bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
George Ripley, letter to Emerson (9 November 1840), and Emerson, letter to Ripley (15 December 1840)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

WRITERS ON THE Transcendentalist movement have debated how the participants saw their connection to society at the time when they were pronouncing on the sanctity of the individual, a discussion that had been initiated by the participants themselves. Modern scholars have rightly pointed out that radical individualism did not keep people like Emerson from participating in clubs or conversations, nor did it restrain him from the social process of conveying his message through lectures and print. Contemporaries such as Orestes Brownson, though, disparaged the idea that nurturing the individual would change the social world. At the heart of the controversy was the question: “Which comes first, a just and honorable society or a good and moral people?” Put another way, this chicken-and-egg question forces a decision about whether a just society, with just laws, can change its populace for the better, or whether people must be reformed before they can enact fair and just laws. Emerson clearly comes down in favor of the latter point.
Sophia Ripley, “Woman” (January 1841)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

SOPHIA WILLARD DANA RIPLEY (1803-1861) came from a prominent Boston family. After marrying George Ripley in 1827, she became involved in her husband’s reform activities and made them her own; and when Brook Farm was founded later in 1841, it was very much a collaborative effort. This piece, which was published in the January 1841 Dial, grew out of a paper she had written earlier for one of Fuller’s conversations (which is printed above).
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (1841)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

EMERSON’S GREAT WORK on individualism was published Essays (lacer titled Essays: First Series after he published Essays: Second Series in 1844). Modern readers are unable to approach chis essay with the thrill of discovery that contemporary readers did because so many passages are in our collective vocabulary. Phrases such as “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” are not only well-known today, thus deadening their impact, but they are often known outside of their original context; for example, Emerson is not complaining about consistency, but about being consistent only for the sake of being consistent (that is, foolishly). Typical of Emerson’s aphoristic style, “Self-Reliance” proceeds more by an accretion of sayings and building up of concepts than it does through a traditional linear development in which the author sets forth the path for the reader to follow, almost as if he is trying to force the reader to be self-reliant in order to successfully read about selfrealization. To his contemporaries, beginning to be immersed as they were in the individualism of British Romanticism and Jacksonian politics, this essay crystallized many diffuse ideas and feelings into a single work.
Henry David Thoreau, “A Winter Walk” (October 1843)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817– 1862), although now considered along with Emerson and Fuller as one of the three major writers of the Transcendentalist movement, was a young unpublished writer when the movement began. The majority of his publications during the main Transcendental period were in the Dial, and most of those were published after Fuller, who generally was unimpressed with his writing, was no longer editor. The Thoreau of the early 1840s was, in shore, far from the canonical author he is today, and most of his writings were book reviews disguised as essays, scholarly discussions, translations, and nature writings. “A Winter Walk” shows the master stylist of Walden in his impressive apprentice period.
Brood Farm Association for Industry and “Education from Constitution of the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education, West Roxbury, Mass. With an Introductory Statement. Second Edition, with the By-Laws of the Association (1844)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

PUBLISHED JUST NINE MONTHS after the firs Constitution, this one contains an introduction that updates the farm’s activities and adds by-laws (here omitted) to the earlier work.
George Ripley, Prospectus and “Introductory Notice” for the Harbinger (14 June 1845)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

THE Harbinger (1845 – 1849), published at Brook Farm (and later in New York), became a major organ for Associationism and Fourierism in America. At times it seemed as if Brook Farm had lost its autonomy and become just one more communitarian society within the larger movement. Although the paper did publish literary works, reviews, and translations — as well as the music criticism of John Sullivan Dwight — the Harbinger was, first and foremost, a reformist journal, and one that did not outlive by long Brook Farm itself.
Margaret Fuller, “The Wrongs of American Women. The Duty of American Women” (30 September 1845)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

The same day brought us a copy of Mr. Burdett’s little book, in which the sufferings and difficulties that beset the large class of women who must earn their subsistence in a city like New-York are delineated with so much simplicity, feeling and exact adherence to the facts-and a printed circular containing proposals for immediate practical adoption of the plan more fully described in a book published some weeks since under the title “The Duty of American Women to their Country,” which was ascribed alternately to Mrs. Stone and Miss Catherine Beecher, but of which we understand both those ladies decline the responsibility. The two matters seemed linked with one another by natural piety. Full acquaintance with the wrong must call forth all manner of inventions for its redress.
Henry David Thoreau, “Slavery in Massachusetts” (4 July 1854)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

