Arsenic Life?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben McFarland
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Press Conference ◽  
Hidden Order ◽  
The World ◽  
As If

In December 2, 2010, at 11:16 a.m., I received the first of three emails from students in my biochemistry class, all asking if I had heard the news. A press conference at 11 a.m. had announced that scientists had discovered a bacterium that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA. Soon there was a hashtag for this: #arseniclife. We were excited and a little puzzled. I had just lectured about how phosphorus was uniquely useful to DNA. I shrugged and mumbled something about how textbooks can be rewritten. Today, the dust has settled—and the textbook reads the same as ever. DNA is made of phosphorus, never arsenic. That December press conference was followed by two full years of multiple experiments in labs around the world. It confirmed what the textbook said all along, yet the story was well worth it. The “arsenic life” story was never just about microbiology. It’s about science itself, how we know things, and the nature of natural history. Everyone should know this story. It will temper expectations when the next press-conference-induced hashtag makes its way halfway around the world while science is still lacing up its boots. More than that, it shows something deep about what kind of world we live in, something underreported because it is so intricate and comes from so many different places. There is a hidden order that makes some sense of biology and even sociology, and that hidden order is chemistry. All life, from a lakewater bacterium to the neurons firing in your brain as you read this, is hemmed in. It is free to randomly adapt to its surroundings with nearly infinite creativity, but its overall path is as constrained as if it were walking on the deck of a ship crossing the ocean. The ultimate movement, on the scale of billions of years, is shaped by chemical rules. One of these rules is that phosphorus makes good DNA, while arsenic does not. To reach this conclusion, we have to start where the arsenic life story started.

Bringing the Real World of Science to Children: A Partnership of the American Museum of Natural History and the City University of New York

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony G Picciano ◽  
Robert V. Steiner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Development Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Museum ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Every child has a right to an education. In the United States, the issue is not necessarily about access to a school but access to a quality education. With strict compulsory education laws, more than 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and billions of dollars spent annually on public and private education, American children surely have access to buildings and classrooms. However, because of a complex and competitive system of shared policymaking among national, state, and local governments, not all schools are created equal nor are equal education opportunities available for the poor, minorities, and underprivileged. One manifestation of this inequity is the lack of qualified teachers in many urban and rural schools to teach certain subjects such as science, mathematics, and technology. The purpose of this article is to describe a partnership model between two major institutions (The American Museum of Natural History and The City University of New York) and the program designed to improve the way teachers are trained and children are taught and introduced to the world of science. These two institutions have partnered on various projects over the years to expand educational opportunity especially in the teaching of science. One of the more successful projects is Seminars on Science (SoS), an online teacher education and professional development program, that connects teachers across the United States and around the world to cutting-edge research and provides them with powerful classroom resources. This article provides the institutional perspectives, the challenges and the strategies that fostered this partnership.

From Silent Spring to The Frog of War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Skelly
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Rachel Carson ◽  
Chemical Agents ◽  
Silent Spring ◽  
The World ◽  
History Information ◽  
Wildlife Populations ◽  
The Impact

This chapter presents two examples to demonstrate that natural history is the necessary basis of any reliable understanding of the world. More than a half century ago, Rachel Carson revolutionized the public’s view of pesticides. The foundation of her success was the careful use of natural history data, collated from across North America. The examples she assembled left little doubt that DDT and other pesticides were causing a widespread decline in birds. More recently, the case for the impact of atrazine on wildlife was based on laboratory experiments, without the advantage of natural history observations. For atrazine, natural history observations now suggest that other chemical agents are more likely to be responsible for feminization of wildlife populations. Developing expectations for scientists to collect natural history information can help to avoid over-extrapolating lab results to wild populations, a tendency often seen when those lab results conform to preconceptions about chemicals in the environment.

Vocational Development in Emerging Adulthood

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Pratt ◽  
M. Kyle Matsuba
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Emerging Adult ◽  
Vocational Development ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts

Chapter 6 reviews research on the topic of vocational/occupational development in relation to the McAdams and Pals tripartite personality framework of traits, goals, and life stories. Distinctions between types of motivations for the work role (as a job, career, or calling) are particularly highlighted. The authors then turn to research from the Futures Study on work motivations and their links to personality traits, identity, generativity, and the life story, drawing on analyses and quotes from the data set. To illustrate the key concepts from this vocation chapter, the authors end with a case study on Charles Darwin’s pivotal turning point, his round-the-world voyage as naturalist for the HMS Beagle. Darwin was an emerging adult in his 20s at the time, and we highlight the role of this journey as a turning point in his adult vocational development.

