No. 3
Sentinel Devices
The polar ice cap rapidly recedes; colonies of honeybees collapse in alarming numbers; androgynous fish are detected in rivers and streams. These reports not only describe recent events, but also function as signs of an ominous and rapidly encroaching future. In this issue of Limn we focus on how this future makes its appearance in the present. Many of the threats we now find most alarming-climate change, environmental radiation, emerging disease, endocrine disrupters, toxic chemicals-are not immediately perceptible to human senses. We rely on non-human indicators, whether animals or detection devices, to alert us to their possible onset.
Such indicators can be thought of as sentinels, or heralds of an approaching danger.
Published June 2013
In This Issue
Figures of Warning
What are sentinels? Frédéric Keck and Andrew Lakoff explore various figures of prophecy, herald and prognostication through the ages.
The scientist as sentinel
Climate scientists have a frightening message, but the public doesn't seem worried enough. Naomi Oreskes argues that the dispassionate ideal of science might be getting in the way.
Hong Kong as a Sentinel Post
When birds die of H5N1 in China’s border region, the whole territory of Hong Kong is transformed into a sentinel post for pandemic flu. Frédéric Keck shows how the city’s new role affects relations between humans and birds in this territory.
The Birds of Poyang Lake: Sentinels at the interface of wild and domestic
Lyle Fearnley looks at what happens when farmers draw a line between wild and domestic that scientists miss.
From Sensors to Sentinel: Pressure and depression in crime statistics
While policemen watch out for public security, psychologists watch out for the mental health of policemen. Emmanuel Didier looks at these two different uses of statistical data.
Sentinel Organisms: “they look out for the environment!”
Under what conditions can animals and plants be considered as good sentinels for an environment? Christelle Gramaglia looks at the uses of shells to detect water pollution.
Serum as Sentinel: How Cold Blood Became a Resource for Population Health
Does frozen blood send an ‘as yet unknown’ signal? Joanna Radin describes how serological epidemiology has made the recent past into a sentinel of the near future.
Recording and Monitoring: Between Two Forms of Surveillance
Vanessa Manceron argues that when naturalists take part in monitoring programs on their “local patch,” they are caught between two forms surveillance: care and control.
Snaring Vectors
Volunteers sit all night in a Human Landing Catch in Dar es Salaam, providing blood meals to needy local mosquitoes. Ann H. Kelly explores the role of volunteers' bodies in measuring the size and nature of insect-borne public health threats.
Public Laboratories: Designing and Developing tools for Do-It-Yourself Detection of Hazards
Signals of environmental hazard cannot be heard unless there is a device to detect them. Sara Wylie, Megan McLaughlin and Josh McIlvain show you how to make one yourself.
Mechanisms of Invisibility: Forgotten Sentinels of Diethylsbestrol Progeny
Diethylstilbestrol was one of the first identified endocrine disruptors. However, efforts to warn french physicians about the drug’s potentially dangerous effects on pregnant women failed. Emmanuelle Fillion and Didier Torny show how sentinels sometimes don’t work.
When the Control Becomes the Experiment
The experimental rodent in the polycarbonate cage is the new canary in the coalmine. Hannah Landecker explores how environmental signals have slowly started to get clearer and louder.
Fingerprint, Bellwether, Model Event: Anticipating Climate Change Futures
Climate change is now happening faster than our models and stories can comprehend. Jerome Whitington explores three figures of warning that help make sense of it.
“Oceans of Plastic:” Heterogeneous narrations of an ongoing disaster
How did plastic garbage patches floating in the ocean become an object of public concern? Baptiste Monsaingeon relates the media campaigns that turned the gradual accumulation of oceanic waste from an abstract and imperceptible concern to a dire emergency requiring
immediate attention.
Unbearable Future
One of the more spectacular signs of the onset of climate change is the decline of the polar bear population. But is it really in decline? Etienne Benson traces the long and controversial history of modeling the future population of polar bears.
How Do You Spot A Healthy Honey Bee?
Amidst the debate over various culprits for honeybee colony collapse (pesticides, pathogens, parasites, habitat loss, etc.), Chloe Silverman asks a different question: what exactly is a healthy living system in an age of increasing vulnerability?
The Origins of Extinction
What do barn swallows reveal about the future? In the biogeographical space of "the Zone" around Chernobyl, Adriana Petryna shows us how they force us to think about the origins of extinction.
The Noise of the World: The Apocalypse and the Crazy Farm Scenario
The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland has to be constantly monitored to detect possible effects of radiation. Sophie Houdart describes a machine designed to capture every potential sign of threat.
A Dearth of Numbers: The Actuary and the Sentinel in Global Public Health
How do experts respond to a threat whose probability cannot be calculated but whose consequences could be catastrophic? Andrew Lakoff explores the political dynamics of sentinel devices in the case of the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
Preface: Sentinel Devices
The editors of Limn Number 3 explain what a sentinel is and how it matters today.