Half Sisters Research Articles

Représentation du refoulement de l’inceste : l’(anti)Œdipe dans l’œuvre d’Agota Kristof

Abstract Several haunting themes inhabit the border writing of Agota Kristof including incest between brother and (half)sister and schizoid twinhood. Whereas fusion and duplication treats her in-between position between East and West as well as between a younger brother whom the mother considered as her favourite and an elder brother whom she herself passionately loved, the issue of a deuleuzian decontextualization and the representation of the suppression of incest motivating her writing range from a rejection to an approach of the Oedipus complex. The urge to write has finally faded away leaving a last uncompleted and unpublished novel, about which she speaks in her interviews and whose destiny could be related to a painful focalisation on a personal myth linked to a friend and surrogate father. Kristof died in 2011. She was 75 years old.

Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy

Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy

Robert S. Levine, Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary NationalismDislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism. Robert S. Levine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Pp. x+322.

<i>Robert S. Levine</i>, Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism<i>Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism</i>. Robert S. Levine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Pp. x+322.

Risk of breast cancer in families of multiple affected women and men

Family history of first and second-degree relatives is known to increase the risk for breast cancer. Less data are available on the risks between defined multiple affected close and distant relatives for which the reliability of data may be an issue. Data on affected males are sparse. These questions and the probable genetic models were addressed in this study by means of a nationwide Swedish Family-Cancer Database. We estimated the effect of family history of breast cancer by Poisson regression for women of at least 30 years of age after adjusting for age, period, region, socioeconomic status, number of children, and age at first birth. The results of the study showed that relative risk (RR) for breast cancer was associated with a first degree as well as second-degree family history. Having at least two female affected first-degree relatives increased the RR at least to 2.8, favoring an additive interaction. The risk was increased around ten times in women with both parents affected. When either a father or a mother was affected, the RRs were nearly identical (RR = 1.73 and 1.74, respectively). The RR for a woman increased more when a brother was affected (RR = 2.48) compared to when a sister was affected (RR = 1.87). Having an affected grandmother showed lower familial excess risks than having an affected half sister (RR = 1.27, and 1.26; and RR = 1.39, and 1.50; respectively, for maternal and paternal relatives). We concluded that when both parents were diagnosed with breast cancer, the risk for the daughter was increased tenfold. Having an affected brother showed a somewhat higher risk than having an affected sister. The data suggest that male breast cancer has a higher genetic basis than female breast cancer, which invites further search of the underlying mechanisms.

Mutation screening of the CDKL5 gene in cryptogenic infantile intractable epilepsy and review of clinical sensitivity

Purposes To perform CDKL5 mutation screening in Thai children with cryptogenic infantile intractable epilepsy and to determine the clinical sensitivity of CDKL5 screening when different inclusion criteria were applied. Methods Children with cryptogenic infantile intractable epilepsy were screened for CDKL5 mutation using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification and DNA sequencing. The clinical sensitivity was reviewed by combining the results of studies using similar inclusion screening criteria. Results Thirty children (19 girls and 11 boys) with a median seizure onset of 7 months were screened. Almost a half had infantile spasms and one fifth had stereotypic hand movements. A novel c.2854C>T (p.R952X) was identified in an ambulatory girl who had severe mental retardation, multiple types of seizures without Rett-like features. Her mother had a mild intellectual disability, yet her grandmother and half sister were normal despite having the same genetic alteration (random X-inactivation patterns). The pathogenicity of p.R952X identified here was uncertain since healthy relatives and 6 female controls also harbor this alteration. The clinical sensitivity of CDKL5 mutation screening among females with Rett-like features and negative MECP2 screening was 7.8% while the clinical sensitivity among females having cryptogenic intractable seizures with an onset before the ages of 12, 6 and 3 months were 4.7, 11.6 and 14.3%, respectively.

