The R-N and R-L BAVs are different etiological entities. The R-N BAVs are the product of a morphogenetic defect that happens before the OT septation and that probably relies on an exacerbated nitric oxide-dependent epithelial-to-mesenchymal transformation. The R-L BAVs result from the anomalous septation of the proximal portion of the OT, likely caused by a distorted behavior of neural crest cells. Care should be taken in further work on BAV genetics because R-N and R-L BAVs might rely on different genotypes. Detailed screening for R-N and R-L BAVs should be performed for a better understanding of the relationships between these BAV morphologic phenotypes and other heart disease.

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Receptive vocabulary of Hispanic children in Miami was tested in both English and Spanish with complementary standardized tests, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R) and the Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes Peabody (TVIP-H). 105 bilingual first graders, of middle to high socioeconomic status relative to national norms, were divided according to the language(s) spoken in their homes. Both groups, whether they spoke only Spanish in the home (OSH) or both English and Spanish in the home (ESH), performed near the mean of 100 in Spanish receptive vocabulary (TVIP-H means 97.0 and 96.5); in contrast, ESH group children scored more than 1 SD higher in English than OSH group children (PPVT-R means 88.0 and 69.7, respectively). It appears, therefore, that learning 2 languages at once does not harm receptive language development in the language of origin, while it does lay the groundwork for superior performance in the majority language. Furthermore, an analysis of translation equivalents, items shared by both tests, shows that a statistically significant portion of bilingual children's lexical knowledge does not overlap in their 2 languages and is therefore not reflected in single-language scores.

There are few detailed descriptions of the coronary arterial patterns in the mouse. Some recent reports on coronary anomalies in mutant mouse models have uncovered the importance of several genes (i.e. iv and connexin43 ) in coronary morphogenesis. These mutations spontaneously appeared ( iv ) or were generated ( connexin43 ) in a C57BL /6 background, which is widely used for the development of mutant mice. We have studied the origin and course of the main coronary arteries of two C57BL/6 mouse strains. Unusual anatomical coronary arterial patterns were found, including: solitary ostium in aorta, accessory ostium, high take-off, aortic intramural course, slit-like ostium, sinus-like ostium and origin of a septal artery from the left coronary artery. In humans, some of these conditions are clinically relevant. Most of these patterns, which differ from those observed in wild mice and Swiss albino mice, coincide with those previously found in iv / iv and connexin43 knockout mice. The results indicate that there is variability in the coronary arterial arrangement of the laboratory mouse. Care should be taken when analysing coronary phenotypes of mutant mouse models.

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