Category Archives: Features

Features, Gumiel de Izán, Photos, Scientific American

Recopilando el testimonio genético de los muertos de la Guerra Civil española

En una zanja profunda hasta la cintura junto a la Autovía 1 de España, una docena de voluntarios con guantes de goma cepillan arcilla oscura que cubre restos de huesos humanos. Sus rodillas se apoyan sobre cojines de espuma, y una carpa blanca los protege del sol del verano boreal. Es julio de 2011; 75 veranos después de que en España estallara una guerra civil que llevó a los huesos de 59 personas a ese suelo.

A pocos pasos de la zanja, los voluntarios sostienen micrófonos frente al murmullo de los ancianos de la localidad de Gumiel de Izán, en la región centro-norte de Castilla y León. Esos ancianos, que albergan recuerdos de ejecuciones sumarias en ese sitio, bien pueden ser los hermanos menores, los vecinos y los hijos de los que están en esa tumba. Pero al momento de la exhumación, nadie lo sabe a ciencia cierta. En lugar de ello, los voluntarios documentan y recogen los restos físicos, y consiguen y graban las memorias imperfectas que fueron suprimidas durante cuatro décadas de dictadura.

Tales sitios se encuentran esparcidos por toda España, desde las Islas Canarias hasta La Mancha y las Islas Baleares. Las estimaciones recientes sugieren que alrededor de 2.000 fosas comunes pueden guardar los restos de hasta 150.000 víctimas de apresuradas ejecuciones durante la guerra. Continue reading Recopilando el testimonio genético de los muertos de la Guerra Civil española →

Features, Gumiel de Izán, Photos, Sapiens

Unburying the Spanish Civil War

In a waist-high trench alongside Spain’s national Highway 1, a dozen volunteers wearing rubber gloves brush tan clay from crumbling human bones. Their knees rest on foam cushions, and a white tent shades them from the summer sun. It’s July 2011—a full 75 summers after Spain erupted in the Civil War that put the bones of 59 civilians in the ground here.

A few steps away from the trench, volunteers hold microphones up to the murmuring mouths of elders from the town of Gumiel de Izán, in the north-central region of Castilla y León. The elders, who harbor memories of summary executions at the site, may well be the younger siblings, neighbors, and children of those in the grave. But at the moment of exhumation, nobody knows for sure. Instead, the volunteers document and collect the physical remains, coaxing out and recording imperfect memories that were suppressed during four decades of dictatorship.

Such sites are scattered throughout Spain, from the Canary Islands to La Mancha to the Balearic Islands. Recent estimates suggest that some 2,000 mass graves may hold the remains of up to 150,000 victims of hasty wartime executions. Continue reading Unburying the Spanish Civil War →

Features, Nature Outlook

Tropical disease: A neglected cause

He didn’t know it at the time, but when chemist Matthew Todd posted a request for help on The Synaptic Leap, a website devoted to open-source biomedical research, he was sowing the seeds for a rivalry between an open initiative and a contract-research organization hired by the World Health Organization to reach the same goal.

The aim of both projects, run in 2010, was to produce a safer, low-cost version of praziquantel, a treatment for the tropical parasitic infection schistosomiasis. Up until that point, the treatment contained two enantiomers (mirror-image versions of the molecule that have slightly different properties) of praziquantel. One enantiomer has no effect on the parasite, but gives the drug a bitter taste. Eliminating this undesirable form could reduce side effects and help more patients to complete their treatment. The pure drug needed to be affordable. Todd, who is at the University of Sydney in Australia, thought that an open project was the best way to achieve this. “Open is very well-suited for neglected diseases,” he says. “The pay-off of secrecy is not very large.” Continue reading Tropical disease: A neglected cause →

Features, Jodhpur, Mumbai, Nature Energy, Photos, Udaipur

India’s energy subsidy slowdown

The hum of Gurumoorthy Sethuraman’s 10-horsepower (7.46 kW) irrigation pumps joins the murmur of nearby rivers in Arayapuram, India. Sethuraman, an experienced and successful farmer, plants alternating crops of rice and pulses each year in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu. This bounty has enabled his family to send several of his grandchildren to study abroad in the United States and United Kingdom. Yet, by law, he and other commercial agriculture enterprise owners are not required to pay the utility that powers the 60 or so wells that irrigate his 15 hectares of land.
Continue reading India’s energy subsidy slowdown →