bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ecological Links between African Savanna Environments, Climate Change, and Early Hominid Evolution
Authors: Owen-Smith Norman
Published: November 2023

In this chapter I consider the ecological factors that potentially influenced the temporal association between periods of major climatic change during the Late Miocene and Plio-PleistocLene, turnover pulses among large mammalian herbivores, and evolutionary trends in hominid clades. I propose that certain features peculiar to the African continent promoted the adaptations leading to early hominids and ultimately the first humans, including the following: The critical episodes of global climatic cooling oc¬curred during the Miocene between 15.6 and 12.5 m.y. and around the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition between 3.0 and 2.5 m.y. (deMenocal, 1995; Denton, this volume). Significant turnover pulses among large mammalian herbivores took place between 10 and 5 my. and around 2.5 my. (Vrba, this volume). The ear¬lier period saw the origination of most of the modern bovid genera, as well as the appearance of the first autralopithecines. The later period was associated with speciations, extinctions, and dispersal events among bovids and equids (Vrba, this volume; Bernor, this volume), and the divergence of the hominid lineage from that leading to the robust autralopithecines (Collard & Wood, this volume). Lesser turnover pulses occurred among bovids around 1.8 my. and 0.9 m.y. (Vrba, this volume).
Suid Paleoecology and Habitat Preferences at African Pliocene and Pleistocene Hominid Localities
Authors: Bishop Laura C
Published: November 2023

In this chapter I investigate the ways in which analysis of the ecological preferences of nonhominid fauna can contribute to reconstructions of the paleobiology of Pliocene and Pleistocene hominids. Hypotheses that link habitat with patterns of hominid behavior and evolution involve assumptions about the environments occupied by hominids. In many scenarios, environmental change, whether driven by global or local climate causes, leads to shifts in habitat availability, particularly toward a predominance of open grasslands. A growing body of literature documents global climate change during the Neogene (e.g., Shackleton et al., 1984; deMenocal, 1995; Denton, this volume). Hypotheses connect climate change with numerous important milestones in the evolution of Hominidae, including the development of habitual bipedal locomotion, the expansion of relative brain size, the beginnings of stone tool use and the inclusion of animal protein in the hominid diet. Although such a causal relationship between climate change and evolutionary patterns has been criticized (Hill, 1987, 1995; Foley, 1994), it still remains a prevalent model in evolutionary theory. To evaluate these hypotheses, which can be traced back to Dart if not to Darwin, we must have d rect evidence of the types of habitats available to and exploited by hominids during the Pliocene and Pleistocene and how these habitats changed through time. Numerous methods, from geological to biological, have been used to investigate PlioPleistocene environments (see, e.g., Sikes, this volume).
Relationships between Eastern and Southern African Mammal Faunas
Authors: Grubb Peter , Sandrock Oliver , Kullmer Ottmar , Kaiser Thomas M , Schrenk Friedemann
Published: November 2023

Malawi lies between the early-hominid sites of eastern and southern Africa. Remains of the PlioPleistocene fauna recovered from the Malawi Rift (Bromage et al., 1995a; Schrenk et al., 1995) include both existing and extinct taxa otherwise known from only eastern or southern Africa, or from both. This chapter provides a background to these implications of endemism or cosmopolitanism by summarizing the geography of the extant mammal fauna of High Africa-eastern and southern Africa, encompassing the Great Rift Valley and most of the African mountains (fig. 17-1)-with emphasis on larger mammals (Grubb, this volume). Faunas have been reviewed in regional works (sources of The spectrum of mammalian dispersion from the Hom to the Cape is one ofrelatively discrete but overlapping regional faunas occupying centers of endemism (figs. 17-1, 17-2), accompanied by more widespread species. This pattern is related to latitudinal variation in climate, substrate and vegetation, to nutritional requirements, habitat preferences, and predation (Owen-Smith, this volume) and to constraints on dispersal and other historical contingencies. Ranges of major faunas correspond with biome-sectors or biotic zones, defined (Davis, 1962) by simplifying a vegetation map of Africa (Keay, 1959). In the light of the new map (F. White, 1983) their limits are here redrawn. Subzones are identified, and names of constituent phytogeographic units are given in figures 17-1 and 17-2, and by Denys (this volume).
Basin Evolution, Sedimentary Dynamics, and Hominid Habitats in East Africa An Ecosystem Approach
Authors: Feibel Craig S
Published: November 2023

Much has been made of the interaction between global-scale climatic phenomena and patterns of environmental change, habitat shift, and biotic evolution in Africa. What has been missing from the discussion is an understanding of how large-scale phenomena such as global climate change interact with specific habitats and organisms. The later Cenozoic presents an often detailed record of climatic history and biotic events, but linking these records is less than straightforward. Geographic separation, differing scales of analysis, and problems with numerical age control and correlation all tend to confuse the correspondence. Although a strong theoretical basis exists for a close action-response relationship between global-scale phenomena and local biotic events, the hard evidence has not yet demonstrated such a link.
African Miocene Environments and the Transition to Early Hominines
Authors: Andrews Peter , Humphrey Louise
Published: November 2023

