month's Discover(Jan.1993) has a big article on it.  According to the 
article, By last fall they had 67% of the human genome mapped.  They expect to 
be done this year.

joel d. arandia

ps-isn't the Pillsbury Doughboy just a giant mutated yeast cell that escaped 
the Genome lab?
From: mkreyka@cs.vu.nl (Kreijkamp M)
Subject: Breath-hold diving
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:29:55 GMT

Hi,

I am currently working on a short paper on physiological adaptations
of man and sea mammals during diving, especially breath-hold
diving. Does anybody know some good books/articles on this subject?
If so, could he/she please e-mail me?

Thanks in advance,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           We make our destinies by our choice of gods.      Virgil
 ---- -  -   -    -     -      -       -       -      -     -    -   -  - -----
     Maartje Kreykamp                And it was eleven o'clock.
     mkreyka@cs.vu.nl                Which was Time-for-a-little-something...
                                             The House at Pooh Corner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Brainsize - the great brain race
Date: 9 Jan 93 16:55:54 GMT
Reply-To: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Organization: Chemical & Process Engineering Dept, University of Newcastle, UK.

swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen) writes:

>In article <C0Dt77.Cnn@newcastle.ac.uk>, w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk writes:
>|> --------------------------------------------------------
>|>    Why did mammals evolve large brains 250 Ma?
>|> Reptiles of 300 Ma, dinosaurs and modern reptiles all have the same 
>|> brain size.

>Well, right off. you start out with something that is not true.
>Birds have substantially larger brains than reptiles - in fact their brains
>are almost as large as those of mammals. (Though the enlarged portion consists
>of the optic tecta and the corpus striatum, rather than the cerebral cortex
>as in mammals).

I've checked the summary I wrote and I can't find any mention of 
birds.  The New Scientist paper did make the ocassional mention of
birds, but I did not bother mentioning those bits.

   The paper says "Jerison discovered that repiles were
small-brained 300 million years ago and remain so today.  
His plot (logarithmic) of brain size against body size for
every known reptile species, extant and extinct, produced 
a straight line.  The
dinosaurs, many of which had much bigger bodies than living 
reptiles, fall
squarely on this line, belying the myth that they lumbered to 
extinction because they were especially stupid."   It then later
mentions about birds and mammals having similar brain sizes.

                -----------------------
  You say birds have brains almost as large as mammals.  According
to some of Jerison's work there is actually a massive overlap between
the brain size (relative to body size) of mammal species and of bird 
species

   I've come across several references to Jerison's work on
brain size, and plan to send some information and questions into
the net soon on it.

>Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: ledwards@leland.Stanford.EDU (Laurence James Edwards)
Subject: Re: Evolution of the human brain's cognitive capacity
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 00:01:33 GMT

In article <1hpvrpINNsam@shelley.u.washington.edu>, wcalvin@stein.u.washington.edu (William Calvin) writes:
|> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
|> 
|> >Bad example.  Catching a branch after a free-fall requires the
|> >"unconscious" solution of a DE.  Catching a ball is a complicated
|> >set of equations.  Now, being able to express it AS equations is recent,
|> >but the ability to solve them isn't....
|> 
|> All animals seem to have the ability to make at least one particular kind
|> of trajectory calculation, also involved in catching a ball:  that of
|> judging whether an approaching object will hit their head.  It produces
|> the blink replex, and cognitive-level abilities need not be invoked (it's
|> a brainstem-level reflex, based on looming).

Yes, the ability to catch things does not require "solution" of a DE 
or set of DE's in the normal sense of the word, you just need a good
feedback control system ... you may need to tweak the gains depending
on what your catching (maybe adaptive feedback control is the more correct
term) but to say that one must "solve" a complex set of DE's is misleading.

|> Now throwing a projectile, and estimating its trajectory in advance during
|> "get set", is indeed a good candidate for a cognitive mechanism.  All of
|> the ballistic movements (kicking, clubbing, throwing, hammering -- even
|> spitting) require lots of advance planning; feedback arrives too late to
|> do any good, so "get set" must create a complete movement command
|> sequence, start to finish.

While throwing activities are better candidates for cognitive mechanisms
I still don't think they *require* anything more than the ability to
interpolate or extrapolate from past experience.

Larry Edwards
From: AJIMENEZ@UCRVM2.BITNET (Ana Graciela Jimenez)
Newsgroups: sci.bio.technology
Subject: Request information about insecticides
Date: 6 Jan 93 13:10:05 GMT
Reply-To: Biotechnology Discussion List <BIOTECH%UMDD.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I'm making a research about a natural insecticide, and i need information about
insecticides (natural and sinthetic).  I need information about wordlwide use,
markets, more common insecticides, and information about use of natural insecti
cides.
You can reply me directly.
Thanks in advance
Ana GRaciela Jimenez
ajimenez at ucrvm2.bitnet
Newsgroups: sci.bio.technology
From: mmt@engr.LaTech.edu (Muhammad M. Tello)
Subject: wheelchairs
Organization: Louisiana Tech University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:39:39 GMT

Is there seat-hieght adjustable wheelchairs(not scooter)?
From: MURPHY%EOS@leia.polaroid.com
Newsgroups: sci.bio.technology
Subject: Ethidium Bromide Gels
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:06:40 GMT
Reply-To: Biotechnology Discussion List <BIOTECH%UMDD.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

----------------------------Original message----------------------------


To:  Gus Trautweiler

Gus,

        Your name was forwarded to me as someone who might be interested
in Polaroid solutions for high resolution digitization of photographs.  If
this is true, I can be reached at (617) 577-5569.  You can also
reach me through email.

