Farmland Birds across the World

2010, Lynx Edicions, Montseny, 8, E-08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain 138 pages, hard cover ISBN 978–84-96553–63-7. Price €24.00     

Sexual Behaviour and AIDS in the Developing World

Sexual Behaviour and AIDS in the Developing World. John Cleland and Benoìat Ferry. eds. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1994. 228 pp.     

Twinning in prosimians

Twinning pedigrees for Lemur catta and Galago crassicaudatus argentatus colonies at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center have been constructed. Unlike-sexed twin pairs were more numerous than like-sexed twin pairs in both species. Evidence is presented which supports the hypothesis that twinning in prosimians, as in man, is genetically controlled.     

Against Permitted Exploitation in Developing World Research Agreements

This paper examines the moral force of exploitation in developing world research agreements. Taking for granted that some clinical research which is conducted in the developing world but funded by developed world sponsors is exploitative, it asks whether a third party would be morally justified in enforcing limits on research agreements in order to ensure more fair and less exploitative outcomes. This question is particularly relevant when such exploitative transactions are entered into voluntarily by all relevant parties, and both research sponsors and host communities benefit from the resulting agreements. I show that defenders of the claim that exploitation ought to be permitted rely on a mischaracterization of certain forms of interference as unjustly paternalistic and two dubious empirical assumptions about the results of regulation. The view I put forward is that by evaluating a system of constraints on international research agreements, rather than individual transaction‐level interference, we can better assess the alternatives to permitting exploitative research agreements.     

Twinning frequency in catarrhine primates

It has been repeatedly suggested that twinning frequency in most catarrhine primates is approximately the same as in humans, whereas the frequency in the chimpanzee and the gorilla might be higher. This study presents a re-evaluation of the evidence from the pertinent literature. It can be demonstrated that most data on twinning frequency in Old World monkeys and apes should not be used because of their small sample size. A lower limit of 1500 pregnancies is suggested here. If all frequency estimates taken from smaller samples are rejected, only four estimates forMacaca mulatta andPapio hamadryas remain. The estimates range from 0.19 to 0.35% and are in fact lower than the frequencies of most (but necessarily all) human populations. The published birth samples for apes are, however, relatively small, and the resulting twinning rates may not be reliable. A republication, occasioned by publisher's errors, of this article that originally appeared in Human Evolution 2: 547–555 (1987). It is recommended that all references to this article be cited from the present publication.     

Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers

Ballet across Borders: Career and Culture in the World of Dancers. Helena Wulff. New York: Berg, 1998. 185 pp.     

Twinning rates in Ghana.

The incidence of twin births in Accra and Kumasi, the two major cities in Ghana, was investigated. In Accra, data were collected from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital while data were collected and analyzed from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. Both hospitals are the leading teaching hospitals in Ghana. The data consisted mainly of single and twin births recorded in the hospitals over a period of 12 years in Accra (1988-1999) and 15 years in Kumasi (1985-1999). The study revealed an incidence of 33.4 twin births per thousand live births for Accra and 26.6 twin births per thousand live births for Kumasi. Though these values are not as high as those reported among the Yoruba tribe of southwest Nigeria, who are reported to have the highest twin birth rates in the world, the present values still rank among the highest recorded twin birth rates.     

Twinning frequency in catarrhine primates

It has been repeatedly suggested that twinning frequency in most catarrhine primates is approximately the same as in humans, whereas the frequency in the chimpanzee and the gorilla might be higher. This study presents a re-evaluation of the evidence from the pertinent literature. It can be demonstrated that most data on twinning frequency in Old World monkeys and apes should not be used because of their small sample size. A lower limit of 1500 pregnancies is suggested here. If all frequency estimates taken from smaller samples are rejected, only four estimates forMacaca mulatta andPapio hamadryas remain. The estimates range from 0.19 to 0.35% and are in fact lower than the frequencies of most (but necessarily all) human populations. The published birth samples for apes are, however, relatively small, and the resulting twinning rates may not be reliable.