Translating the Medieval Icelandic Romance-Sagas

This short note surveys recent work done on translating romances composed in medieval Iceland into English, focusing on translations produced at the University of Leeds. It describes the ongoing project of the author and his collaborators to produce further translations for free-access publication

Elleborus in Anglo-Saxon England, 900–1100: Tunsingwyrt and Wodewistle

This article examines the meanings of the Latin word elleborus in later Anglo-Saxon England. They prove to have varied, from Ælfric’s implicit assertion around 1000 that elleborus had no vernacular Old English counterpart, to the association by the translator of the Old English Herbarium, perhaps around 900, of elleborus albus with tunsingwyrt, which seems to have denoted an allium such as wild garlic, to the use of the gloss wodewistle, denoting hemlock or some similar plant, by the Antwerp-London glossator in the earlier eleventh century. The study offers minor insights on a range of subjects: Ælfric’s use of Latin words in his Old English texts; the prospect that the Old English Herbarium marks an influential watershed in Anglo-Saxon scholarship on Latin plant-names; that with careful use of glossaries derived from the Herbarium we can discern a lost early version of this text which is subtly different from our surviving manuscripts, and closer to its Latin original. However, the main focus of this article has been the problematic word tunsingwyrt. The most likely interpretation suggested by the evidence is that tunsingwyrt denoted an allium — and if so, probably wild garlic

Madness, Medication--and Self-Induced Hallucination? Elleborus (and Woody Nightshade) in Anglo-Saxon England, 700-900

This article studies what Anglo-Saxons in around 700--900 understood by the Latin plant-name elleborus, looking particularly at Aldhelm's Latin riddle Elleborus, which suggests that the word was understood to denote woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara). It examines the semantics of Old English words that gloss elleborus in earlier Anglo-Saxon sources: wedeberge, ceasteræsc, ceasterwyrte, and ælfþone. The article finds evidence for the presence of a copy of Dioscorides’ De materia medica in seventh-century Canterbury. It also argues for a culturally significant connection between ingesting woody nightshade, the production of an altered state of mind attested in Latin as dementia cordis and in Old English as wedenheortnes, and elves. Ælfþone might originally have meant something along the lines of ‘vine which causes the symptoms which elves cause’. It seems likely that there was a custom of ingesting it deliberately to achieve mind-altering effects

Jón the Fleming: Low German in Thirteenth-Century Norway and Fourteenth-Century Iceland

Low German influence is one of the most prominent characteristics of Old Norse in the later medieval period, but the processes whereby this took place are little evidenced. However, Laurentius saga, Einarr Hafliðason’s fourteenth-century Icelandic biography of Bishop Laurentius Kálfsson, provides anecdotal evidence for this that has been overlooked by researchers. The anecdotes concern the linguistic (mis)adventures of a Low German-speaker in thirteenth-century Norway—the otherwise unknown Jón flæmingi (Johannes the Fleming)—and, perhaps uniquely in medieval Scandinavian texts, they also provide a representation of L2 Norse. Problematic and brief though this source is, it affords us valuable perspectives both on fourteenth-century Icelandic metalinguistic discourses and on the processes whereby Low German influence took place in thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Norse. Contrary to some recent assumptions, Laurentius saga suggests that Low German and Old Norse were not seen as mutually intelligible; it provides some support for the idea that Low German influence was responsible not only for loan words into Old Norse, but also for morphological levelling; and emphasises that in seeking vectors of Low German influence on Old Norse we should look not only to Hanseatic traders, but also to the Church

The OT\u27s Role in an Interprofessional Research Team

Why Interprofessional Research? The research field receives contributions from multiple disciplines and is inclusive by nature. •Feels natural in our day to day work practices to collaborate with other professions. •A plan to build research capacity includes establishing a research culture, environment, and infrastructure as well as partnership with other disciplines (Frontera et al., 2006)

How did the world come into being?

A fleeting and light-hearted Festschrift contribution on Leeds students' work collecting oral accounts of how the world came into being

ATP mediates both activation and inhibition of K(ATP) channel activity via cAMP-dependent protein kinase in insulin-secreting cell lines.

The single-channel recording technique was employed to investigate the mechanism conferring ATP sensitivity to a metabolite-sensitive K channel in insulin-secreting cells. ATP stimulated channel activity in the 0-10 microM range, but depressed it at higher concentrations. In inside-out patches, addition of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase inhibitor (PKI) reduced channel activity, suggesting that the stimulatory effect of ATP occurs via cAMP-dependent protein kinase-mediated phosphorylation. Raising ATP between 10 and 500 microM in the presence of exogenous PKI progressively reduced the channel activity; it is proposed that this inactivation results from a reduction in kinase activity owing to an ATP-dependent binding of PKI or a protein with similar inhibitory properties to the kinase. A model describing the effects of ATP was developed, incorporating these two separate roles for the nucleotide. Assuming that the efficacy of ATP in controlling the channel activity depends upon the relative concentrations of inhibitor and catalytic subunit associated with the membrane, our model predicts that the channel sensitivity to ATP will vary when the ratio of these two modulators is altered. Based upon this, it is shown that the apparent discrepancy existing between the sensitivity of the channel to low ATP concentrations in the excised patch and the elevated intracellular level of ATP may be explained by postulating a change in the inhibitor/kinase ratio from 1:1 to 3:2 owing to the loss of protein kinase after patch excision. At a low concentration of ATP (10-20 microM), a nonhydrolyzable ATP analogue, AMP-PNP, enhanced the channel activity when present below 10 microM, whereas the analogue blocked the channel activity at higher concentrations. It is postulated that AMP-PNP inhibits the formation of the kinase-inhibitor complex in the former case, and prevents phosphate transfer in the latter. A similar mechanism would explain the interaction between ATP and ADP which is characterized by enhanced activity at low ADP concentrations and blocking at higher concentrations

Serine biosynthesis with one carbon catabolism represents a novel pathway for ATP generation in cells using alternative glycolysis with zero net ATP production

Recent experimental evidence indicates that some cancer cells have an alternative glycolysis pathway with net zero ATP production, implying that upregulation of glycolysis in these cells may not be related to the generation of ATP. Here we use a genome-scale model of human cell metabolism to investigate the potential metabolic alterations in cells using net zero ATP glycolysis. We uncover a novel pathway for ATP generation that involves reactions from the serine biosynthesis and one-carbon metabolism pathways. This pathway has a predicted two-fold higher flux rate in cells using net zero ATP glycolysis than those using standard glycolysis and generates twice as much ATP with significantly lower rate of lactate- but higher rate of alanine secretion. Thus, in cells using the standard- or the net zero ATP glycolysis pathways a significant portion of the glycolysis flux is always associated with ATP generation, and the ratio between the flux rates of the two pathways determines the rate of ATP generation and lactate and alanine secretion during glycolysis