Each experiment was repeated at least three times unless stated otherwise. The statistical significance of the differences between treatments was assessed using t-test and a p value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. We first examined the patterns of AMPK, Akt, mTOR and autophagy activation during 7-day differentiation of hDP-MSC. Osteoblastic differentiation of hDP-MSC was confirmed by a significant increase in alkaline phosphatase activity and the mRNA and/or protein levels of osteogenesis markers osteocalcin, Runx2 and BMP2 (Figs. 1A, B). This was associated with rapid phosphorylation of AMPK and its direct downstream target Raptor, which peaked

at day 1 and then gradually declined (Figs. 1C, D). An inverse activation pattern was observed with mTOR and its substrate S6K, demonstrating an early inhibition at day 1 followed by activation PF-562271 chemical structure from

day CB-839 research buy 3 onwards (Figs. 1C, D). The increase in Akt phosphorylation slightly lagged behind that of AMPK, reaching its maximum at day 3 and remaining high during the rest of the differentiation period (Figs. 1C, D). The conversion of LC3-I to autophagosome-associated LC3-II, as a marker of autophagy, was increased at day 1, but then rapidly declined at later stages of differentiation (Figs. 1C, E). The changes in LC3 conversion were correlated with the extent of autophagic proteolysis, which increased early and declined late during differentiation, as reflected in the reduction and increase, respectively, of the intracellular levels of p62 (Figs. 1C, E), a selective autophagy target [22]. In accordance with the early induction of autophagy, the intracellular concentration of the proautophagic protein beclin-1 reached its maximum 24 h after initiation

of differentiation (Figs. 1C, E). These data demonstrate a complex, time-dependent modulation of AMPK/Akt/mTOR signaling and autophagy during osteogenic differentiation of hDP-MSC, involving early activation of AMPK and transient induction of autophagy, followed by the late activation of Akt and Phosphoglycerate kinase mTOR. We next investigated the role of an early induction of AMPK and autophagy in osteogenic differentiation of hDP-MSC. Autophagy inhibitors bafilomycin, chloroquine and NH4Cl, which prevent autophagolysosome acidification and/or autophagosome–lysosome fusion [23] and [24], all blocked osteogenic differentiation of hDP-MSC, as confirmed by the reduction in alkaline phosphatase activity and expression of osteocalcin and Runx2 (Fig. 2A). Accordingly, the shRNA-mediated knockdown of the autophagy-essential LC3β blocked the increase of osteoblast differentiation markers in hDP-MSC (Figs. 2B, C). The efficiency of LC3β shRNA silencing was confirmed by reduced levels of both LC3-I and LC3-II in differentiating hDP-MSC at day 1 (Fig. 2D).

MERIS; however, is especially adapted to the low reflectance from water, and due to its 15 narrow bands (10 nm

wide) also has an improved spectral resolution. MERIS 1.2 km resolution is too low to investigate Himmerfjärden, and one can only derive a limited number of water pixels within Himmerfjärden [17]. The 300 m resolution MERIS image shows that one can derive a reasonable amount of water pixels within the bay. One can also apply an adjacency correction that corrects for the high reflectance from land [17] and [26]. The optical properties of a given coastal water body are determined by the optical properties of water itself, phytoplankton, Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM, also termed humic substances), and Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM, also termed total suspended matter, TSM). Together, these substances determine the color of the sea, and also jointly Sotrastaurin contribute to the attenuation of light in the water body [25]. The light attenuation decreases exponentially with water depth and is a measure of the gradual loss in light intensity, measured as the diffuse attenuation coefficient; Kd(490). The main processes involved in the attenuation of light are absorption and scattering by all optical components in the water.

CDOM, for example mostly absorbs light, especially in the blue part of the visible spectrum. Inorganic suspended matter scatters light more, which increases the water-leaving radiance, and thus is recorded on a satellite image. Phytoplankton absorbs light in the blue and in the

