Nazi propaganda from 1927–1945 reveals role of dehumanization of Jews in the Holocaust

Linguistic analysis suggests shifting dynamics of dehumanization of Jews could have served to promote mass violence

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: THE AUTHORS FOUND THAT JEWS WERE PROGRESSIVELY DENIED THE CAPACITY FOR FUNDAMENTALLY HUMAN MENTAL EXPERIENCES LEADING UP TO THE HOLOCAUST. view more 

CREDIT: BSCAR23625, FLIKR, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

A linguistic analysis of Nazi propaganda suggests that dehumanization of Jews shifted over time, with propaganda after the onset of the Holocaust portraying Jews as having a greater capacity for agency, relative to earlier propaganda focused on disengaging moral concern. Alexander Landry of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, California, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 9, 2022.

Widespread views hold that dehumanization is a precursor to mass violence. Many believe that dehumanization promotes violence by removing moral inhibitions against harming fellow humans. However, few studies have actually examined empirical evidence for this idea.

To better understand the role of dehumanization in mass violence, Landry and colleagues conducted a linguistic analysis of Nazi propaganda—including hundreds of posters, pamphlets, newspapers, and political speech transcripts—from before and during the Holocaust. The researchers assessed the prevalence of certain terms related to mental state, distinguishing between those associated with capacity for agency, such as “plan” or “think,” and those associated with experience, such as “hurt” or “enjoy.”

The findings suggest that propaganda leading up to the Holocaust progressively denied Jews’ capacity for experiencing fundamental human emotions and sensations—in line with the idea that dehumanization leads to disengagement of moral restraints.

However, propaganda during the Holocaust increasingly used language related to intentionality and malevolence, suggesting that Jews were now demonized and portrayed as possessing a greater capacity for agency. The researchers offer speculation as to why this shift took place; perhaps it served efforts to portray Jews as a masterminding threat, while also providing rationalization to soothe Nazi executors who were traumatized by their experience of killing Jews.

Overall, these findings suggest that the dynamics of dehumanization associated with mass violence may be nuanced and shift over time.

The authors note that their analysis included limited data for some time periods, especially in the months preceding the onset of the Holocaust in July 1941, and that only one researcher was involved in drafting data collection guidelines. Future research could address these limitations and further examine the dynamics of dehumanization for both the Holocaust and other genocidal contexts.

The authors add: “To eliminate violence, we must understand the motives that drive it. To do so, we examined the portrayal of Jews in Nazi propaganda. We found that Jews were progressively denied the capacity for fundamentally human mental experiences leading up to the Holocaust, suggesting that dehumanization can motivate violence by reducing moral concern for victim groups.”

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Press-only preview: https://plos.io/3W6Rkco

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274957

Citation: Landry AP, Orr RI, Mere K (2022) Dehumanization and mass violence: A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927–1945). PLoS ONE 17(11): e0274957. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274957

Author Countries: USA, Israel

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0274957 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Dehumanization and mass violence: A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927–1945)

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Nov-2022

Pandemic led to 7.5% decrease in 2020 US energy consumption

UW Oshkosh study first comprehensive look at pandemic energy consumption trends across nation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN OSHKOSH

Total energy consumption decreased 7.5% nationwide in 2020 compared with 2019 as the COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns, business closures and employees working from home, according to a new University of Wisconsin Oshkosh study.

The research conducted by Warren Vaz, an associate engineering professor on UWO’s Fox Cities campus, is the first to quantify the effects of pandemic disruptions on energy consumption trends across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“By capturing these trends, it is hoped that policymakers and utilities managers can be better prepared for future challenges,” Vaz said.

The study appeared recently in a special issue of the journal Energies focused on the economic and social consequences of the pandemic in the energy sector based on federal data available publicly.

“Lockdowns had a significant impact on energy consumption, about 30% in some cases,” Vaz said. “There were wide discrepancies in state’s consumption trends. Hawaii saw the largest decrease of about 26%, while Alaska at plus 4% was the only state to record an increase.”

Vaz attributed Hawaii’s large decrease in consumption to its isolation from other states and its dependence on the tourism industry, which was virtually shut down by the pandemic. Alaska’s small increase was likely due to a harsher winter in 2020 compared with 2019 as well as less strict lowdown practices across the state, he said.

Other results showed:

• Fossil fuel consumption decreased, particularly petroleum.
• Renewable energy increased but biofuels decreased, up to 88% in Nebraska.
• All major greenhouse gas emissions decreased.
• Carbon dioxide emissions fell by 10.4%.

