Equivocal locations: being ‘red’ in ‘Red Bologna’

This article addresses a classic ethnographic problem in the study of Italy: how is it that people can subscribe simultaneously to seemingly contradictory ideologies, such as Catholicism and Communism? It does so by describing examples from Italy's ‘showcase city’ of the left, ‘Red Bologna’, in which to be ‘red’ is ubiquitous but each person's ‘red’ is a different thing: being ‘red’ (differently) is the idiom in which real political distinctions are expressed over issues like religion or immigration. In parallel, I discuss the relationship between the ‘field’ as a location and the ‘field’ as a conceptual topic. My account replicates internal ethnographic differences at the analytical level by highlighting the differences between being left‐wing in Bologna and its meaning as a concept in anthropology. Hence the ‘equivocal location’: a field‐site that is productively different, from what an inexperienced ethnographer expected from it, from conceptual discussions in anthropology, and from itself.     

‘I am helping them’: ‘Traffickers’, ‘anti‐traffickers’ and economies of bad faith

For several years, aid programs in the Mekong region have taken an increasing interest in cross‐border mobility and human trafficking and its relationship with development. More recently, there has been an increasing interest in the identification of trafficked victims and the investigation, arrest and prosecution of traffickers. Whereas anti‐trafficking programs ubiquitously define themselves as being in a battle with traffickers, this article argues that although they are not homologous social actors, both engage in acts of bad faith. The article elaborates this argument by drawing attention to the recruitment process within the Lao sex industry as well as to the way in which aid programs attempt to identify trafficked victims. It concludes that imaginary aspects of development underpin a simultaneous disjuncture yet enable the social reproduction of the life worlds of ‘traffickers’ and ‘anti‐traffickers’ alike.     

Nations and Tribes ‘Within’: Emerging Aboriginal ‘Nationalisms’ in Katherine

Throughout Australia, many Aboriginal responses to the legislative and administrative pressures of the native title regime have been couched in a nation‐building idiom expressed through legally incorporated Aboriginal associations. The membership criteria of these umbrella associations are often derived from definitions of the ‘tribe’ or ‘language group’. Yet, in a kind of Balkanisation, those who see themselves as marginalised to positions of uncertainty on the peripheries of the nation often seek to establish their own independent corporations on the basis of exclusive ties to specific areas of land within it, in search of greater recognition and in competition for scarce resources. In Katherine, in the Northern Territory of Australia, the administrative and legislative gaze of the State, particularly the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, brought into focus a Jawoyn ‘tribe’, soon to express itself in the idiom of nationhood, closely followed by a Wardaman ‘tribe’ and ‘nation’. More recently, a native title gaze has now brought into focus ‘new’ configurations of kindred clusters, apparently located on the ‘peripheries' of the Jawoyn and Wardaman nations, and named and valued them as Dagoman. This paper discusses the processes associated with an emerging, but seemingly already fragmenting, Dagoman nation. It argues that divergent and changing Aboriginal subjectivities disrupt what might be seen as mimetic processes as Aboriginal people employ strategies of transforming essentialist representations of their collective selves in changing conditions of possibility.     

The effects of ‘Step-down’ on RNA metabolism in HeLa cells

HeLa cells were subjected to ‘step-down’ conditions, and measurements were made of the high and low salt RNA polymerase activity, phosphorylation of uridine, incorporation of precursors into both RNA and protein and their respective acid-soluble pools, at different cell densities. It was found that ‘step-down’ conditions induced increased activity in both types of polymerase, decreased phosphorylation of uridine and reduced the incorporation of radioactive precursors into both the amino acid and nucleotide pools.     

‘Dancing the image’: materiality and spirituality in Andean religious ‘images’

In the Christian tradition, representing the divine has often been considered both an impossible and yet necessary endeavour rooted in the human need in certain moments of weakness to visualize God. In this article, based on research findings from fieldwork carried out with urban indigenous groups in La Paz, Bolivia, I suggest that the articulation of local and Catholic representational traditions and practices has produced an understanding of the religious image not so much as an object of detached contemplation or a reference to a religious symbol but rather as an energized element which physically shapes the relationship and exchange between the material and the spiritual world. I suggest that through a study of Andean religious images we may be able to produce an alternative ontological perspective on the relationship between the spiritual, material, and living worlds.

Résumé

Dans la tradition chrétienne, la représentation du divin est souvent considérée comme une gageure impossible et pourtant nécessaire, motivée par la nécessité humaine de visualiser Dieu dans les moments de faiblesse. À partir des matériaux de terrain obtenus auprès de groupes autochtones urbains à La Paz, en Bolivie, l'auteur suggère ici que l'articulation des traditions et pratiques de représentation locales et catholiques a conduit à concevoir l'image religieuse moins comme un objet de contemplation détachée ou une référence à un symbole religieux que comme un élément chargé d'énergie, qui donne physiquement forme à la relation et aux échanges entre le monde matériel et le monde spirituel. L'article suggère qu'à travers l'étude des images religieuses andines, on pourrait élaborer un autre point de vue ontologique sur la relation entre les mondes spirituel, matériel et vivant.     

