The Neanderthal "chignon": variation, integration, and homology

The occipital bun ("chignon") is cited widely as a Neanderthal derived trait. It encompasses the posterior projection/convexity of the occipital squama and is associated with lambdoid flattening on the parietal. A 'hemibun' in some Upper Paleolithic Europeans is thought by some authors to indicate interbreeding between Neanderthals and early modern Europeans. However, 'bunning' is difficult to measure, and the term has been applied to a range of morphological patterns. Furthermore, its usefulness in phylogenetic reconstruction and its homologous status across modern and fossil humans have been disputed. We present a geometric morphometric study that quantitatively evaluates the chignon, assesses its usefulness in separating Neanderthals from modern humans, and its degree of similarity to Upper Paleolithic 'hemibuns.' We measured the three-dimensional coordinates of closely spaced points along the midsagittal plane from bregma to inion and of anatomical landmarks in a large series of recent human crania and several Middle and Late Pleistocene European and African fossils. These coordinate data were processed using the techniques of geometric morphometrics and analyzed with relative warps, canonical variates, and singular warps. Our results show no separation between Neanderthals and modern humans, including early modern Europeans, when the shape of the occipital plane midsagittal-profile is considered alone. On the other hand, Neanderthals are well separated from both recent and fossil modern humans when information about the occipital's relative position and relative size are also included. Furthermore, the occurrence of a highly convex and posteriorly projecting midline occipital profile (interpreted as the occipital bun) is highly correlated (>0.8) with a flat parietal midsagittal profile and with antero-superiorly positioned temporal bones across both our recent and our fossil human samples. We conclude that the shape of the occipital profile alone should not be considered an independent trait, as it is very tightly integrated with braincase shape. Our analysis does not support differences in integration of the posterior midsagittal profile and the cranial base in Pleistocene and recent humans.     

Editorial: "crossing boundaries: stem cells, materials, and mesoscopic sciences"

"Crossing Boundaries: Stem Cells, Materials, and Mesoscopic Sciences". This Special Issue, edited by Prof. Anthony Ho and Prof. Norio Nakatsuji, comprises review articles on the interdisciplinary study of stem cells and material science and is a celebration of the friendship and collaboration between Heidelberg University and Kyoto University in Germany and Japan, respectively.     

"Sweeping up after the parade": professional, ethical, and patient care implications of "turfing"

"Turfing" denotes a patient transfer or triage from one physician to another when the care of that patient feels more troublesome than it is worth. A widespread phenomenon in medical training programs, turfing appears to allocate patient care to meet physicians' rather than patients' needs. Although turfing reportedly causes inter-physician discord and inter-specialty stereotyping, its deeper consequences are poorly understood. Turfing is an interpersonal conflict masquerading as a medical issue. After examining turfing alongside other patient-related slang, I analyze the distinction between "the turf," a person, and "to turf," a practice. Several explanatory models from medical practice are explored in order to illuminate turfing's implications for medical professionalism, ethics, and patient care. I suggest that a physician's medical specialty or practice type--that is, professional culture--may link to that physician's degree of altruism. If so, then what it means fundamentally to be a physician might vary across medical specialties. Such a link calls for a new notion of cultural competence, one that physicians may apply not to patients but to each other.     

"Brother" and "Uncle": An Analysis of Rules, Structural Contradictions, and Meaning in Vietnamese Kinship

This paper analyzes the meanings of Vietnamese kinship terms on the basis of the rules that regulate their referential and nonreferential uses. These rules are not completely consistent with one another. They constitute contradictory models of and for sociocultural reality at a certain level. The structural contradictions among these models render "fuzzy" even the definitions of the prototypical uses of Vietnamese kin terms. The coexistence of alternative models makes the use of a linguistic form both a goal-directed action and the representation of an order.     

