research papers on hera

The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology

This essay about the symbols associated with Hera in Greek mythology explores the meanings behind the peacock, pomegranate, cow, and diadem, which represent various aspects of her divine persona. The peacock reflects Hera’s vigilant and regal nature, symbolizing both protection and her status as the queen of gods. The pomegranate emphasizes her roles in fertility and marriage, indicating her interest in fruitful unions and the nurturing of heroes. The cow highlights her maternal and protective characteristics, while the diadem underscores her sovereignty and authority among the Olympian deities. Through these symbols, Hera is portrayed as a complex figure with significant influence in the ancient Greek cosmological hierarchy.

How it works

Hera, the illustrious monarch of the Olympian pantheon in ancient Hellenic lore, epitomizes supremacy, sanctitude, and maternal dominion. As consort to Zeus, her domain extends far beyond the realms of marital union and fidelity, encapsulating a myriad of roles within the mythos. This discourse delves into the myriad symbols associated with Hera, unraveling their profound implications in delineating her divine essence and influence.

Foremost among Hera’s symbols is the resplendent peacock. Legend holds that the captivating eye-patterned plumage of this bird originated from the vigilant eyes of Argus, a centenarian sentinel in Hera’s service.

Upon Argus’s demise, Hera, in homage to his vigilance, adorned her favored avian companion with his eyes. This emblem not only embodies her watchful guardianship over womankind, particularly within the matrimonial domain, but also signifies her perennial vigilance over her oft-erring consort, Zeus. The peacock thus serves as an emblem of Hera’s regal demeanor, intertwined with themes of surveillance and safeguarding.

Another emblematic motif linked to Hera is the luscious pomegranate. This fruit, steeped in ancient symbolism denoting fecundity and connubial bonds, epitomizes her role as the goddess of marital union and nurturing fertility. Often depicted alongside Hera, the pomegranate symbolizes her stewardship over the sanctity of matrimony and her desire for bountiful unions. Furthermore, its fertility connotations allude to Hera’s vested interest in the birth of illustrious heroes and mortal monarchs, whom she either nurtured or subjected to peril, contingent upon her favor or ire.

The bovine association accentuates Hera’s maternal and protective instincts. The gentle and nurturing demeanor of the cow serves as a metaphor for Hera’s maternal benevolence not only towards her progeny but also towards assorted heroes and mythic figures whom she sheltered under her aegis. The symbolism of the cow mirrors Hera’s overarching persona as a nurturer and guardian, albeit occasionally manifesting in a possessive or vindictive guise towards transgressors of her matrimonial laws.

Finally, the regal diadem, adorning Hera’s august brow, symbolizes her sovereign ascendancy among the Olympian pantheon. As the reigning queen of the gods, the diadem epitomizes her status and authoritative command, depicted in antiquity as resplendently crowning her regal countenance. This symbol not only underscores her leadership role and majestic authority but also underscores her parity with Zeus, sharing dominion over both divinities and mortals alike.

These symbols—peacock, pomegranate, cow, and diadem—synthesize Hera as a deity of intricate complexity and paradox. She embodies the guardian of matrimony while concurrently wielding punitive retribution against transgressors. Each symbol elucidates a facet of her persona, offering insight into her powers, prerogatives, and character within the divine hierarchy. Moreover, they reflect the ancient Greeks’ endeavor to anthropomorphize natural phenomena and human conduct, endowing their deities with roles and responsibilities that molded their worldview. By scrutinizing these symbols, we glean a deeper comprehension of Hera as not merely a jealous consort but as a preeminent deity wielding profound influence over the Hellenic cosmos.

Cite this page

The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology. (2024, Apr 29). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/

"The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology." PapersOwl.com , 29 Apr 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/ [Accessed: 7 Jun. 2024]

"The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology." PapersOwl.com, Apr 29, 2024. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/

"The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology," PapersOwl.com , 29-Apr-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/. [Accessed: 7-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Powerful Symbols of Hera: Exploring Ancient Greek Mythology . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-powerful-symbols-of-hera-exploring-ancient-greek-mythology/ [Accessed: 7-Jun-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Enable JavaScript and refresh the page to view the Center for Hellenic Studies website.

See how to enable JavaScript in your browser.

• Language/Literature
• Art/Archaeology
• Philosophy/Science
• Epigraphy/Papyrology
• Mythology/Religion
• Publications

The Center for Hellenic Studies

Seeing hera in the iliad.

Citation with persistent identifier:

Ali, Seemee. “Seeing Hera in the Iliad .” CHS Research Bulletin 3, no. 2 (2015). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:AliS.Seeing_Hera_in_the_Iliad.2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFEtZF1TKHw

§1 Hera’s name appears early in the Iliad . Well before she herself speaks or even appears in the epic, she acts. Quietly and seemingly imperceptibly, she places an idea directly in Achilles’ phrénes :

ἐννῆμαρ μὲν ἀνὰ στρατὸν ᾤχετο κῆλα θεοῖο, τῇ δεκάτῃ δ’ ἀγορὴν δὲ καλέσσατο λαὸν Ἀχιλλεύς· τῷ γὰρ ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα θνήσκοντας ὁρᾶτο. Nine days up and down the host ranged [Apollo’s] arrows, On the tenth, Achilleus called the people into assembly, A thing put into his [ phrénes ] by the goddess of the white arms, Hera: Who had pity on the Danaans when she saw them dying. (I 53-56) [1]

Hera’s final action in the epic, like her first, is similarly subtle and gentle; it is likewise easy to miss. Again, her gesture involves the phrén, a term more commonly found in the plural ( phrénes , as above), which signifies a realm of experience that is at once physiological, intellectual, and emotional. [2] In Iliad XXIV when Achilles’ divine mother, Thetis, ascends to Olympus, Hera offers her hospitality and speaks tender words to comfort Thetis’ phrén : [3]

Ἥρη δὲ χρύσεον καλὸν δέπας ἐν χερὶ θῆκε καί ῥ’ εὔφρην’ ἐπέεσσι: Θέτις δ’ ὤρεξε πιοῦσα. Hera put into her hand a beautiful golden goblet and spoke to her to comfort her [ phrén ] , and Thetis accepting drank from it. (XXIV 101-102)

Hera’s first and last actions in the Iliad are deeply interior. In the first instance, she moves the mind and heart of a young warrior to introduce civil discussion to a panicked army. In the last, she offers genuine solace to a goddess mourning the imminent death of her mortal child. The intense interiority of Hera’s divine influence, her action upon the phrénes , means that her role in an epic of such monumental scale as the Iliad can be difficult to discern. Moreover, Hera can be purposely elusive. As she herself declares, “It is hard for gods to be shown in their true shape” (χαλεποὶ δὲ θεοὶ φαίνεσθαι ἐναργεῖς, XXI, 131).

§2 Indeed, throughout the Iliad , Hera is subtle and manifold in her self-presentation. Within an instant, she can tremble like a dove (V 778) and then immediately transform herself into the bronze-voiced warrior, Stentor, whose cry has the force of fifty men’s (V 784-6). Hera’s bibliography is astonishingly slight, however; [4] her depth and complexity seem to have passed unnoticed. Her critics, particularly those writing in English, most often characterize her as a divine shrew. One recent study of Hera’s Iliadic character denounces her as “savage” and argues that the Iliad intentionally presents her as a figure of “demonic degeneracy.” [5] Another recent critic characterizes Hera as “a needy, dependent spouse.” [6]

§3 This essay departs emphatically from the communis opinio. I hope to show here that Hera in the Iliad is a seeing goddess, one who also bestows insight. Indeed, Hera’s creative vision enlarges the imaginative scope of the epic––for her noetic mode of seeing brings unity to what is otherwise disparate and heterogeneous, including the community of gods themselves.

§4 Ruth Padel defines the phr é nes as part of the “equipment of consciousness” in ancient Greek poetics . [7] Both concrete and abstract in signification, the phr é nes , she writes, “contain emotion, practical ideas, and knowledge. . . . Phr é nes are containers: they fill with menos ‘anger,’ or thūmós , ‘passion.’ . . . They are the holding center, folding the heart, holding the liver.” [8] Hera’s divine work in the Iliad focuses directly and insistently upon these vessels of mental and physical consciousness. Wherever the goddess appears, the word phr é n and its cognates also seem reliably to attend her – words such as φρονέω, “have understanding; think; comprehend”; πρόφρων, “with forward mind”; εὐφραίνω, “cheer, gladden, comfort”; and, perhaps more tangentially, φράζω, “understanding, explaining”; φράζομαι, “take counsel with.” [9]

§5 In Iliad I 53-56 (quoted above), the language describing Hera’s action is noteworthy: ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκε. The verb θῆκε here means to “set, put, place.” Hera’s gesture of setting or placing clearly happens in Achilles’ phrénes . To revise only slightly Nietzsche’s formulation, the hero’s thought comes to him not when he wants, in this case, but when Hera wants. [10]

§6 What Hera places in Achilles’ phrénes is a political idea: to summon an assembly. This Hera-inspired gathering is the first deliberative assembly that takes place in the Iliad ; it is at this meeting, called to discover the cause of the devastating plague, that Agamemnon fatefully insults Achilles. Hera sees the mortal dispute and once again decisively determines its outcome from afar. Once more, the goddess quietly shapes Achilles’ calculated and reasoned response in order to avert catastrophe; she prevents Achilles from killing Agamemnon. In this instance, however, instead of remaining the invisible and anonymous author of Achilles’ thoughts and feelings, Hera begins to move into the foreground of the epic action. Thus at I 193-196, the master narrator of the Iliad shows Achilles contemplating in his phrénes and his thūmós (ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν, I 193) whether he should kill Agamemnon immediately, or, rather, whether he should check his anger (χόλον, I 192). “This is a fundamentally political decision,” David Elmer observes. [11] Because it is a political decision, one that requires deliberation and self-control, Hera intervenes.

§7 At the crucial moment, just as Achilles begins to draw his sword (I 194), Hera sends Athena to urge restraint:

ἕως ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν , ἕλκετο δ’ ἐκ κολεοῖο μέγα ξίφος, ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνη οὐρανόθεν: πρὸ γὰρ ἧκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη ἄμφω ὁμῶς θυμῷ φιλέουσά τε κηδομένη τε: Now as he weighed in [ phrénes ] and [ thūmós ] these two courses and was drawing from its scabbard the great sword, Athene descended from the sky. For Hera the goddess of the white arms sent her, who loved both men equally in her heart and cared for them. (I 193-196)

The epic deliberately emphasizes Hera’s role by repeating these lines when Athena explains her sudden appearance to Achilles (I 195-6):

ἦλθον ἐγὼ παύσουσα τὸ σὸν μένος, αἴ κε πίθηαι, οὐρανόθεν: πρὸ δέ μ’ ἧκε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη ἄμφω ὁμῶς θυμῷ φιλέουσά τε κηδομένη τε: ‘I have come down to stay your anger––but will you obey me?–– from the sky; and the goddess of the white arms Hera sent me, who loves both of you equally in her heart and cares for you. (I.207-209)

Here, once again, Hera acts without being seen. We can now observe a pattern established early in the epic: In the first passage (I 53-56), Hera manifests invisibly in Achilles’ phrénes . Meanwhile, in the second and third passages quoted above (I 193-196 and I 207-209), Hera decisively intervenes in the internal drama unfolding, invisibly, within Achilles’ phrénes and in his thūmós – both in his mind and in his heart, we might say . It appears that Achilles learns of Hera’s involvement in his own interior life only when Athena explicitly tells him. [12]

§8 In each of these passages, Hera enters into the hero’s internal deliberations to instigate expressly political action. The goddess shapes Achilles’ imagination in order to achieve ends that are not obviously for his own good. Indeed, the master narrator of the epic repeatedly stresses that Hera acts through Achilles not because she loves or pities him, particularly. Rather, Hera intervenes for the Danaans and through Achilles because she pities the Greeks, generally (κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα θνήσκοντας ὁρᾶτο I 56), or, in what may amount to the same, because she loves Achilles and Agamemnon equally (ἄμφω ὁμῶς θυμῷ φιλέουσά I 196, I 207). The thoughts and feelings Hera inspires in Achilles aim at some larger, communal good––an end, moreover, that may not necessarily be good for Achilles himself, even though he is the chosen bearer of Hera’s messages. Hera’s aims are collective, political in the fundamental sense.

