Animal maiming, intimacy and the politics of shared life: the bestial and the beastly in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England

The everyday lives of many farm workers in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England were intricately and often intimately bound with the lives of animals, the ebb and flow of human life being inseparable from that of animal life. Farmyards, fields, folds as well as barns and stables were all spaces where animals transcended being the mere instruments of capital to instead being obvious co-constituents of the rhythms of existence. Living and working in such close proximity meant that the ‘species barrier’ was crossed and intimacies developed in everyday agricultural practices. Still, the relationship was based upon, if not reducible to, the workings of capital: the animal enrolled as a form of embodied capital, the labourer engaged by the farmer to act upon the animal. And in such relationships intimacies are mirrored by violences: the keeping captive, slaughter, and – occasionally – abuse. In this formative period in which the discourses and policies that continue to inform animal welfare were first formulated, the declining economic and material fortunes of farm workers when juxtaposed to farm animals’ fortune as increasingly ‘cosseted capital’ gave a particular charge to these abuses. Farm animals, and especially horses and cattle, so it is shown, were subjected to a series of violences. Many cases of animal maiming parodied tenderness in their brutality, whilst other attacks on the sexual organs of animals represented complex statements about the ways in which agrarian capitalism regulated all culture. Analysing the changing relationship between humans and animals therefore also helps us to better understand how capitalism mediates – and is mediated by – the non-human as well as the human, and how it defines cultural relations.

Eve and evolution: Christian responses to the first woman question, 1860-1900

Historians of encounters between evolutionary science and Christianity have long been aware of the significance placed upon debates about the applicability of evolution to Adam. It has not been widely noticed, however, that in more conservative circles the creation of Eve was frequently thought to be a more difficult problem to solve. This essay examines how, in distinctive ways, the creation of Eve became a point of contention among three communities of conservative Christian thinkers grappling with the implications of evolutionary theory in the period 1860-1900.

Microbial community of the deep-sea brine Lake Kryos seawater-brine interface is active below the chaotropicity limit of life as revealed by recovery of mRNA

Within the complex of deep, hypersaline anoxic lakes (DHALs) of the Mediterranean Ridge, we identified a new, unexplored DHAL and named it ‘Lake Kryos’ after a nearby depression. This lake is filled with magnesium chloride (MgCl2)-rich, athalassohaline brine (salinity > 470 practical salinity units), presumably formed by the dissolution of Messinian bischofite. Compared with the DHAL Discovery, it contains elevated concentrations of kosmotropic sodium and sulfate ions, which are capable of reducing the net chaotropicily of MgCl2-rich solutions. The brine of Lake Kryos may therefore be biologically permissive at MgCl2 concentrations previously considered incompatible with life. We characterized the microbiology of the seawater–Kryos brine interface and managed to recover mRNA from the 2.27–3.03 MMgCl2 layer (equivalent to 0.747–0.631 water activity), thereby expanding the established chaotropicity window-for-life. The primary bacterial taxa present there were Kebrit Deep Bacteria 1 candidate division and DHAL-specific group of organisms, distantly related toDesulfohalobium. Two euryarchaeal candidate divisions, Mediterranean Sea Brine Lakes group 1 and halophilic cluster 1, accounted for > 85% of the rRNA-containing archaeal clones derived from the 2.27–3.03 M MgCl2 layer, but were minority community-members in the overlying interface-layers. These findings shed light on the plausibility of life in highly chaotropic environments, geochemical windows for microbial extremophiles, and have implications for habitability elsewhere in the Solar System.

