The antennal sensilla of Melipona quadrifasciata (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini): a study of different sexes and castes

The sensilla of insects are integumental units that play a role as sensory structures and are crucial for the perception of stimuli and for communication. In this study, we compared the antennal sensilla of females (workers and queens), males (haploid (n) and diploid (2n)), and queen-like males (QLMs, resulting from 2n males after juvenile hormone (JH) treatment) in the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata. Images of the dorsal antenna surfaces were acquired using a scanning electron microscope. As reported for other hymenopterans, this species exhibits a heterogeneous sensillar distribution along the antennae. Thirteen different types of sensilla were found in the antennae of M. quadrifasciata: trichodea (subtypes I to VI), chaetica (subtypes I and II), placodea, basiconica, ampullacea, coeloconica, and coelocapitula. Sensilla trichodea I were the most abundant, followed by sensilla placodea, which might function in olfactory perception. Sensilla basiconica, sensilla chaetica I, sensilla coeloconica, and sensilla ampullacea were found exclusively in females. In terms of the composition and size of the sensilla, the antennae of QLMs most closely resemble those of the 2n male, although QLMs exhibit a queen phenotype. This study represents the first comparative analysis of the antennal sensilla of M. quadrifasciata. The differences found in the type and amount of sensilla between the castes and sexes are discussed based on the presumed sensillary functions.     

快餐:摒弃还是改良

快餐文化,作为一种文化的代名词,时下正方兴未艾,渗透人们日常生活的每个角落。但另一方面,也代表着文化中如稀薄、复制、炒作、膨化、堕落等等,使部分人非常排斥甚至痛恨。而快餐食品,作为引发“快餐文化”这个词语的由头,作为一种现代生活中食物的衍生物;其将是怎样的命运呢?     

Noroviruses: State of the Art

Noroviruses are a common cause of both endemic and epidemic gastroenteritis. These highly infectious viruses usually cause self-limited disease, but chronic infections occur in highly immunocompromised patients and unusual manifestations are also being described in some populations. Histoblood-group antigen expression is now recognized as an important susceptibility factor for many norovirus strains, but a correlate of acquired immunity to infection or illness has not yet been identified. Currently, treatment and prevention strategies rely on non-specific measures. However, virus-like particles containing capsid antigens are undergoing evaluation as a vaccine candidate for illness prevention. This article reviews the biologic properties, epidemiology, clinical features, host susceptibility, diagnosis, and treatment and prevention of norovirus infection.     

“地中海的心脏”瓦莱塔

<正>瓦莱塔是南欧岛国马耳他的首都,座落在马耳他岛东北部,是全国政治、文化和商业的中心,也是欧、亚、非海运交通的枢纽,战略地位十分重要,更是闻名世界的旅游城市,素有"地中海的心脏"、"海上花园"之称。瓦莱塔依山傍水,环境优雅,气候宜人,加上得天独厚的地理位置,这里安静恬适,听不到大城市的喧嚣,也没有大工业的烟尘,污染程度低,交通便利,市场繁荣,社会秩序良好,人与自然和谐相处。这里春天来得特别早,当欧洲还处在千里冰封的严冬季节时,瓦莱塔就已春暖     

Emerging Chemicals of Concern: Preface

<正>On June 29,2015,the Chemical Abstracts Service(CAS),the world’s authority for chemical information,registered the 100millionth chemical substance in the CAS REGISTRY,the world’s largest database of unique chemical substances(http://www.cas.org/news/media-releases/100-millionthsubstance).There are different estimates of the number of chemicals in commercial use.Depending on the source,that number could range from around 8,000(counting only those     

