The common ground of science and religion

A lecture delivered in the Physics Amphitheatre of the Rice Institute, April 15, 1937, by James George Needham, Ph.D., Litt.D., Sc.D., Professor of Entomology and Limnology, Emeritus, at Cornell University

Sacred communities: contestations and connections

This article discusses a project whose purpose was to review existing qualitative and quantitative data from two separate studies to provide new insights about everyday religion and belonging. Researchers engaged in knowledge exchange and dialogue with new and former research participants, with other researchers involved in similar research, and with wider academic networks beyond the core disciplines represented here, principally anthropology and geography. Key concluding themes related to the ambivalent nature of ‘faith’, connections over place and time, and the contested nature of community. Implicit in terms like ‘faith’, ‘community’, and ‘life course’ are larger interwoven narratives of space, time, place, corporeality, and emotion. The authors found that understanding how places, communities, and faiths differ and intersect requires an understanding of social relatedness and boundaries

Two new genera of Aeschninae

p. 141-144 : ill. ; 24 cm

How Intense Policy Demanders Shape Postreform Politics: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a politically volatile process. The ACA\u27s institutional design and delayed feedback effects created a window of opportunity for its partisan opponents to launch challenges at both the federal and state level. Yet as recent research suggests, postreform politics depends on more than policy feedback alone; rather, it is shaped by the partisan and interest-group environment. We argue that “intense policy demanders” played an important role in defining the policy alternatives that comprised congressional Republicans\u27 efforts to repeal and replace the ACA. To test this argument, we drew on an original data set of bill introductions in the House of Representatives between 2011 and 2016. Our analysis suggests that business contributions and political ideology affected the likelihood that House Republicans would introduce measures repealing significant portions of the ACA. A secondary analysis shows that intense policy demanders also shaped the vote on House Republicans\u27 initial ACA replacement plan. These findings highlight the role intense policy demanders can play in shaping the postreform political agenda

The Indestructible Insect: Velvet Ants from Across the United States Avoid Predation by Representatives from All Major Tetrapod Clades

Velvet ants are a group of parasitic wasps that are well known for a suite of defensive adaptations including bright coloration and a formidable sting. While these adaptations are presumed to function in antipredator defense, observations between potential predators and this group are lacking. We conducted a series of experiments to determine the risk of velvet ants to a host of potential predators including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals. Velvet ants from across the United States were tested with predator’s representative of the velvet ants native range. All interactions between lizards, free-ranging birds, and a mole resulted in the velvet ants survival, and ultimate avoidance by the predator. Two shrews did injure a velvet ant, but this occurred only after multiple failed attacks. The only predator to successfully consume a velvet ant was a single American toad (Anaxyrus americanus). These results indicate that the suite of defenses possessed by velvet ants, including aposematic coloration, stridulations, a chemical alarm signal, a hard exoskeleton, and powerful sting are effective defenses against potential predators. Female velvet ants appear to be nearly impervious to predation by many species whose diet is heavily derived of invertebrate prey