Birds that are more commonly encountered in the wild attract higher public interest online

Loving robots changing love: Towards a practical deficiency-love

Journal of Future Robot Life ◽

10.3233/frl-200023 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-19

Author(s):

Henrik Skaug Sætra

Keyword(s):

Public Interest ◽

Human Beings ◽

Cultural Phenomenon ◽

In The Wild

Robots are today made not only to assist us in menial tasks and routine labour but also provide companionship and love. This has generated much academic and public interest, and people have asked whether robots can love, whether human–robot relationships are possible, and whether humans can develop loving affection for robots. These are all important questions, but I approach the issues from another perspective: can robots made for love change our very understanding of love? By treating love as a cultural and malleable phenomenon, I explore the possibility of it being changed a) to accommodate robots, and b) as a consequence of how robots love us. The first regards the quest to understand what love is and our current tendency to understand phenomena in light of the computer or computational metaphor of human beings. The second involves an examination of how robots are produced to love, and what this form of love might lead to in the wild. Rather than asking if robots can live up to human ideals, I ask if humans will live down – or it might be up – to robot ideals. Using Abraham Maslow’s distinction between being love and deficiency love as an example, I argue that love robots might take us to a place where deficiency love and a growing expectancy of one-sided worship changes the content of love as a cultural phenomenon.

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Nearly Extinct in the Wild: The Vulnerable Transparency of the Endangered Species List

The Journal of Civic Information ◽

10.32473/joci.v3i2.128355 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 1-28

Author(s):

Benjamin W. Cramer

Keyword(s):

Endangered Species ◽

Public Interest ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

Government Information ◽

Species List ◽

The Public ◽

Government Transparency ◽

In The Wild ◽

Agency Action

This article reconstructs the Endangered Species Act as a government information statute. That Act makes use of an official list of vulnerable creatures that is used for agency action to save them from extinction. This article argues that the official list of species is not sufficiently accurate or transparent to citizens, so the compilation of that list does not satisfy the public interest goals of American environmental law or government transparency policy.

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Freeze-substituted fungal cells of Nectria haematococca: A comparison of the macroconidial walls of the adhesion-competent wild type with an adhesion-reduced mutant

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100160996 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (3) ◽

pp. 688-689

Author(s):

Thecan Caesar-Ton That ◽

Lynn Epstein

Keyword(s):

Freeze Substitution ◽

Uranyl Acetate ◽

Wild Type ◽

Nectria Haematococca ◽

Fruit Extract ◽

Dialysis Tubing ◽

Tube Emergence ◽

Contrast Microscopy ◽

In The Wild ◽

Freeze Damage

Nectria haematococca mating population I (anamorph, Fusarium solani) macroconidia attach to its host (squash) and non-host surfaces prior to germ tube emergence. The macroconidia become adhesive after a brief period of protein synthesis. Recently, Hickman et al. (1989) isolated N. haematococca adhesion-reduced mutants. Using freeze substitution, we compared the development of the macroconidial wall in the wild type in comparison to one of the mutants, LEI.Macroconidia were harvested at 1C, washed by centrifugation, resuspended in a dilute zucchini fruit extract and incubated from 0 - 5 h. During the incubation period, wild type macroconidia attached to uncoated dialysis tubing. Mutant macroconidia did not attach and were collected on poly-L-lysine coated dialysis tubing just prior to freezing. Conidia on the tubing were frozen in liquid propane at 191 - 193C, substituted in acetone with 2% OsO4 and 0.05% uranyl acetate, washed with acetone, and flat-embedded in Epon-Araldite. Using phase contrast microscopy at 1000X, cells without freeze damage were selected, remounted, sectioned and post-stained sequentially with 1% Ba(MnO4)2 2% uranyl acetate and Reynold’s lead citrate. At least 30 cells/treatment were examined.

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