In 2005 Brown University anthropologist Lina Fruzzetti unexpectedly hears from two unknown Italian women, her cousins. Shortly thereafter she interviews her visiting mother. Lina’s father, an Italian official in colonial Eritrea, died when Lina was three. Previously he had a wife and daughter in Carrara, Italy, since deceased. Although Lina goes to Italy to meet her relatives, the film is not an exercise in “finding your roots” but rather is a “life history document”---Lina seeks to understand Italian-Eritrean colonialism. Footage goes back and forth. In Providence, Lina’s mother explains that, widowed, she went to Sudan to work and prosper, placing Lina to board in a Catholic school. Lina finds more relatives, including a nephew and his wife in faraway Barcelona. Experts explain how her father’s Carrara, once an epicenter of Anarchism, supported fascist military adventures. “Repatriated” mixed-race Eritreans discuss Italy and racism. In Eritrea she interviews her mother at home, then maternal kin. She tours Asmara, the Italian colonial capital, hearing reminiscences of Italian rule. The film’s denouement is Lina’s mother’s spectacular funeral. All of Lina’s interviewees are ambivalent. They neither condemn nor exonerate Italy’s Eritrean imperialist adventures.  Although Lina’s Catholic schooling enabled her spectacular path to respected US academic, she interviews no nuns or priests. This reviewer posits that since 476 AD Rome has had no empire, but the papacy revived an ecclesiastical empire. The Ethiopian College inside the Vatican figures in a recent study of homosexuality in the Vatican. Its author concludes that while hardliners fulminate against homosexuality, the rank and file tolerate it, as long as no masks are publicly removed. These conclusions mirror Lina’s about the Eritrean colonial adventure. Finally, contemplating kinship rituals of pilgrimage and reunions, we conclude that Lina’s mother’s grave constitutes a shrine that may spiritually enrich future pilgrims from her bloodline, while their reunions with Italian kin may resemble a Protestant model: the pilgrim’s journey to meet Italian kin validates solid status already achieved as a member of the educated international elite.

The inability to culture the ‘Candidatus’ Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) bacterium has greatly hindered research on the etiology of the citrus disease Huanglongbing which is associated with this bacterium.  This is especially true with respect to possible links between strain/isolate diversity and disease symptom variations and development.  Past genetic marker research indicates that there is considerable CLas isolate diversity even within Florida (a location that has only recognized the presence of the disease since 2005); however, no effort has been made to correlate this diversity with symptom differences.  To advance our understanding of CLas geographic spread and strain/isolate diversity, we have developed a whole-genome PCR amplification strategy that can be used in conjunction with next generation genome sequencing to rapidly obtain near whole genome sequence for specific isolates.  This method was used to generate genome sequence data (~93% of the total genome with an average ~300x coverage) from numerous isolates within Florida that are known to be different with respect to previously characterized genetic markers, and also to compare genomic sequence with isolates that may induce different symptoms within citrus.  Results will be presented that show the diversity among Florida CLas isolates and will also be contextualized within the diversity observed sequence variation among global isolates.

Huanglongbing (HLB) is a globally devastating disease of citrus.  Presently, three etiological agents are associated with HLB and include; Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), Candidatus Liberibacter americanus; and Candidatus Liberibacter africanus.  Attempts to determine alternate (non-Liberibacter) associated etiological agents of HLB have been performed, namely by metagenomic analyses with HLB phenotypic citrus of phloem tissue isolated from bark [1] and whole leaf midribs [2].  These reports indicated a strong correlation for Liberibacter species associated with HLB etiology, but they do not indicate the presence of other significant associated etiological agents.  Utilizing both PCR and non-PCR based metagenomic strategies; these previous reports present an undersized view (relating to inherent technique limits, restricted sample scope, and/or bacterial bias) into the etiology of HLB.  Here we report ancillary contiguous metagenomic sequences contained amongst whole CLas genome amplification contiguous sequences that were sequenced on the next generation Ion Torrent PGM sequencing system.  Within these ancillary sequences, a diverse metagenomic community is present, indicating a rich diversity of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms that are unique and in common within these globally isolated HLB citrus samples.  Although this report does not represent a complete metagenomic study of HLB diseased citrus, it does suggest that the use of Ion Torrent PGM sequencing system can be employed for metagenomic analysis.  These findings justify a more complete analysis of the metagenome of HLB etiology, which may help further elucidate the HLB disease complex.