THOREAU’S RESPONSE TO the state’s support of slavery was delivered at an “anti-slavery celebration” on the Fourth of July and printed in the leading abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator, edited by the fiery William Lloyd Garrison. If nothing else, this address shows how far Transcendentalist rhetoric had come in the last decade over the issue of what must come first, changing the laws so that they are fair or reforming people so that they may make just laws. Thoreau’s statement that the “law will never make men free; it is men who have to make the law free” is in sharp contrast to the belief in social progress shown by the Brook Farmers.
Theodore Parker, from Theodore Parker’s Experience as a Minister (1859)
Authors: Myerson Joel
Published: November 2023

PARKER WAS perennially beset by illness, and in 1859 his tuberculosis had worsened to the point that in January he began an enforced trip abroad for his health. This letter (which was published as a book) was written home to his congregation as Parker’s attempt to look back over his life and the events in which he had participated. Parker died in Florence, Italy, on IO May 1860.
Natural Selection: God’s Choice
Authors: Hardin Garrett
Published: November 2023

In the development of population theory, the issues of evolution and selection-both natural and social-come up repeatedly. To make sure that we are approaching a question with the right tools, we must first be clear about the difference between scientific and historical inquiries. A model scientific question is this: “Is there a gravitational attraction between two massive bodies in space? ” If at any time in the future someone doubts our answer, he or she can test it anew. Again and again, if necessary.
A Martian View of Malthus
Authors: Hardin Garrett
Published: November 2023

I suppose I must have been fatigued by the effort of trying to pull my head out of the comforting sands of the One World delusion. Like many of my contemporaries, I had first adopted that posture during my high school days. Belief in an inevitable evolution toward a universal sovereignty was a noble fatalism of my generation, unsullied as it was by experience. Now I found that my Martian friend, the great disseminater of objectivity, had entered the room. Without giving me time to muster my defenses, he berated me.
Summary: Can Our Ostriches Find the Will?
Authors: Hardin Garrett
Published: November 2023

My plane was late getting to the New Jersey airport, so I missed my connection to California. A bad miss: now I had to wait several hours before I could catch a night flight. Having nothing else to do, I wandered into a snack bar and ordered a cup of soup. Dismally lit, the room was almost empty. I took a stool next to two sturdy young men who looked like stevedores. (There was a marine port nearby.) I am an incurable eaves­ dropper; it wasn’t long before the conversation convinced me that I had guessed the occupation of the men correctly. Once again I was amazed at how uninhibited many Americans are in discussing private matters in public.
Pelléas Revealed: The Original Ending of Bartók’s Opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
Authors: Leafstedt Carl S
Published: November 2023

Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, one of the most significant operas of the early twentieth century, traveled a long, eventful path from the time of its conception in 1911 to its eventual publication in 1921. The opera dates from the early years of Bartók’s mature composing career. It was an important milestone in his musical development, for with this work he successfully amalgamated harmonic and stylistic elements of Hungarian folk music within the context of his own personal style for the first time on a larger scale. Set to paper in 1911, Bluebeard would not be performed until May 24, 1918, seven years later, when the Royal Opera House in Budapest staged the premiere production on a double bill with the composer’s ballet The Wooden Prince. Music historians have long been aware of the circumstances of the opera’s composition and reasons for its belated premiere.
Moral Uncertainty and its Consequences
Authors: Lockhart Ted
Published: November 2023

We are often uncertain how to behave morally in complex situations. In this controversial study, Ted Lockhart contends that moral philosophy has failed to address how we make such moral decisions. Adapting decision theory to the task of decision-making under moral uncertainly, he proposes that we should not always act how we feel we ought to act, and that sometimes we should act against what we feel to be morally right. Lockhart also discusses abortion extensively and proposes new ways to deal with the ethical and moral issues which surround it.
Introduction
Authors: Cook John W
Published: November 2023

Moral relativism, sometimes called “cultural relativism,” is a philosophical doctrine about the nature of morality. Yet the principal proponents of this doctrine have been anthropologists rather than philosophers. They claim that their studies of various cultures have enabled them to show that morality is relative to each culture, which implies, among other things, that we cannot rightly pass moral judgment on members of other cultures except by their own cultural standards, which may differ from ours.
On Events in Linguistic Semantics
Authors: Higginbotham James
Published: November 2023

There is no doubt that reference to events and states is a pervasive feature of human thought and language. How is such reference made available through the syntactic and lexical resources of human speech, and what is the nature of the objects referred to? In this chapter I defend and elaborate one view on these questions, derived ultimately from Davidson (1967) but subsequently developed and extended by a number of researchers. The elaboration leads to a number of interconnected points that I believe deserve further study.
Anatomic Features of Aneurysms
Authors: Weir Bryce
Published: November 2023

