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Alkaliphilus metalliredigens strain QYMF is an anaerobic, alkaliphilic, and metal-reducing bacterium associated with phylum Firmicutes QYMF was isolated from alkaline borax leachate ponds. The genome sequence will help elucidate the role of metal-reducing microorganisms under alkaline environments, a capability that is not commonly observed in metal respiring-microorganisms.

Riemerella anatipestifer (Hendrickson and Hilbert 1932) Segers et al. 1993 is the type species of the genus Riemerella, which belongs to the family Flavobacteriaceae. The species is of in-terest because of the position of the genus in the phylogenetic tree and because of its role as a pathogen of commercially important avian species worldwide. This is the first completed genome sequence of a member of the genus Riemerella. The 2,155,121 bp long genome with its 2,001 protein-coding and 51 RNA genes consists of one circular chromosome and is a part of the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea project.

John Searle's Chinese room argument is perhaps the most influential and widely cited argument against artificial intelligence (AI). Understood as targeting AI proper -- claims that computers can think or do think -- Searle's argument, despite its rhetorical flash, is logically and scientifically a dud. Advertised as effective against AI proper, the argument, in its main outlines, is an ignoratio elenchi. It musters persuasive force fallaciously by indirection fostered by equivocal deployment of the phrase "strong AI" and reinforced by equivocation on the phrase "causal powers (at least) equal to those of brains." On a more carefully crafted understanding -- understood just to target metaphysical identification of thought with computation ("Functionalism" or "Computationalism") and not AI proper -- the argument is still unsound, though more interestingly so. It's unsound in ways difficult for high church -- "someday my prince of an AI program will come" -- believers in AI to acknowledge without undermining their high church beliefs. The ad hominem bite of Searle's argument against the high church persuasions of so many cognitive scientists, I suggest, largely explains the undeserved repute this really quite disreputable argument enjoys among them.

Hauser considers John Searle's attempt to distinguish acts from movements. On Searle's account, the difference between me raising my arm and my arm's just going up (e.g., if you forcibly raise it), is the causal involvement of my intention to raise my arm in the former, but not the latter, case. Yet, we distinguish a similar difference between a robot's raising its arm and its robot arm just going up (e.g., if you manually raise it). Either robots are rightly credited with intentions or it's not intention that distinguishes action from mere movement. In either case acts are attributable to robots. Since the truth of such attributions depends not on the speaker's "intentional stance" but on "intrinsic" features of the things they are not merely figurative "as if" attributions. Gunderson allows that internally propelled programmed devices (Hauser Robots) do act but denies that they have the mental properties such acts seem to indicate. Rather, given our intuitive conviction that these machines lack consciousness, such performances evidence the dementalizability of acts.Hauser replies that the performances in question provide prima facie warrant for attributions of mental properties that considerations of consciousness are insufficient to override.

Harnad's proposed "robotic upgrade" of Turing's Test (TT), from a test of linguistic capacity alone to a Total Turing Test (TTT) of linguistic and sensorimotor capacity, conflicts with his claim that no behavioral test provides even probable warrant for attributions of thought because there is "no evidence" [p.45] of consciousness besides "private experience" [p.52]. Intuitive, scientific, and philosophical considerations Harnad offers in favor of his proposed upgrade are unconvincing. I agree with Harnad that distinguishing real from "as if" thought on the basis of (presence or lack of) consciousness (thus rejecting Turing (behavioral) testing as sufficient warrant for mental attribution) has the skeptical consequence Harnad accepts -- "there is in fact no evidence for me that anyone else but me has a mind" [p.45]. I disagree with his acceptance of it! It would be better to give up the neo-Cartesian "faith" [p.52] in private conscious experience underlying Harnad's allegiance to Searle's controversial Chinese Room "Experiment" than give up all claim to know others think. It would be better to allow that (passing) Turing's Test evidences -- even strongly evidences -- thought.

My pocket calculator (Cal) has certain arithmetical abilities: it seems Cal calculates. That calculating is thinking seems equally untendentious. Yet these two claims together provide premises for a seemingly valid syllogism whose conclusion -- Cal thinks -- most would deny. I consider several ways to avoid this conclusion, and find them mostly wanting. Either we ourselves can't be said to think or calculate if our calculation-like performances are judged by the standards proposed to rule out Cal; or the standards -- e.g., autonomy and self-consciousness -- make it impossible to verify whether anything or anyone (save myself) meets them. While appeals to the intentionality of thought or the unity of minds provide more credible lines of resistance, available accounts of intentionality and mental unity are insufficiently clear and warranted to provide very substantial arguments against Cal's title to be called a thinking thing. Indeed, considerations favoring granting that title are more formidable than generally appreciated.

Against the claim that folk psychology is a theory, I contend thatfolk psychology is not empirically vulnerable in the same way theories are, and has evaluative functions that make it irreplaceable by a scientific theory. It is neither would-be nor has-been science.

Haplotype frequency distribution and discriminatory power of two mtDNA fragments has been studied in a marine pelagic teleost, Atlantic herring. Data suggest that the very skewed haplotype distribution of many mtDNA markers may be one of the reasons for the more infrequent detection of population differentiation compared to microsatellites.