Potassium–argon dating of 44 samples of basalt lavas and pantelleritic ignimbrites provides a provisional chronology for the 1900-metre thick Cenozoic succession of the Suregei–Asille district, northeast of Lake Turkana. Volcanic rocks of the Asille Group range in age from late Oligocene (Chattian) to late Miocene (Tortonian). Data obtained from conventional K–Ar total-rock analysis of basalt samples are appraised statistically to indicate the presence of three periods of enhanced volcanism centred around 27, 17 and 11.5 Ma. Equivalent ages obtained from the pyroclastic pantellerites by conventional K–Ar total-rock analysis and 40Ar/39Ar analysis of sanidine concentrates indicate that basic and acid eruptions were closely spaced in time. Continental tholeiite flood lavas belonging to the Gombe Group are of Pliocene age, but are difficult to date precisely because of their young ages and relatively high atmospheric contamination occurring as a result of the secondary alteration in the ubiquitous glass mesostasis. Those ages involving least atmospheric correction are considered most reliable, and are closely similar for the Chen Alia and Harr formations at around 4.85 Ma, although later flood eruptions may have occurred to the south and west of the Suregei–Asille district at about 3.85 Ma.

Forty-three near-isogenic lines (NILs) of white clover (Trifolium repens), derived from four parental self-compatible genotypes containing the rare self-fertility allele, were inoculated with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Glomus mossae. Plant growth response (shoot and root weight and root length), shoot P uptake and mycorrhizal root infection rates were recorded 12 weeks after inoculation. There was generally a high degree of variation between individual lines in all recorded parameters. The most sensitive indicator of plant response to mycorrhizal infection was root length with almost half of all lines showing significant responses (in most cases a decrease in root length). Shoot weight was significantly different between mycorrhizal and nonmycorrhizal plants in nine lines. Parental genotype significantly affected both plant response to mycorrhiza as well as mycorrhizal infection rates. The results suggest that the NILs will prove useful for further studies to elucidate the molecular genetic control of the symbiosis and inform plant breeding strategies of this agronomically important species.

No reader of Herodotus would wish away the story of Arion's rescue by the dolphin (1. 23–4), or could imagine the story better told. The development of the story reflects epic models. At the outset we have the mention of a marvel, that of a man who rode on a dolphin's back; then the rapid narrative leading to the marvel itself, with much vivid detail lavished on the three central scenes (Arion's singing in his ceremonial robes, his leap into the sea, and the rescue itself); next the hurrying to the denouement, the confrontation between Arion and the sailors; and the ancecdote ends as it began, with an allusion to the man on a dolphin's back – this time in the shape of a bronze statue, still to be seen at Taenarum. The narrative contains everything needed to make it immediately comprehensible, but all superfluous elements have been suppressed. Even the initial reference to Arion as the leading lyre-player of his time is by no means an irrelevant detail: the fact is crucial to the way in which the anecdote is shaped, for this would have turned out quite differently, had Arion not been so famous for his skill.

A detailed study is being carried out at the Needle's Eye locality, on the Solway Firth, into the movement and fixation of U and its daughter isotopes. The site contains pitchblende veins, some of which have acted as a source of soluble uranium flowing into and through estuarine silts laid down in the last 2000 years or so. A section through these has provided samples for detailed analysis by X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation techniques. High resolution gamma spectrometry has contributed information on the distributions and disequilibria between uranium and its daughters. These data have been combined with analyses from groundwaters to produce a geochemical model of the origins of the U radioisotope distributions and transport mechanisms. There are thought to be two main inputs of dissolved U(VI) into this system; the surface flow of groundwater from the exposures of the mineralisation in the cliff, and upward flow from the bedrock below. The fixation of U in the sediments is controlled by the presence of organic matter in the upper humic layers, and by an iron oxy-hydroxide sorption reaction in the deeper silts at about 110cm. This concentration of U in the silt is divorced from the sub U-234 daughters. In contrast. Th is coherently associated with its daughters within detrital resistate phases. This study is a prelude to a more rigorous modelling investigation in collaboration with the Ecole des Mines de Paris.

It is widely known that in the first two chapters of his Greeks and the Irrational E. R. Dodds borrowed the terms ‘shame-culture’ and ‘guilt-culture’ and applied them to early Greek society. According to Dodds, the society depicted by Homer knew nothing of guilt or the sanction of guilt: what acted as a motivating force was aidōs, ‘shame’ or ‘sense of shame’, of which the sanction was nemesis, ‘righteous indignation’. In other words, the warriors of the heroic caste were impelled to certain courses of action, or were restrained from others, by aidōs: they were ashamed of ‘losing face’ among their equals or inferiors, and this fear of public indignation kept before the mind of the heroes where their duty lay. As the Archaic age advanced (Dodds contends), the sense of guilt became manifest, without however displacing entirely the assumptions of the earlier ‘shame-culture’.