Saccular aneurysms are located much more frequently on the anterior circulation (85% to 95%) than on the posterior circulation (5% to 15%) (Fig. 4-1). Aneurysms can occur at almost any arterial point in the intracranial or intraspinal space, but are rarely located anywhere other than the anterior and posterior circulations. About one-third of aneurysms occur in the midline, and about one-third on each of the sides. Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) occurs because most aneurysms are located within the subarachnoid space. The su!Jarachnoid space is located between the arachnoid layer abutting the dura and the pia mater lying on the brain’s surface. Continuous sheets of cells from the arachnoid and pial layers completely invest the collagenous trabeculae, strands that run between them, as well as the vascular and neural structures traversing the space. The subarachnoid space is highly variable in width and configuration, but consistently large chambers are identified as named cisterns (e.g., interpeduncular, carotid). The pia mater is a physical barrier to the passage of erythrocytes into the potential periadventitial spaces around blood vessels perforating the brain’s surface.
Therapeutic Aspects of Sah: Surgical
Authors: Weir Bryce
Published: November 2023

In 1969, Lougheed1 pointed out that two sets of statistics are necessary to determine the best type of surgical management: (1) management mortality and morbidity and (2) surgical mortality and morbidity. He felt that neurosurgeons should document cases in which patients died in their care without surgery. In the 1960s and 1970s, reports of surgical results were usually confined to those patients who had survived to the point at which they were treated surgically.
Thinking Twice, or Thrice, about Cloning
Authors: Silver Lee M
Published: November 2023

The patient is 40 years old. Her name is Jayne, and she is a divorced mother of an 8-year-old son. Jayne has come to the fertility clinic because she wants to get pregnant again—she wants to have a second child before her body says it’s too late. Since her divorce, Jayne has dated various men, but none of these relationships was very serious. Indeed, none of the men she’s slept with since she left her husband have met the very high standards she’s set for the ideal father of her next child. Jayne has decided that she can no longer wait for Mr. Right to enter her life. Menopause can strike at any moment.
Power without Responsibility: Media Portrayals of British Science
Authors: Wilkie Tom , Graham Elizabeth
Published: November 2023

The majority of adults in Britain cite the mass media as their main source of information about developments in science and technology. This alone makes it worth studying how the press covered the story of Dolly the cloned sheep. But the media’s reporting of Dolly is interesting for reasons quite apart from its bearing on public information and, potentially, public attitudes toward science. Rather the way in which science and the processes of science stood revealed through the prism of mass media coverage suggested that there may be serious difficulties in the relationship between science and society. Although there were failures of journalistic accuracy and balance, these should not be allowed to obscure such deeper issues. The coverage provided ample vindication of the contention put forward by Dorothy Nelkin and Susan Lindee in their book.
Cloning Humans and Cloning Animals
Authors: Singer Peter
Published: November 2023

If we were to judge by the amount of attention it has received, from the media, from political leaders, and from opinion makers, the ingenious technical breakthrough that enabled Dr. Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute in Scotland to clone an adult sheep would have to be the most momentous scientific event since the ﬁrst atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The president of the United States demanded a report on whether the new procedure should be banned. Even the birth of the world’s first “test-tube baby” did not provoke so swift a response. Nor did the subsequent cloning of mice, cows, goats, and pigs.
A Pragmatic Approach to Human Cloning
Authors: McGee Glenn
Published: November 2023

Human cloning presents a bewitching test of any bioethical method. One can scarcely imagine a worse mess to clean up. Public discussion of human cloning was promulgated by Dolly, a cloned Scottish ewe named after a country music singer,6 and inflamed by Richard Seed, a Chicago scientist who played the Jack Kevorkian role of announcing on National Public Radio that he planned to clone himself several times “for fun.” Public debate about cloning centered on stopping Seed, cloning pets and livestock, and the likelihood that a despot somewhere in the world would set about the task of breaking what seems to be an international consensus against the reproductive uses of cloning technologies. Virtually every philosopher with an interest in ethics was suddenly called on by television to play Solomon, or at least Nostradamus, to questions like “Is it ethical to clone a recently deceased child? ” or “Would a clone have a soul? ” Within a year of the birth of Dolly the odd, marginal, and unlikely problem of human cloning had been elevated to one of the most hotly debated issues in twentieth-century science and health.
Stem Cells: From the House of Lords Select Committee Report on Stem Cell Research
Authors: Harries Richard
Published: November 2023

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990 allowed research on human embryos, under strict regulation, for ﬁve purposes connected with reproduction. In 2001 Parliament passed regulations adding three new purposes to the original five in the act: Because of unease in the House of Lords about these additional purposes a Select Committee was set up to look into the issues more thoroughly than is possible in an ordinary debate. The House of Lords rejected an amendment which would not have passed the regulations until a Select Committee had reported. The committee consisted of members of the House of Lords with a broad range of experience and expertise. It had access to excellent scientiﬁc and legal advice throughout its meetings. Because members of the committee were not themselves practicing scientists they had to work hard
Silk Proteins: Breakdown and Evolutionary Pathways
Authors: Craig Catherine L
Published: November 2023

