MESOPOTAMIA

• Our research, published today in the journal Global Change Biology, attempts to pin down why certain tetrapod species are rediscovered but others not.
• It also reveals that the number of lost tetrapod species is increasing decade-on-decade.
• This means that despite many searches, we are losing tetrapod species at a faster rate than we are rediscovering them.

Rediscoveries lead to conservation action

• Thus, rediscoveries are important: they provide evidence of the continued existence of highly threatened species, prompting funding for conservation action.
• The results or our study may help to prioritise searches for lost species.
• In the image below, we mapped their global distribution, identifying regions with many lost and few rediscovered species.

What factors influence rediscovery?

• Are there specific factors that influence rediscovery?
• We then proposed three broad hypotheses about factors that might influence rediscovery: characteristics of (i) tetrapod species, and (ii) the environment influence rediscovery, and (iii) human activities influence rediscovery.
• For example, body mass (a species characteristic) may positively influence rediscovery, as larger lost species should be easier to find.
• Based on these hypotheses, we collected data on a series of variables associated with each lost and rediscovered species (for example, their body mass), which we then analysed for their influence on rediscovery.

Hard to find + neglected = rediscovered

• In fact, since the completion of our study, De Winton’s Golden Mole (Cryptochloris wintoni) has been rediscovered in South Africa.
• Our results also suggest some species are neglected by conservation scientists, particularly those that are not considered to be charismatic, such as reptiles, small species and rodents.
• Voeltzkow’s chameleon (Furcifer voeltzkowi), a small reptile species, was rediscovered in Madagascar in 2018.

Lost or extinct?

• For example, remaining lost mammal species are, on average, three times larger than rediscovered mammal species.
• Furthermore, one third of remaining lost mammal species are endemic to islands, where tetrapod species are particularly vulnerable to extinction.
• Perhaps the limited resources available for biodiversity conservation would be better used to search for lost species likely to still exist.

Thomas Evans received funding from The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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• The effects of ancient slavery, on the other hand, aren’t as tangible today – and most Americans have only a vague idea of what it looked like.
• Some people might think of biblical stories, such as Joseph’s jealous brothers selling him into slavery.
• But to understand slavery from that era – or to combat slavery today – we also need to understand the longer history of involuntary labor.
• As a scholar of ancient slavery and early Christian history, I often encounter three myths that stand in the way of understanding ancient slavery and how systems of enslavement have evolved over time.

Myth #1: There is one kind of ‘biblical slavery’

• Most importantly, the Hebrew Bible – what Christians call “the Old Testament” – emerged primarily in the ancient Near East, while the New Testament emerged in the early Roman Empire.
• Rather, some people were temporarily enslaved to pay off their debts.
• The most anyone can say is that no biblical texts or writers explicitly condemn the institution of enslavement or the practice of chattel slavery.

Myth #2: Ancient slavery was not as cruel

• Like Myth #1, this myth often comes from conflating some Near Eastern and Egyptian practices of involuntary labor, such as debt slavery, with Greek and Roman chattel slavery.
• By focusing on other forms of involuntary labor in specific ancient cultures, it is easy to overlook the widespread practice of chattel slavery and its harshness.
• But even in an ancient world in which slavery was ever present, it is clear not everyone bought into the ideology of the elite enslavers.

Myth #3: Ancient slavery wasn’t discriminatory

• Slavery in the ancient Mediterranean wasn’t based on race or skin color in the same way as the transatlantic slave trade, but this doesn’t mean ancient systems of enslavement weren’t discriminatory.
• Much of the history of Greek and Roman slavery involves enslaving people from other groups: Athenians enslaving non-Athenians, Spartans enslaving non-Spartans, Romans enslaving non-Romans.
• Ancient slavery still depended on categorizing some groups of people as “others,” treating them as though they were wholly different from those who enslaved them.

• The next phase of the trial will focus on sentencing, and whether Robert Bowers should face the death penalty.
• The name of the synagogue, Tree of Life, has almost become shorthand for the tragedy.
• In Jewish Scripture and Jewish thought, the tree of life speaks to fundamental aspects of what it means to be human in the world.

In the beginning

• The tree of life appears in the Book of Genesis, at the very beginning of the Hebrew Bible – what many Christians call the Old Testament.
• In the creation story of chapters 2 and 3, God places man in the Garden of Eden, then creates woman, Eve, from his rib.
• Biblical scholars debate the meaning of the tree’s name: what exactly do “knowledge” or “good and evil” entail?

Two trees

• These two trees, especially the tree of life, have long raised questions for scholars.
• The tree of life does not reappear until the end of the Eden story, when God expels Adam and Eve to prevent them from eating it.
• Some scholars have argued that the two trees in Genesis emerged from two distinct traditions in the ancient Near East.
• Similarly, the two trees in Genesis display how humanity is both like and unlike God.

Living wisdom

• Later in the Bible, however, “a” tree of life appears four times in the Book of Proverbs, a complex anthology that collects many sayings and gems of wisdom from the ancient world.
• Proverbs 3:18, for example, instructs that wisdom “is a tree of life to those who grasp her, and whoever holds on to her is happy.” Jewish tradition frequently pictures God’s teachings and scripture, the Torah, as the tree of life – deepening this connection between life and wisdom.

Reaching up to God

• In the Bible’s wisdom literature, however, it comes to represent how knowledge, wisdom and Torah connect God and Israel.
• These attributes, called “sefirot,” are often drawn as spheres, linked with branchlike lines as though they form a “tree of life” – a tree that connects human experience on Earth to an infinite God above.
• Like the synagogue in Pittsburgh, they can experience tragedy, even as they continue seeking ways to heal a broken world.