Rock and Roll en Espanol

In the 1960s and 1970s a new genre of (12) music, rock en espanol, (rock in Spanish) emerged from the Rio de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay. (13)Rock en espanol has grown from an unorthodox crossover experiment to a mainstream genre with millions of (14) fans worldwide.

The Rio de la Plata region is known (15) as a rich musical heritage that includes such traditional dance music as tango and milonga, which feature the violin, double bass, and bandonedn, an instrument similar to the accordion. By the 1960s, however, the guitar-and-drums music popular in the United States and Great Britainrock and roll-was captivating young audiences all over the (16) world. Including in the Rio de la Plata region. Argentine musician Gustavo Santaolalla wanted to play rock music but not just copy what English-speaking bands were doing. "I didn't want to create the Beatles in Spanish," he says. (17) Likewise, in his bands Arco Iris and Soluna, Santaolalla blended the heavy beat of US and British rock with the lively and melodic sounds of the Rio de la Plata region. Rock en espanol was born.

The genre soon (18) became a sensation in Mexico. In the 1980s, Mexican band Cafe Tacuba won wide acclaim for blending the old-fashioned bolero and nortario music of Mexico with the energetic sounds of rock-influenced punk, electronic, and hip-hop. Rock en espanol even took root in the United States, in Los Angeles, where the band Los Lobos gained fame in the 1980s for its (19) indiscriminate use of bolero and nortario alongside rock, country, and R&B. Los Lobos's diverse influences are evident in the variety of instruments the band (20) play including the saxophone, flute, harmonica, mandolin, guitarron, accordion, and banjo. Los Lobos's successful career shows that wide appeal of rock en espanol: the band boasts multiple Grammy awards; chart-topping hits in the United States, Great Britain, and several other countries; and a 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination.

Like all musical genres, rock en espanol has evolved in new directions, but the genre is here to stay. Today, newer musical acts Bajofondo and Juanes have joined Cafe Tacuba and Los Lobos in the pantheon of rock en espanol stars. Both offer their own unique spin on Santaolalla's original fusion: Bajofondo blends traditional Rio de la Plata sounds with elements of rock, hip-hop, and jazz, and Junanes, a native of Colombia, (21) uses the nostalgic tango as inspiration for his music. The examples of Bajofondo and Junanes show that rock en espanol is transcending not just cultural and geographical boundaries (22) as also generational ones.

Gwen Ifill's Legacy

When Gwen Ifill was (23) starting up in journalism, the gains of the civil rights movement had not yet translated into many electoral victories for African American politicians-or many opportunities for African American journalists. Over the course of her nearly forty-year career, Ifill witnessed both situations change as she reported on the rise of African American political leaders and achieved breakthrough success in her own right.

[l] While working in Baltimore in the 1980s, Ifill (24)  chronicled and reported information about the early generation of post-civil rights movement African American politicians. [2] This generation included Kurt Schmoke, who was elected mayor of Baltimore in (25) 1987, and Jesss Jackson, who campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. [3]Leaders of this generation won local elections, but (26) ones in state elections were rarer, and a presidential victory remained out of reach. [ 4] In her 2009 book The Breakthrough, Ifill acknowledged Barack Obama as the new group's most prominent figure but noted that it also included important politicians such as Cory Booker. [S] Ifill reported on Booker and others in this generation, (27) therefore, she helped focus the nation's attention on their views and accomplishments as they ascended political ladders and, in Obama's case, made the breakthrough to the presidential office. (28)

IffiI had (29) been making similar strides toward national accomplishment as a journalist. By 1991, she had become a White House correspondent for the New York Times. Less than a decade later, she became the first African American woman to host a nationally televised political talk (30) show, a long-running news program. It was also a public-affairs program and was called Washington Week in Review. Along the way, Ifill gained a reputation for political knowledge and fair treatment of her interview subjects-qualities that made her a natural choice to moderate the vice-presidential debate in 2004. Earning widespread praise for her work in that debate, she went on to moderate the vice presidential debate in 2008 and on to moderate a Democratic presidential debate in 2016. (31) The impact that vice presidential and presidential debates have on election outcomes is a subject of much debate among scholars and journalists.

After the previous generation of African Americans political leaders had led the way for the new generation, Ifill led the way for a new generation of journalists. CNN reporter Tanzania Vega (32) says, that Ifill was “a beacon for so many of us [journalists], women of color especially.” Ifill’s legacy as an (33) advocate for public television and as a mentor for journalists will be remembered for many years to come. 

A Plant's Response to Temperature

The appearance of flowers on a plant marks a change from the (34) plants' growth phase to its reproductive phase. This change begins when a plant responds to (35) signs from the universe, such as temperature, by flowering, eventually leading to the production of seeds from which another generation of plants can grow. Most plants have, over time, acquired specific adaptations that enable them to flower when their insect pollinators are most abundant. This well-established cooperation between plant and pollinator can be upended, however, if temperature fluctuations delay or advance flowering.  

Studies of the molecular control of flowering in the species Arbidopsis thaliana have revealed that, in general, (36) some of these plants are exposed to a lower temperature. These plants will flower much later (as measured by the number of leaves a plant has at the time of flowering) than those exposed to a higher temperature. A. thaliana plants produce proteins known as floral activators shortly before flowering begins. Lower temperatures have been found to delay the production of the floral activators and the flowering that (37) result, whereas higher temperatures have been found to promote them. But how, exactly, does temperature influence floral activator production?

(38) The life cycle of A. thaliana is approximately six weeks, so researchers searched for mutant varieties of A. thalinan that flower with nearly the same number of leaves regardless of temperature. They found three such varieties, among them Nd-0, which flowers with approximately (39)16 leaves per plant at 23°C, (40) and KZ-9, which flowers with more leaves per plant as the temperature rises. The researchers then identified the specific genetic mutations in the mutant varieties that enabled these plants to bypass the normal control of flowering. In each of the mutant varieties, two (41) genes, FLM an SVP, were found to have mutations that disrupted the relationship between flowering and temperature.

Further study enabled the researchers to determine the normal function of the FLM and SVP genes. In nonmutant plants, the protein products of the FLM and SVP genes bind to each other and then together (42) repressing production of floral activators. Temperature affects both the shape of the FLM protein and the stability of the SVP protein. At 16°C the protein binding is prevalent, blocking floral-activator production, while at 23°C there are fewer FLM and SVP proteins bound to each other, (43) allowing production to occur.

These molecular interactions demonstrate the (44) affect that an environmental factor can have on genetic control. By affecting the coordination between the induction of flowering and the appearance of insect pollinators, unexpected fluctuations in temperature pose risks to all flowering plants.