sábado, 5 de diciembre de 2009

Gene Involved In Human Language Development Also Involved In Bat Echolocation

ScienceDaily (2007-09-19) -- When it comes to the FOXP2 gene, humans have had most to shout about. Discoveries that mutations in this gene lead to speech defects and that the gene underwent changes around the time language evolved both implicate FOXP2 in the evolution of human language. A new study has found that the FOXP2 gene shows unparalleled variation in echolocating bats. This gene's sequence differences among bat lineages correspond well to contrasting forms of echolocation. ... > read full article

Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

jueves, 27 de agosto de 2009

'Toy Universe' Could Solve Life's Origins, Space.com

Excerpt:

The power of computer processing could one day solve the riddle of life's origin.
Scientists think life appeared about 4 billion years ago, and ancient rocks on Earth can give us some idea of what the environment was like. Life may have originated in an ocean rich in chemicals. This primordial soup may have been simmering, or it may have been zapped by lightning. Certainly energy of some sort must have helped drive a simple chemical system into a more complex state. But the clues are few, and the picture remains hazy.
Enter the Evogrid, a computer creation concept that would be a digital version of the primordial soup. (...)
See Also: http://www.evogrid.org/

Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution, Oxford University Press


Summary:

In this book, Blumberg turns a scientist's eye on the oddities of nature, showing how a subject once relegated to the sideshow can help explain some of the deepest complexities of biology. What we need to understand, Blumberg argues, is that anomalies are the natural products of development, and it is through developmental mechanisms that evolution works. Freaks of Nature induces a kind of intellectual vertigo as it upends our intuitive understanding of biology. What really is an anomaly? Why is a limbless human a "freak," but a limbless reptile-a snake-a successful variation?

Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

In Retrospect: Lamarck's treatise at 200 - Nature


Excerpt:

But within the maddening, confusing and repetitive pages of Lamarck's exposition lurk concepts that are central to modern evolutionary thought. Stated in contemporary terminology, they include the ideas that species change through evolutionary time; that evolutionary change is slow and imperceptible; that evolution occurs through adaptation to the environment; that it generally progresses from the simple to the complex, although in a few cases it proceeds in reverse; and that species are related to one another by common descent. Furthermore, Lamarck incorporated into his theory the fact that the world is old, and proposed that the evolutionary process started with abiogenesis ?" the origin of life from inanimate matter.
So how and why has Lamarckism become shorthand for foolishness? (...)
In fact, the amount of scientific rubbish that Lamarck put on paper certainly exceeds the quantity of good science in his scientific oeuvre. In this respect, he is no different from Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle or Francis Crick.
Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

Selección del Complexity Digest

Darwin Would Have Loved DNA: Celebrating Darwin 200, Biol. Lett.

Abstract: Analysis of DNA sequences now plays a key role in evolutionary biology research. If Darwin were to come back today, I think he would be absolutely delighted with molecular evolutionary genetics, for three reasons. First, it solved one of the greatest problems for his theory of evolution by natural selection. Second, it gives us a tool that can be used to investigate many of the questions he found the most fascinating. And third, DNA data confirm Darwin's grand view of evolution.


What can DNA tell us? Place your bets now, New Scientist

Excerpt: From Newton to Hawking, scientists love wagers. Now Lewis Wolpert has bet Rupert Sheldrake a case of fine port that: "By 1 May 2029, given the genome of a fertilised egg of an animal or plant, we will be able to predict in at least one case all the details of the organism that develops from it, including any abnormalities."


Evolutionary games on scale-free networks with a preferential selection mechanism, Physica A

Excerpt: Considering the heterogeneity of individuals' influence in the real world, we introduce a preferential selection mechanism to evolutionary games (the Prisoner's Dilemma Game and the Snowdrift Game) on scale-free networks and focus on the cooperative behavior of the system.