Complementary ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches to basal ganglia function

Recently, two quite different approaches exemplifying ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ philosophies have shed new light on basal ganglia function. In vitro work using organotypic co-cultures has implicated the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and the external segment of the globus pallidus (GP_e) as pacemakers for low-frequency bursting that is reminiscent of the activity produced in Parkinsonian tremor. A circuit essential for avian song learning has been identified as part of the basal ganglia with surprisingly well conserved cellular details; investigation of this system may help to address general issues of basal ganglia function.     

DNA bioassays based on the fluorescence ‘turn off’ of silver nanocluster beacon

Recognition and quantification of oligonucleotide sequences play important roles in medical diagnosis. In this study, a new fluorescent oligonucleotide‐stabilized silver nanocluster beacon (NCB) probe was designed for sensitive detection of oligonucleotide sequence targets. This probe contained two tailored DNA strands. One strand was a signal probe strand containing a cytosine‐rich strand template for fluorescent silver nanocluster (Ag NC) synthesis and a detection sections at each end. The other strand was a fluorescence enhancing strand containing a guanine‐rich section for signal enhancement at one end and a linker section complementary to one end of the signal probe strand. After synthesis of the Ag NCs and hybridization of the two strands, the fluorescence intensity of the as‐prepared silver NCB was enhanced 200‐fold compared with the Ag NCs. Two NCBs were designed to detect two disease‐related oligonucleotide sequences, and results indicated that the two target oligonucleotide sequences in the range 50.0–600.0 and 50.0–200.0 nM could be linearly detected with detection limits of 20 and 25 nM, respectively. The developed fluorescence method using NCBs for oligonucleotide sequence detection was sensitive, facile and had potential for use in bioanalysis and diagnosis.     

Detection and Identification of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum’, ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma mali’ and ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri’ in Stone Fruit Trees in Poland

A survey was made to determine the incidence of phytoplasmas in 39 sweet and sour cherry, peach, nectarine, apricot and plum commercial and experimental orchards in seven growing regions of Poland. Nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using the phytoplasma‐universal primer pairs P1/P7 followed by R16F2n/R16R2 showed the presence of phytoplasmas in 29 of 435 tested stone fruit trees. The random fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns obtained after digestion of the nested PCR products separately with RsaI, AluI and SspI endonucleases indicated that selected Prunus spp. trees were infected by phytoplasmas belonging to three different subgroups of the apple proliferation group (16SrX‐A, ‐B, ‐C). Nucleotide sequence analysis of 16S rDNA fragment amplified with primers R16F2n/R16R2 confirmed the PCR/Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) results and revealed that phytoplasma infecting sweet cherry cv. Regina (Reg), sour cherry cv. Sokowka (Sok), apricots cv. Early Orange (EO) and AI/5, Japanese plum cv. Ozark Premier (OzPr) and peach cv. Redhaven (RedH) was closely related to isolate European stone fruit yellows‐G1 of the ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum’ (16SrX‐B). Sequence and phylogenetic analyses resulted in the highest similarity of the 16S rDNA fragment of phytoplasma from nectarine cv. Super Queen (SQ) with the parallel sequence of the strain AP15 of the ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma mali’ (16SrX‐A). The phytoplasma infecting sweet cherry cv. Kordia (Kord) was most similar to the PD1 strain of the ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pyri’ (16SrX‐C). This is the first report of the occurrence of ‘Ca. P. prunorum’, ‘Ca. P. mali’ and ‘Ca. P. pyri’ in naturally infected stone fruit trees in Poland.     

Contamination effects by a ‘conventional’ and a ‘biodegradable’ lubricant oil on infaunal recruitment to Antarctic sediments: A field experiment

To investigate the impacts of synthetic lubricants on Antarctic infaunal communities, a field experiment was setup near Australia's Casey Station, East Antarctica. Two types of synthetic lubricants were tested: an ‘Unused’ and ‘Used’ conventional synthetic lubricant, and an alternative marketed as ‘biodegradable’. Clean defaunated sediment was contaminated with the lubricants, decanted into trays, and deployed by divers onto the seabed in a randomised block design. Sediments were sampled 5 and 56 weeks after deployment. After 5 weeks, benthic assemblages that had recruited to the lubricant contaminated sediments were significantly different to those in ‘Control’ sediments, and differences were more pronounced after 56 weeks. Total number of individuals did not significantly differ between treatments after 5 weeks. However, after 56 weeks total individuals in the ‘Control’ sediments were significantly greater than in the contaminated sediments. Nototanais antarcticus (tanaid) and to a lesser extent Monoculodes sp. (gammarid), Tanaid sp. IV and Eudorella sp. (cumacean) had significantly higher abundances in the control sediments after 56 weeks compared to the contaminated sediments. Copepods numerically dominated the benthic assemblages at both sampling times; however, their abundance did not significantly differ across treatments. The community recruiting to the contaminated sediments remained different from that in the ‘Control’ sediments for the duration of the experiment (1 year). The ‘biodegradable’ lubricant was just as environmentally harmful to the Antarctic infauna as the ‘conventional’ lubricant currently used at Australia's Antarctic stations. Our results demonstrate that changes to recruitment are one of the potential environmental consequences of a lubricant spill to Antarctic benthic communities, and reinforce the importance of preventative oil spill management and effective clean-up procedures. Further monitoring of this field experiment will provide much needed information about the long-term impacts by synthetic lubricants in the Antarctic marine environment.     

