Black Hair Research Articles

Space, race and identity: An ethnographic study of the Black hair care and beauty landscape and Black women's racial identity constructions in England

AbstractCentering the identity‐related impact of spatial structures and physical environments in shaping the sense of being and belonging of people in the diaspora is a key decolonial feminist project for and within psychology. This paper presents an ethnographic study that combines observations at three Black hair salons in England with a total of 25 qualitative interviews with Black women (n = 18) and experts such as hairdressers (n = 7). The question this study seeks to answer is: ``How are Black women's racial identities constructed, structed and shaped by and through their interactions with and navigation of the Black hair care and beauty landscape in England?’’ This paper shows that participants reflected on the navigation of space as an identity‐relevant experience. Moreover, racial identity construction happens in place through encounters and socio‐spatial interactions and Black women's ways of seeing, being, and inhabiting the world. Lastly, this paper argues the centrality or marginality of Black hair salons is relative, dependent upon the location and situatedness of the person searching or visiting it. This paper thus highlights avenues for future research into the space‐ race‐identity nexus and invites an examination of the identity‐related significance that spatial arrangements carry for people in the diaspora.

Association Between Alopecia Areata and Natural Hair Color Among White Individuals.

Alopecia areata (AA) is a complex immune-mediated disorder that causes nonscarring hair loss. Previous reports have documented preferential targeting of pigmented hair follicles with sparing of gray, nonpigmented hair follicles in alopecia lesions. Thus, immune targeting of melanogenesis-associated proteins in melanocytes and keratinocytes represents a potential mechanism for the inflammation that targets anagen hairs in alopecia areata. To investigate the association of alopecia areata with hair color among White residents of the UK. This matched, case-control study conducted in October 2020 used a large prospectively acquired cohort and included data that were collected from the UK Biobank, a large-scale prospective resource designed to study phenotypic and genotypic determinants in adults. A total of 502 510 UK Biobank participants were reviewed for inclusion. Among these individuals, 1673 cases of alopecia areata with reported hair color were captured and matched by age and sex to 6692 controls without alopecia areata using 1:4 matching. Conditional logistic regression analysis was performed, in which the outcome variable was alopecia areata and the main predictor was natural hair color before graying. The variables considered included diabetes, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and vitiligo. Of 464 353 participants, 254 505 (54.8%) were women, and the mean (SD) age for those with alopecia areata was 46.9 (16.5) years. Alopecia areata was significantly more common in individuals with black (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.97; 95% CI, 2.38-3.71) and dark brown hair (aOR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.11-1.42) compared with light brown hair. In contrast, blond individuals exhibited significantly decreased alopecia areata compared with those with light brown hair (aOR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.56-0.85). Red hair color was not significantly different from light brown hair. The findings of this matched case-control study seem to indicate that alopecia areata is modulated by natural hair color, preferentially targeting darker hair. Our results support a previously proposed model of alopecia areata in which immunity is directed against melanogenesis-associated proteins in the anagen hair follicles. However, further study is needed to more precisely understand the immunopathogenic association between alopecia areata and hair color.

No short hair behaviors of ultra-compact stars

In the black hole spacetime, a no short hair theorem was proved, which states that the effective radius of black hole hairs must extend beyond the null circular orbit. In the present paper, in the horizonless gravity, we find a similar no short hair behavior that the effective radius of matter fields must also extend beyond the null circular orbit of ultra-compact stars. We should emphasize that the theorem presented in this manuscript is valid only for spatially regular matter configurations whose energy-momentum traces are non-negative.

