"I'm attached, and I'm a good guy/gal!": how character attachment influences pro- and anti-social motivations to play massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

One's feelings of intimacy and connectedness with distal, fictional media characters are referred to as parasocial interactions. Video games have challenged this concept, as the distance between game players and characters is greatly reduced, if not completely removed, in virtual environments. Games encourage the internalization and psychological merging of a player's and a character's mind, a multidimensional concept known as character attachment (CA).

The presumptive magnetosome protein Mms16 is a poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) granule-bound protein (phasin) in Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense.

The Mms16 protein has been previously found to be associated with isolated magnetosomes from two Magnetospirillum strains. A function of this protein as a magnetosome-specific GTPase involved in the formation of intracellular magnetosome membrane vesicles was suggested. Here we present a study of the Mms16 protein from Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense to clarify its function.

Inactivation of the flagellin gene flaA in Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense results in nonmagnetotactic mutants lacking flagellar filaments.

Magnetotactic bacteria synthesize magnetosomes, which cause them to orient and migrate along magnetic field lines. The analysis of magnetotaxis and magnetosome biomineralization at the molecular level has been hindered by the unavailability of genetic methods, namely the lack of a means to introduce directed gene-specific mutations. Here we report a method for knockout mutagenesis by homologous recombination in Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense.

Unraveling the function of the Rhodospirillum rubrum activator of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) degradation: the activator is a PHB-granule-bound protein (phasin).

Efficient hydrolysis of native poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (nPHB) granules in vitro by soluble PHB depolymerase of Rhodospirillum rubrum requires pretreatment of nPHB with an activator compound present in R. rubrum cells (J. M.

Development of a genetic system for Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense.

Genetic analysis of bacterial magnetosome biomineralization has been hindered by the lack of an appropriate methodology for cultivation and genetic manipulation of most magnetotactic bacteria. In this report, a genetic system for Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense is described. The system includes a plating technique that allows the screening of magnetic vs non-magnetic colonies, and a protocol for the transfer of foreign DNA by electroporation and high-frequency conjugation.