Editor's Picks

Puzzling heritage: The verb ‘fart’

By Anatoly Liberman
It cannot but come as a surprise that against the background of countless important words whose origin has never been discovered some totally insignificant verbs and nouns have been traced successfully and convincingly to the very beginning of Indo-European. Fart (“not in delicate use”) looks like a product of our time, but it has existed since time immemorial. Even the nuances have not been lost: one thing is to break wind loudly (farting); quite a different thing is to do it quietly (the now obscure “fisting”).

Rosalind Franklin: the not-so-dark lady of DNA

By Jenifer Glynn
If Rosalind Franklin had lived, she would have been 92 today. But she died at 37, five years after the discovery of the structure of DNA had been announced by Watson and Crick. As Crick confessed later (but never confessed to her), “the data which really helped us to obtain the structure was mainly obtained by Rosalind Franklin”.

HIV and AIDS in Latinos

By Kurt C. Organista

30 years into the epidemic I remain struck by is how HIV continues to exploit our country’s entrenched social, cultural, and economic cleavages — almost to the point of appearing to be a homophobic, racist, sexist, and transphobic virus! Latinos now rank second to African Americans in their disproportionately high rates of AIDS cases: 50% & 20%, respectively, despite only composing 13% & 15% of the US population. Consider for example that 75% of AIDS cases in the US are among men who have sex with men (MSM), and the same is true within US Latino population.

What is the health impact of the 2012 London Olympic transport plans?

While the UK government worries about visitors streaming through customs at Heathrow, locals around the new Olympic site are worried about what the sudden wave of visitors will mean to them. What can they expect as ticket-holders jam roads, crowd public transport, and over-run East London? Will the commitment to public health hold true for transportation? And what will happen after the closing ceremony?

The Myths, Realities, and Futures of Child Soldiers

Imagine a child soldier. You probably think of a poor African boy, no older than ten, forced by ruthless commanders to take drugs and fire guns whenever and wherever directed. And this image completely contradicts the reality for the vast majority of child soldiers. Washington and Lee School of Law interviewed Professor Mark Drumbl, author of Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy, and discovered the myths and realities of child soldiering. What’s more, this distorted images inform the place of a child in local and international justice systems — to the detriment of victims, communities, and the child soldiers themselves.

Replacing ILL with temporary leases of ebooks

By Michael Levine-Clark
One of the things that I love about being a librarian is that as a profession, we work together to share ideas and resources. Perhaps the most remarkable example of this collaborative spirit is interlibrary loan (ILL). We send each other books, DVDs, CDs, articles — whatever we can reasonably share. And we do this at considerable expense to our own institutions because we see a mutual benefit.

What is the probability that you are dreaming right now?

By Jan Westerhoff
Most people think that even though it is possible that they are dreaming right now, the probability for this is very small, perhaps as small as winning the lottery or being struck by lightning. In fact the probability is quite high. Let’s do the maths.

Friday 13 July: Unlucky for some Conservative ministers

By Gill Bennett
On Friday, 13 July 1962, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacked a third of his Cabinet. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Lord Chancellor, the Ministers of Education, Defence, Housing and Local Government, and the Ministers for Scotland and without Portfolio all lost their jobs in an episode that became known as the ‘Night of the Long Knives’. This dramatic phrase, most frequently used to describe Hitler’s bloody purge at the end of June 1934 of the leadership of the Sturmabteilung (his paramilitary Brownshirts), has since become political shorthand for any ruthless political manoeuvres and unexpectedly brutal reshuffles.

Snail attacks pencil

By Winfried S. Peters

On the Pacific coast of Costa Rica a major predator in the community of animals living on sandy beaches is a snail, a species of Olive Shell (Agaronia propatula). This snail moves up and down the beach by ‘surfing’, extending its foot so that it is carried along in the wave swash. It is a voracious hunter and its main prey is a smaller species of Olive Shell. In its wave-washed environment it has to act quickly.

The Meaning of the Codex Calixtinus, Then and Now

By Susan Boynton

The temporary disappearance of the Codex Calixtinus was devastating to scholars and the general public alike because of its historical significance and special status as a symbolic object representing an important component of Spain´s national identity. This monumental collection of texts, images, and music relating to the cult of Saint James the greater in Santiago de Compostela is the most eloquent testimony (besides the Cathedral of Santiago itself) to the process by which James of Zebedee came to be revered as the Apostle of Spain.

A New ‘Modern Prometheus’?

By Brett Rogers and Benjamin Stevens
Early in Ridley Scott’s science fiction (SF) film Prometheus, archaeologists discover a cave-painting of what seems to be a human figure pointing at a group of stars. Having gathered strikingly similar images from ancient and prehistoric cultures around the globe, the archaeologists take this most recent discovery as confirming their theory about the origin of humankind: we were placed here, created, by extraterrestrials. The archaeologists refer to those extraterrestrials as ‘Engineers’ (“What did they engineer?” asks another character. “They engineered us.”).

Languages, Species, and Biological Parallels

By Stephen R. Anderson
Human languages are not biological organisms, despite the temptation to talk about them as “being born,” “dying,” “competing with one another,” and the like.  Nonetheless, the parallels between languages and biological species are rich and wonderful.  Sometimes, in fact, they are downright eerie…

Frank Close reflects on the new boson find

By Frank Close
Now that the boson has been found (yes, I know we physicists have to use science-speak to be cautious, but it’s real), I can stop hedging and answer the question that many have been asking me for months: how do six people who had an idea share a Nobel Prize that is limited to three? The answer is: they don’t. To paraphrase George Orwell: All may appear equal, but some are more equal than others.

Spending power bargaining after Obamacare

By Erin Ryan
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) decision, it’s easy to get lost in debate over the various arguments about how the commerce and tax powers do or don’t vindicate the individual mandate. But the most immediately significant portion of the ruling — and one with far more significance for most actual governance — is the part of the decision limiting the federal spending power that authorizes Medicaid. It is the first time the Court has ever struck down congressional decision-making on this ground, and it has important implications for the way that many state-federal regulatory partnerships work.

Living Anthems

By Mark Clague
The Fourth of July, aka “Independence Day” (the annual federal holiday in the United States marking the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain), is cause for national celebration and certainly the celebration of nationalism. Fireworks, orchestral concerts, parades, 5-K runs, carnivals, family picnics, and political speeches are common holiday happenings. Many are accompanied by music, especially by a haphazard class of folk tunes known as patriotic song that often defy historical logic, but nevertheless have become potent cultural symbols.

The Likely Failure of Obamacare After ‘National Federation’

By Edward Zelinsky
As virtually all Americans now know, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, sustained the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”). President Obama hailed the Court’s decision as confirming “a fundamental principle that here in America — in the wealthiest nation on Earth — no illness or accident should lead to any family’s financial ruin.” The President and his supporters tell us that PPACA will provide health care coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans. From the President’s vantage, the Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius guarantees the desired expansion of health care coverage.