Global patterns of speciation and diversity, Nature

Excerpts: In recent years, strikingly consistent patterns of biodiversity have been identified over space, time, organism type and geographical region. A neutral theory (assuming no environmental selection or organismal interactions) has been shown to predict many patterns of ecological biodiversity. This theory is based on a mechanism by which new species arise similarly to point mutations in a population without sexual reproduction. Here we report the simulation of populations with sexual reproduction, mutation and dispersal. We found simulated time dependence of speciation rates, species�"area relationships and species abundance distributions consistent with the behaviours found in nature. (...) Quantitative comparisons of specific cases are remarkably successful. Our biodiversity results provide additional evidence that species diversity arises without specific physical barriers. This is similar to heavy traffic flows, where traffic jams can form even without accidents or barriers.


Disentangling the Web of Life, Science

Abstract: Biodiversity research typically focuses on species richness and has often neglected interactions, either by assuming that such interactions are homogeneously distributed or by addressing only the interactions between a pair of species or a few species at a time. In contrast, a network approach provides a powerful representation of the ecological interactions among species and highlights their global interdependence. Understanding how the responses of pairwise interactions scale to entire assemblages remains one of the great challenges that must be met as society faces global ecosystem change.


Cultural Evolution Continues Throughout Life, Innovations-report

Excerpts: By successively acquiring culture in the form of values, ideas, and actions throughout their lives, humans influence future learning and the capacity for cultural evolution. (�) "Since there are many similarities between biological evolution and cultural changes, the research community has often suggested that the theory of biological evolution can also be applied in relatively unaltered form as a model for cultural evolution. Using these methods, genes are replaced by so-called memes, which are small cultural elements (�). The current article uses mathematical models to show that there is a crucial and often neglected difference between biological and cultural evolution. (�)


Looking For Evidence Of Differentiation And Cooperation: Natural Measures For The Study Of Evolution Of Multicellularity, Advances in Complex Systems (ACS)

Abstract: The understanding of the evolutionary transitions is a major area of research in artificial life and in biology. We follow an artificial life approach to investigate these phenomena, in order to look for evidence of emerging differentiation and multicellular cooperation in colonies of individual cells. We introduce and apply new measures for assessing the impact of multicellular interaction on individual reproduction and on lifespan. The conclusion of these studies shows that the colony with the ability to communicate shows, with the help of our new measures, behaviors that hint at the emergence of early cooperation.


Design Complexity In Termite-Fishing Tools Of Chimpanzees, Biol. Lett.

Excerpts: Adopting the approach taken with New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides), we present evidence of design complexity in one of the termite-fishing tools of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. Prior to termite fishing, chimpanzees applied a set of deliberate, distinguishable actions to modify herb stems to fashion a brush-tipped probe, which is different from the form of fishing tools used by chimpanzees in East and West Africa. This means that �brush-tipped fishing probes�, unlike �brush sticks�, are not a by-product of use but a deliberate design feature absent in other chimpanzee populations. (�) suggest that these wild chimpanzees are attentive to tool modifications. (�)


Capuchin Monkeys Display Affiliation Toward Humans Who Imitate Them, Science

Excerpts: During social interactions, humans often unconsciously and unintentionally imitate the behaviors of others, which increases rapport, liking, and empathy between interaction partners. This effect is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation that facilitates group living and may be shared with other primate species. Here, we show that capuchin monkeys, a highly social primate species, prefer human imitators over non-imitators in a variety of ways (...) These results demonstrate that imitation can promote affiliation in nonhuman primates. Behavior matching that leads to prosocial behaviors toward others may have been one of the mechanisms at the basis of altruistic behavioral tendencies in capuchins and in other primates, including humans.
Editor's Note: Imitation as a mechanism for cooperation may be present in many species other than primates. It has been speculated that the neural mechanism behind imitation is based on "mirror neurons". It still remains to be explored how widespread mirror neurons are in the animal kingdom.


Why Do Species Vary In Their Rate Of Molecular Evolution?, Biol. Lett.

