A Sense of Place

Sex determination of skeletal remains of 4000 year old children and juveniles from Hoštice 1 za Hanou (Czech Republic) by ancient DNA analysis

lbwedes — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:02:28 +0000

Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the sex by means of modern molecular genetic methods of children and immature individuals from the 4000 years old Eneolithic burial site “Hoštice 1 za Hanou” of the Bell-Beaker people, in central Moravia (Czech Republic).

While the anthropological approach was in this case limited either by the state of preservation of the skeletal remains or simply by absence of definite morphological traits in the children, analysis of aDNA (SRY, amelogenin) yielded results consistent with archeological grave findings and body imposition. The burial rites of the investigated culture facilitated the analysis because the gender specific imposition of adults has previously been described (man left-side, head northwards, woman right-side, head southwards)

However, this approach is often limited in case of children burials. This study showed high concordance between archeological sex-determination and genetic sex, but also revealed several exceptions in children burial rite of Bell Beaker culture.

Michaela Vaňharová, Eva Drozdová
Sex determination of skeletal remains of 4000 year old children and juveniles from Hoštice 1 za Hanou (Czech Republic) by ancient DNA analysis
Anthropological Review • Vol. 71, 63-70 (2008)

Full Text: http://versita.metapress.com/content/w851913x23348kp8/fulltext.pdf

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Impressions of a young French gentleman’s 1866 visit to the Australian Colonies

lbwedes — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 06:35:40 +0000

Abstract: Ludovic de Beauvoir’s 1868 published account of his discovery of Australia during his round-the world journey provides a fascinating picture of the British colonies of the mid-1800s.

This article examines his observations about the Australian colonies within the broader context, taking into account reports in contemporary local newspapers and other sources. Depicted is a young society viewed through the prism of the author’s native country, France, and his adopted country, England, and reflects the class and racial divisions, general attitudes and prejudices of the time.

These are especially commented upon as he visits each town and its district — from Melbourne to Hobart, then Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane. As an outsider’s perspective of the past, Australia contributes to the growing historiography of the country.

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Full Text: http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/australian-studies/article/view/1756/2131

Ramsland, Marie. “Impressions of a young French gentleman’s 1866 visit to the Australian Colonies” Australian Studies [Online], 2 17 Oct 2010

When It Comes to Speaking Out, Cells Wait Their Turn

lbwedes — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:56:33 +0000

Abstract: Cell communication is essential for the development of any organism. Scientists know that cells have the power to “talk” to one another, sending signals through their membranes in order to “discuss” what kind of cell they will ultimately become — whether a neuron or a hair, bone, or muscle. And because cells continuously multiply, it’s easy to imagine a cacophony of communication.

But according to Dr. David Sprinzak, a new faculty recruit of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, cells know when to transmit signals — and they know when it’s time to shut up and let other cells do the talking. In collaboration with a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Sprinzak has discovered the mechanism that allows cells to switch from sender to receiver mode or vice versa, inhibiting their own signals while allowing them to receive information from other cells — controlling their development like a well-run business meeting.

Dr. Sprinzak’s breakthrough can lead to the development of cancer drugs that specifically target these transactions as needed, further inhibiting or encouraging the flow of information between cells and potentially stopping the uncontrollable proliferation of cancer cells.

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Full Text: http://www.aftau.org/site/News2/75190001?page=NewsArticle&id=15177&news_iv_ctrl=-1

When It Comes to Speaking Out, Cells Wait Their Turn
American Friends of Tel Aviv University September 6, 2011

Names, not social networks, bind us to global cultural and ethnic communities

lbwedes — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 05:55:58 +0000

Precis: Links between hundreds of millions of names belonging to people all around the world have been analysed by geographers from UCL and the University of Auckland. The results reveal how our forenames and surnames are connected in distinct global networks of cultural, ethnic and linguistic communities.

The researchers’ methods could be of use to social scientists and health researchers investigating migration, identity and integration.