red part of the spectrum, and also scatters light. mTOR inhibitor It is these specific absorption and scattering properties that can be used to derive the concentrations of optical components in the water quantitatively. The ocean color bands in MERIS were carefully chosen in order to be able to derive the light attenuation, chlorophyll a and SPM concentration, as well as Progesterone CDOM [27]. In order to interpret satellite images in the coastal zone correctly, one needs to have a good understanding of the optical properties in the coastal zone. Kratzer and Tett [16] developed an attenuation model for the coastal zone that can act as an ecosystem synthesis of a given coastal area (Fig. 3). The attenuation follows a surface water gradient from the UWWTP at the head of Himmerfjärden bay to Landsort Deep (station BY31), the deepest part of the Baltic Sea (Fig. 2). Hence, the model is 2-dimensional and describes how the attenuation of the three main optical in-water components changes when moving from coastal (source) into open sea waters (sink). The model results highlight the typical optical features of a given coastal area in the Baltic Sea. The optical properties of the open Baltic Sea are clearly dominated by colored dissolved organic matter.

Any association was not observed between the patients who had consistently higher levels of analytes in their sera versus plasma versus culture positivity. There was no correlation between cytokine signatures and the M. tb family (Beijing versus Non-Beijing) identified in the TB patients (P > 0.05, data not shown). Additionally, there was no evidence of significant differences between cytokine signatures and the NTM species identified (P > 0.05, data not shown). However, these results will likely

hold true in future studies with larger sample sizes. In conclusion, serum VEGF-A is the most informative marker for distinguishing active TB from LTBI, and a panel of serum IL-2, IL-9, IL-13, IL-17, TNF-α and sCD40L levels may contribute to more accurate and rapid differential diagnosis between active TB and NTM disease. Serum sCD40L levels and M. tb antigen-specific IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2 responses could be a biomarker associated Torin 1 in vivo with treatment responses when combined with M. tb clearance in sputa cultures. Measurement

of multiple analytes in serum or QFT-IT plasma could speed up diagnosis and may be utilised as a surrogate marker. In addition, it would greatly benefit the development http://www.selleckchem.com/products/pirfenidone.html of diagnostics to differentiate between active TB versus LTBI or active TB versus NTM disease. We thank the study participants who contributed to this work and we appreciate the staff at Severance Hospital in Seoul, South Korea for their assistance. This study was financially supported by the Ministry for Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs, Republic of Korea (Korean Health Technology R&D Project: A101750)

and the National Research Foundation of Korea (2011-0013018). The funding Tyrosine-protein kinase BLK sources had no role in the study process including the design, sample collection, analysis, and interpretation of the results. “
“Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of infectious death and hospitalization in HIV-infected adults and children in most African countries. 1 and 2 Antiretroviral therapy (ART) leads to a reduction in the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) but the risk remains high. 3, 4, 5 and 6 It is widely proposed that defective T-cell mediated immunity may be responsible for this disease burden, 7, 8 and 9 however, we have recently shown that compared to healthy uninfected children, even minimally symptomatic HIV-infected individuals with preserved CD4+ percentage have an overrepresentation of mature activated B cells, suggestive of immune activation and apoptosis, and low numbers of pneumococcal protein antigen–specific memory B cells. 10 For at least two decades, the peripheral blood CD4+ T cell count or percentage in young children has been used as a correlate of HIV disease progression both as an indicator for the commencement of ART and to monitor its effectiveness when used.

5), but after 10 min, their relative distribution already changed substantially. In particular, 51.8 ± 19.3% of copepods were located

in the area with the DD-containing agarose (+), 37.6 ± 10.9% were in the middle (0), and 10.6 ± 10.0% were in the area with the agarose without DD (−). Values in the area with the DD-containing agarose (+) and without DD (−) were significantly different (One-way Anova, F2,6 = 6.644, p < 0.05, Tukey's Post Test, p < 0.05), JNK inhibitor chemical structure thus suggesting that the copepods were showing a preference for the portion of the vessel that contained the DD. This attraction was more evident at t = 30 min, when the copepod distribution increased significantly in (+) (63.7 ± 18.0%), compared to both (0) (19.2 ± 12.2%) and (−) (17.0 ± 8.9%) (One-way Anova, F2,6 = 11.28, p < 0.01) ( Fig. 5). The relative distribution of T. stylifera did

