Word: proteins
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...gene may also prove useful in diagnosing the stages of AIDS--a disease which has killed more than 11,300 Americans. Diagnostic tests screen the blood for antibodies to different parts of a virus and predict the progress of a disease. The art-gene produces a viral protein which researchers may be able to use in these sorts of tests...
...Berkeley team had focused its efforts on the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, which lives on the leaves of many plants and actually promotes the formation of frost. As the temperature drops below 32 degrees F, specks of protein produced by the bacteria act as nuclei for the growth of ice crystals (see chart). Without the bacteria and their protein particles, plants can briefly sustain temperatures as low as 25 degrees F before the dew turns to frost. The solution seemed simple enough: from 2% to 5% of the bacteria in nature lack the ability to manufacture the protein. If large numbers...
Lindow and Panopoulos proceeded to expose large numbers of P. syringae to chemicals, and were able to impair in some of them the gene that orders production of the protein. When these altered microbes were sprayed on plants in greenhouses and open fields, they seemed to retard the formation of frost. Equally important, they apparently did not spread or do any harm, and most gradually died out. Their release into the open went unnoticed--or at least unchallenged--because they had been altered by conventional laboratory methods...
Locusts and termites are unlikely candidates for an American dinner menu, but they are high-protein foods that nourish many Africans who, argues Anthropologist Marvin Harris, make such choices by preference that developed from necessity. Seemingly bizarre culinary customs are revealed as plain common sense by the author in an insightful and intriguing new book, Good to Eat (Simon & Schuster; $17.95). Citing economic, ecological and health considerations as forerunners of religious, folkloric and even social eating customs, Harris writes, "When India's Hindus spurn beef, Jews and Moslems abominate pork, and Americans barely avoid retching at the thought...
...matter how food tastes, they argue, the nutrition question keeps popping up. Despite the high amount of sodium found in cheese sauces used at Harvard, the university's top dietician points to the liquified cheese as a source of protein. "You're getting a protein alternative to put on top of a starch. It's like meat and potatoes," Hennessy says...