The Landscape of Circulating miRNAs in the Post-Genomic Era

In the past decade, there has been an epochal change in the way that diseases are investigated and diagnosed [...]

Vorlesung und Hörsaal als Symptomwörter für Geschichte und Gegenwart der deutschen Sprache

The article starts with the etymology of the words Vorlesung („lecture“) and Hörsaal (“lecture hall”). On the one hand, it turns out that the two expressions are deeply anchored in the history of the old Latin scientific language. They transmit Latin structures and perspectives in German neologisms. On the other hand, the two words arose exactly at the time when the sciences were moving from Latin to German, thus distancing themselves from the traditional forms of Latin scholarship. In this light, they exemplify an epochal change in the history of the German language, but at the same time they represent a great European continuity. Against this background, the two words can be interpreted as symptomatic words associated with the Enlightenment’s confident outlook on the future relationship between science and society. Further corpus linguistic surveys also show how productively the two words appear in word formation processes. In particular, these surveys show by way of example that and how German standard language has benefited from the emergence of German academic language.

Economic challenges and success in the post-COVID era: A CAGE Policy Report

In 2008 there was an expectation of major reform to social and economic structures following the financial crisis. The European Union (EU) referendum of 2016, and the UK’s subsequent exit from the EU in 2020, was also signalled as a turning point that would bring about epochal change. Now, in the waning of the coronavirus pandemic, we are experiencing a similar rhetoric. There is widespread agreement that the pandemic will usher in big changes for the economy and society, with the potential for major policy reform. But what will be the long-term impacts of the pandemic on the UK economy? Is the right response a “new settlement” or is some alternative approach likely to be more beneficial? This report puts forward a new perspective on the pandemic-related changes that could be ahead. The central theme is assessing the viability of epochal reform in policymaking. There seems to be a relentless desire for making big changes; however, there is arguably not enough recognition of how current settings and history can hold back these efforts. Foreword by: Dame Frances Cairncross, CBE, FRSE.

Into the Hottest Century and into Epochal Change

El siglo XXI será el siglo más caluroso en miles de años, y el paisaje social del mundo es volcánico. La política global y las relaciones sociales estarán dominadas por dos temas:la crisis climática y la rivalidad entre Estados Unidos y China.Este artículo analiza los efectos dela «pandemia de desigualdad»de Covid-19; efectos que han debilitadoalgunas fuerzas y han fortalecidootras. También profundizaenlos contextos y perspecti-vas de la crisis climática y en el conflicto entre las dos superpotencias.Lasrespuestasgubernamentalesa la pandemia pusieron fin al régimen global del neoliberalismo y la globalización de mercado sin fisuras, acontecimientossucedidos por el conflicto geopolítico y la movilización interna de las grandes potencias.Es probable que las pro-fundas transformaciones tecnológicas y sociales necesarias para hacer frente a la crisis climática sigan en manos de la política,como de costumbre, con resultados confusospero difícilmente apocalípticos.El contexto histórico del conflicto entre Estados Unidos y China suponeel principio del fin de medio milenio de dominación del mundo Occidental, por una dinastía de estados desde Portugal hasta Estados Unidos.El ascenso de China como superpotencia económica y tecnológica abre una tercera fase del declive del imperio Occidental, después dela descolonización y el retroceso de los intentos fallidos de occi-dentalizar el mundo no Occidental tras la victoria de la Guerra Fría.El fin del imperio Occidental probablemente llegará en este siglo, salvo que unaguerra nuclearmodifique el curso de los acontecimientos de forma abrupta; en cualquier caso, las previsiones de futuro constituyen siempreuna pregunta abierta. The 21st century will be the hottest century in thousands of years, and the world’s social landscape is volcanic. Global politics and social relations will be dominated by two issues, the climate crisis and the US-China rivalry. This paper analyses their passage through the «inequality pandemic» of Covid-19, weakening some pertinent forces and strengthened others, and further the contexts and prospects of the climate crisis and the US-China conflict. Governmental response to the pandemic terminated the global regime of neoliberalism and untrammelled market globalization, which have been succeeded by geopolitical conflict and great power domestic mobilization. The profound technological and social transformations needed to meet the climate crisis are likely to remain in the hands of politics as usual, with messy but hardly apocalyptic results. The historical context of the US-China conflict is the half millennium of Western world domination, by a dynasty of states from Portugal to USA. The rise of China as an economic and technological superpower opens a third phase of the decline of the Western empire, after decolonization and the blowback from the failed attempts to westernize the non-Western world after the Cold War victory. The end of the Western empire will probably come in this century –short of nuclear war–, but what will succeed it is an open question.

Recent Advances in CRISPR/Cas9-Based Genome Editing Tools for Cardiac Diseases

In the past two decades, genome editing has proven its value as a powerful tool for modeling or even treating numerous diseases. After the development of protein-guided systems such as zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), which for the first time made DNA editing an actual possibility, the advent of RNA-guided techniques has brought about an epochal change. Based on a bacterial anti-phage system, the CRISPR/Cas9 approach has provided a flexible and adaptable DNA-editing system that has been able to overcome several limitations associated with earlier methods, rapidly becoming the most common tool for both disease modeling and therapeutic studies. More recently, two novel CRISPR/Cas9-derived tools, namely base editing and prime editing, have further widened the range and accuracy of achievable genomic modifications. This review aims to provide an overview of the most recent developments in the genome-editing field and their applications in biomedical research, with a particular focus on models for the study and treatment of cardiac diseases.

