Brexit, short for “British exit” and costly for Great Britain and Europe

The portmanteau Brexit stands for “British exit.” This term mirrors the abbreviation Grexit, referring to the (potential) withdrawal of Greece from the Eurozone. While the Grexit, debated in context of the Greece debt crisis—and not wished for by most Greeks—has (for now) been avoided, the Brexit depends on the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum scheduled for June 23, 2016. The referendum will take place in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar.

If the majority of Britons are going to vote in favor of a Brexit, Great Britain will—more or less—be deprived of an active role in shaping the world around its isles. Escaping European bureaucracy and stepping aside EU regulations will not help in turning unwelcome constraints into advancing strategies.

For example, leaders in the U.K.'s biotech industry argue that a Brexit would create a significant research funding gap for biotech companies, since the U.K. contributes about 12% to the EU budget dedicated for science research, but receives 15% of that budget. And [1]: “A Brexit would also require a new U.K. drug authorization system and the uprooting of the London-based European Medicines Agency to an EU country.”

A large number of scientist, including Stephen Hawking, are concerned about the United Kingdom leaving the European Union [2]. The clock is ticking. Europe and the world is watching!

Keywords: plebiscite, British Euroscepticism, European Union.

Reference
[1] Alex Scott: Industry urges against Brexit. Chemical & Engineering News March 7, 2016, 94 (10), page 8.
[2] What would Brexit mean for Science? http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0310/What-would-Brexit-mean-for-science-video.

“Tree of Life” associations

The term Tree of Life is associated with words such as biodiversity, phylogeny and taxonomy. In the 1970s, Carl Woese and his coworkers began with studies that lead to the reorganization of whatever lives under the biologically grouped kingdoms [1]. Instead of using classifiers based on morphological and physiological data, they employed genetic data to establish relationships between different organisms. In 1977, Woese and Fox proposed eubacteria, archaebacteria and urkaryotes (now bacteria, archaea and eukarya) as the main branches of the tree; defining a three-domain system with various subdomains.

The Tree of Life continues to be rewritten—and refined. There are web sites dedicated to track and incorporate published (sub)trees and to provide information for their twigs and leaves [2,3]. A recent study initiated the automatic assembly and digitalization of published trees into a “complete” Tree of Life [2,4]. This Open Tree of Life can be updated via uploading. The underlying data can be downloaded for homework, analysis and phylogenetic research. The authors of the evolutionary tree study express the following hope [4]:  

This comprehensive tree will fuel fundamental research on the nature of biological diversity, ultimately providing up-to-date phylogenies for downstream applications in comparative biology, ecology, conservation biology, climate, change, agriculture, and genomics.

A supertree to save the world!

References and more to explore
[1] NovaNext: The Man Who Rewrote the Tree of Life [www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/evolution/carl-woese].
[2] Open Tree of Life: tree.opentreeoflife.org/opentree/argus/opentree3.0@1.
[3] TOLWeb: Tree of Life web project [tolweb.org/tree].
[4] Hincliff, C. E. et al.: Synthesis of phylogeny and taxonomy into a comprehensive tree of life. PNAS 2015, 112 (41), DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423041112.

A twisted, racetrack-shaped torus to generate and confine a plasma: the stellarator

A stellarator is a nuclear-fusion device invented in the early 1950s by American astrophysicist and plasma physicist Lyman Spitzer (1914-1997) [1,2]. The name of this complex device signifies a star machine, referring to the goal of harnessing the energy like a stellar object such as the sun. Therefore, this device is also called by the composed term stellarator-heliotron and the concept behind its design is named the stellarator-heliotron concept [3]—heliotron literally meaning sun automat.

In the plasma physics community a stellarator is also known as the black horse of reactors, since it is very difficult to build. It took 1.1 million construction hours (spent over 19 years, including times of construction setbacks) to built the world's largest experimental stellarator, the W7-X, which currently is ready to be fired up [4].

