The evaluation of the effects of early starvation and feeding on survival and growth in the early stages of the life cycle of ornamental marine caridean shrimp species is fundamental to establish adequate feeding protocols in their culture. In this study, we determine the nutritional vulnerability in the early larval stages of ornamental shrimp Lysmata ankeri exposed to different periods of starvation or feeding. The larvae were separated into three groups (zoea I-ZI, zoea II with ZI fed, and zoea II with ZI unfed) and subjected to two experiments: (1) point-of-no-return (PNR), comprising one or two days of initial starvation followed by feeding; and (2) point-of-reserve-saturation (PRS), comprising one or two days of initial feeding followed by starvation. Each experiment was still composed of two control groups: continuous feeding and continuous starvation. Larvae tolerated some periods of starvation, with a high PNR value (2.00) and low PRS (0.50). Longer periods of starvation influenced both growth and survival rates in zoea II stages. The nutritional vulnerability index for zoea I was 0.25, which represents a low dependence on food supply. In this study, it was observed that ornamental shrimp L. ankeri larvae hatch with energy reserves, presenting facultative primary lecithotrophy, in which they are able to moult from zoea I to zoea II using such reserves in the absence of food. In this sense, the early larvae stages (zoeas I and II) can tolerate a certain period of starvation, indicating the great potential of this species for aquaculture.

Fasting is related to glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, but it is unknown whether the duration of fasting influences these factors. We explored whether prolonged fasting increases norepinephrine and ketone concentrations and decreases core temperature to a greater extent than short-term fasting; if so, this should lead to improved glucose tolerance. Forty-three healthy young adult males were randomly assigned to undergo a 2-d fast, 6-d fast or the usual diet. Changes in rectal temperature (TR), ketone and catecholamine concentrations, glucose tolerance and insulin release in response to an oral glucose tolerance test were assessed. Both fasting trials increased ketone concentration, and the effect was larger after the 6-d fast (P < 0·05). TR and epinephrine concentration increased only after the 2-d fast (P < 0·05). Both fasting trials increased the glucose area under the curve (AUC) (P < 0·05), but the AUC remained higher than the baseline value after participants returned to their usual diet in the 2-d fast group (P < 0·05). Neither fasting had an immediate effect on the insulin AUC, although it increased after return to their usual diet in the 6-d fast group (P < 0·05). These data suggest that the 2-d fast elicited residual impaired glucose tolerance, which may be linked to greater perceived stress during short-term fasting, as shown by the epinephrine response and change in core temperature. By contrast, prolonged fasting seemed to evoke an adaptive residual mechanism that is related to improved insulin release and maintained glucose tolerance.

Siege warfare and its devastating humanitarian consequences have been one of the defining features of contemporary armed conflicts. While the most apparent restriction of siege warfare appears to be provided by the prohibition against starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare, the prevailing restrictive interpretation of this prohibition has left civilians remaining in a besieged area unprotected from the hardships they endure. This article demonstrates that shifting the focus from the prohibition against starvation to the rules regulating humanitarian relief operations does not seem helpful due to the ambiguities regarding the requirement of consent and the right of control of the besieging party. In remedying this protection gap, this article examines whether and how the principle of proportionality applies in the context of a siege. After analyzing whether the encirclement and isolation aspect of a siege can be considered an attack in the sense of Article 49(1) of Additional Protocol I (AP I), to which the proportionality principle applies, the article investigates how this principle operates in the context of a siege. It will be demonstrated that Article 57(2)(b) of AP I requires that the proportionality of a siege must be continuously monitored.

In Mars-analogous hyperarid soils of the Atacama Desert, phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) as the main component of biomembrane play a role in reliably determining viable microbes. PLFA analyses illustrated a rise of the microbial abundance (from 5.0 × 106 to 4.2 × 107 cells g−1) and biodiversity (from 7 to 15 different individual PLFAs) from the north hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert to the southern arid region. Abundant cyclopropyl PLFAs (47.2 ± 4.6%) suggested the resistance to oligotrophic and hypersaline environments by Atacama microbial communities. The southernmost arid site had the highest proportion (8.7%) of eukaryotic and fungal lipid biomarkers. Different precipitations (ranging from 0.7 to 2 mm year−1) in the hyperarid core exerted different effects on microbial biomass, PLFA diversity, bacteria and microeukaryotes. By principal component analysis (cumulative 74.6% of variance), the dominance of PLFA hydroxylation was associated with the microbial viability; bacteria rich in C16:0, C18:0 and C16:1ω9 favoured higher soil conductivity and nitrate; and other PLFAs contributed more to the organic content. Additionally by comparing the ratios of PLFAs to well-preserved organics (e.g., mineral-bound organic carbon and microbial phosphorus), I found that the degradation of PLFAs decreased to a minimum when the mean annual precipitation is lower than 2 mm. These findings may further specify identifiable biomarkers on Mars, if potentially extant Martian microbes possess comparable phospholipid membrane structure.

