The last resort : spa therapy and the docile body in Victorian St. Catharines /

By relying on existing cultural models, the Victorian spa promoted health and wellness. Advertising, together with other forms of promotion, strengthened the legitimacy of its claims to cure a variety of health problems. By the use of some links to science and a mystical folk belief about the efficacy of the local mineral waters, three spas emerged in St.Catharines: the Stephenson House, the WeIland House, and the Springbank. As the twentieth century approached, the spa movement declined and institutionalized medicine struggled to establish a monopoly on health care. This thesis argues that the health spas in St. Catharines occupied that transitional space in nineteenth century medicine between home remedy and hospital. The interplay between scientific discovery and business enterprise produced a climate in which the Victorian health resort flourished. This phenomenon, combined with the various maladies brought on by industrialization, nineteenth-century lifestyle, and the absence of medical options, created a surge in the popularity of health spas and mineral spring therapies. By the tum of the twentieth century, interest in mineral water treatments had declined. The health resorts that had blossomed between 1850 and 1899 began to experience a serious decrease in business. This popular movement became outmoded in the face of emerging medical and scientific knowledge. In St. Catharines, the last resort to remain standing, the WeIland House, finished out the city's spa era as a hospital.

Level and precision of behavioural thermoregulation in the bearded dragon, Pogona vitticeps : effects of hypoxia and environmental thermal quality /

Most metabolic functions are optimized within a narrow range of body temperatures, which is why thermoregulation is of great importance for the survival and overall fitness of an animal. It has been proposed that lizards will thermoregulate less precisely in low thermal quality environments, where the costs associated with thermoregulation are high; in the case of lizards, whose thermoregulation is mainly behavioural, the primary costs ofthermoregulation are those derived from locomotion. Decreasing thermoregulatory precision in costly situations is a strategy that enhances fitness by allowing lizards to be more flexible to changing environmental conditions. It allows animals to maximize the benefits of maintaining a relatively high body temperature while minimizing energy expenditure. In situations where oxygen concentration is low, the costs of thermoregulation are relatively high (i.e. in relation to the amount of oxygen available for metabolic functions). As a result, it is likely that exposures to hypoxic conditions induce a decrease in the precision of thermoregulation. This study evaluated the effects of hypoxia and low environmental thermal quality, two energetically costly conditions, on the precision and level of thermoregulation in the bearded dragon, Pogona vitticeps, in an electronic temperature-choice shuttle box. Four levels of hypoxia (1O, 7, 5 and 4% 02) were tested. Environmental thermal quality was manipulated by varying the rate of temperature change (oTa) in an electronic temperature-choice shuttle box. Higher oT a's translate into more thermally challenging environments, since under these conditions the animals are forced to move a greater number of times (and hence invest more energy in locomotion) to maintain similar temperatures than at lower oTa's. In addition, lizards were tested in an "extreme temperatures" treatment during which air temperatures of the hot and cold compartments of the shuttle box were maintained at a constant 50 and 15°C respectively. This was considered the most thermally challenging environment. The selected ambient (T a) and internal body temperatures (Tb) of bearded dragons, as well as the thermoregulatory precision (measured by the central 68% ofthe Ta and T b distribution) were evaluated. The thermoregulatory response was similar to both conditions. A significant increase in the size of the Tb range, reflecting a decrease in thermoregulatory precision, and a drop in preferred body temperature of ~2 °C, were observed at both 4% oxygen and at the environment of lowest thermal quality. The present study suggests that in energetically costly situations, such as the ones tested in this study, the bearded dragon reduces energy expenditure by decreasing preferred body temperature and minimizing locomotion, at the expense of precise behavioural thermoregulation. The close similarity of the behavioural thermoregulatory response to two very different stimuli suggests a possible common mechanism and neuronal pathway to the thermoregulatory response.

