...nature is often used, to borrow from Noel Sturgeon (2009), as a “tool of power,” legitimating social hierarchies and (re)producing a dichotomy in which men, culture, agency, and human subjectivity ...are aligned on the one hand, while women and nature are aligned on the other hand. ...Sherilyn MacGregor and Nicole Seymour (2017, 11) write in their introduction to the special issue of the journal RCC Perspectives titled “Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change” that, “Indeed, in every society on the planet, those with the most wealth and power to shape and control the natural world—for better or worse—have been men.” ...these ideologies that tend to privilege men, and especially white men, within a culture/nature divide have consequences for material reality. ...the edited collection Gender and Environment in Science Fiction (2019), edited by Christy Tidwell and Bridgitte Barclay, includes a section with three essays on the male hero trope in popular environmental media, including material on queer and subversive comic book ecoheroes (Anderson 2018), petromasculinity in the Mad Max series (Soles 2018), and my essay on hegemonic white masculinity and environmental nostalgia in Soylent Green and WALL-E (Yates 2018).
The Chicago Feminist Film Festival aims to decenter and destabilize Hollywood norms, including Hollywood’s tendency to place cis-gendered white male protagonists at the center of films structured ...according to the hero’s journey. Thus, The Fits (2016) was a natural opener to the inaugural festival, embodying many of the festival’s values in destabilizing what constitutes “normal” ways of seeing the world. In particular, in centering black girlhood, The Fits subverts the white and male gaze. Main character Toni takes on the active gaze usually reserved for white and/or male characters, subverting the objectified status generally prescribed to female characters. The Fits also unsettles the heroine’s journey by troubling Toni’s transformative return. While it may seem that through “the fits” Toni is assimilated into normative gender relations, it is also possible to read Toni’s transformation in the film as form of insubordination, a resistance to this assimilation.
A series of water-soluble Ru2 5+ complexes of the type Ru2(O2CCH3)3(L)Cl where L = 2,3,4,5,6-F5ap, 2,4,6-F3ap, 2-Fap, ap, 2-Meap, 2,6-Me2ap, or 2,4,6-Me3ap, where ap is the anilinopyridinate anion, ...have been characterized as to their structural and physicochemical properties in H2O and DMSO. Five of the newly synthesized complexes were structurally characterized, and the Ru–Cl bond lengths range from 2.477 to 2.544 Å while the Ru–Ru bond lengths range from 2.2838 to 2.2935 Å. The UV–vis spectra of each compound are characterized by three absorption bands in both H2O and DMSO, the intensity and position of which vary with both the type of bridging ligand and the solvent. The seven examined Ru2 5+ complexes exist as 1:1 electrolytes in water, and each undergoes a reversible one-electron reduction assigned to Ru2 5+/Ru2 4+ in both investigated solvents. A second irreversible reduction attributed to Ru2 4+/Ru2 3+ is also observed for each compound at more negative potentials in DMSO. A linear free energy relationship exists between the sum of the Hammett substituent constants (Σσ) on the ap-type bridging ligand and the wavenumber of an absorption band for the Ru2 5+ complexes. A linear relationship is also seen between Σσ and measured E 1/2 values for the Ru2 5+/Ru2 4+ process in water containing 0.1 M KCl, but little to no effect is seen between the specific bridging ligand and the structural features of the investigated compounds.
