Science and Technology

Virtually all biological characteristics of organisms change with age, and thus, to assess the impact of these changes, accurate aging techniques are essential. However, many current methods are unable to accurately distinguish among adults of different ages. We determined the age of yellow-pine chipmunks (Tamias amoenus) from the Rocky Mountains of Alberta using eye lens masses, annuli from mandible sections, and annuli from femurs. Each of these methods was assessed against nine known-age animals and seven animals that had not been caught previously and were presumed to be juveniles. Eye lens masses could distinguish juveniles from adults but not adults of different ages. Mandibular sections were not practical in this species because of excessive tearing during sectioning. Femoral sections precisely predicted age. We found that the number of adhesion lines, minus one, accurately represented the ages of adults ranging from 1 to 5 years old. Femoral annuli have not previously been used to age mammals and our results suggest that they may be useful in aging other mammals, especially rodents.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the Lawn Tennis Association introduced numerous policies to remove barriers associated with social exclusion in tennis clubs. Ethnographic research was conducted within one club to analyse the incidence of social exclusion, and consider the success of LTA policies in these regards. Findings suggested the club made structural changes to receive LTA funding, such as removing exclusive membership and clothing restrictions, hiring coaches and establishing school–club links, yet its culture remained almost entirely inaccessible to new members. For analysis, Elias and Scotson’s ‘Established-Outsider Relations’ theoretical framework is applied: to discover who was excluded, how and why, and, to set the outcomes of power struggles between members in the wider social and historical contexts of changing LTA policies.

This article examines recent developments in etiquette in contemporary mixed-doubles tennis (MDT), to position different behavioural expectations for men/women in the broader context of shifting gender relations. Content analysis of coaching guides published from the 1960–1980s revealed that historically rooted gender distinctions in terms of court positioning, tactics, and playing roles/expectations were reaffirmed, continuing to undermine and marginalize females yet privilege males based on assumed innate differences in physical attributes. Etiquette norms in this era were compared to those found in the early twenty-first century (2000–2010s), through content analysis of online forums/blogs for recreational and elite-level MDT. It was found that while gendered tactics related to court positioning and playing roles were sustained, an important shift in etiquette norms related to chivalry occurred, but was not comprehensively accepted among all players. This development was attributed to third-wave feminist challenges to male chivalry, alongside the burgeoning ‘crisis of masculinity’ that increasingly pushed men towards adopting a ‘hybridized masculinity’ to assuage public critiques of hegemonic/orthodox masculinity in sport.