One of the most critical uses of foliar characters is in interpreting the angiosperm fossil record. Although fossil reproductive structures comprise an important source of data (e.g., Friis and Skarby, 1982; Basinger and Dilcher, 1984; Herendeen et al., 1999; Crepet et al., 2004; Friis et al., 2006), compressions and impressions of leaves are the most common macroscopic angiosperm fossils. Beca…
Every culture and society has read stories in the night sky. From the careful attention of astronomers across all times and all parts of the world to the search for alien life, the stories found in the shapes of constellations to the expansive imaginings of science fiction, there has always been life up there, at the very least, for our imaginations. Mythologies of Outer Space brings together a…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rarely out of the news or the public imagination. Images of red-eyed Terminators illustrate press accounts of incremental advances in medical diagnosis, facial recognition, natural language processing, and robotics. Such advances are transforming society through measurable impacts on people’s decisions and opportunities. Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An…
A relationship with technology is central to being human, but it is not well understood. Humans create technology and have done since the earliest times, and this is commonly taken as a sign of what distinguishes humanity from the sub-primates. Equally, though, our technologies create us, enabling the activities and experiences and forms of social organization that make us who we are. This in…
We're told that the key to happiness is self-love. Instagram influencers, mommy bloggers, self-help gurus, and even Christian teachers promise that if we learn to love ourselves, we'll be successful, secure, and complete. But the promise doesn't deliver. Instead of feeling fulfilled, our pursuit of self-love traps us in an exhausting cycle: as we strive for self-acceptance, we become addicted t…
The credibility and legitimacy of electoral processes is inextricably linked to electoral integrity. The Global Commission on Democracy, Elections and Security identified five major challenges to the conduct of elections with integrity in its 2012 report: building the rule of law to substantiate claims to human rights and electoral justice, developing professional and competent electoral manage…
Animal research is part of a complex web of relations made up of humans and animals, practices inside and outside the laboratory, formal laws and professional norms, and social imaginaries of the past and future of medicine. Researching Animal Research sets out an innovative approach for understanding and intervening in the social practices that constitute animal research. It proposes the idea …
Pilihan atas sistem pemilu adalah salah satu keputusan kelembagaan paling penting bagi demokrasi di mana pun. Dalam hampir semua kasus pilihan atas sistem pemilu tertentu memiliki pengaruh mendalam bagi masa depan kehidupan politik di negara bersangkutan, dan sistem politik, begitu sudah dipilih, sering kali tetap sangat konstan seiring berbagai kepentingan politik mengukuhkan diri di seputar d…
On a certain summer day, a few years ago, the little village of Briggsville, in Pennsylvania, was thrown into a state of excitement, the like of which was never known since the fearful night, a hundred years before, when a band of red men descended like a cyclone upon the little hamlet with its block-house, and left barely a dozen settlers alive to tell the story of the visitation to their…