Yes. A threat to civilization seems quite likely at this point and human extinction could even be in the cards. Renowned cosmologist Carl Sagan once suggested that our galaxy was teeming with planets, like Earth, capable of evolving advanced technological civilizations. To date, none have been detected. Reasons posited for this failure, from least to most likely, included: 1) no such other civilizations developed in the first place, or 2) we arent as good at detecting them as we once imagined, or 3) once those civilizations developed to the point they had the means to destroy themselves, they quickly and invariably did.

For 50 years I have tried to make adaptive sense of the rancorous bipolarity in the human species between conservatives and progressives. As an evolutionary human ecologist, conservatism makes little adaptive sense, certainly not in a fast-changing world. I regard it as regressivism. Yet, in virtually every large population free to openly express their political preferences, about half choose a conservative orientation and half favor a more progressive one.

From an evolutionary perspective, the inclination to be conservative or progressive appears randomly distributed, even within a family where one sibling will be progressive and the next conservative. Equally confounding, within each person both tendencies exist. Everybody has individualistic instincts serving the interests of me and mine, as well as communitarian instincts serving us and ours. Nature apparently hasnt seen fit to separate the two tendencies despite obvious potential for rancor and/or conflicting personal choices. Some political genius, however, decided it was a good idea to set us at each others throats. The two major political parties have separated us into opposing camps, demonizing the other, and uncompromisingly opposing any political position the other side takes, not the most enlightened social arrangement in human history. Extending this pastime from mere annoyance to open warfare, the most regressive U.S. administration in living memory is now spitefully dismantling the most important progressive advances of the past 120 years.

Since nature didnt distance us, we do it ourselves. We dont try to understand each others thinking, we watch different television channels, we socially isolate when possible, we dress in ways proudly identifiable as red neck or tree hugger, academic or suit, and we respond very differently to science, expert public health recommendations, conspiracy theories, and news from social media. We are even becoming reproductively isolated, somewhat akin to when Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived in contact with one another for thousands of years, but rarely interbred. Eventually the Neanderthals, clinging to their old ways, died out on their own or were eliminated by their neighbors.

I have finally sorted this all out in a way that makes evolutionary sense. Social behaviors are not so much genetically instinctive as driven by learned cultural values ostensibly benefitting those important to us. Progressive values make perfect adaptive sense for the advancement of the human species and for civilization as a whole. Conservatism focuses its benefits primarily on self and a limited, select group of like-minded, religious, racial, or socio-economic cohorts. Given its innate distaste for innovation and its preference for ungoverned freedom, conservatism is counter-productive from the perspective of a social civilization, a regressive artifact of an earlier, billions-of-years-longer, more individualistic evolutionary stage.

From an evolutionary perspective, humans are a social species, a species that lives and functions most effectively, obligately, in communities, each individual with special interests and abilities, but coordinated by leadership and shared values in cooperative endeavors that benefit the community while still accommodating enough self-interest to make it personally satisfying. Our first responsibility is to our communities. Those communities, in turn, provide for our needs, individually and collectively.

But social species are the new kids on the evolutionary block, and were still struggling to get the social thing right. Individualistic, selfish instincts dominated life for most of its first four billion years. They remain deeply ingrained still. Communitarian values only began to creep into the human repertoire sometime after sexual reproduction evolved. They were well established by the time both parents were required to cooperate as a family to rear their young to independence. Over time, extending that cooperation, groups of families took advantage of living together in small social bands where they could share, care, and cooperate in food gathering and preparation, childcare, and mutual defense.

Progressive social values and behaviors have proven particularly adaptive in allowing us to experiment with new ways of progressing as a species. Cooperating as a group afforded people the comfort and protection to feel safe experimenting, for example, with new hunting areas, new prey, new technologies, and new ways to resolve the inevitable challenges of living amicably as a community. As we became more socially evolved, and as genetic and cultural predispositions toward communitarian values increased relative to primitive individualistic instincts, the willingness to experiment became more entrenched. Progressives are dependably more comfortable with experimentation, novelty, uncertainty, and risk-taking than are conservatives. Experimentation is the primary engine of social progress and adaptation to change, absolutely essential in todays world.

Over the last 200,000 years, our communities and social alliances have grown progressively larger and more complex. That trend has accelerated dramatically this past century, increasing the need to become even more socially adept under more challenging circumstances. These recent challenges include one never before encountered, an entirely novel evolutionary bottleneck. Reprising Carl Sagans concern, this one has the potential to end human history.

We managed to stumble and fumble our way until 50 years ago when the world was about as crowded with humans as it was reasonable to be. At that point, the global climate, its farmland and soils, its water resources, its minerals, its wildlife, its forests, its oceans, were fully subscribed and starting to be seriously compromised and depleted. The unprecedented size of our population had turned those individually essential natural resources into global common resources which had to be managed for equitable long-term sharing by all, lest those myriad people stuck with the short end of the stick, with little to lose, resort to violence to get their share. The COVID pandemic is an unsubtle reminder that we dont know if we have surpassed a survivable global population density, but thats another problem for another discussion.

If we dont quickly learn to simultaneously share and husband the worlds common resources while, just as challenging, learning to cooperate in ending world human population growth, we will end up competing to the death for resources that are essentially exhausted. Nobody will survive. We will embody Garrett Hardins Tragedy of the Commons.

Simultaneously husbanding and equitably sharing multiple global common resources is the ultimate social challenge to humanitys survival. Today specifically, that means navigating the impending perfect storm of simultaneous climate change, soil destruction, and fossil fuel depletion. Given the recent rancorous contention between conservatives and progressives over climate change alone, our social skills are apparently not up to managing multiple global commons. We could easily end up destroying any one of them in our social ineptitude or our stubborn selfishness and one is all it will take to end us.

If ever there were a time for more progressive, more experimental public policy it is now. We dont have time to wait for the gradual genetic dilution of regressive conservative instincts. We must make rapid, difficult, counter-instinctual behavioral changes now.

Progressives must lead through open-handed co-option. If progressives dont build bridges of trust and mutual respect to the conservative grass-roots of the world, relying on our many still-shared values to convince them of the need for dramatically greater social cooperation, any joint public policy effort will fail. This dilemma calls for the most creative diplomatic effort in human history, a concerted campaign to negotiate our mutual survival, progressive and conservative grass-roots alike working in harmony, forcing our leaders to follow our lead, the only rational approach to this novel evolutionary bottleneck.

What that negotiation or its resolution will look like is anybodys guess, but if we dont make the effort, and soon, we surely will fail. We already are failing. As things stand, the toxic progressive-conservative schism is the most glaring, counter-productive failure in human social evolutionary history. Given our unprecedented numbers, it is destroying both our environment and our democratic institutions, rendering our species increasingly ungovernable and, in due course, potentially extinct. We must learn a new way of living together.

Its time for a radically new, currently unimagined level of caring, sharing, and cooperating a global, colorblind just and equitable caring, sharing, and cooperating. Only progressivisms unequivocal commitment to a radically equitable, peaceful, and just sharing of the worlds common resources will convince the worlds conservatives to be part of any such negotiation. I think its fair to say that, on the whole, women have more of the needed social skills than men. I suggest that progressive women should take the lead in a civilization-rescuing global social revolution, starting with building an essential bridge of trust and mutual respect between progressive and conservative grass-roots everywhere in the world, in hopes of surviving this evolutionary bottleneck. With luck, Americas congressional elections of 2018 and the upcoming presidential election of 2020 will prove harbingers of a more progressive, more social, perhaps even more matriarchal, future for civilization. Given the misogyny of the current administration, that would be a delicious irony. Delightfully encouraging, to my mind.

