We have synthesized a 582,970-base pair Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kilobases (kb), assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate (...) assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments. 10.1126/science.1151721. (shrink)

This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains (...) how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology. (shrink)

Egypt has not yet given us a Greek original of Plautus, unless the paltry Hibeh fragments belong to the original of the Aulularia. If they do, then Plautus departed widely from the Greek. And that is what one would expect. Read any ‘sermo’ in Plautus and see how recklessly he abandons himself to the vagaries of his humour. Clearly no ‘icily regular’ Greek is his guide there. Still a ray of light has come from Egypt that illumines one dark spot (...) in Plautus, the end of the first Scene of the Bacchides. The two sisters retreat into the house after a line which appears in our editions in this form. (shrink)

Isidore Etymologiae Vol. II. Books XI-XX.

The theory of personal identity should illuminate and be illuminated by the theory of personality, of which it is a part. I believe that Locke's theory succeeds in this more than that of any other great philosopher, and the modifications which it may need are not fundamental ones. The problems raised by Butler and Flew can be made to disappear.

Knowledge about moral development and elderly persons is very limited. A hermeneutical interpretative study was conducted with healthy elderly persons in order to explore and describe their moral orientation based on the paradigms of justice and care . The types of moral reasoning, dominance, alignment and orientation were determined. All but one participant included both types of reasoning when discussing an ethical conflict. None of the men’s moral reasoning was dominated by caring, but justice dominated the reasoning of four women. (...) The implications for ethical decision-making and future research are discussed. (shrink)

Neither can stand. ‘Argos of the land’ is nonsense, and even if it were not, is absurd as an apostrophe of the River Inachus. ‘a plain’, indistinguishable from is similarly impossible: the audience would be baffled; in 6 has to be the first occurrence of the vox; ‘streams’ cannot be apposed to a ‘plain’, even if could have been understood as meaning this.

The X-ray and bulk densities of PdIn alloys have been determined at ambient temperature on samples annealed at 1273 and 1373 K and quenched in water-ice mixtures. From these measurements the vacancy concentrations in this intermetallic phase have been obtained as a function of In concentration at these two temperatures. In addition, a generalized thermodynamic model is presented which considers the existence of antisite and vacancy defects on both sublattices without any dilute solution approximations. This model uses three energy parameters, (...) whose values have been obtained for PdIn using the measured vacancy concentrations and the chemical potentials of In. This model is able to describe all the available vacancy data and is suitable for calculating these values at compositions and temperatures when such data are not available. In addition, the model permits the calculation of the concentrations of the minority point defects. It is shown that dilute-solution approximations, which have invariably been used in this kind of modelling, are unsatisfactory. The present results and their analysis confirm that PdIn is a near-triple-defect type of intermetallic and not a near-Schottky type, as has been claimed recently. (shrink)

We show that the divergence between the predictions of quantum optics and the local realist theory known as stochastic optics, for the extended type of photon-coincidence experiment described recently by de Caro, is of the same order of magnitude as for Aspect-type experiments. This means that, in such new experiments, as in those so far performed, counting statistics will have to be greatly improved before a discrimination between the two theories becomes possible.We also show that the outstanding difference between the (...) two theories is that, while stochastic optics uses a genuine, that is, positive, detection probability, the corresponding quantum formalism leads to a pseudoprobability. Nevertheless, there is a striking parallel, in that both theories recognize the phenomenon known as enhancement, and both describe it as having its origin in a mixing of the signal field with the zero-point field by a polarizing device. (shrink)

SummaryIn this study recent exegetical methods such as inquiry into strophes, structure and style are applied to Psalm 16.Part I deals with the ancient crux interpretum, v.2–4a. With regard to the question whether “the holy ones” means divine powers or some category of Israelites, we militate for the latter interpretation. The psalmist addresses himself to God and those with whom he shares the land. From this position, principally chosen, he begins to meditate on his heritage.Part II shows that in the (...) corpus of the psalm, v.4bc-10, the theme “heritage” is developed in such a way that God's vicinity appears to be its fundamental value. This transposition makes it possible that the most threatening aspect of our earthly existence comes up: death. The psalmist draws the utmost consequences from God's vicinity. Since there is no limit to the length of God's protection, he is safe even from the Sheol.In Part III then we see that the praying person, carried by his personal growth, expresses in v. 11 the hope for an unassailable happiness of life, also for others. (shrink)