Negotiation of risk in sexual relationships and reproductive decision-making amongst HIV sero-different couples

The paper focuses on the ways in which medical discourses of HIV transmission risk, personal bodily meanings and reproductive decision-making are re-negotiated within the context of sero-different relationships, in which one partner is known to be HIV-positive. Eighteen in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 individuals in Northern Ireland during 2008–2009. Drawing on an embodied sociological approach, the findings show that physical pleasure, love, commitment, a desire to conceive without medical interventions and a dislike of condoms within regular ongoing relationships, shaped individuals' sense of biological risk. In addition, the subjective logic that a partner had not previously become infected through unprotected sex prior to knowledge of HIV status and the added security of an undetectable viral load significantly impacted upon women's and, especially, men's decisions to have unprotected sex in order to conceive. The findings speak to the importance of reframing public health campaigns and clinical counselling discourses on HIV risk transmission to acknowledge how couples negotiate this risk, alongside pleasure and commitment within ongoing relationships.

Animal maiming, intimacy and the politics of shared life: the bestial and the beastly in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England

The everyday lives of many farm workers in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England were intricately and often intimately bound with the lives of animals, the ebb and flow of human life being inseparable from that of animal life. Farmyards, fields, folds as well as barns and stables were all spaces where animals transcended being the mere instruments of capital to instead being obvious co-constituents of the rhythms of existence. Living and working in such close proximity meant that the ‘species barrier’ was crossed and intimacies developed in everyday agricultural practices. Still, the relationship was based upon, if not reducible to, the workings of capital: the animal enrolled as a form of embodied capital, the labourer engaged by the farmer to act upon the animal. And in such relationships intimacies are mirrored by violences: the keeping captive, slaughter, and – occasionally – abuse. In this formative period in which the discourses and policies that continue to inform animal welfare were first formulated, the declining economic and material fortunes of farm workers when juxtaposed to farm animals’ fortune as increasingly ‘cosseted capital’ gave a particular charge to these abuses. Farm animals, and especially horses and cattle, so it is shown, were subjected to a series of violences. Many cases of animal maiming parodied tenderness in their brutality, whilst other attacks on the sexual organs of animals represented complex statements about the ways in which agrarian capitalism regulated all culture. Analysing the changing relationship between humans and animals therefore also helps us to better understand how capitalism mediates – and is mediated by – the non-human as well as the human, and how it defines cultural relations.

Deformed wing virus and drone mating flights in the honey bee (Apis mellifera): implications for sexual transmission of a major honey bee virus

Deformed wing virus (DWV) represents an ideal model to study the interaction between mode of transmission and virulence in honey bees since it exhibits both horizontal and vertical transmissions. However, it is not yet clear if venereal-vertical transmission represents a regular mode of transmission for this virus in natural honey bee populations. Here, we provide clear evidence for the occurrence of high DWV titres in the endophallus of sexually mature drones collected from drone congregation areas (DCAs). Furthermore, the endophallus DWV titres of drones collected at their maternal hives were no different from drones collected at nearby DCAs, suggesting that high-titre DWV infection of the endophallus does not hinder the ability of drones to reach the mating area. The results are discussed within the context of the dispersal of DWV between colonies and the definition of DWV virulence with respect to the transmission route and the types of tissues infected.

The identification of potential alternative biomarkers of nitrofurazone abuse in animal derived food products

Semicarbazide (SEM) was considered to be a characteristic protein-bound side-chain metabolite of the banned veterinary drug nitrofurazone and used as a marker of nitrofurazone abuse. It was recently discovered that SEM can arise in food from sources other than nitrofurazone. This uncertainty over the source of SEM may be overcome if alternative markers specific to tissue-bound nitrofurazone residues can be determined. The structure of nitrofurazone metabolites in vivo and particular proteins to which they are bound are not known. These proteins with altered structure due to the presence of the drug metabolites can be considered as potential alternative biomarkers of nitrofurazone abuse. The proteins implicated in the in vivo binding of nitrofurazone were separated and identified. A crude mixture of proteins extracted from the liver of a rat treated with the drug was separated using a series of different techniques such as preparative isoelectric focusing and size exclusion HPLC. Multiple fractions were assayed by LC-MS/MS to detect the presence of SEM. The proteins containing SEM residues were identified by peptide mass mapping using trypsin digestion and MALDI-TOF. The first protein identified as containing high concentration of SEM was albumin. It was also shown that low molecular weight species within a protein mixture whose main constituent was glutathione S-transferase contained a high concentration of SEM. The chemical composition of these components is under investigation. Preliminary data suggest the SEM forms part of a nitrofurazone metabolite conjugated to glutathione. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.