In Beyond Physicalism, an interdisciplinary group of physical scientists, behavioral and social scientists, and humanists from the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research argue that physicalism must be replaced by an expanded scientific naturalism that accommodates something spiritual at the heart of nature.

In June 1993, conjoined twins Amy and Angela Lakeberg became the focus of national attention. They shared a complex six‐chambered heart and one liver; only one could survive separation surgery, and even her chances were slim. The medical challenge was great and the ethical challenges were even greater.

The emergence of new obstetrical and neonatal technologies, as well as more aggressive clinical management, has significantly improved the survival of extremely low birth weight infants. This development has heightened concerns about the limits of viability. ELBW infants, weighing less than 1,000 grams and no larger than the palm of one's hand, are often described as of late twentieth century technology. Improved survivability of ELBW infants has provided opportunities for long-term follow-up. Information on their physical and emotional development contributes to (...) developing standards of practice regarding their care. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at the Marshall family home, often attending dinn...

Keith Thomas: Gerald Edward Aylmer, 1926-2000 Adrian Hollis: William Spencer Barrett, 1914-2001 Bruce Williams: Charles Frederick Carter, 1919-2002 Malcolm Mackintosh: John Erickson, 1929-2002 J. H .R. Davis: Raymond William Firth, 1901-2002 F. M. L. Thompson: Hrothgar John Habakkuk, 1915-2002 A. W. Price: Richard Mervyn Hare, 1919-2002 Hugh Lloyd-Jones: Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, 1921-2003 Michael Lapidge and Peter Matthews: Vivien Anne Law, 1954-2002 Ann Moss: John Lough, 1913-2000 Terence Cave: Ian Dalrymple McFarlane, 1915-2002 Ludwig Paul: David Neil MacKenzie, 1926-2001 Peter (...) Birks: John Kieran Barry Moylan Nicholas, 1919-2002 Jonathan Shepard: Dimitri Dimitrievich Obolensky, 1918-2001 David Cannadine: John Harold Plumb, 1911-2001 Daniel Waley: Nicolai Rubinstein, 1911-2002 Ian Wood: John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, 1916-1985 R. G. M. Nisbet: William Smith Watt, 1913-2002 G. W. Bernard: Richard Bruce Wernham, 1906-1999. (shrink)

The novel understanding of the physical world that characterized the Scientific Revolution depended on a fundamental shift in the way its protagonists understood and described space. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, spatial phenomena were described in relation to a presupposed central point; by its end, space had become a centerless void in which phenomena could only be described by reference to arbitrary orientations. David Marshall Miller examines both the historical and philosophical aspects of this far-reaching development, (...) including the rejection of the idea of heavenly spheres, the advent of rectilinear inertia, and the theoretical contributions of Copernicus, Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. His rich study shows clearly how the centered Aristotelian cosmos became the oriented Newtonian universe, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Newton’s argument for universal gravitation in the Principia eventually rested on the third “Rule of Philosophizing,” which warrants the generalization of “qualities of bodies.” An analysis of the rule and the history of its development indicate that the term ‘quality’ should be taken to include both inherent properties of bodies and relations among systems of bodies, generalized into `laws'. By incorporating law‐induction into the rule, Newton could legitimately rebuff objections to his theory by claiming that universal gravitation was justified by (...) his method even if he could not specify the cause of gravity . †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Duke University, 201 West Duke Building, Box 90743, Durham, NC 27708; e‐mail: david[email protected]. (shrink)

The history of the Parallelogram Rule for composing physical quantities, such as motions and forces, is marked by conceptual difficulties leading to false starts and halting progress. In particular, authors resisted the required assumption that the magnitude and the direction of a quantity can interact and are jointly necessary to represent the quantity. Consequently, the origins of the Rule cannot be traced to Pseudo-Aristotle or Stevin, as commonly held, but to Fermat, Hobbes, and subsequent developments in the latter part of (...) the seventeenth century. (shrink)