To understand the evolution of spiders, one must understand their silk-producing systems. This chapter will review our current knowledge concerning the molecular composition and structure of silks and fibrous protein glues. The hypotheses generated here are based on comparison between the silks and protein glues produced by spiders and the silks and protein glues produced by insects. These comparisons, in turn, depend on understanding the molecular composition and structure of silks and glues.

Only animals in the classes Insecta and Arachnida (Phylum Arthropoda) produce silks. Silks are fibrous proteins made up of repetitive sequences of amino acids. These amino acids are stored in the animal as a liquid and configure into fibers when sheared or “spun” at secretion. Animals use silks for a variety of purposes: to construct protective shelter; to provide structural support (for example, for eggs and egg sacs); and in reproduction, foraging, and dispersal (table 1.1).
Dreams and Other Mental Activity During Sleep
Authors: Aldrich Michaels.
Published: November 2023

Dreams have been a source of fascination for all of known history. In many ancient civilizations, dreams were viewed as communications from gods and spirits and were considered of great import because of their presumed potential to reveal the future. As early as 1350 BC, dreams were viewed in ancient Egypt as contrary predictors-a dream of illness, for example, signified the coming of good health.
Electronic processes in polyaniline (PAni)
Authors: Pope Martin , Swenberg Charlese E
Published: November 2023

Among the most important polymeric conductors from the technological standpoint (as distinct from molecularly doped polymer films, which constitute the much more commercially important materials used in electrophotography) are the polyanilines. Polyanilines are a family of polymers of the general formula shown in Fig. X. l. These compounds have been known for more than 100 years as aniline blacks and are important dyestuffs. The great interest in these polymers at present is due to their ability to behave either as semiconductors or as metals, depending on the degree and type of doping used. The dopants are typical electron acceptors, such as AsF5 and electron donors, such as Li. Polyanilines have been used as active electrodes in lightweight rechargeable batteries, as hole-injecting electrodes in electroluminescent flexible LEDs, as a conductive adhesive, and in many other applications.
Nonlinear optical and photorefractive properties (NLO)
Authors: Pope Martin , Swenberg Charlese E
Published: November 2023

As with most of the materials discussed in this book, the potential for significant technological discoveries is a powerful driving force for research in this area. However, there is much of extreme theoretical importance in these studies. The study of nonlinear excited state resonances with even-parity states has potentially rich rewards both for spectroscopy and NLO. Then there is always the challenge to see how far one can get in designing and synthesizing organic molecules that can outperform inorganic materials. The relationship between molecular structure and bulk nonlinear properties is still in its infancy (Marder et al. 1997).
Molecular electronics
Authors: Pope Martin , Swenberg Charlese E
Published: November 2023

Molecular electronics as a discipline is practiced by essentially two groups of investigators, and these groups define the field. One group studies the electronic properties of molecular materials without primary focus on the number of molecules involved and the other attempts to reduce the size of the molecular domain that will carry out the electronic task to that of a single molecule, or a few molecules. At present, there is much greater activity in the former group, although there is an inevitable blurring of distinctions between the two groups. Molecular electronics includes liquid-crystal displays, NLO devices, electrophotography, electroluminescence, photoconductive and photovoltaic devices, ferroelectrics, sensors, batteries, and, more recently, metallic, magnetic, and superconductive systems. An introduction to the developments in this field is provided by Petty (1996).
Kant’s Impure Ethics
Authors: Louden Robert B
Published: November 2023

This is the first book-length study in any language to examine in detail and critically assess the second part of Kant’s ethics—an empirical, impure part, which determines how best to apply pure principles to the human situation. Drawing attention to Kant’s under-explored impure ethics, this revealing investigation refutes the common and long-standing misperception that Kant’s ethics advocates empty formalism. Making detailed use of a variety of Kantian texts never before translated into English, author Robert B. Louden reassesses the strengths and weaknesses of Kantian ethics as a whole, once the second part is re-admitted to its rightful place within Kant’s practical philosophy.
The Mind-Body Connection
Authors: Koehn Cheryl , Palmer Taysha , Esdaile John
Published: November 2023

