From Teamchef Arminius to Hermann Junior: glocalised discourse about a national foundation myth

If for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the ‘Battle of the Teutoburg Forest’, fought in 9 CE between Roman armies and Germanic tribes, was predominantly a reference point for nationalist and chauvinist discourses in Germany, the first decade of the twenty-first century has seen attempts to link public remembrance with local/regional identities on the one hand and international/intercultural contact on the other. In the run up to and during the ‘anniversary year’ of 2009, German media, sports institutions and various other official institutions articulating tourist, economic and political interests attempted to create a new ‘glocalised’ version of the public memory of the Teutoburg battle. Combining methods of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, the paper analyses the narrative and argumentative topoi employed in this re-orientation of public memory, with a special emphasis on hybrid, post-national identity-construction. Das zweitausendjährige Gedenkjahr der „Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald“ im Jahr 2009 bot eine günstige Gelegenheit, die bis in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts dominante Tradition nationalistisch–chauvinistischer Deutungen des Sieges von germanischen Stämmen über drei römische Legionen zu korrigieren und zu überwinden. Der Aufsatz analysiert mit Hilfe diskurslinguistischer Methoden die Anstrengungen regionaler Institutionen und Medien, die nationale Vereinnahmung des historischen Gedenkens kritisch zu thematisieren sowie neue, zum eine lokal situierte, zum andern international orientierte Identifikationsangebote anzubieten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass solche „de-nationalisierten“ Identifikationsangebote zwar teilweise auch früher verwendet wurden, aber heutzutage rekontextualisiert und auf innovative Weise in den Vordergrund gestellt werden

Saccharomyces cerevisiae exhibiting a modified route for uptake and catabolism of glycerol forms significant amounts of ethanol from this carbon source considered as ‘non-fermentable’

Abstract Background Due to its inevitable formation during biodiesel production and its relatively high degree of reduction, glycerol is an attractive carbon source for microbial fermentation processes. However, glycerol is catabolized in a fully respiratory manner by the eukaryotic platform organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We previously engineered S. cerevisiae strains to favor fermentative metabolism of glycerol by replacing the native FAD-dependent glycerol catabolic pathway with the NAD-dependent ‘DHA pathway’. In addition, a heterologous aquaglyceroporin (Fps1 homolog) was expressed to facilitate glycerol uptake. The current study was launched to scrutinize the formation of S. cerevisiae’s natural fermentation product ethanol from glycerol caused by the conducted genetic modifications. This understanding is supposed to facilitate future engineering of this yeast for fermenting glycerol into valuable products more reduced than ethanol. Results A strain solely exhibiting the glycerol catabolic pathway replacement produced ethanol at concentrations close to the detection limit. The expression of the heterologous aquaglyceroporin caused significant ethanol production (8.5 g L−1 from 51.5 g L−1 glycerol consumed) in a strain catabolizing glycerol via the DHA pathway but not in the wild-type background. A reduction of oxygen availability in the shake flask cultures further increased the ethanol titer up to 15.7 g L−1 (from 45 g L−1 glycerol consumed). Conclusion The increased yield of cytosolic NADH caused by the glycerol catabolic pathway replacement seems to be a minimal requirement for the occurrence of alcoholic fermentation in S. cerevisiae growing in synthetic glycerol medium. The remarkable metabolic switch to ethanol formation in the DHA pathway strain with the heterologous aquaglyceroporin supports the assumption of a much stronger influx of glycerol accompanied by an increased rate of cytosolic NADH production via the DHA pathway. The fact that a reduction of oxygen supply increases ethanol production in DHA pathway strains is in line with the hypothesis that a major part of glycerol in normal shake flask cultures still enters the catabolism in a respiratory manner. </jats:sec

Involvement of the external mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase Nde1 in glycerol metabolism by wild-type and engineered <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> strains

ABSTRACT Glycerol is an attractive substrate for microbial fermentations due to its higher degree of reduction compared to glucose. The replacement of the native FAD-dependent glycerol catabolic pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by an artificial NADH-delivering dihydroxyacetone (DHA) pathway is supposed to facilitate the capturing of electrons in fermentation products. This requires that the electrons from the cytosolic NADH are not exclusively transferred to oxygen. However, the external NADH dehydrogenases (Nde1/2) and the L-glycerol 3-phosphate shuttle (composed of Gpd1/2 and Gut2), both coupled to the respiratory chain, are known to contribute to cytosolic NAD+ regeneration during growth on non-fermentable carbon sources. In order to evaluate the role of these mechanisms during growth on glycerol, we deleted GPD1/2, GUT2 as well as NDE1/2, separately and in combinations in both the glycerol-utilizing wild-type strain CBS 6412–13A and the corresponding engineered strain CBS DHA in which glycerol is catabolized by the DHA pathway. Particularly, the nde1Δ mutants showed a significant reduction in growth rate and the nde1∆ nde2∆ double deletion mutants did not grow at all in synthetic glycerol medium. The current work also demonstrates a positive impact of deleting NDE1 on the production of the fermentation product 1,2-propanediol in an accordingly engineered S. cerevisiae strain.</jats:p

Replication data for: Projekt Römerschiff: Nachbau und Erprobung für die Ausstellung ’2000 Jahre Varusschlacht’

How fast to roman warships sail and how useful is the sail if the wind comes at an angle? In order to test the sailing and rowing characteristics of Roman warships, a series of experiments was conducted. The bases for this is a roman riverboat of the type "Oberstimm" that was reconstructed in Regensburg in full scale. This boat was equipped with a Silva Marine NX2 system to record boat speed, wind speed and direction, boat position and speed over ground and other parameters not a vital for this study. In addition the number of oar strokes per minute was recorded by hand. In this study, we release the digital files written by the NX2 system and the digitized noted. From this data we calibrated the log response and calculated a polar diagram, which shows how fast the boat can go for each wind speed and wind direction

Oxygen-dependent niche formation of a pyrite-dependent acidophilic consortium built by archaea and bacteria

Biofilms can provide a number of different ecological niches for microorganisms. Here, a multispecies biofilm was studied in which pyrite-oxidizing microbes are the primary producers. Its stability allowed not only detailed fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH)-based characterization of the microbial population in different areas of the biofilm but also to integrate these results with oxygen and pH microsensor measurements conducted before. The O 2 concentration declined rapidly from the outside to the inside of the biofilm. Hence, part of the population lives under microoxic or anoxic conditions. Leptospirillum ferrooxidans strains dominate the microbial population but are only located in the oxic periphery of the snottite structure. Interestingly, archaea were identified only in the anoxic parts of the biofilm. The archaeal community consists mainly of so far uncultured Thermoplasmatales as well as novel ARMAN (Archaeal Richmond Mine Acidophilic Nanoorganism) species. Inductively coupled plasma analysis and X-ray absorption near edge structure spectra provide further insight in the biofilm characteristics but revealed no other major factors than oxygen affecting the distribution of bacteria and archaea. In addition to catalyzed reporter deposition FISH and oxygen microsensor measurements, microautoradiographic FISH was used to identify areas in which active CO 2 fixation takes place. Leptospirilla as well as acidithiobacilli were identified as primary producers. Fixation of gaseous CO 2 seems to proceed only in the outer rim of the snottite. Archaea inhabiting the snottite core do not seem to contribute to the primary production. This work gives insight in the ecological niches of acidophilic microorganisms and their role in a consortium. The data provided the basis for the enrichment of uncultured archaea