The Clock gene is a core component of the circadian clock in mammals. We show here that serum levels of triglyceride and free fatty acid were significantly lower in circadian Clock mutant ICR than in wild-type control mice, whereas total cholesterol and glucose levels did not differ. Moreover, an increase in body weight induced by a high-fat diet was attenuated in homozygous Clock mutant mice. We also found that dietary fat absorption was extremely impaired in Clock mutant mice. Circadian expressions of cholecystokinin-A (CCK-A) receptor and lipase mRNAs were damped in the pancreas of Clock mutant mice. We therefore showed that a Clock mutation attenuates obesity induced by a high-fat diet in mice with an ICR background through impaired dietary fat absorption. Our results suggest that circadian clock molecules play an important role in lipid homeostasis in mammals.

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A new distributed gasification system for solid fuels is proposed, which is named as MEET (the Multi-staged Enthalpy Extraction Tlechno]ogy) system. In order to realize this system, a demonstration plant of commercial scale, the MEET-II, was constructed.The capacity of the MEET-II is 200kg/h. MEET-II faci]ity consists of a pebble bed slagging-gasifier, a gas clean-up system, a high temperature air generator and a gas engine.The pebble bed slagging-gasifier contains a fixed ceramic ball bed under an entrained tlow bed, High temperature air ef about 1,OOO℃ is used as a gas"ication medium in order to obtain higher calorific value syngas.Gasification and power generation tests at the MEET-II facility were conducted using powdered wood biomass as fuels. These tests demonstrated technicai feasibility of the MEET-II faci[ity.