Teaser photo credit: By Alborzagros File:Nations Gate palace (kakh-e-darvaz-e-keshvarha) in Persepolis.tif (edited version), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45347465

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Rescuing civilization: Does the conservative/progressive rift pose an existential threat to humanity? - Resilience

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Osteoporosis, termed as a silent disease as its effects are not often seen at an early stage, affects women more than men. Further, women with an early menopause have a 56 per cent increased risk of osteoporosis at a later age (in the 70s). They are four times more affected by early bone loss as compared to men, say doctors. As women age, the level of estrogen (primary female hormone responsible for bone health) further decreases.

The decrease begins in the perimenopausal (transition period) stage and is greater after menopause. As a result, there is an increased bone loss that makes women more prone to osteoporosis.While all women experience a drop in bone density when they go through menopause, those with an early menopause have more chances of developing weak and brittle bones as compared to those who have a late menopause. If we go by the age, women with menopause before 47 years have more than 50 per cent increased risk of osteoporosis in their late 70s as compared to a risk of 30 per cent in women with late menopause.

During the menopausal transition period (perimenopause), the average reduction in bone mineral density (BMD) is about 10 per cent. About 25 per cent of postmenopausal women can be classified as fast bone losers, says Dr Meenakshi Banerjee, Senior Consultant, Gynaecologist & Obstetrician, Madhukar Rainbow Childrens Hospital, Delhi.

What causes early menopause?

Multiple reasons: Smoking, lack of physical exercise or less exposure to sun, consumption of steroids even if warranted by other health conditions, all these contribute towards menopause. Very thin women too face the risk of an early menopause. However, early menopause can sometimes be caused by genetic factors. Premature ovarian failure also leads to an early menopause. Sometime ovaries have to be removed due to a medical condition or malignancy. This can also cause an early menopause, says Gynaecologist & Obstetrician, Dr Neha Khandelwal.

The way out?

Exercise, sunshine and diet, can delay the onset of osteoporosis. Adopting a healthy lifestyle coupled with adding fresh fruits, veggies and herbs in daily diet helps too. So does a diet rich in dairy products. Women must include green leafy vegetables like spring greens, spinach, broccoli, baked beans, nuts (especially almonds), soya beans, sardines, salmon, nuts, dried beans and sunflower seeds in their diet. A simple way to increase Vitamin D (essential to bone health because it enables absorption of calcium and phosphorus) is sitting under the early morning sun for 20 minutes.

A healthy and balanced diet is fundamental to bone health because it supplies proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients vital for tissue renewal and growth. Besides, walking and gentle aerobics are excellent for bone health as these promote the entry of calcium into the bone mass where it is used for improved strength and growth, says Dr Banerjee.

Otherhealth issues

It is not just osteoporosis that stares women in the eye with an early menopause, but a host of other health issues too. As per a 2020 study published on human reproduction, women who undergo premature menopause are almost three times more prone to physiological problems like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, asthma and breast cancer and mental issues like depression and anxiety.

Age and incomeIn India, menopause generally happens between 50 and 60 years while in the West, it is between 70 and 80 years. Globally, the incidence of premature menopause is one cent women while in India, the rate has risen to 1.5 per cent in the last two years. Also, the incidence of menopause at 50 in high socio-economic group is 25 per cent, while the figure is 65 per cent in women of low socio-economic group.

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Link between early menopause and osteoporosis - The New Indian Express

In 2018, after a teen with a gun murdered 17 high schoolers in Parkland, Florida, my generation rose up. A high school junior at the time, I united with students from around St. Louis who were afraid we would be next. We demanded action from our elected representatives. However, instead of doing her job and standing up for her young constituents, Rep. Ann Wagner voted against universal background checks and continued to pocket donations from the National Rifle Association.

The majority of Americans support universal background checks, but Wagner chose to listen to her donors instead of her constituents. She gave weak, inadequate responses to the terrified students who contacted her, begging to keep guns out of our schools. We are still angry because lawmakers such as Wagner have failed us. My generation is traumatized because of corrupt, greedy and selfish politicians like her.

I am begging everyone to vote against Wagner on Nov. 3 because she will not listen to us, fight for us or protect us. My classmates and I were too young to vote in 2018, but we watched as Wagner sold our safety for political action committee donations, and we paid attention as she ignored our pleas for sensible gun reforms. Now we are about to vote in our first election, and she is going to hear loud and clear that we want new representation.

Maggie Hannick Webster Groves

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Top letters: Eagleton wouldn't have supported Barrett; Hawley offended by religious, not racial, bigotry - STLtoday.com

Although other factors such as seasons could be contributing to the spike in conception rates in late fall, some have attributed it to Valentine's Day

Research done by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) has shown that conception rates are high in November and early December in North America. Although other factors such as seasons could be contributing to the spike in conception rates in late fall, some have attributed it to the Valentine's Day romance. A study that was published in the Human Reproduction journal early this year indicates that most couples from the southern part of North America begin trying to get pregnant from September. Most of these couples would succeed in conceiving in November or early December.

RELATED:Foods That Can Actually Help With Conception

Lead author from BUSPH, Amelia Wesselink, says that although many studies have been done to determine seasonal patterns in births, they don't capture details such as when the couple began trying to conceive, how long they tried, or the gestation period. According to the published journal, Amelia and fellow researchers said that some factors such as employment schedules, comfort, and personal choice could affect the timing of pregnancy in many couples. For example, some women might try to avoid pregnancy during the hot season, while for others, it could be a personal preference to have a fall baby!

According to The Brink, the researchers studied data from 14,331 women who had been trying to get pregnant for not more than six months. Out of these, 5,827 were Canadian and American participants, while 8,504 were Danish participants. The studies observed and captured details of the participants every two months through detailed surveys until they fell pregnant or have struggled to conceive for 12 menstrual cycles. The study collected information such as intercourse frequency, menstruation pattern, diet, smoking, level of education, and even income.

Amelia said that after carefully studying the seasonal patterns when couples try to get pregnant, she and fellow researchers found that conception rates were high during late fall and low in the late spring. Couples from the southern part of North America had high odds of falling pregnant in late fall. The most likely reason is that they prefer to give birth in summer when workplaces are not busy, especially in the U.S. The study showed that North Americans had a 16% high chance of becoming pregnant in the fall compared to spring, while Danes had only an 8% chance of becoming pregnant in the fall. Denmark, Northern US States, and Canada's conception rates weren't affected by seasons.

There was no significant change in the outcome after controlling factors known to affect conception, such as intercourse frequency, smoking, sugar intake, and medication use. However, the study didn't point out why there was seasonal variation in fertility. Amelia said that the study was trying to look at the various hypotheses on factors that varied with seasons and how they affected fertility.

NEXT:Why It May Not Be A Great Idea To Conceive A Baby During Quarantine

Sources: sciencedaily.com, bu.edu, futurity.org.

U.S. Pregnancy Centers Now Offering Dangerous 'Abortion Reversal' Treatments

I have been a writer since 2012, and have enjoyed the journey thus far. When I am not busy writing like there's no tomorrow, I enjoy spending time with my three daughters and watching Netflix.

