Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

L’extraordinària biodiversitat de la Terra es troba actualment amenaçada per activitats humanes, com la destrucció dels hàbitats naturals, el canvi climàtic, les espècies invasores i la sobreexplotació. Cada vegada més, els ecòlegs reconeixen que preservar el màxim nombre d’espècies no és suficient. Si volem preservar ecosistemes funcionals per al futur i continuar gaudint dels serveis que ens ofereixen, també cal protegir la diversitat filogenètica i la funcional. Però per fer-ho no n’hi ha prou a delimitar espais protegits, també cal que aprenguem a compaginar l’explotació dels recursos amb la preservació dels elements clau de la biodiversitat que garanteixen l’estabilitat i funcionament dels ecosistemes.

Las bacterias resistentes a antibióticos representan uno de los principales problemas actuales de salud pública y predicciones recientes indican que pronto se convertirán en la primera causa de mortalidad a nivel mundial. El funesto recorrido desde la introducción de los antibióticos en la práctica clínica hasta la actual amenaza de una era postantibiótica se ha transitado en tan solo unas pocas décadas. Así, la evolución de la resistencia a los antibióticos es probablemente el ejemplo más espectacular de evolución de innovaciones en un sistema biológico que hemos podido observar en tiempo real. En este artículo discutimos algunas de las claves evolutivas y moleculares que han permitido a las bacterias recorrer este camino.

En este trabajo se ofrece una perspectiva evolutiva del síndrome supracondiloideo, neuropatía compresiva del nervio mediano y/o la arteria braquial de la extremidad anterior que afecta a un porcentaje variable de los individuos adultos de la población humana. Se propone que dicha neuropatía representaría un atavismo del foramen entepicondilar de los mamíferos, revisando la bibliografía más relevante sobre el tema. Se identifica el origen del foramen en los primeros tetrápodos, proponiendo que su función original estaría posiblemente ligada a la innovación evolutiva del plexo braquial cervical. Asimismo, se investiga la subsiguiente evolución del foramen entepicondilar en los amniotas y se discute, en base a la aleatoriedad de su aparición y a la pérdida de funciones originales, la posibilidad de su naturaleza vestigial.

El accidente ocurrido en 1986 en la central nuclear de Chernóbil (Ucrania) causó la mayor liberación de material radiactivo debida a la actividad humana. Las previsiones iniciales consideraron que la zona afectada por la contaminación radiactiva quedaría desprovista de vida durante milenios. Tres décadas después, la biodiversidad de la zona se ha recuperado completamente y en Chernóbil viven todos los grandes mamíferos del este de Europa y más de 200 especies de aves. Los mecanismos que permiten a los organismos vivir en esta zona son todavía objeto de estudio y controversia. En la actualidad no existe consenso científico sobre el impacto a medio o largo plazo de la radiación sobre la naturaleza de la zona. La investigación en Chernóbil es básica para entender los efectos de la contaminación radiactiva sobre la biodiversidad, además de constituir un excelente laboratorio natural para el estudio de procesos ecoevolutivos en respuesta a la actividad humana.

Exploring Nazism and its relationship with science and scientists is undoubtedly one of the most interesting research lines for historians studying Germany, scientists, and the elites. Indeed, for a long time «Nazi science» was considered the work of a minority of sages on the edge of madness and perversion, committed to political atrocities, without it affecting the rest of the German scientific landscape. But these assertions were brought down by numerous studies. On the one hand, only a negligible part of scientists refused to work for Nazi Germany: less than 1 % of university graduates resigned after the Machtergreifung, meaning that 99 % of university professors continued working in Nazified institutions. Anthropologists, physicians, historians, sociologists, linguists, and geographers benefited from research programmes that turned their disciplines into «legitimising sciences», i.e., «combatant sciences». The more or less certified commitment of many prominent scientific figures, such as the psychiatrist Johann Asperger or the physicist Werner Heisenberg, is not that surprising when we contextualise it with the broader history of elites. The scientific field was no exception in 1930s Germany: 1990s social history proved that the elites’ adherence to the National Socialist party and the Nazi racial determinism was connected to the great appeal of Nazi ideology’s appeasing belief system, but also to the existence of elitist organisations that allowed these specific circles to find a place for entre-soi socialisation and self-preservation. This is one of the great paradoxes of 1990s historiography. After mercilessly but fairly responding to the problems in Hannah Arendt’s work regarding Nazi «totalitarianism», social historiography tended to quietly confirm that National Socialism came to power by following the electoral strategy of a popular party, but with the support of extremely well-educated militant elites. That is how the party adapted to the most significant characteristic of totalitarian regimes. In the eyes of German philosophy, this structure was considered an unprecedented alliance between the masses and the elite.  Deep down, how else can we define institutions such as the SS, the Ahnenerbe, or the Sicherheitsdienst? Or the Volkswissenschaftliche Arbeitskreis (“Population Ethnoscience Work Circle”), which grouped university specialists and SS officers to study the populations of some Eastern European territories with the aim to legitimise their conquest? Nazi science is not just a collection of skulls from exterminated Jewish citizens, nor is it a group of experts condemning entire populations like the Krymchak – a Jewish ethnic group from the Caucasus –, or indulgent speeches at university ceremonies, or inhumane medical experiments like submerging Soviet officers into freezing water in concentration camps. Nazi science is equivalent to daily acceptance, to the slow and thorough penetration of resignation and the commitment to an ideology that permeates everything adorned as a hopeful utopia, a great addictive toxin to which the cultural elites are particularly sensitive.

