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The extensive typological allusions in Blake’s “Infant Sorrow” (Songs of Experience) associate swaddling with the establishment of traditional moral-materialist culture based on sacrifice. ...

Urban community gardens have increased in prevalence as a means to generate fresh fruits and vegetables, including in areas lacking access to healthy food options. However, urban soils may have high levels of toxic heavy metals, including lead and cadmium and the metalloid arsenic, which can lead to severe health risks. In this study, fruit and vegetable samples grown at an urban community garden in southeastern San Diego, the Ocean View Growing Grounds, were sampled repeatedly over a four‐year time period in order to measure potential contamination of toxic heavy metals and metalloids and to develop solutions for this problem. Metal nutrient, heavy metal, and metalloid concentrations were monitored in the leaf and fruit tissues of fruit trees over the sampling period. Several of the fruit trees showed uptake of lead in the leaf samples, with Black Mission fig measuring 0.843–1.531 mg/kg dry weight and Mexican Lime measuring 1.103–1.522 mg/kg dry weight over the sampling period. Vegetables that were grown directly in the ground at this community garden and surrounding areas showed arsenic, 0.80 + 0.073 mg/kg dry weight for Swiss chard, and lead, 0.84 ± 0.404 mg/kg dry weight for strawberries, in their edible tissues. The subsequent introduction of raised beds with uncontaminated soil is described, which eliminated any detectable heavy metal or metalloid contamination in these crops during the monitoring period. Recommendations for facilitating the monitoring of edible tissues and for reducing risk are discussed, including introduction of raised beds and collaborations with local universities and research groups.

Within the Neoproterozoic sequence of the Adelaide Fold-Thrust Belt, South Australia, two of the most severe ice ages in Earth history (Sturtian and Marinoan) are recorded in the glacigenic rocks which mark the base and top of the 4.5 km-thick Umberatana Group, the focus of the present chemostratigraphic study. Rock units from three drillholes and ten measured outcrop sections, located in the southern and central Flinders Ranges and on the Stuart Shelf, were sampled for isotopic analysis of their co-existing calcite (δ13Ccal), dolomite (δ13Cdol) and kerogen (δ13Corg). Strontium and sulphur isotopic analyses were also run on selected samples. The sample sites are in tectonic domains where regional metamorphism has been insufficient to significantly alter the isotopic composition of the kerogen. The resulting data, when integrated with the lithostratigraphy of the Umberatana Group, yield one of the most complete records of secular variation in the C-isotope signature of the late Cryogenian ocean between ∼750 and 680 Ma. Its composite δ13Ccarb curve begins with a sharp positive excursion (−3 to +1.5‰ in the dolomitic Tindelpina Shale which caps Sturtian glacial diamictites (Wilyerpa Formation). Then follows a steady climb through the shoaling upward Tapley Hill Formation reaching +4‰ in the Brighton Limestone and culminating in a plateau of 13C enrichment within the platformal carbonates of the Etina Formation (+8 to +10‰). The upper part of the temporal trend shows a decline to +6 to +7‰ in the stromatolite reef facies of the Enorama Shale; and a dramatic drop to −8 to −9.5‰, followed by a recovery to –3‰, in the youngest carbonate unit (Trezona Formation) beneath the Marinoan glacigenic Elatina Formation. The latter is capped by a thin dolostone, the Nuccaleena Formation, which records a consistent up-section decrease in δ13C (−1 to −3‰). Superimposed on this overall pattern of C-isotopic variation are second and third-order fluctuations attributable to eustatic sea-level change. Pyritic sulphur in the lower Tapley Hill Formation (δ34S=+9 to +40‰) is distinctly heavier than that in the underlying Wilyerpa Formation (+4 to +20‰). Minimum 87Sr/86Sr values obtained from the Brighton Limestone (0.7071) and Etina Formation (0.7076) are consistent with their late Cryogenian age. This Sturtian to Marinoan interglacial succession is more complete than equivalent sequences elsewhere, and thus provides a useful reference for global chemostratigraphic correlation. Notable features of its C-isotope curve are the strong post-Wilyerpa positive excursion, also seen in key sections from Svalbard and western Mongolia; the ‘Etina plateau’ of 13C enrichment which is remarkably similar to maxima in the terminal Proterozoic C-isotope records of western Mongolia, north-western Canada and Brazil; and the spectacular depletion of 13C in the lower Trezona relative to similar carbonate facies in the underlying Etina Formation and Enorama Shale. A preglacial offset in δ13Ccarb values of such proportions (∼14‰) is almost unprecedented, except perhaps for that recently documented in the upper Ombaatjie Formation beneath tillites of the Ghaub Formation, Otavi Group, Namibia. It represents a key piece of evidence in the case presented by the proponents of a Neoproterozoic ‘snowball’ Earth.

