Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology

Ruth Landes:. Life in Anthropology . Sally Cole. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. 299 pp.     

The Ojibwa Woman.; Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1887–1934.; Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700–1835.

The Ojibwa Woman. Ruth Landes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. 248 pp.
Southern Ute Women: Autonomy and Assimilation on the Reservation, 1887-1934. Katherine M. B. Osburn. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. 165 pp.
Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835. Theda Perdue. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 252 pp.     

Morphological and molecular characterization of the Landes honey bee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Apis mellifera</Emphasis> L.) ecotype for genetic conservation

A population of honey bees (Apis mellifera mellifera L.) with an annual colony brood cycle adapted to a locally abundant floral source in the Landes region of Southwest France is the subject of genetic conservation efforts. This population is maintained by local beekeepers in an area that experiences both an annual seasonal influx of non-local colonies and the permanent culture of imported stock. However, some colonies native to the Landes do not have the adapted brood cycle and their status as ecotypic are in question. The present study used morphology, mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to characterize the endemic population and suggests further genetic conservation strategies. These methods yielded different degrees of discrimination of native and imported colonies and provided a powerful suite of tools for local resource managers. Colonies from the Landes could be differentiated from non-local French A. m. mellifera populations using morphometric analysis, and from non-native and reference populations using mtDNA and microsatellites. Seven morphological characters were identified by discriminant analysis as informative for delineating the Landes ecotype from other A. m. mellifera populations. Mitochondrial haplotypes for the population were characterized and five microsatellite loci were found to be informative in characterizing the Landes population. Asymmetric gene flow detected with microsatellite alleles was observed to be 5.5–5.9% from imported to native stocks of honey bees while introgression of native microsatellite alleles into imported colonies was 21.6%.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Ethology: the Biology of Behaviour . By Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt Ethology and Society: Towards an Anthropological View . By Hilary Callan The Sting of Change: Sicilians in Sicily and Australia . By Constance Cronin Vunamami. Economic Transformation in a Traditional Society . By Richard F. Salisbury Yiwara. Foragers of the Australian Desert . By Richard A. Gould. Charles Scribner's Sons Big Men and Cargo Cults . By Glynn Cochrane The Yoruba of South Western Nigeria . By William Bascom The Face of the Fox . By Frederick O. Gearing The Prairie Potawatomi: Tradition and Ritual in the Twentieth Century . By Ruth Landes The Book of Noodles . By W. A. Clouston The Book of Festivals . By Dorothy Gladys Spicer Allan Cunningham: Botanist and Explorer . By W. G. McMinn An Annotated Bibliography of the Tasmanian Aborigines . By N. J. B. Plomley Pitjantjatjara Grammar . By Amee Glass and Dorothy Hackett Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia . Edited by D. J. Mulvaney and J. Golson Prehistory: an Introduction . By Derek Roe A Dictionary of Archaeology . By Warwick Bray and David Trump A Concise Dictionary of Archaeology . Edited by Leonard Cottrell The Archaeology of Wilson's Promontory . By P. J. F. Coutts     

Agnes Fay Morgan and early nutrition discoveries in California.

Agnes Fay Morgan (1884-1968) and several other California pioneers in nutrition contributed much to the early increase in basic knowledge of nutrition and foods. Dr. Morgan became a member of the faculty in the division of Nutrition at the University of California at Berkeley in 1915. Her academic retirement was in 1954, but she remained active and productive even to the time of her death in 1968. The hallmark of her career was the high standards she established both in training home economists and nutrition investigators and in gaining widespread public recognition of the importance of good nutrition. Also,, she was imaginative and productive in significant research. Such work was directed to the nutrients of California foods and the effects on food values resulting from heat processing and storage. Other major early nutrition scientists in California included Ruth Okey, H. M. Evans, H. S. Olcott, S. Lepkovsky, H. J. Almquist, T. H. Jukes, and E. L. R. Stokstad. Their contributions included major accomplishments in the discovery and/or characterization of vitamin E, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, and vitamin K.     

What is culture? Systems of people,places, and practices

Abstract

Culture is a fuzzy concept without fixed boundaries, meaning different things according to situations. To address this issue, I introduce a p-model to understand culture as a system of people, places, and practices, for a purpose such as enacting, justifying, or resisting power. People refers to population dynamics, social relations, and culture in groups. Places refers to ecological dynamics, institutional influences, and culture in contexts. Practices refers to participatory dynamics, community engagement, and culture in action. Power refers to forcing others into compliance (power-over people), controlling access to spaces (power in places), and behaving as desired (power-to practice). I use racism to illustrate the p-model and suggest applications in theory, research, and practice in developmental sciences.     

The "random-coil" state of proteins: comparison of database statistics and molecular simulations.

