Daily Archives: July 28, 2017

CF Patients in Italy to Gain Access to Orkambi Under National … – Cystic Fibrosis News Today

Posted: July 28, 2017 at 7:21 pm

The Italian health insurance systemhas agreed to cover cystic fibrosispatients use ofVertex PharmaceuticalsOrkambi (lumacaftor/ivacaftor).

Those eligible for the Italian Medicines Agency coverage are patients 12 and older who have two copies of a particular mutation of the gene that is defective in the disease. That is the F508del mutation of the CF transmembrane conductance regulator, or CFTR, gene.

The Agencia Italiana del FarmacosOrkambi initiative is aimed both atlowering the drugs price and helping more patients obtain access to it. Italys efforts are part of a bigger European initiative. The British and French health insurance systems are continuing to negotiate Orkambi supply and price deals with Vertex.

F508del is a deletion mutation of the CFTR gene, which means that part of the normal gene is missing. The mutation generatesdefective CFTR protein, which leads to inflammation and mucus buildup in the lungs, digestive track, and elsewhere. These problems can cause severe respiratory and digestive dysfunction, as well as other complications like infections.

Two copies of the F508del mutation can result in little-to-no CFTR protein at the cell surface where it is needed.

Orkambi is a combination therapy composed of lumacaftor and ivacaftor. Lumacaftor is designed to increase the amount of mature protein at the cell surface, and ivacaftor to enhance the activity of the CFTR protein once it reachesthe surface.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Orkambifor the treatment of CF in July 2015.

It based its approval on results of two clinical trials, TRAFFIC (NCT01807923) and TRANSPORT (NCT01807949). Those studies showed that the drug,taken as two pills every 12 hours, improved lung function in CF patients, when compared with a placebo. It also reduced pulmonary exacerbation rates.

We are pleased to have reached this agreement on behalf of CF patients inItalywho have been waiting for this important medicine, Simon Bedson, senior vice president of Vertex, said in a press release. We continue negotiations with other countries, includingFranceand theUnited Kingdom, and we encourage these national health authorities and governments to work quickly with us to achieve reimbursement for all patients who may benefit.

Italys countrywide sign-off means that regional health coverage authorities there will begin making Orkambi available to patients who are eligible for it.

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Ode: Divorced and dating again, childfree by choice | KWIT – KWIT

Posted: at 7:20 pm

"You must have babies so the Muslims dont take over!

Ally Karsyn tells her story live at Ode. The theme was "Stigmas: An ode to the power of opening up."

In the long-term parking lot, I meet a middle-aged woman wearing sunglasses, sneakers and yoga pants. Her hair is casually swept into a ponytail. Shes flying to Phoenix for business. Im off to Seattle for fun. She cant remember the last time shes gone on vacation. I go somewhere every year.

Something about our conversation makes her ask, Do you have any little ones at home?

No, thats why I can travel like this, I say. Just pick up and go anywhere.

Do it now, she says, because when you have kids

Her voice trails off. I smile politely. She said, When.

I didnt tell her that there wouldnt be a when for me. Im childfree by choice. I didnt tell her that Im divorced, after four years, and dating again.

Before my divorce was final, my well-meaning mother started saying things like, Oh, Id really like to see you find a nice guy. To which I replied, Ive got nothing but time. I don't have any biological clocks ticking! But then she said, If having kids has taught me anything, its never say never.

I'm probably not the daughter she expected.

In the small farm town where I grew up, it was acceptable, if not encouraged, to get married at 22 to the son of a farmer with a Dutch surname. (That was better than living in sin.) And it was acceptable to buy that house in the suburbs. Doing these things bestowed comfort and approval in the form of verbal praise, plus gifts.

But panic set in with each measuring cup and Tupperware container I received. What sent me over the edge was the shiny red, 22-pound KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer. It dictated I would be spending my weekends baking brownies like my mom did, not biking through rice paddies in Bali, shopping the souks in Marrakesh or eating tapas in Seville.

Being showered with kitchenwares brought back childhood memories of being told to dry the dishes while my older brother played computer games, less than 10 feet away. Id protest, Why cant he help you? Its just cause hes a boy!

I not only rejected the gendered household division of labor, I didnt have much interest in playing with dolls or Barbies. Instead, I took cat photos with my little yellow Kodak camera. I cut and pasted pictures out of magazines and wrote my own stories. I went on outdoor adventures with my three imaginary friends.

These quirks were cute when I was a little girl. Then I grew up.

In my late teens, when I first declared I was never having kids, a family member told me, You must have babies so the Muslims dont take over! Now in my late-20s, the most popular response has been: Youll change your mind.

