From Anthropometry to Genomics


Book Description

"Jonathan Friedlaender has devoted much of his professional life to studies of human population variation in Pacific Islanders.. His collaborator on this memoir of his life and experiences in the Pacific is Joanna Radin, a young but remarkably knowledgeable historian of science currently conducting graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. These two professionals weave a fascinating fabric of complex texture that incorporates the educational, political, governmental, and research climate of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s with the trials and tribulations of a young researcher and academic trying to make his way in a highly competitive arena. The book is much more than a series of recollections about one man's life; rather, it is a history of an important era in the development of anthropological genetics and the dramatic transition in this science that took place in the early 1980s. Friedlaender's book should have appeal to a number of audiences - students, professional anthropologists, and lay readers, alike... Jonathan Friedlaender's Reflections is a valuable addition to the historical record of this important science. This is a worthwhile book to read for anyone with interests in the history of science or the history of a science." From the Foreword by Professor Michael A. Little, Binghamton University




Life on Ice


Book Description

Preface: frozen spirits -- Introduction: within cold blood -- The technoscience of life at low temperature -- Latent life in biomedicine's ice age -- Temporalities of salvage -- "As yet unknown": life for the future -- "Before it's too late": life from the past -- Collecting, maintaining, reusing, and returning -- Managing the cold chain: making life mobile -- When futures arrive: lives after time -- Epilogue: thawing spirits




Forensic Colonialism


Book Description

Forensic genetic technologies are popularly conceptualized and revered as important tools of justice. The research and development of these technologies, however, has been accomplished through the capture of various Indigenous Peoples’ genetic material and a subsequent ongoing genetic servitude. In Forensic Colonialism Mark Munsterhjelm explores how controversial studies of Indigenous Peoples have been used to develop racializing forensic technologies. Making moral and political claims about defending the public from criminals and terrorists, international networks of scientists, police, and security agencies have developed forensic genetic technologies firmly embedded in hierarchies that target and exploit many Indigenous Peoples without their consent. Collections began under the guise of the highly controversial Human Genome Diversity Project and related efforts, including the 1987 sampling of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples as they recovered from near genocide. After 9/11, War on Terror rhetoric began to be used to justify research on ancestry estimation and physical appearance (phenotyping) markers, and since 2019, international research cooperation networks’ use of genetic data from thousands of Uyghurs and other Indigenous Peoples from Xinjiang and Tibet has contributed to a series of controversies. Munsterhjelm concludes that technologies produced by forensic genetics advance the biopolitical security only of privileged populations, and that this depends on imposing race-based divisions between who lives and who dies. Meticulously researched, Forensic Colonialism adds to growing debates over racial categories, their roots in colonialism, and the political hierarchies inherent to forensic genetics.




The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean: Volume 1, The Pacific Ocean to 1800


Book Description

Volume I of The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean provides a wide-ranging survey of Pacific history to 1800. It focuses on varied concepts of the Pacific environment and its impact on human history, as well as tracing the early exploration and colonization of the Pacific, the evolution of Indigenous maritime cultures after colonization, and the disruptive arrival of Europeans. Bringing together a diversity of subjects and viewpoints, this volume introduces a broad variety of topics, engaging fully with emerging environmental and political conflicts over Pacific Ocean spaces. These essays emphasize the impact of the deep history of interactions on and across the Pacific to the present day.




The Diagrammatics of ‘Race’


Book Description

This is the first book that engages with the history of diagrams in physical, evolutionary, and genetic anthropology. Since their establishment as scientific tools for classification in the eighteenth century, diagrams have been used to determine but also to deny kinship between human groups. In nineteenth-century craniometry, they were omnipresent in attempts to standardize measurements on skulls for hierarchical categorization. In particular the ’human family tree’ was central for evolutionary understandings of human diversity, being used on both sides of debates about whether humans constitute different species well into the twentieth century. With recent advances in (ancient) DNA analyses, the tree diagram has become more contested than ever―does human relatedness take the shape of a network? Are human individual genomes mosaics made up of different ancestries? Sommer examines the epistemic and political role of these visual representations in the history of ‘race’ as an anthropological category. How do such diagrams relate to imperial and (post-)colonial practices and ideologies but also to liberal and humanist concerns? The Diagrammatics of 'Race' concentrates on Western projects from the late 1700s into the present to diagrammatically define humanity, subdividing and ordering it, including the concomitant endeavors to acquire representative samples―bones, blood, or DNA―from all over the world. Contributing to the ‘diagrammatic turn’ in the humanities and social sciences, it reveals connections between diagrams in anthropology and other visual traditions, including in religion, linguistics, biology, genealogy, breeding, and eugenics.




