scholarly journals In praise of life. The dynamic concept of biodiversity

2021 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Francesc Mesquita-Joanes
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Physical Support ◽  
The Past

We humans have long been aware that as a species we have great power to modify the natural world. We sure have. But it has only been a few decades since society, with a firm voice, turned against the destruction carried out in the past. We want to preserve the variety of life forms in all their beauty and complexity, because this biological variety not only provides us physical support, but also promotes our intellectual and philosophical development. It makes us wonder how it emerged, how it works, why species differ from place to place…

Stability and Folding of the Unusually Stable Hemoglobin from Synechocystis is Subtly Optimized and Dependent on the Key Heme Pocket Residues.

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheetal Uppal ◽  
Mohd. Asim Khan ◽  
Suman Kundu
Keyword(s):  
Molten Globule ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Model System ◽  
Heme Pocket ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Manner ◽  
Delivery Vehicles ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Key Residues ◽  
Synechocystis Sp

Aims: The aim of our study is to understand the biophysical traits that govern the stability and folding of Synechocystis hemoglobin, a unique cyanobacterial globin that displays unusual traits not observed in any of the other globins discovered so far. Background: For the past few decades, classical hemoglobins such as vertebrate hemoglobin and myoglobin have been extensively studied to unravel the stability and folding mechanisms of hemoglobins. However, the expanding wealth of hemoglobins identified in all life forms with novel properties, like heme coordination chemistry and globin fold, have added complexity and challenges to the understanding of hemoglobin stability, which has not been adequately addressed. Here, we explored the unique truncated and hexacoordinate hemoglobin from the freshwater cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 known as “Synechocystis hemoglobin (SynHb)”. The “three histidines” linkages to heme are novel to this cyanobacterial hemoglobin. Objective: Mutational studies were employed to decipher the residues within the heme pocket that dictate the stability and folding of SynHb. Methods: Site-directed mutants of SynHb were generated and analyzed using a repertoire of spectroscopic and calorimetric tools. Result: The results revealed that the heme was stably associated to the protein under all denaturing conditions with His117 playing the anchoring role. The studies also highlighted the possibility of existence of a “molten globule” like intermediate at acidic pH in this exceptionally thermostable globin. His117 and other key residues in the heme pocket play an indispensable role in imparting significant polypeptide stability. Conclusion: Synechocystis hemoglobin presents an important model system for investigations of protein folding and stability in general. The heme pocket residues influenced the folding and stability of SynHb in a very subtle and specific manner and may have been optimized to make this Hb the most stable known as of date. Other: The knowledge gained hereby about the influence of heme pocket amino acid side chains on stability and expression is currently being utilized to improve the stability of recombinant human Hbs for efficient use as oxygen delivery vehicles.

Comparing the Meaningfulness of Finite and Infinite Lives: Can We Reap What We Sow if We Are Immortal?

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Meaningful Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
William Lane Craig ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Important Argument ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
The One

AbstractOn the rise over the past 20 years has been ‘moderate supernaturalism’, the view that while a meaningful life is possible in a world without God or a soul, a much greater meaning would be possible only in a world with them. William Lane Craig can be read as providing an important argument for a version of this view, according to which only with God and a soul could our lives have an eternal, as opposed to temporally limited, significance since we would then be held accountable for our decisions affecting others’ lives. I present two major objections to this position. On the one hand, I contend that if God existed and we had souls that lived forever, then, in fact, all our lives would turn out the same. On the other hand, I maintain that, if this objection is wrong, so that our moral choices would indeed make an ultimate difference and thereby confer an eternal significance on our lives (only) in a supernatural realm, then Craig could not capture the view, aptly held by moderate supernaturalists, that a meaningful life is possible in a purely natural world.

IS JAPAN BACK? MEASURING NATIONALISM AND MILITARY ASSERTIVENESS IN ASIA'S OTHER GREAT POWER

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lind ◽  
Chikako Kawakatsu Ueki
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
The Past ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Observers of East Asia frequently claim that Japanese nationalism is on the rise, and that Tokyo is abandoning its longtime military restraint. To determine whether these trends are indeed occurring, we define and measure Japan's nationalism and military assertiveness; we measure whether they are rising relative to Japan in the past, and relative to seven other countries. Drawing from social identity theory, we distinguish between “nationalism” and a more benign “patriotism.” We find in Japan (1) strong patriotism that is stable over time, and no evidence of rising nationalism. Furthermore we find that (2) military assertiveness remains generally low, but it has risen in terms of decreased institutional constraints and peacekeeping activities. Our findings have important implications for academic debates about nationalism and Japanese security policy, and for policy debates about a nascent balancing effort against China.

