Oxford University Press's Blog, page 272

The illegal orchid trade and its implications for conservation

When most people think of illegal wildlife trade, the first images that spring to mind are likely to be African elephants killed for their ivory, rhino horns being smuggled for medicine, or huge seizures of pangolins. But there is another huge global wildlife trade that is often overlooked, despite it involving thousands of species that are often traded illegally and unsustainably. Orchids are perhaps best known for the over 1 billion mass-market pot plants traded internationally each year, but there is also a large-scale commercial trade of wild orchids for food, medicine and as ornamental plants. This is despite the fact that all species of orchids are listed by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), which regulates and monitors the commercial trade of wild plants and animals that may be threatened by exploitation. Whilst CITES discussions often focus on elephants and other charismatic mammals, orchids make up over 70% of all of the species listed by the Convention.

Composition of the CITES Appendices, showing the large proportion of orchids within the species listed by the Convention Vector images courtesy of the Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

To highlight the problems associated with the illegal and unsustainable orchid trade, a review paper was published in December 2017 by an international team of authors from the IUCN Orchid Specialist Group’s Global Trade Programme. This paper provides the first global overview of the orchid trade, drawing attention to not only its diversity but also the conservation problems associated with it. For example, the trade includes species traded as:

Medicinal orchids

Various different orchid species are used in traditional medicines in several countries and on a lot of different scales, including on a commercial level in some cases. For example, the stems and tubers of several species are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, in products to improve general health condition as well as in medicines for specific problems. Similarly, South Asian Ayurvedic medicine uses at least 94 species of orchids in various medicinal preparations. In addition, orchids are used globally in various health products, including in bodybuilding supplements sold in Europe and the USA.

Edible orchids

Many people will have eaten orchids without realising, due to the countless products in international trade that contain the seeds of artificially propagated Vanilla orchids. However, this legal trade is only one example of orchids being used as ingredients in food and drink. One example is the trade in chikanda, a cake made from the ground tubers of terrestrial orchids and consumed in several countries in Central and East Africa. Another product made from the ground tubers of terrestrial species is salep, which is used as an ingredient in hot drinks and ice cream and consumed mainly in Turkey and neighbouring countries.

Ice cream made from orchids in Turkey. Photo credit: A Hinsley (Author).

Ornamental orchids

Orchids have been grown as ornamental plants for several thousand years, most commonly for their attractive flowers but also for their scent, patterned leaves or unusual growth habit. In Victorian Europe the ornamental trade was characterised by obsessive collectors suffering from orchidelirium (also known as orchid fever) that led them to pay huge sums for rare or unusual species. Whilst the majority of ornamental orchids traded internationally today are cut flowers and plants grown in greenhouses, there is still a large-scale commercial trade in wild, often illegally-collected plants. Harvesting for illegal trade is a particular problem in Southeast Asia, where species such as Canh’s slipper orchid (Paphiopedilum canhii) have been driven to extinction due to collection for international trade.

Whilst diverse, all of these trades have been linked to over-harvesting, causing decline and loss of species from the wild. In addition, the nature of the trade presents significant challenges to conservationists trying to regulate and monitor the trade. These include the direct threat from many different types of illegal harvest and trade, rapidly shifting patterns of consumer and supplier behaviour, the huge number of orchid species in trade that make identification difficult, and the fact that very little is known about the ecology of traded species, or how threatened they are in the wild. Finally, whilst the illegal trade in animals may get a lot of attention from the public, from conservation organisations and from policy makers, plants are often not seen as a priority, resulting in little funding being devoted to research or action to address the unsustainable trade

To address these challenges, the authors of the paper recommend that the conservation community should focus on conducting further research on trade dynamics and the impacts of collection for trade; strengthening the legal trade of orchids whilst developing and adopting measures to reduce illegal trade; and raising the profile of orchid trade among policy makers, conservationists and the public.

Featured image credit: Orchid by manfredrichter via Pixabay .

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Women in China, past and present

As we celebrate the lives and accomplishments of women around the world as part of Women’s History Month, we offer a brief look at changing gender roles in different periods of China’s past, and at a group of contemporary activists pushing for greater equality between men and women in the current era. In two excerpts on women from their forthcoming book, China in the 21 Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom place events that have taken place since Xi Jinping took power into a long-term historical perspective.

Was the status of women the same under all dynasties? 

Shifts in the status of women—or the lack thereof—offer evidence for the need to think about variations as well as continuities across dynasties. Modern observers, both within China and outside the country, criticize Confucianism for creating a patriarchy that oppressed women in imperial China. Yet women had very different experiences depending on the time, place, ethnic group, and social class in which they were born. It is therefore impossible to generalize about the status of women in traditional China—although the historical records that have survived mostly tell us about the lives of women who belonged to the upper classes.

During the Tang Dynasty (618–907 c.e.), for example, elite women participated in society and enjoyed a higher degree of autonomy compared to women in the Song Dynasty that followed. The Song, a time of Confucian revival, saw the spread of foot-binding and the confinement of women to the home. Yet although they were physically more restricted, elite Song women were generally literate, possessed greater property rights than women who came before or after them, and also took an active role in arranging the marriages of their children.