Browsing over the shelves of almost any bookstore, one discovers the myriad ways in which our attitudes, emotions, and thoughts are believed to influence our physical well-being. Popular writers such as Louise Hay, Bill Movers, Bernie Seigal, Andrew Weil, and Deepak Chopra have taken mindbody ideas once considered fringe in the western hemisphere and brought them into our society's mainstream. While some mind-body ideas are still considered far-fetched in western medical circles, others carry the stamp of approval that comes with rigorous scientific study. In fact, several fields of scientific research devote themselves solely to studying the relationship between the mind and the rest of the body. These include health psychology, biological psychiatry, and psychoneuroimmunology. A large amount of evidence indeed exists to support the notion that our mental states have a real effect on our physical well being.
Investing Ourselves in Ceremonies
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Darnell needed blood transfusions for his hemophilia. One transfusion infected him with HIV and the virus gave him AIDS. While Darnell was still alive, his parents, Floyd and Dinah, joined with others to call for greater public awareness of the plights of those who had the disease and those who loved them, the dangers of the epidemic, and the need for more effective response. Darnell died while still a young boy. Many from the AIDS community as well as family and friends joined Floyd and Dinah for Darnell’s funeral and burial services. Floyd and Dinah welcomed the opportunity to make a memorial panel for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. As thousands had with other panels, they invested Darnell’s with their love. Floyd helped with the planning, sat and remembered with Dinah, and held some pieces in place as she did the sewing. They chose Darnell’s favorite color, red, for the background. They placed Darnell’s name and the dates of his birth and death at the top. Together they decided on a cross for Darnell’s love of God, a rocket ship for his love of science and science fiction, and a cocker spaniel for his love of Sparky. For themselves, they added the words, “We will always love you.”
Unfinished Business
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

The last conversation Jessica had with her son, Shawn, haunted her. She had been sharply critical of his refusing to turn down the stereo in his room. And she couldn’t resist launching into an old refrain about his leaving the room in disarray. Shawn had lashed back at her. He insisted he “needed space” and that he was more responsible than she seemed to think. He said he sometimes wished she would just get off his back. In the middle of their argument, Shawn’s friend honked his horn in the driveway and Shawn stormed out the door. He died in a car crash later that night. Jessica loved Shawn dearly. She wanted to remember the delights of raising him and the many wonderful times they shared. But she could not forget their last moments together. One ofternoon she decided to write a letter addressed to Shawn. She poured out all that was in her heart. For her part, she was sorry. She asked him to forgive her for making such a fuss over what really was “his space.”
Negative Ties That Bind Us
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Sometimes unfinished business centers on far heavier matters. Some of us have known serious, long-standing troubles in our relationships with those who have died. Where there was reason to hope for, and even expect, love, some of us have felt a lack of love, affection, attention, or care. Some have endured gross insensitivity, disrespect, indifference, imbalance in give-and-take, or ingratitude. Substance abuse or destructive family patterns may have compromised or even ruined what could have been so much better. Sometimes we become unusually dependent on those who have died-to the point at which some of us have merged our identities with theirs, deferred to them on almost all decisions, or allowed them to manage nearly all details of our lives. Some of us have struggled with another’s attempts to control, manipulate, dominate, or even possess us. Some of us have been abused and actually harmed physically, sexually, or psychologically. Still others have compromised, hurt, or seriously harmed those who have died.
Horrific Memories
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Hector approached me during a break in a presentation I was making to a group of bereaved parents. He said his situation was different from most since his teenaged son, Juan, had committed suicide. The group had been unable to identify with or listen sympathetically to many of the distinctive aspects of his grief. He told me of his two-year private struggle to come to a realization he now thought obvious. He guessed it had taken that long for it to come into his head and then make its way into his heart. “At first,” he said, “I hated what my son did. I hated him for doing it to himself and to me and his mother. God, how it hurt! It will probably always hurt. My insides were churning constantly. I couldn’t get my mind off what he did with that gun.” “But,” Hector went on, “one day I saw that I hated what he did because he took a life I dearly loved. And I wished he had loved it more. I think that was probably the turning point, though I didn’t quite realize it then.” He went on to tell me how hard it was to accept that Juan did not want to live. He blamed everyone, including himself. But, ultimately, he concluded that it was Juan’s decision, and no one else was to blame.
Remembering at the Time of Death
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Memories of lives now ended are very much on our minds at the time of death. We remember what life was like with those who have died and how and why we love them. We remember our last moments with them. Ceremonies of separation, formal and informal, support and encourage our remembering privately and together with others. A number of years ago a colleague and I made a film about funerals. We interviewed several people about funeral and memorial services and heard many stories about remembering in such ceremonies. spoke with Jim and his wife Pat one ofternoon. Jim’s elderly mother and father had died a week apart of natural causes. The priest, who knew Jim’s parents and the family well, offered a eulogy at the first funeral. The priest remembered well. His remembering helped those gathered to focus on what they could cherish in the life now ended.
Loss and Soul Pain
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Henry married and made a home and life with Grace for forty-two years. From the beginning, they felt they belonged together. They sensed a special chemistry as they blended their lives-”Better living through chemistry,” they liked to say. Henry and Grace loved one another faithfully and wholeheartedly. They remained their own persons even while something of each found its way deep beneath the skin of the other. They couldn’t say exactly how, but there was something more to them together than simply one plus one. They thrived as companions, partners, and lovers as they immersed themselves in the rich details of everyday life and the unfolding of the seasons of their lives. They grew in understanding of one another, themselves, and their special chemistry. They never ceased wondering at how much more there was to understand. They were grateful for one another and all that married life c!lfered. Grace taught high school history for nearly thirty years. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and the subject came alive in her classroom. She focused on everyday lives in other times and cultures.
Seeing Them in Others
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