On the Nomenclature of the Vinegar Eelworm

1927 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. G. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Naked Eye ◽  
The World

This eelworm, only just visible to the naked eye, and quite common in vinegar in all parts of the world, has long been known to zoologists, and indeed was an object of keen interest and discussion to the naturalists of the seventeenth century. Petrus Borellus [3], for instance, enthusiastic over the recent adoption of the microscope for researches in natural history, published in 1656 his “Observationum Microcospicarum Centuria,” in which he leads off with a note “De Vermibus aceti.” In the twelfth edition of the “Systema Naturae” (1767), Linnaeus included a species redivivum in that final genus of the Regnum Animale so appropriately named Chaos. This species of animal he says, “Habitat in Aceto & Glutine Bibliopegorum.”.

What We (Still) Need to Learn: Stuart Hall and the Struggle Against Racism

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (102) ◽  
pp. 78-91
Author(s):  
Gilbert B. Rodman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
As If

Forty years ago, in his seminal essay, 'The Whites of Their Eyes', Stuart Hall admonished the left for its – our – collective failure in figuring out how to fight back against racism effectively. Sadly, his criticism is no less valid today than it was then, and we still have a lot to learn about how to defeat racism once and for all. We've known for more than a century that this thing we call 'race' isn't a scientifically valid phenomenon – and yet it continues to function perfectly well in the world as if it is one anyway. As Hall noted in a 2011 interview, the mere act of unmasking essentialisms and deconstructing binaries doesn't stop them from 'roaring away' in the world, completely undisturbed by our analytic prowess. This essay takes stock of the current state of anti-racist struggles (at least in the US) and offers a critical analysis of how and why our current efforts to combat racism continue to be so ineffective.

scholarly journals Makna Penting Demokrasi dan Musyawarah Bagi Keutuhan Bangsa Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAVI GITA MAULIDA
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
National State ◽  
Unitary State ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The World ◽  
State Construction ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
As If

The Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) based on the historical trajectory of the struggle, has the only state construction in the world where the nation is born first, then forms the state. The first President of the Republic of Indonesia Ir. Soekarno emphasized that the Unitary State is a National State. The purpose of the Indonesian nation to be born, independent, and to form a state has one goal, the will to elevate the dignity and life of the Indonesian people (Indonesian People's Sovereignty). Through an analysis of the reality of today's life, the Indonesian nation has lived in a condition of life order as if it were the same as a democratic state, namely that the first state was formed and the nation was born later. So that the sovereignty of the Indonesian people based on the principles of deliberation and representation has not been able to be realized.

scholarly journals Reconstruindo sentidos na interface de histórias: uma discussão fenomenológico-existencial da constituição do sujeito borderline

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-144
Author(s):  
Anna Karynne da Silva MELO ◽  
Georges Daniel Janja Bloc BORIS ◽  
Violeta STOLTENBORG
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Gestalt Therapy ◽  
Disease Classification ◽  
Existential Phenomenology ◽  
Borderline Disorder ◽  
The World ◽  
Borderline Patients ◽  
Health And Sickness

This paper discusses a clinical case of a 40 years old woman, diagnosed as a borderline personality disorder, conforming to CID-10 (2003). The paper proposes, by a concrete clinical experience, to discuss the phenomenological and existential psychopathology. At first, it describes borderline disorder according to existential phenomenology. So, the authors discuss the conceptions about the relation between health and sickness in Gestalt-Therapy and Daseins-analysis, trying to understand the way of 'being-in-the-world' and the constitution of the psychopathological phenomenon in borderline patients from the perspective of the construction of his life story, that is unique. At the end, the authors detach the great challenge of existential-phenomenological psychotherapist: putting the patient's clinical picture in stand by 'a priori' and considering how she expresses herself and sees the world, giving up the mere disease classification itself.

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