Protecting fat mammals or carnivorous humans? Towards an environmental history of whales

Bisher wurde die Geschichte der Beziehung zwischen Walen und Menschen entweder als Geschichte des Schutzes wildlebender Tiere oder als Geschichte der symbolischen Beziehungen zwischen Menschen und Tieren geschrieben. Beide Aspekte, so die These dieses Beitrags, gehören jedoch zusammen. Werden sie getrennt, besteht die Gefahr, der Perspektive einiger Walschutzaktivisten zu verfallen, dass nämlich ein moralischer Gegensatz zwischen dem 'modernen' und dem 'traditionellen' Walfang bestünde. Der Beitrag macht die Vielfältigkeit und Komplexität der Interaktionen zwischen Menschen und Walen weltweit sichtbar und verweist auf eine Reihe von Fällen, in denen beide Erzählungen miteinander verbunden werden können, um so einen breiteren Horizont zu eröffnen. Der Beitrag gibt zudem einen kurzen Überblick über wichtige Etappen in der Umweltgeschichte der Wale, vor allem seit der Einrichtung der Internationalen Walfangkommission im Jahr 1946 und dem Aufkommen der 'Retter die Wale'-Kampagnen der 1970er Jahre. (ICEÜbers)'While the history of the relationship between whales and humans has been generally written as either a history of wildlife protection, or as a history of symbolic relations between humans and animals, this paper argues for the need to see these two aspects of the history in relationship with each other, and against treating them as separate themes. The result of this division has been a methodological entrenchment of the view promoted by some whaling activists: that 'modern' whaling and 'traditional' whaling are morally opposite to each other. Rather, the paper notes the multiplicity and complexity of human-whale interactions world-wide and points to several cases in which the two stories could be interwoven in order to enlarge the parameters of the field. In addition, the paper briefly summarizes the important events in the environmental history of whales, especially since the establishment of the International Whaling Commission in 1946, and the emergence of the 'save the whales' campaigns of the 1970s.' (author's abstract

Synergistic up-regulation of CXCL10 by virus and IFN γ in human airway epithelial cells.

Airway epithelial cells are the first line of defense against viral infections and are instrumental in coordinating the inflammatory response. In this study, we demonstrate the synergistic stimulation of CXCL10 mRNA and protein, a key chemokine responsible for the early immune response to viral infection, following treatment of airway epithelial cells with IFN γ and influenza virus. The synergism also occurred when the cells were treated with IFN γ and a viral replication mimicker (dsRNA) both in vitro and in vivo. Despite the requirement of type I interferon (IFNAR) signaling in dsRNA-induced CXCL10, the synergism was independent of the IFNAR pathway since it wasn't affected by the addition of a neutralizing IFNAR antibody or the complete lack of IFNAR expression. Furthermore, the same synergistic effect was also observed when a CXCL10 promoter reporter was examined. Although the responsive promoter region contains both ISRE and NFκB sites, western blot analysis indicated that the combined treatment of IFN γ and dsRNA significantly augmented NFκB but not STAT1 activation as compared to the single treatment. Therefore, we conclude that IFN γ and dsRNA act in concert to potentiate CXCL10 expression in airway epithelial cells via an NFκB-dependent but IFNAR-STAT independent pathway and it is at least partly regulated at the transcriptional level

Gene Expression Signature in Peripheral Blood Detects Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm

BACKGROUND: Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) is usually asymptomatic and associated with high mortality. Adverse clinical outcome of TAA is preventable by elective surgical repair; however, identifying at-risk individuals is difficult. We hypothesized that gene expression patterns in peripheral blood cells may correlate with TAA disease status. Our goal was to identify a distinct gene expression signature in peripheral blood that may identify individuals at risk for TAA. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Whole genome gene expression profiles from 94 peripheral blood samples (collected from 58 individuals with TAA and 36 controls) were analyzed. Significance Analysis of Microarray (SAM) identified potential signature genes characterizing TAA vs. normal, ascending vs. descending TAA, and sporadic vs. familial TAA. Using a training set containing 36 TAA patients and 25 controls, a 41-gene classification model was constructed for detecting TAA status and an overall accuracy of 78+/-6% was achieved. Testing this classifier on an independent validation set containing 22 TAA samples and 11 controls yielded an overall classification accuracy of 78%. These 41 classifier genes were further validated by TaqMan real-time PCR assays. Classification based on the TaqMan data replicated the microarray results and achieved 80% classification accuracy on the testing set. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified informative gene expression signatures in peripheral blood cells that can characterize TAA status and subtypes of TAA. Moreover, a 41-gene classifier based on expression signature can identify TAA patients with high accuracy. The transcriptional programs in peripheral blood leading to the identification of these markers also provide insights into the mechanism of development of aortic aneurysms and highlight potential targets for therapeutic intervention. The classifier genes identified in this study, and validated by TaqMan real-time PCR, define a set of promising potential diagnostic markers, setting the stage for a blood-based gene expression test to facilitate early detection of TAA

Margaret Jacob. Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West. Oxford University Press, 1997. 269 pp. Paperback $21.95.

[No abstract

Margaret Jacob. Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West. Oxford University Press, 1997. 269 pp. Paperback $21.95.

[No abstract