In Plato's Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims that the gods will smile only on a city where the law This passage is the origin of the slogan an abbreviation of which forms our phrase From Plato and Aristotle, through John Adams and John Marshall, down to us, no idea has proven more central to Western political and legal culture. Yet the slogan turns on a very dubious metaphor. Laws do not rule, and the is actually a specific form of (...) rule by men (including, nowadays, a few women). These rulers are not slaves to anything. Furthermore, the construction of the sloganhas unfortunate connotations. It suggests that the personal qualities of the human rulers required to secure the rule of law are nothing more than forbearance and disinterestedness—a resolution to stay out of law's way.Footnotes* I have received helpful comments and criticisms from a number of readers, including the other contributors to this volume and participants in the Georgetown University Law Center faculty workshop. In addition, I should like to thank Brian Bix, Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Schauer, and Wibren van der Burg for extensive written comments on an earlier draft of this essay. (shrink)

Galileo’s telescopic lunar observations, announced in Siderius Nuncius (1610), were a triumph of observational skill and ingenuity. Yet, unlike the Medicean stars, Galileo’s lunar “discoveries” were not especially novel. Indeed, Plutarch had noted the moon’s uneven surface in classical times, and many other renaissance observers had also turned their gaze moonward, even (in Harriot’s case) aided by telescopes of their own. Moreover, what Galileo and his contemporaries saw was colored by the assumptions they already had. Copernicans assumed the moon was (...) a terrestrial satellite, thus Galileo saw its mountains and Kepler “saw” the dwellings of its inhabitants. Aristotelians assumed the moon was a perfect sphere, so they saw differences in density and rarity in the lunar body. Theory corrected the results of observation, so Galileo’s lunar observations, like those that had come before, proved nothing. Yet this failure contained the germ of Galileo’s success, since the Siderius Nuncius gave observation a rhetorical force it did not have before. Observers on all sides set out to see for themselves what Galileo reported. Hence, all parties now had to answer to what they saw, whatever they believed. Thus, the Siderius Nuncius ultimately changed the grounds upon which natural philosophical argument and debate was carried out. In this new empirical arena, the Galilean science would eventually prevail. (shrink)

One of the distinctive features of modern science is a commitment to empiricism—a fundamental expectation that theoretical hypotheses will survive encounters with observations. Those that comport with the theory's explanations and predictions confirm the theory. Anomalous observations that do not fit theoretical expectations disconfirm it. Moreover, experiments can be contrived to generate observations that might serve to confirm or disconfirm a theory. Philosophers of science may disagree as to how exactly all of this is supposed to work, but the basic (...) empiricist expectation almost goes without saying. To deny it is to rule one's self out of the bounds of the scientificenterprise.Strange as it might seem to modern... (shrink)

Science lies at the intersection of ideas and society, at the heart of the modern human experience. The study of past science should therefore be central to our humanistic attempt to know ourselves. Nevertheless, past science is not studied as an integral whole, but from two very different and divergent perspectives: the intellectual history of science, which focuses on the development of ideas and arguments, and the social history of science, which focuses on the development of science as a social (...) undertaking within its broader contexts. There is almost universal agreement that this bifurcation of the field is lamentable, and nearly universal disagreement about where, exactly, the problem lies. In order to identify the difficulty, this paper examines the institutional histories and disciplinary philosophies that have constituted the study of past science. I argue that science history, eventually allied itself with either History or Philosophy in order to find institutional support, thereby suffering the artificial imposition of the disciplinary prejudices of its allied fields, which lead science historians to adopt either the intellectual or the social perspective. Science history must reconcile its distinctions on its own terms, as an integrated unity with its own disciplinary bounds, and apart from History and Philosophy. As a catalyst for rapprochement, the historical and philosophical examination also yields a mapping of the field of science history that can be used to locate the problematic divisions in present scholarship and to draw new disciplinary bounds. (shrink)

In 1596, in the Mysterium Cosmographicum, a twenty-five-year-old Johannes Kepler rashly banished lines from the universe. They “scarcely admit of order,” he wrote, and God himself could have no use for them in this “well-ordered universe.” Twenty-five years later, though, Kepler had come to repent the temerity of his youth. “O male factum!” he lamented in a 1621 second edition of the Mysterium – “O what a mistake” it was to dismiss lines, for linearity is revealed in those most perfect (...) and divine motions – the revolutions of the heavenly orbs. Why did Kepler come to lament the rashness of his youth? The answer lies deep in the details of Kepler’s discovery of elliptical orbits in 1605. Kepler struggled to find an empirically adequate description and physically plausible explanation of Mars’s path through the heavens. He realized, though, that his originally spherical notion of location and direction were insufficient to reconcile descriptions and explanations of the planet’s motion. Crucially inspired by the “magnetic philosophy” of William Gilbert, Kepler adopted an oriented conception of space, which finally allowed a plausible mechanism to be constructed for elliptical motion – the true path of the planet. Yet, this oriented space required the stipulation of straight lines. Without straight lines, even God could not construct the planets’ elliptical orbits. (shrink)