§9 Hera’s first intervention in Achilles’ phrénes –motivated by her care for the Greek army as a whole–necessarily illuminates her second intervention, when she prevents him from killing Agamemnon, the commander of the army. What does it mean, after all, to love equally men who are as different as Achilles and Agamemnon? In the latter event, Hera’s love for Agamemnon seems to have less to do with who Agamemnon is as an individual than with what Agamemnon represents , namely the Greek host as a whole. (Notably neither Hera nor Athena offer any reasons why Achilles himself should love Agamemnon.) Despite his manifest failings, Agamemnon is the single, unifying leader of the heterogeneous Argive host; as the lord of men, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (I 5), he folds many disparate constituencies into one–clumsily, to be sure, as his haplessness in Iliad II makes abundantly clear. [13] If Hera loves the leader of all the Greeks, Agamemnon, as much as she loves the one who represents what is best in all of them, Achilles, it is because she loves Greeks as such , that is, as a people, rather than as individuals.

§10 In Book II, Hera again sends Athena as her proxy to change the will of angry men by means of persuasive words. When the Greek host begins a massive, frantic retreat, it is Hera who turns them around:

ἔνθά κεν Ἀργείοισιν ὑπέρμορα νόστος ἐτύχθη εἰ μὴ Ἀθηναίην Ἥρη πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπεν: Then for the Argives a homecoming beyond fate might have been accomplished, had not Hera spoken a word to Athene (II 155-156)

Hera directs Athena to speak gentle words (ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσιν II 164) to each Greek soldier in order to draw him back from the ships. As in the earlier intervention with Achilles, Athena reports Hera’s words verbatim to Odysseus (II 174-181); Odysseus then effectively restores order to the troops.

§11 In Book VIII, Hera once more protects the Greeks from disaster by placing a political idea in the phrénes of a hero. This time, it is Agamemnon:

καί νύ κ’ ἐνέπρησεν πυρὶ κηλέῳ νῆας ἐΐσας, εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θῆκ’ Ἀγαμέμνονι πότνια Ἥρη αὐτῷ ποιπνύσαντι θοῶς ὀτρῦναι Ἀχαιούς. And now [Hektor] might have kindled their balanced ships with the hot flame, had not the lady Hera set it in Agamemnon’s [ phrénes ] to rush in with speed himself and stir the Achaians. (VIII 217-219)

Again, Hera’s quiet intrusion into a hero’s phrénes keeps disaster at bay for the Greek army, collectively. Agamemnon effectively rallies his men in this scene. Agamemnon’s efficacy here, with Hera’s active, if invisible, aid, stands in stark contrast to his miserable failure to rally the troops earlier, in Book II, when he is motivated by an evil dream sent by Zeus. (As we will see below, that dream presents a false image of Hera as supplicant.)

§12 Consistently in these passages, Hera’s action suggests an overlooked dimension of her character–her ability to contain and channel the passions of an army. The goddess exerts her restraining force by engaging a singular individual (Achilles at I 53-6, Odysseus at II 155-6, Agamemnon at VIII 217-219) through his phrénes . In each of the instances we have examined above, the Greek army remains an army rather than devolving into a mob, because Hera sees what is happening and knowingly, creatively acts.

§13 The hero Achilles, for his part, is well aware of Hera’s potency. In his understanding, however, she appears as a dangerous, destabilizing force on Olympus. After he breaks with Agamemnon and quits the war, Achilles reminds his divine mother, Thetis, of a story she has told him many times (πολλάκι, I 396). He recalls that Thetis once averted cosmic disaster by coming between Hera and Zeus; he now wants her to come between them once more, although he does not say so explicitly. Instead, Achilles recalls:

πολλάκι γάρ σεο πατρὸς ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἄκουσα εὐχομένης ὅτ’ ἔφησθα κελαινεφέϊ Κρονίωνι οἴη ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι, ὁππότε μιν ξυνδῆσαι Ὀλύμπιοι ἤθελον ἄλλοι Ἥρη τ’ ἠδὲ Ποσειδάων καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη: ἀλλὰ σὺ τόν γ’ ἐλθοῦσα θεὰ ὑπελύσαο δεσμῶν . . . many times in my father’s halls I have heard you making claims, when you said you only among the immortals beat aside shameful destruction from Kronos’ son the dark-misted, that time when all the other Olympians sought to bind him, Hera and Poseidon and Pallas Athene. Then you, goddess, went and set him free from his shackles . . . (I. 396-401)

Thetis has told and retold this story in Peleus’ house; now, Achilles cannily repeats it, perhaps to arouse a predictable reaction from his mother. In the story, Hera, together with Poseidon and Athena, almost succeeds in overthrowing Zeus. The ruler of the cosmos is already in shackles when Thetis arrives to liberate him. A cosmic revolution is thus forestalled.

§14 Achilles further reminds Thetis that she freed Zeus easily with the help of the hundred-handed monster Briareus. He describes Briareus (presumably just as Thetis has described him in earlier recitations) as a son who “is greater in strength than his father” (ὃ γὰρ αὖτε βίῃ οὗ πατρὸς ἀμείνων, I 404). But, in the story, Briareus actively does nothing. He simply stands next to Thetis and Zeus and rejoices in his own glory (κύδεϊ γαίων, I 405). His menacing physicality, juxtaposed with Thetis’ far less tangible power, her intelligence, deters Hera and her rebellious allies from overthrowing an otherwise impotent Zeus.

§15 As Laura Slatkin shows, [14] Thetis’ oft-repeated story is a displacement of a myth preserved by Pindar. According to a prophecy, an immortal son born to Thetis will be stronger than his immortal father; this mighty, immortal son will overthrow his no-longer-mighty father. To avert such catastrophe–which would end their cosmic power–the Olympian gods force Thetis into marriage with the mortal Peleus. [15] It seems that the tale that Thetis repeats “many times” (I 396)–a tale in which she upholds the rule of Zeus against all odds–here appears as a refracted version of her own autobiography. Briareus figures as “a sort of nightmarish variant of Achilles himself,” as Gregory Nagy observes, [16] the son who might have been stronger than his father. As with Briareus, Achilles’ mere presence is a sign that the Olympians can “read” clearly, since his mortal condition signifies Thetis’ surrender to Zeus.

§16 The cosmic truce among the gods at the beginning of the Iliad is hardly stable, it appears. Thetis’ concession to Zeus’ rule was never entirely voluntary, after all. Her cooperation with the Olympian regime remains always precarious. In the dream-logic of the story Thetis tells Achilles so many times, and which Achilles now mirrors back to her, it is Hera who rebels against Zeus. But this Hera, the Hera of Thetis’ imagination, also serves as a nightmare version of Thetis herself. Like Hera, even after Thetis concedes to Zeus’ power, she (Thetis) remains near at hand. Thetis, like Hera, does not disappear; nor does the threat she poses to Zeus vanish, either. As a goddess, Thetis is always fertile, always capable of bearing another child–even a divine one, mightier than his father. Thus Thetis, like Hera, still remains a threat to Zeus; the threat she poses is just as ominous as Hera’s in the tale Thetis repeats so “many times” to her son. She too can summon the power to overthrow Zeus. In Achilles imagination, perhaps, as well as in his mother’s, this fantasy-Hera easily transmutes into a fictive double, or twin, to Thetis. Humiliated, she still simmers with resentment; her divine power is not (or, is not yet) what it could be.

§17 The doubling of Hera and Thetis will necessarily frame the terms of Zeus’ plan to honor Achilles. Zeus cannot plausibly remember his debt to Thetis without simultaneously thinking of Hera; indeed, on both occasions when he articulates his plan, he directs his speech specifically to Hera (VIII 470-484 and XV 49-77). When Thetis comes to Olympus to plead her son’s cause, she herself is too discreet to name her opposite, Hera. But Zeus understands immediately that her appeal requires his direct confrontation with his divine spouse. Even so, as if reconciling a zero-sum account, Zeus simply cannot take into account one goddess’ (Thetis’) appeal for timē , honor, without accounting for the response of the other–Hera. [17]

§18 Zeus therefore responds to Thetis’ supplication, first, with a long and pregnant silence (I 511-512). Then, he offers his first speech in the epic. He names Hera prominently:

τὴν δὲ μέγ’ ὀχθήσας προσέφη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς: ἦ δὴ λοίγια ἔργ’ ὅτε μ’ ἐχθοδοπῆσαι ἐφήσεις Ἥρῃ ὅτ’ ἄν μ’ ἐρέθῃσιν ὀνειδείοις ἐπέεσσιν: ἣ δὲ καὶ αὔτως μ’ αἰεὶ ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι νεικεῖ, καί τέ μέ φησι μάχῃ Τρώεσσιν ἀρήγειν. σὺ μὲν νῦν αὖτις ἀπόστιχε μή σε νοήσῃ Ἥρη : ἐμοὶ δέ κε ταῦτα μελήσεται ὄφρα τελέσσω: Deeply disturbed Zeus who gathers the clouds answered her: ‘This is a disastrous matter when you set me in conflict with Hera , and she troubles me with recriminations. Since even as things are, forever among the immortals she is at me and speaks of how I help the Trojans in battle. Even so, go back again now, go away, for fear [ Hera ] see [νοήσῃ] us. I will look to these things that they be accomplished. (I 517-523)

Previously Achilles reminded Thetis of her claim that she not only saved Zeus from Hera, she saved the cosmos itself from disaster (λοιγὸν, I 398). Here, Zeus pointedly repeats Achilles’ language in describing Hera’s potential reaction to Thetis’ request as itself disastrous (λοίγια, I 518). [18] Hera’s anger, Zeus implies, will be disastrous, cosmic in its scale should she discover Zeus and Thetis together. Indeed, Zeus urges Thetis to leave Olympus before Hera sees them. The verb Zeus uses is νοήσῃ (I 532), from νοέω; it signifies mental perception or insight as well as physical seeing. At this moment, Zeus’ concern is hardly the banal anxiety of an errant husband worried that he has been discovered in a dalliance. Rather, it is a political concern, a concern for the future of his rule. And because Zeus is the ruler of the universe, it is also a cosmic concern. He wants very much to control what Hera sees and knows.

§19 The ongoing threat Hera poses to Zeus, in the “now” of the Iliad ’s story, becomes vividly clear in Book I. In the immediate instant following Thetis’ departure from Olympus, Hera makes her first appearance in propria persona . Before Hera speaks, however, the master narrator establishes the full force of her presence by means of a careful–and witty– grammatical construction:

. . . οὐδέ μιν Ἥρη ἠγνοίησεν ἰδοῦσ’ ὅτι οἱ συμφράσσατο βουλὰς ἀργυρόπεζα Θέτις θυγάτηρ ἁλίοιο γέροντος. . . . yet Hera was not ignorant, having seen how [Zeus] had been plotting counsels with Thetis the silver-footed, the daughter of the sea’s ancient, (I 536-538)

Here, once again, the epic suggests an interiority, a knowingness particular to Hera well before the audience of the epic sees or hears her. The verse first negates (with οὐδέ) the negative verb “ἠγνοίησεν” (I 537, from ἀγνοέω, “to be ignorant”; “not to perceive”) and then juxtaposes the double negative with an affirming verb of perception, ἰδοῦσ (I 537, from εἶδον, “to see, to perceive”). As with the language of phrénes and noesis above, the verb εἶδον conflates the physical and cerebral; it can mean both to see with the eyes and to perceive with the mind. Thus, before Hera speaks or acts, the master narrator makes clear that the goddess understands what is happening, in every way possible, both mentally and physically. Decidedly and emphatically, Hera is not ignorant; the language suggests that it is laughable even to imagine that she could be. She sees fully–she knows –that Zeus deliberately excludes her from his planning, even as (she reveals later) she also knows exactly what he has planned.

