Neal Stephenson’s Readme: a critique of gamification

Neal Stephenson’s writing has in many ways shaped post-cyberpunk science fiction as well as having a massive influence on real-world technology, so his move to realism with 2011’s Reamde offers an opportunity to understand science fiction’s changing relationship to realism in the twenty-first century. Stephenson is considered a core cyberpunk writer thanks to 1992’s Snow Crash, a novel that depicts an online virtual world known as the ‘Metaverse’. This novel is based on the premise that the actions of an online world could have a material impact on participants outside of the game: namely, gamers can be brain damaged by a computer virus. Stephenson has continued to explore these themes throughout his career, but recently through contemporary settings, rather than the futures of his science fiction. Stephenson’s Reamde could therefore be considered an example of ‘science fiction realism’, a term coined by Veronica Hollinger to describe William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition (2003), a novel which also uses science fictional tropes and techniques, but in a contemporary setting

Naomi Mitchison’s we have been warned (1935) in post-referendum Scotland

Mitchison weaves a realist political novel about the lives of two upper-middle class women in 1930s Britain with abstract forays into Scottish folklore as the kelpies follow the sisters, haunting their modern activities. Sometimes the dialogue is stilted, and reads as thinly-veiled politics rather than the high literature found elsewhere in Mitchison’s oeuvre. But, in spite of these shortcomings, the novel has much to offer a reader, and particularly one reading from post-referendum Scotland. Even those who have never read a Mitchison novel before will find much to admire and celebrate in this complicated book. The politics of Mitchison’s novel, which covers the debates between communism and socialism, and between socialism and feminism, often read as relevant to modern debates and Mitchison’s forward-thinking attitude to birth control and abortion might mean that the novel would still be banned if it were published today, particularly in certain American schools

‘Anthropomorphic drones’ and colonized bodies: William Gibson’s the peripheral

William Gibson tends to write in trilogies, as his first nine novels show. These series – the Sprawl, the Bridge, and the Blue Ant trilogies – are set in three different time periods and are populated by characters who reappear from one book to the next. Given this pattern in Gibson’s writing habits, 2014’s The Peripheral can be considered a new work, set in a separate universe from any of Gibson’s previous novels. However, in terms of its philosophical position, The Peripheral is the continuation of a career-long trajectory. Gibson’s work is consistently concerned with the relationship of the individual to their society and the interface between the two, as mediated through the senses. The Sprawl trilogy and the Bridge trilogy privileged vision as the most important of the senses, particularly in cyberspace where the body is left behind and engagement with virtual reality happens mainly through the eyes gazing on a computer screen. 2003’s Pattern Recognition, the first novel in the Blue Ant trilogy which went on to include Spook Country (2007) and Count Zero (2010), began to resituate the body and specifically the haptic as key to engaging with the world while The Peripheral takes this philosophical journey further, privileging the haptic as a key site of phenomenological engagement

“Becoming acquainted with all that pain”: nursing as activism in Naomi Mitchison’s science fiction

The Scottish writer Naomi Mitchison worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse during the First World War, serving on wards for several months before she left to nurse her wounded husband. Using previously unpublished archival material, this article argues that Mitchison’s experience as a nurse contributed to her career in crucial ways, by encouraging her to develop empathy towards others across barriers of class and nationality, and by drawing her towards fictions of estrangement (from historical novels to fantasy and science fiction). The paper argues that the trauma of the war encouraged the estrangement of Mitchison’s debut novel The Conquered, a historical novel, and that this trend in her writing continued as she turned to science fiction later in her career, questioning the extent to which social pressures such as inequality and the class system shape bodies, their health care, and their horizons of thought

Identity, enlightenment and political dissent in late colonial Spanish America

During the long crisis of the Spanish empire between 1810 and 1825, the Creole leaders of Spanish American independence asserted a new identity for the citizens of the states which they sought to establish, calling them 'Americanos'. This general title was paralleled and often supplanted by other political neologisms, as movements for independence and new polities took shape in the various territories of Spanish America. In New Spain, the insurgents who fought against royalist government during the decade after 181 o tried to rally fellow 'Mexicans' to a common cause; at independence in 1821, die Creole political leadership created a 'Mexican empire', the title of which, with its reference to the Aztec empire which had preceded Spain's conquest, was designed to evoke a 'national' history shared by all members of Mexican society. In South America, die leaders of the new republics also sought to promote patriotic feelings for territories which had been converted from administrative units of Spanish government into independent states. Thus, San Martin and O'Higgins convoked 'Chileans' to the cause of independence in the old Captaincy-General of Chile; shortly afterwards and with notably less success, San Martin called upon 'Peruvians' to throw off Spanish rule. Bolivar was, likewise, to call 'Colombians' to his banner in die erstwhile Viceroyalty of New Granada, before advancing south to liberate Peru in die name of 'Peruvians', and Upper Peru in die name of 'Bolivians', where die Republic which his military feats and political vision made possible was named after him

