Environmental Rights and social resistances: Legal instrument as a repertoire against mining in Argentina

En las pasadas dos décadas, la minería a cielo abierto en Argentina se expandió significativamente. Frente a este avance, crecieron fuertemente las resistencias sociales contra la actividad y, desde 2003 a la fecha, nueve provincias aprobaron leyes que prohibieron la megaminería. A partir del estudio de los procesos de sanción de este tipo de normativas en Mendoza y Córdoba, el trabajo analiza la incorporación del instrumento legal al repertorio de acción de las resistencias sociales y el impacto positivo del mismo sobre los procesos de incidencia legislativa. La incorporación de un discurso legal a las acciones de resistencia, clave para impulsar el avance y reactualización de los derechos ambientales se vio favorecida por tres elementos: la capacidad de los contendientes de complementar acciones contenciosas con otras canalizadas institucionalmente; la pluralidad de actores involucrados y la socialización de experiencias y; por último, por el logro de resultados exitosos.In the past two decades, open pit mining in Argentina expanded significantly. Facing this advance, social resistance against activity grew strongly and, since 2003 to date, nine provinces have passed laws banning mega-mining. Based on the study of the approval of such laws in Mendoza and Córdoba, this paper analyzes the incorporation of legal instruments as part of the social resistance repertoire and its positive impacts on processes of legislative incidence.The incorporation of a legal discourse in the actions of resistance –crucial element to promote the advancement and updating of environmental rights– was favored by three elements: the capacity of the disputing parties to complement contentious actions with others institutionally channeled; the plurality of actors involved and the socialization of experiences; and, finally, the achievement of successful results.Fil: Christel, Lucas Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Crisis del Covid-19 y crisis ambiental: Breves reflexiones sobre urgencia, vulnerabilidad y responsabilidad

El repentino surgimiento del Covid-19 ha puesto el mundo patas hacia arriba. Entre lasprimeras alertas sobre extraños casos de neumonía en una ciudad china y un mundocompletamente a merced de una pandemia global pasaron apenas pocas semanas, unperíodo de tiempo extremadamente corto que demuestra, además, el estado actual deglobalización de nuestra sociedad. Entre las diversas y variadas consecuencias de este estado actualde consternación mundial, en las últimas semanas hemos visto, multiplicadas alrededor del globo,imágenes de cielos prístinos, aguas cristalinas y animales silvestres deambulando por las ciudades.Estas inesperadas situaciones generaron dos efectos principales. Por un lado, unsinnúmero de relatos y metáforas sobre el retorno de la naturaleza hacia los espaciosurbanos a merced de la quietud generada por el aislamiento social y la desaceleración de losengranajes industriales. Por otro lado, el surgimiento de voces de alerta y denuncias sobrela relación entre el origen de Covid-19 y la pérdida de biodiversidad causada por un modeloglobal de producción y acumulación ambientalmente insustentable.Este artículo breve no pretende caracterizar dichas metáforas ni persigue pretensión algunade identificar cadenas causales entre la destrucción ambiental y el surgimiento viral del Covid-19.El principal objetivo de este ejercicio es reflexionar sobre dos aspectos puntuales a partir deldiálogo entre la crisis del coronavirus y la crisis ambiental. Por un lado, explorar como una crisisparticular puede favorecer o fortalecer la problematización de otra. Por otro lado, reflexionaracerca del rol de la ciencia y las expectativas sobre el conocimiento científico en tiempos de crisis,particularmente en lo referido a la urgencia, la vulnerabilidad y las soluciones de la crisis.Fil: Christel, Lucas Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Protest and legal strategies, antagonistic or complementary? The case of the El Algarrobo Assembly and its fight against open pit mining

