The Fairy Language: Language Maintenance and Social-Ecological Resilience Among the Tarali of Tichurong, Nepal

Sahar Tara is a community in Dolpa, Nepal, one of three villages in the world where the Kaike language is spoken. Kaike speakers are called Tarali. The perpetuation of the Kaike language is attributable to the resilience of Tarali livelihood systems and their continued attachment to place. Using informal interviews, participatory mapping, and participant observation, this research engaged Kaike speakers in an exploration of the relationships among their language, environment, and knowledge systems. Tarali negotiate their social and spiritual lives through highly developed adaptive knowledge about the environment, mitigated by natural forces, deities, and intimate historical ties to the land. As explicitly revealed in the story about the origins of the Kaike language, Tarali define themselves and their collective history in the Tichurong Valley concurrent with their conceptualization and cognition of the landscape. This is also expressed in the abundance of Kaike names with which they categorize and compartmentalize their spatial understandings of where they live and work. Tarali situate themselves on their land and in their environment through site-specific traditions of remembering in the form of oral histories and social narratives, highlighting the important role of language in perpetuating these traditions. In this place-based community where one’s livelihood depends on successful interaction with and adaptation to the specific ecological conditions of Tichurong, language acts as a mediator in articulating social-ecological relationships. This adaptive knowledge is transmitted across generations through Kaike and the continued reenactment of ceremonies, worship, and a particular physical and geographical occupation of space. The maintenance of the Kaike language is dependent upon the resilience afforded by this sustained engagement with a place-based livelihood system

Tamoxifen Mediated Metabolic Stress: Molecular Mechanism and Therapeutic Opportunities

Tamoxifen is the most widely used adjuvant chemotherapeutic for the treatment of estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer, yet a large body of clinical and preclinical data indicates that tamoxifen can modulate multiple cellular processes independently of ER status. Here, we describe the ER-independent effects of tamoxifen on tumor metabolism. Using combined pharmacological and genetic knockout approaches, we demonstrate that tamoxifen inhibits oxygen consumption via inhibition of mitochondrial complex I, resulting in an increase in the AMP/ATP ratio and activation of the AMPK signaling pathway in vitro and in vivo. We also show that tamoxifen-induced cytotoxicity is modulated by isoform-specific effects of AMPK signaling, in which AMPKα1 promotes cell death through inhibition of the mTOR pathway and translation. Tamoxifen treatment also reprograms cellular metabolism by promoting glycolysis, and altering fatty acid metabolism, leading to the depletion of intracellular lipid stores. By using agents which target concurrently distinct adaptive responses to tamoxifen-mediated metabolic reprogramming, we demonstrate increased cytotoxicity. Tamoxifen synergizes with glycolytic inhibitors to kill breast cancer cells and can preferentially kill oxidative phosphorylation-dependent populations. Our results demonstrate novel metabolic perturbations by tamoxifen in tumor cells which can be exploited to expand the therapeutic potential of tamoxifen treatment beyond ER+ breast cancer

Exploring Perspectives on Landscape and Language among Kaike Speakers in Dolpa, Nepal

The majority of the world’s languages are in danger of extinction within this century. Of the more than 6000 languages in the world, 4000-5000 are spoken by Indigenous peoples. Accompanying the loss of languages is the loss of the capacity for these peoples to transmit those aspects of their environmental knowledge systems which are embedded and expressed in their languages. The Kaike speakers of Tichurong in Dolpa, Nepal represent one of these endangered language communities, with approximately 800 speakers remaining. The purpose of this research was to engage Kaike speakers in an exploration of the relationships among their language, environment, and knowledge systems. Collaborative approaches based upon dialogue, informal interviews, participant observation, and participatory mapping exercises formed the basis of the research. Documentation, discussion, and mapping focused on place names and sacred sites as particularly illuminating repositories of environmental knowledge expressed in language. The maps generated in community mapping sessions allowed Kaike speakers the opportunity to articulate their perception of the relationship between landscape and language as well as express their sense of and attachment to place, offering visual mechanisms for transmission of cultural-environmental knowledge. Learning from the experiences of one endangered language community, this project also aids in assessing the larger implications of Indigenous language loss for sustainable development strategies and maintenance of Indigenous knowledge systems