Upper-class women who lived during the Ming and Qing dynasties cultivated their skills in writing, needlework, poetry, and music, many of them becoming highly accomplished in these arts of the domestic sphere. Very few women questioned the social structures that kept them tied to the home while men controlled China’s political, legal, educational, and economic institutions. (Although the idea that women remained at home while men went out into the world divides things too neatly; plenty of elite women traveled.) In their own ways, elite Ming and Qing women carved out spaces for themselves, creating vibrant intellectual, cultural, and social networks.

As noted, the examples above all focus on the experiences of upper-class women; servants, courtesans, widows, and impoverished women lived within many more social and economic constraints. This is also not to overstate the agency of women in imperial China, but to point out that the common narrative about women’s victimization under Confucianism needs more nuance. The status of women varied considerably with time and place, and seemingly rigid Confucian ideology often proved more fluid in practice as both men and women adapted to political, economic, and social changes.

“In their own ways, elite Ming and Qing women carved out spaces for themselves, creating vibrant intellectual, cultural, and social networks.”

Who are the Feminist Five? 

One case that symbolizes the increased repression of civil society in the era of Xi Jinping is that of the Feminist Five, a group of activists arrested in 2015. The members of the group, who were based in several different Chinese cities, planned to hold a protest that year on 8 March  (International Women’s Day) that involved handing out stickers and leaflets decrying the prevalence of sexual harassment on public transit. Before the protest could take place, though, public security authorities moved in and arrested at least nine of the women organizing the action, accusing them of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” While some were quickly released, five remained in custody and soon became known as the Feminist Five.

The Feminist Five case outraged onlookers, both within China and around the world. US politicians and diplomats issued calls for their release. Although not all Chinese supported the women’s causes or their tactics (in a previous protest against domestic violence they had worn wedding dresses smeared with blood), many ordinary people also urged the government to release the Feminist Five. After five weeks of detention, authorities freed the women—although they remain under government surveillance and risk re-arrest if they push the boundaries too far.

The Feminist Five case is an example of how the space for protest has shrunk since Xi came to power. Gender equality and feminist causes are, at least officially, endorsed by the Chinese Communist Party, and in the past they have fallen into the safe zone of issues that could be publicly discussed. But the arrest of the Feminist Five signaled that the safe zone had disappeared.

Featured image credit: “Activism, Feminism” by Joody Runtgon. CC0 Public Domain via Pexels.

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Designers in silico

A puzzling observation: the progress epitomized by Moore’s law of integrated circuits never resulted in an equivalent evolution of user interfaces. Over the years, interaction with computers has evolved disappointingly little. The mouse was invented in the 1960s, the same decade as hypertext. Push buttons and the QWERTY layout existed in the 19th century and the display-plus-keyboard setup was used in the Apollo program. The menu, one of the most prevalent ways to present options in a user interface, was used by merchants in Imperial China to present food options to busy customers. We use the same technique of the menu in apps, operating systems, and consumer electronics.

Another puzzling observation: during the three decades of the modern graphical user interface, we have not become very proficient at designing usable interfaces. A recent example: on January 13, 2018, a false alert of an inbound ballistic missile was issued in the state of Hawaii, asking people to seek shelter. Panic ensued. Scrutiny of the event exposed a poorly designed menu: two similar options but with a critical difference—drill and no drill—were shown close to each other.

Is the user interface becoming a bottleneck to the development of information technology?

While algorithms can be studied using theorems and circuit can be analyzed using circuit theory, such as Kirchhoff’s current and voltage laws, there is no equivalent formal foundation for user interface design. Consequently, the study and design of user interfaces veered to a different direction, becoming more of a craft or practice, driven by heuristics, personal experience, empathy, mimicry, and—most dominantly—relentless trial and error. Design thinking has little room for engineering science. It offers no proven way to describe or explain essential aspects of interaction, derive good solutions, or predict key properties. The contrast to the way bridges and engines are designed is stark.

Computational interaction is the idea of using algorithms to analyze, generate, evaluate, and make user interfaces “alive.” It involves formal representation of the way in which a human uses or experiences technology, and some way of reasoning how this interaction should be organized. It is the act and process of obtaining a satisfactory (or optimal) solution against some computationally implemented objective or evaluative function.

The idea is not new. August Dvorak, the pioneer behind the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, derived its layout from first principles, in his case experimental effects pertaining to the efficiency and ergonomics of typewriting. The history of research in human-computer interaction reveals repeated attempts at this idea, at times using cognitive models, which would predict user performance, or optimization to derive optimal design combinations. If it these approaches were unsuccessful, why bother?

“Is the user interface becoming a bottleneck to the development of information technology?”

