The memories that we humans encode and store in the neuronal networks of our brains are fundamental to our existence as individuals and as collective societiesfor the recalling of those memories, especially during times of stress, can help us to anticipate and shape the future for our own well-being.

But we are not the only ones to benefit from the capacity to remember, nor are human memories the only ones from which we can benefit. Animals across a wide spectrum provide clear evidence of memory retention, and, perhaps surprisingly, so do plants, microorganisms and inanimate systems (think, artificial intelligence), all of which lack a neuronal brain yet can function within their own networks as entities with agency and memory. In these cases, as in neuronal life, memory expresses itself through priming and triggering events that cause the organism or the system to respond in a way that improves overall fitness.

Now consider the Earths ocean, our blue planets dominant feature over deep time and space from its formation about 4.3 billion years ago to its greatest current depth of nearly 11,000 meters in the Challenger Deep in the Pacific. Every aspect of this vast oceanic system can be viewed as holding memory, from short-term to long-term, individualized to collective. For example, the cold, salty surface waters in polar regions that sink to form the rest of the deep sea (cold, dense water sinks) carry the memory of their initial interactions with the polar atmosphere in the form of a unique temperature/salinity signature for a thousand years, in the process keeping the ocean circulating globally for the benefit of all life on the planet.

The chemistry of the ocean also carries memory of the atmosphere of the carbon dioxide (and other gases) its waters have exchanged with the air, which can be stored at depth in the solid form of calcium carbonate for tens to hundreds of years, ready to be redissolved with the right priming or triggering event (anthropogenic inputs), in the process helping to regulate whether the ocean remains at a neutral pH or becomes acidic (which can harm many forms of life).

The geological formations at and below the seafloor today, particularly where volcanic processes are at work (think, hydrothermal vents), hold the longest-term memories of the hot waterrock reactions that may have spawned the first stirrings of life on the planet and continue to provide carbon and energy resources to life in the ocean.

And, of course, todays ocean is filled with life more life than land can support. And this life encodes memories of its ancestors and of earlier oceanic conditions in its genetic information, the DNA and the RNA that directs the production of protein and the other building blocks of life.

Inherent to all of this life is the entity we call a virus. We are not the only ones to experience viral infection and pandemics; infective viruses exist for every living organism, from the smallest of bacteria to the largest of marine mammals in the ocean. Some infections are lethal to the host, others neutral or even beneficial; humans have an ancient retrovirus to thank for the evolution of the mammalian placenta, for example (the placental wall is constructed of a retrovirus protein).

Lethal viruses can cause whole populations to crash (think, starfish along the USWest Coast, or phytoplankton blooms in the ocean), but, importantly, they can recover due to genetic memories held by an individual organism or the collective ecosystem. To fully understand the origins of the coronavirus that has spread in human societies across the globe and transformed the nature of human health, society and connectivity, we look to a source few have discussed: the ocean and the memories it holds.

We find that exploring ocean memories, from the scientifically demonstrable to the richly metaphorical, yields insights about this pandemic and the challenges of the Anthropocene, and suggest that such exploring within a fluid medium that knows no boundaries like those we construct may also help us to discover a sense of well-being, intimacy and connection that could lead to healthier and more equitable human societies.

RNA VIRUSES

Unlike many viruses that encode their genetic information as DNA, the SARS-CoV-2 virus of todays pandemic is an RNA virus, relying upon only RNA-encoded genes to take over the host cells it infects and direct its own reproduction. A growing body of gene-based evidence from the new discipline of paleoviromics points to an ancient common ancestor for all RNA viruses, one that originated and diverged genetically in the ocean before jumping to land during the early evolution of terrestrial animals and plants. This evidence implies that RNA viruses took root on the planet shortly after the ocean first formed, in settings that enabled what is called the primordial RNA world.

This relatively chaotic world is hypothesized to have preceded the DNA world and the first cellular organisms, such that RNA viruses have been termed relics of the primordial RNA world. The ocean, with its contemporary seafloor settings that themselves are relics of the early ocean, thus holds the memory of the earliest lineage of RNA viruses, one that eventually led to the coronaviruses that plague humans today.

When did the earliest coronavirus arise, and who were its hosts? The answer to the first part of the question is not well constrained, as estimates range from 10 thousand to 300 million years ago. But this span encompasses a time when the earliest mammals coexisted with dinosaurs (end of the Triassic Period, around 200 million years ago) and when large and diverse mammal species emerged following the demise of the dinosaurs (during the Cenozoic, 60 million years ago). Bats, recognized as the present-day source of most coronaviruses, have been observed in fossil records that date to 5060 million years ago.

For live updates on the coronavirus outbreak, click here

The answer to the second part of the question begs analysis of genomic material. Comparative gene-sequencing of the virally essential enzyme RNA polymerase, which enables the RNA virus to reproduce within host cells, has revealed how these viruses have coevolved with their hosts and transformed over millennia, much as DNA sequencing has revealed the same about their hosts.

RNA viruses in todays vertebrates are no different in reflecting the evolutionary history of their hosts. The picornavirus supergroup of RNA viruses, which encompasses the coronavirus, is remarkable for the wide range of hosts its viruses can infect, from single-celled protists (phytoplankton of the surface ocean) to invertebrates, vertebrates and plants. From this perspective, host jumping by RNA viruses is not unexpected.

