John McGreevy's Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis hinges on seismic events that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church: the French Revolution, its aftershocks in many European nations, and the devastating effects of the Napoleonic Wars that followed. The episcopalism of Catholicism that arose from the ashes of the revolution seemed to reject the pillar of its globalism, namely the papacy. Pius IX paid for this with his life. Eternal Rome suddenly became mortal, overtaken by the revolutionaries. Catholic schools were nationalized. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy enacted an agenda for the secularization of society, the church itself, and its institutions. Notre Dame became a “Temple of Reason,” and the chalices and ciboria of Saint-Sulpice were melted down to make cash. The damage done to the church by this revolution was paralleled only by the communist revolutions of the twentieth century.

Germplasm characterization and evaluation are essential for the genetic improvement of crops. In this study, a collection of 204 groundnut accessions including 13 checks held by Plant Genetic Resources Research Institute, Ghana were evaluated under optimal conditions for 2 years. The objectives were to characterize the groundnut collection using 18 qualitative and 14 quantitative traits and to determine the relationships between the traits. Combined analysis of variance based on augmented design revealed significant differences (P < 0.05) among the accessions for majority of the traits. Results of principal component analysis showed that all the quantitative traits were relevant in discriminating the accessions. Primary seed colour was the most diverse qualitative trait based on Shannon diversity index (n = 0.77). Frequency distribution analysis showed predominance of decumbent growth habit and pale tan seeds. Cluster analysis using qualitative traits identified five major groups of accessions and three each based on quantitative traits and joint analysis of quantitative and qualitative traits. Number of main branches (NMB) and pod width (PW) appeared the most important traits with positive contribution to yield based on correlation and path coefficient analysis. Ten promising trait-specific accessions were identified for earliness along with desirable pod and seed traits. GH 9672 and GH 9665 were identified as promising for higher grain and fodder yield. Five accessions (GH 9833, GH 9829, GH 9830, GH 9835 and GH 9750) produced ~5–30% more grain yield than the best check. This study underscored ample phenotypic variation that would ultimately be exploited for genetic improvement of groundnut.

This paper deals with a case of Virgilian ambiguity, namely the famous hemistich at Aen. 4.298 omnia tuta timens. By highlighting a plausible reading with a causal force (‘fearing everything too calm’, ‘because of the excessive calmness’), it seeks to demonstrate that this hemistich is an ambiguous passage. This view is confirmed through the imitation by Valerius Flaccus, who, in alluding to the Virgilian passage (Argonautica 8.408–12), highlights its ambiguity by including both of the most plausible readings.

This article suggests a new reading for Oribasius’ Libri ad Eunapium 3.13.4. Based on evidence from both Greek and Syriac sources, it argues that the variant contained in Oribasius’ Synopsis ad Eustathium should be adopted as the correct reading of the original.

The formation of highly structured, spatially localized complex structures during solar flux emergence facilitates adaptation of topological methods, extending the research of emerging macroscopic MHD fluxes into knots, links and braids. Combining mathematical considerations, remote images and in situ satellite observations at solar vicinity, we construct new characteristics of those braided/knotted magnetic structures, applying Braid and Knot Theory to physical configurations, deducing their topological invariants, constraining the evolution and stability while delineating the relaxation path to magnetized equilibria.

The fast rotating solar analogs show a decrease of the dynamo period with an increase of the rotation rate for the moderate stellar rotation periods in the range between 10 and 25 days. Simultaneously, observations indicate two branches: the “in-active” branch stars shows short dynamo cycles and the active branch stars show the relatively long magnetic cycles. We suggest that this phenomenon can be produced by effect of the doubling frequency of the dynamo waves, which is due to excitation of the second harmonic. It is generated because of the nonlinear B2 effects in the large-scale dynamo.

Central to this article are the minutes of nine codification meetings held in 1865 at various locations in West Sumatra. During these meetings the draft regulations for a new colonial legal system were discussed and negotiated by West Sumatran elites and Dutch officials. This episode and its unique archives serve as a microhistory of lawmaking, legal translation, and erasure. The article argues that the process of making colonialism procedural, as well as the genealogical workings of colonial knowledge production, are crucial to understanding the making and unmaking of law in the context of legal pluralities. It shows that finding similarities in interests and worldview, moments of ‘erasure through translation’, the symbolic language of fluidity of adat and legal hybridity, as well as the archival power of the material and the spatial elements of both the meetings and the minutes, were vehicles through which codification in West Sumatra was attempted and contested.