This sweeping declaration doesnt take into account my underactive thyroid that occasionally hits me with debilitating fatigue or my susceptibility to anxiety and depression when diet, sleep and exercise are compromised. (But hey, kids wont affect that.) It doesnt account for the sense of purpose derived from my precarious journalism career or the desire to travel in order to better understand the world and my place in it.

When I was younger and far more insecure, my college boyfriend convinced me that few men would want to be with an ambitious, free-spirited woman like me. In rural Iowa, I was too different. He promised the kind of life I wanted. Every three to five years, wed move for my job. That was the agreement. That and no kids. I thought, This must be as good as it gets.

I married him.

But after a couple years, my stepping stone became his anchor. He had settled into a comfortable, well-paying technical career. And I was checking JournalismJobs.com every day. My incessant searching finally made him crack. I dont want to live like a nomad, he said. That and his affinity for alcohol made me leave. I took the 22-pound mixer with me.

Then, a strange thing happened. For the first time, I had people telling me, Good thing you dont have kids!

I could look at my starter marriage as a failure or a mistake. But I dont.

By getting divorced and essentially doing the thing I was not supposed to do, I freed myself from crushing expectations. I learned that the only real mistake would be believing Im unworthy of love. Or joy. Even it looks a little different.

Now, I get to try again.

I downloaded Bumble, Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel. I hadnt been on a first date in more than seven years. Back then, these kinds of dating apps didnt exist. Now I stood in line at the grocery store and swiped through med students, airmen, farmers, truck drivers, pro-athletes and engineers. Never in my life have I seen more photos of men holding up dead pheasants, fish and deer. And then there were the ones with kids usually their nieces and nephews. Even that says, Im looking for the mother of my children. And thats not me.

I finally found a match on Tinder, but after 15 messages back and forth about weather and work, he brought up handcuffs and spanking. No thanks.

I had better luck on Coffee Meets Bagel and matched with Marcos the 31-year-old music-loving chef. Latino. Five-foot-10. Religion: Other.

When I asked Marcos what made him want to be a chef, he said, Usually, men arent in the kitchen if youre raised in a Mexican family, but since it was me and my two brothers, my mom taught us how to cook.

His enlightened response won me over. Our first date lasted six-hours, filled with coffee, crepes and great conversation. It ended with a goodnight kiss in the misting rain. We kept seeing each other, and after a couple months, I decided to tell my mom about the nice guy Id found, which begged the question, Whats his name?

Marcos.

Does he have a last name?

Vela.

Is heeeee

Mexican.

Oh, she said, I thought maybe he was Italian.

But she pronounces it, Eye-talian.

When Marcos had his big, black beard, he could have passed as Pakistani or Indian. (In fact, people have come up to him speaking Hindi.) But hes most definitely from Mexicoone of the Dreamers, tossed over a border fence by his teenage mother when he was 2 years old.

They left Acapulco. The coastal city in southern Mexico is part of a region densely populated with descendants of African slaves. Or people who, today, identify as Blaxicansblack Mexicans. A heritage he is proud of yet removed from.

A few weeks ago, we were walking through a flea market. In between the nostalgia-inducing model airplanes and My Little Ponies, he pointed to an illustrated reprinting of The Man Without a Country and said, Thats me.

Instantly, I knew that feeling of being out of place when you want to belong. But cant.

When I told my mother more about the talkative, well-groomed, fashion-savvy man Id foundthe one who can pick out my clothes and cook for meshe said, Just make sure he's not too different. Which I took to mean, Make sure he's not gay.

From our first date, I knew Marcos was different.

Over brunch, he answered a call from his mom. He was boyishly embarrassed at first but still told her, I love you, before he hung up. He apologized for the interruption and went on to tell me about his job at an upscale, modern American restauranthow he works from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. five days a week and teaches free music lessons in the Latino community on one of his days off. He shared his dream of opening his own restaurant, one in Australia, then Germany. He admired my confidence and wit, my independence and ambition.

Going against the advice on the Internet, I told Marcos that Im divorced and I dont want kids.

He stared at me with his deep brown eyes, reminiscent of two perfect little cups of coffee that I could drink in all day. His face softened into a smile and he said, Me, too.

---

Ally Karsyn is the arts producer and weekday afternoon announcer at Siouxland Public Media. She is also the founder, producer and host of Ode.

Odeis a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. Its produced by Siouxland Public Media.

The next event is 7 p.m. Friday, August 4 atBe Yoga Studioin downtown Sioux City. The theme is Little Did I Know. Tickets are available atkwit.org. For more information, visitfacebook.com/odestorytelling.

This story was produced as part of anImages & Voices of HopeRestorative Narrative Fellowship, which supports media practitioners who want to tell stories of resilience in communities around the U.S. and abroad.ivohis a nonprofit committed to strengthening the media's role as an agent of change and world benefit.

