ZPE 174 (2010)

INHALTSVERZEICHNIS ZPE 174 (2010)

Battistoni, F., Note al nuovo decreto dall’area di Caronia (ZPE 170)

Benaissa, A., Thonis and Enteleu: Two ‘Ghost’ Villages of the Oxyrhynchite Nome

Benedetti, L. – Spadoni, M. C., Su alcune are con dedica ad Augusto da Perugia (CIL XI 1923)

Blänsdorf, J. – Kropp, A. – Scholz, M., „Perverse agas, comodo hoc perverse scriptu(m) est“ ein Fluchtäfelchen aus Köln

Broux, Y. – Coussement, S. – Depauw, M., καὶ ὡς χρωματίζει  and the Importance of Naming in Roman Egypt

Campbell, V. L., The Epitaph of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus (CIL X 1024): A Reconsideration 

Colombo, M., Correzioni testuali ed esegetiche all’epigrafe di Aurelius Gaius (regione di Kotiaeum in Phrygia)

Cromwell, J., Ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ θεοῦ πανθακράτορος. Variation and Specificity in Christian Invocation Formulae from Jeme Dana, D., Une nouvelle épitaphe grecque tardive de Bulgarie

De Carlo, A., Novità sul cavaliere beneventano di III sec. C. Caelius C. f. St. Bassaeus Donatus Verzobius. Rilettura di CIL IX 1640 + 1599

Di Bari, M. F., Dobree o Dindorf? Sulla paternità di un emendamento ad Ar. Thesm. 1203

Di Marco, M., Meropes nel Phoinikides di Stratone comico 

Eck, W., Zu alten und neuen Inschriften aus Caesarea Maritima. Vorarbeiten für den 2. Band des CIIP – Ein Altar aus Caesarea Maritima und ein neues Dokument für den nordsyrischen Gott Turmasgade

Eck, W. – Holder, P. – Pangerl, A., A Diploma for the Army of Britain in 132 and Hadrian’s

Return to Rome from the East

Eck, W. – Ivanov, R., Etcheto, H., Des Scipions plébéiens: l’origine familiale du tribun de la plèbe P. Cornelius Scipio (Orestinus)

Fell, M., Neue Inschriften aus Palairos II Fishwick, D., Agrippa and the Ara Providentiae at Rome Führer, R., Ein Papyrusakzent in Call. fr. 112, 4 Pf. 

Gutzwiller, K., The Demon Mosquito Hartmann, A., Ein Berber im römischen Bayern? Eine Neulesung zu CIL III 5905 = 11906 (IBR 255/CSIR I 1,504)

Hartwig, A., The Date of the Rhabdouchoi and the Early Career of Plato Comicus 

Heilporn, P., Encore Ailios Didumos

Holt, F. L., Bayer’s Coin of Eucratides: A Miscalculation Corrected

Kassel, R., Servilius Damokrates in Pap. Ant. III 139 und 186

Kiel-Freytag, A., Betrachtungen zur Usurpation des Illus und des Leontius (484–488 n. Chr.)

Kovács, P. – Lőrincz, B., Neue lateinische Inschriften aus Komitat Komárom-Esztergom I–Zwei Votivinschriften aus Ratiaria in der Provinz Moesia superior           

Kreiler, B. M., Zur Datierung eines Volksbeschlusses von Thasos und zum makedonischen Statthaltersitz im 2. Jh. v. Chr.

Kruschwitz, P., Attitudes Towards Wall Inscriptions in the Roman Empire 

Lapini, W., POxy. 70.4762, r. 8: la donna e l’asino

Luppe, W., Nochmals zum Michigan-Papyrus mit Hexametern P. Mich. Inv. Nr. 4926a

Molle, C., Una stele iscritta da Interamna Lirenas

Nikolosi, A., Hippon. fr. o195 Dg. (= *116 W.2): marginalia

van Oppen de Ruiter, B., The Death of Arsinoe II Philadelphus: The Evidence Reconsidered

Petrain, D., More Inscriptions from the Tabulae Iliacae

Petzl, G. – Staab, G., Vier neue Epigramme aus Lydien

Poli, F., Deux épitaphes latines inédites dans les musées français

Rathmann, M., Ein neuer Meilenstein für die Germania inferior

Sánchez, P. – Schubert, P. – Volokhine, Y., Une dédicace grecque de l’époque impériale tardive trouvée à Hermonthis (Ermant, Haute-Égypte)           

Schindel, N., Ein Militärdiplomfragment aus Moesia inferior (136 n. Chr.)           

Stein, M., Zum christlichen Homercento SGO 19/21/02 (IV p. 231 sq.)

