The considerable variation in shape, size, structure and properties of the enamel cap covering mammalian teeth is a topic of great evolutionary interest. No existing theories explain how such variations might be fit for the purpose of breaking food particles down. Borrowing from engineering materials science, we use principles of fracture and deformation of solids to provide a quantitative account of how mammalian enamel may be adapted to diet. Particular attention is paid to mammals that feed on ‘hard (...) objects’ such as seeds and dry fruits, the outer casings of which appear to have evolved structures with properties similar to those of enamel. These foods are important in the diets of some primates, and have been heavily implicated as a key factor in the evolutionary history of the hominin clade. As a tissue with intrinsic weakness yet exceptional durability, enamel could be especially useful as a dietary indicator for extinct taxa. BioEssays 30:374–385, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The deformation and wear events that underlie microwear and macrowear signals commonly used for dietary reconstruction in fossil animals can be replicated and quantified by controlled laboratory tests on extracted tooth specimens in conjunction with fundamental micromechanics analysis. Key variables governing wear relations include angularity, stiffness (modulus), and size of the contacting particle, along with material properties of enamel. Both axial and sliding contacts can result in the removal of tooth enamel. The degree of removal, characterized by a (...) “wear coefficient,” varies strongly with particle content at the occlusal interface. Conditions leading to a transition from mild to severe wear are discussed. Measurements of wear traces can provide information about contact force and particle shape. The potential utility of the micromechanics methodology as an adjunct for investigating tooth durability and reconstructing diet is explored. (shrink)

On the young bride’s shoulder is a mauve bite mark: the outline of a mouth, a double arch,teeth marks, open jaws, lips raised up over hard enamel. Not the barely open lips of a kisson the skin; open, rather, as for a kiss on the mouth, but this time penetrating the skin: abristling kiss with the teeth bared, extreme – at the limit of the kiss, or beyond. A cruelkiss: a kiss of flesh . A young couple kisses in (...) a plane: the beginning ofthe film. Later we will see this icon, not knowing when it was imprinted, like a tattoo or abranding with the red hot iron of some ancient justice.What is a kiss? This is the question posed by Claire Denis’s film. Or rather: what isfucking?2It has long been accepted and repeated that kissing is a kind of devouring. Itbelongs to a core of imagery and metaphor that includes fairy tales , the fascination with cannibalism, the symbolism of Christian communion andthat of the lacerations of Dionysos, Osiris or Acteon, together with ghouls, striges andvampires, werewolves, incubi and succubi. This entire carnivorous breed is concealedwithin the film. It is recalled in its entirety, evoked by the gesture of Coré, the sick woman, standing on a bank, filmed from a low angle raising her coat aboveher shoulders to bring to mind for a moment the silhouette of Murnau’s Nosferatu.The vampire’s true formula is only revealed when one says ‘the kiss of the vampire’.That is what is at stake here, allowing for the fact that we are no longer in the era ofvampire stories: the kiss as vampire.It is not a question of any particular kiss, but rather that the kiss, in itself, opens on to the bite, and the taste of blood. And consequently it is a question of another wellknown coupling, that of Eros and Thanatos: not in a dialectic of opposites, but in a mutualexcitation and exasperation, each asking the other to go further, to go all the way to theend, to get completely lost. (shrink)

The so-called Artukid bowl is the only enameled object which includes both an Arabic and a Persian inscription. According to the Arabic inscription the Artukid ruler Rukn ed Devle Davud was the owner of this object. Although its provenance is still unclear, the technique and material show similarities to several Byzantine examples. For this reason the bowl has been interpreted as a royal gift from Constantinople to the Artukid ruler. It has also been attributed to Georgia or to Mesopotamia. The (...) Arabic inscription includes a long list of titles of Rukn ed Devle Davud, like "Katl al Kafara" or "Samsam al Milla" . I, however, cannot imagine that a Christian emperor would address an Islamic ruler with such terms. The sender of the bowl was most likely another Islamic monarch. In addition, the Persian inscription leads to suspect that the sender had a close relationship with the Persian language and culture. Most probably he was a member of the royal Seljuk family in Anatolia. What was the reason for sending such a gift to a minor local ruler ? The written sources inform us that the daughter of the Seljuk Sultan Kiliç Aslan I. , Sacide Hatun , was married with Rukn ed Devle Davud, owner of our bowl. Furthermore the sources tell us that bowls were sometimes a part of the dowries. All these factors lead me to suggest that the so-called Artukid bowl was produced as a wedding gift in a Greek atelier of Seljuk Anatolia. (shrink)

