Natural Products from Antarctic Colonial Ascidians of the Genera Aplidium and Synoicum: Variability and Defensive Role

Ascidians have developed multiple defensive strategies mostly related to physical, nutritional or chemical properties of the tunic. One of such is chemical defense based on secondary metabolites. We analyzed a series of colonial Antarctic ascidians from deep-water collections belonging to the genera Aplidium and Synoicum to evaluate the incidence of organic deterrents and their variability. The ether fractions from 15 samples including specimens of the species A. falklandicum, A. fuegiense, A. meridianum, A. millari and S. adareanum were subjected to feeding assays towards two relevant sympatric predators: the starfish Odontaster validus, and the amphipod Cheirimedon femoratus. All samples revealed repellency. Nonetheless, some colonies concentrated defensive chemicals in internal body-regions rather than in the tunic. Four ascidian-derived meroterpenoids, rossinones B and the three derivatives 2,3-epoxy-rossinone B, 3-epi-rossinone B, 5,6-epoxy-rossinone B, and the indole alkaloids meridianins AG, along with other minoritary meridianin compounds were isolated from several samples. Some purified metabolites were tested in feeding assays exhibiting potent unpalatabilities, thus revealing their role in predation avoidance. Ascidian extracts and purified compound-fractions were further assessed in antibacterial tests against a marine Antarctic bacterium. Only the meridianins showed inhibition activity, demonstrating a multifunctional defensive role. According to their occurrence in nature and within our colonial specimens, the possible origin of both types of metabolites is discussed.

“All we want in Laos is peace, not war": Intervención de Estados Unidos en Laos, 1954-1961

La guerra de Laos es probablemente uno de los episodios de la Guerra Fría más desconocidos e ignorados por la historiografía a pesar de las terribles consecuencias que tuvo. El hecho de que frecuentemente se considere como un conflicto periférico y ligado a la Guerra de Vietnam no contribuye tampoco a mejorar esta imagen.

Natural Products from Antarctic Colonial Ascidians of the Genera Aplidium and Synoicum: Variability and Defensive Role

Ascidians have developed multiple defensive strategies mostly related to physical, nutritional or chemical properties of the tunic. One of such is chemical defense based on secondary metabolites. We analyzed a series of colonial Antarctic ascidians from deep-water collections belonging to the genera Aplidium and Synoicum to evaluate the incidence of organic deterrents and their variability. The ether fractions from 15 samples including specimens of the species A. falklandicum, A. fuegiense, A. meridianum, A. millari and S. adareanum were subjected to feeding assays towards two relevant sympatric predators: the starfish Odontaster validus, and the amphipod Cheirimedon femoratus. All samples revealed repellency. Nonetheless, some colonies concentrated defensive chemicals in internal body-regions rather than in the tunic. Four ascidian-derived meroterpenoids, rossinones B and the three derivatives 2,3-epoxy-rossinone B, 3-epi-rossinone B, 5,6-epoxy-rossinone B, and the indole alkaloids meridianins AG, along with other minoritary meridianin compounds were isolated from several samples. Some purified metabolites were tested in feeding assays exhibiting potent unpalatabilities, thus revealing their role in predation avoidance. Ascidian extracts and purified compound-fractions were further assessed in antibacterial tests against a marine Antarctic bacterium. Only the meridianins showed inhibition activity, demonstrating a multifunctional defensive role. According to their occurrence in nature and within our colonial specimens, the possible origin of both types of metabolites is discussed.

Gone with the Wind and the Southern Way of Life: the Civil War as described in Margaret Mitchell’s Novel

This essay examines the American Civil War of 1861 – 1865, which is also known as the bloodiest war that the United States has ever experienced. The pretext for the war was the abolition of slavery in the South, and after many battles the Southern states lost: as a consequence, they experienced major changes in their economic and social life. This interesting piece from American history can be traced out throughout the characters’ lives in the novel Gone with the Wind which has been thoroughly analyzed in order to draw nearer and to comprehend the changes in the Southern way of life before and after the war. The author, Margaret Mitchell, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up with the stories about the war. As a result, Gone with the Wind studies not only its causes, but also the years after its end – a period which is not generally a subject of history and receives little attention – and the effects that such reversals have on former planters and slaves. From the position of contemporaneity, the reader can see that such changes in a society do not end with the laying down of an act, or in this case the end of the war, but they continue during many years; thus, the modern world can draw conclusions and lessons for events that are happening at the moment.

War and National Renewal: Civil Religion and Blood Sacrifice in American Culture

Wars are often associated with a rhetoric of renewal or new beginnings. This essay explores this claim through the lens of civil religion and a recent book by Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation, which combines Emile Durkheim with Réné Girard in proposing that modern national cohesion depends on blood sacrifice. I unpack some of the paradoxes raised by this theory of national renewal in the context of 9/11, with a special focus on the sacred status of the flag and the special attention given to uniformed serviceman in the American body politic.