                                        Thanks,
                                        Bill Murphy
                                        Polaroid
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: nikjo@microsoft.com (Nikhil Joshi)
Subject: Oysters and Pearls
Date: 12 Jan 93 00:24:52 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.
Distribution: usa

A friend of mine is trodding down the path not normally taken, and is moving
to Fiji to farm pearls. Here's his question.

When inseminating an oyster to make a pearl, one inserts a pearl nucleus (usually 
some random spheroid made of an inert material) and a piece of mantle from another
oyster (let's call it the donor).

He says that the color and quality of pearl depends on what part of the mantle from
the donor is used in the target oyster. If you want a dark pearl, you use one part
of the oyster, if you want a different color, you use another part. 

He then launched into technical oyster-farming lingo which I didn't understand being
that I'm an astronomer. 

Anybody have any scientific justification/explaination for this?

Please reply via email as I don't normally read this newsgroup. 

Thanks

 nikjo@microsoft.com
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Brainsize - the great brain race
Date: 6 Jan 93 22:34:12 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1704@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tools3teradata.com 
    (Stan Friesen) writes:

>In article <C0Dt77.Cnn@newcastle.ac.uk>, w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk writes:
>|> --------------------------------------------------------
>|>    Why did mammals evolve large brains 250 Ma?
>|> Reptiles of 300 Ma, dinosaurs and modern reptiles all have the same 
>|> brain size.
>
>Well, right off. you start out with something that is not true.

I was somewhat baffled by the original statement as well.  Peter, are
you sure that you're not mistaken about what the article said?

>|> Reptiles are mainly visual animals and much of the processing of this
>|> data is done at the periphery of their nervous systems - the retina.
>
>Ditto for birds and dinosaurs.  Which is, naturally, why it was the
>optic tecta that enlarged in that lineage.  

I'm not so sure about this.  Yes, the optic tecta are relatively large
in these lineages, but they're also relatively large in fish and
amphibians.  Furthermore, when vision became more important for
mammals, it was cortex that enlarged even though our tectum (superior
colliculus) is still intimately involved with vision.  In cats and
monkeys it's hard to find cortical regions that don't respond to some
sort of visual stimulation...

>(Though I suspect that the auditory tecta might also have enlarged).

If I recall correctly, the inferior colliculus of microchiropteran
bats is hypertrophied, but there isn't much of an "auditory tectum" in
reptiles or birds.  I could easily be wrong about that, though.

>|> They suggest the increase in brain size  was due to 3 reasons, 
>|> the first 2 by Jerison and a 
>|> third by John Allman, though the third is disputed by some.
>|> 
>|> resaon 1 - Mammals had to handle different types of information
>|> reason 2 - Having a centralised processing system meant data from sight
>|>            sound, touch and smell could be integrated to create a more
>|>            detailed mental model of the world

>Though the upper diencephalon (the optic and auditory tecta)

Sorry to pick nits, but you mean mesencephalon.  Diencephalon refers
to thalamic structures.

>Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)

P.S.  Stan there's a person over in k12.ed.science who works as an
illustrator of paleo-animals and plants.  She (or he, the first name
is Dana) is currently writing a paper about _Allosaurus atrox_ and is
soliciting opinions as to whether or not it could grasp with its
hands.  E-mail me if you'd like me to send you a copy of her article
(the posted one, not the one she's publishing).

P.P.S.  Thanks for bringing the article to our attention, Peter.  I'm
probably going to hunt it down myself.
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: how do I germinate a welwitschia seed.
From: ewartd@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au
Date: 8 Jan 93 13:45:58 GMT

In article <gmacdoug.4.726243850@ace.acadiau.ca>, gmacdoug@ace.acadiau.ca (GLENN MACDOUGALL) writes:
> Can anyone tell me how to germinate and eventually care for a welwitschia 
> seed/plant?  I am not having much luck, and I only have two seeds left.


Easy!

	Return to center of origin.  Bury lightly in soil.  Return after about
20 years and appreciate thevalue of organisms  in their ecological context!


:-)

No idea really, but I'd bet you have to get the temp. and humidity just right
and fairly constant.

-- 
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| ewartd@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au  SECS, Inst. of Ed.       _--_|\  |
|                                   University of Melbourne /      \ |
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|                                   KEW  VIC  3101 Australia      v  |
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