Galileo’s impractical science Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9534-4 Authors David Marshall Miller, Department of Philosophy, Duke University, 201 West Duke, Durham, NC 27708, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

In Dynamics of Reason (2001), Michael Friedman uses the example of Galilean rectilinear inertia to support his defense of scientific rationality against post-positivist skepticism. However, Friedman’s treatment of the case is flawed, such that his model of scientific change fails to fit the historical evidence. I present the case of Galileo, showing how it supports Friedman’s view of scientific knowledge, but undermines his view of scientific change. I then suggest reciprocal iteration as an amendment of Friedman’s view that better accounts (...) for scientific change. (shrink)

Based on an examination of Galileo’s mechanics, Peter Machamer and Andrea Woody (and Machamer alone in subsequent articles) proposed the scientific use of what they call models of intelligibility. As they define it, a model of intelligibility (MOI) is a concrete phenomenon that guides scientific understanding of problematic cases. This paper extends Machamer and Woody’s analysis by elaborating the semantic function of MOIs. MOIs are physical embodiments of theoretical representations. Therefore, they eliminate the interpretive distance between theory and phenomena, creating (...) classes of concrete referents for theoretical concepts. Meanwhile, MOIs also provide evidence for historical analyses of concepts, like ‘body’ or ‘motion’, that are otherwise thought to be too basic for explicit explication. These points are illustrated by two examples also drawn from Galileo. First, I show how the introduction of the balance as an MOI leads Galileo to reject the Aristotelian conception of elemental natures. Second, Galileo’s rejection of medieval MOIs of circular motion constrains the reference of ‘conserved motion’ to curvilinear translations, thereby excluding the rotations that had been included in its scope. Both uses of MOIs marked important steps toward modern classical mechanics. (shrink)

The early modern era produced the Scientific Revolution, which originated our present understanding of the natural world. Concurrently, philosophers established the conceptual foundations of modernity. This rich and comprehensive volume surveys and illuminates the numerous and complicated interconnections between philosophical and scientific thought as both were radically transformed from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. The chapters explore reciprocal influences between philosophy and physics, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and other disciplines, and show how thinkers responded to an immense range of (...) intellectual, material, and institutional influences. The volume offers a unique perspicuity, viewing the entire landscape of early modern philosophy and science, and also marks an epoch in contemporary scholarship, surveying recent contributions and suggesting future investigations for the next generation of scholars and students. (shrink)

All too often, historians of the ‘Galileo Affair’ fail to recognize the dynamic – indeed, tumultuous – nature of the political landscape surrounding Galileo’s condemnation and the events leading to it. This was a landscape rent by the Thirty Years War, which dominated the affairs of Europe’s rulers, including Galileo’s patrons. In fact, Galileo’s publication of the Dialogo in 1632 could not have come at a more ill-advised moment: in the aftermath of the battle of Breitenfeld, the nadir of Catholicism (...) in Germany. Blame for this calamitous defeat fell on Galileo’s most important protector, Pope Urban VIII. Thus, when Galileo’s book appeared, Galileo became a useful example by which Urban could consolidate his severely weakened position. The Pope carefully crafted the public image of an unusual trial, at the expense of his old friend. Certainly, Galileo’s trial resulted from profound intellectual and political tensions that pervaded early modern Rome, but it must also be understood in light of the European exigencies of the moment. (shrink)

Most historians of science eagerly acknowledge that the early modern period witnessed a shift from a prevailing Aristotelian, spherical, centered conception of space to a prevailing Cartesian, rectilinear, oriented spatial framework. Indeed, this shift underlay many of the important advances for which the period is celebrated. However, historians have failed to engage the general conceptual shift, focusing instead on the particular explanatory developments that resulted. This historical lacuna can be attributed to a historiographical problem: the lack of an adequate unit (...) of analysis by which to investigate the conceptual change. Here, a philosophical argument is made for representations of space as an appropriate category of historical investigation, and methods of textual interrogation are suggested to this end. Finally, two examples, taken from Aristotle and Newton, demonstrate the feasibility and importance of this project. (shrink)

Geography and Ethics examines the place of geography in ethics and of ethics in geography by drawing together specially commissioned contributors from distinguished scholars from around the world.