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Why Americans May Have A Better Chance Of Getting Pregnant In Late Fall - BabyGaga

Every woman goes through menopause. When it happens depends on the womans medical condition and lifestyle changes. According to a survey conducted a few years before by the Indian Menopause Society, the average age of menopause of an Indian woman is 46.2 years much less than their Western counterparts (51 years). There was a correlation between the age of menopause and social and economic status, married status, and parity status.

Women who have early menopause have 56 per cent increased risk of osteoporosis in their 70s according to a study held by Oxford Universitys publication Human Reproduction. The study claims that women who undergo premature menopause are almost three times more likely to develop osteoporosis as also other multiple, chronic medical problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, asthma, depression, anxiety or breast cancer.

Understanding The Causes

Dr Meenakshi Banerjee, Senior Consultant, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Madhukar Rainbow Childrens Hospital, Delhi, gives her insight into this. It has been observed that during the menopausal transition period (perimenopause), the average reduction in bone mineral density (BMD) is about 10 per cent. About 25 per cent of post-menopausal women can be classified as fast bone losers, and this can be increased by various other factors like genetic influence, medicine effects like steroids, anti-estrogen medications, low exercise and activity among others.

Her colleague, Dr Neha Khandelwal, Senior Consultant, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, notes that there are various reasons of early menopause which can be genetic, Even premature ovarian failure, in which ovaries which are responsible for producing female hormones fails to produce adequate hormones, leads to early menopause. Removal of ovaries due to any pathology, malignancy can cause early menopause.

Osteoporosis is also termed as a silent disease as its effects are not seen in the early stages. Women are four times more affected by early bone loss as compared to men. Estrogen, which is a primarily female hormone, is responsible for bone health. After menopause and in the peri-menopause there is an increased bone loss due to decreasing estrogen levels hence making the women more prone for osteoporosis, adds Dr Banerjee.

The other factors affecting estrogen levels can also be related to women being on antiestrogen medications (given in breast cancer treatment), women who are on steroid medications for more than three months.

Preventive And Curative Solutions

A womans susceptibility to osteoporosis increases with reduced exercise, activity, low BMI and increased smoking and alcohol. Over time, the bones become weak because of poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, drinking alcohol or eating junk food. Adopting a healthy lifestyle coupled with adding fresh fruit and herbs in your daily diet can help to overcome the disorder, the good doctors both feel.

Walking and gentle aerobics are excellent for bone health because they promote the entry of calcium into the bone mass where it is used for improved strength and growth. A healthy and balanced diet is fundamental to bone (and general) health because it supplies the protein, carbohydrate and fat, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients vital for tissue renewal and growth, advises Dr Banerjee.

Image: 123rf

Fresh fruit and vegetables supply a vast range of essential minerals and other nutrients needed to maintain a sturdy skeleton. Your diet should also include dairy foods and foods rich in calcium, like green leafy vegetables, spring greens, spinach and broccoli, baked beans, nuts (almonds), soya beans, sardines, salmon, nuts, dried beans, and sunflower seeds.

Vitamin D is also essential because it enables calcium and phosphorus to be used to form strong bones and teeth. It can be obtained from early-morning sunshine and as a supplement. Such patients should expose their body to sunlight for 20 minutes/day from May to October. It can also be obtained from food, e.g. milk and dairy products, fish liver oils, sardines, herring, salmon, and tuna.

There is something that can help to reduce the loss of bone and other postmenopausal symptoms like vaginal dryness and hot flushes. Hormone replacement therapy in the form of estrogen is a what can be undertaken to overcome the problem, but like any other therapy, the woman needs to take utmost caution and proper screening should be done beforehand to analyse how the therapy can work for her.

Dr Khandelwal shares, Hormonal therapy can be taken in the form of tablets, skin patches, estrogen gel and implants. Cyclical HRT can be taken with daily estrogen and progesterone alongside for the last 14 days of the cycle. This is for women with menopausal symptoms. For post-menopausal women, continuous combined HRT should be considered without breaks.

Also Read: 4 Reasons For An Early Menopause

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Early Menopause And Osteoporosis: Know The Risks - Femina

Actor Keanu Reeves said goodbye to his dark hair and now has a new image that is making fans even more in love.

Keanu Reeves looks unrecognizable after shaving off his signature long hair and debuting with a striking haircut. In more recent years, the John Wick actor has become more recognizable for his shoulder-length dark locks.

However, it is not a completely new hairstyle for the star of The Matrix 4, who has previously styled various styles during his time in Hollywood.

Of course, his latest hair transformation is for a role in a movie. Keanu, 56, shaved off his dark hair to reprise his role as Neo in the latest installment of the Matrix franchise.

The main star has been filming in locations in Berlin, Germany, for four months as cameras began filming again amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Fans will note that his latest look has similarities like when his iconic character Neo wakes up in a human reproduction facility in the 1999 film.

Keanu first showed off his new look while saying goodbye to his stunning girlfriend Alexandra Grant, who had accompanied him to the hotel in a car.

The actor was camera shy as he ran his fingers through his freshly cut hair. Temperatures were cool in Berlin so the Canadian stayed wrapped in several layers for his departure. Keanu was traveling light with a backpack over his shoulder and a red bag.

Matrix 4 will hit theaters in 2021. Filming has been hampered by delays amid the coronavirus pandemic that sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry.

The filming scenes had to stop in March when the killer virus shook the world to the core.

The lead stars began returning to Germany to be on location for filming in June. Carrie-Ann Moss has returned to her role as Trinity from the original trilogy. Jada Pinkett-Smith also reprized her role as Niobe for the fourth film.

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As we informed you in Somagnews in the romance department, Keanu has been happily loved by his girlfriend Alexandra.

The couple loved the show business circuit when they went public with their relationship in November of last year. It is not known how long they have been romantically together, but their close relationship dates back years.

They met when they collaborated on the adult picture book Ode to Happiness in 2011. The rest is history. Do you like the way Keanu looks in his new style?

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Keanu Reeves goes back to the '90s with a shaved head - Somag News

BY RICHARD WRANGHAMVINTAGE BOOKS, 2019

Already in the preface, Richard Wranghams The Goodness Paradox put a smile on my face. Wrangham there advocates the position that humans are naturally capable of both good and bad. In my own philosophical-naturalist musings, Ive always operated from that principle, so evident in history its distressing that so many evolutionary biologists, not to mention humanists, have taken the position that humans are inherently one or the other.

Wrangham sets out his strongest case on this divisive issue at a scientific level. His extensive parsing of the latest research is crucial. He, too, starts out by citing notorious examples of human goodness and badness, including in the same person, concluding emphatically, The potential for good and evil occurs in every individual.

Humanists will appreciate that Wrangham carefully considers methodological issues before diving into the evidence. The value of research on primate behavior to assessing human evolution is highly debated. Even human variation raises the question of whether there is a human nature at all. Throughout, he questions research results to distinguish what is solely characteristic of other species and what can be analogized to humans.

Central to his substantive argument is the distinction between two types of aggression or tendency toward violence. One type is reactive, the other is proactive. Studies show that different species of hominines and certain other animals display different ranges of aggressiveness of each type.

Reactive aggression is the spontaneous response to threat or provocation. Humans have relatively less reactive aggression than primates. Proactive aggression is planned and deliberate, typically, but not always manifesting in tribal, civil, and international war. Humans are particularly aggressive in this proactive sense, exhibiting a far more butcherous aggression in war than primates. Of course, that proactive aggression is directed at other groups of humans. That said, some individual and groups of humans are naturally more proactively aggressive than others.

