Foundations, frameworks, lenses: the role of theories in bioethics

I explore the implications of the foundation metaphor for understanding the role of moral theories in ethics and bioethics and argue that its disadvantages outweigh its advantages. I then consider two other metaphors that might be used instead, those of frameworks and lenses. I propose that the metaphor of lenses is most promising in providing methodological guidance for drawing on moral theories when deliberating about bioethical problems.     

Scientific schools: traditions, dogmas, progress in the study of the brain evolution

The role of traditions, revision of dogmatic concepts, and emergence of novel theories in the investigations of the vertebrate brain evolution on the bases of modern neuroscientific data represent the objective of the present paper. Problems of homology, encephalization, recapitulation, dissolution, and the significance of their revision for understanding the brain evolution are considered. Arguments for equal importance in studying consequences of both phylogenetic and divergent adaptive evolution are presented. Comparative study of functional mechanisms is suggested as a perspective trend of the evolutionary physiology. It will be a valuable tool both for understanding the brain evolution and for applied investigations in neurobiology and medicine.     

Myth, Memory, and the Oral Tradition: Cicero in the Trobriands

In nonliterate societies, myths are often linked to specific geographical locations. Using Malinowski's Trobriand material and taking a lead from Cicero's De oratore, it is argued that spatial location functions (1) as a mnemonic device for the recall of a corpus of myth, (2) as a structural marker dividing a corpus into separate thinkable units, and (3) as a means of restricting social change at least temporarily to specific institutions. Malinowski's instrumental theory of myth is contrasted with the cognitive theory advanced by LéviStrauss, and certain didactic functions of myth are also discussed . [myth, memory, oral tradition, social space, Trobriands]     

Role of autophagy in aging: The good,the bad,and the ugly

Autophagy (self-eating) is a conserved catabolic homeostatic process required for cellular metabolic demands by removal of the damaged molecules and organelles and for alleviation of stress initiated by pathology and infection. By such actions, autophagy is essential for the prevention of aging, disease, and cancer. Genetic defects of autophagy genes lead to a host of developmental, metabolic, and pathological aberrations. Similarly, the age-induced decline in autophagy leads to the loss of cellular homeostatic control. Paradoxically, such a valuable mechanism is hijacked by diseases, during tumor progression and by senescence, presumably due to high levels of metabolic demand. Here, we review both the role of autophagy in preventing cellular decline in aging by fulfillment of cellular bioenergetic demands and its contribution to the maintenance of the senescent state and SASP by acting on energy and nutritional sensors and diverse signaling pathways.     

Comparative morphology of the carpel in the Liliaceae: Hewardieae, Petrosavieae, and Tricyrteae

The young pistils in the melanthioid tribes, Hewardieae, Petrosavieae and Tricyrteae, are uniformly tricarpellate and syncarpous. They lack raphide idioblasts. All are multiovulate, with bitegmic ovules. The Petrosavieae are marked by the presence of septal glands and incomplete syncarpy. Tepals and stamens adhere to the ovary in the Hewardieae and the Petrosavieae but not in the Tricyrteae. Two vascular bundles occur in the stamens of the Hewartlieae and Tricyrtis latifolia. Ventral bundles in the upper part of the ovary of the Hewardieae are continuous with compound septal bundles and placental bundles in the lower part. Putative ventral bundles occur in the alternate position in the Tricyrteae and putative placental bundles in the opposite. position in the Petrosavieae. The dichtomously branched stigma in each carpel of the Tricyrteae is supplied by a bifurcated dorsal bundle.     