El avance la minería a cielo abierto en Argentina ha generado múltiples rechazos. El surgimiento y consolidación de resistencias sociales a la minería es muestra de un complejo escenario de conflictividad socioambiental y de una pluralidad de actores que pugnan por decidir sobre el uso y disfrute de los bienes ambientales. Este trabajo analiza un aspecto particular de los repertorios de acción de uno de los actores más involucrados en la contienda, las asambleas socioambientales, y se pregunta ¿Cuáles son las posibilidades de que un actor mayormente identificado con la participación no institucional incorpore las herramientas legales a su repertorio de acción? ¿Cómo puede combinar un mismo actor social la protesta con la estrategia legal? A partir del estudio del caso de la Asamblea del Algarrobo, de la localidad de Andalgalá, Catamarca, se demuestra que estos actores efectivamente logran combinar la participación no institucional con las estrategias legales y que, incluso, utilizan la protesta como una forma de reforzar sus estrategias legales.The advancement of open pit mining in Argentina has generated several rejections. The emergence and consolidation of social resistance to mining illustrate a scenario of socio-environmental conflict characterized by a plurality of actors struggling to decide over the use and enjoyment of environmental goods. This paper analyzes a particular aspect of the repertoires of action of socioenvironmental assemblies they and asks, to what extent what an actor mostly identified with non-institutional participation incorporates legal tools into their repertoire of action? How can a same social actor combine protest with legal strategy? Based on the case study of the “Algarrobo Assembly” -Andalgalá, Catamarca- this works show that these actors effectively combine non-institutional participation with legal strategies and that they even use protest as a way to reinforce their legal strategies.Fil: Christel, Lucas Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Social Resistances and Mining Legislations in Argentine Provinces: The Cases of Mendoza, Córdoba, Catamarca and San Juan (2003-2009)

En las últimas dos décadas, la minería a cielo abierto en Argentina creció significativamente. Ante dicho avance, surgieron firmes resistencias sociales y, desde 2003, se sancionaron nueve leyes provinciales de prohibición minera. Sin embargo, las resistencias no siempre consiguieron estas leyes. Entonces ¿Por qué en determinadas provincias las resistencias sociales pueden incidir sobre la legislación minera y no en otras? A partir del estudio comparativo subnacional de cuatro provincias se ofrece una explicación basada en mecanismos y procesos y se demuestra que los procesos de incidencia se dirimen en el marco de determinada estructura de oportunidad subnacional (EOS), definida por el grado de pluralidad del sistema político y el grado de desarrollo y diversificación de la matriz económica.Over the past two decades, open pit mining in Argentina has experienced a significant growth. As a response to this advance, social resistances to the activity emerged and, since 2003, nine provinces passed laws banning open pit mining. However, resistances have not always succeeded in achieving these restriction laws. So, why in certain provinces social resistances are able to influence on mining legislation while they fail to do so in others? Based on a comparative subnational study of four provinces, this paper argue that processes of influence take place within the framework of a specific Subnational Structure of Opportunity (sso), determined by the degree of plurality in the political systems and the level of development and diversification of their economic matrix. In such sense, this article shows how the characteristics of eos favored social resistances influence on mining legislation in Mendoza and Córdoba cases, as well as how eos constrained the possibility of legislative incidence in Catamarca and San Juan experiences.Fil: Christel, Lucas Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Política y Gobierno; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Proteobacteria from the human skin microbiota: Species-level diversity and hypotheses

The human skin microbiota is quantitatively dominated by Gram-positive bacteria, detected by both culture and metagenomics. However, metagenomics revealed a huge variety of Gram-negative taxa generally considered from environmental origin. For species affiliation of bacteria in skin microbiota, clones of 16S rRNA gene and colonies growing on diverse culture media were analyzed. Species-level identification was achieved for 81% of both clones and colonies. Fifty species distributed in 26 genera were identified by culture, mostly belonging to Actinobacteria and Firmicutes, while 45 species-level operational taxonomic units distributed in 30 genera were detected by sequencing, with a high diversity of Proteobacteria. This mixed approach allowed the detection of 100% of the genera forming the known core skin Gram-negative microbiota and 43% of the known diversity of Gram-negative genera in human skin. The orphan genera represented 50% of the current skin pan-microbiota. Improved culture conditions allowed the isolation of Roseomonas mucosa, Aurantimonas altamirensis and Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains from healthy skin. For proteobacterial species previously described in the environment, we proposed the existence of skin-specific ecotypes, which might play a role in the fine-tuning of skin homeostasis and opportunistic infections but also act as a shuttle between environmental and human microbial communities. Therefore, skin-associated proteobacteria deserve to be considered in the One-Health concept connecting human health to the health of animals and the environment