"Land, Water, and Truth": San Identity and Global Indigenism

San peoples of southern Africa followed two very different trajectories through the 20th century. For some groups, colonial rule and apartheid meant segregation on geographically remote homelands (or in game parks); for the majority of San, however, they meant incorporation as a landless underclass of farm laborers, domestic servants, and squatters. This bifurcated history now presents obstacles to the recognition of a nascent pan–San identity as the contemporary San join other indigenous peoples in struggles over land rights, control over natural resources, and political voice in national and international arenas. This article discusses some of the ways in which international models of indigenism have colluded with essentialist conceptions of culture and ethnicity to (1) prevent the recognition of the San peoples' cultural identity, as it is shaped by their various historical experiences and socioeconomic conditions, and (2) distort the understanding of San claims for land and natural resources by transforming San struggles for social and economic justice into demands for "cultural preservation." [Keywords: indigenous peoples, San, southern Africa, social movements, cultural politics]     

"Brain reading": achievements, perspectives and ethical problems

The new trend in brain research designated as brain reading is considered. This research deals with decoding the informational content of the brain processing via its physiological parameters. Such studies are based on rather complicated methods of mathematical analysis. Single records rather than averaged data are used to reveal their content. Three main streams of studies are distinguished, i.e. the object classification, the emotion recognition and brainotyping. Particularly, the studies directed to recognizing the type of thinking via EEG spectra, carried out in the author's laboratory, are reviewed. The possible outcome of the brain reading technique is considered. Finally it is argued that in the future, the broad application of this technique needs to be controlled with some ethical rules.     

Many roads lead to "auxin": of nitrilases, synthases, and amidases

Recent progress in understanding the biosynthesis of the auxin, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) in Arabidopsis thaliana is reviewed. The current situation is characterized by considerable progress in identifying, at the molecular level and in functional terms, individual reactions of several possible pathways. It is still too early to piece together a complete picture, but it becomes obvious that A. thaliana has multiple pathways of IAA biosynthesis, not all of which may operate at the same time and some only in particular physiological situations. There is growing evidence for the presence of an indoleacetamide pathway to IAA in A. thaliana, hitherto known only from certain plant-associated bacteria, among them the phytopathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens.     

"Black Gal Swing": Color, Class, and Category in Globalized Culture

Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of "Race," Nation and Gender. Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe. New York: Routledge, 1999. 221 pp.
Race and Ideology: Language, Symbolism, and Popular Culture. Arthur K. Spears. ed. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1999. 242 pp.
Spurious Issues: Race and Multiracial Identity Politics in the United States. Rainier Spencer. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. 222 pp.     

蕲州地区的蕲艾、青蒿、黄花蒿与茵陈的考订

<正> 蕲州是我国中药材主要产地之一,是湖北省蕲春县的一个集镇,,是我国中医药大师李时珍的家乡。该地区生长的菊科蒿属植物Artemisia Linn。颇多,其中入药的有十余种,并在李时珍《本草纲目》中曾有记载。这里仅对该地区常见入药的蕲艾、青蒿、黄花蒿与茵陈结合《本草纲目》记载的材料作初步的考订。     

"Strong Women" and "Pretty Girls": Self-Provisioning, Gender, and Class Identity in Rural Galicia (Spain)

In this article I examine expressions of class and gender identity in a worker-peasant community in rural Galicia (Spain). While men who have worked for decades in migrant destinations define their own class positionality partly through reference to the unpaid, subsistence work that is performed mainly by women who remain in the community, these same women adeptly "code switch" between "strong woman" and '"pretty girl" demeanors through their work activities, dress, and use of domestic spaces. Using the example of ethnographic data from this one part of rural Europe, 1 argue for the broader importance of anthropologists considering how laboring bodies become gendered; the intersections between gender and class identities; and connections among mixed livelihood strategies, the continuity of self-provisioning activities, and resistance to fully commoditized consumption. [Key words: class and gender identity, Galicia, Spain, unpaid provisioning work, consumption]