International Polar Bear Day is Thursday to discuss the challenges facing the animals because of melting sea ice. Polar bears depend on the ice to hunt their main food source: seals.

With the diminishing population of polar bears, future generations may only know polar bears as the ones on Coca-Cola cans and in zoos. Thursday is International Polar Bear Day to bring awareness to the challenges facing polar bears.

Polar bears are starving to death as the continuing warming of the Arctic, due to climate change, melts the sea ice. This leaves the bears without their main food source: seals.

Polar bears are listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. According to the most recent study (Hamilton and Derocher, 2018), there are about 23,000 polar bears worldwide.

Andrew Derocher, professor of biology at the University of Alberta, is a longtime scientific adviser for Polar Bears International. He has been studying polar bears for about 36 years, mainly in the Canadian Arctic, but he also worked in the Norwegian Arctic for seven years.

The simplest way to look at the ecology of polar bears is its what we call a sea ice obligate species, so theyre only found where sea ice persists for most of the year, Derocher said. Theyre highly adapted to be a predator from the surface of the sea ice. So sea ice is their preferred habitat. Its where they travel, its where they hunt, its where they mate and even some parts of their distribution, such as often the north coast of Alaska, pregnant females will actually den out on the sea ice and give birth to their cubs there.

These bears rely on sea ice for hunting, and with it disappearing, the bears ability and time to hunt for food is limited.

The simplest summation for them is that the main threat to polar bears is habitat loss, Derocher said. And that is exactly the same threat that is putting many, many species around the world at risk.

Rather than polar bears being known as large predators of the Arctic, future generations may know polar bears as the icon of Coca-Cola cans as their population is being challenged by climate change effects.

Stephen Dinsmore, department chair of the entomology department, is a professor of natural resource ecology and management. He is also a population biologist and avian ecologist.

So the food supply thats on the mainland is not as good, is not as nutritious, so theyre trying to make do with a secondary food supply, which causes the emaciated images [of polar bears] that you see on the news, Dinsmore said. Thats not sufficient for something like that. Theyre a big animal. They need a lot of input of calories. And meat and fat and proteins and things like that are very, very important, so I think thats kind of this phenological mismatch we call it.

Derocher said the Arctic is warming somewhere between two to three times faster than areas of lower latitudes. He said in the 70s and 80s, studies about polar bears werent looking at monitoring climate change. Through those studies, though, they found monitoring information to look at things like reproductive rates and survival rates.

In essence, with increasing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, were getting rapid warming in the Arctic and essentially shortening the time period that sea ice is present but also doing some fundamental changes, like changing the thickness of the sea ice and its distribution, Derocher said. So in overview, theres not a lot of things you can do from a conservation effort for polar bears without trying to at least address climate change, greenhouse gas emissions across the planet.

International Polar Bear Day brings awareness to the challenges polar bears face due to the warming of the Arctic. Polar bears use sea ice to hunt their main food source, which is seals.

James Colbert, associate professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, has been director for the undergraduate biology program for 15 years. He said a lot of people assume if a species doesn't have a direct impact on humans that they dont really view them as important.

Every species has a role in the ecosystems that they live in, Colbert said. Because of limitations of time and effort and money and people to study these things, we often dont know exactly what the role is, but they all have a role, whether we know what it is or not.

The role that every species has is called a niche. They have their job and the goal to survive to pass on their genes to the next generation.

Michael Rentz, assistant teaching professor of natural resource ecology and management, grew up adventuring in nature and watching the 1970s versions of Animal Planet. He said the more time he spends in his career, the more passion he has.

Polar bears rely on sea ice to hunt seals, and with the warming of the Arctic, a lack of sea ice limits the time and ability the bears have to find food.

The polar bear is a great example of an animal with a pretty narrow niche, Rentz said. Its able to live off of seals and to hunt seals in the winter on the ice.

Rentz relates the idea of niches to humans. There used to be a niche for blacksmiths and pager salesmen, and now its more about repairing iPhones. With polar bears though, he said they cant evolve to have a different main food source or adapt to eating seals without the help of ice, considering the time scale.

So they cant necessarily swim [seals] down, and the seals dont necessarily come to land reliably enough that they can hunt exclusively just on land, Rentz said. As the climate change is, an ice up comes later and ice out comes earlier. Were shrinking that period of time where the bears can be effectively feeding.

Not being able to effectively feed on seals and build up fat can be a challenge for mother polar bears when reproducing and feeding their young. They can lack the energy needed to go through the process and may be unable to give their cubs the proper nutrients and teach them skills needed for the wild once separated from their mother.

Rentz said the bears do eat for more than just themselves when pregnant, but it takes even more energy to produce milk for the young than it does to produce the cub itself.

Mother polar bears have one to three cubs at a time, twins being the most common, according to Polar Bears International. The cubs are nursed for at least 20 months and learn skills from their mother to eventually survive on their own.

Mother polar bears have one to three cubs at a time, twins being the most common, according to Polar Bears International. The newborns are fully dependent on their mother for warmth and food, as when first born, they cant see, dont have teeth and only have short fur. The cubs will nurse for at least 20 months using the milk, which is 31 percent fat to grow bigger and stronger.

The other thing, because they eat mostly fat and they store lots and lots of fat, any chemicals that are fat soluble, that accumulate in the environment, theres the chance for bioaccumulation in the bears, Rentz said. So I dont think necessarily the way the ocean currents work that bears are seeing a lot of straws, but any of that pollution in the water or in the air thats accumulating in the food chain the fish eating the plankton, the seals eating the fish, the bear eating the seal.

Getting educated not only about what can be done to address climate change but also what animals do can be helpful to people so they have a better understanding of why animals are important to their ecosystem.

Dinsmore said with polar bears, there has been the use of satellite tracking technology. Satellite tags track where the bears are and if they stick to the same routines year by year.

Understanding how polar bears use their environment can be helpful when looking at how to correct the problems the bears are facing.

Well, certainly I hope that all the attention and research and images of polar bears that are suffering get enough attention so that we can deal with the Arctic ecosystem in a way that reverses those trends, Dinsmore said. So that we dont have to have our children see the same images or not have the opportunity to see a wild polar bear. Its a magnificent animal and its something thats great to have the possibility that we can have those around for next generations.

Polar bears are listed as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with the most recent study estimating about 23,000 polar bears worldwide.

Polar Bears International will have special programming throughout Thursday including live chats on Facebook. There will be a range of experts from the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark on the live chats so people can ask them questions. The full schedule for International Polar Bear Day can be found on Polar Bears Internationals website.

A Canada Goose short film called Bare Existence documents the work Polar Bears International has done to drive awareness and inspire action. The Polar Bears International website also has a large amount of information about polar bears, climate change and how people can get involved to help not only polar bears but all species.

Personally, I think its a much sadder world if the only place you can see polar bears is a zoo, Colbert said. But not everybody would agree with me.

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Polar bears feel the effects of warming Arctic - Iowa State Daily

Like the ones before it, this Black History Month is blessed with a cascade of creative programming that will uncover and convey Black Canadas complex and compelling stories through an array of artistic mediums. This includes varied and powerful artistic performances of theatre, music and dance; photography and other visual arts exhibitions; book talks; community tours; film screenings, and so much more.

However, the troubling truth is that, outside of February, consistent and prominent displays of Black creative talent and artistic direction are exceedingly rare in Canada. Beyond Black History Month, Canadas Black creatives and creative industry professionals experience what one of Canadas leading Black professors, Katherine McKittrick, might refer to as an absented presence. This absenting of Canadas Black creatives is especially revealed in the leadership and programming of Canadas dominant cultural institutions, including major galleries, museums, art, film and performance spaces. This is why Canada needs a national policy on Black arts, culture and heritage.

Towards a national arts policy for Black Canadians

A national arts policy for Black Canadians would enable Canadian governments to fulfill the legislated promise of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act. This Act recognizes multiculturalism as a fundamental characteristic of Canadian society. A proposed Black national arts policy, then, would leverage the diverse and dynamic profiles of Canadas Black communities to support our countrys commitment to a policy of multiculturalism designed to preserve and enhance the multicultural heritage of Canadians while working to achieve the equality of all Canadians in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada.

A Black Canadian national arts policy would also substantially enhance the principle of multiculturalism as a human rights instrument enshrined in Canadas Constitution in section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Given the typical absence and erasure of Black arts, culture and heritage in Canada, protecting the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians of African descent, through a national Black arts, culture and heritage policy is prudent policy intervention with significant value that transcends party lines.

Because of the aforementioned legal and constitutional provisions, Canadians and parties of all political stripes have a vested national interest in ensuring due respect and presence is afforded to Canadas Black communities through arts, culture and heritage place-making. More specifically, the current government also has an interest in adopting a national Black arts policy because it would markedly enhance Canadas commitment to implement the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent.

Black Canadas got tremendous talent

For decades, and particularly in the last year couple of years, the artistic excellence of Canadas Black creative talents has abundantly demonstrated that now is the time for Canadas adoption of a national policy for Black arts, culture and heritage.

Consider, for instance, some of the most recent Black Canadian successes in the literary arts alone:

This is to say nothing of Canadas longtime literary treasures Dionne Brand, Andre Alexis, Esi Edugyan, Lawrence Hill, Dany Laferrire, M. NourbeSe Phillip, George Elliott Clarke, the late Austin Clarke, and many more. Theres also a coming tide of gifted breakout writers who are poised to soon follow in these writers footsteps, including Eternity Martis, Zalika Reid-Benta, Kagiso Lesego Molope, Chelene Knight, Desmond Cole, Ta Mutonji, Rebecca Fisseha, Nadia Hohn, Evan Winter, Whitney French, Djamila Ibrahim and Canisia Lubrin.

In music, Black Canadas creative genius is also gaining increasing traction beyond the superstars Drake (including his OVO Sound mega artists and producers) and The Weeknd. For instance, in 2019, the Polaris Music Prize went to rapper Haviah Mighty for her album 13th Floor. Karena Evans is also making her mark as one of the hottest new award-winning video directors. Theres also the increasing embrace by the global hip-hop community of Juno award-winning artist Shad as a trusted and true hip-hop historian thanks to the ballooning success of the Canadian music documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution on Netflix.

In Hollywood, actor Stephan James and his brother, Shamier Anderson, are doing bigger and bigger things in front of the camera while breakout film director and screenwriter Stella Meghies filmmaking career has taken off in the US and Canada; her highly anticipated film The Photograph arrives in theatres this month. Also, actress Vinessa Antoine recently came to national attention as the lead character in Diggstown, the first Canadian drama series to feature a Black Canadian woman as its lead, also produced by fellow Black Canadian Floyd Kane. Finally, there is the growing fame of Winnie Harlow, who continues to change the game as a global fashion model and a public spokesperson with lived experience having the skin condition vitiligo.

