ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE Iperspectives SPRING 2020 | 02

iPerspectivesAIAS Fellows’ Magazine Issue 1 . SPRING 2020

LIFE ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE iPerspectives SPRING 2020 | 02

iPerspectives Issue 1 SPRING 2020

Editors Cici Alexander CONTENTS Jennifer Galloway Sâmia Joca Thomas Tauris Graphic Design Foreword Cici Alexander 08 04 Søren Rud Keiding ISSN Editors’ Note 2597-0453 07 Cici Alexander, Jennifer Galloway, Sâmia Joca, Thomas Tauris Published by Life in Space Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies 08 Thomas Tauris https://aias.au.dk/research/iperspective/ 12 The Destiny of Humankind 15 Christos Tsirogiannis A Brief History of Geological Time 15 Jennifer Galloway Being Human 22 Samuel McCormick 29 Maths Actually 24 Doug Speed The Origin or Destiny of Life, or what does it mean 26 to be alive? Joshua Nash Life: an ongoing geological process 34 29 Alfonso Blázquez-Castro How clocks shape our lives 34 Lisa M. Wu Temporal Entanglements: How Pasts, Presents, and Futures 38 Interlock in Niger Adeline Masquelier

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FOREWORD

he Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) is proud to in the need to solve the challenge of the outbreak of the AIDS/HIV introduce this first edition of iPerspectives. iPerspectives is a epidemic in the 1980s. magazine issued by the fellows at AIAS, following one of the T The inside-out and the outside-in strategies are entangled, and often interdisciplinary workshops at the institute. These workshops are the solution of a specific problem will lead to new fundamental one of the key instruments in stimulating interdisciplinary thinking, knowledge, as well as the development of new theories and models and they are often the breeding ground for new scientific initiatives that will lead to new and unforeseen applications. The literature on and ideas. The ambitious title of the workshop behind the first modern research strategies is vast, and the simplistic picture given iPerspectives is The Origin and Destiny of Life, and it took place in the here is present in the numerous concepts introduced to understand winter of 2019. how science advances to benefit us all: push-pull, mission-oriented, blue- Science, and in particular the advancement of science for the benefit sky, grand challenge, SDGs, Innovation, Pasteur’s Quadrant… of us all, has always been driven by the delicate balance between However, less developed is perhaps our understanding of how two seemingly opposing research strategies: The inside-out strategy disciplines work together, and how we create the “nurseries” and that relies on the advances made possible by the undisturbed and provide the protected space where basic ideas and theories can “meet”. uninterrupted investigations on the theoretical foundations of our Interdisciplinarity is well described in an outside-in context, where present knowledge. A good example is the discovery of the chemical a specific challenge is addressed by a team of experts from different element no 72, Hafnium. The work of Dmitrij Mendelejev in 1869 fields of research. However, do we also provide aninside-out setting had shown that an element remained undiscovered in the periodic for interdisciplinary research, where scientists meet and share their system, and that place no 72 was empty. Later in 1922, Niels Bohr basic field-specific ideas and theories on a specific topic with the could predict the properties on the missing element, based on sole purpose of insight and inspiration? Yes, there are many good his electron theory for the atoms. Soon thereafter in 1924, it was examples of this approach, but at AIAS we think more could be done discovered and named Hafnium after the city of Copenhagen where it - by for instance encouraging the AIAS fellows to engage in arranging was identified. At that time, no one needed or asked for Hafnium, but conferences and workshops devoted to exactly this. In an effort to had it not been there, we would have been forced to adjust or rewrite make these workshops more visible and share their insights and our models for the world around us. ideas, we thus issue the iPerpectives magazine.

The other strategy, the outside-in, drives science forward through Ida Marie Jensen Photo: We hope you’ll enjoy reading it, and welcome you to visit the the pressing need we as individuals or as a society have. The deep AIAS homepage for more information on upcoming events at AIAS, Søren Rud Keiding and profound knowledge we have today of our immune system, and subscribe to our Newsletter or maybe follow us on Twitter. AIAS Executive Director, Professor how it is interacting with intruding viral agents, originates partly

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EDITORS’ NOTE

elcome to the first issue ofiPerspectives , an interdisciplinary magazine by Research Fellows at the W Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, Denmark. We, the editors of this issue, came together when Thomas sent an open invitation to all AIAS Fellows last

Photo: Trærup Anders Photo: September to co-organise an internal workshop (details on page 45) on the Origin and Destiny of Life. The idea for an e-magazine came up at one of our planning meetings, and was presented at the workshop on November 29, 2019. iPerspectives was initially meant to be a magazine by and for current and former AIAS Fellows. The interesting presentations at the workshop, and later the interest from former Fellows, motivated us to get them published, at least on our website.

Photo: Søren Kjeldgaard Søren Photo: We’d like to thank: Søren Rud Keiding, our Director, who kindly agreed to write the foreword to the first issue, and supported the workshop, Morten Kyndrup, our former Director, who supported the idea of the workshop when it was first presented to him, and Photo: Melissa Bach Yildirim Melissa Bach Photo: colleagues and former Fellows who generously gave their time to make iPerspectives a reality. We are all temporarily at AIAS, and we hope that the workshop and e-magazine series will continue through Photo: Melissa Bach Yildirim Melissa Bach Photo: the current, incoming and future Fellows. We hope you will enjoy Research Fellowships at AIAS are funded by the European reading the contributions in this issue, as much as we did. Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme Cici Alexander under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no 754513 and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Jennifer Galloway Programme for research, technological development and Sâmia Joca demonstration under grant agreement no 609033 and the Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF). Thomas Tauris Photo: Søren Kjeldgaard Søren Photo:

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hen discussing the the Milky Way. From modern view). Mankind may be able to origin of life, it knowledge of stellar evolution, spread into space and colonize W is often useful to we can set an absolute upper e.g. Mars and a few other consider the timeline for major limit on the end date, namely places (moons) within the Solar events in the 13.8 billion year 5 billion years. At that time, the System - although what a poor history of the Universe. Our Sun will become a giant star and simple indoor life without Solar System, and thus the and expand in size by a factor of access to oceans and wooded Life in Space Earth, formed 4.5 billion years several hundred, possibly even mountains. The distances ago and, interestingly enough, engulfing the Earth. Engulfed or to even the nearest exosolar the more advanced organisms, not, the enormous temperature systems leaves little hope One of the leading hypotheses for the origin of as well as the first animals, only rise on Earth will in any case kill for being reachable. Current formed during the Cambrian all existing forms of life. technology with interstellar explosion, about half a billion travelling at about 60,000 km/h It is most likely, however, life involves panspermia, that life came to Earth years ago. Actually, it is merely would require 20,000 years even that our civilization will come 50,000 years ago (at 99.9996% of to reach the nearest neighbour to an end on a much shorter the present age of the Universe) star. from space and that life exists throughout the timescale. First of all, it is Neanderthals and Homo difficult (even for an optimist) Even if mankind manages to sapiens lived in Europe side by Universe. Evidence to support this idea comes to envision a peaceful future on overcome the abovementioned side. Hence, life as we know a timescale of more than a few serious issues, we also face the it - not to mention civilised life hundred years. The dangers lurk possibility of mass extinction from several meteorites found on Earth. - evolved very slowly on a long everywhere: overpopulation, from impacts of asteroids and timescale. lack of resources, clashes of comets. By looking at the Lunar It is an interesting question religions and cultures, nuclear surface full of crater holes, and how long time civilised life on warfare, economic inequality, remembering that the Earth’s our planet can exist? The answer epidemics, pollution etc. (Global surface area is 16 times larger is crucial for the probability warming is unpleasant and may than that of the Moon, we estimates of finding civilised spark further crisis, but is not a can estimate the average time By Thomas Tauris life elsewhere in our Galaxy, major concern, in my point of intervals between catastrophic impacts. Several times in history, life on Earth suffered At that time, the Sun will from mass extinction due to such events, where up to 95% of become a giant star and expand all living species went extinct. For example, 66 million years in size by a factor of several ago when a 10-15 km asteroid or comet hit the Earth in the Gulf hundred, possibly even engulfing of Mexico, eradicating many species including the dinosaurs.

