The Multipartite Mitochondrial Genome of Marama (Tylosema esculentum)

Tylosema esculentum (marama bean), a wild legume from tropical Africa, has long been considered as a potential crop for local farmers due to its rich nutritional value. Genomics research of marama is indispensable for the domestication and varietal improvement of the bean. The chloroplast genome of marama has been sequenced and assembled previously using a hybrid approach based on both Illumina and PacBio data. In this study, a similar method was used to assemble the mitochondrial genome of marama. The mitochondrial genome of the experimental individual has been confirmed to have two large circles OK638188 and OK638189, which do not recombine according to the data. However, they may be able to restructure into five smaller circles through recombination on the 4 pairs of long repeats (>1 kb). The total length of marama mitogenome is 399,572 bp. A 9,798 bp DNA fragment has been found that is homologous to the chloroplast genome of marama, accounting for 2.5% of the mitogenome. In the Fabaceae family, the mitogenome of Millettia pinnata is highly similar to marama, including for both the genes present and the total size. Some genes including cox2, rpl10, rps1, and sdh4 have been lost during the evolution of angiosperms and are absent in the mitogenomes of some legumes. However, these remain intact and functional in marama. Another set of genes, rpl2, rps2, rps7, rps11, rps13, and rps19 are either absent, or present as pseudogenes, in the mitogenome of marama.

AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF THE PATTERNS OF THE SURVIVAL CURVES OF EXPERIMENTAL OBJECTS IN MODEL EXPERIMENTS ON

Феномен многофазовости кривых дожития, найденный у дрозофилы, подтвержден в экспериментах на дафниях. Математическое моделирование показало, что многофазовость кривых дожития дафний отражает скачкообразные изменения интенсивности гибели объектов при переходе от фазы к фазе. У дафний фаза резкого повышения смертности, наблюдаемая в раннем возрасте у интактных дрозофил, появляется только как реакция на негативное воздействие. Индукция реактивных изменений слабыми внешними сигналами приводит к снижению выживаемости молодых дафний. Сделано логическое заключение о готовности к реакции каждой из экспериментальных особей. Доказано, что у дафний предрасположенность к реакции сохраняется в неопределенно большом ряду поколений. Постулируется, что эффект обусловлен эпигенетическими механизмами. Рассматриваются предыдущие экспериментальные материалы, позволяющие предположить, что реакция данного типа широко распространена в природе. The phenomenon of multiphase survival curves found in drosophila is confirmed in experiments on daphnia. Mathematical modeling showed that the multiphase nature of the daphnia survival curves reflects abrupt changes in the intensity of death of crustaceans during the transition from phase to phase. In intact daphnia there is no phase of a sharp increase in mortality observed at an early age in drosophila. It arises as a reaction to weak negative influences, which leads to a sharp decrease in the survival of young individuals. A logical conclusion was made about the readiness for reaction of each experimental individual. The effect was observed in a series of experiments posed in different years. It is proved that in daphnia, the predisposition to reaction persists for an indefinitely large number of generations. It is postulated that this reaction has an epigenetic nature. Previous experimental materials suggest that a reaction of this type is widespread in natural surroundings.

AuAg@CdS double-walled nanotubes: synthesis and nonlinear absorption properties

Normalized experimental (individual data points) and theoretically fitted (lines of best fit) open-aperture Z-scan transmittances of AuAg@CdS double wall nanotubes at different excitation intensities.

Memory Size Estimates of Playing Cards: The Effect of Manipulative Familiarity

200 subjects estimated from memory the actual size of a playing card, rated their manipulative familiarity with cards, and estimated the elapsed-time period since they last handled cards. Size estimates were significantly greater than the card's actual size by about 14%; however, neither manipulative familiarity nor the elapsed-time period was significantly associated with estimates of size or with absolute errors of the size estimates. These findings are consistent with the claim that the reported variability in estimates of the distance of familiar objects, such as a playing card, viewed under otherwise reduced-cue conditions is unlikely to reflect extra-experimental individual differences in manipulative experience with cards.