Anthropogenic Drivers Leading to Population Decline and Genetic Preservation of the Eurasian Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus)

Human activities are having increasingly devastating effects on the health of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Studying the adaptive responses of animal species to changes in their habitat can be useful in mitigating this impact. Vultures represent one of the most virtuous examples of adaptation to human-induced environmental changes. Once dependent on wild ungulate populations, these birds have adapted to the epochal change resulting from the birth of agriculture and livestock domestication, maintaining their essential role as ecological scavengers. In this review, we retrace the main splitting events characterising the vultures’ evolution, with particular emphasis on the Eurasian griffon Gyps fulvus. We summarise the main ecological and behavioural traits of this species, highlighting its vulnerability to elements introduced into the habitat by humans. We collected the genetic information available to date, underlining their importance for improving the management of this species, as an essential tool to support restocking practices and to protect the genetic integrity of G. fulvus. Finally, we examine the difficulties in implementing a coordination system that allows genetic information to be effectively transferred into management programs. Until a linking network is established between scientific research and management practices, the risk of losing important wildlife resources remains high.

Globalization, deglobalization and the liberal international order

For decades, globalization and the liberal international order evolved side by side. Recently, however, deglobalizing forces have been on the rise and the liberal international order has come to be increasingly beleaguered. The special issue ‘Deglobalization? The future of the liberal international order’ examines the interconnectedness of globalization and deglobalization processes on the one hand and the trajectory of the liberal international order on the other. This introduction provides a conceptual frame for the articles to follow. It discusses globalization and deglobalization processes, compares how they have been intertwined with the liberal international order in the past and presently, and explores how these differences are likely to affect the future of world politics. The special issue makes three important contributions. First, we examine globalization and deglobalization processes systematically. Second, we break new ground in studying the future of international order. Third, we generate novel insights into epochal change.

Regulating the Tyrell Corporation: the Emergence of Novel Beings

Emerging biotechnologies and advances in computer science promise the arrival of novel beings possessed of some degree of moral status, even potentially sentient or sapient life. Such a manifestation will constitute an epochal change, and perhaps threaten Homo sapiens’ status as the only being generally considered worthy of personhood and its contingent protections; as well as being the root of any number of social and legal issues. The law as it stands is not likely to be capable of managing or adapting to this challenge. This paper highlights the likely societal ramifications of novel beings and the gaps in the legislation which is likely to be relied upon to respond to these. In so doing, the authors make a case for the development of new regulatory structures to manage the moral issues surrounding this new technological upheaval.

Europe and/or the UK: Post-Brexit urban and regional development futures – A special issue

It was over 25 years ago that European Urban and Regional Studies was launched at a time of epochal change in the composition of the political, economic and social map of Europe. Brexit has been described as an epochal moment – and at such a moment, European Urban and Regional Studies felt it should offer the space for short commentaries on Brexit and its impact on the relationships of place, space and scale across the cultural, economic, social and political maps of the ‘new Europes’. Seeking contributions drawing on the theories, processes and patterns of urban and regional development, the following provides 10 contributions on Europe, the UK and/or their relational geographies in a post-Brexit world. What the drawn-out and highly contested process of Brexit has done for the populace, residents and ex-pats of the UK is to reveal the inordinate ways in which our mental, everyday and legal maps of the regions, nations and places of the UK in Europe are powerful, territorially and rationally inconsistent, downright quirky at times but also intensely unequal. First, as the UK exits the Single Market, the nature of the political imagination needed to create alternatives to the construction of new borders and new divisions, even within a discourse of creating a ‘global Britain’, remains uncertain. European Urban and Regional Studies has always been a journal dedicated to the importance of pan-European scholarly integration and solidarity and we hope that it will continue to intervene in debates over what alternative imaginings to a more closed and introverted future might look like. Second, as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to change in profound ways how we think, work and travel across European space, we will need to find new forms of integration and new forms of engagament in intellectual life and policy development. European Urban and Regional Studies remains commited to forging such forms.

Every Epoch, Time Frame or Date that Is Solid Melts into Air. Does It? The Entanglements of Global History and World Society

This chapter explores the possibilities of a fruitful exchange between world society theory and global history approaches. It uses turning points in analyzing the quality of the accounts of the exchange and confirms whether these accounts of significant change can be linked to one another. It also mentions the unification of global history and world society theory in rejecting any obvious 'telos' of history. The chapter explains that in global history, the rejection takes the form of a narrative in which history unfolds as nothing but a transformation of complexity, while in world society theory it takes the form of a theory of social evolution. It discusses possible substantive overlaps between global history and world society theory, which focuses on epochal change, the role of the long nineteenth century, and the role of single big events or turning points.