Recurrent partial rhombencephalosynapsis and holoprosencephaly in siblings with a mutation of ZIC2

Rhombencephalosynapsis (RES) is a rare congenital brain malformation typically identified by magnetic resonance imaging and characterized by fusion of the cerebellar hemispheres and dentate nuclei and vermian agenesis or hypogenesis. Although RES is frequently found in conjunction with other brain malformations and/or congenital anomalies, no specific molecular etiology has been discovered to date and no animal models exist. We identified two half sisters with alobar or semi-lobar holoprosencephaly (HPE) and partial RES, suggesting that genes linked to HPE may also contribute to RES. A deletion of seven base pairs in exon one of the ZIC2 gene (c.392_98del7) was identified in each of the two half sisters with HPE and partial RES. To identify genetic causes of RES and to assess whether genes identified in HPE have a role in RES, we tested 11 additional individuals with RES by high-resolution chromosome analysis, chromosomal microarray analysis, and sequencing of four HPE genes. No mutations in ZIC2 or in other genes that cause HPE were identified, suggesting that mutation of ZIC2 is a rare cause of, or contributor to, RES associated with HPE. In addition, an individual with a complex rearrangement of chromosome 22q13.3 and RES was identified, suggesting the presence of a dosage-sensitive gene that may contribute to RES in this region.

Frederick Soddy—Pioneer in Radioactivity

rederick Soddy, a British chemist, won the 1921 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his contributions to the knowl-edge of the chemistry of radioactive substances and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes. In 1913, he was the first to announce the concept that atoms can be identical chemically and yet have different atomic weights. These related atoms are called isotopes, a word coined by Soddy, meaning same or equal place (Greek, isos topos). Soddy, the youngest of 7 children of a London mer-chant, was born on September 2, 1877, in Eastbourne, Sus-sex, in southern England (about 60 miles south of London). Soddy’s mother died when he was 2 years old, and he was raised by a half sister. He attended the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, a seaport town in western Wales, for 1 year (1893-1894) before entering Merton College, Oxford University, in 1895, where he majored in chemistry; Wil-liam Ramsay (1852-1916) was one of his teachers. After re-ceiving his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1898, Soddy conducted independent research at Oxford University for 2 years (1898-1900). In 1900, Soddy went to Canada to pursue postgraduate work at McGill University, Montreal, with Ernest Ruther-ford (1871-1937). Soddy remained in Canada until 1902, during which time he and Rutherford announced a general theory of radioactive disintegration. From 1903 to 1904, Soddy worked with his former teacher Ramsay, now at the University College in London. At the University Col-lege, Soddy identified helium as a product of the decay of radium. In 1904, he became a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, a position he held until 1914. In 1910, Soddy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1914, Soddy accepted the position of professor of physical chemistry at the University of Aberdeen (Scot-land), where he remained until 1919, when he became professor of inorganic and physical chemistry at Oxford University. In 1920 while at Oxford, Soddy predicted that, because the rates of radioactive decay were known, iso-topes could be used to determine the geologic age of rocks and fossils. This prediction was later fulfilled, leading to the development of modern radioactive dating techniques, which were devised by American physicist Willard Libby (1908-1980) in the 1940s, for which he won the 1960 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Soddy wrote extensively in the field of his expertise; 2 of his best known books are Matter and Energy (1912) and The Story of Atomic Energy (1949). After his wife died in 1936, Soddy retired from Oxford University at the age of 59 years. After his time in Glasgow, Soddy withdrew from active research in chemistry and radioactivity and devoted his time to economic, social, and political theory and wrote several books on these subjects. He became a controversial figure and an outspoken critic on social issues, blaming scientists for their disregard of the social consequences of their work, including his own work on radioactivity. Soddy received many honors and awards besides the Nobel Prize. On September 22, 1956, at the age of 79 years, he died in Brighton, Sussex. He was honored on a stamp (Scott No. 1389) issued by Sweden in 1981. The stamp is one in a set of 3 stamps honoring 1921 Nobel Prize win-ners. The others honored were Albert Einstein (1979-1955) in physics and Anatole France (1844-1924) in literature.