not change throughout the experiment, although the highest percentage of copepods in (+) was recorded after 120 min (72.2 ± 10.7%). In this study, female T. stylifera filtration and ingestion rates on P. minimum increased in the presence of DD, even if the differences were significant click here only in the case of filtration rates. P. minimum is known to be well ingested by T. stylifera ( Barreiro et al., 2011 and Turner et al., 2001) and other copepods ( Liu et al., 2010). Our ingestion rates are comparable to those measured in previous studies by Turner et al. ( Turner et al., 2001). These authors observed an increase in T. stylifera ingestion rates on the diatom Thalassiosira rotula in a mixture with P. minimum. They are also in agreement with another study using a mixed diet of DD-encapsulated liposomes and P. minimum where fecal pellets (an indirect measure of feeding activity) were found to increase in both T. stylifera and the copepod Calanus helgolandicus ( Buttino et al., 2008). It is unclear why T. stylifera fed more on P. minimum in the presence

of PUAs. PUAs liberated from diatom biofilms have been reported to be repellent to several copepod and cladoceran species ( Jüttner, 2005). C. pacificus seems to avoid the most potent aldehyde producers in nature ( Leising et al., 2005). More recently, Michalec et al. (2013) have shown that pollutants such as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) induced hyperactivity in the estuarine copepod Eurytemora affinis, Rutecarpine with an increase in swimming speed and activity resembling an escape reaction permitting copepods to evade stressful conditions. Further studies testing the effects of DD on the three-dimensional swimming behavior in Pseudodiaptomus annandalei indicated that males and ovigerous females swam faster at higher concentrations, suggesting a complex mode of action of this toxin ( Michalec et al., in press). T. stylifera is reported as being non selective in its feeding behavior and, according to Barreiro et al. (2011), seems to be unaware of the toxicity of its food since T.

[104], [105] and [106] In a mixed genetic background, DAPT clinical trial HIF-2 knockout mice survived into adulthood, but developed hepatic steatosis, skeletal myopathy and cardiac hypertrophy, which

was associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and defects in reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging. 107 Furthermore, HIF-2 knockout mice were pancytopenic and displayed a hypocellular bone marrow. 108 Further analysis revealed that anemia in these mice did not result from a cell-autonomous defect in erythroid precursor maturation, but was due to inadequate renal EPO production, indicating that HIF-2 was indispensable for systemic EPO homoeostasis in adults. 70 In a different model, Morita and colleagues showed that local EPO production in the retina was also HIF-2-dependent, 69 suggesting a more general role for HIF-2 in the control of EPO regulation. While these mouse models demonstrated that EPO production in adults was HIF-2-dependent, developmental studies highlighted the importance of HIF-1 in

the regulation of erythropoiesis during embryonic development. HIF-1-deficient embryos were characterized by a reduction in myeloid multi-lineage cells and committed erythroid progenitors at E9.5. This was associated with decreased Epo mRNA levels in the embryo proper but not in the yolk sac, while EpoR mRNA was decreased in both tissues. 54 The most compelling support for the notion that HIF-2 is the main regulator of adult EPO synthesis comes from conditional knockout studies in mice. Utilization of a tamoxifen-inducible, ubiquitously

expressed Cre-recombinase transgene permitted a direct check details comparison of the effects of HIF-1 and HIF-2 inactivation on erythropoiesis. Acute postnatal CHIR-99021 research buy global ablation of HIF-2α, but not of HIF-1α, resulted in anemia, which, similar to HIF-2α germ line inactivation, was responsive to treatment with recombinant EPO.71 While stimulation of renal EPO production in response to hemolysis (phenylhydrazine treatment) was blunted in HIF-2α-ablated mice, postnatal deletion of HIF-1α did not have any notable effect on erythropoiesis, which suggested that HIF-1 does not play a significant role in the regulation of systemic EPO homeostasis at baseline or in response to acute anemia.71 Our laboratory has generated cell type-specific knockout mice to investigate the differences between HIF-1 and HIF-2 in the regulation of renal and hepatic EPO synthesis. Inactivation of HIF-2α in the kidney completely ablated the renal EPO response in mice subjected to normobaric hypoxia (10% O2 for 10 days), phlebotomy-induced anemic hypoxia, or treatment with a HIF activating compound.24 Cell type-specific inactivation of the VHL-E3 ubiquitin ligase in hepatocytes resulted in HIF-2-, but not in HIF-1-dependent erythrocytosis, while pharmacological PHD inhibition caused a HIF-2-dependent increase in liver Epo mRNA levels.