In addition, Vaz compared the U.S. energy consumption in 2020 to that of other populous countries around the globe, which all showed decreases except for China and Iran, which each experienced slight increases.

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JOURNAL

Energies

DOI

10.3390/en15217867 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

COVID-19 Impact on Energy Sector in United States (2020)

Low levels of air pollution deadlier than previously thought

Study suggests fine particulate matter causes an additional 1.5 million premature deaths annually

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Low levels of air pollution deadlier than previously thought

Study suggests fine particulate matter causes an additional 1.5 million premature deaths annually

The World Health Organization’s most recent estimates (2016) are that over 4.2 million people die prematurely each year due to long-term exposure to fine particulate outdoor air pollution (often referred to as PM2.5,). A recent study involving McGill researchers now suggests that the annual global death toll from outdoor PM2.5 may be significantly higher than previously thought. That’s because the researchers found that mortality risk was increased even at very low levels of outdoor PM2.5, ones which had not previously been recognized as being potentially deadly. These microscopic toxins cause a range of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancers. 

“We found that outdoor PM2.5 may be responsible for as many as 1.5 million additional deaths around the globe each year because of effects at very-low concentrations that were not previously appreciated,” said Scott Weichenthal, an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health at McGill University and the lead author on the recent paper in Science Advances.

Canadian data advances global understanding of effects of outdoor pollution

The researchers arrived at this conclusion by combining health and mortality data for seven million Canadians gathered over a twenty-five-year period with information about the levels of outdoor PM2.5 concentrations across the country. Canada is a country with low levels of outdoor PM2.5, making it the perfect place to study health impacts at low concentrations. Knowledge gained in Canada was then used to update the lower end of the scale that is used to describe how mortality risk changes with outdoor PM2.5 levels. The result? An improved understanding of how air pollution impacts health on a global scale.

The WHO recently set out ambitious new guidelines for annual average outdoor fine particulate air pollution, cutting its earlier recommendations in half, from concentrations of 10 to concentrations of 5 micrograms (ug) per cubic metre. The current United States Environmental Protection Agency standard of 12 (ug) per cubic metre is now more than double the value recommended by the WHO.

“One take away is that the global health benefits of meeting the new WHO guideline are likely much larger than previously assumed,” adds Weichenthal. “The next steps are to stop focussing only on particle mass and start looking more closely at particle composition because some particles are likely more harmful than others. If we can gain a better understanding of this, it may allow us to be much more efficient in designing regulatory interventions to improve population health.”

The study

“How low can you go? Air pollution affects mortality at very low levels” by Scott Weichenthal et al was published in Science Advances

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo3381

JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abo3381 

ARTICLE TITLE

How low can you go? Air pollution affects mortality at very low levels

Footprints indicate the presence of man in Southern Spain in the Middle Pleistocene, 200,000 years earlier than previously thought

This discovery is vitally important for the study of the evolutionary model of hominins in the Middle Pleistocene in Europe

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SEVIL

The researcher and GRS Radioisotopes technician from the University of Seville, Jorge Rivera, has participated in an incredible discovery that is unique in Europe. After applying optically-stimulated luminescence technique at the Centre for Research, Technology and Innovation laboratories at the University of Seville (CITIUS) and at CENIEH, to hominin footprints found at Matalascañas in 2020, it was possible to determine that they are in fact 200,000 years older than previously suspected. This would mean that pre-Neanderthals would have lived in the Doñana area during the Middle Pleistocene, around 295,800 years ago.

The research, led by the Professor of Paleontology at the University of Huelva, Eduardo Mayoral, was published by Scientific Reports, one of the publications of the Nature group, on 19 October.

 

The technique

Optically-stimulated luminescence is a method used to find the absolute age of sediments that have been fully exposed to sunlight.

 

Scientific milestone

The discovery in June 2020 of hominin footprints more than 106,000 years old next to El Asperillo (Matalascañas, Huelva) was a revolution for the scientific world, so much so that it was considered one of the most important discoveries of that year. But now, the publication of this new paper has confirmed what some experts suspected at the time: those footprints were much older and are in fact 200,000 years older than previously thought. While it was previously placed in the Upper Pleistocene, the evidence now points clearly to the Middle Pleistocene, and to its being 295,800 years old, making it a unique record in Europe, since there is no better site in the world in terms of number, age and area than that of the El Asperillo beach for hominin fossil footprints.

