Go Ahead, Take My Freedom - I\u27m not a Terrorist

This article was published in the Sioux County Index-Reporter, April 9, 2008, in Luke DeKoster’s series Not Yet Home

Flippant Joke Reveals Callous Mindset

This article was published in the Sioux County Index-Reporter, April 23, 2008, in Luke DeKoster’s series Not Yet Home

Not Yet Home

This piece was published in the Sioux County Index-Reporter in mid-September 2006. The soldier mentioned in the article was from the area, and his body was being brought home via a convoy through towns along Highway 18. I happened to be covering a volleyball game in the town where he grew up and went to high school, so emotion was high at the four-way stop where I was standing. It struck me that we often dispense such generalities as “He died so that we can stand here” without really thinking—and this is the column that emerged

The legal foundations of post-mortem examinations in early modern Flanders : princely legislation, custom, doctrine and judicial practice

Because of its manifold references to the consultation of medical experts in homicide and infanticide cases, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1532) is often regarded as an important milestone in the development of early modern forensic medicine. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the County of Flanders, a principality within the Habsburg Netherlands, witnessed a similar upsurge in the production of normative and doctrinal texts aiming to regulate forensic activities. Drawing on princely legislation, local customary law and the writings of the jurists Filips Wielant and Joos de Damhouder, this contribution will compare the corpus of Flemish legal texts with its practical application by the myriad of law courts operating within the county. As the princely legislation only laid out a general framework, the regulation of the forensic post-mortem was essentially an issue of local governance. The local nature of forensic practices should however not be overestimated. Evidence from preserved post-mortem reports demonstrates that there were more similarities between towns and regions within the county than actual differences

Molecular principles underlying dual RNA specificity in the Drosophila SNF protein

The first RNA recognition motif of the Drosophila SNF protein is an example of an RNA binding protein with multi-specificity. It binds different RNA hairpin loops in spliceosomal U1 or U2 small nuclear RNAs, and only in the latter case requires the auxiliary U2A′ protein. Here we investigate its functions by crystal structures of SNF alone and bound to U1 stem-loop II, U2A′ or U2 stem-loop IV and U2A′, SNF dynamics from NMR spectroscopy, and structure-guided mutagenesis in binding studies. We find that different loop-closing base pairs and a nucleotide exchange at the tips of the loops contribute to differential SNF affinity for the RNAs. U2A′ immobilizes SNF and RNA residues to restore U2 stem-loop IV binding affinity, while U1 stem-loop II binding does not require such adjustments. Our findings show how U2A′ can modulate RNA specificity of SNF without changing SNF conformation or relying on direct RNA contacts

The Varied Character of the Des Moines River Valley in Central Iowa

The drainage system on the Des Moines River is quite varied between Humboldt and Des Moines. The variation in drainage characters is highlighted on a map prepared from aerial photographs and topographic sheets. The northern part of this area is associated with the Mankato drift sheet and is characterized by poorly developed, non-integrated drainage. The central part of the drainage system in Boone County flows across the Cary ground moraine. In this area the tributaries are short, intermittent, and deep, and appear as gullies and washes. Just south of Des Moines, the drainage makes another sharp change, and in this area is associated with the Kansan drift. It is well integrated and featured by a relatively small number of far-reaching primary tributaries. It seems to be more than coincidental that the change in character of the drainage is so closely associated with the relative ages of the drift sheets comprising the drift plain