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I’m a Female Minority at Harvard, and This is Why I Support PC Culture – Harvard Crimson

Posted: at 7:20 pm

I support political correctnessnot because I come from a marginalized background, but because I am a human being. As a human being I understand the value of political correctness because I am aware of the harm that words can have on a person. I have learned the weight that words can carry.

The annual Leadership Conference for Best Buddiesa charity supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilitieswas this past weekend, and I reflected on my own time there two years ago. I reveled in the amount of strength and talent that could be found in people with disabilities when given the right spaces to showcase them. After spending so much time defending the humanity of the friends I had grown to love in my school, I finally got a glimpse of the kind of world we could live in. Best Buddies goal is to run their organization out of business by creating a world so welcoming and accepting that an organization creating inclusive spaces would no longer be necessarythey would exist naturally all around us.

We tried to create this world at my high school. One important step was the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign my school participated in each year. It was meant to stop the use of the R word because, believe it or not, words hurt people.

Throughout the years, the R word has developed negative connotations. People use it in place of words like stupid, dumb, ridiculous, crazy, and countless other negative words. This implies that people with intellectual disabilities are all these things. Throughout my years in Best Buddies, I had to see my friends excluded from so many social spaces because of the hostile environment created for them through all the negative views stacked against them. I had to witness the smile fade away from one of my best friends face as he told me about the way some of my classmates made him leave their lunch table. The need for a campaign asking people to say, this person has an intellectual disability, instead of, this person is mentally r*******, became obvious.

Through Best Buddies, I was presented with more appropriate terminology, terminology that defined people by their status as a person and not their disability. Best Buddies gave me my first real introduction to political correctness. It provided me with the proper language to help ensure my friends were being treated with the respect they deserved. Never in a million years would I have thought that being in favor of it was a sign of weakness or coddling. The whole thing is quite reasonable. If something you say makes another person uncomfortable or feel less than others, why would you continue to say it?

If you suddenly saw one child hit another, you wouldnt yell at the child who was hurt for being upset. You would tell the other child to stop. The same concept applies. PC culture is about avoiding verbal abuse, just as people should avoid physical abuse.

Opponents of political correctness argue that it is an attack on free speech. They argue that, in addition to limiting the oppressor by not allowing them to attack others, it also affects the oppressed by preventing them from welcoming different opinions, therefore stunting their capability for intellectual growth.

Why should we welcome opinions that intentionally discredit who we are? Being politically correct doesnt hurt anyone. Youre not going to feel bad because there havent been enough racial slurs yelled at you this week.

It wouldnt affect a person who will never be on the receiving end of those slurs. But rejecting political correctness does hurt individuals. Its not just about not liking what we hear because we dont agree with it. These hateful words are bullets that slowly tear down at our humanity with every shot fired.

The argument that silencing hateful speech would hurt me more because I wouldnt be able to grow intellectually absolutely baffles me. Do you know what actually has a direct effect on a persons ability to perform academically? Their mental health. Emotional well-being is the real prerequisite for intellectual growth. Having to listen to hateful slurs because people dont listen to your calls to end the use of dehumanizing language is what tears it down bit by bit.

Opponents call for educated discussion by asking that all emotional attachment to the issues to be left out. We cant be objective in issues that deal with our humanity. Anything we could possibly contribute on the topic would be inherently subjective. There is no way to disconnect the two. You cant leave your identity at the door for what are thought of as purely intellectual discussions.

The disconnect here is that ideas and opinions cannot be held to the same caliber as their negative impact on human lives. Im not sorry that you feel like you cant freely express your prejudiced thoughtsnot when you want to do so at the expense of another persons existence.

Laura S. Veira-Ramirez 20 is a Crimson editorial editor in Leverett House.

`Political Correctness' Hurts Liberals

To the Editors of The Crimson: In his opinion piece titled "The Myth of `Politically Correct'" [December 11], J.D. Conner

The Good Lie

Good lies are all damned, and theyre damned for good. But youve still got to love them.

Summers Decries 'Creeping Totalitarianism' at Colleges

Former University President Lawrence H. Summers discussed recent campus discourse and protests about race at colleges across the country during an interview, criticizing excesses of political correctness on the part of students and administrators.

Students Debate Merits, Pitfalls of Political Correctness

Q&A with Walter S. Isaacson

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Times article on trans reforms slammed: ‘This is not political … – PinkNews

Posted: at 7:20 pm

A Times article which says the governments plans to improve the process for changing gender will harm children has been slammed.

On Sunday, the government announced a move to streamline and de-medicalise the Gender Recognition Act, to allow transgender people to more easily change their legal gender.

The progressive move was welcomed by a huge number of LGBT activists.