Vacante, S., Un frammento di stele monumentale da Mitilene (IG XII 2, 8): confronti e ipotesi di datazione

West, M. L., Rhapsodes at Festivals: Addenda

Zwierlein, O., Die Datierung der acta Iohannis und der Papyrus Kellis Gr. Fragm. A.I

Review:Maren Schentuleit, Günter Vittmann (ed.), "Du hast mein Herz zufriedengestellt ...". Ptolemäerzeitliche demotische Urkunden aus Soknopaiu Nesos. Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Bd. 29

Maren Schentuleit, Günter Vittmann (ed.), "Du hast mein Herz zufriedengestellt ...". Ptolemäerzeitliche demotische Urkunden aus Soknopaiu Nesos. Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Bd. 29. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. vii, 203; xiv p. of plates. ISBN 9783110207415. $154.00. 
Reviewed by Peter C. Nadig, Freie Universität Berlin


M. Schentuleit and G. Vittmann have produced a high quality edition of nine demotic papyri from Soknopaiu Nesos (CPR XXIX). These Ptolemaic documents were found in 1891, partially acquired by Erzherzog Rainer three years later, and are now in the National Austrian Library in Vienna. Except for text 8 (= P. Wien D 6846 = P. Zauzich 535-549), none of these papyri dating from 142 to 42 BC has been published before. The editors concentrated on some of the poorly preserved or less legible papyri, with a view to providing a firm foundation for future scholars (VII). The book's title "Du hast mein Herz zufriedengestellt" ("you have satisfied my heart") is from a formula often found in demotic documents.

etc at BMCR

The Great Accommodationist Dud

 
I watched the whole three hours streamed live on the conference website. It was about as exciting as watching paint dry except that drying paint doesn't make you angry. All four panelists managed to miss the point.

It wasn't until we got to the very last question that anyone grasped the important point; namely, that PZ Myers and Vic Stenger have very different goals than Chris Mooney and Genie Scott.

Chris and Genie want people like PZ and Vic to keep a lid on it because the Gnu Atheists are making their life more difficult. Tough. There's no reason why PZ and Vic (and the rest of us) have to share their goals just because they think they're more important than getting rid of religion.

And why did Vic and PZ allow Genie to get away with defining science as methodological naturalism?

I was very disappointed in everyone on the panel, and in the moderator.

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Carnival of Evolution #28

 
I've been so busy lately that I forgot to mention the latest Carnival of Evolution. This is doubly embarrassing because it features one of my favorite blogs [Carnival of Evolution #28 - Featuring Sandwalk].

Be sure to answer the survey questions ...

WELCOME to the 28th edition of Carnival of Evolution! This time the carnival has returned home. Not since the first edition back in August 2008 has an edition been posted here. That is cause for celebration, so let's do that with a little survey. I am interested who reads Carnival of Evolution, so please spend the next two minutes tops taking this brief survey about yourself and CoE. Results will then be posted here for the bemusement of all.

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The Velvet Underground of Molecular Biology

The Velvet Underground was a New York rock band in the 1960s. It was never very popular and never made much money but it's said to have influenced many other, more successful, bands.

Chad Orzel asks you to identify The Velvet Underground of Science by which he means an individual who isn't very famous but had a huge impact on science. Naturally, he has an example from physics.

I have an example from molecular biology. Max Delbrück (1906-1981) was one of the founders of the 'phage school (along with Salvador Luria). Delbrück began his science career as a physicist but when he went to the USA he switched to biology and soon became interested in bacteria and bacteriophage.¹ During the 40s, 50s, and 60s he had a huge influence on the members of the 'phage group who used to meet regularly at Cold Spring Harbor where Delbrück taught a summer course in 'phage genetics.

Jim Watson, Matt Meselson, Franklin Stahl, Gunther Stent, Seymour Benzer, Edward Kellenberger, and Alfred Hershey are just a few of the scientists who were directly influenced by Delbrück. They all got together to contribute to Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology in 1966. The book was a Festschrift in honor of Max Delbrück on his 60th birthday.

There were many more second and third generation scientists who grew up in the 'phage group. My own supervisor used to refer frequently to Delbrück's "Principle of Limited Sloppiness" as an effective way of doing science.

Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey, and Luria won the Nobel Prize in 1969 but he (Delbrück) is still not very well known among today's students. I think that every biochemistry and molecular biology student should have to read The Eighth Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson in order to learn the history of their field.

They might discover that much of what they think of as "modern" was actually understood almost half a century ago.

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Photo Credits: Top: Delbrück in the early 1940s from Wikipedia. Bottom: Delbrück and Luria at Cold Spring Harbor in 1953.

1. Physics was too easy—he wanted more of a challenge.

Three Conundrums

 
Razib Khan over at Gene Expression is discussing a recent article on epigenetics and other "revolutions" in molecular biology. Check out Razib's postings: Arise the vehicle! Arise the cell! and Epigenetics – what revolution?.

The article in question is by Steve Talbott¹ and it's published in The New Atlantis: Getting Over the Code Delusion. Here's how the editors introduce the article ...

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a planned set of essays by Mr. Talbott explaining the significance of a revolution in genetics and molecular biology that has only just begun to receive public attention. Although this essay is at times necessarily tech­nical, we trust that our readers will not find it prohibitively so — and we have appended a modest and informal glossary to help smooth the path.