These are some of the most prominent Black Canadian creatives recently achieving great successes. Theyre doing so in a way that is defining and refiningwhat it means to be not just be Black, but BlackandCanadian.

Valuing Black arts is valuing Black people

Without a national policy or infrastructure and a strategy to support, sustain and/or nurture the creative and professional growth of the hundreds of thousands of young Black Canadians inspired by the above-mentioned successes, they are left without much needed support to pursue their own creative dreams. This policy gap contributes to the erasure of Black people from Canadas collective consciousness.

This experience of Black Canadian erasure is captured by Black Canadian historian Cecil Foster, who has said: In Canada, the norm has always been to either place blackness on the periphery of society by strategically and selectively celebrating Blacks only as a sign of how tolerant and non-racist white Canadians are (as is seen in the recurrence of the Underground Railroad as a positive achievement in a Canadian mythology of racial tolerance) or to erase blackness as an enduring way of life from the national imaginary.

Canadian policymakers must realize that how Canada treats its Black creatives is an extension of how Canadas Black communities are treated by Canadian society writ large. This connection is captured by a poignant comment made by Toronto hip-hop intellectual Ian Kamau, who has said, Black music and Black art, like Black people, are undervalued in Canada

This undervaluing of Black Canadian voices brings a sense of perpetual social and civic disposability to the Black experience in Canada that can feel suffocating. This undervaluing tends to make being Black in Canada feel like Blackness is only something to be put on display for temporary and specific purposes. Its important that Canada boldly demonstrate that our country finds worth, value and meaning in Black Canadian life well beyond the short and cold days of February. We need to build on the good that comes out of Black History Month.

Black arts, well-being and belonging

Without a long-term, robustly resourced, multi-sectoral and intergovernmental national policy for Black arts, culture and heritage, Canada risks turning celebration into exploitation of Canadas Black creative class (and by extension, of Canadas Black communities). Not having a national framework for birthing, incubating and nurturing Canadas Black talents is a lost opportunity for all Canadians. This is because such a policy would only advance the currency of Canadas global cultural capital.

Finally, while many Black communities love Black History Month, it is also true that for many Black Canadians, it perpetuates a sense of Black disposability. It is a stark contrast to the almost complete loss of positive time and attention that Canadas Black communities are given by governments and mainstream institutions the rest of the year.

A national Black arts, culture and heritage policy would help Black History Month to enhance its commemoration of Canadas Black histories while also serving as a vehicle for an annual launch and exhibition of a year-long display of Black Canadas diverse established and emerging talents. This would go a long way to not only fostering a deeper sense of belonging for Black Canadians (new and old) but also materially advancing the economic well-being of the Black creatives and administrators who too often struggle to support themselves and their art the rest of the year.

The Swahili word for creativity is kuumba, which has become a principle of Kwanzaa, the African diasporas cultural celebration. Its time for an African Canadian Arts Council, and we could call it Kuumba Canada. Because our #BlackArtsMatter.

Photo: Canadian broadcaster and writer Amanda Parris in Toronto at the 2018 Canadian Screen Awards. Last year, she won the Governor Generals Literary Award for Drama.Shutterstockby by Shawn Goldberg.

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Why Canada needs a national policy for Black arts, culture and heritage - Policy Options

The Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) was once widespread throughout the United Kingdom. It is believed that the species was hunted to extinction for its fur and castoreum oil (used for flavoring and scents). The beavers were last recorded in Wales and England in the 12th century. In Scotland, populations held on until the 16th century. Since the mid-20th century, reintroduction programs throughout Europe have led to the return of beavers in over 25 countries. There is no evidence of past beavers in Northern Ireland. In Scotland, beaver populations are currently found in two areas. While in England, several reintroduction trials are taking place in both fenced and unfenced areas. There are also proposals for the reintroduction of beavers in Wales. Beavers are preferred candidates for reintroduction due to their ability to manipulate the environment to create wetland habitats that support greater biodiversity. Their ability to change the environment can have both positive and negative effects on agriculture, flood management, and freshwater fisheries.

Feasibility studies on the reintroduction of beavers in Scotland began in 1995. The findings from the study were published in 2015 in the Beavers in Scotland report. It was produced by the Scottish Natural Heritage on behalf of the Scottish government. There are currently two populations of beavers in Scotland. At Knapdale in Argyll, there is a population of about twelve animals (as estimated in 2017). The population was reintroduced into the area as a result of a licensed beaver trial project that ran between 2009 and 2014 on Scottish Ministers National Forest Estate. Organizations involved in the project included the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS). A larger population of beavers is found at the Tay and Earn catchments (Tayside). The population at Tayside is as a result of illegal or accidental release. A survey conducted in 2012 put the population at 146 animals. Tests done by RZSS vets showed that the animals were healthy and free of disease. The Minister for Environment decided that the population at Tayside should remain in situ until a decision was made on the future of the beavers in Scotland.

In 2011, a pair of Eurasian beavers were introduced into three hectares of fenced private land in northern Devon. The objective of the project was to use the animals to restore the wet grassland habitat of national importance. Besides, it also helps to understand the effects of the species on the environment. Findings from the projects will help inform future decisions on the potential reintroduction of the species into a wider area. The effects of the animals are monitored through water quality tests, fixed-point surveys, and surveys on flora and fauna. So far, the effects of the project have been positive. The dense willow canopy is finally opening up and allowing culm grassland beneath to thrive. A diverse habitat has been created, and limited amounts of water that used to flow through the site have been transformed into an amazing series of waterways. Beaver activity has also improved the lands ability to hold water and reduced sediment load in the water.

In 2014, a beaver population was discovered living in the wild in east Devon. The beavers presumably escaped into the wild or were as a result of an unsanctioned release. The beavers were initially supposed to be rehomed due to a perceived disease risk posed by the animals and their potential undesirable impact on the wildlife and landscape. Following unprecedented support from the local community, the Devon Wildlife Trust was granted permission by Natural England to commence a five-year monitoring program. In 2015, the new-born beavers, which were part of Englands first wild beaver trial, were recorded on film on the River Otter. In 2018 beavers were observed moving into new areas and creating dams to form wetland habitat. Over the years, beaver activity in the area has helped in the filtering of agricultural chemicals and silt out of the water.

The Kent Wildlife Trust introduced two families of Eurasian beavers to 30 hectares of enclosed land at Ham Fen in 2001. The project was necessitated by challenges faced in the restoration of the last fenland in Kent using machinery. Restoration using beavers proved very successful with ancient fenland and wet grassland, now thriving thanks to the beavers. The project is praised for is its sustainable approach to maintaining wetlands and various wildlife species.

The Welsh beaver project is currently working to reintroduce beavers into the Welsh landscape. Feasibility studies that have been carried out have determined that there is suitable habitat in Wales for the beavers.

Eurasian beavers were introduced to Cornwall by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and local farmers in 2017. The objective of the project was to show that beavers can help in the formation of new habitat, reduce flooding, and make streams cleaner. The beavers were reintroduced into a fenced area upstream of Ladock Village. The village had experienced severe flooding in the past before the introduction of the project, which was aimed at helping mitigate the challenge.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines on the reintroduction of a species state that the anticipated impact of such programs has to be considered, including the impact on humans before initiating such schemes. Besides, such projects can be inhibited by human-wildlife conflicts and human-human conflict. Therefore, identifying the perceptions of the public and stakeholders is critical. In addition to evaluating the health and reproduction of reintroduced animals, one can also gauge the success or failure of the program by evaluating stakeholder perceptions and environmental impact.

In various parts of the world, human-wildlife conflicts have been experienced, particularly due to land-use change and human population growth. Such conflicts occur when wildlife is perceived to have an undesirable impact economically or on human wellbeing. Human-human conflicts occur between groups holding differing perceptions on wildlife and management solutions. Human-human conflicts are, in most cases, polarised, with complex debates framed as distinct opposing arguments. For example, conservationists believe that the reintroduction of the animals into river catchments is a sustainable technique that makes the landscape more resilient to climate change. Beaver dams hold water during the dry period and reduce the impact of flash flooding downstream.

Beavers also create complex river systems that slow water flow, reduce erosion, and improve the quality of water by holding silt. Farmers, however, have concerns over the reintroduction of beavers with the National Farmers Union, saying that it could have a massive impact on farming and the countryside. The farmers are worried that the species which has not been in the country for hundreds of years could affect several benefits obtained in their absence. Some of the concerns include land drains potentially being blocked in lowland arable areas. Others are concerned that their dams will block the migration of salmon and sea trout. The perception gap indicates that the reintroduction program has not had much success in aligning perceptions and expectations among stakeholders, therefore, living room for future human-wildlife or human-human conflict.

Beavers are considered ecosystem engineers (organisms that cause physical environmental changes that influence ecological community structures) due to their roles that include dam building and tree-felling. Beaver activity provides several ecosystem services or benefits to humans. For example, beavers play a role in natural flood management by attenuating water flows during periods of high rainfall. Some specific habitats and species of high conservation importance can, however, be adversely affected by beaver populations if appropriate management is not done. Beavers are likely to have a detrimental impact on certain woodland habitats such as aspen (Populus tremula) woodland and the Atlantic Hazelwood climax community. A lack of woodland regeneration, especially when there is high deer abundance could lead to habitat degradation.

So far, beaver reintroduction has not harmed the environment. In Scotland, a positive effect on biodiversity is expected. For example, beaver activity is expected to provide an important habitat for the great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), the otter (Lutra lutra) and water vole (Arvicola amphibius). Studies that have been conducted on the environmental impact of beavers, including those examining beaver-salmonid interactions, have confirmed that beavers have a positive influence on biodiversity. Beaver reintroduction can, therefore, be classified as a success in this regard.

Scotland recently introduced legislation making it illegal to kill beavers or destroy their dams and lodges without a license. Wildlife campaigners have hailed the move as it prevents a repeat of the beavers historic demise in Great Britain. The Scottish government has described beavers as having a huge significance to Scotlands biodiversity and farming hence the need for a licensing system when culling is needed. Experts have also advocated for active land management to deal with the localized negative impact caused by beavers. Educating local communities living around areas occupied by beavers is also encouraged to prevent human-wildlife conflict.

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Beaver Reintroduction In The United Kingdom: A Success Or Failure? - World Atlas

3 February 2020

Dr He Jiankui, who claimed that the world's first babies had been born with edited genomes, has been sentenced to three years in prison and fined for performing 'illegal medical practices' (see BioNews 977 and 1029).

In November 2018 during the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, Dr He shocked the world by announcing that twin girls Lulu and Nana had been born with edited DNA to make them resistant to HIV, which he had achieved usingCRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing on embryos.

Many of Dr He's peershave raised ethical questions, including the level of consentobtained from the parents of the twins and the lack of transparency surrounding his experiment. His work has been subjected to intense criticism by the global scientific community.