Excerpts: Despite hopes that the processes of molecular evolution would be simple, clock-like and essentially universal, variation in the rate of molecular evolution is manifest at all levels of biological organization. Furthermore, it has become clear that rate variation has a systematic component: rate of molecular evolution can vary consistently with species body size, population dynamics, lifestyle and location. This suggests that the rate of molecular evolution should be considered part of life-history variation between species, which must be taken into account when interpreting DNA sequence differences between lineages. (�)


Lifetime of Anthropogenic Climate Change: Millennial Time Scales of Potential CO2 and Surface Temperature Perturbations, Journal of Climate

Abstract: Multimillennial simulations with a fully coupled climate�"carbon cycle model are examined to assess the persistence of the climatic impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It is found that the time required to absorb anthropogenic CO2 strongly depends on the total amount of emissions; for emissions similar to known fossil fuel reserves, the time to absorb 50% of the CO2 is more than 2000 yr. The long-term climate response appears to be independent of the rate at which CO2 is emitted over the next few centuries. Results further suggest that the lifetime of the surface air temperature anomaly might be as much as 60% longer than the lifetime of anthropogenic CO2 and that two-thirds of the maximum temperature anomaly will persist for longer than 10 000 yr. This suggests that the consequences of anthropogenic CO2 emissions will persist for many millennia.



Jared Diamond on why societies collapse, TED.com

About this talk: Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how -- if we see it in time -- we can prevent it.

Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

jueves, 14 de mayo de 2009

Selección del Complexity Digest - Mayo

The reductionist blind spot, Complexity

Abstract: Can there be higher level laws of nature even though everything is reducible to the fundamental laws of physics? The computer science notion of level of abstraction explains how there can be. The key relationship between elements on different levels of abstraction is not the is-composed-of relationship but the implements relationship. I take a scientific realist position with respect to (material) levels of abstraction and their instantiation as (material) entities. They exist as objective elements of nature. Reducing them away to lower order phenomena produces a reductionist blind spot and is bad science.

On irreducible description of complex systems, Complexity

Abstract: The aim of the article is to present the description of complex systems in terms of self-organization processes of prime integer relations and illustrate its main properties. Based on the integers and controlled by arithmetic only, the processes can characterize complex systems by information not requiring further simplification. This raises the possibility to develop an irreduc

ible theory of complex systems.

Climate change: Too much of a bad thing, Nature

Excerpt: There are various and confusing targets to limit

global warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases. Estimates based on the total slug of carbon emitted are possibly the most robust, and are worrisome.
See Also: The Climate Crunch online collection.


The worst-case scenario, Nature

Excerpt: In a 1,000 p.p.m. scenario, many unique or rare systems would probably be lost, including Arctic sea ice, mountain-top glaciers, most threatened and endangered species, coral-reef communities, and many high-latitude and high-altitude indigenous human cultures. People would be vulnerable in other ways too: Asian mega-delta cities would face rising sea levels and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones, creating hundreds of millions of refugees; valuable infrastructure such as the London or New York underground systems could be damaged or lost; the elderly would be at risk from unprecedented heat waves; and children, who are especially vulnerable to malnutrition in poor areas, would face food shortages.

What's Bugging Plants?, Science

Excerpt: Plants, like other organisms, including animals, live immersed in a thriving community of microbes. The diversity of fungi, oomycetes, and bacteria with which plants interact brings both plague and benefit. The more we understand how plants tame, thwart, and succumb to their bugs, the more likely we will be able to extract new resources for antimicrobial treatments and manage agricultural challenges

  • Source: What's Bugging Plants?, Pamela J. Hines and Laura M. Zahn, DOI: 10.1126/science.324_741, Science Vol. 324. no. 5928, p. 741, 2009/05/08

Alexander von Humboldt and the General Physics of the Earth, Science

Excerpt: As scientists are celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his On the Origin of Species, Darwin's ideas continue to shape and enrich the sciences. 6 May 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of another 19th-century figure�"Alexander von Humboldt�"whose scientific legacy also flourishes in the 21st century. Humboldt helped create the intellectual world Darwin inhabited, and his writings inspired Darwin to embark on H.M.S. Beagle. More pertinent to our time, Humboldt established the foundation for the Earth system sciences: the integrated system of knowledge on which human society may depend in the face of global climate change.



