La bière et la terre : l'attachement au lieu à travers les microbrasseries québécoises

Les trente dernières années ont vu la naissance et le développement exponentiel d'une industrie qui s'inscrit dans un plus large contexte de renouvellement d'intérêt pour l'achat local au Québec: les microbrasseries. En plus d'une production limitée, d'une distribution locale et d'une ample variété dans l'offre, beaucoup partagent une philosophie d'utilisation de référents locaux dans la promotion de leurs produits. Cette recherche a pour objectif principal d'analyser les motivations des brasseurs et des propriétaires derrière l'usage d'un tel lexique ainsi que les impacts sur la perception des bières et brasseries du point de vue des consommateurs. Parallèlement, ce mémoire vise à peindre un portrait fidèle de l'industrie microbrassicole au Québec en 2016-2017 sous une loupe anthropologique, en traitant de manière scientifique les témoignages de nombreux acteurs importants dans le milieu de la bière. La collecte de données s'est produite dans le cadre d'une ethnographie de plus de deux mois dans trente microbrasseries réparties dans plusieurs régions administratives. Des entrevues semi-structurées d'une heure avec une douzaine de consommateurs et producteurs furent entrecoupées par des périodes d'observation participante dans des usines de production, des brouepubs, des festivals et des détaillants spécialisés en bières artisanales. À travers l'enquête de terrain, de nombreux sujets furent abordés, mais deux éléments en particulier ont été retenus pour représenter avec justesse le milieu des microbrasseries québécoises du point de vue des consommateurs et des producteurs: la difficulté à définir la microbrasserie en tant que telle et la solidarité qui s'observe dans le domaine des brasseries artisanales.The last thirty years have seen the birth and exponential growth of an industry that is situated in a broader context of renewed interest in local trade in Quebec: microbreweries. In addition to a limited volume of production, local distribution and a wide variety of offerings, many microbreweries share a philosophy in which the use of local references plays an important role in the promotion of their products. The main objective of this research is to analyze the brewers' and owners' motivations behind the use of such a vocabulary as well as the impact on consumers' perception of breweries and their beers. At the same time, this paper aims to paint an accurate picture of the contemporary craft beer industry in Quebec from an anthropological point of view. It will examine the data gathered through in-depth discussions with numerous actors in the world of craft beer. The data was gathered during ethnographic research that spanned over two months and thirty microbreweries located in different regions of Quebec. A dozen semi-structured interviews of approximately one hour with consumers, brewers and business owners were interspersed with periods of participant observation in factories, brewpubs, festivals and stores specializing in local craft beer. During this fieldwork, many subjects were discussed, although only two were kept to justly represent the craft beer market from the point of view of both consumers and producers: the difficulty of what constitutes an authentic microbrewery and the omnipresent solidarity between brewers

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The evolutionary ecology of C-4 plants

C4 photosynthesis is a physiological syndrome resulting from multiple anatomical and biochemical components, which function together to increase the CO2 concentration around Rubisco and reduce photorespiration. It evolved independently multiple times and C4 plants now dominate many biomes, especially in the tropics and subtropics. The C4 syndrome comes in many flavours, with numerous phenotypic realizations of C4 physiology and diverse ecological strategies. In this work, we analyse the events that happened in a C3 context and enabled C4 physiology in the descendants, those that generated the C4 physiology, and those that happened in a C4 background and opened novel ecological niches. Throughout the manuscript, we evaluate the biochemical and physiological evidence in a phylogenetic context, which demonstrates the importance of contingency in evolutionary trajectories and shows how these constrained the realized phenotype. We then discuss the physiological innovations that allowed C4 plants to escape these constraints for two important dimensions of the ecological niche – growth rates and distribution along climatic gradients. This review shows that a comprehensive understanding of C4 plant ecology can be achieved by accounting for evolutionary processes spread over millions of years, including the ancestral condition, functional convergence via independent evolutionary trajectories, and physiological diversification