Algerian graveyard stories

Issues surrounding the ways in which people deal with severe political disruption and violence are sometimes obscure, as it is in the nature of both to defy verbal expression and collective attempts to produce sense. Ethnography of Algeria suggests that to look at local graveyards, their layout, and the practices and conflicts associated with them is a way of understanding not only how people deal with death and violence, but also how they construe social order, political legitimacy, and historical continuity, in an environment where all of these have been severely disrupted. Through the social and spatial practices associated with local graveyards, images of upheaval and martyrdom are thus made part of an ongoing process of renegotiation of social hierarchies; these processes, however, can also be seen to break down at times of overwhelming distress.     

Scavenging on human corpses as a source for stories about man-eating piranhas

Synopsis Piranhas have a reputation for man-eating, notwithstanding the absence of authenticated records of persons attacked and killed by these fishes. Three cases of piranhas scavenging on human corpses were recorded in Mato Grosso, western Brazil. One corpse, found four days after drowning, was almost reduced to a skeleton. Another corpse was recovered in a few hours, also after drowning, without the soft parts of the head. The third corpse, recovered 20 h after the victim fell into the water due to a myocardial infarction, had flesh only on the trunk. Pygocentrus nattereri and, to a minor extent, Serrasalmus spilopleura were probably the necrophagous piranhas. Some of the human deaths attributed to piranhas most probably are cases of scavenging on drowned or otherwise already dead persons, by these opportunistic schooling carnivores.     

Company profile: Spider stories

SpiderBiotech is a biotech company that has carried out extensive research and development on peptide-based anti-infectives, with five people involved in R&D activities and a strong network of industrial and academic partners experienced in the field of anti-infectives. SpiderBiotech has also created a proprietary library of bioactive peptides and lipopeptides (both linear and dendrimeric) active against bacterial and viral infections. At the moment they have two ongoing projects: the most advanced is focused on the development of a panel of peptide based antibiotics. The second project is related to novel antiviral drugs to treat acyclovir resistant Herpes virus infections.     

Neoliberalism and stories of racial redemption

Two contradicting ideas dominate political discussions of race in the United States. In the first, Americans of all political stripes glory in the idea that the country's race relations have improved, largely due to changes collectively labeled as ‘the civil rights movement.’ Yet when Americans move their gaze to broader issues—often presumed to be beyond “race”—of economics, public education, and civic life, they embrace a second, and seemingly opposed narrative of decline. There, social scientists have wedded this image of social decay into ideas of neoliberalism, which they take to be the state's steady disinvestment in public goods like education, healthcare, affordable housing and transportation. Though the rise of civil rights and neoliberalism have overlapped historically, social scientists have shown determined reluctance to make any connection between the two; and further, few have been willing to see the two processes as interwoven and collaborating in the production of the contemporary political economic landscape. This essay argues that academic neoliberal discourse has unwittingly functioned to relieve civil rights institutions of any responsibility for current racial conditions in the US by taking critical attention away from how federal agencies and local politicians have implemented racial reforms. In the current scenario, neoliberalism is to blame for undermining or retrenching the nation's commitment to racial equality, and civil rights victories are the victim. Ethnographic and historical material on race relations in Fayetteville NC, USA, is presented to argue instead that the relationship between the two turns out to be much more complex.

Ecosystem engineering moving away from just-so stories

The concept of ecosystem engineering has been proposed recently to account for key processes between organisms and their environment which are not directly trophic or competitive, and which result in the modification, maintenance and/or creation of habitats. Since the initial reporting of the idea, little work has been undertaken to apply the proposed concept to potential ecosystem engineers in the marine environment. Biological and ecological data for the burrowing ghost shrimp Callianassa filholi (Decapoda: Thalassinidea) allowed for a formal assessment of this species as an ecosystem engineer, in direct accordance with published criteria. Despite a low population density and the short durability of its burrow structures, Callianassa filholi affected a number of resource flows by its large lifetime per capita activity. Ecosystem effects were evident in significant changes in macrofauna community composition over small spatial and temporal scales. Seasonal variation in the effects of ghost shrimp activity were associated with changes in seagrass (Zostera novazelandica) biomass, which revealed the probability of interactions between antagonistic ecosystem engineers. The formal assessment of Callianassa filholi provides the opportunity to aid discussion pertaining to the development of the ecosystem engineering concept.     

Small RNAs tell big stories in Whistler

The Keystone Symposium on RNAi, microRNA and non-coding RNA convened on March 25-30 at Whistler Resort in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Researchers with backgrounds in different biochemical disciplines came together to exchange ideas on short RNAs and their roles in a host of biological processes.     

Parental attachment and children's memory for attachment-relevant stories

Despite evidence that parents’ attachment is associated with children's memory, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this association or the contexts in which the association is most meaningful. The present study examined whether parents’ attachment predicted children's memory for stories regarding attachment-related topics, whether the cohesiveness of children's stories mediated the association between attachment and memory, and whether the association varied by interview support at retrieval. Five- to six-year-olds completed attachment-relevant stories while parents provided information about their romantic attachment. Children's stories were coded for cohesiveness. A week later, children's memory for their stories was tested by either a supportive or nonsupportive interviewer. When the interview was nonsupportive, greater parental avoidance was associated with poorer memory, whereas when the interview was supportive, greater parental avoidance was associated with fewer errors. Findings provide insight into the context under which parents’ attachment is most influential in shaping children's memory.