Photo: Søren Kjeldgaard Søren Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech Image credit: the Earth.

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One of the leading hypotheses atmosphere of the Earth), Miller extremophiles on Earth, which of mankind. The strong for the origin of life involves and Urey conducted a famous are organisms with optimal anthropic principle states that panspermia, i.e. that life came to experiment (the Miller-Urey growth in environmental If life is common in the Universe, the Universe is compelled to Earth from space and that life experiment) at the University of conditions considered extreme eventually develop intelligent exists throughout the Universe. Chicago in 1952. They simply in comparison to the usual where is everybody? life. Or the Universe is as it is Evidence to support this idea heated some water (ocean) and Earth environment (not only because we are here. (Critics say comes from several meteorites added the gasses: ammonia, with respect to temperature that this is a tautology.) The found on Earth, including methane and hydrogen, before and pressure, but also in ability weak version of the anthropic ALH84001 and the Murchison electrical sparks (lightning) to survive cosmic radiation principle states that the fine- meteorite. Electron microscopy were fired between electrodes and hibernation for at least tuning is the result of a selection of the former (which originally within the water vapour and hundreds of years). One bias, i.e. what we can observe is came from Mars) revealed gaseous mixture, and then the example of such animals is the limited by conditions leading to chain structures resembling simulated atmosphere was so-called water bear (tardigrade) our existence. living organisms - although cooled again. The resulting of size 0.5 mm. Such organisms To conclude, it seems that this interpretation is highly condensed water mixture now may well survive interplanetary three leading hypotheses remain controversial, whereas in the contained a chemical compound travel, but interstellar distances for explaining the origin of life: latter meteorite 86 amino acids of more than 20 different are still much larger. extreme luck, a multiverse (i.e. have been identified, including amino acids - the building The Drake equation from 1962 numerous parallel universes several amino acids essential for blocks for proteins that are Tauris Thomas Photo: is a probabilistic argument - we just live in one of them), life (glycine, alanine, glutamic essential for development of used to estimate the number or creation via God (intelligent acid), as well as polyols (sugar life. This is not the final proof (N) of active, communicative for which such civilizations to fill up all available territory, design). Regarding the latter, alcohols). But if life came to that life originated on Earth. extraterrestrial civilizations in release detectable signals into so the Earth should already let me end by quoting Albert Earth from space, how on However, it demonstrates that the Milky Way galaxy. It consists space. The number N can take have been colonized, or at least Einstein: “What really interests me Earth did it originate in space? it is possible. In any case, many of a number of factors: the values between 10-12 and 107, visited, but no evidence of this is whether God had any choice in Panspermia is no shortcut for an complex organic molecules and average rate of star formation depending on estimated values exists. Possibly, the answer is the creation of the world”. explanation of the origin of life. amino acids have also been in our Galaxy, the fraction of of the various input factors. In that few civilizations ever arise. identified in space in interstellar To investigate whether life those stars that have planets, the particular, the last factor on the Or perhaps it is the nature of dust clouds located in our could originate in a rather average number of planets that survival time for civilizations intelligent life to destroy itself or Galaxy. Finally, it is interesting primitive chemical environment can potentially support life per is uncertain. Is it just a few to destroy others. to notice the presence of About the author: (mimicking the early star that has planets, the fraction hundred years, or could it be The anthropic principle was Thomas Tauris is an AIAS-COFUND billions of years? of planets that could support introduced by Carter (1973) Fellow (2019-2020) and Professor in The Miller-Urey experiment life that actually develop life If life is common in the and Barrow & Tipler (1986) in astrophysics at Aarhus University. at some point, the fraction of Universe, where is everybody? reaction to the apparent fine- Thomas is a theoretical astrophysicist planets with life that actually This is known as the Fermi tuning of many fundamental working on a broad range of topics, is not the final proof that life go on to develop intelligent including: formation and evolution of paradox, after the Italian- physical constants (needed compact objects (black holes, neutron life (civilizations), the fraction American physicist Enrico Fermi for life to develop) and the originated on Earth. However, it of civilizations that develop a stars and white dwarfs), pulsars, binary (1901-1954). It is a universal trait Copernicus principle which star interactions, gravitational waves, technology that releases signals of living things that they tend marginalized the position supernovae and hypervelocity stars. demonstrates that it is possible. into space, the length of time

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The Destiny of Humankind In my opinion, there are only two main questions that really matter for humankind: a) Are we alone in the Universe? b) Does God exist?

By n November 29, 2019 I was honoured Christos Tsirogiannis to give a presentation at the conference O entitled ‘The Origin and Destiny of Life’, at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), invited by the organizers, Professor Thomas Tauris and Associate Professors Cici Alexander, Jennifer Galloway and Samia Joca. The idea regarding the creation of this event was for AIAS fellows to share their thoughts about the creation and (mainly) the future of humankind; It was the first time I was asked to present on a subject in which I am not an expert, a task that I found challenging and exciting. Photo: Ida Marie Jensen Photo: Image: Bibliothèque Nationale de France [Public domain] Image: 13 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE iPerspectives SPRING 2020 | 14

race against ourselves: we will As an academic and, especially, soon have to leave this beautiful planet that gave birth to us, as a forensic archaeologist, I am before we die with it, destroying seeking the truth by discovering it in every possible way. As an academic and, and publishing evidence. especially, as a forensic archaeologist, I am seeking A brief history of the truth by discovering and My presentation was and technological advancement publishing evidence. This is the entitled ‘Is the truth out there? of humanity, in order to reach only safe approach to answer References in ancient texts and a point to answer these two any questions arising in my some thoughts on our future’. questions, even if it takes us discipline; I need evidence Geological time As an archaeologist, I referred millions of years to do so - if and proofs to contribute to the to published academic work ever. In my opinion, nothing advancement of my field, as all of a NASA scientist on ancient else matters, in the grand academics usually do. At the Greek and Latin texts recording scheme of things, than finding same time, as a person, I am extraordinary phenomena, those two answers. It does not religious, although I have no which are now - based on really matter which is our job,

actual proof for my beliefs; it is Field in the Vent in the Main Endeavour Vent at Sully communities and tube worm Black smokers NOAA Credit: northeast Pacific Ocean. the scientific knowledge profession, specialism, hobby a matter of faith. Some see an accumulated during the last or passion in this life, so long as obvious contradiction, others 2,000 years - perfectly explicable this is contributing, directly or see an obvious compatibility as natural phenomena; there indirectly, to this advancement. between the two. But it seems arth is 4.6 billion years that exist when alkaline vent was one exception, but based on By Jennifer Galloway It is, of course, unavoidable, that there is only one way to old. Life may have first waters mix with more acidic the trend, we might expect the that such advancement will be find out what really happens: originated on Earth as seawater. case be explained with further E very gradual, as the history of by surviving our fights and long ago as 4.5 billion years. knowledge in the future. I then The first photosynthetic the development of humankind keeping on working to discover The oldest fossils are hematite expressed my own views, as life probably used reducing demonstrates. However, more. tubes that may be the remnants all presenters were asked by agents such as hydrogen or certain events and inventions of microscopic bacteria. These the organizers to do so; in my electrons rather than water. in history speeded up the putative fossils are found in opinion, there are only two main Early photosynthetic systems, process, although at the same rocks in Quebec, Canada. The questions that really matter for About the author: such as those from green and time humanity still maintains bacteria that made these tubes humankind: a) Are we alone purple sulfur and nonsulfur all the elements that pause or Christos Tsirogiannis is an AIAS- would have lived in hot vents in in the Universe? b) Does God COFUND Fellow (2019-2022). He is bacteria are thought to have

