Reconstructions of Moche ritual sacrifice have relied heavily on iconographic depictions of elaborate rituals conducted on mountains and sacrifices at adobe temples. Scholars have categorized mountain scenes, proposed that Huaca de la Luna symbolized sacred mountains, and argued that one of the main mountain scenes entails the liberation of a figure known as Dios A. However, the large corpus of mountain iconography remains underanalyzed, and few existing publications incorporate data from mountainside sites. In this article, I propose a more specific Mountainside Sacrifice and Cave Opening mythic narrative encoded in these scenes, comparable to the Presentation Theme / Sacrifice Ceremony. I argue that future surveys and excavations must include thorough investigations of north coast mountains of Peru.

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) contains bioactive compounds such as polyphenols and saponins, which have been shown to influence cognition, mood, sleep, stress and related biomarkers. However, the evidence from human studies has not been systematically synthesised. To address this, we conducted a systematic review evaluating the effects of asparagus-based products on cognitive, affective, sleep outcomes and related biomarkers in adults. A systematic search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Google Scholar and Amino Up Ltd’s website (up to April 2025) identified studies assessing asparagus supplementation in adults, following PRISMA guidelines (PROSPERO registration number: CRD42025636834). Human studies that employed randomised controlled trials or quasi-experimental designs and assessed the effects of orally administered asparagus-based products on cognition, mood, sleep or relevant biomarkers were included. Eighteen studies (thirteen randomised controlled trials and three pre-post-studies; 503 participants) were included. Cognitive improvements were observed in reaction time, accuracy and mental fatigue, while mood and stress-related outcomes showed reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Sleep outcomes consistently demonstrated improvements in sleep quality and duration, while biomarker data showed effects on cortisol levels. Asparagus supplementation may offer modest benefits for cognition, mood and stress-related physiology, with particularly consistent effects on sleep quality. However, the magnitude of benefits varies by population, dose and duration, and the heterogeneity of interventions, small sample sizes and limited studies may constrain the generalisability of findings. Well-powered, long-term clinical trials are needed to determine optimal dosage, clarify mechanisms and assess efficacy across diverse populations.

Women with diabetes frequently experience ovarian dysfunction, which is a significant indication that diabetes adversely affects their reproductive health. This study investigates the efficacy of combined treatment with Pioglitazone and Cynara scolymus extract in improving ovarian function in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. A total of 35 female rats were divided into five groups: (1) Control (saline), (2) DM (diabetic control), (3) DM + Piog (30 mg/kg Pioglitazone), (4) DM + Cynara (400 mg/kg C. scolymus extract), and (5) DM + Piog + Cynara (combined treatment), and were administered orally for 30 consecutive days. Following treatment, histopathological and stereological analyses were performed to evaluate follicular development, corpus luteum volume, and oxidative stress markers. The results indicated that the combined treatment (DM + Piog + Cynara) led to significant improvements, including increased numbers of preantral, antral, and Graafian follicles, alongside an enhanced corpus luteum volume. Additionally, there was a notable reduction in atretic follicles and fasting blood glucose levels compared to the diabetic group. Diabetes resulted in elevated malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and decreased antioxidant enzyme activities. However, the combination therapy effectively modulated apoptotic pathways, enhancing Bcl-2 expression while reducing Caspase-9 activity. This study demonstrates that the combined therapy of C. scolymus extract and Pioglitazone mitigates diabetic-induced ovarian dysfunction by reducing oxidative stress, normalizing hormonal levels, and promoting healthy folliculogenesis. These findings suggest that this approach may serve as a promising complementary treatment for diabetes-related reproductive issues, potentially improving reproductive health.

