Wa Grotesque: Headhunting Theme Parks and the Chinese Nostalgia for Primitive Contemporaries

ABSTRACT

The Wa people have long occupied a special place in the state-directed political spectacle of minority nationalities, in both China and Burma. This fascination builds on older views of the Wa as dangerous barbarians, and closely evokes other primitivisms from around the world. In China and in neighbouring countries, state policy has recently combined with commercial entrepreneurism to cultivate a new, selective nostalgia for ‘primitive-exotic’ peoples like the Wa. In this paper, I discuss mainly China, and how the ‘wild’ Wa headhunting paraphernalia prohibited by the Chinese in the 1950s now reappear as kitsch. Some Wa of older generations see such revivals as dangerous, but younger people may embrace the revival. I discuss the new Chinese repackaging of primitive violence and the different Wa understandings of these staged exoticizations of their culture, including ways the staged representations are taken up in Wa attempts to revive aspects of their cultural past.     

The Other Side of Sacrifice: Introduction

While contemporary philosophers have been content to declare the logical possibilities of sacrifice exhausted, to have finally ‘sacrificed sacrifice,’ for many people around the world the notion of sacrifice – whether religious, secular, or somewhere in between – remains absolutely central to their understanding of themselves, their relations with others, and their place in the world. From religion to economics, and from politics to the environment, sacrificial tropes frequently emerge as key means of mediating and propagating various forms of power, moral discourse, and cultural identity. This paper lays out reasons for retaining sacrifice as an analytical concept within anthropology, and argues for the importance of a renewed focus on the ‘other side of sacrifice’, as a means of understanding better how sacrifice emerges beyond ritual and enters into the full gamut of social life.     

The Untold Sacrifice: The Monotony and Incompleteness of Self-Sacrifice in Northeast Brazil

There is no such thing as an accidental sacrifice. Sacrifice is always pre-meditated, and if not entirely goal-oriented, at the very least inherently meaningful as a process in itself. This paper is about how we might begin to understand sacrifices that do not conform to these rules. It concerns the question: does sacrifice exist outside of its (often) dramatic, self-conscious elaboration? Within the Brazilian Catholic tradition everyday life – ideally characterised by monotonous, undramatic, acts of self-giving – is ‘true sacrifice’. For ordinary Catholics, the challenge is not how to self-sacrifice, but how to make one's mundane life of self-sacrifice visible whilst keeping one's gift of suffering ‘free’. In this paper I describe, ethnographically, the work entailed as one of ‘revelation’ and use the problems thrown up to reflect upon both the limits and advantages of Western philosophical versus anthropological understandings of Christian sacrificial practices to date.     

综述: 长链非编码RNA对动脉粥样硬化等疾病影响的研究新进展

动脉粥样硬化是一种以胆固醇等脂质代谢紊乱为主要特征的病理过程,严重影响人类健康．随着遗传学和生物信息学研究的发展,曾被认为无作用的非编码基因序列逐步受到研究者的关注．长链非编码RNA(lncRNA)通过表观遗传调控、转录调控和转录后调控等途径参与剂量补偿效应、基因组印记、细胞发育分化等重要生物学过程,从而影响人类的生长发育、代谢、衰老及疾病等进程．最新研究发现,lncRNA可参与血管内皮细胞的损伤与修复、血管平滑肌细胞的增殖与迁移、巨噬细胞胆固醇的流出与炎症反应、脂质的沉积与斑块的形成等过程,从而影响动脉粥样硬化及其他心血管疾病的发生与发展．     

TRANSAUTOPHAGY: European network for multidisciplinary research and translation of autophagy knowledge

A collaborative consortium, named “TRANSAUTOPHAGY,” has been created among European research groups, comprising more than 150 scientists from 21 countries studying diverse branches of basic and translational autophagy. The consortium was approved in the framework of the Horizon 2020 Program in November 2015 as a COST Action of the European Union (COST means: CO-operation in Science and Technology), and will be sponsored for 4 years. TRANSAUTOPHAGY will form an interdisciplinary platform for basic and translational researchers, enterprises and stakeholders of diverse disciplines (including nanotechnology, bioinformatics, physics, chemistry, biology and various medical disciplines). TRANSAUTOPHAGY will establish 5 different thematic working groups, formulated to cooperate in research projects, share ideas, and results through workshops, meetings and short term exchanges of personnel (among other initiatives). TRANSAUTOPHAGY aims to generate breakthrough multidisciplinary knowledge about autophagy regulation, and to boost translation of this knowledge into biomedical and biotechnological applications.     