Concordance for Curve Type in Familial Idiopathic Scoliosis

Prospective comparative study on 100 patients with positive family history for idiopathic scoliosis. To evaluate the concordance rate for curve pattern and side in family members with idiopathic scoliosis. The pathogenesis of idiopathic scoliosis has been the subject of extensive research. It is termed multifactorial with a genetic component. Similar curve shape has been reported in twins with idiopathic scoliosis. We included prospectively 100 patients with idiopathic scoliosis when a relative of them was also affected with idiopathic scoliosis, and spine radiographs were available for both. Concordance for curve pattern by Lenke classification and side between family members was analyzed. Familial concordance rate for curve pattern and side was 66% (95% confidence interval, 57-75), whereas the expected random concordance rate was 26% (95% confidence interval, 17-34). The affected relative was in 27 cases a sibling, in 32 cases a parent, in 1 case an uncle, in 2 cases a cousin, in 2 cases a half sister, in 2 cases a grandmother. Concordance rate was 65% (27/42) in siblings' pairs and 67% (32/48) in parents/child's pairs. We report a high concordance rate for curve pattern and side between relatives with idiopathic scoliosis. Curve shape is likely to be genetically determined in familial scoliosis. It seems important that curve type is documented and considered in future genetic studies.

Paternity testing involving human remains identification and putative half sister: Usefulness of an X-hexaplex STR markers

Paternity testing is being increasingly requested with the aim of challenging presumptive fatherhood. The ability to establish the biological father or mother is usually based on the genotyping of autosomal short tandem repeats (STR). However, in the last few years the use of X chromosomal STR (chr-XSTRs) markers gained strong interest in paternity involving females and specially in kinship analysis where the alleged father is absent since true daughters share the single X-chromosome from their biological father. In this work, we present an approach that combines data from fifteen autosomal and six chr-X STRs in order to know the DNA profiles of presumed relatives by genotyping human remains and/or investigate female as putative half sister or unrelated. As a result, the LR over all available loci for two cases were 1,432,331,424 and 9,357 corresponding to probabilities of 99.9999999% and 99.989%, respectively. The LR values associated to the high probabilities confirm the usefulness of the X-hexaplex STR markers in resolving relationships even thought genotyping human remains.

A X-chromosome STR hexaplex as a powerful tool in deficiency paternity cases

The X-chromosome short tandem repeat (STR) markers have been described as very adequate tools for solving deficiency paternity cases and kinship tests when women are involved. In the absence of the alleged father, presumed paternal relationship can be more efficiently investigated by using a set of six to ten X-STR markers compared to fifteen autosomal STR. For this study, we compared the usefulness of a X-STR hexaplex developed in our laboratory (DXS7133, DXS7424, DXS8378, DXS6807, DXS7423 and DXS8377) and the commercial kit Identifiler in solving deficiency paternities. We have worked on distinct groups of caseworks involving daughters, their mothers and presumed paternal grandmothers or putative half sisters and their respective mothers. The PCR products were separated by capillary electrophoresis and detected in an ABI Prism 3100. In the majority of the caseworks (>90%), the likelihood ratio (LR) obtained by using the X-STR hexaplex was higher than the LR value observed when the Identifiler kit was used for genotyping. The combination of the two STR typing systems was able to solve all the cases.

