Historical climatology in Africa: A state of the art

Collections of written materials from the 16th century onwards have been used to explore the historical climatology of Africa. Studies include decadal- to seasonal-scale reconstructions of past rainfall and temperature, and analyses of societal responses to historical extreme events

Database of foodstuffs and food systems in Africa, 1497-1840

This dataset catalogues observations of foodstuffs and food systems in eastern Africa over a period of three centuries (1497-1840 CE). It compiles 2,695 reports of the presence/absence of foodstuffs, domesticates, and non-food crops across 278 sites. These observations were supplemented by information on foodstuff quantity in >650 instances, with >250 unique detailed extracts on methods of production and relative dietary, social-cultural and economic importance. Importantly, this combination of the breadth and depth of ‘big qualitative data’ within the historical record enables data on the materiality of foodstuffs to be investigated alongside social-cultural perspectives (e.g. gender, belief systems, the effects of colonial ways of knowing on indigenous knowledges), and the possible drivers of transitions and transformations in African food systems

The consequences of past climate change for state formation and security in southern Africa

Considerable research has been undertaken into the nature and consequences of contemporary and future global climate change, yet detailed regional studies concerning these dynamics prior to the twentieth century have only recently begun to emerge. This thesis investigates this historical climate-society interface over a c. 400- year period of socio-political change in southeast Africa. This spans the development, expansion and impoverishment of African state structures, and the arrival of the Portuguese and its impacts, between c. 1450-1830 in the Zambezi-Limpopo region, and the origins and events of socio-political transformation between c. 1760-1828 in the KwaZulu-Natal area. Previous hypotheses have proposed causal relationships between precipitation variability and this societal change, though these are predominantly built upon an apparent coincidence between the inferences of a narrow range of datasets. This cross-disciplinary study therefore reframes this research area by placing the interlinked concepts of vulnerability and resilience at the centre of its approach to tie past climate variability and societal development. First, past climate variability is evaluated using a wide range of proxy-documentary precipitation records over the last millennium, and then reconstructed using wind data from ships’ logbooks in the early-nineteenth century. This analysis reveals good agreement between sources on the evolution of precipitation variability. Similarly, palaeoclimatic, written and oral sources display strong coherence between the increased variability of precipitation and recorded climate impacts, such as in the onset and amelioration of Little Ice Age cool-dry conditions in the 1570s-1590s and 1790s-1820s. While this suggests that direct climatic-induced stress increased in times of regional or global climatic change, extensive analysis of food security, livelihoods and socio-political vulnerability from written and oral sources indicates that longer-term, structural vulnerabilities of individuals and communities were crucial in conditioning the plurality of human responses to and the overall significance of past climate variability across southeast Africa

Inversion produces opposite size illusions for faces and bodies

Faces are complex, multidimensional, and meaningful visual stimuli. Recently, Araragi and colleagues (Araragi, Aotani, & Kitaoka, 2012) demonstrated an intriguing face size illusion whereby an inverted face is perceived as larger than a physically identical upright face. Like the face, the human body is a highly familiar and important stimulus in our lives. Here, we investigated the specificity of the size underestimation of upright faces illusion, testing whether similar effects also hold for bodies, hands, and everyday objects. Experiments 1a and 1b replicated the face-size illusion. No size illusion was observed for hands or objects. Unexpectedly, a reverse size illusion was observed for bodies, so that upright bodies were perceived as larger than their inverted counterparts. Experiment 2 showed that the face and reverse body size illusions were maintained even when the photographic contrast polarity of the stimuli was reversed, indicating that the visual system driving the illusions relies on geometric featural information rather than image contrast. Our findings show that size illusions caused by inversion show a high level of category specificity, with opposite illusions for faces and bodies

Climate, Conflict and Society: Changing Responses to Weather Extremes in Nineteenth Century Zululand

Changing climates affect human societies differently depending on societal structures, cultural perceptions and their relative vulnerability and resilience. In this study, we explore the complex relationship between climate, conflict and society in nineteenth century Zululand. The paper first reviews current debates surrounding the links between climatic change, societal transformation and the rise of the Zulu Kingdom from the late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth centuries. It then considers new empirical evidence relating to conflict and socio-economic changes at a local scale in Zululand from the early-mid-nineteenth century onwards, using a combination of unpublished archival materials written by missionaries and other observers, together with oral histories and traditions. Our analysis highlights how changing precipitation patterns, especially towards drier conditions, may have contributed to changes in societal responses, including dominant narratives about rain-control, the migration and dissolution of society, and conflicts and unrest. We suggest that temporal differences in these responses were contingent upon the role of leaders, power structures, and the willingness and ability of leaders to yield this power. The case of nineteenth century Zululand exemplifies the complexity of environment-society interactions, and strengthens the call for a thorough scrutiny of the narratives of social unrest in specific socio-cultural contexts