We are proposing a new paradigm for the study of paleoecology based on ecological first principles. It is our contention that the factors underlying modem ecosystems must first be understood, as far as possible, and then the same factors must be applied to evolutionary change in the fossil record. It is not enough to demonstrate taxonomic similarity between recent and fossil faunas, for there is no guarantee that ancient ecosystems were the same as present-day ones. Similarly, ecological equivalence in morphological structures of limited biota (ecomorphology) provides only a microcosm of the total ecosystem. The interplay between evolution and ecology therefore forms the basis for the new paradigm.
Grades among the African Early Hominids
Authors: Collard Mark , Wood Bernard
Published: November 2023

Palaeoanthropological systematics is principally concerned with the identification and formal recognition of natural groups among the fossil specimens that belong to the human lineage. It aims, in other words, to divide the fossil hominids into taxa that are the result of biological processes rather than abstractions of the human mind.
Evolutionary Geography of Pliocene African Hominids
Authors: Foley Robert
Published: November 2023

Palaeoanthropology, like other scientific disciplines, has seen marked change over the course of this century. New perspectives and interpretations can be ascribed to both classical empirical progress and to changes in the broader social and intellectual environment. There can be little doubt that the expansion of the fossil record from a few Neanderthal fragments to the thousands of specimens now known has been a significant driving force in the way human evolution is described and explained. Equally, though, the decline of notions of racial typology and the rejection of evolution as a progression up a sea/a naturae have played their part (Reader, 1988; Lewin, 1990).
Habitat Specificity and Early Hominid Craniodental Ecomorphology
Authors: Bromage Timothy G
Published: November 2023

Habitat theory (as promulgated in recent years by Vrba, e.g., 1992) derives from a set of hypotheses relating ecological conditions to fauna! evolution and biogeography (see Vrba, this volume). Necessary features of this theory are that terrestrial vegetational habitat specificities are heritable and thus characteristic for clades, that terrestrial mammalian biomes may be distinguished by their gross vegetational physiognomy, and that distribution movements (drift) occur in the context of physical environmental change. One of our interests is whether an examination of hominoid ecomorphological characters may reveal the extent to which early hominids complied with conditions of habitat theory.
Human Rights and Public Health in the AIDS Pandemic
Authors: Lawrence O Gostin , Lazzarini Zita
Published: November 2023

Historically, the fields of public health and human rights have remained largely separate. The AIDS pandemic, however, made it clear that a complex relationship exists between the two fields. Women and children have proven to be extremely vulnerable to infection with HIV due to their inability to protect themselves in intimate relationships, their sexual exploitation, and their lack of economic and educational alternatives. On the other hand, coercive government policies aimed at controlling the AIDS pandemic often infringe on the rights of individuals known or suspected of having AIDS, and decrease the effectiveness of public health measures. Protecting and promoting human rights is becoming one of the key means of preserving the health of individuals and populations. A penetrating analysis of the close relationship between public health and human rights, this book makes a compelling case for synergy between the two fields. Using the AIDS pandemic as a lens, the authors demonstrate that human health cannot be maintained without respect for the dignity and rights of persons, and that human rights cannot be deemed adequate and comprehensive without ensuring the health of individuals and populations. In the course of their analysis, Gostin and Lazzarini tackle some of the most vexing issues of our time, including the universality of human rights and the counter-claims of cultural relativity. Taking a cue from environmental impact assessments, they propose a human rights impact assessment for examining health policies. Such a tool will be invaluable for evaluating real-world public health problems and is bound to become essential for teaching human rights in schools of public health, medicine, government, and law. The volume critically examines such issues as HIV testing, screening, partner notification, isolation, quarantine, and criminalization of persons with HIV/AIDS, all within the framework of international human rights law. The authors evaluate the public health effects of a wide range of AIDS policies in developed as well as developing countries. The role of women in society receives special emphasis. Finally, the book presents three case histories that are important in the HIV/AIDS pandemic: discrimination and the transmission of HIV and tuberculosis in an occupational health care setting; breast feeding in the least developed countries; and confidentiality and the right of sexual partners to know of potential exposure to HIV. The cases challenge readers with some of the complex questions facing policy-makers, scientists, and public health professionals, and exemplify a method for analysing these problems from a human rights perspective. Gostin and Lazzarini have written a book that will be a valuable addition to the libraries of public health teachers and practitioners, legal scholars, bioethicists, policy makers, and public rights activists.
Early Shame Experiences and Infant Brain Development
Authors: Schore Allan N
Published: November 2023