§20 As she addresses Zeus with her first words in the epic, Hera claims that it is the secrecy of Zeus’ planning that offends her. Hera is angry, she announces to Zeus and the assembled gods, because Zeus does not himself share with her what he thinks (νοήσῃς I 543). Throughout the epic, as we have observed, Hera works as a powerful agent in the phrénes . In the first words she utters, however, she complains to Zeus that he is thinking without her. The specific verb she uses is φρονέοντα, another phrén cognate :

τίς δ’ αὖ τοι δολομῆτα θεῶν συμφράσσατο βουλάς; αἰεί τοι φίλον ἐστὶν ἐμεῦ ἀπονόσφιν ἐόντα κρυπτάδια φρονέοντα δικαζέμεν: οὐδέ τί πώ μοι πρόφρων τέτληκας εἰπεῖν ἔπος ὅττι νοήσῃς . [Crafty] one, what god has been plotting [συμφράσσατο] counsels with you? Always it is dear to your heart in my absence to think [φρονέοντα] of secret things and decide upon them. Never have you patience frankly [πρόφρων] to speak forth to me the thing that you purpose [νοήσῃς].’ (I 540-3)

This passage is typical of those involving Hera. Again, as in the earlier scenes involving Achilles, words signifying thought and perceptivity cluster around the goddess’s name as they do in her own speech. This short passage offers συμφράσσατο (from συμ – φράζομαι, “take counsel with”) φρονέοντα (from φρονέω, to “have understanding”; to “think”; to “comprehend”); πρόφρων (“with forward mind”); νοήσῃς (“perceive, think”). [19]

§21 It is Hera’s noetic capacity that Zeus clearly resists in the opening scene of confrontation between them. Despite his secrecy, Hera nonetheless knows exactly what Zeus has in mind; she summarizes precisely his plan to honor Achilles (I 558-559). Nor does she evince any particular grudge against Thetis, as it is well worth clarifying. Rather, her own phrén (φρένα I 555) alerts her that Zeus has been persuaded to do something of great consequence without consulting her.

§22 Zeus’ imperious reply to Hera’s complaint–in which he summarily exiles her from his thinking–widens the chasm forming between them in Iliad I. Hera will see and know (εἰδήσειν) his pronouncements (μύθους), Zeus announces, when he wishes and only then:

Ἥρη μὴ δὴ πάντας ἐμοὺς ἐπιέλπεο μύθους εἰδήσειν : χαλεποί τοι ἔσοντ’ ἀλόχῳ περ ἐούσῃ: ἀλλ’ ὃν μέν κ’ ἐπιεικὲς ἀκουέμεν οὔ τις ἔπειτα οὔτε θεῶν πρότερος τόν γ’ εἴσεται οὔτ’ ἀνθρώπων: ὃν δέ κ’ ἐγὼν ἀπάνευθε θεῶν ἐθέλοιμι νοῆσαι μή τι σὺ ταῦτα ἕκαστα διείρεο μηδὲ μετάλλα . Hera, do not go on hoping that you will [know, εἰδήσειν ] all my [words, μύθους], since these will be too hard for you, though you are my wife. Any thought that it is right for you to listen to, no one neither man nor any immortal shall [know] it before you. But anything that apart from the rest of the gods I wish to plan [ νοῆσαι ], do not always question [ διείρεο ] each detail nor probe [ μετάλλα ] me. (I 545-550)

In granting Hera only limited access even to his μύθους (I 545), his most public thoughts and declarations, [20] Zeus here does not concede much to Hera, even in the way of wifely privilege. Rather, he demands that she must not insist on questioning (διείρεο, δια- + -εἴρομαι) or probing (μετάλλα) him.

§23 Hera, for her part, finds the premises of Zeus’ argument patently flawed. In her reply to him, she repeats the offending verbs, εἴρομαι (to ask, inquire) and μεταλλῶ (to search carefully) that Zeus employs at I 550. She counters that, in fact, her inquiries do not limit Zeus’ thinking (φράζεαι) in the least:

αἰνότατε Κρονίδη ποῖον τὸν μῦθον ἔειπες; καὶ λίην σε πάρος γ’ οὔτ’ εἴρομαι οὔτε μεταλλῶ , ἀλλὰ μάλ’ εὔκηλος τὰ φράζεαι ἅσσ’ ἐθέλῃσθα. [Dread] son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you spoken? Truly too much in time past I have not questioned nor probed you, but you are entirely free to think out [φράζεαι] whatever pleases you. (I 552-554)

This argument between Hera and Zeus is, in its essence, an argument about thinking . Zeus wants to think in splendid isolation, majestically, abstractly, without interruption. He experiences questioning – particularly Hera’s questioning – as a chafing and irksome limitation on his sovereignty. Hera, on the other hand, objects profoundly to Zeus’ insistence on thinking apart from her (ἀπονόσφιν, I 541) and in secret (κρυπτάδια, I 542). Zeus’ aloofness impinges upon her role as bringer of thoughts, questions, hesitations. [21]

§24 Desperately, perhaps, Zeus threatens violence against Hera if she continues to oppose him (I 566-567). In response to his threats Hera withdraws. The narrator reports that she “bends” her heart in silence.

καί ῥ’ ἀκέουσα καθῆστο ἐπιγνάμψασα φίλον κῆρ: and [she] went and sat down in silence [bending] her [dear] heart (I 569)

The participle ἐπιγνάμψασα signifies Hera’s self-control in this scene; she here restrains herself, just as she has restrained Achilles earlier as he curbs his violent response to Agamemnon. The verb ἐπιγνάμτω (bend, curve) is extremely unusual in the Homeric corpus, appearing only in six times in the Iliad and never in the Odyssey . [22] This highly unusual word will recur again in Zeus’ strange fantasy involving Hera at the opening of Book II (examined below).

§25 Hera’s concession to Zeus at the conclusion of Iliad I suggests the possibility of a reconciliation between the divine couple. As the sun sets, the two lie down in bed together, but Zeus does not sleep. Rather, as Zeus lies next to Hera, he ponders nightlong how he can fulfill the promise he has made to Thetis. Zeus is clear: he wants to think and act alone, autonomously, even autocratically. But his capacity for autonomy is already belied by his immediate response to Thetis’ supplication. Whatever he wishes, it seems, he must first account for Hera.

§26 As he lies awake next to his wife, Zeus contrives a “destructive dream” (οὖλον ὄνειρον, II 6) with which to trick Agamemnon. The dream suggests an impossible fantasy in which Hera and Thetis exchange roles:

. . . οὐ γὰρ ἔτ’ ἀμφὶς Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες ἀθάνατοι φράζονται: ἐπέγναμψεν γὰρ ἅπαντας Ἥρη λισσομένη, Τρώεσσι δὲ κήδε’ ἐφῆπται. . . . For no longer are the gods who live on Olympos arguing the matter, since Hera [bent] them . . . by her supplication, and evils are in store for the Trojans.’ (II 13-15)

This ruinous dream conflates and turns upside-down Zeus’ two most recent encounters with Thetis and Hera. Hera, not Thetis, becomes the supplicant. Instead of facing her rebuke in front of all the Olympian gods (as he did only moments ago, when he was fully awake), Zeus now imagines his sovereign wife Hera kneeling humbly before him and indeed all the Olympian gods in supplication. [23] It is a preposterous vision. (Agamemnon, the intended receiver of this peculiar delusion, is for his own reasons, perhaps, particularly gullible. He too may fantasize that his sovereign wife would bow before him in supplication.) The rare verb ἐπιγνάμπτω (“curve, bend”), seen just above at I 569, appears once again here at II 14 to signify that the whole community of gods bends (ἐπέγναμψεν) its will to Hera’s solicitous appeal. Earlier, it was Hera who, under threat of violence, bent her heart, at least momentarily, to Zeus’ will. Now, as Zeus encourages Agamemnon to dream, the gods bow to Hera.

§27 Zeus’ vision of the supplicant Hera captures a certain truth. Certainly, Hera wants Zeus to think with her, collaboratively and consensually; she persistently reminds him of what “all the gods” approve or not. [24] Ultimately, her vision represents something fundamentally new in the divine modus vivendi . Zeus intuits rightly that Hera seeks change on Olympus. When Hera addresses her husband as “son of Kronos” (I 552) she invokes not only their common father, Kronos, but also the whole narrative of their shared genealogy. [25] Kronos and his father Ouranos, like Zeus, imagined themselves to be wholly autonomous, oppressing their divine partners, “burying” their offspring, either literally or figuratively. But they were not in fact autonomous, as the mythic history makes plain. Kronos and Ouranos were overthrown by the collusion of their oppressed spouses and children, as Zeus, son of Kronos, knows all too well. The present agon between Hera and Zeus in Iliad I thus reverberates powerfully with–and against–this shared genealogical and political inheritance. The tension between them is only the latest iteration of the old, mythic conflict between the patriarch’s desire for absolute autonomy and his partner’s desire to be recognized, to be seen, as “other.” [26] Zeus cannot simply engulf and assimilate Hera into himself, as if she were another Metis. In order to end the ancestral curse of the Theogony , the married gods must actually come to terms with each other as others .

§28 In some sense, it is possible to say (although not adequately in this limited essay), that the narrative of the Iliad absorbs the tumultuous mythic history of the Theogony precisely in order to transform it. Hera and Zeus will change the model of divine partnership they have inherited–mainly through Hera’s efforts. It is Hera who repeatedly insists that Zeus cannot simply act as he alone wills. It is she who reminds him, repeatedly, “not all the rest of us gods will approve” (IV 29, XVI 443). Athena, Hera’s handmaiden throughout the Iliad , picks up Hera’s phrase and echoes it herself (XXII 181) when Zeus hesitates over the imminent death of Hektor. [27] In sum, Hera alone is forceful enough, wily enough, and seductive enough to keep Zeus from repeating his forefathers’ political blunders.

§29 It is indeed possible to see the entire action of the Iliad as a working out of new politics for Olympus, a system that David Elmer calls a “poetics of consent.” Hera is essential to the creation of this new divine order–which is to say, a stable and functional form of polytheism. The form of thought and feeling she awakens in her epiphanies induces a recognition of a reality that is larger than even a god’s ego. Thus, after Hera seduces her husband Zeus in Book XIV, he too imagines a new possibility, a vision of godhood that is larger than autocratic rule:

εἰ μὲν δὴ σύ γ’ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη ἶσον ἐμοὶ φρονέουσα μετ’ ἀθανάτοισι καθίζοις, τώ κε Ποσειδάων γε, καὶ εἰ μάλα βούλεται ἄλλῃ, αἶψα μεταστρέψειε νόον μετὰ σὸν καὶ ἐμὸν κῆρ. If even you, lady Hera of the ox eyes, hereafter were to take your place among the immortals thinking [equally with me] , then Poseidon, hard though he may wish it otherwise, must at once turn his mind so it follows your heart, and my heart. (XV 49-52)

Zeus here proposes that unity of thought (ἶσον. . . φρονέουσα, XV 50) between himself and Hera may also change the mind (νόον, XV 52) of a different rival, Poseidon. After Hera, Poseidon is the god who most openly resists being absorbed into the mind of Zeus (Διὸς . . . φρεσίν, XV 194). In their post-coital rapprochement, Zeus and Hera begin to forge for the first time, it seems, a new Olympian unity, a comity of purpose and thought, one that is rooted in the same-mindedness of the goddess and her husband. Zeus now accepts the influence of Hera in his phrénes ; she may enter there when she wills.

§30 Immediately following this scene of rapprochement, Hera travels from Ida to Olympus in order to bend the communal will to Zeus’ vision. A simile expresses Hera’s exultation:

ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἀΐξῃ νόος ἀνέρος, ὅς τ’ ἐπὶ πολλὴν γαῖαν ἐληλουθὼς φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσι νοήσῃ ἔνθ’ εἴην ἢ ἔνθα, μενοινήῃσί τε πολλά, ὣς κραιπνῶς μεμαυῖα διέπτατο πότνια Ἥρη. As the thought flashes in the mind of a man who, traversing much territory, thinks of things in the mind’s awareness ‘I wish I were this place, or this’, and imagines many things; so rapidly in her eagerness winged Hera, a goddess. (XV 80-83)

The simile suggests that Hera’s distinctive mode of being is an epiphanic one, in which she manifests herself as an uncanny and rapidly arriving thought in the phrénes (XV 81) . So, as we have already observed, she exerted her influence in the phrénes of Achilles at I 55 and of Agamemnon at VIII 218. So, too, she enters the communal phrénes of Olympus.

§31 From this point forward in the Iliad ’s narrative , Zeus no longer rules unilaterally. Hera thinks with him in all the crucial divine action that follows. Thus, she clearly presides with Zeus over the death of Sarpedon (XVI 431-461); she negotiates with him, likewise, the divine response to Achilles’ desecration of Hektor’s corpse (XXIV 55-76), even as she offers comfort to Thetis’ phrén (XXIV 101-102).