Nitrogen is the only macronutrient that is commonly available to plants in both oxidized and reduced forms, mainly nitrate and ammonium. The physiological and molecular effects of nitrate supply have been well studied, but comparatively little is known about ammonium nutrition and its differential effects on cell function and gene expression. We have used a physiologically realistic hydroponic growth system to compare the transcriptomes and redox status of the roots of ammonium- and nitrate-supplied Arabidopsis thaliana plants. While similar to 60% of nitrogen-regulated genes displayed common responses to both ammonium and nitrate, significant 'nitrate-specific' and 'ammonium-specific' gene sets were identified. Pathways involved in cytokinin response and reductant generation/distribution were specifically altered by nitrate, while a complex biotic stress response and changes in nodulin gene expression were characteristic of ammonium-supplied plants. Nitrate supply was associated with a rapid decrease in H2O2 production, potentially because of an increased export of reductant from the mitochondrial matrix. The underlying basis of the nitrate- and ammonium-specific patterns of gene expression appears to be different signals elaborated from each nitrogen source, including alterations in extracellular pH that are associated with ammonium uptake, downstream metabolites in the ammonium assimilation pathway, and the presence or absence of the nitrate ion. (Less)

Because rationalism and logocentrism have no eternal political essences, … they can be put to different political uses in different historical contexts. This is not to say that epistemological claims (or literary styles, or any other symbolic structures) are ideology-free and impervious to ideological analysis, only that the relation between the epistemological claim or other symbolic structure and the interests it serves is a contextual one that can change as the historical context changes.Oscar Kenshur, “(Avoidable) Snares and Avoidable Muddles”

La poésie de Gerard Manley Hopkins pose toujours des problèmes d’interprétation pour ses lecteurs. Non seulement la philosophie de Hopkins est liée à une pensée religieuse particulièrement austère mais de plus sa théorie du langage crée une esthétique troublante. Les mots font sens lorsqu'ils sont considérés individuellement (sens construit par des recherches étymologiques) mais aussi dans leurs relations réciproques. En effet, la dialectique entre micro et macro est un aspect central des poèmes. Cet article commence par l'explication de ce phénomène, et par l'analyse des interprétations de Hopkins qui voient dans sa poésie une illustration des théories de Ferdinand de Saussure, en accentuant la découverte de la totalité de la langue par l'analyse des paroles. Je propose qu’on révise cette tendance afin de resituer la poésie de Hopkins dans un contexte historique où on s'intéressera surtout aux liens avec les philologues du dix-neuvième siècle. En me référant aux théories de John Home Tooke et de Richard Chevenix Trench, je montre que l’esthétique et la conceptualisation du langage chez Hopkins nous donnent une vision unique des politiques qui essayent de construire une langue nationale en Angleterre en produisant The New / Oxford English Dictionary., Cooper Andrew M. « Disremembering, dismembering all now » Language as a Whole and the Truth in Part in Gerard Manley Hopkins. In: Anglophonia/Caliban, n°5, 1999. Micro / Macro La partie et le tout. pp. 93-106.