Everything is a sign. We can consider the words we use, the texts we write, the movies or TV series we watch, photos or any content used in social media as a 'sign'. These signs are constantly telling us something as a representation. When considered from this point of view, it is inevitable that cartoons prepared for children will also be an sign. Based on this, it has been thought that the cartoon called 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', which (...) has been broadcast all over the world for more than thirty years, both on television and in cinemas without losing its currency, may also be signs. For this reason, the aim of the study is to analyze the narrative of the cartoons and animations called 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' through the representations in this narrative, the characters and their names in the cartoons and animations, the weapons used by the characters, the food they eat, their clothes, the colors and places they use. In addition, what the subject discussed in Mutant Ninja Turtles in general represents was analyzed through the relevant characters. In the study, it has been seen that each sign examined semiotically is produced with a certain cultural meaning. The cultural heritage from the Renaissance to the present reflects the culture of a particular society. Therefore, the culture spread by mass media can influence different cultures from itself. (shrink)

The neural underpinnings of decision-making are critical to understanding and predicting human behavior. However, findings from decision neuroscience are limited in their practical applicability due to the gap between experimental decision-making paradigms and real-world choices. The present manuscript investigates the neural markers of buying decisions in a fully natural purchase setting: participants are asked to use their favorite online shopping applications to buy common goods they are currently in need of. Their electroencephalography is recorded while they view the product page (...) for each item. EEG responses to pages for products that are eventually bought are compared to those that are discarded. Study 1 repeats this procedure in three batches with different participants, product types, and time periods. In an explorative analysis, two neural markers for buying compared to no-buying decisions are discovered over all three batches: frontal alpha asymmetry peak and frontal theta power peak. Occipital alpha power at alpha asymmetry peaks differs in only one of the three batches. No further significant markers are found. Study 2 compares the natural product search to a design in which subjects are told which product pages to view. In both settings, the frontal alpha asymmetry peak is increased for buying decisions. Frontal theta peak increase is replicated only when subjects search through product pages by themselves. The present study series represents an attempt to find neural markers of real-world decisions in a fully natural environment and explore how those markers can change due to small adjustments for the sake of experimental control. Limitations and practical applicability of the real-world approach to studying decision-making are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Game ChangeMaximo CortezOn November 17, 1983, I was born with a condition called mixed gonadal dysgenesis, and ambiguous genitalia. My gender was not of a big concern at that time. The more urgent matter was that I had a heart murmur, which was repaired when I was twelve months old. [End Page E5]It was not until I turned five, and by issue of the Texas Children’s Protective Services (CPS), (...) that my mother was forced to authorize providers to perform normalization surgeries on me. An anonymous caller tipped the CPS that my mother was raising a boy as a girl. The state intervened and explained to my mother that she would have to consent to these surgeries or else she would lose custody of me. This included a gonadectomy and a clitorectomy. Without any consent, these surgeries were performed “in my best interests.” My mother was an epileptic, Hispanic, Mormon, single parent.I was raised to be a socially acceptable female, though as early as five, I played with “boy” toys and enjoyed TV programs aimed at male youth, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was not until I had those normalization surgeries performed on me that I felt different. I knew that something major had happened to me. I woke up in a hospital bed in a gown. I raised the covers and noticed that I had an “X” carved in my groin area. Doctors mutilated my clitoris by reducing its size, which made me feel alienated and angry that something was wrong with my body.I had a surgery performed on me that was to be kept secret and never talked about. This sense of fear and shame was instilled in me shortly after the surgery. I do not recall any psychological evaluations or counseling to help me cope with such surgeries. Seeing everyone else my age going through puberty during my teenage years, I felt behind. I wasn’t becoming a boy with a deep voice or facial hair. Instead, I visited the doctor’s office with my mom and was told that I would be taking oral estrogen to become a woman. I wasn’t until that moment that I understood I was seeing a doctor to foster the development of female secondary characteristics. I felt betrayed by the medical community and by my own mother.Just a few years later, I saw a urologist to find out whether I was ready for a vaginal construction surgery (vaginoplasty). Thankfully the urologist suggested that I was not ready to move forward with an invasive and irreversible vaginal construction surgery. I never pursued it as an adult, as I have always felt male gendered.Social sexual relationships have always been difficult for me but more so with my attraction to women. I first realized my attraction to women in early middle school. Being raised Mexican and a Mormon and knowing that I was homosexual created a lot of conflict for me. I felt that I was a male–gendered person forced into a castrated, mutilated, and medically created female body. I suffered through depression from an early age and it continues today. My conservative Mormon upbringing brought me much shame. The Mormon religion, as most people understand it, expresses a great intolerance to homosexuals and transgender people. I felt like I was a heterosexual male in a female’s body, but the Mormons would never accept me.My later teenage years and mid–twenties were a dark time in my life. I even attempted suicide in my early twenties. My depression was treated with antidepressants and talk therapy. Once I began testosterone, I gradually stopped taking antidepressants. When I was only on estrogen, I felt very moody, angry, and in an emotional funk. I would cry easily and would become very irritable and emotional without cause. With testosterone therapy, I began to think more clearly, had balanced emotions, and began to think more logically.I began to research intersex online and found a women’s androgen insensitivity (AIS) support group. At one of their national conferences, I met another intersex individual who was raised as a female and who had transitioned to male. Like me... (shrink)