Parental SCN1A mutation mosaicism in familial Dravet syndrome

Different SCN1A mutations are known to cause a variety of phenotypes, such as generalized epilepsy with febrile seizures plus (GEFS+), Dravet syndrome and familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM). In Dravet syndrome, most mutations are de novo and familial cases are rare. In this study, Dravet syndrome is observed in two maternal half sisters. They have healthy fathers and their common mother has never experienced seizures, but has a lifelong history of migraine. Direct sequencing of DNA extracted from blood revealed a heterozygous SCN1A nonsense mutation c.3985C>T in the sisters, but not in the mother. The mutation induces a premature stop codon and probably leads to a non-functional protein. Further examination of the mother's DNA showed that she has a mosaicism of the mutation. This report of parental SCN1A nonsense mutation mosaicism in familial Dravet syndrome suggests that mosaicism might be more common than previously suspected and emphasizes the importance of taking mosaicism into account in genetic counselling of Dravet syndrome and SCN1A mutations. Furthermore, whether the migraine of the mother could be influenced by her SCN1A mutation mosaicism is not known, but increased awareness of migraine in future studies of SCN1A related epilepsies could clarify this intriguing link between migraine and epilepsy.

Detecção de QTL em dados de famílias estruturadas como as de um núcleo MOET por meio do método da regressão

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a eficiência do método de regressão em detectar QTL com base na utilização de dados da estrutura de família (irmãos completos e meios-irmãos), como aqueles gerados em um núcleo MOET. Foram simulados dados fenotípicos e genotípicos em uma estrutura de núcleo MOET fechado de seleção. Três arquivos foram analisados, contendo: a) informações conjuntas de irmãos completos e meios-irmãos; b) apenas informações de irmãos completos e c) apenas informações de meios-irmãos. Verificou-se que o método da regressão, para dados discretos ou contínuos, foi capaz de detectar associações entre marcador e QTL em níveis bastante expressivos de significância (P&lt;0.001 e P&lt;0,0001), quando se utilizou o arquivo que continha informações conjuntas de irmãos completos e meios-irmãos. Os resultados indicaram a possibilidade de utilização dessa metodologia para estudos de detecção/validação de QTL em rebanhos ou núcleos de seleção que utilizam MOET.

Intimate Geography: The Body, Race, and Space in Larsen's &lt;i&gt;Quicksand&lt;/i&gt;

Intimate Geography:The Body, Race, and Space in Larsen's Quicksand Laura E. Tanner The field of cultural geography offers one critical lens for considering the interplay of race and space in representational as well as historical terms. Contemporary cultural geography's expanded focus on the way the body is constructed by and in space has allowed cultural geographers to consider identity in the context of race, gender, and disability as well as location. In recent years, however, some cultural geographers, echoing the critiques of scholars in literary critical, philosophical, and cultural studies disciplines, have noted that the field's emphasis on locating the body as a discursive construct—even as it serves the important function of denaturalizing racial and gender hierarchies—marginalizes the body's status as a material, sensory, and emotional entity. In response, cultural geographers have begun to call for analysis not only of the body's function as a discursive site but of the way in which, in David Theo Goldberg's terms, "Race is embodied, is sourced and sensed through the interactive play and performance of space(s) and bodies" (220). Bringing the insights of cultural geography to bear on the case of Nella Larsen's life and art, however, highlights the difficulty of any attempt to supplement theoretical analysis of the constructedness of racialized subjectivity with attention to what Claire Alexander and Caroline Knowles describe in Making Race Matter as "the complex and often contradictory ways in which identities are actually lived out at the level of embodied experience" (10). In Larsen's case, the glaring absence of firsthand accounts of the author's life exaggerates the universal representational challenge of rendering the textured immediacy of lived experience through language. The title of George Hutchinson's recent biography, In Search of Nella Larsen, emphasizes the difficulty of accessing and recreating the experiences of an "invisible" (1) and "mysterious" (11) biographical subject, a woman whom Hutchinson defines early in his study in terms of both corporeal and spatial lack. "Larsen herself," Hutchinson observes, "felt like a shadow through much of her life. She did not long inhabit the sort of place in which she could [End Page 179] feel at home" (1). Born in one of Chicago's worst neighborhoods, the child of a white Danish immigrant mother and a black Danish West Indian father who quickly disappeared from her life, Larsen spent most of her childhood as a black girl in an otherwise white family. Her presence in that family was marked both in corporeal terms—Nella's dark skin clearly announced her racial difference from her white mother, stepfather, and half sister—and in concrete spatial terms, as Nella's blackness dictated not only her "place" in the urban geography of turn-of-the-century Chicago but her family's place of residence as well. Tensions of space and embodiment not only shaped Larsen's most intimate experiences of subjectivity, family, and home, but emerge in her fictional texts as urgent representational concerns. By approaching Larsen's first novel, Quicksand, through an experiential paradigm which locates questions of space and race in the framework of the lived body, I will trace the way that the novel explores the human consequences of its protagonist's "theoretical" approach to her own racialized subjectivity. Insofar as existing criticism of Quicksand situates Helga's body primarily in the realm of cultural constructedness, I will argue, critics of the novel often fail to acknowledge the text's exposure of tensions between the textualized body and its experiential counterpart. Readers of Quicksand have thus puzzled over an apparently inexplicable conclusion in which Helga, its beautiful and sophisticated protagonist, marries a preacher, moves to the deep South, and collapses into an apparently endless cycle of difficult pregnancies and exhausting, even life-threatening childbirths. Why, they have asked, does a cosmopolitan novel that seems to emphasize the constructedness of race, gender, and identity end by retreating to the rural South and eschewing performativity to situate its protagonist in what Jeffrey Gray describes as "the trap of the body" (266)? Introducing experiential as well as biological and constructivist definitions of the body to criticism of the novel suggests that Helga is locked...

