Membrane-active peptides (MAPs) are able to induce pores in cell membranes via molecular mechanisms, which are still subject to ongoing research. In this work, we present molecular dynamics simulations that suggest a precursor membrane defect plays an important role in the pore-inducing activity of the prototypical antimicrobial peptide melittin. The simulations reveal that the hydrophobic N-termi

Nutrients constrain the soil carbon cycle in tropical forests, but we lack knowledge on how these constraints vary within the soil microbial community. Here, we used in situ fertilization in a montane tropical forest and in two lowland tropical forests on contrasting soil types to test the principal hypothesis that there are different nutrient constraints to different groups of microorganisms duri

Horseflies (Tabanidae) are polarotactic, being attracted to linearly polarized light when searching for water or host animals. Although it is well known that horseflies prefer sunlit dark and strongly polarizing hosts, the reason for this preference is unknown. According to our hypothesis, horseflies use their polarization sensitivity to look for targets with higher degrees of polarization in thei

Svenska Dagbladet 19/11 2017, understreckare med anledning av att antologin "Tre sekler av svenska pekoral" är under utgivning.

Having multiple control tasks concurrently running on a single computing platform increases the processor utilization but degrades the control performance due to delay and jitter. In scheduling and control codesign, the objective is to optimize the combined performance of all the controllers, subject to a schedulability constraint. The codesign procedure consists of selecting task parameters, e.g.

Oxylipins, or fatty aldehydes, are a class of molecules produced from membrane lipids as a result of oxidative stress or enzyme-mediated peroxidation. Here we report the effects of two biologically important fatty aldehydes, trans,trans-2,4-decanedienal (DD) and cis-11-hexadecenal (HD), on the phase behavior of the lipid 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE) in water. We compare the

Funerary poems on animals form a subgenre of the standard epitaph written to commemorate a deceased person. The poet who created the conditions necessary for the establishment of this kind of poetry in Sweden was the queen dowager Hedvig Eleonora’s court poet Erik Lindschöld (1634–1690); his poems mourning the death of the queen’s bitches were presumably composed in the 1670s. These poems constitu

Seed orchards function as the primary source of high-quality seeds for reforestation in many European countries, but their seed yields can be severely reduced due to seed- and cone-feeding insects. We evaluated various parameters of pheromone-based mating disruption for control of the moths Cydia strobilella and Dioryctria abietella, which are major pests in European Picea abies seed orchards. We

Hypoxia (i.e., low oxygen levels) is a known feature of aggressive tumors. Cells, including tumor cells, respond to conditions of insufficient oxygen by activating a transcriptional program mainly driven by hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF)-1 and HIF-2. Both HIF-1α and HIF-2α expression levels have been shown to correlate to patient outcome in various tumor forms and in neuroblastoma, a solid childh

The BLAS2T (bilingual aphasia in stroke-study team) initiative has been a multi-center attempt to investigate longitudinal changes in language function in a cohort of stroke subjects. This report discusses linguistic performance in four cases from the BLAS2T database who demonstrated coprolalia as an irresistible urge to say obscene words. Coprolalia was found to partly resolve in a 30-day follow-

Background: Relapse from drug abuse (DA) is common, but has rarely been studied in general population samples using a wide range of objective predictors. Method: Using nationwide registries, we ascertained 44 523 subjects first registered for DA between the ages of 15 and 40 in 1998 to 2004 and followed for 8 years. We predicted relapse in subjects defined as a second DA registration. We also pred

Forskningen i denna avhandling handlar i hög grad om att försöka härma kemin i jordens atmosfär. Den sista mätningen till denna avhandling gjordes för bara några veckor sedan, under ett fruktmellanmål tillsammans med mina barn. Jag bestämde mig för att testa ett otroligt påstående som säger att om jorden krymptes ihop till ett äpple är atmosfären lika tunn som äpplets skal. D.v.s.:tjocklek(äppleskApart from gases, the air we breath consist of tiny, so called, aerosol particles. A cubic metre of air in a relatively clean environment can consist of several billion aerosol particles. The impact of these particles on human health and on climate is significant. According to WHO, particles affect more humans than any other pollutant, and is closely related to mortality and morbidity. Further, it

The pre-industrial millennium is among the periods selected by the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP) for experiments contributing to the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) and the fourth phase of the PMIP (PMIP4). The past1000 transient simulations serve to investigate the response to (mainly) natural forcing under background conditions not too differe

Abstract: Catalysts used for selective catalytic reduction were deactivated for various times in a slipstream from a municipal solid waste incineration plant and then characterized. The activity for NO reduction with NH3 was measured. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface areas were determined by N2 adsorption from which the pore size distributions in the mesopore region were obtained. Micropore area

A Quick guide to oilbirds: nocturnal birds found only in Neotropical rainforests that, rather like many bat species, live in caves where they use echolocation for orientation.

Semiconductor nanowire (NW) solar cells with a single p-n junction have exhibited efficiency comparable to that of their planar counterparts with a substantial reduction in material consumption. Tandem geometry is a path toward the fabrication of devices with even higher efficiencies, for which a key step is the fabrication of tunnel (Esaki) diodes within NWs with the correct diameter, pitch, and