However, it prompted a backlash from some who desperately yelped that political correctness had gone too far. Too many rights for too many people, it seems.

Today in The Times, Clare Foges, a former speechwriter for Prime Minister David Cameron, wrote that the new reforms which have not been proposed in any concrete way would create a world of confusion and anxiety for children.

She states that giving children the freedom to self-define which seems to be outside of these potential reforms would worsen mental health problems in young people.

I am no expert on children, she says.

But, she continues, seeming to express intimate knowledge on the subject, childrenare being led to believe, on social media and in schools, that gender is simply a lifestyle choice.

Foges also says all of the great legislative battles on equality have been won, which will be news to many campaigners, before going on a tirade laced with hypotheticals.

If they dont enjoy girly things like make-up are they perhaps a boy?

She then confuses the concepts of gender and sexuality, saying: If they have a crush on people of both sexes could they be agender?

Foges adds: If they simply feel different to everyone else and uncomfortable in their own skin, common enough in adolescence, might they be genderfluid?

This viewpoint was dismantled by Susie Green, the chief executive of Mermaids, a charity which campaigns for the rights of gender nonconforming children.

Once again, people who this will never affect, who have no issues around their gender and never will are attempting to dictate to a vulnerable population how they should be supported, Green told PinkNews.

Pointing to the latest Stonewall statistics, she added: Trans children have a 45 percent suicide attempt rate, and 1 in 10 young trans people receive death threats in school due to ignorance and prejudice.

Surely, she added, any moves to both educate and support these young people should be embraced.

She said that young trans people feel invalidated, and that articles like this question their identity and sense of self.

This is not political correctness, this is children dying.

On the point Foges makes about all of the great legislative battles on equality having been won, Green said: I absolutely dont think so.

Weve got a very long way to go in looking at the way trans people are treated in all walks of life.

There still needs to be far greater protections, not to mention the way theyre depicted in the media.

Essentially, we want children to grow up and be valued members of society, so we have to acknowledge and embrace the differences that are there.

She said that not doing so is not helpful, and can actually be very detrimental to those young people affected.

Mermaids provided quotes from the father of a trans child, who said that our kids and youth are scared they are being bullied in our schools, they are being demonised in our press and they are self-harming.

A Stonewall spokesperson said: Were disappointed to see another attack on trans identities this week, and these comments certainly underline the need for more education.

Its vital that all young people feel supported and know that all identities are valid and, no matter who they are, they will be loved and accepted.

Foges is not the only person who has been given the chance to object to trans people gaining more rights in a major national publication.

Helen Lewis, the deputy editor of the New Statesman, wrote in The Times that coming out as trans should be treated like changing nationalities.

And a Sunday Times article also drew criticism for the way it reported the governments proposals.

Tim Shipman and Jason Allardyce wrote: Adults will be able to change their gender legally without a doctors diagnosis under government plans that will transform British society.

Men will be able to identify themselves as women and women as men and have their birth certificates altered to record their new gender.

Women would identify as women and men as men under the new plans, which acknowledge trans rights.

Paul Embery, a Fire Brigades Union official, also came out against the governments plan, comparing gender identity to weight, height and attractiveness.

He added that forcing society to recognise someone as one gender when he/she maintains the anatomy of another is ludicrous.

The FBU has refused to condemn Emberys remarks, despite Stonewall saying that comments like this underline how much work there is still to be done to make trans equality a reality.

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Modern-day eugenics? Prisoners sterilized for shorter sentences – Salon

Posted: at 7:19 pm

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

A Tennessee county has greenlit a modern-day eugenics program under the guise of offering prisoners a better future. Judge Sam Benningfield of White County issued an order in May that reduces jail sentences for inmates who agree to undergo birth control procedures. For male inmates, a credit of just 30 days is offered in exchange for vasectomies, which are permanent. Women who sign up for the program receive a Nexplanon implant, which is effective for up to four years.ABC 15reports that 32 women and 38 men have enrolled in the program.

I hope to encourage them to take personal responsibility and give them a chance, when they do get out, not to be burdened with children, Judge Benningfield told local outletNewsChannel5. This gives them a chance to get on their feet and make something of themselves.

The program is described as voluntary, though it stretches the definition of that term, basically putting inmates in the position of bartering their fertility for sentencing reductions. Considering that prison sentences are often the collateral damage of life issues from poverty to addiction to crime, it seems callous to ask already vulnerable people to forego a basic human right to shave time off their sentences. The ACLU argues that pretending the program gives prisoners real options is deceptive and perhaps unconstitutional.

