Global prevention of all folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly by 2010

Folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly are pandemic, affecting 225,000 children a year. These birth defects are as preventable as polio. As we near the eradication of polio, it is time to make the commitment to global prevention of all folic acid-preventable spina bifida and anencephaly (FA-P SBA) by 2010. Folic acid fortification of centrally processed foods, such as wheat and corn flour, could immediately prevent all of these birth defects for much of the world's population. These fortification programs will also help adults by increasing serum folate concentration, eradicating folate deficiency anemia, providing human genome stability and reducing homocysteine serum concentration, which will probably prevent heart attacks and strokes, and may prevent colon cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Where there is no centrally processed and distributed food to fortify, intense efforts must be made to increase consumption of synthetic folic acid through vitamin supplements. Geneticists can play a major role in preventing FA-P SBA by helping to create the political will in each country to implement fortification and supplement programs to eliminate disease caused by the current pandemic of folate deficiency.     

Rotational spectrum and bending potential of LiOH: A semirigid bender analysis

Some 29 microwave transitions in the millimeter region have been measured in the high-temperature vapor of LiOH, ranging up toJ=5, including lines from the isotopomers⁷Li¹⁶OH,⁷Li¹⁶OD in both ground and excited bending states, and⁷Li¹⁸OH in the vibrational ground state only. An analysis of these transitions, together with nine previously known radio-frequency transitions, based on the semirigid bender model of vibration-rotation interaction has been used to investigate the form of the bending potential and to measure the semirigidity parameters that show the variation in the bond lengths that accompany the large-amplitude bending motion. The molecule was found to be linear in its equilibrium configuration, with an essentially harmonic bending potential. The experimentally derived quadratic semirigidity parameter for the Li-O bond was found to agree to within less than 5% with that from an ab initio calculation at the MP3/6-311G^** level.