Evaluation on Potential Risk of the Emerging Yr5-Virulent Races of Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici to 165 Chinese Wheat Cultivars

In 2017, a new race (TSA-6) of the wheat stripe rust pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, virulent to resistance gene Yr5 were detected in China. However, whether Chinese wheat cultivars are resistant to the new races was unknown. In this study, two isolates (TSA-6 and TSA-9) with virulence to Yr5 were tested on other wheat Yr gene lines for their avirulence/virulence patterns and used, together with prevalent races CYR32 and CYR34 without the Yr5 virulence, to evaluate 165 major Chinese wheat cultivars for their reactions. Isolates TSA-6 and TSA-9 had similar but different virulence spectra, and therefore should be considered as two different races. Their avirulent/virulence patterns were remarkably different from that of CYR34 but quite similar to that of CYR32. Of the 165 wheat cultivars, 21 had all-stage resistance to TSA-6, 34 to TSA-9, and 20 to both races. Adult-plant resistance (APR) was detected in 35 cultivars to TSA-6 and 27 to TSA-9, but only 3 cultivars showed APR to both new races. Slow rusting resistance was observed in 24 cultivars to TSA-6 and of 33 to TSA-9. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of disease index indicated a significant difference among cultivars, but not among the four races. Based on the molecular marker data, a low percentage of wheat cultivars carried Yr5, Yr7, Yr10, Yr15, Yr26, and/or YrSP. As TSA-6 and TSA-9 can be a serious threat to wheat production in China, monitoring TSA-6, TSA-9, and other races are continually needed.

‘Nothing Is Less Universal than the Idea of Race’

In 1950, the cultural anthropologist Alfred Métraux, a student of Marcel Mauss, was appointed to head a new Race Bureau at UNESCO in Paris whose mission was to combat racism with the tools of social science. Métraux had worked in the Americas since the 1930s, and his appointment allowed French social scientists to join the global struggle to remove prejudice ‘from the minds of men’. To what extent did French scholars help shape Métraux’s efforts, given that at the time American sociologists and social psychologists dominated the study of race relations? Booklets commissioned by UNESCO and authored by French and American scientists in the early 1950s suggest that linguistic and conceptual barriers made cross-national discussions of race difficult, but not impossible. Thanks in part to Métraux’s campaign, the social scientific study of race relations in post-war France began earlier than is typically remembered.

The first report of Plasmopara halstedii race 337 in the Russian Federation

Sunflower downy mildew caused by Plasmopara halstedii (Farl.) Berl. et de Toni is a destructive and widespread disease. More than 50 races of P. halstedii have been recorded worldwide. In 2020, in the Russian Federation (Zernogradsky district, Rostov region), a globally new race 337 was identified for the first time. The pathogen was identified on the plants of a foreign sunflower hybrid bearing the resistance gene Pl₆. According to the five-digit racial nomenclature, its virulence profile was determined as 337 53. It is the first P. halstedii race recorded in the Russian Federation that simultaneously infects all differential lines of the 3^rd triplet, i.e., HA-R4, HA-R5 and HA-335. The sunflower lines RHA-274, 803-1, PSC8, RHA-419 and RHA-340 were resistant to it. All the collected isolates of the new race were susceptible to the fungicide mefenoxam.

Race and Blackness in Premodern Arabic Literature

The signal works of poetry that prominently feature racialized Blackness in early Arabic literature (c. ad 500–1250) include works composed by authors of Afro-Arab heritage as well as by Arab authors who satirized and panegyrized Black subjects. These poets include the pre-Islamic author ʿAntarah ibn Shaddād and the ʿAbbasid-era figures al-Mutanabbī and Ibn al-Rūmī, and thus reflect the shift, across an extensive timeline, from a local, Bedouin poetics to a self-styled cosmopolitan, courtly aesthetic characterized as muḥdath, or modernist. The works are situated not only within the changing conventions of genre, but also within an arc that traces the emergence of new race concepts and racialized social institutions in the transition from the pre-Islamic era to Islam and from the early conquests to ʿAbbasid imperialization. Critical instances of these works’ intertextual movements demonstrate how racial logic accretes in various Arab-Muslim textual traditions, showing how poetry intersects with popular epic as well as high literary geographical, ethnological, and commentarial corpuses. As verse moves across a myriad of later literary forms, its context-specific representations of racial difference are recontextualized and received in ways that contribute to a broader transregional and transtemporal discourse of racialized Blackness.