Requirement of the Dynein-Adaptor Spindly for Mitotic and Post-Mitotic Functions in Drosophila

Spindly was originally identified as a specific regulator of Dynein activity at the kinetochore. In early prometaphase, Spindly recruits the Dynein/Dynactin complex, promoting the establishment of stable kinetochore-microtubule interactions and progression into anaphase. While details of Spindly function in mitosis have been worked out in cultured human cells and in the C. elegans zygote, the function of Spindly within the context of an organism has not yet been addressed. Here, we present loss- and gain-of-function studies of Spindly using transgenic RNAi in Drosophila. Knock-down of Spindly in the female germ line results in mitotic arrest during embryonic cleavage divisions. We investigated the requirements of Spindly protein domains for its localisation and function, and found that the carboxy-terminal region controls Spindly localisation in a cell-type specific manner. Overexpression of Spindly in the female germ line is embryonic lethal and results in altered egg morphology. To determine whether Spindly plays a role in post-mitotic cells, we altered Spindly protein levels in migrating cells and found that ovarian border cell migration is sensitive to the levels of Spindly protein. Our study uncovers novel functions of Spindly and a differential, functional requirement for its carboxy-terminal region in Drosophila

Toward integrated historical climate research: the example of Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth

Climate change has become a key environmental narrative of the 21st century. However, emphasis on the science of climate change has overshadowed studies focusing on human interpretations of climate history, of adaptation and resilience, and of explorations of the institutions and cultural coping strategies that may have helped people adapt to climate changes in the past. Moreover, although the idea of climate change has been subject to considerable scrutiny by the physical sciences, recent climate scholarship has highlighted the need for a re examination of the cultural and spatial dimensions of climate, with contributions from the humanities and social sciences. Establishing a multidisciplinary dialogue and approach to climate research past, present, and future has arguably never been more important. This article outlines developments in historical climatology research and considers examples of integrated multidisciplinary approaches to climate, climatic variability, and climate change research, conducted across the physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts. We highlight the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative as one example of such an integrated approach. Initially, ACRE began as a response from climate science to the needs of the agricultural sector in Queensland, Australia for a longer, more spatially, and temporally-complete database of the weather. ACRE has now evolved to embrace an international group of researchers working together across disciplines to integrate their efforts into a four-dimensional (4D) dynamical global historical climate-quality reanalysis (reconstruction). WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:164–174. doi:10.1002/wcc.37

Are different groups of patients with stroke more likely to be excluded from the new UK general medical services contract? A cross-sectional retrospective analysis of a large primary care population

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Disasters and History

Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but also within the same societies according to social groups, ethnicity and gender. They also demonstrate how studying past disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods and epidemics, can provide a lens through which to understand the social, economic and political functioning of past societies and reveal features of a society which may otherwise remain hidden from view

Water velocity limits the temporal extent of herbivore effects on aquatic plants in a lowland river

The role of herbivores in regulating aquatic plant dynamics has received growing recognition from researchers and managers. However, the evidence for herbivore impacts on aquatic plants is largely based on short-term exclosure studies conducted within a single plant growing season. Thus, it is unclear how long herbivore impacts on aquatic plant abundance can persist for. We addressed this knowledge gap by testing whether mute swan (Cygnus olor) grazing on lowland river macrophytes could be detected in the following growing season. Furthermore, we investigated the role of seasonal changes in water current speed in limiting the temporal extent of grazing. We found no relationship between swan biomass density in 1 year and aquatic plant cover or biomass in the following spring. No such carry-over effects were detected despite observing high swan biomass densities in the previous year from which we inferred grazing impacts on macrophytes. Seasonal increases in water velocity were associated with reduced grazing pressure as swans abandoned river habitat. Furthermore, our study highlights the role of seasonal changes in water velocity in determining the length of the mute swan grazing season in shallow lowland rivers and thus in limiting the temporal extent of herbivore impacts on aquatic plant abundance