Publicado por en No hay comentarios:
Etiquetas: , , ,

lunes, 20 de abril de 2009

Selección del Complexity Digest - Abril

Can evolution explain how minds work?, Nature

Excerpt:

Human societies have long used the capability of argumentation and dialogue to overcome and resolve conflicts that may arise within their communities. Today, there is an increasing level of interest in the application of such dialogue games within artificial agent societies. In particular, within the field of multi-agent systems, this theory of argumentation and dialogue games has become instrumental in designing rich interaction protocols and in providing agents with a means to manage and resolve conflicts.

The architecture of mutualistic networks minimizes competition and increases biodiversity, Nature

Excerpt: These networks have been found to be highly nested5, with the more specialist species interacting only with proper subsets of the species that interact with the more generalist. We show that nestedness reduces effective interspecific competition and enhances the number of coexisting species. Furthermore, we show that a nested network will naturally emerge if new species are more likely to enter the community where they have minimal competitive load. Nested networks seem to occur in many biological and social contexts, suggesting that our results are relevant in a wide range of fields.

Final warning from a sceptical prophet, Nature

Excerpt: In The Vanishing Face Of Gaia, Lovelock argues that model projections of the climate a century ahead are of little use. The models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) extrapolate from a smooth trend of warming, yet the real climate system, complex and fully coupled to the biology of land and ocean, is unlikely to change in this simple way. It is more likely to flip from one state to another, with non-linear tipping points that the IPCC models are too simplistic to capture. Lovelock fears that the climate will shift to a new and considerably hotter regime, and that once underway, this shift will be irreversible.

This title is false, Nature

Excerpt: The [paradoxical] result, like a dog chasing its tail, should be familiar to anyone who has thought about a gene network or biological process. Common descriptions of biological interactions, such as 'This gene represses itself' or 'gene A activates gene B. Gene B inhibits gene A', are similarly self-referential, potentially causing endless cycles.

  • Source: This title is false, Mark Isalan & Matthew Morrison, DOI: 10.1038/458969a, Nature 458, 969, 2009/04/22

Developmental biology: Two by two, Nature

Excerpt: This is not the first time that these villagers have sacrificed their body fluids for science. Mohammad Pur Umri has become somewhat famous, not for the milk or mustard that provides the villagers with their livelihood, but for its prolific production of identical monozygotic twins. Globally, only 1 in every 250 to 300 births are identical twins. In Umri, roughly one in ten is of this type, births that the villagers â€" including the twin village leaders call "gifts from God".

Time to sequence the 'red and the dead', Nature News

Excerpt: "Now it is possible to entertain sequencing the genomes of other extinct and endangered species, and the benefits could be huge." Referring to the 'Red List' of highly endangered species drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Schuster suggests that researchers should plan for sequencing "the red and the dead: a suite of carefully chosen endangered and extinct species."


The Human Brain Is On The Edge Of Chaos, ScienceDaily

Excerpts: Cambridge-based researchers provide new evidence that the human brain lives "on the edge of chaos", at a critical transition point between randomness and order. The study provides experimental data on an idea previously fraught with theoretical speculation. Self-organized criticality (where systems spontaneously organize themselves to operate at a critical point between order and randomness), can emerge from complex interactions in many different physical systems, including avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, and heartbeat rhythms. According to this study, (...) the dynamics of human brain networks have something important in common with some superficially very different systems in nature. (...)

