Researching direct action against carbon emissions: a digital ethnography of climate agency

Global warming poses very directly the question of human agency. In this video ethnography of climate agency we explore dimensions of subjectivity in climate activism. Through a longitudinal study we track activist strategising as a reflexive process of creating climate agency. Activist reflection is presented as a balance between involvement and detachment, and analysed drawing on videoed interviews and on our own participation in organisations and events. Visual artefacts are deployed to deepen insights into the interview process, and into the contexts for climate action. In terms of the analysis, there are three themes. First we look at trajectories – how people come to identify with the climate movement and engage in its direct action wing. Second, we explore the hopes and fears of climate activists in the face of profound challenges. Third, we address political antidotes, and the role of direct action in precipitating large-scale systemic change. Across these themes there is much diversity and debate: what unifies is a common engagement in the broad field of direct climate action. This visual documentation helps us reflect on the conflicts and possibilities that thereby arise in contexts of climate activist praxis

Researching direct action against carbon emissions: a digital ethnography of climate agency

Global warming poses very directly the question of human agency. In this video ethnography of climate agency we explore dimensions of subjectivity in climate activism. Through a longitudinal study we track activist strategising as a reflexive process of creating climate agency. Activist reflection is presented as a balance between involvement and detachment, and analysed drawing on videoed interviews and on our own participation in organisations and events. Visual artefacts are deployed to deepen insights into the interview process, and into the contexts for climate action. In terms of the analysis, there are three themes. First we look at trajectories how people come to identify with the climate movement and engage in its direct action wing. Second, we explore the hopes and fears of climate activists in the face of profound challenges. Third, we address political antidotes, and the role of direct action in precipitating large-scale systemic change. Across these themes there is much diversity and debate: what unifies is a common engagement in the broad field of direct climate action. This visual documentation helps us reflect on the conflicts and possibilities that thereby arise in contexts of climate activist praxis

Muddied waters: suspended sediment impacts on gill structure and aerobic scope in an endangered native and an invasive freshwater crayfish

Suspended sediment (SS) loadings in freshwater habitats have increased over the past century and SS is now a significant environmental stressor. Greater tolerance to environmental stressors has been proposed as a factor in the success of aquatic invasive species. Further, parasites may interact with environmental stressors to increase host susceptibility to loss of fitness and mortality. We compared the effects of SS exposure on the gill structure and aerobic scope of the endangered white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes), and the invasive signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), and assessed impacts in relation to parasite burden. SS caused gill fouling and reduction in aerobic scope in both species, though A. pallipes was more susceptible than invasive P. leniusculus. The parasite Branchiobdella astaci, a crayfish worm that infests the gills, interacted with the sediment to affect gill structure whereas infection with the microsporidian parasite Thelohania contejeani had no effect on crayfish response to SS. Juvenile P. lenisuculus had a higher standard metabolic rate than A. pallipes, which may be linked to competitive advantages such as higher growth rate and behavioural dominance. Conservation of A. pallipes often involves relocation of threatened populations to isolated stillwaters; our findings suggest that SS levels should be assessed before relocation

Draft genome sequence of Treponema sp. strain JC4, a novel spirochete isolated from the bovine rumen

Morphologically and biochemically diverse members of the Treponema genus are present in the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants, yet very little is understood about their functional importance to this microbiome. Here we describe the annotated draft genome sequence of Treponema sp. strain JC4, a novel spirochete isolated from a bovine rumen sample

Quantitative trait loci of stripe rust resistance in wheat

KEY MESSAGE: Over 140 QTLs for resistance to stripe rust in wheat have been published and through mapping flanking markers on consensus maps, 49 chromosomal regions are identified. ABSTRACT: Over thirty publications during the last 10 years have identified more than 140 QTLs for stripe rust resistance in wheat. It is likely that many of these QTLs are identical genes that have been spread through plant breeding into diverse backgrounds through phenotypic selection under stripe rust epidemics. Allelism testing can be used to differentiate genes in similar locations but in different genetic backgrounds; however, this is problematic for QTL studies where multiple loci segregate from any one parent. This review utilizes consensus maps to illustrate important genomic regions that have had effects against stripe rust in wheat, and although this methodology cannot distinguish alleles from closely linked genes, it does highlight the extent of genetic diversity for this trait and identifies the most valuable loci and the parents possessing them for utilization in breeding programs. With the advent of cheaper, high throughput genotyping technologies, it is envisioned that there will be many more publications in the near future describing ever more QTLs. This review sets the scene for the coming influx of data and will quickly enable researchers to identify new loci in their given populations

The Leeds Thunderbolt

When the English Electric Company's School Project Competition was announced in 1967 I had a small group of enthusiastic Sixth Formers who were taking 0 and A Level Engineering Drawing. This seemed one way of bringing in something of a workshop background to the course and I decided a model steam locomotive would be suitable as this would encompass most aspects of a workshop course. None of the group had any elementary workshop knowledge and due to timetable problems all the work had to be in spare time

The ILO's Domestic Worker Convention (C189): Challenging the Gendered Disadvantage of Asia's Foreign Domestic Workers?

The International Labour Organization's Domestic Worker Convention, resolved in June 2011 and soon to come into force, is regarded as a watershed in the struggle by a host of civil society groups to get paid domestic work formally recognised, draw such work out of the shadows and secure employment rights and protections for this overwhelmingly female workforce. In covering all paid domestic work, the Convention can also be seen as an important initiative in promoting decent work for migrant workers and especially the many recruited from Southeast Asia and South Asia. However, improvements in employment rights and conditions will likely be frustrated by the inadequacies of the ILO as a global institutional force able to engage member nation states as well as by the entrenched structural inequities in international labour markets marked by barriers based on gender, race and ethnicity, nationality and religion and irregular employment. Progress will depend on the effectiveness of those civil society groups which were instrumental in the negotiation of the Convention to maintain the momentum to break down the barriers and states' reluctance to implement measures that abolish labour market disadvantage

Maximizing efficiency of rumen microbial protein production.

Rumen microbes produce cellular protein inefficiently partly because they do not direct all ATP toward growth. They direct some ATP toward maintenance functions, as long-recognized, but they also direct ATP toward reserve carbohydrate synthesis and energy spilling (futile cycles that dissipate heat). Rumen microbes expend ATP by vacillating between (1) accumulation of reserve carbohydrate after feeding (during carbohydrate excess) and (2) mobilization of that carbohydrate thereafter (during carbohydrate limitation). Protozoa account for most accumulation of reserve carbohydrate, and in competition experiments, protozoa accumulated nearly 35-fold more reserve carbohydrate than bacteria. Some pure cultures of bacteria spill energy, but only recently have mixed rumen communities been recognized as capable of the same. When these communities were dosed glucose in vitro, energy spilling could account for nearly 40% of heat production. We suspect that cycling of glycogen (a major reserve carbohydrate) is a major mechanism of spilling; such cycling has already been observed in single-species cultures of protozoa and bacteria. Interconversions of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) may also expend ATP and depress efficiency of microbial protein production. These interconversions may involve extensive cycling of intermediates, such as cycling of acetate during butyrate production in certain butyrivibrios. We speculate this cycling may expend ATP directly or indirectly. By further quantifying the impact of reserve carbohydrate accumulation, energy spilling, and SCFA interconversions on growth efficiency, we can improve prediction of microbial protein production and guide efforts to improve efficiency of microbial protein production in the rumen