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The potential for an intervention by epigenetics into cultural theory and literary analysis has been a topic of recent inquiry from several directions. However, these approaches sometimes too easily align epigenetics with the Lamarckian 'inheritance of acquired characteristics', which presumes the direct influence of environment on the existence of particular traits across generations. This emphasis on environment in turn looks back to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century racial science that attributed degrees of civilisation or savagery to the combined influence of heredity and climate. By instead tracing epigenetics in the older concept of 'epigenesis' from Romantic biology, we can identify the interpretive role of the organism itself in the expression of inherited traits and in the mediation of environmental stimuli. An epigenetic reading of Jane Eyre identifies how Brontë uses the creative agency of the developing body to challenge the 'genetic' and environmental coordinates of racial anthropology. In so doing, she links imperial violence to domestic tyranny and protests against the injustice of both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bruno Latour has identified the 'great novel' as a site for revealing the complex nature of agency in the Anthropocene. As it traces cause and effect through numerous, interrelated events, the 'great novel' reveals a vast network of actors-entities, human and non-human-that are neither pure subjects nor pure objects. I examine firstly how novels by Charles Dickens and George Eliot depict the agency of non-human things within a network of actors. I then discuss how a self-proclaimed 'minor' novel, Samuel Butler's Erewhon (1872), challenges us to think about the colonial implications of the distributed, networked agency represented in 'great' Victorian fiction. Erewhon shows how the imbrication of the human and the (in particular) non-human machinate underpins the entrepreneurial success of the colonial adventurer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, the wild, wicked child who matures into a man of science appears to "recapitulate" the story of the human rise to preeminence in the animal kingdom. Yet Kingsley uses evolutionary thought precisely to attack the notion of biological/ social progress and the suffering it causes. He does so by identifying the impact of the social and physical environment on individual development and inviting us to consider how the physical interaction between developing mind and developing world affects broader patterns of human behavior. Playfully evoking the evolutionary dynamics involving organism, culture, and species-level traits, Kingsley points to a form of extragenetic inheritance prompted by open-ended stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents literary criticism of the book "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens. It references writings by authors Joseph Carroll and Stephen Pinker on the role of biological evolution in art, literature, and philosophy. According to the author, the novel's depiction of altered states of consciousness anticipated later investigations into little-understood aspects of the human mind. It is also suggested that the character Esther may have suffered from epilepsy.

An essay is presented on George Eliot's "Silas Marner," which represents characters with griefs and discontents. It is said that the story depicts the suspension of the inner life of its characters with divine or demonic influence. It is cited that "Silas Marner" relates catalepsy with tradition and superstition.

Plasma membrane Ca2+ATPases (PMCAs) export Ca2+ from cells in a highly regulated manner, providing fine-tuning to the maintenance of intracellular Ca2+ concentrations. There are few studies of PMCAs in spermatozoa, which is surprising considering the importance of this enzyme in all cell types. Here we describe the primary structure and localization of the PMCA of sea urchin spermatozoa (suPMCA). The suPMCA is 1,154 amino acids and has 56% identity and 76% similarity to all 4 human PMCA isoforms. The suPMCA shares the features of a typical PMCA, including domains for calmodulin binding, ATP binding, ATPase phosphorylation, and 10 putative transmembrane segments with two large cytoplasmic loops. Southern blots show that suPMCA is a single copy gene. Treatment of live sea urchin sperm with the PMCA inhibitor, 5-(-6)-carboxyeosin, results in elevations of intracellular Ca2+ and loss of flagellar motility. Immunoblotting and immunoflorescence show that suPMCA is concentrated in the sperm head plasma membrane. In previous work, we showed that a plasma membrane K+ dependent Na+/Ca2+ exchanger (suNCKX), which also keeps Ca2+ low in these cells, is concentrated in the sperm flagellum. Thus, the sperm head and flagellum localize different gene products, both functioning to keep intracellular Ca2+ low, while the sperm swims in seawater containing 10 mM Ca2+. J. Cell. Physiol. 207: 413–419, 2006. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A sea urchin sperm flagellar hyperpolarization-activated, cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channel is known (SpHCN1) that is modulated by cAMP. Here, we describe a second flagellar HCN channel (SpHCN2) cloned from the same sea urchin species. SpHCN2 is 638 amino acids compared to 767 for SpHCN1. SpHCN2 has all the domains of an HCN channel, including six transmembrane segments (S1–S6), the ion pore, and the cyclic nucleotide-binding domain. The two full-length proteins are 33% identical and 51% similar. The six transmembrane segments vary from 46–79% identity. S4, which is the voltage sensor, is 79% identical between the two proteins. The ion selectivity filter sequence is GYG in the ion pore of SpHCN1 and GFG in SpHCN2. By sequence, SpHCN2 is 73.5kDa, but it migrates on SDS–PAGE at 64kDa. Western immunoblots show localization to flagella, which is confirmed by immunofluorescence. A neighbor-joining tree shows that SpHCN2 is basal to all known HCN channels. SpHCN2 might be the simplest pacemaker channel yet discovered. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Focuses on the cultural transformation of the English buccaneers from pirates to ethnographic observers, as illustrated by the writings of William Dampier. Change in the cultural and political status of the buccaneers in 17th century; Implications of the domestication of the buccaneers.