Snow

63 YASMINA DIN MADDEN Snow • Though they washed her with wine And rubbed her with butter it was to no avail. She lay as still as a gold piece. —Anne Sexton, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” hough we washed her with wine and rubbed her with butter and garnished her with all the trappings of success, she would not comply. We gave her everything: the white pony on her sixth birthday; the diamond studs on her twelfth; the apple-red convertible for her sixteenth ; Grandmother’s pearl choker, like so many rows of teeth, for her twenty-first; and then, at twenty-five, she still would not settle down. First, we said it was a stage, a small rebellion before she acquiesced, but that was years ago and still she insisted it was her choice to marry or not, as if she were some kind of bohemian. The first man she brought home was the one with the bun, that greasy topknot of hair sitting up there all through Thanksgiving dinner. Next came the one with holes in his ears so large they’d fit the saucers from the blue Italian bone china tea set we’d gifted her when she was younger. Number three still gives us shivers when we think of the trails of tattoos up and down his arms—snakes, ivy, skulls, and blood drops covering his shoulders and back, creeping around his sides to blanket his chest. When he took off his shirt by the pool, we all gasped in unison. It was her younger brother who yelled, Rad tats!, and who shook with glee whenever she brought a new man home to visit. We all knew the little brother was a lost cause. It was her we’d pinned our hopes on. The fourth one seemed normal at first, but a few minutes into dinner he shared that he was raised in Florida and we all choked on our soup just a little. The fifth man came in a midi-skirt that matched hers, his calf t 64 muscles bulging obscenely below its hem. When he discussed feminist theory at dinner, Grandmother fell asleep before the first course was cleared. The sixth was Canadian, and we have nothing more to say about that. The seventh came to us with flowers and chocolates, but the flowers were carnations and the chocolate was chalky, and when he spoke of the Iowan cornfields behind his family’s farm, we imagined the stink of pigs and wrinkled our noses. Then she came to us alone, a small tattoo of a crown visible above her ankle, a twinkling silver hoop through her nostril, gripping copies of A Vindication of the Rights of Women and Bad Feminist. We took in the cutoff shorts and flannel shirt. She looked like a deranged but very beautiful farmer. We tried to listen to what she was saying, we did, but all we could do was stare at the movement of her rose-red lips, her skin like a fine layer of snow, that waist and those ankles as narrow and delicate as a bird’s ribcage, her glossy black hair that swung loose as she talked and talked and talked and talked. What she said we could not tell you. ...

Black hole hair removal for N = 4 CHL models

Although BMPV black holes in flat space and in Taub-NUT space have identical near-horizon geometries, they have different indices from the microscopic analysis. For K3 compactification of type IIB theory, Sen et al. in a series of papers identified that the key to resolving this puzzle is the black hole hair modes: smooth, normalisable, bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom living outside the horizon. In this paper, we extend their study to N = 4 CHL orbifold models. For these models, the puzzle is more challenging due to the presence of the twisted sectors. We identify hair modes in the untwisted as well as twisted sectors. We show that after removing the contributions of the hair modes from the microscopic partition functions, the 4d and 5d horizon partition functions agree. Special care is taken to present details on the smoothness analysis of hair modes for rotating black holes, thereby filling an essential gap in the literature.

Formulasi dan Uji Stabilitas Hair Tonic Ekstrak Lidah Buaya (Aloe vera L.) dan Seledri (Apium graviolens L.)

Aloe vera contains vitamins A, C, amino acids, Cu, Inositol, enzymes, minerals that can help reduce hair loss and strengthen hair roots. While celery contains sodium, vitamins A and B, calcium and iron which have the potential to nourish hair, black hair, and prevent hair loss. To prove that the combination of aloe vera extract (Aloe vera L.) and celery extract (Apium graviolens L.) can be formulated in hair tonic preparations, and determine the formula that best meets the stability requirements of the 1 month observation. This study is an experimental study by formulating and testing the stability of hair tonic preparations. The results of the viscosity and specific gravity tests were analyzed using ANOVA with software version 22. Organoleptic hair tonic combination of aloe vera and celery extract in the form of a solution with a characteristic aromatic odor, greenish brown color, has a pH of 4, and is homogeneous. The specific gravity of formulas 1, 2 and 3, respectively, is 0.99553 g / ml; 1.00114 g / ml 1.00661 g / ml. The viscosity of formulas 1, 2 and 3, respectively, is 3.96407 cPs; 6,77595 cPs; 11.16378 cPs. ANOVA test shows a significance value (<0.001) <(0.05) so that there are differences in viscosity and specific gravity between formulations. The combination of aloe vera and celery extract can be formulated into a hair tonic and the formula that best meets the stability requirements is formula 1 with a concentration of 15% propylenglycol.

Brief descriptions of the principles of prominent methods used to study the penetration of materials into human hair and a review of examples of their use.