There are around 500 fishing families in the area. The value of the catch in 2006 was U.S. $ 1′915, 047, the value of diving tourism in 2008 was U.S. $ 5′444, 774, and the beach tourism revenue was U.S. $ 9′519, 365 during the same year (Arceo et al., 2010). SAV reefs are Selleckchem Omipalisib located in a heavily impacted area. There have been identified 17 different types of environmental impacts associated with 50 different causes of

both human and natural origin (Ortiz-Lozano, 2012). While there is no accurate assessment of the impacts in the area, it can be said that urban development of the Veracruz metropolitan area, and the presence of the Port of Veracruz have been responsible for most of the deterioration of the reef conditions (Table 4). Depsipeptide supplier Despite being a protected area since August 1992, the Mexican federal government, through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, began in 2011 a legal procedure to modify the protected area boundaries, excluding a fringing reef called Punta Gorda. This has generated strong social opposition, since the government’s intention is to expand the facilities of the Port of Veracruz on the reef area. This reef system consists of a set of 32 small coral formations off the coast of Los Tuxtlas (Fig. 4, Table 6). Most of them formed of rocky substrates on which different colonies of hard corals

species grow. There is a fringing reef called “La Perla del Golfo”, which reaches 13 km long and 0.5 km wide, and has a coral cover close to 15%, dominated by Diploria clivosa ( Pérez-España et al., 2008). The whole area is considered within a Marine Protected Area proposal called “Arrecifes de Los Tuxtlas”, under the category of Biosphere Reserve ( CONANP, 2009). It is an area with a low level of knowledge because it is difficult

to access, and there are only a few records about it ( Pérez-España et al., 2008). The most complete information about the area is the technical report that justifies the inclusion of the area as a protected area ( CONANP, 2009). It is stressed a coral species richness similar to that of SALT, although the abundance is lower. See Table 4 for environmental MycoClean Mycoplasma Removal Kit impacts detected. Ecological corridors (EC) are strips that connect physical and biological areas that allow movement of species (Van der Windt and Swart, 2008). Although they may be defined in different ways (Good, 1998), the concept itself refers to a particular feature: connectivity, i.e. communication between two or more entities. This “fuzzy” concept has been accepted by conservationists and politicians precisely because of its adaptable definition (Van der Windt and Swart, 2008). Under an environmental perspective, this connectivity may refer to two components: can be related to physical characteristics of the territory that provide connectivity in the landscape, linking core habitats.

The storage of the system trajectory in the indirect dimension of the 2D NMR simulation shown in Fig. 1 requires 512 × 848,530 complex doubles (6.96 GB) of memory. It is clear that 3D NMR Afatinib clinical trial simulations would put some strain on modern computing facilities. This would have been a difficult problem, were it not for a peculiar property of propagator semigroups – simulations can be partially run backwards, even in the presence of relaxation. The general algebraic summary is given below and a special

case of the HNCO pulse sequence is illustrated in Fig. 3. The free induction decay coming out of a 3D NMR experiment is a function of three evolution times t  1, t  2, t  3 and may be formally written as equation(6) f(t1,t2,t3)=σˆe-iLtˆˆ3Pˆˆ3e-iLtˆˆ22Mˆˆ2e-iLtˆˆ22Pˆˆ2e-iLtˆˆ12Mˆˆ1e-iLtˆˆ12Pˆˆ1ρˆ0,Lˆˆ=Hˆˆ+iRˆˆwhere

ρˆ0 is the initial density matrix, σˆ is the detection state, Lˆˆ is the background Liouvillian of the system comprising a Hamiltonian Hˆˆ and a relaxation superoperator Rˆˆ, Pˆˆn are preparation pulse and delay propagators, and Mˆˆn are propagators of refocusing pulses in the middle of evolution periods. Because semigroups are associative, the result of Eq. (6) does not depend on the partitioning of Dirac brackets. In particular, equation(7) f(t1,t2,t3)=σˆe-iLtˆˆ3Pˆˆ3e-iLtˆˆ22Mˆˆ2e-iLtˆˆ22Pˆˆ2e-iLtˆˆ12Mˆˆ1e-iLtˆˆ12Pˆˆ1ρˆ0 This transformation Daporinad ic50 splits a 3D NMR simulation into one forward 2D simulation from the initial state, one backward 2D simulation from the detection state and one dot product in the middle. Eq. (7) is formally equivalent to Eq. (6), but the reduction in storage requirements is considerable – for a typical protein 3D NMR experiment, instead of a dense 64 × 64 × 256 × 106 array of complex doubles (over 16 TB of data) at the end of the t3 period in Eq. (6), the arrays in Eq. (7) have dimensions