W7-X is short for Wendelstein 7-X, referring to the Wendelstein mountain in the Bavarian Alps south of Garching, where its predecessor Wendelstein 7-AS was built and tested [5]. The successor W7-X was assembled by researchers and engineers at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP) in Greifswald, northeast Germany. Now being completed, W7-X—with large modular superconducting coils enabling steady-state plasma operations—is the world's largest fusion device of the stellarator type [5]:

Its objective is to investigate the suitability of this type for a power plant. It will also test an optimised magnetic field for confining the plasma, which will be produced by a system of 50 non-planar and superconducting magnetic coils, this being the technical core piece of the device.

W7-X is expected to generate its first plasma at the end of this year.

References and more to explore
[1]  National Aeronautic and Space Administration: Lyman Spitzer, Jr. [asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/hubble/overview/spitzer_bio.html].
[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica: Lyman Spitzer, Jr. [http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lyman-Spitzer-Jr].
[3] Energy technology Network: Stellarator-Heliotron Concept [www.iea.org/techinitiatives/fusionpower/stellarator-heliotron].
[4] Yahoo!: Germany is about to start up a monster machine that could revolutionize the way we use energy [finance.yahoo.com/news/germany-start-monster-machine-could-152111129.html].
[5] IPP: Wendelstein 7-AS (1988-2002) [www.ipp.mpg.de/2665443/w7as].
[6] IPP: Wendelstein 7-X [http://www.ipp.mpg.de/16900/w7x].

Frank's introduction to stock market terms

Stock market trading goes back over about two centuries. When telegraphy revolutionized long-distance communication in the 1840s and facilitated stock-market quotations, a new era began for traders, banks and brokerage firms as well as any business relying on their services. As always with novel, growing human activities, an insider language evolved. Today's stock market terminology is super-rich in trading-specific words and phrases [1-3].

Basic trading terms were used then as they are today. Frank Algernon Cowperwood in Theodore Dreiser's financial-world thriller The Financier, published in its first version in 1912,  learned the key terms of trading early along his career path leading to his life as a fiercely ambitious businessman. Even before the telegraph and telephone became commonplace, bears and bulls were fighting and struggling as they do in current markets.

Frank started out under the direction of Mr. Arthur Rivers, the regular floor man of Tighe & Company in Philadelphia. He soon learned that it is useless to try to figure out exactly why stocks rose and fell. Anything can make or break a market. To thrive in the exciting or traumatizing world of uncertainty and constant struggle required knowledge of how to word the flow of virtual money. Frank mastered the stock market lingo with ease [4]:  

Frank soon picked up all the technicalities of the situation. A “bull,” he learned, was one who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was “loaded up” with a “line” of stocks he was said to be “long.” He sold to “realize” his profit, or if his margins were exhausted he was “wiped out.” A “bear” was one who sold stocks most frequently he did not have, in anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales. He was “short” when he had sold what he did not own, and he “covered” when he bought to satisfy his sales and to realize his profits or to protect himself against further loss in case prices advance instead of declining. He was in a “corner” when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the stock he had borrowed for delivery and the return of which had been demanded. He was then obliged to settle practically at a price fixed by those to whom he and other “shorts” had sold.

The terms within quotes have been text-colored by the author of this post. These terms are mostly elementary words out of the basic English vocabulary that take on a different, context-specific meaning within the financial market domain. 

Keywords: literature, economy, financial world, investment terms, stock market vocabulary.

References and more to explore
[1] Nasdaq: Glossary of Stock Market Terms [www.nasdaq.com/investing/glossary].
[2] Value Stock Guide: Stock Market Terminology for Beginners [valuestockguide.com/stock-market-terminology-for-beginners].
[3] Wise Stock Buyer: Stock Market Terminology [www.wisestockbuyer.com/stock-market-terminology].
[4] Theodore Dreiser: The Financier. Penguin Books Ltd, London, England; Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Larzer Ziff, 2008.