Consumers are attracted to the latest fashion trends and different looks. This drives the search for novel hair treatments. Some chemicals present in hair treatment products can penetrate the hair shaft. These materials can either nourish or injure the hair cortex. Different techniques have been used to investigate the mechanism of molecule penetration and the conditions under which penetration occurs. This article reviews the techniques applied for this purpose. Various microscopy techniques are used to capture clear and colourful images to determine the diffusion pathways and the exact location of the molecules under study. However, the laborious sample preparation often leads to sample destruction since cross-sectioning is often required. While various other techniques have been successfully used for investigating the penetration methods, most of these require different amounts of work to be put in for sample preparation and instrumentation. Several spectroscopic techniques have been used to study the penetration of the molecules because of the high levels of accuracy and the quick response time of these techniques. Moreover, the samples are not damaged during the investigation.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake Anna Denejkina (bio) She was tall, but I don't remember her age. In fact, I don't know what age she was. All I know is she was tall, had black curly hair, long fingers, and wore tight jeans. It doesn't really matter what she looked like or how old she was or even her name, but what matters is that one morning she was walking to a cake shop near the beach in some suburb in Sydney's east. It was the day before Christmas. Half of her family met on Christmas Day, and the other, on this day in a house of one of her aunts somewhere by the beach in Sydney's east. Standing at the glass counter, the tall girl with long fingers scrutinized the display, thinking deeply about which cake to get for the faux-Christmas family lunch. She always did this; even at the bar in a club where the music was too loud to hear yelling in your ear, she would consider what she wanted, her arm on the bar, long fingers touching her chin, asking the bartender for options before ordering another sugar-free Red Bull with or without cheap vodka. And so she considered the cakes when another woman stopped at the glass counter. "What are you getting?" She asked the woman she didn't know as they both looked over the glass display, and they chatted about the cakes at the counter, considering out loud the pros and cons of each, describing their likes and dislikes, too rich, too dry, too big, too sweet. The girl with black curly hair told the woman-she-didn't-know that she was buying a cake for her family's lunch on that day. "But I'm also thinking about getting a slice of that cheesecake for the walk over." Her finger moved slightly from her chin to point in the direction of a baked slice of cake. "Though I feel guilty eating before I get to the lunch." "Just get the cheesecake," the woman she didn't know replied. The tall girl in tight jeans with long fingers and black curly hair looked away from the cakes in the glass counter and at the woman she didn't know. The woman was older, fifty, maybe sixty, and gaunt. A cream and red scarf was tied around her head, covering the baby hair regrowth that peered out at the sides above her temples. "Life's too short. Eat the cheesecake," the woman said again. [End Page 118] Anna Denejkina Anna Denejkina is a writer and academic based in Sydney, Australia. She is a Lecturer at Western Sydney University, and her research focuses on intergenerational trauma transmission. Her fiction, poetry, and journalism have been published in the United States and Australia. Copyright © 2022 Wayne State University Press

