Three new species of Merma Weise (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae: Epilachnini) from Madagascar.

The herbivorous ladybird genus Merma Weise was regarded as an African endemite, however, recent examination of the type material of the two Malagasy species Epilachna hovana Sicard,1908 [now Merma hovana (Sicard,1908)] and Peralda quadriguttata Sicard, 1909 [now Merma quadriguttata (Sicard, 1909)], revealed they also belong to that genus. Here further three new species of Merma from Madagascar, M. ankarana sp.

Detecting long-range interactions between migrating cells.

Chemotaxis enables cells to systematically approach distant targets that emit a diffusible guiding substance. However, the visual observation of an encounter between a cell and a target does not necessarily indicate the presence of a chemotactic approach mechanism, as even a blindly migrating cell can come across a target by chance. To distinguish between the chemotactic approach and blind migration, we present an objective method that is based on the analysis of time-lapse recorded cell migration trajectories: For each movement step of a cell relative to the position of a potential target, we compute a p value that quantifies the likelihood of the movement direction under the null-hypothesis of blind migration.

Revision of the genus Kugelann (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae).

The genus Kugelann includes five species distributed in the Holarctic, with one species in North America and four in Palearctic region. belongs to the tribe Coccidulini which historically was treated as a separate subfamily within ladybird beetles, but recent studies confirmed its placement as a tribe within the broadly defined subfamily Coccinellinae. All species are revised and a of Duverger with Reitter is proposed.

Cryopreservation impairs 3-D migration and cytotoxicity of natural killer cells.

Natural killer (NK) cells are important effector cells in the immune response to cancer. Clinical trials on adoptively transferred NK cells in patients with solid tumors, however, have thus far been unsuccessful. As NK cells need to pass stringent safety evaluation tests before clinical use, the cells are cryopreserved to bridge the necessary evaluation time.