Offering a so-called choice between jail time and coerced contraception or sterilization is unconstitutional, Tennessee ACLU head Hedy Weinberg wrote in astatement. Such a choice violates the fundamental constitutional right to reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity by interfering with the intimate decision of whether and when to have a child, imposing an intrusive medical procedure on individuals who are not in a position to reject it.

Theres also the matter of the programs resemblance to the eugenics programs that populate American history. The Equal Justice Institutenotes thatsterilization programs in the United States date back to the 1920s, when many states authorized forced sterilization of thousands of undesirable citizens people with disabilities, prisoners and racial minorities on the theory that, as the Supreme Court put it in upholding Virginias forced sterilization law in 1927, three generations of imbeciles are enough.

In recent years, groups likeProject Preventionhave paid drug-addicted women as little as $300 to be sterilized. (One ad advises potential enrollees, Dont let a pregnancy ruin your drug habit.) NPR points to a previous Tennessee state effort that penalized pregnant women who used drugs under a fetal assault law. The legislation was abandoned after officials realized that women avoided prenatal care so they wouldnt face jail time.

Judge Benningfield told NewsChannel5 that he launched the program with input from the Tennessee Department of Health, though the agency has distanced itself from the effort in news coverage.

Neither the Tennessee Department of Health nor the White County Health Department was involved in developing any policy to offer sentence reductions to those convicted of crimes in exchange for their receiving family planning services, Shelly Walker, the agency spokesperson, told theWashington Post. We do not support any policy that could compel incarcerated individuals to seek any particular health services from us or from other providers.

Judge Benningfield seems surprised by the outrage his program has been met with.

It seemed to me almost a no-brainer, he told NewsChannel5. Offer these women a chance to think about what theyre doing and try to rehabilitate their life.

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Our Long, Troubling History of Sterilizing the Incarcerated – The Marshall Project

Posted: at 7:19 pm

Filed 10:00 p.m.

07.26.2017

David M. Perry

A Tennessee judge is offering reduced jail time to men and women who appear before him in court. And all they have to do to earn that break is volunteer to be put on a contraceptive or sterilized.

In May, Judge Sam Benningfield signed an order to allow individuals held in the White County jail to receive 30 days off their time if they undergo a birth control procedure. County officials say that 32 women have received birth control implants so far and 38 men are waiting to have vasectomies performed.

Under no circumstances should the courts use their power to shape the reproductive decisions of individuals. But sadly, for over a century, attitudes about individuals convicted of crimes have made incarcerated men and women targets of such efforts.

Whether Benningfield knows it or not, his policy follows a long history of eugenic practices in this country. Eugenics is a pseudo-science which holds that the quality of humanity can be improved over generations through practices that encourage individuals with desirable traits to reproduce and discourage the unfit from doing so. There's a sense that eugenics is confined to a long-ago history, but coercive eugenic practices crop up constantly in the American criminal legal system.

In 1907, Indiana became the first state to pass a law allowing for the compulsory sterilization of confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles and rapists. As a result, hundreds of men held in Indiana prisons were given vasectomies. Henry Sharp, the doctor who performed the procedures, argued before the National Prison Association in defense of the practice: We owe it not only to ourselves, but to the future of our race and nation, to see that the defective and diseased do not multiply.

Following Indiana, 31 states passed eugenics laws. In practice, most states targeted their efforts at the feebleminded and the poor, using state agencies and social workers to identify individuals to sterilize. The victims were most often women of color.

For example, in 1924, the North Carolina legislature gave the head of any penal or state institution the right to order sterilizations and the state often threatened the denial of social service benefits to coerce participants into procedures. Between 1936 and 1968, nearly a third of the women in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico were sterilized in a similar effort.

Eugenics laws remained on the books in many states until the 1970s. But while laws were repealed, eugenic practices continue especially in our nations prisons and jails.

Reporting by the Center for Investigative Reporting exposed that nearly 150 women underwent tubal ligations in California prisons between 2004 and 2013. According to CIR, medical staffers at two prisons that housed pregnant women targeted individuals for sterilization who they deemed likely to return to prison. The medical staff had many of the women sign consent forms, causing a debate about the limitations of consent for incarcerated people once the practice was exposed.

Consent is again at the center of the debate around the sterilizations at the White County jail. Benningfield has explained that his program is voluntary and well intentioned. I hope to encourage them to take personal responsibility and give them a chance, when they do get out, to not to be burdened with children, he told local reporters. This gives them a chance to get on their feet and make something of themselves.

The head of the ACLUs Tennessee chapter has called the program unconstitutional, adding that it imposes an intrusive medical procedure on individuals who are not in a position to reject it.

A great irony in all of this is that marginalized people do in fact need access to reproductive choices. Indeed, everyone should have affordable or free birth control and education about how and why to use it. No one, however, should be compelled to trade their reproductive freedom for corporal freedom.

