Sexual Apparatus Research Articles

Vasa, Piwi, and Pl10 Expression during Sexual Maturation and Asexual Reproduction in the Annelid Pristina longiseta.

Naidids are tiny, transparent freshwater oligochaetes, which are well known for their ability to propagate asexually. Despite the fact that sexually mature individuals and cocoons with embryos are sometimes found in nature, in long-period laboratory cultures, worms reproduce agametically only. In this paper, we showed, for the first time, the expression of Vasa, Piwi, and Pl10 homologs in mature Pristina longiseta worms with well-developed reproductive system structures and germ cells. Although the animals have been propagated asexually by paratomic fission for over 20 years in our lab, some individuals become sexualized under standard conditions for our laboratory culture and demonstrate various stages of maturation. The fully matured animals developed a complete set of sexual apparatus including spermatheca, atrium, seminal vesicles, and ovisac. They also had a clitellum and were able to form cocoons. The cues for the initiation of sexual maturation are still unknown for P. longiseta; nevertheless, our data suggest that the laboratory strain of P. longiseta maintains the ability to become fully sexually mature and to establish germline products even after a long period of agametic reproduction. On the other hand, many of the sexualized worms formed a fission zone and continued to reproduce asexually. Thus, in this species, the processes of asexual reproduction and sexual maturation do not preclude each other, and Vasa, Piwi, and Pl10 homologs are expressed in both somatic and germline tissue including the posterior growth zone, fission zone, nervous system, germline cells, and gametes.

Homosexualité, Islam et désacralisation du pouvoir royal dans Le jour du Roi d'Abdellah Taïa

Dans Le jour du Roi, Abdellah Taïa explore le thème d’une altérité assujettie à un intraduisible enfermé dans un aspect politico-symbolique : celui à la fois de s’exprimer dans la langue de l’autre et celui d’exprimer des relations homo-érotiques et homosexuelles vécues au Maroc sous le règne d’Hassan II. Or, ce discours révèle l’instabilité d’un modèle d’identification confronté à un dispositif sexuel normalisant les corps et les esprits, où la société surveille et participe à une discipline hétéro-normative de l’homosexualité en punissant toute déviation rendue publique ou visible sous le regard symbolique du roi du Maroc. Ceci semble parvenir à déstabiliser toute identification avec « l’Autre comme moi », en s’introduisant dans l’intimité même des deux jeunes protagonistes du roman et en imposant une hétéro-normativité sur un amour homo-érotique qui ne pouvait se résoudre que par l’annihilation d’une des deux parties et ainsi au meurtre de l’Autre mais de l’Autre comme moi. Ce fratricide remonte aux mythes fondateurs en Islam et renvoie particulièrement au meurtre originel qui se différencie et s’émancipe du modèle oedipien, traduisant à ce titre une conception différente de l’amour du « Même » et d’une homosexualité identitaire occidentale à prétention universaliste.

M. M. Mironov. - Warm and hot baths during menstruation. - (Weekly, 1895, No. 22).

Wanting to test Makaveev's observations on the indifferent and beneficial action of warm baths during the month, the author exposed the action of salty baths in 27 -28 menstruating women on the Slavic mineral waters and describes briefly seven such baths. Conclusions from the last ones are as follows: common salt baths at 27 -28 R. With the addition of several buckets of lye, they do not produce any bad effects, on the contrary, they even quench pain, and the amount of blood lost either does not change, or decreases. Another series of observations by the author dulal with general or zone warm baths at 31 -33 R., without the addition of salt; From five observations the author concludes: in women with a normal sexual apparatus, baths at 32 -33 R., lasting 20 minutes, do not produce any harmful effects on the course of regulation and even reduce the amount of blood lost. In the third row (21 cases), the observation of the effect of baths on menstruating, with inflammatory changes in the pelvic organs, the same result was obtained: baths do not increase blood loss, sometimes they reduce the amount of blood lost, and what is most important, they are effective.