You all know where this is going, don't you?

Talbot sets up his "revolution" by describing several problems.

A number of conundrums have helped to nudge molecular biology toward a more contextualized understanding of the gene. To begin with, the Human Genome Project revised the human gene count downward from 100,000 to 20,000–25,000. What made the figure startling was the fact that much simpler creatures — for example, a tiny, transparent ­roundworm — were found to have roughly the same number of genes. More recently, researchers have turned up a pea aphid with 34,600 genes and a water flea with 39,000 genes. Not even the "chimps are human" boosters were ready to set themselves on the same scale with a water flea. The difference in gene counts required some sort of shift in ­understanding.

I've addressed this before. Knowledgeable experts in the field were predicting 30,000 genes at least as far back as the late 1960s. Their predictions were very close to the mark [False History and the Number of Genes] [Humans Have Only 20,500 Protein-Encoding Genes] [Facts and Myths Concerning the Historical Estimates of the Number of Genes in the Human Genome]. Steve Talbot hasn't done his homework. This isn't a very auspicious beginning.

A second oddity centered on the fact that, upon "deciphering" the genetic Book of Life, we found that our coding scheme made the vast bulk of it read like nonsense. That is, some 95 or 98 percent of human DNA was useless for making proteins. Most of this "noncoding DNA" was at first dismissed as "junk" — meaningless evolutionary detritus accumulated over the ages. At best, it was viewed as a kind of bag of spare parts, borne by cells from one generation to another for possible employment in future genomic innovations. But that’s an awful lot of junk for a cell to have to lug around, duplicate at every cell division, and otherwise manage on a continuing basis.

In this day and age, anyone who equates junk DNA with non-coding DNA isn't worth reading. They've lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned.

Talbott explains the solution later on in his article when he says ...

So what’s going on? These puzzles turn out to be intimately related. As organisms rise on the evolutionary scale, they tend to have more "junk DNA." Noncoding DNA accounts for some 10 percent of the genome in many one-celled organisms, 75 percent in roundworms, and 98 percent in humans. The ironic suspicion became too obvious to ignore: maybe it’s precisely our "junk" that differentiates us from water fleas. Maybe what counts most is not so much the genes themselves as the way they are regulated and expressed. Noncoding DNA could provide the complex regulatory functions that direct genes toward service of the organism’s needs, including its developmental needs.

Anyone who states or implies that there is a significant correlation between total haploid genome size and species complexity is either ignorant or lying.

Larry Moran
Genome Size, Complexity, and the C-Value Paradox"Organism rise on the evolutionary scale"? Has Talbott done any research at all for this article? His understanding of evolution is no greater than kindergarten level if he believes that there's an evolutionary scale with us near the top.

The idea that noncoding DNA contains sequences that govern gene expression has been with us for fifty years. That's hardly revolutionary. The idea that the amount of junk DNA in a genome equates to complexity has been soundly disproven. The idea that humans might need a million base pairs of DNA to control expression of every gene is ludicrous and has absolutely no evidence to support it. In fact, nobody I know has ever shown that mammalian genes require more regulatory sequences than insect genes or those of crustaceans (water fleas). What we have here is a perfect example of The Deflated Ego Problem.

What about the third "conundrum"?

Another conundrum — perhaps the most decisive one — has been recognized and wrestled with (or more often just ignored) since the early twentieth century. With few exceptions, every different type of cell in the human body contains the same chromosomes and the same DNA sequence as the original, single-celled zygote. Yet somehow this zygote manages to differentiate into every manner of tissue — liver, skin, muscle, brain, blood, bone, retina, and so on. If genes determine the form and substance of the organism, how is it that such radically different cellular architectures result from the same genes? What directs genes to produce the intricately sculpted and differentiated form of a complex organism, and how can this directing agency be governed by the very genes that it directs?

We've known the basic answer to this "conundrum" for about five decades. Talbott's idea of a revolution is very strange.

Don't bother reading the article in The New Atlantis. There's nothing "new" there and it may make you very angry.

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1. Steve Talbott is a Senior Researcher at The Nature Institute. "My primary undertaking right now is a critique of conventional science with a view toward establishing the foundations of a new, qualitative science. The project, which requires an extraordinarily radical assessment of contemporary habits of thought, is headquartered here."

The Accommodationist Debate

 
I wish I were going to be in Los Angeles next weekend at the Secular Humanism Conference.

I would definitely attend this session ...

Science and Religion: Confrontation or Accommodation?

How should secular humanists respond to science and religion? If we champion science, must we oppose faith? How best to approach flashpoints like evolution education? A wide-ranging examination featuring a spectrum of distinguished panelists:

* Jennifer Michael Hecht (moderator)
* PZ Myers
* Eugenie Scott
* Chris Mooney
* Victor Stenger

I sure hope it's going to be on YouTube!

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