Differences in incubation behaviour and niche separation of two competing flycatcher species

Food availability sets the stage for incubation behaviour of a female bird and thereby indirectly determines the nest temperature, which in turn affects development and metabolism of avian embryos. Changes in development and metabolism in turn are known to influence offspring's ability to adjust to environmental changes later in life. However, few studies have investigated the role of interspecific differences in incubation behaviour in relation to niche separation between competing sibling species. We studied the effects of habitat quality (in terms of caterpillar availability) on incubation behaviour of two ecologically similar and closely related species, collared and pied flycatchers (Ficedula albicollisandF. hypoleuca), in their hybrid zone on the island of oland, Sweden. Even though both species prefer caterpillar-rich deciduous forests as nesting sites, collared flycatchers, whose nestlings have higher energetic demands, are able to nest only in deciduous forests, whereas pied flycatchers have more flexible habitat requirements. Overall, higher food availability was associated with increased nest attendance, higher incubation temperature and a lower number of foraging trips across species. In addition, collared flycatchers had more frequent and shorter foraging trips across habitat types, allocated more heat to eggs and therefore maintained higher nest temperatures compared to pied flycatchers. We argue that the higher heat allocation or the need to maintain a higher nest temperature for embryo development may constrain collared flycatchers to focus on relatively more profitable prey. Our results highlight the importance of considering incubation behaviour in the context of understanding species differences in niche use. Significance statement Niche separation plays an important role in mitigating effects of competition between closely related species. Whether species differences in incubation behaviour relate to differences in niche use remains unknown. We compared incubation behaviour of two sympatric flycatcher species that differ in sensitivity to food availability. The competitively more dominant and larger species, the collared flycatcher, whose nestlings are more sensitive to food shortages, made more frequent foraging trips but allocated more heat to eggs, leading to higher nest temperature despite lower nest attendance, compared to pied flycatchers. These interspecific differences may be a result of differences in embryo sensitivity or female physiology and contribute to the niche separation between the species, which in turn can facilitate coexistence.Peer reviewe

Characterization of <i>Aedes aegypti</i> innate-immune pathways that limit Chikungunya virus replication

Replication of arboviruses in their arthropod vectors is controlled by innate immune responses. The RNA sequence-specific break down mechanism, RNA interference (RNAi), has been shown to be an important innate antiviral response in mosquitoes. In addition, immune signaling pathways have been reported to mediate arbovirus infections in mosquitoes; namely the JAK/STAT, immune deficiency (IMD) and Toll pathways. Very little is known about these pathways in response to chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection, a mosquito-borne alphavirus (Togaviridae) transmitted by aedine species to humans resulting in a febrile and arthralgic disease. In this study, the contribution of several innate immune responses to control CHIKV replication was investigated. In vitro experiments identified the RNAi pathway as a key antiviral pathway. CHIKV was shown to repress the activity of the Toll signaling pathway in vitro but neither JAK/STAT, IMD nor Toll pathways were found to mediate antiviral activities. In vivo data further confirmed our in vitro identification of the vital role of RNAi in antiviral defence. Taken together these results indicate a complex interaction between CHIKV replication and mosquito innate immune responses and demonstrate similarities as well as differences in the control of alphaviruses and other arboviruses by mosquito immune pathways

Sensorimotor neural plasticity following hand transplantation measured with magnetoencephalography: A case study

This is a single case study that investigated brain connectivity (coherence) using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a twenty-four-year-old male who underwent hand transplantation of his right hand at 18 months after a traumatic injury. We examined the neuromagnetic fields of the whole brain during resting state. There is little research on brain reorganization and connectivity within the brain following transplantation, specifically, during resting state. Our findings revealed increased coherence within sensory cortices of the Default Mode Network (DMN) during the early phase of recovery while enhanced coherence in motor cortical regions became apparent in the later phase of recovery