A Plethora of ‘suitable enemies’: British racism at the dawn of the twenty-first century1

In this article, I begin by looking at older forms of British racism before addressing myself to some newer forms – anti-asylum-seeker racism, xeno-racism and Islamophobia. I argue that in contemporary Britain there are a plethora of ‘suitable enemies’. Given that contemporary British racism is multifaceted, and in order to set the scene for newer forms of racism, I begin by contextualizing them alongside older forms of racism, while also demonstrating that these older forms continue to flourish. For conceptual clarity, I deal separately with colour-coded racism, non-colour-coded racism, and what I will call hybridist racism.     

The evolution of comparative cognition: Is the snark still a boojum?

In “The Snark is a Boojum”, Beach [Beach, F.A., 1950. The snark was a boojum. American Psychologist. 5, 115–124] famously asserted that animal psychology embraced too few species and too few problems to deserve the name comparative. Later in the 20th century, others [e.g. Kamil, A.C., 1988. A synthetic approach to the study of animal intelligence. In: Leger, D.W. (Ed.), Comparative Perspectives in Modern Psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol. 35. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, pp. 230–257; Shettleworth, S.J., 1993. Where is the comparison in comparative cognition? Alternative research programs. Psychological Science. 4, 179–184] expressed similar concerns about the new subfield of comparative cognition, suggesting that a more biological approach to choice of species and problems was needed to balance a dominant anthropocentrism. The last 10–15 years have seen many new developments, and a recent survey like Beach’s reveals a very different picture. Not only are many more species being studied, contributions by researchers from different backgrounds are increasing, and research on comparative cognition is better connected with developmental psychology, behavioral neuroscience, primatology, behavioral ecology, and other fields. Contemporary research addresses three major aspects of cognition about equally: basic processes, physical cognition, and social cognition. This article describes a selected research program from each area, chosen to exemplify current trends and challenges for the field.     

Molecular genetics of aging in the fly: Is this the end of the beginning?

How we age and what we can do about it have been uppermost in human thought since antiquity. The many false starts have frustrated experimentalists and theoretical arguments pronouncing the inevitability of the process have created a nihilistic climate among scientists and the public. The identification of single gene alterations that substantially extend life span in nematodes and flies however, have begun to reinvigorate the field. Drosophila's long history of contributions to aging research, rich storehouse of genetic information, and powerful molecular techniques make it an excellent system for studying the molecular mechanisms underlying the process of aging. In recent years, Drosophila has been used to test current theories on aging and explore new directions of potential importance to the biology of aging. One such example is the surprising finding that, as opposed to the commonly held assumption that adult life is a period of random passive decline in which all things are thought to fall apart, the molecular life of the adult fly appears to be a state of dynamic well-regulated change. In the fly, the level of expression of many different genes changes in an invariant, often age-dependent, manner. These as well as other molecular genetic studies and demographic analyses using the fly have begun to challenge widely held ideas about aging providing evidence that aging may be a much more dynamic and malleable process than anticipated. With the enormous success that Drosophila molecular genetics has demonstrated in helping understand complex biological phenomena such as development there is much optimism that similar approaches can be adapted to assist in understanding the process of aging.     

U.S. racial and ethnic relations in the twenty-first century: are old divisions prevailing?

In this response to Valdez and Golash-Boza’s article, U.S. Racial and Ethnic Relations in the twenty-first century, I commend the authors for raising critical issues about the traditional lack of integration of race and ethnicity paradigms. However, I argue that, in an effort to make their claim about the distinction between the ethnicity and race paradigms, they end up oversimplifying some of the literature and overlook the ways in which race and ethnicity scholarship from the twenty-first century has made important advances towards paradigm integration. In my response I provide an alternate reading of some of the literature that the authors critique, focusing on the Mexican middle-class case. I then highlight scholars who are working towards race–ethnicity integration, moving past old paradigm divides. I conclude my response by introducing the concept of the “ethnoracial core”, which I believe moves us in the direction that Valdez and Golash-Boza are proposing.     

Gravitropic responses of the Avena coleoptile in space and on clinostats. II. Is reciprocity valid?