According to China's state-runXinhua News Agency, the Shenzhen Nanshan District People's Court sentenced Dr He to three years in jail and imposed a 3 million yuan (US$430,000) fine. Two embryologists with whom he collaboratedreceived lesser sentences; Zhang Renli was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 1 million yuan (US$143,000), while Qin Jinzhou was given a suspended prison sentence of 18 months and fined 500,000 yuan (US$71,600).

The public prosecution agency produced various types of evidence including documents, witness testimonies, electronic data, audiovisual materials and inspection records, Xinhua reported. The court held that the accused did not obtain the relevant qualifications, gained profit and had violated the national regulations on scientific research and medical management.

The nature of their transgression was consideredsevere enough toconstitutethe crime of 'illegal medical practice'. According to Article 336 of the Criminal Law of the Chinese Peoples Republic, an illegal medical practice refers to a medical activity performed by a person who does not possess a medical licence. Dr He and his collaborators' clinical trial was interpreted as a type of medical activity. As none of the three had the proper certification to practise medicine,they were found guilty of committing illegal medical practice. All three defendants pleaded guilty.

Interestingly, due process was followed in the trial. The defendants were represented by lawyers and were given the opportunity to speak during the hearing. Among those who attended the court were family members of the defendants, representatives of the National People's Congress (legislature), members of the Political Consultation Conference (official consulting body) and journalists.

In 2016, Dr He became aware of monetary gains from the technology according to the court's findings, Xinhua said. And to keep the matter confidential, he paid every couple who participated in the research 280,000 Yuan (about US$40,000), a hefty amount for most Chinese couples (or western couples). This payment and the lack of disclosure would nullify the consent given by the research subjects.

The last few decades have seen China makesubstantial economic developments and technological advances. Under premier Deng Xiaoping, its economic reform began in 1979 which opened the nation up. As the second-largest economy in the world, the Chinese government has invested heavily in genetic research.

The leading countries in genetic research include the UK, US and China. But, in terms of bioethics, China has a different culture from thedeveloped western nations.In many western societies, editing the genomes of human embryos intended for pregnancy is prohibited. For instance, the UK has had a regulatory framework governingreproductive technologies and embryo researchsince 1990.

If Dr He had been an Australian researcher, he would face 15 years in prison. There would also be sanctions from his employer and loss of research funding. Section 15 of the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Act 2002 states that a person commits a criminal offence if they alter the genome of a human cell in a way that the alteration is heritable by descendants of the human whose cell was changed; and in altering the genome, the person intended the alteration to be heritable by descendants of the human whose cell was altered.

On a positive note, the response of the Chinese government indicates they are moving to clarifyregulation. Soon after Dr He's announcement that he had created the world's first genome-edited babies, investigators from the Guangdong Province Health Commission conducted an investigation. Its findings were that Dr He had performed the clinical trial in pursuit of fame and fortune with self-raised funds, forged ethical review documents, misled patients about the risks and breached a 15-year-old regulation that prohibitshuman embryos that have used in research from subsequentreproductive use.

In January 2019, China's President, Xi Jinping, called for stricter laws. In February, the government announced new rules on innovative technologies which would be regulated by the State Council (China's Cabinet). The National Health Commission has prohibited the three scientists from performing assisted reproduction for life and the Ministry of Science and Technology barred them from making applications for research funding. Very importantly, China's Civil Code has been undergoing amendments and its latest version, which is expected to be released in March 2020 aims to address the ethical issues raised by heritable genome editing.

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The aftermath of the He Jiankui fiasco: China's response - BioNews

With every passing moment, another breaking report about the newfound coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, hits your news feed. So far, more than 7,700 cases of the virus have been confirmed, including more than 100 cases beyond China.

But one vital question is on many people's minds: How far will the virus spread?

It can be maddeningly difficult to pin the answer down to a question like this, because the epidemic's extent will depend on a number of factors, including when infected individuals become contagious, how long they remain contagious and how long the virus can survive outside a human host.

However, one estimate predicts that the total number of infections in five major Chinese cities Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Chongqing will peak between late April and early May, according to a model developed by researchers at The University of Hong Kong. During this period, as many as 150,000 new cases may be reported in Chongqing each day due to the city's large population and the volume of travel from Wuhan to Chongqing, the team reported. The same model predicts that the number of people showing symptoms in Wuhan will spike to more than 50,000 by this upcoming weekend. Of course, things are changing rapidly, and the models estimates rely on many unknowns.

Some disease transmission has already taken place beyond Chinese borders, specifically in Germany. As the illness has been reported in 22 countries so far, additional international transmission may be inevitable, but whether the outbreak will reach epidemic levels remains to be seen. To answer that question, scientists are working to determine how quickly the virus can spread between people and at what stage the disease is most transmissible.

A pathogen's ability to spread depends on its transmissibility, meaning how easily the bug can hop from one host to the next. Scientists estimate how efficiently a bug spreads between people by calculating a number known as R0, pronounced R-nought.

Also known as the "basic reproduction number," R0 predicts the number of people who can catch a given bug from a single infected person. For example, diseases such as polio, smallpox and rubella have R0 values in the 5 to 7 range; such values mean that, on average, one sick person would be likely to infect five to seven people who were not resistant to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The measles virus ranks among the most highly transmissible diseases on the planet, with an estimated R0 value of 12 to 18.

As Chinese health officials confirmed more and more cases of 2019-nCoV, scientists around the world rushed to estimate R0 for the new virus. Last week, several reports placed the figure between 2 and 3, while the World Health Organization reported that the virus's R0 falls slightly lower, at between 1.4 and 2.5. Other estimates have surpassed this range, hovering above 3.5. But what do all these numbers really mean?

For context, know that diseases with an R0 below 1 typically disappear from a population before becoming widespread, as infected people recover faster than the bug can be transmitted to new hosts. "In general, you want an R0 below 1; that's how you know the disease is under control," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a news briefing held Monday (Jan. 27). An R0 above 1 suggests that a given disease will continue to spread, but the number doesn't reveal how quickly transmission will take place.

Related: Going viral: 6 new findings about viruses

Remember that R0 represents the average number of people that could be infected by a single contagious person; that seemingly straightforward number can reflect a variety of scenarios. An infection might ripple through a population in even waves, with each diseased person infecting a similar number of people. Alternatively, transmission might occur in sudden spurts, with a few so-called superspreaders passing on the infection to many people at once while other infected individuals recover before infecting anyone at all.

In the early days of an outbreak, scientists cannot map these transmission patterns in detail, because they have too few data points. Such is the case with 2019-nCoV. "The cases that have been identified skew to the severe How does this skew our understanding of the virus?" Alex Azar, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Homeland Security (HHS), said during a news briefing on Tuesday (Jan. 28).

What's more, R0 estimates vary from location to location, as disease transmission depends on how often people in the affected area come into contact with each other and how prevalent infection is in a given population. The current estimates for 2019-nCoV are specific to the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the ongoing outbreak.

R0 values also depend on characteristics of the infection itself, including how long infected people remain contagious, whether asymptomatic people can pass on the disease and how long the bug can survive outside the body, according to a study published in the January 2019 issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Chinese health officials reported isolated cases of disease transmission from asymptomatic people, but the CDC has not yet reviewed this data or verified the conclusion, CDC Director Robert Redfield said during the news briefing on Jan. 28. But even if asymptomatic transmission can occur, "an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers," added Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Historically, symptomatic carriers "shed" far more of the virus than asymptomatic people during outbreaks of respiratory infection, he said.

Scientists will continue to refine the R0 estimate for 2019-nCoV as more data rolls in from around the world. Regardless of the final calculation, however, the new virus has already hopped aboard several international flights and spread far beyond Chinese borders.

To prevent 2019-nCoV from spreading further, countries such as the U.S., Australia and the U.K. are screening travelers coming from China and quarantining those with potential infections. This week, the CDC announced that its screening efforts will be expanded to cover 20 airports. In addition, health officials will monitor both infected people and their close contacts in order to identify more cases and better understand how the disease progresses over time.

For those traveling home from China, passengers seated next to the window may be the least likely to pick up the virus from an infected person onboard, as people in the window seat move about the cabin less often and come into contact with fewer people passing in the aisles, according to National Geographic. People seated in the same row as an infected person, however, stand the highest risk of infection.Imported goods from China should not carry infectious strains of the virus, especially given that most coronaviruses can survive on surfaces for only a matter of hours, Messonnier said on Monday (Jan. 27). "There's no evidence to support the transmission of this virus through imported goods," she said.

Related: The 9 deadliest viruses on Earth

"While the vast majority of Americans will not have exposure, some will," Messonnier added during the Jan. 28 news briefing. Health care workers stand the greatest risk of being exposed to the virus, but with only five confirmed cases nationwide, the threat of infection remains low for most Americans, she said.

Since the start of the outbreak, the new virus has claimed 170 lives in China and infected more than 7,700 people worldwide. The true lethality and transmissibility of the virus will become clear in time, and meanwhile, health officials will continue developing diagnostics, therapeutics and preventative countermeasures to fight the disease. The average person can lower their risk of infection by washing their hands, covering their mouth when coughing or sneezing, and staying home when ill.

In the words of the CDC's Redfield, "Everyone has a role to play to help contain the spread of this virus."

Originally published on Live Science.

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How far could the new coronavirus spread? - Livescience.com

1. Get Rid of All Electronics from The Bedroom

Most electronic devices (with screens on them) produce blue light, hence they are not recommended in the bedroom. Although you may be aware of this, the blue light produced by these gadgets hinders the production of sleep hormones, hence could affect your sleep patterns. E-readers, laptops, tablets, game consoles, and cellphones shouldnt be allowed in the bedroom.

In addition to kicking out all the electronic devices from the bedroom (computers and TVs included), you might also have to adjust the position of the alarm clock as well. This is particularly important for digital alarm clocks as they produce distractive light as well. Make sure the alarm clock faces away from you as well. This should help eliminate anxiety related to gazing at the watch when you should be trying to sleep. Having the clock face away from you also reduces the risk of anxiety, and particularly if you tend to worry about why you arent drifting off. Make sure the alarm clock is as far away from the bed and your reach as possible. This should prevent you from snoozing the alarm when it goes off in the morning.

We all know how disrupting artificial light can be, and especially when trying to get some sleep. Natural light too can be as distracting, which is why you not only need to keep electronic devices out but also keep the light out as well. You may have to switch to blackout blinds or heavy curtains to block the light, and also remove night lights from the bedroom as well. Always remember to turn the lamp off before drifting off.

If you cannot part ways with your cellphone at night, then consider putting it in silent mode, then flip it over with screen-side down immediately after going to bed. Most phones will light up if theres email notification, incoming text, or push notifications. Keeping the phone flipped over reduces the chances of seeing the screen come to life, hence sleep without any disruptions/distractions.