8:2氟调聚醇(8:2FTOH)厌氧生物降解特性

为了阐明厌氧环境下全氟羧酸（PFCAs）等全氟化合物的迁移归趋,研究了8：2氟调聚醇（8：2FTOH）的厌氧降解性能.结果表明,取自市政污水处理厂的污泥在厌氧条件下可还原降解8：2FTOH,并生成氟离子、全氟类和多氟类降解产物,且降解过程可采用双指数衰减模型拟合.在为期120d的培养中,8：2FTOH的摩尔降解率高达（93.2±0.9）%;摩尔回收率则随着培养时间的增加有下降的趋势,由培养初期（1d）的（97.5±5.1）%下降至末期（120d）的（68.9±4.0）%,这说明在培养后期可能产生了未知的降解产物或生成了未知的挥发性产物.8：2不饱和氟调聚酸（8：2FTUA）和全氟辛酸（PFOA）分别是摩尔产率最高的多氟类和全氟类降解产物,分别介于（6.94±0.10）%~（24.2±1.5）%和（2.67±0.22）%~（14.9±1.0）%的范围内.多氟类降解产物的摩尔产率随培养时间的增加先增加后降低,而全氟类降解产物的摩尔产率则随培养时间的增加持续增加,这说明其可能分别为中间降解产物和最终降解产物.     

A review of myrmecophily in ant nest beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Paussinae): linking early observations with recent findings

Myrmecophily provides various examples of how social structures can be overcome to exploit vast and well-protected resources. Ant nest beetles (Paussinae) are particularly well suited for ecological and evolutionary considerations in the context of association with ants because life habits within the subfamily range from free-living and predatory in basal taxa to obligatory myrmecophily in derived Paussini. Adult Paussini are accepted in the ant society, although parasitising the colony by preying on ant brood. Host species mainly belong to the ant families Myrmicinae and Formicinae, but at least several paussine genera are not host-specific. Morphological adaptations, such as special glands and associated tufts of hair (trichomes), characterise Paussini as typical myrmecophiles and lead to two different strategical types of body shape: while certain Paussini rely on the protective type with less exposed extremities, other genera access ant colonies using glandular secretions and trichomes (symphile type). We compare these adaptations with other taxonomic groups of insects by joining contemporary research and early sources and discuss the possibility of an attracting or appeasing effect of the secretion. Species that are ignored by their host ants might use chemical mimicry instead. Furthermore, vibrational signals may contribute to ant–beetle communication, and chemical signals have proven to play a role in host finding. The powerful defense chemistry of paussines as “bombardier beetles” is not used in contact with host ants. We attempt to trace the evolution of myrmecophily in paussines by reviewing important aspects of the association between paussine beetles and ants, i.e. morphological and potential chemical adaptations, life cycle, host specificity, alimentation, parasitism and sound production.

Cypress terpenes in sawfly larva of Susana cupressi (Hymenoptera: Symphyta: Tenthredinoidea)

The Science of Nature -     

英国：低碳时代的先锋

从布莱尔执政起,英国就在应对全球变暖方面处于世界领先地位。布朗担任首相后,沿续了前任首相的做法,并于2008年10月将负责国内能源政策的事业及企业限制改革部和负责气候变化政策的环境、粮食与农村事务部合并,成立了能源和气候变化部,这一划时代的重组意味着英国在能源和气候变化政策上多头并举。2009年11月,英国制定了《2008年气候变化法》,     

言者顺应:基于语料库驱动视角

本研究运用语料库驱动方法和Sinclair的"词汇搭配-类联接-语义倾向-语义韵"词项分析模型,以自建的美国总统就职演说词语料库为对象,研究英语公共演说中的顺应策略表征。频数驱动研究显示,目标语料较为显著地运用顺应性语言特征,表现为第一人称代词复数形式、中量值情态动词等,但没有实义动词。对高频词项的范式研究显示:人称代词、人称代词+情态动词、人称代词+情态动词+动词为典型范式。研究结果表明,通过语料库驱动的高频词项及其范式分析可为言者顺应提供有价值的参考。     

能源问题下城市的可持续性

经济学家和政治学家曾普遍认为,化石燃料的供应在可见的将来是充分的,因而无需成为政府和工业政策关注和思考的重点。他们宣称,能源问题将主要体现在如何确保非稳定供应的问题地域（如处于战争或者政治混乱状态的地区）的能源供给。但是除却这些可能的扰乱因素,这些分析家们相信,大量投资和技术革新的努力将有效解决能源供给在数量上可能出现的严重困难。     