The program in White County is but the most recent expression of the idea that the state should have the power to intervene in the reproductive choices of those they deem unfit. This eugenic mentality should be understood as a theme in American history, but not one that has been banished to the dustbin of the past. Weve carried it with us into the 21st century, into Tennessee, California, and possibly to a prison system near you.

David M. Perry is a freelance journalist and historian. His work focuses on violence and criminalization.

Originally Filed Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 10:00 p.m. ET

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July 26, 2017Eugenics Today – Church Militant

Posted: at 7:19 pm


Church Militant
July 26, 2017Eugenics Today
Church Militant
Would be nice to see a crack in the dam so that subjects like Eugenics could be presented to our brainwashed HS and College students; maybe the 99.9% of the support they have drilled into them for Planned Parenthood could at least have a little light ...

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Paleoanthropologist explores roots of evolution – UChicago News

Posted: at 7:18 pm

Story and photo by Matt Wood

The study of human evolution here has very deep roots. Continuing that legacy and thinking into the future is exciting. Prof. Zeray Alemseged on UChicago's reputation in paleontology research

In 2000 Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged unearthed a 3.3 million-year-old, nearly complete skeleton of a 2 year-old girl in Dikika, Ethiopia. In the years that followed, the paleoanthropologist and fellow researchers slowly chipped away the sandstone surrounding the delicate fossil, using advanced imaging tools to analyze its structure.

Alemseged first revealed the Australopithecus afarensisfossil, known as Selam, to the world in a landmark publication in Nature in 2006. At the time, he was a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, before moving to the California Academy of Sciences two years later.

In the fall of 2016, Alemseged left the California coast to join the University of Chicago faculty, where he quickly made international news. This past May, Alemseged co-authored a landmark study about Selam, which showed portions of the human spine that enable efficient walking motions were established millions of years earlier than previously thought.

The study, which Alemseged said shed new light on one of the hallmarks of human evolution, is the kind of impactful research that adds to UChicagos storied reputation in paleontologyone that includes some of the most famous names in the field, both present and past.

The study of human evolution here has very deep roots, said Alemseged, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy. Continuing that legacy and thinking into the future is exciting, but when you leverage that with the ability to work with some of the brightest students in the world, the opportunity to collaborate with them is one of the great legacies a scientist could have.

Alemseged filled a niche in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy as its resident paleoanthropologist, studying human origins and the environmental context of human evolution. The other senior researchers on the faculty occupy key branches on the evolutionary tree of life. Prof. Michael Coates, studies the origins of early vertebrates and fish. Prof. Neil Shubin studies the first tetrapods and their transition to land. Prof. Paul Sereno covers dinosaurs and the emergence of flight, and Prof. Zhe-Xi Luo, studies the origins of mammals.

Alemseged extends this expertise to the species that dominates our planet today, with a new breed of research that combines high-tech imaging analysis of fossils with traditional geology and fieldwork. Using these tools, he explores the milestone events in human evolution since our split from the apes.

Hes a top-notch scientist who can use geology, biology and the latest technology in his work, and has a very good sense of public outreach, said Sereno. Im so happy he chose to come here, putting UChicago at the cutting edge of the newest research in human evolution.

Alemseged returns to his native Ethiopia every year for several months to continue work in the Afar, a paleoanthropological hotspot, collaborating with researchers from across the globe, including the National Museum of Ethiopia, where the fossils are prepared and curated.

You can say that one-half of my lab is back there, he said. What I enjoy the most is the quiet moments that I have in my lab in the process of making the little incremental discoveries that, when combined, will allow me to tackle questions pertaining to those milestone events.

Originally published on July 28, 2017.

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The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Visuals, Memes, and Bitcoin Street … – Bitcoin News (press release)

Posted: at 7:18 pm

The decentralized currency Bitcoin has grown incredibly popular over of the past year. In parallel with this increased interest in cryptocurrency, the technology is also affecting pop culture and the art world. In 2017 there are a lot of artists incorporating the concept of bitcoin culture into their mediums.

Also read:The Curious Cases of the Alphabay Kingpin and Hansa Takedowns

Bitcoin is an incredible technology that has changed the way the world looks at money. The protocol has spawned lots of innovation and a revolutionary spirit among those who use the cryptocurrency. This spirit has invoked a lot of artists that are tethering the bitcoin concept into their creative activities. This week were going to look at a few designers bringing cryptocurrency to the visual arts.

Block Bills

The Los Angeles-based artist Matthias Drfelt has created a new type physical bitcoin that looks similar to the paper fiat notes people use every day. Drfelt uses the hashes from 64 random blocks and turns them into an eccentric design that was created by his own software. Further, Drfelt created his own symbols for the hexadecimal numbers that he uses along the bottom of every bill. There are numbers in a typeface that Drfelt generatedto represent the time the bitcoin was mined. The artist says every bill is created entirely with code except for the signature he signs that says Satoshi. In contrast to traditional fiat where theres a number that tells people how much the bill is worth, Drfelt uses the number of transfers stored in each block.