Bibliography

Aloni-Ronen, N. 2013. Marrying Hera: Incomplete Integration in the Making of the Pantheon . Centre Pour l’édition électronique Ouverte (Cléo).

Chantraine, P. 1968, 1970, 1975, 1977, 1980. Dictionnaire étymologique de la Langue Grecque I, II, III, IV-1, IV-2. Paris.

Clark, Isabelle. 1998. “The Gamos of Hera: Myth and Ritual.” In The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece , ed. S. Blundell and M. Williamson. New York.

Cook, Arthur Bernard. 1906. “Who Was the Wife of Zeus?” The Classical Review 20.7:365-78.

———. 1906. “Who Was the Wife of Zeus? (Continued).” The Classical Review 20.8:416-419.

Cowan, Louise. 1995. “Hera.” In The Olympians , ed. Joanne Stroud. Dallas, 15-28.

Downing, Christine. 2007. The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine . New York.

Dutra, John. 1966. Hera: Literary Evidence Of Her Origin And Development As A Fertility Goddess . Dissertation.

Elmer, David F. 2013. The Poetics of Consent: Collective Decision Making and the Iliad . Baltimore.

Frame, Douglas. 1978. The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic . New Haven.

———. 2010. Hippota Nestor. Cambridge, Mass.

Fridh-Haneson, B. 1988. Hera’s Wedding on Samos: A Change of Paradigms. Svenska Institutet I Athen, Skriftner Utgivna 38:205-213.

Gladstone, W. E. 1888. “The Homeric Herê.” The Contemporary Review 53:181-198.

Homer. Iliad . 1902. Books 1-12, ed. Monro. 3rd ed. Oxford. http://homer.library.northwestern.edu/html/application.html

Homer. Iliad. 1902. Books 13-24, ed. Monro. 3rd ed. Oxford. http://homer.library.northwestern.edu/html/application.html

———. Iliad. 1951/1961. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Chicago.

Kardara, Chrysoula. 1960. “Problems of Hera’s Cult-Images.” American Journal of Archaeology 64.4:343.

Kerényi, K. 1975. Zeus and Hera: Archetypal Image of Father, Husband, and Wife. Princeton.

Martin, Richard P. 1989. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad . Ithaca.

Muellner, Leonard. 1996. The Anger of Achilles: Mēnis in Greek Epic . Ithaca.

Nagy, Gregory. 1979/1999. The Best of the Achaeans . Baltimore.

———. 1990. Greek Mythology and Poetics . Ithaca.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1886/2001. Beyond Good and Evil . Trans. Judith Norman. Cambridge.

O’Brien, Joan V. 1991. “Homer’s Savage Hera.” Classical Journal 86:105-205.

———. 1993. The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad . Lanham.

Padel, Ruth. 1992. In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self . Princeton.

Pirenne-Delforge, V., and Pironti, G. 2009. “La Féminité des Déesses à l’épreuve des épiclèses : Le cas d’Héra.” In La Religion des Femmes en Grèce Ancienne. Mythes, Cultes, Société , ed. L. Bodiou and V. Mehl, 95-109. Rennes.

Renehan, R. 1974. “Hera As Earth-Goddess: A New Piece Of Evidence.” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 117 (3/4):193-201.

Slater, P.E. 1971. The Glory of Hera: Greek Mythology and the Greek Family. Boston.

Slatkin, Laura M. 1987. “Genre and Generation in the Odyssey .” ΜΗΤΙΣ 2 (2):259-268.

———. 1991. The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad . Berkeley.

Waldstein, Charles. 1901. “The Argive Hera of Polycleitus.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 21:30-44.

Whitman, Cedric H. 1970. “Hera’s Anvils.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 74:37-42.

Wright, James C. 1982. The Old Temple Terrace at the Argive Heraeum and the Early Cult of Hera in the Argolid. Journal of Hellenic Studies 102:186-201.

[1] English translations, except when indicated with square brackets, are Lattimore’s.

[2] See Padel 1992, 20-24 for a careful consideration of phrén and phrénes in ancient Greek tragedy and Nagy 1990, 92 for a discussion of these terms in Indo-European myth and poetics more generally.

[3] Chantraine, s.v., φρήν, affirms its relation with εὔφρην.

[4] A more or less complete list of references available in English, only a few of which pertain directly to the Homeric Hera, can be enumerated quickly here, in chronological order: Gladstone 1888, Waldstein 1901; Cook 1906; Kardara 1960; Dutra 1965; Whitman 1970; Renehan 1974; Kerényi 1975; Wright 1982; Fridh-Haneson 1988; O’Brien 1991; Slater 1992; O’Brien 1993; Cowan 1995; Clark 1998; Aloni-Ronen 1998. Refreshing new perspectives on Hera are beginning to appear in French, however. See especially Pirenne and Ponti 2009.

[5] O’Brien 1990-91, 105, 106.

[6] Downing 2007, 20, 21.

[7] Padel 1992, 18.

[8] Padel 1992, 21.

[9] Chantraine, s.v. φρήν, suggests the possibility of an etymological connection between the verb φράζω and the noun φρήν, a word we have seen repeatedly associated with Hera in the earlier verses of Book I (as quoted above). In his notes on the verb φράζω, Chantraine notably qualifies his suggestion, however: “Simple possibilité, mais sémantiquement satisfaisante.” (“Simple possibility, but semantically satisfying.”)

[11] Elmer 2013, 75.

[12] Athena behaves more consistently as Hera’s agent than on her own initiative or as Zeus’ agent in the Iliad ––but space constraints here prohibit further comment.

[13] See especially II 16-270.

[14] Slatkin 1991, 68-70. See also Muellner 1996, 119-122.

[15] Pindar, Isthmian 8.27-55. See also Iliad XVIII 432-434.

[16] Nagy 1979, 346.

[17] My thinking here is influenced by Douglas Frame’s studies of Indo-European twin myths: Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic (1978) and Hippota Nestor (2010).

[18] See Nagy 1979, 74-76 for the correlation of this term, λοίγια, with the mēnis theme .

[19] All but one of these words (νοήσῃς) derives from phrén . (Chantraine, s.v.)

[20] Martin 1989 defines muthos in Homeric epic as a deliberate and public form of speech, “indicating authority, performed at length, usually in public, with a focus on full attention to every detail.” (12). See also his discussion of this scene at 57-58.

[21] See also Louise Cowan 1995.

[22] Muellner 1996, 144-5 (fn 27) notes that its metaphoric uses are always connected to the mēnis theme.

[23] See also VIII 10 where Zeus arrogates to himself the will of all the Olympian gods.

[24] IV 29, IV 62-3, XVI 443

[25] Slatkin 1987 and Muellner 1996 have laid the groundwork for explorations in this vein, in which Hesiod’s Theogony may be read as a “proem” to the Iliad .

[26] Kerényi 1975 proposes that Hera and Zeus, as divine siblings and spouses, occupy a numinous metaphysical threshold, one that links Being with Becoming––or, as he puts it, joins “motionless unity . . . on the one hand, and forward movement by proliferation into children, on the other.” 113.

[27] See Elmer 2013, esp. 148-50.

Study at Cambridge

About the university, research at cambridge.

• Undergraduate courses
• Events and open days
• Fees and finance
• Postgraduate courses
• How to apply
• Postgraduate events
• Fees and funding
• International students
• Continuing education
• Executive and professional education
• Courses in education
• How the University and Colleges work
• Term dates and calendars
• Visiting the University
• Annual reports
• Equality and diversity
• A global university
• Public engagement
• Give to Cambridge
• For Cambridge students
• For our researchers
• Business and enterprise
• Colleges & departments
• Email & phone search
• Museums & collections
• Research Projects

• Cavendish Astrophysics
• About Us overview
• Directions and Contacts overview
• Battcock Centre for Experimental Astrophysics
• MRAO Lord's Bridge
• Astronomy in Cambridge
• The Battcock Centre
• People overview
• Staff/Postdoctoral Fellows
• Emeritus Staff and Visitors
• Previous Emeritus Visitors
• Research overview
• Research Activities overview
• Big Data/Exascale Astronomy
• Radio Cosmology
• Cosmic Microwave Background
• Exoplanets overview
• Research and Instrumentation
• Job Opportunities overview
• Meetings & Conferences overview
• Weekly Exoplanet Seminars
• Weekly group meeting
• Past conferences
• Galaxy Formation and Evolution overview
• PhD Projects
• Optical Technology
• Star Formation
• Theoretical Cosmology and Gravitational Physics
• Research Projects overview
• SKA telescope
• ALMA overview
• Atacama Large Millimetre Array
• AMI overview
• AMI Local Resources
• AMI Technical Information
• AMI Science
• PAPER and HERA
• REACH overview
• REACH in a nutshell
• Who are we?
• Data analysis
• Papers and public memos
• Variable Dielectric Delay Lines in Liquid Crystals for Phased Array Feeds
• Research Facilities overview
• Surveys and Catalogues overview
• AMI Galactic Plane Survey
• GMRT overview
• GMRT Spitzer FLS
• GMRT ELAIS-N1
• GMRT Lockman Hole
• GMRT ELAIS-N2
• Variability studies
• Galactic SNRs
• Software for Astrophysics overview
• CosmoNet overview
• CosmoNet Downloads
• Arcminute Microkelvin Imager
• PhD Positions overview
• Available areas/topics for 2024 Entry
• Graduate Admission Procedures for 2024 Entry
• Graduate Admissions Timetable for 2024 Entry
• Notes on Funding
• Jobs and Research Opportunities overview
• Summer and Work Experience Placements
• Administration overview
• Meeting Room Bookings
• Out of Hours Register
• Group Calendar
• Absence Diary
• University Financial Regulations
• Computing overview
• AP Group theses
• Research Activities
• Research Facilities

Cosmic reionization corresponds to the epoch in which the first stars  and black holes reionize the neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) that pervades the Universe following recombination, within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang. The epoch of reionization, and the preceding ‘dark ages’ prior to the formation of the first stars, represent the last unexplored phases of cosmic evolution to be tested and explored.  Scientists at the Cavendish Astrophysics Group are involved in a major international program to explore this ‘last frontier’ in observational cosmology, using the unique properties of the 21cm emission line from neutral Hydrogen. Direct observation of the large scale structure of the primordial IGM, and its evolution with time, via the HI 21cm line will have a profound impact on our understanding of the birth of the first galaxies and black holes, their influence on the surrounding gas, and cosmology.

The Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization is an array of 128 dipole elements operating between 120MHz and 180MHz, corresponding to HI redshifts between 11 and 7 (universal age between 0.4 Myr and 0.8Myr).  The array is situated in the very low terrestrial interference environment of the SKA site in the Karoo region of South Africa. The array grid-design (Fig.1) exploits our new understanding of the chromatic response of an interferometer to perform an optimal statistical (power spectrum) search for the HI 21cm signal, while avoiding the strong radio continuum foreground emission that would otherwise overwhelm the cosmic HI signal. PAPER has currently set the best limits to the HI signal from reionization (Fig.2). PAPER has also produced unprecedented wide field images of the radio sky at 120MHz to 150MHz (Fig.3). In the next two years, we will obtain deep cosmological integrations with PAPER with the potential to make the first detection of the HI 21cm signal from cosmic reionization.

Cavendish Reionization Team

Prof. Chris Carilli: project lead at Cavendish

Irina Stefan: Imaging and calibration analysis

Dr. Nima Razavi-Ghods: Field engineering, deployment, testing

Dr. Jack Hickish: Digital design

Prof. Paul Alexander: oversight and science

Dr. Eloy de Lera Acedo: Array Antenna design, RF and EM modelling, Calibration

Lindley Lentati: Bayesian power spectral analysis

Peter Sims: 21cm and continuum sky simulations

Selected publications

• New Limits on 21cm EoR From PAPER-32 Consistent with an X-Ray Heated IGM at z=7.7 , Parsons et al., 2014, arXiv:1304.4991
• What Next-generation 21 cm Power Spectrum Measurements can Teach us About the Epoch of Reionization , Pober et al. 2014, ApJ, 782, L66
• A Flux Scale for Southern Hemisphere 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Experiments , Jacobs et al. 2013, ApJ, 776, 108
• Opening the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Window: Measurements of Foreground Isolation with PAPER , Pober et al. 2013, ApJ, 68, L36
• Imaging on PAPER: Centaurus A at 148 MHz , Stefan et al. 2013, MNRAS, 432, 1205
• A Per-baseline, Delay-spectrum Technique for Accessing the 21 cm Cosmic Reionization Signature , Parsons et al. 2012, ApJ, 756, 165
• Bright Source Subtraction Requirements for Redshifted 21 cm Measurements , Datta, Bowman, Carilli 2010, 724, 526

Upcoming Talks

Evolution of Galaxy Structure in the rest-NIR as revealed by JWST/NIRCam: What changes and what doesn't?