Call a Body Home

Call a Body Home Michael Alessi (bio) It's not the fists of steam that roll from the body when the sow strung up on gambrels spills open. It's not her father stepping inside to cut away what will be chitlins, the skin folding around his shoulders like two wings. The pocket of heat inside the body soothes the bite of the autumn air, reminding him of a long lost night spent slow-dancing with a married woman at a county bar with wood chips on [End Page 110] its floors. The smell of the offal is ripe, but sweet to breathe, almost honeyed. He opens his nostrils to it and pictures the woman, the wife of a friend, guiding his hand to cup the full curve of her hip. His knife is sure, not as clumsy as his lumpy hands feel, bearing no sign of the ache that has set into the bones these last few years, and if he nicks himself, he cannot tell. It's not the buckets of blood her twin nephews lug to the barn together to pour into an earthen trough. The shorter one has it painted down the side of his overalls from losing his grip on the handle. Still, he refuses to quit, afraid, as he has always been, of the secret weaknesses of his body; its smallness and the way it pines for the touch of taller, stronger boys. His brother curses at him to keep his end of the bucket even, so he raises it, raises it too high, and sends blood spilling in the other direction for once. It's not the black mantle of hair that bobs on the surface of the scalding pan, or the hook her uncle uses to stir the body. He can barely hear the sound of the old-timers bickering about the heat of the fire. Too hot or cold and the hairs will stick. In the water he sees the white shape of his mother when she used to bathe with him in their trailer's tub, a story he has never told his wife, who grew up in a house in a town far from the hollows. It's not the way the zinc can lids melt and curl from the heat as the giddy neighbor kids scrape away the last black hairs. They weren't here this morning when the sun didn't so much as rise as pause on the edge of the dark woods, until something passing for daylight occurred; when she woke to find the space her mother left behind still empty, six months cold. Recently, she has been testing gestures, such as slapping her brother when he tells her to chew with her mouth closed, hoping to find one that might summon their mother back from her new home. Today, despite her father's protests, she [End Page 111] shared her breakfast with the old sow. A last meal. When the coast was clear, her brother, nursing the glow of a stolen cigarette in his gangly fingers, whistled her over to the fence where she and the sow took turns licking globs of oatmeal off a serving spoon. Maybe their father had forgotten the ghostly shape of their mother, years ago, barefoot in her nightdress in the winter cold, spooning the piglet scraps from her plate. Maybe he'd made up his mind that killing something was easier work than caring for it. It's not the sight of her brother finally leading the pig to the clearing by a rope. Or their father's pistol, granted for the task, hanging in his free hand. It's that the sow lifts her head to the barrel at the sound of his whistle, the one he uses to call her home. [End Page 112] Michael Alessi Michael Alessi's work has recently appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Pinch, Passages North, Mid-American Review, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. He is the author of the prose chapbook The Horribles (Greying Ghost Press, 2019), and holds an MFA from Old Dominion University. A native of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, he currently lives in Chicago. Copyright © 2021 Berea...

Hair Care Catered to You

People of color face barriers in healthcare every day, and my goal was to address one of these barriers. Healthcare settings stock products that are tailored for Caucasian hair and skin, so I wanted to add products targeted for Black patients' skin and hair. I added shampoo and lotion to the supply closet of Peyton Manning Children's Hospital as well as bonnets and durags for the patients to wrap their hair in to protect it while they sleep or rest. African American hair and skin requires different care. This is something that often goes unnoticed by healthcare professionals, and I wanted to bring it to their attention. In order to support the Black Lives Matter movement, I chose products from black-owned businesses. I felt that the BLM movement was the heart and inspiration for this project, so choosing products from black-owned businesses felt appropriate.

Security

Security Bret Lott (bio) The front passenger door on the silver Suburban weighs what feels a good three hundred pounds, and I have to pull with both hands to open it. The vehicle is armored and has bulletproof glass, Akeem told me on the way over from Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the state-sponsored guest house only a few blocks away where my wife and I are staying yet again here in Jerusalem. Now I am at the curb out front of the US Consulate on Agron Street, with its squared-stone wall and wide sidewalk and security stands and guards in blue shirts with ID cards on lanyards around their necks. The stone wall is topped with razor wire, on the other side the complex of stone buildings and the three-story Consulate itself, the grounds lush with palms and cypress and pine trees and roses. But right now there is only the business of this Suburban passenger door, and how heavy it is, until finally I have it open. "Shotgun!" I say, and climb in, the word out of me too loud for the small joke it is. The driver, already seated behind the wheel, laughs, and Akeem and Maryam laugh too, the two of them climbing into the back seat. Akeem: director of the America House, a cultural engagement center and part of the US Consulate, and a Federal agent; Maryam: US Consulate Cultural Program Specialist. My wife Melanie isn't allowed on today's trip, though [End Page 21] she was with us the whole day yesterday. But that was in Bethlehem and East Jerusalem. Technically the West Bank, yes, but safe enough to allow a kind of spousal dispensation for her from the Consulate. There will be no dispensation today. Today we're going to Ramallah. I pull the door closed, then turn to the driver. "I'm Bret," I say, and he nods, says, "I know." He's still smiling for the bad pun about riding shotgun into the West Bank. "I am Moshe," he says, and we shake hands. He's young, a national with a thick accent, aviator sunglasses and black spiky hair. A little like Zoolander. He lets go of my hand, then takes the radio mic from the console. "Moshe to Houston," he says into the mic. "Leaving Post 1." "Roger," a voice comes back on the radio. A very American voice, a southern voice, I can hear on just that one word. Houston, I think, and smile. Mission control. Then we pull away from the curb into morning Jerusalem traffic. Just ahead of us down the four-lane street is the massive white limestone Mamilla Hotel and the outdoor mall, a wide pedestrian boulevard lined with Ralph Lauren and Gucci and Gap stores, cafes and galleries, all of it in that limestone, all of it beautiful and new. Beyond it all, at the top of Mamilla, stands Jaffa Gate and the high walls of old Jerusalem itself, the limestone there leached and weathered. Older every time we come here and see it. Ramallah is, were a straight line possible, eight miles away. But the Consulate General's Program Schedule for the three days I am here to speak on being a writer has allotted an hour to get there, because there is no straight line. There is a wall around which we must travel. Yet even that word—wall—is a political statement, I know. In Israel, it's known as the Separation Barrier. Or the Security Fence. But, well, the fact is, it's a wall. Akeem leans forward between the seats, says, "We'll be safe today. There's an advance team in front of us, probably a half mile or so, just to make sure everything's clear. They'll be with us all day. And there's an extraction team in Ramallah." I turn to him, there in his blue suit and black tie, white dress shirt. Before I'd met him yesterday I'd only known him through emails, and figured a guy named Akeem must be from this part of the world. But he's an American through and through, born in Greenville, South...

