From "Rights" to "Ritual": AIDS Activism in South Africa

In this article, I investigate how the moral politics of HIV/AIDS activism in South Africa is contributing toward new forms of citizenship that are concerned with both rights-based struggles and with creating collectively shared meanings of the extreme experiences of illness and stigmatization of individual HIV/AIDS sufferers. I argue that it is precisely the extremity of the "near death" experiences of full-blown AIDS, and the profound stigma and "social death" associated with the later stages of the disease, that produce the conditions for HIV/AIDS survivors' commitment to "new life" and social activism. It is the activist mediation and retelling of these traumatic experiences that facilitates HIV/AIDS activist commitment and grassroots mobilization. It is also the profound negativity of stigma and social death that animates the activist's construction of a new positive HIV-positive identity and understanding of what it means to be a citizen–activist and member of a social movement.     

蹒跚的步履——从“扶贫”到“自主”

在贵州贫困山区几乎所有的村寨,都留着一个人的脚印,那是在整整30年里散布下的脚印。那些脚印记录的是贵州乡村旅游艰难曲折发展的步履,而留下这脚印的人就是贵州省原旅游局长、世界旅游组织专家委员会专家杨胜明。与她面对面地交谈,你丝毫不会感到在其它场合里司空见惯的官气,而是在不知不觉中被一种难以名状的力量所感染,这兴许就是能把在一般人看来尚属奢华的旅游与穷困山区百姓命运联系起来的一种气质和使命感。杨胜明在2007年出过一本书:《蹒跚的步履》,近百万字真实地记录了她作为一位政府官员对贫困山区发展旅游的认识过程和步步深入的施政轨迹,从以经济目标出发的旅游扶贫,到村寨全面发展和文化遗产保护的乡村旅游,再到倡导村民自主发展的核心理念……每一步转变和前进都折射出她所著书名中的"蹒跚"二字。如今,乡村旅游的蹒跚之旅尚处在进行时态,或许进入了更加艰深的阶段。世界旅游组织将贵州的乡村旅游作为长期观察点,并于2006年在贵州召开了"乡村旅游国际论坛",会上发表了一份具有里程碑意义的《贵阳宣言》,而这一切皆出于一个原因:这是一个世界性的难题,尚无成功案例。杨胜明抱定决心去破解这道难题,她说:"乡村旅游肯定是我终生的事业"。     

“Three Kingdoms”to Romance

For some historic reasons, our new journal is named "Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics", or as we have nicknamed it in short the Journal of GPB. A growing number of "-ome" and "-omics" have appeared in many diverse fields of biology, especially in the recent years under profound influences of the Human Genome Project and many other genome projects completed or in progress. We had almost attempted to re-name this journal "Ever-more-omics" to in-     

"遗传与进化"模块中"假说-演绎法"的教学

“假说-演绎法”是高中生物课程标准在“遗传与进化”模块对高中学生提出的科学方法的要求,许多教师对假说演绎的内涵感到陌生,对其教学的落实更加困惑,因而在新课程的教学中出现忽略“假说-演绎法”的教学或者教学不到位的现象。阐述了“假说-演绎法”的含义,“假说-演绎法”在自然科学发展中的重要作用,介绍了“遗传与进化”模块中适用“假说-演绎法”教学的素材,对可供教学的典型案例做了剖析,并提出了教学建议。     

How to get all "A"s in polyadenylation

In an elegant study in this issue of Structure, Balbo and Bohm (2007) report the crystal structure of yeast poly(A) polymerase in a ternary complex with its substrate MgATP and the elongating poly(A) tail, providing molecular insights into the mechanism of polyadenylation.     

From "butyribacterium" to "E. coli": an essay on unity in biochemistry

New ideas in science frequently arise from neglected or distorted antecedents. This essay deals with the idea of biochemical unity, encapsulated in Jacques Monod's well-known phrase, dating from 1954: "Anything found to be true of E. coli must also be true of elephants." An earlier version of this phrase,--"From the elephant to butyric acid bacterium--it is all the same!"--was coined in 1926 by the Dutch microbiologist Albert Jan Kluyver. In that year Kluyver and his associate Hendrick Jean Louis Donker published a celebrated paper, "Unity in Biochemistry." The concept of biochemical unity had many antecedents, but these had never caught on. The Kluyver-Donker paper has often been regarded to provide a boost to biochemical and especially to microbiological thinking. Its interpretations and misinterpretations represent an encapsulated history of biochemistry. The present paper examines the history of the concept of biochemical unity from before to beyond Kluyver, investigates the two "elephant" phrases and their possible relationships, and ends with a discussion of the attractiveness of unifying ideas in science.     

The "ups" and "downs" in Using Subtractive Cloning Techniques to Isolate Regulated Genes in Fish

Over the last decade, subtractive cloning approaches have beenused extensively to isolate genes that are up- or down-regulatedunder various conditions. These techniques have provided thefoundation for many subsequent studies concerning gene functionand regulation and, as such, have been valuable tools for manybiological fields. Over the past 10 years, we have used differentsubtractive cloning approaches to isolate genes in fish thatare regulated in relation to hormonal stimulation or the stageof ovarian maturation. These include conventional cDNA subtractionfollowed by library screening, differential display PCR, suppressionsubtraction hybridization, and more recently, iterative PCRsubtraction. We continue to use these techniques for the isolationof new genes involved in physiological processes in fish andbivalve molluscs. Examples that illustrate the use of thesedifferent subtractive cloning techniques are described, includingwhere possible the advantages and disadvantages of each. Inaddition, the use of ancillary methods (e.g., "Reverse Northerns")to facilitate the use of these subtractive approaches are discussed.