The Karimojong from Uganda: Genetic characterization using an X-STR decaplex system

The Karimojong, an African group from the Karamoja region of Northeast Uganda, were genetically analysed using a decaplex system for X chromosome short tandem repeats (X-STRs). A total of 255 individuals (117 males and 138 females) were genotyped for the following loci: DXS8378, DXS9898, DXS7133, GATA31E08, GATA172D05, DXS7423, DXS6809, DXS7132, DXS9902 and DXS6789. Allele frequencies and parameters for forensic evaluation were calculated for each STR. No association was found between any pairs of loci studied. DXS6789 was the most polymorphic marker in this sample, followed by DXS6809, with gene diversities of 84.79% and 83.94%, respectively. The less discriminating locus observed was DXS7133, with a gene diversity of 39.79%. High overall values of power of discrimination were obtained for female (1 in 1.8 × 10 10) and male samples (1 in 1.6 × 10 6), as well as high power of exclusion in father/mother/daughter trios (99.9997%), in father daughter duos (99.9862%) and in half sisters with same father (99.0331%). These results confirm the potential of this 10-plex in parentage testing and in human identification.

The effect of some factors on the milk main components.

The paper emphasizes the results of the research performed on 317 Baltata româneasca cows, from six private exploitations located in the central part of the country. The main qualitative and quantitative traits of the milk production, season and familial structures (half sisters by father) effect were recorded in dynamics by four lactations on the above mentioned effective. The research concerning the evolution of some traits of the quantitative and qualitative milk production in dynamics by lactation, reveals many aspects, which in all cases equally reflects both the genetic potential of the biological material that can be expressed and putting into practice of the rearing and exploitation technologies. Concerning the quantitative milk production, by normal and total lactation an almost plane curve is described (table 1, figure 1). This aspect was also reported for the collecting areas and farms (tables 2 and 3). Concerning the season effect, it is observed function of the adopted technology of exploitation that for effectives is significantly observed only in summer (table 4). In last part of the paper, the main traits of the milk production in 16 familial structures of primiparous half sisters by father, classified function of the quantity of fat and protein accumulation by normal lactation are emphasized (table 5.1- 5.2.). The obtained results are concluding.

