Outposts of Empire: Scientific Discovery and Colonial Displacement in Gaskell's Wives and Daughters

This article offers a fresh consideration of Elizabeth Gaskell's unfinished Wives and Daughters (1864–6), in terms of what this metropolitan novelist knew about contemporary scientific debates and imperial exploration of Africa, and how her familiarity with these discourses was incorporated into her imaginative work. Her focus for these two related themes is the naturalist Roger Hamley, whose character and exploits are meant to parallel those of the young Charles Darwin. Roger's direct involvement in the historical Geoffroy–Cuvier debate allows Gaskell to offer a sophisticated examination of how discussions about evolutionary biology (about which she learned from personal acquaintances and printed sources) contributed to political and social change in the era of the first Reform Bill. Roger's subsequent journey to Abyssinia to gather specimens allows Gaskell to form a link between science and imperial exploration, which demonstrates how, when carried to its conclusion, the development of classificatory knowledge systems was never innocent; rather, it facilitated colonial exploitation and intervention, which allowed for the ‘opening up of Africa’. Gaskell's pronouncements about science in the novel are far more explicit than her brief references to empire; the article ponders why this should be so, and offers some suggestions about how her reliance on imaginative and discursive constructs concerning the ‘Dark Continent’ may be interpreted as tacit complicity with the imperial project, or at least an interest in its more imaginative aspects.

The Violent Maintenance of the Portuguese Colonial Identity and the Search for a Postcolonial one: literary images of Portugal as a colonial and postcolonial nation

Through the examination of Camões's Os Lusíadas , Sena's Os Grão-Capitães and Saramago's A Jangada de Pedra , this article explores violence as a means of shaping Portuguese identity in different historical contexts, and how these works portray the continued recourse to violence as Portugal moves from colonizing to postcolonial nation.

A novel, long-acting agonist of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide suitable for once-daily administration in type 2 diabetes

Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) is a gastrointestinal hormone with a potentially therapeutic role in type 2 diabetes. Rapid degradation by dipeptidylpeptidase IV has prompted the development of enzyme-resistant N-terminally modified analogs, but renal clearance still limits in vivo bioactivity. In this study, we report long-term antidiabetic effects of a novel, N-terminally protected, fatty acid-derivatized analog of GIP, N-AcGIP(LysPAL(37)), in obese diabetic (ob/ob) mice. Once-daily injections of N-AcGIP(LysPAL(37)) over a 14-day period significantly decreased plasma glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and improved glucose tolerance compared with ob/ob mice treated with saline or native GIP. Plasma insulin and pancreatic insulin content were significantly increased by N-AcGIP(LysPAL(37)). This was accompanied by a significant enhancement in the insulin response to glucose together with a notable improvement of insulin sensitivity. No evidence was found for GIP receptor desensitization and the metabolic effects of NAcGIP(LysPAL(37)) were independent of any change in feeding or body weight. Similar daily injections of native GIP did not affect any of the parameters measured. These data demonstrate the ability of once-daily injections of N-terminally modified, fatty acid-derivatized analogs of GIP, such as N-AcGIP(LysPAL(37)), to improve diabetes control and to offer a new class of agents for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.