Photo: Søren Kjeldgaard Søren Photo: the oceans that covered the early significantly delay this process been anoxygenic, using various exist? a forensic archaeologist researching planet. The setting for the origin (wars, destruction of the planet, international illicit antiquities molecules (H, S) as electron of life on Earth may have been I believe that our duty as etc.) Therefore, what could have trafficking networks through the donors. The biochemical these deep marine hydrothermal intelligent human beings is to been a linear process of gradual identification of illicit antiquities in capacity to use water as vents. Early life may have contribute with our daily work development, in relatively auction houses, dealers’ galleries, the source for electrons in to the constant moral, scientific recent times we turned it into a museums and private collections. harnessed the energy gradients

15 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE iPerspectives SPRING 2020 | 16 photosynthesis evolved in an Oxygenation Event, transformed organisms may be the earliest ancestor of extant cyanobacteria. the Earth’s atmosphere and known example of complex life The geological record indicates the shallow ocean from weakly on Earth. These fossils are flat that this planet-transforming reducing to oxidizing. This discs almost 5 inches across, event took place early in event caused almost all of with scalloped edges and radial Tamura © N. Earth’s history, at least 2450- the life thus far on Earth of slits. These were either complex 2320 million years ago, and go extinct. Cyanobacteria are colonies of single-celled possibly much earlier. Fossils responsible for creating the organisms, or early animals. of what may be filamentous conditions that enabled the They have been discovered in photosynthetic organisms are subsequent development of Gabon, and dated to 2.0 billion dated as 3.4 billion years old. multicellular life forms, and years old. Haootia quadriformis By the Archean Eon, at least thus, life as we know it today. This now brings us into the Cnidaria 2.5 billion years ago, there Consider this the next time you Proterozoic Eon (2.5 billion to Late Ediacaran was an already diverse biota see green sludge in a pond. 541 million years ago). Below I of cyanobacteria. An oxygen Length: 5 cm A newly discovered group will highlight a few enigmatic revolution, termed the Great Haootia, a cnidarian polyp, has been of 2.1 billion year old fossil life forms that lived during the identified as the earliest animal discovered to show muscle fibers. Its exact affinities within the Cnidarians are Proterozoic Eon 2.5 billion to 541 million years ago however unknown. © Tamura N. © N. Tamura © N.

Charnia masoni Animalia Precambrian (Ediacaran) Dickinsonia costata England and elsewhere Length: up to 1 m Length: 15 cm One of the most famous fossils of the This enigmatic precambrian animal was Ediacara biota is Dickinsonia, first long thought to be related to sea pens described by Sprigg in 1947. Dickinsonia but a more recent opinion is that it is fossils were preserved as imprints of a representative of a group that has no ovoid or ribbon- like creatures with relation to any currently existing or bilateral symmetry. Their sizes range extinct clade. It is a fractal creature with from a few millimeters to practically up to four level of subdivisions visible a meter in length. The animal also in fossil impressions. The first speci- appeared to be segmented. The affinities men has been discovered in England. It of Dickinsonia were and is, still today, apparently lived in deep water. highly debated.

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Ediacaran Period (ca. 635-542 The Phanerozoic Eon was the million years ago). The art dawn of a brave new world. featured in the figures are by Below I highlight a few of the Nobu Tamura (http:spinops. animals that existed during blogspot.com). Many of the the Cambrian Period, which Tamura © N. animals that existed during spanned from 541 to 485.4 this time were soft-bodied and million years ago. At this time, a did not preserve as well as rapid explosion of life occurred. animals that had a skeleton in Although many of the new the fossil record. Consequently, life forms did not persist, all comparatively little is known of the animal phyla that exist about these animals and the today have their roots in the ecosystems that they were a part Cambrian. of. The lobopod animal Hallucigenia (size = 2 cm) and the armoured slug-like animal Wiwaxia (size = 3 cm). Hallucigenia possesses rows of spines on the back of its body while Wiwaxia developed a body armour of small, overlapping scales and blades. Both traits may have evolved as a defensive Cambrian Earth Evolution’s Big Bang 541 to 485.4 million years ago mechanism against predators. Hallucigenia sparsa © N. Tamura © N. © N. Tamura Tamura © N.

Anomalocaris saron Early Cambrian Length: 1 m The Chinese equivalent of the Burgess Shale Anomalocaris canadensis had a tail with two long and slender furca. Wiwaxia corrugata

19 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE Burgess Shale. specimens have beencollectedfrom the of itsburiedinthesand. Some1000 burrowers thatprobably spentmost group known aspriapulids. They were Shale probably belongtotheextent This Cambrianworm from theBurgess Length: 8cm British Columbia, Canada Burgess ShaleFm Middle Cambrian Ottoia prolifica

© N. Tamura (Chordates, Echinoderms, etc.). known unequivocal deuterostome from theEarly Cambrian istheearliest The sizeofagrainrice, Saccorhytus Size: 1.3mm Saccorhytus coronarius iPerspectives SPRING2020|20

© N. Tamura 21 | LIFE: ORIGIN. MEANING . FUTURE group. stage oftheevolution ofthisstem described showing theoriginalbilateral is thefirst fossil ofechinodermtobe from bilateralancestors. Ctenoimbricata indicating thatthey must have evolved withabilateralsymmetry,life aslarvae adult form. However, their they start their fivefold intheir radialsymmetry sea lilies, are characterizedby etc...) Echinoderms (seastars, seaurchins, Length: 2cm Middle Cambrian Echinodermata spinosa Ctenoimbricata Paleoart is hishobby. National Laboratory inCalifornia. Physicist attheLawrenceBerkeley BY-NC-ND 3.0)licence.Nobuisa ative Commons 3.0Unported(CC and madeavailable underaCre- by Nobumichi(Nobu)Tamura, The illustrationsinthisarticleare evolutionary developments. changes thattriggered major between smallenvironmental out ofacomplexinterplay Cambrian Explosionemerged established atthistime.The anatomical featureswere mobile animals.Modern a newworldruledbyhighly Earth were transformed into experienced byearlylifeon calm peacefulenvironments rapid inageologicalsense,the within several millionyears, Period issignificantbecause humans. ButtheCambrian plants, dinosaurs,mammals, the CambrianPeriod. Land history oflifeonEarthfollowed Significant events inthe role ofclimateonecosystems. paleoecologist who isinterestedinthe Jennifer isageologist,palynologist, and Professor attheUniversity ofCalgary. and AdjunctAssistant University Adjunct ResearchProfessoratCarleton Research Fellow(2019-2020).Sheis an Canada andan AIAS-COFUND Senior Scientist attheGeologicalSurvey of Jennifer Galloway isaResearch About theauthor: race. triggered anevolutionaryarms requirements formobilityand that enabledtheenergy the advent ofphotosynthesis by oxygenationoftheplanet was carnivory,madepossible significant events in life’s history Probably oneofthemost

