Apparent tolerance of turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac

The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac is extremely toxic to Old World Gyps vultures (median lethal dose -0.1-0.2 mg/kg), evoking visceral gout, renal necrosis, and mortality within a few days of exposure. Unintentional secondary poisoning of vultures that fed upon carcasses of diclofenac-treated livestock decimated populations in the Indian subcontinent. Because of the widespread use of diclofenac and other cyclooxygenase-2 inhibiting drugs, a toxicological study was undertaken in turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) as an initial step in examining sensitivity of New World scavenging birds. Two trials were conducted entailing oral gavage of diclofenac at doses ranging from 0.08 to 25 mg/kg body weight. Birds were observed for 7 d, blood samples were collected for plasma chemistry (predose and 12, 24, and 48 h and 7 d postdose), and select individuals were necropsied. Diclofenac failed to evoke overt signs of toxicity, visceral gout, renal necrosis, or elevate plasma uric acid at concentrations greater than 100 times the estimated median lethal dose reported for Gyps vultures. For turkey vultures receiving 8 or 25 mg/kg, the plasma half-life of diclofenac was estimated to be 6 h, and it was apparently cleared after several days as no residues were detectable in liver or kidney at necropsy. Differential sensitivity among avian species is a hallmark of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors, and despite the tolerance of turkey vultures to diclofenac, additional studies in related scavenging species seem warranted.

Design Method for Circularly Polarized Fabry-Perot Cavity Antennas

A new class of circularly polarized (CP) Fabry-Perot cavity antennas is introduced that maintain the simplicity of a linearly polarized primary feed and a single cavity structure. The proposed antennas employ a double-sided partially reflective surface (PRS), which allows independent control of the magnitude and phase responses for the reflection and transmission coefficients. In conjunction with an anisotropic high-impedance surface (HIS) ground plane, this arrangement allows for the first time a single cavity antenna to produce a specified gain in CP from a linearly polarized primary source. A design procedure for this class of antennas is introduced. The method exploits a simple ray optics model to calculate the magnitude and phase of the electric field in the cavity upon plane wave excitation. Based on this model, analytical expressions are derived, which enforce the resonance condition for both polarizations at a predetermined PRS reflectivity (and hence predetermined antenna gain) together with a 90 degrees differential phase between them. The validity of the concept is confirmed by means of an example entailing an antenna with gain of approximately 21 dB at 15 GHz. Full-wave simulation results and experimental testing on a fabricated prototype are presented and agree well with the theoretical predictions.

Intentionality, morality, and the incest taboo in Madagascar

In a recent article (Astuti & Bloch, 2015), cognitive anthropologists Rita Astuti and Maurice Bloch claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent as to whether considerations of intentionality are relevant to moral judgments concerning incest and its presumed catastrophic consequences: when making moral judgments about those who commit incest, the Malagasy take into account whether the incest is intentional or not, but, when making moral judgments relating to incest’s catastrophic consequences, they do not take intentionality into account. Astuti & Bloch explain the irrelevance of intentionality in terms of incest entailing such a fundamental attack on the transcendental social order that the Malagasy become dumbfounded and leave aside considerations of intentionality. Finally, they claim that a similar dumbfound reaction is what is involved in the moral dumbfounding concerning incest that social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has found in the US. In this article, we argue that (i) Astuti & Bloch are unclear about many aspects of their claims (in particular, about the moral judgments at stake), (ii) they do not provide sufficient evidence that considerations of intentionality are deemed irrelevant to moral judgments relating to incest’s presumed catastrophic consequences (and hence for the claim that the Malagasy are ambivalent), (iii) their hypothesis that conceiving of incest as an attack on the transcendental social renders considerations of intentionality irrelevant lacks coherence, and (iv) the extension of their explanatory account to the moral dumfounding of American students in Haidt’s well-known scenario of intentional incest is unwarranted.