The last Nagel reunion took place one summer day in 1981 at my Aunt Gertie’s home in suburban Chicago. We called it the “Nagel” reunion because my Grandma, Mom, and her siblings were Nagels. Grandma had died several years before and her daughter, Clara, nearly twenty years before her. Her eight surviving children were there. Mom and her sisters Christine and Hilde were widowed. Gertie, her fraternal twin Mary, Herm, Billy, and Dick were there with their spouses. A dozen or so of the eighteen in my generation were there, most with spouses and little and growing children of our own. There were somewhere between thirty and forty of us. It was in many ways like so many of the holiday gatherings that I counted among the most wonderful experiences of my childhood. Though they had more character etched in their features and more white hair, my aunts and uncles were as lively and sometimes chal-lenging and frustrating as ever. My aunts’ features only hinted at resemblance to Grandma. My uncles resembled more than ever the grandfather I knew only through photographs. My generation was filled with grown-up versions of the bodies and personalities I remembered, some difficult but most endearing.
Touching Our Souls in Mysterious Ways
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

There is more to Henry’s Grace, my grandmother, Kathryn’s Mark, Alex Haley’s ancestors, and others whom we love than we will ever know. Earlier I wrote about how, as we live with and remember them, we stand before them as we do before other mysteries in life. They are not like puzzles or problems we can solve or finish. They can always surprise us, show us something more of themselves, challenge or delight us in new ways. We never fully understand or appreciate the complexity of their life stories or the depth of their characters. We are hardly in a better position to know the souls of those who have died than they were. They were unfathomable when alive and will remain so. We know only aspects of their daily lives and life stories. In everyday life with them, we were ordinarily as unselfconsciously absorbed in things, places, experiences, activities, and interactions with others as they were. Only occasionally did we sense beneath the surface of what we could ob-serve how their souls motivated their everyday expressions, gestures, actions, or habits.
Learning to Be Soulful
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Dorothy came to speak with my classes several times during the last years of her life. She was dying of cancer. She told what it was like when the doctor gave her the diagnosis and explained what lay ahead. She told us how the disease ravaged her body. She spoke about the failure of standard treatments and what the experimental treatments were like. She answered the students’ questions fully and candidly. Most memorably, though, she spoke about how life was different for her as she faced her own mortality. Living with illness forced some changes as it undermined her stamina and sometimes shelved her from everyday life. Yet, she insisted she was living some of the best days of her life. Her illness prompted her to reflect on what really mattered in the time she had left to live. She spoke about how she no longer put off until later what she cared about most. She made sure that every day included living and loving well. She enjoyed her home, the comforts it provided, and the life it held. She made time for her husband.
Joy and Adventure
Authors: Attig Thomas
Published: November 2023

Dad worked hard all of his life, on his feet all day, six days a week. At the end of the day, when he arrived home, he was exhausted and had little time for physical play with me. I found such play instead with my older brother, John, and friends. But Dad recognized that life devoted only to work is joyless. He found most of his joy in the comfort of a chair in the living room, taking great delight in following major league baseball. He infected me with that enthusiasm. Dad also loved to laugh. Together with Mom, we delighted in, first, the radio antics of Fibber McGee and Molly, the Great Gildersleeve, and Amos and Andy and, later, the television comedy of Red Skelton, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, Herb Shriner, and George Gobel. I’ll never forget how sometimes we laughed until it hurt. I still thrive in that special agony.
Constrained Constructive Optimization of Arterial Tree Models
Authors: Schreiner Wolfgang , Karch Rudolf , Neumann Friederike , Neumann Martin
Published: November 2023