太平洋上的幸福岛国:斐济

<正>斐济是南太平洋中的一个群岛国家,位于澳大利亚东部、新西兰北部,由332个岛屿组成。这里的海岛风景绚丽多姿,民风自然淳朴,因此享有"全球十大蜜月旅游胜地"和"全球十大美女海滩"之美誉。斐济的海洋环境未受到任何人为破坏,众多围绕着珊瑚礁、椰林摇曳的碧绿岛屿,浅浅的海水漫过珊瑚礁,环绕着小岛,灿烂阳光照在海面上,呈现出晶莹的淡蓝色,到处都充满着海洋原始风貌的自然美。你在通透的海水里游泳,用手就可以抓到五颜六色的热带鱼。传统部落文     

欧盟绿皮书：PVC的环境问题（下）

4 PVC的废物管理欧盟委员会对PVC废物管理已在欧洲废物管理政策范围内进行，主要是对四种优选技术，即机械回收、化学回收、焚烧和填埋，进行了评估。委员会关于对废物管理的一般性战略评估证明了“体系原则”──即最优先预防废物的产生，其次是回收，最后是废物的安全处置。进而，在对环境无害的前提下，能量回收中的材料回收应该优先。这个原则是出于材料回收比能量回收具有更大的现实主义。当然还要考虑到环境、经济和科学等方面的影响。在某些情况下，对这些影响的评估倾向于能量回收优先。在1997年2月24日的决议中，委员会已经签署…     

Biosemiotics: a new understanding of life

Biosemiotics is the idea that life is based on semiosis, i.e., on signs and codes. This idea has been strongly suggested by the discovery of the genetic code, but so far it has made little impact in the scientific world and is largely regarded as a philosophy rather than a science. The main reason for this is that modern biology assumes that signs and meanings do not exist at the molecular level, and that the genetic code was not followed by any other organic code for almost four billion years, which implies that it was an utterly isolated exception in the history of life. These ideas have effectively ruled out the existence of semiosis in the organic world, and yet there are experimental facts against all of them. If we look at the evidence of life without the preconditions of the present paradigm, we discover that semiosis is there, in every single cell, and that it has been there since the very beginning. This is what biosemiotics is really about. It is not a philosophy. It is a new scientific paradigm that is rigorously based on experimental facts. Biosemiotics claims that the genetic code (1) is a real code and (2) has been the first of a long series of organic codes that have shaped the history of life on our planet. The reality of the genetic code and the existence of other organic codes imply that life is based on two fundamental processes--copying and coding--and this in turn implies that evolution took place by two distinct mechanisms, i.e., by natural selection (based on copying) and by natural conventions (based on coding). It also implies that the copying of genes works on individual molecules, whereas the coding of proteins operates on collections of molecules, which means that different mechanisms of evolution exist at different levels of organization. This review intends to underline the scientific nature of biosemiotics, and to this purpose, it aims to prove (1) that the cell is a real semiotic system, (2) that the genetic code is a real code, (3) that evolution took place by natural selection and by natural conventions, and (4) that it was natural conventions, i.e., organic codes, that gave origin to the great novelties of macroevolution. Biological semiosis, in other words, is a scientific reality because the codes of life are experimental realities. The time has come, therefore, to acknowledge this fact of life, even if that means abandoning the present theoretical framework in favor of a more general one where biology and semiotics finally come together and become biosemiotics.     

花旗集团:绿色信贷的先行者——访花旗环境事务副总裁Bruce Schlein先生

银行在促进企业及社会可持续发展方面具有十分有力和特别的作用，目前在新的投资领域之更是“如鱼得水。”就银行如何提高其“绿色”形象以及怎么促进经济可持续发展，我刊采访了花旗环境事务副总裁Bruce Schlein先生。[编者按]