New World

The town of Augusta, 300km south of Perth in Western Australia, was settled in May 1830 and represents the first regional settlement of the British Swan River Colony outside of the Swan River area that was settled in 1829. One of many New World settlements established in Australia – and the rest of the New World – during the latter stage of the Industrial Revolution (c.1760-1840), it has not been studied despite its archaeological potential and significance. Augusta’s physical environment, isolation and milder climate comparative to the main settlements established at the Swan River makes it an excellent case study to observe adaptation in frontier environments during this period in Australian and the broader New World context.

The formation of the Swan River Colony resulted in the first ‘free’ – not associated with penal systems of emigration – British settlement in Australia and the archaeology of these initial towns is useful for studying behaviour in frontier environments. Despite Australia’s importance to the archaeological study of free settlement during this period, the comparative emphasis on penal history has created a bias – and general public perception – that Australia’s history is synonymous with a penal colony. While penal systems undoubtedly contributed to rapid development by a good supply of labour and resources, the bias is at the detriment of studying human behaviour in frontier environments. Western Australia was formally a penal colony from 1849 but despite two decades of free settlement the current archaeological literature about its past is tethered to the period post-1849.

The study of adaptation has been a focus of archaeology for many decades that has included how humans learn in frontier environments. A more recent emphasis has been placed on attempting to understand the specific cognitive and environmental variables involved in learning in a foreign environment. Rockman’s (2003) Landscape Learning Model provides a framework to understand how humans learn in a foreign environment using the variables of locational knowledge that involve locating resources; limitational knowledge linked to the limits of the environment and its resources; and social knowledge that is about how existing culture translates into the new environment. The Landscape Learning Model provides a framework that aims to understand the process and archaeological patterns of learning in a foreign environment.

This project asks the questions ‘what knowledge did British settlers bring and how effective was it at Augusta?’ and, ‘what is the archaeological evidence of learning at Augusta’. The questions were addressed using the results of a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) desktop study, two excavations in the main town site – those relating to the Turner and Molloy families– and four pedestrian surveys outside the main town site. The data from these surveys was subjected to functional analysis and used Rockman’s (2003) Landscape Learning Model as a framework to draw out inferences aiming to address learning at Augusta between 1830 and 1849 when most of the 1830 settlers left the area.

The results of this study present a slightly different narrative to that presented in the secondary histories written since the 1950s. The comparative emphasis in these histories on the later Vasse and Busselton settlements provides a basis for inferring that the function of Augusta was as a steppingstone following its abandonment by most of the initial British settlers. Additionally, interpretation to-date using only surviving primary historical documents and the human tendency to explain abandonment using failure – a ‘disaster mindset’ (C. Cameron & Tomka, 1993) - has resulted in the reasons surrounding British settlers departing Augusta being limited to that settlers were unable to overcome the blight of isolation and the physical environment. This is not the case. The British were highly resilient and the archaeology of this project demonstrates that this resilience enabled settlers to effectively learn about the new – foreign – environment. Furthermore, this research suggests that it is not useful to consider Augusta as ‘abandoned’ in 1849 given that continuous settlement occurred post-1849 and the exodus of British settlers can be attributed to social knowledge. The results of the study also highlight the archaeological potential and significance of Augusta and need for future study.

AFTER the optimism which followed the falling of the Berlin Wall, one has found out that the alternative to Cold War wasn't the Global Peace. Regional conflicts have grown stronger, becoming more intense than ever. At several levels, some taken-for-granted evidences were shaken by ...