VALUABLE VIRAL MISTAKES

The essential functions of storage, pruning and priming of memories that occur in all systems the ocean, viruses and humanity alike sustain some memories while erasing others, better preparing for the future. For viruses, the sustaining and erasing of memories occurs genetically through an enzymatic process (actions of the RNA polymerase) that is prone to mistakes mutations during replication. These mistakes lead to gene mismatches that help the virus avoid host defense mechanisms (that recognize infecting sequences and disable them) and thus enable evolutionary advantage, including access to new hosts.

In the ocean, the best-known host systems for RNA viruses are the single-celled algae, particularly diatoms, but other phytoplankton and protists serve similarly. As an RNA virus reproduces within the host, it mutates 0.010.1 percent of the time, a rate about a thousand times higher than that of a DNA virus. Each infected cell, therefore, produces a mutant cloud of 1,0005,000 quasispecies of viruses, which means that an infected phytoplankton bloom in the ocean will be filled with billions of these mutant viral quasispecies. Molecular methods have confirmed the presence of such high numbers of quasispecies in viral populations, including in the ocean, and particularly for RNA viruses with smaller genomes (which include coronaviruses).

Also Read: Mass production of Covid-19 vaccine to begin once scientists give nod: PM Narendra Modi

The existence of these mutant clouds not only increases the genetic flexibility of viruses and thus their ability to overcome host resistance, but also enables viruses to jump to other hosts. At the same time, better-prepared hosts those with genetic memories of how to defend against viruses survive the population-level infection; in the ocean, for example, the seasonal cycle of spring phytoplankton blooms continues.

One can examine the sequenced genome of any living organism and recognize the presence of virally introduced genes, a measure of past relationships with viruses. But in many cases, the viral relationship to the host is simply unknown. Some 44 percent of human genes are transposable elements jumping genes that can change position in a genome. A remarkable one-fifth of those genes, or 8 percent of the human genome, are derived from retroviruses. By far, most of these grafted-on pieces of us are of unknown function for us.

Life is not definable simply by singular units like genomes or cells, but rather by a dynamic network of relationships and communications among individuals, populations and their viruses, a network that ultimately connects the entirety of our planet.

Living in the midst of this pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has prompted a global rethinking of many things, including human super connectivity, the enhanced vulnerabilities that brings, and what activities can be considered essential to our well-being. As we navigate this pandemic, long-standing, siloed social movements, such as the Movement for Black Lives, have burst into a larger global consciousness showing common themes even amid diverse circumstances. Interactive relationships between the spread of a virus and movements for social justice may be complex, but they are not trivial.

The oceanic origins of the early RNA virus thus offer us both a deeper scientific understanding of the behaviour of SARS-CoV-2, and an open space for creative inquiry: How might the current rapid social uprising and transformation mimic that early, messy, primordial RNA world, where information exchange was rampant and where big changes stemmed from unexpected sources?

OCEAN DISTANCING

The microorganisms that fill the ocean, from the smallest (less than one micrometre) marine bacteria to the larger diatoms (up to 200 micrometres) and other phytoplankton that generate blooms over extensive areas of the ocean (visible by satellite), are well-known for intensive relationships with their own viruses; microbes are easier to study than vertebrates. Not only do they suffer viral pandemics that crash a population when it gets too dense (at the end of a bloom, for example), but they have also acquired numerous helpful genes, known as auxiliary metabolic genes, from their viral relationshipsgenes that are retained by the host for improved fitness.

Also read:This Covid-19 test yields 100% accurate result in 20 minutes, claim scientists

Such gene-information exchange represents just one element of the highly evolved communication systems used by marine bacteria, in particular, to networkto exchange information and regulate their own activities, accomplishing much of the biogeochemical cycling (and pollution mediation) that has occurred throughout the entirety of the oceans history.

This microbial life in the ocean has limits on its super connectivity or runaway networking. Marine bacteria live and die in a balance dictated by available nutritional resources and potential predators, especially viral infectors, all dependent on diffusion through the fluid medium of seawater. This balance is sustained in part through cooperative chemical signalling among bacterial neighbours, a form of social communication called quorum sensing by microbiologists.

When the density of bacteria gets high enough for their chemical signals to reach each others diffusional spheres of influence (about 10 micrometres from the cell surface, or 10 times its diameter), then quorum sensing takes effect. With quorum reached and sensed, communities of networking bacteria pause their growth and shift gears to other life strategies, including attaching to a surface or becoming sessile, reminiscent of human shelter in place strategies of recent months.

The ocean can thus be seen as the original social medium and marine bacteria as having highly evolved social practices of community-alert messaging that leads to physical distancing. This ocean style of physical distancing enables communities to be smart about both resource use and viral safety, for viral infection requires contact, and contact rate is reduced as organism density drops.

Mobile hosts like us, and the bat hosts before us, are the metaphorical seas and oceans in which viruses like SARS-CoV-2 persist. In order to make contact with the next host they must hitch a ride in the tiny droplets of sea aerosols that people exhale or cough up. In doing so, these viruses become embodied within an individuals own fluid networks, connected to their own cells, but extendable to other human spaces through relationships, chance encounters and other communications.

All organisms employ a suite of tools to communicate at a molecular level, with chemistry (as in quorum-sensing) serving to accomplish this metabolic diplomacy across habitat boundaries. Usually, an endless stream of communications provides a general sense of equilibrium, but imbalances or irregularities in the network can emerge, demanding correction.

Sometimes the correction yields chaotic behaviour, as in the jump by the coronavirus from bats to humans evolutionary relationships have shown that such jumps are enabled by mistakes that enabled infection of a new host.