Compared with superhydrophobic coatings, superamphiphobic coatings offer broader application potential in various fields. However, their practical applications are often hindered by insufficient repellency towards low-surface-tension, high-viscosity and complex multicomponent liquids, as well as by their stability. Herein, a palygorskite-based stable superamphiphobic coating with a simple fabrication process and low cost is reported. The coating was fabricated through sequential spray deposition of a fluorosilicone resin (FSR) bonding layer and a superamphiphobic functional layer composed of fluorinated palygorskite (F-PAL), fluorinated carbon black (F-CB) and FSR. In this coating, F-PAL nanorods serve as the building blocks for constructing the primary nanostructure, while F-CB nanoparticles occupy the interstitial spaces between the PAL nanorods, forming the secondary nanostructure. Together, these components generate a multiscale hierarchical micro-/nanostructure that is critical for achieving superamphiphobicity. By systematically optimizing the mass ratio of F-CB to F-PAL and the FSR content, a low-surface-energy multiscale hierarchical micro-/nanostructure was successfully established, imparting the coating with excellent superamphiphobicity towards water, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene/dioctyl sebacate mixtures (HTPB-H) and their aluminium powder-containing suspensions (HTPB-H/Al). The coating exhibits outstanding mechanical, chemical and thermal stability. Furthermore, the coating demonstrates remarkable anti-adhesion performance against both HTPB-H and HTPB-H/Al, together with superior passive anti-icing performance, as evidenced by a significantly prolonged freezing delay time (1291 s, ∼30-fold increase) and a substantially reduced ice adhesion strength (from 224.3 to 65.8 kPa). Moreover, efficient photothermal de-icing performance was achieved under low-temperature, high-humidity and weak-light conditions. These results demonstrate that the proposed superamphiphobic coating holds significant promise for practical applications in anti-adhesion and anti-icing under harsh conditions.

This article examines the Rio-based nonpartisan organization, the Marielle Franco Institute’s digital strategies to appeal to Afro-Brazilian voters. The literature reveals that most Afro-Brazilian voters do not vote along racial lines. However, scholarship also reveals that politicians make racial appeals to Afro-Brazilian voters. I argue that the MFI uses digital media to mobilize Afro-Brazilian voters to support progressive political candidates. I find that it seeks to mobilize them in four ways. The first is the Marielle Franco Agenda, an interactive platform that features progressive political candidates with similar agenda issues as Franco. Second, they highlight political candidates that are practitioners of African-derived religions. The third is that it promotes coalition politics through its collaboration with another nonpartisan organization to promote progressive candidates, and lastly, the MFI highlights candidates with a pro-Black woman aesthetic that challenges the notion that political spaces are nonblack spaces.

This paper examines the politics of leveling-down policy in education through the case study of the Israeli reforms in the 1960s, which sought to reduce gaps not only by strengthening disadvantaged students but also by deliberately limiting the avenues available for socially and economically advantaged students to ensure their superiority. This analysis locates the theoretical concept of leveling down within the broader historical context of postwar welfare state construction in Israel and Europe, specifically the expansion of the universal right to education. In so doing, it demonstrates how historical analysis can enrich the theoretical understanding of important political concepts, in this case elaborating on existing discourse previously largely confined to the fields of philosophy, law and sociology. Thus, the article seeks to contribute to the study of the history of education and to contemporary discussions on issues of equality and gaps in the education system.

A new species of thrips-parasitic nematode, Thripinema usitatum n. sp. (Tylenchomorpha: Allantonematinae), is described from thrips collected from flowers in Hainan Province, China. The species is identified using an integrative approach combining detailed morphology, molecular phylogenetic analyses, and biological observations. Thripinema usitatum n. sp. exhibits pronounced sexual dimorphism and a complex life cycle, including obese parasitic females, vermiform infective females, and free-living males with degenerate feeding structures within the body of thrips. The new species is distinguished from its congeners by the absence of a stylet in free-living males, a distinctive two-part bursa extending nearly to the tail terminus, and characteristic shapes of parasitic females and male tails. Molecular characterization was performed using three markers (18S rRNA, 28S D2–D3 rRNA, and mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, mtCOI). Phylogenetic analyses based on 28S D2–D3 rRNA and mtCOI partial sequences consistently recovered T. usitatum n. sp. as a well-supported, monophyletic lineage clearly separated from other entomophilic nematodes. Among the markers examined, mtCOI provided the highest discriminatory power. Biological observations revealed that T. usitatum n. sp. infects thrips at all developmental stages, with a strong prevalence in adult females. Multiple nematode life stages frequently co-occurred within individual hosts, and infection intensities ranged from 1 to 433 nematodes per thrips. These results expand the known diversity of Thripinema and provide a robust framework for future systematic and ecological studies of thrips-parasitic nematodes.