Charles Chesnutt’s Dilemma: Professional Ethics, Social Justice, and Domestic Feminism in The Marrow of Tradition

Only the Black Woman can say 'when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.' --Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South Over the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in Charles Chesnutt's work, reclaiming his multifaceted narratives and stunning stylistic strategies as he strove to give voice to black aspirations in an increasingly segregated America. Unlike his earlier dialect tales, which were enthusiastically reviewed in the white press, The Marrow of Tradition, his 1901 novel known to be a fictional recreation of the Wilmington, North Carolina race riot of 1898 in which at least nineteen black men and women were murdered, received only a lukewarm response at its publication. (1) William Dean Howells called it a bitter, bitter book and others commented on its lack of artistry (Pickens 49, 82). Recent criticism, however, has reclaimed and reevaluated the novel, giving particular attention to the stylistic inventiveness of one of its several plots, and exploring the possible meanings of his text for the white audience we know was his primary target (Chesnutt 50). Chesnutt's complex narrative invites such a focus. Its private, plot, introduced and developed in the early chapters, traces the legacy of slavery through a host of minor characters: Colonel and Tom Delamere, Sandy (Delamere's lifelong servant), Olivia Carteret and her Aunt Polly, and Josh Green (a sharecropper's son who had promised his mother he would kill the man who lynched his father), reaching its climax when Sandy is accused of murdering Aunt Polly. With the rescue of the innocent Sandy by the Colonel and the banishment of Delamere's son, who is exposed as the true murderer, this plot line seems resolved. However, two other parallel narratives remain unfinished as Tom slinks off the page. In the novel's concluding chapters, the and worlds of postbellum Wellington as well as their respective racial and gender relations emerge more clearly. The public and apparently major plot involves the white leaders of Wellington (Major Carteret, General Belmont, and McBane, a slave driver turned entrepreneur), as they try to reestablish their political supremacy in a town threatened by the success of the Fusion party with the collapse of Reconstruction and the growing ascendancy of Jim Crow. Their manipulations end in an outbreak of white violence against the black population. Paralleling both the and plots is the novel's professional narrative which traces the return to Wellington of black physician Dr. Miller from his medical studies with his mixed-race wife Janet (half sister to Carteret's wife Olivia) and their son to establish a medical practice and build a black hospital. It is Miller's standing and Janet's familial connections that allow them to circulate, though not penetrate, through the white community and provide a glimpse into the instability of the racial and social order that governs the town. After the freeing of Sandy and the subsequent outbreak of white violence, the and plot lines converge. When no white doctor is available to treat Major and Olivia Carteret's sickly child, Dodie, they solicit help from Dr. Miller. Only then do the Carterets learn that the white mob, instigated by Carteret, has killed the Millers' only son. Balanced against the novel's opening chapters, these concluding chapters also occur in a private, domestic setting: the Miller home, where Janet stands beside the body of her murdered son. Standard critical readings of The Marrow of Tradition focus on the Delamere-Sandy sentimental narrative and the public, realistic plot that overtly condemns the white community's assault on the black. But they steer clear of the professional plot and the concluding two chapters by claiming that they are ambiguous; after all, at the end of the novel, we do not know if Dr. …

Kin-biased social behaviour in wild adult female white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus

*Department of Anthropology and Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture,University of California, Los AngelesyMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyzDepartment of Psychology, Indiana University(Received 16 October 2007; initial acceptance 30 October 2007;final acceptance 4 January 2008; published online 27 May 2008; MS. number: A10889R)Studies of kin bias in the distribution of social behaviour in group-living matrifocal species generallyunderline the importance of bonds among female kin. However, few studies examine either how kinbias may be affected by variation in the availability of kin or the relevance of paternal kin. In this study,we used genetic and behavioural data to analyse correlates of coalition formation, proximity, groomingand dominance relations among female white-faced capuchins over a 10-year period during which thenumber of adult females in the group varied from 6 to 10. Females sided with the most closely relatedof two opponents when joining coalitions. Both dominance rank and kinship influenced proximity andgrooming patterns. In particular, when group size was small, mean relatedness high and interdyadic var-iation in relatedness low, rank distance was a better predictor of proximity and grooming than was kinshipdistance. However, when group size was large, mean relatedness lower and interdyadic variation in relat-edness higher, females significantly biased their grooming and spatial proximity towards kin. Dominancerank was not so tightly associated with relatedness as in provisioned female-bonded cercopithecines;females did not follow the ‘youngest sister ascendancy rule’. Full sisters, maternal half sisters andmotheredaughter dyads associated at statistically indistinguishable rates, and all associated significantlymore often than paternal half sisters. Paternal half sisters did not associate more often than distantlyrelated femaleefemale dyads (r < 0.125). These and similar results call into question the general impor-tance of paternal kin ties in wild primates.