Evolution: Biology's next top model?, Nature

Excerpt: As the water temperatures plunged by about 5 °C to below zero over the next few million years, most fish became extinct or moved on to warmer climes. But one group, the Notothenioidei, remained. Thanks to some extraordinary evolutionary innovations, these bottom-dwellers radiated, speciated and ultimately dominated. Crucial proteins shifted shape so they could work at cold temperatures, and a digestive enzyme fragment took on a new role as antifreeze.

On the Origin of Flowering Plants, Science

Excerpt: How did flowering plants diversify and spread so rapidly across the globe? From rice paddies to orange groves, alpine meadows to formal gardens, prairies to oak-hickory forests, the 300,000 species of angiosperms alive today shape most terrestrial landscapes and much of human life and culture. Their blooms color and scent our world; their fruits, roots, and seeds feed us; and their biomass provides clothing, building materials, and fuel. And yet this takeover, which took place about 100 million years ago, apparently happened in a blink of geological time, just a few tens of millions of years.

Mutated Gene In Zebrafish Sheds Light On Blindness In Humans, Innovations-report

Excerpts: Among zebrafish, the eyes have it. Inside them is a mosaic of light-sensitive cells whose structure and functions are nearly identical to those of humans. There, biologists at The Florida State University discovered a gene mutation that determines if the cells develop as rods (the photoreceptors responsible for dim-light vision) or as cones (the photoreceptors needed for color vision). (...) are the first scientists to identify the crucial function of a previously known gene called "tbx2b." The researchers have named the newfound allele (a different form of a gene) "lor" -- for "lots-of-rods" -- because the mutation results in too many rods (...).

Darwin's ‘One Special Difficulty': Celebrating Darwin 200, Biol. Lett.

Abstract: Darwin identified eusocial evolution, especially of complex insect societies, as a particular challenge to his theory of natural selection. A century later, Hamilton provided a framework for selection on inclusive fitness. Hamilton's rule is robust and fertile, having generated multiple subdisciplines over the past 45 years. His suggestion that eusociality can be explained via kin selection, however, remains contentious. I review the continuing debate on the role of kin selection in eusocial evolution and suggest some lines of research that should resolve that debate.

The cancer genome, Nature

Abstract: All cancers arise as a result of changes that have occurred in the DNA sequence of the genomes of cancer cells. Over the past quarter of a century much has been learnt about these mutations and the abnormal genes that operate in human cancers. We are now, however, moving into an era in which it will be possible to obtain the complete DNA sequence of large numbers of cancer genomes. These studies will provide us with a detailed and comprehensive perspective on how individual cancers have developed.

  • Source: The cancer genome, Michael R. Stratton, Peter J. Campbell & P. Andrew Futreal, DOI: 10.1038/nature07943, Nature 458, 719-724, 2009/04/09

Parental Effects In Ecology And Evolution: Mechanisms, Processes And Implications, Phil. Tran. Biol. Sc.

Excerpt: As is the case with any metaphor, parental effects mean different things to different biologists-from developmental induction of novel phenotypic variation to an evolved adaptation, and from epigenetic transference of essential developmental resources to a stage of inheritance and ecological succession. (...) Here, we suggest that by emphasizing the complexity of causes and influences in developmental systems and by making explicit the links between development, natural selection and inheritance, the study of parental effects enables deeper understanding of developmental dynamics of life cycles and provides a unique opportunity to explicitly integrate development and evolution. (...)

Publicado por en No hay comentarios:
Etiquetas: , , ,

martes, 14 de abril de 2009

Sequía Tóxica: "Duelo al Sol"

Por Jorge Eduardo Rulli

La sequía ardía esta semana que termina, en los campos entrerrianos que visitamos, y no es una figura literaria. Las llamas en algunos lugares, nos encendían la cara que acercábamos a las ventanillas del auto. Los animales mueren de sed, los arroyos desaparecen, los girasoles se inclinan abrumados, el sol parece ser de plomo y el cielo no promete lluvias sino más y más calor. En el paisaje asolado solo quedan indemnes los campos de soja. El yuyito que decía la señora presidenta: como si nada. Cosa de mandinga! ¿Cuánto tiene que ver el monocultivo y los desmontes previos con esta sequía infernal? Vale preguntárselo. Las decisiones políticas que alguna vez se tomaron, han hipotecado este presente en que vivimos, y tal vez sus consecuencias
comprometan a varias generaciones de argentinos que aun no nacieron.

