Malnutrition remains a leading contributor to the morbidity and mortality of children under the age of 5 years and can weaken the immune system and increase the severity of concurrent infections. Livestock milk with the protective properties of human milk is a potential therapeutic to modulate intestinal microbiota and improve outcomes. The aim of this study was to develop an infection model of childhood malnutrition in the pig to investigate the clinical, intestinal and microbiota changes associated with malnutrition and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) infection and to test the ability of goat milk and milk from genetically engineered goats expressing the antimicrobial human lysozyme (hLZ) milk to mitigate these effects. Pigs were weaned onto a protein–energy-restricted diet and after 3 weeks were supplemented daily with goat, hLZ or no milk for a further 2 weeks and then challenged with ETEC. The restricted diet enriched faecal microbiota in Proteobacteria as seen in stunted children. Before infection, hLZ milk supplementation improved barrier function and villous height to a greater extent than goat milk. Both goat and hLZ milk enriched for taxa (Ruminococcaceae) associated with weight gain. Post-ETEC infection, pigs supplemented with hLZ milk weighed more, had improved Z-scores, longer villi and showed more stable bacterial populations during ETEC challenge than both the goat and no milk groups. This model of childhood disease was developed to test the confounding effects of malnutrition and infection and demonstrated the potential use of hLZ goat milk to mitigate the impacts of malnutrition and infection.

The study examines the radicalisation experienced by one group of religious exiles in the middle of the sixteenth century. The English-speaking congregation in Geneva formed in 1555 produced a Bible, metrical psalter and order of worship that shaped the Anglophone Reformed tradition. Study of the congregation's output shows how watching the martyrdoms in England generated a dynamic anger and fresh interpretations of persecution, tyranny and resistance. Conveyed by the worship texts, this radical legacy passed into the identities of Reformed Protestants in the British Isles, the Atlantic world and subsequently across the globe.

Poor John Knox felt a distinct sense of inferiority when he sat down to write the first book of his History of the Reformation in Scotland. Unlike his English friend John Foxe, he could not draw upon the stories of hundreds of martyrs and fit them into the complete history of the persecuted Church from its beginning until the present day. To make matters worse, Foxe would duplicate Knox’s labours by incorporating the stories of most of the Scottish martyrs into his 1570 edition of the Acts and Monuments. In his ambition to be both the historian and the martyrologist of the Scottish Reformation, Knox thought he faced an immediate and apparently overwhelming problem: that of a distinct shortage of martyrs. Yet he was quickly reassured once he began assembling the details of those who had vigorously opposed the ‘manifest abuses, superstition and idolatry’, which characterized the Catholic Church in Scodand before the Reformation. Martyrs soon began to appear before his eyes, and Knox consoled himself, ‘Albeit there be no great number, yet are they more than the Collector would have looked for at the beginning.’

With supreme self-confidence the St Andrews kirk-session declared on 31 May 1564:

Above the entrance doorway at Carnasserie Castle in mid-Argyll there is a finely carved panel containing the coat of arms of Archibald Campbell, fifth Earl of Argyll, and his first wife, Lady Jean Stewart. Along the foot of the panel, in the script employed in Gaelic manuscripts, there is a motto which reads: ‘DIA LE UA NDUIBH[N]E’ or ‘God be with Ó Duibhne.’ The designation Ó Duibhne referred to the fifth Earl of Argyll as chief of Clan Campbell. The inscription and its setting provide a perfect illustration of the different cultures and traditions which the fifth Earl combined in his personal and public life and permitted him to be both a Protestant earl and a godly Gael. The short Gaelic phrase of the motto was the first post-Reformation inscription within the Gaidhealtachd or Gaelic-speaking area, which covered the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Apocalyptic ideas lay at the very heart of British Protestant thought throughout the early modern period. They were held by thinkers from all sections of the theological spectrum within Britain, and formed part of the mainstream of the different reformed traditions found within the Tudor state and the kingdom of Scotland. Most British Protestants viewed their daily lives and the world in which they lived through the lens of apocalyptic thought. Its key themes helped create the new Protestant consciousness which emerged in the early modern period throughout the whole of the English-speaking world.

A fossil plant of Eocene age from Antarctica was studied using X-ray and neutron tomography to reveal the three-dimensional plant structures encased within carbonate nodules. The fossil was identified as a branch and leaves of an araucarian conifer, which grew on the volcanic highlands of the Antarctic Peninsula region approximately 50 million yr ago. Both X-ray and neutron imaging techniques successfully exposed the full three-dimensional structure of the fossil without destroying the original specimen, revealing that most of the fossil was present as voids in the concretion and little organic matter was present. However, neutron tomography was found to produce images with superior quality and detail.

The power of stories to persuade in infl uencing the process of change is the focus of this article. Attention is given to the importance of stories in making sense of past experience, of unifying groups, and in presenting options for future engagement and action. Unlike the narrative concern with sequencing, coherence and the need for a beginning, middle and end, it is argued that stories are often partial and ongoing, occur at multiple levels compete, complement and redefine positions. The plurality and political nature of stories are illustrated in an analysis of data drawn from a longitudinal study of six health care sites in remote and rural Scotland. The study concludes by arguing that stories are a powerful political vehicle in influencing sense-making and a critical component in maintaining choice and defl ecting the imposition of a single simple solution (hegemonic influence) over various interpretations of what are complex context-based issues.