Palomar and Beyond: An Interview with Gilbert Hernandez

Perhaps no one has done more to energize the field of alternative comics--graphic narrative and cartoons that do not follow a superhero or traditional genre formula--than Gilbert Hernandez. In 1981 he, along with his brothers Jaime and Mario, self-published a highly eclectic and off-beat comic book, Love and Rockets, a work that quickly caught the attention of the Seattle-based publisher of comic art, Fantagraphics Books. A year later, the publisher began putting out what was to be the first volume of Love and Rockets in a magazine-sized format, a series that ran until 1996, when Los Bros Hernandez--as the brothers had become known--decided to end the title and pursue their own individual projects. Over its fourteen-year run, Love and Rockets exemplified what alternative comics, and comic books in general, could actually achieve. Their work betrayed an unlikely mix of influences--including the 1970s punk rock movement, South American magic realism, Hollywood filmmaking, and their own southern Californian Chicano experiences--making Beto (as Gilbert Hernandez is known) and Jaime Hernandez heirs to the underground comix scene made famous, and notorious, by such figures as Robert Crumb, Bill Griffith, Gilbert Shelton, and Jack Jackson. The brothers revived the Love and Rockets title in 2001, this time in standard comic book-sized issues, and the series continues to this day. From its self-published debut, Love and Rockets has comprised a variety of ongoing narrative arcs as well as one-shot strips. One of the most significant of these is Gilbert Hernandez's novelistic series of tales that revolve around a mythic Latin American town, Palomar. These narratives have been collected in the monumental Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (2003), a work that has garnered more than its share of critical praise and a small but growing body of scholarly attention. Hernandez has spent the better part of his career fleshing out the personal histories that populate Palomar, most notably those of Chelo, the town's aggressive female sheriff; Pipo, a striking and confident entrepreneur who creates her own line of clothing and eventually her own media empire; and Heralcio, a school teacher with a flair for philosophy and a passion for Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Franz Kafka. But perhaps Palomar's most prominent resident is Luba, a sexually promiscuous and hard-edged member of the community who constantly wields a hammer (as a symbol of her power) and who eventually becomes the town's mayor. Her stories make up the bulk of Hernandez's work to date, and he has just recently concluded her and her family's adventures after moving to the United States. The world of Luba and her half sisters, Fritz and Petra (which also includes Petra's daughter Venus, and Luba's own daughters, including Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, and Casimira) functions as an empowering matriarchy that has been lauded by a variety of critics as revolutionary in the field of comics. Through these female figures, Hernandez gives voice not only to ethnic American concerns, but to women's issues, gender politics, and even gay rights, topics that rarely come to the fore in American graphic narrative. In fall 2006 I talked with Gilbert Hernandez about his work as well as about issues of race and ethnicity within the field of comics. What follows is the result of a phone conversation, along with a series of email-based correspondences in early 2007, in which we discussed his Palomar stories, the significance of Love and Rockets, the influence of popular culture on his writing, and the social function of graphic artists who take on the issues of ethnicity, class, and gender in their work. Derek Parker Royal: You and your brothers were the first writers to give a real voice to the Hispanic community in comics. What do you think, in your view, is the current state of ethnic or racial representation within this medium? Gilbert Hernandez: I see more of it in the mainstream comics. …

Preservation and loss of the honey bee (Apis) egg-marking signal across evolutionary time