Cassava or manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a perennial shrub of the New World, currently is the sixth world food crop for more than 500 million people in tropical and sub-tropical Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is cultivated mainly by resource-limited small farmers for its starchy roots, which are used as human food either fresh when low in cyanogens or in many processed forms and products, mostly starch, flour, and for animal feed. Because of its inherent tolerance to stressful environments, where other food crops would fail, it is often considered a food-security source against famine, requiring minimal care. Under optimal environmental conditions, it compares favorably in production of energy with most other major staple food crops due to its high yield potential. Recent research at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in Colombia has demonstrated the ability of cassava to assimilate carbon at very high rates under high levels of humidity, temperature and solar radiation, which correlates with productivity across all environments whether dry or humid. When grown on very poor soils under prolonged drought for more than 6 months, the crop reduce both its leaf canopy and transpiration water loss, but its attached leaves remain photosynthetically active, though at greatly reduced rates. The main physiological mechanism underlying such a remarkable tolerance to drought was rapid stomatal closure under both atmospheric and edaphic water stress, protecting the leaf against dehydration while the plant depletes available soil water slowly during long dry periods. This drought tolerance mechanism leads to high crop water use efficiency values. Although the cassava fine root system is sparse, compared to other crops, it can penetrate below 2 m soil, thus enabling the crop to exploit deep water if available. Leaves of cassava and wild Manihot possess elevated activities of the C4 enzyme PEP carboxylase but lack the leaf Kranz anatomy typical of C4 species, pointing to the need for further research on cultivated and wild Manihot to further improve its photosynthetic potential and yield, particularly under stressful environments. Moreover, a wide range in values of K m (CO2) for the C3 photosynthetic enzyme Rubisco was found among cassava cultivars indicating the possibility of selection for higher affinity to CO2, and consequently higher leaf photosynthesis. Several plant traits that may be of value in crop breeding and improvement have been identified, such as an extensive fine root system, long leaf life, strong root sink and high leaf photosynthesis. Selection of parental materials for tolerance to drought and infertile soils under representative field conditions have resulted in developing improved cultivars that have high yields in favorable environments while producing reasonable and stable yields under stress.

Lanternflies (Insecta: Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) are frequently used as examples of unusual morphological evolution, with some species (such as the peanut-headed bug, Fulgora laternaria Linnaeus) also ubiquitously cited as icons of tropical insect biodiversity. Despite that entomological notoriety, the phylogeny of this charismatic planthopper family has never before been studied. Presented here are the results of a phylogenetic investigation of Fulgoridae based on DNA nucleotide sequence data from five genetic loci (18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, histone 3, wingless, and cytochrome oxidase I). The resulting topologies are used to test the higher classification of Fulgoridae, which is based primarily on characters associated with the curious head morphology of many included species. Analyses include a taxonomic sample of 69 fulgorid species representing 46 (of 110) genera, 10 (of 11) tribes, and all 8 currently recognized subfamilies. Results of this study: (1) demonstrate the need for a revised classification of Fulgoridae, particularly at the higher taxonomic levels; (2) suggest that the genus Zanna is excluded from a monophyletic Fulgoridae; (3) indicate that there have been multiple losses of the extended head process across fulgorid evolution, with what appears to be convergence (in shape and/or loss) in distantly related lineages; and (4) suggest two alternative biogeographic hypotheses to explain the distribution of extant Fulgoridae, with either an Old World origin and a single subsequent colonization of the New World, or a contemporaneous diversification of Old and New World lineages.

Beginning in the ancient world, Jewish populations have repeatedly attained a position of power and influence within Western societies. I will discuss Jewish background traits conducive to influence: ethnocentrism, intelligence and wealth, psychological intensity, aggressiveness, with most of the focus on ethnocentrism. I discuss Jewish ethnocentrism in its historical, anthropological, and evolutionary context and in its relation to three critical

My dissertation is a conceptual-philosophical essay, which invites the reader to imagine how science education might appear, if defrosted from a disenchanting spell of the mechanistic worldview. The modern "Machine" has collapsed the entire world into a static, sterile, meaningless, soulless place, a disenchanted kingdom of plain passive matter. This disenchanted worldview has led to a prosaic materialistic mentality that has pushed modern civilization far from ecological, political, social, educational, and spiritual equilibriums (Griffin, 1989; Wilber, 1998). According to the science of complexity, a state-far-from- equilibrium is the edge of chaos, the dynamic space of possibilities, from which a new world might be born (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Barrow, 1999). Departing from rigid certainties of modernity and entering the eclectic and vague bricollage of postmodern visions, we cannot predict with certainty what possibility might actualize and what kind of world might...