Wrangham cites a great example to illustrate the difference between reactive and proactive aggression:

The anthropologist [Sarah] Hrdy noted that to pack hundreds of chimpanzees into close quarters on an airplane would be to invite violent chaos, whereas most human passengers behave sedately even when they are crowded. As Dale Peterson observed, however, intense screening is needed to ensure that a secret enemy will not carry a bomb on board. The contrast illustrates the difference between our low propensity for reactive aggression and our high propensity for proactive aggression.

Critically, the early evidence suggests there is indeed no genetic connection between propensity for reactive and proactive types of aggressiveness. Human domestication of other animals shows that reactive aggressiveness in a species can be reduced without affecting the proactive aggressiveness of the species. Housecats, for example, are comfortable with humans but retain their instincts for killing for food and fighting for territory.

Wrangham argues that because humans have low propensity for reactive violence, they were domesticated. Implicitly, he equates low propensity for reactive violence with domestication, although one can quibble with the label. He covers the history of the idea of humans as having been domesticated, including how the concept was twisted into eugenics and Nazi views of Aryan superiority.

But the big question is, who domesticated humans? Wrangham disregards supernatural explanations in favor of the assertion that humans self-domesticated. Like a good naturalist, he examines the evidence. Evidence concerning domestication of other animals by humans shows that certain anatomical changes come with domestication. Compared with their wild cousins, they become smaller in stature, have smaller teeth, show less size difference between male and female, and have smaller brains. These changes are called the domestication syndrome. He then identifies similar changes in Homo sapiens between about 30,000 and 12,000 years ago. Wrangham argues this time period is when humans self-domesticated.

That framework calls for an explanation of how humans self-domesticated. He begins exploring that question by acknowledging that domestication is an inapt term, because it implies that a domesticator is necessary. He covers the evidence that a number of non-human animal species that could not have come from a domesticator in fact exhibit a low reactive propensity for violence. The best example is bonobos, who have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Their genetic lines diverged between nine hundred thousand and 2.1 million years ago. Now, bonobos in the wild engage in little reactive violence, while wild chimpanzees exhibit a lot of behavior in that category. Bonobos and Homo sapiens have characteristics associated with the domestication syndrome; chimpanzees do not.

The idea that humans have self-domesticated is, in turn, central to Wranghams thesis about the evolution of goodness. He cites reams of scientific studies showing that humans in hunter-gatherer societies tend to have moral standards that, as I read it, require either family or group elders of socially disruptive individuals to impose what he calls capital punishment. Capital punishment is central to Wranghams construct of how humans self-domesticated: small groups of humans devised social norms and mechanisms to kill individuals who engaged in excessive reactive violence against members of their own tribe. In the process, they cut violent humans out of the breeding pool over thousands of years.

Reading this, I realized for the first time that imprisonment and judicially ordered capital punishment (now mostly discredited) in contemporary society inherently restricts the reproduction of offenders deemed violent and anti-social. It puts the systemic racist bias of the US criminal justice system against racial minorities, especially Black men, in a new, even more pernicious light.

Wrangham argues that the reduced tendency for reactive violence, however it came about, was accompanied by increased in-group tolerance. Indeed, human infants generally recognize fairness and approve punishing those who are unfair. That corresponded to the development of codes of conduct for behavior toward group members.

Specifically, Wrangham points to evidence that mostly only males benefited from self-domestication. The reduction in reactive violence enabled men to cooperate against the alpha male. Collaborative men in the group replaced the dominance of the reactively violent alpha male with a democratic sharing of power among themselves. In my research, this is borne out by evidence of possibly the earliest account of democracy occurring among warriors in ancient Babylon deciding collectively nearly 5,000 years ago whether to wage war against a neighboring tribe. However, women and children, not to mention men who violated the norms established by the male control group, were subservient.

As with my example from Babylon, Wrangham sets a larger context of existing hunter-gathering humans in which human males and, at times, females apply a moral code that can include killing of socially unacceptable individuals. He asserts an ambitious agenda of showing that killing specifically resulted in the domestication of humans. In the end, the course of his argument relies on a broader level of social enforcement of moral codes through various means that include execution. I will leave to the individual reader to conclude whether the evidence Wrangham cites is sufficient to that cause.

The clear control by cooperative males of the rest of human society enabled greater group power and cohesion. Language was a hugely valuable new trait that enhanced the establishment of group norms and their enforcement. Enforced conformity allied with more lethal killing ability that came with new weapons and the tactical advantage of language empowered humans to exterminate hominine competitors. Naturally, the troubling legacy of that power is the savagery of internecine warfare in the common era.

Indeed, Wrangham argues that occasionally human societies have failed to control their most aggressive members. When they have gained control of the structures of modern societies, they have instigated conflict with cataclysmic consequences. In the era of President Donald Trumps reactive and proactive aggressiveness, the book has its most profound implications. As much as the republican form of government in the US has led to consolidation of power to the benefit of the rich, it has generally precluded highly aggressive individuals from becoming president. However, the pluralistic reorganization of the two-party system has allowed someone like Trump to be nominated and, against a candidate unprepared to deal with his aggressiveness, win the most powerful position in the world.

Wranghams words of wisdom bear witness to our present circumstances: To avert episodes of violence we should constantly remind ourselves of how easily a complex social organization can decay, and how hard it is to construct. Just as Thomas Jefferson advocated a revolution every twenty years, all peace-loving, egalitarian people must collaborate to challenge highly aggressive individuals who would undermine cohesion and tolerance to the detriment of the greater good.

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The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution - The Humanist

Take it from an evolutionary biologist: This Halloween, we need to embrace our fears. Courtesy of John Nacion/Associated Press.

by Daniel T. Blumstein|October28,2020

Its Halloween, the season when we go out and try to spook each otherat least in normal years. Indeed, fears of contracting and spreading the novel coronavirus have drastically impacted many of our Halloween plans. Should they? And more importantly, how do our fears impact our behavior to make us safe? Im a biologist who studies animal behaviorincluding what scares creatures ranging from giant clams and other immobile marine invertebrates to a variety of birds and mammals, and why. Animals responses to frightening thingsreactions that have helped species survive over millions of yearscan help explain our own reactions to this global pandemic, and may suggest the best path for us to follow in these uncertain times.

Because animals face predatory risks that cant be fully eliminated, its essential that they learn to live with fear, and develop strategies to respond correctly. Overcompensate, you miss out on resources and may starve. Undercompensate, a predator abruptly ends your life. For instance, the animals I studymarmotsflee to the safety of their burrows when a coyote is around. But how long should they remain hidden away, unable to find food? Life is about managing tradeoffs. So when does, and how should, fear motivate change?

In humans, fear motivates change best when the threat is simple to understand, actions have a direct impact on the outcome, and the potential outcome is viscerally repulsive; disgust is a powerful motivator. Consider public health officials campaigns against methamphetamine abuse in the early 2000s. Because meth is so highly addictive, informational campaigns had limited success. Enter Tom Siebel, a software millionaire on a mission with a brilliant idea: Instead of peppering users with statistics, show them pictures of meth-mouth, the severe dental decay associated with meth abuse. Starting in 2005, Siebel paid for highway billboards in Montana that showed close-ups of a womans face with rotten teeth with text that read: YOULL NEVER WORRY ABOUT LIPSTICK ON YOUR TEETH AGAIN. He continued his fear- and disgust-driven campaign with a series of short television and internet commercials that showed unsuspecting users their horrible futures. The campaign worked. High school meth use went down 45 percent in two years, compared to an average of just 7.8 percent annually previously.

