Effect of microwave heating of soybeans on protein quality

The purpose of this study was to determine the protein quality of microwave cooked soybeans by the rat growth and protein efficiency ratio method (PER). It was found that properly cooked, dry, hulled, whole soybean seeds had a PER of 2.4 +/- .06 (mean +/- standard error) and a mean weekly weight gain of 21.2 +/- 1.1 which were equivalent to 2.53 +/- .10 and 18.3 +/- 1.0 g for casein, respectively. These data demonstrate the value of microwave cooked soybeans and suggest further research on the possible economical and biological advantages of microwave cooked soybeans.

[Pheochromocytoma and sudden death (author's transl)]

Five cases of pheochromocytoma are described in which sudden death was the form of the initial clinical presentation in almost all of them. After a brief review on the history and the incidence of the tumor within the general population, diverse cases are analyzed from a clinical point of view and in relation to the data appeared in the literature. In the analysis of the symptoms emphasis is placed on the important psychomotor manifestations which are present in the majority of those patients and which causes serious difficulties in the initial diagnosis. All of the patients showed signs of shock at the time of being observed or during the course of this observation, and in the majority of them the presence of acute pulmonary edema was confirmed; facts which we attribute to an initial hypertensive episode associated to a left heart failure. The onset of the crisis in two patients was related to known triggering factors: anesthesia and sulpiride. In other two patients associated conditions were diagnosed: medullary carcinoma of the thyroid gland in one of them, and cystic necrosis of the middle layer of the aorta in the other.

Multiplication of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (Mucambo) virus in cultured mosquito cells

Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis (Mucambo) virus was able to multiply at 28degree C in cultured mosquito cells (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) without inducing any apparent cytopathology. The kinetics of virus multiplication was similar in mosquito and mammalian (Vero) cells. Twelve to twenty four hours post-infection, a maximum of 10-50 per cent of the cells were engaged in virus production; however, almost immediately this proportion fell abruptly tending to stabilize in the order of 0.01 to 0.05 per cent. No significant increase of infectious centers was observed after cell subculturing. Study of subpopulations of mosquito cells revealed a differential suceptibility to virus infection, which suggests that a balance of susceptible and virus resistant cells may play a role in the establishment and persistence of the chronic infection.