Background: Daphniids, commonly known as waterfleas, serve as important model systems for ecology, evolution and the environmental sciences. The sequencing and annotation of the Daphnia pulex genome both open future avenues of research on this model organism. As proteomics is not only essential to our understanding of cell function, and is also a powerful validation tool for predicted genes in genome annotation projects, a first proteomic dataset is presented in this article.

Anaesthesia in guinea pigs with a new highly potent and short-acting analgesic, carfentanyl (R 33799), combined with the hypnotic, etomidat (R 26490), is reported. Clinical observations as well as respiratory and circulatory variables have revealed this combination to be safe. Profound surgical anaesthesia has been obtained with good sedation, analgesia, and immobilisation. This method has been evaluated clinically and can be recommended with confidence in this species.