Cultural social responsibility and copyright

Inspired by Bart Cammaerts and Bingchun Meng’s media policy brief 1, ‘Creative Destruction and Copyright Protection: Regulatory Responses to File-sharing’, Sergio López Figueora blogs about his work at Big Bang Lab. Sergio is the director of Big Bang Lab, which is a creative agency specializing in using and re-using original music and silent films from archived visual media in creative workshops and live performances

Role of unsaturated soil above a heavily contaminated aquifer in the natural attenuation of arsenic

Large attenuation of arsenic is observed in a shallow aquifer in central Mexico, where the concentration decreases from 91.5 to 11.3 mg/L, over 1.3 km horizontal distance. To investigate possible mechanisms of attenuation of this pollutant, we dug a pit between the surface and the saturated zone. We then described the soil profile and determined arsenic and iron concentrations in soil samples as a function of depth. Next, we determined particle size distribution, bulk density, particle density, soil moisture and porosity of the soil material. We also analyzed arsenic concentration in the groundwater. The 2.2 m deep profile intersected 4 soil horizons (A, AB, B1 and B2). We found arsenic accumulation in the B2 horizon, directly overlying the saturated zone. These accumulations coincide with the thickness of the capillary fringe, revealing that arsenic is drawn up in the soil profile by capillary rise of arsenic-contaminated groundwater. Furthermore, arsenic accumulation showed a direct relationship with iron, likely due to arsenic adsorption on iron oxides. Results from this study contribute to understanding a capillary-driven natural attenuation mechanism that removes contaminants from groundwater by sinking them in the capillary fringe

Beyond the visible: A handbook of best practice in plant UV photobiology.

The writing of this handbook started 14 months ago and is the results of the work of six editors and sixteen authors. This version is a preprint prepared for the participants in the 2012 training school of the COST action 5 FA0906 ‘UV4growth’ at University of Málaga. We hope that you find the handbook useful, and that you will alert us of errors, and of difficult to understand sections or paragraphs. Please, send all such comments to mailto:[email protected]?subject=TG1HandbookPre01feedback indicating page and line numbers. Many thanks for your help

The Inaccuracy of National Character Stereotypes

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy and (b) report new data on national character in 26 cultures from descriptions (N = 3323) of the typical male or female adolescent, adult, or old person in each. The average ratings were internally consistent and converged with independent stereotypes of the typical culture member, but were weakly related to objective assessments of personality. We argue that this conclusion is consistent with the broader literature on the inaccuracy of national character stereotypes