One rationale is that we need more efficient solutions, as the complexity of user interface technology is rapidly increasing. A regular webpage may involve several technologies to implement, for example, a grid of options shown to a user. Another reason is opportunity: we can now benefit from not only algorithmic advances in, for instance, machine learning, but also associated software (e.g., programming libraries), dataset, networking (e.g., cloud computing), and hardware (e.g., GPU) advances. In addition, advances in cognitive, economic, and behavioral sciences allow us to more elegantly express the rules that govern human performance and behavior, essentially equipping the computer with an ability to predict human responses to designs.

Progress has been rapid. For example, just eight years ago solutions in user interface optimization were limited to keyboard layouts and simple widget layouts. We can now optimally present visualizations such as scatterplots to the human perceptual system, allow users to enter text using computer vision sensors and hand gestures, and calculate how web layouts should be structured and presented. We can optimize menus for different goals, such as easy access or learnability. User interfaces can be tailored, for example, to groups who have special needs, such as dyslexics or people with motor tremor. The structure and content of user interfaces can be learned from observations, potentially on a massive scale.

Formal, probabilistic, economic, and optimization methods can compute optimal trade-offs among choices, provide guarantees, identify confidence intervals, and even derive proofs for user interface properties. In the Hawaii incident, had the user interface underwent testing using formal verification methods, the menu would not have made it into production. Probabilistic methods can be used to decode what a user intends when inputs are noisy or uncertain.

Besides practical uses, computational modeling may drive new discoveries about the very nature of interaction. Research on computational rationality is an example of this. A user’s behavior is described as a decision problem under bounds. The system estimates what a rational user would do with a user interface given certain goals and abilities, such as memory, attention, or motor skills. Models can then successfully predict the consequences of subtle changes to a task or interface design. For example, how does a users’ visual search strategy change if the ordering of a menu is changed, or different colors are used in a graphical user interface.

Perhaps the most daring proposition is that, beyond improvements to existing interfaces, innovation in this space—which in the literature is considered a through-and-through humane and creative activity—can be abstracted, decomposed, and solved in code and in silico.

Code could become a substrate and a nexus for scientists and designers to work together to improve the way we use computers.

Featured image credit: “together now” by John Schnobrich. Public Domain via Unsplash.

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World Kidney Day 2018: include, value, empower

This year on the 8th March, World Kidney Day coincided with International Women’s Day. With chronic kidney disease affecting 195 million women worldwide, the chosen theme ‘Kidneys & Women’s Health: Include, Value, Empower’ only feels apt.

Despite playing a vital role in the body maintaining homeostasis, kidney health is often overlooked by many of us, and if neglected could lead to serious health implications for both men and women.

Many substances housed in the body, either from food or metabolism, can become toxic and need to be removed. The kidneys clean approximately 200 litres of blood a day of excess salts, urea, and other waste products. To do this they require a stable, constant blood pressure. Angiotensin is a peptide hormone, whose release is stimulated by the kidneys and restores normal pressure levels by constricting blood vessels. As fluid intake varies over time, it is essential the kidneys also maintain the body’s appropriate electrolyte (sodium and potassium) and water balance. This vast scope of responsibilities makes the kidneys vulnerable to complications – and even though we are able to live with just one healthy kidney, these could be critical.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is defined by a gradual loss of function over time and is typically caused by other long-term illnesses that increase burden on the kidneys, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Most people can lead a normal life, showing no signs of symptoms. In the latter, more progressed stages of the disease however, these appear and normal function is considerably reduced. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is similar in terms of symptoms but is more likely to be caused by a specific event.

World Kidney Day 2018 Campaign Image via ©World Kidney Day.

Include

CKD is not limited to a particular demographic, but is more likely to develop in women and especially prevalent in people with Asian, African, or other ethnic minority backgrounds. In many less developed countries in these regions, there is a huge disparity regarding access to healthcare between genders, and so women tend to be the worst affected. This does not only apply to developing countries however; in the United States it is estimated that women pay $90k per capita more in healthcare costs and receive a lower standard of treatment compared to men. Global population is nearly 50% women and their health should be handled with as much priority as males, not only for their benefit but for humanity and future generations.

Value

For females, poor well-being can not only affect the individual but also that of her child. Studies have shown that CKD can be associated with growth restraints in babies. Decreased kidney function can affect fertility rates and a 20% kidney functionality rate can make it almost impossible to conceive. Women with pre-existing CKD before pregnancy may further lose function and require dialysis for blood filtration. The relationship between pregnancy and CKD is complicated and varies between patients. In some instances, kidney diseases may cause miscarriages; however there is evidence to suggest that for women with mild forms of the disease, no effect is seen and they are still able to have healthy pregnancies.

Pre-eclampsia is a condition that some women experience during pregnancy that includes increased urine protein levels and high blood pressure. Whilst having pre-eclampsia is a risk factor for AKI and CKD in itself, women who have had the condition in the past are also at a five times increased of developing end stage renal disease (ESRD). This is where the kidneys are not able to function as they should and the only options are either dialysis or transplant. Women are more likely to be a living donor than to receive a transplant and begin dialysis later than men. Although oestrogen is thought to have a protective effect against ESRD until menopause, it remains unclear whether this difference is due to biological characteristics of the disease or socio-economic factors.