How did the histories of biomedicine and Christianity coalesce during the heydays of bacteriology and tropical medicine in the early twentieth century? How can the focus on relatively underexplored sites in the historiography of scientific knowledge add to our insights about the links between the histories of imperialism, disciplinary institutions and scientific experiments? How does one conceptualize the presence and agency of captive patients in the colonized context? This article argues that a renewed focus on the colonial leper asylums in British India allows us simultaneously to raise these fundamental questions, which resonate with the newly emergent histories of global and colonial science and medicine. In addressing these questions, this article establishes these leper asylums as a unique site where colonized diseased subalterns encountered, suffered, engaged with and defied different strands of British power that were concurrently imperial, biomedical and Christian.

It is a striking fact that the theories of the so-called geometric trinity of gravity can model the same gravitational effects with such diverse geometric tools as curvature, torsion, and nonmetricity. Building on Wolf et al., (2024), this contribution clarifies and critiques state-of-the-art responses to this underdetermination: conventionalism, discriminatory approaches such as Ockhamism and (arguably) functionalism, and reinterpretational common core and overarching approaches. Except for Ockhamism, no realist solution has been convincingly articulated. The future of the metric-affine structure that accommodates the geometric trinity seems to lie not in empirically equivalent reformulations but in heuristics of theory building.

Recent prominent philosophical work has proposed that grief’s formal object—that which all instances of grief are directed towards, and which distinguishes grief from other emotions—is the loss of significant life possibilities. This article challenges the “lost possibilities” account by examining cases of grief where possibilities are experienced as being different, disenfranchised, or diminished prior to the loss. We argue that individuals relate to possibilities differently, as exemplified by autistic grievers; that among marginalised grievers, such as LGBTQIA+ individuals, possibilities can be experienced as inauthentic or damaging, complicating one’s sense of loss; and that the depth of one’s grief does not always correspond to the extent of the futural possibilities lost, as illustrated by elderly grievers. Some of the most profound grief is suffered by those who have few possibilities to lose. We argue that accommodating these cases requires either adopting such an expansive notion of “possibility” that the approach risks becoming uninformative, or abandoning the claim that lost possibilities are grief’s formal object and thus necessary to grief.

Nous analyserons dans cette contribution les marqueurs pouvoir et peut-être du français et a putea ‘pouvoir’ et poate ‘peut-être’ du roumain, et plus précisément l’évolution de leurs emplois modaux vers des emplois non modaux, que nous décrirons dans une perspective contrastive. Dans le cas du français, nous nous appuierons sur les études antérieures sur la question, où sont répertoriées et décrites des valeurs modales comme la possibilité aléthique, épistémique et déontique, ainsi que des valeurs post- ou plus-que-modales, où le sémantisme modal s’affaiblit, comme la sporadicité ou la concession, ou différentes valeurs illocutoires. En roumain, on retrouve la plupart de ces valeurs pour les marqueurs étudiés, mais leurs valeurs non modales ont été beaucoup moins étudiées. Nous chercherons à voir si les mêmes valeurs, modales et non modales, des marqueurs se retrouvent dans les deux langues et à mettre au jour les cas d’emplois divergents.

The mosaic of dead, live, and dying lodgepole pine trees, Pinus contorta (Pinaceae), in post–mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), outbreak stands may increase native bark and woodboring beetle populations capable of imposing further pine mortality within the same stands. In summer 2017, we set up three types of nonbaited insect traps (landing, emergence, flight intercept) in 27 post–mountain pine beetle outbreak stands in Alberta, Canada, showing levels of mountain pine beetle–caused pine mortality that ranged from 2% to 83%, to investigate the abundance of three functional groups of beetles (bark beetles, woodborers, predators). The percentage of beetle-caused pine mortality had no effect on beetle abundance in each functional group, but the bark beetle abundance decreased as the proportion of healthy pine trees increased in post-outbreak stands. The lack of significant relationships between insect abundance and pine mortality was likely due to host tree availability, growing interspecific competition, and predation. Compared to pine mortality, live tree composition might be a better predictor of bark beetle abundance. The low beetle abundance overall suggested stand conditions seven years post-outbreak could not facilitate increases in native bark and woodboring beetle populations in the novel habitat of mountain pine beetle in Alberta.