Israel: The making of self in the “pioneering” of the nation

The Zionist project was more than a simple “ingathering” of people. All Jews by birth, those who reached Palestine in the early decades of this century were swept into the making of a “new” people with a “new” ethic and a “new” discipline—out of which would emerge the “old‐new” state of Israel. The present article addresses this multiple process with its strains and contradictions, as experiences by the “pioneer” generation and their Palestinian‐born children—the sabra.     

“The state of the heart”: Recent advances in engineering human cardiac tissue from pluripotent stem cells

The pressing need for effective cell therapy for the heart has led to the investigation of suitable cell sources for tissue replacement. In recent years, human pluripotent stem cell research expanded tremendously, in particular since the derivation of human-induced pluripotent stem cells. In parallel, bioengineering technologies have led to novel approaches for in vitro cell culture. The combination of these two fields holds potential for in vitro generation of high-fidelity heart tissue, both for basic research and for therapeutic applications. However, this new multidisciplinary science is still at an early stage. Many questions need to be answered and improvements need to be made before clinical applications become a reality. Here we discuss the current status of human stem cell differentiation into cardiomyocytes and the combined use of bioengineering approaches for cardiac tissue formation and maturation in developmental studies, disease modeling, drug testing, and regenerative medicine.     

Feeling the Insight: Uncovering Somatic Markers of the “aha” Experience

Whether internal insight can be recognized by experiencing (somatic feeling) remains an unexplored problem. This study investigated the issue by examining potential somatic markers of the “aha” experience occurring at the moment of sudden insight. Participants were required to solve a set of compound remote associates (CRA) problems and were simultaneously monitored via electrodermal and cardiovascular recordings. The “aha”-related psychological components and somatic markers were determined by contrasting insightful solutions with non-insightful solutions. Results showed that the “aha” experience was an amalgam entailing positive affects and approached cognition accompanied by a greater mean skin conductance response (mSCR) amplitude and a marginally accelerated heart rate than the “no-aha” one. These results confirm and extend findings of the multidimensionality of the “aha” feeling and offer the first direct evidence of somatic markers, particularly an electrodermal signature of an “aha” feeling, which suggests a sudden insight could likely be experienced by individuals’ external soma.     

Impossible “Choices”: The Inherent Harms of Regulating Women’s Testosterone in Sport

In April 2018, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) released new regulations placing a ceiling on women athletes’ natural testosterone levels to “ensure fair and meaningful competition.” The regulations revise previous ones with the same intent. They require women with higher natural levels of testosterone and androgen sensitivity who compete in a set of “restricted” events to lower their testosterone levels to below a designated threshold. If they do not lower their testosterone, women may compete in the male category, in an intersex category, at the national level, or in unrestricted events. Women may also challenge the regulation, whether or not they have lowered their testosterone, or quit sport. Irrespective of IAAF’s stated aims, the options forced by the new regulations are impossible choices. They violate dignity, threaten privacy, and mete out both suspicion and judgement on the sex and gender identity of the athletes regulated.     

The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test: Complete Absence of Typical Sex Difference in ~400 Men and Women with Autism

The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test (Eyes test) is an advanced test of theory of mind. Typical sex difference has been reported (i.e., female advantage). Individuals with autism show more difficulty than do typically developing individuals, yet it remains unclear how this is modulated by sex, as females with autism have been under-represented. Here in a large, non-male-biased sample we test for the effects of sex, diagnosis, and their interaction. The Eyes test (revised version) was administered online to 395 adults with autism (178 males, 217 females) and 320 control adults (152 males, 168 females). Two-way ANOVA showed a significant sex-by-diagnosis interaction in total correct score (F(1,711) = 5.090, p = 0.024, η_p ² = 0.007) arising from a significant sex difference between control males and females (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.47), and an absence of a sex difference between males and females with autism (p = 0.907, d = 0.01); significant case-control differences were observed across sexes, with effect sizes of d = 0.35 in males and d = 0.69 in females. Group-difference patterns fit with the extreme-male-brain (EMB) theory predictions. Eyes test-Empathy Quotient and Eyes test-Autism Spectrum Quotient correlations were significant only in females with autism (r = 0.35, r = -0.32, respectively), but not in the other 3 groups. Support vector machine (SVM) classification based on response pattern across all 36 items classified autism diagnosis with a relatively higher accuracy for females (72.2%) than males (65.8%). Nevertheless, an SVM model trained within one sex generalized equally well when applied to the other sex. Performance on the Eyes test is a sex-independent phenotypic characteristic of adults with autism, reflecting sex-common social difficulties, and provides support for the EMB theory predictions for both males and females. Performance of females with autism differed from same-sex controls more than did that of males with autism. Females with autism also showed stronger coherence between self-reported dispositional traits and Eyes test performance than all other groups.     

The ultrastructure of the “difference factor” in the myelin

Summary Electron-microscopic studies of peripheral nerves as prepared by the freezeetching method show the myelin lamella to be 185 Å thick. This is the same dimension found by x-ray diffraction analysis of natural myelin. In contrast to the appearance of osmiumfixed material, the cytoplasmic surfaces of the paired membranes in the myelin lamella are apposed to two fine, separate lines, while the outer membrane sides are fused into a broader single line. The finding of a decidedly different structure for the outer and for the inner membrane surfaces appears to be the cause of the difference factor.This work was supported by the Swiss National Foundation (Nr. 4065). — Acknowledgement: We thank the Balzers AG. (9496 Balzers, Fürstentum Liechtenstein) for providing us with the High Vakuum Device.     