Political Activism and Other Life Forms in Colonial Buganda

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 373-395
Author(s):  
Jonathon L. Earle
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Colonial Power ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Trade Unionist ◽  
Concrete World

Abstract:This article uses recently unearthed private papers and ethnographic fieldwork to explore the intersection of political practice and environmental ideation in colonial Buganda. In the early to mid-1900s, colonial administrators sought to draw Ganda interlocutors into abstract conversations about a natural world that was devoid of political power. Through Witchcraft Ordinances, imperial administrators sought to distance spirits, rocks, trees, snakes, and other life forms from the concrete world of social movement and dissent. But in late colonial Uganda, the trade unionist Erieza Bwete and the influential spirit prophet Kibuuka Kigaanira navigated environmental spaces that were imbued with political significance. Uganda’s economic and national histories, informed by methodologies that privileged philosophical materialism, overlooked how interactions with multispecies animated anticolonial politics and larger debates about authority. To challenge these earlier assumptions, this article shows how colonial literati and a late colonial prophet interacted with a natural world that was deeply political to conceptualize independence and challenge colonial power.

Между природой и культурой: экологические мотивы в поэзии Баира Дугарова

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-293
Author(s):  
Galina P. Dondukova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Language Poetry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Ecological Problems ◽  
Nomadic Life

The article analyses the motif of contrasting the natural world and the technical civilization in the works of the Buryat poet Bair Dugarov as one of the aspects forming the ecological problems of the present. Dichotomy between nature and culture reflected in the opposition of a countryside and a city that is characteristic of Russian-language poetry of Buryatia, in Dugarov’s works gains a deep tone and expresses inner thoughts of the persona about the past and present, about forgotten nomadic life and modern globalization. Keywords: Buryat literature, environmental motifs, nature and culture

scholarly journals The Quest for Today's Totemic Psychology: A New Look at Wundt, Freud and Other Scientists

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yueh-Ting Lee ◽  
Xiangyang Chen ◽  
Yongping Zhao ◽  
Wenting Chen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Spiritual Psychology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Psychology Today ◽  
Clinical And Counseling Psychology

Totems are symbols or representations of human's affiliations with, and/or categorizations of, animals, plants and inanimate objects. Totemism is related to fundamental human belief systems based on totems. Investigating totems and totemism psychologically is a unique way to explore human minds. We have critically examined Wundt, Freud and many other scholars and scientists who made distinguished contributions to scientific research on totems and totemism almost in the past two centuries –i.e., totemic psychology, which is the study of our mind's categorization and affiliation in the human and natural world today. Understanding and appreciating their totemic psychology can help psychologists today enhance their understanding in other fields—e.g., ecological and environmental psychology, biological psychology, cognitive psychology, personality, social and ethnic psychology, clinical and counseling psychology, cultural psychology, and religious or spiritual psychology. Unfortunately, recent data from a content analysis via PsycInfo and a cross-cultural survey study (N=273) showed that well-trained psychologists around the world and psychology students in the United States and in China are unfamiliar with Wundt and Freud's totemic contributions to psychology today. The implications, benefits, and lessons of totems and today's totemic psychology are discussed here.

scholarly journals Microbial biospherics: The experimental study of ecosystem function and evolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (23) ◽  
pp. 11093-11098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias C. Rillig ◽  
Janis Antonovics
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Function ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Sensor Technology ◽  
Ecosystem Ecology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Closed Systems ◽  
Reductionist Approach ◽  
Long Term Studies

Awareness that our planet is a self-supporting biosphere with sunlight as its major source of energy for life has resulted in a long-term historical fascination with the workings of self-supporting ecological systems. However, the studies of such systems have never entered the canon of ecological or evolutionary tools and instead, have led a fringe existence connected to life support system engineering and space travel. We here introduce a framework for a renaissance in biospherics based on the study of matter-closed, energy-open ecosystems at a microbial level (microbial biospherics). Recent progress in genomics, robotics, and sensor technology makes the study of closed systems now much more tractable than in the past, and we argue that the time has come to emancipate the study of closed systems from this fringe context and bring them into a mainstream approach for studying ecosystem processes. By permitting highly replicated long-term studies, especially on predetermined and simplified systems, microbial biospheres offer the opportunity to test and develop strong hypotheses about ecosystem function and the ecological and evolutionary determinants of long-term system failure or persistence. Unlike many sciences, ecosystem ecology has never fully embraced a reductionist approach and has remained focused on the natural world in all its complexity. We argue that a reductionist approach to ecosystem ecology, using microbial biospheres, based on a combination of theory and the replicated study of much simpler self-enclosed microsystems could pay huge dividends.