Reproducing the qualities of cows with different methods of synchronization of sexual hunting

Increasing the intensification of herd reproduction is one of the main ways of increasing the number of beef cattle, increasing beef production, and reducing its cost. The main task in the reproduction of the herd is the annual receipt of a viable calf from each cow and heifer. One of the methods to increase reproductive functions is the use of hormonal drugs, analogues of sex hormones. Synthetic hormonal preparations in dairy cattle breeding are used to synchronize sexual hunting, ovulation and calving, to intensify the sexual functions of uterus (inducing superovulation, shorten the service period, etc.) and to treat pathologies of the ovaries, endometritis, and other disorders of the sexual apparatus of cows and heifers. The article presents the results of applying two synchronization schemes of sexual hunting in Holstein cows in an industrial dairy farm. In the first group, the Pre-synch scheme was used, in the second – «Ovsynch». The schemes differed in that the «Pre-synch» is longer and more costly, but it begins to be used from 21 days after calving. According to the results of the synchronization of sexual hunting of both groups, results were obtained on milk productivity. In the first group, baseline fat milk was produced for 305 days of lactation, 9411.0 kg of milk, in the second - 7785.0 kg. Considering all the costs of synchronizing sexual hunting in Holstein cows, profitability in the control group was 24.8%, in the experimental group - 19.2%.

Tissue preparations as an eff ective means of correction of sexual cyclicalityof infertile cows in the conditions of forest-steppe zone in Zhytomyr region

Implementation of the latest technologies of animal reproduction causes changes in the life of their body and infl uences the manifestation of sexual cyclicity. As a result, one of the main tasks of specialists of veterinary medicine is the elimination of infertility of cows and heifers and improvement of methods of regulation of their reproductive functions. In recent years, in veterinary medicine for prophylactic and therapeutic purposes individually or in combination with other agents during pregnancy, in the postpartum period for gynecological diseases, to stimulate the functions of the sexual apparatus of animals, and their farming to improve productivity eff ectively used biogenic stimulators, that are made of tissues and organs of animals and plants – tissue preparations. But remain changes of the sexual apparatus of infertile cows are not studied in their use. Therefore, the purpose of the research was to study the eff ect of tissue preparations in a complex with ihglukovit for the correction of the sexual cycle of the infertile cows in the conditions of forest-steppe in Zhytomyr region. It has been found that the using tissue preparations make from the liver and placenta and ihglukovit for cows, time successful insemination was minimal and was 47.0±5.11 days. We also observed a positive eff ect on the usefulness of the fl ow of the sexual cycle when used in complex tissue preparations from the liver and placenta, as a consequence of infertility in the cow was of 17.00±1.14 days. As all experienced animals received ihglukovit, and the period of occurrence of complete sexual cycle and the eff ectiveness of insemination of cows was diff erent, then we assume that the changes in animals are due primarily to the infl uence of tissue preparations. We believe that the using of "placental" tissue preparation make from the uterus of pregnant cows with contents was the most eff ective, because it includes biologically active substances that are similar to the sexual apparatus of a cow. Analyzing the obtained results, we recommend to apply the tissue preparation liver, placenta and ihglukovit at a dose of 20 cm3 per animal, three times with an interval of 8-10 days to correct the sexual cycle of cattle and prevention of infertility. Key words: biogenic stimulant, tissue preparation, ihglukovit, reproduction, sexual cycle, infertility, cows.

Integrative taxonomy refutes a species hypothesis: The asymmetric hybrid origin of Arsapnia arapahoe (Plecoptera, Capniidae).