Cosmic String Radiation: the Importance of Curvature

Clustering of primordial black holes from quantum diffusion during inflation

Battcock Centre for Experimental Astrophysics Cavendish Laboratory JJ Thomson Avenue Cambridge CB3 0HE

Site Privacy & Cookie Policies

Quick links.

Cavendish Laboratory

Institute of Astronomy

Kavli Institute for Cosmology

© 2024 University of Cambridge

• Contact the University
• Accessibility
• Freedom of information
• Privacy policy and cookies
• Statement on Modern Slavery
• Terms and conditions
• University A-Z
• Undergraduate
• Postgraduate
• Research news
• About research at Cambridge
• Spotlight on...

Hawai‘i Educational Research Association

President  Richard C. Seder Vice President  Susan Saka Treasurer  Michael-Brian Ogawa Past President  Thanh Truc Nguyen Membership Secretary  Jerelyn Watanabe Recording Secretary  Sylvia Hussey Board Members Sean Mosier, Keala Fukuda Executive Director  Martha Crosby

• College of Liberal Arts
• Humanities Education and Research Association (HERA)

For more information, please contact

Lead editor:  dr. edmund cueva ( [email protected] ), executive editor: dr. ronald weber ( [email protected] ), co-editor: dr. terri tomaszek ( [email protected] ),    interdisciplinary humanities: upcoming issues, spring 2024:  designing our future: humanities-centered teaching, learning, and thinking in the 21st century.

Katy Hanggi, Chair & Associate Professor, Dept. of Focused Inquiry, Virginia Commonwealth University

Julianna Grabianowski, Assistant Professor of Business, Doane University

Jared List, Associate Professor of Spanish, Doane University

What does the future hold for the humanities? Now, perhaps more than ever, the humanities have the opportunity and the urgency to innovate and adapt to the shifting dimensions of the twenty-first century. The humanities provide valuable habits of minds and skills that prepare students for their professional and personal lives. They teach us about the human condition: how we relate to each other; how we understand and work with differing perspectives; how we express ourselves; how we act ethically; and, how we better come to know ourselves. The disciplined university has traditionally organized the humanities within majors, minors, certificates, and general education courses. This structure creates silos where subjects are taught within a particular discipline with an occasional slippage into other disciplines. With the increasing corporatization of the university and the shrinking of higher education, the humanities have become subject to market forces and student demand, positioning academics to continually demonstrate the “value” of their program, degree, or course.

To push against this rigid structure, some colleges and universities are being creative and innovative with the humanities. Some are trying to infuse the humanities in places where traditionally they have been absent, and some are preconception and repackaging them. For example, how do the humanities give us a roadmap to determine the ethical boundaries of the non-human, cyborgian networks of knowledge generated by artificial intelligence? Or, how does the growing emphasis on incorporating multidisciplinary “real-world” problem-solving in general education courses demonstrate the necessity of humanities thinking?

Thus, this special issue which aims to highlight the strategies and unique ways in which we are adapting and responding to the shifts in higher education. What we note is rather than a focus on disciplinary content, we see an emerging emphasis on humanities thinking and its “real-world” application. We have obstacles to confront and many possibilities before us. For example, the pandemic has shown that higher education can pivot quickly, and with those changes, many of us are seeing the speed of change continue to increase amidst the challenges colleges and universities face. Do we continue to operate within and make small changes to the siloed structures that have defined the American university? Or can we imagine new configurations and ways of thinking about our disciplines, courses, and pedagogies that empower us to design our futures? 

Accordingly, we invite scholars to contribute essays that engage with the following questions:

• How do we center the humanities in interdisciplinary work through meaningful and productive collaborations?
• How do we design humanities courses or programs that generate student interest and demonstrate their value?
• How do we survive the shrinking of higher education amidst an unknown future?
• In what ways can the humanities be positioned as central to institutions’ strategic priorities?
• How can we capitalize on higher education’s emphasis on experiential learning and career preparedness to strengthen our offerings?
• How can innovative pedagogies inform new approaches to the humanities?
• How can online learning be leveraged to extend the reach of what the humanities tell us how to relate to another?
• How does the growth of generative AI impact humanities education in productive, innovative ways?
• What are institutions’ creative responses to the obstacles of interdisciplinarity?
• How do we prepare graduate students for a higher education landscape that is unlikely to provide them with full-time employment in academia?
• How are community colleges drawing connections between the humanities and workforce readiness?

  Proposal Submission Guidelines and Process

Submit essay proposals to [email protected] by Friday, April 26, 2024 , including the following information:

• Proposed essay title
• Abstract of 250 words
• Name(s) of author(s) and academic affiliation(s)
• Brief bio(s) (100 words of less) of author(s)

Essay Guidelines

Essays will meet the following norms:

• 5,000 to 7,000 words (including notes)
• double spaced, 12-points Times New Roman font, 1” fully-justified margins
• adheres to latest version of The Chicago Manual of Style
• Endnotes only (notes should show full citations followed by shortened citations for the same sources; single-spaced and 10-points Times New Roman font))
• no bibliography
• quotes over three lines in length need to be in a free-standing block of text with no quotation marks, indented on the left side of the block, and starting the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2 inch from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing;
• permissions to reprint images and illustrations, if any, are the responsibility of the author and should be arranged for and paid before submitting the article;
• sent electronically in MS Word file to editors

  Important Dates and Timeline

• Essay proposals deadline: Friday, April 26, 2024
• Notification of accepted essay proposals: Friday, May 10, 2024
• Completed essay deadline: Friday, September 20, 2024
• Anticipated publication: Spring/Summer 2025

Fall 2023: Playable Culture: How Videogames Mirror, Critique, Build, and Unmake the World

Videogames are participatory, artificial dramas that occur in virtual space within some permutation of iterative time. As the newest addition to a wider textual ecology, they braid together the familiar tropes of existing narrative media with interactive mechanics so that players exist in a liminal zone straddling fiction and action. Videogame narratives are thus tied to player decision-making and physical input, and this narrative agency asks players to challenge existing paradigms and taxonomies: To reconsider such questions as who we are; where we are heading as individuals and as a species; and who we are relative to the natural and algorithmic structures in which we are enmeshed. Unlike other media for which we are interpreters and voyeurs, videogames ask us to participate in—and thus to co-author—the stories around us, individually and collectively. The essays in this special issue delve deeply into many of these complications, including our relationship to our bodies and our subjectivity; our relationship with time, space, mortality, and eternity; and what our human productions say about who we are and where we are heading.

  Guest Editor:  Saramanda Swigart - The College of San Mateo and San Francisco State University ( [email protected] )

  Abstract Word limit:   150-300 words

  Deadline:  March 31, 2024

Spring 2022: Special Performance edition of Interdisciplinary Humanities,  “Performance in the Humanities”

Deadline: Oct 31, 2023

Word limit: 6000 words.

This special edition will investigate how performance shapes our experience of the humanities. In the four decades since NYU offered the first degree in “Performance Studies,” the advent of the internet and social media has changed the way we study, create, teach, learn, and identify ourselves.  Performance forms and platforms have multiplied and facilitated one of the most contentious political cycles in American history, public upheavals demanding social justice, and new thresholds of mis and disinformation. How are these performance platforms shaping our experience and understanding of the world? With so much at stake for our students, this is the right time to reflect upon the role performance is playing in meaning-making. We invite papers that explore performance in all its manifestations. Send submissions to:

Kim Abunuwara - Humanities Program Director at Utah Valley University

[email protected]

Fall 2021: Myth and Art

Deadline for Submissions: March 31, 2022

Guest Editors: Edmund Cueva and Anna Tahinci

“Myth and Art” will explore the interrelation of the multiple functions of myth, literature, and art, as well as the interpretation of mythological narratives and their visual depictions. The main approach will be inter-textual and inter-media in nature and the contributors will grapple with and attempt to answer several questions: How do artists incorporate myths into their own works of art? How are the combinations of myth and art interpreted by ancient and modern day spectators? Are there differences and similarities in those interpretations? What factors (psychological, religious, political, financial, etc.) influenced the selection of the myth and the artistic medium? Although the overarching theme of this special issue is to determine why artists selected certain myths and rejected others, universal themes will be included within their historical, political, economic, sociological, conceptual, and aesthetic contexts. For example, understanding art in conjunction with literature will enable the contributors to write about the true meaning of humanity and how one maintains personal freedom and dignity in an increasingly technological world. In addition to making the readers of the special issue cognizant of the role of art and literature in their lives, they will also be motivated to think, to find new ways of problem solving, and to build a strategy for argumentation through myth and art. 

Spring 2021:  Special Issue: “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization”

The months of May and June, 2020, saw unprecedented global protests against anti-Black racism and calls for a more equitable and just society that recognizes the humanity and lives of people of African descent. While these protests initially originated across the United States, protesters around the world quickly galvanized in support of these issues organizing events in a growing number of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Haiti, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia and Japan. This has been an important moment for Black scholars, activists, and cultural producers everywhere—as well as their friends and allies—to reflect not only on the crisis that has marked Black lives, but also on our future possibilities.

To facilitate these and other conversations, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites papers on research pertaining to the theme of “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization.” This timely special issue aims to include papers that capture forms of African descendants’ resistance against the tyranny of white supremacy across multiple continents. The scope of this issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Black art, literatures, music, media, and cultures
• Transnational activism/resistance in all its forms
• Black Psychology/Black self-care/Black joy
• Black subjectivities and experiences in academia
• Black Feminisms/Womanism
• Recovering Black histories/identities
• African religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
• Black political participation and engagement

The deadline for complete papers (4000-6000 words) is January 1, 2021. Please send inquiries and submissions to [email protected] . Decisions on publication will be made by March 31, 2021.

The guest editors of the special issue are Sarita Cannon ([email protected]), Andrea Davis ([email protected] ), and Crystal Guillory ( [email protected] ).  

Fall 2020: Latinx Identities

The Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites abstracts on the status of academic research and interest regarding individuals and communities that identify as Latinx, for consideration in a special issue focused on Latinx identities. This scope of this special issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Below are listed some possible topics that may be addressed in the abstracts:

• Race and ethnicity
• Identity formation and the media
• Transnational activism/resistance and the media
• Movements and flows of people and Diaspora: local, regional, national, and international
• Technological and digital presences
• Media, citizenship, and belonging
• Immigration and Family
• Naming Latinx communities
• Latino subjectivities and experiences in academia
• Afro-Latinidades and Indigenous Latinidades / non-mestizo Latino identities
• Histories of race and racialization
• Cross-racial coalition-building
• Intra-group tensions, regionalism, ethno-nationalism
• Latino histories in the curriculum
• Latina feminisms
• Recovering Latino histories/identities
• Neoliberalism, immigration, and labor
• The end of the wet foot, dry foot policy
• Latinx religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
• Latinx representation in the US Census
• Latinx political participation and engagement
• Urban planning and gentrification
• Latinx art, literature, music, media, and culture

The list included above is meant to give a sense of the types of scholarship that will be included in the special issue. The deadline for abstract submission is July 1, 2020 and decisions on publication will not be made until the full drafts are in and have been peer reviewed. The guest editors will invite full texts by July 31, 2020; the full drafts will be due on December 1, 2020. The review process for all submissions will be double-blind.

The abstracts should be 400 to 500 words in length. A brief autobiographical blurb should accompany the abstract. 

The guest editors of this special issue are Dr. Bonnie Lucero ( [email protected] ), Dr. Orquidea Morales ( [email protected] ), and Dr. Ed Cueva ( cueva [email protected] ). Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Spring 2020: Motherhood in the Arts and Humanities

Guest Editor: Lee Ann Westman

Deadline for submissions: March 1, 2020.

The spring 2020 issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities examines how mothers and motherhood has been represented in fine art, crafts, literature, music, theatre, and popular culture. We invite essays that consider motherhood archetypes in the arts, mothers of color in the arts, immigrant mothers in the arts, queer mothers in the arts, representations of surrogate mothers and mothers who have adopted, motherhood on social media, motherhood memoirs and blogs, representations of mothers in art and photography, the absent mother and/or the step-mother in film and television, and more. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to Lee Ann Westman at [email protected] .

