prospective studies of the potential health consequences of trade and investment treaties, such as the trans-pacific partnership, are critical. these studies can make visible to trade policy-makers the potential negative impacts associated to such treaties and can influence the outcomes of such negotiations. however, few researchers have examined retrospectively the consequences of trade agreem...

AIB Insights Vol. 16, No. 1 ConCerns ThaT inTernaTional invesTmenT agreements (IIAs) impact a government’s right to regulate and lead to “regulatory chill” have once again surfaced in the wake of the negotiations on the Pacific Rim’s Transpacific Partnership (TTP) and the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These concerns are not new and have persisted since NAFTA Chapt...

Chill and freeze represent very different components of low temperature stress. Whilst the principal mechanisms of tissue damage and of acquired protection from freeze-induced effects are reasonably well established, those for chill damage and protection are not. Non-freeze cold exposure (i.e. chill) can lead to serious disruption to normal life processes, including disruption to energy metabol...

We examined trends in accumulated winter chill across the fruit growing region of central California and its internal coastal valleys. We tested the hypothesis that global warming is in motion in California and is causing accumulated winter chill to decrease across the fruit and nut growing regions of California. The detection of potential trends in accumulated winter chill (between 0 and 7.2°C...

Chill-susceptible insects enter a reversible paralytic state, termed chill coma, at mild low temperatures. Chill coma is caused by neuromuscular impairment, allegedly triggered by cold-induced depolarization of muscle resting membrane potential (Vm). We used five Drosophila species that vary in cold tolerance (chill coma temperature spanning ∼11°C) and repeatedly measured muscle Vm during a dow...

Many fruit and nut trees must fulfill a chilling requirement to break their winter dormancy and resume normal growth in spring. Several models exist for quantifying winter chill, and growers and researchers often tacitly assume that the choice of model is not important and estimates of species chilling requirements are valid across growing regions. To test this assumption, Safe Winter Chill (th...