"Life is full of absurdities, and human misperception of such absurdities leads to a state of unrest and fear that require meaning and direction for a happy life. F. Pasqualino addresses here samples of existential absurdities, and discusses solutions offered: Taoism offers in its paradoxes a natural self-help resource. Buddhism offers a natural wisdom that is informed by a supernatural impersonal Absolute. Hinduism offers a plethora of personal gods who embody the impersonal Absolute. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic wisdom teaches a personal (...) Absolute God whose being is distinct from, but involved with human and non-human beings. The unifying feature of these wisdoms is: Obedience to, and love of, the Absolute can rectify human misperception of life's absurdities, dissipate fear, and provide meaning, value and a serene life. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Absolute in Christian theology, chose to become an exemplar innocent victim for love, thus giving the most absurd but victoriously redeeming love that provides a new and sublime perspective on life's absurdities. G. Lahood's translation and commentary make the Italian masterpiece available to an English-speaking audience"--. (shrink)

Despite the progress achieved over the last decade after the birth of the first cloned mammal, the efficiency of reproductive cloning remains invariably low. However, research aiming at the use of nuclear transfer for the production of patient‐tailored stem cells for cell/tissue therapy is progressing rapidly. Yet, reproductive cloning has many potential implications for animal breeding, transgenic research and the conservation of endangered species. In this article we suggest that the changes in the epi‐/genotype observed in cloned embryos arise from (...) unbalanced nuclear reprogramming between parental chromosomes. It is probable that the oocyte reprogramming machinery, devised for resident chromosomes, cannot target the paternal alleles of somatic cells. We, therefore, suggest that a reasonable approach to balance this asymmetry in nuclear reprogramming might involve the transient expression in donor cells of chromatin remodelling proteins, which are physiologically expressed during spermatogenesis, in order to induce a male‐specific chromatin organisation in the somatic cells before nuclear transfer. BioEssays 30:66–74, 2008. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a better understanding of the influence of the social environment in which entrepreneurs reside on the success of the crowdfunding projects they propose. Specifically, this study investigates on the importance of local religiosity on the propensity to support cross-regional crowdfunding projects. We theoretically discuss and empirically document, using a dataset of 5841 contributions on three Swiss reward-based and donation-based platforms, that local religiosity affects cross-regional resource flows by creating social interactions and enhancing trust. Furthermore, we (...) find that cross-regional resource flows are more likely between regions sharing the same primary religion—whether Protestant or Catholic. (shrink)

In this paper, the structure of a southeastern Spanish population was studied for the first time with respect to its inbreeding patterns and its relationship with demographic and geographic factors. Data on consanguineous marriages from 1900 to 1969 were taken from ecclesiastic dispensations. Our results confirm that the patterns and trends of inbreeding in the study area are consistent with those previously observed in most non-Cantabrian Spanish populations. The rate of consanguineous marriages was apparently stable between 1900 and 1935 and (...) then sharply decreased since 1940, which coincides with industrialization in Spain. A marked departure from Hardy-Weinberg expectations in the ratio of first cousin to second cousin marriages in the study population was observed. The high levels of endogamy and its significant steadiness throughout the twentieth century is noteworthy. Accordingly, our results show that exogamous marriages were not only poorly represented but also that this reduced mobility suggests that the choice of a mate was preferentially local. We found higher mobility in M22 with respect to M33 cousin mating. The relationships between population size and consanguinity rates and inbreeding fit power-law distributions. A significant positive correlation was observed between inbreeding and elevation. Many Spanish populations have experienced a prolonged and considerable isolation across generations, which has led to high proportions of historical and local endogamy that is associated, in general, with high \ values. Thus, assessing genomic inbreeding using runs of homozygosity in current Spanish populations could be an additional pertinent strategy for obtaining a more refined perspective regarding the population history inferred from the extent and frequency of ROH regions. (shrink)