Listening to the Whispers of Matter Through Arabic Hermeticism: New Studies on the Book of the Treasure of Alexander

The Jabirian Corpus refers to the K. Thahirat Al-`Iskandar, ""The Book of the Treasure of Alexander"" (hereafter BTA), as one of several forgeries suggesting that alchemical secrets were hidden in inscriptions in various places. The book was neglected until 1926, when Julius Ruska discussed it in his work on the Emerald Tablet, placing the BTA within the literature related to the development of Arabic alchemy. His preliminary study became an essential reference and encouraged many scholars to work on the BTA in the following decades. Some years ago, we completed the first translation of the BTA into a Western language. The work was based on the acephalous Escorial manuscript, which we identified as a fourteenth-century copy of the BTA. This manuscript is peculiar, as part of it is encoded. After finishing our translation, we started to establish the text of the BTA. At present, the text is in process of fixation-to be followed by textual criticism-and has been the main focus of a thorough study of ours on medieval hermeticism and alchemy. A sample of the work currently in progress is presented in this paper: an analysis of the variations between different manuscripts along with a study and English translation of its alchemical chapter.

The historiographic Hispano-Americanism: Spain and America in the perspective of Ricardo Levene and Rafael Altamira

This article analyzes how Latin American history was interpreted by two eminent historians, the Argentine Ricardo Levene and the Spaniard Rafael Altamira. It discusses how their paths crossed in the advocacy of Hispano-Americanism as a political project and interpretive horizon of Iberian and American history.

The GHEP-EMPOP collaboration on mtDNA population data-A new resource for forensic casework

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) population data for forensic purposes are still scarce for some populations, which may limit the evaluation of forensic evidence especially when the rarity of a haplotype needs to be determined in a database search. In order to improve the collection of mtDNA lineages from the Iberian and South American subcontinents, we here report the results of a collaborative study involving nine laboratories from the Spanish and Portuguese Speaking Working Group of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (GHEP-ISFG) and EMPOP. The individual laboratories contributed population data that were generated throughout the past 10 years, but in the majority of cases have not been made available to the scientific community. A total of 1019 haplotypes from Iberia (Basque Country, 2 general Spanish populations, 2 North and 1 Central Portugal populations), and Latin America (3 populations from Sao Paulo) were collected, reviewed and harmonized according to defined EMPOP criteria. The majority of data ambiguities that were found during the reviewing process (41 in total) were transcription errors confirming that the documentation process is still the most error-prone stage in reporting mtDNA population data, especially when performed manually. This GHEP-EMPOP collaboration has significantly improved the quality of the individual mtDNA datasets and adds mtDNA population data as valuable resource to the EMPOP database (www.empop.org). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Canga renatae, a new genus and species of Cyphophthalmi from Brazilian Amazon caves (Opiliones: Neogoveidae)

A new genus and species of Cyphophthalmi, Canga renatae gen. nov., sp. nov., is described in the family Neogoveidae from a system of caves in the Serra de Carajas, Para State, Brazil. Canga can be easily distinguished from other neogoveid genera by the presence of a dentate claw on leg I, a unique character among known cyphophthalmid species, and by the free coxa II, which is fused to coxae III and IV in all the other neogoveid species except for the North American Metasiro. The new genus also differs from other Neotropical neogoveids in the lack of a dorsal crest on the chelicerae and in the lack of opisthosomal glands. The finding of a neogoveid in the Para State greatly increases the known distribution of South American cyphophtalmids into the Eastern Brazilian Amazon forest.

The Sphene-Centered Ocellar Texture: An Effect of Grain-Supported Flow and Melt Migration in a Hyperdense Magma Mush

The sphene-centered ocellar texture consists of leucocratic ocelli with sphene (titanite) crystals at the center, enclosed in a biotite-rich matrix. This texture has been recognized worldwide in hybrid intermediate rocks. On the basis of structural, petrological, and geochronological data from selected outcrops of the Variscan Ribadelago pluton (NW Iberian Massif), we propose that the ocelli were formed by migration and accumulation of a residual melt through a plagioclase- and biotite-dominated crystalline framework. At the late stage of crystallization, the magma acted as a hyperdense suspension and reacted to the pressure gradient caused by the regional stress field, entering the domain of grain-supported flow. Microstructures reveal that aligned crystal domains arose in the crystal framework from the shearing and compaction of the crystal mush and behaved as magmatic microshears. Relative displacement of adjacent crystal clusters along these microshears corresponded to the onset of Reynolds dilatancy that generated an expansion of the crystal mush, involving melt migration and pore aperture. The mineralogy of the ocelli, dominated by andesine and sphene, represents the composition of the migrating melt. The chemistry of this late, Ti-rich melt stems from the incongruent melting of biotite. Magmatic sphene from the ocelli yields a U-Pb age of 317 +/- 1 Ma, which represents the final crystallization of the hybridized magmatic system. Moreover, this texture offers an opportunity to better understand the rheological behavior of highly crystallized magmas.

Quenching of excited states of red-pigment zinc protoporphyrin IX by hemin and natural reductors in dry-cured hams

Zinc protoporphyrin IX (ZnPP), the major red pigment in hams dry-cured without nitrates/nitrites, is an efficient photosensitizer, which upon absorption of visible light forms short-lived excited singlet state ((1)ZnPP*) and by intersystem crossing yields the very reactive triplet-excited state ((3)ZnPP*). Using nano-second laser flash photolysis and transient absorption spectroscopy NADH, ascorbic acid, hemin and dehydroascorbic acid were each found to be efficient quenchers of (3)ZnPP*. The deactivation followed, in homogeneous dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) or DMSO:water (1:1) solutions, second-order kinetics. The rate constant for ascorbic acid and NADH for reductive quenching of (3)ZnPP* was at 25 A degrees C found to be 7.5 +/- A 0.1 x 10(4) L mol(-1) s(-1) and 6.3 +/- A 0.1 x 10(5) L mol(-1) s(-1), respectively. The polyphenols catechin and quercetin had no effect on (3)ZnPP*. The quenching rate constant for oxidative deactivation of (3)ZnPP* by dehydroascorbic acid and hemin was at 25 A degrees C: 1.6 +/- A 0.1 x 10(5) L mol(-1) s(-1) and 1.47 +/- A 0.1 x 10(9) L mol(-1) s(-1), respectively. Oxidized glutathione did not act as an oxidative quencher for (3)ZnPP*. After photoexcitation of ZnPP to (1)ZnPP*, fluorescence was only found to be quenched by the presence of hemin in a diffusion-controlled reaction. The efficient deactivation of (3)ZnPP* and (1)ZnPP* by the metalloporphyrin (hemin) naturally present in meat may accordingly inherently protect meat proteins and lipids against ZnPP photosensitized oxidation.