Communicating science: lessons from a Twitterstorm

In early August 2019, the U.S.A. saw 2 significant mass shootings in just 48 hours. On Twitter, Neil deGrasse Tyson responded with a tweet to his millions of followers. He outlined the number of deaths in 48 hours from other causes, and seemed to disparage the human tendency to respond emotionally “more to spectacle than to data”. The tweet resulted in an uproar. This “twitterstorm” might provide important lessons for practicing science communicators. The first lesson outlined in this letter is about the use of analogy in science communication, and the second is about how emotion is addressed in science communication

Introduction to the special issue on the emergence of sound systems

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] How did human sound systems get to be the way they are? Collecting contributions implementing a wealth of methods to address this question, this special issue treats language and speech as being the result of a complex adaptive system. The work throughout provides evidence and theory at the levels of phylogeny, glossogeny, and ontogeny. In taking a multi-disciplinary approach that considers interactions within and between these levels of selection, the papers collectively provide a valuable, integrated contribution to existing work on the evolution of speech and sound systems

Signal dimensionality and the emergence of combinatorial structure

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. In language, a small number of meaningless building blocks can be combined into an unlimited set of meaningful utterances. This is known as combinatorial structure. One hypothesis for the initial emergence of combinatorial structure in language is that recombining elements of signals solves the problem of overcrowding in a signal space. Another hypothesis is that iconicity may impede the emergence of combinatorial structure. However, how these two hypotheses relate to each other is not often discussed. In this paper, we explore how signal space dimensionality relates to both overcrowding in the signal space and iconicity. We use an artificial signalling experiment to test whether a signal space and a meaning space having similar topologies will generate an iconic system and whether, when the topologies differ, the emergence of combinatorially structured signals is facilitated. In our experiments, signals are created from participants’ hand movements, which are measured using an infrared sensor. We found that participants take advantage of iconic signal-meaning mappings where possible. Further, we use trajectory predictability, measures of variance, and Hidden Markov Models to measure the use of structure within the signals produced and found that when topologies do not match, then there is more evidence of combinatorial structure. The results from these experiments are interpreted in the context of the differences between the emergence of combinatorial structure in different linguistic modalities (speech and sign)

Evaluation of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

This report aims to detail the key findings of the evaluation of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and its relevance to the Royal Institution. It brings together the findings from the three interim reports previously produced and showcases new evaluation data. The report notes key findings and makes recommendations for action within the Christmas Lectures. It includes the complete evaluation kit, in the Appendices.Dr Margarida Sardo, Dr Hannah Little and Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers, from the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England, Bristol, undertook the evaluation and prepared the report

Emergency department approach to electrical toothbrush associated hand injury, a unique case of non-oropharyngeal injury.

Puncture wounds are common injuries treated in the emergency department (ED). Prior studies have shown that toothbrushes are common reservoirs for oral flora, especially in regions near the head of the toothbrush near the bristles. ED providers must be aware of the danger associated with bacterial contamination of the associated wound and should be familiar with different pathogens and options for treatment. We present a unique case of a 30-year-old male with non-intraoral injury who presented to the ED after puncturing his left palm with the metal post of an electric toothbrush

Its role in Cultural Transmission of Language & the resulting effects on Language Typology

Language is shaped by the cognitive biases of its learners (Christiansen & Chater, 2008). Correlations in recent work (Lupyan & Dale 2010) have found that languages with larger speaker populations are more likely to use lexical strategies than morphological ones. These correlations have been hypothesised by several recent works to be due to the different biases of adult and child language learners. The experimental work which has been done looking at the differences between adult and child learners however is often contradictory or vague. This dissertation will demonstrate that other factors are at work which explain the correlations found by Lupyan & Dale (2010). These include the role of accommodation to second language speakers. The current work uses a novel experimental paradigm using an artificial language within a communication task. It is demonstrated that lexical strategies are adopted by participants who are told that their interlocutor has been taught a slightly different dialect to the one which they were taught, but only if the first speaker in an interaction initially uses a lexical strategy. It is concluded that foreigner directed speech needs to be considered as a factor which affects the amount of lexical strategies used within a language with a large proportion of second language speakers

Genealogy as theatre of self-identity: a study of genealogy as a cultural practice within Britain since c. 1850

