On the wings of imagination”: Agnes Giberne and women as the storytellers of victorian astronomy

Agnes Giberne was a “pioneer” of easy to understand astronomy books for children and beginners. She merged fact with fiction to educate her readers about the wonders of the heavens and the religious significance she believed resided there. Employing the dialogue form and the theme of the cosmic journey she encouraged her readers to learn about the sun, moon and planets on “the wings of imagination”. Victorian astronomy was predominantly a male science and astronomical writing operated as chiefly a male genre. Yet, Giberne carved out a place as one of the most popular writers on astronomy in the late nineteenth century, her works appealing across generational, gender and class lines. Giberne’s astronomical writing was shaped by contemporary critical responses to women’s place in astronomical science and the genres acceptable for female authorship. Writing for children, using analogies from botany and being “mindful” of her “catechism”, Giberne stayed within the bounds of Victorian femininity. However, Giberne used her writing on astronomy, not only as an acceptable feminine vehicle for transmitting the facts of astronomical science, but also to show how women, as well as men, could be the storytellers of astronomy

[Review] Clark Lawlor (2006) Consumption and literature: the making of the romantic disease

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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

[Review] Dometa Wiegand Brothers (April 2015) The romantic imagination and astronomy: on all sides infinity

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[Review] Dometa Wiegand Brothers (2015) The romantic imagination and astronomy: on all sides infinity

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‘Hospitable infinity’: imagining new prospects and other worlds in victorian cosmic voyage literature

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Point of view: astronomical and literary perception. [Review] Anna Henchman (2014) The starry sky within: astronomy and the reach of the mind in Victorian literature

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The Victorian poetic imagination and astronomy: Tennyson, De Quincey, Hopkins and Hardy

This thesis investigates the effect of astronomy on the Victorian poetic imagination. It centres on four writers of the period: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas De Quincey, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Hardy. To date this subject has received surprisingly little critical focus. This study redresses this lack, by revealing how these writers engaged creatively with the possibilities and limitations of contemporary astronomical science and its technologies. It argues that astronomy gave all four writers important metaphors and analogies, enabling them to project a sense of self-discovery in their writing. It shows how their interest in scientific texts, their association with prominent astronomers of the period, and their own astronomical observations, had a profound effect on their creative imagination. This thesis uses their texts, personal diaries, notebooks, letters and library collections to reveal their interest in the science of astronomy. Likewise, it researches the astronomical texts they studied, including those of the leading scientists of the day such as John Frederick William Herschel, John Pringle Nichol and Richard Anthony Proctor. The argument places Tennyson, De Quincey, Hopkins and Hardy’s interest in astronomy within the period’s cultural fascination with the science, and establishes them as both consumers and producers of astronomical knowledge. Each of the writers studied avidly watched the night sky through the telescopes he owned, had access to, or by the naked eye. Important to this enquiry, is a discussion of the optical technology of the telescope as a transparent framing and mirroring device, and how its use results in intense and visionary experiences in the work of these writers. This study crosses the traditional divides of science and literature, to show how these four writers achieved a synthesis of scientific and poetic thought in their writing

Optimisation of the hydrogen peroxide pre-treatment of titanium: surface characterisation and protein adsorption

Background: Researchers have attempted to enhance titanium osseointegration by modifying its surface properties, including via H2O2 pre-treatment, with reported treatment regimes varying from minutes/hours, to weeks. Objective: This study examined the effects of various H2O2 treatments on titanium surface topography/roughness, chemical composition/oxide thickness, hydrophilicity and plasma protein adsorption. Materials and methods: Titanium discs were treated with 30% H2O2 for 0–24 h or 1–4 weeks and subjected to atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), profilometry, X-ray photon spectroscopy and contact angle analysis. For protein adsorption, whole plasma and FITC-conjugated serum albumin were added to 0–24 h and 1–4 week H2O2-treated discs and examined by SEM and fluorescence microscopy, respectively. Results: AFM, SEM and profilometry demonstrated that 1–6 h H2O2-treated discs exhibited subtle alterations in surface topography/roughness at the nanometre scale, although 24 h and 1–4 week H2O2-treated discs exhibited much greater increases in surface roughness, in the micrometre range. Maximal increases in surface oxide thickness and chemical modification were identified between 1 h–4 weeks and 3 h–4 weeks, respectively, although no increases in oxygen/titanium (O1s : Ti2p) molar ratio or in hydrophilicity were evident. Plasma and serum albumin adsorption increased on 1–24 h H2O2-treated discs, with further increases on 1–4 week H2O2-treated discs. Conclusions: Based upon the present data and previous findings, this study supports the concept that surface topography/roughness and oxide composition/thickness, are more significantly modified by H2O2 treatment and more influential to protein adsorption than hydrophilicity. Additionally, it can be hypothesized that the 24 h H2O2 treatment of titanium surfaces, which induced micrometre scale changes in roughness and protein adsorption, to those associated with enhanced osteoblast attachment/behaviour, mineralisation and subsequent implant osseointegration, would be most beneficial