Big Ears Research Articles

Nichole T. Rustin and Sherrie Tucker, eds. Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008.

Nichole T. Rustin and Sherrie Tucker, eds. Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008.

Caracterização fenotípica de ovinos da raça Santa Inês no Estado do Piauí

Objetivou-se, com esse trabalho, estudar a caracterização morfométrica de ovinos da raça Santa Inês para auxílio à conservação genética desta raça em diferentes microrregiões do Estado do Piauí, de modo a contribuir com a conservação da raça. Para isso, foram coletadas medidas morfométricas em ovinos oriundos de diferentes microrregiões do Estado do Piauí. As características de medidas corporais coletadas foram a altura de cernelha, a altura de garupa, a circunferência torácica, o comprimento corporal e o comprimento de orelha. Foram avaliadas as médias das medidas por microrregião e através da análise de componentes principais, com auxílio do PROC PRINCOMP do SAS, foi possível agrupar as populações com base em medidas de similaridade. Os grupos foram formados através da análise de agrupamento pelo método Ward. A partir das análises foi encontrada diversidade fenotípica nos ovinos Santa Inês criados no Estado do Piauí, sendo formada por um grupo de animais maiores, localizados nas microrregiões de Floriano, Médio Parnaíba Piauiense, Campo Maior e Teresina; um grupo de animais de tamanho intermediário, porém com comprimento corpora e circunferência torácica maiores e orelhas pequenas, localizado na microrregião de São Raimundo Nonato, outro grupo com tamanho intermediário e orelhas grandes e o último grupo composto por animais menores, localizados nas microrregiões do Litoral Piauiense e Valença. As medidas que mais contribuíram para a análise de componente principal foram as medidas de altura de garupa, altura de cernelha e comprimento corporal.

Little Pitchers Use Their Big Ears: Preschoolers Solve Problems by Listening to Others Ask Questions

Children ask questions and learn from the responses they receive; however, little is known about how children learn from listening to others ask questions. Five experiments examined preschoolers' (N = 179) ability to solve simple problems using information gathered from listening to question-and-answer exchanges between 2 parties present in the same room. Overall, the ability to efficiently use information gathered from overheard exchanges improved between ages 3 and 5. Critically, however, across ages children solved the majority of problems correctly, suggesting preschoolers are capable of learning from others' questions. Moreover, children learned from others' questions without explicit instruction and when engaged in another activity. Implications for the development of problem-solving skills are discussed.

Backward Bottlenecks

Teosinte, the putative ancestor of maize, is rarely found in early Mesoamerican archaeological deposits, and maize later took a very long time to develop big ears and to become an effective staple grain. These patterns are best explained by the hypothesis of early nongrain use. Consumption of teosinte or maize for stalk sugar or as a green vegetable created reverse bottlenecks at odds with the default assumption that early selection targeted grain. Such bottlenecks were especially potent in small teosinte/maize populations outside their upland habitats. The ultimate products of plant domestication should not be confused with the selection behaviors of ancient people. Such behaviors are sometimes counterintuitive, producing an archaeological record that fails to match the expectations of our reconstructed logic.

Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies edited by Rustin, Nichole T., and Sherrie Tucker

<i>Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies</i> edited by Rustin, Nichole T., and Sherrie Tucker

2009 Malinowski Award

Walking to the university library on a windy day, I saw fast-food paper sacks, gum, and candy wrappers filling curb gutters and clinging to bushes. There were empty soft drink and beer cartons, drifting papers, and plastic bags under the stadium ramps. I knew it was the day after homecoming. Still, it reminded me of fieldwork in developing countries stumbling over unrepaired sidewalks and deep pot-holed roads. Will cities everywhere look like this? Will it be because of the 2008 world subprime mortgage crisis? I thought of the wolf in Yellowstone Park and at the global door:I'll huff and I'll puff until I blow your house down, he said.Grandma, what big ears you have! The better to hear you with, my child.Grandma, what a big nose you have! The better to smell you with, my child.Grandma, what big teeth you have! The better to eat you with, my child, he said.