The chaos represents the making of a new memory, which will script itself into possibly both the viral and the human genome, towards a new equilibrium. As humans are tumbling towards a new social equilibrium with laws and public opinion mutating rapidly the virus continues to race through and change within human bodies.

OUR OCEANS, THIS VIRUS, THIS MOMENT

The human toll of this pandemic is devastating. This virus has exposed and amplified existing societal inequities, as well as the effects of human encroachment on the Earths biosphere. But no single act of negligence created this pandemic; collective human behaviour did.

SAR-CoV-2 is just a virus behaving like a virus, exposing and amplifying existing aspects of the distributed life of this moment: a high population density of humans that is hyperconnected and capable of propagating viral spread stealthily, with impacts that may not be recognizable for weeks.

Despite the omnipresent war rhetoric surrounding the pandemic, SAR-CoV-2 is not a warrior; it is a virus in search of a means to continue evolving. This particular coronavirus has simply taken advantage of anthropogenic bridges connecting previously stable, isolated habitats, in the process disrupting the existing equilibrium with consequences dreadful for humankind.

Read:Russia produces first batch of Covid-19 virus vaccine: Ministry

At the same time, the initial quieting of human activity cleaned the air and caused a noted emergence of wildlife. For some, it also reactivated an individual capacity that the superconnected world otherwise shuns: listening to the rich tapestry of birdsong, the systemically silenced voices, the ecological potential of an individual action.

As the novel coronavirus becomes more familiar to the human body, it offers a memory of the deep connection that human evolution all life has to early ocean history. Might a shared focus on the surfacing of entrenched memories of human evolution, systemic racism and the trauma in individual lives lost galvanize humanity towards collective change that is mindful of our history and ecology?

Is there a way for us to search individually and collectively for ways to shift the paradigm from ego to eco? From separated humans, fearful of each other and of nature, to an ecologically entangled sense of self? And what will be encountered on such a search? Pruned memories, lost archives, oceanic embedded histories that have largely escaped awareness? Like ocean memory itself, metaphor and scientific precision need not be in contradiction. Invoking ocean memory as a guide towards thoughtful interconnectivity might make all the difference to how we interpret past events to anticipate the future, shape new memories to serve that future, and survive our own Anthropocene.

Continue reading here:
The ocean carries 'Memories' of SARS-CoV-2 - Deccan Herald

Research focuses on mans exposure prior to conception

A new study from the University of Georgia has shown that exposure to a now-banned flame retardant can alter the genetic code in sperm, leading to major health defects in children of exposed parents.

Published recently in Scientific Reports, the study is the first to investigate how polybrominated biphenyl-153 (PBB153), the primary chemical component of the flame retardant FireMaster, impacts paternal reproduction.

In 1973, an estimated 6.5 million Michigan residents were exposed to PBB153 when FireMaster was accidentally sent to state grain mills where it made its way into the food supply. In the decades since, a range of health problems including skin discoloration, headache, dizziness, joint pain and even some cancers have been linked to the exposure.

More striking, the children of those who were exposed seemed to experience a host of health issues as well, including reports of hernia or buildup in the scrotum for newborn sons and a higher chance of stillbirth or miscarriage among adult daughters.

Yet, little work has been done to understand how the chemical exposure could have impacted genes passed from an exposed father, said study author Katherine Greeson.

It is still a relatively new idea that a mans exposures prior to conception can impact the health of his children, said Greeson, an environmental health science doctoral student in Charles Easleys lab at UGAs College of Public Health and Regenerative Bioscience Center.

Most studies where a toxic effect is observed in children look only to the mothers and the same has been true of studies conducted on PBB153, she said.

Greeson and a team of researchers from UGA and Emory University used a unique combination of observational and laboratory approaches to demonstrate how PBB153 acted on sperm cells.

Typically, scientific studies are either epidemiological in nature and inherently observational or focus on bench science, but in this study, we did both, said Greeson.

This approach allowed the researchers to mimic the known blood exposure levels of PBB153 in a lab environment.

We were uniquely able to recreate this effect using our previously characterized human stem cell model for spermatogenesis, she said, which allowed us to study the mechanism that causes this effect in humans.

The team looked at the expression of different genes in their human spermatogenesis model after dosing with PBB153 and found marked alterations in gene expression between dosed and undosed cells, specifically at genes important to development, such as embryonic organ, limb, muscle, and nervous system development.

PBB153 causes changes to the DNA in sperm in a way that changes how the genes are turned on and off, said Greeson. PBB153 seems to turn on these genes in sperm which should be turned off, said Greeson, which may explain some of the endocrine-related health issues observed in the children of exposed parents.

Though the study used this model to directly replicate exposure to PBB153, Greeson says this approach could be used to better understand the impact of other environmental exposures on reproduction, including large-scale accidental exposures to toxic chemicals or everyday exposures.

Hopefully this work will lead to more studies combining epidemiology and bench science in the future, which will tell us more about why were seeing an effect from an environmental exposure in human populations and encourage experimental studies to more closely mimic human exposures, she said.

The study, Detrimental Effects of Flame Retardant, PBB153, Exposure on Sperm and Future Generations, published May 22. It is available online.

Read the rest here:
Study reveals birth defects caused by flame retardant - University of Georgia

Every human on Earth has been created through human sexual reproduction as the offspring of two parents. A male and a female must engage sexually for human reproduction to take place. The biological process is important for the continuation of human life on Earth. Once a male and a female fall in love and choose to have children, there are several steps that must take place to produce a child.

First, a boy and girl must first reach puberty, the time when bodies begin to change and become more mature. The male and female can now produce special cells for human reproduction. It is at this time when a young man and woman can have sexual relations to produce new offspring, a baby.