Experiments were undertaken to determine if the reciprocity rule is valid for gravitropic responses of oat coleoptiles in the acceleration region below 1 g. The rule predicts that the gravitropic response should be proportional to the product of the applied acceleration and the stimulation time.
Seedlings were cultivated on 1 g centrifuges and transferred to test centrifuges to apply a transverse g-stimulation. Since responses occurred in microgravity, the uncertainties about the validity of clinostat simulation of weightlessness was avoided Plants at two stages of coleoptile development were tested. Plant responses were obtained using time-lapse video recordings that were analyzed after the flight. Stimulus intensities and durations were varied and ranged from 0.1 to 1.0 g and from 2 to 130 min, respectively. For threshold g-doses the reciprocity rule was obeyed. The threshold dose was of the order of 55 g s and 120 g s, respectively, for two groups of plants investigated. Reciprocity was studied also at bending responses which are from just above the detectable level to about 10 degrees. The validity of the rule could not be confirmed for higher g-doses, chiefly because the data were more variable.
It was investigated whether the uniformity of the overall response data increased when the gravitropic dose was defined as (g^m× 1), with m-values different from unity. This was not the case and the reciprocity concept is, therefore, valid also in the hypogravity region. The concept of gravitropic dose, the product of the transverse acceleration and the stimulation time, is also well-defined in the acceleration region studied. With the same hardware, tests were done on earth where responses occurred on clinostats. The results did not contradict the reciprocity rule but scatter in the data was large.     

The exploratory behaviour of rats in the hole-board apparatus: Is head-dipping a valid measure of neophilia?

The exploratory behaviour of laboratory rodents is of interest within a number of areas of behavioural pharmacology. However, how best to measure exploratory behaviour in rodents remains a contentious issue. Many unconditioned tests, such as the open field, potentially confound general locomotor activity with exploration. The hole-board apparatus appears to avoid this confound, as head-dipping into holes in the floor is assumed to be a valid measure of the subject's attraction towards novelty (neophilia). This study aimed to investigate whether head-dipping should be considered a valid measure of neophilia by comparing performance of adult male and female Lister hooded rats on the hole-board task (a) over repeated sessions and (b) when novel objects were absent or present underneath the holes. The results show that head-dipping initially decreased across repeated exposures, while time spent in the aversive central area increased. No change in head-dipping was seen in response to objects being placed underneath the holes. Rather than being a measure of neophilia, these results support the hypothesis that head-dipping represents an escape response, which declines as the subject becomes less fearful. These results are compared with previous studies of repeated exposure to other novel environments.     

The non-luteolytic effect of prostaglandin F2α at the beginning of the bovine oestrous cycle: The role of oestrogen?

After the preovulatory gonadotrophin surge, antral follicles ovulate or become atretic; whatever their evolution, they stop secreting oestradiol. Since it was demonstrated that oestrogens were necessary for luteolysis to occur after PGF(2)alpha treatment, their absence could explain the non-luteolytic effect of PGF(2)alpha injected early in the cycle. Thus, cyclic cows received a PGF(2)alpha analogue and oestradiol valerate together on day 3. This treatment did not affect the life span of the corpus luteum. The absence of oestrogens in the blood does not explain the failure of PGF(2)alpha to cause luteolysis in young corpora lutea.     

Is there gold at the top of the beanstalk?

A report on the 3rd International Legume Genetics and Genomics Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 9-13 April 2006.     

The socioecology of infant handling in primates: Is the current model convincing?

A strong interest shown by females towards infants other than their own is one of the most consistent behavioral traits found in primates, including humans. Species differences exist, however, in the extent mothers allow other group members to interact with their offspring. Socioecological theory predicts that in species characterized by relaxed, egalitarian dominance relations mothers should allow extensive interactions between their infants and other individuals from the first weeks of life, while in species characterized by nepotistic and despotic dominance relations maternal tolerance of infant handling should be low. While this model received some support from a comparison between colobines and some cercopithecines, several other species, including the Barbary macaque, do not appear to fit easily into the framework. In fact, only about half of all well-studied species follow the predicted pattern, suggesting that other factors, associated with the costs and benefits of the behavior, must be invoked to explain the variation in mothering styles and infant handling found in primates.     

Cervical cancer screening: are the 1989 recommendations still valid? National Workshop on Screening for Cancer of the Cervix.

Although screening for cervical cancer has been shown to be effective in reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with this disease, and despite many attempts to encourage the development of provincial programs, as of 1995 no province had a comprehensive screening program for cervical cancer. Participants at the Interchange ''95 workshop, held in Ottawa in November 1995, reviewed the recommendations of the 1989 National Workshop on Screening for Cancer of the Cervix and identified factors that have impeded their implementation. Participants discussed the need for comprehensive information systems, quality control and strategies to increase recruitment of unscreened and underscreened women. They concluded that the formation of a Cervical Cancer Prevention Network involving key stakeholders will facilitate the development and implementation of provincial programs to ensure optimal screening. They agreed that, in the interim, recommendations for practising physicians should remain as they were following the 1989 workshop.