Coordinating the Energetic Strategy of Glia and Neurons for Memory

Memory consolidation requires rapid energy supply to neurons. In a recent study, Francés et al revealed the signal by which a neuron commands glia to limit fatty acid synthesis in favor of metabolite export during memory formation in Drosophila melanogaster. This mechanism coordinates just-in-time glial energy delivery in response to dynamic neuronal needs

\u27The Virtues of Not Knowing’: How ‘Unknowingness’ in Pedagogical Partnership Prepares Student Partners to Navigate Complexity, Uncertainty, and Change in Pursuit of Equity

We live in a time of complexity, uncertainty, and change that can exacerbate inequities. Student-faculty pedagogical partnership that embraces “unknowingness” can prepare student partners both to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and change and to work toward equity within and beyond higher education. After noting several current conditions of complexity, uncertainty, change, and inequity in the Unites States and beyond, this article introduces the concept of unknowingness, defines pedagogical partnership, and describes a longstanding, US-based pedagogical partnership program that embraces unknowingness. Using thematic analysis, the article draws on published essays and anonymous student-partner feedback to illustrate three stages through which student partners learn to work against hierarchies, re-understand complexity, uncertainty, and change, and develop capacity to navigate the world with an equity orientation. The first stage is the uncertainty student partners feel when they enter into pedagogical partnership, which reflects the dominant orientation in US higher education to have or seek the right answer. In the second stage, student partners build confidence and capacity through learning to trust unknowingness. Third is embracing unknowingness as a mindset student partners carry with them to navigate with an equity orientation the challenges and opportunities presented by a complex, unpredictable, and increasingly undemocratic and inequitable world

Sexual Racism and Queer Asian American Men’s Depression and Hazardous Drinking

While research suggests that sexual racism is prevalent within the gay community, studies have neglected to examine how this specific manifestation of racism influences queer Asian American men’s mental health. Queer Asian American men’s health outcomes are often overlooked as racism-related studies tend to homogenize queer Asian American men with queer men of color broadly. Thus, the present study examined the association between sexual racism and queer Asian American men’s depressive symptomatology and hazardous drinking, as well as the moderating role of collective racial self-esteem. The final sample consisted of 151 queer Asian American men who completed a 30-minute cross-sectional survey. Regression analyses indicated that sexual racism was positively associated with depressive symptomatology, whereas it was not associated with hazardous drinking. Additionally, collective racial self-esteem was not found to have a moderating effect. These findings underscore the necessity of racial justice-promoting interventions to minimize queer Asian American men’s experience of sexual racism in gay communities. Results also highlight the importance of developing culturally congruent training for clinicians working with queer Asian American men to gain an understanding of how sexual racism impacts this population

Molybdenum Cofactor Model Reveals Remarkable Redox Activity at Both Molybdenum and the Pyranopterin Dithiolene Ligand

The molybdenum (Moco) and tungsten (Tuco) cofactors are uniquely found in pyranopterin dithiolene (PDT) molybdenum and tungsten enzymes, yet the roles of this electronically complex PDT ligand in the catalytic cycles of these enzymes has yet to be revealed. After more than a decade of effort, we have synthesized and characterized a model compound containing a reduced PDT ligand coordinated to a diamagnetic d2 low-spin Mo(4+) ion, mimicking the MoO(PDT) structure common to most Mo enzyme active sites. A combination of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopies, augmented by molecular geometry optimization computations, confirms that both R,R- and S,S-diastereomers coexist in the synthetic final product. Redox processes at both the Mo ion and the pyranopterin are detected by cyclic voltammetry. The two-electron oxidant DCIP oxidizes the pterin component of the ligand in methanol, whereas no reaction occurs in aprotic acetonitrile. Addition of 1 equiv of the one-electron oxidant Fc+ stoichiometrically oxidizes the Mo(4+) ion to the paramagnetic d1 Mo(5+) species, a result supported by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. However, the addition of more than 1 equiv of Fc+ results in oxidation of the reduced pyranopterin to yield a Mo(4+) complex of the oxidized pyranopterin dithiolene ligand, a result supported by both the cyclic voltammetry and electronic absorption titrations. The concrete examples from these model studies suggest how the unique electronic structure of the PDT ligand in Moco and Tuco may enable variable redox reactivity in enzymatic catalysis, highlighting its role as a complex noninnocent biological ligand

Lucian\u27s New Old Comedy

This study shows that Lucian is deeply engaged with Old Comedy as a literary model, and that the kind of comic dialogue he claims to invent (Bis Acc. 33, Prom. Es 6) is not an evenly balanced hybrid of Platonic Dialogue and Old Comedy as has been previously thought. Instead, Lucian prioritizes Old Comedy in his conception of the comic dialogue. Lucian solves the tension between the pedigree and prestige available to an imitator of Old Comedy and the risk of moral compromise for the same by enacting a satirist’s defense. He claims to be the morally righteous outsider, wins the audience to his side by appealing to their intellectual vanity, and vindicates his choice to style himself a writer of Comedy. Lucian defends his position with the literary tools of Old Comedy: he employs parody, satire, parabasis, autobiography, personification, making the abstract concrete, metatheater, and fantasy, alongside comic language and tropes of mockery, to not only declare himself a skilled comic author, but to demonstrate it as well. One by one, he uses the mythology that has sprung up around the three lights of Old Comedy: Cratinus, Aristophanes, and Eupolis, to remedy their faults, rewrite their defeats, and undo their deaths, all while replacing them with himself in the center of their narratives. In order to do this, Lucian engages polemically with these poets’ detractors using the same comic arsenal. He does what the comic poets cannot, he acknowledges the long biographical tradition, along with the doxography of his favored satirical targets, the hypocritical philosophers, heirs of Socrates, and wrests back the power to define the objects of his mockery and return them to the comic stage. Lucian recomposes the portrayals of Socrates and the philosophical schools as found in Plato, Lucian’s contemporaries, and the scholarship of his time into a new comic fantasy where mockery prevails, and Lucian’s stand-in emerges triumphant above all the rest