THE VIETNAM WAR

This article investigates the role of the Vietnam War in Danish and Norwegian politics. We argue that Danish and Norwegian membership in NATO and an unstable parliamentary situation may explain why these countries, unlike Sweden, did not take on the lead in the international protest against the war. Non‐socialistic coalitions came to power in Norway and Denmark in the latter half of the 1960s which to an extent explains why the social democratic parties in both countries became more critical of the US. By the end of the 1960s, foreign policy as well as public attitudes towards the war converged in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and in all three countries powerful protest movements emerged that were remarkably similar. The Vietnam War strengthened the left in general and promoted a leftist politics of solidarity that influenced Swedish, Danish and Norwegian foreign policy‐making of the 1970s.     

One Hundred Members of the Association of British Neurologists: A Collective Biography for 1933–1960

This article draws a quantitative portrait of British neurology in the interwar and postwar periods through an analysis of the first 100 members of the Association of British Neurologists. Through its presentation of data, this article argues that the members of the Association of British Neurologists were extremely ambitious and as a whole had attained unusually high levels of social, professional, and civil distinction. It makes this argument through an examination of their social and educational backgrounds, the trajectory of their careers, and their achievements in the form of editorships of journals, professorships in medicine, positions in government, honorary degrees, and other indicators of merit. This collective study therefore offers an explanation for how the Association of British Neurologists transformed from an elite club in the 1930s into an organization that eventually came to represent clinical neurology across Britain.     

Medical science and the military: the Allies' use of amphetamine during World War II

Although amphetamine was thoroughly tested by leading scientists for its effects in boosting or maintaining physical and mental performance in fatigued subjects, the results never provided solid grounds for approving the drug's use, and, in any case, came too late to be decisive. The grounds on which amphetamine was actually adopted by both British and American militaries had less to do with the science of fatigue than with the drug's mood-altering effects, as judged by military men. It increased confidence and aggression, and elevated "morale."     

An improved PCR method for endogenous DNA retrieval in contaminated Neandertal samples based on the use of blocking primers

Neandertal skeletal remains are usually contaminated with modern human DNA derived from handling and washing of the specimens during excavation. Despite the fact that the distinct Neandertal haplotypes allow the design of specific primer pairs, for instance in most of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region 1 (HVR1), the human contaminants can often outnumber the endogenous DNA, thus preventing a successful retrieval of Neandertal sequences. We have developed a novel PCR method, based on the use of blocking primers that preferentially bind to modern human contaminant DNA and block their amplification, and greatly improve the efficiency of Neandertal DNA retrieval. We tested the method in four El Sidrón Neandertal samples (two teeth and two bone fragments) with different contamination levels and taphonomic conditions, and we have been able to significantly increase the Neandertal yield from figures around 25.23% (5–69.6%) up to 90.18% (75.3–100%).     

Arsenic in Danish and Swedish Mesolithic and Neolithic human bones – diet or diagenesis?

Arsenic has previously been measured in a bone sample of a c. 5-year-old Mesolithic child from Nivaagaard in Denmark yielding an anomalously high value of 13 μg/g. In the present work we show that other individuals at a nearby site also exhibit elevated arsenic levels, whereas individuals from other Mesolithic sites in Denmark are found to have quite low As-concentrations. Several attempts to reveal the source of the arsenic are reported: A railway track near the site, where the railway sleepers were suspected to have been impregnated with As leading to transport or diffusion of As into the adjacent soil; Several food items, the remains of which were found at the site, and one food item not preserved in the excavation, i.e. seaweed. Finally, it is shown that the most likely explanation of the elevated arsenic levels in human bones at Nivaa is diagenesis.