This historical review addresses major neurological disorders associated with deficiencies of water-soluble B vitamins: beriberi, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, pellagra, neural tube defects, and subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord. Beriberi: Beriberi was known for millennia in Asia, but was not described by a European until the 17th century when Brontius in the Dutch East Indies reported the progressive sensorimotor polyneuropathy. The prevalence of beriberi increased greatly in Asia with a change in the milling process for rice in the late 19th century. In the 1880s, Takaki demonstrated the benefits of dietary modification in sailors, and later instituted dietary reforms in the Japanese Navy, which largely eradicated beriberi from the Japanese Navy by 1887. In 1889 Eijkman in Java serendipitously identified dietary factors as a major contributor to "chicken polyneuritis," which he took to be an animal model for beriberi; the polyneuritis could be cured or pre...

Carrying on from part one published in the July 2006 issue of animation: an interdisciplinary journal, part two continues its exploration of the animated series Chobits with an eye to how it reads problems of media and technology almost exclusively in terms of human desire, ...

A species of Sarcocystis is reported from a naturally infected African grey parrot, Psittacus erithacus, from Costa Rica. Only mature sarcocysts, measuring up to 2 mm in length and up to 750 μm in width, were observed. The sarcocyst wall was smooth. The villar protrusions on the sarcocyst wall were up to 5 μm long and up to 1.1 μm

Abstract: Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas may qualify as history’s most significant exploration. Despite this imposing status, debate persists regarding the first four islands visited during the month of October 1492. A myriad of studies have provided a multitude of possibilities, seemingly ad nauseam. That said, there is a need to revisit this debate. For seven decades many historians have concluded that Samuel Eliot Morison has provided the most cogent theory regarding the identity of these islands. Those same decades have led to complacency regarding the many inconsistencies between Morison’s theory, information provided by Columbus’s log, and the actual geography of the Bahamas. New resources are applied in an attempt to resolve these inconsistencies. They provide alternative interpretations to several passages within the Las Casas transcription of Columbus’s log. Although continuing to support a number of Morison’s conjectures, these alternative interpretations reject Morison’s choice of Rum Cay as Columbus’s second island, instead supporting Samana Cay for that position. This proposed change to Morison’s theory, of itself, is not as important, however, as it is to continuously challenge historical theories that appear incomplete or incorrect.

A partir do século quinze, observamos um fenômeno que teve, como uma de suas principais características, a disseminação do cultivo, comercialização e consumo de uma série de determinadas plantas. Apesar, de hoje a Historiografia dispor de um razoável volume de estudos publicados sobre as especiarias do Oriente, bem como o impacto econômico destas no Renascimento, uma questão ainda pouco abordada refere-se à disseminação e uso de algumas plantas americanas que, por sua vez, também se converteram em especiarias de considerável importância gastronômica e econômica.

From the beginning of the fifteenth century, it is observed a phenomenon that had as one of its main features, the spread of trade, cultivation and consumption of some specific varieties of plants. Although, modern historiography has a reasonable volume of studies published about the spices of the East as well as the economic impact of these in the Renaissance, an issue still remains, that is related to the dissemination and use of some American plants which in turn have also become spices of considerable economic, cultural and gastronomical importance.

There are as many as 300 New World lupin species, distributed from Alaska to the extreme south of South America. Only one species among these, Lupinus mutabilis has achieved crop status while several other species have been used as ornamentals or for land rehabilitation. L. mutabilis has considerable potential as a high protein and oil legume and it is phylogenetically