Nature

In this article, we outline and explore a plural and flexible methodology for engaging with the contemporary music memoir. These are texts in which narrative experimentation and self-conscious interrogations of voice shape content. They are texts that blur and blend the lines between memory, storytelling and myth. They offer a literate and culturally engaged reader the opportunity to shape their own musical histories and memories. We view these titles as a new and emerging genre. Our work, which we are developing in a forthcoming edited collection entitled Music, Memory and Memoir, approaches this fluid genre with a fluid methodology. We combine scholarly rigor and critical analysis in our readings of text but these combine with an open-ended and reflexive approach to our own critical and cultural voices.

Plant nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptors generally exhibit hallmarks of rapid evolution, even at the intraspecific level. We used iterative sequence similarity searches coupled with phylogenetic analyses to reconstruct the evolutionary history of HOPZ-ACTIVATED RESISTANCE1 (ZAR1), an atypically conserved NLR that traces its origin to early flowering plant lineages ∼220 to 150 million yrs ago (Jurassic period). We discovered 120 ZAR1 orthologs in 88 species, including the monocot Colocasia esculenta, the magnoliid Cinnamomum micranthum, and most eudicots, notably the Ranunculales species Aquilegia coerulea, which is outside the core eudicots. Ortholog sequence analyses revealed highly conserved features of ZAR1, including regions for pathogen effector recognition and cell death activation. We functionally reconstructed the cell death activity of ZAR1 and its partner receptor-like cytoplasmic kinase (RLCK) from distantly related plant species, experimentally validating the hypothesis that ZAR1 evolved to partner with RLCKs early in its evolution. In addition, ZAR1 acquired novel molecular features. In cassava (Manihot esculenta) and cotton (Gossypium spp.), ZAR1 carries a C-terminal thioredoxin-like domain, and in several taxa, ZAR1 duplicated into 2 paralog families, which underwent distinct evolutionary paths. ZAR1 stands out among angiosperm NLR genes for having experienced relatively limited duplication and expansion throughout its deep evolutionary history. Nonetheless, ZAR1 also gave rise to noncanonical NLRs with integrated domains and degenerated molecular features.

Meiotic recombination is a crucial biological process that ensures proper chromosomal pairing and promotes adaptation. In placental mammals, recombination rates vary widely across species, populations, sexes, individuals, and chromosomes. While the placental X chromosome shows remarkable conservation of both gene order and the recombination landscape across deep evolutionary history, it is unknown whether similar levels of autosomal conservation persist despite extensive chromosomal evolution. Here, we reconstructed an ancestral placental mammal karyotype from chromosome-level assemblies, using slow rates of karyotypic evolution, and inferred an ancestral autosomal recombination map. Analysis of phylogenetic branch lengths and PhyloP-based scores of evolutionary constraint reveals that conserved autosomal regions with low recombination rates have evolved under stronger purifying selection, whereas regions with conserved high recombination rates are less constrained and freer to evolve. Ancestral autosomal regions with low recombination rates were enriched for pathways and GO terms related to cellular function, whereas ancestral regions with high recombination rates were enriched for regulation and some immune-related systems. Tracking the fate of these conserved ancestral recombination hotspots and coldspots across 13 mammal lineages with variable rates of karyotype evolution revealed the retention of autosomal AHRs, but the absence of autosomal ALR conservation. Collectively, our findings reveal variable levels of evolutionary constraint at meiotic recombination in relation to karyotypic evolution, providing new insights into how natural selection influences the evolution of chromosomal organization.