PsychoHairapy: Brushing Up on the History and Psychology of Black Hair

PsychoHairapy: Brushing Up on the History and Psychology of Black Hair

Black hair follicular dysplasia in a dog - case report

Black hair follicular dysplasia in a dog - case report

Effect of growth and parturition on hair cortisol in Holstein cattle.

The effect of growth and parturition on hair cortisol concentrations of cattle was investigated. Plasma, saliva, and hair (black and white from the shoulders and hip) samples were collected from calves at 6 and 24weeks old and from dairy cattle at the dry (1 and 2months prepartum) and lactation (10, 50, 150, and 250days postpartum) periods. Plasma and saliva cortisol concentrations were lower in 24-week-old calves than those of 6-week-old calves, and hair cortisol concentrations decreased regardless of color and position. In 6-week-old calves, hair cortisol concentrations differed between sampling positions, but this difference was not observed in 24-week-old calves. Plasma and saliva cortisol concentrations increased before parturition until 10days postpartum then decreased until 50days postpartum. The same trend was observed in the cortisol concentrations of white hair. Contrarily, cortisol concentrations in black hair remained unchanged and was lower than that in white hair. Hair cortisol concentration can vary greatly depending on the location on the body, hair color, cattle age, or parturition. When this method is used, all of the above factors must be considered.

