Ego and the international. The modernist circle of George Sarton

The early years of Isis are examined in the light of George Sarton’s connection with Paul Otlet (1868 –1944) and Henri Lafontaine (1854 –1943), founders in 1895 of the International Office of Bibliography and in 1907 of the Union of International Associations, both in Brussels. Otlet, known as one of the fathers of the Information Age, invented the science of information, which he called, in French, documentation. Lafontaine, a socialist senator in Belgium, won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Peace. Sarton shared Otlet and Lafontaine’s views about pacifism, internationalism, and rational bibliography; he designed Isis to fit with the modernist goal, expressed by Otlet and Lafontaine, of using information to generate new knowledge

A record of fossil shallow-water whale falls from Italy

Twenty-five Neogene-Quaternary whales hosted in Italian museum collections and their associated fauna were analysed for evidence of whale-fall community development in shallow-water settings. The degree of bone articulation, completeness of the skeleton and lithology of the embedding sediments were used to gather information on relative water depth, water energy, sedimentation rate and overall environmental predictability around the bones. Shark teeth and hard-shelled invertebrates with a necrophagous diet in close association with the bones were used as evidence of scavenging. Fossil bone bioerosion, microbially mediated cementation and other mollusc shells in the proximity of the remains informed on past biological activity around the bones. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that shallow-water whale falls differ from their deep-water counterparts. Taphonomic pathways are more variable on the shelf and whale carcasses may not go through all steps of the ecological succession as recognised in the deep sea. Whilst the mobile scavenger and the enrichment opportunistic stages are well represented, chemosynthetic taxa typical of the sulphophilic stage were recovered only in one instance. The presence of a generalist fauna among the suspension feeding bivalves and carnivorous gastropods, and the extreme rarity of chemosynthetic taxa, suggest that predatory pressure rules out whale-fall specialists from shallow shelf settings as in analogous cold seep and vent shallow-water communities. © 2014 The Lethaia Foundation

Sobre o Estilo na História Intelectual

Style in past Ages denotes general sensibilities that guide thought and action. Attempts to show how style derives from the material circumstances of living remain inconclusive because of the difficulty in deciding which parts of culture past lie at the center of it. The advantages and the drawbacks of modelsand schemes offered by major theorists of the past several generations are used to support the proposition that philosophy is a dubious guide for practicing intellectual historians, who do best when they make their own methods from the materialthey study.O estilo no passado denotava sensibilidades gerais que guiam o pensamento e a ação. Tentativas de mostrar como o estilo deriva das circunstâncias materiais da vida permanecem inconclusivas por causa da dificuldade em decidir quais partes da cultura do passado estão no centro dele. As vantagens e desvantagens dos modelos e esquemas oferecidos pelos principais teóricos das gerações passadas são usadas para apoiar a proposição de que a filosofia é um guia duvidoso para praticantes da história intelectual, que se saem melhor quando criam seus próprios métodos a partir do material que estudam

Eros e Isis, tal pai, tal filha

ResumoOs Sartons, pai e filha são apresentados, analisados e cotejados neste artigo. George, o pai, era um erudito e historiador da ciência. A filha era uma artista e poetisa bem conhecida. As origens culturais, as relações familiares, as atitudes em relação à ciência, ao amor e à sexualidade são discutidas neste artigo, que assume uma postura muito crítica da biografia autorizada de May. O autor sustenta que para entender May, é importante conhecer George, que gerou as “filhas gêmeas”, May e Isis, um dos principais periódicos internacionais de história da ciência.AbstractThe Sartons, father and daughter are presented, analyzed and paralleled in this paper. George, the father, was a scholar and historian of science. The daughter was well known as a poet and woman of letters. Cultural background, family relations, attitudes in life regarding science, love and sexuality, are discussed in this paper, which departs from the treatment in May's authorized biography. The author contends that to understand May, it is important to know George, who fathered the “twins daughters”,May and Isis, one of the major international journal in history of science

Reconstructing Cetacean Brain Evolution Using Computed Tomography

Until recently, there have been relatively few studies of brain mass and morphology in fossil cetaceans (dolphins, whales, and porpoises) because of difficulty accessing the matrix that fills the endocranial cavity of fossil cetacean skulls. As a result, our knowledge about cetacean brain evolution has been quite limited. By applying the noninvasive technique of computed tomography (CT) to visualize, measure, and reconstruct the endocranial morphology of fossil cetacean skulls, we can gain vastly more information at an unprecedented rate about cetacean brain evolution. Here, we discuss our method and demonstrate it with several examples from our fossil cetacean database. This approach will provide new insights into the little-known evolutionary history of cetacean brain evolution

The stranding anomaly as population indicator: the case of Harbour Porpoise <i>Phocoena phocoena</i> in North-Western Europe

Ecological indicators for monitoring strategies are expected to combine three major characteristics: ecological significance, statistical credibility, and cost-effectiveness. Strategies based on stranding networks rank highly in cost-effectiveness, but their ecological significance and statistical credibility are disputed. Our present goal is to improve the value of stranding data as population indicator as part of monitoring strategies by constructing the spatial and temporal null hypothesis for strandings. The null hypothesis is defined as: small cetacean distribution and mortality are uniform in space and constant in time. We used a drift model to map stranding probabilities and predict stranding patterns of cetacean carcasses under H-0 across the North Sea, the Channel and the Bay of Biscay, for the period 1990-2009. As the most common cetacean occurring in this area, we chose the harbour porpoise <i>Phocoena phocoena</i> for our modelling. The difference between these strandings expected under H-0 and observed strandings is defined as the stranding anomaly. It constituted the stranding data series corrected for drift conditions. Seasonal decomposition of stranding anomaly suggested that drift conditions did not explain observed seasonal variations of porpoise strandings. Long-term stranding anomalies increased first in the southern North Sea, the Channel and Bay of Biscay coasts, and finally the eastern North Sea. The hypothesis of changes in porpoise distribution was consistent with local visual surveys, mostly SCANS surveys (1994 and 2005). This new indicator could be applied to cetacean populations across the world and more widely to marine megafauna