Changes in body satisfaction during and after a 5-month handcycle training period and associations with physical capacity and body composition in individuals with a physical impairment

Purpose: To investigate: (1) changes in body satisfaction during five months of handcycle training and one year after the training period; (2) whether longitudinal changes are dependent on sex, waist circumference and severity of the physical impairment; (3) associations between changes in physical capacity or body composition, and body satisfaction. Materials and methods: Individuals (N = 143) with health conditions such as spinal cord injury filled out the Adult Body Satisfaction Questionnaire: at the start of the training (T1), directly after the training period (T2); and four months (T3) and one year after the training period (T4). At T1 and T2, physical capacity was determined with an upper-body graded exercise test, and waist circumference was measured. Handcycling classification was used as a proxy for the severity of impairment. Results: Multilevel regression analyses showed that body satisfaction significantly increased during the training period and significantly decreased back to pre-training levels at follow-up. Individuals with more severe impairments showed a larger decrease at T4. Improvements in physical capacity and waist circumference were significantly associated with improvements in body satisfaction. Conclusions: Body satisfaction significantly increased during the training period, but significantly decreased during follow-up. Additional efforts might be necessary to keep individuals engaged in long-term exercise

Expanding the phenotypic spectrum of CLCN2-related leucoencephalopathy and ataxia

Mutations in CLCN2 are a rare cause of autosomal recessive leucoencephalopathy with ataxia and specific imaging abnormalities. Very few cases have been reported to date. Here, we describe the clinical and imaging phenotype of 12 additional CLCN2 patients and expand the known phenotypic spectrum of this disorder. Informed consent was obtained for all patients. Patients underwent either whole-exome sequencing or focused/panel-based sequencing to identify variants. Twelve patients with biallelic CLCN2 variants are described. This includes three novel likely pathogenic missense variants. All patients demonstrated typical MRI changes, including hyperintensity on T2-weighted images in the posterior limbs of the internal capsules, midbrain cerebral peduncles, middle cerebellar peduncles and cerebral white matter. Clinical features included a variable combination of ataxia, headache, spasticity, seizures and other symptoms with a broad range of age of onset. This report is now the largest case series of patients with CLCN2-related leucoencephalopathy and reinforces the finding that, although the imaging appearance is uniform, the phenotypic expression of this disorder is highly heterogeneous. Our findings expand the phenotypic spectrum of CLCN2-related leucoencephalopathy by adding prominent seizures, severe spastic paraplegia and developmental delay

Competition between α-actinin and Ca2+-Calmodulin Controls Surface Retention of the L-type Ca2+ Channel CaV1.2

Regulation of neuronal excitability and cardiac excitation-contraction coupling requires proper localization of L-type Ca2+ channels. We show that the actin-binding protein α-actinin binds to the C-terminal surface targeting motif of α11.2, the central pore-forming CaV1.2 subunit, to foster its surface expression. Disruption of α-actinin function by dominant negative or shRNA constructs reduces CaV1.2 surface localization in HEK293 and neuronal cultures, and dendritic spine localization in neurons. We demonstrate that calmodulin displaces α-actinin from their shared binding site on α11.2 upon Ca2+ influx through L-type channels but not through NMDAR, thereby triggering loss of CaV1.2 from spines. Coexpression of a Ca2+-binding deficient calmodulin mutant does not affect basal CaV1.2 surface expression, but inhibits its internalization upon Ca2+ influx. We conclude that α-actinin stabilizes CaV1.2 at the plasma membrane, and that its displacement by Ca2+-calmodulin induces Ca2+-induced endocytosis of CaV1.2, thus providing an important negative feedback mechanism for Ca2+ influx