The tree of life and the rock of ages: are we getting better at estimating phylogeny?

In a recent paper,(1) palaeontologist Mike Benton claimed that our ability to reconstruct accurately the tree of Life may not have improved significantly over the last 100 years. This implies that the cladistic and molecular revolutions may have promulgated as much bad "black box" science as rigorous investigation. Benton's assessment was based on the extent to which cladograms (typically constructed with reference only to distributions of character states) convey the same narrative as the geochronological ages of fossil taxa (an independent data set).

Worry and chronic pain patients: a description and analysis of individual differences.

Patients with chronic pain often report negative and aversive rumination about pain and its consequences. Little is known about how and why patients with chronic pain worry. This study provides a description of worrying by chronic pain patients.

Phosphoinositide 3-kinase-dependent regulation of interleukin-3-induced proliferation: involvement of mitogen-activated protein kinases, SHP2 and Gab2.

We have demonstrated previously that class I(A) phosphoinositide 3-kinases play a major role in regulation of interleukin-3 (IL)-3-dependent proliferation. Investigations into the downstream targets involved have identified the MAPK cascade as a target. Expression of Deltap85 and incubation with LY294002 both inhibited IL-3-induced activation of Mek, Erk1, and Erk2.

Dissociation of apoptosis from proliferation, protein kinase B activation, and BAD phosphorylation in interleukin-3-mediated phosphoinositide 3-kinase signaling.

Interleukin-3 (IL-3) acts as both a growth and survival factor for many hemopoietic cells. IL-3 treatment of responsive cells leads to the rapid and transient activation of Class IA phosphoinositide-3-kinases (PI3Ks) and the serine/threonine kinase Akt/protein kinase B (PKB) and phosphorylation of BAD. Each of these molecules has been implicated in anti-apoptotic signaling in a wide range of cells.

Opportunity knocks.....will nurses answer?.

ONE OF THE characteristics of the government's White Paper, The New NHS: Modern Dependable', is that it is strong on long-term aspirations but fuzzily vague about the mechanisms and tools required to achieve its aims. It is an outline sketch, where the details still remain to be filled in.

The use of a hydrophobic resin as a product reservoir in steroid transformations.

Particles of the hydrophobic resin polydimethylsiloxane were found to preferentially accumulate steriods on the basis of their hydrophobicity. Thus, the resin selectively sorped the steroid products resulting from the transformation of diosgenin by Nocardia rhodochrous, with the result that higher yields of the later biotransformation product, 1-dehydrodiosgenone, and lower yields of the first product, diosgenone, were obtained than in the absence of resin. Furthermore, steroids accumulated by the resin were available for further biotransformation, so that a two-step reaction forming androstenes from a crude extract of furostanol glycosides (obtained from fenugreek seed) could be carried out.