Any form of noise can disrupt you from sleep. Noise can make it hard for one to drift to sleep, or even stay asleep, one of the reasons you need to ensure your bedroom is as comfortable and quiet as possible. A calm and quiet bedroom makes it easy to sleep like a baby. Soundproofing the room might be the only viable option if the noises are coming from the traffic outside, or a noisy neighbor down the street.

You could also try investing in a sound machine. The sound machine produces mellow and soothing sounds that help mask noises coming from the outside. The soft, soothing sounds produced makes it easy for the brain to relax, helping you drift to dreamland.

Listening to your favorite, but relaxing music can also help you fall asleep. You, however, need to ensure the volume isnt too loud and also have a timer to help set it off after you have fallen asleep. Although it might be relaxing to drift off to sleep with your favorite jams playing in the background, you dont want to wake up in the middle of the night to blaring sounds of the same music. Have a timer turn it off as soon as you are asleep to avoid disruptions.

Your body temperature will drop naturally as you drift into a deep sleep. Setting the bedroom temperature a few degrees lower than in other rooms can help the body cool off as well. Experts recommend between 60 and 67 degrees in bedrooms for better sleep.

Sleeping naked also makes it easier for the temperature to drop down, and also eliminates the discomfort that comes with sleeping in pajamas or nightgowns. Sleeping naked is fulfilling too. Your mattress can help you keep cool, many mattresses now have breathable materials that help you to regulate your temperature while you sleep. Take a look at these Ikea mattress reviews.

Introducing certain scents in the bedroom creates a calming and relaxing atmosphere, excellent for winding down and sleep. These scents will train the brain to enter into relaxation and sleep mode as soon as they hit your nostrils, hence recommended. Some of the best scents to try in the bedroom include vanilla, rosemary, and lavender.

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Getting The Best Possible Sleep - The Hear UP

AGE RELATED INFERTILITY(ARI)Part 1

Scientific evidence shows thatin women,fertility peaks in mid 20sand starts a steep decline in mid 30s despitethisso many people still postponestarting a family.Somemodern womenwant tofocus on education,buildtheircareer,and of course some wantstable financial base, or theright manmay not be coming,so the need to wait forthe perfect partner. Whatever the reasonsfor delaying parenthood are, it is however unfortunate that the natural clock doesnt stop ticking hence the human body keeps aging inevitably.It is a fact that in todays society, inability to conceive due to age is becoming much more common because women arewaiting until their 30s and 40s to have children. Although many women are healthier in later lifeand taking better care of themselves, this doesnot stopthe natural age-related decline in fertility. Recent reports from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) haveshown that more women are delaying childbearing at the present time than previously. This trend is expected to cause a corresponding rise in the mean age at which women first present with infertility and thisbringsusto the discussion for this week:AGE RELATED INFERTILITYas it affects both males and females.

WHAT IS AGE RELATED INFERTILITY: This is the decline in fertilitythat comeswith age, seen in bothmen and women.It is a known fact thatage relatedInfertilityaffects both sexes, its effect ishoweverseen much earlier in women than in men. Women30years and abovehave reducedquantity and qualityof eggs in their ovaries while male fertility starts to decline after 40 years when sperm quality begins to decrease. Allthese automatically increasetheriskfor chromosomal abnormalities like having too many or too few chromosomes(aneuploidy)which might result in conditions suchas,implantation failure,Down syndromeandeven higher chances ofmiscarriages. Older women are alsomorelikely to have health problems that may interfere with fertility makingpregnancy and delivery of a live birth more difficult.

The Facts: Women, Age and Fertility

Womenin their 20shave a20-25% chance of achieving pregnancy during their ovulation period. This drops to15-20% for women between the ages of 31 years and 35 years and to less than 10% for women ages 35 years and older. By 40years womentypically only havea 5% and by 45-49 years a 1%chanceof becoming pregnant without fertility treatmentper month.

Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, unlike men who typically make new sperm throughout their life. Each month many eggs begin to develop, onlyone or tworeaches maturation and eventually ovulates(releases), the others undergoa process called atresia (degeneration). This process occurs in intrauterine life(before birth), before puberty, and during a womans reproductive years, even while pregnant or on oral contraceptive.

This progressive loss of eggs over a lifespan results in low egg numbers(quantity)that resultin lower pregnancy rate beginning usually in the 40s. There is also a corresponding loss in the quality of the eggs over time. As eggs age,they becomeless able to fertilize or evenimplantnormallyand aremore likely to result in a pregnancy that miscarries.

In addition,for a variety of reasons theprocess is accelerated in somewomen whose egg quantity and quality is low at a muchyounger age e.g.those diagnosedwith Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI).

Although the average age of menopause (no remaining egg) is about 51years. The decrease in the ability to conceive due to low egg quality and quantity occurs long before,usually beginning in the 30s and becoming more pronounced in the early 40s.Womenin their late40s rarely have a spontaneous pregnancy and if so, one in three will miscarry. It is due to this sense of urgency that women 35 years and aboveshouldconsider visitingfertilityexpertsforevaluation and havetheir fertility profiling doneas soon as they suspectdifficulty becoming pregnant.

If a womans egg quality or egg number is lower than expected for her age, there may be a discoverable treatablecause.

Are thereotherfactors that can decrease ovarian functionin women apart from agesuch asEndometriosis,Severe pelvic adhesion,Previous chemotherapy or radiation,history of smoking, ovarian surgery or removal ofa portionor all of an ovaryor both, genetics (Turners syndrome)etc.

However, decreased ovarian functioncan also occur in women without these predisposing factors. The cause of an early loss of eggs in some women is sometimes not clear, but it is thought to be due togenetic factors with or without a family history of early menopause.

The rule of 3s- ifa healthy woman irrespective of age, has conceived and made it up the first trimester, her odds of the pregnancy resulting in a live birth are almost the same regardless of age. The chances of having a good outcome and a healthy baby are very high. Of course all routine testing are still recommended during prenatal care.

It isworthy ofnote that the process of egg loss happens at a predictable and steady rate even if a woman takes good care of her health and looks young physically.Both egg quantity and quality determines a womans ability to conceive and both are influenced by ageand it is important to note that pregnancy is often possible with the right combination of treatment by fertility specialists.

To be continued.

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The Facts: Women, Age and Fertility - THISDAY Newspapers

(CNN) -- Sperm donations from dead men is "ethically permissible," say doctors seeking to tackle the shortage of living donors in the UK.

A study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics Monday proposed that men should be able to "register their desire to donate their sperm after death for use by strangers."

Such a procedure would be similar to organ donation, authors Dr. Nathan Hodson of the University of Leicester and Dr. Joshua Parker of Manchester's Wythenshawe Hospital wrote in the study.

"If it is morally acceptable that individuals can donate their tissues to relieve the suffering of others in 'life-enhancing transplants' for diseases, we see no reason this cannot be extended to other forms of suffering like infertility, which may or may not also be considered a disease," the study says.

The mechanics of donating, they say, are entirely feasible through either electroejaculation or surgical methods.

Sperm would be cryopreserved following collection and thawed when chosen for reproduction, the authors said.

Scientists said that harvesting sperm after death has been possible for many years and there is evidence that it can be used in reproduction. Sperm retrieved even up to 48 hours after death can result in viable pregnancies and healthy children, they said.

The process would address the ongoing shortage of donor sperm in the UK, argue the authors, which has led to Britain importing commercially donated sperm to cope with demand from couples struggling to conceive.

In 2017, an estimated 4,000 samples were imported from the US and another 3,000 from Denmark, according to the UK's Department of Health and Social Care.

Researchers argued that sperm donated in this way could offer solace to the donor's bereaved family.

"Grieving families commonly take solace in the knowledge that their loved one's organs have been used to improve the lives of others," the paper states.

"Given the value that society places on parenthood and child-rearing, there is reason to believe that families of donors would react in a similar way regarding the donation of gametes."

But, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), donors must be screened in line with legal requirements and guidance. HFEA is the UK agency that regulates fertility clinics.

This includes medical screenings which can only be carried out while the donor is alive. At present, HFEA says, donors must be fully informed about the process and its implications, offered counseling and consent to the procedure.

"None of these requirements could be satisfied if donation was only undertaken after death. Essentially, this means that harvesting sperm from a donor after death is currently illegal," a spokeswoman for HFEA said in a statement to CNN.

Other experts questioned the impact using a deceased sperm donor would have on future offspring.

Sarah Norcross, director of fertility charity Progress Educational Trust, told CNN that in the UK, offspring can find out the identity of their donor at the age of 18.

"If we allow sperm donation after death, that opportunity would be closed to donor-conceived people. What do donor-conceived individuals think the impact would be of never being able to meet their donor?" Narcross said.

Dr. Allan Pacey, professor of andrology at the University of Sheffield, told CNN that he disagreed with the study's recommendation.

"Given the distance we have traveled in terms of recruiting donors who are willing to be identified to donor-conceived people, it feels like a backward step to then recruit donors who are dead and therefore they will never have the opportunity to meet," he said.

Pacey said that the he felt "very uncomfortable with the idea," and advocated using more resources to recruit younger, healthy, willing donors "who stand a good chance of being alive when the donor-conceived person starts to become curious about them."

Continued here:
Men should be allowed to donate sperm after death, study says - KCTV Kansas City

SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ark Biosciences, a global biotech company developing groundbreaking therapeutics for viral infection and respiratory diseases, today announced its participation in and presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference on January 15th 2020 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco. Dr. Jim Wu, Founder & CEO, will be presenting at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference as below:

Date: Wednesday, January 15th, 2020

Time: 8:00AM (PST)

Room: Golden Gate (32nd Floor)

Venue: Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell Street, San Francisco, CA94102 (USA)

The presentation will include updates on the progress made in the following key Ark programs:

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Program

Ark Biosciences anti-RSV program successfully completed a global Phase II study (VICTOR) in 2019, demonstrating, for the first time ever, efficacy and clinical benefit of an antiviral in infants hospitalized with RSV infection. Ziresovir (AK0529), Arks proprietary antiviral against RSV, demonstrated a dose-dependent clinical efficacy, clearly reducing patients' signs and symptoms scores and, concomitantly, their viral loads; Ark was also able to demonstrate a clear correlation between the change in signs and symptoms score, viral load, and Ziresovir concentration. The drug retains its excellent safety profile.

Ark is currently launching a Ziresovir Phase III study in China, with an upcoming global Phase III study to follow. Ark currently also has Ziresovir under clinical study in adults infected with RSV. Commented Dr Jim Wu, "Ark is now the leader in RSV antiviral development, in a therapeutic area with a huge unmet medical need, but littered with failures"; Dr Stephen Toovey, Chief Medical Officer and co-Founder of Ark added, Ark's RSV program is truly ground-breaking, representing a true medical first: the successful antiviral treatment of infant RSV disease."