Lupus nephritis is kidney inflammation caused by autoimmune disease, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), affecting eight times as many women than men. 10-30% of all patients with lupus will experience kidney failure and if not controlled may require dialysis.

Women are more susceptible to various kidney diseases mentioned above but the value of our kidneys is not superior for any gender. As with any health issue, it matters greatly to the individual patient. But what should be reinforced is that it matters no more or no less whether you are male or female.

Empower

The term ‘empower’ is defined as ‘Make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially controlling their life and claiming their rights.’ When we think of how to do this, healthcare doesn’t initially spring to mind. Gender bias and other social norms can further add to biological risk factors and put women at a much higher risk of kidney disease. If we can’t rule out biological differences we should at least aim to reduce the various socio-economic factors that contribute to this disparity. By understanding the value of health to women and in this instance, the importance of kidney health, we can empower through knowledge and broaden access to care and better informed decisions.

Featured image credit:  Hospital by sasint. CC0 Creative commons via Pixabay.

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What is biblical archaeology? [Extract]

In the following excerpt from Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, Eric H. Cline explains the interests of biblical archaeologists, and explores the types of questions that those in the field set out to answer.

While biblical archaeologists working today are generally more interested in learning about details of daily life in the ancient biblical world than proving or disproving the accounts in the Bible, many lay people have these priorities reversed. They want to know: Did the Flood take place? Did Abraham and the Patriarchs exist? Were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire and brimstone? Did the Exodus occur? These were some of the original questions in biblical archaeology that intrigued the earliest pioneers of the field. They still resonate today but are far from being answered.

Most biblical archaeologists do not deliberately set out to either prove or disprove elements of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament through archaeology. Instead, they investigate the material culture of the lands and time periods mentioned in the Bible, and the people, places, and events discussed in those ancient texts, in order to bring them to life and to reconstruct the culture and history of the region. This is particularly evident in New Testament archaeology, where the excavation of cities like Caesarea, Capernaum, and Sepphoris has shed light on the social, religious, and geographic situation in the time before, during, and after the life of Jesus.

However, biblical archaeology has generally provided more relevant information that can be correlated with the narratives of the Hebrew Bible than with those of the New Testament. There are several reasons for this disparity. The events depicted in the Hebrew Bible occurred over a much longer time period than those depicted in the New Testament—over millennia rather than over approximately two hundred years. Moreover, the stories and events described in the Hebrew Bible occurred throughout a much larger geographic area than those of the New Testament. The entire Middle East and North Africa provide the backdrop for the stories of the Hebrews, whereas the drama of the early Christians played out mainly in Syro-Palestine and to a lesser extent in ancient Greece and Italy.

For many scholars, the Bible is an important source of data that helps to shed light on ancient life and practices. Leaving aside for the moment the religious significance and the questions of the historical accuracy of the text, there is no question that the Bible is a historical document of seminal importance. It is an ancient source that often contains abundant details and descriptions of the Holy Land in antiquity. It is a source that can be used—with caution—to shed light on the ancient world, just as Syro- Palestinian archaeologists use Egyptian, Neo-Assyrian, or Neo-Babylonian inscriptions covering the same time period.

It is in the question of the historical accuracy of the texts where the interests of professional biblical archaeologists and the educated public overlap, for it is frequently the quintessential biblical questions—the ones that fueled the birth of the field—that still intrigue the public. Did Joshua capture Jericho? Was there someone named Abraham who wandered from Mesopotamia to Canaan? Did David and Solomon exist? Where was Jesus buried? Although biblical archaeology today is a far cry from what it was a hundred or more years ago—it is now more scientifically rigorous, and its practitioners have generally moved on to more anthropologically oriented topics—these basic questions still resonate. Unfortunately, answering them is not always easy.

Featured image credit: Bible church christian by Stempow. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Using the arts for change on International Women’s Day

With every generation comes difficult and contested times that shape history. In the United States, where we are experiencing one of the most divided societies in decades, the sentiment feels omnipresent and pervasive. For women and those of nonconforming gender, the issues at stake are even more expansive than the gun laws, environmental concerns, or tax reforms that are on the minds of our citizens. For those of us who identify as such, personal rights over our bodies and behaviors are being challenged. Trans people face harsh discrimination and a potential ban from military service, and women of color are still fighting the battle to be heard in feminist debates. Funding was cut for programs such as Planned Parenthood, and Roe vs Wade is still the subject of potential revision, leaving more questions than answers for anyone who identifies as a woman. Many discussions of policy have questioned who lawmakers are thinking of in their decisions – citizens or “big business”?  As the musician and artist Anohni has said in her Future Feminism manifesto, perhaps it is time for a world run by women.

The “#MeToo” movement has heightened awareness of the discrimination and harassment that women face on a daily basis. While this germinated in the entertainment industry, the wave of resistance has spread to technology, academia, and the arts. I believe that this recurring unveiling of the mistreatment of women adds to the feeling of bewilderment and consternation that many are feeling; however, I gain inspiration from the incredible women doing so much to fight a flawed system: from Malala to Oprah and our former first lady, Michelle Obama. In these turbulent times, these women, among so many others, are semaphores for a future where all people are treated with dignity and respect.