Next, the male and female must then have sexual relations; the man's penis will enter the female's vagina. Many of the sperm (sex cells) produced by the man swim and seek to enter the female egg cell. Each sperm cell and egg cell contain 23 chromosomes, which are the instructions for the new human. Only one of the sperm cells will fertilize the egg cell. Fertilization leads to the development of a new individual.

Following fertilization, the new human begins to grow and develop inside the mother's stomach. A nine-month term of pregnancy begins as the new baby immediately begins to develop. A 1-day baby is called a zygote, and during the first 2 months, the baby is called an embryo. From the 3rd month to birth, the baby is referred to as a fetus. During pregnancy, the baby continues to grow and develop, receiving air and nutrients from the mother. After about 9 months, the baby is born and ready to enter the world.

Human sexual reproduction is not a complicated process, but it is much different than asexual reproduction, which involves just one parent. Each parent during human reproduction passed along 23 chromosomes to make a new person. The hair color and eye color may be passed on by the mother and the shape of a chin and height from a father. Though everyone is human, offspring are not exact copies.

If humans were born using asexual reproduction, everyone might look alike. However, remember, as people grow and develop, the cells in the body are reproducing using asexual reproduction. For example, a new skin cell will look like dying skins cells, new blood cells will appear the same as dying blood cells, and this takes place with all the cells of the body.

Finally, once a person reaches puberty the body will begin to change. As a female, the body will have the potential to produce egg cells, and if a male, the body will begin to produce sperm cells. Whether they are used or not, they will die off and new ones will be produced by the body to replace them.

When parents have children, they must be ready to look after the child until the child becomes an adult. It is an important decision that all people must make when they choose to have sexual relations with another person.

In summary, there are two kinds of reproduction, asexual and sexual. Asexual includes just one parent and identical offspring, sexual involves two parents and the offspring will be similar but not identical. Human reproduction includes several steps beginning with sexual relations between a male and female leading to the growth and development of a new baby born approximately 9 months later.

Go here to see the original:
Human Reproduction Reading Comprehension

Will 2020 be the year the tin foil hats are vindicated?

A global coup is unfolding before our very eyes

Will 2020 be the year of the global communist takeover that the tin foil hats have been warning of? The blueprint for world domination is detailed in the UNs Agenda 21 and has four main objectives.

Depopulation: Greatly reduce world population to a more sustainable number and restrict human reproduction.

Globalization: Global militarized police state to enforce political, economic, environmental and medical totalitarianism.

Digitization: Eliminate cash; implement a global digital currency and Universal Basic Income using implantable microchips and a 5G-control grid.

De-carbonization: Eliminate fossil fuels, return rural land to nature by concentrating populations in smart cities. Ban travel, farming and property ownership.

The 120-ton granite monument known as the Georgia Guidestones is inscribed with guidelines for a new age of reason that echoes the same philosophies as those behind Agenda 21. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 and Guide reproduction wisely are the main principles of eugenics, which promotes selective breeding of the nobility and forced abortions and sterilization of the working class. Be not a cancer on the earth Leave room for nature is the Malthusian philosophy that inspired the eugenics movement in the late 1800s; the idea that famines, plagues, wars and birth control are necessary to prevent overpopulation from depleting global resources.

Remember Greta and the Green New Deal? Again we see the globalization, de-carbonization and depopulation themes of Agenda 21. Too bad that racist Trump with his conspiracy theories ruined all of that. But then, just in time to squash Trumps re-election, along comes Bill Gates and The New World Normal to get Agenda 21 back on track.

While the world is under military martial law with travel bans in place, 5G is rolled out, the economy collapses, small business and the middle class are decimated and many become dependent on government handouts. We must learn to work, school, shop and socialize online. Because handling cash spreads the virus, we will need digital currency and an implant to use it.

But dont worry, Bill Gates has been preparing for this pandemic for ages. He already has plans to inject the entire world population with his quantum dot digital tattoos, so he will know whos taken his vaccine. If you refuse, well, youll just be quarantined. Forever. Coincidently, the Book of Revelations warns of a time when the Antichrist forces every man, woman and child to take the mark of the beast and without it no one shall buy or sell.

Now, those of us who have done our homework have tried to warn about the globalist agenda and their deceptive modus operandi, only to be insulted and ridiculed for our efforts. But now that the globalist wolves have thrown off their sheeps clothing and its time to for us to say, we told you so, will the sheep still deny the global coup unfolding before our very eyes?

David Work

Lake Cowichan

Letters

Original post:
Will 2020 be the year the tin foil hats are vindicated? - Cowichan Valley Citizen

Loading

This is reassuring in some ways, but the researchers concluded that while data are limited and incomplete, there is justifiable concern that reproductive consequences of the novel coronavirus may have lasting effects for male reproduction and for some pregnant women and children.

Age is one of the biggest factors affecting a womans chance of conceiving, so if youre in your late 30s or 40s, delaying your plans could mean you miss out. Women younger than 30 have about a 20 per cent chance of getting pregnant each month and by age 40, its about 5 per cent each month.

Theres also increasing evidence that a mans age matters too. A study published this month found that pregnancies involving a man over 40 had a higher risk of miscarriage irrespective of the womans age, so if theres a choice about timing, its always better to try sooner rather than later.

Loading

Pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of anxiety and depression, so if youre already unwell, being pregnant this year may be tough on your mental health.