I examine Descartes's theory of cognition, taking as a starting point his account of how misperception is possible. In the Third Meditation Descartes introduces the hypothesis that there are ideas (such as the idea of cold) which seem to be of something real but which in fact represent nothing (if, for example, cold is a privation or absence of heat, rather than the presence of a positive quality). I argue, against Margaret Wilson, that Descartes does not think there are any (...) such ideas and that he introduces the hypothesis only in order to formulate an objection to his argument for the existence of God. I argue further that while he agrees with Arnauld in accepting the Aristotelian account of cognition according to which the very objects in the world that we perceive exist in the soul or its ideas objectively, he still has a satisfactory response to Arnauld's objection that since an idea can represent only what it appears to be of, all error must reside solely in our judgment. I claim that Arnauld's objection that an idea represents what it appears to be of is based on the assumption that an idea appears to be of what exists in it objectively. But Descartes makes room for the possibility of misrepresentation by distinguishing between what exists objectively in an idea and what that idea appears to be of. First, he thinks that it is at least coherent to suppose that an idea lacking objective reality could appear to be of something in virtue of its material reality. Since an idea lacking objective reality would not represent any thing that exists in the world, Descartes concedes that it would not misrepresent any actually existing thing, but it could still appear to be of some thing and in that way misrepresent the way the world is. Second, there is reason to claim that like some of his Aristotelian predecessors Descartes holds that what exists in the soul objectively can appear to be other than it is. This interpretation has the implication that Descartes's theory of ideas, in contrast to sense datum theories, is not driven by the motive of finding some entity which is exactly as it appears to serve as the object of immediate awareness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cartesian CompositesPaul HoffmanTowards the end of a paper in which I argued that Descartes thinks a human being is a genuine unity, I invited other commentators to come to Descartes’s defense by accounting for his apparently contradictory claims that a human being is an ens per se and that it is an ens per accidens.1 These claims seem to be contradictory, because in saying that a human being is (...) an ens per se, Descartes appears to be asserting that a human being is genuinely one, and in saying that a human being is an ens per accidens, he appears to assert that a human being is not genuinely one, but instead is a mere heap or aggregate. In the ensuing eleven years no one has taken up my invitation, except to argue that I was mistaken in claiming that Descartes thinks a human being has per se unity in any robust sense.2In this paper I will take up the challenge myself, having noticed a similarity between Descartes’s account of the unity of composite substances and his account of composite figures having true and immutable natures. After showing how he can consistently maintain that a human being is both an ens per se and ens per accidens in roughly the same way he can consistently maintain that composite figures both do and do not have true and immutable natures, I will try to respond to criticisms of my claim that he thinks of a human being as a substance or an ens per se.Let me begin with an analysis and comparison of two passages from the Objections and Replies. In the first, from the Replies to the First Objections, Descartes [End Page 251] discusses composite figures. In the second, from the Replies to the Fourth Objections, Descartes discusses composite substances.Next, to remove the other part of the difficulty, it should be noted that those ideas which do not contain true and immutable natures, but contain only ones which are fictitious and composed by the intellect, can be divided by the same intellect, not only through abstraction, but through a clear and distinct operation, so that any ideas which the intellect cannot so divide were undoubtedly not composed by it. As, for example, when I think of a winged horse, or an actually existing lion, or a triangle inscribed in a square, I easily understand that I can also in opposition think of a horse without wings, a non-existing lion, a triangle without a square, and so on; from which it follows that these do not have true and immutable natures. But if I think of a triangle or a square (I do not speak here of a lion or horse because their natures are not clearly evident to us), then certainly whatever I apprehend as contained in the idea of a triangle, as that its three angles are equal to two right angles, etc., I will truly affirm of the triangle, and of the square whatever is found in the idea of the square. For even if I can understand a triangle, abstracting from the fact that its angles should equal two right angles, I cannot nevertheless deny that of it by a clear and distinct operation, that is, correctly understanding this is what I say. Furthermore, if I consider a triangle inscribed in a square, not in order to attribute to the square those things which pertain only to the triangle or to the triangle those things which pertain to the square, but in order to examine only those things which arise from the conjunction of the two, then its nature will be no less true and immutable than the square or triangle alone, and it will be permitted to affirm that the square is not less than twice the triangle inscribed in it and similar things which pertain to the nature of this composite figure. (AT VII 117–8; CSM II 83–4)3I am not unaware that some substances are commonly called ‘incomplete.’ But if they are said to be incomplete because they cannot exist per se alone, I confess that it seems contradictory to me that... (shrink)