Each digital print is 5.9 X 3.3 inches, and Drfelt has created a series of 64 banknotes from the blockchain.

Satoshi Gallery

The artist Valentina Picozzi decided to bring cryptocurrency to the masses with Satoshi Gallery, a collection of crypto infused images and wearables. The Italian artist based out of London says that Bitcoin needed art and thats why Satoshi Gallery was created. Satoshi Gallerys work includes images of the most expensive slice of pizza, dollar bills saying oh no, and an iconographic landscape of other crypto-related subjects. We need to bridge the gap between technical developers, experts/insiders and everyday people Thats why we need art.

Art for Crypto

The well known visual artist, Vesa Kivinen, the founder of Artevo Contemporary has recently started a new cryptocurrency infused platform called ArtForCrypto.com. Vesas work uses various mediums such as digital photography mixed with oil and canvas paintings. The mixed media artists paintings consist of visual depictions of the bull and bear, Satoshi Nakamoto, and one called the Split among many others. Vesa also has a few altcoin paintings for tokens like ethereum, litecoin, and steemit. Additionally, the artist covers subjects like the Silk Road and the possible August 1 fork as well.

Phneep

Phneep is a popular crypto-artist that calls himself a pixel bender and is well-known among the bitcoin community for manipulating movie covers, logos, and other images from pop-culture with bitcoin-related imagery. The artist got into bitcoin in 2012,and in 2014 decided to focus on bitcoin satire because he wanted to contribute to the crypto-ecosystem but couldnt code. Phneep has worked with a lot of community members within the bitcoin economy including the host of the Youtube show Mad Bitcoins, Thomas Hunt.

As long as the core devs are kicking and making successful changes to the protocol itself, and as long as Hollywood keeps crapping out these blockbusters, then Im going to keep finding ways of mashing them together, explains Phneep.

Friends of Satoshi

Friends of Satoshi is a resource for bitcoin artists and creators that aimto empower a decentralized collective of individuals. The organization says that its focus is dedicated to promoting Bitcoin through media and art. Just recently on the 9th anniversary following Zimbabwes hyperinflation, five artists from five different countries collaborated on the Friends of Satoshi Zimnote. The crypto artists who helped with the project include Qrypto (India), Zoran Kutuzovi (Croatia), Satoshi Gallery (U.K), Crypto Imperator (Spain) and The Bitcoin Penny Co. (USA). The Zimnote series consists of ten notes hand painted or drawn, says Friends of Satoshi. Each note contains a fractional amount of Bitcoin, and only four notes will be publicly released, explains the artist collective.

The Rare Pepe Blockchain Community

The Rare Pepe blockchain trading card community is a very vibrant and energetic group of meme artists. Since last year the Rare Pepe community has created a large assortment of collectible cards that are tethered to the bitcoin blockchain. Only the dankest Pepes make the cut into the series, and the Rare Pepe Foundation votes on each entry. We were the first to link Pepes and cryptography to bring you the first truly Rare Pepes secured by the Bitcoin blockchain. The Rare Pepe community also has its own token called Pepe Cash which has a $9.9 million market cap.

Cryptograffiti

The artist Cryptograffiti is a well-known designer within the crypto-community that creates art through the lens of the blockchain challenging the status quo. Cryptograffiti is an early bitcoin adopter and was the first artist to utilize a public-facing cryptocurrency wallet to receive donations for street art. His work has been seen all over the crypto-circuit, shared by luminaries, and featured in online publications.

What do you think about the bitcoin artwork these crypto-artists create? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Cryptograffiti, Art for Crypto, Block Bills, Phneep, the Rare Pepe blockchain, Satoshigallery, and Friends of Satoshi.

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The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Visuals, Memes, and Bitcoin Street ... - Bitcoin News (press release)

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Science, Evolution And Our Intimate Parts – HuffPost

Posted: at 7:18 pm

An opinion piece was recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine with the provocative title: No wonder no one trusts us.The writer, a doctor, imagines a dialogue with a patient- Mr. Jones- based on the shifting recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force about prostate cancer screening.Mr. Jones, receiving updated advice from his doctor that differs from the updated advice he received last time, grows predictably exasperated.(In case you are wondering, the current Task Force position on prostate cancer screening is: Grade C.This means there is a close balance between potential benefits and harms, and clinicians should discuss prostate cancer screening with patients, and reach individualized decisions together.)

