New Releases by Brendan James

For most of the 20th century right through the present day, the Rolls Royce has stood as the prime symbol of quality and luxury. And here, in its sixth edition, is the fully-updated tribute to these classic cars and the men who created them. First, an engrossing and exquisitely illustrated history of the Rolls Royce covers everything from the birth of the Rolls as a two-cylinder vehicle in 1904 to its recent sale to Volkswagen. Follow the development of the Silver Ghost, the New Phantom, the Bentley and the Wraith, the Shadows and Spirits. The entire second section presents, in detail and with photographs, car and engine specifications. Included are the dates of major mechanical changes and the chassis numbers of the three Royce cars from 1904 to the Park Ward model of 2000, as well as the Bentleys built since 1931. This is truly a celebration worthy of a Rolls!

"Mammalian mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a maternally inherited, multi-copy, small circular genome approximately 16 kb in size that codes for 13 polypeptides of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Typically, mtDNA is present as only one genotype in a cell, a state known as homoplasmy. In rare circumstances, two or more mtDNA sequence variants can be present in a cell, a state known as heteroplasmy, and these sequence variants can segregate during mitosis and meiosis. In this thesis, I have investigated the basis for a novel tissue-specific segregation of mtDNA in a heteroplasmic mouse model that had been previously constructed from two inbred strains (NZB/BinJ and BALB/c mtDNA). In these mice, four tissues showed directional selection for an mtDNA genotype: in the liver and kidney for the NZB mtDNA genotype; and in the spleen and blood for the BALB mtDNA genotype. I investigated the mechanism responsible for selection of NZB mtDNA, focusing on the liver which showed the strongest effect. In this tissue, selection for the NZB mtDNA genotype is constant with time, independent of allele frequency and does not appear to be mediated through an advantage of respiratory chain function or replication rate of mtDNA. To identify the genetic basis for this mtDNA selection, I set up an intersubspecific intercross and used quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping to map three QTL in F2 mice that are strong gene effects in the liver, kidney, and spleen. These QTLs, Smdq-1 (liver), Smdq-2 (kidney), and Smdq-3 (kidney & spleen) (s&barbelow;egregation of m&barbelow;itochondrial D&barbelow;NA Q&barbelow;TL-#) map to chromosome 5, 2, and 6 respectively. Smdq-1 was a dominant QTL in the liver that mapped to a 2 LOD support interval of approximately 1 cM and accounted for 34% of the variation in the trait. To reduce the interval size of Smdq-1 and confirm the map position, BALB chromosome 5 interval-specific congenic mice lines are being generated across a 20 cM interval. This is the fir" --