Differences in the carcinogenic evaluation of glyphosate between the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs Programme identifies chemicals, drugs, mixtures, occupational exposures, lifestyles and personal habits, and physical and biological agents that cause cancer in humans and has evaluated about 1000 agents since 1971. Monographs are written by ad hoc Working Groups (WGs) of international scientific experts over a period of about 12 months ending in an eight-day meeting. The WG evaluates all of the publicly available scientific information on each substance and, through a transparent and rigorous process,1 decides on the degree to which the scientific evidence supports that substance's potential to cause or not cause cancer in humans. For Monograph 112,2 17 expert scientists evaluated the carcinogenic hazard for four insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate.3 The WG concluded that the data for glyphosate meet the criteria for classification as a probable human carcinogen. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is the primary agency of the European Union for risk assessments regarding food safety. In October 2015, EFSA reported4 on their evaluation of the Renewal Assessment Report5 (RAR) for glyphosate that was prepared by the Rapporteur Member State, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). EFSA concluded that ?glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans and the evidence does not support classification with regard to its carcinogenic potential?. Addendum 1 (the BfR Addendum) of the RAR5 discusses the scientific rationale for differing from the IARC WG conclusion. Serious flaws in the scientific evaluation in the RAR incorrectly characterise the potential for a carcinogenic hazard from exposure to glyphosate. Since the RAR is the basis for the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) conclusion,4 it is critical that these shortcomings are corrected

Neptune Odyssey: A Flagship Concept for the Exploration of the Neptune–Triton System

The Neptune Odyssey mission concept is a Flagship-class orbiter and atmospheric probe to the Neptune-Triton system. This bold mission of exploration would orbit an ice-giant planet to study the planet, its rings, small satellites, space environment, and the planet-sized moon Triton. Triton is a captured dwarf planet from the Kuiper Belt, twin of Pluto, and likely ocean world. Odyssey addresses Neptune system-level science, with equal priorities placed on Neptune, its rings, moons, space environment, and Triton. Between Uranus and Neptune, the latter is unique in providing simultaneous access to both an ice giant and a Kuiper Belt dwarf planet. The spacecraft - in a class equivalent to the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft - would launch by 2031 on a Space Launch System or equivalent launch vehicle and utilize a Jupiter gravity assist for a 12 yr cruise to Neptune and a 4 yr prime orbital mission; alternatively a launch after 2031 would have a 16 yr direct-to-Neptune cruise phase. Our solution provides annual launch opportunities and allows for an easy upgrade to the shorter (12 yr) cruise. Odyssey would orbit Neptune retrograde (prograde with respect to Triton), using the moon's gravity to shape the orbital tour and allow coverage of Triton, Neptune, and the space environment. The atmospheric entry probe would descend in ~37 minutes to the 10 bar pressure level in Neptune's atmosphere just before Odyssey's orbit-insertion engine burn. Odyssey's mission would end by conducting a Cassini-like "Grand Finale,"passing inside the rings and ultimately taking a final great plunge into Neptune's atmosphere

ISET ORS Bus Standards and Prototype

Advancing sound and accepted spacecraft bus standards is the objective of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Bus Standards Initiative. This effort involves multiple government, industry, and academia participants assembled into an Integrated System Engineering Team (ISET). The core ISET industry team members include AeroAstro, Boeing, Design Net Engineering, General Dynamics Spectrum Astro, Loral, Microcosm, MicroSat, Orbital, Raytheon, and Swales. Government and Laboratory team members include the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), Air Force Space and Missile Command (AF SMC), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), MIT/Lincoln Laboratories (MIT/LL), Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), and Space Dynamics Lab. The ISET generates standards for ORS spacecraft and uses them to build a prototype in order to evaluate and mature the standards. The ISET recently made the second major release of the bus standards documents that are available at the 21st AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites. This ISET team is also complemented by an open membership Business Team who provides business case factors for consideration in the standards definition, as well as for input for the acquisition transition plan. This paper describes the status of the ORS Bus Standards developed by the ISET to date including the implementation for the prototype build

This is Just for Me(n): How the Regulation of Postfeminist Lingerie Advertising Perpetuates Woman as Object

This article argues that the official process by which advertising is regulated in the UK, when applied to the advertising of women’s underwear, restricts and undermines, rather than encourages, attempts to renegotiate the discourse that surrounds the representation of women in advertising, particularly when it seeks to construct a discourse that questions the centrality of men to female sexual pleasure. This process judges ads on the basis of whether they are likely to cause 'serious or widespread offence'. The regulators' interpretation of this ensures that lingerie advertising that represents women as objects for the male gaze remains acceptable, as do ads in which women are deliberately offering up a sexualised self-presentation, while images that seek to negotiate a discourse outside a heterosexuality governed by the coital imperative are considered problematic. This encourages the perpetuation of a conservative framework in which women can be viewed as objects rather than subjects

Gender, sexuality, and British cinema

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Diasporic proximities: spaces of ‘home’ in European documentary

This essay explores the relation between the genre of experimental observational documentary and transnational European spaces. It engages with documentaries that focus on the everyday and the uneventful, and that present alternative representations of liminal places and subjects. The three films analysed are: El Cielo Gira (The Sky Turns) by Mercedes Álvarez (2004, Spain), Lift by Marc Isaacs (2001, UK) and Sacro GRA by Gianfranco Rosi (2013, Italy). These documentaries are situated in the debate on observational cinema. The article argues that these films enable the recognition of a collective European temporality and spatiality, where migrants and diasporic subjects are not alien or ‘strangers’, but are part of the fabric of Europe; they are always already here. Through a study of the films, in their specific framing and editing strategies, the article argues that they open alternative spaces of encounter with other subjectivities. The original notion of affective proximities is presented to account for the political dimension of the films. The focus is on what these films can do: their political potential to affecting alternative imaginaries of the everyday lived space of European diasporic subjects, and performing and making sense of the affective reality of transnational movements and encounters