Image credit: Can You Hear Me Now? #MeToo by  Alec Perkins. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

At Benezit we have decided to spearhead a year of commissioning only women artists. This resulted from statistical analysis that showed a major skew in gender bias, not surprising given how long the resource has been in existence and the male domination of the field historically.  This year’s commissioning cycle includes new entries on female artists across generations and communities. Younger American artists Tschabalala Self, Carmen Argote, Njideka Akinyuli Crosby, and Dawn Kasper are new additions, among more established second wave feminist artists such as Barbara Hammer, Yvonne Rainer, and Susan Cianciolo. From Turkey, CANAN and Nil Yater are included as new entries, and Mechella Yezernitskaya and Tony Godfrey wrote articles on women artists from Russia and Southeast Asia respectively.

The hashtag “#PressForProgress” is the motto for this year’s International Women’s Day. This slogan is intended to motivate people to think, act, and be gender inclusive. We live in a society where women enjoy many freedoms that aren’t allowed in other countries, yet we still have a long way to go towards real equality in terms of family division of labor, salaries, and glass ceilings, especially in the art world. International Women’s Day is an occasion for each of us to think of ways to better the lives of women in our communities. The recent unveiling of portraits at the National Portrait Gallery of Barack and Michelle Obama signals progress. Barack’s portrait was painted by an openly gay African American artist, Kehinde Wiley, and Michelle’s portrait was by Amy Sherald, a female African American painter. At Benezit our contribution towards real equality is by adding more women artists, from diverse backgrounds, to our resource. We aim to fight sexism, racism, and ageism through the arts. The art community has always sought to use peaceful means to make real change. We encourage our readers to  think of new and innovative ways to push women’s issues forward, to promote equality in their  own community, and in general to help women achieve their goals.

Featured image: Paint by @jenswerd. Public domain via Unsplash .

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Women in economics: female achievement in a male-dominated field

Women in economics are underrepresented. According to the BBC, the number of women in economics is significantly smaller than in the STEM fields, which are already notorious for their poor gender ratios. From the perceived lesser aptitude of women making them reluctant to apply for economic courses, to family reasons delaying their progress, to subconscious bias preventing their research being published, it is impossible to determine one main underlying cause for this alarming lack of gender diversity. Yet, what is clear is the cause for concern that it creates. As a recent article from The Economist argues, a lack of diversity runs the risk of constraining or distorting the field’s intellectual development. And while, on International Women’s Day, we are focusing specifically on female economists, if economics is going to maximise its impact, there is an equally pressing need to broaden the number of racial and ethnic minorities in the field.

To mark International Women’s Day, we have listed below the achievements of five influential female economists. The list does not fully represent the little diversity that does exist in economic research, but we hope that it will open up important discussions that need to be had about diversity in economics.

Janet Yellen

Janet Yellen was the first female head of the central banking system in the United States, serving as Chair of the US Federal Reserve from 2014-2018. Prior to her role as Fed Chair, Yellen served on many economic committees and councils, including the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and was president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Yellen’s office as Fed chair has been widely praised; finally ending quantitative easing – creating new money electronically to stimulate the economy when interest rates are low – and raising interest rates for the first time in seven years in 2015 are just two of several achievements which occurred under her leadership.

Carmen Reinhart giving a speech in the university of Maryland by Carmen Reinhart. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Much of Yellen’s research focused on issues in macroeconomics and labour economics. She co-created the fair wage-effort hypothesis, which unusually incorporated theories from sociology and psychology as well as economic theory. Yellen was also concerned with poverty and inequality; her co-authored paper on out-of-Wedlock childbearing in the US, for example, was adapted into a policy brief prepared for the Brookings Review.

Carmen Reinhart

Carmen Reinhart is currently Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School, and holds roles at several leading economics research institutes. Her research covers a broad range of topics in macroeconomics and international finance. She became the focus of significant news coverage when it was discovered that a paper she co-authored with Kenneth Rogoff contained a spreadsheet miscalculation. Nonetheless, the authors stood by the conclusion of the paper that high levels of government debt is associated with notably lower rates of growth – a conclusion that is often cited to justify budget-cutting.

Reinhart has published many other influential pieces of work, particularly on financial crises. Her book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly and also co-authored with Rogoff, is a New York Bestseller and has been translated into over 20 languages.

Christina Romer

Christina Romer is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Her most famous early research focused on the causes of the Great Depression and the recovery thereafter. It was her extensive knowledge on the Great Depression, and its recovery, that led her appointment as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors by the Obama administration in 2008.

For two years, Romer met with the President on a daily basis to help navigate the country through the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. When she stepped down to return to teach at Berkeley a statement issued by the Whitehouse praised her role as a “forceful and tireless advocate of additional measures to support the recovery and help the unemployed.” While Obama himself commented on how greatly he had “valued and appreciated her skill, commitment and wise counsel.”

