Science in support of racial mixture: Charles-Augustin Vandermonde's Enlightenment program for improving the health and beauty of the human species.

In 1756, while he was regent of the Faculté de Médecine in Paris, Charles-Augustin Vandermonde published his Essai sur la Manière de Perfectionner l'Espèce Humaine. This treatise was situated within the French-led medical movement of meliorism, meant to increase public health by boosting the medical arrangement of marriages from all strata of society. What made Vandermonde different from his colleagues is that he was not just looking for a way to improve the health of society: he was also proposing a series of measures meant to increase the beauty of humankind.

Inositol trisphosphate-induced calcium release in the generation of calcium oscillations in bovine eggs.

Bovine eggs exhibit repetitive rises in intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) in response to fertilization. The signaling pathways and Ca2 release mechanisms involved in their generation are not well characterized. This study examined the presence of a GTP-binding protein (G-protein) signaling pathway as well as the role of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) receptor (InsP3R)-mediated Ca2+ release and ryanodine receptor (RyR)-mediated Ca2+ release, the two Ca2+ receptors/channels most often thought to participate in the generation of [Ca2+]i oscillations, by injecting appropriate agonists and antagonists and monitoring their effects on Ca2+ release and pronucleus formation, injection of guanosine 5'-0-(3-thiotriphosphate) (GTP gamma [S]), which promotes G-protein-mediated phosphoinositide turnover, induced, at high concentrations, repetitive [Ca2+]i rises.

Lamin dynamics during sea urchin male pronuclear formation in vitro.

The dynamics of lamin disassembly and reassembly during sea urchin male pronuclear development in vitro was investigated. Using five anti-lamin antibodies, we monitored by immunofluorescence and immunoblotting the changes in lamins during sperm chromatin decondensation, nuclear envelope (NE) formation, and male pronuclear swelling in fertilized sea urchin egg cytoplasmic extracts. We report the existence of five proteins in sperm nuclei and swollen male pronuclei (p49, p54, p65, p72, p84) which react with the antibodies.

Identification of an M(r) 60,000 polypeptide unique to the meiotic spindle of the mouse oocyte.

The mouse oocyte expresses an M(r) 60,000 (p60) polypeptide that is associated with the first and second meiotic spindles. Immunoreactive p60 was not detectable in the meiotic spindles of male germ cells or in mitotic spindles. P60 was identified with a polyclonal antibody whose predominant activity is directed against ankyrin.