中国丹霞的世界遗产价值及其保护与管理

2010年8月1日,世界遗产委员会批准了贵州赤水、福建泰宁、湖南崀山、广东丹霞山、江西龙虎山和浙江江郎山6个国家级风景名胜区以＂中国丹霞＂系列提名的形式列入世界遗产名录;同时,在中国诞生和发展起来的丹霞地貌获得了国际认可,填补了世界遗产在地貌类型上的空白。在中国丹霞申报阶段,规划提出6省组建＂中国丹霞世界遗产保护管理委员会＂、＂中国丹霞世界遗产专家委员会＂和＂顾问委员会＂;同时,制定了遗产地突出普遍价值的保护、分级与分区保护、环境保护、旅游管理、居民参与和社区发展、宣传与展示、科学研究、遗产地监测等保护与利用方案,提出了财政与法律保障、行动计划和预算方案等。上述规划在遗产申报和申报成功之后陆续得到实施。     

Enemies and turncoats: bovine tuberculosis exposes pathogenic potential of Rift Valley fever virus in a common host,African buffalo (Syncerus caffer)

The ubiquity and importance of parasite co-infections in populations of free-living animals is beginning to be recognized, but few studies have demonstrated differential fitness effects of single infection versus co-infection in free-living populations. We investigated interactions between the emerging bacterial disease bovine tuberculosis (BTB) and the previously existing viral disease Rift Valley fever (RVF) in a competent reservoir host, African buffalo, combining data from a natural outbreak of RVF in captive buffalo at a buffalo breeding facility in 2008 with data collected from a neighbouring free-living herd of African buffalo in Kruger National Park. RVF infection was twice as likely in individual BTB+ buffalo as in BTB− buffalo, which, according to a mathematical model, may increase RVF outbreak size at the population level. In addition, co-infection was associated with a far higher rate of fetal abortion than other infection states. Immune interactions between BTB and RVF may underlie both of these interactions, since animals with BTB had decreased innate immunity and increased pro-inflammatory immune responses. This study is one of the first to demonstrate how the consequences of emerging infections extend beyond direct effects on host health, potentially altering the dynamics and fitness effects of infectious diseases that had previously existed in the ecosystem on free-ranging wildlife populations.     

From computational modelling of the intrinsic apoptosis pathway to a systems-based analysis of chemotherapy resistance: achievements,perspectives and challenges in systems medicine

Our understanding of the mitochondrial or intrinsic apoptosis pathway and its role in chemotherapy resistance has increased significantly in recent years by a combination of experimental studies and mathematical modelling. This combined approach enhanced the quantitative and kinetic understanding of apoptosis signal transduction, but also provided new insights that systems-emanating functions (i.e., functions that cannot be attributed to individual network components but that are instead established by multi-component interplay) are crucial determinants of cell fate decisions. Among these features are molecular thresholds, cooperative protein functions, feedback loops and functional redundancies that provide systems robustness, and signalling topologies that allow ultrasensitivity or switch-like responses. The successful development of kinetic systems models that recapitulate biological signal transduction observed in living cells have now led to the first translational studies, which have exploited and validated such models in a clinical context. Bottom-up strategies that use pathway models in combination with higher-level modelling at the tissue, organ and whole body-level therefore carry great potential to eventually deliver a new generation of systems-based diagnostic tools that may contribute to the development of personalised and predictive medicine approaches. Here we review major achievements in the systems biology of intrinsic apoptosis signalling, discuss challenges for further model development, perspectives for higher-level integration of apoptosis models and finally discuss requirements for the development of systems medical solutions in the coming years.     

The increasing divide between First and Third Worlds: science, collaboration and conservation of Third World aquatic ecosystems