This article explores the allusive strategy of the late second-century cento-tragedy Medea attributed to Hosidius Geta, which recounts Medea's revenge against Jason using verses from the works of Virgil. It argues that the text's author recognized a consistent strand of characterization in earlier treatments of the Medea myth, whereby the heroine's filicide is presented as a corrupted sacrifice. Geta selectively uses verses from thematically significant episodes in the Aeneid—the lying tale of Sinon and the death of Laocoön; the murder of Priam; the suicide of Dido—at key points to foreground the theme of pseudo-sacrificial violence. Geta's use of Virgil evinces a keen appreciation both of the symbolism of the broader mythic tradition in which his text is situated and of the original narrative contexts of the verses he recycles. The article's findings contribute to a growing recognition of the creative potential afforded by the cento technique.

Caucasus is known as one of the few biodiversity hotspots in Europe and is characterised by rich gastropod fauna while the nematode fauna in association with gastropods has remained largely understudied. Surveys conducted in 2019 and 2021 in the North Caucasus of the Russian Federation (Stavropol Upland and western and central parts of Krasnodar Krai) has revealed the presence of three new species of Pellioditis, a facultative parasite of land gastropods, and two species of obligate parasites, the intestinal parasite Angiostoma kimmeriense and a new, still undescribed species of a larval ectoparasite Alloionema sp. The new associations of Cruznema sp. and Rhabditophanes sp. with land gastropods were recorded for the first time in the Russian Federation. The new species of Pellioditis Dougherty, 1953 described here is based on the analysis of morphology and molecular studies of two distant and morphologically distinct strains, thermalis and sindicae. Pellioditis thermalis n. sp. was characterised by females possessing a tail of about 95–100 μm long, broadly conical in shape in the thermalis and sindicae strains, with a rounded anterior part and a subulate terminal part as long as the former; prominent phasmids located at the mid-tail, equatorial vulva position, a lateral field of three ridges (four incisions), males with spicules featuring a hole at the distal tip, ensheathed infective juveniles with average length 717 μm in the thermals strain and 771 μm in the sindicae strain, and exsheathed ones 644 μm and 682 μm, respectively. ITS-based phylogenetic analyses revealed that all Pellioditis species found in Ciscaucasia and Transcaucasia probably belong to two separate clades, with independent evolutionary histories of colonisation of this area. The entire Caucasus range area appears to serve as a biodiversity hotspot for the genus Pellioditis, presumably due to its complicated geological history and repeated isolation events for its terrestrial mollusc hosts.

Using evidence from 25,250 records of vessels entering and clearing the rivers of the Chesapeake Bay, this article demonstrates that intercolonial trading captains and crews significantly reduced the number of days their vessels spent in port in Virginia between 1698 and 1766. This contraction reflected a quantifying ethos in shipping that emerged during the early age of sail as the result of mutually reinforcing legal requirements and management practices. Responding to these productivity pressures, captains embraced practices that limited sailors’ freedom and turned to enslaved sailors to guarantee their maritime labor force. Embracing unfreedom aided captains to realize the dispatch goals that helped guarantee their investors’ returns.

Consensus reporting is valuable for presenting unified scientific evidence to the public. When a consensus does not exist, I argue that scientists ought not to default to majority reporting in its place. Majority reporting has several epistemic drawbacks because it can obscure underlying justifications and lines of evidence, which may be in conflict or contested. I argue that minority reporting, in conjunction with majority reporting, is an epistemically superior mechanism for scientists to report on the full range of reasons and evidence available within a group. This article addresses several objections, including worries over group cohesion, fringe reporting, and elite capture.

This essay takes a media historical approach to interrogate celebrations of Vladimir Lenin's centenary in the Soviet Union, during which both the state recording company Melodiya and the monthly journal Krugozor, an educational magazine with companion recordings, reevaluated the relative merits and shortcomings of sound recordings in spreading socialist ideology. The need to create recorded materials for domestic audiences as well as socialist and capitalist countries around the world prompted a series of debates over how best to memorialize Lenin's voice and re-historicize the sonic environment of his time. Lenin's voice carried with it substantial historical, political, and cultural power. But his earliest recordings—those made during his lifetime—were of poor quality and even poorer intelligibility. As such, attempts to restore and remaster Lenin's voice necessarily involved the Soviet imagination, especially as the generation of those who knew him personally aged (and died). This tension—between creation and preservation, between artifice and authenticity—would preoccupy sound engineers and producers in the years leading to the centennial. Using archival sources alongside LPs and flexidiscs, this essay traces the connections between voice, format, and mythology across the Soviet epoch and proposes a new understanding of socialist realism in audio media.