Fear most successfully leads to immediate responses. It doesnt work as an agent of change over longer periods, because animals habituatethey stop responding to non-threatening stimuli over time. Indeed, designing habituation-proof stimuli to scare away problem animals and reduce human-wildlife conflict is a compelling challenge. The plastic owl above the outdoor urban park dining area works at deterring pigeon traffic for a just few days before the birds realize its harmless and start appreciating its utility as an object that helps protect them from the wind. People tend to tune out, too. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security began estimating terrorism threat levels and communicating them to the American public. The color-coded system reported elevated red or orange levels of risk over an extended period of months. An analysis I did showed that the unchanging high threat levels produced the opposite of the desired responsepeople stopped seeking out information on how to prepare for terrorist threats. Americans habituated to the governments warnings. Were experiencing habituation to warnings about coronavirus threats now.

There are other costs to maintaining a fearful state for too long. For snowshoe hares, the mere exposure to predators, or predatory cues, can increase production of stress hormones and shift individuals into survival mode, directing energy away from growth and reproduction and toward defense. Snowshoe hare populations increase and decrease over time, driven by the population of their main predator, the lynx. As lynx populations increase, hare populations decrease until there are not enough hares to feed the lynx, resulting in a dramatic crash of the lynx population and a rebound for the hares. Researchers have found that hares have higher stress hormone levels at the peak of the lynx population cycle. In another study, the mere proximity of a dog walking by an enclosure containing pregnant female hares resulted in higher stress hormone levels in the dams and their offspring. Importantly, stressed dams produced fewer offspring. In a follow-up study, researchers found that the effects of stress hormones on reproductive success persisted through generations: The offspring of stressed mothers themselves were relatively more stressed and had fewer babies.

In humans, fear motivates change best when the threat is simple to understand, actions have a direct impact on the outcome, and the potential outcome is viscerally repulsive; disgust is a powerful motivator.

Complex problems are, in part, so defined because causality isnt obvious. Solving complex problems requires something more than the simple, direct, fear-based motivators we see in the animal world. This is certainly true of the pandemic. As we learn more about it, we may think we are better able to manage the risks were exposed to. To some extent we are. The risk of transmission and infection is reduced by wearing masks, physically distancing, and minimizing time spent in closed spaces with others. However, none of these actions totally eliminates the risk of getting infectedwhich makes giving up on any one of them very tempting.

When passive restraint systems like airbags in cars were first introduced, some people stopped putting on their seat belts because they assumed that they would be safe. In reality, it takes both tools together to increase your odds of surviving a bad accident by keeping you in the car, where you typically are safer. Studies of taxi drivers showed that they drove faster on wet surfaces when antilock brakes were first introduced because they could do so and still arrive reasonably safely, shaving precious driving minutes off each ride. However, driving faster on wet streets, even with anti-lock brake technology, is never a great idea: There was no net reduction in car accidents.

Marmots vary in how fast they can run away from threats. It turns out that marmots who are slower than average spend relatively less time looking around when they are foraging. By doing so they reduce the time they are away from the safety of their burrows, thus compensating for risk. But another way to view this variation is that animals who are better able to escape spend more time looking around while foraging and thus increase their exposure to risk. Perhaps marmots, like taxi drivers, accept a certain level of risk when the possibility of reward beckons.

At a very immediate level, our sadness at losing the chance to scare one another this Halloween could reflect our belief that we are in control of our risk of infection. And this has important insights for our response to a global pandemic. Responding to the pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint. It will require constant vigilance and behavioral changes for more than the foreseeable future. As new drugs and vaccines are introduced, we should be extra vigilant of our perceived safety. Risks are cumulative, and the more you accept, the greater the likelihood that they will eventually catch up to you. Tragically, this was a message illustrated by the recent outbreak in the White House, and at a macro level, by the recent spikes we are seeing worldwide. Protective measures that increase our perceptions of safety (in the White Houses case, rapid testing and everywhere else, the success of social distancing in the summer months) encourage us to take more risks and are thus, counterintuitively, risky.

Some people view the warnings about coronavirus as the boy who cried wolf. After all, they themselves have not gotten sick, and most people who get COVID-19 dont die. But this is the wrong way to interpret what we see around us. We all have different risks based on what we do, various pre-existing conditions, and our age. According to the CDC, if infected, I am at least four times more likely to be hospitalized and 30 times more likely to die than most of the undergraduates I teach. We know many people experience longer-lasting negative health effects from the virus. I also know that its not just my health at stake but also the health of others who may have even higher mortality risks. Taken together, this leads me to think that all of usmy students and myself includedare morally obligated to continue to take the coronavirus threat seriously.

Halloween illustrates the joy associated with celebrating our fears by allowing us to express one of our most primordial emotions. When we do so, we should embrace our fears and remember that we are descended from a long line of successful ancestors, dating back millions of years, who got their risk assessments right. They neither over-reacted, nor under-reacted to environmental threats; they figured out how to successfully live with them. I suggest that this Halloween we commit to making multimedia costumes that can scare, via Zoom, from afar. Meanwhile, lets look forward to a time, hopefully not too far in the future, where we are surrounded, in person, with scary costumes, boos, and screams of both fear and joy.

Original post:
What Can We Learn From Fear This COVID Halloween? - zocalopublicsquare.org

President Kristina M. Johnson sent the following email to The Ohio State University community today (Oct. 27).

Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:

My college visits are a highlight of my first-year Buckeye experience. Learning from you where you study, teach, perform and practice is enlightening. I am particularly interested to see our universitys founding land-grant mission in action whether through teaching and learning, convergent research and scholarship, or outreach and engagement efforts.

I recently visited Moritz College of Law, where students, faculty and staff talked passionately about their commitment to building bridges that connect Ohio States expertise and experience with initiatives and programs that positively impact our communities. It was inspiring learning from students and faculty about their passion for public interest law. The college recently adopted a new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice strategic plan.

Additionally, Moritz has partnered with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and others on an expedited pardon project.

University Task Force on Community Safety and Well-Being

Our new standing University Task Force on Community Safety and Well- Being held its first meetings last week with a charge to deliver an initial report by mid-November. A full list of task force members is now available on the just-launched task force webpage. The webpage provides a form for sharing ideas and suggestions to improve the safety and well-being of our community. I encourage you to participate.

As we are focused on safety, here are some updates on resources offered through the university:

Return to fall sports

It was so great to see our football team in the Shoe on Saturday in their big win against Nebraska, 52-14. I was honored to accept the Game Ball from our outstanding student-athletes and coaches after the game!

We look forward to the day soon when all of our student-athletes will return safely to competition. Thank you to all of our students, faculty, staff and fans who wore masks, practiced physical distancing and celebrated from home.

While this Saturdays football game is at Penn State, we all need to remember that Every Game is a Home Game.

This weekend, we will be hosting a range of Buckeye Bash opportunities for students to watch the Ohio State vs. Penn State game (masked and physically distanced) at spaces on campus. Living in a residence hall means the entire campus is your home, and we want you to continue to homegate safely and responsibly.

The Ohio Union, for example, will show the game on all screens in the building. Food, special giveaways and cant-miss prizes (including passes for Ohio Stadium tours, football jerseys and more) will be highlights of the day. Details on these and additional programs will be shared throughout the week. Additionally, all members of Buckeye Nation will be able to play along virtually, wherever they are in the world.

Stay safe. Have fun. Go Buckeyes!

