Representations of laboratory animals in popular media forms

Attitudes to animals are in part formed through engagement with popular culture and therefore we should pay attention to the potential of this domain for shaping animal lives. But can popular culture really do anything for the ‘laboratory’ animal? This paper explores the persistent and changing deployment of the laboratory animal in a range of humorous popular media (and cultural) texts, and suggests that its appearance in comedy could provide a useful means to reach an otherwise reluctant audience

Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture by Karen Raber

Chad Weidner reviews Animal Bodies, Renaissance Culture by Karen Raber

Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870-1914 by J. Keri Cronin

Teview of J. Keri Cronin\u27s Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870-191

Novel triblock co-polymer nanofibre system as an alternative support for embryonic stem cells growth and pluripotency

Conventionally, embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are cultured on gelatin or over a mitotically inactivated monolayer of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFsi). Considering the lack of versatile, non-animal-derived and inexpensive materials for that purpose, we aimed to find a biomaterial able to support ESC growth in a pluripotent state that avoids the need for laborious and time-consuming MEFsi culture in parallel with mouse ESC (mESC) culture. Undifferentiated mESCs were cultured in a new nanofibre material designed for ESC culture, which is based on the self-assembly of a triblock co-polymer, poly(ethyleneglycol-β-trimethylsilyl methacrylate-β-methacrylic acid), conjugated with the peptide glycine-arginine-glycine-aspartate-serine, to evaluate its potential application in ESC research. The morphology, proliferation, viability, pluripotency and differentiation potential of mESCs were assessed. Compared to conventional stem cell culture methodologies, the nanofibres promoted a higher increase in mESCs number, enhanced pluripotency and were able to support differentiation after long-term culture. This newly developed synthetic system allows the elimination of animal-derived matrices and provides an economic method of ESC culture, made of a complex network of nanofibres in a scale similar to native extracellular matrices, where the functional properties of the cells can be observed and manipulated

The changing role of cell culture in the generation of transgenic livestock

Transgenesis may allow the generation of farm animals with altered phenotype, animal models for research and animal bioreactors. Although such animals have been produced, the time and expense involved in generating transgenic livestock and then evaluating the transgene expression pattern is very restrictive. If questions about the ability and efficiency of expression could be asked solely in vitro rapid progress could be achieved. Unfortunately, experiments addressing transcriptional control in vitro have proved unreliable in their ability to indicate whether a transgene will be transcribed or not. However, initial studies suggest that cell culture may be able to predict in vivo post-transcriptional events. We review these issues and propose that strategies which engineer the transgene integration site could enhance the probability for efficient expression. This approach has now become feasible with the development of techniques allowing animals to be generated from somatic cells by nuclear transfer. The important step in this procedure is the use of cells grown in culture as the source of genetic information, allowing the selection of specific transgene integration events. This technology which has dramatically increased the potential use of transgenic livestock for both agricultural and biotechnological applications, is based on standard cell culture methodology. We are now at the start of a new era in large animal transgenics

Dorsal root ganglion neurons maintained in a 3D culture model exhibit similar electrophysiological properties to fresh explants

Tissue engineered culture models provide a powerful tool for neuroscience research1. They overcome limitations associated with monolayer cultures of neurons and glia by maintaining cells in a more realistic 3D spatial arrangement, and permit continuous monitoring and control of variables that cannot be achieved in animal models. Here we report the development of a system for recording electrophysiological behaviour in neurons in 3D culture

In vivo imaging of pyrrole-imidazole polyamides with positron emission tomography

The biodistribution profiles in mice of two pyrrole-imidazole polyamides were determined by PET. Pyrrole-imidazole polyamides are a class of small molecules that can be programmed to bind a broad repertoire of DNA sequences, disrupt transcription factor-DNA interfaces, and modulate gene expression pathways in cell culture experiments. The 18F-radiolabeled polyamides were prepared by oxime ligation between 4-[18F]-fluorobenzaldehyde and a hydroxylamine moiety at the polyamide C terminus. Small animal PET imaging of radiolabeled polyamides administered to mice revealed distinct differences in the biodistribution of a 5-ring β-linked polyamide versus an 8-ring hairpin, which exhibited better overall bioavailability. In vivo imaging of pyrrole-imidazole polyamides by PET is a minimum first step toward the translation of polyamide-based gene regulation from cell culture to small animal studies

Blackfish Lessons on Environmental Sustainability, Food, and Indigenous Culture

This essay, “Blackfish Lessons on Environmental Sustainability, Food, and Indigenous Culture,” examines Yup’ik interventions into understanding the place of human-nonhuman animal relations in regard to ecological sustainability. In lending consideration to Indigenous culture, the first part of the essay explicates the Yup’ik way of living, the Yuuyaraq, and its relationship to the environment. Then the essay turns toward two Yup’ik stories about blackfish, John Active’s “Why Subsistence is a Matter of Cultural Survival: A Yup’ik Point of View” (2001) and Emily Johnson’s “Blackfish,” taken from The Thank-You Bar recorded performance (Johnson, 2009), that speak to the imbrications of Indigenous culture and the environment

What is animal culture?

Culture in humans connotes tradition, norms, ritual, technology, and social learning, but also cultural events like operas or gallery openings. Culture is in part about what we do, but also sometimes about what we ought to do. Human culture is inextricably intertwined with language and much of what we learn and transmit to others comes through written or spoken language. Given the complexities of human culture, it might seem that we are the only species that exhibits culture. How, then, are we to make sense of culture in animals? The study of animal culture is a booming research area. Culture is said to occur in a wide range of vertebrates from our close kin, chimpanzees (Whiten et al. 1999) and orangutans (van Schaik et al. 2003), to more distant relatives like rats (Galef and Aleen 1995) and whales (Whitehead and Rendell 2015). Could these studies be misleading in that they are not actually studying culture but simply misapplying the term ‘culture’? Or is what is labeled culture in animals at the core of human culture, so that although human culture is more elaborate than animal culture, it is different in degree, not kind? While it is certainly easy to intentionally define culture in a way that makes it unique to humans, because of the growing field of animal culture, it would be most useful to attempt to offer a definition of culture that makes sense of how it is used by psychologists, biologists, anthropologists, and others who use the term culture in studies of animal behavior. The challenge is to produce a concept that is broad enough to be able to apply across humans and animals, but not be so anemic that it cannot do justice to human culture. Because of this, I will here construct a definition of animal culture and draw out some of its implications

Contending with animal bones (Editorial)

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] This issue has been assembled in order to focus on some of the current directions in animal remains research. Since serious study of ancient animal remains began in the nineteenth century, this field and its specific areas of inquiry have evolved and diversified, and this collection of papers highlights that diversity, by including contributions that address issues from excavation and field recording methods and preservational conditions, to the use of bone for understanding past animal populations, as well as bones as proxy indicators for human activities. This volume is not meant only for the attention of the faunal remains specialist, and only a couple of these papers have actually been contributed by "archaeozoologists". Rather we hope to demonstrate the importance of faunal remains studies, on a par with lithic or pottery research. It should be acknowledged that animal bones do not relate simply to the “economic” aspects of a culture but to all areas of the life world