Praying for Drought: Persistent Vulnerability and the Politics of Patronage in Ceará, Northeast Brazil

ABSTRACT   The phrase persistent vulnerability reflects the enduring relationship of the rural population in Ceará with a highly variable climate. Persistence underscores the historical and unyielding nature of this vulnerability. Yet contrary to once-catastrophic rates of mortality etched in a public consciousness, no one dies from severe droughts and few people flee them as in the past. Government relief and social transfers have become the institutionalized form of adaptation, giving way to the counterintuitive reality that drought stabilizes the food and income supply for poor people. We analyze how maladaptive risk reduction, which is embedded in clientilistic social relations, undermines resilience, and we examine pathways toward a more sustainable adaptive relationship.     

Functional changes in the structure of the SRP GTPase on binding GDP and Mg2+GDP.

Ffh is a component of a bacterial ribonucleoprotein complex homologous to the signal recognition particle (SRP) of eukaryotes. It comprises three domains that mediate both binding to the hydrophobic signal sequence of the nascent polypeptide and the GTP-dependent interaction of Ffh with a structurally homologous GTPase of the SRP receptor. The X-ray structures of the two-domain 'NG' GTPase of Ffh in complex with Mg2+GDP and GDP have been determined at 2.0 A resolution. The structures explain the low nucleotide affinity of Ffh and locate two regions of structural mobility at opposite sides of the nucleotide-binding site. One of these regions includes highly conserved sequence motifs that presumably contribute to the structural trigger signaling the GTP-bound state. The other includes the highly conserved interface between the N and G domains, and supports the hypothesis that the N domain regulates or signals the nucleotide occupancy of the G domain.     

Tool-use by a rook (Corvus frugilegus), and its causation

A young captive rook, Corvus frugilegus, inserted a plug into a plug-hole in its aviary floor so that a pool of water formed, which was used by all four rooks in the aviary for drinking and bathing. The bird was selective about which, of six holes, it chose for insertion of the tool, choosing the appropriate one with respect to the water source. Days on which attempted or successful tool-use occurred were drier than other days, and days of successful tool-uses were also warmer. Availability of fresh water to the birds did not influence the occurrence of tool-use.     

A Simple Method for Isolating DNA of High Yield and Quality from Cotton (shape Gossypium hirsutum L.) Leaves

An easy, reproducible and fast procedure to isolate DNA from cotton leaves is described. The addition of 0.5 M glucose in the extraction buffer avoids browning by polyphenolic compounds and improves the quality of DNA for molecular analysis. The DNA yield ranged between 150–400 mg per gram of fresh tissue. The DNA was suitable for digestion by restriction enzymes and amplificatiion by Taq DNA polymerase.