The scientific study of emotion, begun by Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and William James in the last century, has been neglected for much of this one. Overshadowed by behavior and cognition, the formal study of internal emotional states, events that are central to the understanding of the human condition, is only recently receiving the attention of a growing number of experimental researchers and clinical authors. Within the entire spectrum of emotional states, perhaps the last to become a focus of observation of scientific scrutiny has been the “hidden” emotion of shame. A rapid expansion of knowledge about this emotion has occurred only within the last ten years, as contributions from a variety of disciplines are now actively attempting to understand more deeply the unique psychological and biological properties of shame.
The Forms and Functions of the Nonverbal Signal of Shame
Authors: Harker Dacher Keltner LeeAnne
Published: November 2023

Shame is perhaps the most negative and disturbing emotional experience. Shame follows events in which the individual violates rules of a moral nature that apply to core aspects of the self (Darwin, 1872; Keltner & Buswell, 1996; Miller & Tangney, 1994; Tangney, 1992). Shame is characterized by devastating and paralyzing feelings of self-condemnation, disgust, anger, and inferiority and the pronounced desire to withdraw and disappear (Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). The frequent and prolonged experience of shame relates to several psycho logical disorders, including chronic depression (Andrews, 1995; Kaufman, 1989) and antisocial behavior and hostility (Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992). It is hard to argue against the claim that life would be better without shame. Does shame benefit humans in any way? In this chapter, we will argue that shame serves the important function of appeasing observers of social transgressions, a function which reestablishes social harmony following the rule violations that inevitably disrupt social interaction. In characterizing the appeasement func tions of shame, we will review studies that have examined the nonverbal display of shame, which should play a critical role in appeasement-related processes. Our review of the evidence will focus on whether shame is marked by (1) distinct nonverbal behavior that (2) is accurately identified by observers, (3) resembles the appeasement behaviors of other species, and (4) evokes responses in observers that lead to forgiveness and reconciliation.
Shame, Status, and Social Roles: Psychobiology and Evolution
Authors: McGuire Paul Gilbert & Michael T
Published: November 2023

Shame is well understood to be an aversive experience, related to feeling demeaned, reduced, disgraced, or diminished, which people are highly motivated to avoid. One of the intriguing questions about shame is whether its underpinning psychobiological mechanisms are of recent origin, related to human self consciousness and self-awareness, or whether shame is an elaboration of phylogenetically older mechanisms. In this chapter we suggest the latter, stressing in particular the following points. The psychobiological mediators of human shame evolved from phylogenetically older mechanisms that originally evolved to regulate social rank and status behavior, in particular submissive behavior. (2) The elicitors of both submissive behavior and human shame are associated with hostile and/or rejecting social signals. (3) Such social signals, indicating disruption to social relationships, not only affect emotions but are psychobiological dysregulating; thus shame is an experience of psychobiological dysregulation. (4) Human social status and acceptance in groups and relationships have evolved to be highly reliant on signals of being attractive, valued, wanted and approved of by others, such that losses of these signals can be dysregulating. (5) The self-consciousness dimension of human shame may be observable in nonhuman primates.
Shame and Stigma
Authors: Lewis Michael
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, I should like first to focus on the general problem of shame and stigma. Before doing this, I need to define both shame and stigma. In the second half of the chapter, I will apply my theory to work with children known to have been sexually or physically abused. Studying children soon after a known abuse allows us to see developmentally the effect of the abuse better than does studying adults who are recalling their earlier abuse.
Shame and ChiIdhood Abuse
Authors: Andrews Bernice
Published: November 2023

There is now an abundance of evidence that early experiences of sexual and physical abuse increase the risk of later mental health problems (e.g., Andrews, Valentine, & Valentine, 1995; Holmes & Robins, 1987; Mullen et al., 1993). Chronic, recurrent, and more severe psychiatric disorders have also been shown to be as sociated with a history of abuse in clinical samples (Bryer et al., 1987; Carmen, Reiker, & Mills, 1984). Not everyone who experiences abuse is affected to the same degree, and the individual meaning attached to events plays an important role in explaining variations in response (Andrews, 1997a; Brown, 1989). Within this per spective, meaning is a function of the interplay between the individual’s external world (the actual features and context of events) and his or her internal world (personal attitudes and schema concerning self and others). External factors, such as the severity of the experience and social factors surrounding it, are likely to affect the way abusive experiences are construed and thus affect outcome (see Beitchman et al., 1992 for a review).
Domains of Shame: Evolutionary, Cultural, and Psychotherapeutic Aspects
Authors: Harder Deborah F Greenwald & David W
Published: November 2023