LEGO reminds that race—both in the world of LEGO minifigures and in the real world—is socially constructed and depends on context, customs, convention, and attitudes. When the modern version of the LEGO minifigure was introduced in 1978 its bright yellow color was a conscious choice, meant to be racially and ethnically neutral. Further, all the yellow‐skinned minifigures had the exact same printing on their faces—the "smiley"—obscuring any differences between minifigures. Any LEGO builds that contain flesh‐toned minifigures (e.g. Kobe Bryant)represent characters (...) that are white, Asian, black, native American, or any of a host of other racial identities, while LEGO builds that contain yellow minifigures represent characters that have no race. The introduction of flesh‐toned figures does not merely introduce race into the worlds of LEGO licensed sets, but the appearance of flesh‐colored minifigures also forces to re‐construe the older non‐licensed minifigures produced in the supposedly racially neutral yellow. (shrink)

Drawing upon the insights of Rabindranath Tagore, who coined the term viswasahitya to express his own understanding of comparative literature, this essay resituates translation as the cornerstone for new directions in world literature. While conventional understandings of world literature tend to reconfirm existing power structures and hierarchies, translation opens up the possibility of thinking beyond the national/global binary by interrogating the lines along which such binaries are conceptualized. Translation operates at the borders that are seen to divide cultures, languages, worldviews (...) and geographies. This essay explores the dynamic relationship between translation and world literature within contemporary South Asian writing, through an analysis of heteroglossia, multilingualism and ‘translatedness’ in selected texts by Mahasweta Devi and Amitav Ghosh, opening up larger questions about multilingualism and also about the very discipline of comparative literature. Highlighting the role that translation has historically played in shaping power relations in the world, this paper projects the transformative potential of translation as the key to a radical reconceptualization of a world literature for the future. (shrink)

In Constructing Quarks (1984) Andrew Pickering discussed the early experiments on atomic parity violation performed at Oxford University and at the University of Washington and published in 1976 and 1977. The results disagreed with the predictions of the Weinberg-Salam (W-S) theory of unified electroweak interactions. Another experiment, performed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1978, on the scattering of polarized electrons from deuterons confirmed the theory. Pickering regards the Oxford and Washington experiments as mutants, slain by the SLAC experiment.By (...) 1979 the W-S theory was regarded by the high-energy physics community as established, despite the fact that as Pickering recounts, “there had been no intrinsic change [emphasis in original] in the status of the Washington-Oxford experiments.” (Pickering 1984, p. 301). (shrink)

We analyse some current trends of viewing transformational changes of humankind. We present the key role played by philosophy of education in shaping an image of the future human being. We also determine the main characteristics of the personality of the planetary-cosmic type and the system of his personal, local and global interactions.