Science continues to face new challenges every day. Climate change, ensuring sustainable agriculture, opening up new ethical debates about genetic practices, the use of new digital spaces and information, etc. The first thematic monograph in this new volume of Mètode Science Studies Journal tackles our society’s most urgent challenges in building a sustainable future. And yet another challenge is the focus of another one of the monographs contained in this volume: understanding the complexity of our planet’s current biodiversity. Evolution is key to solve this question. These pages present us with different scenarios that help us to better understand how to tackle the new challenges faced by our planet’s species. However, addressing scientific challenges is not only about hoping for a bright future, but also about looking back and learning from our mistakes. Science has much to say about our memory; it can help us to better understand how we got here, and to successfully close episodes of our history. Learning about how the Commonwealth recovers and identifies the remains of fallen WWI soldiers might help us understand the outstanding debt that we owe to our own historical memory. Through the different articles in this monograph, we discuss how much forensic science can tell us about our history, from Roman times to the Spanish Civil War. After all, our past can reveal a great deal about our present and help us to understand exactly what challenges we face as scientists and as a society. That is why the issue devoted to the relationship established between scientists and the Nazi regime in the first half of the twentieth century is especially significant. What did the purges carried out by the Nazis mean for science? To what extent did the scientific community look the other way? Did they even take advantage of the situation? What was the relationship between Nazi ideals and some scientific postulates? The historian Christian Ingrao reminds us in his opening article that the vast majority of university professors (99% of them) continued working in Nazified institutions. If we are to solve current and potential challenges hoping for a better future, we must take a look at the past and learn both from the lighter and the darker shades of science.

This monograph seeks to show the level of involvement of the German academic world with Nazi postulates. Reading the articles, we can deduce that renowned scientists participated in the policies of the Third Reich, fully integrated within Nazi ideology, which resulted in the death and forced displacement of millions of people. This active and often even enthusiastic participation should motivate a deeper reflection on how educated minds of exceptional scientific value were abducted by the Nazi postulates, warning us against the resurgence of totalitarian and far-right movements in the world and thus redoubling our efforts to combat them from the very first moment. 

In this monograph we set out to explore this complex relationship through a series of singular evolutionary scenarios. Some of these scenarios will shed light into phenomena that may at first glance appear inscrutable through the lens of evolution. Our aim is to illustrate the power harnessed by evolutionary biology to tackle some of the most pressing challenges we face as a species, from the diseases that threaten our survival to the recent anthropogenic changes that endanger the only planet we inhabit.

In the following pages, we propose a diachronic journey from ancient times to the present. The different authors approach history from twenty-first century lines of research, and bioanthropological and genetic heritage is the subject of the different studies, as well as the vehicle for understanding the memory of past societies.

Posture deformation occurs under the influence of factors that violate the vertical position of the spine. When the load on the spine is redistributed, the position of the body is adjusted by selective training of the muscles of the trunk and changing the position of the pelvis in the frontal plane. Exercises for impaired posture should be aimed primarily at preventing progression and correcting curvature and twisting of the vertebrae. It is important not only the correction of curvature, but also the stabilization of the spine in a corrected position. Saving the achieved results contributes to the formation of a new static-dynamic stereotype of the spine. This is possible by deliberately influencing the upper and lower in relation to the main curvature of the links of the musculoskeletal system and muscle tone-regulating groups involved in posture formation.