This thesis is an investigation of genealogical inquiry, but rather than interpreting genealogical activity first and foremost as a branch of history, I analyse genealogy as a form of semi-autobiographical narrative about the self. Instead of viewing the use of archives primarily as a marker of historical scholarship, I investigate the archive as a shared space or horizon in which stories about the self and one’s descent are enacted, a theatrical space in which the ‘narratability’ of the self and of others is exposed. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter provides a ‘heritagraphical’ overview of genealogical knowledge where I argue that the pre-war history of genealogy is worth investigating; genealogy is a diverse cultural practice with its own history, historical agents and situated communities. The second chapter, ‘Archivization of Genealogical Knowledge’, explores the development of genealogy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by investigating the circulation of genealogical knowledge in the public sphere of antiquarian print culture, gender and genealogy, the connections between eugenics, genealogy and archives, and the influence of the American diaspora upon the production and consumption of genealogy within Britain. The third chapter, ‘Narrating the Genealogical Self’, develops the metaphor of the archive as a theatre of self-identity by exploring several texts, including A Family Record (1932), Roots (1976) and the television programmes, Who Do You Think You Are? and Motherland: A Genetic Journey. In doing so, ‘the archive’ is expanded to not only include the traditional notion of an institutional repository of written documentary sources, but also more recent conceptions of the archive as a body of immutable biological code, as the consignation of unique hidden traces, or as the compilation of autobiographical memory. I conclude by arguing that genealogy can represent a desire for semi-autobiographical narrative through which the self is revealed as both a unified self and as a ‘unique existent’. This is how archives disclose to us who we are. In this way, this thesis demonstrates that archives have another function than that of providing tangible evidence of business transactions; they have an ontological function of being necessary ‘other’ evidentiary witnesses, revealing the narratability of who we are as unique historical beings, who, nevertheless, do not stand alone

Discovery and Characterization of Skeletal Muscle-Derived Myokines

Obesity, diabetes, and associated co-morbidities are part of a major health epidemic in the United States, and they are becoming more rampant globally as well. Much still remains to be understood regarding the intricate mechanisms controlling whole-body energy balance and how dysregulation leads to disease. Regular exercise benefits systemic health, and it is hypothesized that myokines secreted from contracting skeletal muscle can mediate these effects. To identify novel exercise-regulated myokines, we measured the levels of 66 cytokines in serum and in glycolytic and oxidative muscles from wildtype mice subjected to either a sprint, endurance run, or one week of voluntary wheel running. Overall, many significant changes were observed in both serum and muscle in response to exercise, and our study identified 22 novel exercise-regulated myokines. Additionally, this is the first report comparing the cytokine profiles between muscle fiber types in response to different exercise regimes, and we demonstrated that there were more differences than commonalities between oxidative and glycolytic muscle. Lastly, a subset of the cytokine changes observed in circulation did not reflect changes in the skeletal muscle but rather correlated with gene expression changes in adipose tissue or liver. In another study, we focused on elucidating the role of a specific myokine, myonectin, in regulating systemic energy metabolism using a genetic knockout mouse model. Loss of myonectin had minimal or negligible effects on glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, and exercise capacity in male and female mice fed a control, low-fat diet. However, when challenged with a high-fat diet to induce obesity, myonectin deficiency altered lipid handling and storage in males. Specifically, knockout mice exhibited a striking impairment in clearing serum lipids following a meal or oral lipid gavage compared to their wildtype littermates. Additionally, myonectin deficiency resulted in a dramatic reduction of high-fat diet-induced hepatic steatosis and, in parallel, a significant increase in adipose tissue mass with concomitant adipocyte hypertrophy. The increased adiposity in knockout mice was promoted, in part, through increased adipose tissue lipoprotein lipase activity. In sum, our studies highlight novel and important functions of myokines in exercise and lipid metabolism, linking skeletal muscle to systemic energy homeostasis

Clinicians’ talk about 'emerging personality disorder' in adolescents: a discursive psychological exploration

