The Blue Obelisk Community

Poster presented at the VSMF symposium held at the Unilever Centre on 2011-01-17The Internet has brought together a group of chemists who are driven by wanting to do things better, but are frustrated with the Closed systems that chemists currently have to work with. they share a belief in the concepts of Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source. And they express this in software, data, algorithms, specifications, tutorials, demonstrations, articles and anything that helps get the message across. [http://www.blueobelisk.org/

Tracking elusive cargo: Illuminating spatio-temporal type 3 effector protein dynamics using reporters

Type 3 secretion systems (T3SS) form an integral part of the arsenal of many pathogenic bacteria. These injection machines, together with their cargo of subversive effector proteins are capable of manipulating the cellular environment of the host in order to ensure persistence of the pathogen. In order to fully appreciate the functions of Type 3 effectors it is necessary to gain spatio-temporal knowledge of each effector during the process of infection. A number of genetic modifications have been exploited in order to reveal effector protein secretion, translocation and subsequent activity and localisation within host cells. In this review, we will discuss the many available approaches for tracking effector protein dynamics and discuss the challenges faced to improve the current technologies and gain a clearer picture of effector protein function

Moral Relativism, Religion, Darwinism and Unethical Behavior

The current study investigates the psychological mechanisms involved in unethical behavior, and the role moral relativism plays. It is known that when exposed to religious material, cheating behaviors decrease, and when exposed to moral relativistic material, cheating behavior increases. In light of this, two questions proposed are whether or not religion decreases moral relativism and thus leads to a decrease in cheating behavior, as well as if thoughts of evolution or Darwinism induces thoughts of moral relativism, which in turn leads to an increase in unethical behavior. Ultimately, this study looks to answer whether or not moral relativism is a mediator for unethical behavior. This hypothesis was tested using an online questionnaire. Participants (n =250) were randomly assigned to the religious, Darwinism/evolution or control condition, and then completed questionnaires measuring moral relativism and willingness to engage in unethical behaviors. Results showed that age was correlated with willingness to engage in unethical behavior. There was an indication that the Darwinism/evolution condition was associated with increased unethical behavior, while there was no effect for the religion condition. There was no significant mediation effect of cheating behavior via moral relativism. Future research can be done looking at how thinking about evolutionary theory leads one to engage in unethical behavior.No embargoAcademic Major: Psycholog

Gesturing in the early universities

Research into the oral and literary traditions of scholastic education usually emphasizes the significance of the word in late medieval pedagogy. This paper suggests that coded hand signals provided early university scholars with an important non-verbal means of communication too. Using illustrations of classroom scenes from early university manuscripts, this paper analyzes the artistic conventions for representing gestures that these images embody. By building up a typology of these gesticulations, it demonstrates that the producers of these images and their audience shared a perception of scholastic education that embraced a sophisticated understanding of the activities associated with university education