Many countries around the world embrace freedom and democracy as part of their political culture. However, culture is at least in part a human response to the ecological challenges that a society faces; hence, it should not be surprising that the degree to which societies regulate the level of individual freedom is related to environmental circumstances. Previous research suggests that levels of societal freedom across countries are systematically related to three types of ecological threats: prevalence of pathogens, climate challenges, and (...) natural disaster threat. Though their incidence overlaps, the literature has not yet provided a competitive test. Drawing upon the ecocultural framework, we tested five rival hypotheses, alternately focused on the above ecological factors and their interactions with economic wealth in explaining country variations in socio-political freedom. Focusing on data from 150 countries, we performed a series of linear mixed-effects regressions predicting freedom in the domains of politics, media, and economy. We found that countries with higher pathogen prevalence were more likely to suppress democracy and media freedom. Economic wealth, however, moderated the effect of pathogen prevalence on economic freedom, with the main effect being only found among wealthy countries, but not among poor countries. In contrast, natural disaster threat predicted political freedom and press freedom only among poor countries, consistent with the idea that disaster threat accompanied by poor resources promote socio-political freedom as a means of increasing collective survival. Throughout our analyses, we found no support for hypotheses based on climatic challenges. In addition, our multilevel approach revealed that country scores for socio-political freedom were highly clustered within world regions, accounting for substantial portions of variance. Overall, the present research offers a nuanced view of the interplay between ecology and wealth in the emergence of socio-political freedom. We discuss new directions in future research considering methodological and theoretical contributions of the present findings. (shrink)

Segregation Distorter (SD) is a meiotic drive system in Drosophila that causes preferential transmission of the SD chromosome from SD/SD+ males owing to induced dysfunction of SD+ spermatids. Since its discovery in 1956, SD and its mode of action have baffled biologists. Recently, substantial progress has been made in elucidating this puzzle. Sd, the primary gene responsible for distortion encodes a mutant RanGAP, a key protein in the Ran signaling pathway required for nuclear transport and other nuclear functions. The mutant (...) protein is enzymatically active but mislocalized to nuclei, which apparently disrupts Ran signaling by reducing intranuclear Ran‐GTP levels. Some evidence suggests that a defect in nuclear transport may be the main cause of sperm dysfunction. Although important questions remain, the basic mechanism of distortion is now understood sufficiently well that specific hypotheses can be formulated and tested. This previously mysterious genetic system may now offer unique insights into novel aspects of regulation by Ran. BioEssays 25:108–115, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

「仁」と「天理」はどう語られてきたか―『春秋』三伝・『論語』をはじめとする経典類から二十四史まで、さらに「侯馬盟書」等の出土史料を渉猟して「仁」の原義とその変質、「天理」観との関わりを検討し、その観念 と暦・天文・度量衡・十二方位・楽・易との関係、建築物への數理的表象に説き及ぶ。.

江戸の思想家たちが到達した場所、それは人類未踏の頂だった―。雄大な世界史的構図のなかに日本文明の清らかな輝きを甦らせる圧倒的大業。.