Hemos estado registrando en la cámara los casos más agudos que han dejado las fumigaciones, en una zona en que las víctimas abundan y en que los testimonios perturban el espíritu. Las declaraciones de Fabián Tomassi en Basavilbaso, refieren no solo a los males actuales que lo tienen postrado, sino también a una agricultura química extendida, que se continúa practicando no obstante ser absolutamente criminal. Regar venenos desde el aire o desde máquinas terrestres es un atentado a la vida, pero hacerlo como se hace ahora, con pilas de recetas en blanco previamente firmadas por los profesionales, haciendo mezclas de cuyos resultados potenciados no se tiene la menor idea y respetando tan solo la ley de meterle siempre más de lo indicado en los marbetes y darle a los yuyos o a la plaga con lo más pesado, es terriblemente sicótico y es, sin embargo, una práctica corriente y generalizada, que enferma gravemente a las poblaciones y por supuesto, también a quienes la practican. En Gilbert visitamos a la familia Portillo. Eran chacareros pobres a la antigua, o sea que tenían unas pocas hectáreas y las utilizaban para hacer algo de lechería, aves de corral y los cultivos forrajeros necesarios, también algo de huerta y de frutales que servían para el propio sustento o para vender en las zonas cercanas.
Tuvieron la desgracia de que se les instalara un sojero como vecino. Cuando se les murieron los cultivos y las aves de corral, cuando los árboles dejaron de dar fruta y en el terreno no les crecía más nada, no tuvieron más opciones que trabajar de banderilleros en las fumigaciones y ayudar al sojero con el desmonte y el monocultivo. Dos de los niños han muerto y algunos de los adultos se encuentran muy afectados. Tuvieron que vender el campo y ahora el sojero, que lo ha comprado, lo ha incorporado al monocultivo y ha hecho desaparecer algunas de las pruebas del crimen, tal como el pozo de agua contaminada del cuál bebía la familia. Las complicidades, no son por otra parte, un hecho casual o extraordinario. El modelo agroexportador lo ha convertido en un modo de vida aceptado en buena parte del territorio. Nadie en el caserío que es Gilbert, podía no habernos visto, aun más todavía, estuvimos primero en el boliche tomando algo y anunciando nuestra presencia. No obstante, nadie se acercó ni se interesó por lo que hacíamos. Parece que en las zonas sojeras una soterrada cadena de complicidades trata de sancionar al que expone su desgracia, como si demostrarse enfermo como consecuencia de la riqueza ajena, fuera algo que avergüenza porque expone aquello de lo que no debe hablarse. Y lo que no debe decirse es que este modelo es un modelo en que las ganancias se amasan con la sangre y con el sufrimiento de miles y miles de víctimas inocentes.

De Gilbert nos fuimos a Gualeguaychú para conversar con algunos de nuestros amigos entrañables, amigos que hiciéramos en la época previa a los grandes extravíos de la llamada crisis del campo, en los tiempos anteriores a las actuales polarizaciones, cuando todavía pensábamos que era posible desarrollar conciencia en la sociedad de Gualeguaychú, acerca de la necesidad de tener una retaguardia ética frente a la pastera. Esa pelea la perdimos, en buena medida la perdimos, gracias a todos aquellos que, escandalizados a destiempo de la oligarquía vacuna, dividieron a los argentinos en una injusta división entre el campo y la ciudad, mientras el Senador Urquía continuaba cobrando la diferencia entre las nuevas y viejas retensiones a nombre del Estado Argentino. Ahora lamentablemente, buena parte de la asamblea de Gualeguaychú, parece enamorada del corte mismo en Arroyo Verde, sin comprender que uno jamás debe confundir los objetivos con los métodos o con los instrumentos que se eligieron para obtener esos objetivos… y tampoco son capaces de tomar posición ante las similitudes de los monocultivos de eucaliptus y los de soja. Del otro lado en cambio, sí toman posición los ejecutores y propaladores de las políticas de la dependencia. La última y más grosera señal en este sentido, fue la declaración del INTI de que sus equipos técnicos no hallaron prueba alguna de contaminación por parte de la empresa Botnia. Debe ser esta papelera la única en el mundo que no contamina, aún más todavía, estos técnicos nuestros son tan funcionales que van más allá, de lo que las mismas empresas reconocen. Lamentable, y con esa pena por irse perdiendo gradualmente otra batalla contra las corporaciones, continuamos nuestro camino hacia Larroque.