Portrait of the economist and author Dambisa Moyo by Davidgrundy. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom was the only woman to date to win the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Yet despite the great achievement, Ostrom had very little in the way of economics qualifications – all of her degrees were in political science. This set Ostrom out as different from her contemporaries from the offset, and indeed her methodology reflects this. Her most famous work focused on human interaction with ecosystems to maintain sustainable resource yields. It was for this work that she was awarded the Nobel Prize, jointly with Oliver E. Williamson, for her “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” Unusually for economic researchers she used case studies to show that, contrary to popular belief, collectively used resources would not necessarily be over-used and exploited, but that common property could be successfully managed by groups using it in an economically and ecologically sustainable way.

Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo is an economist and author whose focus is predominantly on macroeconomy and global affairs. She has worked for both the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, and sits on the boards of Barclays Bank, Seagate Technology, Chevron Corporation, and Barrick Gold. Moyo’s reputation for “provoking extreme reactions” largely stems from her stand against government aid in Africa, which she details in her New York Times bestselling book, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. In it she argues that aid transfers from rich governments to developing countries in Africa has not improved the lives of Africans, but rather made the poverty worse by creating an overreliance which prevents economic growth. Bill Gates famously criticised her work as promoting “evil” by depriving those in need of life-saving help. Moyo, however, fought back in a blog post, saying that Gates’ comment undermined her knowledge and research, as well as her experience growing up in Africa. Despite the contention, Dead Aid played a significant role in opening up important discussions on the role of foreign aid and how it is best implemented. Moyo continues to influence economic thinking with her more recent research on the slowdown in economic growth in developed countries.

Featured image credit: meeting business planning by rawpixel.com. Public Domain via Unsplash .

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Animal of the Month: 13 facts about frogs

The Anura order, named from the Greek an, ‘without’ and oura, ‘tail’, contains 2,600 different species and can be found in almost every continent on Earth. These are frogs, and they comprise 85% of the extant amphibian population on earth. They hop around our gardens, lay swathes of frothy eggs in our ponds, and come in a wide variety of exciting colours, but apart from that, how much do you really know about them?

Don’t be put off by their slimy skin and their associations with witchcraft. Ignore the fact that ‘frog-face’ is an insult, and that some frogs contain enough poison to kill two adult bull elephants. Frogs are amongst the oldest and most diverse vertebrates on our planet, and are truly incredible creatures. Learn more about them with 13 facts about frogs that you may not have already known. Why do some frogs have five legs? Why do some female frogs give out their own mating calls? And why do the French really get nicknamed ‘frogs’?

1. Frogs vs toads

To begin with, let’s clear up this tale as old as time. What is the difference between frogs and toads? The answer is that, actually, very little separates the two species. They both belong to the Anura order, but toads can be told apart from their cousins with their rougher, bumpier skin, and their rounder body with shorter legs. Having said this, some frogs have warty skin and some toads have smooth, slimy skin, amongst other similarities, so the debate around their differentiation is ongoing.

2. How old?

Frogs are very old indeed. They are, in fact, so old, that ‘modern’ amphibians (including frogs) were hopping around alongside Cretaceous, Jurassic, and even Triassic dinosaurs up to 246 million years ago!

3. Defended from disease

Some frogs, particularly those whose tadpoles take longer to grow, have antimicrobial peptides in their skin, which help to fight against emerging amphibian pathogens. This has been clearly linked to the evolutionary development and diversification of frogs.

4. France and frogs

Frenchmen, specifically Parisians, have been nicknamed Frogs or Froggies due to their ancient heraldic device consisting of three frogs or toads. ‘Qu‘en disent les grenouilles?’ (‘What do the frogs say?’) was a common court phrase at Versailles in the eighteenth century. Frogs feature in Paris’s coat of arms because it was at one time a quagmire called Lutetia (‘mud-land’). This nickname also perseveres due to the hind legs of frogs being a delicacy in French cuisine, much to the amusement of the English.

‘Rana esculenta on Nymphaea edit’ by Helge Busch-Paulick. CC-BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

5. Eating frogs

Whilst frog’s legs are perceived by the English to be a delicacy particular to the French and the French alone, this is far from true. In fact, they are eaten in countries around the world, whether they were previously under French influence (as in Louisiana and some islands in the West Indies) or not. The frog most favoured in France is Rana esculenta, which is found over much of Europe and is larger than the common frog and usually greenish, but with black markings.

6. Not so tasty

The poisons in poison dart frogs are lipophilic alkaloids, which are alkaloids that combine with or dissolve in lipids or fats. As well as potentially being fatal to most predators, they also taste rather bitter. We would strongly advise against eating these guys.

7. Population problems

Many species of frog are under threat for a number of different reasons, and can be indicative of environmental problems, as their semipermeable skin and requirements for moisture render them particularly sensitive to pollutants and atmospheric changes. A study of the effect of pesticides upon frog populations in North America indicates that these chemicals can also affect frog reproduction.