The 1925 Opium Purchasing Campaign in Laos: The Anatomy of a Colonial Scandal

Opium purchasing campaigns, initiated in 1915, were abruptly interrupted ten years later following the discovery that the Douanes & Régies of the General Government of Indochina had been victim of a gigantic fraud. Various inquiries expedited with a view to establishing responsibility for the fiasco, involving purchases made at Luang Prabang in 1925, highlight the dysfunctions affecting the colonial civil service. The 1925 scandal revealed not only the difficulties encountered by the French in their attempts to control the drug trade, but also the prevailing circumstantial inefficiency of the colonial bureaucracy.

Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra en el comercio de libros con la América colonial (1607-1613)

Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra fue un impresor sevillano activo entre 1604 y 1622. Envió libros en 1607 a Santo Domingo y en 1613 a Guatemala y México. Estos tres envíos sumaban 71, 295 y 186 ejemplares respectivamente. Además, estos envíos incluían en total doce resmas de menudencias impresas (6.000 pliegos) que formaban en su conjunto un surtido notable. En dos de las tres hojas de registro se incluyó el detalle de los títulos embarcados con un nivel de descripción poco habitual, pues se anotaron los datos del autor, el título y el pie de imprenta. Esto último nos ha deparado alguna sorpresa, ya que permite realizar precisiones sobre la producción de los talleres de Gamarra. Es necesario destacar la referencia a una edición desconocida por los bibliógrafos, que aparece declarada por el propio impresor como"Oraciones y exercicios de fr. Luis de Granada Seuilla por Alonso Rodríguez Gamarra 1612".

Cycle: White under Black. Works from the imperceptible / 3. Freya Powell: I’ll smile and I’m not sad, and other past presents

The video installations of Freya Powell's first exhibition in Barcelona call for an analysis of the links between memory and the archive, between compilation, registration, and the traces of History. Powell's work establishes a fine link between the memory of those sentenced to death in the United States, the memory of the Second World War, the artist's own memory, and the different world maps produced by colonial history. This link forces us to take into account our own connection not only with the voices and words that have been archived, but also with those voices that we want to hear and register.

Cuando los empeños personales son la regla judicial: percepciones subjetivas y valoraciones de la justicia colonial rioplatense

A lo largo de este articulo analizaremos las percepciones subjetivas que nos dejó un actor social de la colonia rioplatense a través de una profusa correspondencia privada. Quizás llame la atención el hecho de que el objeto de nuestro interés sean las valoraciones que hizo Jaime Alsina i Verjés del ámbito judicial, del ejercicio del derecho y del significado de la justicia en el contexto histórico y geográfico en que le tocó vivir su vida adulta: el Río de la Plata durante el periodo virreinal. Abordar el núcleo del funcionamiento del Derecho como es la justicia, pero hacerlo a través de las percepciones de una persona no interesada estrictamente en la defensa o en la transformación del sistema judicial, tiene como finalidad trabajar una de las esferas del sistema jurídico mas descuidadas por la historiografía como es la de la aplicación de la ley.

Does land titling matter? The role of land property rights in the war on illicit crops in Colombia

This paper analyzes the role of formalization of land property rights in the war against illicit crops in Colombia. We argue that as a consequence of the increase of state presence and visibility during the period of 2000 and 2009, municipalities with a higher level of formalization of their land property rights saw a greater reduction in the area allocated to illicit crops. We hypothesize that this is due to the increased cost of growing illicit crops on formal land compared to informal, and due to the possibility of obtaining more benets in the newly in- stalled institutional environment when land is formalized. We exploit the variation in the level of formalization of land property rights in a set of municipalities that had their rst cadastral census collected in the period of 1994-2000; this selection procedure guarantees reliable data and an unbiased source of variation. Using fixed effects estimators, we found a signicant negative relationship between the level of formalization of land property rights and the number of hectares allocated to coca crops per municipality. These results remain robust through a number of sensitivity analyses. Our ndings contribute to the growing body of evidence on the positive effects of formal land property rights, and e ective policies in the war on drugs in Colombia.

La vorera d'enfront : trajectòries migratòries a l'Algèria colonial

Des dels inicis de l'ocupació francesa d'Algèria, a les acaballes de la primera meitat del segle XIX, un gran nombre de valencians, menorquins, andalusos i murcians, fugint de la misèria i de la fam o com a conseqüència de la inestabilitat política i social d'Espanya, es dirigiren al país magrebí a la cerca d'una vida millor. Aquesta migració es perllongà al llarg de més d'un segle, i es va caracteritzar pel seu dinamisme: un flux continu d'entrades i eixides i una gran heterogeneïtat de procedències. L'amalgama creada a l'Algèria colonial amb la coexistència i interacció de diferents realitats culturals, donà lloc a un nou sentiment d'identitat dins la comunitat d'origen europeu, impulsat per una solidaritat espontània dirigida a assolir una estabilitat econòmica i de subsistència, però també per un esforç polític premeditat de l'administració colonial francesa adreçat a cohesionar, mitjançant la francització, els europeus i jueus del país nord-africà