Melancholia's Meerkat: A Poetic Leap

I think we learn to be worldly from grappling with, rather than generalizing from, the ordinary.—Donna HarawayThe question that preoccupies me in the light of recent global violence is, Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? And, finally, What makes for a grievable life?—Judith ButlerIn a New York Times editorial piece published in May 2007 about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Nicholas Kristof lamented, not for the first time, that people “aren't moved by genocide.” “The human conscience just isn't pricked by mass suffering,” Kristof continues, and yet, as both anecdotal evidence and scientific research have repeatedly shown, “an individual child (or puppy) in distress causes our hearts to flutter.” He recounts a series of psychological and sociological experiments that have borne out what he calls “the limits of rationality,” including the fact that people who hear narratives or see images that “prime the emotions” by focusing on the plight of an individual suffering creature—say, a baby or “a soulful dog in peril”—respond more vigorously to that suffering than those who have had their “rational side” primed by performing math problems. Perhaps, Kristof proposes in disgust, what the Darfur situation needs in order to achieve the public recognition it deserves—let alone to effect actual change—is not statistics of mass genocide but a very photogenic, if appropriately sad-eyed, poster child, “a suffering puppy with big eyes and floppy ears.” “If President Bush and the global public alike are unmoved by the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of fellow humans,” he despairingly concludes, “maybe our last, best hope is that we can be galvanized by a puppy in distress.”

Big ears: listening for gender in jazz studies

Big ears: listening for gender in jazz studies

Blind and naked, but oh so cool: The subterranean world of the naked mole‐rat

Are big ears, tails, and eyes simply anatomical "junk" to subterranean mammals? These animals show remarkable convergent evolution for reducing external ears, tails, and eyes. The naked mole‐rat (NMR, Heterocephalus glaber) displays these features, as well as unusual characteristics even among subterraneans (cold‐blooded and completely furless). Whereas visual and auditory spatial cues are of diminished importance, NMRs are specialized for alternative modalities (primarily via mechanoceptors). We are studying yet other unusual characteristics, which include two structures that may be heading for the anatomical junk pile. First, the NMR is the only mammal with a vomeronasal organ (VNO) that shows no post‐natal growth and sexual suppression is not mediated by urinary signals as in other rodents. Second, the nerve network for processing pain from chemicals (acid and capsaicin) is reduced and lacks neuropeptides that usually signal pain. NMRs are the only mammals that feel no pain from these substances. These features may be a result of this species' unusual combination of lifestyle traits (subterranean + hundreds of individuals + extremely social), resulting in CO2 levels high enough to cause acidosis and chemical pain. Coincidentally, the neuropeptides that are lacking from the pain system also mediate the VNO's vascular pump. NMRs provide unique insights into sensory specialization and evolutionary loss.

The aerodynamics of big ears in the brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus

Wings are the most obvious adaptation bats have for powered flight and differences in wing morphology are known to correlate with flight behaviour. However, the function(s) of ancillary structures such as the ears and tail, which may also play an important role during flight, are less well understood. Here we constructed a simplified model of a bat body with ears based upon morphological measurements of a brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) to examine the aerodynamic implications of flying with large ears. The forces and moments produced by the model were measured using a sensitive 6-component force and torque balance during wind tunnel testing. The large ears of the model bat produced positive lift as well as positive drag of the same order of magnitude. At small ears angles (0° to 10°), increasing the angle of the ears resulted in an increase of the lift-to-drag ratio. At higher ear angles (> 10°) separation of the flow occurred which caused a large decrease in the lift-to-drag ratio produced. To maximise the benefit from the ears (i.e., lift-to-drag ratio) our model predicts that a horizontal free flying P. auritus should hold its ears at an approximate angle of 10°. The results of the pitching moment coefficient are inconclusive in determining if the large ears are important as flight control structures. The additional drag produced by the ears has consequences for the foraging behaviour of P. auritus with reductions in its flight speed and foraging range.

Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies

This is a book review of the edited volume Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz by Nichole T. Rustin and Sherrie Tucker focusing on the various methodologies used in the study of gender and music.

Communication: what big ears you have!

Communication: what big ears you have!

Facial Dysmorphism in Leigh Syndrome With SURF-1 Mutation and COX Deficiency

Leigh syndrome is an inherited, progressive neurodegenerative disorder of infancy and childhood. Mutations in the nuclear SURF-1 gene are specifically associated with cytochrome C oxidase-deficient Leigh syndrome. This report describes two patients with similar facial features. One of them was a 2(1/2)-year-old male, and the other was a 3-year-old male with a mutation in SURF-1 gene and facial dysmorphism including frontal bossing, brachycephaly, hypertrichosis, lateral displacement of inner canthi, esotropia, maxillary hypoplasia, hypertrophic gums, irregularly placed teeth, upturned nostril, low-set big ears, and retrognathi. The first patient's magnetic resonance imaging at 15 months of age indicated mild symmetric T2 prolongation involving the subthalamic nuclei. His second magnetic resonance imaging at 2 years old revealed a symmetric T2 prolongation involving the subthalamic nuclei, substantia nigra, and medulla lesions. In the second child, at the age of 2 the first magnetic resonance imaging documented heavy brainstem and subthalamic nuclei involvement. A second magnetic resonance imaging, performed when he was 3 years old, revealed diffuse involvement of the substantia nigra and hyperintense lesions of the central tegmental tract in addition to previous lesions. Facial dysmorphism and magnetic resonance imaging findings, observed in these cases, can be specific findings in Leigh syndrome patients with cytochrome C oxidase deficiency. SURF-1 gene mutations must be particularly reviewed in such patients.

Compulsion, and: Geezers, and: Variation on a Theme by Wordsworth, and: Stirred, and: The Poems I Want to Hear

Compulsion Because he did not write yesterday, today he must write twice. Having switched on a lamp, he must turn on a second lamp. He must not waver in his intention lest he have to make a correction on the opposite side: a man who, having fallen on his left side must touch his right knee down to placate the forces of equilibrium. Extreme, yes, but not uncommon where mumbo-jumbo hides in sidewalk cracks and issues from the throats of chickens in times of slaughter. We have lawns from which all happenstance has been yanked, bagged and delivered to an inferno. Burn the evidence to lose both sides at once. He believed he could sort any hodgepodge into groups but how? Weight, color, transparency, utility? – locks, pens, ashtrays, balls, matchbooks, spoons – and the doctor waiting while he ran through the possibilities. The idea, which the doctor could not fathom, was to even things up so that nothingness remained whole. It was always his argument with time, which, he was certain, symmetry eats in space. [End Page 49] Geezers Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld It was a breeze to grow old. The dust settled. Some dunes moved. I left Long Island for the plains and mountains, and here I am, a bit retired, a bit unstrung, a little off my rocker still, but still first out on the dance floor, as quick as ever to defend the duck and the swan, the soft soap if innocent, the quip if it zings a Yalie or a social engineer. I am, like you, a witness to the coffins that were Viet Nam and Iraq, to a political machine that came up three lemons. Not every geezer is old, not every prez mature. I am the big ears and the wide eyes to whom time happened. I lived in stormy weather writing songs of love because, tell me if you know, who can help it? Variation on a Theme by Wordsworth "The world is too much with us . . . " "When you're dead you're done," sings Ray Charles, so we rock and roll long after nightfall. We woke seeking in the sweating grasses at dawn the rising gods of the earth, and we cheered beautiful Apollo when he slowed his chariot to give us longer days. But the sun bowed in shadow, and the pale moon lowered its face. I'd like to spot a few immortals [End Page 50] myself, now my time has grown short, so much to be done and still the music of the spheres in my ears. Nature was a sour smell of seaweed and dead fish belly-up in the canal, but then the sweet fennel by the path, and wild clouds of roses. And the sea never stopped sweeping the ocean floor of wreckage and unspent coinage. Stirred While the cream swirls in the eddy of your coffee, and the roasted scent opens some place within you that sleeps unless stirred, you may contemplate the sly incineration of your dreams the first cup of morning accomplishes. Where mournful sounds wrapped you in an endless elegy to nothing, where there was no escaping your pursuer, where the car was hurtling, brakeless, toward the pier, now the warm fumes percolate the day before you. Thankful you feel, to be awake instead of aware. Two cups to be rewired for the day. Three, perhaps, to reenact your dreams. Never to know when enough is enough. [End Page 51] The Poems I Want to Hear Poems in the spirit of those who know they will die. In the swell of the horizon over land or over water. In the exaltation of gulls but also crows. In the bursting of the sun exhaling before the mirror of its body. Also in the pull of the moon that moves tides above and below ground...