8. What are you looking at?

Carnivores almost exclusively have vertical-slit pupils, but frogs are some of the only carnivores that have horizontal-slit pupils. These are good at detecting motion in a vertical plane, and because many of their prey are flying insects, which move in three dimensions off the surface of the Earth, horizontal-slit pupils give these predators an advantage in spotting flying prey.

9. All the single ladies

The production of advertisement calls in sexual contexts is predominantly an attribute of males, and this is how frogs attract one another. However, in some species of frog females also give advertisement calls. It is believed that this is in order to activate male vocal behaviour, thereby assessing the capacity of males to withstand acoustic competition.

Plate 6: Emperor Nero on Horseback, from ‘The First Twelve Roman Caesars’, after Tempesta by Antonio Tempesta and Matthäus Merian the Elder. CC0 public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

10. Frog in the throat

Can you guess where this term for hoarseness or a lost voice came from? It supposedly stems from the medieval fear of drinking water with frogspawn in it. When the frogs inevitably grew, they would try to escape from the stomach via the throat, causing a hoarse, gagging noise. One of the more creative reasons for medieval folks drinking beer instead of water…

11. Malformed frogs

Malformation is very common in frogs, and has been the subject of study for over 300 years. Examples include frogs with unusually small limbs, limbs bent back on themselves, and, most commonly, missing hind legs. It can occur in one of three ways: genetic, epigenetic, or trauma.

12. Buried alive

Some frogs live in deserts, and to escape the searing hit of the dry season they bury themselves underground. The water-holding frog Cyclorana platycephala can remain buried underground for over five years if favourable surface conditions do not occur.

13. The Frog Prince

The tale of the Frog Prince, in which a spoilt princess must befriend and kiss a frog in order to turn him into a handsome prince, has been told and re-told countlessly over the years, most recently being turned into a Disney-animated film featuring the company’s first African-American princess. However, did you know that the story, made popular by the Grimm Brothers, was actually being told in Roman times? First-century author Petronius uses the phrase “qui fuit rana nunc est rex” (“The man who was once a frog is now a king”) in his work Satyricon, indicating that the tale was known by the first century. Scholars have, however, suggested that the frog in fact represents the Emperor Nero, to whose court Petronius belonged.

Featured image credit: ‘Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) 4’ by Geoff Gallice. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Neanderthal cave art

On 23 February this year, the American journal Science published an article by an international group of scientists and prehistorians. It presented a series of dates obtained from layers of calcite that had formed on top of drawings in three Ice-Age-decorated caves in Spain: La Pasiega in the north, Maltravieso in the centre, and Ardales in the south. The results—c. 64-66,000 years ago—are so early that it makes it certain that Neanderthals must have made these markings on cave walls. There is bound to be a great deal of controversy over these results for a number of reasons.

We have only been dating cave art directly since the 1990s, by the radiocarbon method, which can only date organic material (i.e. charcoal drawings). Back then, we were powerless to date drawings in manganese or ochre (inorganic materials) or engravings.

But now, the calcite-dating method allows us to obtain minimum ages for these other drawings if they have some calcite formed on top of them. The dating method has been used for decades by geologists, but it’s only in recent years that archaeologists have tried to obtain dates for cave art from it—with very exciting results.

The previous early dates obtained by this method from a few North Spanish caves (published by the same team in Science in 2012) caused great surprise in some quarters, because many prehistorians are highly conservative and prefer the traditional belief that all art came from our own species; some still believe that Neanderthals were brutish savages with no culture. The dates of c. 35 to 40,000 years ago were rejected on the basis that modern humans were in Spain by that time. While this is true, the objectors were ignoring the fact that the calcite dates only provide a minimum age for the art beneath, and that art could, therefore, be far older. The method was later supported by similarly early dates from caves in Sulawesi (Indonesia), and now by these new results that make it clear Neanderthals did produce cave markings. The markings are still considered to be non-figurative; as of yet, there are no drawings of animals, which characterise the Ice Age cave art produced by modern humans. The motif in La Pasiega is a geometric shape, and the earliest date (Maltravieso) is a hand stencil.

“The results—c. 64-66,000 years ago—are so early that it makes it certain that Neanderthals must have made these markings on cave walls.”

All dating methods are subject to caveats. They are at the cutting edge of science, and usually involve tiny samples that can be very difficult to take and are often subject to various kinds of contamination. However this project has been carried out by the top experts in the field, so I feel sure its results are valid and reliable.  However, they will doubtless be rejected – as were the team’s Spanish results in 2012 – by conservative prehistorians who refuse to change their beliefs.

Accepted or not, this new study  actually does not tell us much about Neanderthals that we didn’t know already. Some of us have believed for many years that Neanderthals did have culture, and the evidence has been steadily building in recent years. For example, some Neanderthal living sites contain kilos of pigments, making it likely that they not only practised body painting but also some form of rock art. We know they had jewellery and used feathers. There have been very encouraging signs in recent years that the general view of Neanderthals was changing. For example, a few years ago an exhibition in the Dordogne on Neanderthal burials featured a display case devoted to “Neanderthal art” for the first time; and the most recent mannequins of Neanderthals produced for museums including London’s Natural History Museum now feature some body-painting.