To find more information on Rowman & Littlefield titles, please visit us at www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

: Thomas Reid uses the notion of exertion in various ways that have not been distinguished in the secondary literature. Sometimes he uses it to refer to the exercise of a capacity or power, sometimes to the turning on or activitating of a capacity or power, and still other times to the attempt to activate a capacity or power. Getting clear on Reid's different uses of the term 'exertion' is essential to understanding his account of the sequence of events in (...) human action. It is also helpful in defending Reid against the objection that his account of action is subject to an infinite regress. (shrink)

Thomas Reid uses the notion of exertion in various ways that have not been distinguished in the secondary literature. Sometimes he uses it to refer to the exercise of a capacity or power, sometimes to the turning on or activitating of a capacity or power, and still other times to the attempt to activate a capacity or power. Getting clear on Reid's different uses of the term 'exertion' is essential to understanding his account of the sequence of events in human (...) action. It is also helpful in defending Reid against the objection that his account of action is subject to an infinite regress. (shrink)

When is war just? What does justice require? If we lack a commonly-accepted understanding of justice – and thus of just war – what answers can we find in the intellectual history of just war? Miller argues that just war thinking should be understood as unfolding in three traditions: the Augustinian, the Westphalian, and the Liberal, each resting on distinct understandings of natural law, justice, and sovereignty. The central ideas of the Augustinian tradition can and should be recovered and worked (...) into the Liberal tradition, for which human rights serves the same function. In this reconstructed Augustinian Liberal vision, the violent disruption of ordered liberty is the injury in response to which force may be used and war may be justly waged. Justice requires the vindication and restoration of ordered liberty in, through, and after warfare. (shrink)

This volume brings together insights from religion (represented by Buddhism and Christianity) and science to address the question, What can we know about ...

In Chapter One I present an interpretation of Descartes' theory of distinction. I argue that the best understanding of the notion of separate existence at stake in the real distinction between mind and body is not that each can exist without the other existing, nor that each can exist without a real union with the other, but that each can exist without the attributes of the other. However, the only notion of separate existence which can provide an adequate acccount of (...) all three kinds of distinction--real, modal, and of reason--is that of one thing existing without a real union with another thing. ;In Chapter Two I examine Descartes' claims about the dependence of created substances on God and their independence from other creatures. The pure substances, those which are not composed of parts, can be caused to come into existence and go out of existence only by God, and they can perish only by annihilation. These substances include individual created minds and the extended universe considered as a whole. In contrast, bodies and human beings, which are composed of parts, can be caused to go out of existence by other creatures, and they can perish without being annihilated. Nevertheless, I argue that Descartes thinks bodies and human beings are full-fledged substances. ;In Chapter Three I discuss the union of mind and body. I argue that Descartes thinks the human soul is the only substantial form and that it inheres in the body as form inheres in matter. I defend his account of how two substances can form a unity by comparing it with medieval accounts of the unity of composites. ;Chapter Four examines Descartes' arguments for rejecting substantial forms and the so-called real qualities. I argue that his earliest series of arguments, those from perception and scientific explanation, is the most successful. ;Finally, in Chapter Five, I consider Descartes' positive account of the status of those so-called real qualities which he asserts are merely sensations, for example, color, sound, and heat. I argue that he is best understood as holding that they are modes of both thought and extension which are property ascribed to the composite of mind and body. (shrink)

« Point de cantique, Tenir le pas gagné. Cependant c’est la veille. Recevons tous les influx de vigueur et de tendresse réelle. Et à l’aurore, armés d’une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides villes. »Gageons que la guerre n’est rien d’autre que l’affrontement, par des moyens violents de groupes politiques et/ou sociaux qui cherchent, par ce biais, à résoudre..