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Full Text: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022943

Summary: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1109/11090801-Naming-networks-Mateos

Ethnicity and Population Structures in Personal Naming Networks
Mateos P, Longley PA, O’Sullivan D, 2011 Networks.
PLoS ONE 6(9): e22943.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022943

Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia

lbwedes — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 07:46:21 +0000

Abstract: We present new sea-level reconstructions for the past 2100 y based on salt-marsh sedimentary sequences from the US Atlantic coast. The data from North Carolina reveal four phases of persistent sea-level change after correction for glacial isostatic adjustment. Sea level was stable from at least BC 100 until AD 950. Sea level then increased for 400 y at a rate of 0.6 mm/y, followed by a further period of stable, or slightly falling, sea level that persisted until the late 19th century. Since then, sea level has risen at an average rate of 2.1 mm/y, representing the steepest century-scale increase of the past two millennia. This rate was initiated between AD 1865 and 1892. Using an extended semiempirical modeling approach, we show that these sea-level changes are consistent with global temperature for at least the past millennium.

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Full Text: http://www.pnas.org/content/108/27/11017.full

Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia

Andrew C. Kemp, Benjamin P. Horton, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Michael E. Mann, Martin Vermeer, Stefan Rahmstorf
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
National Academy of Sciences
June 20, 2011

How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?

lbwedes — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 03:49:46 +0000

Abstract: The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world’s biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial..

In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description. Renewed interest in further exploration and taxonomy is required if this significant gap in our knowledge of life on Earth is to be closed.

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Full Text: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001127

Camilo Mora, Derek P. Tittensor, Sina Adl, Alastair G. B. Simpson, Boris Worm.
How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
PLoS Biology, 2011; 9 (8): e1001127
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

Society of the Spectacle, Chapter One

lbwedes — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:53:37 +0000

Overview: In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation..The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images..In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false..The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply..The spectacle is the map of this new world, a map that is identical to the territory it represents. The forces that have escaped us display themselves to us in all their power..The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes (those) images.

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Full Text: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle/Chapter_1
Guy Debord
The Society of the Spectacle, Chapter One
1969

Climbers

lbwedes — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:18:56 +0000

Overview: A team of young Rwandan cyclists tries to outrun the past.

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Full Text: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_gourevitch

Philip Gourevitch
New Yorker
July 11, 2011 Issue
pp.64-79

The U.S. Content of Made in China

lbwedes — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:46:06 +0000

Overview: Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption expenditures in 2010, of which less than half reflected the actual costs of Chinese imports. The rest went to U.S. businesses and workers transporting, selling, and marketing goods carrying the “Made in China” label. Although the fraction is higher when the imported content of goods made in the United States is considered, Chinese imports still make up only a small share of total U.S. consumer spending.

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Full Text: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html

The U.S. Content of “Made in China”

Galina Hale, Bart Hobij
Frbsf Economic Letter
2011-25
Pacific Basin Notes
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Anti-Modernism in Anglophelia

lbwedes — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:40:53 +0000

(Dickinson writes of the Anglophilia) “This stylization extends to a whole way of life, not only the acquisition of clothing. Gestures, postures, places of residence, sexuality and the body are all constructed within the confines of style.”

Anglophiles, in this regard, can be identified not merely by their great admiration for all things English but by their performativity. “Acting English” becomes a manifestation of this identification and at times it can become not merely superficial, but suffusive of one’s identity. It can be the wearing of English clothes (Harris tweeds, Burberry scarves) and affecting one’s accent, but it can involve participating in distinctively British institutions (attending certain kinds of Anglican churches, sending your children to a British-style private school, even hiring an English nanny). It can even involve outright rejection of national circumstances and making England one’s adoptive country, both geographically and legally.

Before Lord Black, the novelist Henry James, the poet T.S. Eliot and the Canadian industrialist, Lord Beaverbrook, perhaps North America’s best-known anglophiles, took this route and made England their permanent home. It should be noted, as Dickinson (1997) points out, that these “performances” were preceded by a stage of consumption. One needs to buy authentic Harris tweeds and to pay for English-style boarding schools, none of which can be acquired cheaply. This expense serves to make anglophilia not only more desirable, but also more exclusive, thus heightening the participant’s sense of detachment from the reality of modernity still further.

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Full Text: http://www.senecac.on.ca/quarterly/2010-vol13-num04-fall/plato.html

Michael Plato
There’ll Always Be An England: Anglophilia as Antimodern Leisure

College Quarterly
Fall 2010 Volume 13 Number 4