The most important evidence emerged during the last few years in France, where a cave called La Roche-Cotard has produced a crude sculpture of stone and bone, dating to c. 70,000 years ago, that represents a kind of face. That cave–which was totally sealed at the end of the Neanderthal period— also contains various patterns of finger-marking on its walls (forming geometric shapes), and some spots of red ochre, proving once again that Neanderthals did mark cave walls. So these new dates from three Spanish caves, together with the Spanish results already published in 2012, add tremendous grist to the mill.  Neanderthals were indeed cave artists long before modern humans adopted the practice.

The capacity for symbolic behaviour, or symbolic thinking, is an important and distinctive part of being human and shows that Neanderthals were indeed human beings and very like us in many different ways. One might even dare speculate that modern humans picked up the idea of producing cave art from the Neanderthals when they encountered them in western Europe!

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Seven women you may not know from music history

The historical record of women making music extends back as far as the earliest histories and artifacts of musical performance. For example, artwork from Ancient Greece and Rome suggest that women’s choruses were featured in rituals and festivals. And throughout Chinese imperial history the courts, civil and military officials and wealthy households employed women to sing, dance, and play musical instruments. Medieval convents, which offered women opportunity for musical literacy, were the birthplaces of many renowned singers and of some of the earliest female composers we know by name.

How have women impacted the history of music? Below are seven women who impacted music history who might have gone unheard.

Kassia (b. 810)

A Byzantine-Greek composer and hymnographer, Kassia received a sophisticated education, including the study of classical Greek literature (the influence of which may be seen in her liturgical and secular poetry, epigrams, and moral sayings). She became the abbess of a monastery and during the reigns of Theophilus (829–42) and his son Michael (842–67) wrote a number of liturgical compositions to contemporary texts, some of which may be settings of her own poems.

Hildegard of Bingen (b. 1098)

Hildegard of Bingen was a Benedictine abbess, visionary, writer and composer. Highly decorative, the text and music of Hildegard’s songs are intimately related and inseparable, as parallel syntaxes mirroring (and at times contradicting) one another, while unfolding within an idiosyncratic system of modes. On another level, the songs are meditations upon visionary texts that in turn represent poetically condensed exegesis of complex theological issues, expressed at greater length in the prose trilogy of visions. Like all the writings received “in visio” by the presence of the Living Light, ultimately the music’s purpose lies in fostering ruminatio (“chewing over”), a method of penetrating the deeper spiritual meaning behind both words and music. As such, the songs are a special Hildegardian facet of contemplative medieval practice.

Image credit: “Hildegard von Bingen. Line engraving by W. Marshall” by W. Marshall. CC BY 4.0 via Wellcome Collection. 

Queen Elizabeth I (b. 1533)

In Queen Elizabeth I’s court, music played a significant part in all royal state occasions, and the queen, who had a devotion to church music, often gave detailed instructions to her courtiers as to the nature of the music she wished to have. Music was heard at the beginning and end of Elizabeth’s life: it is said that “Te Deum was sung incontinently upon her birth,” and Jacques Bonnet in his Histoire de la musique et de son effets (1715) cited the memoirs of the Abbé Victorio Siri (1677–9) to the effect that when she was dying she called for her musicians to play around her bed; “so that, she said, she might die as gaily as she had lived, and that the horrors of death might be lessened; she heard the music tranquilly until her last breath.”

Lili‘uokalani, Queen of Hawaii (b.1838)

Lili‘uokalani, Queen of Hawaii, sang, played the piano, organ and various plucked string instruments, and was a choir director at Kawaiaha‘o Church. Her first published work, in 1867, was the hymnlike He mele lāhui Hawai‘i, used until 1876 as the Hawaiian national anthem. Her Nani nā pua Ko‘olau (“The Flower of Ko‘olau”) was one of the first Hawaiian songs to have been published on the American mainland (1869).

Florence Price (b. 1887)

Florence Price was the first black American woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major American orchestra. She incorporated spirituals and characteristic dance music within classical forms, and at times deviated from traditional structures in deference to influences that are implicitly African-American, for example call-and-response techniques and Juba dance rhythms.

Louise Talma (b.1906)

An American composer, Louise Talma had a strong religious faith that is reflected in her many settings of Biblical texts. She was the first woman to be elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and her opera, The Alcestiad, was the first by an American woman to be performed in a major European opera house (1962, Frankfurt).

Ella Fitzgerald (b. 1917)

After having run away from an orphanage, Ella Fitzgerald was homeless when in November 1934 she won an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre. Fitzgerald had a gift for mimicry that allowed her to imitate other well-known singers (from Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin) as well as jazz instruments. For decades Fitzgerald was considered the quintessential female jazz singer.

Featured image credit: The Daughters of Catulle Mendès, Huguette (1871–1964), Claudine (1876–1937), and Helyonne (1879–1955) by Auguste Renoir. Public domain via Metropolitan Museum of Art .

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