Like Morning Dew

Like Morning Dew Mimi Kawahara (bio) As Suki swoops toward me, flexed feet high, black hair flying behind her, eyes wide in astonishment, she exclaims, "Look, Mama, I'm swinging!" I smile and put my palms together in silent applause. Next to her a pouting girl bounces in place as her mother types on her phone. "Push me pleeease," the girl pleads. Glancing up at Suki pumping her spindly legs, the mother addresses me, "What's your secret? I can't get her to try." "Her imaginary friend went first," I reply. "Oh … I see," the woman says tentatively, unsure whether I'm ingenious or insane. Suki conjured up Charlotte last year after a beastly boy bullied her, pulling her hair and squinting at her "alien" eyes. He has since moved away, but Charlotte has remained. Often a nuisance channeling Suki's complaints, occasionally she serves as a helpful role model. Emerging from Riverside Park for snack time, Suki skipping at my side, I feel the weight of my actual secret. If that woman knew I'd been paid to act as Suki's mother three afternoons a week for the last two and a half years and had no children of my own, she wouldn't want my parenting advice. "Can you stay for dinner?" Suki asks, taking my hand. "Not today, I have to get back to Tomo." To explain my inability to spend more time with her, I invented an older son who had chosen to stay in Japan with his father but then developed hikikomori, whereupon his father, unable to stay home with Tomo, sent him to me. I thought a boy, especially a troubled one, would be less likely to arouse jealousy. Not that Suki had heard of hikikomori, but she understood that a happy person wouldn't hide out in his room for months on end, and I felt better having a full backstory. "Can you make those onoko- pancakes again?" "Oko-no-mi-ya-ki," I say slowly. "Let's make them together on Wednesday." "Mi-ya-ki–Yay!" she squeals, with a few exclamatory jumps. After Suki's mother died, Ken tried several sitters, but Suki turned her toddler back on them all, insisting her mama would come home soon. Unable to declare that Hiromi would never return, Ken was near his wits' end when he saw an Instafamily ad online. With the semi-consoling thought that Suki, though a precocious 18-month-old, wouldn't remember the rental mother if she didn't work out, just as the sitters would soon be forgotten, he filled out the form specifying the qualities Instamom should possess (Japanese, petite, kind, gentle, patient) and providing the family history she should have under her obi before her initial visit. I arrived six months after Suki had last seen her emaciated, bald mother at Sloan Kettering, bearing scant resemblance to her former self, so Ken felt fairly sure that Suki would accept me, and if she noticed any differences, we would attribute them to residual effects of the illness. [End Page 211] I fit the desired profile. There was only one problem: I'd grown up without a mother, so had no familial model to follow. In preparation I read a stack of parenting books and binge-watched The Brady Bunch and Modern Family, but still I worried that Suki would know I was an imposter. In the event, she hid behind Ken's legs until I bent down and beckoned her as he had instructed me to do. She jumped into my arms, and voila! Instafamily! In our early days, I felt awkward and inept, but I've grown into the role, as I imagine real mothers do. Climbing the stairs to their parlor floor home after her swinging triumph, I smell the matcha Ken has made for me. For Suki there will be "bubble water," her term for seltzer, and a treat. Today it's pretzel goldfish. Stuffing her mouth until she has chipmunk cheeks, Suki arranges the remaining fish in a head-to-tail heart on her plate and presents it to me. I hug her as I swallow a familiar bittersweet brew of...

The Burning

The Burning Gail Upchurch (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Andrew Eick [End Page 100] The burning comes right after and all at once. The irony of calling out for a God you swore off back in high school—the day Shawn was shot in the head because his cherry-red Monte Carlo looked just like the [End Page 101] car Keno drove—is not lost on you. It's just that you can't do anything else besides scream, "godgodgodgodgodgodgod" and clench the six-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets in your hands and splay your toes so wide the skin between the third and fourth ones tears and thrash your head from side to side on the down pillowcase whose lavender scent seemed innocuous at first but now crackles, livid and full of ire. You close your eyes against shiny red spears darting beneath your eyelids—your flesh and blood smoldering. You lie on the bed, cauterized, rigid as a board, waiting. And then, just like that, it leaves. "Cicero," she says, calm and cold like March wind. Your eyes pop open. Josephine is there. Looking down at you. Cupping your cheek. Wiping your face with the corner of her nightgown. Dismounting. Cautious. You forget she is there and that, yes, you've been inside her. "Are you okay?" Josephine whispers in your ear, her lips brushing your earlobe as she settles beside you. You push yourself up, swing your legs to the side of the bed, grope for your underwear and pants. Just to be sure you haven't died, you run your hands down the length of both arms and feel your own touch. Josephine reaches around for your hand, but you recoil. "I'm sorry. I tried to tell you," she says. You turn to her, her nightgown pushed up on one side, fully exposing the hip that points to the ceiling. That's when you notice that she's been through something too. Her face is tear stained, her thick black hair wild. "I've never felt anything like that before," you say to the floor. This is about as insufficient a statement as you've ever made. She props herself up on an elbow, scooches her gown down. "Cicero," she says, "I tried to tell you this could happen." You press your lips together, try to remember if she gave you any warning. Not exactly. "Now we know everything there is to know," she says, getting on her knees. "No secrets. Don't you understand what this means?" She wraps her arms around you, placing the palms of her hands flat on your chest like cooling balm. "Nah, not really," you say. You peel her hands away and stand to get dressed. She walks on her knees toward you, stumbles off the bed. She's tangled in her gown, and for a second you think of offering a hand, but you don't. [End Page 102] "We don't have to carry it all alone anymore," Josephine says. You think about the searing pain that announced itself in rivulets from the marrow of your bones. Was that her pain or yours? Whatever. There is a clearing, and you're grateful. You breathe in deep, unadulterated air and return to the bed to help her. "Right," you say. "Right." ________ Josephine sits in the set of bleachers adjacent to yours, and if you're being honest, you're figuring out ways to ask her out for a drink the second you see her. But you can't be honest yet because you're there to root for Natalie, who, though she's taken ballet for four years, is still pretty awful. Like whatever the rest of the class is doing—plié-ing, grand jeté-ing or whatever, Natalie is off to the side, skipping, as light as an elephant after a few Rémy Martins. Still, you have your phone set to video the whole time. Even though she sucks and isn't improving one bit, she's Shawn's kid, and you're there for all of it. Intense freakazoid dance-mom zombies fill the gymnasium. You've come...

