Human red blood cell membranes were used as a model system to determine if the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) methodology, an in vitro protocol for isolating high-affinity oligonucleotides that bind specifically to virtually any single protein, could be used with a complex mixture of potential targets. Ligands to multiple targets were generated simultaneously during the selection process, and the binding affinities of these ligands for their targets are comparable to those found in similar experiments against pure targets. A secondary selection scheme, deconvolution-SELEX, facilitates rapid isolation of the ligands to targets of special interest within the mixture. SELEX provides high-affinity compounds for multiple targets in a mixture and might allow a means for dissecting complex biological systems.

The National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (NTEP) is a not‐for‐profit organization that facilitates the assessment of experimental and commercial turfgrasses for the turfgrass seed and sod industries in cooperation with university turfgrass scientists. The objective of this survey was to identify and compare common protocol and standards used by NTEP‐sponsored university scientists to aid NTEP staff in writing a document entitled Protocol and Standards for the Visual Field Assessment of Turfgrasses. Twelve NTEP‐sponsored university scientists were asked seven questions to ascertain the protocol and standards they used for the visual field assessment (VFA) of turfgrass quality. Collectively, scientists listed seven protocol categories and two or three options within each category. All scientists were aware of the definition of turfgrass quality, yet their ability to articulate all components of quality varied. The majority of scientists listed uniformity and density as the most important components of quality and one scientist each listed density and texture, density and color, or color as the most important. The majority of scientists used the 6 score as minimally acceptable quality and one scientist each listed 7, 5, or 4 as their minimally acceptable score. There were three methods used among scientist to determine a turfgrass quality score (1 to 9). Two methods used reference standards based on an idealized image and the other approach assigned a score based on a relative ranking without regard to a standard. All scientists stated that hosting NTEP trials was very important to their universities’ turfgrass research / teaching / extension programs.

The A chain of ricin is a RNA N-glycosidase that inactivates ribosomes by depurination of a single adenosine in 28S rRNA. Of the 267 amino acids in the protein, 222 (83%) could be deleted from one or another of 74 mutants without loss of the capacity of the protein to recognize a single nucleotide from among the 7000 in ribosomes or to catalyze hydrolysis.

Although the adoption rate of dogs and cats from animal shelters has increased, a proportion of animals are returned to the shelter after they are adopted. The purpose of this study was to assess the factors informing the return of 102 dogs to an animal shelter over a four-month period, and the return of 72 cats to an animal shelter over a three-month period. Descriptive statistics revealed dogs are most commonly returned for behavior issues related to aggression (38.2%), and cats are most commonly returned due to the adopter’s personal reasons (56.9%). The results also indicated that more than half of the dogs (51.0%) and cats (57.0%) returned in this study were owned for more than 60 days. Further research is needed to compare the effectiveness of different pet retention programs in addressing the factors that inform returned adoptions.