InSAR-observed surface deformation in New Mexico's Permian Basin shows threats and opportunities presented by leaky injection wells.

Knowledge of aquifer dynamics, including groundwater storage changes, is key to effective groundwater resource and reservoir management. Resolving and accurate modeling of these processes requires knowledge of subsurface poroelastic properties and lateral heterogeneity within units of interest. Computationally demanding methods for determining lateral heterogeneity in poroelastic properties exist but remain difficult to practically employ. The InSAR-based detection of uplift over a New Mexico well with a casing breach provides an opportunity to determine poroelastic properties using a tractable 2D analytical plane strain solution for surface uplift created by a pressurized reservoir with overburden. Using a Bayesian inversion framework, we calculate poroelastic properties under deep (depth of well-screen) and shallow (depth of well-breach) conditions. We find that shallow injection is necessary to produce the observed deformation. However, pressure-varying forward solutions for uplift are required to reproduce the temporal evolution of deformation. For this we use realistic shallow poroelastic properties and well dynamics, which reflect the evolving injection conditions at the well breach as the casing further erodes. Analysis of individual interferograms or InSAR time series may provide insights into shallow subsurface heterogeneity or anomalous injection conditions at operating wells more rapidly than scheduled field inspections.

Bilateral fiberoptic bronchoalveolar lavage in acute unilateral lobar pneumonia.

Bilateral cultures of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were obtained from eight children with unilateral lobar pneumonia. In four patients bacterial pathogens were not isolated from lavage of the radiologically normal side but were subsequently cultured from the consolidated segment. This pattern helped to exclude contamination by oropharyngeal flora of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Bilateral bronchoalveolar lavage may help in the interpretation of lower respiratory tract cultures obtained by fiberoptic bronchoscopy.

Insulin counters the glycogenolytic effect of arginine vasotocin in liver pieces from the axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, cultured in vitro.

In organ cultures of liver tissue from the axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, 1 nmol/l arginine vasotocin (AVT) increased tissue cyclic AMP (cAMP) concentration, activated glycogen phosphorylase, and caused glycogen breakdown and glucose release. Addition of 10 nmol/l insulin had no effect on any of these parameters. Addition of glucagon together with AVT caused a further increase in tissue cAMP but not in glucose release. Ten nanomoles per liter of insulin added to the cultures 5 min before 1 nmol/liter AVT inhibited all the above actions of AVT. This inhibitory action of insulin was not apparent in the presence of the cAMP phosphodiesterase inhibitor isobutylmethylxanthine (IBMX), which indicates that insulin activates cAMP phosphodiesterase and so reduces the concentration of cAMP in the tissue. This cannot occur in the presence of IBMX. These findings confirm previous reports that AVT causes hepatic glycogenolysis in the axolotl via an increase in tissue cAMP level.

Binding of adrenergic ligands to liver plasma membrane preparations from the axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum; the toad, Xenopus laevis; and the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri.

The beta-adrenergic ligand iodocyanopindolol (ICP) bound specifically to hepatic plasma membrane preparations from the axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum (Bmax, 40 fmol/mg protein (P) at free concentration above 140 pM; KD, 42 pM); the toad, Xenopus laevis (Bmax, 200 fmol/mg P at 1 nM; KD, 300 pM); and the Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri (Bmax, 100 fmol/mg P at 5 nM). For the lungfish, the Scatchard plot was curved showing two classes of binding site with KD's of 20 and 500 pM. Neither the alpha 1-adrenergic ligand prazosin nor the alpha 2-adrenergic ligand yohimbine bound specifically to hepatic membrane preparations from any of the three species. Several adrenergic ligands displaced ICP from hepatic membrane preparations of all three species with KD's of Axolotl--propranolol, 50 nM; isoprenaline, 600 nM; adrenaline, 10 microM; phenylephrine, 20 microM; noradrenaline, 40 microM; and phentolamine, greater than 100 microM; X. laevis--propranolol, 30 nM; isoprenaline, 100 microM; adrenaline, 200 microM; noradrenaline, 300 microM; phenylephrine, 1 mM; and phentolamine, greater than 1 mM; N. forsteri,--propranolol, 25 nM; isoprenaline, 1 microM; adrenaline, 20 microM; phenylephrine, 35 microM; noradrenaline, 600 microM; and phentolamine, 400 microM. These findings suggest that alpha-adrenergic receptors are not present in hepatic plasma membrane preparations from these three species and that the hepatic actions of catecholamines are mediated via beta-adrenergic receptors. The order of binding of the beta-adrenergic ligands suggests that the receptors are of the beta 2 type.