human beings at the start of our individual lives, I would not have survived long enough to write ...the way this essay, and you would not have survived long this experience enough to read it. Whatever else the meaning of life might entail — inclines us to that’s right, I said it, the meaning of life — I’d like to suggest that it starts here, in the early stages of the Being Human hold each other in mortal meantime which you and I both continue common, especially to inhabit, at a point in time when the care we The care we received from others in the early received from others, no matter how imperfect it in times of need. may have been, gave each of our lives an initial © Ltxiskf https://www.subpng.com/png-vyw6zi/ sense of meaning. And not just any initial sense stages of life, no matter how imperfect it may of meaning, for in receiving care from other human beings at the start of our individual lives, we were also introduced to what is arguably the have been, gave each of our lives an initial sense best part about being human in the first place: not the universal experience of mortality but the way of meaning. this experience inclines us to hold each other in have a body which has not yet perished (though common, especially in times of need. By Samuel McCormick I can’t promise you won’t die of boredom before you reach the end of this essay — or of laughter, for that matter). It’s also a testament to the fact that you have somehow managed to live long hat does it mean to be human? ancient verbal root *men-, meaning “to think” and enough, and with enough socioeconomic privilege, Thankfully, there are only three “to remain” and, more precisely, as its offshoot to become literate in English (and probably W minimum requirements. In order to be mono- suggests, to remain “small” and “isolated” other languages, too, as the foregoing paragraph human, one must first be embodied. Your body in one’s thought; but in the lower, more pedestrian, wagers). How, exactly, did this happen? needn’t look like mine, but we each need to have yet no less Teutonic sense of gemein, a descendent To be sure, you probably didn’t learn English one. And like all human bodies, yours and mine of the compound adjectival root *ko-moin-i, the way I learned English. (Or is it “learnt”?) But alike must eventually perish. If embodiment is the meaning “held in common,” which itself derives one thing is certain: Before either of us began to first condition of human being, death is its final from the Proto-Indo-European *mei-, meaning “to learn the language in which this essay is written, requirement. exchange” and, in so doing, “to change.” What or any other language for that matter, we received do human beings hold in common, exchanging About the author: What happens along the way, in the meantime copious amounts of physical care from other as they go and changing along the way, in the between these first and final states? In keeping human beings, especially during the first few Samuel McCormick is Associate Professor of Communication existential meantime between birth and death? with this issue of iPerspectives, I’d like to months of our individual lives — an all-too-human Studies at San Francisco State University and was EURIAS & Marie-Curie Research Fellow at AIAS in 2017-2018. His characterize the meantime between our corporeal Consider what’s happening right now. That period of infancy aptly termed, as any bleary-eyed latest book, The Chattering Mind: A Conceptual History of origins and terminal futures as a time of meaning – you are still reading this little essay about what new parent can attest, “the fourth trimester.” If Everyday Talk, will be published by the University of Chicago not in the heady German sense of meinen, from the it means to be human is not only proof that you our basic material needs had not been met by other Press in February 2020.

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Maths Actually If you have a spare moment, see if you can find the mathematics in everyday life.

By Doug Speed

ot a Christmas passes was knocking at doors in the the time the credits arrived, in the Speed household “dodgy end of Wandsworth” accompanied by Billy singing N without watching in the hope of finding Natalie, “Christmas is all around”, I Love Actually. However, this it seemed outrageous chance realised the song would have year’s viewing had a twist, as that he should first bump into been more accurate had he I had recently finished reading Mia, one of the other characters changed the lyrics to “Maths is Why do Buses Come in Threes? in the film; however, the book all around” (which also would (Rob Eastaway & Jeremy pointed out that once you have improved the scansion of Wyndham), a book explaining take in account how many the chorus!). some mathematical oddities that events happen everyday, you occur in daily life. Now, when appreciate that “one-in-a- I saw Harry buying a flower million” coincidences actually About the author: necklace for his secretary, I occur on a regular basis. Finally, Doug Speed is an AIAS-COFUND was reminded that the reason when I watched Jamie frantically Fellow (2017-2020). He has a degree plants tend to have 5, 8 or 13 trying to avoid getting soaked in Mathematics (University of Oxford) leaves is because these numbers in a thunderstorm, I wished he and a PhD in Statistical Genetics (which you might recognise as had known that he would have (University of Cambridge). Doug was a member of the Genetics Institute, part of the Fibonacci sequence) stayed most dry by ensuring University College London, and his maximize the sunlight afforded that his horizontal velocity focus is on developing statistical to each leaf. When David matched that of the rain. By software for analysing genetic data.

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The Origin or Destiny of Life, or what does it mean to be alive?

aving come from an 2018/2019 AIAS annual reports. I left AIAS to move back some salve which can help For me, the question leads to intellectual family, ‘AIAS-Research-Self’ muses on to Australia more than three us get up in the morning, be questions of life, the role of useless knowledge months ago. Life is different ourselves, whoever that is, and a the following answer: to allow Hexistence, God, and the rest generation in research and here and the origins and destiny way to make sense and meaning always banged around at home how during the start of my of my life, not necessarily in the who, what, where, when, and in my head. Strangely, AIAS tenure I plunged into an anyone else’s, are ebbing and and how of our existence. All all emotions and feelings to though, this thinking more often academic and existential dark flowing. My time at AIAS and the while, time is ticking and than not got me into a knot. night of the soul. That is, a kind in Aarhus was a beautiful jaunt, we’re getting older. All the while come and go within us, knowing Overthinking. Metathinking. of breakdown which hopefully a sojourn of emotion, thought, I ask myself: does any of this Thinking about thinking. I led me and continues to lead me and experience to the other side really matter? once heard it said that thinking somewhere different and maybe of the planet for reasons still full well that whatever is We always have a choice. is often merely rearranging to a more whole place. ‘The and most likely perpetually I have sometimes found it prejudices. There’s something Importance of Being Chosen’ unknown to me. We come to difficult not to play the victim in happening will eventually pass. in that. queries the possibility, reality, this planet, we share a little a world which seems so unjust. and even responsibility of being time — together alone and alone I began working at AIAS Self help books and therapy can special, of almost having been together — as a little blip of on 1 February 2018. Of the take us some of the way; time By Joshua Nash given a gift when we enter a consciousness and hopefully several things I wrote during in nature and gardening and research institute such as AIAS. with good helpings of love and my almost two years there, I any other number of healthy Do we fail if we have a personal fun times, then we disappear. reckon the two short yet most and less healthy activities can breakdown? Are we failures if We invent theories and religions important contributions to help us embrace what is there we don’t give good returns and and delve into the mysteries of thinking and being alive were or keep us away from our pain dividends on the gift of being existence in the hope that there published in the 2017/2018 and and inevitable, eventual death. chosen? will be some kind of answer,

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While I have no idea and am better emotionally and mentally pass. And knowing that there not overly concerned about as enabling and giving ourselves really are no mistakes in life, the origin and destiny of life, the almost bizarre parallel of only (meandering) paths of I am definitely doing my best being able to feel worse. And learning. And hopefully through to derive meaning from being often, much worse.’ Obliteration arriving at our own semblance alive. Today. And as a friend of truths and falsehoods of who of an answer, we can help and co-astronaut of the depths we think we are and our senses other people come to their own intimated to me on the phone of self lead to required private, conclusions about what a life of today, ‘affect leads to meaning.’ intimate, and (inter)personal meaning might be for them. And whether that affect is so- composting. called ‘good’ or ‘bad’, I prefer to For me, the question — what feel all the breadths of emotions does it mean to be alive? — rather than be (comfortably) leads to the following answer: to numb and distant from the allow all emotions and feelings latitudes of feeling. As the same to come and go within us, friend said to me, ‘going into knowing full well that whatever therapy is as much about getting is happening will eventually Life: an ongoing About the author: Joshua Nash is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of New geological process England, Australia. Josh is a linguist and an environmentalist working on https://commons. CC BY 2.0, PDTillman, UK - Dales Gorge Uploaded by Bristol, from Graeme Churchard Image: wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30889569 the language of Pitcairn Island, and is a former AIAS-COFUND Fellow (2018-2019). His research intersects ethnography, the anthropology of By Alfonso Blázquez-Castro religion, architecture, pilgrimage studies, and language documentation. He has conducted linguistic fieldwork “We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an any will raise an eyebrow after reading on Norfolk Island and Pitcairn Island example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 the title of this essay. Is life about (South Pacific), Kangaroo Island billion years of cosmic evolution.” rocks? If Geology deals with inanimate (South Australia), and New Zealand, M structures, then how can life be regarded as environmental and ethnographic “We’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos anything close to a geological process? I hope to fieldwork in Vrindavan, India, and to know itself.” architectural research in outback provide some facts, examples and opinions that