The view that complexity increases in evolution is uncontroversial, yet little is known about the possible causes of such a trend. One hypothesis, the Zero Force Evolutionary Law (ZFEL), predicts a strong drive toward complexity, although such a tendency can be overwhelmed by selection and constraints. In the absence of strong opposition, heritable variation accumulates and complexity increases. In order to investigate this claim, we evaluate the gross morphological complexity of laboratory mutants in Drosophila melanogaster, which represent organisms that arise (...) in a context where selective forces are greatly reduced. Complexity was measured with respect to part types, shape, and color over two independent focal levels. Compared to the wild type, we find that D. melanogaster mutants are significantly more complex. When the parts of mutants are categorized by degree of constraint, we find that weakly constrained parts are significantly more complex than more constrained parts. These results support the ZFEL hypothesis. They also represent a first step in establishing the domain of application of the ZFEL and show one way in which a larger empirical investigation of the principle might proceed. (shrink)

In 1936, Frank Macfarlane Burnet published a paper entitled "Induced lysogenicity and the mutation of bacteriophage within lysogenic bacteria," in which he demonstrated that the introduction of a specific bacteriophage into a bacterial strain consistently and repeatedly imparted a specific property – namely the resistance to a different phage – to the bacterial strain that was originally susceptible to lysis by that second phage. Burnet's explanation for this change was that the first phage was causing a mutation in the bacterium (...) which rendered it and its successive generations of offspring resistant to lysogenicity. At the time, this idea was a novel one that needed compelling evidence to be accepted. While it is difficult for us today to conceive of mutations and genes outside the context of DNA as the physico-chemical basis of genes, in the mid 1930s, when this paper was published, DNA's role as the carrier of hereditary information had not yet been discovered and genes and mutations were yet to acquire physical and chemical forms. Also, during that time genes were considered to exist only in organisms capable of sexual modes of replication and the status of bacteria and viruses as organisms capable of containing genes and manifesting mutations was still in question. Burnet's paper counts among those pieces of work that helped dispel the notion that genes, inheritance and mutations were tied to an organism's sexual status. In this paper, I analyze the implications of Burnet's paper for the understanding of various concepts – such as "mutation," and "gene," – at the time it was published, and how those understandings shaped the development of the meanings of these terms and our modern conceptions thereof. (shrink)

A first year graduate student, Ann Dee Margulies, changed my research career in 1962 by challenging me to direct her in the isolation of recombination‐deficient mutants of Escherichia coli K‐12. She succeeded in isolating two mutants, which conjugated with donor strains and received the donor DNA, but could not recombine that DNA with their own chromosomes. Ann Dee showed that both mutants were much more sensitive to UV radiation than was the wild type. Furthermore, she showed that one of these (...) mutants carried a single mutation affecting both recombination and resistance. This work, published in 1965, was the first demonstration of the recA gene of E. coli. Subsequent work led to the discovery of many more recombination genes, the phenomenon of post replication‐recombination repair, the invention of the SOS hypothesis and the discovery of genes encoding proteins with similar primary structure and function in all major groups of organisms. This article honors the memory of Ann Dee. (shrink)

It is useful to envision two fundamentally different ways by which the timing of plant development is regulated: developmental stage‐transition mechanisms and time‐to‐flowering mechanisms. The existence of both mechanisms is indicated by the behavior of various mutants. Shoot stage transitions are defined by dominant mutants representing at least four different genes; each mutant retards transitions from juvenile shoot stages to more adult shoot stages. In addition, dominant leaf stage‐transition mutants in at least seven different genes have similar phenotypes, but (...) the leaf rather than the shoot is the. focus (and at least two of these genes encode domain proteins.) One mutant, Hairy sheath frayed 1‐0 (Hsf1‐O) simultaneously affects shoot and leaf; this mutant's behavior initiated our interest in plant heterochronism(1). The second type of timekeeping involves time‐to‐flowering. As with most plant but not animals species, cultivars of the maize species vary greatly for the time‐to‐flowering quantitative trait: between 6 and 14 weeks is common. It is via the 'slipping time frames' interaction that takes place between stage‐transition mutants and time‐to‐flowering genetic back‐grounds that unexpected and radical phenotypes occur. We see a reservoir of previously unsuspected morphological possibilities among the few heterochronic genotypes we have constructed, possibilities that may mimic the sort of variation needed to fuel macroevolution without having to posit (as done by Goldschmidt(2)) any special macromutational mechanisms. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Cayirlioglu et al. report that the disruption of a specific miRNA, miR‐279, which normally acts to inhibit the transcription factor Nerfin‐1, uncovers a population of hybrid CO2 neurons in the Drosophila maxillary palp.1 Normally, fruit fly CO2 neurons are found only in the antennae, while mosquito CO2 neurons are found only in the maxillary palps. The hybrid neurons in this miRNA mutant may, thus, recapitulate an evolutionary intermediate unseen since the divergence of these two dipteran (...) lineages over 250 million years ago. BioEssays 30:621–623, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Nous sommes des mutants : la science des mutations du vivant reste indissociable des techniques qui rendent nos corps modifiables. Nous sommes des mythants : nous gardons la tendance à nous réapproprier la vie en lui donnant un sens qui la surplombe, si bien que le don de la vie comme celui des organes restent pris dans la logique mythique du don et du sacrifice. Nous sommes dans une mutation, dit J.-L. Nancy : dans une époque où la vie s’exploite (...) ou se transmet, se marchande ou se partage, où elle (se) demande sans s’imposer. C’est ainsi qu’une mutation historique sort de l’histoire. (shrink)