This study presents a comparison of two models of the random-coil state, one based on statistical distributions from the structural database and the other based on molecular dynamics simulations. The database model relies on the assumption that the random- or statistical-coil state of a particular residue can be described by its conformational distribution in a sufficiently diverse subset of protein structures. The molecular dynamics model is based on distributions from molecular simulations carried out on "dipeptide" models (single residues with N-terminal acetyl and C-terminal N'-methyl amide blocking groups). A comparison of the two models for the residues Ala, Asn, Asp, Gly, and Val indicates that the database distributions are greatly influenced by long-range interactions and dominated by specific recognizable elements of protein structure. In contrast, the limited structural scope of the dipeptide models presents the extreme case of a peptide under the influence of only short-range interactions. The models were evaluated by a comparison of scalar coupling constants calculated from the conformational distributions and compared with experimentally values determined for unstructured peptides. Although the models gave different distributions, there was similar agreement with experiment. This comparison emphasizes the differences and limitations in each model and highlights the difficulty in presenting an accurate picture of the random-coil state. Proteins 1999;36:407- 418.     

Role of hepatic lipogenesis in the susceptibility to fatty liver in the goose (Anser anser)

In response to overfeeding, the Landes goose develops a fatty liver that is twice as large as that of the Poland goose, despite similar food intake. The role of hepatic lipogenesis in the genetic susceptibility to fatty liver was assessed in male overfed geese of the two breeds. For a similar hepatic protein content, total activities of malic enzyme, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, acetyl-Coa-carboxylase and fatty acid synthase, and specific activity and mRNA level of malic enzyme were about two-fold higher in the Landes goose. In the Poland goose, the weight of the fatty liver was correlated positively with the specific activity of ME and the VLDL concentration, which was not the case in the Landes breed. These results show that: (1) hepatic lipogenesis remains very active until the end of the overfeeding period; (2) the pentose-phosphate pathway may function in birds, contrary to what is assumed usually; (3) the level of hepatic lipogenesis is a major factor in the susceptibility to hepatic steatosis in different breeds of geese; and (4) ME activity may be a limiting factor of lipid synthesis in the less susceptible Poland breed.     

Combination of quantification and observation methods for study of "Side Population" cells in their "in vitro" microenvironment.

BACKGROUND: Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the rare phenotypic variants in in vitro culture systems is necessary for the understanding of cell differentiation in cell culture of primary cells or cell lines. Slide-based cytometry combines image acquisition and data treatment, and associates the power of flow cytometry (FCM) and the resolution of the microscopic studies making it suitable for the analysis of cells with rare phenotype. In this paper we develop a method that applies these principles to a particularly hot problem in cell biology, the study of stem cell like cells in cultures of primary cells, cancer cells, and various cell lines. METHODS: The adherent cells were labeled by the fluorescent dye Hoechst 33342. The images of cell populations were collected by a two-photon microscope and processed by a software developed by us. The software allows the automated segmentation of the nuclei in a very dense cell environment, the measurement of the fluorescence intensity of each nucleus and the recording of their position in the plate. The cells with a given fluorescence intensity can then be located easily on the recorded image of the culture plate for further analysis. RESULTS: The potential of our method is illustrated by the identification and localization of SP cells in the cultures of the C2C12 cell line. Although these cells represent only about 1% of the total population as calculated by flow cytometry, they can be identified in the culture plate with high precision by microscopy. CONCLUSION: Cells with the rare stem-cell like phenotype can be efficiently identified in the undisturbed cultures. Since the fluorescence intensity of rare events and the position of thousands of surrounding cells are recorded at the same time, the method associates the advantage of the FCM analysis and the microscopic observation.     

Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes.

Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes. Ruth Osterweis Selig and Marilyn R. London. eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. 348 pp.     

The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids.

The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids. Michele Ruth Gamburd. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. 275 pp.     

VEGF receptor signaling in vertebrate development

The secreted glycoprotein vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF or VEGFA) affects many different cell types and modifies a wide spectrum of cellular behaviors in tissue culture models, including proliferation, migration, differentiation and survival. The versatility of VEGF signaling is reflected in the complex composition of its cell surface receptors and their ability to activate a variety of different downstream signaling molecules. A major challenge for VEGF research is to determine which of the specific signaling pathways identified in vitro control development and homeostasis of tissues containing VEGF-responsive cell types in vivo.

Note: Previously published in VEGF in Development, edited by Christiana Ruhrberg. Landes Bioscience and Springer Science+Business Media 2008; pp. 14-29.     