Connecting with Alfred Russel Wallace

For many, the name Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is synonymous with all observations and thoughts that originated into the theory of evolution by natural selection. Lately, the name of the fourteen-years-younger cofounder of evolution theory is increasingly recognized: Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913). The British naturalist  and geographer Wallace is also known as the founder of the science of biogeography; highlighted by the term Wallace Line or Wallace's Line that refers to the boundary line separating Asia-associated and New-Guinea/Australia-associated ecozones.

The September 2015 issue of Natural History—a special commemorative issue as part of the Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary Celebration—honors the outstanding 19th century explorer and biologist. The ARW Online article in the nature.net section provides various links to discover Wallace and his world:

• people.wku.edu/charles.smith/index1.htm, dubbed the grandaddy of all Wallace websites;
• wallace-online.org, John van Wyhe's Wallace online site with a comprehensive compilation of of specimens;
• www.nhm.ac.uk/wallacelettersonline, George Beccaloni's collection of letters to and from Wallace (see also The Alfred Russel Wallace Corresponence Project at wallaceletters.info and articles written by Wallace scholar Beccaloni at wallacefund.info);
• darwinlive.com/wallace/amnh.html, Richard Milner's nontechnical introduction to and selection of events celebrating Wallace;
• www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/24837130, Sir David Attenborough's “The forgotton story of Alfred Russel Wallace”;
• www.eeb.ucla.edu/arwallace, Feelie Lee's associated Wallace Centennial Celebration at UCLA on Nov. 15, 2014;
• media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/films/OriginSpecies-Theory.html, the movie “The Origin of Species: The Making of a theory”;
• www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcCP4_R8QBw), a YouTube movie about seeking birds of paradise in Wallace's footsteps.

Reference:
ARW Online. Natural History September 2015, 123 (7), page 5.

An acronym marking the intersection of music and information technology: CCRMA for Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics

Computers are frequently employed these days to generate music. Computers are also used to analyze music. Further, they are used to analyze soundscapes of both urban and natural environments. To close the cycle, composers weave environmental sounds, such as animal sounds, into their musical creations.  A composition that incorporates an imitations of a bird song such as a nightingale melody is a case in point.

A natural soundscape is not just a great stimulation for musical compositions, but constitutes a complex acoustical web, which is not fully understood by humans and remains a rich resource for human enjoyment, recreation and (re)connection to the natural world. At the Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, CCRMA—pronounced “karma” (the first “c” is silent), musicians and researchers are teaming up and exploring computer-assisted technology as an artistic medium and as a research tool [1].

Bernie Krause includes the CCRMA innovators into his review of biophonically inspired composers in Chapter Six “Different Croaks for Different Folks” of his book "The Great Animal Orchestra"[2]. Mentioning the British composer Benjamin Britten, some of whose orchestrations are strongly influenced by the urban and natural soundscapes that Britten experienced at his home in East Anglia and during his travels, Krause continues:

And there are others, including works by a few students at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford—where composers and innovators such as John Chowning study the intersection of music and information technology using advanced synthesizers as creative media tools through which they express what they discovered. Some of the students have begun to reexamine the potential of natural soundscapes and early instruments as important sources of compositional stimulus.

The oldest musical instrument known today is a Stone Age flute, carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago [3]. Neither do we know the ancient natural soundscape of southwestern Germany, where the flute was found, nor do we know what tunes were played on it by the early European humans.  But certainly, listining to the soundscape and making sounds (often too many and too loud) is part of human nature and activities.

Keywords: soundscapes, eco-acoustics, biophony, musical science, anthroplolgy.

References and more to explore
[1] Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics: https://ccrma.stanford.edu.
[2] Bernie Krause: The Great Animal Orchestra. Back Bay Books, New York, March 2013; page 150 in first Back Bay paperback edition.
[3] Archaeologists unearth oldest musical instruments ever found: http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/06/24/archaeologists_unearth_oldest_musical_intstruments_ever_found.