 

After collecting samples from the various levels, and another two later to compare the first results, the age of the fossil remains was established and points to the Middle Pleistocene, a crucial moment between different climatic stages, between a warm period, MIS 9 (360,000-300,000 years ago), in transition to MIS 8 (300,000-240,000 years ago), in which a major glaciation took place.

The age is thus specified at 295,800 years, with a margin of error of 17,800 years, according to the data collected from the four samples of sedimentary levels in the cliffs of El Asperillo where the site was found, initially 87 footprints, which now has a record of more than 300 footprints, of which 10% are considered well-preserved. With the exception of those from Matalascañas, it is noted that no other hominin footprints are known between the climatic stages MIS9 and MIS 8 of the Middle Pleistocene. That is why it is questioned whether they belong to Neanderthals.

But are they Neanderthals?

At first they were thought to be Neanderthals, but that is now in doubt. The main hypothesis among the scientists is that they are individuals of the Neanderthal lineage, among which Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis have been associated. The hypothesis that they are pre-neanderthal hominins is feasible. Precisely for this reason, the Matalascañas footprints are now more valuable due to their contribution to the fossil records of hominins in the Middle Pleistocene, which is very poor in Europe because of the scarcity of deposits with footprints. Until now, according to the Nature paper, footprints this period have only been found at Terra Amata and Roccamonfina (Italy), which were dated to between 380,000 and 345,000 years ago, with records of Homo heidelbergensis. They are the only ones older than that at Huelva in this era. After these, Biache-Vaast (France) and Theopetra (Greece) sites, from 236,000 to 130,000 years ago, are attributed to Homo neanderthalensis. In this context, the length range of all the footprints found at Matalascañas, from 14 to 29 centimetres, is similar to that found at European sites, such as Theopetra (14-15 centimetres), Roccamonfina (24-27 cm) and Terra Amata (24 cm).

In any case, the experts highlight the singularity of the Matalascañas discovery, whose new dating has questioned the existing paradigms and has required a deep analysis before accepting its conclusions. 

The new chronology now establishes a change in the scenario that then prevailed on the coast of the Gulf of Cádiz, with human settlements in a more temperate and humid climate than in the rest of Europe, with high water tables and abundant vegetation.

 

In that same period the sea level would have been about 60 metres below its current level. This implies that the coast would be more than 20 kilometres from where it is today, which is how there would have been a great coastal plain, with large flood-prone areas, in which the footprints discovered in mid-2020 would have been made.

The site’s new dating also affects the vertebrate animals found, since the hominin traces there also included footprints of large mammals such as straight-tusked elephants, gigantic bulls (aurochs) and boars. It was the fauna that inhabited Doñana 300,000 years ago and not 100,000 years ago, as other investigations stated.

International team

The paper, New dating of the Matalascañas footprints provides new evidence of the Middle Pleistocene (MIS 9-8) hominin paleoecology in southern Europe, is the result of the work of an international team of scientists led by the Professor of Paleontology at the University of Huelva, Eduardo Mayoral, alongside the lecturer Antonio Rodríguez and Professor of Stratigraphy Juan Antonio Morales, all of the Department of Earth Sciences of the Faculty of Experimental Sciences, who are also members of the Centre for Scientific and Technological Research (CCTH) at UHU, as well as Jérémy Duvau, a researcher at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (France); Ana Santos, from the University of Oviedo; Ricardo Díez-Delgado, from the Doñana-CSIC Biological Station; Jorge Rivera, from the University of Seville; Asier Gómez-Olivencia, from the University of the Basque Country; and Ignacio Díaz, from the University of Río Negro (Argentina).

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-22524-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

New dating of the Matalascañas footprints provides new evidence of the Middle Pleistocene (MIS 9-8) hominin paleoecology in southern Europe

Parental intervention may help gay/bisexual youth reduce HIV risk

Online toolkit helps parents improve communication with gay and bisexual sons about behaviors to help them stay healthy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON (Nov. 10, 2022)--A first of a kind study published today suggests that parents can be taught to communicate with their gay or bisexual sons about safe sex. Even better–this study found that parents in the intervention group talked to their sons more about condoms and HIV and engaged in other parenting behaviors aimed at keeping their sons healthy.

The study is the first to focus on the parents of gay or bisexual sons and the first to show evidence of positive effects in a randomized controlled trial. The results of the new study are critical because gay and bisexual youth make up nearly 80% of all HIV infections among teens. Until now, however, there were very few public health interventions aimed at reducing the HIV risk among this group.

“By focusing on the parents, this study shows we might be able to reduce HIV risk among gay and bisexual male youth,” David Huebner, Professor of Prevention and Community Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, said. “Parents represent an untapped yet promising resource in preventing HIV infection and improving sexual health among this underserved population.”

