Du "Jeu de l'amour et du hasard" aux "Fausses confidences" : remarques sur l'évolution du théâtre de Marivaux

La crise de pessimisme social que Marivaux a connue autour de 1733 se manifeste très fortement dans son théâtre : dans le Petit-Maître corrigé , la Mère confidente et le Legs , les murs de l'époque apparaissent sous un jour de plus en plus sinistre. On pourrait considérer chacune de ces comédies comme une forme dégradée des systèmes dramatiques qu'il avait mis en uvre au cours de la décennie précédente et dont les Fausses Confidences devaient représenter l'aboutissement. Mais avec ces pièces Marivaux a commencé d'en inventer un nouveau, qui occupera une place importante dans son dernier théâtre : l'épreuve organisée.Towards 1733 Marivaux underwent a crisis of social pessimism which appears markedly in his drama : in le Petit-Maître corrigé, la Mère confidente and le Legs, the manners of the age are shown in an increasingly sinister light. Each of these comedies can be viewed as a degraded form of the dramatic systems Marivaux had used during the preceding decade and of which les Fausses Confidences are the outcome. But in these plays Marivaux is experimenting with a new dramatic system which will loom prominently in his last plays : the arranged trial

Short-term telomere dynamics is associated with glucocorticoid levels in wild populations of roe deer

International audienceWhile evidence that telomere length is associated with health and mortality in humans and birds is accumulating, a large body of research is currently seeking to identify factors that modulate telomere dynamics. We tested the hypothesis that high levels of glucocorticoids in individuals under environmental stress should accelerate telomere shortening in two wild populations of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) living in different ecological contexts. From two consecutive annual sampling sessions, we found that individuals with faster rates of telomere shortening had higher concentrations of fecal glucocorticoid metabolites, suggesting a functional link between glucocorticoid levels and telomere attrition rate. This relationship was consistent for both sexes and populations. This finding paves the way for further studies of the fitness consequences of exposure to environmental stressors in wild vertebrates

Immunosenescence patterns differ between populations but not between sexes in a long-lived mammal

International audienceIn animals, physiological mechanisms underlying reproductive and actuarial senescence remain poorly understood. Immunosenescence, the decline in the ability to display an efficient immune response with increasing age, is likely to influence both reproductive and actuarial senescence through increased risk of disease. Evidence for such a link has been reported from laboratory animal models but has been poorly investigated in the wild, where variation in resource acquisitions usually drives life-history tradeoffs. We investigated immunosenescence patterns over 7 years in both sexes of two contrasting roe deer populations (Capreolus capreolus). We first measured twelve immune markers to obtain a thorough identification of innate and adaptive components of immunity and assessed, from the same individuals, the age-dependent variation observed in parasitic infections. Although the level of innate traits was maintained at old age, the functional innate immune traits declined with increasing age in one of two populations. In both populations, the production of inflammatory markers increased with advancing age. Finally, the adaptive response declined in late adulthood. The increasing parasite burden with age we reported suggests the effective existence of immunosenescence. Age-specific patterns differed between populations but not between sexes, which indicate that habitat quality could shape agedependent immune phenotype in the wild

Age-dependent associations between telomere length and environmental conditions in roe deer

Supplementary methods, tables & figure

Listeria pathogenesis and molecular virulence determinants

The gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is the causative agent of listeriosis, a highly fatal opportunistic foodborne infection. Pregnant women, neonates, the elderly, and debilitated or immunocompromised patients in general are predominantly affected, although the disease can also develop in normal individuals. Clinical manifestations of invasive listeriosis are usually severe and include abortion, sepsis, and meningoencephalitis. Listeriosis can also manifest as a febrile gastroenteritis syndrome. In addition to humans, L. monocytogenes affects many vertebrate species, including birds. Listeria ivanovii, a second pathogenic species of the genus, is specific for ruminants. Our current view of the pathophysiology of listeriosis derives largely from studies with the mouse infection model. Pathogenic listeriae enter the host primarily through the intestine. The liver is thought to be their first target organ after intestinal translocation. In the liver, listeriae actively multiply until the infection is controlled by a cell-mediated immune response. This initial, subclinical step of listeriosis is thought to be common due to the frequent presence of pathogenic L. monocytogenes in food. In normal indivuals, the continual exposure to listerial antigens probably contributes to the maintenance of anti-Listeria memory T cells. However, in debilitated and immunocompromised patients, the unrestricted proliferation of listeriae in the liver may result in prolonged low-level bacteremia, leading to invasion of the preferred secondary target organs (the brain and the gravid uterus) and to overt clinical disease. L. monocytogenes and L. ivanovii are facultative intracellular parasites able to survive in macrophages and to invade a variety of normally nonphagocytic cells, such as epithelial cells, hepatocytes, and endothelial cells. In all these cell types, pathogenic listeriae go through an intracellular life cycle involving early escape from the phagocytic vacuole, rapid intracytoplasmic multiplication, bacterially induced actin-based motility, and direct spread to neighboring cells, in which they reinitiate the cycle. In this way, listeriae disseminate in host tissues sheltered from the humoral arm of the immune system. Over the last 15 years, a number of virulence factors involved in key steps of this intracellular life cycle have been identified. This review describes in detail the molecular determinants of Listeria virulence and their mechanism of action and summarizes the current knowledge on the pathophysiology of listeriosis and the cell biology and host cell responses to Listeria infection. This article provides an updated perspective of the development of our understanding of Listeria pathogenesis from the first molecular genetic analyses of virulence mechanisms reported in 1985 until the start of the genomic era of Listeria research

Émily R. Guignon, What saying is "about": a speech-act reading of Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître

Gilot Michel. Émily R. Guignon, What saying is "about": a speech-act reading of Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, n°11, 1991. pp. 154-155

Émily R. Guignon, What saying is "about": a speech-act reading of Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître

Gilot Michel. Émily R. Guignon, What saying is "about": a speech-act reading of Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, n°11, 1991. pp. 154-155

Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien

Gilot Michel. Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien. In: Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, n°13, 1992. pp. 151-154