Honey bee workers are able to distinguish queen-laid eggs from worker-laid eggs, and remove (‘police’) worker-laid eggs. The cue that police workers use is as yet unidentified but is likely to be a chemical signal. This signal benefits queens for it ensures their reproductive monopoly. It also benefits collective workers because it allows them to raise more closely related queen-laid males than the less-related sons of half sisters. Because both parties benefit from the egg-marking signal, it should be stable over evolutionary time. We show that Apis mellifera workers can distinguish queen-laid from worker-laid eggs of the dwarf honey bee A. florea, a phylogenetically distant species that diverged from the A. mellifera lineage 6–10 mya. However, A. mellifera workers are unable to distinguish worker-laid eggs of A. cerana, a much more recent divergence (2–3 mya). The apparent change in the egg-marking signal used by A. cerana may be associated with the high rates of ovary activation in this species.

The Mahler Family Letters (review)

Mahler Family Letters. Edited and translated by Stephen McClatchie. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. [xiii, 418 p. ISBN 0-195-14065-6. $65.00] Illustrations, bibliographic references, index. Stephen McClatchie's Mahler Family letters examines hundreds of pieces of correspondence between Mahler and his immediate family. Compared to other sources that include letters between Mahler and Richard Strauss or Alma Schindler, this book translates 568 letters from German into English. While a number of these documents are from various sources, most of these items are housed in the Mahler-Rose Collection at the University of Western Ontario, and until now many of the letters were difficult to access, especially in English. introduction provides the details of Mahler's family tree and traces how the letters ended up in Canada. McClatchie describes how the Mahler-Rose Collection is organized and some challenges in determining dates on various letters. Although Mahler corresponded with his parents and four younger siblings, Alois, Justine, Otto, and Emma, the majority of the letters focus on the relationship Mahler had with his younger sister Justine. When Justine married violinist Arnold Rose, she continued to save the letters. After her daughter Maria Rose inherited them, she finally donated the collection to the University of Western Ontario in 1983. letters themselves span from Mahler's teenage years (1876) to his final year in America (1911), with the majority of letters from Hamburg (1891-97). Having a general knowledge of Mahler's career as a conductor will provide readers a greater insight into his offstage life, thus creating a more complete understanding of the composer. In many of these letters Mahler reports on his rehearsals, working conditions, and his impressions of the press. Readers will gain a greater understanding of the responsibilities of a European conductor during the late nineteenth century. value of these letters is increased by McClatchie's attention to detail in the footnotes along with an index that documents events and individuals such as Alma's half sister Margarethe Legler-Schindler and conductor Josef Stransky, who became director of the New York Philharmonic after Mahler's death. McClatchie organizes the book into an introduction followed by five chapters based on Mahler's career. chapters include: 1) Early Years (Vienna, Kassel, Prague, Leipzig); 2) Budapest (September 1888-1891); 3) Hamburg (March 1891-April 1897); 4) Vienna (April 1897-November 1907); and 5) Last Years (New York, Toblach, Vienna). For readers less familiar with Mahler's career each chapter begins with a chronology of relevant events and accomplishments. McClatchie then presents the letters from the period in chronological order and places letters without documented dates at the end of the chapter. Compared with other Mahler resources these translations create a true picture of Mahler's life. In several hundred letters to his sister Justine, Mahler speaks frankly about his challenges, family dynamics, health, and welfare. Although sometimes noted as controlling, Mahler supported his siblings as his parents' health deteriorated. After the death of his parents, Mahler assumed a more parental role and Justine took on a more maternal role. Throughout the years Mahler shared his earning with his family and contributed toward the living expenses and the education of his siblings. As with many families, rivalry also surfaced in the letters as Mahler reminded Justine to make sure that his younger brother Otto followed through in his studies. His frustration with Otto remained a constant subject in the letters. Mahler's concern for others quickly appears in the chapter The Early Years. Mahler routinely reports his progress to the family and always inquires about their well being and his desire to visit them. tone of the letters to Justine reveals her to be a confidant and best friend, who is only replaced with his wife Alma in the final chapters. …