The writer is not so much complaining about the Task Force as about the challenges of turning the evolving state of medical evidence into guidance patients can both understand, and trust.The piece is tongue-in-cheek in any case.But still, there is a complaint being lodged, and fundamentally, its about the nature of science and the publics relationship with it.

Science evolves.And maybe thats a particular problem for Mr. Jones, and Mrs. Smith, and their countless counterparts in our culture- because we so blithely, selectively dismiss science and replace it with GOOP as the spirit moves us. Maybe we cant disparage, dismiss, and deny the science of climate change, immunization, nutrition, and evolution for that matter- and appreciate the evolution of science.

Science is something of an in for a penny, in for a pound proposition.What I mean is, you either accept the value of the scientific method, and the voluminous evidence that it works, and thus pay attention to it even when you dont like what it has to say- or you really should disavow the voluminous evidence that it works.Lets be clear about that choice: disavowal means no planes, or trains, or automobiles; products of science, all.It means no antibiotics or microwaves; it means no radio, television, or Internet.It means, quite simply, that it should not be possible for you to be reading this now.

Science works, and we all know it- because we are beneficiaries of its effectiveness every day.You really cant beam well-behaved electrons through cyberspace and throw shade at science while doing it.Pick one!How easy it is, though, to embrace the products of science we like, and renounce the conclusions we dont.

The result of that is calamitous.The same stance that allows for the denial of evolution despite incontrovertible evidence has forestalled our collective response to climate change for decades.I hate to say it, but perhaps it has forestalled our response for too long.As glaciers melt, species die, floods rage, aquifers desiccate, Antarctica falls apart, and ever more trees in these New England forests I love so much sicken and die- I shudder to think how inconvenient this truth may prove to be for us, and especially our children.We may have walked in a blinkered trance right past inconvenient, to devastating.

That same, convenient dismissal of facts we happen not to like perpetuates pseudo-debate about vaccines, when the reality of monumental net benefit is as clear as it is robustly evidence-based.

In a display of serendipity, a deadly serious opinion piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine followed the facetious one in JAMA Internal Medicine by a mere day.This one was entitled Statin Denial: An Internet-Driven Cult With Deadly Consequences, and was aboutthe deadly consequences of statin denial.Statins are the most popular drugs for lowering LDL cholesterol, are highly effective, and when used appropriately- decisively reduce mortality.In other words, they save lives.

As the commentary suggests, there are all sorts of alternative realities on-line, raising doubts about the benefits of statins, the value of lowering LDL, and the relevance of elevated LDL to heart disease risk.One readily finds debate about the cholesterol hypothesis on-line, but finds virtually no such debate among cardiologists.These alternative realities are alternatives to reality, and the commentator is right to point this out as an urgent matter of life and death.As a Lifestyle Medicine expert, I hasten to note that diet and lifestyle can do the job that statins do, and there are strong arguments for a lifestyle approach- but thats a topic for another day.The effectiveness of lifestyle in preventing and treating heart disease does not obviate the corresponding effectiveness of statins.

We mishandle science in several fundamental ways.For starters, science does evolve; it is incremental, listing toward truth in a series of small additions to, and frequent corrections of, what we thought we knew before.We treat every study as a replacement of all we knew until yesterday at the peril of our perennial ignorance.

For another, we treat science as a circus, hawking hyperbolic headlines as a matter of routine.In reality, the findings of science make for good sound bites only very rarely.Often, the findings of studies are nuanced, the conclusions qualified and provisional.

For yet another, there is almost never unanimity- if only because many people favor their own ideology over any other kind of ology, and because human beings are good enough at being wrong that you can invariably find someone who is prominently so, on any given topic.That some dissenting voice can be found- such as on the topic of climate change- does not a legitimate controversy make.I was recently invited to debate vaccines on a podcast, and I declined, not wanting to pretend that there was a legitimate controversy on that topic left to debate.

That more Americans believe in angels than evolution may seem a matter of inner philosophical convictions, disconnected from real world consequences.But that is not so.Selective disrespect for science poisons the well of it, and proves toxic in surprising and intimate ways; as intimate as ones prostate, or uterus.

Medicine is ineluctably a bit of art, but is- or should be- a whole lot of science.There is no way for patients to participate as they must- as key partners in the stewardship of their own health- if they dont understand the basis for important decisions.

Its bad, in other words, that people dont know, or respect the incontrovertible science of evolution.But that problem tends to be at least somewhat remote. Its arguably worse that people dont know, or respect the incontrovertible fact that science evolves- and that the evolution of science will cause medical practice and advice to drift and shift over time.Doubt and discomfort born of that is consequential up close, quite personally, and in our most intimate parts.

Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com

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Science, Evolution And Our Intimate Parts - HuffPost

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