Australia. 2016 Pitcairn Island, Bennett, Nash By Holly Joshua Photo: Carl Sagan will prove that, indeed, life can be regarded as a

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Image on the previous page: Banded iron formation, Karijini National Park, Western considered as living entities by long-gone ocean. atoms, almost in a crystalline of biological action on the Australia. Note the horizontal red and brown strata, the result of iron oxidation by most people: complex molecules arrangement (see image on Page planet. A dramatic one was There are geological oxygen and its deposition as sediments over millennia. leaning at the edge of life, --). In fact, there are proponents the discovery of oxygenic “structures” within our cells. carrying out endless chemical of an iron sulfide scenario photosynthesis and the release DNA, for example, is a long cycles and transformations, for the origin of life, in which of oxygen to the oceans and the particularly complex geological up living structures come from string of phosphates and sugars undergoing thermodynamical sulfide minerals provided the atmosphere. Starting around 2.4 process. However, one must the stellar debris left after star from which the four bases are and chemical selection, driven first templates and biochemical billion years ago water splitting not conclude from this that life explosions. Carbon, nitrogen, hanging. It can be considered by thermal, concentration and reactors from which organic life through photosynthesis led to is just an ongoing geological oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, a particular phosphate crystal, pH gradients. On time, indeed a later evolved. the release of huge amounts of process. This is the devil in all are the result of nuclear flexible and compactable, long time, these molecules and oxygen to the environment. This the details. Life, as said, is a alchemy that took place eons but at the same time regular Then, it seems clear that structures arranged into more generated a massive extinction very complex mix of different ago in long dead stars. The and structured. A number of we keep a lot of “geological familiar “cellular” structures, and adaptation period, probably processes occurring at different early Earth was made of these proteins require for their action micro-structures” as essential proto-cells, that are our (great- an environmental pollution levels. But, undoubtedly, it elements as were/are all living the presence of different metals parts of our biology. But, great)n grandparents. of a scale not ever seen in (iron in blood hemoglobin how does it work the other the planet, before or after. So, life started as a geological is a common example). way around? Does life affect How did life start? Short answer: Oxygen was extremely toxic process. Then, evolved partially These metals are arranged in geology on Earth? There are for organisms not adapted to no one knows. What is true is as a geological process. There is coordination complexes, very plenty examples of the impact no indication, past or present, similar to those we can observe that life started as the result that some kind of dramatic providing color and chemical White smokers, one kind of hydrothermal vent located deep in the oceans at crust hot process set life aside from activity to some minerals, like spots. Likely places for the origin of life 4,000 billion years ago of geo-chemical and geological geochemistry and geology. sapphires, hematite or azurite. There was a continuity. Take, for Even more incredible: there are processes. example, the aqueous solution semiconductors deep within that fills every cellular organism. mitochondria, the organelle started as a geological process structures inhabiting the planet. This solution is a reminder of providing energy to the and proceeds, at some levels, The discussion of how life how the primitive water bodies eukaryotic cell. Everyone has as a geological process. In what emerged on Earth is arduous were when life emerged. Its salt heard about pyrite: fool´s gold follows, some ideas will be put and beyond the scope of this composition and concentration due to its similarity to true gold forward briefly as to support essay. Enough to say that a were set some ~ 4,000 billion in color and relatively high this point of view about life. mixture of geological processes years ago. It has remained density. Well, how about having (lightning discharges, heating/ basically unchanged since then. nanoscopic pyrite chunks inside First things first: how did cooling cycles, high-temperature The seas have kept getting more your cells? This is the case for life start? Short answer: no chemistry taking place at and more salty with the millions several types of proteins, iron- one knows. What is true is underwater hotspots –black/ of years. Our cells, however, sulfur proteins, on charge of that life started as the result of white smokers-, etc.) were the remember. Every one of us, shuttling electrons to power the geo-chemical and geological prime movers for life to start every cell making us is a living cells or to drive photosynthesis. processes. All the elements, and thrive (see image on Page reminder of the primordial These proteins display except hydrogen and tiny --). The first living structures waters. We carry billions of tiny nanometric clusters made amounts of lithium, making would hardly had been fragments of a long-forgotten, up of linked iron and sulfur

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It makes little sense to try to understand this planet on dichotomist terms. It is not only that everything is connected, everything influences everything else. 2− Structure of [Fe4S4(SMe)4] , a synthetic analogue of 4Fe–4S cofactors found in available carbonates for plate of light reflected by a body) With its impact on so many several iron-sulfur proteins. Notice the tectonics and other geological by making the Earth darker. planetary processes, it makes crystalline structure, very similar to process change along the year This additional heat drives sense to consider it an ongoing pyrite. Blue: iron atoms, yellow: sulfur following this “Earth breath”. A winds and sea currents. It geological process. atoms. similar process, with changing increases erosion due to more Image: Smokefoot - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67999664 levels of methane, has been powerful winds. The erosion detected in Mars. Whatever it breaks down rocks and grains, it. Until some learnt how to Among several effects an ozone that changed the atmosphere, is of biological or geochemical making chemicals and nutrients survive it life was seriously (triatomic oxygen) layer was atmospheric circulation, climate origin is yet unclear. available for life to grow on. threatened for extinction by its established in the stratosphere. patterns and the weather. Again, own chemical waste. A lesson Most people are aware of the on a planetary scale. Living activity changes the As the reader has guessed to be remembered. Finally some protective role of this layer levels of a plethora of other by now, the examples of this Different geological processes, organisms not only adapted (life inadvertently protected chemical compounds. There Geology-Biology continuum like plate tectonics, depend to it, they harnessed oxygen itself from ultraviolet radiation is a carbon cycle, a nitrogen are enormous. It has been my on the amount of carbon to provide much more energy with the help of oxygen, but cycle, a phosphorous cycle. All intention to call the attention available, mainly as carbonate for their metabolisms than any also protected the geological of these change the chemistry upon the fact that it makes little minerals. These carbonates are other source before: the road for structures of the planet by and geology microscopically, sense to try to understand this in equilibrium with the amount complex, multicellular, active reducing the photochemical locally, regionally, and planet on dichotomist terms, to of CO in the oceans and the organisms was paved. But weathering of such radiation), 2 planetary. Life and rock and stir reflection on these matters. atmosphere. But CO levels in About the author: this oxygen wave brought an and that life needs the ozone 2 water and air are interlocked It is not only that everything the air and water change due oxidation on a planetary scale. layer to thrive. What is not and feedback one in the others. is connected, everything Alfonso Blázquez-Castro is an Assistant to the action of life. There is a Billions of tons of metals and common knowledge is that the Every Spring in the Northern influences everything else. I feel Professor of Genetics in the Department planetary breathing: inspiration- minerals were oxidized, forever ozone layer also changed the hemisphere the whiteness this is very important if we are of Biology at the Autonomous expiration cycles driven by the changing the composition and vertical temperature profile of due to snow and ice changes to really understand all these University of Madrid, and is a former photosynthetic activity and the AIAS-COFUND Fellow (2014 - 2016). geochemistry of the surface of the atmosphere. With the ozone to the dark shades of green processes going around and aerobic respiration of countless He received his PhD in Genetics the planet. The banded iron layer there is an atmospheric of billions leafs. This heralds inside us. If we are to fix the organisms, which every year and Cell Biology at the Autonomous formations are a testimony of region (between ~20-50 km) the increase in photosynthesis current environmental situation. significantly reduce CO levels University of Madrid in 2010. Alfonso’s those events which changed where temperature in fact 2 and the reduction of CO2 As stated above, life should main scientific interests deal with during the Northern Spring and iron chemistry, for example increases with height (the levels. But it also warms up not be viewed exclusively biological responses to different energy then rise in coincidence with the (see image on Page --). Oxygen opposite to the usual). This the planet because life reduces as a geological process. But forms and ROS as cellular metabolic Northern Autumn. Thus, the also changed the atmosphere. leads to a thermal anomaly the planetary albedo (amount it has a lot of Geology in it. modulators.

