Childlike: Queer Theory and Its Children

Making American Boys: Boyology and the Feral Tale (Kenneth B. Kidd) No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Lee Edelman) Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children (ed. Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley

Voters punish politicians for misinformation that portrays them in a favourable light, but not for inaccurate information that attacks their opponents.

What impact does inaccurate information have on political campaigning? Outlining the results of three studies on the role of misinformation in politics, Michael D. Cobb finds that voters react to positive and negative information in very different ways. While negative misinformation, such as using false figures to attack a political opponent, tends to linger in the minds of voters even after it is retracted; there is no such effect when positive information about a politician is debunked. Indeed, voters appear to actively punish politicians in the aftermath of positive misinformation

State-level corruption scandals do little to change voters’ minds about political parties.

Political corruption scandals seem to have become commonplace in American politics and the state-level is no exception. But do such scandals hurt the affected party at the ballot box? In new research which examines the effects of corruption scandals in North Carolina, Michael D. Cobb and Andrew J. Taylor find that voters are generally unable to identify the scandalous politician or their party. They argue that corruption scandals do little to affect a party’s vote, and that citizens tend to base their voting choices on other matters

Self-conscious emotions in patients suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain: a brief report.

OBJECTIVE: The role of self-conscious emotions (SCEs) including shame, guilt, humiliation and embarrassment are of increasing interest within health. Yet, little is known about SCEs in the experience of chronic pain. This study explored prevalence and experience of SCEs in chronic pain patients compared to controls and assessed the relationship between SCEs and disability in pain patients. DESIGN AND MEASURES: Questionnaire assessment comparing musculoskeletal pain patients (n=64) and pain-free control participants (n=63). Pain was assessed using the McGill Pain Questionnaire; disability, using the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire; and six SCEs derived from three measures (i) Test of Self-Conscious Affect-3 yielding subscales of shame, guilt, externalisation and detachment (ii) The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and (iii) The Pain Self-Perception Scale assessing mental defeat. RESULTS: Significantly greater levels of shame, guilt, fear of negative evaluation and mental defeat were observed in chronic pain patients compared to controls. In the pain group, SCE variables significantly predicted affective pain intensity; only mental defeat was significantly related to disability. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight the prevalence of negative SCEs and their importance in assessment and management of chronic pain. The role of mood in this relationship is yet to be explored

Sestrins are evolutionarily conserved mediators of exercise benefits.

Exercise is among the most effective interventions for age-associated mobility decline and metabolic dysregulation. Although long-term endurance exercise promotes insulin sensitivity and expands respiratory capacity, genetic components and pathways mediating the metabolic benefits of exercise have remained elusive. Here, we show that Sestrins, a family of evolutionarily conserved exercise-inducible proteins, are critical mediators of exercise benefits. In both fly and mouse models, genetic ablation of Sestrins prevents organisms from acquiring metabolic benefits of exercise and improving their endurance through training. Conversely, Sestrin upregulation mimics both molecular and physiological effects of exercise, suggesting that it could be a major effector of exercise metabolism. Among the various targets modulated by Sestrin in response to exercise, AKT and PGC1α are critical for the Sestrin effects in extending endurance. These results indicate that Sestrin is a key integrating factor that drives the benefits of chronic exercise to metabolism and physical endurance

Pinyon pine mortality alters communities of ground-dwelling arthropods

We documented the effect of drought-induced mortality of pinyon pine (Pinus edulis Engelm.) on communities of ground-dwelling arthropods. Tree mortality alters microhabitats utilized by ground-dwelling arthropods by increasing solar radiation, dead woody debris, and understory vegetation. Our major objectives were to determine (1) whether there were changes in community composition, species richness, and abundance of ground-dwelling arthropods associated with pinyon mortality and (2) whether specific habitat characteristics and microhabitats accounted for these changes. We predicted shifts in community composition and increases in arthropod diversity and abundance due to the presumed increased complexity of microhabitats from both standing dead and fallen dead trees. We found significant differences in arthropod community composition between high and low pinyon mortality environments, despite no differences in arthropod abundance or richness. Overall, 22% (51 taxa) of the arthropod community were identified as being indicators of either high or low mortality. Our study corroborates other research indicating that arthropods are responsive to even moderate disturbance events leading to changes in the environment. These arthropod responses can be explained in part due to the increase in woody debris and reduced canopy cover created by tree mortality

Boolean delay equations on networks: An application to economic damage propagation

We introduce economic models based on Boolean Delay Equations: this formalism makes easier to take into account the complexity of the interactions between firms and is particularly appropriate for studying the propagation of an initial damage due to a catastrophe. Here we concentrate on simple cases, which allow to understand the effects of multiple concurrent production paths as well as the presence of stochasticity in the path time lengths or in the network structure. In absence of flexibility, the shortening of production of a single firm in an isolated network with multiple connections usually ends up by attaining a finite fraction of the firms or the whole economy, whereas the interactions with the outside allow a partial recovering of the activity, giving rise to periodic solutions with waves of damage which propagate across the structure. The damage propagation speed is strongly dependent upon the topology. The existence of multiple concurrent production paths does not necessarily imply a slowing down of the propagation, which can be as fast as the shortest path.Comment: Latex, 52 pages with 22 eps figure

Pioneers, Probate, Polygamy, and You

The point is this: as we start to spin out our own wonderful and grotesque ideas about love, marriage, death, and wills, religion, and Marx, we also need to start thinking of marriage and family commitments as wills in and of themselves, pondering the implications of making the family a supeniatural relation of terror, longing, loss, and arrest. The Last Will and Testament that we are always making when we are in families, when we I do, is shot through with a deep connection between love and property that keeps us wishing that we could survive our deaths. The will is an explicit instrument of law, and the probate court makes up for wills that might not be there, and this legal realm keeps describing, securing, transforming, and codifying the terms of the family by way of the property of the person that will transcend the limits of her or his body, her or his sensuousness, which means her or his body, but also the very tactile relationships she or he has with people, places, and things. The will is like a revelation: even when we will become as dead as a table, we\u27re hoping there is still a way to make our wills extend indefinitely into some eternal future. The will is helping us think that we can do something religious: something like cheat death