Design of a Low-Cost Small-Size Fluxgate Sensor

Traditional fluxgate sensors used in geomagnetic field observations are large, costly, power-consuming and often limited in their use. Although the size of the micro-fluxgate sensors has been significantly reduced, their performance, including indicators such as accuracy and signal-to-noise, does not meet observational requirements. To address these problems, a new race-track type probe is designed based on a magnetic core made of a Co-based amorphous ribbon. The size of this single-component probe is only Φ10 mm × 30 mm. The signal processing circuit is also optimized. The whole size of the sensor integrated with probes and data acquisition module is Φ70 mm × 100 mm. Compared with traditional fluxgate and micro-fluxgate sensors, the designed sensor is compact and provides excellent performance equal to traditional fluxgate sensors with good linearity and RMS noise of less than 0.1 nT. From operational tests, the results are in good agreement with those from a standard fluxgate magnetometer. Being more suitable for modern dense deployment of geomagnetic observations, this small-size fluxgate sensor offers promising research applications at lower costs.

Response of Xanthomonas citri pv. malvacearum isolates to cotton differing in susceptibility to the bacterium and their predicted type III effectors.

From 2015 to 2020, 342 isolates of Xanthomonas citri pv. malvacearum (Xcm) were obtained from cotton fields in Texas, including 64 isolates collected from symptomatic cultivars that were thought to be resistant to race 18 strains of Xcm (the predominant race in the USA). Symptoms on highly resistant cultivars prompted concern that a new race of Xcm was present. The 342 isolates were inoculated on a race 18 susceptible (DP 1747NR B2XF) and race 18 resistant (S295) cotton cultivar and none of the isolates caused blight type symptoms (water soaking and chlorosis) on S295, indicating that the B12 resistant gene was still beneficial for disease management. Four cultivars, varying in their field response to bacterial blight, were inoculated with each of 17 isolates of Xcm and the incidence of plants exhibiting bacterial blight symptoms averaged 87% for DP 1747NR B2XF, 51% for partially susceptible NG 4936 B3XF, 16% for partially resistant DP 1646 B2XF, and 0% for S295. Xcm isolates from Texas (11), Georgia (1) and Oklahoma (1) were sequenced, and their type three effectors (T3Es) were predicted. All isolates (GA, OK, TX) had the same T3E proteins as previously identified Xcm race 18 isolates (tested for 25 genes), including XopJ. Race 1, 2, 3, and 12 of Xcm included in the comparisons were all missing the XopJ gene. Use of cultivars with the B12 gene is an effective strategy to manage bacterial blight of cotton.

Love in the High Court: Implications for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition

This article considers implications of the recent Love decision in the High Court for the debate about Indigenous constitutional recognition and a First Nations constitutional voice. Conceptually, it considers how the differing judgments reconcile the sui generis position of Indigenous peoples under Australian law with the theoretical ideal of equality—concepts which are in tension both in the judicial reasoning and in constitutional recognition debates. It also discusses the judgments’ limited findings on Indigenous sovereignty, demonstrating the extent to which this is predominantly a political question that cannot be adequately resolved by courts. Surviving First Nations sovereignty can best be recognised and peacefully reconciled with Australian state sovereignty through constitutional reform authorised by Parliament and the people. The article then discusses political ramifications. It argues that allegations of judicial activism enlivened by this case, rather than demonstrating the risks of a First Nations voice, in fact illustrate the foresight of the proposal: a First Nations voice was specifically designed to be non-justiciable and therefore intended to address such concerns. Similarly, objections that this case introduced a new, race-based distinction into the Constitution are misplaced. Such race-based distinctions already exist in the Constitution’s text and operation. The article then briefly offers high-level policy suggestions address two practical issues arising from Love. With respect to the three-part test of Indigenous identity, it suggests a First Nations voice should avoid the unjustly onerous burdens of proof that are perpetuated in some of the reasoning in Love. It also proposes policy incentives to encourage Indigenous non-citizens resident in Australia to seek Australian citizenship, helping to prevent threats of deportation that faced Love and Thoms.

Dendrimers: A New Race of Pharmaceutical Nanocarriers

Dendrimers are nanosized, symmetrical molecules in which a small atom or group of atoms is surrounded by the symmetric branches known as dendrons. The structure of dendrimers possesses the greatest impact on their physical and chemical properties. They grow outwards from the core-shell which further reacts with monomers having one reactive or two dormant molecules. Dendrimers’ unique characteristics such as hyperbranching, well-defined spherical structure, and high compatibility with the biological systems are responsible for their wide range of applications including medical and biomedical areas. Particularly, the dendrimers’ three-dimensional structure can incorporate a wide variety of drugs to form biologically active drug conjugates. In this review, we focus on the synthesis, mechanism of drug encapsulations in dendrimers, and their wide applications in drug delivery.