Recent attestations of “new” glume wheat in Turkey: a reassessment of its role in the reconstruction of Neolithic agriculture

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany - Studies of the origins of agriculture in the Near East have revealed that the eight plant species known as “Founder Crops”, i.e. emmer, einkorn,...     

The Construction of “Cultural Difference” and Its Therapeutic Significance in Immigrant Mental Health Services in France

Since the early 1970s, the French public health system has been accorded considerable responsibility for immigrants identified by the educational, judicial or social service authorities as psychologically distressed or socially disruptive. In this paper we discuss three models of healing embedded in constructs of “cultural difference” and addressed at specialized mental health-care centers catering to immigrants in Paris: “cultural mediation,” transcultural psychiatry/ethnopsychiatry and clinical medical anthropology. Based on observations and interviews at three specialized mental health centers in Paris, we explore how these clinical approaches address migrant wellbeing and seek to resolve crises in migrant families, especially those of West African origin. We suggest that the prevalent approaches to therapy creatively blend concepts and practices of anthropology, psychiatry and psychology but, at the same time, confront challenges inherent in the use of a generic “African” healing modality. Cases studies demonstrate that in order for such interventions to be perceived as effective by patients, “cultural difference” must be acknowledged but also situated in broader social, political and economic contexts.

FRAX?: Prediction of Major Osteoporotic Fractures in Women from the General Population: The OPUS Study

Purposes

The aim of this study was to analyse how well FRAX® predicts the risk of major osteoporotic and vertebral fractures over 6 years in postmenopausal women from general population.

Patients and methods

The OPUS study was conducted in European women aged above 55 years, recruited in 5 centers from random population samples and followed over 6 years. The population for this study consisted of 1748 women (mean age 74.2 years) with information on incident fractures. 742 (43.1%) had a prevalent fracture; 769 (44%) and 155 (8.9%) of them received an antiosteoporotic treatment before and during the study respectively. We compared FRAX® performance with and without bone mineral density (BMD) using receiver operator characteristic (ROC) c-statistical analysis with ORs and areas under receiver operating characteristics curves (AUCs) and net reclassification improvement (NRI).

Results

85 (4.9%) patients had incident major fractures over 6 years. FRAX® with and without BMD predicted these fractures with an AUC of 0.66 and 0.62 respectively. The AUC were 0.60, 0.66, 0.69 for history of low trauma fracture alone, age and femoral neck (FN) BMD and combination of the 3 clinical risk factors, respectively. FRAX® with and without BMD predicted incident radiographic vertebral fracture (n = 65) with an AUC of 0.67 and 0.65 respectively. NRI analysis showed a significant improvement in risk assignment when BMD is added to FRAX®.

Conclusions

This study shows that FRAX® with BMD and to a lesser extent also without FN BMD predict major osteoporotic and vertebral fractures in the general population.     

Comment: Low dental caries rate in Neandertals: The result of diet or the oral flora composition?

Dental caries is an infectious disease caused by oral acidophilic bacteria feeding on fermentable sugars, e.g. Streptococcus mutans. The frequency of dental caries in Neandertals was very low. This was usually explained as the result of a low-sugar diet. Recent research, however, revealed some regional differences between European and Near Eastern Neandertals, with the latter consuming considerable amounts of plants including highly cariogenic dates. This discovery, compared with the results of research on genetic diversity of S. mutans, may suggest that this species, and perhaps other most virulent species, were absent in the oral flora of Neandertals.     

Comments on Soltysiak's paper: “Comment: Low dental caries rate in Neandertals: The result of diet or the oral flora compositions?”

A low frequency of dental caries in Neandertal population is still puzzling. Many authors stress that the lower frequency of dental caries was related to a meat diet. However, a recent publication in HOMO – Journal Comparative Human Biology presented a new interpretation of dental caries in Neandertals. In this article, Soltysiak supports the thesis that the lower frequency of caries in the Neandertal population from the Near East could not be related to the low-sugar diet, but rather to the absence of cariogenic bacteria species (S. mutans). Although this hypothesis is interesting, I suspect it to be based on several erroneous assumptions, and a misunderstanding of caries as a disease. Although he stressed that the caries lesion is related to many different factors, in his argument he considers one of two alternatives “a low-sugar diet or a lack of cariogenic bacterial species”.     

The “therapeutic range” of the one-stage prothrombin time in the control of anticoagulant therapy: The effect of different thromboplastin preparations

Commercially available thromboplastin reagents and two human brain preparations have been compared using the one-stage prothrombin time and plasma samples from patients receiving long-term oral anticoagulant therapy. Considerable variation is noted between various thromboplastins using the same plasma sample. The commercially available thromboplastins give shorter prothrombin times than do human brain preparations. With the latter, the “therapeutic range” is represented by a prothrombin time of about 1.8 to 3.0 times the normal control value, whereas with commercial preparations the “therapeutic range” is about 1.25 to 1.75 times normal. The implications of these observations are discussed; the desirability of standardization of the one-stage prothrombin time is emphasized.