Is the dinoflagellate Amoebophrya really missing a mtDNA?

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a universal hallmark of aerobic eukaryotes. That is why the recent suggestion by John et al. (2019) that the aerobic dinoflagellate Amoebophrya sp. strain AT5 (Syndiniales) lacks mtDNA was so remarkable. Here, by reanalysing recently published genomic and transcriptomic data from three Amoebophrya strains, we provide evidence of a cryptic, highly reduced mtDNA in this clade. More work is needed before one can definitively say if Amoebophrya has or does not have a mtDNA, but for now the data are pointing towards the existence of one. Ultimately, we urge caution when basing supposedly absent genomic features on single line evidences.

Folk psychology as a causal language

According to Oude Maatman (2020), our recent suggestion (Borsboom et al., 2019) that symptom networks are irreducible because they rely on folk psychological descriptions, threatens to undermine the main achievements of the network approach. In this article, we take up Oude Maatman’s challenge and develop an argument showing in what sense folk psychological concepts describe features of reality, and what it means to say that folk psychology is a causal language.

When is enough enough? Accurate measurement and the integrity of scientific research

At a meeting of the Physical Society of London in 1925 participants expressed their concerns regarding a recent suggestion by the Australian physicist T. H. Laby for replicating the established value of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This rather controversial discussion about the value of redetermining this numerical fact brings to light different understandings of the moral economy of accuracy in scientific work; it signals a distinctive new stage in the historical understanding of accuracy and precision and the moral integrity in conducting research.

On ageing star clusters using red supergiants independent of the fraction of interacting binary stars

ABSTRACT We use the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis models to test the recent suggestion that red supergiants can provide an accurate age estimate of a coeval stellar population that is unaffected by interacting binary stars. Ages are estimated by using both the minimum luminosity of red supergiants and the mean luminosity of red supergiants in a cluster. We test these methods on a number of observed star clusters and find our results in agreement with previous estimates. Importantly, we find the difference between the ages derived from stellar population models with and without a realistic population of interacting binary stars is only a few hundred thousand years at most. We find that the mean luminosity of red supergiants in a cluster is the best method to determine the age of a cluster because it is based on the entire red supergiant population rather than using only the least luminous red supergiant.

SEASIDE ALTARS OF APOLLO DELPHINIOS, EMBEDDED HYMNS, AND THE TRIPARTITE STRUCTURE OF THE HOMERICHYMN TO APOLLO

Although recent and ongoing excavations of the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios in Miletus have prompted archaeologists to discuss anew the aetiological references to the same god and his altar at the end of the HomericHymn to Apollo, these discussions have yet to make any impact on literary scholars working on the poem itself. Indeed, we now know that in archaic Miletus an altar of Apollo Delphinios was erected, as in the hymn, directly upon a sandy beach beside a harbour and was probably the focus, as in the hymn, of some kind of sacrificial ritual, before the annual procession to another famous Panhellenic oracle of Apollo at Didyma. These new revelations provide an incentive for returning to the somewhat puzzling details in the scene on the beach at Crisa in the HomericHymn, with its agrarian offering and meal (both of roasted barley) followed by a paeanic procession of musician and singers. I will argue that the Milesian parallels allow us to see more clearly that, like the Delian episode at the start of the HomericHymn, the events at Crisa seem to reflect a shorter hexametrical hymn originally composed for a seaside sanctuary at Crisa and then later adapted, again like the Delian section, by a poet intent on praising Apollo as a Panhellenic deity, whose most important place of worship was Delphi. Such an argument leads, finally, to a positive assessment of the recent suggestion that the HomericHymn to Apollodoes not have a bipartite structure (Delian–Delphic), as is usually assumed or argued, but rather a tripartite one (Delian–Delphic–Crisaean) that organizes the poem into three hymnic movements: birth, oracle, priesthood.

Robustness and Up-to-us-ness

Frankfurt-style cases purport to show that an agent can be morally responsible for an action despite not having any alternatives. Some critics have responded by highlighting various alternatives that remain in the cases presented, while Frankfurtians have objected that such alternatives are typically not capable of grounding responsibility. In this essay I address the recent suggestion by Seth Shabo that only alternatives associated with the ‘up to us’ locution ground moral responsibility. I distinguish a number of kinds of ability, suggest which kinds of abilities ground the truth of the ‘up to us’ locution, and outline how these distinctions apply to the indeterministic buffer cases.

The Benefit of Imitation for Creativity in Art and Design

Many artists and designers borrow, cite, or seek inspiration in external source materials in their daily creative practice. The aim of this chapter is to show that imitation of external source material offers creative professionals the opportunity to introduce an element of surprise to the creative act, which may explain why a creative product with very little or no originality whatsoever can nevertheless gain reputation as being creative. The literature on imitation in psychology and the humanities will be reviewed in parallel to a recent suggestion in creativity research to give more prominence to the criterion of surprise in the study of creativity. The potential benefit of imitation for creativity in art and design will be illustrated with a description of the working practices of the prominent painter Gerhard Richter and the famous car designer J Mays – two contemporary creative professionals renowned for usage of external source material in their own creative work.

Hermes a-re-ja (PY Tn 316): a new interpretation

A long-standing consensus among Mycenaean scholars is that a-reja, an epithet of Hermes in the Pylos tablet Tn 316, must be somehow related to Ares, the war god. Hermes Areiās would be either a derivative in *-ās of Ares or, according to a recent suggestion, an abbreviated compound in the first member of which Ares would figure. The present paper argues for a different solution, taking a-re-ja (dat.) /aleii̯āi/ as an apposed noun epithet of the root *h2leu̯- ‘to ward off’. Nouns in apposition to divine names are not uncommon in 1st millennium Greek (type Artemis Εὐλοχία ‘Good Delivery’), and Hermes Aleia ‘(active) Protection’ or ‘Defense’ fits neatly with Hermes’ character as a helping deity and a god of boundaries, as shown both in the myths related to him and in several of his epicleses in alphabetic Greek. Aleiă is best taken as a feminine verbal derivative in *-ih2: this type is the source of other action nouns that are either personified or have a religious background, such as αἶσα ‘destiny’ and μοῖρα ‘fate’. Furthermore, Aleia can be viewed as an independent testimony of the *-u̯i̯- > *-i̯i̯- development in Mycenaean (type i-je-re-ja ‘priestess’).

En sag af principiel karakter. Om at definere religion.

This article argues that a more systematic approach to defining religion is needed. The starting point of the article is a case in which a soccer fan club applied for official recognition as a religious denomination. The fan club’s application was rejected, but without stating the criteria which it failed to meet in order to be considered religion. The example suggests that it is still relevant to raise questions both about whether scholars of religion ought to try to define religion, and about how such a case should be handled. This article presents a philosophical-methodological approach to the task of defining religion and it outlines a proposal for a definition based on this method. So, in addition to putting an earlier, well-known discussion and a more recent suggestion in perspective, the article suggests criteria which could have substantiated a rejection of the soccer fan club’s application.