Huebner and his colleagues recruited 61 parents with sons aged 14-22 who had come out as gay or bisexual at least a month earlier. Half were assigned to the control group; these parents watched a 35-minute documentary film designed to encourage parents to better understand and accept lesbian, gay or bisexual children.

The other half of the parents were enrolled in an online program, Parents and Adolescents Talking about Healthy Sexuality (PATHS). The online program included videos and instruction for parents about how to improve their communication with a gay or bisexual son about staying healthy, and how to engage in other parenting behaviors that can help promote sexual health.

Parents in this intervention arm of the study had a to do list and could opt to take a variety of actions aimed at improving their interactions with their sons about sexual health. Studies show that when parents who have more frequent, higher quality conversations about condoms and HIV with their sons, gay or bisexual youth are less likely to engage in sexual behaviors that can put them at risk for HIV, Huebner said.

For example, parents received a sexual fact sheet about HIV risk and they could send it to their sons without comment or they could sit down and review it together. Parents were also tasked with educating their sons about condoms. They could message their sons with an instructional video or they could demonstrate how to put a condom on a banana.

Parents were also taught about the importance of HIV testing and were guided in how to help their sons obtain an HIV test.

Both at the beginning and the end of the three month study, parents and sons were separately surveyed about how much parents engaged in the conversations and behaviors that the toolkit recommended. Both parents and sons independently reported that parents in the intervention arm talked more to their sons about sexual health and helped them learn to use condoms correctly. They also helped their sons get an HIV test.

“To our knowledge, this is the first intervention shown to increase parent behaviors supportive of sexual health for gay or bisexual youth,” Huebner said. “The next step is to demonstrate that these changes in parent behaviors translate into better sexual health outcomes for the sons. We think it has great potential to help reduce the high rates of HIV among this vulnerable population.”

Huebner and his team recently received additional funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a larger trial of the intervention.  For this study, they will be enrolling 350 parent-adolescent dyads and following them for a year to see whether the intervention truly reduces HIV risk for gay and bisexual young men. Interested families can learn more about the study and sign up to receive updates at www.parentwithlove.org.

The pilot study, “Effects of a Parent-Focused HIV Prevention Intervention for Young Men Who have Sex with Men,” was published in AIDS and Behavior. The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

-GW-

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JOURNAL

AIDS and Behavior

DOI

10.1007/s10461-022-03885-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Efects of a Parent‐Focused HIV Prevention Intervention for Young Men Who have Sex with Men: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Nov-2022

Octopuses caught on video throwing silt and shells around themselves and at each other

Octopus debris-throwing recorded for first time, at times during aggressive interactions with other octopuses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: PANEL A — OCTOPUS (LEFT) PROJECTS SILT AND KELP THROUGH THE WATER; B – AN OCTOPUS (RIGHT) IS HIT BY A CLOUD OF SILT PROJECTED THROUGH THE WATER BY A THROWING OCTOPUS; C – SHELLS, SILT, ALGAE OR SOME MIXTURE IS HELD IN THE ARMS PREPARATORY TO THE THROW, MANTLE IS INFLATED PREPARATORY TO VENTILATION DURING THE THROW, SIPHON AT THIS STAGE MAY STILL BE VISIBLE IN ITS USUAL POSITION PROJECTING FROM THE GILL SLIT ABOVE THE ARM CROWN; D – SIPHON IS BROUGHT DOWN OVER REAR ARM AND UNDER THE WEB AND ARM CROWN BETWEEN THE REAR ARM PAIR (ARMS R4 AND L4), AND WATER IS FORCIBLY EXPELLED THROUGH THE SIPHON, WITH CONTRACTION OF THE MANTLE, AS HELD DEBRIS IS RELEASED, PROJECTING DEBRIS THROUGH THE WATER COLUMN. ILLUSTRATIONS BY REBECCA GELERNTER. view more 

CREDIT: GODFREY-SMITH ET AL., 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Octopuses appear to deliberately throw debris, sometimes directed at other octopuses, according to a study publishing November 9 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE led by Peter Godfrey-Smith at the University of Sydney and colleagues.

Researchers recorded the behavior of gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) in Jervis Bay, Australia in 2015 and 2016 using underwater video cameras. They analyzed 24 hours of footage across several days and identified 102 instances of debris throwing in a group of roughly 10 octopuses, although individual identification was not always possible.