Handbook of Anthropometry


Book Description

Although its underlying concept is a relatively simple one—the measurement of the human body and its parts—anthropometry employs a myriad of methods and instruments, and is useful for a variety of purposes, from understanding the impact of disease on individuals to tracking changes in populations over time. The first interdisciplinary reference on the subject, the Handbook of Anthropometry brings this wide-ranging field together: basic theory and highly specialized topics in normal and abnormal anthropometry in terms of health, disease prevention, and intervention. Over 140 self-contained chapters cover up-to-date indices, the latest studies on computerized methods, shape-capturing systems, and bioelectrical impedance, data concerning single tissues and whole-body variables, and reports from different areas of the world. Chapters feature helpful charts and illustrations, cross-references to related chapters are included, and key points are presented in bullet form for ease of comprehension. Together, the Handbook’s thirteen sections entail all major aspects of anthropometrical practice and research, including: Tools and techniques. Developmental stages, from fetus to elder. Genetic diseases, metabolic diseases, and cancer. Exercise and nutrition. Ethnic, cultural, and geographic populations. Special conditions and circumstances. The Handbook of Anthropometry is an invaluable addition to the reference libraries of a broad spectrum of health professionals, among them health scientists, physicians, physiologists, nutritionists, dieticians, nurses, public health researchers, epidemiologists, exercise physiologists, and physical therapists. It is also useful to college-level students and faculty in the health disciplines, as well as to policymakers and ergonomists.




History Within


Book Description

History Within explores how the life sciences have contributed to public and popular history and to moral and political visions for a just society of the future. It shows how the sciences that deal with the evolutionary history of human groups and of humankind are powerful producers of origin narratives and experiences of kinship and belonging. Marianne Sommer looks at the collecting efforts of three key scientistsHenry Fairfield Osborn, Julian Huxley, and Luca-Luigi Cavalli-Sforzathat render the interactive creation of bio-historical knowledge possible in the first place and asks how their scientific data was translated into more broadly meaningful narratives, images, and exhibits. The bones, organisms, and molecules they studied acquire political value, she argues, in negotiations over issues of interpretation and how scientific results ought to be communicated to the public. History Within is an essential history of biology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."




Human Variation


Book Description

The transition in anthropological and biomedical research methods over the past 50 years, from anthropometric and craniometric measurements to large-scale microarray genetic studies has resulted in continued revision of opinions and ideas relating to the factors and forces that drive human variation. Human Variation:From the Laboratory to the Field




Essentials of Medical Genomics


Book Description

Six new chapters on vital topics of interest such as multilocus SNP genotyping (SNP chips), RNAi, ChIP-chip, and genomic tiling arrays New edition responds to reviewers' and users' desire for greater coverage—now the most useful handbook on the market! Practical, concise summary of everything about genomics and emerging technologies a busy physician or medical student should know Covers concepts and techniques that are in use in medicine now, as well as those on the cutting-edge of science relevant to medicine, from bioinformatics to DNA diagnostics and proteomics NEW: Includes chapter-end exercises, enhancing the utility of the new edition as a textbook NEW: PowerPoint slides of images available at instructor website




Genomics, Personalized Medicine and Oral Disease


Book Description

The objective of this book is to catalyze the application of genomics to the diagnosis and treatment of oral diseases by comprehensively presenting focused discussions on the current state of knowledge. The first section book provides basic information about genetics, genomics and personalized medicine and the informatical methods available to apply and organize genetic data so that it has clinical relevance. Recognizing the genetic robustness of the oral cavity, the introductory section includes chapters on the oral micro biome and host genomics and response to infectious agents. The next two sections contain chapters which describe the genomics of specific oral diseases and conditions, including the genetic basis for mechanism and risk of treatment toxicities associated with cancer therapy and bisphosphonates. Four chapters focus on gene-based therapies and the pharmacogenomics applied to oral disease. The final chapter presents a provocative summary which describes a comprehensive vision of the melding of genomics to personalized medicine and the potential actionable outcomes that will likely affect clinical practice in the upcoming years.