The single imperative that best explains physical characteristics of organisms and enduring patterns of behavior is the advantage conferred upon an individual in the successful transmission of genes to the next generation (e.g., Cosmides, Tooby, &Barkow, 1992). Such transmission occurs through direct reproductive success (linear descendants) and also through inclusive fitness (all individuals who share com mon genes, including kin such as siblings, cousins, and their offspring; Wenegrat, 1990). These evolutionary principles have resulted, via natural selection acting over many millennia, in characteristics that promote fitness, such as size, intelligence, physical configuration, coordination, and so on. In addition, characteristic patterns of behavior with regard to mating and preferences for situations that offer favorable reproductive conditions, such as specific habitats, relative absence of predators, and nutritional foods, are also seen as evolutionarily determined. Recently, this perspective on fitness has been extended (e.g., de Waal, 1996; Gilbert, 1997; Wright, 1994) to consider the value of emotions.
Two Cycles Of British Growth
Authors: Egnal Marc
Published: November 2023

The growth of the Thirteen Colonies was closely tied to the rhythms of British development, with two long swings shaping business activity on both sides of the Atlantic. The first, slower paced cycle lasted from 1713 to 1745, while the second, more vigorous wave of expansion stretched from 1745 to 1783. The intertwined colonial and metropolitan economies influenced each other’s worldly progress. But Britain remained the team of horses, while the colonies were the high-wheeled wagon pulled down the path of development. A study of American growth necessarily begins with an investigation of the economy of the parent country. This chapter looks at several aspects of the British economy-population, agriculture, industry, and foreign trade-and shows that in each area the pace of growth quickened after 1745.
Thirteen Colonies Portrait of an Aggregate
Authors: Egnal Marc
Published: November 2023

“What then is the American, this new man?” Hector St. John de Crevecoeur asked in 1782. French-born Crevecoeur had lived in the colony (later state) of New York since the 1760s. He answered his own question: “Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit.”
Northern Colonies
Authors: Egnal Marc
Published: November 2023

Solid long-term growth marked the northern colonies in the eighteenth century. But the pace of development was uneven, and not all individuals viewed the future with optimism. When Benjamin Franklin opened his printing shop in Philadelphia in the late 1720s, some in the city felt the local economy would not support such an enterprise. One dour individual, Samuel Mickle, told the young printer (as Franklin reported) that “he was sorry for me because it was an expensive undertaking and the expense would be lost, for Philadelphia was a sinking place.
What Women Want What Men Want
Authors: Townsend John Marshall
Published: November 2023

Following the work of E. O. Wilson, Desmond Morris, and David Buss, What Women Want--What Men Want offers compelling new evidence about the real reasons behind men's and women's differing sexual psychologies and sheds new light on what men and women look for in a mate, the predicament of marriage in the modern world, the relation between sex and emotion, and many other hotly debated questions. Drawing upon 2000 questionnaires and 200 intimate interviews that show how our sexual psychologies affect everyday decisions, John Townsend argues against the prevailing ideologically correct belief that differences in sexual behaviour are "culturally constructed." Townsend shows there are deep-seated desires inherited from our evolutionary past that guide our actions. In a fascinating series of experiments, men and women were asked to indicate preferences for potential mates based on their attractiveness and apparent economic status. Women overwhelmingly preferred expensively dressed men to more attractive but apparently less successful men, and men were clearly inclined to choose more attractive women regardless of their professional status. Townsend's studies also indicate that men are predisposed to value casual sex, whereas women cannot easily separate sexual relations from the need for emotional attachment and economic security. Indeed, wherever men possess sexual alternatives to marriage, and women possess economic alternatives, divorce rates will be high. In the concluding chapter, Townsend draws upon the advice of couples who have maintained their marriages over the years to suggest ways to survive our evolutionary predicament. Lucidly and accessibly written, What Women Want--What Men Want shows us why we are the way we are and brings new clarity to one of the most intractable debates of our time.
Il Buono E Il Bello 1850-1852
Authors: Kowsky Francis R
Published: November 2023

Within two weeks of Downing and Vaux’s departure from Liverpool on the Canada, the two men were at work in the office Downing had created in his home. On the 50-mile steamer journey northward from NewYork City, Vaux would have seen for the first time the magnificent panorama of Hudson River scenery that had made this ride famous. The celebrated landscape of cliffs and highlands was destined to become the backdrop of Vaux’s long life in America. The valley’s Romantic beautywhichVaux would come to know intimately as a resident, as a walker frequenting its picturesque byways, as an artist sketching its forest and natural wonders, and as an architect designing buildings attentive to its compelling lovelinesswould deeply impress itself on his imagination. And he could have had no better companion to introduce him to its charms than Downing, a man whom many identified as the region’s preeminent citizen.
Possible Together, Impossible To Either Alone1859-1865
Authors: Kowsky Francis R
Published: November 2023