Species traits may provide a short-cut to predicting generalities in species turnover in response to environmental change, particularly for poorly known taxa. We ask if morphological traits of ...assemblages respond predictably to macrohabitats across a large scale. Ant assemblages were collected at nine paired pasture and remnant sites from within three areas along a 300 km distance. We measured ten functional morphological traits for replicate individuals of each species. We used a fourth corner model to test associations between microhabitat variables, macrohabitats (pastures and remnants) and traits. In addition, we tested the phylogenetic independence of traits, to determine if responses were likely to be due to filtering by morphology or phylogeny. Nine of ten traits were predicted by macrohabitat and the majority of these traits were independent of phylogeny. Surprisingly, microhabitat variables were not associated with morphological traits. Traits which were associated with macrohabitats were involved in locomotion, feeding behaviour and sensory ability. Ants in remnants had more maxillary palp segments, longer scapes and wider eyes, while having shorter femurs, smaller apical mandibular teeth and shorter Weber's lengths. A clear relationship between traits and macrohabitats across a large scale suggests that species are filtered by coarse environmental differences. In contrast to the findings of previous studies, fine-scale filtering of morphological traits was not apparent. If such generalities in morphological trait responses to habitat hold across even larger scales, traits may prove critical in predicting the response of species assemblages to global change.
: This paper takes issue with various theoretical perspectives that examine waste within the context of consumption, distribution, or excretion, yet fail to address capitalism as a totalizing mode ...of production. In failing to do this, these theories are not able to make the conceptual leap to the human‐as‐waste. By contrast, this paper engages in a production‐level theoretical standpoint and argues that capitalism, in its reduction of labor to a factor of production, speaks a logic of human disposability. On the one hand, the body of the laborer is used up or wasted at accelerated rates so as to secure the most profit. On the other hand, the exigencies of capitalist profit‐making may lead to this factor of production being excreted (as a form of waste) into unemployment or underemployment, creating surplus populations that are separated partially or fully from domains of capitalist exchange and social life. This rethinking of labor as a factor that is expended or excreted allows for a re‐examination of both waste and capitalism, and points toward the natural and historical limits of the capitalist mode of production.
In recent years the focus in ecology has shifted from species to a greater emphasis on functional traits. In tandem with this shift, a number of trait databases have been developed covering a range ...of taxa. Here, we introduce the GlobalAnts database.
Globally, ants are dominant, diverse and provide a range of ecosystem functions. The database represents a significant tool for ecology in that it (i) contributes to a global archive of ant traits (morphology, ecology and life history) which complements existing ant databases and (ii) promotes a trait‐based approach in ant and other insect ecology through a broad set of standardised traits.
The GlobalAnts database is unique in that it represents the largest online database of functional traits with associated georeferenced assemblage‐level data (abundance and/or occupancy) for any animal group with 9056 ant species and morphospecies records for entire local assemblages across 4416 sites.
We describe the structure of the database, types of traits included and present a summary of data coverage. The value of the database is demonstrated through an initial examination of trait distributions across subfamilies, continents and biomes.
Striking biogeographic differences in ant traits are highlighted which raise intriguing questions as to the mechanisms generating them.
To understand how researchers are tackling globally important issues, it is crucial to identify whether current research is comprehensive enough to make substantive predictions about general ...responses. We examined how research on climate change affecting insects is being assessed, what factors are being tested and the localities of studies, from 1703 papers published between 1985 and August 2012. Most published research (64%) is generated from Europe and North America and being dedicated to core data analysis, with 29% of the studies analysed dedicated to Lepidoptera and 22% Diptera: which are well above their contribution to the currently identified insect species richness (estimated at 13% and 17% respectively). Research publications on Coleoptera fall well short of their proportional contribution (19% of publications but 39% of insect species identified), and to a lesser extent so do Hemiptera, and Hymenoptera. Species specific responses to changes in temperature by assessing distribution/range shifts or changes in abundance were the most commonly used methods of assessing the impact of climate change on insects. Research on insects and climate change to date is dominated by manuscripts assessing butterflies in Europe, insects of economic and/or environmental concern in forestry, agriculture, and model organisms. The research on understanding how insects will respond to a rapidly changing climate is still in its infancy, but the current trends of publications give a good basis for how we are attempting to assess insect responses. In particular, there is a crucial need for broader studies of ecological, behavioural, physiological and life history responses to be addressed across a greater range of geographic locations, particularly Asia, Africa and Australasia, and in areas of high human population growth and habitat modification. It is still too early in our understanding of taxa responses to climate change to know if charismatic taxa, such as butterflies, or disease vectors, including Diptera, can be used as keystone taxa to generalise other insect responses to climate change. This is critical as the basic biology of most species is still poorly known, and dominant, well studied taxa may show variable responses to climate change across their distribution due to regional biotic and abiotic influences. Indeed identifying if insect responses to climate change can be generalised using phylogeny, functional traits, or functional groups, or will populations and species exhibit idiosyncratic responses, should be a key priority for future research.
