Dinosaur footprints from the Duntulm Formation (Bathonian, Jurassic) of the Isle of Skye

The first in situ dinosaur tracks from Scotland were discovered at the top of the Duntulm Formation (Bathonian, Jurassic) near to Staffin in northeastern Skye. Fifteen individual tridactyl footprints were recorded of which two pairs appear to have been part of the same trackway. The footprints are preserved as natural moulds on a mud-cracked sandstone surface. The individual track sizes range from about 30 cm to over 50 cm in length with narrow to broad digits suggestive of having been made by a medium to large bipedal dinosaur

Rural poor relief in colonial South Carolina

This article explores the rural poor relief system of colonial South Carolina. It finds that poor relief was substantially more generous and more readily available in rural areas of South Carolina than elsewhere in British North America, or indeed in the entire Anglophone world. It suggests that this was because elite vestrymen had deep-seated concerns about the position of the white poor in a society that was dominated by African slavery. Generous relief of adult paupers was therefore a public demonstration of the privileges of race to which all whites were entitled. Elites in rural South Carolina also made considerable efforts to provide a free education for pauper children that would inculcate industry and usefulness among those who might become future public burdens. The serious attention paid to the situation of the white poor in colonial South Carolina was therefore part of an effort to ensure the unity of white society by overcoming the divisions of class

Black mortality in antebellum Savannah

Black mortality in an urban environment in the antebellum South is relatively under-researched. This article is based on burial records from Savannah between 1853 and 1861 and argues that black mortality in Savannah was noticeably better than on nearby plantations and was broadly comparable to white mortality. This is in contrast to previous studies on slave mortality which have tended to stress that black mortality was worse than white. I conclude by arguing that mortality was linked to more closely to class than race in Savannah

Adaptive immunity in cancer immunology and therapeutics.

Copyright: © the authors; licensee ecancermedicalscience. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The vast genetic alterations characteristic of tumours produce a number of tumour antigens that enable the immune system to differentiate tumour cells from normal cells. Counter to this, tumour cells have developed mechanisms by which to evade host immunity in their constant quest for growth and survival. Tumour-associated antigens (TAAs) are one of the fundamental triggers of the immune response. They are important because they activate, via major histocompatibility complex (MHC), the T cell response, an important line of defense against tumourigenesis. However, the persistence of tumours despite host immunity implies that tumour cells develop immune avoidance. An example of this is the up-regulation of inhibitory immune checkpoint proteins, by tumours, which induces a form of self-tolerance. The majority of monoclonal antibodies in clinical practice have been developed to target tumour-specific antigens. More recently there has been research in the down-regulation of immune checkpoint proteins as a way of increasing anti-tumour immunity

Interdisciplinary working in service design: case studies for designing touch points

The paper argues that interdisciplinary design can be successful in services design. It offers information about 2 case studies in which interdisciplinary teams address design services problems. The paper explains the design method employed in the case studies. It also identifies “user design centred” as the main concept that drove the design approach. It explains the meaning of “user centred design”, of “services design” and highlights the importance of “interdisciplinary services design”. The paper also offers a framework for interdisciplinary working in service design. KEYWORDS: Service Design, Touch Points, Interdisciplinary workin

Geoengineering: A war on climate change?

Geoengineering; specifically Solar Radiation Management ; has been proposed to effect rapid influence over the Earth’s climate system in order to counteract Anthropogenic Global Warming. This poses near-term to long-term governance challenges; some of which are within the planning horizon of current political administrations. Previous discussions of governance of SRM have focused primarily on two scenarios: an isolated “Greenfinger” individual; or state; acting independently ; versus more consensual; internationalist approaches. I argue that these models represent a very limited sub-set of plausible deployment scenarios. To generate a range of alternative models; I offer a short; relatively unstructured discussion of a range of different types of warfare – each with an analogous SRM deployment regime

Is 8:30 a.m. Still Too Early to Start School? A 10:00 a.m. School Start Time Improves Health and Performance of Students Aged 13-16.

While many studies have shown the benefits of later school starts, including better student attendance, higher test scores, and improved sleep duration, few have used starting times later than 9:00 a.m. Here we report on the implementation and impact of a 10 a.m. school start time for 13 to 16-year-old students. A 4-year observational study using a before-after-before (A-B-A) design was carried out in an English state-funded high school. School start times were changed from 8:50 a.m. in study year 0, to 10 a.m. in years 1-2, and then back to 8:50 a.m. in year 3. Measures of student health (absence due to illness) and academic performance (national examination results) were used for all students. Implementing a 10 a.m. start saw a decrease in student illness after 2 years of over 50% (p < 0.0005 and effect size: Cohen's d = 1.07), and reverting to an 8:50 a.m. start reversed this improvement, leading to an increase of 30% in student illness (p < 0.0005 and Cohen's d = 0.47). The 10:00 a.m. start was associated with a 12% increase in the value-added number of students making good academic progress (in standard national examinations) that was significant (<0.0005) and equivalent to 20% of the national benchmark. These results show that changing to a 10:00 a.m. high school start time can greatly reduce illness and improve academic performance. Implementing school start times later than 8:30 a.m., which may address the circadian delay in adolescents' sleep rhythms more effectively for evening chronotypes, appears to have few costs and substantial benefits

Safety and the flying doctor

Interest, curiosity, or dismay—which feeling predominates when we learn from BBC Newsnight that our NHS employs doctors who commute from Poland to cover the out of hours duties that local GPs are unable to work because they are too tired at night? Is it interest in an innovative solution for modern pan-European healthcare provision, curiosity in discovering huge variations in the standard of living across the medical profession in an open Europe, or dismay that the government’s emphasis, that healthcare practice should be based on the best scientific evidence, is little more than lip service? Working continuously for a long time, particularly at night, increases the risk of making errors and causing injury, which is why many professions limit the number of hours of continuous duty. These risks also apply to the medical profession: tired doctors make mistakes that harm patients (N Engl J Med 2004;351:1838-48) and themselve

Black and white relations

The roughly ten million Africans transported forcibly to the Americas between 1500 and 1850 were thrust headlong into a bewildering variety of different environments. Some cleared the jungles of South America, others grew sugar on small Caribbean islands, while a smaller number laboured in rice fields and tobacco farms or on the wharves of ports on the North American mainland. In all of these locations enslaved Africans added to a pre-existing mix of Native Americans, immigrant Europeans and their descendants. Enslaved Africans were never completely isolated from these other populations though in several Caribbean islands and in the coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia nine out of ten individuals were enslaved