Lysmata vittata is considered an invasive shrimp in the Atlantic Ocean and some characteristics might have contributed to its invasive success, such as its larval nutritional vulnerability during the early stages of development. The objective of this study was to evaluate the early larval stages of the shrimp L. vittata. Ovigerous specimens were captured in an estuarine region of north-eastern Brazil. Zoeae were assigned to two experiments: (1) the point of no return (PNR), consisting of treatments with an increasing number of days of starvation and subsequent days of feeding; and (2) the point of reserve saturation (PRS), consisting of treatments with an increasing number of days of feeding and subsequent days of starvation. Two control groups were considered: continuous starvation (CS) and continuous feeding (CF). Nutritional vulnerability was estimated by the time when 50% of the initially starved larvae (PNR50) lost the ability to moult to the next stage, when 50% of the initially fed larvae (PRS50) were capable of moulting to the next stage. In the CF, the mean development time (±SD) of the larvae that reached stage III was 4.36 ± 0.74 days with a mortality of 70%, and the mean carapace length (±SD) was 0.61 ± 0.04 mm CL. The PNR50 and PRS50 were 2.42 ± 0.14 and 1.32 ± 0.83 days, respectively. The nutritional vulnerability index (PRS50/PNR50 = 0.54) indicates that L. vittata presents intermediate dependence on exogenous food during the early larval stages, which might help our understanding of the invasive potential of this species in the Atlantic Ocean.

The article builds a case for the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (Obshchestvo Okhranenia Zdorov’ia Evreiskogo Naselenia [OZE]) as a project of medicalized modernity, a mass politics of Jewish self-help that relied on a racialized and medicalized vision of a future Jewish nation. Officially registered in 1912 in St. Petersburg, it created the space for a Jewish politics that focused on the state of the collective Jewish body as a precondition for Jewish participation in any version of modernity. OZE futurism survived the years of World War I and the Russian Civil War, when the organization had to concentrate on rescue and relief rather than on facilitating the development of new bodies and souls. New archival evidence reveals how race science, medical statistics, and positive eugenics became composite elements of the Jewish anticolonial message and new subjectivity.

Between 1940 and 1944, an estimated 48,588 patients resident in French psychiatric hospitals died of starvation. Standard prisons, while facing similar problems, did not experience the same number of deaths by starvation, partly due to their ability to develop a black market for food and rations. Patients in psychiatric hospitals, on the other hand, were completely at the mercy of their doctors and the personnel in charge. At Hôpital du Vinatier, a psychiatric facility in Lyon, the mortality rate increased sharply from 1940 to 1944. In 1942, the worst year, 42% of patients died of hunger and exposure. In the end, more than 2,000 patients died at Vinatier. Was this due to a supposed lack of rations, or was it something more sinister? In Germany at the same time, tens of thousands of psychiatric patients died of purposeful starvation in psychiatric hospitals as part of the Nazi program of psychiatric euthanasia. Was the same thing occurring in Lyon?

Hosts face mortality from parasitic and environmental stressors, but interactions of parasitism with other stressors are not well understood, particularly for long-lived hosts. We monitored survival of flour beetles (Tribolium confusum) in a longitudinal design incorporating cestode (Hymenolepis diminuta) infection, starvation and exposure to the pesticide diatomaceous earth (DE). We found that cestode cysticercoids exhibit increasing morphological damage and decreasing ability to excyst over time, but were never eliminated from the host. In the presence of even mild environmental stressors, host lifespan was reduced sufficiently that extensive degradation of cysticercoids was never realized. Median host lifespan was 200 days in the absence of stressors, and 3–197 days with parasitism, starvation and/or DE. Early survival of parasitized hosts was higher relative to controls in the presence of intermediate concentrations of DE, but reduced under all other conditions tested. Parasitism increased host mortality in the presence of other stressors at times when parasitism alone did not cause mortality, consistent with an interpretation of synergy. Environmental stressors modified the parasite numbers needed to reveal intensity-dependent host mortality, but only rarely masked intensity dependence. The longitudinal approach produced observations that would have been overlooked or misinterpreted if survival had only been monitored at a single time point.