of 64 × 64 × 106 and 64 × 256 × 106 as well as better sparsity, resulting in the worst-case storage requirements of about 256 GB. As per Eq. (7), their scalar product along the last dimension returns the required 64 × 64 × 256 free induction decay. Importantly, Eq. (7) retains the parallelization opportunities and the time-memory trade-offs offered by the fact that different t1 increments may be evolved independently Nintedanib (BIBF 1120) in t2 forward, and different t3 increments may be evolved independently in t2 backward. The final operation – the matrix dot product in Eq. (7) – is also intrinsically parallel. Practical testing shows that the two-sided propagation technique reduces the simulation time of 3D NMR experiments on proteins (HNCO example is given in Fig. 4) by at least an order of magnitude. Even in reduced spaces the algebraic structure of the time-domain NMR simulation problem lends itself to multiple efficiency tweaks. Sparse matrix algebra [20] is advantageous because in the Pauli basis all spin Hamiltonian matrices are guaranteed to be sparse [19].

Larvae removed from seeds of V. unguiculata were transferred to a cavity produced in the compacted mass of flour in one half of the gelatin capsule, at a ratio of three larvae per capsule. Following this, the two halves of the capsules were carefully joined together in order to permit the feeding SB203580 in vivo movements of the larvae and maintained in the dark. Controls were used in which only FITC was mixed with seed flour at the concentration of 2.0% (w/w) in order to assess the level of FITC absorption. Capsules containing only cowpea flour

were used as controls to evaluate auto-fluorescence of the internal organs. Larvae were left to complete their metamorphosis until emergence of adults. In order to visualize and document the presence of labelled vicilins by microscopy from gonads and eggs, fresh portions were mounted on glass slides and visualized using a laser Confocal microscope (Leica DMI6000 B Microscope). Vicilin–FITC fed and mated females 3-days after emergence were transferred to glass vials and maintained during 24 h inside an incubator at 28 °C and 70% RH and without access to males. After this time, the eggs laid on cowpea seeds were removed with a fine needle, placed in a 1.5 mL tube and homogenized (50 eggs/150 μL) in 250 mM NaCl at 4 °C. The homogenate was centrifuged at

15,000 × g for 15 min at 4 °C and the proteins in the supernatant were fractionated by SDS–PAGE as previously described. Virgin vicilin–FITC fed males and control females

selleck chemicals llc that copulated with some of those males were dissected and their genitalia and fat bodies were collected. Following collection, some genital tracts were freshly prepared for confocal microscopy and pooled genitalia were homogenized in water using a hand-held Potter–Elvehjem homogenizer immersed in ice. Tissue homogenates were centrifuged at 15,000 × g for 30 min at 4 °C and the supernatants were used for protein determination and fractionation by SDS–PAGE as previously described. Preparative gel electrophoresis (SDS–PAGE) comprising ca 30 μg of proteins from Verteporfin order C. maculatus whole egg homogenates and 50 μg of protein from genitalia of both males and females were run as above and stained with Coomassie Blue. Protein bands with Rf similar to peptides recognized by the anti-vicilin antibody (see Souza et al., 2010) were then located on the preparatory gels and excised manually. Gel slices were distained (0.1 M ammonium bicarbonate and 40% acetonitrile), dehydrated (100% acetonitrile) and dried in a speed-vac. Protein digestion was performed as described by Demartini et al. (2011). The tryptic peptides collected after digestion were analyzed by reversed-phase HPLC coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) performed in an electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer (Q-TOF Micro™, Micromass, Waters, Milford, United States).