Extant theoretical work on the political resource curse implies that dependence on resource revenues should decrease autocracies’ likelihood of democratizing but not necessarily affect democracies’ chances of survival. Yet most previous empirical studies estimate models that are ill-suited to address this claim. We improve upon earlier studies, estimating a dynamic logit model that interacts a continuous measure of resource dependence with an indicator of regime type using data from 166 countries, covering the period from 1816-2006. We find that an increase (...) in resource dependence at time t - 1 increases the likelihood of autocratic persistence at t, but has no appreciable effect on democratic survival. We go beyond existing empirical studies to show that increases in resource dependence have persistent and substantial cumulative effects on autocracies' likelihood of becoming democratic over the long-term, showing that the total effect of resource dependence on regime type is much larger than the short-term (one period) effect indicates. (shrink)

heories of embodied cognition (e.g., Perceptual Symbol Systems Theory; Barsalou, 1999, 2009) suggest that modality specific simulations underlie the representation of concepts. Supporting evidence comes from modality switch costs: participants are slower to verify a property in one modality (e.g., auditory, BLENDER-loud) after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., gustatory, CRANBERRIES-tart) compared to the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling, Pecher et al., 2003). Similarly, modality switching costs lead to a modulation of the N400 effect in event-related potentials (ERPs; Collins (...) et al., 2011; Hald et al., 2011). This effect of modality switching has also been shown to interact with the veracity of the sentence (Hald et al., 2011). The current ERP study further explores the role of modality match/mismatch on the processing of veracity as well as negation (sentences containing “not”). Our results indicate a modulation in the ERP based on modality and veracity, plus an interaction. The evidence supports the idea that modality specific simula- tions occur during language processing, and furthermore suggest that these simulations alter the processing of negation. (shrink)

The molecular mechanism of temperature‐dependent sex determination (TSD) is a long‐standing mystery. How is the thermal signal sensed, captured and transduced to regulate key sex genes? Although there is compelling evidence for pathways via which cells capture the temperature signal, there is no known mechanism by which cells transduce those thermal signals to affect gene expression. Here we propose a novel hypothesis we call 3D‐TSD (the three dimensions of thermolabile sex determination). We postulate that the genome has capacity to remodel (...) in response to temperature by changing 3D chromatin conformation, perhaps via temperature‐sensitive transcriptional condensates. This could rewire enhancer–promoter interactions to alter the expression of key sex‐determining genes. This hypothesis can accommodate monogenic or multigenic thermolabile sex‐determining systems, and could be combined with upstream thermal sensing and transduction to the epigenome to commit gonadal fate. (shrink)

A unified interpretation of the evolution of species, humanity, and society.

ObjectivesThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether a self-report measure identifies prenatal substance use and predicts resulting adverse birth outcomes in a large cohort using electronic medical records.MethodsPregnant patients who were admitted between 2014 and 2015 at Christiana Care Health System and delivered singleton birth were included in the analyses. Participant demographic information, pregnancy comorbidities, self-reported substance use, and birth outcomes were retrieved from electronic medical records. Detailed descriptive analyses of prenatal substance use were conducted, and logistic (...) models were evaluated for the associations between substance use and each birth outcome.ResultsThe average maternal age was 30 years, 37% receiving Medicaid. Over 58% were White, 26% were Black, and 13% were Hispanic. Cigarette smoking only showed the highest prevalence among substance u... (shrink)

Technologic advances mean automated, wearable cameras are now feasible for investigating health behaviors in a public health context. This paper attempts to identify and discuss the ethical implications of such research, in relation to existing guidelines for ethical research in traditional visual methodologies. Research using automated, wearable cameras can be very intrusive, generating unprecedented levels of image data, some of it potentially unflattering or unwanted. Participants and third parties they encounter may feel uncomfortable or that their privacy has been affected (...) negatively. This paper attempts to formalize the protection of all according to best ethical principles through the development of an ethical framework. Respect for autonomy, through appropriate approaches to informed consent and adequate privacy and confidentiality controls, allows for ethical research, which has the potential to confer substantial benefits on the field of health behavior research. (shrink)