Lurking in what used to be referred to as “junk DNA,” and beyond the realm of the well-known non-coding RNAs such as mRNA and tRNA, are non-coding sequences that are transcribed into RNAs with important epigenetic modulatory functions. Now in this special online collection in BioEssays (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291521-1878/homepage/non_coding_rnas_virtual_ issue.htm) we bring together diverse corners of a rapidly expanding field of research. Already it is becoming clear that certain miRNAs modulate the expression of RNAs coding for proteins cell cycle regulators, signalling pathway effectors and transcription factors that determine cell pluripotency, and cell fate, as discussed by Li and He 1. And from these observations it is a small conceptual step to assume that non-coding RNAs are also involved in cancer. Indeed, lncRNAs (long non-coding RNAs) are found highly expressed in solid tumours, and their mechanism of action, in general, appears to rely on their modification of chromatin via recruitment of chromatin remodelling complexes 2. Returning to their shorter cousins, miRNAs, it has been observed that the mammalian X-chromosome contains a disproportionately large number of sequences coding for miRNAs, and several of these have been shown to play roles in immunity and cancer. In a hypothesis piece, Pinheiro et al. 3 raise the possibility that the lesser immune response to infection mounted by males could be a result of males possessing only one X-chromosome. The other side of the coin is that females tend to suffer more autoimmune disease than males because (so it may be hypothesised) they have two X-chromosomes. The precise X-chromosome-encoded non-coding RNAs involved in autoimmunity have yet to be identified, but there is mounting support for the role of miRNAs in general in autoimmune disease. A strong recent candidate is an miRNA proposed to result from processing of a ribonucleoprotein-associated ‘Y RNA’ 4, the RNP of which (Ro RNP) is, itself, the target of the autoimmune response in systemic lupus erythematosus. Beyond the immune system, a speculative article explores the roles of miRNAs in injury of the central nervous system 5: certain miRNAs are already recognised as key modulators of gene expression in processes involved with neuronal differentiation and maturation. But there is emerging evidence that defined miRNAs are consistently up- or down-regulated in ischaemia, traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, for example. Some are neurotoxic, whereas others are neuroprotective, hence opening a conceptual avenue to miRNA-based therapeutic intervention. And it is not only in CNS injury that non-coding RNAs play an important role in the brain: the mammalian brain and placenta manifest particularly high expression of imprinted genes, a phenomenon that is orchestrated by regulatory small-RNAs. In a hypothesis article, Labialle and Cavaillé propose that subclasses of these RNAs – recognised as “genomic parasites” – have contributed to the emergence of genomic imprinting by virtue of their occurrence in huge repeat arrays 6. In general, non-coding transcripts, including long non-coding RNA sequences, reside in juxtaposition with gene clusters in imprinted domains of chromosomes. Regulatory non-coding RNAs are generated in a bewildering variety of ways via the processing of precursor transcripts, a newly hypothesised route being the fragmentation of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) into yet smaller, stable, RNAs 7. But regulatory non-coding RNAs need not only be encoded in the genome that they regulate: evidence is accumulating that external non-coding RNAs are very important for maintaining normal homeostasis. An obvious source is the food that we eat, and recently plant-derived RNAs have, indeed, been found circulating in the blood of the consumers 8. And so, lastly, to the question of where, indeed, non-coding RNAs come from in the first place. It is likely that many miRNAs have arisen in response to the integration of retroviruses into the host genome: small complementary RNA sequences target the viral RNA for degradation or prevent it from being mobilised. Might they, therefore, have a deep evolutionary history in our unicellular ancestors? That is a very controversial claim, as Tarver et al. 9 make clear in an article that puts numerous miRNAs that suggest deep evolutionary origin to the test: most do not meet the criteria for miRNA annotation, suggesting that plants and animals did not acquire their respective miRNAs from a crown ancestor of eukaryotes after all. As for the rest of the non-coding RNA menagerie, it remains very fertile soil for hypothesis. Perhaps this question will be addressed in new articles that will regularly join our special collection in future. Andrew Moore Editor-in-Chief

• Canopy chemistry and spectroscopy offer insight into community assembly and ecosystem processes in high-diversity tropical forests, but phylogenetic and environmental factors controlling chemical traits underpinning spectral signatures remain poorly understood. • We measured 21 leaf chemical traits and spectroscopic signatures of 594 canopy individuals on high-fertility Inceptisols and low-fertility Ultisols in a lowland Amazonian forest. The spectranomics approach, which explicitly connects phylogenetic, chemical and spectral patterns in tropical canopies, provided the basis for analysis. • Intracrown and intraspecific variation in chemical traits varied from 1.4 to 36.7% (median 9.3%), depending upon the chemical constituent. Principal components analysis showed that 14 orthogonal combinations were required to explain 95% of the variation among 21 traits, indicating the high dimensionality of canopy chemical signatures among taxa. Inceptisols and lianas were associated with high leaf nutrient concentrations and low concentrations of defense compounds. Independent of soils or plant habit, an average 70% (maximum 89%) of chemical trait variation was explained by taxonomy. At least 10 traits were quantitatively linked to remotely sensed signatures, which provided highly accurate species classification. • The results suggest that taxa found on fertile soils carry chemical portfolios with a deep evolutionary history, whereas taxa found on low-fertility soils have undergone trait evolution at the species level. Spectranomics provides a new connection between remote sensing and community assembly theory in high-diversity tropical canopies.

