Centro de Documentación de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música
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The COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection and the COSPAR Policy on Planetary Protection: an overview of governance and activities
No full textThe search for both extant and extinct life within our Solar System and beyond has been a primary motivation for space exploration since its inception. Mars has long been a focal point for exploration, and it continues to be, while the moons of the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, are increasingly seen as possible habitats. To ensure safe and sustainable scientific exploration of these bodies, the COSPAR Policy on Planetary Protection aims at ensuring adherence to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Although not legally binding, the guidelines set forth by the Policy are globally supported, with implementation instructions provided. The primary goal of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection is to safeguard against the harmful effects of both forward and backward contamination. It focuses on the biological exchange that may occur during Solar System exploration, which could negatively affect the study of chemical evolution as well as the origin of life. The Policy is regularly reviewed and revised to incorporate the latest scientific discoveries, alongside the rapidly advancing requirements of space exploration. The Panel’s work addresses the specific needs of each space mission, while ensuring the application of relevant expertise to promote the sustainable exploration of the Solar System. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Planetary Protection for sustainable space exploration’
An ensemble binning approach to identify functional diversity in cleanroom environments
No full textCleanroom environments, crucial for spacecraft assembly, are subject to stringent sterilization protocols to minimize microbial contamination. However, tolerant microbes can persist and pose a potential risk for planetary protection. This study employs an ensemble binning approach, integrating multiple metagenome binning programs, to analyse published metagenomic datasets generated from NASA cleanrooms to investigate functional diversity within cleanrooms. Twenty-six medium and high-quality, non-redundant metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) spanning six bacterial phyla were generated. Functional analysis of these MAGs identified potential metabolic pathways for the degradation of commonly used cleaning agents, suggesting that these compounds could serve as carbon sources. Furthermore, genomic analyses identified diverse physiological tolerances, with many MAGs possessing polyextremophilic traits, including resistance to high salinity, temperature and alkalinity. Growth rate index (GRiD) analysis also suggested some MAGs were actively replicating within the cleanroom environments. This study demonstrates the power of ensemble binning in revealing the functional diversity and adaptive strategies of cleanroom microbiomes and provides critical insights for refining planetary protection protocols. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Planetary Protection for sustainable space exploration’
Scrub Typhus in Northern Thailand: Exploring Preventative and Diagnostic Challenges in the Field
No full textScrub typhus is a highly neglected tropical disease caused by the obligate intracellular bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi. It is estimated to cause hundreds of thousands of infections yearly. Lack of awareness and of reliable field-deployable tests, however, leads to delays in specific treatment and to severe outcomes.
My thesis will focus on promoting prevention and awareness as well as improving diagnostic strategies. I will start by reviewing vector ecology and risk factors, followed by original findings on antibody prevalence and its relationship with environmental exposure and preventative behaviour. This will introduce the community engagement chapter, in which I will present our experience in successfully raising knowledge and awareness of scrub typhus using a community engagement approach.
The second section will begin with a comprehensive summary of scrub typhus diagnostics followed by a systematic review on the relative performance of PCR and serology for acute diagnosis. Original findings from the “Scrub Typhus Antibiotic Resistance Trial” up to early 2025 will then be presented, highlighting the limitations of immunochromatographic tests and the superiority of nucleic acid detection for acute identification in endemic settings.
To overcome the limitations of current tests, I designed the “Quick and Easy Scrub Typhus diagnostics” study, which compares single-gene target primers to newly developed ones targeting repeated parts of the O. tsutsugamushi genome. The latter were tested on real-time PCR and on a highly automated insulated isothermal PCR machine, better suited for small hospitals. In the first year of recruitment the newly developed primers detected 38% more cases than the traditional ones. The potential for simple anamnestic and clinical information to direct diagnostic choices will also be discussed.
In the final chapter, I will summarise the salient findings, discuss their relevance and limitations, and suggest potential future developments
The positive value of media for children: replacing fear with fortitude
No full textThe term ‘media’ frequently has negative connotations; mass media, screen time and social media are all terms we may talk about in the primary school that feel heavily laden with fear and uncertainty. Research suggests that the public and educational debate often revels in portraying media as dangerous; Neuhaus and O’Connor (2025) found that media articles portraying screen time as universally ‘harmful’ spread significantly faster than balanced research, supporting the idea that this wave of worry fuels guilt and confusion for parents and carers, often leading to fear-based narratives in policy. With social media, the stories that hit the headlines are often the terrible tragedies that have occurred through connections made online. But in this article, the authors argue that alongside these awful events, are positive connections for many other children and young people
Military spouses and patriarchal anxiety on the ancient Athenian stage
No full textThis paper considers the representation of soldiers’ wives in ancient Athenian dramatic plays which respond to, and at times critique, the militarized socio-cultural milieu within which they were produced. It argues that these texts reflect male anxieties that incessant warmongering, as a masculine pursuit, might destabilize the institution of the family, thereby also undermining the gendered norms and social structures on which both military violence and patriarchy depend. Fifth-century-BCE Athens was starkly patriarchal society where no distinction between civilian and military was assumed: every adult male citizen was expected to undertake military service, which meant that every family was a ‘military family’ and every wife a ‘military spouse’. This was also a period when armed conflict, whether against external invaders or neighbouring states in Athens’ pursuit of imperialist expansion, had been a continual presence for many decades. Dramatized representations of military spouses from the period highlight the complex interdependency of the military and the family as well as illustrating some of the ways in which the binary division of gender roles is placed under pressure during wartime. The paper focuses on three plays: Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata, and two tragedies depicting the mythical figure of Clytemnestra (Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis)
Calibrating Mid-infrared Emission Features as Diagnostics of Star Formation in Infrared-luminous Galaxies via Radiative Transfer Modeling
No full textLuminous infrared (IR) galaxies are key sites of obscured stellar mass assembly at z > 0.5. Their star formation rates (SFRs) are often estimated using the luminosities of the 6.2 and 11.2 μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features or those of the [Ne ii] and [Ne iii] fine-structure lines, as they are minimally affected by obscuration. It is uncertain whether the calibration of these features as SFR tracers depends on the starburst bolometric luminosity or the level of active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity. We here investigate the relationship between the luminosities of PAH and neon lines with SFR for highly luminous objects using radiative transfer modeling and archival observations of 42 local ultraluminous (≥1012L⊙) IR galaxies (ULIRGs). We find that PAH and [Ne ii] features arise mainly in star-forming regions, with small contributions from the AGN or host, but that the [Ne iii] line has a mixed contribution from both star formation and AGN activity. We present relations between LPAH and L[Ne II], and both starburst luminosity and SFR. We find relations for lower-luminosity (LIR ≃ 1010–1012L⊙) systems underestimate the SFRs in local ULIRGs by up to ∼1 dex. The 6.2 and 11.2 μm PAH features, and the [Ne ii] line, are thus good tracers of SFR in ULIRGs. We do not find that a more luminous AGN affects the relationship between SFR and PAH or neon luminosity but that it can make PAH emission harder to discern. Our results and derived relations are relevant to studies of star-forming and composite galaxies at z < 3 with the James Webb Space Telescope