Fall 2019: Art, Activism and the Practice of Dissent 

Guest Editors: Wendy Chase and Elijah Pritchett (Florida SouthWestern State College)

This edition of  Interdisciplinary Humanities  will explore the complex terrain of artistic dissent and activism as both a contemporary practice and a tradition. How is artistic dissent visualized, enacted, performed, disseminated? In what ways have artists responded--in various cultural contexts and from various subject positions--to authoritarianism, income inequality, environmental, racial and sexual injustice? How do artists, curators, and academics situate themselves within broader movements of dissent, activism and culture at large?  How do modern strategies of dissent replicate, or diverge from, earlier approaches to artistic resistance?    And ultimately, how effective is artistic dissent? We invite scholars, artists and activists to contribute papers that relate to these or related questions in the areas of art, activism and dissent.  Inquiries and submissions should be sent to Wendy Chase at wendy [email protected] and Elijah Pritchett at [email protected]

Donate to the Humanities Education and Research Association

Connect With Us

The University of Texas at El Paso Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal Kelly Hall 223C 500 W. University El Paso, Texas 79968

E: [email protected] P: (915) 747 -5835

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

On the Cult of Hera at Olympia

Related Papers

frank herfert

Compilation of articles on motor-fan.jp in 2023 36 pages 1. Its name is "8C type"! Mazda Rotary is back! MX-30 PHEV model "e-SKYACTIV R-EV" Published on 2023/01/13 2 pages Page 2 2. Mazda's new rotary "Model 8C" / How is 13A related to 16X? Published Date 2023/04/15 Kota Sera 4 pages Page 4 3. The Mazda 8C Rotary is a "new rotary engine that pursues the ideal" newly developed using the technology cultivated at SKYACTIV [Internal Combustion Engine Super Basic Course] Published 2023/09/14 Kota Sera 11 pages Page 8 4. A special engine that only Mazda can build, the 8C rotary, is thus built Published 2023/10/08 Kota Sera 7 pages Page 19 5. New Generation Rotary: Mazda 8C, Complete Explanation (excerpt only) Motor Fan Illustrated Vol.204 Release Date: 15. September 2023 Kota Sera 11 pages Page 26 Numeric values are not necessarily correct - translations by browser have included a lot of confusions, e.g. like "2023-rotor ... MX-1 ... in 30". And price tags have been irritating using e.g. "<>" ... german keywords: Wankelmotor / Kreiskolbenmotor English Keywords: Wankel Engine / Wankel Rotary Engine / Rotary Piston Engine / Rotary Combustion Engine

Isotopes in environmental and health studies

Gerhard Strauch

souvenir kantor malang

vendor souvenir ekslusif

KONSULTASI SEKARANG https://wa.me/6282131087971 toko souvenir tumbler Malang, toko souvenir botol minuman Malang, toko souvenir botol tumbler Malang, toko souvenir tumbler stainless Malang, toko tumbler untuk souvenir Malang, toko botol minum custom murah Malang, toko souvenir botol minum Malang https://lynk.id/yakayasouvenir Temukan souvenir tumbler terbaik untuk mengesankan rekan kerja dan klien Anda di acara kantor. Souvenir berkualitas tinggi yang akan diingat selamanya. kami melayani cinderamata unik untuk pernikahan, cinderamata untuk kantor, cinderamata untuk wisuda, contoh souvenir untuk kantor, contoh souvenir untuk pernikahan, contoh souvenir untuk perusahaan, makanan untuk souvenir Kami dapat mengirim pesanan ke seluruh kota di Indonesia di antaranya : Ende, Flores Timur, Aceh Barat, Aceh Barat Daya, Aceh Besar, Aceh Jaya, Aceh Selatan, Aceh Singkil, Aceh Tamiang, Aceh Tengah, Aceh Tenggara, Aceh Timur, Aceh Utara, Agam, Alor, Ambon, Asahan, Asmat, Badung , Balangan, Malang, Banda Aceh, Bandar Lampung, Bandung, Bandung Barat Kami menerima pemesanan souvenir dari dinas arsip dan perpustakaan, dinas perpustakaan dan kearsipan, dinas perpustakaan umum dan arsip, Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan, Dinas Pemberdayaan Perempuan, Perlindungan Anak, Kependudukan dan Keluarga Berencana KENAPA HARUS KAMI !!! ☑️ Free Konsultasi Anggaran Pengadaan ☑️ Dipercaya Banyak Perusahaan Dan Universitas Di Indonesia ☑️ Pengerjaan Cepat ☑️ Minimum Order Rendah ☑️ Pengiriman Seluruh Indonesia Hubungi kami untuk konsultasi gratis ! CS kami siap membantu ➡️ klik link https://wa.me/6282131087971 https://lynk.id/yakayasouvenir https://vendorekslusifkantor.blogspot.com kami akan membantu mensukseskan acara acara kalian seperti : �� Hampers Ulang Tahun �� Hampers Tasyakuran �� Hampers Baby Shower atau Baby Born �� Hampers Seminar �� Hampers Kantor �� Souvenir Kenang-kenangan �� Souvenir Pindah �� Souvenir Naik Jabatan �� Souvenir Sertijab �� Souvenir Pernikahan, dsb. Kami menyediakan berbagai macam hampers: ��Hampers aqiqoh ​​​​��Hampers ultah elegan, lucuu ��Hampers kantor ��Hampers khitanan ��Hampers event ��Hampers wedding bridesmate, bridal shower Kami menerima Souvenir custom lain: ✅ Powerbank ✅ kaos ✅ flash disk ✅ note book ✅ tumbler ✅ mug ✅ hand sanitizer ✅ tas &amp; clutch #tokosouvenirtumblerMalang, #tokosouvenirbotolminumanMalang, #tokosouvenirbotoltumblerMalang, #tokosouvenirtumblerstainlessMalang, #tokotumbleruntuksouvenirMalang souvenir tumbler Malang, souvenir botol minuman Malang, souvenir botol tumbler Malang, souvenir tumbler stainless Malang, tumbler untuk souvenir Malang, botol minum custom murah Malang, souvenir botol minum Malang, souvenir botol minum custom Malang, tumbler souvenir Malang, tumbler ultah Malang, paket souvenir Malang, paket souvenir kantor Malang, paket souvenir seminar Malang, souvenir seminar kit Malang, paket souvenir perusahaan Malang

Bryan Magwood

Revue d'orthopédie dento-faciale

Inorganic Chemistry

Worood Adel El-Mehalmey

International Journal of Applied Research

Preeti Gazbare

El Cotidiano

Ivan Vivaldi Guas Caceres

Elias Meskelu

The study was conducted at Wondo Genet Agricultural Research Center, SNNP Region, Ethiopia, 7°05’ N latitude, 38°37’ E longitude and 1785 m.a.s.l for two years (2013/14 to 2014/15) based on the objective to evaluate the response of lemongrass (Cymbopogoncitratus (DC) Stapf) to supplementary irrigation (SI) at different levels and different growth stages. Five levels of SI (100, 75, 50, 25% and no SI) and three supplementary irrigation at growth stages (one SI at mid-season, one SI at maturity and two SI at mid-season and maturity stages) with three replications were used in randomized complete block design. Application of supplementary irrigation to lemongrass had a highly significant (p&lt;0.01) effect on fresh biomass, essential oil content and water use efficiency during the first year. Significant (p&lt;0.05) effect was also observed in dry biomass and essential oil yield. However, no significant (p&gt;0.05) effect was observed on number of tiller per hill. Highly significant (p...

Frontiers in Nutrition

Jose Wavreille

We investigated the use of citrus pulp (CP) as a novel prebiotic capable of exerting microbiota and immunomodulating capacities to alleviate weaning stress. Inulin (IN), a well-known prebiotic, was used for comparison. Hundred and 28 male weaned piglets of 21 days old were assigned to 32 pens of 4 piglets each. Piglets were assigned to one of the four treatments, i.e., control, IN supplemented at 0.2% (IN0.2%), and CP supplemented either at 0.2% (CP0.2%) or at 2% (CP2%). On d10–11 and d31–32 post-weaning, one pig per pen was euthanized for intestinal sampling to evaluate the growth performance, chyme characteristics, small intestinal morphology, colonic inflammatory response and barrier integrity, metabolite profiles [gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)], and microbial populations. The IN treatment and the two CP treatments induced higher small intestinal villus height to crypt depth ratios in comparison with the control ...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

BMC Public Health

Fred Bagenda

Andes Pediatrica

Andrea Mira

Current Science

prashant baredar

1比1定做uq学位证书 昆士兰大学毕业证电子版学位证书毕业证认证原版一模一样

Tetrahedron Letters

Stuart Crosby

Transplantation Journal

Patrick Luke

Studia Mundi - Economica

Zita Juhász

Marine Environmental Research

Olivia Langhamer

Wavelet Transforms and Time-Frequency Signal Analysis

Patrick Flandrin

Revista eletrônica de Farmácia

Paulo Roberto Barbosa Evora

Luiz Belluzzo

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

HERA EU Research Agenda

Introducing hera eu research agenda final version.

We are happy to share with you the final version of the EU Research Agenda developed by the HERA project consortium over last two years. It is a result of extensive reviews of current knowledge, policies and activities performed in the environment, health and climate change nexus in the EU. We carried out web-based surveys targeting research communities and stakeholder groups complemented by a series of online and face-to-face consultation meetings, involving hundreds of researchers and other stakeholders (see the acknowledgement page of the final version). The final version of the EU Research Agenda identifies six major research goals in the environment, climate and health fields to be addressed and numerous specific recommendations for research topics. The implementation of and further investigation of the proposed research topics will make a positive change in policies promoting health and the environment. The document is complemented by a glossary to foster a uniform understanding of terms used in the Agenda.

Click to download the HERA Research Agenda Document (Final Version)

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Social justice
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Study models how ketamine’s molecular action leads to its effects on the brain

Press contact :.

Previous image Next image

Ketamine, a World Health Organization Essential Medicine, is widely used at varying doses for sedation, pain control, general anesthesia, and as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. While scientists know its target in brain cells and have observed how it affects brain-wide activity, they haven’t known entirely how the two are connected. A new study by a research team spanning four Boston-area institutions uses computational modeling of previously unappreciated physiological details to fill that gap and offer new insights into how ketamine works.

“This modeling work has helped decipher likely mechanisms through which ketamine produces altered arousal states as well as its therapeutic benefits for treating depression,” says co-senior author Emery N. Brown , the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Medical Engineering at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, as well as an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The researchers from MIT, Boston University (BU), MGH, and Harvard University say the predictions of their model, published May 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , could help physicians make better use of the drug.

“When physicians understand what's mechanistically happening when they administer a drug, they can possibly leverage that mechanism and manipulate it,” says study lead author Elie Adam , a research scientist at MIT who will soon join the Harvard Medical School faculty and launch a lab at MGH. “They gain a sense of how to enhance the good effects of the drug and how to mitigate the bad ones.”

Blocking the door

The core advance of the study involved biophysically modeling what happens when ketamine blocks the “NMDA” receptors in the brain’s cortex — the outer layer where key functions such as sensory processing and cognition take place. Blocking the NMDA receptors modulates the release of excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate.

When the neuronal channels (or doorways) regulated by the NMDA receptors open, they typically close slowly (like a doorway with a hydraulic closer that keeps it from slamming), allowing ions to go in and out of neurons, thereby regulating their electrical properties, Adam says. But, the channels of the receptor can be blocked by a molecule. Blocking by magnesium helps to naturally regulate ion flow. Ketamine, however, is an especially effective blocker.

Blocking slows the voltage build-up across the neuron’s membrane that eventually leads a neuron to “spike,” or send an electrochemical message to other neurons. The NMDA doorway becomes unblocked when the voltage gets high. This interdependence between voltage, spiking, and blocking can equip NMDA receptors with faster activity than its slow closing speed might suggest. The team’s model goes further than ones before by representing how ketamine’s blocking and unblocking affect neural activity.

“Physiological details that are usually ignored can sometimes be central to understanding cognitive phenomena,” says co-corresponding author Nancy Kopell , a professor of mathematics at BU. “The dynamics of NMDA receptors have more impact on network dynamics than has previously been appreciated.”