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How clocks shape

our lives Image: Adapted by CA from Scenic View of Mountains During Dawn by Simon Matzinger @pexels.com, Moon And Stars by Min An @pexels.com, Human head Silhouette Face @PNGFuel and Person Touching Black Two-bell Alarm Clock by Stas Knop @pexels.com How important are circadian rhythms? and then decline in the early environment for regulating our important for behavioral and hours of the morning. Cortisol circadian rhythms. Light strikes physiological rhythms. These does the opposite. It tends to intrinsically photosensitive near 24-hour rhythms can be If they are disrupted, can they really be rise in the morning and then retinal ganglion cells in the synchronized and aligned with decline over the course of the eyes that stimulate the SCN the 24-hour environment via problematic for our daily life functioning? day. We also have rhythms in to communicate time-of- light. The question is, how mood and even memory. Our day information to clocks in important are these rhythms? Can circadian rhythms affect the trajectory activity even follows a 24 hour various parts of the brain, If they are disrupted, can they rhythm generally; we tend to be and peripheral organs such really be problematic for our more active during the day, and as the heart, lungs, liver, and daily life functioning? Can of our very lives? less active at night when we are endocrine glands. We also circadian rhythms affect the sleeping. have clock genes that regulate trajectory of our very lives? their own transcription and Given the important role Circadian rhythms provide translation over 24 hours, circadian rhythms play in all By Lisa M. Wu an adaptive mechanism for and are important for a wide of our bodily processes, it is organisms to coordinate variety of other genes important not surprising that disruptions cellular processes, physiological ave you ever noticed that circadian rhythms play to many bodily functions. to circadian rhythms can have functions, and behaviors with yourself experiencing in our daily lives. What are Essentially, circadian rhythms numerous negative health the predictable 24-hour cycle jet lag after flying circadian rhythms exactly? prepare our body for rest at effects such as increasing the H of light and dark on Earth. In across the world? Do you ever Circadian rhythms are cycles some times of the day and risk of cancer, diabetes, and mammals, our master clock is find yourself sleepier at certain of rhythmicity in our behavior, activity at others. cardiovascular disease. But, housed in the suprachiasmatic times of the day than others, physiology and biochemistry what are the kinds of individual nucleus (SCN) in the brain. It is well known from highly such as right after lunch? Your that occur approximately differences, life span changes, Light is perhaps the most controlled laboratory studies answer is probably “yes”, every 24 hours. For example, and disruptions that can impact important input from the that circadian rhythms are very because of the important role melatonin tends to rise at night us across our lives?

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Individual chronotypes up for it in the weekends. Sleep However, there are everyday effects on player receive. quality is impaired, and their situations that can increase the performance. Early chronotypes (“morning In sum, circadian rhythm will be less risk of health-related problems Eastward jetlag larks”) rise early and are most circadian robust. In addition, if a person due to circadian disruption was worse than active in the morning, but feel rhythms affect keeps changing their sleep for all of us. Daylight savings Westward jetlag. tired late in the afternoon or all aspects of our pattern, then they can become is one example. The practice For those of us early evening. Late chronotypes lives in both big socially jetlagged. Being socially of pushing the clocks forward at AIAS, jetlag (“night owls”) are tired during and small ways. jetlagged is associated with one hour in the Spring and is almost an the morning, but feel awake in Understanding poorer health, worse mood, and back one hour in the Fall can occupational the evening. Big deal? Why does the nature of increased sleepiness and fatigue. hurt your health. The reason hazard, that matter? Well, the typical “9 these different Each hour of social jetlag is is that daylight savings creates especially to 5” structure of society tends factors can associated with an 11% increase a battle between the sun clock, if we attend to favor the morning larks. Image: London New York Tokyo and Moscow Clocks by Pixabay @pexels.com help inform in the likelihood of heart our social clock (time to go to conferences What it means is that night owls policy-making disease. This effect is over and work and school), and the body numerous time school start times may benefit need to get up when they really in the workplace, education, above getting enough sleep! clock resulting in disrupted zones away or if we visit our adolescents´ sleep and circadian would prefer to be sleeping. and health care. Perhaps most sleep schedules that can increase loves ones across the world. alignment. Indeed, our circadian importantly, circadian rhythms stress hormones, boost heart rate There are documented negative rhythms tend to change across are a fundamental part of our Being socially jetlagged is and blood pressure, increase effects of jetlag on health the lifespan. For example, as physiology and behavior that inflammation, and can even exacerbated by the number of we get older, our rhythms tell us a little something about associated with poorer health, increase the risk of car crashes time zones crossed. Generally, tend to become flatter and less who we are as a species. and heart problems. Indeed, jetlag is associated with daytime flexible. Over the age of 60, worse mood, and increased this problem can affect such fatigue, feeling unwell, difficulty there is also a shift in preference large swathes of the population staying alert and gastrointestinal towards morningness (morning sleepiness and fatigue. that leading researchers in the problems. Thankfully, it is preference) over eveningness. field of circadian medicine usually temporary. As we age, adjusting to phase About the author: (Roenneberg et al., 2019) shifts (particularly going back Unfortunately, this has negative Negative health outcomes Circadian rhythms across the Lisa Wu is an AIAS-COFUND effects on their bodily functions. recently published a position in time) is also much more associated with lifestyle lifespan difficult, affecting our ability to Research Fellow, and received her Melatonin release, which cues statement advocating for the PhD in Clinical Psychology from A number of lifestyle factors You may have read recently when bedtime is coming, will abolition of Daylight Savings engage in different shift work Columbia University. She is a licensed can negatively affect circadian that there has been a movement not be released until much later. Time. If you still do not believe schedules. Researchers have clinical psychologist and researcher. rhythms and, in turn, health across many school districts in Even the release of insulin that that 1 or 2 time zones matter, posited that these age-related Her research has focused on quality of outcomes. One well-known the United States and other parts usually occurs in the morning then consider this. In a study changes may be associated life and survivorship issues in cancer risk factor for circadian rhythm of the world to move school patients, and the development of will not occur so readily in undertaken at Northwestern with changes to the eyes as we disruption is shift work, start times to later in the day. interventions to treat such changes. She evening types, putting them University in the US that age. For example, progressive which has been linked with a Why is this? It turns out that has examined cancer-related cognitive at greater risk of metabolic examined players in 40,000 yellowing and thickening of the greater risk of cancer in some adolescents tend to have later lenses, changes to pupil size, impairment, light therapy to treat problems such as diabetes. Major League Baseball games cancer and treatment-related symptoms, epidemiological studies. You chronotypes than fully-grown What can happen is that night in the US over 20 years (Song and reduced responsivity to and the underlying biological and may be thinking, “I don´t do adults and research supports owls will be sleep deprived all et al., 2017), jetlag from flying blue light may affect the amount chronobiological mechanisms of the shift work. I´m in the clear!” the notion that delaying week long and then try to make east had significant negative of circadian-stimulating light we cancer symptom cluster.