In this paper I will reexamine the history of the early experiments on atomic parity violation, presenting both Pickering's interpretation and an alternative explanation of my own. I argue that, contrary to Pickering, there were good reasons for the decision of the physics community. I will also explore some of the differences between my view of science and that proposed by the "strong programme" or social constructivist view in the sociology of science.

In 1936, Frank Macfarlane Burnet published a paper entitled “Induced lysogenicity and the mutation of bacteriophage within lysogenic bacteria,” in which he demonstrated that the introduction of a specific bacteriophage into a bacterial strain consistently and repeatedly imparted a specific property – namely the resistance to a different phage – to the bacterial strain that was originally susceptible to lysis by that second phage. Burnet’s explanation for this change was that the first phage was causing a mutation in the bacterium (...) which rendered it and its successive generations of offspring resistant to lysogenicity. At the time, this idea was a novel one that needed compelling evidence to be accepted. While it is difficult for us today to conceive of mutations and genes outside the context of DNA as the physico-chemical basis of genes, in the mid 1930s, when this paper was published, DNA’s role as the carrier of hereditary information had not yet been discovered and genes and mutations were yet to acquire physical and chemical forms. Also, during that time genes were considered to exist only in organisms capable of sexual modes of replication and the status of bacteria and viruses as organisms capable of containing genes and manifesting mutations was still in question. Burnet’s paper counts among those pieces of work that helped dispel the notion that genes, inheritance and mutations were tied to an organism’s sexual status. In this paper, I analyze the implications of Burnet’s paper for the understanding of various concepts – such as “mutation,” and “gene,” – at the time it was published, and how those understandings shaped the development of the meanings of these terms and our modern conceptions thereof. (shrink)

Mutagenesis makes it possible to examine the effect of amino acid replacements on the folding and stability of proteins. The evaluation of kinetic and equilibrium folding data using reaction coordinate diagrams allows one to determine the roles that single amino acids play in the folding mechanism.

In this paper I present a new objection to the Aristotelian Naturalism defended by Philippa Foot. I describe this objection as a membership objection because it reveals the fact that AN invites counterexamples when pressed to identify the individuals bound by its normative claims. I present three examples of agents for whom the norms generated by AN are not obviously authoritative: mutants, aliens, and the Great Red Dragon. Those who continue to advocate for Foot's view can give compelling replies to (...) the first two of these examples, but their replies drive the view into an unwelcome result when it faces the last example. I conclude that the concept of being human, on which AN crucially depends, is not as straightforward as Foot's advocates presume. (shrink)

Spontaneous mutations that perturb myelination occur in a range of species including man, and together with engineered mutations have been used to study disease, normal myelination and axon/glial inter‐relationships. Only a minority of the currently defined mutations have an apparently simple pathogenesis due to lack of a functional protein. Mutations in the myelin basic protein gene lead to a lack of protein, resulting in changes in the structure of myelin, which can be rescued by transgenic complementation. The pathogenesis of autosomal (...) dominant and X‐linked mutations affecting either oligodendrocytes or Schwann cells is more complex. Point mutations may act in a dominant negative manner and gene dosage is clearly linked to phenotypic change. Mutations in regulatory genes, such as those encoding transcription factors, can also disturb myelination by selected cell types. Other less‐well studied and unexpected consequences of myelin mutations, such as seizures in mutations affecting genes expressed in Schwann cells and axonal changes associated with dysmyelination, are also considered. With the major developments in gene mapping and cloning it is now relevant to study mutations in a variety of species with the real prospect of defining their molecular basis. Examples are given of unusual, but potentially useful, uncharacterised mutations in dog and bovine. (shrink)