Vocal functional flexibility: what it is and why it matters

Comparative phylogenetic analyses based on linguistic data are useful for reconstructing the cultural evolution of recent expansions of humans around the world. It is an exciting time for phylogenetic comparative studies in lowland South America given the emergence of more comprehensive ethnolinguistic datasets. Phylogenetic methods can now be applied to more lowland language families to facilitate the study of pre-historical population expansions and cultural variation. This chapter investigates phylogenetic relationships among the six major lowland South American language families using structural linguistic data. Two cultural traits that are likely to have deep evolutionary histories that extend back to last common ancestors of several large language families include uxorilocal postmarital residence (women continue to live near natal families after marriage) and partible paternity beliefs (conception belief that multiple men can be co-genitors of one child). The Carib-Pano-Tupi-Jê clade is mostly uxorilocal with partible paternity beliefs in thirty-eight of forty-three societies.

Humans and other great apes have evolved rich social and emotional capacities that enable them to navigate their complex social worlds. These include sophisticated ways to produce, perceive, and express affective states, as well as to respond effectively to the states of others. A distinctive feature of human emotional functioning is empathy, the capacity to share and understand others’ states. Far from being uniquely human, empathy has a deep evolutionary history and may be found across diverse animal species in both mammals and birds. This chapter examines some of the continuities between the emotional processes, including empathy of humans and our closest ape relatives. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (P. paniscus) are our closest cousins and show numerous overlaps in their socio-affective and cognitive capacities, social structures, and life histories. Studying their emotional and empathic capacities reveals many overlaps, highlighting a deep evolutionary basis of hominid emotionality.

Human hunter-gatherer groups were commonly thought to be broadly egalitarian, with increasingly formal hierarchical social structures hypothesized to spread following the introduction of agriculture. However, this view is being challenged by mounting evidence for social hierarchies in several foraging populations. Nonetheless, the processes by which such hierarchies emerge, and whether human hierarchies are homologous with non-human systems of dominance, remains unclear. Here we examine the role of prestige, the tendency to freely confer status and influence on skilled or esteemed individuals and a proposed component of human-unique cultural psychology, in generating unequal patterns of social influence. Through a combination of cultural evolutionary modelling, human experimentation, and evolutionary simulations, we find that human prestige psychology generates highly unequal influence hierarchies, and that the “prestige sensitivity” we measure empirically in human participants closely matches the predictions of our evolutionary simulations, suggesting it is an evolved psychological adaptation. Nonetheless, unlike non-human dominance hierarchies, the processes involved are non-coercive, being driven by individuals freely seeking high quality information. We thus conclude that social hierarchies plausibly have a deep evolutionary history in our lineage, with prestige enabling hierarchies to be mutually beneficial as opposed to coercive.

Patterns of urinary cortisol levels during ontogeny appear population specific rather than species specific in wild chimpanzees and bonobos

The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers (2024), edited by Matthew Head and Susan Wollenberg, transcends the deficit discourse that construes women are suppressed victims, instead offering a nuanced interdisciplinary exploration of women’s compositional practices across eras. The volume’s preface traces the 50-year scholarly evolution of women’s music studies, critiquing early scholars’ overreliance on recovery narratives and advocating instead for critical reflection on the historically contingent category of women composers. Part One addresses methodological themes, including the ephemerality of women composers’ reputations, intersectional feminist analysis integrating gender, race, and class, and the construction of women’s music history. Part Two focuses on pre-1750 composers (e.g. Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi), emphasising their agency in navigating patriarchal structures through patronage networks and institutional spaces like convents. Concluding with reflections from contemporary composers Judith Weir, Tania León, and Unsuk Chin, the book bridges historical scholarship and modern practice, highlighting ongoing gender equality challenges in music. While centred on Western art music with limited attention to non-Western traditions, this rigorous collection reshapes music historiography by prioritising agency over victimhood and offering a model for critical, interdisciplinary research on women in music.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider and compare different ways of using numbers to value aspects of nature-beyond-the-human through case analysis of ecological and natural capital accounting practices in the UK that create standardised numerical-economic values for beyond-human natures. In addition, to contrast underlying ontological and ethical assumptions of these arithmetical approaches in ecological accounting with those associated with Pythagorean nature-numbering practices and fractal geometry. In doing so, to draw out distinctions between arithmetical and geometrical ontologies of nature and their relevance for “valuing nature”.Design/methodology/approachClose reading and review of policy texts and associated calculations in: UK natural capital accounts for “opening stock” inventories in 2007 and 2014; and in the experimental implementation of biodiversity offsetting (BDO) in land-use planning in England. Tracking the iterative calculations of biodiversity offset requirements in a specific planning case. Conceptual review, drawing on and contrasting different numbering practices being applied so as to generate numerical-economic values for natures-beyond-the-human.FindingsIn the cases of ecological accounting practices analysed here, the natures thus numbered are valued and “accounted for” using arithmetical methodologies that create commensurability and facilitate appropriation of the values so created. Notions of non-monetary value, and associated practices, are marginalised. Instead of creating standardisation and clarity, however, the accounting practices considered here for natural capital accounts and BDO create nature-signalling numbers that are struggled over and contested.Originality/valueThis is the first critical engagement with the specific policy texts and case applications considered here, and, the authors believe, the first attempt to contrast arithmetical and geometrical numbering practices in their application to the understanding and valuing of natures-beyond-the-human.

