Geology of the Northern Llano Uplift, Junction to Llano, Texas

This year\u27s Texas Academy of Science Geology Field Trip will visit nine interesting locations in two different areas in the Texas Hill Country (Figure 1). In the first area we will look at the Cretaceous stratigraphy around Junction, Texas (Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4). The expedition will then travel to the northern part of the Llano uplift and study Cambrian and Precambrian stratigraphy and structure of the northern Llano Uplift (Figures 4 and 5). Stop 9 will be at Cooper’s BBQ for lunch

How the failure of two political parties helped lead to Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump

The UK’s recent vote to leave the European Union has been seen by many commentators as mirroring the rise in popularity of Donald Trump on the other side of the Atlantic. Chris Barker writes that the popularity of Trump and Brexit can be traced at least in part to a growing divide between the metropolitan upper classes and non-privileged households in both the US and the UK. He also argues that both the UK Labour and Conservative parties and the Republican Party in the US were unable to “create” political opinions that were against Brexit and Trump, meaning that they are now very much on the back foot

An American view on the Brexit vote: an opportunity not worth seizing

This Thursday the UK goes to the polls to decide whether the country should leave or remain in the European Union. Chris Barker sees parallels between the UK Conservative Party’s internal debate over the referendum, and the current fracturing of the Republican Party in the US. He warns that those who see Brexit as a way for the left and right movements in the UK to reinvigorate themselves may end up facing years of work sorting out the country’s EU-exit instead

Writing space, living space: time, agency and place relations in Herodotus’s Histories

This chapter examines lived space in Herodotus’s Histories’ and explores how the picture that emerges differs from abstract depictions of space. Such overly schematic representations we see articulated by the Persians at the very beginning of the Histories, or explicitly challenged by Herodotus when he ‘laughs at’ the maps produced by his Ionian contemporaries that similarly divide the world into two regions of equal size (4.36.2), or more subtly undercut when Aristagoras turns up with just such a map and puts it to service an argument in favour of conquest. In particular, we want to challenge conventional readings of a polarised world of East versus West, which, while grounded in Herodotus’s concern to show how ‘Greeks and barbarians came into conflict with each other’ (1.1), fail to take into account either Herodotus’s implicit rejection of the Persian model of an Asia-Europe divide in favour of an inquiry that recognises that places change over time, or the extent to which Herodotus or his historical agents relate those places to each other. Using key features of lived space—time, agency and relation—, we sketch out the beginnings of a network analysis of book 5, backed up by a close textual study of the book’s opening episode. Both methods help to unpack the idea of the Histories’ lived space that underpins and greatly complicates the historical agents’ own understanding of the world around them

Mapping an ancient historian in a digital age: the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Image Archive (HESTIA)

HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) employs the latest digital technology to develop an innovative methodology to the study of spatial data in Herodotus' Histories. Using a digital text of Herodotus, freely available from the Perseus on-line library, to capture all the place-names mentioned in the narrative, we construct a database to house that information and represent it in a series of mapping applications, such as GIS, GoogleEarth and GoogleMap Timeline. As a collaboration of academics from the disciplines of Classics, Geography, and Archaeological Computing, HESTIA has the twin aim of investigating the ways geography is represented in the Histories and of bringing Herodotus' world into people's homes

Lockdown is nothing like being in jail. But it should change the way we think about imprisonment.

For many, COVID-19 related lockdowns have evoked – largely inaccurate – comparisons with incarceration in prison. Chris Barker writes that while the analogy is limited, such thinking should encourage us to examine our own attitudes to punishment in America and what custodial sentences seek to achieve

Extracting, investigating and representing geographical concepts in Herodotus: the case of the Black Sea

In a short break from his preparations for the invasion of Scythia, Darius stops off where the Bosporus was bridged and sails to the Dark Rocks, apparently retracing the steps of the Argonauts.1 ‘There’, Herodotus reports, ‘he sat on the headland and viewed the Pontus, a wonderful sight’ (έζόμενος δέ έπί ρίω έθηεĩτο τόν Πόντον έόντα άξιοθέητον 4. 85. 1).2 In this paper, we aim to bring that wonderful sight to life using the latest digital technology, and to set out some of the ways in which the world that Herodotus describes can now be represented. At the same time, however, we will be concerned to show the potential of digital technologies for opening up new lines of enquiry, in particular the investigation of the ‘deep’ topological structures that underpin the Histories. After all, the Persian king is not the only figure to take an interest in the Pontus as a geographical concept: the historian too shows an interest in the Black Sea by extensively mapping the region and its place in the world, both before and after this episode (4. 37-45; 4. 99-101). The way that Herodotus articulates this space himself, which frames, and to a certain extent pre-empts, Darius’ invasion of Scythia, will be the concern of this paper

Students’ Assessment of Biology Education at Marshall University

The purpose of this thesis research was to evaluate the quality of scientific education offered in the College of Science’s Department of Biology at Marshall University. The objectives of this study were to emphasize the important aspects of higher education assessment, point out that a scientifically literate citizenry is imperative for society to function effectively, and to determine what factors contribute to differences among students with regard to their perception of the quality of scientific education they are receiving at Marshall. A survey questionnaire was administered to students in eleven biological science courses during the Fall semester of 2003 and the Spring semester of 2004. These courses spanned the biology curriculum and included the participation of freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students. An outcome of the assessment revealed that completing or currently being enrolled in all three designated core courses (BSC 320 Principles of Ecology, BSC 322 Principles of Cell Biology, and BCS 324 Principles of Genetics) results in students rating the quality of scientific education they are receiving significantly higher than students who have not taken all three core courses. By including a selected complement of controls embedded within the administered assessment tool, completing or being enrolled in all three core courses was the only variable that was statistically significant and positively affected the students’ perceptions of the quality of scientific education

Reviews

Martin Oliver (ed.), Innovation in the Evaluation of Learning Technology, London: University of North London, 1998. ISBN: 1–85377–256–9. Softback, 242 pages, £15.00

TeachMeet - librarians learning from each other

Teaching and training skills are a core requirement for many librarians (1)- whether the teaching is delivered to library users or to colleagues. Formal training in education, while included in some librarianship courses, is not yet available in all librarianship curriculums. Gaining teaching qualifications can be a costly and time consuming process, which might be low on the list of priorities for the employing organisation. Learning from colleagues and sharing experiences is a valuable way of improving practice (2). TeachMeet is an informal event in which like-minded practitioners share tools, techniques and tips they have tried themselves (3)Librarians at University of Cambridge have adapted TeachMeet for their own professional setting, sharing experiences and encouraging creative approaches to user education and continuing professional development. This paper will give a brief history of TeachMeet, how librarians adapted the concept, and how one TeachMeet event was evaluated by participants and organisers