Alan Cyril Walker. 23 August 1938—20 November 2017

Colleagues often refer to Alan Walker as the Eric Clapton (one of the most influential musicians of the late twentieth century) of palaeoanthropology in recognition of the artistry of his science. His field discoveries filled major gaps in our knowledge of primate evolution, such as elucidating the Miocene world of Proconsul and finding the transitional ‘Black Skull’ of Australopithecus aethiopicus and the skeleton of a Homo erectus boy. In addition to discovering these remarkable fossils, Alan was essential in bringing a palaeobiological approach to the laboratory interpretation of their bony morphology. He used the relationships between form and function in living species as a baseline for understanding the past, he pioneered dental microwear analysis to infer diet and was an early-adopter of the use of microCT to explore the internal structure of primate ear bones. Beyond these scientific accomplishments, however, it was Alan's grace and generosity that truly set him apart from his peers. As the patriarch of an extensive intellectual family of students, postdocs and colleagues, Alan taught by example how to be intellectually creative, brave, meticulous, generous and kind. His legacy will long be felt in both the science and the culture of palaeoanthropology.

Download Full-text

Form and Function in Italian Renaissance Popular Books

Renaissance Quarterly ◽

10.2307/3039102 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 46 (3) ◽

pp. 451-485 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Paul F. Grendler

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Science Fiction ◽

Italian Renaissance ◽

Page Layout ◽

Form And Function ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

Size Type ◽

The Subject ◽

And Function ◽

Late Twentieth Century

Form and Function are Closely connected in books. The physical appearance of books indicates purpose and intended readership. A combination of size, type, and page layout offers visible signals informing the reader of the content before he begins to read a book. Books that look different are different. They have different subject matters, purposes, and readerships.Anyone browsing in a bookstore in the late twentieth century knows this. Today an illustration on the cover provides the most obvious clue concerning the subject matter and purpose of a book. When the cover shows a handsome man with a scowl on his face and a gun in his hand along with a beautiful young woman in distress—and possibly some degree of undress—we know that the book is a “thriller.” When the cover shows a spaceship, we know that the book is science fiction.

Download Full-text

Introduction

Science Fiction and Psychology ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781789620603.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-44

Author(s):

Gavin Miller

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Twentieth Century ◽

Science Fiction ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Psychological Knowledge ◽

Reflexive Function ◽

And Function ◽

Late Twentieth Century

For the purposes of this book, science fiction is defined broadly in the terms advanced by Darko Suvin, with a focus on the genre from the late nineteenth century onwards. Psychology is conceived as the modern Western discipline, running from the origins of experimental psychology in the late nineteenth century to the ascendance of neuroscience as a disciplinary rival in the late twentieth century. Five different functions for psychological discourses in science fiction are proposed. The didactic-futurological function educates the non-specialist through extrapolation of psychological technologies, teaching within the context of futurological forecasting. The utopian function anchors in historical possibility the imagining of a currently non-existent society, whether utopian or dystopian. The cognitive-estranging function defamiliarizes and denaturalizes social reality by extrapolating current social tendencies and/or construct unsettling fictional analogues of the reader’s world. The metafictional function self-consciously thematizes within narrative fiction the psychological origins, nature, and function of science fiction as a genre. The reflexive function addresses the construction of individuals and groups who have reflexively adopted the ‘truth’ of psychological knowledge.

Download Full-text

Tooth Form and Function: Insights into Adaptation through the Analysis of Dental Microwear

Frontiers of Oral Biology - Comparative Dental Morphology ◽

10.1159/000242388 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 38-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Peter S. Ungar

Keyword(s):

Dental Microwear ◽

Form And Function ◽

Tooth Form ◽

And Function

Download Full-text

Form and Function of Bipolar Lithic Artifacts from the Three Dog Site, San Salvador, Bahamas

Latin American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/971965 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 415-432 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Mary Jane Berman ◽

April K. Sievert ◽

Thomas R. Whyte

Keyword(s):

