October 31, 1997
For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 306-1070. Editor: Bill Noxon
NSF, SINGAPORE TO LINK HIGH PERFORMANCE NETWORKS
The United States and Singapore will agree November 7 to link high performance networks, allowing collaboration among research institutions in the two nations.
The National Science Foundation's (NSF) very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) and Singapore Internet Next Generation Advanced Research and Education Network (SINGAREN) will foster research relationships in the areas of medicine, manufacturing, education, tele-immersion and architecture.
This is the first trans-Pacific high performance connection for the vBNS. A connection to Canada's high performance network was the first international link. SINGAREN'S physical link will be the NSF-funded Science, Technology And Research Transit Access Point (STAR TAP), which is designed to facilite the long-term interconnection and interoperability of advanced international networking.
The vBNS is a research tool for U.S. universities, managed through a cooperative agreement with MCI. It has a transmission capacity of 622 megabits (mbps) per second and is expected to increase to as much as a few gigabits per second by the year 2000. The average home has less than 30 mbps.
For more information, see: http://www.singaren.net.sg and http://www.startap.net [Beth Gaston]
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS LINKED TO EUTROPHICATION
Recently, considerable interest has focused on a plant plankton genus called Pseudo-nitzchia, diatoms in which some species produce domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin which causes short-term memory loss and death.
Preliminary data from the Louisiana coastal zone show that some species of Pseudo-nitzchia reach very high abundances every spring in water plumes discharged into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi and Atchafalya Rivers, and that high abundances occur frequently, but less predictably, at another Louisiana coastal location.
With funding from the NSF's ECOHAB (Ecology of Harmful Algal Blooms), program, scientists Greg Doucette of the University of South Carolina and Quay Dortch of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium will test a possible link between blooms of Pseudo- nitzchia and coastal areas characterized by eutrophication. Eutrophication is a process in which plant life "overgrows," a result of increased amounts of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. The increase in nitrogen and/or phosphorus can result from agricultural fertilizer runoff, disposal of manufacturing waste, or draining of sewage.
The researchers say their studies should lead to a better understanding of how harmful algal blooms and eutrophication may be linked. [Cheryl Dybas]
NEW TECHNIQUE ALLOWS VISUALIZATION OF EVENTS IN LIVING CELLS
A major hurdle in understanding how living cells function has recently been overcome with the discovery of a simple method that allows visualization of events in living cells and organisms.
Scientists got their first views of the activities of living cells through discovery of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the Pacific Northwest jellyfish Aequorea victoria.
Biochemists John Murphy and Clark Lagarias of the University of California at Berkeley and Davis, respectively, have conducted research to extend the range of applications currently available using so-called fluorescent protein probes. Their research, published in the November issue of the journal Current Biology, discusses a new class of fluorescent molecules that can be produced in living cells, allowing scientists to view the cells' activities "from the outside."
This new class of molecules is called phytofluors, which can be produced in cells with the gene for a plant light receptor known as a phytochrome. Upon treatment with a pigment, phytofluors spontaneously assemble into markers that emit fluorescent light in the orange part of the light spectrum.
"Phytofluors extend the usefulness of noninvasive markers in the study of processes such as gene expression, protein-protein interactions, and targeting of proteins," says Marcia Steinberg, NSF program director for biomolecular structure and function. [Cheryl Dybas]
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