With their model, the scientists simulated how different doses of ketamine affecting NMDA receptors would alter the activity of a model brain network. The simulated network included key neuron types found in the cortex: one excitatory type and two inhibitory types. It distinguishes between “tonic” interneurons that tamp down network activity and “phasic” interneurons that react more to excitatory neurons.

The team’s simulations successfully recapitulated the real brain waves that have been measured via EEG electrodes on the scalp of a human volunteer who received various ketamine doses and the neural spiking that has been measured in similarly treated animals that had implanted electrode arrays. At low doses, ketamine increased brain wave power in the fast gamma frequency range (30-40 Hz). At the higher doses that cause unconsciousness, those gamma waves became periodically interrupted by “down” states where only very slow frequency delta waves occur. This repeated disruption of the higher frequency waves is what can disrupt communication across the cortex enough to disrupt consciousness.

Previous item Next item

But how? Key findings

Importantly, through simulations, they explained several key mechanisms in the network that would produce exactly these dynamics.

The first prediction is that ketamine can disinhibit network activity by shutting down certain inhibitory interneurons. The modeling shows that natural blocking and unblocking kinetics of NMDA-receptors can let in a small current when neurons are not spiking. Many neurons in the network that are at the right level of excitation would rely on this current to spontaneously spike. But when ketamine impairs the kinetics of the NMDA receptors, it quenches that current, leaving these neurons suppressed. In the model, while ketamine equally impairs all neurons, it is the tonic inhibitory neurons that get shut down because they happen to be at that level of excitation. This releases other neurons, excitatory or inhibitory, from their inhibition allowing them to spike vigorously and leading to ketamine’s excited brain state. The network’s increased excitation can then enable quick unblocking (and reblocking) of the neurons’ NMDA receptors, causing bursts of spiking.

Another prediction is that these bursts become synchronized into the gamma frequency waves seen with ketamine. How? The team found that the phasic inhibitory interneurons become stimulated by lots of input of the neurotransmitter glutamate from the excitatory neurons and vigorously spike, or fire. When they do, they send an inhibitory signal of the neurotransmitter GABA to the excitatory neurons that squelches the excitatory firing, almost like a kindergarten teacher calming down a whole classroom of excited children. That stop signal, which reaches all the excitatory neurons simultaneously, only lasts so long, ends up synchronizing their activity, producing a coordinated gamma brain wave.

“The finding that an individual synaptic receptor (NMDA) can produce gamma oscillations and that these gamma oscillations can influence network-level gamma was unexpected,” says co-corresponding author Michelle McCarthy , a research assistant professor of math at BU. “This was found only by using a detailed physiological model of the NMDA receptor. This level of physiological detail revealed a gamma time scale not usually associated with an NMDA receptor.”

So what about the periodic down states that emerge at higher, unconsciousness-inducing ketamine doses? In the simulation, the gamma-frequency activity of the excitatory neurons can’t be sustained for too long by the impaired NMDA-receptor kinetics. The excitatory neurons essentially become exhausted under GABA inhibition from the phasic interneurons. That produces the down state. But then, after they have stopped sending glutamate to the phasic interneurons, those cells stop producing their inhibitory GABA signals. That enables the excitatory neurons to recover, starting a cycle anew.

Antidepressant connection?

The model makes another prediction that might help explain how ketamine exerts its antidepressant effects. It suggests that the increased gamma activity of ketamine could entrain gamma activity among neurons expressing a peptide called VIP. This peptide has been found to have health-promoting effects, such as reducing inflammation, that last much longer than ketamine’s effects on NMDA receptors. The research team proposes that the entrainment of these neurons under ketamine could increase the release of the beneficial peptide, as observed when these cells are stimulated in experiments. This also hints at therapeutic features of ketamine that may go beyond antidepressant effects. The research team acknowledges, however, that this connection is speculative and awaits specific experimental validation.

“The understanding that the subcellular details of the NMDA receptor can lead to increased gamma oscillations was the basis for a new theory about how ketamine may work for treating depression,” Kopell says.

Additional co-authors of the study are Marek Kowalski, Oluwaseun Akeju, and Earl K. Miller.

The work was supported by the JPB Foundation; The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; The Simons Center for The Social Brain; the National Institutes of Health; George J. Elbaum ’59, SM ’63, PhD ’67; Mimi Jensen; Diane B. Greene SM ’78; Mendel Rosenblum; Bill Swanson; and annual donors to the Anesthesia Initiative Fund.

Share this news article on:

Related links.

• Institute for Medical Engineering and Science
• The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Related Topics

• Pharmaceuticals
• Neuroscience
• Brain and cognitive sciences
• Health sciences and technology
• Health care
• Picower Institute
• Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES)

Related Articles

Anesthesia technology precisely controls unconsciousness in animal tests

Study finds tracking brain waves could reduce post-op complications

3 Questions: Emery Brown on improving anesthesia with neuroscience

Statistical model defines ketamine anesthesia’s effects on the brain

More mit news.

Improving working environments amid environmental distress

Read full story →

A data-driven approach to making better choices

Paying it forward

John Fucillo: Laying foundations for MIT’s Department of Biology

Researchers demonstrate the first chip-based 3D printer

The unexpected origins of a modern finance tool

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

• Get involved

• The politics of inequality pdf (2.2 MB)

The politics of inequality: Why are governance systems not more responsive to the unequal distribution of income and wealth?

The politics of inequality

June 4, 2024

Starting from a theoretical framework that conceptualizes policy outcomes as the result of complex interactions between actors, institutions and discourses, the paper synthesizes global research on the politics of (re)distribution within democratic governance systems.

Four questions are used to structure the surveyed material:  What factors shape preference formation with respect to distribution across different actors? What factors enable or constrain collective action aimed at generating demand for inequality reduction? How do actors with an interest in preserving inequality leverage influence differentials to capture the policy process?  How do institutions and discourses constrain the policy arena to limit the range of possible policy outcomes?

As a synthesis of global research of politics of distribution, the paper is expected to serve as a conceptual springboard for context-specific analysis aimed at generating relevant governance reform agendas. In addition, the paper could be used in a more prospective way in the context of political transitions. It could, for instance, be used as the starting point of risk informed analysis aimed at identifying factors that may prevent democratic openings from delivering hoped-for social and economic justice results.

Document Type

Sustainable development goals, related publications, publications, guidance note on supporting community-based reintegration....

Communities are increasingly recognized as playing a fundamental role in addressing the challenges and opportunities involved in the reintegration of individual...

Pathways to Achieving the Global 10-10-10 HIV Targets

This review focuses on initiatives led by key populations and people living with HIV documented in peer reviewed and grey literature published between January 2...

Breaking the disaster-response cycle in SIDS: Aligning fi...

This policy brief focuses on the specific issue of disaster-response for three reasons. First, the disaster-response cycle describes a well-documented pattern o...

2024 LGBTI Inclusion Index: Report on the Pilot Implement...

This report could be useful for statisticians, national human rights institutions, policymakers, researchers and activists. It elaborates on the key findings an...

Preventing and responding to an HIV-related human rights ...

This updated guidance, jointly released by UNDP and the UNAIDS Secretariat, addresses the escalating challenges posed by HIV-related human rights crises worldwi...

HIV and Health Annual Report 2022-2023 | Halfway to 2030:...

The HIV and Health Annual Report showcases the progress made in the face of profound global turbulence at the halfway mark to Agenda 2030.

June 4, 2024

Winning papers announced for 2024 Population Health Library Research Awards

This award was created in 2017 in partnership with the University of Washington Libraries and is open to undergraduates from all three UW campuses. The projects submitted were completed for either UW course credit or for the Undergraduate Research Program.

The key factors for choosing awardees included the innovativeness of their research hypothesis, the quality of their writing and how well they connected their work to the theme of population health. The following section describes the four awardees, their majors, the titles of their projects and summaries of their projects.

Lindsay Lucenko (Law, Societies, and Justice), "Gender Dynamics in King County Drug Diversion Court: Exploring Experiences and Perspectives"

This research explores the experiences of men and women in the King County Drug Diversion Court, a rehabilitative program for drug-related offenses. Participants undergo a five-phase program with the potential for charge dismissal, but concerns about coercion persist. Participants must maintain sobriety, undergo frequent tests, attend support meetings, communicate with case managers, find employment, and fulfill familial duties.

The study investigates how gender influences these obligations’ fulfillment, especially considering the court’s predominantly male population. Through nine semi-structured interviews, I examined participants’ experiences with the criminal justice system, focusing on gender impacts. Findings reveal nuanced gendered experiences, informing justice system reform. By combining qualitative interviews and existing research, this study sheds light on gender dynamics within the court, contributing to policy and practice for a fairer criminal justice system.

Evelyn Erickson (Chemical Engineering), "Tandem dechlorination and hydrogenolysis of waste PVC plastic into value added chemicals "

Plastic waste is a serious problem with detrimental environmental impacts, within this mixed plastics pose a significant challenge in depolymerization. My project focuses on polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particularly difficult plastic to break down due to the chlorine atom. Chlorine can poison catalysts and release harmful by products like hydrochloric acid or chlorine gas.

I have been working to dechlorinate PVC and then further break down this waste plastic to form value added products. Once dechlorinated PVC becomes a hydrocarbon and can be treated similar to other waste plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene. This tandem dechlorination and depolymerization occur in a single step through a strong amine base and ruthenium catalyst helping to activate the reaction.

Nede Ovbiebo (Pre-science - Biochemistry), "What are the health outcomes of phytochemical supplements versus fruits and vegetables?"

This research stems from concerns about the efficiency of modern diets, which increasingly rely on supplements rather than natural food sources. I analyzed data and reviewed information to compare the effectiveness of phytochemical supplements and whole fruits and vegetables. The study emphasized that while phytochemicals are used in various therapies, their individual effects cannot be compared to the combined benefits of whole foods based on current scientific developments. I have placed the results in a booklet to be printed and disseminated in the future to enable more people to plan their diets wisely and incorporate phytochemicals flexibly into their daily routines.

Hayden Goldberg (Public Health-Global Health, Biochemistry), "An Evaluation of Agricultural Safety and Health in Pesticide Application Technology"

The use of pesticides in the Pacific Northwest is essential in the process of safeguarding public health, most notably by mitigating pests, protecting our food supply, and aiding in produce distribution. However, long-term exposure to pesticides can result in illness for those handling the substances as well as their families. Newer methods, such as aerial drone spraying involve the use of emerging technologies that are poised to change the landscape of the agricultural industry and health outcomes of farmworkers.

This project will be assessing thoughts regarding adoption of these technologies. Through the creation of an electronic survey, I will be obtaining a variety of responses from individuals involved in the application of pesticides on farms. I will then analyze responses both quantitatively and qualitatively. The main objective of my research project is to capture the attitudes of the pesticide application technologies to inform policy, regulations, and decision-making regarding their uses.

Please visit our funding page to learn more about these awards.

What is population health?

Population health is a broad concept encompassing not only the elimination of diseases and injuries, but also the intersecting and overlapping factors that influence health.

Population Health Twitter

Events calendar, be boundless, connect with us:.

© 2024 University of Washington | Seattle, WA

The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value

If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI) , 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey  on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year , with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Alex Singla , Alexander Sukharevsky , Lareina Yee , and Michael Chui , with Bryce Hall , representing views from QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and McKinsey Digital.

Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

AI adoption surges

Interest in generative AI has also brightened the spotlight on a broader set of AI capabilities. For the past six years, AI adoption by respondents’ organizations has hovered at about 50 percent. This year, the survey finds that adoption has jumped to 72 percent (Exhibit 1). And the interest is truly global in scope. Our 2023 survey found that AI adoption did not reach 66 percent in any region; however, this year more than two-thirds of respondents in nearly every region say their organizations are using AI. 1 Organizations based in Central and South America are the exception, with 58 percent of respondents working for organizations based in Central and South America reporting AI adoption. Looking by industry, the biggest increase in adoption can be found in professional services. 2 Includes respondents working for organizations focused on human resources, legal services, management consulting, market research, R&D, tax preparation, and training.

Also, responses suggest that companies are now using AI in more parts of the business. Half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third of respondents in 2023 (Exhibit 2).