Its also worth considering how it might feel to engage with the healthcare system more. While Australia has successfully flattened the curve for the moment, infection rates may continue to fluctuate for some time, so being pregnant is likely to be a different experience compared to years gone by.

Are you comfortable seeking care, including emergency care, in a hospital environment that will be very focused on COVID-19 during a pregnancy? And are you confident you will have the support you need throughout a pregnancy and with a newborn if social distancing policies are still in place?

Loading

Alcohol sales have been booming in recent months, so if youve been soothing yourself with a favourite tipple in isolation, youre not alone. The thing is, if youre trying for a baby now, or plan to try soon, its best to back off.

Drinking alcohol can reduce both mens and womens fertility and heavy drinking increases the time it takes to get pregnant. Alcohol can also reduce the chance of a healthy baby. In Scotland, there are even fears of more babies being born with fetal alcohol disorders due to peoples drinking habits during the pandemic.

Theres mounting evidence that a man and womans health leading up to conception impacts on the health of their baby, so while you can only reduce your risk of COVID-19 so much, you can take control of other factors that increase your chance of a healthy pregnancy and baby.

This includes regular exercise, eating well, aiming for a healthy weight, and not smoking. Men wanting to conceive should quit smoking at least three months before trying to ensure their sperm is healthy for conception.

A study published last month found that men who smoked at the time of conception had a greater chance of a baby with birth defects, including spina bifida and heart problems, so for men and women, quitting before you conceive will give your baby the best chance of a healthy life.

For more practical tips about pre-conception health visit the government-funded website yourfertility.org.au.

Dr Karin Hammarberg is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University.

Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here.

Follow this link:
So, you're planning on getting pregnant this year - Sydney Morning Herald

A UBC biomedical researcher is part of a scientific team that has identified a human gene that appears to control thinness.

Josef Penninger, the director of UBC's Life Sciences Institute and a professor in the department of medical genetics, is the senior author of a paper published on May 21 in the journal Cell that explains how a particular gene caught the team's attention during a study of thinness.

Further research on the gene revealed that it appears to play a role in resisting weight gain.

Genes are the physical units that are the basis for heredity. They are made up of DNAa molecule that contains genetic instructionsand are found in chromosomes in our cell nuclei. Genes therefore constitute a set of instructions that determine everything from our hair and eye colour to our physical development to our reproduction.

Penninger, who is also a Canada 150 research chair, said in a May 21 UBC release that the study was a reversal of the usual scientific inquiries into obesity: "We all know these people who can eat whatever they want; they dont exercise, but they just dont gain weight. They make up around one percent of the population.

"We wanted to understand why, Penninger said. Most researchers study obesity and the genetics of obesity. We just turned it around and studied thinness, thereby starting a new field of research."

The study utilized data from an Estonian biobank that featured the genetic makeups of 47,102 healthy and thin (or normal weight) individuals between the ages of 20 and 44.

In that thin group, the research teamwhich included scientists from Australia, Switzerland, and Austrialooked for variations in the genetic profiles and found one: a mutation in the gene called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK).

Although ALK's function in humans is not well understood, it is known to mutate in some cancers and is involved in tumour development. When the researchers took the ALK gene out of flies and mice in lab trials, the subjects were resistant to obesity during induced diets.

Mice that had no ALK gene weighed less and had less body fat than those that had the gene, even though they ate the same diet and exercised the same amount.

Michael Orthofer, the paper's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at Vienna's Institute of Molecular Biology, said in the release that the gene in question worked outside of the digestive system. "Our work reveals that ALK acts in the brain, where it regulates metabolism by integrating and controlling energy expenditure," Orthofer explained.

UBC's Penninger noted possible future research to determine how ALK might regulate human metabolism to encourage thinness.

"Its possible that we could reduce ALK function to see if we did stay skinny, Penninger said. ALK inhibitors are used in cancer treatments already, so we know that ALK can be targeted therapeutically."

Read more:
UBC researcher helps identify human gene that controls thinness - Straight.com

In the reproductive process, a male sperm and a female egg provide the information required to produce another human being. Conception occurs when these cells join as the egg is fertilized. Pregnancy begins once the fertilized egg implants in the uterus. The embryo grows and becomes surrounded by structures that provide support and nourishment. Eyes, limbs, and organs appear as the embryo develops into a fetus. The fetus grows inside the uterus until pregnancy ends with labor and birth. By then all body systems are in placeincluding the reproductive system that can one day help produce another human being.

During sexual intercourse, some sperm ejaculated from the male penis swim up through the female vagina and uterus toward an oocyte (egg cell) floating in one of the uterine tubes. The sperm and the egg are gametes. They each contain half the genetic information necessary for reproduction. When a sperm cell penetrates and fertilizes an egg, that genetic information combines. The 23 chromosomes from the sperm pair with 23 chromosomes in the egg, forming a 46-chromosome cell called a zygote. The zygote starts to divide and multiply. As it travels toward the uterus it divides to become a blastocyst, which will burrow into the uterine wall.

A fertilized egg, or zygote, takes about five days to reach the uterus from the uterine tube. As it moves, the zygote divides and develops into a blastocyst, with an inner mass of cells and a protective outer ring. The blastocyst attaches to the wall of the uterus and gradually implants itself into the uterine lining. During implantation, its cells differentiate further. At day 15 after conception, the cells that will form the embryo become an embryonic disc. Other cells begin to form support structures. The yolk sac, on one side of the disc, will become part of the digestive tract. On the other side, the amnion fills with fluid and will surround the embryo as it develops. Other cell groups initiate the placenta and umbilical cord, which will bring in nutrients and eliminate waste.