1. Ten of the leading journals in the field of freshwater ecology were identified using the Science Citation Index’s Journal Citation Reports. These journals were surveyed to assess the levels and patterns of collaboration in research initiatives in regions of the Third World. Membership demographics of five professional societies in this field were also examined to elucidate distribution patterns of practitioners in the field. 2. In total, 8960 papers were surveyed, of which only forty were published in a language other than English. Senior authors came from 114 of the 130 different countries listed among authors’ addresses. Of these, forty-five were from Third World countries and sixty-nine from the First World. Five countries were responsible for 60.64% of the papers submitted; the United States = 25.65%; Canada = 11.55%; Australia = 10.15%; the United Kingdom = 6.73%; New Zealand = 6.56%. Multi-authored papers accounted for 73.05% of all papers. 3. Papers by authors from Third World countries accounted for only 10.93% of single-author papers and less than 10% of multi-authored papers. Collaboration was found in 73.05% of the papers surveyed, the vast majority of which (87.39%) was between authors from First World countries. Only 825 (9.21%) of the papers surveyed involved authors from different countries. Most of this collaboration (72.36%) was between authors from different First World countries. 4. Some 1038 papers surveyed included research undertaken in, or included authors from, Third World countries. The majority of these papers (69.08%) were submitted by authors from Third World countries, involving either multiple or single authorship. The third most common publication relating to research in Third World regions (17.4%) came from single-author papers in which the authors were from a First World country. Only four of the papers surveyed were submitted by single authors from Third World countries working in First World countries. 5. There is a disproportionate representation of taxonomic (20.3%) and marine (10.5%) papers from the Third World regions in comparison to both lentic (8.0%) and lotic (7.4%) papers. 6. Membership demographics of the professional societies surveyed continue to reflect the historical origins of freshwater ecology. More than 80% of members in the three largest societies examined are registered in Europe and North America, while membership of the remaining societies remains largely regional. 7. It is argued that present levels of collaboration and technology transfer from the First World to the Third World are inadequate and that, given the widening gulf in terms of personnel and resources, the future of essential research on inland waters in the Third World does not bode well unless in situ capacity building within Third World countries becomes a target of First World research and funding agencies.     

Disrupted Lives: How People Create Meaning in a Chaotic World and Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda

Disrupted Lives: How People Create Meaning in. Chaotic World. Gay Becker. Berkeley: University of California Press,1997.xii. 264pp.
Questioning Misfortune: The Pragmatics of Uncertainty in Eastern Uganda. Susan Reynolds Whyte. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xiv. 258 pp.     

The circulatory system: blood procurement, AIDS, and the social body in China

The market for blood thrived in China for more than a decade, preying on rural villagers desperate for cash. Profit motives and unhygienic collection created an AIDS epidemic, where now up to 80 percent of adults in some villages are HIV infected. Today, illegal blood banks continue to operate in some areas. Moreover, better screening and blood testing do little to address the underlying cultural reluctance to give blood. This article examines what is at stake for blood donors in the circulation of blood through both the physical and the social bodies in China today. I argue that public health and social policy solutions require consideration of the symbolic meanings of blood and the body, kin relations, and gift exchange. China's HIV-contaminated blood procurement crisis demands a critical reexamination of the hidden processes embedded in a "circulatory system" that has inseparably bound the "gift of life" and a "commodity of death".     

类器官的研究进展及应用

随着人类生物学研究的不断深入,需建立新的模型系统为研究提供了有力的工具。虽然传统的研究模型已被广泛应用,但难以准确反映组织、器官在机体中的生理现象。类器官 (Organoid) 是来源于干细胞或器官祖细胞的三维细胞聚集体,可分化和自组织形成具有人体相应器官的部分特定功能和结构。由于类器官具有人源性,可模拟器官发育和形成,在体外长期扩增中具有基因组稳定性,并能够形成活体生物库进行高通量筛选等优势,成为近年来备受关注的体外模型。目前,利用类器官模型结合新兴的基因编辑、器官芯片、单细胞RNA测序技术等,能够突破传统模型的瓶颈,在器官水平上为疾病模型的建立、药物研发、精准医疗以及再生医学等提供有价值的信息。文中就类器官分类及特性、研究应用、与其他技术结合应用及展望这4个方面进行综述。     

中国新记录——囊粉蛉属及一新种记述（脉翅目：粉蛉科）

Genus Aleuropteryx Loew is first recorded from China, and Aleuropteryx sinica sp. nov. is described as new to science. All the type specimens are deposited in the Insect Collections of China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.     

The sociality–health–fitness nexus: synthesis,conclusions and future directions

This theme issue has highlighted the links between sociality, health and fitness in a broad range of organisms, and with approaches that include field and captive studies of animals, comparative and meta-analyses, theoretical modelling and clinical and psychological studies of humans. In this concluding chapter, we synthesize the results of these diverse studies into some of the key concepts discussed in this issue, focusing on risks of infectious disease through social contact, the effects of competition in groups on susceptibility to disease, and the integration of sociality into research on life-history trade-offs. Interestingly, the studies in this issue both support pre-existing hypotheses, and in other ways challenge those hypotheses. We focus on unexpected results, including a lack of association between ectoparasites and fitness and weak results from a meta-analysis of the links between dominance rank and immune function, and place these results in a broader context. We also review relevant topics that were not covered fully in this theme issue, including self-medication and sickness behaviours, society-level defences against infectious disease, sexual selection, evolutionary medicine, implications for conservation biology and selective pressures on parasite traits. We conclude by identifying general open questions to stimulate and guide future research on the links between sociality, health and fitness.     

