Droning on about the weather – meteorological science on a school friendly scale.

Meteorology is an important branch of science that offers exciting career opportunities and yet is not usually included in school curricula. The availability of multi-rotor model aircraft (drones) offers an exciting opportunity to bring meteorology into school science

Use of Prescription Medication by Individuals Who Died by Suicide in Northern Ireland

OBJECTIVES/: To understand medication use prior to suicide in relation to patterns, polypharmacy and adherence. METHODS: 1,371 suicide cases were coded and latent class analysis used to identify combinations of medications prescribed prior to death. RESULTS: Two thirds had been prescribed medication with 30.7% prescribed three or more. Latent class analysis revealed three classes: Mixed medication use, primarily mental medication use, and baseline/low medication use. There are potentially high rates of medication non-adherence. CONCLUSIONS: Both medication use but also non-adherence rates were high in this sample of individuals who died by suicide. Potential implications and areas for future research are discussed

Sound design and music as part of the adapted and performed text in narrative theatre

This study is based on the narrative theatre production of The Time Traveler's Wife, a collaborative production with adaptor/director J. Lauren Shouse and musical director/sound designer/composer Shannon M. Murphy O'Neill, performed in October 2005 in Studio Six of Swain Hall on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This study examines the importance of music and sound design as a part of the adapted and performed text in a narrative theatre production that is not a musical. Specifically this study examines a.) relevant literature pertaining to music and sound design, b.) the collaboration between the adaptor/director and musical director/sound designer/composer to create the text, and c.) the development of an artistic aesthetic through the study.Master of Art

In Methuselah's Mould

Is aging inevitable or can it be "cured"? Recent work from many different fields of science is now providing clues into why we age and how long we might liv

Cosmopolitan presumptions? On Martha Nussbaum and her commentators

This article presents a framework for analysis of discourses on ethical cosmopolitanism, and applies it to Martha Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice (2006), with comparisons to the views of other authors. After outlining the book's form of ethical cosmopolitanism, the article considers the psychological, philosophical and sociological presumptions, the methodology of abstraction, the implicit audiences, and the programmatic targets and implied strategy of social change. It links and comments on sister papers by Giri, McCloskey, Murphy, Nederveen Pieterse and Truong

The Apoptosome Pathway to Caspase Activation in Primary Human Neutrophils Exhibits Dramatically Reduced Requirements for Cytochrome c

Caspase activation is a central event in numerous forms of apoptosis and results in the proteolytic degradation of multiple substrate proteins that contribute to the apoptotic phenotype. An important route to caspase activation proceeds via assembly of the “apoptosome” as a result of the cell stress–associated release of mitochondrial cytochrome c. Previous studies have shown that primary neutrophils are largely incapable of mitochondrial respiration, suggesting that these cells either lack functional mitochondria or possess a defective respiratory chain. This prompted us to examine whether neutrophils retain an intact cytochrome c/apoptotic protease-activating factor 1 (Apaf-1) pathway to caspase activation and apoptosis. We show that primary human neutrophils contain barely detectable levels of cytochrome c as well as other mitochondrial proteins. Surprisingly, neutrophil cell–free extracts readily supported Apaf-1–dependent caspase activation, suggesting that these cells may assemble cytochrome c–independent apoptosomes. However, further analysis revealed that the trace amount of cytochrome c present in neutrophils is both necessary and sufficient for Apaf-1–dependent caspase activation in these cells. Thus, neutrophils have a lowered threshold requirement for cytochrome c in the Apaf-1–dependent cell death pathway. These observations suggest that neutrophils retain cytochrome c for the purpose of assembling functional apoptosomes rather than for oxidative phosphorylation