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Program

Ark is currently developing its antifibrotic AK3280 for the stand-alone treatment of IPF. The molecule, which is expected to show superior safety, tolerability and efficacy, has successfully completed its first two clinical trials, confirming excellent safety and tolerability in man, without the typical troubling side effects seen with existing standard-of-care. A global Phase II IPF study is on track to commence later this year. Additional indications beyond IPF are being developed in parallel with additional Phase II studies to commence later this year.

Dr Jim Wu added, Our progress reported with AK3280 expands Ark's existing portfolio, reflecting the company's focus on respiratory diseases and viral infections. Ark is a recognized developer of innovative respiratory medicines. We bring a unique focus to the development of AK3280 as the new standard-of-care for IPF, and other fibrotic diseases, both globally and in China.

Commented Dr Stephen Toovey, IPF is a progressive and fatal disease that robs victims of breath and life. Ark is committed to bringing this promising new treatment for IPF to patients, with the goal of offering a better treatment, and a better quality of life to IPF victims.

We are delighted to be presenting again at JPM conference this year, said Dr Jim Wu, CEO of Ark Biosciences. "At Ark, our mission is to become a global leader of innovation in anti-viral, and respiratory diseases.

About Ziresovir

Ziresovir, formerly known as AK0529, was discovered following the optimization of hits obtained screening a very large compound library against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) replication in cell culture. Thereafter the drug completed rigorous preclinical and toxicological evaluation, including juvenile animal toxicology studies. Ziresovir is a structurally novel compound that binds to the viral 'F' or fusion protein of RSV, preventing entry of the virus into human cells and their infection, and thereby disease; this F-protein inhibition can also exert an anti-pathogenic action, preventing the cell-to-cell fusion (or "syncytium") that is a hallmark of RSV infection. Ziresovirs mechanism of action is thus distinct from that of the common nucleoside class of antiviral drugs, which target and interfere with the production of nucleic acid within infected human cells, and reproduction, and is expected to be free of the nucleoside class safety issues.

About Respiratory Syncytial Virus

RSV is one of the most infectious human viruses, infecting 3-10% of the worlds population each year. It is the most common cause of acute lower respiratory disease in infants and children. It is a leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age, as well as being the leading cause of childhood lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI), bronchiolitis and infant hospitalization.

Globally there are 34 million cases of LRTI and up to two hundred thousand deaths in children under 5 years of age every year from RSV infection. Equally, RSV has been recognized as a cause of severe lung infection and death in older adults. Additional high-risk patient populations for RSV disease include the immunocompromised, as well as those with chronic lung conditions, congenital heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) e.g. chronic bronchitis and emphysema. There is no vaccine available to protect against RSV infection. Current therapy for those ill with RSV infection comprises solely symptomatic or supportive care.

About AK3280

AK3280 is an orally available, small, synthetic molecule. The molecule is being developed by Ark for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and potentially for other fibrotic diseases.

Preclinical data have demonstrated that AK3280 is a potent fibrosis inhibitor in animal models of pulmonary and hepatic fibrosis. AK3280 is based on the phenyl pyridone chemical scaffold of pirfenidone, a marketed anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory agent that has been shown to provide clinically meaningful benefit for patients with IPF. Pharmacokinetic (PK) data with AK3280 in animals and healthy volunteers, suggest that dosing once daily (QD) may be possible in patients with IPF, an improvement on the current standard of care. Also, based on preclinical data, and data generated in healthy volunteers summarized, there appears to be a potential for fewer adverse events (AEs) such as gastrointestinal (GI) effects, liver toxicity, and phototoxicity associated with the current standard of care.

About Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is an orphan disease that affects about 5 million people worldwide, including about 100,000 patients in US. It is an invariably fatal disease which progressively destroys lung tissue, replacing healthy lung with fibrotic scar like tissue. The cause is unknown, and the disease is considered incurable. Sufferers experience increasing shortness of breath, chronic cough, and ever decreasing effort tolerance; respiratory failure and death typically supervene within four years of the initial diagnosis.

About Ark Biosciences Inc.

Ark Biosciences is a privately held, clinical stage global biotechnology company with its corporate office located in Zhang Jiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai, its R&D Center in Suzhou BioBay, China, and offices in the United States, Australia and Switzerland. Ark Biosciences has its own active R&D programs and programs in collaboration with external partners. Through these efforts, Ark Biosciences aims to be a global biotechnology company, discovering and developing innovative drugs for treatment of viral infections and respiratory diseases. For more information, please visit: http://www.arkbiosciences.com

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Ark Biosciences to Present at JPM Healthcare Conference in San Francisco - Business Wire

Bird-watchers in Paris have for years noticed something odd about the city's pigeons: Many of the omnipresent avians are missing one or more toes.

Now, scientists think they know why, and it's a bit of a head-scratcher: A new study suggests that human hair might be the culprit.

Previous research had hinted that pigeons could incur foot damage from bacterial infections caused by standing in their own poop. But a closer look later revealed remnants of strings and often human hair caught between the digits, according to research published in 2018 in the journal Natures Sciences Socits.

By observing 1,250 pigeons along 46 blocks in Paris, researchers at the Center for Ecology and Conservation Science in Paris found that 20% of the birds were missing at least one toe. Matching these numbers with data on human activity and pollution at the level of city blocks, the researchers found more missing-toe pigeons in areas with high concentrations of hairdressers as well as densely populated blocks with high air and noise pollution.

Related: Why Do Pigeons Bob Their Heads?

Traffic movement in these blocks could transport hair strands and plastic strings used to tie garbage bags to larger areas where pigeons encounter those objects, said Frdric Jiguet, an ecologist at the Center for Ecology and Conservation Science and lead author of this study, published in the December issue of the journal Biological Conservation.

As pigeons strut across pavements and cobbled streets, their feet can get tangled in human hair. "It's not easy for them to take it off with their beaks," Jiguet told Live Science, referring to the strands of hair. "The more they try to take it off, the tighter it gets around the toe."

The strangling hairs restrict blood flow, potentially causing the pigeon's toe to fall off.

Such foot deformities could affect pigeons' movement and access to food in urban spaces. Researchers said the injuries could also affect reproduction in the species, as missing toes could cause males to lose their balance while on top of female birds during copulation.

In future studies, the research team hopes to place sticky mats across the city to get an actual measure of how much hair these urban birds encounter, the scientists said. They also want to see if foot damage in pigeons across other large cities is similarly linked to humans.

Originally published on Live Science.

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In the Case of the Missing Pigeon Toes, Human Hair May Be to Blame - Livescience.com

Scientists have discovered a possible link between high levels of mercury in mountain lions and marine fog, indicating that the toxic metal is being deposited on land and then making its way up the food chain.

Scientists at the University of California Santa Cruz have identified elevated levels of mercury in mountain lions, a new indicator that the toxic metal is being carried ashore through normal marine fog.

RELATED: WORLD'S FIRST LION CUBS BORN USING ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION

The higher concentration of mercury found in pumas that live in the Santa Cruz Mountains was three times the levels found in mountain lions that live outside the "fog zone" for the region. Scientists have also found elevated levels of mercury in the lichen and deer population that also live inside the fog zone.

Publishing their findings in the journal Nature, the researchers believe that the contaminants are transmitted from the sea to land through the coastal fog that makes the region famous think San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge blanketed in fluffy white fog in the early morning hours which then deposits these contaminates on land. After it is deposited, it then makes its way up the food chain.

"Lichen don't have any roots so the presence of elevated methylmercury in lichen must come from the atmosphere," said Peter Weiss-Penzias, an environmental toxicologist who led the research. "Mercury becomes increasingly concentrated in organisms higher up the food chain."

While not a threat to human health, the mercury transmitted through coastal fog might present an elevated risk to coastal animal life, as the concentration of mercury from lichen to deer to mountain lion can multiply by nearly a thousand times.

The study examines the fur and whisker samples from 94 coastal mountain lions and 18 non-coastal lions. mercury concentrations found in coastal lions averaged 1,500 parts per billion (ppb) compared to 500 ppb for non-coastal lions. At least one lions had levels of mercury known to be toxic to smaller species like mink and otters, while two others had levels that were considered below lethal but which still interfered with fertility and reproduction.

"These mercury levels might compound the impacts of trying to make it in an environment like the Santa Cruz Mountains, where there is already so much human influence, but we don't really know," said Chris Wilmers, a professor of environmental studies and the director of the Puma Project, a joint collaboration between UC Santa Cruz and the state of California. "Levels will be higher 100 years from now, when the Earth's mercury budget is higher because of all the coal we're pumping into the atmosphere."

Mercury is a natural metal most commonly released into the environment through various natural and human-induced industrial processes, such as mining and coal-fired power generation.

"Mercury is a global pollutant," Weiss-Penzias said. "What's emitted in China can affect the United States just as much as what's emitted in the United States."

Link:
Study Links Coastal Fog with High Levels of Mercury in Mountain Lions - Interesting Engineering

Dont Know Much Biology The Reality-Based Community Skip to content

Apparently, Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania are attempting to rise to the level of ignorance of biology displayed by their counterparts in Ohio. Specifically, they have introduced House Bill 1890 that requires health care facilities that possess fetal remains to cremate or inter the fetal remains.

The proposed statute defines fetal remains to mean a fetus expelled or extracted in the case of a fetal death. The term fetus is not defined. Rather, the proposed statute defines fetal death to be the expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception which shows no evidence of life after the expulsion or extraction. Thus, the statute ignores the difference between an embryo and a fetus. According to the Merck Manual, an embryo is not considered a fetus until the end of the 8th week after fertilization (10 weeks of pregnancy).

At least one study has calculated that 15% of the documented pregnancies ended in first trimester miscarriages per pregnancy. Further, current research showing about 50% to 60% of miscarriages are the result of random fetal chromosomal abnormalities incompatible with life. (Endnotes omitted.) Somewhat different statistics are presented by the National Institutes of Health which finds that [i]t is estimated that as many as26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage and up to 10% of clinically recognized pregnancies. Moreover, 80% of early pregnancy loss occurs in the first trimester. (Endnotes omitted.)

Pennsylvania House Bill 1890 is nothing more than a ham-handed attempt to impose specific religious beliefs. It simply ignores the biology of human reproduction. As this paper finds:

A synthesis of many large-scale studies from the last 15 years unambiguously confirms the Wood-Boklage-Holman hypothesis that abortion is an intrinsic and overarching component of human reproduction. It is the most common outcome of conception across a womans lifetime and the predominant factor controlling age-specific variation in human female fertility. To reproduce, a human female cannot forgo a high risk of abortion, and to have a large family it is virtually impossible to avoid multiple abortions. Modern birth control with access to elective abortions, markedly reduces rather than increases the lifetime number of abortions a woman produces.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. The proposed bill is unlikely to raise GOP support among women.

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Don't Know Much Biology - The Reality-Based Community

Across the globe, caring for loved ones is what matters most.

