Gendered spheres in Balzac'sLa cousine bette

In the play of Forces this law showed itself to be precisely this absolute transition and pure change; the self-same viz Force splits into an antithesis which at first appears to be an independent difference, but which in fact proves to be none; for it is the self-same which repels itself from itself, and therefore what is repelled is essentially self-attractive, for it is the same; the difference created since it is no difference ... is nothing else but the self-same that has repelled itself from itself, and therefore merely posits an antithesis which is none. (Hegel,The Phenomenology of Spirit, section 156, 96)If there is not double desire, the positive and negative poles divide themselves between two sexes instead of establishing a chiasmus or a double loop in which each can go toward the other and come back to itself. If the positive and negative poles are not found in both, the same always attracts, while the other remains in motion but lacks a proper place. What is missing is the double pole of attraction and support, which excludes disintegration and rejection, attraction and decomposition, but which instead insures the separation that articulates every encounter, promises, alliances. (Luce Irigaray,An Ethics of Sexual Difference, 9)     

Reliability in age determination by pulp/tooth ratio in upper canines in skeletal remains

Estimation of age of skeletal remains is one of the most complex questions for anthropologists. The most common macroscopic methods are based on dental wear and histological evaluation of bone remodeling. These methods are often qualitative, require great technical expertise, and have proved inexact in the estimation of ages over 50 years. Certain dental methods investigate the apposition of secondary dentine, in the study of tooth cross-sections, and X-rays to study width, height, and pulp area. The primary author previously proposed a method of estimating the age of a living person based on the pulp/tooth ratio (PTR) method in the upper canines. The aim of the present study is to verify whether the PTR method can also be used to estimate the age at death of skeletal remains. This paper investigates the study of historical samples of known age as a means to validate the proposed method.     

Y-chromosome STRs in an Antioquian (Colombia) population sample

Haplotype data were obtained from a sample of 777 unrelated male individuals from Antioquia Department (Colombia), for eight Y-chromosome STRs (DYS19, DYS385, DYS389 I, DYS389 II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392 and DYS393). A total of 442 different haplotypes were identified of which 334 were represented only once in the database and the most frequent haplotype was found in 32 individuals. A high haplotype diversity was found (99.45%). Genetic distances were calculated using previously published haplotype data and the lowest values were found for the comparisons with samples of lberian origin.