Many organisms studied by evolutionary biologists have different sexes, and the evolution of separate sexes and sexual dimorphisms in morphology and behaviour are central questions in evolutionary biology. Considering scientists to be embedded in a social and cultural context, we are also subjected to the risk of gender-biased assumptions and stereotypical thinking to appear when working on topics related to sexual reproduction and sexual dimorphism. Here we present, for continued discussion, a set of good-practice guidelines aimed at (1) helping to improve researchers' awareness of gender-biased assumptions underlying language use, generalizations, and interpretation of observations; and (2) providing recommendations to increase transparency, avoid problematic terminology, and improve study designs.
Higher education biology is often imagined, perceived, and described as having reached gender equality in terms of who gets to participate in disciplinary practices. However, like any other natural science discipline, higher education biology is a world whose landscapes are shaped by (re)productions of historical, cultural, and social norms. We explore these norms through the lens of identity, asking what identities are recognized by university biology teachers at a large Swedish university, analyzing 94 teaching statements written when applying for faculty positions in biology. We argue that in and through teaching statements, university biology teachers negotiate and perform overarching academic and disciplinary norms and discourses with the goal to present themselves as intelligible candidates. As statements of value, they thereby display implicit and explicit identities recognized in worlds of higher education biology. Using a discourse analytical framework, we identified two university teacher identities imagined as intelligible: Research Science Teachers and Facilitating Science Teachers.Research Science Teachers position research and associated masculine-coded competences as anchor points
Studying biology entails negotiating knowledges, identities, and what paths, more or less well-trodden, to follow. Knowledges, identities, and paths within the very practices of science are fundamentally gendered and it is, therefore, critical to recognize when exploring students' learning and participation in natural sciences. Even though students' numbers in undergraduate Higher Education Biology are female-biased, it does not mean that gendered processes are absent. In this study, we focus on early undergraduate biology students' identity work at a Swedish university, analyzing 55 study motivation texts discursively. Embedded in a Figured Worlds framework, we explore how students imagined and authored themselves in(to) the Figured World of Higher Education Biology along two imagined identity trajectories, the Straight Biology Path and the Backpacking Biology Path. While the first and numerically dominant imagined trajectory entails typical stories of a scientific child striving toward a research career, the latter recognizes broad interests and biology competences to be collected in a backpack for transdisciplinary use. Students imagining the Backpacking BiologyThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
A six-year-old intactfemale domestic dwarf rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) was presented with an onset of persistent lethargy, inappetence, decreased urination and subcutaneous, fluctuating swelling at the left side of the anal orifice. Physical examination confirmed high-grade cachexia, general muscular atrophy and perineal repositionable swelling. Reposition was associated with spontaneous urination. Rectal examination revealed dilated pelvic muscles. Radiographs demonstrated an approximately 4×5×3 cm structure of soft tissue opacity with radiopaque content. Needle aspiration exposed cream-coloured fluid identified as urine by cytology and refractometer. In summary, all clinical findings supported the diagnosis of a bladder herniation through the pelvic muscle into the perineal region. The proposed pathogenesis might be persistent inappetence that resulted in high-grade cachexia and generalised muscle atrophy, followed by prolapse of the bladder. This is the second published report describing unilateral perineal herniation and incarceration of the bladder in an intactfemale rabbit.
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