Octopuses gathered material such as silt or shells, and released it while using a jet of water from their siphon (a tube-shaped structure that can eject water at speed) to propel it between their arms and through the water, often throwing material several body lengths away. To perform the throws, octopuses had to move their siphon into an unusual position, suggesting the behavior was deliberate. Both sexes were observed throwing, but 66% of throws were performed by females. Around half of throws occurred during or around the time of interactions with other octopuses, such as arm probes or mating attempts, and about 17% of throws hit other octopuses. Octopuses can change their skin coloration, with dark colors generally associated with aggression, and the researchers found that dark-colored individuals tended to throw more forcefully and were more likely to hit another octopus. Octopuses hit by thrown material often altered their behavior by ducking or raising their arms in the direction of the thrower.

This is the first time that throwing behavior has been reported in octopuses. The authors say that although it is difficult to determine the intent of octopuses propelling debris through the water, the behaviors observed suggest that at least in some social contexts, octopuses are capable of targeted throws towards other individuals, a behavior that has only been observed previously in a few non-human animals.

The authors add: “Wild octopuses project various kinds of material through the water in jet-propelled ‘throws,’ and these throws sometimes hit other octopuses. There is some evidence that some of these throws that hit others are targeted, and play a social role.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276482

Citation: Godfrey-Smith P, Scheel D, Chancellor S, Linquist S, Lawrence M (2022) In the line of fire: Debris throwing by wild octopuses. PLoS ONE 17(11): e0276482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276482

Author Countries: Australia, USA, Canada

Funding: General financial support was provided to PGS by the City University of New York (https://www.cuny.edu) and to DS through Alaska Pacific University (https://www.alaskapacific.edu) from donations by the Pollock Conservation Consortium. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0276482 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

In the line of fire: Debris throwing by wild octopuses

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Nov-2022

How squid and octopus get their big brains

New study finds cephalopods make their brains similar to how vertebrates do

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: FOUR SQUID EMBRYOS IN THEIR EGG SAC. THESE ARE THE SQUID SPECIES DORYTEUTHIS PEALEII. view more 

CREDIT: KRISTEN KOENIG

Cephalopods — which includes octopus, squid, and their cuttlefish cousins — are capable of some truly charismatic behaviors. They can quickly process information to transform shape, color, and even texture, blending in with their surroundings. They can also communicate, show signs of spatial learning, and use tools to solve problems. They’re so smart, they can even get bored.

It’s no secret what makes it possible: Cephalopods have the most complex brains of any invertebrates on the planet. What remains mysterious, however, is the process. Basically, scientists have long wondered how cephalopods get their big brains in the first place? A Harvard lab that studies the visual system of these soft-bodied creatures — which is where two-thirds of their central processing tissue are focused — believe they’ve come close to figuring it out. The process, they say, looks surprisingly familiar.

Researchers from the FAS Center for Systems Biology describe how they used a new live-imaging technique to watch neurons being created in the embryo in almost real-time. They were then able to track those cells through the development of the nervous system in the retina. What they saw surprised them.

The neural stem cells they tracked behaved eerily similar to the way these cells behave in vertebrates during the development of their nervous system. It suggests that vertebrates and cephalopods, despite diverging from each other 500 million years ago, not only are using similar mechanisms to make their big brains but that this process and the way the cells act, divide, and are shaped may essentially layout the blueprint required develop this kind of nervous system.

“Our conclusions were surprising because a lot of what we know about nervous system development in vertebrates has long been thought to be special to that lineage,” said Kristen Koenig, a John Harvard Distinguished Fellow and senior author of the study. “By observing the fact that the process is very similar, what it suggested to us is that these two independently evolved very large nervous systems are using the same mechanisms to build them. What that suggests is that those mechanisms — those tools — the animals use during development may be important for building big nervous systems.”

The scientists from the Koenig Lab focused on the retina of a squid called Doryteuthis pealeii, more simply known as a type of longfin squid. The squid grow to be about a foot long and are abundant in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. As embryos the look quite adorable with big head and big eyes.

The researchers used similar techniques to those made popular to study model organisms, like fruit flies and zebrafish. They created special tools and used cutting edge microscopes that could take high resolution images every ten minutes for hours on end to see how individual cells behave. The researchers used florescent dyes to mark the cells so they could map them and track them.

This live-imaging technique allowed the team to observe stem cells called neural progenitor cells and how they are organized. The cells form a special kind of structure called a pseudostratified epithelium. Its main feature is the cells are elongated so they can be densely packed. The researchers also saw the nucleus of these structures move up and down before and after dividing. This movement is important for keeping the tissue organized and growth continuing, they said.