The Kremlin's Scholar. A Memoir of Soviet Politics under Stalin and Khrushchev

The memoirs are dominated by two grand figures of Soviet history, Stalin and Khrushchev. The account of Stalin is riddled with ambiguities. There is an undoubted personal admiration for Stalin, his intellectual and political capacity (Stalin allegedly read 300 pages per day), his simplicity in daily life seen in "an old tunic, patched-up socks, almost constant isolation" (p. 190). At the same time, Shepilov acknowledged the paranoid aspects of Stalin's personality, especially towards the end of his life. Stalin's mechanisms of power are illustrated by Shepilov's account of work on a new book on political economy. Stalin personally chose key people for important tasks and controlled them at key junctures to ensure the desired outcome. In this light, Shepilov's claims that the Great Purges of the late 1930s could have been outside of Stalin's immediate control seem implausible, to say the least (p. 41).

All Stalin's deficiencies, however, pale in comparison with those of Khrushchev, the bête noire of Shepilov's memoirs. There is plenty of criticism of Khrushchev's policies, particularly in agriculture and foreign affairs. What comes across most pungently is, however, Shepilov's disdain of Khrushchev's personality and leadership style. In this respect, the book is unashamedly biased and remarkable for its omissions as much as for its revelations.

PAlliative Care in chronic Kidney diSease: the PACKS study—quality of life, decision making, costs and impact on carers in people managed without dialysis

BACKGROUND: The number of patients with advanced chronic kidney disease opting for conservative management rather than dialysis is unknown but likely to be growing as increasingly frail patients with advanced renal disease present to renal services. Conservative kidney management includes ongoing medical input and support from a multidisciplinary team. There is limited evidence concerning patient and carer experience of this choice. This study will explore quality of life, symptoms, cognition, frailty, performance decision making, costs and impact on carers in people with advanced chronic kidney disease managed without dialysis and is funded by the National Institute of Health Research in the UK.

METHODS: In this prospective, multicentre, longitudinal study, patients will be recruited in the UK, by renal research nurses, once they have made the decision not to embark on dialysis. Carers will be asked to 'opt-in' with consent from patients. The approach includes longitudinal quantitative surveys of quality of life, symptoms, decision making and costs for patients and quality of life and costs for carers, with questionnaires administered quarterly over 12 months. Additionally, the decision making process will be explored via qualitative interviews with renal physicians/clinical nurse specialists.

DISCUSSION: The study is designed to capture patient and carer profiles when conservative kidney management is implemented, and understand trajectories of care-receiving and care-giving with the aim of optimising palliative care for this population. It will explore the interactions that lead to clinical care decisions and the impact of these decisions on informal carers with the intention of improving clinical outcomes for patients and the experiences of care givers.

From Angela's Ashes to the Celtic Tiger: Early Life Conditions and Adult Health in Ireland

We use data from the Irish census and exploit regional and temporal variation in infant mortality rates over the 20th century to examine effects of early life conditions on later life health. The urban mortality penalty collapsed in Ireland in the years right after World War II. Our main identification is public health interventions centered on improved sanitation and food safety, which we believed played a leading role in eliminating the Irish urban infant mortality penalty. Our estimates suggest that a unit decrease in mortality rates at time of birth reduces the probability of being disabled as an adult by about 12–18%

The validity of the MacNew Quality of Life Questionnaire in heart disease.

Background A previous review suggested that the MacNew Quality of Life Questionnaire was the most appropriate disease-specific measure of health-related quality of life among people with ischaemic heart disease. However, there is ambiguity about the allocation of items to the three factors underlying the MacNew and the factor structure has not been confirmed previously among the people in the UK. Methods The MacNew Questionnaire and the SF-36 were administered to 117 newly admitted patients to a tertiary referral centre in Northern Ireland. All patients had been diagnosed with ischaemic heart disease. Results A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the factor structure of the MacNew and the model was found to be an inadequate fit of the data. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the items suggested that a five factor solution was more appropriate and this was validated by confirmatory factor analysis. This new structure also displayed strong evidence of concurrent validity when compared to the SF-36. Conclusion We recommend that researchers should submit scores obtained from items on the MacNew to secondary analyses after being grouped according to the factor structure proposed in this paper, in order to explore further the most appropriate grouping of items.