Ecophysiological function of leaf ‘windows’ in Lithops species – ‘Living Stones’ that grow underground

Leaf temperatures were lower when light entry at the leaf tip window was prevented through covering the window with reflective tape, relative to leaf temperatures of plants with leaf tip windows covered with transparent tape. This was true when leaf temperatures were measured with an infrared thermometer, but not with a fine‐wire thermocouple. Leaf tip windows of Lithops growing in high‐rainfall regions of southern Africa were larger than the windows of plants (numerous individuals of 17 species) growing in areas with less rainfall and, thus, more annual insolation. The results of this study indicate that leaf tip windows of desert plants with an underground growth habit can allow entry of supra‐optimal levels of radiant energy, thus most likely inhibiting photosynthetic activity. Consequently, the size of the leaf tip windows correlates inversely with habitat solar irradiance, minimising the probability of photoinhibition, while maximising the absorption of irradiance in cloudy, high‐rainfall regions.     

Cleaner Wrasses Keep Track of the ‘When’ and ‘What’ in a Foraging Task1

In recent years evidence has accumulated that at least some animals can remember the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of personal experiences. Currently, evidence for such ability is taxonomically restricted to birds and mammals. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus are able to remember when they interacted with what after a single event. In nature, cleaners remove ectoparasites from other reef fishes, so‐called clients. Clients are depleted, non‐stationary food patches at the end of an interaction and replenished only after a delay. In our experiments, we presented twelve cleaners every 2.5 min, a choice between two of a total of four plates with different colours and patterns. One plate was always accessible but contained a non‐preferred food item while the other three contained a preferred food item, but allowed a next feeding event only after 5, 10 or 15 min. Thus, to maximise food intake, cleaners had to remember for each choice when they had last interacted with which plate. When confronted with two plates offering preferred food, cleaners showed an overall significant preference for the plate that allowed access during the trial. For six cleaners, the preference was significant. Also, on trials involving the always accessible plate, cleaners discriminated between trials in which they had to eat the non‐preferred food and trials on which they could eat the preferred food. In conclusion, cleaners are able to track the ‘when’ and ‘what’ (or possibly ‘who’) within a biologically meaningful time period.     

Genetic influences on ‘environmental’ factors

Childhood environment, social environment and behavior, leisure time activities and life events have been hypothesized to contribute to individual differences in cognitive abilities and physical and emotional well‐being. These factors are often labeled ‘environmental’, suggesting they shape but not reflect individual differences in behavior. The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that these factors are not randomly distributed across the population but reflect heritable individual differences. Self‐report data on Childhood Environment, Social Environment and Behavior, Leisure Time Activities and Life Events were obtained from 560 adult twins and siblings (mean age 47.11 years). Results clearly show considerable genetic influences on these factors with mean broad heritability of 0.49 (0.00–0.87). This suggests that what we think of as measures of ‘environment’ are better described as external factors that might be partly under genetic control. Understanding causes of individual differences in external factors may aid in clarifying the intricate nature between genetic and environmental influences on complex traits.     

Raman spectroscopy of serum: A study on ‘pre’ and ‘post’ breast adenocarcinoma resection in rat models

Risk of recurrence is a major problem in breast cancer management. Currently available prognostic markers have several disadvantages including low sensitivity and specificity, highlighting the need for new prognostic techniques. One of the candidate techniques is serum‐based Raman spectroscopy (RS). In this study, feasibility of using RS to distinguish ‘pre’ from ‘post’ breast tumor resection serum in rats was explored. Spectral analysis suggests change in proteins and amino acid profiles in ‘post’ compared to ‘pre‐surgical’ group. Principal‐Component‐Linear‐Discriminant‐Analysis shows 87% and 91% classification efficiency for ‘pre’ and ‘post‐surgical’ groups respectively. Thus, the study further supports efficacy of RS for theranostic applications.

     

Potential defence from herbivory by ‘dazzle effects’ and ‘trickery coloration’ of leaf variegation

The very conspicuous dazzle coloration invented for naval defence during World War I was used in pre‐radar days to mislead attackers of naval units about vessel size, type, speed, and direction. Among several potential types of defences, it is proposed that zebra‐like white leaf variegation may defend leaves and other plant organs from herbivory as a result of dazzle effects. Two different dazzle effects may be involved in defending plants from herbivory, making it hard for herbivores (1) to decide where, in a three‐dimensional space, to bite the leaves (large herbivores) and (2) to land on them (insects). In addition, the related types of leaf coloration described in the present study, comprising parallels of military defensive trickery naval painting, may also deceive herbivores about the actual shape, location, and identity of leaves. Some of these visual defences may operate at the same time as other visual defences, such as aposematism, or serve various physiological functions. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 111 , 692–697.