Ongoing Neotectonic Activity in the Timiskaming ─ Kipawa Area of Ontario and Québec

The Timiskaming Graben lies along the border of Ontario and Québec within the Western Québec Seismic Zone – a conspicuous belt of heightened intracratonic seismic activity in eastern Canada. The graben forms a prominent 50-km wide fault-bounded morphotectonic depression partly filled by Lake Timiskaming (ca. 100 km long and 200 m maximum depth). This lake is a postglacial successor to the much larger glacial Lake Barlow, which drained about 8000 years ago, leaving an extensive clay plain (Little Clay plain). Some 1000 kilometres of high resolution seismic sub-bottom data collected from Lake Timiskaming reveal that both late-glacial Barlow and postglacial Holocene sediments are extensively deformed by neotectonic horst and graben structures. The bathymetry of the lake floor is structurally controlled by faulting; graben basins record enhanced postglacial subsidence between parallel bounding faults, one of which is expressed onshore on the surrounding clay plain as a 20-km long, 10-m high scarp. These structures indicate ongoing neotectonic activity on a scale not recognized elsewhere across intracratonic North America. Seismic reflection data confirm the Timiskaming Graben as an intraplate ‘weak zone’ that may contain a long, late Cenozoic sediment record. A program of deep continental drilling within the Timiskaming Graben and extension of the current program of investigating lake-floor geology across the many lakes of the Western Québec Seismic Zone are now needed. SOMMAIRE Le graben de Témiscamingue est situé le long de la frontière entre le Québec et l’Ontario, au sein de la Zone sismique de l’Ouest du Québec – une zone notable de plus grande activité sismique intracratonique de l’est du Canada. Le graben forme une dépression morphotectonique de 50 km de largeur délimitée par des failles, partiellement remplie par le lac Témiscaminque (environ 100 km de long et une profondeur maximale de 200 m). Ce lac est le successeur postglaciaire du lac Barlow, bien plus grand, qui s’est drainé il y a 8 000 ans environ, exposant une grande plaine alluvionnaire argileuse (plaine de Little Clay). Quelques 1 000 km de données sismiques haute résolution des couches proximales du fond du lac Témiscamingue montrent que tant les sédiments holocènes de la fin du lac glaciaire Barlow que les sédiments postglaciaires sont considérablement déformés par des structures néotectonique de horst et graben. La bathymétrie du plancher du lac est structurellement déterminée par la formation de failles; les bassins de graben ont enregistré un accroissement de la subsidence postglaciaire entre les failles bordières, et l’une d’elle se manifeste par un escarpement exondé de 10 m de hauteur sur 20 km de longueur qui surplombe la plaine alluvionnaire environ-nante. Ces éléments structuraux sont l’indication d’une activité néotectonique persistante, à une échelle qui n’existe nulle part ailleurs dans le craton nord-américain. Les données de sismique réflexion confirme que le graben de Témiscamingue est une zone de « faiblesse » intraplaque qui pourrait renfermer un registre sédimentaire Cénozoïque étendu. Il faut maintenant lancer un programme de sondages continentaux profonds à travers le graben de Témiscamingue et prolonger l’actuel programme d’étude géologique des fonds des lacs de la Zone sismique de l’Ouest du Québec

Tichurong (Nepal) - Language Snapshot

Tichurong is an unwritten Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately 2,700 people across eighteen villages in the Tichurong valley in the northwestern district of Dolpa in Nepal. It is also known as Poike, Poinke, Rongke, and Tichurongke; it continues to be used in everyday interactions, but differs in usage according to age and gender. It is one of two languages native to the Tichurong valley, the other being Kaike (ISO 639-3 code: kzq and Glottolog Code: kaik1246). Almost all residents of the Tichurong valley also speak Nepali and Tibetan, and some also speak Kaike, making the community decidedly multilingual. Through Nepal’s Language Commission, a sociolinguistic survey of Tichurong was conducted in 2018, and the language is one of 15 recently identified by the Central Department of Linguistics as warranting further research. While Tichurong is unaccounted for in all previous censuses and linguistic surveys, it has been highlighted by linguists studying Kaike. The Nepal Magar Writers Association hosted a study seminar in 2021 facilitated by two linguists to identify prominent phonological and morphological features of the Tichurong language