Despite the turn to the right of many national governments, including France, the 2024 theatre festival in Avignon programmed by a new director, Tiago Rodrigues, delivered feminist, internationalist, antiracist, and progressive works. The lineup showed both his courage to defend what he believes in and his support of exceptional artists who share his political passions (Caroline Guiela Nguyen, Mohamed El Khatib, Lola Arias, Marta Górnicka, Séverine Chavrier, Baro d’evel, among others).

The association between lower birth weight and increased disease risk in adulthood has drawn attention to the physiological processes that shape the gestational environment. We implement genome-wide transcriptional profiling of maternal blood samples to identify subsets of genes and associated transcription control pathways that predict offspring birth weight. Female participants (N = 178, mean = 27.0 years) in a prospective observational birth cohort study were contacted between 2009 and 2014 to identify new pregnancies. An in-home interview was scheduled for early in the third trimester (mean = 30.3 weeks) to collect pregnancy-related information and a blood sample, and birth weight was measured shortly after delivery. Transcriptional activity in white blood cells was determined with a whole-genome gene expression direct hybridization assay. Fifty transcripts were differentially expressed in association with offspring birth weight, with 18 up-regulated in relation to lower birth weight, and 32 down-regulated. Examination of transcription control pathways identified increased activity of NF-κB, AP-1, EGR1, EGR4, and Gfi families, and reduced the activity of CEBP, in association with lower birth weight. Transcript origin analyses identified non-classical CD16+ monocytes, CD1c+ myeloid dendritic cells, and neutrophils as the primary cellular mediators of differential gene expression. These results point toward a systematic regulatory shift in maternal white blood cell activity in association with lower offspring birth weight, and they suggest that analyses of gene expression during gestation may provide insight into regulatory and cellular mechanisms that influence birth outcomes.

We examined the Clostridium difficile infection rate and risk factors in an outpatient dialysis cohort. The Cox proportional hazard for developing C. difficile infection was significantly higher with high comorbidity index and low serum albumin level. Conversely, it was lower for patients who had frequent bloodstream and dialysis access-related infections.

The figure of Pan escapes definition. Should one even attempt to ascribe a gender? Try to seize him (or her) as the forest god and Pan will turn up as the spirit of fertile fields. Imagine Pan as an impish charmer and Pan transforms into a wily adversary. Pan is multiple and everywhere, englobing but also electrifying. Used as prefix, ‘pan’ imparts to political movements and aesthetic projects a Utopian vision, the progressive notion of broad-based co-operation and community. Yet ‘pan’ can also evoke a potentially discordant assembly.