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Research about science and publics in the COVID-19 pandemic often focuses on public trust and on identifying and correcting public attitudes. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 209 residents in six countries—Austria, Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Portugal—this article uses the concept of performativity to explore how participants understand, and relate to science, in the COVID-19 context. By performativity, we mean the ways by which participants understand themselves as particular sorts of publics through identification with, and differentiation from, various other actors in matters that are perceived as controversies surrounding science: COVID-19 vaccination, media communication of science, and the interactions between governments and scientists. The criteria used to construct the similarities and differences among publics were heterogeneous and fluid, showing how epistemic beliefs about the nature of, and trust in, scientific knowledge are intermingled with social and cultural memberships embedded in specific contexts and across disparate places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) is a set of techniques that aim to infer externally visible characteristics in humans – such as eye, hair and skin color – and biogeographical ancestry of an unknown person, based on biological material. FDP has been applied in various jurisdictions in a limited number of high-profile cases to provide intelligence for criminal investigations. There are on-going controversies about the reliability and validity of FDP, which come together with debates about the ethical challenges emerging from the use of this technology in the criminal justice system. Our study explores how, in the context of complex politics of legitimation of and contestation over the use of FDP, forensic geneticists in Europe perceive this technology's potential applications, utility and risks. Forensic geneticists perform several forms of discursive boundary work, making distinctions between science and the criminal justice system, experts and non-experts, and good and bad science. Such forms of boundary work reconstruct the complex positioning vis-à-vis legal and scientific realities. In particular, while mobilizing interest in FDP, forensic geneticists simultaneously carve out notions of risk, accountability and scientific conduct that perform distance from FDP' implications in the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing tendency toward the introduction of Big Data in police departments to improve the prevention and investigation of crime. However, there is little systematic knowledge about the perspectives of professionals in police forces regarding this technology. This article fills this gap by presenting a scoping review that systematizes empirical studies of the views of professionals in police forces about Big Data in the field of policing and criminal investigation. Fourteen articles were analyzed following a descriptive–analytical method. Optimistic and oppositional views about Big Data among professionals in police forces were then described. Optimistic views focused on the potential of Big Data to improve the objectivity and efficiency of policing and better manage police resources by providing new capabilities and strategies by which to perform crime predictions, risk assessments, criminal investigations, crime analysis, risk management, cooperation and data exchange. Oppositional views related to the police's awareness of Big Data's biases, the lack of a regulatory landscape, misuse of data, privacy threats, data security, misplaced trust in technology, the absence of major changes in work practices, and practical barriers. Analysis of the co-presence of optimistic and oppositional views adds a comprehensive and interpretative argument that might contribute to critical reflections on the technological feasibility, societal usability, and desirability of Big Data technologies in police departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big Data is seen as an increasingly important tool to support policing activities, define security governance policies and assist criminal investigations. Although significant literature has explored the predictive capabilities of Big Data, there has been less focus on the uses of Big Data in criminal investigations, focused on detection and apprehension that occur after a crime has been committed. This article aims to fill this gap through the lens of expectations of professionals involved in police cooperation in the European Union. Based upon a set of qualitative interviews, our analysis explores these professionals' expectations for the application of Big Data techniques in criminal investigations by using DNA data held in national criminal DNA databases and, therefore, potentially increasing the interoperability between genetic and non-genetic data. Our results reveal a flexible repertoire of interpretation of the expectations for the uses of Big Data in criminal investigations and its associated potential risks and benefits. The perceived benefits relate to expectations for Big Data's potential to advance cold cases and strengthen the interoperability of multiple datasets in ways that produce intelligence valuable for criminal investigations. Perceived risks concern the difficulties associated with investigating large sets of data, the potential for enforcing genetic discrimination, and threatening privacy and human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The family Equidae enjoys an iconic evolutionary record, especially the genus Equus which is actively investigated by both paleontologists and molecular biologists. Nevertheless, a comprehensive evolutionary framework for Equus across its geographic range, including North, Central and South America, Eurasia and Africa, is long overdue. Herein, we provide an updated taxonomic framework so as to develop its biochronologic and biogeographic frameworks that lead to well-resolved paleoecologic, paleoclimatic and phylogenetic interpretations. We present Equus' evolutionary framework in direct comparison to more archaic lineages of Equidae that coexisted but progressively declined over time alongside evolving Equus species. We show the varying correlations between body size, and we use paleoclimatic map reconstructions to show the environmental changes accompanying taxonomic distribution across Equus geographic and chronologic ranges. We present the two most recent phylogenetic hypotheses on the evolution of the genus Equus using osteological characters and address parallel molecular studies. Studies of horse evolution arose during the middle of the 19th century, and several hypotheses have been proposed for their taxonomy, paleobiogeography, paleoecology and evolution. The present contribution represents a collaboration of 19 multinational experts with the goal of providing an updated summary of Pliocene and Pleistocene North, Central and South American, Eurasian and African horses. At the present time, we recognize 114 valid species across these continents, plus 4 North African species in need of further investigation. Our biochronology and biogeography sections integrate Equinae taxonomic records with their chronologic and geographic ranges recognizing regional biochronologic frameworks. The paleoecology section provides insights into paleobotany and diet utilizing both the mesowear and light microscopic methods, along with calculation of body masses. We provide a temporal sequence of maps that render paleoclimatic conditions across these continents integrated with Equinae occurrences. These records reveal a succession of extinctions of primitive lineages and the rise and diversification of more modern taxa. Two recent morphological-based cladistic analyses are presented here as competing hypotheses, with reference to molecular-based phylogenies. Our contribution represents a state-of-the art understanding of Plio-Pleistocene Equus evolution, their biochronologic and biogeographic background and paleoecological and paleoclimatic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the governance of expectations of forensic DNA phenotyping (FDP) innovations in Germany used for the prediction of human externally visible traits such as eye, hair, and skin color, as well as biological age and biogeographic ancestry. In 2019, FDP technologies were regulated under the label "extended DNA analysis". We focus on the expectations of members of the forensic genetics' community in Germany, in anticipation and response to those of regulators who advocated for such technologies. Confronted with regulators' expectations of omnipotent technologies and the optimistic promise that they will enhance public security, forensic geneticists responded with attempts to adjust such expectations, specifying limits and risks, along with a particular logic sorting matters of concern. We reflect on how forensic geneticists' govern expectations through forms of distributed anticipatory governance, delimiting their obligations, and distributing accountability across the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]