Clinical and molecular characterization of individuals with 18p deletion: A genotype–phenotype correlation

The deletion 18p syndrome is one of the most common chromosome abnormalities. The medical problems are mental and postnatal growth retardation, and sometimes malformations of the heart and brain. The individuals have some typical features, which might be easy to overlook and which are: ptosis, strabismus, hypertelorism, broad flat nose, micrognathia, big and low set ears. The aims of present study were to clinically and molecularly characterize the syndrome further in seven subjects with de novo 18p deletions and to perform genotype-phenotype correlation. All seven subjects had terminal deletions and no interstitial deletion was observed with subtelomeric FISH analyses. To define the extent of the 18p deletions and the parental origin of the deletion microsatellite- and FISH analyses were performed on genomic DNA and on lymphoblastoid cell lines of the study participants. Totally 19 chromosomes, 18 specific polymorphic microsatellite markers, and 5 BAC clones were used. The results revealed that the deletions were located in the centromeric region at 18p11.1 in four of the seven subjects. In the remaining three the breakpoints were located distal to 18p11.1 (18p11.21-p11.22). Four of the individuals had a paternal and three a maternal origin of the deletion. Genotype-phenotype correlation of the seven subjects suggests a correlation between the extent of the deleted region and the mental development. All the four children with a deletion in the centromeric region at 18p11.1 had a mental retardation (MR). Two of the three children with a more distal breakpoint (distal 18p11.21) had a normal mental development and one had a border-line mental retardation. There might be a critical region for the mental retardation located between 18p11.1 and 18p11.21. The children with a breakpoint at 18p11.1 had all a broad face, which was observed in only one of those with a more distal breakpoint, otherwise no genotype-phenotype correlation of the features was observed.

Overview of the visual system of tarsius

Tarsiers, which are currently considered to constitute the sister group of anthropoid primates, exhibit a number of morphological specializations such as remarkably large eyes, big ears, long hind legs, and a nearly naked tail. Here we provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on the tarsier visual system and describe recent anatomical observations from our laboratory. Its large eyes notwithstanding, the most remarkable feature of the tarsier brain is the large size and distinct lamination of area V1. Based on the need of tarsier for optimal scotopic vision and acuity to detect small prey in low lighting conditions, tarsiers may have preserved a high level of visual acuity by enlarging V1 at the expense of other areas. The other classically described visual regions are present in tarsier, albeit many borders are not clearly distinct on histochemical or immunohistochemical preparations. Tarsiers also have a large number and unusual distributions of cones in the retina, with high numbers of M/L-cones in the central retina and S-cones surprisingly at the periphery, which may be sensitive to UV light and may be useful for prey detection. These adaptive specializations may together account for the unique nocturnal predatory requirements of tarsiers.

The clinical picture of the Börjeson-Forssman-Lehmann syndrome in males and heterozygous females with PHF6 mutations.