Larroque es un pueblo pequeño, cercano a Gualeguaychú, una zona de lomadas bajas y cursos de aguas numerosos. La soja ha terminado en la zona con la fauna que, como en el resto de Entre Ríos era abundante. Perdices, garzas moras, cigüeñas, zorrinos, comadrejas, vizcachas, caranchos, culebras y tortugas de tierra; en lagunas y bañados teros, garzas blancas, patos, chajaes, sapos y ranas, ha ido desapareciendo.
Hoy la zona es un páramo. Pero ahora, íbamos detrás de los efectos sobre los seres humanos, para registrarlos, y en verdad, no esperábamos hallar lo que encontramos. María Carla Godoy tiene seis años, nació en Larroque, en un mes de abril del año 2002 o sea que, cuando comenzaron las siembras de soja y se realizaron las primeras fumigaciones de preemergencia con Glifosato, el embarazo de su mamá llevaba apenas tres meses, el momento en que el feto deviene más sensible a los impactos exteriores. Además, junto a la casa de sus padres el vecino tenía un depósito de agrotóxicos y ello, por supuesto, contraviniendo la ley. En la ruleta rusa de un modelo impiadoso, digamos que María Carla no tenía demasiadas chances. Cuando nació, los médicos le diagnosticaron Mielomelangoceli, hidrocefalia y Arnold Chiari, aclarando que era la consecuencia de la contaminación de su madre con agrotóxicos. Imaginé cuando su mamá nos lo contaba, que la mielomelangoceli tendría que ver con la parálisis de los miembros inferiores de la niña, tengo idea de qué es la hidrocefalia, pero no sabiendo que es la enfermedad de Arnodl Chiari, me atreví a preguntarle a la mamá de la nena sobre ello. Me cuenta entonces, que el bebé no podía llorar, que hacia solamente un ruido como cacareo, que por suerte con las operaciones lo superó… no pregunté más, estaba destrozado… cuando llegué a casa busqué en Internet. Allí encuentro que se conoce como malformación de Arnold Chiari, problemas neurológicos que se evidencian en el recién nacido. El texto científico dice: Aunque la causa exacta de una malformación de Chiari aún se desconoce, se cree que un problema durante el desarrollo fetal puede ocasionar la formación anormal del encéfalo. Este tipo de malformación puede ser provocado por la exposición a sustancias nocivas durante el desarrollo fetal.