By the time Vaux had reached his 34th birthday, in 1858, he could regard himself as well along the road to success. He had authored an important book on domestic architecture, designed a major bank building, and won the competition to design the nation’s largest municipal park. Undoubtedly buoyed by these achievements, Vaux sought and obtained entry into New York club life. As an early member of the Down Town Association (founded in December 1859), he often dined at its Exchange Place clubhouse, a building he may have taken charge ofremodeling in 1860.1 As one of the original 300 members of the Athenaeum Club, Vaux must have attended the opening of the organization’s quarters, a commodious building on Fifth Avenue near 16th Street, “fitted up with every convenience requisite for the comfort of its members.”2 In addition to dining and socializing, the Athenaeum, whose executive committee included art biographer Henry T. Tuckerman, endeavored to provide its members with high-caliber programs, such as the evening that Vaux and Jervis McEntee spent listening to a lecture by expatriate artist William Page.3 But most of all, Vaux valued his membership in the prestigious Century Association, a select circle of artists and men of letters to which Vaux was admitted in 1859.4 Over the course of his lifetime, he was to pass many stimulating and pleasurable hours there, including a gala Twelfth Night celebration when, lounging on a Turkish rug, he joined fellow Centurians in “smoking, drinking, laughing, or suddenly singing a note on a horn.” 5 At the Century, Vaux could enjoy the company of such artist friends as Jervis McEntee, Frederic Edwin Church, R. Sanford Gifford, Eastman Johnson, and George Henry Hall, one of whose pictures hung in Vaux’s home.6 These men shared Vaux’s Romantic esthetic philosophy, as well as his hope that someday Ame:rica would come to value its painters, sculptors, and architects as it did its practical men of business and industry.
Country life in comparison with city life ... A question of delicate adjustment 1866-1872
Authors: Kowsky Francis R
Published: November 2023

With theCentral Park and Prospect Park positions secured, and content in the knowledge of Olmsted’s eminent return, Vaux set off for a month’s vacation with his family in the Adirondacks. While there, he must have been putting together in his mind details of the report that was due to the Prospect Park commissioners in December. Left behind to work on various office projects was Bloor, who also minded the Vauxes’ house in their absence. Meanwhile, Olmsted made preparations in California for tying up his affairs and returning to New York, a process that included finishing plans for Mountain View Cemetery in San Francisco. On November 22, 1865, Vaux, together with Withers, Bloor, and Godkin, with whom Olmsted had agreed to coedit the newly established political weekly the Nation, went down to the pier to give Olmsted and his family a hearty welcome. When they disembarked from the steamer Ericson, the weary travelers must have felt glad to feel firm ground under their feet and to see familiar faces, for after three weeks of travel, bad weather had prevented their boat from docking the previous day. Unable to enter New York Harbor, they had spent the night beyond Hell’s Gate riding out one of the fierce gales of the century. During the next few days, there was much socializing at Vaux’s house, but Olmsted also surely applied himself to the task of adding his ideas to the drawings and written explanation that Vaux had commenced for the Prospect Park plan. In fact, the partners did not meet the December deadline; on January 14, Bloor was stilll assisting them on the work, staying until midnight with the two men at Vaux’s residence and continuing the task all the next day in the office. Eventually completed on January 24, 1866, the historic report went to the printer in early February. On February 20, Bloor dropped off the first copies at Vaux’s house and somewhat later distributed others to the Century and Athenaeum club libraries.1 One can assume that the big party that Vaux staged at his home on the evening of March 2 celebrated the completion of the Prospect Park report. Over glasses of claret and orange juice punch, artist friends and many
Raynaud’s Phenomenon, Skin Involvement, and Finger Sores
Authors: Mayes Maureen D
Published: November 2023

This chapter relates to people with the systemic form of scleroderma, including both those with limited disease and those with diffuse disease. It does not apply to people with localized scleroderma, which is morphea and linear scleroderma. Raynaud’s phenomenon Raynaud’s phenomenon is a specific type of cold sensitivity that is characterized by color changes of the fingertips on cold exposure. There is some variation from one person to the next, but the typical Raynaud’s episode starts with the fingertips getting very pale, then numb, and then turning a purple or blue color.
Scleroderma and Sexuality
Authors: Mayes Maureen D
Published: November 2023

Sexuality involves the physiological and the psychological, the body and the mind. These two features are al-ways intertwined in human behavior, but this is particularly true in the realm of sexuality. This chapter is divided into three sections: on women, on men, and on partners Women, Scleroderma, and Sexuality Physical problems for women with scleroderma include fatigue, dryness of the vagina (as part of Sjogren’s syndrome), and physical discomfort during sex that is a result of decreased mobility of joints, sometimes associated with joint pain.
In the Beginning: On the Genetic and Environmental Factors That Make Early Language Acquisition Possible
Authors: Petitto Laura Ann
Published: November 2023

