Brads swim coach at Washington High School has high hopes for his athlete. Exceptionally skilled in the water, Brad is expected to excel and win many competitions. But during a race, the high schooler collapses. Hes diagnosed with an incurable disease that prevents him from ever swimming again, and his doctor doesnt expect him to survive more than five years. To save his life, he undergoes a difficult and unique operation that changes him into a mutant, which allows him to live underwater. Hes alone at the beginning, but then he and his wife, Ada, start a new species called the Gill generation. Many others follow, creating the water world. Its first controlled by the individual countries that made them, and shortly after it becomes independent. This new society evolves beyond expectations, demanding rights from terrestrials through a revolution. The Gills succeed in controlling the entire planet utilizing advanced technology. With the continuous unrest and wars on land, many repatriate to water world. The existence and future of humanity rely on the new species, the Gill civilization.

Biophysical studies in the 1950ies and 1960ies led to the realization that the water permeability of certain biological membranes must be due to the presence of water transporting proteins. This hypothesis was confirmed in 1991 and 1992 with the pioneering discovery of the first molecular membrane water channel, CHIP28, by Agre and coworkers. This integral membrane protein, which is abundant in the erythrocyte membrane and in many epithelial cells, is now called aquaporin-1 or AQP1. Thus the terms water channel or aquaporin are synonymous. In July 2000 more than 200 researchers came together in Gothenburg, Sweden, for the `3rd International Conference on the Molecular Biology and Physiology of Water and Solute Transport" to discuss progress in this emerging research field. 58 different presentations from this conference are the basis for this book. Cumulatively, these 58 short chapters provide a balanced overview complementing numerous recent reviews in this field.

When people speak, their words never fully encode what they mean, and the context is always compatible with a variety of interpretations. How can comprehension ever be achieved? Wilson and Sperber argue that comprehension is a process of inference guided by precise expectations of relevance. What are the relations between the linguistically encoded meanings studied in semantics and the thoughts that humans are capable of entertaining and conveying? How should we analyse literal meaning, approximations, metaphors and ironies? Is the ability to understand speakers' meanings rooted in a more general human ability to understand other minds? How do these abilities interact in evolution and in cognitive development? Meaning and Relevance sets out to answer these and other questions, enriching and updating relevance theory and exploring its implications for linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science and literary studies.

The binding of small ligands to biological molecules is central to most aspects of biological function. The past twenty years has seen the development of an increasing armoury of biophysical methods that not only detect such binding, but also provide varying degrees of information about the kinetics, thermodynamics and structural aspects of the process. These methods have received increasing attention with the growth in more rational approaches to drug discovery and design. This book reviews the latest advances in the application of biophysics to the study of ligand binding. It provides a complete overview of current techniques to identify ligands, characterise their binding sites and understand their binding mechanisms. Particular emphasis is given to the combined use of different techniques and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Consistency in the way each technique is described makes it easy for readers to select the most suitable protocol for their research. The introduction explains why some techniques are more suitable than others and emphasizes the possible synergies between them. The following chapters, all written by a specialist in the particular technique, focus on each method individually. The book finishes by describing how several complimentary techniques can be used together for maximum effectiveness. This book is suitable for biomolecular scientists at graduate or post-doctoral level in academia and industry. Biologists and chemists will also find it a useful introduction to the techniques available.