Current and future water issues in the Oldman River Basin of Alberta, Canada.

Long-term trends in alpine and prairie snow pack accumulation and melt are affecting streamflow within the Oldman River Basin in southern Alberta, Canada. Unchecked rural and urban development also has contributed to changes in water quality, including enhanced microbial populations and increased waterborne pathogen occurrence. In this study we look at changing environment within the Oldman River Basin and its impact on water quality and quantity. The cumulative effects include a decline in net water supplies, and declining quality resulting in increased risk of disease. Our data indicates that decreases in the rate of flow of water can result in sedimentation of bacterial contaminants within the water column. Water for ecosystems, urban consumption, recreation and distribution through irrigation is often drawn from waterholding facilities such as dams and weirs, and concern must be expressed over the potential for contaminate build-up and disproportionate potential of these structures to pose a risk to human and animal health. With disruption of natural flow rates for water resulting from environmental change such as global warming and/or human intervention, increased attention needs to be paid to use of best management practices to protect source water supplies.     

A common precursor to neurotensin and LANT6 and its differential processing in chicken tissues

Antisera towards neurotensin (NT) and the structurally related peptide, LANT6, were used to characterize immunoreactive peptides and proteins in extracts of chicken tissues. A 17 kDa protein was identified by Western blotting as a potential precursor to NT and LANT6. However, the posttranslational processing of this common precursor appeared to be tissue specific, giving rise to disproportionate amounts of NT and LANT6, along with varying expression of a large molecular LANT6 (M(r), 15 kDa). The intestinal cells containing immunoreactive NT, LANT6, and large molecular LANT6 behaved similarly during fractionation by size and density. These activities also banded together in particles resembling vesicles during centrifugation of isotonic homogenates of tissue. These results suggest that chicken NT and LANT6 are biosynthesized as parts of the same precursor, the processing of which can give rise to a variety of products stored within secretory vesicles.     

Fooling anti-virus systems

Anti-virus (AV) products and other fingerprint-based systems are typical of the applications used to enforce security. AV products are probably the first step that most organizations take to protect their systems and enhance security. Many small to medium organizations rely almost entirely on AV products.     

Multiple Functions for Secondary Metabolites in Encrusting Marine Invertebrates

We used three chemical fractions (spanning a wide range of polarities) from the extracts of four marine invertebrates, the spongesCrambe crambe andHemimycale columella and the ascidiansCystodytes dellechiajei andPolysyncraton lacazei, to test inhibition of cell division, photosynthesis, and settlement. We used assay organisms from the same habitat, seeking to determine whether a species may display diverse, ecologically relevant bioac-tivities and, if so, whether the same types of compound may be responsible for such activities. Cell division was strongly inhibited by the spongeC. crambe. A dichloromethane fraction fromC. crambe prevented development of sea urchinParacentrotus lividus eggs at a concentration of 10 μg/ml, as did the butanolic fraction, but at higher concentrations (50 and 100 μg/ml). At 50 μg/ml, the aqueous fraction ofC. crambe allowed cell division but prevented eggs from developing beyond the gastrula stage. Similar results were recorded with the dichloromethane fraction ofP. lacazei and from the aqueous fraction ofH. columella. Photosynthesis was unaffected by any of the species at 50 μg/ml. Larval settlement was inhibited by one or another fraction from the four species surveyed at a concentration of 50 μg/ml, althoughC. crambe exhibited the greatest amount of activity. We therefore found that various fractions displayed the same type of bioactivity, while compounds from the same fraction were responsible for multiple activities, suggesting that secondary metabolites are multiple-purpose tools in nature, which is relevant to our understanding of species ecology and evolution. Moreover, results showed that the assessment of the role of chemical compounds is significantly influenced by the assay organism, fractionation procedure, concentration, and duration of experiments. All these factors should be carefully considered when testing ecological hypotheses of the roles of chemically-mediated bioactivities.