My journey towards understanding the biological foundations of human language has crossed a diverse path, involving (a) comparative analyses of two different speciesapes and humans; (b) comparative analyses of languages in two different modalities - signed and spoken; and (c) comparative analyses of the structure, grammar and acquisition of different signed languages. In trying to understand the biological foundations of a capacity, it is first necessary to determine the extent to which the capacity is species-specific. Hence, while still a college undergraduate, I moved into a large mansion on the Hudson Palisades in New York with an infant, West-African male chimpanzee, named ‘‘Nim Chimpsky.’’ This animal was part of a research project at Columbia University in which I attempted to raise the chimp like a child and to teach him signed language. Our research question concerned whether aspects of human language were species-specific or whether human language was entirely learnable (and/ or teachable) from environmental input (Terrace, Petitto, Sanders and Bever 1979).
Familial Language Impairment
Authors: Gopnik Myrna , Dalalakis Jenny , Fukuda Suzy E , Fukuda Shinji
Published: November 2023

In the past 40 years there has been a fundamental change in our understanding of the nature of human language. The view of language as an arbitrary, socially learned animal communication system has been superseded by a view that regards language as a formally constrained, biologically determined, species-specific recursive system. Contemporary linguists, foremost among them Chomsky, hypothesize that all human languages are constructed from a small set of specific principles (the universal grammar) that limit the kinds of grammars that can occur. Evidence for this claim comes from two sources: the linguistic properties of the languages of the world and the way children acquire the language of their environment, whether spoken or signed (see Petitto, this volume). Research into the properties of currently extant languages has appropriately led to some revisions of the particular properties originally proposed for the universal grammar, but the notion that languages do share some fundamental properties has largely been confirmed.
The Squirrel
Authors: Harburg Yip
Published: November 2023

Back in the 1960s, when I was living-in New York, I was asked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to do a series of radio documentaries on various songwriters I admired. Some of them, of course, were already gone, but I did do interviews with a number of those who were still available. One of these was Mitchell Parish, whose body of work, while small, contains one of the most breathtaking lyrics in the English language, Stardust. What a piece of writing that is! The aesthetic application of Gresham’s law was already at work, and rock-and-roll was taking over, turning its listeners into an ahistorical generation. Parish was outraged by it. I wanted to talk about his youth in New York City, about his associations with such composers as Hoagy Carmichael. I wanted to hear his reminiscences about walking around Tin Pan Alley on a summer day when the music then being born was coming out the open windows. He kept returning to his anger.
The Sparrow
Authors: Piaf Edith
Published: November 2023

Americans never really knew Edith Piaf. When she died, the New York Times said in its obituary, “Strangely, Miss Piaf was perhaps best known in the United States for her La Vie en rose, a song of happiness and love.” There may have been something ironic about it, but there was nothing strange. Her act was bowdlerized and glamorized for her appearances at the Versailles and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Her songs about prostitutes and their marlous, about the murders that often ended the search for love, were thrown out or cleaned up for Americans raised on a diet of sexless love in songs and happy endings in movies and Saturday Evening Post fiction.
Sant’alessio At The Barberini Palace, Rome
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Opera thrived in Rome in the days when the Barberini family were in power, with one member, Urban VIII, on the papal throne (1623-44) and two nephews prominent cardinals. Cardinal Francesco built the monumental Barberini Palace in the via Quattro Fontane and there presented operas for his invited guests. By 1639, with the palace completed, the space devoted to operatic productions was said to accommodate three thousand or more spectators. The most famous of the Barberini operas was Sant’Alessio, with music by Stefano Landi and libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi (later Pope Clement IX), first performed on 18 February 1632 and several times later that season. It was revived in 1634 in a revised and enlarged version to honor the visiting Prince Alexander Charles of Poland, for whom a full score was printed, decorated with plates illustrating the various stage settings.
Grétry’s Richard Cceur-De-Lion
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the opera comique, or comedie melee d’ariettes (spoken comedy interspersed with arias), branched out from humble beginnings to cover a wide range of genres: comedy, pastoral, bourgeois drama, and historical, or pseudo-historical, plays with a decidedly romantic flavor. The most famous example in the last category is Richard Creur-de-Lion, a comedie by Michel-Jean Sedaine (1719-97) set to music by Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry (1741-1813). A great success when first performed in Paris on 21 October 1784, it continued to be produced there and in much of the rest of Europe for well over a century. Here are excerpts from a review of the first performance: This drama, whose subject is known to everybody, is one of the most original conceptions of M. Sedaine, who has often dared, nearly always successfully, to attempt subjects and situations that seemed unlikely to work on the stage. The first two acts of Richard were received with the greatest applause.... The music of this drama is full of beauty, agreeable negligence, and fortunate reminiscences; it everywhere breathes a spiritual and piquant nai:vete. M. Gretry seems in this new composition to have forgotten his customary manner in order to transport us, through the simple and at the same time romantic turn after the great interest aroused by the second act. It is unnecessary to discuss the success of this play; a hundred crowded performances will hardly satisfy the eagerness of the public.
Verdi’s Operatic Style Analyzed By A Contemporary
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Abramo Basevi (1818-85) was the author of the first full-length study of Verdi’s operas, published in Florence in 1859. After obtaining a degree in medicine, Basevi had turned to music and philosophy, composing some operas, but ultimately concentrating on music criticism, theory, and the organization of concert life in Florence. He founded two journals and wrote other books but is chiefly remembered for the work on Verdi, in which he displays considerable In I masnadieri we find not a trace of this general tinta; instead we seem to observe different pieces stitched together, instead of a continuous canvas containing different designs.
Nietzsche Vs. Wagner
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

