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Belonging : Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Home

07/31/2024
Sadie Davenport
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Title: Belonging: Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Home. 

Author: Amanda Thompson. 

Publication info: Edinburgh : Canongate Books. 2022. eBook.

Location: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: Reflecting on family, identity and nature, Belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy – home to standing dead trees known as snags, which support the overall health of the forest. Belonging is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves. Beautifully written and featuring Amanda Thomson's artwork and photography throughout, it explores how place, language and family shape us and make us who we are.

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A Disability History of the United States
05/22/2024
Sadie Davenport
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Author: Kim E. Nielsen

Publication: Beacon Press, 2013, 240 pages.

Available: Rancho Cordova campus, on the library shelves. 

Description: This is the first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Disability is not only the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of disabled people at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it’s a familiar telling. In other ways, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell US history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience—from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing—at times horrific—narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation’s past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all.

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Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System
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Sadie Davenport
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Title: Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System

Authors: Committee on A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Meredith Hackmann, Rebecca A. English, Kenneth W. Kizer. 

Publication info: Washington, DC: National Academies Press. 2022. 

Available: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: Each year, the individuals and organizations in the U.S. organ donation, procurement, allocation, and distribution system work together to provide transplants to many thousands of people, but thousands more die before getting a transplant due to the ongoing shortage of deceased donor organs and inequitable access to transplant waiting lists. Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System, a new consensus study report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine?s Committee on A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Distribution, provides expert recommendations to improve fairness, equity, transparency, and cost-effectiveness in the donor organ system.

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The "one gene--one enzyme" hypothesis
12/14/2022
Sadie Davenport
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In 1958, George Beadle and Edward Tatum won the Nobel Prize for their study on the relationship between genes and enzymes. They proved through the mutation of Neurospora (a bread mold) that individual genes control specific enzymes. This has been summarized as the "one gene--one enzyme" hypothesis, which is now considered too simplified to accurately depict the relationship between genes and enzymes. However, this hypothesis is remembered as the link connecting two important disciplines: genetics and biochemistry. 

 

 

The experiment:

1) Beadle and Tatum grew Neurospora cells in test tubes with a "complete medium."

2) Then they exposed the Neurospora cells to X-rays and placed them in new tubes under the same conditions. 

3) They waited for the cells to divide and grow. 

4) They transferred some of the cells to a "minimal medium" with a nutrient base of sugar, salts, and biotin. 

5) They observed which cells lived and which died. (This meant that some cells couldn't break down the nutrients in the test tube.)

5) They further tested for different metabolic mutations and, with a lot of experiment repetition, found a different gene mutation connected to each metabolic mutation.

There's a lot more to this experiment, so be sure to check out the additional resources below! 

(Diagram from Khan Academy.) 

Read more about the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis: 

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