scholarly journals First inventory of vascular flora of Matokit mountain (Biokovo massif, Croatia)

2020 ◽  
Vol 144 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 257-268
Author(s):  
Ivana Vitasović-Kosić ◽  
Mara Vukojević ◽  
Sandro Bogdanović
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Climate ◽  
Invasive Plant ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
Vascular Flora ◽  
The Past ◽  
Floristic Data ◽  
High Influence ◽  
Southern Croatia

The vascular flora of Matokit Mt (Biokovo Massif) in southern Croatia was researched in different vegetation periods from 2010-2015, and a total of 604 vascular plant taxa belonging to 86 families and 337 genera were found. The studied area has never been studied in the past and these are the first detailed floristic data about grasslands in different succession stages of Matokit Mt. Collected herbarium specimens (345 sheets) were digitalized and are available at the ZAGR Virtual Herbarium. The most dominant families were legumes (Fabaceae 9.9%), grasses (Poaceae 9.1%), daisies (Asteraceae 7.4%) and mints (Lamiaceae 6.8%). The analysis of life forms shows the dominance of hemicryptophytes (39.9%) and therophytes (26.2%) on Matokit Mt that indicates a high influence of the Mediterranean climate. A total of 36 endangered and 17 invasive plant taxa across the whole studied area were recorded. Endemic are 32 plant taxa (26 endemics in a broader sense and 6 stenoendemics) and they represent new site of Croatian flora. The occurrence of some very rare endemics (Cardamine fialae Fritsch and Erysimum croaticum Polatschek) in the flora of Matokit Mt is of special interest for the national flora.

The Clay Figurines of Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico

1953 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles C. Di Peso
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Private Collection

For the past eight years, stories have appeared concerning a vast collection of animal and human figurines of great antiquity, gathered in the vicinity of Acambaro in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Senor Waldemar Julsrud possesses some 32,000 of these artifacts in his private collection. These ceramic figures consist of such forms as Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Trachodon, Dimetrodon and other Mesozoic reptilian life-forms. Also included in the collection are a number of modern life-forms such as cow, horse, hippopotamus, elephant, rabbit, and dog. Even more fabulous is the number of miniature Egyptian sarcophagi found in the collection.

Mimetic Dynamics

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-218
Author(s):  
Natasha Barrett ◽  
Oyvind Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Interactive Installation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
The Many ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Current Paradigm

The ‘art’ we produce today attempts to incorporate an increasing level of computer technology. There are many reasons for this trend, the most significant being a thirst for an exploration of the ‘new’, and the desire to parallel the increasing level of technology seeping into everyday life. However, when surveying recent developments we find an array of technology-related arts projects that instead of reaching forward into the previously unknown, often reproduce the past simply in a digital form, designed to appeal to our immediate senses but lacking in depth and substance. Likewise, it can be observed that in many cultures (ancient and modern), mimesis grows out of what seems to be a human reaction to technological change. Qualities familiar from past usage tend to be reproduced in new materials and with new techniques, regardless of appropriateness. This may have religious origins, or simply result from inertia, reworking concepts within the current paradigm. Parallels can be drawn from evolution, which can be observed to progress in a series of large advancements alternating with periods of extremely slow or zero development (Eldredge and Gould 1972), and from the progress of science, which seems to be similarly stepped (Kuhn 1962).This paper describes Mimetric Dynamics – an audiovisual interactive installation exploring one of the many possible relationships between nature and technology. In this work, real and simulated fluid dynamics are presented simultaneously, allowing both artist and viewer to explore the relationship between ‘digital’ and ‘analogue’ media in both sound and visual dimensions. It gains insight from physical laws and time flows derived from the natural world, where digital technology is used to produce mathematical models simulating real physical attributes. In doing so we are able to harness qualities of the ‘natural’ and use their characteristics to control aspects of the ‘artificial’ (virtual).

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