The literature on Wagner that appeared during the composer’s life and for some time afterwards is for the most part passionately for or against him, and it rarely sticks to opera: after all, Wagner didn’t. And so he was championed or condemned not only as a composer but also as an essayist and, later, as the highly visible promoter of the Bayreuth Festival. His new theater was inaugurated in 1876 with the first performance of the complete Ring of the Nibelung, an event that attracted world-wide attention and brought, in addition EPILOGUE .. Modern man represents biologically a contradiction of values, he sits between two stools, he says yes and no in the same breath. No wonder that it is precisely in our age that falseness itself became flesh, became even genius! That Wagner “dwelt among us”! Not without reason did I call Wagner the Cagliostro [i.e., the impostor] of modernism... But all of us, whether we know it, will it, or not, have within our bodies values, words, formulas, morals that are antagonistic in their origin-physiologically we are false... A diagnosis of the modern soul-where to begin? With a determined incision into this agglomeration of contradictory instincts, with the suppression of its antagonistic values, with vivisection of its most instructive case.-To the philosopher the case of Wagner is a stroke of luck. This essay, as anyone may see, was inspired by gratitude.
Pellèas Et Mèlisande
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pe/leas et Melisande was first performed on 17 May 1893 by a recently formed company called La Maison de l’Guvre, which set itself the task of presenting avant-garde drama to the Parisian public. The company’s stage manager was Camille Mauclair, a young critic and poet who took an active part in promoting the play in the weeks before its premiere. In the following letter to a theater critic for the paper Gil Blas, Mauclair described the visual characteristics of this first production. They must have impressed Debussy, who had read Pe/leas (it had been published a year earlier) and can hardly have failed to appreciate its vaporous realization onstage when he attended the first performance. It was Mauclair, later that year, who obtained Maeterlinck’s permission for Debussy to set the play to music.
The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land
Authors: Summit Jeffrey A
Published: November 2023

Across the United States, Jews come together every week to sing and pray in a wide variety of worship communities. Through this music, made by and for ordinary folk, these Jews define and re-define their relationship to the continuity of Jewish tradition and the realities of American life. Combining oral history and an analysis of recordings, The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land examines the music in contemporary Jewish worship and explores the diverse links between the music and spiritual and cultural identities. Alive with detail, the book focuses on metropolitan Boston and covers the full range of Jewish communities there, from Hasidim to Jewish college students in a transdenominational setting. It documents a remarkably fluid musical tradition, where melodies are often shared, where sources can be as as diverse as Sufi chant, Christmas carols, rock and roll, and Israeli popular music, and where the meaning of a song can change from one block to the next.
Venus
Authors: Ladders Katharina , Fegley Bruce
Published: November 2023

Venus is usually the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon, but until the space age our knowledge of our “twin planet” was very limited because its surface is hidden by a global cloud layer. Observed by the ancient Babylonians 5,000 years ago, Venus has played an important role in myth, literature, and science throughout recorded history. In 1610, Galileo’s observations of the phases of Venus were important evidence supporting the Copernican theory of the solar system.
Meteorites
Authors: Ladders Katharina , Fegley Bruce
Published: November 2023

Meteorites have interested humans since ancient times. About 6000 years ago, before iron ore processing was discovered, iron meteorites provided the only available source for iron metal. More recently, the study of meteorites has helped unravel the formation processes of the early solar system, which may be recorded in meteorite composition and mineralogy, because meteorites are the oldest remnants of early, relatively unprocessed matter we have available.
Beyond The Solar System
Authors: Ladders Katharina , Fegley Bruce
Published: November 2023

Effective Temperature (Teff) Measure of total energy radiated from the stellar surface, normally taken as equal to that of a blackbody emitting the same total energy.
Suffragists, Prohibitionists, and Republicans
Authors: Edwards Rebecca
Published: November 2023

Gilded Age Americans looked back on abolitionism as one of the boldest and most effective movements in the nation’s short history. Whigs and Democrats had ridiculed abolitionists in the 1840s; the targets of these jibes had responded that politicians were ignoring slavery at their peril. In little more than a decade, the prophecy had been fulfilled. The Whig Party vanished, Democrats’ national coalition collapsed, and a new party with antislavery leanings captured the White House. Of course, Republicans only ended slavery as an extreme war measure, and historians no longer believe that abolitionists caused the demise of the second party system. In the decades after Emancipation, however, many Americans argued that those who had aroused public opinion deserved the credit (or the blame) for ending slavery. As an Indiana woman wrote in 1884, abolitionists could feel in retrospect “the tremendous power of the political lever within their own grasp.”
The Goals and Scope of This Volume
Authors: Hochachka Peter W , Somero George N
Published: November 2023

