This paper offers a critical analysis of program evaluation in contemporary urban agriculture. Drawing on data from an exploratory study designed at the request of and in collaboration with urban agriculture practitioners in Massachusetts, it describes both their critiques of extant practices of program evaluation and their visions for alternative ways of telling the story of their work. Related, it explores practitioners’ interest in building capacity for policy advocacy, working collectively to create transformative social change, and, related, establishing new kinds (...) of relationships with state and philanthropic funders. Building on scholarship that has observed that urban agriculture is characterized by an internal contradiction—i.e., its simultaneous orientation to “neoliberal” and “radical” agendas —this analysis calls attention, especially, to the complex role of metrics, which may not only entrench neoliberalism in UA organizations, but also provide a mechanism for challenging its assumptions and advancing the radical project of food justice. (shrink)

The COVID‐19 pandemic has placed extraordinary stress on frontline healthcare providers as they encounter significant challenges and risks while caring for patients at the bedside. This study used qualitative research methods to explore nurses and respiratory therapists' experiences providing direct care to COVID‐19 patients during the first surge of the pandemic at a large academic medical center in the Northeastern United States. The purpose of this study was to explore their experiences as related to changes in staffing models and to (...) consider needs for additional support. Twenty semi‐structured interviews were conducted with sixteen nurses and four respiratory therapists via Zoom or by telephone. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, identifiers were removed, and data was coded and analyzed thematically. Five major themes characterize providers' experiences: a fear of the unknown, concerns about infection, perceived professional unpreparedness, isolation and alienation, and inescapable stress and distress. This manuscript analyzes the relationship between these themes and the concept of moral distress and finds that some, but not all, of the challenges that providers faced during this time align with previous definitions of the concept. This points to the possibility of broadening the conceptual parameters of moral distress to account for providers' experiences of treating patients with novel illnesses while encountering institutional and clinical challenges. (shrink)

Stem-cell nomenclature is in a muddle! So-called stem cells may be self-renewing or emergent, oligopotent (uni- and multipotent) or pluri- and totipotent, cells with perpetual embryonic features or cells that have changed irreversibly. Ambiguity probably seeped into stem cells from common usage, flukes in biology's history beginning with Weismann's divide between germ and soma and Haeckel's biogenic law and ending with contemporary issues over the therapeutic efficacy of adult versus embryonic cells. Confusion centers on tissue dynamics, whether stem cells are (...) properly members of emerging or steady-state populations. Clarity might yet be achieved by codifying differences between cells in emergent populations, including embryonic stem and embryonic germ (ES and EG) cells in tissue culture as opposed to self-renewing (SR) cells in steady-state populations. BioEssays 28: 301–308, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This paper examines processes of translation through which molecular genetic technologies and practices are incorporated into environmental health research and regulation. Specifically, it considers how scientists, risk assessors, and regulators have used genetically modified mouse models to translate across scientific disciplines, articulate emergent molecular forms, standards, and practices with the extant? gold standard,? and establish roles for molecular knowledge in risk assessment and regulation. Noting variation both within and between regulatory agencies in responses to data from these models, the article (...) describes also the role of public-private networks and their effects on professional and institutional imperatives which shape regulators? responses to the potential applications of these models. The conclusions address the importance of translation for understanding the wider implications of the molecularization of environmental health science. (shrink)

Argues that death is not unchanging, but rather has evolved over time.

Françoise Baylis’s “aim in writing this book is to improve the ethics literacy and science literacy of those who are keen to reflect on the ethics and governance of deliberately altering the genome...

Maia Weinstock’s 2022 Carbon Queen is not a biography of Mildred Dresselhaus (Millie). It is a tribute and testimonial richly endowed with citations, comments, and compliments! “In all, Millie auth...

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 711-712, August 2012.

Huxley: The Devil's Disciple, vol. 1. By Adrian Desmond xvii + 475 pp. £20.00 cloth. Huxley: Evolution's High Priest, vol. 2. By Adrian Desmond xiv + 370 pp. £27.00 cloth.

Volume 25, Issue 5, August 2020, Page 609-612.

David Haig’s From Darwin to Derrida scrutinizes a wide range of historical and contemporary issues embedded in the theory and practice of genetics—from genes to multilevel selection, from prokaryot...

Volume 25, Issue 7-8, November - December 2020, Page 886-888.

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 560-561, July 2012.

Allow me to introduce hydra, specifically, Hydra viridis [AKA Chlorohydra viridissima; Hydra viridissima], the green hydra, photographed here in culture (Fig. 1, enlarged ~10:1). This animal has si...

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 5, Page 710-711, August 2012.