No abstract

The effect of the stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) gene on milk fatty acid composition was tested. Cows of 3 breeds of northern Italy, Piedmontese, Valdostana, and Jersey, were genotyped at exon 5 of the SCD gene. This has been suggested as a primary candidate gene to change the proportion of saturated vs. unsaturated fatty acids in milk, wherein a single nucleotide polymorphism (C/T) gives rise to a different AA codon. It was possible to ascribe a reduced desaturase activity to the T allele only in the case of caproleic and myristoleic fatty acids. In contrast with the findings of SCD effects on carcass fat, it was not possible to confirm the higher desaturation activity of this single nucleotide polymorphism on long-chain fatty acids, due to the different pathways that originate milk fatty acids of different carbon length; long-chain fatty acids are highly influenced by the complex metabolic events that affect the ingested nutrients during their transfer to milk fat.

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In this research the lipid fraction of two strains of Streptococcus thermophilus was studied. Lipids were extracted by applying Folch method and fractioned by thin layer chromatography (TLC). Fatty acid composition was determined both before TLC, on the total fat extracted, and after TLC on diacylglycerol and apolar fractions. Gas chromatographic analysis was performed by using both flame ionization (FID) and mass spectrometer (MS) detector. The main difference between the two strains was the presence of short and medium chain fatty acids in food-born S. thermophilus. Moreover one of the most important bacterial fatty acids, C19 cyclopropane, was detected only in diacylglycerols, which, as reported in literature, are formed transiently as intermediates in the biosynthesis of glycerophospholipids.

This article aims to demonstrate that the debate about the origin of the Etruscans can help identify the scientific and ideological inspiration behind Fascist racist theories and explain their relationship with the Catholic Church and Nazi forms of racism. In particular, I argue that the disagreements about the racial identity of the Etruscan people are exemplary of the distinction between "biological" racism and anti-Christian, non-biological racism. The article thus shows that Alfred Rosenberg's negative representation of the Etruscans - aimed at denying the racial legitimacy of the Catholic Church - was adopted, in Italy, by anti-Christian Fascist philosophers such as Julius Evola and Giulio Cogni; the "biological" racist group behind the journal La Difesa della Razza, instead, promoted Eugen Fischer's "Etruscologist" theory of the "aquiline race" to include the Etruscans in Italian racial history and avoid an ideological struggle with the Church.