The central question to be addressed in this volume is, How have living systems, which are based on a common set of biochemical structures and processes and subject to a common set of physical–chemical laws, been able to adapt to the enormously wide spectrum of environmental conditions found in the biosphere? The biosphere comprises habitats having a remarkably varied set of physical, chemical, and biotic characteristics, many of which seem “extreme” or “highly stressful” from our human perspective as a 37°C species living on the planet’s surface and exposed to an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The diversity of life forms found in the varied habitats of the biosphere indicates how successful adaptation has been in allowing exploitation of virtually all regions of the earth’s land and waters. Yet we can ask whether the diversity we find in morphology and other highly visible attributes of organisms is paired with a high degree of adaptive diversification at the biochemical level. Are all organisms relatively alike “under the skin,” that is to say, biochemically, despite their vast differences in habitat preferences, body plan, and mode of life? As we will learn, the answer to this question represents a fascinating combination of “yes” and “no.” To develop this answer, we will first characterize the adaptational challenges facing biochemical systems and then examine how these systems have been modified through evolution to permit the same fundamental types of structures and processes to be sustained in all organisms, in all environments.
1835: Year of Violent Indecision
Authors: Grimsted David
Published: November 2023

Angry differences between the people of the North and South had never been so much in the fore as they were by August 1835, but on one thing observers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line agreed: since early July the nation had demonstrated a penchant for riotous violence that raised doubts about its future stability. “Our whole community seems to be under an unnatural excitement,” wrote the Columbia, South Carolina, Southern Times. “Mobs, strikes, riots, abolition movements, insurrections, Lynch clubs seem to be the engrossing topics of the day. The whole country seems ready to take fire on the most trivial occasion.” The Richmond  Whig lamented “the present supremacy of the Mobocracy,” and northward the Philadelphia National Gazette claimed, “The horrible fact is staring us in the face, that, whenever the fury or the cupidity of the mob is excited, they can gratify their lawless appetites almost with impunity.
From Myths to Logos to Stagnation
Authors: Lahav Noam
Published: November 2023

The scientific methodology was originated by the Greek philosophers, some 2,600 years ago. Curiosity was not forbidden by Greek traditions and beliefs. Moreover, their philosophers explained the world in rational terms of mechanisms and natural processes and entities, not by divine actions. Apparently, two of the trivial questions they asked were what differentiates living from nonliving entities, and how plants and animals were formed. The Greek philosophers developed different ideas and proposals with regard to the problems they studied, but the discussions and intellectual struggles among the various schools of thought exemplify a most fundamental feature of the scientific method, namely, “The philosopher proposes a solution in the form of an hypothesis, not as a revelation of a truth that cannot be challenged without committing a sin” (Haezrahi, 1970; p. 28; my translation). In this ideal spirit, the scientific process is supposed to progress. The actual pathways of scientific research and progress are more complex and intricate than this ideal pattern, as we shall see later.
Systematic Biology, Doubts, and Uncertainties:The Eighteenth Century
Authors: Lahav Noam
Published: November 2023

The cataloguing of plants and animals during the eighteenth century culminated in the Linnaeus method, according to which a species is characterized by two central features, namely, immutability and distinctiveness. In other words, since all living species had been created simultaneously (according to the teachings of the Church), they were not related to each other genetically. One species could not descend from another, nor could different species merge with one another. It should be noted that this was in contrast to the common belief during pre-Linnaean times, according to which transmutations among different species was possible.
Demise and Resurrection of the Spontaneous Generation School : Pasteur and Darwin
Authors: Lahav Noam
Published: November 2023

The term “biology” was coined in 1802 by Gottfried R. Treviranus (1776-1837), at the beginning of an era of decisive discoveries in biology, as well as intense controversies, and a decline in the influence of the conservative teachings of the Church. To a large extent, this term was accepted by scientists due to the work of Lamarck, discussed later.
Central Biochemical Molecules and Processes
Authors: Lahav Noam
Published: November 2023

Catalysis is especially important in biology, because living organisms normally cannot tolerate the high temperatures that may be needed to overcome the activation energy of a reaction. Biology’s solution to this problem has been to use catalysts (fig. 8.2), where in addition to biocatalysts, various metals such as magnesium, iron, zinc, and molybdenum can also catalyze biological reactions. Most of the processes in the cell depend on complex biocatalysts, each of which is specific to just one reaction. Moreover, there is no known natural way by which contemporary biocatalysts could have formed, except through evolution. This is a central issue in the study of the origin of life and will be discussed in part IV.