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Data are presented on the benefits and costs that accrue to big game hunters living in the whaling community of Lamalera, Indonesia. Results indicate that big game hunting provides males a strong selective advantage. Harpooners, and to a lesser degree hunters in general, reap substantial fitness benefits from their activities. Hunters, especially harpooners, have significantly more offspring than other men after controlling for age. Hazard analysis shows that harpooners marry significantly earlier and start reproducing at an earlier age. This is not case for other hunt group members or non-hunting participants – the technicians and the boat managers. These results are consistent with data from other hunting societies that show significant reproductive benefits for good hunters. Harpooners experience other costs and benefits. Harpooners receive significantly more meat even after controlling for the effort they expend hunting, while at the same time suffer an increased risk of mortality. The results are discussed in the context of the hunting hypothesis and the current debate within human behavioral ecology concerning the role of hunting as a human male reproductive strategy.

One of the two main tasks of innovation leadership, a practice to inspire and enable creativity and innovation in organisations, is to construct a creativity-enabling organisational environment. One form of this main task is using developmental interactions, like mentoring, as innovation leadership practices. A hackathon is one type of innovation contest with three designed phases: pre-hackathon, hackathon event and post-hackathon, involving multiple stakeholders with distinct roles, such as hackers and mentors. In a hackathon, the central activity of mentors is to support the hackers’ innovation process, especially in idea creation and concept development. The mentor role has not been focal in hackathon studies; thus, this chapter addresses the role, impact, and ways to acknowledge the mentors as an integral, contributing innovation leadership practice in hackathons. As an empirical study, this chapter presents the results of a public sector case in a Swedish multi-disciplinary municipality conducting intra-organisational hackathons in three different collocations. The chapter contributes to the literature on innovation leadership at the team level with mentorship in innovation contests in the public sector context by revealing the dual-role tension of innovation leadership in mentor activities in the hackathon event phase from both the hackers’ and mentors’ viewpoints, and the necessity of mentor-benefitting training in pre-hackathon phase.

This chapter explores how robots can be used to design science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning that is inclusive and engaging for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The importance of purposefully designed and problematic learning experiences is explored along with an examination of the role and function of meaningful discursive situations and inclusive contexts for learning. The goal of the chapter is to provide a context for readers interested in integrating the use of robots with adolescents with ASD, but it is also of use to those more broadly interested in the use of robots as learning tools. Recommendations for successful use are provided along with a discussion of how to start. This chapter is of interest to K-12 educators and others interested in the use of robots to create opportunities for students to understand the nature of doing STEM in an inclusive environment.

Typical undergraduate research programs involving HBCU students have several weaknesses including the short time of the students’ involvement in the research and the variable level of commitment of faculty mentors. Another issue at HBCUs is the lack of both start-up support for new faculty and external research support, which limits the quality of research projects and the pool of faculty mentors. We designed our NSF-funded undergraduate research program to be a professional development program to help faculty expand their research program and improve their mentoring skills, while at the same time involving undergraduates in research.

Faculty in STEM departments competed for Student Support Grants that provided support for research-related equipment, supplies, travel, and up to two students for one year. Faculty submitted proposals describing their research project, the role of students in the project, and their student mentoring plan. Faculty mentors could recruit their own students for the project, and both faculty mentors and students were required to commit to the research project for one year.

Outcomes of the program were very positive for both the faculty and the students. All of the involved students presented their research at conferences and several were co-authors on research publications. All but a few of the students continued working in research even after their time in the program was over. In addition, many of the supported faculty members were able to use the financial support as a springboard for successful applications for other grant programs.

The CW’s long-running horror-drama series Supernatural (2005–) has been accused of undoing progressive advances for women made by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996–2003). While it’s hard to deny the truth in that claim, Supernatural also problematizes conventional gender roles from a very different approach, one that plays with perceptions of masculinity and social class.

Buffy Summers may initially seem to have more in common with Supernatural’s Sam Winchester, a chosen one with special powers who wants a normal life away from the supernatural. However, Buffy shares more in common with Dean Winchester. Embodying popular gendered stereotypes in their introductions, it’s gradually revealed that there is more complexity to each. Both form alliances with Others; both recognize elements of the Other in themselves. Both transgress conventional gender boundaries, complicating the notion of a binary gender system. Both series introduce the seemingly familiar only to alter it into the uncanny. See the little cute blonde virginal cheerleader? She can kick your ass. See the stupid cocky womanizing jock? All he wants is family and a home. This chapter explores the increasingly gender-blended, social-class-crossing behaviours of Supernatural’s Dean Winchester as an heir to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This paper focuses on the role of myth in group identity maintenance. It begins by looking at the occupational group, but broadens to show how subsociety and the larger society affected the group's identity and actions. Mississippi Delta blues performers’ use of myth serves as the historical example, and this analysis shows how the group reacted to living in a segregated and racist society. Analysis of songs demonstrates how myth can play a role in tying together this subordinated group in society and perpetuate myth. How the blues subculture still employs these myths today is also addressed.