Most elementary music instruction in Ontario is delivered by generalist teachers, despite a rigorous provincial curriculum that is challenging even for well-trained music specialists. Elementary pre-service teacher candidates approach music methods courses with a range of musicianship and musical experiences. For most of them, music education concluded after the middle school years, and at best it continued through secondary school. Some teacher candidates approach the music methods course with anxiety and fear, as they struggle with memories of music education that was ineffective, superficial, or in some cases even abusive. As they perceive a gap between their level of musicianship and that which is needed to support professional music educatorship, some teacher candidates reject the possibility of developing any musical or pedagogical skills before the course even begins. The primary goal of the author’s elementary music methods course is to reconnect elementary generalist teacher candidates with the music in their lives, and to empower them to engage in musical thinking and action. This one-course journey begins and ends with the teacher candidates’ exploration of their musical histories through the creation of visual, textual, or performative narratives. As they examine the sometimes long-forgotten troves of their musical and educational experience, they open themselves to discovery and learning in and through music, and clear pathways to the possibility of music education in their professional futures.

The segmented trapdoor spiders (Liphistiidae) are the sole surviving family of the suborder Mesothelae, which forms the sister lineage to all other living spiders. Liphistiids have retained a number of plesiomorphic traits and their present-day distribution is limited to East and Southeast Asia. Studying this group has the potential to shed light on the deep evolutionary history of spiders, but the phylogeny and divergence times of the family have not been resolved with confidence. We performed phylogenomic and molecular dating analyses of 2765 ultraconserved element loci from 185 liphistiid taxa. Our analyses show that the crown group of Liphistiidae appeared in the mid-Cretaceous at 102 Ma (95% credibility interval 92-113 Ma), but it was not until the Neogene that much of the diversification within the family occurred in mainland Southeast and East Asia. This diversification was coincident with tectonic events such as the extension of the East Asian continental margin, as well as geological upheavals in Indochina induced by the collision between India and Asia. Our study highlights the important role of major tectonic events in shaping the evolutionary history, present-day diversity, and geographical distribution of mesothele and liphistiid spiders. [biogeography; concatenation; Liphistiidae; molecular dating; summary coalescent; UCEs.].

Review| April 01 2023 Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes, by Brigid Cohen Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes, by Brigid Cohen. New Material Histories of Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. x, 379 pp. Kirsten Speyer Carithers Kirsten Speyer Carithers KIRSTEN SPEYER CARITHERS is Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of Louisville. Research and teaching interests include music and technology, critical theory, experimentalism, gender, and the connections between indeterminacy, improvisation, and creative labor. Her first book, Interpretive Labor: Experimental Music at Work, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2023) 76 (1): 256–259. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2023.76.1.256 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kirsten Speyer Carithers; Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes, by Brigid Cohen. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 April 2023; 76 (1): 256–259. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2023.76.1.256 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search Scholars of new and contemporary music, especially of the postwar avant-garde, have benefitted from a remarkably rich collection of source material for their work. Despite this wealth, certain individuals and developments emerged as “central” or “primary” figures and movements in early histories of the era, imposing a temporary but influential narrowing of the field. Happily, researchers of experimental music have already initiated a much-needed shift toward diverse, critical engagement with the repertoire and its practitioners, and Brigid Cohen’s new monograph, part of the University of Chicago Press’s exciting series New Material Histories of Music, is among the most significant of these interventions. While the aforementioned abundance of sources could conceivably encourage accounts that are unfocused or overly abstract, Cohen’s carefully researched text draws upon its various sources to present a cohesive, compelling narrative of physical and cultural migration during the early Cold War era. In Musical Migration and Imperial New... You do not currently have access to this content.