Reading is an amazing skill. As you read this review, meaning flows from the page (or for many readers, the screen) into your brain. This happens automatically—you can’t choose not to understand the written word any more than the spoken one. It’s also highly efficient. Most people can process text two or three times faster than speech. Of course, humans have many amazing skills. We also identify objects, decode speech, and understand complex social situations automatically and efficiently. However, the machinery (...) in the brain that gives us these abilities, and many more, was plausibly constructed by natural selection, and, if so, they are adaptations just like our peculiar pelvis and the thick enamel on our molars. Reading arose a few thousand years ago, and this means that machinery in the brain that allows us to read did not evolve for that purpose. Instead, a series of scribes, priests, and printers working over a few thousand years gradually devised the writing systems that give rise to this amazing skill. In this fascinating book, Stanislaus Dehaene details how cognitive abilities evolved for other purposes were co-opted for reading, how these abilities are instantiated in the brain, and how they constrain the cultural evolution of writing systems. Dehaene does an excellent job explaining how reading works at both the neurobiological and cognitive levels. He takes the reader seriously, laying out diverse kinds of evidence that bear on the problem. For example, when you read, visual information is shunted to a small region in the left hemisphere of your brain, the brain’s ‘‘letter box’’ where the text is decoded. The earliest evidence for this came from the autopsy of a 19th century French stroke victim who lost the ability to read, even though he could still recognize numerals. More recently, PET and fMRI imaging studies have pinned down the location. Amazingly, these results show that it doesn’t matter whether you read Italian or Chinese, the same part of the brain is involved. Electroencephalograms gave us a better temporal resolution, and single neuron recordings of patients undergoing surgery confirm that only some neurons respond to text while others respond to faces, tools.. (shrink)

The author reveals Fyodor Dostoevsky's works main features, his importance for Russian and world philosophy. The researcher analyzes the concept of "Russian Idea" introduced by Dostoyevsky, which became a study subject in Russian philosophy's subsequent history. The polemics that arose regarding the characteristics of Dostoevsky's soilness ideology and his interpretation of the Russian Idea in his Pushkin Speech and subsequent comments in A Writer's Diary are unveiled. The author concludes that Dostoevsky overcomes the limitations of soilness and comes to universalism. (...) The universal for him does not have a rootless cosmopolitan character but is born from the national's heyday. Diversity adorns the truth, and national diversity enamels humankind. People's real unity is in that all-human value that is found in the highest examples of each national culture. The truth is not in rootless cosmopolitanism or nationalism - it is in the "golden mean," which, in our opinion, the writer-philosopher sought to express. Dostoevsky wanted to rise above the dispute, to recognize the points of view of the Slavophiles and Westernizers as one-sided, to get out of any particularity to universality. (shrink)

Integrated developmental and elemental information in teeth provide a unique framework for documenting breastfeeding histories, physiological disruptions, and neurotoxicant exposure in humans and our primate relatives, including ancient hominins. Here we detail our method for detecting the consumption of mothers’ milk and exploring health history through the use of laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) mapping of sectioned nonhuman primate teeth. Calcium‐normalized barium and lead concentrations in tooth enamel and dentine may reflect milk and formula consumption with minimal modification (...) during subsequent tooth mineralization, particularly in dentine. However, skeletal resorption during severe illness, and bioavailable metals in nonmilk foods, can complicate interpretations of nursing behavior. We show that explorations of the patterning of multiple elements may aid in the distinction of these important etiologies. Targeted studies of skeletal chemistry, gastrointestinal maturation, and the dietary bioavailability of metals are needed to optimize these unique records of human health and behavior. (shrink)

A recent decision by several Australian State politicians to support a parliamentary review of artificial water fluoridation has an intensified debate on the public health intervention. While there is a majority agreement among Australian dentists and other health professionals that adequate enamel fluoride is essential for dental health, the ethics of artificial fluoridation of public water supplies as a contemporary vehicle for facilitating adequate supply of fluoride to teeth is highly contested. Opponents of artificial water fluoridation insist that there (...) are many alternative sources of fluoride, that mandatory water fluoridation violates the ethical principle of autonomy and that water fluoridation is not only expensive and unnecessary but also may endanger health by causing fluorosis and, potentially, hypothyroidism and pathological bone fractures. In contrast, proponents of water fluoridation posit that mandatory water fluoridation facilitates health equity and that the benefits accruing to society from prevention of dental caries (beneficence principle) outweighs impairment of individual autonomy. This article utilizes Childress’ ‘justificatory conditions’ to evaluate the ethical appropriateness of artificial water fluoridation in Australia. The author concludes that there is insufficient ethical justification for artificial water fluoridation in Australia. (shrink)

A viewing stone is a rock that has been selected and displayed for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation. The relocation of a stone from its natural habitat changes the found object from an ordinary rock to a viewing stone that invites close examination and perhaps contemplation.In this essay, I will examine the act of "re-grounding" rocks that have been removed from nature and resettled in the soil of culture. Using examples from my collection of viewing stones, I will consider the (...) recontextualization process in the light of our ambiguous relationship with the natural world.The Stone That Flew HereMalachite, wood, Bondo, enamel, 2017In Ming Dynasty China catalogues of viewing stones were illustrated... (shrink)

This chapter examines the origin of the enamelled hanging-bowls discovered in Sutton Hoo and their implications for understanding Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and British relations. It suggests that such bowls were originally made in some of the most prosperous centres of British Britain from the mid-sixth century, and that the fashion for them was exported to Ireland much later than the first wave of brooches and pins of around the year 400. The chapter contends that the problem concerning the origin of the (...) bowls can be resolved by the suggestion that it was on both sides of the northern Irish Sea littoral that Viking raiders found hanging-bowls and enamelled buckets. (shrink)