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Temporal Entanglements: How Pasts, Presents, and Futures Interlock in Niger

By Adeline Masquelier

hile rummaging through my field notes is furious. He decides he must find another are described as institutions that, by breaking with come to reject the conceptual primacy of “the a month or so ago, I came across a tutor for his daughter, one who will support traditions, nurture aspirations and sustain hopes future” (Berlant 2011; Edelman 2004; Goldstone W newsletter someone (probably a friend) and encourage her so she can do well in school of prosperity yet to come (Stambach and Hall and Obarrio 2016) while others have disrupted gave me during one of my recent trips to Niger. and fulfil her aspirations. The vignette is entitled 2017). Rather than focusing on the shared past, our models of linear time and progressive Entitled Echo des jeunes (“Echo of youths”), the “Girls’ education, the fight for development,” they constitute incubators of a common, and history (Chakrabarty 2000). Drawing on their 10 page-publication features a number of short suggesting that in Niger national importantly, preordained future. As we shall insights, I suggest that rather than seeing schools articles and reports as well as a brief history of development is contingent on girls’ see, however, the mass possession (or, as in Niger as operating on a rigidly normative postcolonial Niger. What caught my attention— education. In other words, Niger can only physicians call it, the “mass hysteria”) of temporal trajectory, we consider them as and in all likelihood, what prompted the “friend” advance as a nation if Nigerien girls are Nigerien schoolgirls calls into question instances of temporal entanglements. The “time to give me a copy of the newsletter in the first sent to school and become confident, the notion that modern schooling entails of entanglements,” Achille Mbembe (2001) place—was the short graphic vignette on page 3. resourceful, and goal-oriented women a “complete break with the past” (Meyer argues, is not a linear series of events in which The vignette features a Nigerien couple—rural who contribute to the country’s economy 1998). When spirits suddenly irrupt in each moment annuls and replaces the moments dwellers, judging from the farmer’s hat the man is while helping raise the next generation of the classroom demanding redress for that preceded it. Instead it is an “interlocking of wearing—who finds out that their young daughter self-aware, entrepreneurial citizens. past injuries, the past is experienced as presents, pasts, and futures that retain their depths

Zara, who has been entrusted to a tutor in the city “imperfect” (Lambek 2002), in the sense of other presents, pasts, and futures, each age

In recent years, I have started examining so she can attend school there, is mistreated. The that is it both incomplete and unruly. In what bearing, altering, and maintaining the previous education, or rather the experience of M couple just received a letter from Zara’s teacher ar ior follows, I point to the limitations of models ones” (Mbembe 2001: 16). Additionally, this time schooling, in Niger through the lens of cos E a Jún informing them that Zara is “treated like a slave” lias de Oliveir based on sequential, irreversible temporalities for is made up of disturbances—what Mbembe (Ibid.) temporality. Now, modern schools are typically by her host family. Zara’s father, who sold two describing how people in Niger inhabit time. calls “a bundle of unforeseen events”—and is not understood to be infrastructural “paths” to the cows to pay for Zara’s room and board in town, irreversible. future. In the Global South, in particular, schools A number of social theorists have recently

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The catch-all term “girls’ education,” it is worth is not only Zara’s future, but also the future of the overall quality of education has worsened, and noting, refers to a knotty set of issues centred country, that is at stake. inequities have deepened, with the poorest and on the empowerment of girls and women. It rural children least likely to attend school, such This model of education is based on the encompasses questions of gender equality and dreams often remain out of reach. In impoverished assumption that hard work and commitment access to education as well as broader problems, countries like Niger, the promise of education are the key to individual success. Accordingly, such as the alleviation of poverty. Like other dangled by politicians, development workers, students who make school their priority are a pamphlets, posters, and sensitization messages I and rights activists often turns out to be “cruelly step closer to achieving their dreams. Yet the have come across in the past decade, the vignette optimistic” (Berlant 2011). myth of meritocracy obscures social and gender about Zara’s struggles is meant to inspire Nigerien inequalities as well as other challenges students, There is a less visible yet nonetheless troubling parents to do everything they can to ensure especially girls, face. It takes more than diligence sign that the future promised by education is their daughters receive adequate schooling. By and determination to succeed in school, as Niger’s severely compromised for some girls. In recent presenting the case of an ordinary farmer who education statistics reveal. Take retention rates, for years significant numbers of adolescent schoolgirls firmly believes his daughter “must succeed just instance. While more Nigerien children than ever have become possessed by violent, rash, and like every other girl in the country,” the vignette are currently enrolled in primary school, thirty vindictive spirits who claim to have been wronged encourages other parents not to give up investing percent of these children will eventually drop in the past. Possession is often contagious. Minutes in their own daughters’ education when obstacles “I take my daughter to school, it’s my duty. Do the same.” out before they reach middle school. And more after a girl shows signs of being overtaken by an surface. will drop out before they reach high school. The invisible force, others in her vicinity will exhibit Scholars have observed that schooling problem is particularly acute for girls. Only one the same symptoms. These incidents have raised In Niger, the least educated country on the everywhere is associated with a specific set of out of ten girls ends up in high school. The large concerns about school safety and prompted planet, not all children attend school. Significantly, hopes, dreams, and desires. The mission of the majority of girls who make it to middle school questions about the place of secular education in those children who will never see the inside of girls’ school my three daughters attended in New abandon their studies around the time they turn an overwhelmingly Muslim society. Aside from a classroom are more likely to be girls. Despite Orleans, our hometown, is captured by a logo fifteen. Adolescent girls face enormous pressure disrupting school activities and, in some cases, the government’s commitment to gender equity that reads: “Today’s Girls, Tomorrow’s Leaders.” to conform to pious models of Muslim femininity leading to the momentary closure of schools, and the array of legal instruments, strategies, and Schools are where futures are imagined and and domesticity and many of them leave school possession (or “spiritual attacks” as people call policies initiated by multilateral donors, there nurtured. In Niger girl’s education is frequently to marry and start families (roughly 50 percent of them) often forces the victims to abandon school— remains sizeable gender disparities with regards presented by development agencies as an engine Nigerien girls are married by age fifteen). For those their affliction is simply too incapacitating. to educational opportunities and outcomes. of progress. Educational campaigns financed by who are expected to contribute significant labour During exorcisms performed to free the victims While female primary school participation rests at bilateral donors routinely extoll the benefits of to the household, academic requirements often of their tormentors, the spirits reveal how they just over 50 percent, the literacy rate for women sending girls to school. Parents are told that girl’s compete with domestic duties (as the case of Zara were displaced when the trees they inhabited between the ages of 15 and 25 is less than 25 education matters. In public spaces, posters show demonstrates, girls are easily exploited). For yet were felled to make room for schools. They now percent. Predictably, the poorest girls are least responsible fathers who drop off their daughters others, sexual harassment at school or on the way grieve for their lost homes. By reappearing years likely to complete primary school. In the global to school and encourage other parents to do the to school is the main obstacle to the continuation of later to broadcast grievances, they force people to effort to combat social inequality and narrow same. “Nothing has more impact on a nation than their studies. confront a past that never ends. At another level, the gender gap, international organizations, the education of girls,” reads the adage printed What these all too common scenarios suggest the spirits’ tales of eviction point to a broader such as the World Bank, have adopted a school- in the right-hand corner of page 3 of Echo des is that girls’ educational trajectories are easily history of iconoclasm aimed at purifying Islam to-the-rescue model of development that casts jeunes. Education is touted as the solution to a derailed. Girls may well dream of becoming from unwarranted innovations. In the past century girls’ education as the pathway to individual number of societal problems, including poverty, teachers, lawyers or doctors, but in contexts where Niger witnessed several waves of religious empowerment and a critical tool of economic underdevelopment, and gender inequality. The low retention rates remain unaddressed, the fervour that resulted in the progressive erasure growth. lesson to be learnt from the vignette, then, is that it

