Algumas notas sobre Viena, Paris, uma ilha na Grécia e dois amantes

O presente artigo pretende analisar três filmes de Richard Linklater: Before Sunrise, 1995, Before Sunset, 2004 e Before Midnight, 2013 que se debruçam sobre a história de um casal ao longo de dezoito anos. Para além de assinalar alguns dos aspectos mais relevantes de cada narrativa, a análise proposta debruça-se essencialmente na viagem feita pelos dois personagens – Jesse e Céline – e nos vários locais dos diferentes filmes e os seus significados. Deste modo, o objectivo deste estudo é analisar o modo como Viena (Sunrise), Paris (Sunset) ou uma ilha na Grécia (Midnight) simbolizam três momentos distintos na relação de Jesse e Céline, funcionando também os locais como personagens que envolvem e caracterizam os dois amantes

Targeted mutagenesis of FaTM6 in the Octoploid Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) using the CRISPR/Cas9 System

The B-class of MADS-box transcription factors has been studied in many plant species, but remain functionally uncharacterized in the Rosaceae family. APETALA3 (AP3), a member of this class, controls the identity of petals and stamens in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this work, we identified two members of the AP3 lineage in the cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa): FaAP3 and FaTM6. Interestingly, FaTM6, and not FaAP3, shows an expression pattern equivalent to that of AP3 in Arabidopsis. Genome editing using Cluster Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 system is becoming a robust tool for targeted and stable mutagenesis of DNA. However, whether it can be efficiently used in an octoploid species such as F. × ananassa is not known. In our study, we report the application of the CRISPR/Cas9 in F. × ananassa to characterize the function of FaTM6 in flower development. An exhaustive analysis by high-throughput sequencing of the FaTM6 locus spanning the target sites showed a high efficiency genome editing already in the T0 generation. The phenotypic characterization of the mutant lines indicates that FaTM6 plays a key role in petal and especially in anther development in strawberry. Our results validate the CRISPR/Cas9 strategy for gene functional analysis in an octoploid species such as F. × ananassa, and offer new opportunities for engineering strawberry to improve traits of interest in breeding programs.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Six Feet Under: “Better Living Through Death”

This paper aims at analysing the way in which the American society understands death. For this purpose, I will use the television series Six Feet Under by Allan Ball (2000-2005) as an excellent portrait of the funeral industry that sees death as a business and as a spectacle. However, the series also presents other important issues, for instance, that before death, laughing is the best medicine, something that the viewer may find in several episodes. Furthermore, it shows that the Fisher’s funeral home seems to be different from the rest of the industry, since they try to find meaning in life through death. This is something that can be seen in the way they treat the living, as well as the dead. The Fisher Funeral Home is the place of understanding between the living and the dead, and a metaphor for the path that looks for the equilibrium between past and present, in order to improve the future.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

The House of Usher and The House of Fisher: Towards an Architecture of (Dis)comfort

Six Feet Under (2000-2005), by Allan Ball, is clearly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, from the opening credits (a reference to the poem ‘The Raven’) to the presence of ghosts and the gothic atmosphere displayed by most objects in the television series, especially the house. Both houses, the Fisher Funeral Home and the house of Usher in the story ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (1840), are symbolic spaces of death and, consequently, liminal spaces. If the Usher’s house, like its owner, is an isolated space representing the decadence and fall of the human being; the Fisher’s house, naturally a place of human finitude, seems to represent the opposite: albeit being a funeral house it offers some comfort. In this way, my aim is to analyse Poe’s story and the episode ‘Familia’, (1:5, 2000) from Six Feet Under in order to not only present Poe’s influence in the series, but also to compare both houses so as to show this architecture of (dis)comfort.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi