Transgenerational plasticity in the sea: context-dependent maternal effect across the life history

Maternal effects can have dramatic influences on the phenotype of offspring. Maternal effects can act as a conduit by which the maternal environment negatively affects offspring fitness, but they can also buffer offspring from environmental change by altering the phenotype of offspring according to local environmental conditions and as such, are a form of transgenerational plasticity. The benefits of maternal effects can be highly context dependent, increasing performance in one life-history stage but reducing it in another. While maternal effects are increasingly well understood in terrestrial systems, studies in the marine environment are typically restricted to a single, early life-history stage. Here, I examine the role of maternal effects across the life history of the bryozoan Bugula neritina. I exposed maternal colonies to a common pollution stress (copper) in the laboratory and then placed them in the field for one week to brood offspring. I then examined the resistance of offspring to copper from toxicant-exposed and toxicant-naïve mothers and found that offspring from toxicant-exposed mothers were larger, more dispersive, and more resistant to copper stress than offspring from naïve mothers. However, maternal exposure history had pervasive, negative effects on the post-metamorphic performance (particularly survival) of offspring: offspring from toxicant-exposed mothers had poorer performance after six weeks in the field, especially when facing high levels of intraspecific competition. Maternal experience can have complex effects on offspring phenotype, enhancing performance in one life-history stage while decreasing performance in another. The context-dependent costs and benefits associated with maternally derived pollution resistance may account for why such resistance is induced rather than continually expressed: mothers must balance the benefits of producing pollution-resistant larvae with the costs of producing poorer performing adults (in the absence of pollution)

Save (us from) the children: trauma, Palestinian childhood, and the production of governable subjects

Since the Second Intifada, trauma relief has served as the primary justification for a range of international humanitarian aid projects targeting Palestinian children and youth. Such humanitarian aid projects presume that the default response to violence is trauma, and that trauma left untreated will lead to aggression and violence. Thus, implicit in trauma relief projects targeting Palestinian children is the threat that if they are not properly treated their pent up emotional energy will release itself violently in the future. Moreover, the focus on personal healing through individual self-expression in trauma relief projects serves to depoliticize the context in which violence occurs, transforming the occupation into a set of symptoms to be treated. Likewise, the focus on individual trauma forecloses other possible responses to violence, including empowerment and resistance. Drawing on participant observer research with youth-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Palestine, as well as with Palestinian children in a West Bank refugee camp, this research seeks to better understand the role of international NGOs in producing particular forms of childhood political subjectivity, and how children themselves variously perform and transform such discursive constructions of Palestinian childhood

Common promoter variant in cyclooxygenase-2 represses gene expression: evidence of role in acute-phase inflammatory response

Objective: Cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 is a key regulatory enzyme in the synthesis of prostanoids associated with trauma and inflammation. We investigated the COX-2 gene for functional variants that may influence susceptibility to disease. Methods and results: The promoter of COX-2 was screened for variants in healthy subjects by use of polymerase chain reaction-based methods. Promoter activity was investigated by using reporter expression experiments in human lung fibroblasts. Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery, with measurements of plasma markers linked to COX-2 activity, were genotyped for association studies. A common COX-2 promoter variant, -765G>C, was found and shown to be carried by >25% of a group of healthy UK subjects. The -765C allele had significantly lower promoter activity compared with -765G, basally (28±3% lower, P<0.005) and in serum-stimulated cells (31±2% lower, P<0.005). In patients subjected to coronary artery bypass graft surgery, the magnitude of rise in levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) was strongly genotype dependent. Compared with -765G homozygotes, patients carrying the -765C allele had significantly lower plasma CRP levels at 1 to 4 days after surgery (14% lower at the peak of CRP levels on day 3, P<0.05 for all time points). Conclusions: For several acute and chronic inflammatory diseases, -765G>C may influence the variability of response observed

New southern geographical records of intertidal sea urchins (Echinodermata: Echinoidea), with notes on abundance

Ten species of epifaunal sea urchin were identified at Preslies Bay, Transkei, establishing new southern geographical distributions for seven of the species. Local distributions intertidally, subtidally, and within the Mtakatye estuary were documented. Estimates of abundance on the intertidal rocky shore indicated vertical separation between certain species

THE RACE DOWN FROM EVEREST: Impact Absorption in Extended Downhill Running

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Circulations and the Entanglements of Citizenship Formation

Citizenship is given form, meaning, and power through the transactions and circulations that constitute it. Our focus in this article is the ways in which circulations through networks and institutions that extend beyond nation-states are enacted and encouraged through pedagogies and practices that moor habits of citizenship in daily lives. Although there has been significant attention to those practices at national and local levels, there has been relatively little attention to the ways that floating sites of citizenship formation are entwined with, but also seem to be suspended above, other sites. There are at least three ways in which circulations both construct those sites and are entwined in citizenship formation: They are the reason that the seeming contradiction between cosmopolitanism and efforts to moor citizens to place becomes unremarkable; they enable and shape the modes of interaction that conjoin politics and emotional geographies; and they are part of the way in which a common understanding of active citizenship is accepted almost without question. We use the examples of two international conferences for young citizen-activists to illustrate our arguments regarding the circulations of ideas, norms, and practice that are central to citizenship formation

Mobilising knowledge in complex health systems: a call to action

Worldwide, policymakers, health system managers, practitioners and researchers struggle to use evidence to improve policy and practice. There is growing recognition that this challenge relates to the complex systems in which we work. The corresponding increase in complexity-related discourse remains primarily at a theoretical level. This paper moves the discussion to a practical level, proposing actions that can be taken to implement evidence successfully in complex systems. Key to success is working with, rather than trying to simplify or control, complexity. The integrated actions relate to co-producing knowledge, establishing shared goals and measures, enabling leadership, ensuring adequate resourcing, contributing to the science of knowledge-to-action, and communicating strategically

Separating Hydrogen from Syngas (produced from the Gasification of Waste) Using Pressure Swing Adsorption – Methodology and Results

There is much interest in the production of energy from waste via gasification to produce a Syngas/Producer gas stream, containing CO, H2, CO2, CH4, H2O, and N2. From such a stream, H2 could be separated creating a clean fuel to act as an energy vector. The generation of Syngas from natural gas via Steam Methane Reforming and the application of pressure swing adsorption (PSA) to separate hydrogen from such gas is well known. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find a supplier of PSA equipment, who would on reasonable terms: (a) engage with R&D trials at a much smaller scale; (b) design for lower operating pressures; and (c) perform trials with real Syngas from waste, which will contain contaminants. Therefore, an in-house designed PSA was developed as described in this study. Since, in the waste-to-energy industry, a very high purity ‘fuel-cell’ grade of H2 is not essential, as well as for many ‘fuel-switch’ applications, an H2 purity of ~95 vol% is considered acceptable. Trials were initially performed in a long Single-Bed PSA (52 mm diameter; 8 m long). Starting with a synthetic syngas mixture, it was confirmed that H2 purity >90 vol% could easily be achieved. Then the design was scaled up to a shorter but larger diameter Twin-Bed PSA system (bed diameter: 888 mm; length1.5 m), in which an H2 purity >95 vol% was achieved using a real Syngas from a waste-to-energy gasifier (design output: 500 Nm3/h of Syngas)