Molecular tools are commonly directed at refining taxonomies and the species that constitute their fundamental units. This has been especially insightful for groups for which species hypotheses are ambiguous and have largely been based on morphological differences between certain life stages or sexes, and has added importance when taxa are a focus of conservation efforts. Here, we examine the taxonomic status of Arsapnia arapahoe, a winter stonefly in the family Capniidae that is a species of conservation concern because of its limited abundance and restricted range in northern Colorado, USA. Phylogenetic analyses of sequences of mitochondrial and nuclear genes of this and other capniid stoneflies from this region and elsewhere in western North America indicated extensive haplotype sharing, limited genetic differences, and a lack of reciprocal monophyly between A. arapahoe and the sympatric A. decepta, despite distinctive and consistent morphological differences in the sexual apparatus of males of both species. Analyses of autosomal and sex‐linked single nucleotide polymorphisms detected using genotyping by sequencing indicated that all individuals of A. arapahoe consisted of F1 hybrids between female A. decepta and males of another sympatric stonefly, Capnia gracilaria. Rather than constitute a self‐sustaining evolutionary lineage, A. arapahoe appears to represent the product of nonintrogressive hybridization in the limited area of syntopy between two widely distributed taxa. This offers a cautionary tale for taxonomists and conservation biologists working on the less‐studied components of the global fauna.

The male sexual apparatus in the order Scorpiones (Arachnida): a comparative study of functional morphology as a tool to define hypotheses of homology

BackgroundInsemination in scorpions is carried out by means of a partly sclerotized structure, the spermatophore, which is composed of two separate halves, the hemispermatophores. In most genera these reproductive structures can be used to differentiate species. However, many taxa such as the genus Euscorpius and the family Diplocentridae lack the morphological diversity observed in the copulatory organs of many other arthropods, rendering them useless for species level taxonomy. Such structural stasis, however, suggests that hemispermatophores have evolved relatively slowly and may thus provide a stronger phylogenetic signal for recognizing supra-generic ranks than previously thought. Based on the postulate that the phenotypic stability observed in some groups is the consequence of functional constraint, the most comprehensive comparative study of the male sexual apparatus to date was conducted for a complete reassessment of the morphology, phylogenetic value and hypotheses of homology of these structures.ResultsHemispermatophores, pre- and post-insemination spermatophores, as well as the inherent mechanisms of insemination, were studied across the whole order, allowing the recognition and description of a series of five basic bauplans for the capsular region. For the most part, these patterns appear to be consistent within each major taxonomic group, but several cases of incongruence between spermatophore morphology and taxonomy raises questions about the monophyly of some clades. The Bothriuridae are traditionally regarded as a basal scorpionoid family. However, except for the genus Lisposoma, bothriurid hemispermatophores and spermatophores are morphologically more similar to those of the Chactoidea than to those of scorpionoids. On the other hand, the male copulatory structures of the hormurid clade (Hormiops (Hormurus + Liocheles)) are more akin to those of Diplocentridae and Heteroscorpionidae than to those of other hormurids.ConclusionsSpermatophore capsular patterns appears to be congruent with a recent phylogeny of the order Scorpiones based on phylogenomic data that placed Bothriuridae outside of Scorpionoidea and Liocheles outside of Hormuridae, in contradicton with earlier phylogenetic reconstructions based on morphology. This raises questions about the potential use of functionally constrained traits to assess the reliability of contradicting phylogenetic hypotheses and emphasizes the need for a thorough reassessment of the scorpion phylogenetic relationships.

Ethics and the Evolving Deployments of Disciplinary Practices: A Foucauldian Analysis of the Glamorization of Bodies

The paper discusses how individuals are constituted by disciplinary practices as presented in Michel Foucault’s two major works: Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. The workings of power-knowledge gave rise to the penal apparatus and deployments of sexuality, which affected entire populations. But even as these disciplinary practices evolve and become seemingly more humane and liberating, they continue to produce docile and normalized subjects. One particular example of this process, discussed here in detail, is the transition from the figure of the hysterical woman to the modern glamorous (beautiful) woman. Such a transition extends Foucault’s ideas to show the immense variety of disciplinary practices. The last section explores a Foucauldian conception of ethics that seeks to reclaim the autonomy of subjects through self-creation. Keywords Disciplinarity, governmentality, sexuality, subjectivity, ethics, askēsis