The arterial systems in mammals are essentially networks of binary branching trees, made up of vascular segments. Successive branching gives rise to self-similar structures, and arterial models have indeed been established on the basis of self-similarity. It is, therefore, of particular interest to present another modeling method here, which is also capable of generating arterial models with several thousands of branchings but is based on optimization principles rather than fractal generators. A highly fruitful comparison can be envisaged.
Individual Energy Use and the Allometry of Population Density
Authors: Cyr Hélène
Published: November 2023

Physiologists have known for a long time that the rate at which organisms function, for example how fast they eat, grow, or respire, is related exponentially to their body mass (i.e., physiological rate ex (body mass)b). The exponents of these relationships (b) are remarkably constant, around 0.75 [15, 103]. Therefore, physiological rates in an individual (e.g., rates of feeding or growth) increase less than proportionately with increases in its body mass. In other words, per unit biomass (e.g., per kg of organisms) small organisms have higher physiological rates than larger organisms. These so-called allometric relationships are so prevalent that physiologists routinely extract them from their data before pursuing any other analysis. Viewed from an ecological perspective, however, these allometric relationships represent physiological “constraints” on individual organisms which are expected to determine, at least in part, the structure and functioning of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Ecologists are interested in using these physiological allometric relationships to predict the structure, dynamics, and interactions of complex assemblages of organisms in nature.
If Death Approaches
Authors: Patt Richard B , Lang Susan S
Published: November 2023

There may come a time when patients and their families start doubting the benefits of further treatment or intervention, wondering whether it will do more harm than good. At some point it may be necessary to accept that the cancer can no longer be treated and that a loved one is dying. Rather than focusing on beating the cancer or buying time, the focus shifts to enhancing the quality of whatever precious time is left. The goal of palliative care is to make the person as comfortable as possible, satisfying his physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs. Families focus on how to help their loved one die as dignified, peaceful, and tranquil a death as possible.
The Way of the Cell
Authors: Harold Franklin M
Published: November 2023

What is life? Fifty years after physicist Erwin Schrodinger posed this question in his celebrated and inspiring book, the answer remains elusive. In The Way of the Cell, one of the world’s most respected microbiologists draws on his wide knowledge of contemporary science to provide fresh insight into this intriguing and all-important question. What is the relationship of living things to the inanimate realm of chemistry and physics? How do lifeless but special chemicals come together to form those intricate dynamic ensembles that we recognize as life? To shed light on these questions, Franklin Harold focuses here on microorganisms – in particular, the supremely well-researched bacterium E. coli – because the cell is the simplest level of organization that manifests all the features of the phenomenon of life. Harold shows that as simple as they appear when compared to ourselves, every cell displays a dynamic pattern in space and time, orders of magnitude richer than its elements. It integrates the writhings and couplings of billions of molecules into a coherent whole, draws matter and energy into itself, constructs and reproduces its own order, and persists in this manner for numberless generations while continuously adapting to a changing world. A cell constitutes a unitary whole, a unit of life, and in this volume one of the leading authorities on the cell gives us a vivid picture of what goes on within this minute precinct. The result is a richly detailed, meticulously crafted account of what modern science can tell us about life as well as one scientist’s personal attempt to wring understanding from the tide of knowledge.
The Quality of Life
Authors: Harold Franklin M
Published: November 2023

We picked our way gingerly down the boulder-strewn canyon, keeping an eye out for cactus spines and rattlesnakes. One walks warily in the Big Bend, and so it was some time before we spotted our first “living rock.” The nickname is apt: flat, grey and crusty, half-covered with sand, they blend into their stony environment. But once noticed, their nature is not in doubt; they are unmistakably living plants masquerading as rocks. It is almost always so: though the definition of life is elusive, we seldom have difficulty distinguishing living creatures from lifeless objects by their special qualities.
By Descent with Modification
Authors: Harold Franklin M
Published: November 2023

Everything that exists in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity. Thus spake Democritus in the fifth century B.C.E. and Jacques Monod chose those key words for the title of his celebrated (and often infuriating) book on life in a universe without God. The phrase neatly encapsulates the central principle of evolution as Darwinians see it, adaptation by the interplay of random variation and natural selection, but it is evocative enough to admit of more than one reading.
Searching for the Beginning
Authors: Harold Franklin M
Published: November 2023

Of all the unsolved mysteries remaining in science, the most consequential may be the origin of life. This opinion is bound to strike many readers as overblown, to put it mildly. Should we not rank the Big Bang, life in the cosmos, and the nature of consciousness on at least an equal plane? My reason for placing the origin of life at the top of the agenda is that resolution of this question is required in order to anchor living organisms securely in the physical world of matter and energy, and thus relieve lingering anxiety as to whether we have read nature’s book correctly. Creation myths lie at the heart of all human cultures, and science is no exception; until we know where we come from, we do not know who we are.
Ideas of Emergence
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