Plant Residues ◽

Chipped Stone ◽

Form And Function ◽

San Salvador ◽

Microwear Analysis ◽

Determine Function ◽

Show Evidence ◽

Plant Processing ◽

Lithic Artifacts ◽

And Function

The significance of a microlithic assemblage composed of imported, nonlocal materials is discussed for the Three Dog site, an early Lucayan site located on San Salvador, Bahamas. The Bahama archipelago is an interesting area in which to examine the organization of technology because the islands lack cherts and other suitable materials for chipped stone manufacture, suggesting that economizing strategies may have been practiced. The artifacts were manufactured by bipolar production and a few show evidence of recycling and reuse. Microwear analysis, undertaken to determine function, was inconclusive due to heavy weathering from the depositional environment. Traces of an organic adhesive suggest that some of the objects were used as hafted or composite tools. The presence of starch grains, most likely Xanthosoma sp., and other plant residues on some artifacts suggests they were used in plant processing. The morphological similarities of the flakes produced through bipolar reduction with those from ethnographic sources suggest that most of them probably were used as grater chips to process root or tuber foods. The assemblage was compared to other bipolarly-produced microlithic assemblages from nearby islands.

Download Full-text

Functional ecological convergence between the thylacine and small prey-focused canids

BMC Ecology and Evolution ◽

10.1186/s12862-021-01788-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Douglass S. Rovinsky ◽

Alistair R. Evans ◽

Justin W. Adams

Keyword(s):

Body Mass ◽

Prey Size ◽

Functional Ecology ◽

Fundamental Aspect ◽

South American ◽

Form And Function ◽

Living Species ◽

Superficial Similarity ◽

Degree Of Convergence ◽

And Function

Abstract Background Morphological convergence is a fundamental aspect of evolution, allowing for inference of the biology and ecology of extinct species by comparison with the form and function of living species as analogues. The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), the iconic recently extinct marsupial, is considered a classic example of convergent evolution with the distantly related placental wolf or dog, though almost nothing is actually known regarding its ecology. This lack of data leads to questions regarding the degree of convergence with, and the similarity of, the functional ecology of the thylacine and the wolf/dog. Here, we examined the cranium of the thylacine using 3D geometric morphometrics and two quantitative tests of convergence to more precisely determine convergent analogues, within a phylogenetically informed dataset of 56 comparative species across 12 families of marsupial and placental faunivorous mammals. Using this dataset, we investigated patterns of correlation between cranial shape and diet, phylogeny, and relative prey size across these terrestrial faunivores. Results We find a correlation between cranial, facial, and neurocranial shape and the ratio of prey-to-predator body mass, though neurocranial shape may not correlate with prey size within marsupials. The thylacine was found to group with predators that routinely take prey smaller than 45% of their own body mass, not with predators that take subequal-sized or larger prey. Both convergence tests find significant levels of convergence between the thylacine and the African jackals and South American ‘foxes’, with lesser support for the coyote and red fox. We find little support for convergence between the thylacine and the wolf or dog. Conclusions Our study finds little support for a wolf/dog-like functional ecology in the thylacine, with it instead being most similar to mid-sized canids such as African jackals and South American ‘foxes’ that mainly take prey less than half their size. This work suggests that concepts of convergence should extend beyond superficial similarity, and broader comparisons can lead to false interpretations of functional ecology. The thylacine was a predator of small to mid-sized prey, not a big-game specialist like the placental wolf.

Download Full-text

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) of DNA and RNA

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100152148 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 47 ◽

pp. 34-35

Author(s):

Patricia G. Arscott ◽

Gil Lee ◽

Victor A. Bloomfield ◽

D. Fennell Evans

Keyword(s):

Molecular Structures ◽

Inorganic Materials ◽

Resolving Power ◽

Scanning Tunneling ◽

Tunneling Microscopy ◽

Form And Function ◽

Dna And Rna ◽

Calf Thymus ◽

And Function ◽

The Relationship

STM is one of the most promising techniques available for visualizing the fine details of biomolecular structure. It has been used to map the surface topography of inorganic materials in atomic dimensions, and thus has the resolving power not only to determine the conformation of small molecules but to distinguish site-specific features within a molecule. That level of detail is of critical importance in understanding the relationship between form and function in biological systems. The size, shape, and accessibility of molecular structures can be determined much more accurately by STM than by electron microscopy since no staining, shadowing or labeling with heavy metals is required, and there is no exposure to damaging radiation by electrons. Crystallography and most other physical techniques do not give information about individual molecules.We have obtained striking images of DNA and RNA, using calf thymus DNA and two synthetic polynucleotides, poly(dG-me5dC)·poly(dG-me5dC) and poly(rA)·poly(rU).

Download Full-text