This type of structure is universal in how vertebrate species develop their brain and eyes. Historically, it was considered one of the reasons the vertebrate nervous system could grow so large and complex. Scientists have observed examples of this type of neural epithelium in other animals, but the squid tissue they looked at in this instance was unusually similar to vertebrate tissues in its size, organization and the way the nucleus moved.

The research was led by Francesca R. Napoli and Christina M. Daly, research assistants in the Koenig Lab.

Next, the lab plans to look at how different cell types in cephalopod brains emerge. Koenig wants to determine whether they’re expressed at different times, how they decide to become one type of neuron versus another, and whether this action is similar across species.

Koenig is excited about the potential discoveries that lie ahead.

“One of the big takeaways from this type of work is just how valuable it is to study the diversity of life,” Koenig said. “By studying this diversity, you can actually really come back to fundamental ideas about even our own development and our own biomedically relevant questions. You can really speak to those questions.”

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.027 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Cephalopod retinal development shows vertebrate-like mechanisms of neurogenesis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Nov-2022

Dread and Portent: Reading H. P. Lovecraft‘s Necronomicon as Social Criticism. (2010) 

 VANCE, G. WARLOCK, Ph.D

Directed by Dr. Keith Cushman. 177 pp

.This dissertation explores the narratives of the twentieth-century American author H. P. Lovecraft, focusing on those tales which feature his creation of a metafictional spellbook titled the Necronomicon. Relying on a close reading of the texts, critical materials, and Lovecraft‘s letters, I demonstrate how the use of the Necronomicon throughout Lovecraft‘s fiction reflects how clearly the author espouses the faddish ideas and prejudicial fears of his era. Use of the spellbook delineates the breadth of moral decline he perceived in the world, from such causes as miscegenation, physical and spiritual decadence, and incest. Additionally, the project provides evidence of how the Necronomicon functions as a tool for chronicling and interpreting scientific facts and discoveries popular in Lovecraft‘s lifetime, particularly advancements in theoretical physics, by scientists like Albert Einstein, and the exploration of the polar regions by adventurers such as Rear Admiral Richard Byrd. In many of these latter narratives where the Necronomicon plays such a role, readers encounter a strange dichotomy: the author‘s genuine love of and appreciation for the various sciences tempered by a fear of humanity‘s terrifying use of the knowledge it has gained. This results in the Lovecraft‘s perception of a universe wholly apathetic to the presence of mankind, a space of limitless dimensions which dwarf human perceptions. My project also discusses the influence of the Necronomicon on popular culture and on modern fiction, proving how the spellbook inspires current writers of genre fiction and those in the field of contemporary literature.

Mapping The Drowned World 

Climate-change is the new Cold War. 

 Abstract: 

Like the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, climate-change looms in the background, a constant insidious threat: imminent and inexorable, yet ill defined. Written in 1962, during the perpetual slowburning crisis of the Cold War, J.G. Ballard’s novel The Drowned World reads like an uncanny premonition of the key crisis of our current age: climate-change. As a bridge between the post-war apocalyptic fears of the recent past and current eschatological anxieties, this allegorical work of fiction is a rich source of information. Mapping The Drowned World is driven by the research question: what can we learn about our world by re-reading, re-writing and re-interpreting The Drowned World through the lens of art? This three-pronged methodology has generated three suites of artworks: a series of maps, and two major installations in the form of ruined scalemodel cities. In addition, a group exhibition which featured some of these works, alongside works made by five other Australian artists, was staged and documented in a catalogue, also titled Mapping The Drowned World. The written content of this research includes several new analyses of The Drowned World, critiques of the artworks made as part of this project and works made by other artists, and an original interstitial chapter for the novel which recuperates the only female character in The Drowned World. Together, both the creative and written components of this research contribute new knowledge to three fields: scholarship on J.G. Ballard, including contemporary artworks made in direct response to his stories; the field of critical cartography, both textual and visual; and works which respond to eschatological anxiety

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/af3e/c5c3bab224c6c67de7c891f7b047c72ae90c.pdf

Beto’s Free Speech Comeback? After Loss In Texas Governor’s Race, O’Rourke Will Fight For The Right To Call A Pipeline Billionaire A Crook

Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff - Thursday

Texas energy billionaire Kelcy Warren sued O’Rourke for defamation in February in a case that pits a powerful energy billionaire against a high-profile politician.


Beto O'Rourke stumping at a 'Keeping the Lights On' rally in Houston on February 15, 2022, the one-year anniversary of the winter storm that crippled the state. 