María Carla tiene seis años, no camina, no controla esfínteres, ha pasado por varias cirugías, lleva en su cabeza una válvula mecánica que le permite sortear los males con los que nació, varias veces por día debe ser sometida a sondajes… y sin embargo María Carla ríe, disfruta de la compañía de sus once hermanos y de sus amigas de la escuela. Nos cuenta su mamá que ahora le han comprado una pileta pelopincho y que con rifas que hacen en el barrio y con donaciones, van cubriendo los gastos que la enfermedad les ocasiona. María Carla, mientras tanto, esta contenta de que la visitemos y le tomemos fotos, quitándose el arnés, nos muestra de buen grado las horribles cicatrices de las operaciones, mientras uno de nuestros compañeros con la excusa de buscar cigarrillos, se aparta para esconder su llanto, ella orgullosa nos deja ver su libreta de la escuela, y suponemos por las calificaciones excelentes, que debe estar entre las mejores alumnas. Su rostro resplandece y su risa es cantarina. Tenemos el corazón desgarrado y la certeza de que estamos ante un modelo genocida, que la soja mata y es un crimen sembrarla y que respaldarla
como hacen tantos y especialmente el INTA, es una infame complicidad con quienes han sembrado de pequeños cristos crucificados a sus arneses y a sus parálisis, como en el caso de María Carla, la geografía de la Republiqueta sojera. ¿Cómo puede haber tanta gente que sin conciencia responsable, coma milanesas de soja me pregunto, y se permita ignorar los horribles sufrimientos que amparan y que podrían conocer, tan solo con un mínimo interés por investigar los impactos del modelo?

No bastan ahora las tardías tapas de Página 12 y de Crónica, no basta una mención a la pasada en el discurso presidencial, de un hecho que hace años es noticia internacional, me refiero a la lucha que llevaron contra las fumigaciones las madres del Barrio Ituzaingó anexo de la ciudad de Córdoba. No basta con conformar una Comisión para investigar o revelar un hecho puntual como ha hecho la Ministra de Salud, cuando todo el país está lleno de Barrios Ituzaingós, de víctimas inocentes, de cáncer y de seres que sufren impotencia sexual, de madres que abortan o que paren criaturas con malformaciones como consecuencia de la contaminación con agrotóxicos. Y que exprese con tanto énfasis el que no basta, no significa que no me alegre de que después de tanto tiempo nuestras denuncias alcances este rango. Reconozco, no obstante, la importancia y el enorme respaldo de haber estado presentes en el discurso de la Presidenta. Pero insisto, en que ello ya no basta. Y no me importa en lo más mínimo lo que piense Fidel al respecto y me importan menos los dos mil científicos cubanos del Instituto de Biotecnología que visitó la delegación argentina en la Habana, que en buena medida deben haber sido formados por Monsanto, y que se ofrecieron en acuerdos de colaboración y de intercambio para aportar a un modelo que es el nuevo colonialismo. No me importan tampoco las emociones cholulas referidas al pasado en los que hoy implementan los modelos de la agricultura química. Es la Biotecnología la que ha causado las penurias de Fabian, de la familia Portillo y de María Carla, no los manejos incorrectos o los excesos en la instrumentación, tal como nos dicen ahora, quebrantando lo que afirmaron durante años en los procesos al Terrorismo de Estado. Las consecuencias de este modelo están dolorosamente presentes por todas partes, hoy son tantas las víctimas que se ha conformado un movimiento de pueblos fumigados.
Los impactos y externalidades del modelo de agricultura industrial, no le van a la zaga a los daños que consumó la dictadura, aun más todavía, es probable que este modelo de país sea tan solo la consecuencia o la etapa posterior de una estrategia de país sometido, que los genocidas y sus cómplices intelectuales alguna vez planificaron. Es muy probable entonces, que el modelo de la soja tenga asimismo alguna vez, sus propios tribunales y cuando llegue ese día seguramente una muchacha llamada María Carla Godoy tendrá un: Yo acuso, y una historia terrible que contarnos: la de su propia vida.

Jorge Eduardo Rulli
Publicado por en No hay comentarios:

El mapa de la Ciencia (?)

Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science, PLoS One

Maps of science resulting from large-scale clickstream data provide a detailed, contemporary view of scientific activity and correct the underrepresentation of the social sciences and humanities that is commonly found in citation data.


This "Map of Science" illustrates the online behavior of Scientists accessing different scientific journals, publications, aggregators, etc. Colors represent the scientific discipline of each journal (...) while lines reflect the navigation of users from one journal to another(...)

Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory





Publicado por en No hay comentarios:
Suscribirse a: Entradas (Atom)