COVID-19 updates

The seven-day average positivity rate for all students is at .88%. On campus, the seven-day average rate is .64% while the off-campus rate is 1.25%. We have expanded our testing efforts to approximately 18,000 each week, and have conducted more than 165,000 tests overall.

Last week, Ohio States Comprehensive Monitoring Team issued its initial report on ongoing data analysis designed to stem the spread of infection. The report observed that the reproduction number (Rt) has remained stable, primarily below 1, which is an indicator that the epidemic may be slowing.

Also, two key measures declined and then remained stable since mid- September:

1) Trends in infection rates among asymptomatic students, and 2)Positive rates among students who get tested because they are experiencing symptoms or have come into close contact with someone who is infected.

The team, led by Dr. Amy Fairchild, dean of our College of Public Health, has urged caution as the weather turns colder and stressed the importance of remaining vigilant by wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart and following all of our Safe and Healthy Buckeyes requirements.

Racial justice, diversity and inclusion

As the work of our Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities progresses, I joined co-chairs Dr. James L. Moore III and Dr. Tom Gregoire, as well as Alumni Association President and CEO Molly Ranz Calhoun, for the first in the four-part webinar series Ripe for Change: Conversations on Race in America. You can watch the full discussion here. Over 700 people registered for the virtual event, and I continue to be impressed by the depth of commitment in our community to addressing this critical challenge. One of the topics we discussed is how to leverage and scale up high-impact mentorship programs such as Young Scholars, LASER and others. To register for future webinars, visit the Office of Diversity and Inclusion webpage.

The task force continues to collect data from members of the university community for its report, and I look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks.

Voting reminder

The November 3 general election is next week, and we encourage all Buckeyes to exercise their right to vote. Early voting in Ohio continuesthrough November 2. You can find your countys early voting center location and hours at voteohio.gov. For more voting resources, visit OSU Votes.

Discovery, learning and impact

Each week brings incredible examples of your impact on our campuses and in our communities.

The Master of Sport Management Degree in the College of Education and Human Ecology is one of only two such academic programs in the nation that has closed the gender gap, with 50% or more of its enrolled students and faculty being female.

Dr. Rattan Lal, on the same day he received the 50th annual World Food Prize, was honored by the university and our College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences with the naming of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration.

Leaders from our College of Optometry have been named American Academy of Optometry 2020 Award recipients.

Dr. Melissa Shivers, vice president for student life, has been elected to a two- year term on the national board of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, beginning in 2021.

Ohio States University Hospital, Ross Heart Hospital, Brain and Spine Hospital and Dodd Rehabilitation Hospital each earned a fourth consecutive Magnet designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute also has Magnet status, which is the highest recognition a hospital can receive for outstanding nursing performance.

Graduate student stipends

We were pleased to share last week that the university will increase the minimum stipend for teaching, research and other graduate associates by$4,000 over the next two years. With these increases, Ohio States minimum stipend is projected to rise from the bottom half of the Big Ten to among thetop third.

Based on current figures, the universitys 2021-22 ranking would be fourth in the Big Ten. This represents an investment both in our graduate students and in Ohio States academic mission. As many of you know, graduate associates teach classes, pursue important research and scholarship, and support the university while working to earn advanced degrees. Their contributions to and roles in our university community are vital.

Thank you for all that you do, Buckeyes. Sincerely yours,

Kristina M. Johnson, PhD

President

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Reflections of a First-Year Buckeye: College visits, community safety, football plans, graduate student stipends - The Ohio State University News

In late 2018, UC Berkeley bioethics professor Osagie K. Obasogie received a campus email about a research fund available to faculty members in the School of Public Health.

He was stunned by what he read.

The Genealogical Eugenic Institute Fund, the email said, supports research and education in eugenics a field discredited after World War II as a horrifying ideology that sought to use science to improve the human race by promoting traits deemed superior and breeding out those judged undesirable. The judgments aligned strongly with social biases that favored white, able-bodied and financially stable people.

Eugenics was used as a justification for Hitlers Nazi Germany to kill 6 million Jewish people, and U.S. authorities to forcibly sterilize more than 60,000 people in California and more than 30 other states largely in the early 20th century.

But Berkeleys eugenic research fund has been very much active.

The $2.4-million fund was offering an annual payout of about $70,000 in fiscal year 2020 to support research and education on policies, practices and technologies that could affect the distribution of traits in the human race, including those related to family planning, infertility, assisted reproduction technologies, prenatal screening, abortion, gene editing and gene modification, the email said. That modern definition of eugenics included perspectives that shed light on not only the benefits but also the limitations and the ethics of these alternative approaches to improving the human race.

I was shocked and dismayed, Obasogie told the Los Angeles Times. He, along with a small group of faculty, raised their concerns with the emails author, a former senior administrator.

Those alarm bells prompted the school to freeze the fund and launch a review into how the university could have accepted such a gift in its modern past it came from a family trust to the University of California Board of Regents in 1975 for research under the banner of a now-reviled ideology.

....

But Berkeleys eugenic research fund highlights a reality that Obasogie and other ethicists say is insufficiently discussed: Eugenic thinking did not disappear after the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed. In some ways, it remains embedded in medicine and public health today.

In the United States, government and medical authorities no longer promote eugenics through laws allowing forced sterilization, for instance, or barring marriages with the feeble-minded or between races. About 20,000 people disproportionately nonwhite and poor in California institutions were sterilized under the state eugenic law, which was enacted in 1909 and repealed in 1979.

But the development of reproductive and genetic technologies today allows individuals to make some limited choices about what kinds of humans they deem most desirable and should be selected to live, said Alexandra Minna Stern, a University of Michigan expert on eugenics.

Original post:
UC Berkeley is Disavowing its Eugenic Research Fund after Bioethicist and Other Faculty Call it Out - History News Network (HNN)

Immersive sound is the siren song of car audio makers, luring customers not to their deaths but to the options list. Audi offers Bang & Olufsen's 3D Premium Sound System, Mercedes rocks Burmester's high-end 3D surround-sound system, Range Rover's Meridien promises 3D in-car surround sound. Bose has been pitching surround sound since 1996, after making its first factory-installed audio system for the 1983 Cadillac Seville.

Recreating the preternatural, submersing acoustics of a medieval cathedral these days requires a bouquet of speakers and a lot of power. The Bowers & Wilkins system in the Maserati Levante can put out 1280 watts through 17 speakers. The NAIM unit in a Bentley Flying Spur dishes out 2200 watts through 21 speakers. The Revel Ultima 3D system puts 28 speakers and 1200 watts inside the Lincoln Aviator. The 2021 Cadillac Escalade's Platinum trim comes with a 36-speaker AKG Studio Reference system.

Manufacturers could keep adding speakers until there's no room left in the vehicle, or maybe the next step is the approach Continental Automotive is taking. With its Ac2ated technology, the German supplier best known for tires turns the vehicle into a speaker, a process that could save weight, energy, space, and change the way designers approach the vehicle's cockpit.

Ac2ated uses what are called actuators (hence the name) or exciters. An actuator is a small, puck-like cylinder that has an active surface capable of high-frequency vibrations. "We are putting an exciter on a surface in a vehicle," Continental's innovation and Human Machine Interface expert, Susan Drescher, said, "and giving it a very slight vibration to create a sound from that surface so that your car's pieces become the speaker, as opposed to having speakers installed in the car."

