Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

News

Empires

For several years Jesse Ausubel and Cesare Marchetti have been pondering the growth of human empires through the lens of biological models. The International Journal of Anthropology has now published their paper, Quantitative Dynamics of Human Empires. The paper reports that the driving forces of empire, leading to expansion and saturation at 14 days of travel from the capital, can be reduced to testosterone and progesterone.

The paper has been published in black-and-white. Thanks to the journal editors for accepting a paper from scholars outside the discipline of anthropology. We also have a posted an enriched powerpoint-style version of the text and figures with the many maps and images in color. We recommend the color version.

Abstract:
Quantitative modeling of social systems shows a large component of automatic drives in the behaviour of individual humans and human society. Studies of the formation and breakdown of twenty diverse empires operating over almost three thousand years describe these processes with utmost clarity and paradigmatic simplicity. Taking territorial expansion as the basic parameter, we show that it can be represented in time by a single logistic equation in spite of the complicated sequences of events usually reported by historians. The driving forces of empire, leading to expansion and saturation at 14 days of travel from the capital, can be reduced to testosterone and progesterone.

Urban Barcode

Jesse Ausubel (via Sloan) and Mark Stoeckle (via Rockefeller) encouraged the wonderful Urban Barcode Project of Cold Spring Harbor Lab.

We are delighted that Robyn Tse, mentored by Mark, won Honorable Mention for her project: DNA Barcoding Exotic Agricultural Pests Seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Jesse offered congratulations to all the teams in the prize ceremony on 6 June 2012 at the American Museum of Natural History, On the Success of the First New York City Urban Barcode Project.

Encyclopedia of Life surpasses one million species

About 1.9 million species have names.  We are delighted to note the passing of a milestone, as the Encyclopedia of Life, which we helped launch, now has passed the 1 million mark.

Encyclopedia of Life reaches historic ‘one million species pages …

‎Phys.Org – 11 May 2012

For some history, see

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/archives/388

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/archives/352

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/archives/386

 

 

 

Census of Marine Life & International Day of Biodiversity

22 May is 2012’s International Day of Biodiversity, and we are delighted the day features marine biodiversity and the Census of Marine Life in particular.

For some coverage in Spanish, see El Día de la Biodiversidad intenta advertir de la alarmante situación …

‎Jesse Ausubel, director de programas de la Fundación Alfred Sloan (Estados Unidos) y uno de los dos creadores del CVM, dijo a Efe que la …

Notice for Alexander Keynan

We at PHE were saddened to learn of the death of Professor Alexander Keynan, a long time friend and colleague. The following obituary (translated from the Hebrew) appeared in the Israeli Newspaper Ha’aretz.

May 8, 2012

Professor Alexander Keynan Dies

Keynan, who was first administrator of the institute for Biology at Nes Tziona and a member of the committee atomic energy, died at 91.

Alexander Keynan, professor emeritus of microbiology at Hebrew University and the first manager of the Biological Institute at Nes Tziona, died on Sunday in his home in Tel Aviv at 91.  Keynan was born in 1921 in Kiev, as Alexander Kotznok.  He arrived in Israel in 1930, studied at the Hebrew University and received his doctorate in 1950.  In 1945 he married Malka ben-tzvi and started a family.

Before the establishment of the state he served in the science department of the Haganah organization, and in 1948 he continued to serve in the science battalion of the IDF.  In 1952 he was one of the founders of the institute for Biology at Nes Tziona and served as the first administrator of the institute.   In 1964 he was appointed to head the national committee for research and development, and three years after that was appointed to head the center for life sciences at Hebrew University and also as a member of the committee atomic energy.  In addition, he served as vice president for  research and development of the Hebrew University.  In 1990 he retired.  In the last decade he appointed Chairman of the Steering Committee for Biotechnology Research in the terrorist era and ntil recently he was senior consultant responsible Israeli National Academy of Sciences and in 2006 won the Bublik award.

“If there was someone who in a rational manner could think about science policy, on how to set priorities for investment in science from a national perspective, and how to redirect the system – there isn’t anybody that you can compare to the Alex on these issues,” the former President of the Hebrew University, Professor Menachem Megidor said last night.   “he was a man of insight and discernment, and what has characterized him among other things was the lack of his ego.  Even scientists dedicated to science often possess an ego that is not small, but with Alex, the good of the matter always the lit the path.” Prof.  Megidor added “I relied on his help many times and consulted with him concerning an entire range of topics, One of the toughest decisions for a university president is to make decisions in areas that you don’t fully understand. Alex was really a resource with no replacement in this respect, that could always be relied upon for his assessment.  He was really a precious person.”