Kinship,a-kinship,anti-kinship: Variation in the logic of kinship situations

Where contrasts between rural/urban, non-industrial/industrial, simple/complex et cetera societies are drawn, a corresponding contrast in the importance of kinship as an organising principle is more or less explicitly implied. Similarly, the weight put upon kinship is assumed to vary inversely with technological and/or social evolution. The analytical and practical effects of these assumptions are examined with reference to situations involving kinsmen in Lesotho (Southern Africa), in other non-industrial societies, and in middle-class Great Britain.The paper aims (a) to account for the unexpected non-use of kinship as a consistent organising principle in Lesotho, and (b) to demonstrate that kin-ties are nowhere consistently used since they are social resources whose existence will be exploited, ignored or denied as the logic of particular situations demands; that relations between kinsmen in any society may be governed by any one of three different kinship principles—kinship, a-kinship or anti-kinship.By corollary it is argued that the real significance of kinship can neither be read off an evolutionary continuum, nor denied on the grounds of inconsistent usage.     

Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning

Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning. Bradd Shore. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 428 pp.     

Knowledge,place, and power: geographies of value in the bioeconomy

The idea that there is an emerging “bioeconomy” characterized by the capture of the latent value found in biological material (e.g. cells, tissues, plants, etc.) has become a popular policy agenda since the mid-2000s. A number of scholars have also written about this intersection between the life sciences and capitalism, often drawing on anthropological and sociological perspectives to conceptualize the new socialities, subjectivities, and identities brought about by new biotechnologies. While these studies are undoubtedly a fruitful academic enterprise, they have also left a gap in our understanding of the bioeconomy because they have not discussed knowledge or knowledge production. This article focuses on this immaterial side of the bioeconomy, exploring the geographies of value in the bioeconomy that are constituted by intangible and immaterial resources and labor. The core argument is that value in the bioeconomy is created from geographical processes that both embed immateriality in particular places and, at the same time, abstract it in global standards and regulations.     

Giant deer: Origin, evolution, role in the biosphere

This monograph is devoted to the study of the giant deer or megacerines (tribe Megacerini, family Cervidae, order Artiodactyla) of the Late Cenozoic of Eurasia. Special attention is paid to megacerines of Inner Asia. This region, which is connected with the origin and early stages of historical development of megacerines, is key to gaining an insight into their evolution and phylogeny, place in the food chain, and effect on the biogeocoenoses. Based on the revision of fossil materials from the Upper Miocene-Lower Pleistocene of Russia, Mongolia, and Tajikistan, new data from Tuva, and analysis of an evolution, phylogeny, ecogenesis, diversity dynamics, stages of historical development, and place of megacerines in biogeocoenoses, their role in the maintenance of homeostasis of the biosphere and changes in environments are shown and certain basic principles of macroevolution and evolution of the biosphere are discussed.     

Stuck in the middle: Rac, adhesion, and cytokinesis

Rho family small GTPases (Rac, RhoA, and Cdc42) function at the core of cytokinesis, the physical division of one cell into two. In this issue, Bastos et al. (2012. J. Cell Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201204107) identify a new role for Rac inhibition: to release cell adhesion at the division plane and allow efficient constriction of the contractile ring. They show that the GTPase-activating protein, CYK4, suppresses equatorial cell substrate adhesion by inhibiting Rac and therefore its effectors ARFGEF7 and PAK1/2.     

Nitrogen in the environment: sources,problems, and management

Nitrogen (N) is applied worldwide to produce food. It is in the atmosphere, soil, and water and is essential to all life. N for agriculture includes fertilizer, biologically fixed, manure, recycled crop residue, and soil-mineralized N. Presently, fertilizer N is a major source of N, and animal manure N is inefficiently used. Potential environmental impacts of N excreted by humans are increasing rapidly with increasing world populations. Where needed, N must be efficiently used because N can be transported immense distances and transformed into soluble and/or gaseous forms that pollute water resources and cause greenhouse effects. Unfortunately, increased amounts of gaseous N enter the environment as N2O to cause greenhouse warming and as NH3 to shift ecological balances of natural ecosystems. Large amounts of N are displaced with eroding sediments in surface waters. Soluble N in runoff or leachate water enters streams, rivers, and groundwater. High-nitrate drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia, while nitrosamines are associated with various human cancers. We describe the benefits, but also how N in the wrong form or place results in harmful effects on humans and animals, as well as to ecological and environmental systems.