In the beginning the universe was unimaginably hot and inconceivably dense. It was chaotic and void of matter as we know it. Within this exploding mystery of mysteries lay the roots of all subsequent existence, the next 12 billion or so years from the original creative event for our universe to the much more mundane but scientifically still mysterious act of my taking pen to paper to comment on exploring the unfolding of the universe in time and the meaning of that process to me and my fellow inhabitants of our Earth. Both the workings of the cosmos and the activities of the human mind call out for our understanding. Contemporary scholars in many disciplines are impelled to answer the call. Emergence is a new and promising tool in that understanding.
The Periodic Table
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

Along with stars at the large-scale level, we have seen that the workings of the cosmos produce, as a result of several processes of nucleosynthesis, a wide variety of atomic nuclei varying in atomic number and atomic weight. As the nuclei emerge from the stellar cauldrons and cool down, they reach a temperature at which they can combine with electrons to form atoms.
The Geospheres
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

Since the abode of life on Earth is a thin spherical shell ranging from about five kilometers below sea level to five kilometers above sea level, we focus on the structure of this zone. Geochemists classify this extremely active outer region into four geospheres: the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. When the maturing planet settled down, the crust and the rocks on top of the crust hardened into the archean lithosphere. With time, three kinds of surface rock have emerged: igneous rock formed directly from the molten mantle, sediment formed by deposition, and metamorphic rock that comes about by the crystallization of other types. The lithosphere maintains cycles due to erosion and weathering, subduction and uplift, vulcanism and other processes.
Cells
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

The emergence of self-replicating protocells marks a major transition in the evolving world. First, replication of similar objects populates the world with distinguishable entities. There is thus a system memory since the replicated objects resemble their progenitors. This property of systems could even have occurred before macromolecules, as the memory could be embodied in a collection of small molecules and the reaction network among them that keeps regenerating itself. Second, variation or mutation populates the world with variety.
Chordateness
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

We next focus on one of the branches of the protostomia/deuterostomia divide. The figure shown below (p. 113) is the dendrogram or branch of the animal tree of the deuterostomia. This is the branch that includes us. As with all such dendrograms, there is some uncertainty in where they are rooted. That is, the original fiatworm may have branched off to the left of the echinoderms or may have given rise to an earlier, no longer extant taxa that gave rise to the echinoderms and a second branch of all the Chordata.
Mammals
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

This chapter is concerned with the emergence of mammals from their early reptilian ancestors. The stem reptiles, descendants of amphibians, have been at the base of a radiation leading to turtles, snakes and lizards, crocodiles, and therapsids, which led to stem mammals, and the ruling reptiles, which led to birds. Since this radiation occurred early, we here concern ourselves only with emergence of mammals that include these features: internal temperature control, possession of mammary glands in females, and ability to give birth to live young, except in the case of monotremes, such as egg-laying mammals.
Language
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

There is little doubt that the emergence of language was a crucial step in hominization. There is considerable debate as to whether language was acquired over a long period of two million years, beginning with Homo habilis, or suddenly emerged in modern Homo sapiens some 60,000 years ago. For our form of language, the following features must have developed: (1) the ability to hear and process sounds, (2) the ability to produce a sequence of distinguishable phonemes, (3) the ability to assign meaning to the processed sound signals, and (4) a grammar to lead to a sophisticated language.
Athens and Jerusalem
Authors: Morowitz Harold J
Published: November 2023

Thus far we have conducted an all-too-hasty review of the emergences from the Big Bang to our thinking about the Big Bang and what it means. We now look at the historical background that has given us tools to ask these questions and carry out our quest for meaning.
Radiating Pain and Pott’s Disease
Authors: Liveson Jay Allan
Published: November 2023

Two years previously, a 46-year-old woman first experienced low back pain radiating to the left flank This was increased by Valsalva’s maneuver. She also noted numbness of the anterior left thigh. X-ray examination showed collapse of the 13 vertebra, and vertebral biopsy established tuberculosis of the bone. There was a medical history of bladder infection.
Vertebral Collapse and Proximal Weakness
Authors: Liveson Jay Allan
Published: November 2023

Over the past 7 years, a 72-year-old woman had been experiencing right anterior thigh pain and paresthesias extending almost to the knee. It was diagnosed as meralgia paresthetica. She also had difficulty rising from a seated position and occasional low back pain. No symptoms were affected by Valsalva’s maneuver. Medical history of low back injury 35 years earlier and an “old” collapsed T12 vertebra. She had occasional hyperglycemia, but diabetes mellitus was never established. Mastectomy was performed 15 years ago, with no radiotherapy or chemotherapy.