Febre do rato como deseducação de corpos e discursos: uma interpretação foucaultiana

O texto interpreta o filme Febre do rato, de Cláudio Assis, à luz das concepções foucaultianas sobre a heterotopia, sobre corpos e prazeres como resistência ao dispositivo da sexualidade, bem como sobre as posteridades do cinismo antigo, entendidas aqui como manifestações contemporâneas de resistência aos processos de educação normalizadora de corpos, sexualidades e discursos. Inspirando-nos no filme, estabelecemos uma relação entre as análises foucaultianas sobre as manifestações escandalosas da arte de viver dos cínicos da antiguidade e as formas de atuação de coletivos contemporâneos de inspiração queer, como a Marcha das Vadias, cujas performances corporais exploram a potência do escândalo e do dizer-verdadeiro contra as violências que se abatem sobre mulheres e outras minorias.

Desiring Neoliberalism.

The paper is based on the premise that neoliberalism is a political rationality that is not only anti-social but also requires an anti-democratic and violent form of statehood. However, neoliberalism is not solely based on coercion and force, but paradoxically also on consensus. This consensus is not least organized through its flexibilized and pluralized sexual politics. By focussing on sexual politics in Germany’s capital Berlin, the paper highlights that the flexibilization of the apparatus of sexuality is not merely a side effect of neoliberalism but a constitutive element of neoliberal governmentality that is deployed to legitimate an anti-democratic and violent neoliberal state. Neoliberalism uses the promise of sexual tolerance, flexibility, and pluralism in order to fulfill its anti-social, anti-democratic, and violent agenda. Furthermore, it is argued that neoliberal sexual politics require a rethinking of the concept of heteronormativity. Here, I propose to recast heteronormativity as heteronormalization.

Gender Equality as Biopolitical Governmentality in a Neoliberal European Union

This article argues that European Union (EU) gender equality policy operates as a technology of biopolitical and neoliberal governmentality. Through a genealogical examination of EU policy documents and relevant demographic research, I examine how EU gender equality policy emerged as a means to reorganise women's work and personal lives in order to optimise biological reproduction and capitalist productivity by simultaneously increasing women's fertility and their labour market participation. Gender is argued to be an extension of the apparatus of sexuality as analysed by Foucault, enabling a more complex, expansive, and effective form of biopolitical regulation by promising to simultaneously reproduce life and economy. Moreover, gender is inseparable from the neoliberal context in which it is deployed as an “invisible hand” targeted at empowering sexed subjects to self-manage and self-govern by making reproductive choices based on cost–benefit analyses of their personal and working lives.

La pulsión de muerte: apuntes para una inversión semántica del paradigma inmunitario desde el psicoanálisis

Dada su privilegiada participación en el dispositivo de sexualidad, el psicoanálisis sería parte de una profusa red de tecnologías disciplinarias y normalizadoras comprometidas con el despliegue despolitizante de la biopolítica. Propondremos una interpretación del polémico concepto freudiano de pulsión de muerte desde la perspectiva del paradigma inmunitario desarrollado por Roberto Esposito. La pulsión de muerte participaría del carácter aporístico de lo inmunitario, ya que permite una apertura a la productividad de lo negativo y a la inclusión de la alteridad en el tejido del sí mismo.

The Biopolitical Birth of Gender

This article argues that gender was invented in the 1950s as a new sexual apparatus of biopower. Through a reading of mid-century sexological studies against the background of structural–functionalist and behaviorist theories of social order, it shows how gender was born in the clinic to discipline the reproduction of life in new ways. The truth of sex was no longer found in the genitals or mind, but in the contingent cognitive processes of a behavioral control system. The gender apparatus produced systematized protocols for sex reassignment surgeries for infants with ambiguous genitalia and rendered the family a panoptic institution, all to ensure that children were socialized into normative gender roles guaranteeing the continued reproduction of the life of the species. The violence of this new life-administering technology was crystallized in the pedagogical techniques employed by physicians designed to persuade their child patients to submit themselves to the normalizing care of surgeons and psychiatrists.