Recent evidence indicates that inhibition of protein translation may be a common pathogenic mechanism for peripheral neuropathy associated with mutant tRNA synthetases (aaRSs). aaRSs are enzymes that ligate amino acids to their cognate tRNA, thus catalyzing the first step of translation. Dominant mutations in five distinct aaRSs cause Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth (CMT) peripheral neuropathy, characterized by length‐dependent degeneration of peripheral motor and sensory axons. Surprisingly, loss of aminoacylation activity is not required for mutant aaRSs to cause CMT. Rather, at least (...) for some mutations, a toxic‐gain‐of‐function mechanism underlies CMT‐aaRS. Interestingly, several mutations in two distinct aaRSs were recently shown to inhibit global protein translation in Drosophila models of CMT‐aaRS, by a mechanism independent of aminoacylation, suggesting inhibition of translation as a common pathogenic mechanism. Future research aimed at elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the translation defect induced by CMT‐mutant aaRSs should provide novel insight into the molecular pathogenesis of these incurable diseases. (shrink)

The functions of sleep are still unknown, but are probably related to cellular and molecular aspects of neural function. To better understand the benefits that sleep may bring at the cellular level, recent studies have employed Drosophila melanogaster as a model system and shown that fruit flies share the fundamental features of mammalian sleep. As in mammals, sleep in Drosophila is characterized by increased arousal threshold and by changes in brain electrical activity. Fly sleep is homeostatically regulated independent of the (...) circadian clock, is modulated by stimulants and hypnotics, and is affected by age. Also, fly sleep is associated with changes in brain gene expression similar to those observed in mammals. While Drosophila neurobiology is sufficiently complex to permit meaningful generalizations to mammals and humans, Drosophila genetics is simple enough to allow a rapid mutagenesis screening. An ongoing mutagenesis study has screened ∼5000 mutant Drosophila lines and found that sleep amount, sleep pattern, and the homeostatic regulation of sleep are highly conserved phenotypes in flies. So far, this study has identified 10 short sleeper lines and 4 lines that show no sleep rebound after sleep deprivation. Ultimately, the characterization of these lines should help identifying crucial cellular pathways involved in the regulatory mechanisms of sleep and its functional consequences. BioEssays 25:940–949, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

If rapid growth (rap) mutants of Escherichia coli could be obtained, these might prove a valuable contribution to fields as diverse as growth rate control, biotechnology and the regulation of the bacterial cell cycle. To obtain rap mutants, a dnaQ mutator strain was grown for four and a half days continuously in batch culture. At the end of the selection period, there was no significant change in growth rate. This result means that selecting rap mutants may require an alternative strategy (...) and a number of such alternatives are discussed. (shrink)

Draws on the traditions of the martial arts to ask whether playing violent videogames actually transform gamers into better people.

Draws on the traditions of the martial arts to ask whether playing violent videogames actually transform gamers into better people.

The generation of viral mutants in vitro was demonstrated by treatment of the isolated RNA of Tobacco Mosaic Virus by nitrous acid. This agent causes deaminations converting cytosine into uracil, and adenine into hypoxanthine. Our assay for mutagenesis was the production of local lesions on a tobacco variety on which the untreated strain produces systemic infections only. A variety of different mutants are generated in this way. Quantitative analysis of the kinetics of mutagenesis leads to the conclusion that alteration of (...) a single out of the 6000 nucleotides of the viral RNA is sufficient for causing a mutation. (shrink)