Seasonal changes in behavioural and thermoregulatory responses to hypoxia in the Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus) /

Mammalian heterotherms, such as hibemators, are known to be more tolerant of low oxygen tensions than their homeothermic counterparts. It has been suggested that this relative hypoxia tolerance is related to their ability to deal with dramatic changes in body temperature during entry to and arousal from torpor. However, hibemators demonstrate dramatic seasonality in both daily heterothermy and overall torpor expression. It was of interest to test if seasonal comparisons of normothermic individuals within a single species with the capacity to hibernate produce changes in the response to hypoxia that would reflect a seasonal change in tolerance to low oxygen. In particular, the species studied, the Eastern chipmunk {Tamias striatus), is known to enter into torpor exclusively in the winter. To test for seasonal differences in the metabolic and thermoregulatory responses to hypoxia, flow-through respirometry was used to compare metabolic rate, minimum thermal conductance, body temperature, and a thermal gradient used to assess selected ambient temperature in response to hypoxia in both summer and winter acclimated animals. Although the animals periodically expressed torpor throughout the winter, no differences between season in resting metabolic rate, body temperature or minimum thermal conductance were observed in normoxia. The metabolic trials indicated that chipmunks are less responsive to hypoxia in the winter than they are in the summer. Although body temperature dropped in response to hypoxia in both seasons, the decrease was less in the winter, and there was no corresponding decrease in metabolic rate. Providing the animals with a choice of ambient temperatures in hypoxia resulted in a blunting of the drop in body temperature in both seasons, suggesting that the reported fall in body temperature set point in hypoxia is not fully manifested in the behavioural pathways responsible for thermoregulation in chipmunks. Instead, body temperature in hypoxia appears to be highly dependent on ambient temperature and oxygen concentration. The results of this study suggest that the season in which the responses to hypoxia are measured is important, especially in a heterotherm where seasonality can affect the degree to 1 which the animal is tolerant of hypoxia. Winter-acclimated chipmunks appear more capable of defending metabolic heat production in hypoxia, a response consistent with the increased thermogenic capacity observed in animals that must periodically enter and arouse from torpor during hibernation.

Body size in the field cricket Gryllus integer (Orthoptera : Gryllidae) :heritability and male mating success

The influence of male body weight on the aggressive and mating behaviour of male Gryllus integer was studied under laboratory conditions. The relationship between adult age and weight was first determined; female weight increased and male weight decreased with age. Virgin males that had been isolated since the adult molt were paired for similar age and a difference in weight of greater than 200 mg. Paired males and a virgin female were observed in a glass arena for 24 minutes or until a mating occurred. Larger males mated significantly more often than smaller males. Larger males attacked more often, were more successful in aggressive encounters and had more contact with the female. Males that did not mate had lower rates of courtship and mounts than males that mated. Females in trials that did not result in a mating were signifcantly heavier than females in trials that resulted in a mating. Larger males that mated were significantly closer in weight to the weight of the female than larger males in trials that did not result in a mating. Larger males in trials that did not result in a mating had higher rates of aggressive stridulation than larger males that mated. Male weight is therefore important in mating success; fitness traits should theoretically show low genetic variability. However, significant heritability values were found for live weight, dry weight, head width, pronotum width and length, hind femur length and forewing length when estimated from the regression of offspring on mid-parent values, offspring and female and male values separately and full-sib correlations. The heritability of hind femur width was significant when estimated from the regression of offspring on male parent and from full-sib correlations. Heritability estimates of forewing length were significantly higher when estimated from the regression of offspring on female parent than when estimated from the regression of offspring on male parent. High phenotypic, genetic and environmental correlations were found between all pairs of traits. Data on male mating success and the heritability of fitness traits were discussed in terms of the maintenance of genetic variability.

Between the panels: How anti-Black racism has recycled myths of the Black body in comic books

Anti-Black racism continues to be a widespread problem, and as such deserves investigation and elimination. As Jackson (2006) says; “There is a hyperawareness…of the negative inscriptions associated with the Black masculine body as criminal, angry and incapacitated.” (2) To continue the study of the changing face of racism, the researcher must be well equipped with a contemporary methodology which is adaptable and exploratory. Due to the malleability of racism, research into its elimination must make inroads to areas that have heretofore been neglected and overlooked by traditional academic study. This project achieves a unique perspective by undertaking a theoretical exploration of racist stereotypes and motifs in the world of mass produced superhero comic books, a genre of comics which has neither yet been thoroughly investigated for the use of racist stereotypes nor been the focus of anti-racist scholarship.

Progress and Challenges in Animal Handling and Slaughter in the U.S.

The article discusses the McDonald's Corporation audit and the ways to improve the handling of livestock on the way to slaughter.