The usual description of the Börjeson-Forssman-Lehmann syndrome (BFLS) is that of a rare, X-linked, partially dominant condition with severe intellectual disability, epilepsy, microcephaly, coarse facial features, long ears, short stature, obesity, gynecomastia, tapering fingers, and shortened toes. Recently, mutations have been identified in the PHF6 gene in nine families with this syndrome. The clinical history and physical findings in the affected males reveal that the phenotype is milder and more variable than previously described and evolves with age. Generally, in the first year, the babies are floppy, with failure to thrive, big ears, and small external genitalia. As schoolboys, the picture is one of learning problems, moderate short stature, with emerging truncal obesity and gynecomastia. Head circumferences are usually normal, and macrocephaly may be seen. Big ears and small genitalia remain. The toes are short and fingers tapered and malleable. In late adolescence and adult life, the classically described heavy facial appearance emerges. Some heterozygous females show milder clinical features such as tapering fingers and shortened toes. Twenty percent have significant learning problems, and 95% have skewed X inactivation. We conclude that this syndrome may be underdiagnosed in males in their early years and missed altogether in isolated heterozygous females.

The Raja's Big Ears: The Journey of a Story across Cultures

The story of The Raja's Big Ears, as we encountered it, has been on a long journey. In the course of a wider study of the language use and literacy practices of Gujerati-speaking Muslim children in a North London community, children were recorded retelling the tale both in English and Gujerati. The present study explores how the story travelled: from Gujerat, in India, where it is a well-known folk tale, via a skilled story-teller, to London, where it was transformed through contact with the multicultural world of London schoolchildren. The study is situated within the theoretical framework of language shift, social networks and the Cummins' concept of the Common Underlying Proficiency. As the children in the study retold the tale, we looked more closely at how they – third generation Londoners and speakers of a dialect of Gujerati – came to terms with the very formal and unfamiliar standard Gujerati of the story, and how they made it their own.

More than just big ears

To the non-specialist, large ears in elephants used to mean African, small ears, Indian. But to taxonomists African elephants have long posed a more complex puzzle. During the nineteenth century, it was fashionable for wealthy trophy hunters to assign their own names to species they had shot destined for the museums of Europe. At least 18 elephant subspecies were claimed following this fashion.But more recently, taxonomists have been building a stronger case that the African elephant may comprise more than one species. As in many other studies, molecular data have now been gathered to examine population and species relationships on the back of differences in morphological characteristics: forest elephants in central Africa are significantly smaller, have longer, thinner and straighter tusks and smaller ears than their savannah counterparts. These differences have led to suggestions that they may be different species. But the relationship of the savannah and forest elephants of western Africa to the others has been more difficult to determine because of the difficulty of obtaining DNA samples from animals in dense, remote forest.View Large Image | View Hi-Res Image | Download PowerPoint SlideBut a new study by Lori Eggert, Caylor Rasner and David Woodruff at the University of California San Diego, (Proc. Roy. Soc B, published online) uses new techniques for extracting DNA samples from faeces to help study the western elephants. They have looked at sequences in the mitochondrial cytochrome b control regions, along with those from four microsatellite loci for comparison with material from other elephant populations.Their studies suggest that western forest and savannah elephants may be a distinct species from the two proposed central and eastern counterparts. They also believe that historical separations may have been the result of dramatic climatic changes on the continent forcing populations apart.The researchers therefore believe the African elephants may hold a trace of some of the climatic calamities that occurred on the continent over the 5–6 million years of their evolution. These clues may also offer important input to conservation management planning of remaining stocks in the face of both human and climatic changes that are reducing and fragmenting their ranges. Numbers are estimated to have declined across the continent by a half to two-thirds of their population of around 1.3 million in 1979. And if three species are confirmed, especially as the western forest elephants are particularly vulnerable to human exploitation, a major rethink in conservation strategy may be required.

The big ears of radio astronomy

The special value of radio astronomy lies in the probing of extreme conditions in the universe, including the highest energies and the lowest temperatures. Radio waves can penetrate clouds of gas and dust to reveal objects in the universe and, in particular, in our Galaxy that cannot be seen by visible light. To achieve the highest resolution, radio telescopes in widely separate parts of our globe combine their reception to produce a synthesized image. This is a splendid example of international collaboration. Among the images visualized are pulsars, derived from the remnants of supernovae explosions, and quasar sources powered by black holes.