But, for decades this has not been the focus of many social psychology studies. An international team of researchers led by evolutionary and social psychologists from Arizona State University surveyed over 7,000 people from 27 different countries about what motivates them, and the findings go against 40 years of research. The study will be published on December 3, 2019, in Perspectives on Psychological Science.

People consistently rated kin care and mate retention as the most important motivations in their lives, and we found this over and over, in all 27 countries that participated, said Ahra Ko, an ASU psychology graduate student and first author on the paper. The findings replicated in regions with collectivistic cultures, such as Korea and China, and in regions with individualistic cultures like Europe and the US.

The study included people from diverse countries ranging from Australia and Bulgaria to Thailand and Uganda that covered all continents except Antarctica. The ASU team sent a survey about fundamental motivations to scientists in each of the participating countries. Then, the researchers in each country translated the questions into the native language and made edits so that all the questions were culturally appropriate.

For the past 40 years, evolutionary psychological research has focused on how people find romantic or sexual partners and how this desire affects other behaviors, like consumer decisions. But study participants consistently rated this motivation called mate seeking as the least important factor in their lives.

Evolutionary psychologists define kin care as caring for and supporting family members, and mate retention as maintaining long-term committed romantic or sexual relationships. These two motivations were the most important even in groups of people thought to prioritize finding new romantic and sexual partnerships, like young adults and people not in committed relationships.

The focus on mate seeking in evolutionary psychology is understandable, given the importance of reproduction. Another reason for the overemphasis on initial attraction is that college students have historically been the majority of participants, said Cari Pick, an ASU psychology graduate student and second author on the paper. College students do appear to be relatively more interested in finding sexual and romantic partners than other groups of people.

In all 27 countries, singles prioritized finding new partners more than people in committed relationships, and men ranked mate seeking higher than women. But, the differences between these groups were small because of the overall priority given to kin care.

Studying attraction is easy and sexy, but peoples everyday interests are actually more focused on something more wholesome family values, said Douglas Kenrick, Presidents Professor of Psychology at ASU and senior author on the study. Everybody cares about their family and loved ones the most, which, surprisingly, hasnt been as carefully studied as a motivator of human behavior.

The motivations of mate seeking and kin care were also related to psychological well-being, but in opposite ways. People who ranked mate seeking as the most important were less satisfied with their lives and were more likely to be depressed or anxious. People who ranked kin care and long-term relationships as the most important rated their lives as more satisfying.

People might think they will be happy with numerous sexual partners, but really they are happiest taking care of the people they already have, Kenrick said.

The research team is currently working on collecting information about the relationships among fundamental motivations and well-being around the world.

###

ASUs Michael Varnum, associate professor of psychology, along with Jung Yul Kwon, Michael Barlev, Jaimie Krems and Rebecca Neel also contributed to the study. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Excerpt from:
All Around the World, Caring for Family Is What Motivates People Most - SciTechDaily

High-levels of monomethylmercury (MMHg) has been detected in pumas (Puma concolor) roaming coastal central California, USA. Coastal fog has been implicated as the likely culprit.

The study entitled "Marine fog inputs appear to increase methylmercury bioaccumulation in a coastal terrestrial food web conducted by scientists from UC Santa Cruz has been published in Nature on November 26, 2019.

The researchers warn that with increasing mercury levels in the environment, the toxicological effects of this pollutant might put coastal food webs at risk.

Pumas and their associated food web in coastal central California live in a region that is regularly inundated with marine fog. The researchers found that adult puma fur and whisker samples from fog-influenced study region had three times more mean total mercury (THg) levels than that in comparable samples collected from pumas living further inland.

Since pumas are apex predators in their ecosystem, it was also important to study the THg levels in their prey species as mercury enters the system of an organism primarily through diet. Hence, the researchers also compared THg levels in deer (primary prey of the pumas) fur from the two regions and found it to be significantly different. Going further down the food chain, the lace lichen (Ramalina menziesii), an important bioindicator, and food for the deer, exhibited higher MMHg concentrations at sites with higher fog frequencies.

It is important to note here that since pumas in the study area have been subject to intense studies in the past, the presence of any marine prey in their diet, a possible source of mercury in their system, can be completely ruled out.

So, while similar patterns of difference in THg/MMHg concentrations were observed in puma, deer, and lace lichen samples collected from coastal fog-influenced and inland areas, how could fog be linked to elevated mercury in organisms?

The attempt to connect the two began when Peter Weiss-Penzias, a UC Santa Cruz toxicologist, and lead author of the above-mentioned study, was biking to work on a cloudy summer morning, dripping from the mist.

He wondered whether the coastal fog enveloping him could be a source of mercury. A previous UCSC research had discovered mercury in the surface water of Monterey Bay.

I was like, well, if its in the surface seawater and it can evaporate into the air, it probably should be in fog, because fog is just this cloud that sits right over the water, so it probably should soak it up. And I was like, oh, nobodys ever measured that before, Weiss-Penzias said in an interview published in 2017.

Soon, a study funded by the National Science Foundation was conducted to answer the question and found 10 times more mercury in the West Coasts fog than in rainwater.

So, how did mercury end up in fog?

According to researchers, mercury in the sea comes from coal-fired power stations and gold mining activities. Forest fires and volcanic eruptions also contribute but only one in five mercury atoms are from these natural sources. Human pollution is the biggest contributor.

However, it is important to note that mercury derived from all these sources is relatively harmless. But when it enters the ocean, it undergoes a chemical reaction to transform into a more toxic form that can cause brain damage, memory loss, and reduce offspring viability.

When mercury-based pollutants drain into the ocean, it is converted to super-toxic methylated Hg compounds by anaerobic microbes residing in the ocean depths. These compounds are brought up to the surface waters by upwelling. The phenomenon is supported by the strong upwelling in the California Current along the central California coastline that brings deep water to the surface allowing the atmospheric escape of methylated Hg compounds. These escape as gaseous dimethylmercury (DMHg) or MMHg. The former is unstable and breaks down into MMHg that is absorbed onto cloud droplets and aerosols of coastal fog in the water-air boundary where it can remain stable in the aqueous phase for several days.

As the fog drifts inland, it rains down onto the forest floor as micro-droplets where it accumulates on lichen and other vegetation which are food for deer and the latter, in turn, are prey for puma. The methyl mercury in fog enters the food chain and the gradual process of biomagnification begins.

Thus, toxic MMHg gradually amplifies or increases in concentration with every step up in the trophic level of a food chain (biomagnification) and builds up in each organism of a trophic level by a process called bioaccumulation.

So, after landing on the vegetation (lichens in the case study), MMHg biomagnifies and becomes more deadly at each step in the food chain (deer and then puma) through the process of biomagnification.

As the puma is perched at the top of the chain in the study area, mercury builds up in its system through bioaccumulation.

Out of the 94 pumas studied by the researchers, two females had mercury levels toxic enough to adversely impact reproduction and brain function in them. One was also found dead with lethal levels of mercury in its system.

The researchers are concerned that while it is difficult to ascertain the effect of mercury poisoning on the nervous system of these apex predators, the biggest threat comes from the ability of this toxin to reduce their reproductive success.

Weiss-Penzias assures people that they should not be afraid of the fog as mercury enters all animals via diet, not the air.

Studies have shown that crops grown in the zone with coastal fog have negligible mercury levels. Cows from a local ranch were also inspected for the presence of mercury in their system but nothing of concern was noted. However, while the coastal fog poses little risk to humans with a diverse diet base, it is the apex predators like the pumas that are at greatest risk. The scene is different in the case of humans over-consuming long-lived ocean fish that might lead to bioaccumulation of toxins in their system.

Most of us are aware of the fact that toxic pollutants leaching from land into water bodies is a major cause of water pollution that poses a threat to the survival of aquatic flora and fauna. But the above studies reveal that what we give also comes back to us. The toxic mercury entering oceans is returning to its source through coastal fog.

While in the present case, it is the pumas who are the prime victims, humans might also be affected in the future from related events as mercury concentrations in the environment keep rising with time.

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High Level of Mercury Found in Pumas Linked to Coastal Fog - World Atlas

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I am providing information about scientific, medical facts and ongoing research. It has been possible to link Human Reproduction with physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, mathematics, ethics and philosophy. Sciences combined together provide valuable information.Being in the human reproduction field can be a challenge. It takes years of hard work and preparation to understand reproduction in a way that makes possible work hand-in-hand with mother nature.My intention is to provide you with a deeper insight into the fertility area. Infertility it not just a disease in our bodies. It is also a disease that came with us when we came to this lifetime, from the non-physical world to the physical world. It can be in our minds, deeply implanted.Some information I am sharing can be overwhelming and difficult to understand. If you have suggestions or questions, it would be a pleasure for me to explain. In occasions information can be confusing, even a bit unreal. I need you to have an open mind and learn from my own experience, which is extensive.I have found many interesting books about science. Books can become a rich source of information. In the last years I learnt many new things. Most of those new discoveries I was not aware that existed or where possible in this world. Like the way embryos behave, even when they do not have a developed nervous system yet.In the last years there have been a number of scientists coming forward and revealing events they lived and have not scientific base. I experienced similar events myself. It is common today to find books written from scientists with reputation, explaining events about afterlife they or someone they know experienced. Paranormal events are quite frequent. However, scientists in occasions choose to ignore them because they still have not the logic scientific explanation.It was not a choice for me to keep ignoring them, because they were happening all the time. It is not something I experienced frequently before in my life. I did experience some situations that were quite different and peculiar. However, for the last three years I have experienced it with more intensity.I invite you to read my articles. Some of them are scientifically based, some of them mixed with a few findings, and some will be very different that the ones you have read before. A few of my ideas and thoughts have been shared to communicate my insights.The blog is a way for me to communicate. If you have any questions of suggestions please let me know. I will be delighted to explain further.In the consultation section of this blog it is possible to make appointments, in case you are interested on my sessions. These sessions over the year have shown a great deal of success for patients. I invite you to learn how to increase your chances of success with my system.In fertility time is crucial. Whenever you decide to have a baby time will become one of your most precious allies. Using our Ovulation Calculator you will have the opportunity to predict the chances of getting pregnant and even it might possible to choose the sex of the future baby.

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Events Involved in Human Reproduction [ fertilityonline.net ]

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While you celebrate the third royal baby, remember all of the women in Britain who aren't allowed a third child - The Independent

Before I found myself sheltering in place, this article was to be about womens actions around the world to mark March 8th, International Womens Day. From Pakistan to Chile, women in their millions filled the streets, demanding that we be able to control our bodies and our lives. Women came out in Iraq and Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Peru, the Philippines and Malaysia. In some places, they risked beatings by masked men. In others, they demanded an end to femicide the millennia-old reality that women in this world are murdered daily simply because they are women.