In Marble and Light

In Marble and Light Garrett Hongo (bio) Albert Kazuyoshi Hongo, I.M. I once saw somewhere, in a box of old financials, check stubsand paid bills, or leaned up against a dusty mirror, amidst vials of nail polish and mascara cluttered on my mother’s vanitytable in their bedroom, an old 8 x 10 photograph of my father with two of his war buddies. It was a black and white studio shottouched up so their faces looked like smooth marble, but sepia- toned with a cast of weak coffee. They wore dress khakis,smoothly starched shirts with campaign ribbons across their chests and a stripe or two on their long, pressed sleeves. My father’sbore none, but his black hair rode up like a glassy wave slicking over one side of his head, hatless, unlike the others who wore caps.It must’ve been when we lived in Midtown L.A., in the apartment house with a Hawaiian name on North Kingsley Drive when I saw it.I was six or seven, and he told me he’d been a guard at Nuremberg, [End Page 579] passing Lucky Strikes to S.S. officers imprisoned therewho begged for them before they went on trial. Zigaretten, bitte, he’d say, his one phrase of German,and he grinned when he said it, as though it were the cheesiest joke of his life. He never told me one thing else about the warexcept that he’d brought a Luger and a Leica back from there that my mother made him sell. “She no like war souvenir,”he said, waving his hand in dismissal. In the fall of 1987, three years after he died, I went along to a memorialgathering at Arlington, the National Cemetery, invited there by my senators from Hawai‘i, themselves decorated veterans.I stood at the top of an amphitheater and gazed down at all the assembled of the 442nd that day, scores of old menin their sixties and seventies, gray and shrunken in their informal aloha clothes, their hair silver under VFW caps.Dan Inouye, my father’s teammate from McKinley High’s football varsity, led me down the shallow steps, saying“There are some guys I want you to meet.” I staggered obediently along. About halfway, a group of less than a dozenmen stood up as we approached, some reaching to take the senator’s only hand. He slipped it free and gesturedtoward me, turning. “This is Al Hongo’s boy,” he said, simply. [End Page 580] Then, one by one, like mourners at a funeral, each of themshuffled up and shook my hand, some saying nothing but looking deep into my eyes, theirs glistening in the autumn light.One in a wheelchair backed himself out from the end of the aisle — his hands were in dark half-gloves and I saw trousers rolled upwhere his legs might’ve been. Then he pushed toward me, reaching, his hands beckoning me to bend toward him. I did, thinkingthat he might take the lei of green ti leaves from his shoulders and place it around my neck, that I would be kissed in greeting.But his hands reached past to my face, and I felt his free fingers rubbing a soft arpeggio against my cheeks and the hollows above my jaw,slow strokes as though a dirge were in their touch, cadenced and resolute. “Your face the same as your father’s,” he said, the palms of his gloves roughas emery against my skin. And I was made marble, wet with a shining light. Memorial Day, 2018 Anzio [End Page 581] Garrett Hongo Garrett Hongo is the author of three collections of poetry, three anthologies, and Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai‘i. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, and teaches at the University of Oregon, where he is a Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. Copyright © 2021 The University of the South

Tetragonula laeviceps (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini): Morphology, Morphometric, and Nest Structure