Discovery of the Corallivorous Polyclad Flatworm, Amakusaplana acroporae, on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia – the First Report from the Wild

The role of corallivory is becoming increasingly recognised as an important factor in coral health at a time when coral reefs around the world face a number of other stressors. The polyclad flatworm, Amakusaplana acroporae, is a voracious predator of Indo-Pacific acroporid corals in captivity, and its inadvertent introduction into aquaria has lead to the death of entire coral colonies. While this flatworm has been a pest to the coral aquaculture community for over a decade, it has only been found in aquaria and has never been described from the wild. Understanding its biology and ecology in its natural environment is crucial for identifying viable biological controls for more successful rearing of Acropora colonies in aquaria, and for our understanding of what biotic interactions are important to coral growth and fitness on reefs. Using morphological, histological and molecular techniques we determine that a polyclad found on Acropora valida from Lizard Island, Australia is A. acroporae. The presence of extracellular Symbiodinium in the gut and parenchyma and spirocysts in the gut indicates that it is a corallivore in the wild. The examination of a size-range of individuals shows maturation of the sexual apparatus and increases in the number of eyes with increased body length. Conservative estimates of abundance show that A. acroporae occurred on 7 of the 10 coral colonies collected, with an average of 2.6±0.65 (mean ±SE) animals per colony. This represents the first report of A. acroporae in the wild, and sets the stage for future studies of A. acroporae ecology and life history in its natural habitat.

New Coalitions and Other Ruptures: Foucault and the Hope for Bodies and Pleasures

New Coalitions and Other Ruptures: Foucault and the Hope for Bodies and Pleasures

Origin, diffusion and reproduction of the giant reed (Arundo donax L.): a promising weedy energy crop

Giant reed (Arundo donax) is a promising energy crop of the Mediterranean areas. It has long been associated with humans and has been cultivated in Asia, southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East for thousands of years. It is a perennial herbaceous plant (Poaceae) found in grasslands and wetlands throughout a wide range of climatic zones. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was used to assess genetic inter and intrarelationships between A. donax and other Arundo species. Furthermore, the development of the sexual apparatus was analysed to understand the basis of sterility in the accession examined. The dendrograms obtained by phenetic and cladistic analysis support the monophyletic origin of giant reed and suggest that it originated in Asia and began to spread into the Mediterranean without traces of hybridisation with the other Arundo species. In particular, samples from Mediterranean areas are characterisd by a lower gene diversity and incidence of rare AFLP fragments indicating that these populations are recent in origin. Moreover, results indicate the occurrence of post‐meiotic alterations in the ovule and pollen developmental pathway. Thus, the success of giant reed can be attributed mainly to its rapid clonal spread by rhizome extension, flood dispersal of rhizome and culm fragments.

The gastrotrich community of a north Adriatic Sea site, with a redescription ofMusellifer profundus(Chaetonotida: Muselliferidae)

During a survey of the marine meiobenthos in a predominantly muddy area, 40 km south of Venice (northern Adriatic Sea, Italy), 11 species of gastrotrichs were recorded. Gastrotrichs were found in 11 out of the 16 investigated stations, with densities (mean ± standard deviation) ranging from 0.6 ± 0.5 to 97.7 ± 71.2 ind./10 cm2. The community was dominated byMusellifer profundus, which made up 24.5% of the entire gastrotrich assemblage and reached in a single station the abundance peak of 18.3 ind./10 cm2. The finding bears relevance to the biogeography and ecology of several species. The presence of numerous specimens of the rareM. profundusallowed new insights into the arrangement and functioning of the hermaphroditic sexual apparatus in this phylogenetically important genus, for which such data are scanty. The new information will certainly be useful in evolutionary studies aimed at reconstructing the phylogenetic relationships within Gastrotricha, while offering at the same time additional morphological traits to be used in reliable species identification. Although only three species ofMuselliferhave been described so far, there are several others awaiting a formal affiliation, a task that will benefit from this new information.

