Quantifying the relationship between temperature regulation in the ear and floret development stage in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under heat and drought stress

Thermal imaging is a valuable tool for the elucidation of gas exchange dynamics between a plant and its environment. The presence of stomata in wheat glumes and awns offers an opportunity to assess photosynthetic activity of ears up to and during flowering. The knowledge of spatial and temporal thermodynamics of the wheat ear may provide insight into interactions between floret developmental stage (FDS), temperature depression (TD) and ambient environment, with potential to be used as a high-throughput screening tool for breeders. A controlled environment study was conducted using six spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes of the elite recombinant inbred line Seri/Babax. Average ear temperature (AET) was recorded using a hand held infrared camera and gas exchange was measured by enclosing ears in a custom built cuvette. FDS was monitored and recorded daily throughout the study. Plants were grown in pots and exposed to a combination of two temperature and two water regimes. In the examined wheat lines, TD varied from 0.1°C to 0.6°C according to the level of stress imposed. The results indicated that TD does not occur at FDS F3, the peak of active flowering, but during the preceding stages prior to pollen release and stigma maturity (F1-F2). These findings suggest that ear temperature during the early stages of anthesis, prior to pollen release and full extension of the stigma, are likely to be the most relevant for identifying heat stress tolerant genotypes.

Marine Isotope Stage 9 environments of fluvial deposits at Hackney, north London, UK

Middle Pleistocene deposits at Hackney, north London comprise a thick unit of organic sands and silts occupying a channel near the confluence of the River Thames in south-eastern England and its left-bank tributary the River Lea. They represent a short time interval, perhaps no more than a few years, within a late Middle Pleistocene interglacial. The organic sediments are overlain by unfossiliferous sands and gravels indicating deposition on the floodplain of a braided river under cool or cold climatic conditions. The fossil plant, insect, mollusc and vertebrate remains from the interglacial deposits all indicate climatic conditions with summers warmer than the present in SE England, and winters with a similar thermal climate. The biostratigraphic evidence suggests that the time period represented by the organic unit is part of MIS 9, although the geochronological evidence for such an age is inconclusive. The palaeontological evidence strongly suggests that this temperate stage was warmer than the succeeding temperate stage MIS 7 or the Holocene, and approaching the Ipswichian (MISs 5e) in its warmth. The multidisciplinary description of the Hackney deposits is one of the first to reconstruct terrestrial conditions in Marine Isotope Stage 9 in Western Europe.

Haptic interfaces: the live and the recorded body in Beckett's Eh Joe on stage and screen

Beckett’s sparse and minimalist pieces have continuously addressed the nature and characteristics of the media for which they were written. What does it mean when a work written specifically for television is transposed to the stage, as film director Atom Egoyan did in his 2006 version of Beckett’s Eh Joe? This article will focus on the implications of such a transposition and discuss how Egoyan’s version reveals the haptic interface present in the original piece, between body and technology, between the flesh and “spirit made light” of the electronic broadcast.

Use of batch culture and a two-stage continuous culture system to study the effect of supplemental a-lactalbumin and glycomacropeptide on mixed populations of human gut bacteria

Certain milk factors can promote the growth of a host-friendly gastrointestinal microflora. This may explain why breast-fed infants experience fewer intestinal infections than their formula-fed counterparts. The effect of formula supplementation with two such factors was investigated in this study. Infant faecal specimens were used to ferment formulas supplemented with glycomacropeptide and α-lactalbumin in a two-stage compound continuous culture model. Bacteriology was determined by fluorescence in situ hybridisation. Vessels that contained breast milk as well as α-lactalbumin and glycomacropeptide had stable counts of bifidobacteria while lactobacilli increased significantly only in vessels with breast milk. Bacteroides, clostridia and Escherichia coli decreased significantly in all runs. Acetate was the principal acid found along with high amounts of propionate and lactate. Supplementation of infant formulas with appropriate milk proteins may be useful in simulating the beneficial bacteriological effects of breast milk.

Hollow capsules formed in a single stage via interfacial hydrogen-bonded complexation of methylcellulose with poly(acrylic acid) and tannic acid

Hollow capsules can be prepared in a single stage by the interfacial complexation of methylcellulose (MC) with poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) or tannic acid (TA) via hydrogen bonding in aqueous solutions. The formation of capsules is observed when viscous solution of methylcellulose is added drop-wise to diluted solutions of polyacids under acidic conditions. The optimal parameters such as polymer concentration and solution pH for the formation of these capsules were established in this work. It was found that tannic acid forms capsules in a broader range of concentrations and pHs compared to poly(acrylic acid). The TA/MC capsules exhibited better stability compared to PAA/MC in response to increase in pH: the dissolution of TA/MC capsules observed at pH > 9.5; whereas PAA/MC capsules dissolved at pH > 3.8. The interfacial complexation can be considered as a potential single stage alternative to the formation of capsules using multistage layer-by-layer deposition method.

Brief communication: a proposed method for the assessment of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains using cervical vertebrae maturation.

The assessment of age-at-death in non-adult skeletal remains is under constant review. However, in many past societies an individual's physical maturation may have been more important in social terms than their exact age, particularly during the period of adolescence. In a recent article (Shapland and Lewis: Am J Phys Anthropol 151 (2013) 302–310) highlighted a set of dental and skeletal indicators that may be useful in mapping the progress of the pubertal growth spurt. This article presents a further skeletal indicator of adolescent development commonly used by modern clinicians: cervical vertebrae maturation (CVM). This method is applied to a collection of 594 adolescents from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital, London. Analysis reveals a potential delay in ages of attainment of the later CVM stages compared with modern adolescents, presumably reflecting negative environmental conditions for growth and development. The data gathered on CVM is compared to other skeletal indicators of pubertal maturity and long bone growth from this site to ascertain the usefulness of this method on archaeological collections.