Fifteen days after conception marks the beginning of the embryonic period. The embryo contains a flat embryonic disc that now differentiates into three layers: the endoderm, the mesoderm, and the ectoderm. All organs of the human body derive from these three tissues. They begin to curve and fold and to form an oblong body. By week 4, the embryo has a distinct head and tail and a beating heart. Over the next six weeks, limbs, eyes, brain regions, and vertebrae form. Primitive versions of all body systems appear. By the end of week 10, the embryo is a fetus. (Note: Pregnancy is often measured in terms of gestational ageage of the fetus starting with the first day of a womans last menstrual periodand embryonic or fetal ageactual age of the growing fetus. We are referring to the gestational age of the fetus.)

From week 10 of pregnancy, the fetus grows inside the uterus, fueled by nutrient-rich blood supplied by the umbilical cord. The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to the fetus and removes waste products from the fetus blood. Bones, muscles, skin, and connective tissues form. Body systems develop. Limbs and facial features take shape. Around week 36 (usually), the process of labor begins. In the first stage, dilation, hormones stimulate downward contractions of the uterine walls. The contractions push the head of the fetus against the cervix at the lower end of the uterus. The cervix dilates. In the second stage, expulsion, powerful contractions push the head and the rest of the body through the dilated cervix, and out through the vagina and the vulva. The baby is born. Further contractions expel the placenta to complete the placental stage.

Reproductive structures begin to form in the embryonic stage. By week 6, gonads and genitalia are present but undifferentiated. Whether they become male or female is determined by one chromosome delivered by the sperm. This pair contains an X sex chromosome from the female egg and either an X or a Y sex chromosome from the male sperm. If the chromosome pair is XY, the gonads develop into testes starting in week 7. If the chromosome pair is XX, the gonads become ovaries starting in week 8. Testes secrete testosterone, forming male genitalia around week 10. Without testosterone, female genitalia form. All reproductive structures are in place at birth or shortly after. At puberty, an increase in sex hormones will grow them to their adult size and reproductive capability.

View original post here:
Reproductive Process - Human Body

Social animals need connection

Much research over the past decade or so has revealed that health and lifespan in humans, highly social animals, are reduced with social adversity. We humans are not the only animals that are social, however, and similar research has shown that other social mammals are similarly influenced by isolation and adversity. Snyder-Mackler et al. reviewed the relationships between social environment and many aspects of health and well-being across nonhuman mammals and investigated the similarities between these and patterns in humans. They found many of the same threats and responses across social mammals.

Science, this issue p. eaax9553

The social environment shapes human health, producing strong relationships between social factors, disease risk, and survival. The strength of these links has drawn attention from researchers in both the social and natural sciences, who share common interests in the biological processes that link the social environment to disease outcomes and mortality risk. Social scientists are motivated by an interest in contributing to policy that improves human health. Evolutionary biologists are interested in the origins of sociality and the determinants of Darwinian fitness. These research agendas have now converged to demonstrate strong parallels between the consequences of social adversity in human populations and in other social mammals, at least for the social processes that are most analogous between species. At the same time, recent studies in experimental animal models confirm that socially induced stress is, by itself, sufficient to negatively affect health and shorten life span. These findings suggest that some aspects of the social determinants of healthespecially those that can be modeled through studies of direct social interaction in nonhuman animalshave deep evolutionary roots. They also present new opportunities for studying the emergence of social disparities in health and mortality risk.

The relationship between the social environment and mortality risk has been known in humans for some time, but studies in other social mammals have only recently been able to test for the same general phenomenon. These studies reveal that measures of social integration, social support, and, to a lesser extent, social status independently predict life span in at least four different mammalian orders. Despite key differences in the factors that structure the social environment in humans and other animals, the effect sizes that relate social status and social integration to natural life span in other mammals align with those estimated for social environmental effects in humans. Also like humans, multiple distinct measures of social integration have predictive value, and in the taxa examined thus far, social adversity in early life is particularly tightly linked to later-life survival.

Animal models have also been key to advancing our understanding of the causal links between social processes and health. Studies in laboratory animals indicate that socially induced stress has direct effects on immune function, disease susceptibility, and life span. Animal models have revealed pervasive changes in the response to social adversity that are detectable at the molecular level. Recent work in mice has also shown that socially induced stress shortens natural life spans owing to multiple causes, including atherosclerosis. This result echoes those in humans, in which social adversity predicts increased mortality risk from almost all major causes of death.

Although not all facets of the social determinants of health in humans can be effectively modeled in other social mammals, the strong evidence that some of these determinants are shared argues that comparative studies should play a frontline role in the effort to understand them. Expanding the set of species studied in nature, as well as the range of human populations in which the social environment is well characterized, should be a priority. Such studies have high potential to shed light on the pathways that connect social experience to life course outcomes as well as the evolutionary logic that accounts for these effects. Studies that draw on the power and tools afforded by laboratory model organisms are also crucial because of their potential for identifying causal links. Important research directions include understanding the predictors of interindividual and intersocietal differences in response to social adversity, testing the efficacy of potential interventions, and extending research on the physiological signatures of social gradients to the brain and other tissues. Path-breaking studies in this area will not only integrate results from different disciplines but also involve cross-disciplinary efforts that begin at study conception and design.

Social adversity is closely linked to health and mortality outcomes in humans, across the life course. These observations have recently been extended to other social mammals, in which social integration, social status, and early-life adversity have been shown to predict natural life spans in wild populations and molecular, physiological, and disease outcomes in experimental animal models.