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Former El Paso Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke lost his 2018 bid for the U.S. Senate to Ted Cruz. His 2020 presidential bid didn’t gain traction. On this Election Day, he succumbed in a 55% to 44% wipeout to Texas’ incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

What’s next for O’Rourke? A court date as a defendant in a potentially high-profile lawsuit.

O’Rourke, 50, is fighting a defamation suit brought by oil and gas pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren, founder and executive chairman of Dallas-based Energy TransferET, in early 2022. O’Rourke said some pretty nasty things about Warren while on the campaign trail. The worst: accusing him of bribing Governor Abbott with $1 million as part of a conspiracy to sabotage the Texas power grid so Warren’s company could profit by gouging customers with high-priced emergency supplies of natural gas. As O’Rourke repeated the attacks on his February “Keep The Lights On” campaign tour across Texas, Warren repeatedly demanded O’Rourke retract his statements and not repeat them.

Warren filed suit in February. But O’Rourke refused to back down, and blasted him in a March press conference, saying Warren “not only is trying to influence the political process through the campaign donations he’s making, not only did he make illegal windfall profits off the suffering, misery, and death, of our fellow Texans, he’s now trying to shut us down in the courts through a frivolous lawsuit.”

The context: Energy Transfer made $2.4 billion in windfall profits during Texas’ February 2021 deep freeze, which knocked out power and heat to millions, leading to more than 200 deaths and at least $80 billion in damage. Electricity prices spiked from $30 per megawatt hour to hit the $9,000/mwh cap; natural gas jumped from $3 per million British thermal units to $500. During the freeze, many power plants went down, in some cases because they couldn’t get enough natural gas from pipeline systems that had frozen up or lost power. Energy Transfer’s operations were ready for the cold temperatures — enabling the company to charge escalated prices amid a shortage of natural gas. Their customers, mostly electric power utilities, have had to pass on record fuel prices to the very Texans hurt most by the freeze.

O’Rourke seized on the story of a billionaire pipeline magnate making money while Texans froze to death, after Abbott signed SB 3 in June 2021. The bill required energy companies to winterize their equipment to avoid future freeze offs. But it had a loophole: companies didn’t have to winterize if they declined to “self-identify as critical entities.” Energy Transfer didn’t. Soon after Abbott signed the bill, Warren wrote him a $1 million campaign check. Beto called quid pro quo.

O’Rourke wasn’t alone in casting aspersions. In August 2021, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial titled: “We froze and Abbott got paid — $1 million from the billionaire profiteer of Texas’ deadly storm.” A San Antonio paper questioned whether the governor really was taking bribes. Not a good look for the billionaire “profiteer from the greatest statewide disaster in recent memory,” as O’Rourke described Warren.

In December 2021, Abbott tweeted that Texas power plants had made upgrades and “they are good to go” for winter. O’Rourke responded that “we won’t be ‘good to go’” until pipeline operators were winterized — “but you let them off the hook b/c gas CEOs like Kelcy Warren donated millions to your reelection campaign…” O’Rourke tweeted that gas companies made $11 billion during the freeze because Abbott “put their profits over our lives” after “they bought him off,” and that they are “trying to do it again.”

O’Rourke likely figured there were political points to win in going after Warren and Energy Transfer. It’s one of the biggest pipeline companies in the United States, with 120,000 miles of pipes moving an estimated 30% of America’s oil and natural gas. The company became a left-wing pariah in 2017 when the path of construction for its Dakota Access Pipeline was blocked for months by hundreds of camped out anti-oil environmentalists. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace and other groups in 2018 for conspiring against it; that case was dismissed in 2019, prompting Energy Transfer to file another complaint in North Dakota state court. Trial is scheduled for June 2023.

Related video: Greg Abbott defeats Beto O’Rourke in Texas governor’s race
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Billionaires tend to have thick skins — so why did Warren let O’Rourke get under his skin rather than let the attacks roll off his back? Because, according to his court filings, Warren is outraged at O’Rourke’s “relentless and malicious attack on [him] by accusing him of serious crimes including extortion, bribery, and corrupt influence.”. These are fightin’ words. Warren sued O’Rourke in San Saba County, where he has owned the 21,000-acre Los Valles Ranch in the town of Cherokee since 2003.


Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, September 2022. 