In 1975 the Future Was Female

This years celebrations were especially militant. Its been 45 years since the United Nations declared 1975 the International Womens Year and sponsored its first international conference on women in Mexico City. Similar conferences followed at five-year intervals, culminating in a 1995 Beijing conference, producing a platform that has in many ways guided international feminism ever since.

Beijing was a quarter of a century ago, but this year, women around the world seemed to have had enough. On March 9th, Mexican women staged a 24-hour strike, un da sin nosotras (a day without us women), to demonstrate just how much the world depends on the labor paid and unpaid of yes, women. That womanless day was, by all accounts, a success. The Wall Street Journal observed perhaps with a touch of astonishment that Mexico grinds to a halt. Hundreds of thousands of women paralyzed Mexico in an unprecedented nationwide strike to protest a rising wave of violence against women, a major victory for their cause.

In addition to crowding the streets and emptying factories and offices, some women also broke store windows and fought with the police. Violence? From women? What could have driven them to such a point?

Perhaps it was the murder of Ingrid Escamilla, 25, a Mexico City resident, who, according to the New York Times, was stabbed, skinned and disemboweled this February. Maybe it was that the shooting of the artist and activist Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre in Ciudad Juarez, a barely noted reminder to an uninterested world that women have been disappearing for decades along the U.S.-Mexico border. Or maybe it was just the fact that official figures for 2019 revealed more than 1,000 femicides in Mexico, a 10% increase from the previous year, while many more such murders go unrecorded.

Is the Pandemic Patriarchal?

If it werent for the pandemic, maybe the Wall Street Journal would have been right. Maybe the Day Without Women would have been only the first of many major victories. Maybe the international feminist anthem, El violador eres t (You [the patriarchy, the police, the president] are the rapist), would have gone on inspiring flash-mobs of dancing, chanting women everywhere. Perhaps the worlds attention might not have been so quickly diverted from the spectacle of womens uprisings globally. Now, however, in the United States and around the world, its all-pandemic-all-the-time, and with reason. The coronavirus has done what A Day Without Women could not: its brought the worlds economy to a shuddering halt. Its infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed tens of thousands. And it continues to spread like a global wildfire.

Like every major event and institution, the pandemic affects women and men differently. Although men who fall sick seem more likely than women to die, in other respects, the pandemic and its predictable aftermath are going to be harder on women. How can that be? The writer Helen Lewis provides some answers in the Atlantic.

First of all, the virus, combined with mass quarantine measures, ensures that more people will need to be cared for. This includes older people who are especially at risk of dying and children who are no longer in school or childcare. In developed countries like the United States, people fortunate enough to be able to keep their jobs by working from home are discovering that the presence of bored children does not make this any easier.

Indeed, last night, my little household was treated to a song-and-dance performance by two little girls who live a couple of houses down the street. Their parents had spent the day helping them plan it and then invited us to watch from our backyard. What theyll do tomorrow, a workday, I have no idea. A friend without children has offered to provide daily 15-minute Zoom lessons on anything she can Google, as a form of respite for her friends who are mothers.

As recently as a week ago, it looked as if shuttered schools might open again before the academic year ends, allowing one New York Times commentator to write an article headlined I Refuse to Run a Coronavirus Home School. An associate professor of educational leadership, the author says shes letting her two children watch TV and eat cookies, knowing that no amount of quick-study is going to turn her into an elementary school teacher. I applaud her stance, but also suspect that the children of professionals will probably be better placed than those of low-wage workers to resume the life-and-death struggle for survival in the competitive jungle that is kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade education in this country.

In locked-down heterosexual households, Helen Lewis writes, the major responsibility for childcare will fall on women. Shes exasperated with pundits who point out that people like Isaac Newton and Shakespeare did their best work during a seventeenth-century plague in England. Neither of them, she points out, had child-care responsibilities. Try writing King Lear while your own little Cordelias, Regans, and Gonerils are pulling at your shirt and complaining loudly that theyre booored.

In places like the United Kingdom and the United States, where the majority of mothers have jobs, women will experience new pressures to give up their paid employment. In most two-earner heterosexual households with children, historic pay inequalities mean that a womans job usually pays less. So if someone has to devote the day to full-time childcare, it will make economic sense that its her. In the U.S., 11% of women are already involuntarily working only part-time, many in jobs with irregular schedules. Even women who have chosen to balance their household work with part-time employment may find themselves under pressure to relinquish those jobs.

As Lewis says, this all makes perfect economic sense:

At an individual level, the choices of many couples over the next few months will make perfect economic sense. What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after this unpaid caring labor will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce.

Furthermore, as women who choose to leave the workforce for a few years to care for very young children know, its almost impossible to return to paid work at a position of similar pay and status as the one you gave up. And enforced withdrawal wont make that any easier.

Social Reproduction? Whats That? And Why Does It Matter?

This semester Im teaching a capstone course for urban studies majors at my college, the University of San Francisco. Weve been focusing our attention on something that shapes all our lives: work what it is, who has it and doesnt, whos paid for it and isnt, and myriad other questions about the activity that occupies so much of our time on this planet. Weve borrowed a useful concept from Marxist feminists: social reproduction. It refers to all the work, paid and unpaid, that someone has to do just so that workers can even show up at their jobs and perform the tasks that earn them a paycheck, while making a profit for their employers.

Its called reproduction, because it reproduces workers, both in the biological sense and in terms of the daily effort to make them whole enough to do it all over again tomorrow. Its social reproduction, because no one can do it alone and different societies find different ways of doing it.

Whats included in social reproduction? There are the obvious things any worker needs: food, clothing, sleep (and a safe place to doze off), not to speak of a certain level of hygiene. But theres more. Recreation is part of it, because it recreates a person capable of working effectively. Education, healthcare, childcare, cooking, cleaning, procuring or making food and clothing all of these are crucial to sustaining workers and their work. If youd like to know more about it, Tithi Bhattacharyas Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression is a good place to start.

What does any of this have to do with our pandemic moment? How social reproduction is organized in the United States leaves some people more vulnerable than others in a time of economic crisis. To take one example, over many decades, restaurants have assumed and collectivized (for profit) significant parts of the work of food preparation, service, and clean up, acts once largely performed in indvidual homes. For working women, the availability of cheap takeout has, in some cases, replaced the need to plan, shop for, and prepare meals seven days a week. Food service is a stratified sector, ranging from high-end to fast-food establishments, but it includes many low-wage workers who have now lost their jobs, while those still working at places providing takeout or drive-through meals are risking their health so that others can eat.

One way professional class two-earner couples in the United States have dealt with the tasks of social reproduction is to outsource significant parts of their work to poorer women. Fighting over who does the vacuuming and laundry at home? Dont make the woman do it all. Hire a different woman to do it for you. Want to have children and a career? Hire a nanny.

Of course, odds are that your house cleaner and nanny will still have to do their own social reproduction work when they get home. And now that their children arent going to school, somehow theyll have to take care of them as well. In many cases, this will be possible, however, because their work is not considered an essential service under the shelter-in-place orders of some states. So they will lose their incomes.

At least here in California, many of the women who do these jobs are undocumented immigrants. When the Trump administration and Congress manage to pass a relief bill, they, like many undocumented restaurant workers, wont be receiving any desperately needed funds to help them pay rent or buy food. Immigrant-rights organizations are stepping in to try to make up some of the shortfall, but what theyre capable of is likely to prove just a few drops in a very large bucket. Fortunately, immigrant workers are among the most resourceful people in this country or they wouldnt have made it this far.

Theres one more kind of social reproduction work performed mostly by women, and, by its nature, the very opposite of social distancing: sex work. You can be sure that no bailout bill will include some of the nations poorest women, those who work as prostitutes.

Women at Home and at Risk

Its a painful coincidence that women are being confined to their homes just as an international movement against femicide is taking off. One effect of shelter-in-place is to make it much harder for women to find shelter from domestic violence. Are you safer outside risking coronavirus or inside with a bored, angry male partner? I write this in full knowledge that one economic sector that has not suffered from the pandemic is the gun business. Ammo.com, for example, which sells ammunition online in all but four states, has experienced more than a three-fold increase in revenue over the last month. Maybe all that ammo is being bought to fight off zombies (or the immigrant invasion the president keeps reminding us about), but research shows that gun ownership has a lot to do with whether or not domestic violence turns into murder.

Each week, Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax hosts a chat line offering suggestions for help of various sorts. For the last two weeks, her readers (myself included) have been horrified by messages from one participant stuck in quarantine in a small apartment with a dangerous partner who has just bought a gun. Standard advice to women in her position is not just to run, but to make an exit plan, quietly gather the supplies and money youll need and secure a place to go. Mandatory shelter-in-place orders, however necessary to flattening the curve of this pandemic, may well indirectly cause an increase in domestic femicides.

As if women werent already disproportionately affected by the coronavirus epidemic, Senate Republicans have been trying to sneak a little extra misogyny into their version of a relief bill. In the same month that Pakistani women risked their lives in demonstrations under the slogan Mera jism, meri marzi (My body, my choice), Republicans want to use the pandemic in another attempt to thats right shut down Planned Parenthood clinics.

The Washington Posts Greg Sargent recently revealed that the $350 billion being proposed to shore up small businesses that dont lay off workers would exclude nonprofits that receive funds from Medicaid. Planned Parenthood, which provides healthcare for millions of uninsured and underinsured women, is exactly that kind of nonprofit. Democratic congressional aides who alerted Sargent to this suggest that Planned Parenthood wouldnt be the only organization affected. They also believe that

this language would exclude from eligibility for this financial assistance a big range of other nonprofits that get Medicaid funding, such as home and community-based disability providers; community-based nursing homes, mental health providers, and health centers; group homes for the disabled; and even rape crisis centers.

Meanwhile, Mississippi, Ohio, and Texas are trying to use the coronavirus as an excuse to prevent womens access to abortion. On the grounds that such procedures are not medically necessary, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has ordered abortion providers to stop terminating pregnancies. Earlier, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent letters to abortion providers in that state forbidding all nonessential surgical abortions.

A Return to Normalcy?

When Warren Harding (who oversaw a notoriously corrupt administration) ran for president in 1920, his campaign slogan was a return to normalcy the way things were, that is, before World War I. What he meant was a return to economic dynamism. As we know, the Roaring Twenties provided it in spades until that little crash known as the Great Depression. Today, like Harding, another corrupt president is promising a prompt return to normalcy. Hes already chafing at the 15-day period of social distancing he announced in mid-March. At his March 23rd press conference, he hinted that the United States would be open for business sooner rather than later. The next day, he suggested that the country reopen for business on Easter (a very special day for me), saying he wants to see packed churches all over our country. He cant wait until everything, including our deeply unequal healthcare and economic systems, gets back to normal the way they were before the spread of the coronavirus; until, that is, we can go back to being unprepared for the next, inevitable crisis.