Introduction Recently, a growing focus within the literature on the application of personality disorder diagnoses to adolescent populations has been met with concern from mental health professionals. Existing research highlights a reluctance to use the diagnoses among professionals, with concerns including their legitimacy in a younger population and the stigmatising impact of the label. The term ‘emerging personality disorder’ is being used increasingly in clinical practice to describe adolescents’ difficulties, however, it remains a largely undefined construct. Some researchers have suggested that its continued use relates to uncertainty surrounding diagnostic criteria, and to the perceived negative effects of labelling. However to date, no research has specifically focused on the use and function of ‘emerging personality disorder’ as a construct. Objective This study uses discourse analysis to explore how clinicians working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) construct ‘emerging personality disorder’ in reference to their work with adolescents. The research aims to contribute to the growing literature on personality disorder in adolescence, and is to the authors’ knowledge the first study to specifically explore ‘emerging personality disorder’ as a construct. Method Clinicians were recruited from a large Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), from varied teams and professional backgrounds (n=10). Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit talk relating to the topic of personality disorder in adolescence. The analysis of the interview transcripts was informed by discursive psychology (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) and Foucauldian discourse analysis (Foucault, 1979). Results Clinicians constructed ‘emerging personality disorder’ by firstly building up constructions of personality disorder as an adult diagnosis with lifelong stigmatising consequences. Within this discourse, clinicians were positioned as moral guardians, with the role of protecting adolescents from the effects of a diagnosis. There was tension however between this position and a need to talk about the difficulties faced by adolescents. For some, ‘emerging personality disorder’ was constructed as an alternative to an ‘adult’ personality disorder diagnosis that offered greater hope, flexibility and room for recovery. For others, a discourse of concern surrounding the use of ‘emerging personality disorder’ was used to justify alternative ways of talking about the same difficulties that provided distance from personality disorder terminology. Some clinicians drew on discourses of attachment and trauma to explain the distress young people presented with, and others constructed behavioural descriptions for the same difficulties. Across accounts, clinicians spoke about personality disorders with marked hesitance and tentativeness, employing a range of discursive devices to negotiate disputed territory, present accounts as factual, and clinicians as reflective, considerate and reasonable professionals. Discussion This study offers a detailed exploration of clinicians’ talk around personality disorder in adolescence, with a specific focus on the use of ‘emerging personality disorder’. The current findings draw attention to the discourses of concern and caution surrounding the use of personality disorder terminology in an adolescent population. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential impact of the varied conceptualisations of the same presenting difficulties, and the potential value of a reflective space for clinicians to consider the impact of these for their adolescent clients

Iconicity in signed and spoken vocabulary: A comparison between American Sign Language, British Sign Language, English, and Spanish

© 2018 Perlman, Little, Thompson and Thompson. Considerable evidence now shows that all languages, signed and spoken, exhibit a significant amount of iconicity. We examined how the visual-gestural modality of signed languages facilitates iconicity for different kinds of lexical meanings compared to the auditory-vocal modality of spoken languages. We used iconicity ratings of hundreds of signs and words to compare iconicity across the vocabularies of two signed languages - American Sign Language and British Sign Language, and two spoken languages - English and Spanish. We examined (1) the correlation in iconicity ratings between the languages; (2) the relationship between iconicity and an array of semantic variables (ratings of concreteness, sensory experience, imageability, perceptual strength of vision, audition, touch, smell and taste); (3) how iconicity varies between broad lexical classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, grammatical words and adverbs); and (4) between more specific semantic categories (e.g., manual actions, clothes, colors). The results show several notable patterns that characterize how iconicity is spread across the four vocabularies. There were significant correlations in the iconicity ratings between the four languages, including English with ASL, BSL, and Spanish. The highest correlation was between ASL and BSL, suggesting iconicity may be more transparent in signs than words. In each language, iconicity was distributed according to the semantic variables in ways that reflect the semiotic affordances of the modality (e.g., more concrete meanings more iconic in signs, not words; more auditory meanings more iconic in words, not signs; more tactile meanings more iconic in both signs and words). Analysis of the 220 meanings with ratings in all four languages further showed characteristic patterns of iconicity across broad and specific semantic domains, including those that distinguished between signed and spoken languages (e.g., verbs more iconic in ASL, BSL, and English, but not Spanish; manual actions especially iconic in ASL and BSL; adjectives more iconic in English and Spanish; color words especially low in iconicity in ASL and BSL). These findings provide the first quantitative account of how iconicity is spread across the lexicons of signed languages in comparison to spoken languages