Beto doesn’t appear to be particularly worried about some High Noon showdown with Warren, even after the court denied his motion for an early dismissal of the case in July. In their appeal, filed a week after their motion to dismiss was denied, O'Rourke's attorneys note there are strong protections for the “First Amendment rights of a gubernatorial candidate to speak freely regarding matters of utmost importance to Texans” — like the “exorbitant fees charged” by gas suppliers. They insist that O’Rourke’s “sharp language” to describe payment of a $1 million campaign check and its effect on public policy is “core protected political speech.” It’s likewise legitimate to question Abbott’s failure to prohibit gas price gouging that enabled Warren’s company to generate massive profits. O’Rourke’s brief says that his use of the word “bribe” was in “its nondefamatory colloquial sense.”

Even in San Saba County, where Warren hosts an annual music festival open to the public on his ranch, O’Rourke could win his appeal to dismiss the case if he can convince the appellate judges that his words are shielded by the Texas Citizens Participation Act, an “anti-SLAPP” statute that “protects citizens from retaliatory lawsuits that seek to intimidate or silence them on matters of public concern.” However, this defense isn’t a sure thing - O’Rourke’s motion for an early dismissal on TCPA grounds alone failed in July.

O’Rourke will increase his chances of winning if he can convince a judge or jury that Warren is not a private citizen, but rather a public figure “who has drawn substantial public attention” due to fame or notoriety or wealth (which would make him harder to defame). Warren first appeared on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 2009, was first featured in Forbes magazine in 2010, and this year rose to No. 227 on The Forbes 400, with a fortune estimated at $4.6 billion.

Because name-calling is generally not considered defamatory, O’Rourke can safely compare Abbott to Vladimir Putin and characterize Warren as one of his corrupt oligarchs. Warren, in his brief, responds that he “is a life-long Texan, not a Russian, and a self-made businessman.”

Warren contends that it is malicious, false and absurd for O’Rourke to allege that Abbott and Warren conspired to leave the Texas power grid vulnerable in order to make a few extra bucks. His original complaint says the allegation, “ignores the roles that [the Electric Reliability Commission of Texas], the [Public Utility Commission] and the Texas Legislature play in the management of Texas’ power grid and the oversight thereof.”

Warren’s attorneys, in briefs filed with the court, say O’Rourke has damaged their client’s reputation and wrongly dragged him into a public fight. And why him? Energy Transfer was far from the only winner in the deep freeze. Dallas Cowboys billionaire Jerry Jones crowed when the gas company he controls, Comstock Resources, made a billion dollars that week, as did another pipeline giant, Kinder MorganKMI (founded by Houston tycoon Richard Kinder). The Houston gas trading desk of Australian bank Macquarie scored $250 million. By singling out Warren when he hasn’t spoken publicly or sought publicity about any of this, O’Rourke “exposes him to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule […] impeaches Warren’s honesty, integrity, virtue and reputation,” Warren’s lawyers claim.

No evidence has surfaced indicating that Warren’s campaing donation was illegal. The only civil action Energy Transfer appears to be involved in related to the deep freeze is a case brought by San Antonio utility CPS Energy, which seeks to convince a Texas court to invalidate $257 million in charges owed to Energy Transfer for emergency gas on the grounds that high prices violated state price-gouging bans. Energy Transfer in its response says CPS should have had better risk management.

It’s significant too that, despite O’Rourke’s Chicken Little protestations, there were no problems with the Texas grid last winter. The state also managed to meet record high power demand during record-breaking summer heat without any reported blackouts. "Beto should stop cheering for the failure of Texas," an Abbott spokesman said in July.

Warren, like many other energy CEOs, has supported Abbott in nearly every race for more than a decade. His lawyers claim in their brief that O’Rourke knows full well that Warren’s donation to Abbott “was legal and does not constitute a ‘bribe’ or ‘corruption.’ Defendant knows that because he himself has actively solicited millions of dollars in donations (including by those in the energy industry), including a $1 million campaign contribution from billionaire George Soros.” It’s dangerous to condemn opponents’ campaign donors lest they look into yours. In addition to $1.5 million from Soros, O’Rouke received a $1 million check from now-humbled crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried.

Vicki Granado, a spokesperson for Energy Transfer, tells Forbes that O’Rourke’s central assertion — that Warren wants the Texas grid to fail so he can make more money — is just demonstrably false. “We have been designing and weatherizing our systems for years, so they are equipped to operate in all weather conditions. We have spent more than $30 million in Texas alone on this effort,” says Granado. Why would Warren bribe Abbott to avoid having to make investments they’d already made?

Oral arguments before a Texas appeals court panel on whether Warren vs. O’Rourke ought to be dismissed are set for December 27.