Should great apes have 'human rights'?

Celebrating 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides an opportune moment to ask whether it is time for the other great apes to be granted ‘human rights’. Nonhuman great apes are not human beings and therefore ‘human rights’ is inappropriate terminology in this context. Nevertheless there is a strong argument for granting great apes fundamental legal rights such as bodily liberty (freedom from slavery) and bodily integrity (freedom from torture). For some readers this suggestion may seem odd or laughable. But John Stuart Mill astutely recognised that “each time there is a movement to confer rights upon some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable. This is partly because until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of ‘us’—those who are holding rights at the time” (Mill J (1859) p.126). Although Mill’s words related to the controversial debate of his time – whether women were rational beings deserving of a legal right to vote – the wisdom of his words ring true to the current controversial debate – whether great apes are rational and emotional beings deserving of a legal right to freedom from torture and slavery. This debate is not pure academic speculation. Questions as to the legal personhood of chimpanzees have recently arisen in international cases

Redundant RF system for space application

An S-band radio frequency subsystem is described including two transmitters, two receivers and two antennas. The subsystem is capable of connecting either transmitter or receiver to either antenna while permitting simultaneous operation of a transmitter and a receiver. Circulator switches provide selection of a specific transmitter and receiver for connection to either a high gain or low gain antenna. Transmitter output filters, receiver input filters, and diplexers are combined to prevent radiation or coupling or unwanted transmitter and receiver signals and to provide isolation, permitting simultaneous operation of the transmitter and receiver. The filter elements are designed of constant diameter coaxial elements to meet demanding rejection, loss, power-handling and environmental characteristics

In situ PCR for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in endoscopic mucosal biopsy specimens of intestinal tuberculosis and Crohn disease

Tuberculosis and Crohn disease are granulomatous disorders affecting the intestinal tract with similar clinical manifestations and pathologic features. We evaluated the use of in situ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex-specific primers for IS61 10 to differentiate these 2 disorders in archival mucosal biopsy specimens. In situ PCR was positive in 6 of 20 tuberculosis biopsy specimens and I of 20 Crohn disease biopsy specimens. Staining was localized to a site of granulomatous inflammation in 3 of the tuberculosis specimens and in the Crohn, disease specimen. In the other tuberculosis biopsy specimens, positive staining was localized to inflammatory granulation tissue and to a focus of intact mucosa without granulomatous inflammation. The presence of M tuberculosis DNA in Crohn disease could be due to coexisting latent tuberculosis or indicate a role for these bacteria in triggering an abnormal immune response. Therefore, in situ PCR is potentially useful to differentiate intestinal tuberculosis from Crohn disease, if the sensitivity is improved

The 3-Dimensional Distribution of Dust in NGC 891

We produce three-dimensional Monte-Carlo radiative transfer models of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 891, a fast-rotating galaxy thought to be an analogue to the Milky Way. The models contain realistic spiral arms and a fractal distribution of clumpy dust. We fit our models to Hubble Space Telescope images corresponding to the B and I bands, using shapelet analysis and a genetic algorithm to generate 30 statistically best-fitting models. These models have a strong preference for spirality and clumpiness, with average face-on attenuation decreasing from 0.24(0.16) to 0.03(0.03) mag in the B(I) band between 0.5 and 2 radial scale-lengths. Most of the attenuation comes from small high-density clumps with low (<10%) filling factors. The fraction of dust in clumps is broadly consistent with results from fitting NGC 891's spectral energy distribution. Because of scattering effects and the intermixed nature of the dust and starlight, attenuation is smaller and less wavelength-dependent than the integrated dust column-density. Our clumpy models typically have higher attenuation at low inclinations than previous radiative transfer models using smooth distributions of stars and dust, but similar attenuation at inclinations above 70 degrees. At all inclinations most clumpy models have less attenuation than expected from previous estimates based on minimizing scatter in the Tully-Fisher relation. Mass-to-light ratios are higher and the intrinsic scatter in the Tully-Fisher relation is larger than previously expected for galaxies similar to NGC 891. The attenuation curve changes as a function of inclination, with R_(B,B-I)=A_(B)/E(B-I) increasing by ~0.75 from face-on to near-edge-on orientations.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Microbes, immunoregulation, and the gut

Two distinct, but rapidly converging, areas of research ( the hygiene hypothesis and the study of probiotic/prebiotic effects) have emphasised the need to understand, and ultimately to manipulate, our physiological interactions with commensal flora, and with other transient but harmless organisms from the environment that affect immunoregulatory circuits. The story began with allergic disorders but now inflammatory bowel disease is increasingly involved