The principle is the same one employed by violins or acoustic guitars, where strings send vibrations resonating through the instrument. The science works on glass and plastic, too. The result, according to Continental, makes vehicle occupants "feel as if they are sitting in a concert hall surrounded by sound."

The technology isn't rare. Amazon sells Dayton Audio exciters for $20, and companies like Solid Drive make systems for home and office use. The tech isn't new, either. Freedom Drivers hit the market in 2007, and in 2013 United States auto industry supplier Johnson Controls produced an excellent behind-the-scenes video of its Lightweight Overhead Audio System with help from studio engineer Tony Bongiovi (Jon Bon Jovi's second cousin).

Continental first showed Ac2ated at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2018. At CES 2020, Continental announced a partnership with Sennheiser that paired Ac2ated with Sennheiser's AMBEO 3D technology. AMBEO provides algorithms that enhance the digital source signals, spreading sound throughout the vehicle with improved spatial reproduction and fidelity.

Because the actuators live in the vehicle's structure like traditional speakers, implementing Ac2ated properly requires working with an automaker as the vehicle is being designed, a relationship like the collaboration between Rolls-Royce and its Bespoke Audio producer for the Phantom II.

Continental says that A-pillars are generally a good place for exciters to produce high frequencies, the door panels are suitable for midrange, and the headliner and rear shelf work best for bass. However, an actuator can be placed almost anywhere, with stiffer materials working better than softer materials. "We work very early on [asking an OEM]," Drescher said, "what are you covering the surfaces in, how much air space is in that surface because you need some air space, so you're not going to pack padding around it."

After the actuators are placed, Continental and Sennheiser fine tune the system. Ac2ated's dynamic range covers the spectrum of human hearing, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz and beyond. The system can be programmed with the same noise-cancellation features as today's systems. And audiophiles retain control of bass, treble, balance, and fadereverything they're used to controlling.

Ac2ated's primary benefit isn't in replacing traditional sound reproduction, however. The most important advantages are saving weight and space, freeing up design, and conserving energy.

According to Continental, a conventional high-end audio system uses between 10 and 20 speakerseven the Dodge Charger can be optioned with 19 speakersand weighs up to 33 pounds, taking up a total volume from 0.4 to 1 cubic foot. Drescher said Ac2ated's tweeters and midrange units aren't much smaller than traditional speakers, but the bass unit is substantially smaller, and the subwoofer doesn't require an enclosure "because your car is the box." The Ac2ated system requires fewer pieces, she said, "maybe 13 as opposed to 20 speakers" producing 12-channel audio. Compared to the traditional speaker array, a high-end Ac2ated system might weigh about two pounds and takes up 0.04 cubic feet. The weight savings help all cars but electric cars especially. That Ac2ated draws less energy and that the system is less expensive than traditional speakers doesn't hurt, either. And Continental is working on exterior sounds for electric vehicles where the sheetmetal would become the instrument.

Since we've all pulled up next to that car with the 22-inch subwoofer that rocks the neighborhood, we wondered: How does Ac2ated keep from vibrating a car to death? "It's not that kind of shake," Drescher said. The vibrations are barely detectable.

How soon will this future arrive? Drescher told us Continental is currently working with an OEM. Which one? She wouldn't say. It's a big secret. But by tweaking how we listen, Continental could help revolutionize the look and feel of the cockpit. Without the need for speaker grilles scattered about, designers get more freedom. "It's a huge change for future interiors," Dresher said. "We see these more clean, simple, minimal types of interiors coming."

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Continental Plays with the Future of Car Audio - Car and Driver

The ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has severely impacted global health, economy and politics in different patterns in various continents. The disease which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was declared a public health event of international concern on 30th January 2020 [1] and a pandemic on 11th March 2020 [2]. As of 10th August 2020, 19462112 confirmed cases and 722285 deaths of the disease had been reported from all countries, areas and territories of the world [3]. Africa reported its first case in Egypt on 14th February 2020 through an importation and by 10th August 2020, all 54 African countries had reported 1035932 confirmed cases and 22920 deaths [4, 5]. Local community transmission has been established in most of these African countries. While Africa remains oneof the least affected regions, recent developments and data from within the continent and other regions particularly Europe and America show that the numbers of cases and deaths can grow exponentially and overwhelm even the best of systems in a relatively short time if effective prevention and control measures are not instituted on time [6, 7].

The fear, anxiety and panic induced by the rapid spread of the pandemic prompted several African countries to take drastic actions some of which are not necessarily based on scientific evidence. Some countries closed their air, sea and land borders and imposed total national or partial sub-national lockdowns in a bid to prevent importation and minimize local transmission. Given the weak health system in most African countries, mounting timely and robust responses to the COVID-19 pandemic will be a big challenge hence the need to focus on targeted and high impact prevention and control interventions that could break the chain of transmission quickly. This becomes more pertinent given the African context where inadequate access to water, sanitation and the extended family system renders the implementation of critical preventive measures such as hand washing and social distancing challenging. This is further compounded by the global shortage of required human and material resources, which is more glaring in Africa.

Due to the rapid spread and impact of the disease on human health, trade and travel, several research (mostly preliminary) have been conducted and published to characterize the virus and the dynamics of its transmission, prevention and control. While some of these publications have shown varying findings, conclusions and recommendations, many key and consistent evidences on the characteristics of the virus, its transmission, prevention and control are now emerging. This body of knowledge is critical to inform the development of timely, effective and context-specific prevention and control strategies in Africa. In this article, we review the relevant scientific literatures on the COVID-19 pandemic, and synthesize the relevant evidence that could potentially change the game in Africas fight against the disease; finally we propose strategic recommendations for prevention and control of COVID-19 transmission in the Africa continent specifically.

The initial characteristics of COVID-19 cases suggest that the disease is zoonotic [8]. However, recent scientific evidence demonstrates that the current transmission pattern globally is from human-to-human. The virus is similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS) viruses with susceptibility and severity associated with older age group [9, 10], male gender [11, 12] and underlying medical conditions such as poor immune functions, chronic diseases and surgery [13]. With a basic reproduction rate ranging from 2.6 to 4.71 [14, 15] and fatality rate from 2.3 to 11% [9, 16] it is more transmissible but less fatal compared to SARS and MERS [17, 18]. As is the case with most Influenza viruses, the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 significantly reduces with an increase in temperature and humidity [19, 20], however, this advantage may be offset by the high transmissibility of the virus.

Three main routes of transmission have been identified among humans namely ingestion or inhalation of contaminated droplets released into the air when a patient sneezes, coughs or talks, contact with surfaces which have been contaminated by infected persons and the inhalation of aerosols generated during some medical procedures [21, 22]. A few studies have also suggested faeco-oral transmission of the virus [23, 24]. A recent study concluded that the virus remains viable and infectious in aerosols for a few hours and up to a few days on surfaces, particularly on stainless steel and plastics [25]. While distinct signs and symptoms such as fever, dry cough, runny nose, difficulty in breathing, etc. have been associated with the disease, recent evidence suggests a high proportion of COVID-19 cases are infectious but undocumented either because they have mild or no symptoms but yet continue to transmit the disease [26]. This could contribute to the high transmissibility and rapid geographic spread of the virus.

