Search results for "wild"

Tiger King and the Exegesis of COVID-19 Media Coverage of Nonhuman Animals

2022

Beginning with the premise that the media participates in the manufacturing of the societal consent that enables and perpetuates the systematized exploitation of nonhuman animals, this article explores how media coverage of such nonhuman animals (and of wildlife in particular) during the COVID-19 crisis may influence our consumption of popular entertainment in a way that centralizes the discussion on the implications of established speciesist practices. I specifically focus on the impact of the first season of Netflix’s successful docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, directed by Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin, which was released in March 2020, a key moment in the world…

Computerized image analysis applied to inspection of vetch seeds for varietal identification

2011

Vicia sativa L. is an annual cleaning crop mainly used in rotation with durum wheat, both for seed production and for forage, either as a pure crop or as an undercrop, and is well adapted to the hot-dry climate and poor soils of Southern of Italy. Generally, cultivar identification is done on the basis of distinctive traits, such as shape, size, colour of the testa and ornamentations, identified during the variety registration, following official protocols. For some vetch varieties seed identification by specialized technicians is possible without difficulty, while for other varieties it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to achieve undoubted identification. Therefore, it is importa…

Flexibility in otherwise consistent non-breeding movements of a long-distance migratory seabird, the long-tailed skua

2017

Quantifying within- and between-individual variation in animal migration strategies is a first step towards our understanding of the ability of migrants to adjust to changes in the en - vironment. We studied consistency (or, conversely, flexibility) in movement patterns at large (>1000 km) to meso-scales (100−1000 km) during the non-breeding season of the long-tailed skua Stercorarius longicaudus, a long-distance migratory Arctic seabird, using light-based geolocation. We obtained 97 annual tracks of 38 individuals and quantified similarity between routes. Overall, tracks of the same individual were generally within about 200 to 300 km of their previous year’s route, and more similar than t…

Putrescine accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana transgenic lines enhances tolerance to dehydration and freezing stress

2011

Polyamines have been globally associated to plant responses to abiotic stress. Particularly, putrescine has been related to a better response to cold and dehydration stresses. It is known that this polyamine is involved in cold tolerance, since Arabidopsis thaliana plants mutated in the key enzyme responsible for putrescine synthesis (arginine decarboxilase, ADC; EC 4.1.1.19) are more sensitive than the wild type to this stress. Although it is speculated that the over-expression of ADC genes may confer tolerance, this is hampered by pleiotropic effects arising from the constitutive expression of enzymes from the polyamine metabolism. Here, we present our work using A. thaliana transgenic pl…

The effect of the interferon-γ-inducible processing machinery on the generation of a naturally tumor-associated human cytotoxic T lymphocyte epitope …

2002

The human wild-type (wt) p53.264–272 peptide is a universal tumor antigen and recognized by HLA-A*0201 (A2.1)-restricted CTL. Generation of this epitope by constitutive 20S proteasomes is prevented by a p53 R to H hotspot mutation at the C-terminal flanking residue 273. We report on the impact of the interferon-γ (IFN-γ)-inducible proteasomal activator PA28 (11S regulator) and the immunoproteasome on the in vitro and cellular processing of wt and mutant (mut) p53 substrates. We found that production of the antigenic 264–272 peptide from wt p53 by constitutive as well as immunoproteasomes is accelerated and amplified by the PA28 activator. PA28 and (immuno)proteasomes were not capable to rec…

Analysis of thiamine transporter genes in sporadic beriberi

2014

Abstract Objective Thiamine or vitamin B 1 deficiency diminishes thiamine-dependent enzymatic activity, alters mitochondrial function, impairs oxidative metabolism, and causes selective neuronal death. We analyzed for the first time, the role of all known mutations within three specific thiamine carrier genes, SLC19 A2, SLC19 A3 , and SLC25 A19 , in a patient with atrophic beriberi, a multiorgan nutritional disease caused by thiamine deficiency. Methods A 44-year-old male alcoholic patient from Morocco developed massive bilateral leg edema, a subacute sensorimotor neuropathy, and incontinence. Despite normal vitamin B 1 serum levels, his clinical picture was rapidly reverted by high-dose in…

Aesthetic Lives

2013

Mitogenomics of the Olive Seed Weevil, Anchonocranus oleae Marshall and Implications for Its Phylogenetic Position in Curculionidae

2022

Anchonocranus oleae Marshall (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is a seed-feeding weevil native to southern Africa; its larvae are known to develop in the fruits of the African Wild Olive and, more rarely, cultivated olives. The species has been mainly found in the Western Cape province of South Africa, but it has remained in relative obscurity because it does not seem to represent a current threat to commercial olive production. As part of an ongoing effort to produce baseline genetic data for olive-associated entomofauna in South Africa, we generated reference DNA barcodes for A. oleae collected from wild and cultivated olives and sequenced its mitogenome for assessment of the phylogenetic posit…

Reconstructing Bronze Age diets and farming strategies at the early Bronze Age sites of La Bastida and Gatas (southeast Iberia) using stable isotope …

2020

The El Argar society of the Bronze Age in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (2200–1550 cal BCE) was among the first complex societies in Europe. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and metallurgy, it was organized hierarchically, and successively expanded its territory. Most of the monumentally fortified settlements lay on steeply sloped mountains, separated by fertile plains, and allowed optimal control of the area. Here, we explore El Argar human diets, animal husbandry strategies, and food webs using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of charred cereal grains as well as human and animal bone collagen. The sample comprised 75 human individuals from the sites of La Ba…

The decline of the cork oak growing in Sicily is accompanied by the loss of the functions proper to agroforestry systems

2021

The cork oak is one of the most important tree species in the Mediterranean basin, where it covers more than 2 million hectares. Among evergreen oaks, Quercus suber stands out for the variety of cultural systems in which it has been successfully employed, including typical agroforestry systems. Accordingly, a wide range of ecosystem services may be associated to cork oak, including the preservation of biodiversity, carbon sequestration and forage production. In the Mediterranean, the cork oak represents a key species for many natural and seminatural landscapes and habitats, as well as playing a prominent role for the economic and social development of local communities. However, there is in…