Review ["Telling the Evolutionary Time : Molecular Clocks and the Fossil Record" edited by Philip C. J. Donoghue and M. Paul Smith]

Determining the temporal scale of biological evolution has traditionally been the preserve of paleontology, with the timing of species originations and major diversifications all being read from the fossil record. However, the ages of the earliest (correctly identified) records will underestimate actual origins due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record and the necessity for lineages to have evolved sufficiently divergent morphologies in order to be distinguished. The possibility of inferring divergence times more accurately has been promoted by the idea that the accumulation of genetic change between modern lineages can be used as a molecular clock (Zuckerkandl and Pauling, 1965). In practice, though, molecular dates have often been so old as to be incongruent even with liberal readings of the fossil record. Prominent examples include inferred diversifications of metazoan phyla hundreds of millions of years before their Cambrian fossil record appearances (e.g., Nei et al., 2001) and a basal split between modern birds (Neoaves) that is almost double the age of their earliest recognizable fossils (e.g., Cooper and Penny, 1997).

"What is contemporary art? A review of two books by Terry Smith'

What is contemporary art and what are the key components of contemporary culture? This review demonstrates where Terry Smith provides important answers to this question. The books thus help to improve understanding of how art has changed in recent decades and how a global culture now shapes its parameters. This review does not however concur that Smith provides a convincing case for a complete cultural paradigm transformation.

Review : "The Man from Hong Kong" -- Brian Trenchard Smith

Synopsis and review of the Australian action film The Man from Hong Kong (Brian Trenchard Smith, 1975). Includes cast and credits. Australia’s first martial arts action film was a coproduction between Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest and director Brian Trenchard Smith’s Movie Company, with significant investment from BEF Distributors, a subsidiary of the Australian exhibition chain Greater Union. Two years previously, Golden Harvest had coproduced the Bruce Lee smash hit Enter the Dragon, with Warner Bros. The Man from Hong Kong was its first partnership with an Australian producer, and the first coproduction between Hong Kong and Australian based companies. Although the film was almost entirely set in Sydney, much of the production was shot in a Hong Kong studio, where sets including Wilton’s gloriously decorated apartment were built...

Philanthropy and the arts : Harold Mitchell's review will create a bigger funding pool

Harold Mitchell's review of private sector arts support is a bit like Ian Thorpe in his swimming heyday. He's a big presence, and has dived in with a determined goal and a strategy to win 'gold' for the arts, streamlining giving from the big end of tow. But Mitchell is also chasing people's "silver and bronze", putting forward the case that the arts touches everyday Australians (think Gen Y music festivals and going to films like Red Dog).

Domestic ecologies : gender and domesticity in Harold Pinter's Rooms

Harold Pinter's work opens the walls to the relatively closed rooms of domesticity. The room of the love affair, the unpredictable liaison, the cramped cluttered rooms of poverty and the disaffected. This study uses Pinter's rooms to analyse existing ideologies of gender, territory, power and domesticity. Pinter's rooms are more often than not reflections of familiar domestic spaces. This research investigates Pinter's rooms through a case study of a theatre set for one of his plays and textual analysis of selected works, developing an understanding of how Pinter's characters reflect behaviours within the domestic environment, mimicking while subverting domestic ecologies.

An abuse of process - traditionally: Smith v Lucht [2014] QDC 302

In Smith v Lucht [2014] QDC 302 McGill DCJ considered whether in Queensland the concept of abuse of process was sufficiently broad as to encompass circumstances in which the resources of the court and the parties to be expended to determine the claim were out of all proportion to the interest at stake. Stay of proceedings - abuse of process - whether disproportionality between interest at stake and costs of litigating may amount to abuse of process - plaintiff with good cause of action entitled to pursue it.

Martha Smith

[Excerpt] Martha Smith said goodbye to her long withstanding career as Associate Director of ILR’s Office of Career Services. Smith earned a B.S. in Business Administration from California State University, Hayward in 1969. In 1976, she came to Ithaca when her husband was a Ph.D. student at Cornell, and in 1978 Smith became a temporary assistant to Professor Larry Williams. Shortly after, Smith was offered a permanent position in the Office of Career Services where she advised and befriended students for over 26 years. After retiring, Smith plans to devote more time to her community and her church. When reflecting upon her career of assisting and nurturing in the development of ILR students, Smith said, "They come in as caterpillars; they evolve, and then they leave as butterflies. They have to learn to be students, it isn’t always easy Martha Smith but they always manage. As they open up we all learn that we are more alike than we are different and together we learn to appreciate the likenesses and the differences."

