Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus for LIB 3065 (Research Methods and Resources for Writers)

This course explores the theoretical and practical impact of information research on writing. Students develop proficiency in evaluating, identifying, and using relevant print and web sources to locate business, government, biographic, political, social and statistical information necessary for in-depth journalistic reportage and other forms of research and writing

Reviews

George MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity. Daniel Gabelman. Reviewed by Bonnie Gaarden. The Gender Dance: Ironic Subversion in C.S. Lewis\u27s Cosmic Trilogy. Monika B. Hilder. Preface by Matthew Dickerson. Reviewed by Joe R. Christopher. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: In a Modern English Version with a Critical Introduction. John Gardner. Reviewed by Perry Neil Harrison. Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal. Joseph Campbell. Reviewed by Christopher Tuthill. The Riddles of the Hobbit. Adam Roberts. Reviewed by Jon Garrad. The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif. Brent A. Stypczynski. Reviewed by Sharon L. Bolding. Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings. Ed. by Susan Redington Bobby. Reviewed by Kazia Estrada. C.S. Lewis\u27s Perelandra: Reshaping the Image of the Cosmos. Ed. Judith Wolfe and Brendan Wolfe. Reviewed by Holly Ordway. The Ideal of Kingship in the Writings of Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien: Divine Kingship is Reflected in Middle-Earth. Christopher Scarf. Reviewed by Melody Green. The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary. By Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner. Reviewed by Mike Foster. Tolkien: The Forest and the City. Ed. Helen Conrad-O\u27Briain and Gerard Hynes. Reviewed by T.S. Miller. Tolkien Studies X. Edited by Michael D.C. Drout, Verlyn Flieger, and David Bratman. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft. Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review 30. Edited by Marjorie Lamp Mead. Reviewed by Janet Brennan Croft

Validation of the Exoplanet Kepler-21b using PAVO/CHARA Long-Baseline Interferometry

We present long-baseline interferometry of the Kepler exoplanet host star HD179070 (Kepler-21) using the PAVO beam combiner at the CHARA Array. The visibility data are consistent with a single star and exclude stellar companions at separations ~1-1000 mas (~ 0.1-113 AU) and contrasts < 3.5 magnitudes. This result supports the validation of the 1.6 R_{earth} exoplanet Kepler-21b by Howell et al. (2012) and complements the constraints set by adaptive optics imaging, speckle interferometry, and radial velocity observations to rule out false-positives due to stellar companions. We conclude that long-baseline interferometry has strong potential to validate transiting extrasolar planets, particularly for future projects aimed at brighter stars and for host stars where radial velocity follow-up is not available.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters; v2: minor changes added in proo

A Systematic Nomenclature for the <i>Drosophila </i>Ventral Nerve Cord

The ventral nerve cord (VNC) of Drosophila is an important model system for understanding how nervous systems generate locomotion. In this issue of Neuron, Court et al. define the structures of the adult VNC to provide an anatomical framework for analyzing the functional organization of the VNC.Drosophila melanogaster is an established model for neuroscience research with relevance in biology and medicine. Until recently, research on the Drosophila brain was hindered by the lack of a complete and uniform nomenclature. Recognizing this, Ito et al. (2014) produced an authoritative nomenclature for the adult insect brain, using Drosophila as the reference. Here, we extend this nomenclature to the adult thoracic and abdominal neuromeres, the ventral nerve cord (VNC), to provide an anatomical description of this major component of the Drosophila nervous system. The VNC is the locus for the reception and integration of sensory information and involved in generating most of the locomotor actions that underlie fly behaviors. The aim is to create a nomenclature, definitions, and spatial boundaries for the Drosophila VNC that are consistent with other insects. The work establishes an anatomical framework that provides a powerful tool for analyzing the functional organization of the VNC

Adaptive changes of the Insig1/SREBP1/SCD1 set point help adipose tissue to cope with increased storage demands of obesity.

The epidemic of obesity imposes unprecedented challenges on human adipose tissue (WAT) storage capacity that may benefit from adaptive mechanisms to maintain adipocyte functionality. Here, we demonstrate that changes in the regulatory feedback set point control of Insig1/SREBP1 represent an adaptive response that preserves WAT lipid homeostasis in obese and insulin-resistant states. In our experiments, we show that Insig1 mRNA expression decreases in WAT from mice with obesity-associated insulin resistance and from morbidly obese humans and in in vitro models of adipocyte insulin resistance. Insig1 downregulation is part of an adaptive response that promotes the maintenance of SREBP1 maturation and facilitates lipogenesis and availability of appropriate levels of fatty acid unsaturation, partially compensating the antilipogenic effect associated with insulin resistance. We describe for the first time the existence of this adaptive mechanism in WAT, which involves Insig1/SREBP1 and preserves the degree of lipid unsaturation under conditions of obesity-induced insulin resistance. These adaptive mechanisms contribute to maintain lipid desaturation through preferential SCD1 regulation and facilitate fat storage in WAT, despite on-going metabolic stress

Modulations in the radio light curve of the Type IIb Supernova 2001ig: Evidence for a Wolf-Rayet binary progenitor?

We describe the radio evolution of SN 2001ig in NGC 7424, from 700 days of multi-frequency monitoring with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and the Very Large Array (VLA). We find that deviations of the radio light curves at each frequency from the standard "minishell" model are consistent with density modulations in the circumstellar medium (CSM), which seem to recur with a period near 150 days. One possibility is that these are due to enhanced mass-loss from thermal pulses in an AGB star progenitor. A more likely scenario however is that the progenitor was a Wolf-Rayet star, whose stellar wind collided with that from a massive hot companion on an eccentric 100 day orbit, leading to a regular build-up of CSM material on the required time and spatial scales. Recent observations of "dusty pinwheels" in Wolf-Rayet binary systems lend credibility to this model. Since such binary systems are also thought to provide the necessary conditions for envelope-stripping which would cause the Wolf-Rayet star to appear as a Type Ib/c supernova event rather than a Type II, these radio observations of SN 2001ig may provide the key to linking Type Ib/c SNe to Type IIb events, and even to some types of Gamma-Ray Bursts.Comment: 10 pages, MNRAS, accepte