Background: Stingless bees is one group of eusocial insects living together in the hive. There are around 46 species of stingless bee in Indonesia with different morphological, morphometric and hive structure characteristics. This study aimed to describe the morphological, morphometric and beehives structure of Tetragonula laeviceps from Yogyakarta. Methods: Survey method is used by taking three sampling points of bamboo, house building and livestock crates in Bantul Regency. Sampling points determined by Purposive sampling method. An XSZ-107 BN binocular microscope analyzed samples of T. laeviceps with Optilab viewer and Image Raster software. Results: The results showed morphological characters of T. laeviceps are dominated shiny-black body, brownish-yellow antennas, klipeus on a head covered by fine silver hair, brownish-yellow mandible with two teeth, mesonotum in thorax covered by brownish to black hair, scutellum extended to propodeum, the ribbon of hair on the dorsal thorax is not very clear, and the hind tibia is rather hairy. Morphometric of T. laeviceps included body length between 3.44 - 3.76 mm, head width 1.55 - 1.70 mm, front wing length with tegula 3.76 - 4.37 mm, length of rear limbs tibia 1.37-1.57 mm, and the number of hamuli as many as 5. The beehive structure consisted of oval-shaped entrance formed funnel and varying internal hive in terms of the number of saplings, pollen cells, and honey cells. Conclusions: T. laeviceps have morphological, morphometric and hive structure characteristics that are different from other species and variated compared to similar species from other regions.
 

Morphological Characterization of Native Pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus L.) in Bohol Province, Philippines

This study assessed the morphological characteristics of the native pig population in Bohol Island, Philippines. A total of 100 sexually-mature native pigs (80% gilt/sow and 20% barrow/boar) were selected from the municipalities of Balilihan, Bilar, Talibon, Ubay, Loon, Guindulman, Mabini, San Miguel, Pilar, and Alburquerque, which are densely populated with native pigs (based on the data of the Office of the Provincial Veterinarian-Bohol). Purposive sampling was used to select the experimental pigs based on the phenotypic traits that qualify them as native. Likewise, remote barangays where native pigs are most likely raised were selected as sample sites. The qualitative (hair color, color pattern, and ear orientation) and quantitative (tail length, teat number, estimated body weight using body length, and heart girth measurements) traits were recorded based on subjective observation and actual measurements, respectively. Qualitatively, the native pigs in Bohol have predominantly (73%) black hair. In terms of color pattern, plain color (91%), spotted (4%), and patchy (5%) were noted. The native pigs also revealed droopy (54%), slightly droopy (37%), and erect (9%) ear orientations. Meanwhile, quantitative traits revealed an overall body length of 38.07 ± 8.75 inches, heart girth of 36.9 ± 8.83 inches, body weight of 67.29 ± 41.15 kg, tail length of 9.78 ± 2.45 inches, and 12.38 ± 1.33number of teats. Significant differences across sampling areas(p<0.05)and sex (p<0.01) were observed. Generally, females had higher values than males, and there was a significant difference (p<0.05) in trait values among age groups.

Physicochemical and rheological characterizations of Cocos nucifera L. and Elaeis guineensis Jacq. (Arecaceae) oils for black hair shampoo formulation

Black hair suffers from a lipid deficiency, either on the surface with a decrease in sebaceous secretion or in depth with a lack of covalent bonds between the lipids and the cuticular cells. The result is a porous cuticle, a dull, rough hair that is difficult to untangle and breaks easily. The aim of this study was to evaluate properties of oils extracted from Cocos nucifera and Elaeis guineensis intended for the formulation of shampoos for black hair. Physicochemical and rheological analyses were carried out. Both oils showed a refractive index of 1.45 and melting points of 28 °C and 30 °C for coconut oil and palm kernel oil, respectively. The relative densities, moisture contents, saponification indexes, peroxide values, unsaponifiable matter contents, para-anisidine values were relatively similar while iodine and acid values were different. Both oils are rich in lauric, oleic and linoleic acids. These oils exhibited a Newtonian behavior and a dominant elastic nature after their melting temperature in the study conditions. They could constitute active ingredients for the formulation of shampoo for black hair in view of their different characteristics.Keywords: Physico-chemical analyses, rheological parameters, Cocos nucifera oil, Elaeis guineensis oil.