A review of Taenaris Hubner (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Amathusiinae) in Queensland, together with first Australian records for T. myops kirschi Staudinger and Elymnias agondas melanippe Grose-Smith (Satyrinae).

Species of the amathusiine genus Taenaris Hubner known to occur in Australia, predominantly from Torres Strait, are reviewed and illustrated. T. myops kirschi Staudinger is recorded for the first time in Australia from four male specimens collected on Dauan Island, Torres Strait. A female specimen of the satyrine Elymnias agondas melanippe Grose-Smith also collected from Dauan Island represents the first record of this taxon from Australia. The high degree of variation observed in the external facies of Taenaris from Torres Strait and reliable taxonomic separation of female specimens are discussed. Taenaris-like forms of the papilionid, Papilio aegeus ormenus Guerin-Meneville and E. a. melanippe from Torres Strait and Dauan Island respectively are illustrated and reviewed. The form of P. a. ormenus from Torres Strait that is most similar to Taenaris spp. is identified as form ormenus Guerin-Meneville variety onesimus Hewitson.

Negligible evidence for regional genetic population structure for two shark species Rhizoprionodon acutus (Rüppell, 1837) and Sphyrna lewini (Griffith & Smith, 1834) with contrasting biology

Biodiversity of sharks in the tropical Indo-Pacific is high, but species-specific information to assist sustainable resource exploitation is scarce. The null hypothesis of population genetic homogeneity was tested for scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini, n = 237) and the milk shark (Rhizoprionodon acutus, n = 207) from northern and eastern Australia, using nuclear (S. lewini, eight microsatellite loci; R. acutus, six loci) and mitochondrial gene markers (873 base pairs of NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4). We were unable to reject genetic homogeneity for S. lewini, which was as expected based on previous studies of this species. Less expected were similar results for R. acutus, which is more benthic and less vagile than S. lewini. These features are probably driving the genetic break found between Australian and central Indonesian R. acutus (F-statistics; mtDNA, 0.751–0.903, respectively; microsatellite loci, 0.038–0.047 respectively). Our results support the spatially homogeneous monitoring and management plan for shark species in Queensland, Australia.

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10−8). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms.

Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology

Obesity is heritable and predisposes to many diseases. To understand the genetic basis of obesity better, here we conduct a genome-wide association study and Metabochip meta-analysis of body mass index (BMI), a measure commonly used to define obesity and assess adiposity, in up to 339,224 individuals. This analysis identifies 97 BMI-associated loci (P < 5 × 10−8), 56 of which are novel. Five loci demonstrate clear evidence of several independent association signals, and many loci have significant effects on other metabolic phenotypes. The 97 loci account for ~2.7% of BMI variation, and genome-wide estimates suggest that common variation accounts for >20% of BMI variation. Pathway analyses provide strong support for a role of the central nervous system in obesity susceptibility and implicate new genes and pathways, including those related to synaptic function, glutamate signalling, insulin secretion/action, energy metabolism, lipid biology and adipogenesis.

FTO genotype is associated with phenotypic variability of body mass index

There is evidence across several species for genetic control of phenotypic variation of complex traits1, 2, 3, 4, such that the variance among phenotypes is genotype dependent. Understanding genetic control of variability is important in evolutionary biology, agricultural selection programmes and human medicine, yet for complex traits, no individual genetic variants associated with variance, as opposed to the mean, have been identified. Here we perform a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of phenotypic variation using ~170,000 samples on height and body mass index (BMI) in human populations. We report evidence that the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs7202116 at the FTO gene locus, which is known to be associated with obesity (as measured by mean BMI for each rs7202116 genotype)5, 6, 7, is also associated with phenotypic variability. We show that the results are not due to scale effects or other artefacts, and find no other experiment-wise significant evidence for effects on variability, either at loci other than FTO for BMI or at any locus for height. The difference in variance for BMI among individuals with opposite homozygous genotypes at the FTO locus is approximately 7%, corresponding to a difference of ~0.5 kilograms in the standard deviation of weight. Our results indicate that genetic variants can be discovered that are associated with variability, and that between-person variability in obesity can partly be explained by the genotype at the FTO locus. The results are consistent with reported FTO by environment interactions for BMI8, possibly mediated by DNA methylation9, 10. Our BMI results for other SNPs and our height results for all SNPs suggest that most genetic variants, including those that influence mean height or mean BMI, are not associated with phenotypic variance, or that their effects on variability are too small to detect even with samples sizes greater than 100,000.

Harold Silver papers, undated, 1922-1977.

The collection contains personal correspondence, manuscript and printed copies of articles and speeches, photographs and newspaper clippings pertaining to the education and social welfare activities of Silver.