Laughing Them Into Religion: A Comparison of the Contexts, Causes, and Effects of Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of A Tub and C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters

Jonathan Swift and C. S. Lewis had extraordinary similarities in their lives up to their respective writings of Tale of A Tub and The Screwtape Letters. Beyond the biographical parallels, there were great similarities in the religious, historical, and political contexts surrounding the two works, even though they were published 237 years apart. These facts have been ignored by scholars, yet more important than the similitude is what Swift and Lewis did differently in spite of it. These differences represent deliberate choices each author made and provide greater insights about them and these seminal works. Both of these brilliant men became convinced that their societies needed a rebirth of spirituality and chose highly creative religious satire to convey their respective messages and “laugh us into religion.

Demons in the Machine: Experimental Film, Poetry and Modernism in Twentieth-Century Scotland

First paragraph: Avant-garde practices in Scotland have often been overshadowed by the dominance of a strong documentary tradition, and discussions of Scottish filmmaking are generally concerned with debates around national identity. These tendencies work to obscure the achievements of a number of important local filmmakers linked to the international avant-garde. This chapter will explore the work of two such figures: Orcadian poet, painter and filmmaker, Margaret Tait (1918-1999) and Scots-Italian writer, academic and amateur filmmaker Enrico Cocozza (1921-1997). Both attended Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia in Rome in the early 1950s, Tait after serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Cocozza after serving as an interpreter for Italian prisoners in the Army. Their poetic approach to filmmaking was admired by artists, other filmmakers, writers and, unsurprisingly, poets. Hugh MacDiarmid, who served as a subject for one of Tait’s film portraits, published some of her written poetry and wrote about her in his article, ‘Intimate Filmmaking in Scotland’ (1960). Edwin Morgan favourably reviewed Tait’s poems and later wrote a poem in tribute to Cocozza. Both Tait and Cocozza, to varying extents, were influenced by poetry, occasionally adapting and referencing the work of well-known poets in their own films

Fast inactivation of Nav current in rat adrenal chromaffin cells involves two independent inactivation pathways

Voltage-dependent sodium (Nav) current in adrenal chromaffin cells (CCs) is rapidly inactivating and tetrodotoxin (TTX)-sensitive. The fractional availability of CC Nav current has been implicated in regulation of action potential (AP) frequency and the occurrence of slow-wave burst firing. Here, through recordings of Nav current in rat CCs, primarily in adrenal medullary slices, we describe unique inactivation properties of CC Nav inactivation that help define AP firing rates in CCs. The key feature of CC Nav current is that recovery from inactivation, even following brief (5 ms) inactivation steps, exhibits two exponential components of similar amplitude. Various paired pulse protocols show that entry into the fast and slower recovery processes result from largely independent competing inactivation pathways, each of which occurs with similar onset times at depolarizing potentials. Over voltages from -120 to -80 mV, faster recovery varies from ∼3 to 30 ms, while slower recovery varies from ∼50 to 400 ms. With strong depolarization (above -10 mV), the relative entry into slow or fast recovery pathways is similar and independent of voltage. Trains of short depolarizations favor recovery from fast recovery pathways and result in cumulative increases in the slow recovery fraction. Dual-pathway fast inactivation, by promoting use-dependent accumulation in slow recovery pathways, dynamically regulates Nav availability. Consistent with this finding, repetitive AP clamp waveforms at 1-10 Hz frequencies reduce Nav availability 80-90%, depending on holding potential. These results indicate that there are two distinct pathways of fast inactivation, one leading to conventional fast recovery and the other to slower recovery, which together are well-suited to mediate use-dependent changes in Nav availability

Mutations of Nonconserved Residues within the Calcium Channel α1-interaction Domain Inhibit β-Subunit Potentiation

Voltage-dependent calcium channels consist of a pore-forming subunit (CaVα1) that includes all the molecular determinants of a voltage-gated channel, and several accessory subunits. The ancillary β-subunit (CaVβ) is a potent activator of voltage-dependent calcium channels, but the mechanisms and structural bases of this regulation remain elusive. CaVβ binds reversibly to a conserved consensus sequence in CaVα1, the α1-interaction domain (AID), which forms an α-helix when complexed with CaVβ. Conserved aromatic residues face to one side of the helix and strongly interact with a hydrophobic pocket on CaVβ. Here, we studied the effect of mutating residues located opposite to the AID-CaVβ contact surface in CaV1.2. Substitution of AID-exposed residues by the corresponding amino acids present in other CaVα1 subunits (E462R, K465N, D469S, and Q473K) hinders CaVβ's ability to increase ionic-current to charge-movement ratio (I/Q) without changing the apparent affinity for CaVβ. At the single channel level, these CaV1.2 mutants coexpressed with CaVβ2a visit high open probability mode less frequently than wild-type channels. On the other hand, CaV1.2 carrying either a mutation in the conserved tryptophan residue (W470S, which impairs CaVβ binding), or a deletion of the whole AID sequence, does not exhibit CaVβ-induced increase in I/Q. In addition, we observed a shift in the voltage dependence of activation by +12 mV in the AID-deleted channel in the absence of CaVβ, suggesting a direct participation of these residues in the modulation of channel activation. Our results show that CaVβ-dependent potentiation arises primarily from changes in the modal gating behavior. We envision that CaVβ spatially reorients AID residues that influence the channel gate. These findings provide a new framework for understanding modulation of VDCC gating by CaVβ

Aquilegia, Vol. 11 No. 1, January 1987: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

The Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter will be published on a bimonthly basis. The contents will consist primarily of a calendar of events, notes of interest, editorials, listings of new members and conservation news. Until there is a Society journal, the Newsletter will include short articles also. The deadline for the Newsletter is one month prior to its release.https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1032/thumbnail.jp

Aquilegia, Vol. 13 No. 2, March-April 1989: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1045/thumbnail.jp

A BK (Slo1) channel journey from molecule to physiology

Calcium and voltage-activated potassium (BK) channels are key actors in cell physiology, both in neuronal and non-neuronal cells and tissues. Through negative feedback between intracellular Ca2+ and membrane voltage, BK channels provide a damping mechanism for excitatory signals. Molecular modulation of these channels by alternative splicing, auxiliary subunits and post-translational modifications showed that these channels are subjected to many mechanisms that add diversity to the BK channel ́ subunit gene. This complexity of interactions modulates BK channel gating, modifying the energetic barrier of voltage sensor domain activation and channel opening. Regions for voltage as well as Ca2+ sensitivity have been identified, and the crystal structure generated by the 2 RCK domains contained in the C-terminal of the channel has been described. The linkage of these channels to many intracellular metabolites and pathways, as well as their modulation by extracellular natural agents, has been found to be relevant in many physiological processes. This review includes the hallmarks of BK channel biophysics and its physiological impact on specific cells and tissues, highlighting its relationship with auxiliary subunit expression.Facultad de Ciencias Exacta