The trajectories of eugenics

Introduzione al numero monografico di Contemporanea intitolato "Present days-eugenics"

Eugenetica in democrazia. Uomini e topi: il discorso di Mariella Mehr all’Università di Basilea

Eugenics in democracy. Of mice and men: the discourse of Mariella Mehr at the Basel University From 1924 to 1973 a Swiss federal agency provided a eugenic project of national re-education of gypsies people, which was considered degenerated and dangerous for national community. Almost 6000 children were taken from their families, given in adoption, with the annulment of any relationship to their families, arriving in many cases at the reclusion in prison or psychiatric clinic, with the use of sterilization as the definitive disciplinary measure. This long standing eugenic project started to be criticized at the beginning of the Seventies, even by the public action of the poetess and writer Mariella Mehr, whose life has been harshly marked by this project. Twenty years later she received an honoury degree as a public recognition of giving voice to people who suffered the brutality of this project. That lectio magistralis, published here integrally for the first time, discusses with implacable and lucid words the role of knowledge and public institutions in conceiving and organizing this project and the persistence of eugenics and racist interpretations of gypsies, which had and still have deeply and resistant roots in the savants community, even after the fall of totalitarian regimes and in democratic contexts

Odour profiling of apple cultivars and correlation with volatile compounds

We are using a trained sensory panel to define the sensory attributes profile of a wide number of apple commercial cultivars and new selections under evaluation at FEM (Fondazione Edmund Mach). The same fruit are evaluated through instrumental determinations as well. Here we present the correlations found between perceived odours (by trained panel) and volatile compounds (by SPME‐GC‐MS) in 18 apple cultivars. It is known that perceived odours are mainly the result of mixture of odorants (more than 300 compounds that can contribute to apple odour and flavour have been identified) and the single components of a mixture may lose their individual identity and a new mixture with a specific odour quality could emerge. Thus the correlations between odours and volatile compounds in apples were investigated by a multivariate approach. Regression models allowed the identification of compounds highly contributing to the odours arising from the complex mixture of volatile compounds released by apples. For example acetate esters strongly contribute to different fruity attributes and the results suggest that perceived odours are due to the relative proportions among esters rather than their presence/absence. In conclusion, sensory and instrumental profiling in combination with appropriate chemometric analyses can help to elucidate the relationships between the perceived odours in real food and the complex mixture of released volatile compounds

The role of radiative losses in the late evolution of pulse-heated coronal loops/strands

Radiative losses from optically thin plasma are an important ingredient for modeling plasma confined in the solar corona. Spectral models are continuously updated to include the emission from more spectral lines, with significant effects on radiative losses, especially around 1 MK. We investigate the effect of changing the radiative losses temperature dependence due to upgrading of spectral codes on predictions obtained from modeling plasma confined in the solar corona. The hydrodynamic simulation of a pulse-heated loop strand is revisited comparing results using an old and a recent radiative losses function. We find significant changes in the plasma evolution during the late phases of plasma cooling: when the recent radiative loss curve is used, the plasma cooling rate increases significantly when temperatures reach 1-2 MK. Such more rapid cooling occurs when the plasma density is larger than a threshold value, and therefore in impulsive heating models that cause the loop plasma to become overdense. The fast cooling has the effect of steepening the slope of the emission measure distribution of coronal plasmas with temperature at temperatures lower than ~2 MK. The effects of changes in the radiative losses curves can be important for modeling the late phases of the evolution of pulse-heated coronal loops, and, more in general, of thermally unstable optically thin plasmas.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publicatio

Emotionotopy in the human right temporo-parietal cortex

AbstractHumans use emotions to decipher complex cascades of internal events. However, which mechanisms link descriptions of affective states to brain activity is unclear, with evidence supporting either local or distributed processing. A biologically favorable alternative is provided by the notion of gradient, which postulates the isomorphism between functional representations of stimulus features and cortical distance. Here, we use fMRI activity evoked by an emotionally charged movie and continuous ratings of the perceived emotion intensity to reveal the topographic organization of affective states. Results show that three orthogonal and spatially overlapping gradients encode the polarity, complexity and intensity of emotional experiences in right temporo-parietal territories. The spatial arrangement of these gradients allows the brain to map a variety of affective states within a single patch of cortex. As this organization resembles how sensory regions represent psychophysical properties (e.g., retinotopy), we propose emotionotopy as a principle of emotion coding