Richard Doll and Alice Stewart: reputation and the shaping of scientific "truth"

As the world watched the Fukushima reactors release radionuclides into the ocean and atmosphere, the warnings of Dr. Alice Stewart about radiation risk and the reassurances of Sir Richard Doll assumed renewed relevance. Doll and Stewart, pioneer cancer epidemiologists who made major contributions in the 1950s-he by demonstrating the link between lung cancer and smoking, she by discovering that fetal X-rays double the chance of a childhood cancer-were locked into opposition about low-dose radiation risk. When she went public with the discovery that radiation at a fraction of the dose "known" to be dangerous could kill a child, her reputation plummeted, whereas Doll, foremost among her detractors, was knighted and lauded as "the world's most distinguished medical epidemiologist" for his work. Their lives and careers, so closely intertwined, took contrary courses, he becoming "more of the establishment" (as he said), while she became more oppositional. When it was discovered, after his death, that he'd been taking large sums of money from industries whose chemicals he was clearing of cancer risk, his reputation remained unscathed; it is now enshrined in the "Authorized Biography" (2009) commissioned by the Wellcome Institute, along with Doll's denigration of Stewart as an "embittered" woman and biased scientist. Stewart lived long enough to see radiation science move her way, to see international committees affirm, in the 1990s, that there is no threshold beneath which radiation ceases to be dangerous; recent evidence from Chernobyl is bearing out her warnings. But a look at the making and breaking of these reputations reveals the power of status, position, and image to shape scientific "knowledge" and social policy.     

Errata

Abstract

Mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics is an unrivaled tool for studying complex biological systems and diseases in the post-genomic era. In recent years, MS has emerged as a powerful structural biological tool to characterize protein conformation and conformational dynamics. The advantages of MS in structural studies are most evident for membrane proteins such as GPCRs (G protein-coupled receptors), where other well-established structural methods such as X-ray crystallography and NMR remain challenging. For proteins with available high-resolution structures, MS-based structural strategies can provide valuable, previously inaccessible information on protein conformational changes and dynamics, protein motion/flexibility, ligand–protein binding, and protein–protein interfaces. In the past several years, we have developed and adapted a number of MS-based structural approaches, such as CDSiL-MS (Conformational changes and Dynamics using Stable-isotope Labeling and MS), CXMS (Crosslinking/MS) and HDXMS (Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange MS), to study protein structures and conformational dynamics in human β2-adrenegic receptor (β2AR) signaling. In this mini-review, we will highlight several examples demonstrating the power of MS in structural analysis to better elucidate the structural basis of GPCR signaling, particularly through the β-arrestin-mediated GPCR signaling pathway.     

Book Review Essay: Mary Angela Uwalaka. Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency. Ibadan, Afrika-Link Books, 1996. 69 pages

Rev. Mother (Dr.) Mary Angela Uwalaka was a distinguished and devoted religious woman linguist. Her major area of research was Igbo syntax, where she made tremendous contributions, through published texts and scholarly articles towards the development of a unified Igbo language and the field of Linguistics. As a renowned scholar, her research interest was not limited to Linguistics only. In the words of Prof. Ben Elugbe, her colleague at the University of Ibadan where Mother Uwalaka worked until her demise in January 7 2007, she also “found time and ability to work and publish in the areas of religion and Igbo culture.” Ọfọ: Its Juridical and Linguistic Potency, which we shall review here, is an evidence that Uwalaka’s interests extended to other areas of Igbo studies, apart from the Igbo language.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
The Psychomedical Case History of a Low-Caste Woman of North India . Ruth S. Freed and Stanley A. Freed.
Fertility, Sterilization, and Population Growth in Shanti Nagar, India: A Longitudinal Ethnographic Approach . Stanley A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed.     

Adsorption Specificity of Bacteriophage PBS1

Frankel, Ruth W. (University of Oregon Medical School, Portland), and Terence M. Joys. Adsorption specificity of bacteriophage PBS1. J. Bacteriol. 92:388-389. 1966.-By use of newly isolated nonflagellate mutants, the location of the receptor site for phage PBS1 is confirmed as being on the flagella of Bacillus subtilis. Tests with partially purified flagella isolated from a culture of susceptible organisms, and with a strain of B. subtilis possessing nonfunctional flagella, show that phage PBS1 has an adsorption specificity for active flagella.     

Utilization of reducing power in light-limited cultures of Chromatiumvinosum DSM 185

This study describes how the phototrophic organism Chromatium vinosum, when grown under different degrees of light limitation, distributes the reducing power initially present in the medium as hydrogen sulfide. Under all the conditions of illumination tested, sulfur was the major store of reducing power. Glycogen, which was virtually absent under light limitation, accounted for 31.6% of the stored reducing power at saturating irradiances. Analysis of the electron budget showed that under light-limiting conditions, an important fraction of reducing power did not appear in storage products or in structural cell material. Analysis of dissolved organic carbon in the supernatant of the culture indicated the excretion of organic compounds. Received: 16 January 1998 / Accepted: 7 September 1998