Acronym in biology: HHO for Havers-Halberg oscillation

Biological rhythms in animals have fascinated observers of nature for a long time. An example is the circadian rhythm, a diurnal rhythm synchronized with the day/night circle. In mammals, metabolic product rhythms with a twenty-four-hour oscillation pattern are known as the mammalian circadian clock [1]. The concentration of molecular components in body fluids rises and falls on a twenty-four hour cycle.

What about metabolites cycling according to a multidien schedule (multi-day schedule)?  Timothy G. Bromage of the Hard Tissue Research Unit of the New York University College of Dentistry describes findings of his research group showing that certain metabolites in the blood of domestic pigs cycled on a five-day rhythm. Those metabolites belong to two distinct groups: metabolites of one group reached their peak three days later than the other [2,3].

Until recently, such synchronized multi-day rhythms have commonly been overlooked in mammalian chronobiology studies. Most strikingly, the five-day rhythm leaves its marks in enamel and bone structures. The Bromage team found that the pig's teeth show the striae-of-Retzius pattern with a repeat period of exactly five. This evidence suggests a multidien rhythm that regulates growth and body size, which is called the Havers-Halberg oscillation (HHO) by Bromage and his colleagues [2]:

We call this rhythm the Havers-Halberg oscillation (HHO), after Clopton Havers who in 1691 described what we now know are lamellae in bone and striae of Retzius in enamel, and Franz Halberg, father of modern chronobiology. 

Periodic layer structures in hard tissue are documented for various mammal species. Rhythm & stria relationships, which will be similar to the reported correlation between biochemical oscillations and linear marks in pig teeth, can be expected to exist in other mammal species. For humans, the better understanding of such repeat patterns may eventually help to design individual health and healing plans in rhythm with metabolic cycles—think rhythmically tuned diet and medication.    

The English physician Clopton Havers was a pioneer in osteogeny. Anatomists are familiar with Haversian canals traversing compact bone tissue. Havers was born in 1657 in Stambourne, Essex. He is best known for his work on the microstructure of bone. In 1686, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Havers died in Essex in 1702 [3,4].

Franz Halberg was born in 1919 in Bistriz in Romania. In the 1940s, Halberg performed medicinal research at the University of Innsbruck and became a citizen of Austria. In 1948, he immigrated to the United States, where he continued his inqueries in biology and medicine.  Halberg  founded the fields of  quantitative chronobiolgy, chronomics and chronobioethics. He died in 2013 [5].

The term “Havers-Halberg oscillation” honors two outstanding scientists living in different epochs and gaining insight within until recently unconnected domains, which now find their synthesis in a more holistic view in the science community, deepening and advancing cross-subdiscipline understanding in life science.

Keywords: quantitative chronobiology, biological cycles, chronomics, osteogeny, stria of Retzius, life history.

References and more to explore
[1] Caroline H. Ko and Joseph S. Takahashi: Molecular components of the mammalian circadian clock. Human Molecular Genetics 2006, R271-R277 [hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/suppl_2/R271.full].
[2] Timothy G. Bromage: Long in the Tooth: Striation in teeth reveal the pace of life. Natural History June 2015, 123 (5),16-21.
[3] Timothy G. Bromage and Malvin N. Janai: The Havers-Halberg oscillation regulates primate tissue and organ masses across the life-history continuum. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society August 2014, 112 (4), 649-656 [onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12269/abstract].
[4] Jessie Dobson: Clopton Havers [www.boneandjoint.org.uk/highwire/filestream/9782/field_highwire_article_pdf/0/702.full-text.pdf].
[5] The Blog of Funny Names: Clopton Havers, Bone Master [funnynamesblog.com/2015/02/02/clopton-havers-bone-master].
[6] Germaine Cornelissen, Francine Halberg, Julia Halberg and Othild Schwartzkopff: Obituary. Franz Halberg, MD (5 July 1919-9 June 2013) - In Appreciation. Chronobiology International 2013, 1-3 [ctb.upm.es/pdfs/ISC-ObitFH.pdf].