Reducing shade avoidance responses in a cereal crop.

Several researchers have hypothesized that shade avoidance behaviour is favoured by natural selection because it increases the fitness of individuals. Shade avoidance can be disadvantageous for crops, however, because it reduces allocation of resources to reproductive yield, increases the risk of lodging and reduces weed suppression. One approach to develop varieties with reduced shade avoidance and enhanced agronomic performance is by inducing mutations followed by phenotypic screening.

Evolutionary Agroecology: the potential for cooperative, high density, weed-suppressing cereals.

Evolutionary theory can be applied to improve agricultural yields and/or sustainability, an approach we call Evolutionary Agroecology. The basic idea is that plant breeding is unlikely to improve attributes already favored by millions of years of natural selection, whereas there may be unutilized potential in selecting for attributes that increase total crop yield but reduce plants' individual fitness. In other words, plant breeding should be based on group selection.

Ambivalence in the Christian attitude to war and peace.

In this paper it will be argued that the basic document of Christianity, the Bible, contains a unique potential for accepting the other and solving conflicts by non-violent means, but that this potential has never been available in pure form. The history of Christianity from the very beginnings in the New Testament period up to the present has been one of great ambiguity, an amalgam of attempts to live out the fundamental values as well as of compromise and open betrayal. This process will be outlined, illustrated and the factors will be pointed at, which in different situations bring to the fore the conflicting elements of Christian tradition.

Ectopic expression of NCAM in mouse fibroblasts stimulates self-aggregation, and promotes integration into primary cerebellum cell aggregates.

We have undertaken aggregation experiments using mouse LMTK(-)-fibroblasts transfected with various isotypes of the neural cell adhesion molecule, NCAM. We found that self-aggregation of NCAM-positive fibroblasts is enhanced compared to control-transfected cells. The aggregation properties are partly dependent on the expressed NCAM isotype.

Neural cell adhesion molecules in rat endocrine tissues and tumor cells: distribution and molecular analysis.

The adhesive properties of neural cell adhesion molecules (NCAMs) can be modified by alternative splicing of the primary transcript or posttranslational modifications. In the present study, we describe distinct forms of alternative splicing and posttranslational modification of the extracellular domain of NCAM of various endocrine tissues and derived tumor cells of the rat. Using an antiserum detecting the immunoglobulin-like domains of NCAM as well as a monoclonal antibody recognizing the NCAM-specific polysialic acid (PSA), we observed a similar staining pattern in adrenals, pituitary, and neoplastic endocrine cells.