On-line tracking of the human gut microbial metabolism: high-throughput screening during colonic in-vitro fermentation

The human gut encloses a large community of bacteria producing a wide range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when fermenting undigestible substrates. This study aims to provide a high throughput method to study in real-time the gut microbial volatilome when the microbiota process undigestible dietary substrates. Background: Small metabolites from the human gut microbiota are recognized as the intermediates of the microbiome-host cross-talk [1]. The research on the human gut metabolome is mainly based on discrete sampling representing discontinuous ‘snapshot’ of these complex biological systems [2]. The aim of this research work is to enhance the current understanding of the dynamics of the gut microbiota by integrating non-invasive and continuous analytical methods with in-vitro gut simulators, to monitor in real-time, the progression of small molecules released into the headspace [2,3] Methodology: Automated Head space-Solid Phase Micro Extraction coupled with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) and Static Headspace- Proton Transfer Reaction-Time of Flight-Mass Spectrometry (SHS-PTR-ToF-MS) are used for the purpose of this investigation. The objective is to screen and monitor a specific set of masses of interest, to gain system level mechanistic insights on primary metabolism of the gut microbial consortia. Results: This methodology enabled the continuous monitoring of multiple metabolites in time, including short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) derived from 24h oat bran fermentation. A mixture of -odd and -even chain acids were co-released into the culture headspace after 4 hours of fermentation and their relative abundance increased in time over 24 hours. The production of multiple MCFAs from the substrate is most likely a community optimization strategy to maximize ATP production from oat degradation by means of reverse beta-oxidation which involves the utilization of fermentation intermediates, such as propanol and acetate. Furthermore, the untargeted screening allowed the detection of low abundant sulfur metabolites, thiophenes, which, to our knowledge, were never investigated before as gut microbial metabolites (GMMs). Conclusion: By integrating non-invasive and continuous analytical methods with an in-vitro gut simulator, it was possible to monitor in real-time the progression of two important class of small molecules released by the microbial consortia into the headspace. The collected information can be jointly integrated to shed light on the dynamics of bacterial foraging of complex undigestible substrates (e.g. bran from cereals). Overall, these results confirm the idea to consider the bacterial headspace as a highly dynamic chemical system that contains information on microbial community behavio

Exploring blueberry aroma complexity by chromatographic and direct-injection spectrometric techniques

Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) fruit consumption has increased over the last 5 years, becoming the second most important soft fruit species after strawberry. Despite the possible economic and sensory impact, the blueberry volatile organic compound (VOC) composition has been poorly investigated. Thus, the great impact of the aroma on fruit marketability stimulates the need to step forward in the understanding of this quality trait. Beside the strong effect of ripening, blueberry aroma profile also varies due to the broad genetic differences among Vaccinium species that have been differently introgressed in modern commercial cultivars through breeding activity. In the present study, divided into two different activities, the complexity of blueberry aroma was explored by an exhaustive untargeted VOC analysis, performed by two complementary methods: SPME-GC-MS (solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) and PTR-ToF-MS (proton transfer reaction-time of flight-mass spectrometry). The first experiment was aimed at determining the VOC modifications during blueberry ripening for five commercially representative cultivars ("Biloxi," "Brigitta Blue," "Centurion," "Chandler," and "Ozark Blue") harvested at four ripening stages (green, pink, ripe, and over-ripe) to outline VOCs dynamic during fruit development. The objective of the second experiment was to confirm the analytical capability of PTR-ToF-MS to profile blueberry genotypes and to identify the most characterizing VOCs. In this case, 11 accessions belonging to different Vaccinium species were employed: V. corymbosum L. ("Brigitta," "Chandler," "Liberty," and "Ozark Blue"), V. virgatum Aiton ("Centurion," "Powder Blue," and "Sky Blue"), V. myrtillus L. (three wild genotypes of different mountain locations), and one accession of V. cylindraceum Smith. This comprehensive characterization of blueberry aroma allowed the identification of a wide pull of VOCs, for the most aldehydes, alcohols, terpenoids, and esters that can be used as putative biomarkers to rapidly evaluate the blueberry aroma variations related to ripening and/or senescence as well as to genetic background differences. Moreover, the obtained results demonstrated the complementarity between chromatographic and direct-injection mass spectrometric techniques to study the blueberry aroma