History of clinical transplantation

How transplantation came to be a clinical discipline can be pieced together by perusing two volumes of reminiscences collected by Paul I. Terasaki in 1991-1992 from many of the persons who were directly involved. One volume was devoted to the discovery of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), with particular reference to the human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) that are widely used today for tissue matching.1 The other focused on milestones in the development of clinical transplantation.2 All the contributions described in both volumes can be traced back in one way or other to the demonstration in the mid-1940s by Peter Brian Medawar that the rejection of allografts is an immunological phenomenon.3,4 © 2008 Springer New York

Testing the Limits of Biosignature Detection in Ca-sulphate Mixtures Through a Simulated Martian Environment

Mixtures of cyanobacterial microbial mat and Ca-sulphate minerals were exposed to a simulated Martian environment via the Thales Alenia Space's "MARSBalloon" Project in partnership with St Bernard's High School via the Orbyts science inclusivity program. FTIR spectroscopic analyses identified that at 50% Ca-sulphate, most microbial mat biosignatures were obscured under Earth conditions, except for the C–O stretch and polysaccharide O–H vibrational modes. At 75% Ca-sulphate concentrations, no spectral biosignatures were observed. However, after exposure to a simulated stratospheric Martian environment, partial dehydration of the Ca-sulphate occurred to reveal the spectral biosignatures. This has implications in the search for life on Mars, particularly within evaporite-rich environments similar to those being investigated by the Curiosity rover

A critical overview of migration and development: The Latin American challenge

There is an intense ongoing debate on migration and development in LatinAmerica. This article offers a critical overview of themain perspectives surrounding the Latin American debate across the social sciences. A brief historical background is provided, followed by a characterization of the three main paradigms prevailing in the region: the dominant perspective, grounded in modernization and neoliberal principles; the southern perspective, which has growing influence in the region and is rooted in theLatin American development school; and the transnational approach, which stands in between the first two paradigms and is circumscribed to a meso-level of analysis. The final section highlights five cutting-edge topics that have emerged in the region’s scholarship. The article emphasizes the specificity and the main contributions made by Latin American scholars to understanding and demystifying the complex relationship between migration, development, and human rights