Unlike the president, I hope we dont go back to normal. I hope the people of Venice come to appreciate their sparkling canals and their returning dolphins. I hope that the rest of us become attached to less polluted air and lower carbon emissions. I hope that we learn to value the lives of women.

I hope, instead of returning to normalcy, we recognize that our survival as a species depends on changing almost everything, including how we produce what we need and how we reproduce ourselves as fully human beings. I hope that, when we have survived this pandemic, the worlds peoples take what we have learned about collective global action during this crisis and apply it to that other predictable crisis, the one that threatens all human life on a distinctly warming planet.

This article first appeared on TomDispatch.

Read more:
The Future May Be Female, But the Pandemic is Patriarchal - CounterPunch

Finding new uses for existing drugs is a good strategy, especially in our fight against COVID-19 for which there is no treatment.

These drugs have already been produced and tested in patients for different indications, which means we can save valuable time.

By attacking different parts of the virus, antivirals can prevent a virus from entering cells or interfere with its reproduction thereby stopping the infection.

Remdesivir works by interrupting the SARS-CoV-2 virus as it copies its genetic material, which in turn stops the virus from reproducing. Whats clever about remdesivir is that it disrupts the virus but not the human cell, so it has a targeted effect. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has started arandomized controlled trialfor the treatment of COVID-19 patients with the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir. The FDA has been working with the drug manufacturer,Gilead Sciences.

Kaletra is acombination of two antiviral drugs, lopinavir and ritonavir, used to treat HIV.One of the first major studies of 200 seriously ill patients from China foundno benefit with the use of Kaletra. However, it may be possible that Kaletracould work if given earlier or if given to patients who are not severely ill.The World Health Organization (WHO) has includedKaletrain a major multi-country trial launchedthis week.

Medical authorities inChinahave said a drug used in Japan to treat new strains of influenza appeared to be effective incoronaviruspatients. Zhang Xinmin, an official at Chinas Science and Technology Ministry, said favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving 340 patients.

Patients who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, compared with a median of 11 days for those who were not treated with the drug. Favipiravir would need government approval for use on COVID-19 patients, since it was originally intended to treat flu.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are already widely available, as they are used to treat diseases like malaria and arthritis.

Both chloroquine and hydrochloroquine have been used for many decades to treat malaria, which is caused by a parasite, unlike the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 causing COVID-19. Reproduction of SARS-CoV-1 (the original SARS virus in 2002-2003) in cell culture was shown to beblocked by chloroquine in 2005, by which time there were no human infections. Recently reproduction of the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2 in cells was found to be inhibited by chloroquine.

As a consequence, a derivative of the drug, hydroxychloroquine (a less toxic derivative) has been tested in patients with COVID-19. A clinical study conducted in Marseille, France to evaluate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19 wasreleased on 18 March 2020. Patients included in the study were all over 12 years old and had laboratory-confirmed infections with SARS-CoV-2.

The control group received the standard treatment of care (no hydroxychloroquine / HCQ). The hydroxychloroquine treatment group received oral HCQ sulfate, 200mg three times a day for 10 days. The HCQ + Azithromycin treatment group received oral HCQ sulfate, 200mg three times a day for 10 days -Oral azithromycin, 500mg on day 1, followed by 250mg daily for 4 days. Viral loads in nasopharyngeal wash were measured daily. This was a small non-randomized trial but results are promising. On Day 6, 12.5% of control patients virologically cured, 57.1% of HCQ treated patients virologically cured and 100% of HCQ + Azithromycin patients virologically cured.

The current pandemic is, no doubt, one of the most important challenges in recent times. But we are more prepared than ever to deal with it. Some of the worlds brightest minds are on it, and we are already starting to see some results.

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Can old drugs be used to treat COVID-19? - ZME Science

A baby has been born to a cancer survivor from an immature egg that was matured in the laboratory, frozen, thawed and fertilised.

In the first event of its kind, the unnamed woman was left infertile after being treated for breast cancer five years ago.

Before starting chemotherapy, the now 34-year-old had immature eggs removed from her ovaries.

Read more: Freezing your eggs: cost, process and everything else you need to know

In vitro maturation (IVM) enabled the eggs to develop in the laboratory.

The news may raise questions about how long frozen eggs should be stored.

Women who elect to freeze their eggs can store them for up to a decade in liquid nitrogen.

Cancer patients at risk of infertility from treatment may be able to store them for up to 55 years.

I saw the 29-year-old patient following her diagnosis of cancer and provided fertility counselling, said Professor Michal Grynberg from the Antoine Bclre University Hospital, near Paris.

I offered her the option of egg freezing after IVM and also freezing ovarian tissue.

She rejected the second option, which was considered too invasive a couple of days after cancer diagnosis.

Freezing ovarian tissue involves taking the outer layer of the organ, which contains a large number of immature eggs.

This allow more eggs to be frozen in one shot under very short notice, according to the Center for Human Reproduction.

Read more: Love Island star Amy Hart will 'definitely' freeze her eggs

Ultrasound scans revealed the woman had 17 small sacs containing immature eggs in her ovaries, her doctors wrote in the journal Annals of Oncology.

Medically known as an immature ovum, these eggs have not yet undergone the cell division required for fertilisation.

Egg freezing typically involves two weeks of hormonal injections to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs.

Doctors worried the use of hormones would prolong the process and possibly make her cancer worse.

An emergency procedure was therefore carried out six days later to collect immature eggs before she started chemotherapy.

Once matured, six eggs were frozen in liquid nitrogen, known as vitrification. This rapidly freezes eggs, minimising the development of damaging ice crystals.

Five years later, the woman had beaten her cancer but been unable to conceive for the past 12 months.

Stimulating her ovaries to produce more eggs may have triggered her cancer to return.

The doctors therefore thawed all six eggs, which were fertilised via intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

This involves injecting an egg with a womans partners sperm or that of a donor.

Five of the eggs were successfully fertilised, with one embryo being transferred to the womans womb.

She gave birth to her healthy son Jules on 6 July last year.

Read more: Menopausal delay surgery that costs at least 6,000 has no evidence

This is the first time a cancer patient has gone on to have a successful pregnancy after IVM and vitrification, her doctors claim.

Children have been born as a result of IVM after immediate fertilisation and transfer to the woman, without freezing.

We were delighted the patient became pregnant without any difficulty and successfully delivered a healthy baby at term, said Professor Grynberg.

Egg or embryo vitrification after ovarian stimulation is still the most established and efficient option.

IVM enables us to freeze eggs or embryos in urgent situations or when it would be hazardous for the patient to undergo ovarian stimulation.

This success represents a breakthrough in the field of fertility preservation.

Cancer patients can store their frozen eggs for up to 55 years, compared to 10 years for other women. (Getty Images)

Other experts were also optimistic.

Getting eggs to mature successfully after removal from the ovary has been a challenge, so this is a very welcome positive step, said Professor Richard Anderson from the University of Edinburgh.

It requires a different set of skills to normal IVF, so it isnt widely available, but this report shows it can work, when time is very short.

Freezing eggs at this stage also means they remain the womens own property, without the complication using a partners sperm to fertilise them brings, in that embryos are the couples joint property.

This advance is particularly important for cancer patients, but its also a step towards easier and less invasive IVF for other women and couples needing assisted reproduction.

Professor Alastair Sutcliffe, from the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, said caution must be exercised.

Nevertheless, this new technique could in future be an additional tool for women who have the tragedy of cancer before reproduction to have their own genetic child, he added.

One expert was quick to point out most cancer patients could afford to postpone treatment while they had hormonal injections to freeze their eggs.

Hormonal stimulation usually takes nine-to-11 days and can be started at any time in a womans cycle, and so should delay the start of cancer treatment by no more than two weeks, said Professor Adam Balen from Leeds University Teaching Hospital.

[In] the vast majority of cases, [this wait] has no bearing on the outcome of the treatment.

IVM enables faster progress to cancer treatment as the eggs are matured in the lab and so is a valuable option for those women where a delay could be critical, accepting the lower number of mature eggs that would then be frozen compared with the number anticipated after the stimulation of the ovaries for the collection of mature eggs.

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Baby born to cancer survivor who had an immature egg frozen five years ago - Yahoo Lifestyle

Fashionable, pregnant teenager leaning on a grungy brick wall. Shot with room for text on right.

When I was in fifth grade back home in the Dominican Republic, I had "the talk" with my mom. It might seem a little young, but our school was teaching us about human reproduction, and they had told the parents that they would address the biological part of it, but the parents had to sit down with us and go over the fact that people didn't necessarily do it for human reproduction purposes.

For me, the talk was very positive. My mom has always been very straightforward and has made sure that I trust her enough to reach out to her with any questions or concerns. But I knew that wasn't the case with everyone. And as I grew older and actually hit puberty, the chat around sex became all about abstinence rather than "this is how you can protect yourself."

Let's be honest: if you tell any teenager that they're not allowed to do something, they will want to do it even more. But then, in a country like the Dominican Republic, you also had the church's influence dictating how people - particularly women - should live their lives.

The church and the state are pretty much one entity - there's no real separation. So, when it comes to issues such as allowing women to choose what to do with their bodies, or even teaching sex ed in schools, there's an automatic push against it because "that's not how God wanted it."

They vilify sex, making it seem like the ultimate sin when done outside of the "sacred bond of marriage." They limit access to information to vulnerable people, the ones who only have access to a church in their community, and as a result, we have a teenage pregnancy crisis.

Human Rights Watch reported in a study that the Dominican Republic has the highest adolescent fertility rate of all of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

"While some adolescent pregnancies are planned and wanted at the time they occur, many are not. The total ban on abortion in the Dominican Republic means adolescent girls facing unwanted pregnancies must choose between clandestine and often risky abortions or the lifelong consequences of having a child against their wishes."

The study goes on to list the consequences of this crisis, starting with serious health risks not only for the mother but also the baby, difficulty for the expecting mother to continue her education - despite a law that prohibits expulsion of pregnant girls from school - which then cuts back even more on her chances for a better life for her and her child. In most cases, the girls end up trapped in a never-ending poverty cycle, which then traps their babies when they're born. And it doesn't help that in many parts of the DR, there's no place girls can gain access to confidential, nonstigmatizing, adolescent-friendly sexual and reproductive health services.

"The Dominican Republic is one of few countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where abortion is criminalized and prohibited in all circumstances, even for women and girls who become pregnant from rape or incest, whose lives are endangered by pregnancy, or who are carrying pregnancies that are not viable, meaning the fetus will not survive outside the womb," The Human Rights Watch study continued.

Girls, particularly those from poor and rural communities, suffer the consequences of these policy failures most profoundly, and that's why it's so important to provide information, talk about sexual and reproductive health, foment sexual education in schools, expand health services and providers who aren't judgmental, decriminalize abortion, and give girls and women the option to safely end their pregnancies.

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In My Country, Sex Is Still Taboo, and Not Talking About It Has Made Things Worse - Yahoo Lifestyle