41 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE iPerspectives SPRING 2020 | 42 of spirit-centred practices. Spirit possession, once can). My guide, the head of the school’s parent it is more accurately captured through its multiple, Chicago Press. a central dimension of health-seeking practices association, was more worried about inadvertently diffuse, enduring effects. After Mina, a seventeen- Lambek, Michael. 2002. The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanga, Madagascar. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. and a popular form of entertainment as well disturbing a spirit. He proceeded guardedly, year-old girl I knew, became possessed by a spirit Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley, CA: as a wellspring of political resistance, became warning me to follow him and not go near the in the classroom, she was never the same. Her University of California Press. progressively vilified as a source of immorality latrines (latrines are perceived as particularly mother took her to a number of healers and spirit Meyer, Birgit. 1998. Make a Complete Break with the Past: and an index of backwardness. dangerous since spirits are known to congregate mediums, hoping they would make her better. Memory and Postcolonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostal Discourse. Journal of Religion in Africa 28(3): 316-49. in “dirty” places). I felt at times like I was walking Mina kept having terrifying visions. She slept In schools known to have been the site of spirit Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 2011. Economies of Abandonment: Social in a minefield. In the end, we stopped by the water poorly and did not eat much. She was afraid of possession incidents, the presence of spirits Belonging and Endurance in Late liberalism. Durham, NC: Duke pump where, a year or so before, a girl had been leaving the house and refused to see visitors. After University Press. (despite the effectiveness of purification rituals, attacked by a spirit, setting off wild pandemonium a while, her friends stopped checking on her. She Stambach, Amy, and Kathleen D. Hall. 2017. Anthropological one can never be sure the spirits have left) is Perspectives on Student Futures Youth and the Politics of Possibility. among the rest of the students (several additional never stepped foot in school again. generally understood through the lens of the New York: Palgrave Macmillan. girls were possessed) and forcing the authorities past—a past that puts constraints on the present. By interrupting school life and the victims’ Stoler, Ann Laura. 2008. Imperial Debris: From Ruins to to momentarily close the school. Before we left, the Ruination. Cultural Anthropology 23(2): 191-219. People speak of schools as haunted. Teachers educational trajectories, spiritual attacks uncover man pointed to the wall surrounding the school, the imperfectness of the past—a past that refuses and in the distance, I noticed that containment—while putting the accent on the a part of it had collapsed. He told In sum, the past is frequently tyranny of a projected futurity over the here- me that the youths of today were and-now—the kind of ideology of progress that brash, undisciplined, and often evoked in the form of a looming is at work in Zara’s story. The oppressive logic reckless: “They have no respect, that governs the promise of a better tomorrow is these delinquents. They jump menace that periodically invades what Elizabeth Povinelli (2011) calls the “future over the walls and they shit in the perfect.” As an aspirational mode that frames schoolyard. I used to go to this the present. current hardship as the necessary precursor to school. Back then it was a nice futurity, the future perfect demands sacrifice, such place. Kids would never dare do warn students not to visit spots suspected of as the investment poor Nigerien parents make in such a thing. This place is going to the dogs.” About the author: being “infested” with spirits. In sum, the past is their daughters’ education to secure a redeeming Adeline Masquelier is Professor of Anthropology at Tulane frequently evoked in the form of a looming menace To do justice to the stories of hope and failure, future—recall the two cows that Zara’s father sold University. She was a Senior Fellow at AIAS in 2018-19. She that periodically invades the present. Of course, nostalgia and haunting that I have collected over so she could go to school. In a very real sense, has been conducting research in Niger for over thirty years. one never knows when the spirits will strike, but the years about schools, spirits, and adolescent Nigerien schools can be said to be haunted by both Her current interests include spirit possession, sexuality, and spirit attacks are nevertheless anticipated as the girls, one must let go of the notion that time the violence of the past and the promises of the the temporalities of youth. She is the author of Prayer Has inevitable offshoots—the never-ending ripples—of unfolds in a sequential, unidirectional fashion. future. Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an a violent, iconoclastic past. When raging spirits take possession of schoolgirls Islamic Town of Niger (Duke, 2001) and Fada: Boredom and References to make it known they were displaced from Belonging in Niger (Chicago, 2019). Her monograph Women I once visited a middle school in July. It stood Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke their homes, a troubled past is uncovered that and Islamic Revival in a West African Town (Indiana, 2009) silent and empty, devoid of the laughter, babble University Press. was awarded the 2010 Herskovits Award for best scholarly book stubbornly refuses to go away. In her work on and animation that would have filled the air Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial on Africa and the 2012 Aidoo-Snyder prize for best scholarly imperial formations, Ann Stoler (2008: 196) invokes Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University during the school year. I was cautious to avoid book about African women. She is the editor of Dirt, Undress, the concept of ruination to register the “protracted Press. the beans stalks that had been planted at regular and Difference: Critical Perspectives on the Body’s Surface quality” of damages to bodies, landscapes, and Edelman, Lee. 2004. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. intervals across the entire schoolyard (during the Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Indiana, 2005) and the co-editor of Muslim Youth and the relationships. From this perspective, the spirits’ 9/11 Generation (School of Advanced Research, 2016) and rainy season people grow food everywhere they Goldstone, Brian, and Juan Obarrio. 2016. African Futures: Essays expulsion may be described as a single event, but on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. Chicago: University of Critical Terms for the Study of Africa (Chicago, 2018).

43 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE CONTRIBUTORS @ AIAS

The Origin and Destiny of LIFE PROGRAMME Presentations Thomas Tauris | Life in Space ? Jennifer Galloway | Earliest known life forms and what happened thereafter What is Life? | Water and Life Søren Rud Keiding How did it originate? Kei Hiruta | The Meaning(lessness) of Life: Suicide, Death and Non- existence Life on other planets Jennifer Galloway, Cici Alexander | Six blind women and an elephant God Ton Otto | Asking big questions by curating exhibitions: The time Population Explosion travelers at Moesgaard Museum Christos Tsirogiannis | Is the truth out there? References in ancient Nuclear Weapons texts and some thoughts on our future Technology Lisa M. Wu | Circadian Rhythms and the Life Span Hale Güney | Can different religions live together in harmony?

Discussion Topics Date 29 November 2019 1. Prospects for future life on Earth Human population growth, resources, pollution, religion, war, ... Venue Aarhus Institute of Advanced II. Information overflow and the human brain Studies (AIAS) Can we cope with the enormous data flow? Is a hybrid brain/computer the future? III. How should mankind respond if contacted by extraterrestrials? Organisers Thomas Tauris Assume an encoded light signal is received, should we answer back? Samia Joca IV. Will life develop automatically, or is God needed? Cici Alexander Is it simply a matter of a supply of the right chemical elements and conditions? Jennifer Galloway Illustration: Illustration: Cici Alexander

45 | LIFE: ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE iPerspectives SPRING 2020 | 46

Images Front Cover: White flocculent mats in and around the extremely gassy, high-temperature (>100°C, 212°F) white smokers at Champagne Vent Source: NOAA - http://oceanexplorer.noaa. gov/explorations/04fire/logs/hirez/champagne_vent_hirez.jpg Back Cover: Miniature représentant l’Ascension du Christ dans le sacramentaire de Drogon between circa 845 and circa 855 Ascension, sacramentaire de Drogon.jpg Source: Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Aarhus University Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark A word cloud generated from the articles Email: [email protected] in this issue of iPerspectives Tel: +45 87 15 35 57 at https://wordart.com/ Website: https://aias.au.dk/ iPerspectives Issue 1 SPRING 2020

LIFE ORIGIN . MEANING . FUTURE

An interdisciplinary magazine by Research Fellows at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, Denmark.