Gen AI adoption is most common in the functions where it can create the most value

Most respondents now report that their organizations—and they as individuals—are using gen AI. Sixty-five percent of respondents say their organizations are regularly using gen AI in at least one business function, up from one-third last year. The average organization using gen AI is doing so in two functions, most often in marketing and sales and in product and service development—two functions in which previous research  determined that gen AI adoption could generate the most value 3 “ The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier ,” McKinsey, June 14, 2023. —as well as in IT (Exhibit 3). The biggest increase from 2023 is found in marketing and sales, where reported adoption has more than doubled. Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15 percent or more of respondents.

Gen AI also is weaving its way into respondents’ personal lives. Compared with 2023, respondents are much more likely to be using gen AI at work and even more likely to be using gen AI both at work and in their personal lives (Exhibit 4). The survey finds upticks in gen AI use across all regions, with the largest increases in Asia–Pacific and Greater China. Respondents at the highest seniority levels, meanwhile, show larger jumps in the use of gen Al tools for work and outside of work compared with their midlevel-management peers. Looking at specific industries, respondents working in energy and materials and in professional services report the largest increase in gen AI use.

Investments in gen AI and analytical AI are beginning to create value

The latest survey also shows how different industries are budgeting for gen AI. Responses suggest that, in many industries, organizations are about equally as likely to be investing more than 5 percent of their digital budgets in gen AI as they are in nongenerative, analytical-AI solutions (Exhibit 5). Yet in most industries, larger shares of respondents report that their organizations spend more than 20 percent on analytical AI than on gen AI. Looking ahead, most respondents—67 percent—expect their organizations to invest more in AI over the next three years.

Where are those investments paying off? For the first time, our latest survey explored the value created by gen AI use by business function. The function in which the largest share of respondents report seeing cost decreases is human resources. Respondents most commonly report meaningful revenue increases (of more than 5 percent) in supply chain and inventory management (Exhibit 6). For analytical AI, respondents most often report seeing cost benefits in service operations—in line with what we found last year —as well as meaningful revenue increases from AI use in marketing and sales.

Inaccuracy: The most recognized and experienced risk of gen AI use

As businesses begin to see the benefits of gen AI, they’re also recognizing the diverse risks associated with the technology. These can range from data management risks such as data privacy, bias, or intellectual property (IP) infringement to model management risks, which tend to focus on inaccurate output or lack of explainability. A third big risk category is security and incorrect use.

Respondents to the latest survey are more likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider inaccuracy and IP infringement to be relevant to their use of gen AI, and about half continue to view cybersecurity as a risk (Exhibit 7).

Conversely, respondents are less likely than they were last year to say their organizations consider workforce and labor displacement to be relevant risks and are not increasing efforts to mitigate them.

In fact, inaccuracy— which can affect use cases across the gen AI value chain , ranging from customer journeys and summarization to coding and creative content—is the only risk that respondents are significantly more likely than last year to say their organizations are actively working to mitigate.

Some organizations have already experienced negative consequences from the use of gen AI, with 44 percent of respondents saying their organizations have experienced at least one consequence (Exhibit 8). Respondents most often report inaccuracy as a risk that has affected their organizations, followed by cybersecurity and explainability.

Our previous research has found that there are several elements of governance that can help in scaling gen AI use responsibly, yet few respondents report having these risk-related practices in place. 4 “ Implementing generative AI with speed and safety ,” McKinsey Quarterly , March 13, 2024. For example, just 18 percent say their organizations have an enterprise-wide council or board with the authority to make decisions involving responsible AI governance, and only one-third say gen AI risk awareness and risk mitigation controls are required skill sets for technical talent.

Bringing gen AI capabilities to bear

The latest survey also sought to understand how, and how quickly, organizations are deploying these new gen AI tools. We have found three archetypes for implementing gen AI solutions : takers use off-the-shelf, publicly available solutions; shapers customize those tools with proprietary data and systems; and makers develop their own foundation models from scratch. 5 “ Technology’s generational moment with generative AI: A CIO and CTO guide ,” McKinsey, July 11, 2023. Across most industries, the survey results suggest that organizations are finding off-the-shelf offerings applicable to their business needs—though many are pursuing opportunities to customize models or even develop their own (Exhibit 9). About half of reported gen AI uses within respondents’ business functions are utilizing off-the-shelf, publicly available models or tools, with little or no customization. Respondents in energy and materials, technology, and media and telecommunications are more likely to report significant customization or tuning of publicly available models or developing their own proprietary models to address specific business needs.

Respondents most often report that their organizations required one to four months from the start of a project to put gen AI into production, though the time it takes varies by business function (Exhibit 10). It also depends upon the approach for acquiring those capabilities. Not surprisingly, reported uses of highly customized or proprietary models are 1.5 times more likely than off-the-shelf, publicly available models to take five months or more to implement.

Gen AI high performers are excelling despite facing challenges

Gen AI is a new technology, and organizations are still early in the journey of pursuing its opportunities and scaling it across functions. So it’s little surprise that only a small subset of respondents (46 out of 876) report that a meaningful share of their organizations’ EBIT can be attributed to their deployment of gen AI. Still, these gen AI leaders are worth examining closely. These, after all, are the early movers, who already attribute more than 10 percent of their organizations’ EBIT to their use of gen AI. Forty-two percent of these high performers say more than 20 percent of their EBIT is attributable to their use of nongenerative, analytical AI, and they span industries and regions—though most are at organizations with less than $1 billion in annual revenue. The AI-related practices at these organizations can offer guidance to those looking to create value from gen AI adoption at their own organizations.

To start, gen AI high performers are using gen AI in more business functions—an average of three functions, while others average two. They, like other organizations, are most likely to use gen AI in marketing and sales and product or service development, but they’re much more likely than others to use gen AI solutions in risk, legal, and compliance; in strategy and corporate finance; and in supply chain and inventory management. They’re more than three times as likely as others to be using gen AI in activities ranging from processing of accounting documents and risk assessment to R&D testing and pricing and promotions. While, overall, about half of reported gen AI applications within business functions are utilizing publicly available models or tools, gen AI high performers are less likely to use those off-the-shelf options than to either implement significantly customized versions of those tools or to develop their own proprietary foundation models.

What else are these high performers doing differently? For one thing, they are paying more attention to gen-AI-related risks. Perhaps because they are further along on their journeys, they are more likely than others to say their organizations have experienced every negative consequence from gen AI we asked about, from cybersecurity and personal privacy to explainability and IP infringement. Given that, they are more likely than others to report that their organizations consider those risks, as well as regulatory compliance, environmental impacts, and political stability, to be relevant to their gen AI use, and they say they take steps to mitigate more risks than others do.

Gen AI high performers are also much more likely to say their organizations follow a set of risk-related best practices (Exhibit 11). For example, they are nearly twice as likely as others to involve the legal function and embed risk reviews early on in the development of gen AI solutions—that is, to “ shift left .” They’re also much more likely than others to employ a wide range of other best practices, from strategy-related practices to those related to scaling.

In addition to experiencing the risks of gen AI adoption, high performers have encountered other challenges that can serve as warnings to others (Exhibit 12). Seventy percent say they have experienced difficulties with data, including defining processes for data governance, developing the ability to quickly integrate data into AI models, and an insufficient amount of training data, highlighting the essential role that data play in capturing value. High performers are also more likely than others to report experiencing challenges with their operating models, such as implementing agile ways of working and effective sprint performance management.

About the research

The online survey was in the field from February 22 to March 5, 2024, and garnered responses from 1,363 participants representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, functional specialties, and tenures. Of those respondents, 981 said their organizations had adopted AI in at least one business function, and 878 said their organizations were regularly using gen AI in at least one function. To adjust for differences in response rates, the data are weighted by the contribution of each respondent’s nation to global GDP.

Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky  are global coleaders of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, and senior partners in McKinsey’s Chicago and London offices, respectively; Lareina Yee  is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, where Michael Chui , a McKinsey Global Institute partner, is a partner; and Bryce Hall  is an associate partner in the Washington, DC, office.

They wish to thank Kaitlin Noe, Larry Kanter, Mallika Jhamb, and Shinjini Srivastava for their contributions to this work.

This article was edited by Heather Hanselman, a senior editor in McKinsey’s Atlanta office.

Explore a career with us

Related articles.

Moving past gen AI’s honeymoon phase: Seven hard truths for CIOs to get from pilot to scale

A generative AI reset: Rewiring to turn potential into value in 2024

Implementing generative AI with speed and safety

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• NEWS AND VIEWS
• 05 June 2024

Meta’s AI translation model embraces overlooked languages

• David I. Adelani 0

David I. Adelani is in the Department of Computer Science, University College London Centre for Artificial intelligence, London WC1V 6BH, UK; in the School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and at Mila — Quebec AI Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Machine-translation models use artificial intelligence (AI) to translate one human language into another — a worthy feat, given the potential for enhanced communication to break down the barriers posed by differences in language and culture. Yet most of these models can interpret only a small fraction of the world’s languages, in part because training them requires online data that don’t exist for many languages. The US technology company Meta has designed a project called No Language Left Behind (NLLB) to change that. Writing in Nature , the NLLB team 1 presents a publicly available model that can translate between 204 languages, many of which are used in low- and middle-income countries.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00964-2

NLLB Team. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07335-x (2024).

Article   Google Scholar  

Bahdanau, D., Cho, K. & Bengio, Y. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1409.0473 (2014).

Sennrich, R., Haddow, B. & Birch, A. Proc. 54th Annu. Meet. Assoc. Comput. Linguist. (Vol. 1: Long Papers), 1715–1725 (2016).

Vaswani, A. et al. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 30 , 6000–6010 (2017).

Google Scholar  

Conneau, A. et al. Proc. 58th Annu. Meet. Assoc. Comput. Linguist . 8440–8451 (2020).

Goyal, N. et al. Trans. Assoc. Comput. Linguist. 10 , 522–538 (2022).

Adelani, D. I. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.07445 (2024).

Robinson, N., Ogayo, P., Mortensen, D. R. & Neubig, G. Proc. Eighth Conf. Mach. Transl. 392–418 (2023).

Bandarkar, L. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2308.16884 (2023).

Adelani, D. et al. Proc. 2022 Conf. North Am. Chapter Assoc. Comput. Linguist. Hum. Lang. Technol . 3053–3070 (2022).

Maillard, J. et al. Proc. 61st Annu. Meet. Assoc. Comput. Linguist . (Vol. 1: Long Papers) 2740–2756 (2023).

Reid, M. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.05530 (2024).

Zhang, K. et al. Preprint at arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.18025 (2024).

Download references

Reprints and permissions

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Related Articles

See all News & Views

• Machine learning
• Computer science

Need a policy for using ChatGPT in the classroom? Try asking students

Career Column 05 JUN 24

Meta’s AI system is a boost to endangered languages — as long as humans aren’t forgotten

Editorial 05 JUN 24

Superfast Microsoft AI is first to predict air pollution for the whole world

News 04 JUN 24

Scaling neural machine translation to 200 languages

Article 05 JUN 24

Accelerating AI: the cutting-edge chips powering the computing revolution

News Feature 04 JUN 24

Who owns your voice? Scarlett Johansson OpenAI complaint raises questions

News Explainer 29 MAY 24

Faculty Positions& Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Optical and Electronic Information, HUST

Job Opportunities: Leading talents, young talents, overseas outstanding young scholars, postdoctoral researchers.

Wuhan, Hubei, China

School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology

Postdoctoral Fellowships at West China Hospital/West China School of Medicine of Sichuan University

Open to PhD students, PhD, Post-Doc and residents.

Chengdu, Sichuan, China

West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital

Welcome Global Talents to West China Hospital/West China School of Medicine of Sichuan University

Top Talents; Leading Talents; Excellent Overseas Young Talents on National level; Overseas Young Talents

Open Faculty Positions at the State Key Laboratory of Brain Cognition & Brain-inspired Intelligence

The laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanisms of brain intelligence and developing the theory and techniques of brain-inspired intelligence.

Shanghai, China

CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT)

Faculty Positions on Public Health and Parasitology in Chang Gung University, Taiwan

Faculty openings for expertise on Public Health and Parasitology in tawian

CGU is located near the A7 station of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT (Mass Rapid Transit)

Chang Gung University

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Welcome to HERA

Join our Membership

Join us today as a Member of the Higher Education Research Association. (Membership Fee Waiver)

The HERA 2024 Conference

The 10th HERA Annual Conference will be held on 5-6 June 2024, in Taipei, Taiwan. Join us!

Collaborative Research

See insights into our collaborative projects. We encourage members to share information about their research with the community.