We develop a model describing how certain American men, those men who have been described as emasculated by recent socioeconomic changes, construct themselves as masculine through their everyday consumption. We find that American mass culture idealizes the man-of-action hero—an idealized model of manhood that resolves the inherent weaknesses in two other prominent models (the breadwinner and th...

The net effect of pollen production on fecundity in plants can range from negative--when self-pollen interferes with fecundity due to incompatibility mechanisms, to positive--when pollen availability is associated with increased pollinator visitation and fecundity due to its utilization as a reward. We investigated the responses of bees to pollen and nectar rewards, and the effects of these rew...

In his celebrated Tutte l’Opere d’Architettura published over the period 1537–1575 Sebastiano Serlio introduced four techniques for constructing ovals which have thereafter been applied by many architects across Europe. Using various geometric forms (i.e. the triangle, square, and circle) as a basis they produced ovals made up from four circular arcs. This paper analyses both Serlio’s construct...

Males of sexually cannibalistic spiders commonly mutilate parts of their paired genitals (palps) during copulation, which may result in complete emasculation or the 'eunuch phenomenon'. In an orb-web nephilid spider, Nephilengys malabarensis, about 75 per cent of males fall victim to sexual cannibalism, and the surviving males become half-eunuchs (one palp emasculated) or full-eunuchs (both pal...