中国新记录属——颊寄蝇属分类研究（双翅目：寄蝇科）

颊寄蝇属Dexiosoma属于寄蝇亚科、Microphthalmini族,该属种类均栖息于草丛中,寄生于土壤中金龟子科幼虫;其外形特征是侧颜宽,具淡色毛,单眼鬃缺,触角芒羽状,后背中鬃3,足黄,前足基节前内侧大部具倒伏的小毛。已知4种颊寄蝇中,3种分布东洋区,1种分布古北区。本文研究了产自上述两动物地理区的颊寄蝇属标本和文献,首次发现该属在我国分布,记述了采自四川,云南和西藏的1新种,暗角颊寄蝇Dexiosoma nigricornis;简述了分布辽宁和吉林的中国新记录种,灰颊寄蝇D.caninum(Fabricius)的主要特征;编制了本属5种雄性检索表;研究标本均保存在沈阳师范大学昆虫研究所。     

中国新记录属——颊寄蝇属分类研究

Dexiosoma Rondani is a small Old World genus belonging to the Microphthalmini (Tachininae) and parasitic on larvae of Scarabaeidae, and collected in the weeds. In this study Dexiosoma is newly recorded from China, one new species, D. nigricornis sp. nov. from Sichuan, Yunnan and Xizang (Tibet) is described, and D. caninum (Fabricius) from Liaoning and Jilin, China is newly recorded and briefly redescribed, and a key to the five species (males) of Dexiosoma is provided. The specimens of two identified species are housed in the collection of Shenyang Normal University.     

中国新记录属——带小卷蛾属分类研究（鳞翅目：卷蛾科）

本研究首次发现带小卷蛾属Metacosma在我国分布,记述了采自安徽、湖南和贵州的2新种：三角带小卷蛾Metacosma triangulata,sp．nov．和梯形带小卷蛾Metacosma trapezia,sp．nov．。文中给出了新种的成虫及雄性外生殖器照片,编制了本属分种检索表。研究标本保存在南歼大学生命科学学院昆虫标本室。 1．三角带小卷蛾Metacosma triangulata,新种（图1,3） 翅展10．0mm。 正模：♂,安徽岳两（30．52°N,116．22°E）温泉,1995-Ⅷ-05,胡祥富采,玻片号ZAH04002。 本种与M.impolitana Kuznetsov相似,区别是：本种雄性外生殖器爪形突大,三角形,抱器端对称;而Mimpolitana Kuznetsov爪形突小,乳突状,抱器端不对称（左侧具5根粗刺,右侧6根）。 2．梯形带小卷蛾Metacosma trapezia,新种（图2,4） 翅展11．0mm。 正模：♂,湖南石门（27．34°N,110．01°E）壶瓶山南坪,504m,2002-Ⅴ-04,于海丽采,玻片号YHL0246。副模：1♂,贵州省道真县仙女洞,600m,2004-Ⅷ-17,肖云丽采;1♂,贵州江口黑湾,600m,2001-Ⅶ-27,李后魂,王新谱采。 本种与Mimpolitana Kuznetsov相似,区别是：本种爪形突梯形,抱器端对称;而坛impolitana Kuznetsov爪形突小,乳突状,抱器端不对称（左侧具5根粗刺,右侧6根）。本种与三角带小卷蛾Metacosma triangulata,sp．nov．的区别主要在爪形突形状上,本种爪形突为梯形,后者为三角形。     

Homo medicus: The transition to meat eating increased pathogen pressure and the use of pharmacological plants in Homo

The human lineage transitioned to a more carnivorous niche 2.6 mya and evolved a large body size and slower life history, which likely increased zoonotic pathogen pressure. Evidence for this increase includes increased zoonotic infections in modern hunter-gatherers and bushmeat hunters, exceptionally low stomach pH compared to other primates, and divergence in immune-related genes. These all point to change, and probably intensification, in the infectious disease environment of Homo compared to earlier hominins and other apes. At the same time, the brain, an organ in which immune responses are constrained, began to triple in size. We propose that the combination of increased zoonotic pathogen pressure and the challenges of defending a large brain and body from pathogens in a long-lived mammal, selected for intensification of the plant-based self-medication strategies already in place in apes and other primates. In support, there is evidence of medicinal plant use by hominins in the middle Paleolithic, and all cultures today have sophisticated, plant-based medical systems, add spices to food, and regularly consume psychoactive plant substances that are harmful to helminths and other pathogens. We propose that the computational challenges of discovering effective plant-based treatments, the consequent ability to consume more energy-rich animal foods, and the reduced reliance on energetically-costly immune responses helped select for increased cognitive abilities and unique exchange relationships in Homo. In the story of human evolution, which has long emphasized hunting skills, medical skills had an equal role to play.