Community awareness and restitution of Isanzu ancestor's human remains from the University of Göttingen collections to Mkalama District, Tanzania

This paper investigates the restitution of Tanzanian human remains from colonial contexts in the Anthropological Collection at the University of Göttingen, Germany. This collection contains 66 human remains from Tanzania whereby 22 of them are from the Isanzu ethnic group. This paper focuses on the Isanzu human remains from Mkalama District in Singida Region and examines the circumstances of acquisition and their historical background. This interdisciplinary research combines methodological approaches from critical historical provenance research and cultural anthropology to study the Isanzu remains. We include investigation of the Isanzu ethnic group's awareness, emotions, opinions, and concerns over the restitution of their Ancestors’ remains back to the community. This paper proposes a plan for best practices in restitution and urges that wisdom, agreement, and negotiation results of Isanzu stakeholders should be taken into account to bring the restitution process of Isanzu's Ancestors to fruition.Der Beitrag untersucht die Provenienz tansanischer menschlicher Überreste aus kolonialen Kontexten in der Anthropologischen Sammlung der Universität Göttingen, Deutschland. Diese Sammlung enthält 66 menschliche Überreste aus Tansania, von denen 22 der ethnischen Gruppe der Isanzu angehören. Die vorliegende Arbeit konzentriert sich auf die menschlichen Überreste der Isanzu aus dem Mkalama-Distrikt in der Singida-Region und untersucht die Umstände sowie den historischen Kontext des Erwerbs. Die interdisziplinäre Forschung über die Isanzu-Überreste kombiniert methodische Ansätze aus der kritischen historischen Provenienzforschung und der Kulturanthropologie zur Untersuchung. Wir thematisieren auch das Bewusstsein, die Emotionen, Meinungen und Bedenken der Isanzu-Ethnie bezüglich der Rückgabe der Überreste ihrer Vorfahren an die Gemeinschaft. Es wird ein Plan für die Rückgabe vorgeschlagen und dafür plädiert, die Erfahrungen, die Zustimmung und die Verhandlungsergebnisse der Isanzu-Akteure zu berücksichtigen, um den Prozess der Rückgabe der Überreste der Isanzu-Ahnen zum Erfolg zu führen

A transient presence: black visitors and sojourners in Imperial Germany, 1884-1914

The onset of German colonial rule in Africa brought increasing numbers of Black men and women to Germany. Pre-1914 the vast majority of these Africans can best be described as visitors or sojourners and the Black population as a whole was a transient one. This makes recovering their presence in the archival record exceptionally difficult and it is not surprising that the existing historiography almost exclusively focuses on individual biographies of well documented lives. Through utilising a number of newly digitised archival materials, particularly the Hamburg Passenger Lists, this article draws upon a database with information on 1092 individuals from sub-Saharan Africa who spent time in Germany over the period 1884-1914 in order to add considerable bread and depth to our understanding of the Black presence as a whole. It provides increasing empirical detail about the make-up and character of this fluid population - where visitors came from, why they came to Germany, their age on arrival - as well as more accurate detail on the temporal and, to a lesser extent, spatial distribution of visitors

Double Labeling of Oligonucleotide Probes for Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (DOPE-FISH) Improves Signal Intensity and Increases rRNA Accessibility ▿ †

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with singly labeled rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes is widely applied for direct identification of microbes in the environment or in clinical specimens. Here we show that a replacement of singly labeled oligonucleotide probes with 5′-, 3′-doubly labeled probes at least doubles FISH signal intensity without causing specificity problems. Furthermore, Cy3-doubly labeled probes strongly increase in situ accessibility of rRNA target sites and thus provide more flexibility for probe design

Human Remains in Museums and Collections

For decades, the rights of museums to house, exhibit, and research human remains, in particular those from Indigenous peoples collected during colonial times, has been questioned in many parts of the world. This debate has also reached the German museum community. In 2013, the German Museums Association (Deutscher Museumsbund, DMB) published the “Recommendations for the Care of Human Remains in Museums and Collections”. At the end of that year, Larissa Förster and Sarah Fründt convened an interdisciplinary workshop to critically discuss these “recommendations”. The results were later published, together with additional statements by international stakeholders

Cohn’s Crenothrix is a filamentous methane oxidizer with an unusual methane monooxygenase

135 years ago Ferdinand Cohn, the founder of bacteriology, microscopically observed a conspicuous filamentous bacterium with a complex life cycle and described it as Crenothrix polyspora. This uncultured bacterium is infamous for mass developments in drinking water systems, but its phylogeny and physiology remained unknown. We show that C. polyspora is a gammaproteobacterium closely related to methanotrophs and capable of oxidizing methane. We discovered that C. polyspora encodes a phylogenetically very unusual particulate methane monooxygenase whose expression is strongly increased in the presence of methane. Our findings demonstrate a previously unrecognized complexity of the evolutionary history and cell biology of methane-oxidizing bacteria

Management of Patients at Risk of Anaphylaxis during the Covid-19 Pandemic A Position Paper by the Medical Association of German Allergologists (AeDA), the German Society for Allergology and clinical Immunology (DGAKI), the Society for Pediatric Allergology and Environmental Medicine (GPA) and the German Allergy- and Asthma Association (DAAB)

Klimek L, Worm M, Lange L, et al. Management von Anaphylaxie-gefährdeten Patienten während der Covid-19-Pandemie Ein Positionspapier des Ärzteverbandes Deutscher Allergologen (AeDA)A, der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allergologie und klinische Immunologie (DGAKI)B, der Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Allergologie und Umweltmedizin (GPA)C und des Deutschen Allergie- und Asthmabundes (DAAB)D. Allergo Journal . 2020;29(7):16-26

Standards in dermatologic imaging

The current era of ubiquitous digital cameras, digital cameras integrated into smartphones, and virtually limitless data storage affords exciting new opportunities for medicine in general and specifically dermatology. Digital photography has the potential to dramatically enable and facilitate improvements in dermatology teaching, clinical documentation, and diagnosis. One of the barriers to the diffusion of digital imaging into dermatology practice is the lack of standards for digital photography. As noted in the article by Quigley et al,1 there are currently no standards for dermatologic photography designated by Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. While some organizations, such as the American Teledermatology Association,2 have offered general guidelines, to our knowledge, no consistent actionable standards exist in medical publications. The absence of standards severely impedes the integration of dermatologic images across systems that support documentation, diagnosis, and clinical practice