This effect appeared to be modulated by available attentional capacity, as discrimination was worse when they were required to complete a more demanding task at screen centre. This pattern was prominent for letters appearing on the left side of space as there was a significant interaction between task demand, SOA condition and group for these stimuli. However, even on the right side, right-hemisphere patients were less accurate than controls when letters appeared simultaneously with the central

diamonds. An initial ANOVA involving within-subjects factors of SOA (4 levels), learn more load (2 levels) and side (left vs right) revealed significant main effects of SOA and side [F (3, 7) = 23.94, p < .001 and F (1, 9) = 9.607, p < .05 respectively]. In addition, there was a significant interaction between SOA, load and side [F (3, 7) = 5.069, p < .05]. Again, to investigate differential responses according to side, separate analysis was carried out for letters appearing on the left and right. On PR-171 in vitro the left there was a critical interaction between SOA and load [F (3, 7) = 5.289 p < .05). In contrast discrimination accuracy for letters on the right did not reveal this interaction (F (3, 7) < 1, n.s.]. Further

analysis of left-sided performance was carried out. Of interest here were differences in discrimination according to load at the various SOAs. For left-sided stimuli during the low-demand condition, there was a significant difference in detection between the 0 msec and 450 msec condition [t (4) = −5.14, p < .01], which was not the case during the high demand condition [t (4) = −1.403, n.s.]. This pattern continues for stimuli at 850 msec, as during the low load task, patients detected significantly more letters than those presented simultaneously [t (4) = −3.382, p < .01]. By contrast, when they were completing the high load task patients still did not detect significantly more than at 0 msec [t (4) = −1.863, n.s.]. At 1650 msec, discrimination was significantly

better than for letters check details presented simultaneously with the central task for both levels of central task load: t (4) = −10.874, p < .001; t (4) = −7.071, p < .01 for low and high load respectively. Vision across the contralesional field in this group of patients appears critically impaired when they complete an attentionally demanding task at fixation. Crucially this impedance is not solely at the time the central task is presented but extends forward in time to give a “spatial attentional blink” on the contralesional side lasting for up to 850 msec. These patients do not suffer from visuospatial neglect-however the lesions from which they suffer appear to reduce attentional capacity such that loading processing resources at fixation causes both a spatial and temporal loss of visual perception. Patients in the previous study were compared to healthy age-matched participants.

The EF values ranged from 1.2 to 1.9, indicating no anthropogenic contamination in this region. Despite some samples presenting high values of the elemental contents, the vertical distribution pattern for the other trace elements in Admiralty Bay (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni and Pb) was considered similar for all sediment profiles since EF values were in the range of 0.3–2. Therefore, results suggest only a slight association of human activities with the increase

of the elemental concentrations. The authors would like to thank the Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia Antártico de Pesquisas Ambientais (INCT APA, Process 574018/2008-5) and the Programa Antártico Brasileiro (PROANTAR) for the financial support through the bursary provided by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and the logistical support from the Secretaria da Comissão Anti-diabetic Compound Library molecular weight Interministerial para Recursos do Mar (SECIRM), respectively. “
“IN ACCORDANCE WITH the figures presented HSP inhibitor in the recently published FDA report “Fatalities Reported to FDA Following Blood Collection and Transfusion: Annual Summary for Fiscal

Year 2009” (http://www.fda.gov/download/BiologicsBlood-Vaccines/SafetyAvailability/ReportaProblem/TransfusionDonationFatalities/UCM205620.pdf), Figure 13 (on page 113) from the review by EC Vamvakas and MA Blajchman (Transfus Med Rev 2010;24:77-124) has been corrected and updated else as shown below. “
“I was in a room of scientists and I posed the question, “Has the Clean Water Act been effective”? Granted, it was an open-ended question about legislation over 40 years ago whose aim was to ensure that surface waters of the United States are “swimmable and fishable”. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised by the answers I heard. The older scientists unanimously agreed, “of course”! Younger scientists were generally more skeptical and the bravest were insistent about the Clean Water Act’s ineffectiveness. So, who was right? Older scientists were quickly able to outline

the atrocious environmental insults circa 1970. Permanently emblazoned in their memory were visions of the Cuyahoga River, Platform A, or precipitous declines in marine bird and mammal populations. The Cuyahoga River, near Cleveland, Ohio was so polluted that surface oil slicks would catch on fire. Actually, these slicks burned several times during the early and mid-20th century. However, the fire in June 1969 caught the attention of Time Magazine and, once published, helped galvanize the environmental movement towards state, inter-state, and federal regulations such as the Clean Water Act. The Cuyahoga is now an American Heritage River described by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency as “fishable”. Platform A was an oil drilling rig in the Pacific Ocean along the southern California coastline near the City of Santa Barbara.