Based on the lessons learnt from responding to the outbreak in China, prevention and control strategies have been proposed and are in use at various levels. In the absence of a vaccine, infection prevention and control measures that include measures to reduce or prevent exposure to the virus such as identification of suspected cases through syndromic screening at points of entry into countries, public places, health facilities, prevention of shedding of virus into the environment through respiratory hygiene have been recommended as prevention and control strategies in the general population [21]. Others include proper sanitation and waste management, social distancing to prevent contact with infected persons, avoidance of touching potentially contaminated surfaces, eyes, nose and mouth with contaminated hands and hand washing with soap and water or hand sanitizers which contain at least 60% alcohol [21]. Available evidence suggests that social distancing may have a dramatic effect on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections, [27] but there may be renewed virus transmission following relaxation of such measures due to the large proportion of susceptible people that would still be in the population [28]. There is a convergent view on the important role of face masks in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 by protecting healthy persons who come into contact with an infected individual and by preventing infected persons from shedding the droplets into the environment [29, 30]. The use of face masks has also been associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression among the general population and health care workers which further supports its importance in prevention and control of the disease [31,32,33].

At the individual case level, timely diagnosis, isolation and supportive management of confirmed cases, identification and follow-up of their contacts, prevention of nosocomial transmission through strong infection prevention and control methods and use of personal protective equipment are recommended [34]. There is no known cure for the disease currently but several clinical trials involving various therapies are ongoing. WHO recommends that all laboratory confirmed cases should be isolated and managed in health facility settings but where this is not possible priority should be given to cases with the probability of poor outcomes such as those aged above 60years and with underlying medical conditions which put them at higher risk [35].

Putting the above scientific evidences on the characteristics and dynamics of COVID-19 transmission, prevention and control into perspective against the backdrop of the social, cultural and economic context in Africa, we deduce several lessons which could guide African countries to better prepare for and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent.

While the mostly hot and humid African weather and largely younger population may be deterrent factors for wide transmission of the disease, any advantage conferred by this is offset by the high transmissibility of the disease. This is more so given the high population density, larger families and large vulnerable populations such as refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis (TB) and malnutrition thus emphasis in African countries should be on prevention of the spread of infection, especially to these vulnerable groups. In this regard, African countries should invest in identifying, developing and implementing tailor-made prevention strategies to protect at risk populations from infection [36].

Given the high proportion of undocumented and asymptomatic cases of COVID-19, the use of syndromic surveillance for disease detection at points of entry may not be very effective [37]. While syndromic surveillance may offer some level of reassurance to governments and the general population, the cost in terms of the human and financial resources associated with conducting it may offset its benefits. African countries should rather invest in active search for cases and their contacts at the community and household levels particularly the asymptomatic contacts and transmitters through scaling up testing of all persons who may have been exposed to the virus but remain asymptomatic. To achieve this, COVID-19 testing strategies which prioritize massive testing of various categories of persons based on the transmission scenario should be developed. Additionally, efforts should be made to increase testing capacity and timeliness by decentralizing testing to the sub-national levels.

The evidence that the virus survives much longer on surfaces such as stainless steel and plastic as compared to respiratory droplets have far reaching implications for prevention and control of the virus at the population level. First, risk communication messages should emphasize the high risk constituted by surfaces such as doorknobs, stainless steel handrails, disposable plastics etc. and encourage people to refrain from unnecessary touching of such surfaces. Second, regular disinfection of such surfaces at the household and community level is advised and should be included in risk communication messages and during community engagement sessions [23]. Third, in the light of new findings on asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 and recommendations on the usage of face masks by healthy individuals, African countries should define clear policies on the use of face masks. Such policies should ensure that face masks are available to those who need them particularly the frontline healthcare workers, caregivers and vulnerable groups, address the issue of shortage of masks and other supplies which is already a challenge in many African countries and importantly provide clear guidance to the general population on the pros and cons, safe use, donning and doffing of face masks. Furthermore, African scientists should pursue urgent researches into the use of locally available material for the production of face masks which are suitable to the African context [29, 30].

While available scientific evidence shows that the social distancing which is the ultimate aim of the current lockdowns and population movement restriction measures instituted by several African countries may reduce transmission of the virus in the short term, this strategy alone may not be enough to break the chain of transmission [28]. Since there is already widespread community transmission in many of these countries, population confinement may result in a change in the transmission pattern from the community to the household level [38]. Furthermore, African countries may not be able to sustain such lockdowns for a long time given their socioeconomic context thus they should focus on making the best use of the small window of opportunity that they offer. First, clear objectives should be set for lockdowns which should be to reduce transmission through the scale up of preparedness and response interventions and to control the outbreak in areas of transmission. These objectives should be communicated clearly to the general population to forestall community resistance to lockdowns which is being experienced in some of the African countries. Second, the definition of areas where to impose confinement should be guided by the epidemiology and pattern of transmission of the disease. Third, the lockdowns should be accompanied by intensive risk communication, active case search at the community and household levels, massive testing, contact tracing and isolation. Fourth, adequate preparation should be made to ensure that confined populations have access to basic services such as food, water, healthcare etc. during lockdowns in order to reduce community resistance andensure adherence. Fifth, appropriate strategies to prevent a second wave of the pandemic following the lifting of the lockdown measures should be developed and implemented [39].

Given the weak health systems in most of the infected African countries, institutional management of all laboratory confirmed cases may not be a feasible option. On the other hand, home management of such cases is constrained by several challenges due to the large household size, poor housing and high population density in many African countries. Countries should therefore develop context-specific case management strategies which should classify cases according to their risk and health needs, identify places such as health facilities and non-health facilities such as repurposed hostels, schools, hotels or stadia where the various categories of cases will be isolated, define and identify the minimum package of resources such as health workers, medicines, medical equipment and other logistics which are needed to effectively manage the anticipated caseloads. Such strategies should be based on the prevailing transmission scenario in the country.

The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed even strong health systems in Europe and America. A review and analysis of the impact of the 20142015 Ebola outbreaks in West Africa on health systems revealed that there was a significant reduction in access to routine health services and this led to substantially increased mortality from preventable diseases such as malaria, measles, HIV, AIDS and TB. African countries should learn from this experience and implement available guidance from WHO to ensure that essential health services are maintained during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly during lockdowns to reduce excess mortality from other preventable diseases [40,41,42]. Key to maintenance of essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic is the protection of health care workers from acquiring COVID-19 infection; this can be achieved by providing African health workers with the necessary equipment, information and training on how to protect themselves [43].

Management of COVID-19 outbreaks in the situation of population displacement such as refugee and IDPs camps and in prisons and urban slums which are common in Africa is a major challenge. Other high-risk situations include in large-scale industries which employ a large number of semi-skilled workers [44]. The high transmissibility of the virus, overcrowding and inadequate access to social services such as water and sanitation will rapidly facilitate transmission of the virus and constrain implementation of preventive measures such as social distancing in such situations. African countries should, therefore, invest in the development of special public health strategies for prevention and control of outbreaks in such settings [36]. Establishment of COVID-19 information and testing centres near such areas is recommended to improve rapid access of the high-risk populations to COVID-19 prevention and control services [44].

Importantly, the lessons from the rapid spread of the virus in China, Italy, Iran, Republic of Korea and America should be a wake-up call for African countries to rapidly scale up risk communication, community engagement, and participation. The scientific evidence described above and outcomes of anthropological studies on COVID-19 should be used as the basis for development of evidence-based and context specific risk communication messages. Such risk communication messages should be focused on achieving behavioural change and tailor-made to address the several socio-cultural myths, stigma, misconceptions and rumours associated with the virus, its transmission, prevention and control.

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Moving from rhetoric to action: how Africa can use scientific evidence to halt the COVID-19 pandemic - Infectious Diseases of Poverty - BioMed Central