The social environment, both in early life and adulthood, is one of the strongest predictors of morbidity and mortality risk in humans. Evidence from long-term studies of other social mammals indicates that this relationship is similar across many species. In addition, experimental studies show that social interactions can causally alter animal physiology, disease risk, and life span itself. These findings highlight the importance of the social environment to health and mortality as well as Darwinian fitnessoutcomes of interest to social scientists and biologists alike. They thus emphasize the utility of cross-species analysis for understanding the predictors of, and mechanisms underlying, social gradients in health.

Originally posted here:
Social determinants of health and survival in humans and other animals - Science Magazine

(MENAFN - Dubai PR Network) Prof. Dr. Human Fatemi, Medical Director of leading IVF clinics UAE IVI Fertility explains how a Mediterranean diet can help women optimize their IVF outcomes

In spite of the growing popularity of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART), the topic of diet and its impact on IVF outcomes hasn't gained much traction in the world of fertility. However, many studies suggest that a nutrient-rich diet can help in managing issues like ovulation, endometriosis, egg quality and embryo implantation, all of which ultimately influence IVF success rates.

'For conception to be successful, it's paramount for the eggs and sperm to be in a healthy condition. And the type of food people consume plays a key role in determining their reproductive health, said Prof. Dr. Human Fatemi, Medical Director, IVI Middle East Fertility Clinics.

Among the different meal plans that one can follow, fertility doctors consider Mediterranean diet as the best option for women who are preparing for or going through infertility treatment.

'The Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and olive oil. Most of these foods are high in antioxidants and good-fats but have a low Glycemic Index (GI), which is a great combination. While good-fats help reduce inflammation in the body, antioxidant-rich foods can assist women in optimizing the health of their eggs. Finally, the low-GI feature of the Mediterranean diet helps patients regulate their insulin levels, thereby reducing any negative impact it may have on their ovulation and fertility,

added Prof. Fatemi.

There are several studies that support the facts shared by Prof. Fatemi above, like the one published in the Oxford Journal, Human Reproduction. In this particular study, researchers evaluated the dietary habits of 244 women (22-41 years of age; BMI

Another study published in the Fertility and Sterility journal found that a greater intake of whole grains (used in the Mediterranean diet) lead to a higher probability of implantation and live birth among women undergoing an IVF treatment.

However, Prof. Fatemi also reminded that more extensive research was required to further discover the association between a Mediterranean diet and IVF success rates. When there are serious medical reasons behind taking an IVF treatment, diet alone may not lead to improved fertility. However, these findings are undoubtedly significant for couples trying to conceive. Therefore, taking the benefits of such a diet into consideration, IVF specialists at IVI Fertility Clinics UAE encourage patients to follow a healthy lifestyle to have the best chances of conceiving.

IVI Fertility is a renowned IVF institution that runs three state-of-the-art fertility clinics in the Middle East Fertility clinic Abu Dhabi and Fertility clinic Dubai in UAE as well as Fertility clinic Muscat. IVI Fertility has the highest success rate in the region of over 70% and has a vast and highly experienced team international IVF experts with years of cumulative experiences in delivering success for couples trying to conceive.

MENAFN1205202000703082ID1100154132

View post:
UAE- Impact of the Mediterranean Diet on IVF Success Rates - MENAFN.COM

Daniel Arlein has already had COVID-19. In March, the 36-year-old small business owner and DJ, who lives in Brooklyn, tested positive for the viral infection and suffered through two weeks of flu-like symptoms.

Arlein has since recovered, and while hes still being careful avoiding leaving the house, washing his hands more often and wearing a face mask he cant help feeling a bit relieved to have already had the infection.

The only way its helping me is psychologically, to be able to go out in the world and still be careful but not be freaked out that Im going to get sick, he said. I have no idea if I will get sick again. I feel like I wont, but I have no idea if I can get it again.

Most people understand immunity to mean that once a person has been exposed to a disease, they cant get it again. Its an easy concept to grasp, and some people have hoped that widespread immunity could be the way out of this pandemic: If enough of the population becomes immune to the disease, the spread would be stopped, since the virus would run out of new, susceptible targets. The herd of immune people would protect everyone.

But getting to herd immunity without a vaccine isnt as simple as the idea itself. A number of variables can affect when herd immunity is reached and what it costs to get there and they vary depending on the disease. How infectious is the disease? How deadly is it? And how long do people stay immune once theyve gotten it? Adjusting any of these variables can drastically change the outcome of this equation. You can probably sense where this is heading

Weve built a very simplified version of how those variables interact. (Youll see just how simple in the methodology beneath the simulator.) To be clear, this is not about COVID-19 itself instead, our calculator shows how a theoretical disease were calling Fictionitis would play out in a population that has never encountered it before and does nothing to try to stop it.

Youll notice that each variable plays a role in setting a herd immunity threshold and reaching it.

The more people a person with Fictionitis infects on average, the higher the herd immunity threshold rises, but the faster spread also means that the threshold is reached more quickly. That, of course, can lead to a huge portion of the population getting ill at once, which would overwhelm hospitals. Unless the death rate is extremely low, that would be a devastating mix. A disease that doesnt spread as readily will stick around for longer, but it helps maintain a flatter curve.

If you shortened the immunity duration, you may have also seen that the blue bar showing how much of the population is susceptible rose again even after the herd immunity threshold had been crossed. Thats because if immunity fades while the disease is still active, people who were previously immune once again become at risk for infection. Herd immunity only truly works while the recovered population has immunity to the disease.

