Wall Street Journal
- ISSN: 00185787
- DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2005.12.025
- PubMed: 10291229
Abstract
Sodium cholate (NaC) was used as a representative bile salt in the process of cooperative binding to bovine serum albumin (BSA) in a mixture with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The experiments were performed in 0.02 M Tris-HCl buffer solution (pH 7.50), in the presence of 0.1% BSA and at 25 degrees C. The aim of this study is to provide information on the performance of the BSA in the promotion of cooperative binding of sodium cholate promoted by the presence of SDS. The method used to monitor the binding was based on the analysis of the effect of SDS and NaC concentrations and their mixtures upon the fluorescence intensity of the BSA tryptophan residues. Plots of the fluorescence emission bands in terms of the A0/A ratio vs surfactant concentrations, where A0 and A represent the areas of emission bands in the presence and absence of the surfactants, respectively, were drawn in order to investigate the surfactant interaction with the protein. An alternative methodology, the specific conductivity vs surfactant concentration plots, was used, which involves mixtures of SDS and NaC to investigate the association processes, through the determination of the critical aggregation concentration (cac, when in the presence of protein) and the critical micellar concentration (cmc). The results led to a general conclusion that as the mixed micellar aggregates become richer in the bile salt monomer, the tendency to lose the reactivity with the protein increases. According to our results, a clear evidence of the predomination of BSA-SDS-NaC complexes is found only for the SDS molar fraction above approximately 0.6, and below this fraction a tendency toward free mixed micelles starts to predominate.
Wall Street Journal
1 of 3 1/21/2007 2:06 PM
Jun. 28, 2006 - 4:19 PM
Taste Patrol
The Journal Reports That Good Deeds Are Bad
Gal Beckerman
Warren Buffett's groundbreaking decision this week to donate most of his wealth to
charity (and specifically to his buddy Bill Gates' charity) was roundly greeted with
applause and respect. It was hard to find anything really negative to say; the man
accumulated tons of money and then decided -- instead of buying Omaha or setting up
trust funds for the next ten generations -- to hand it over to a charitable organization
that has a proven record of making the world a better place.
Then again, most people are looking at this from the perspective of human beings and
not of heartless calculators who would rush to do a cost-benefit analysis of Buffett's
generosity. For that, we must rely on the Wall Street Journal. Here's the lead of its
piece (subscription required) on the front page of yesterday's Money & Investing
section: "Warren Buffett's decision to donate the bulk of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
shares to charitable foundations weighed on the company's stock amid concern that,
as the charities sell shares to fund their projects, it could hurt the stock price in the long
term."
The article goes on to paint a variety of other scenarios, all hypothetical in the extreme,
that serve to throw a dark cloud over Buffett's donation. The charities are going to
wantonly cash in shares and hemorrhage money on AIDS research and development
projects! If that isn't bad enough, all this reckless benevolence must be a sign that
Buffett is on his way out the door. That will surely cause the stock to plummet!
Of course, the stock's generally stable history is then laid out as a foil for a future that
now seems uncertain, or "cloudy" as the Journal's headline puts it, because old
Warren had to go and get mushy on us.
2 of 3 1/21/2007 2:06 PM
Buffett's act is nothing if not seminal -- one that could well revolutionize the way that
both the private sector and governments allocate money in this country. All for the
better, as far as most people are concerned. But the only cheer that we get from the
Journal comes at the very end of the piece, where Buffett is quoted saying that
Berkshire shares are ideal charitable contributions because they are now in the
possession of do-gooders and have a relatively stable, long-term growth profile.
As for reporters' fears that billionaire hedge fund managers might lose a few bucks on
short-term fluctuations in Berkshire stock, Buffett "estimated that about 15 percent of
Berkshire's shares are bought and sold every year, and predicted that the figure would
rise to 17 percent if all the charities sell all the stock they receive each year. That is a
sizable increase of 13 percent in the annual turnover."
Says the Sage of Omaha: "I see no downside to that."
Good to know. But there is only one question that really needs to be answered about
this article: Why write it?
Is it because the Journal's sources actually stand to profit from the very fluctuations
they claim to fear (and profit even more if they can whip up some market hysteria with
an article in a prominent business newspaper)? We can only speculate, but there is no
doubt that there is a deeply cynical strain of business reporting that has come to
reduce everything to numbers, seemingly blind to the reality that business affects
people -- real lives that are either trampled or uplifted depending on the decisions of
market players like Buffett.
That is sad. But who knows? Maybe one day the folks on Wall Street will come to
realize that good deeds add value, and maybe the journalists who cover that beat will
report on the perfect negative correlation between the rise in Berkshire's stock and the
demand for tasteless fortresses and marble statuary in Greenwich, CT.
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