Geocentrophora applanata (Kennel), einModellfall für gekoppelte Differenzierung und Reduktion zweier Organsysteme1

SUMMARY Geocentrophora applanata–a model case for a coupled differentiation and a reduction of two organic systems The group of Prorhynchidae (Turbellaria, Lecithoepitheliata) independently lose their mating apparatus twice thus inducing an obligatory autogamy. In Xenoprorhynchi both stiletto and grain-secretion-glands are maintained; they are, however, transformed into a poisonous apparatus due to a functional change. Simultaneously, the ductuli efferentes testis gain access to the female genital antrum, thus enabling fecundation of their own germ cells. The Geocentrophora applanata, for example, lose their entire mating apparatus. The sperms formed in the testicles migrate from the connecting tissue directly to the female gonad. With the reduction of the sexual apparatus of the male both groups develop the pharynx whereby a pharyngeal pouch is formed, which is otherwise entirely absent in Prorhynchidae. The connection between the reduction of the male sexual apparatus on one hand, and the progressive evolution on the other is discussed. In addition the embryology of Geocentrophora applanata is also examined. The latter is characterized by a spiral-quartet-cleavage, epibolic gastrulation and the formation of telomesoblasta. Transitional remnants of a mating apparatus are never formed; the secondary nature of the pharyngeal pouch is ontogenetically confirmed. However, the genetic foundations of the connection between the reduction of the male sexual apparatus and the evolution of a new pharyngeal type for Prorhynchidae remains an open question.

Description of the Male Reproductive System of the Hermit Crab Calcinus Tibicen (Decapoda: Anomura: Diogenidae)

We describe the male reproductive system of the intertidal hermit crab Calcinus tibicen, with emphasis on the sexual apparatus, spermatophore, and spermatozoa. The crabs were collected on the rocky shore of Praia Grande Beach, Ubatuba, southeastern Brazil. The morphological analysis, based on 30 specimens, was made with the use of a stereomicroscope, an optical microscope, and scanning and transmission electron microscopes. The male reproductive system is composed of a pair of juxtaposed testes, located dorsally in the pleon. From each testis emerges a vas deferens that links it to the exterior by the gonopores, located on the base of the fifth pair of pereiopods. The vas deferens has three macroscopically distinct regions that contain spermatophores in different stages of maturation. The spermatophore morphology is similar to that of other members of Paguroidea, having a distal, nearly spherical ampulla containing spermatozoa; an approximately cylindrical peduncle; and a proximal foot connecting the spermatophores. We describe, for the first time, the variability in the spermatophore morphology and size in the three regions of the vas deferens using the type species of the genus Calcinus. The spermatozoa have three main regions (the acrosomal vesicle, the nucleus, and the cytoplasm). The morphological similarity of the male reproductive system of C. tibicen with previously studied species of Diogenidae is an indicative of complex phylogenetic relationships among the members of the genus.

Abordagem das disfunções sexuais femininas

Sexual dysfunction prevalence is high among women. However, doctors rarely ask about their patients' sexual life, because they feel uncomfortable or because their knowledge about investigation techniques is insufficient. The PLISSIT model, a useful tool to access human sexual function, is composed by four elements: permission, limited information, specific suggestions, and intensive therapy, that favor dialogue between the doctor and the patient allowing the access to the sexual complaints. The therapeutics consists of counseling measures, drug prescription, basic orientations about sexual function and interventions on anatomic and functional aspects of the sexual apparatus with positive impact in the woman's sexual life. The present review shows how to use it. In addition, many aspects of female sexual dysfunction are discussed, such as prevalence, diagnostic and treatment options for female sexual dysfunction.