Using willow riparian buffer strips for biomass production and riparian protection

Non-Peer ReviewedThere is increasing interest in the development of willow biomass as a renewable source of energy and woody lignocellulosic feedstock for bioproducts. Riparian buffers have been identified as an effective barrier to soil and nutrient movement from agricultural fields into watercourse. Willows are ideal riparian species in that they are well adapted to growing conditions in riparian zones and they vigorously re-grow following coppicing which allows them to be harvested for biomass in 3-4 year cycles. Characteristically riparian edges are highly productive due to water availability, therefore it is anticipated that willow biomass yield per unit area in riparian zones would be attractive. Research is being conducted to determine if using riparian buffer strips for willow biomass production provides energy alternatives and economic opportunities for land owners, but also leads to environmental benefits such as reduced erosion and nutrient leaching and preservation of water quality

Debunking the myth of the endogenous antiangiogenic Vegfaxxxb transcripts

In this opinion article we critically assess evidence for the existence of a family of antiangiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor (Vegfaxxxb) transcripts, arising from the use of a phylogenetically conserved alternative distal splice site within exon 8 of the VEGFA gene. We explain that prior evidence for Vegfaxxxb transcripts in tissues rests heavily upon flawed RT-PCR methodologies, with the extensive use of 5′-tailing in primer design being the main issue. Furthermore, our analysis of large RNA-seq data sets (human and ovine) fails to identify a single Vegfaxxxb transcript. Therefore, we challenge the very existence of Vegfaxxxb transcripts, which further questions the physiological relevance of studies based on the use of ‘anti-VEGFAxxxb’ antibodies. Our analysis has implications for the proposed therapeutic use of isoform-specific anti-VEGFA strategies for treating cancer and retinopathies

Questions of presence

This article considers some of the ways in which ‘the black woman’ as both representation and embodied, sentient being is rendered visible and invisible and to link these to the multiple and competing ways in which she is ‘present’. The issues are engaged through three distinct but overlapping conceptualisations of ‘presence’. ‘Presence’ as conceived (and highly contested) in performance studies; ‘presence’ as conceived and worked with in psychoanalysis; and ‘presence’ as decolonising political praxis among indigenous communities. I use these conceptualisations of presence to consider the various ways in which the black woman as figure and as embodied/sentient subject has been made present/absent in different discursive registers. I also explore what is foreclosed and how this is itself linked to legacies of colonial ‘worlding’. I end with consideration of alternative modes of black women’s presence and how this offers a resource for new modes of sociality. Keywords Black women; presence; colonial violence; de-gendering; psychosocial; triangular spac