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) affects 33 million people in low and middle income countries and is the leading cause of cardiovascular death among children and young adults. Penicillin prophylaxis ...prevents progression in asymptomatic disease. Efforts to expand echocardiographic screening are focusing on simplified protocols, non-physician ultrasonographers, and portable ultrasound devices, including handheld ultrasound. Recent advances support the use of single-view screening protocols. With the increasing availability and low cost of handheld devices, studies are needed to evaluate their performance in these settings.
We conducted a retrospective study comparing the rate of screen positive ultrasounds before and after the use of a handheld ultrasound in an RHD screening program in Ethiopia. We also performed a cross-sectional device comparison in 19 at-risk school-children participating in the rheumatic heart disease screening program.
Between March of 2019 and January of 2022, 6631 children were screened for rheumatic heart disease of whom 4029 were screened after the introduction of a handheld device. Before the use of the handheld ultrasound device 291 (11.2%) children had a screen positive ultrasounds compared with 167 (4.1%) afterwards (p<0.001). We also compared non-expert to expert interpretation by device and found a significant difference in interpretation for the Lumify (p=0.025). There was a trend towards shorter jet length by color Doppler in the handheld ultrasound device for both expert and non-expert review.
Our study highlights that the screen-positive rate in a RHD screening program is influenced by the device being used in the screening process.
Not just a reductionist representation of overpopulation, Soylent Green offers a nuanced critique of capitalism. In the course of the film, audiences learn that the seaplankton of which soylent green ...is supposedly composed no longerexists. The audience is horrified to discover by the end of the film that "soylent green is people." While seemingly horrific, the notion of humans cannibalizing themselves in order to survive functions metaphorically for the system of capitalism, where human lives are cannibalized, wasted at ever accelerating rates in order to procure the most profit possible. In this respect, Soylent Green offers avisual representation of what Jason Moore calls the end of cheapfood. Yet, even as Soylent Green offers a powerful representation of capitalism's crisis state in the era of the end of cheap food, the film asks audiences to re-invest in hegemonic white masculinity, a system of power and oppression intimately linked to capitalism. In particular, the film embodies what Hamilton Carroll writes about as white male injury, a new form of white masculine identity politics. Even as the film offers up a powerful critique of capitalism's crisis state, it simultaneously does so through reproducing a discourse of white male injury.
We assessed the relative importance of a variety of climatic and habitat variables in structuring ant communities along a 300-km climatic gradient. Sampling was conducted in semiarid, transitional ...and cool temperate climatic zones in New South wales, Australia. Ants were sampled at three paired sites of two habitats (pastures and conservation ‘remnants’) in each of the climatic zones (herein referred to as ‘zones’) using pitfall traps. Remnants represented original open forests, while pastures were a mix of grassland vegetation and cleared woodland. We tested the effects of habitat type, region (representing different climatic zones) and environmental variables on assemblages using distance-based similarity measures (Permanova and Permdisp) and canonical analysis of principal coordinates. Assemblage composition differed between habitats and zones, but we found no interaction effects. Assemblage dispersion (between-site heterogeneity) differed between habitats but not among zones. Pasture habitats supported more homogeneous assemblages than remnant habitats. Our findings suggest that habitat type, and structure, homogenise assemblages in pastures, thus overriding the effects of local climate apparent in remnants. As remnants are isolated within the biologically homogeneous pastures, movement of unique species between remnants in response to climate changes may be limited, thus landscape connectivity is likely to be important in reducing species loss.
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