The Perfect Misogynist Storm and The Electromagnetic Shape of Feminism: Weathering Brazil’s Political Crisis

In Brazil, the 2016 coup against Dilma Rousseff and the Worker’s Party (PT), and the subsequent jailing of former PT President Luis Ignacio da Silva (Lula), laid the groundwork for the 2018 election of ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro. In the perfect storm leading up to the coup, the conservative elite drew on deep-seated misogynist discourses to oust Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s progressive first woman president, and the Worker’s Party she represented. Imprisoning Lula and preventing him from running solidified the effects of the coup and opened the field to the right wing. In this article, we track the roots of the elite’s 2016 power grab back to colonization and through various stages of Brazil’s political history. Tracing the contours of women’s movements alongside this history of domination reveals both the configurations of feminist agendas in Brazil and transformations of power. We draw on our experiences as scholars and activists to argue that Brazil’s current crisis has created an opportunity for solidarity that has drawn academic and activist feminists closer. Namely, amidst this crisis, we see a coming together of various women’s movements including Afro-Brazilian women, peasant women, indigenous women, and student groups. The unity among movements is made evident through the 2017 Women’s Worlds March for Rights, which the authors of this paper organized and attended, as well as #EleNão and 8M. In post-coup Brazil and throughout Latin America, women have been the face of the resistance to an encroaching fascism; this battle will require sustained opposition and continued deepening of solidarities

Study of the reaction e^{+}e^{-} -->J/psi\pi^{+}\pi^{-} via initial-state radiation at BaBar

We study the process $e^+e^-\to J/\psi\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ with initial-state-radiation events produced at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy collider. The data were recorded with the BaBar detector at center-of-mass energies 10.58 and 10.54 GeV, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 454 $\mathrm{fb^{-1}}$. We investigate the $J/\psi \pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ mass distribution in the region from 3.5 to 5.5 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$. Below 3.7 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ the $\psi(2S)$ signal dominates, and above 4 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ there is a significant peak due to the Y(4260). A fit to the data in the range 3.74 -- 5.50 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$ yields a mass value $4244 \pm 5$ (stat) $\pm 4$ (syst)$\mathrm{MeV/c^{2}}$ and a width value $114 ^{+16}_{-15}$ (stat)$\pm 7$(syst)$\mathrm{MeV}$ for this state. We do not confirm the report from the Belle collaboration of a broad structure at 4.01 $\mathrm{GeV/c^{2}}$. In addition, we investigate the $\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ system which results from Y(4260) decay

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies

Performance, Protest, and Feminism in Latin America

How do activists in Latin America fight for change both online and in the streets? This piece narrates a course on Feminist Protest and Performance in Latin America that explores the limits and possibilities of feminist activism in physical and digital spaces. At this critical historical juncture, feminists across the hemisphere are organizing en masse to demand change and justice, to denounce pervasive misogyny and gender violence, and to envision and realize another world. Drawing on a long history of struggle, they are engaging in performance artivism across multiple platforms including Las Tesis piece El Violador Eres Tu (The rapist is you), under the hashtags #NiUnaMenos (#NotOneWomanLess) and #AbortoLegalYa (#LegalizeAbortionNow), and in massive physical occupations and protests like #OcupaEscola (#OccupyTheSchools). They are mobilizing to condemn femicide, to advocate access to legal abortions in public hospitals, and to introduce comprehensive sex education in public schools. Drawing on these interconnected forms of performance and protest, what Marcela Fuentes refers to as “performance constellations,” women and disidencias sexuales are fighting together for the right to live without fear, to make decisions about their own bodies, and to exist in a more just world. This class asks students to learn from Latin American feminst movements and to connect their insights to our intimate and collective experiences. Beyond the syllabus, this piece offers reflections on the philosophy of co-teaching, transnational activism across the Americas, and modes of embodiment that can happen online. We invite students and educators alike to consider what it might mean to “perform well” in a university class focused on pleasure and solidarity

Data from: The efficiency of close inbreeding to reduce genetic adaptation to captivity

Although ex situ conservation is indispensable for thousands of species, captive breeding is associated with negative genetic changes: loss of genetic variance and genetic adaptation to captivity that is deleterious in the wild. We used quantitative genetic individual-based simulations to model the effect of genetic management on the evolution of a quantitative trait and the associated fitness of wild-born individuals that are brought to captivity. We also examined the feasibility of the breeding strategies under a scenario of a large number of loci subject to deleterious mutations. We compared two breeding strategies: repeated half-sib mating and a method of minimizing mean coancestry (referred to as gc/mc). Our major finding was that half-sib mating is more effective in reducing genetic adaptation to captivity than the gc/mc method. Moreover, half-sib mating retains larger allelic and adaptive genetic variance. Relative to initial standing variation, the additive variance of the quantitative trait increased under half-sib mating during the sojourn in captivity. Although fragmentation into smaller populations improves the efficiency of the gc/mc method, half-sib mating still performs better in the scenarios tested. Half-sib mating shows two caveats that could mitigate its beneficial effects: low heterozygosity and high risk of extinction when populations are of low fecundity and size and one of the following conditions are met: (i) the strength of selection in captivity is comparable with that in the wild, (ii) deleterious mutations are numerous and only slightly deleterious. Experimental validation of half-sib mating is therefore needed for the advancement of captive breeding programs