In the minds of many, Hox gene null mutant phenotypes have confirmed the direct role that these genes play in specifying the pattern of vertebrate embryos. The genes are envisaged as defining discrete spatial domains and, subsequently, conferring specific segmental identities on cells undergoing differentiation along the antero‐posterior axis. However, several aspects of the observed mutant phenotypes are inconsistent with this view. These include: the appearance of other, unexpected transformations along the dorsal axis; the occurrence of mirror‐image duplications; (...) and the development of anomalies outside the established domains of normal Hox gene expression. In this paper, Hox gene disruptions are shown to elicit regeneration‐like responses in tissues confronted with discontinuities in axial identity. The polarities and orientations of transformed segments which emerge as a consequence of this response obey the rules of distal transformation and intercalary regeneration. In addition, the incidence of periodic anomalies suggests that the initial steps of Hox‐mediated patterning occurs in Hensen's node. As gastrulation proceeds, mesoderm cell cycle kinetics impose constraints upon subsequent cellular differentiation. This results in the delayed manifestation of transformations along the antero‐posterior axis. Finally, a paradigm is sketched in which temporal, rather than spatial axial determinants direct differentiation. Specific, testable predictions are made about the role of Hox genes in the establishment of segmental identity. (shrink)

Streamer F mutants have been found to be useful tools for studying the pathway of signal transduction leading to chemotactic cell movement. The primary defect in these mutants is in the structural gene for the cyclic GMP specific phosphodiesterase. This defect allows a larger and prolonged peak of cyclic GMP to be formed in response to the chemotactic stimulus, cyclic AMP. This characteristic aberrant pattern of cyclic GMP accumulation in the streamer F mutants has been correlated with similar patterns of (...) changes in the influx of calcium from the medium, myosin II association with the cytoskeleton, myosin phosphorylation and a decrease in speed of movement of the amoebae. From these studies a sequence of events can be deduced that leads from cell surface cyclic AMP stimulation to cell polarization prior to movement of the amoebae in response to the chemotactic stimulus. (shrink)

In this essay, I recount and examine my response to a genetic diagnosis of my disabled daughter. My daughter was forty‐nine before the diagnosis came. All her disabilities were traceable to a de novo single gene variant on the PURA gene that was discovered only in 2014. I speak of the jolt and the recalibration that this discovery engendered, concluding that, while it seemed that everything had changed, nothing had changed. But my family did discover a community in which Sesha (...) joins other PURA‐perfect sons and daughters and where we as a family acquire a “horizontal identity” marked by a genetic variant. (shrink)

A large number of molecular, physiological, and biochemical events accompany the mitogen‐induced transition from a quiescent, nonproliferating state to a cycling state. However, it is difficult to distinguish causal steps in the commitment to cell division from correlative events. To approach this problem we have isolated mitogen‐specific nonproliferative variants of 3T3 cells, namely cell lines that are unable to mount a mitogenic response to specific mitogens.

The telomere is a functional domain of the chromosome, located at the extreme ends, and is essential for normal chromosome stability. Chromosomes lacking telomeres are inherited improperly, and mutations in the telomeric repeat sequences are thought to lead to senescence and possibly to cancer. The molecular mechanisms maintaining chromosomes by telomeres, however, have been unclear. Results recently reported by Kirk et al.(1) offer an insight into new telomerase function. They have identified a novel telomerase mutation that blocks sister chromatid separation (...) in mitosis. (shrink)

In 2013, Gail Davies and Helen Scalway launched Micespace.org, an interactive web-based art and research project that uses the platform of a mock mouse model repository to visualize the complex spa...

This article addresses Technology Arts Education in South Africa, in particular the case of the development and mutant growth of the Digital Arts department at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg from 2003 to present. The article addresses the difficulties of working in a strongly discipline-orientated university system, and the small but fascinating successes that have led to major developments in the department. The focus is on the mechanisms of collaboration that have both evolved and been purposefully put (...) in place for a trans-disciplinary education structure to be successfully run. These exist between subject divisions in the School of Arts; and further between the Faculty of Humanities (in which the Digital Arts department is housed) and the Faculty of Engineering, at the University of the Witwatersrand. We address historical collaborations and how these allowed for further developments across disciplines. Through a process of unpacking and presenting, we explore the errors and identify those aspects that we feel are still missing. These include a focus on concepts that have been passed over due to issues around course structure and discipline ownership. We conclude with a look to the future, to opportunities to develop uniquely African Digital Arts practice. (shrink)