For COVID-19, of course, we cant change these variables, and we still havent nailed down their exact values, anyway. What we do know so far paints a stark picture: This disease is too deadly, too contagious and too new to depend on post-infection immunity (as opposed to immunity via vaccination) as a solution. Naturally acquired herd immunity is not the answer.

If everyone in a population is immune to the infection, it cant spread. But we can prevent a diseases spread even without everyone being immune. If enough people are immune, the infection is unlikely to spread to big swaths of vulnerable people because those who are immune, the herd, protect them. The more people who are immune, the more likely it is that infectious people will only come into contact with people who cannot be infected, ending the spread. This creates a societal barrier between the infectious and the vulnerable.

The moment when herd immunity kicks in depends on how contagious the pathogen is, which is measured by what experts call the basic reproduction number, or R0 (pronounced R naught). The R0 is simply the average number of people an infectious person will spread the disease to in a population where no one is immune, so an R0 of 3 would mean an infected person spreads the disease to, on average, three other people while theyre contagious.

The higher the R0, the higher the proportion of the population that needs to be immune to stop its spread. This is known as the herd immunity threshold, and the formula for finding it is actually pretty straightforward: 1 1/R0. For a really contagious disease like measles, which has an R0 between 12 and 18, 93 to 95 percent of the population needs to be immune to stop the spread (this is why the U.S. has had recent measles outbreaks when vaccination rates dropped even slightly).

The higher the proportion in a population that is infected, the fewer places there are for that virus to go, the fewer people are susceptible to being transmitted, said Greta Bauer, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at Western University in Ontario, Canada. That makes sense, right? If one person, on average, infects two other people but half the population is immune, theyre only going to be able to infect one other person.

For COVID-19, were still not certain what the R0 is, so we dont yet know what the herd immunity threshold is. For now, its estimated to be anywhere from 70 to 90 percent. But heres the problem: To reach even the lower end of that range naturally in the U.S. imagine giving up on any interventions and just letting the disease run its course 230 million Americans would eventually become infected and, depending on the fatality rate (more on that later), millions could die.

And reaching herd immunity as the outbreak is raging is a completely different scenario than, for example, doing so after a vaccine has been created. With a vaccine, you can immunize people before theyve encountered the virus, so by the time the virus gets to a vaccinated population, it has nowhere to spread. But in an active outbreak, even once the herd immunity threshold is reached, the infection keeps going. It takes time for the spread of the disease to crest because, for a while at least, many contagious people will each still infect a small number of vulnerable people, which means even more people will get sick and die. Its a phenomenon known as overshoot.

The disease sort of stops increasing at the point when you reach herd immunity, but theres still lots and lots of people infected. It only slowly goes down, and on its way down, [it] infects another third of the population, said Richard Neher, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. If you drive a car and suddenly you switch off the engine, it doesnt stop instantly.

So think of crossing the herd immunity threshold as determining the fate of the disease (its now bound to die out) rather than its status (its dead).

Since the new coronavirus is highly contagious (meaning a large percentage of the population would have to get it to slow its spread), the human toll of reaching herd immunity without a vaccine would be staggering. And thats assuming that once a person gets sick, they stay immune for a long time. But at this point, we dont know if thats the case.

To reach that herd immunity threshold we either need a vaccine, or we need a lot of people like Arlein who have had the virus and are now immune. Except we dont actually know if Arlein, or anyone else, is really immune.

Typically, when we encounter a new pathogen, our immune system mounts a defense that includes producing antibodies to fight off the infection. Afterward, some of those antibodies and immune cells hang around, allowing our body to remember the offending microbe and more easily fend it off in the future.

The vast majority of anything that you or I have been infected with in our lives, our immune system has developed immunity to and remembers, said Shane Crotty, an immunologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. There are definitely exceptions, but thats the norm.

Those exceptions are why experts, including the World Health Organization, cant presume that having had COVID-19 means you cant get it again, even though antibodies have been detected in recovered patients.

The presence of antibodies, everybody thinks that means immunity, but I study HIV and theres a huge antibody response to HIV, and its never able to neutralize that virus, Bauer said.

Researchers have begun trying to find out how much protection COVID-19 antibodies give people whove recovered from the disease. Theres a chance that the immune response from COVID-19 is enough to prevent someone from getting sick again, but not necessarily from getting infected, which means they could still be contagious to others, according to Crotty.

Its likely COVID-19 confers at least some immunity, though. For one, there are no confirmed cases of someone getting COVID-19 twice. Early reports from South Korea drew a lot of attention after patients tested positive for the virus again weeks after having recovered, but researchers later said that dead virus fragments from the original infection likely triggered the positive tests, rather than a second infection. One early study from China which has not yet been peer reviewed, so take it with an extra grain of salt also measured neutralizing antibodies in 94 percent of patients.

Previous research done on similar coronaviruses, like the ones that cause SARS and MERS, also offers some promising signs. In a mouse study testing a SARS vaccine, for example, researchers stimulated an immune response that staved off a dose of the virus.

But why would we fail to become immune to a disease? There are a few things that could be happening. Our bodies could stop short of completely killing off the virus in the first place, allowing it to lie dormant and reemerge later (thats the case with HIV). The virus could evolve enough that our old antibodies wont work anymore, whether we got them from natural exposure or a vaccine (this is what the seasonal flu does, and its part of why we need a new vaccine every year). Or the immune response we produce could just fade too quickly, making us susceptible to reinfection almost immediately.

With the new coronavirus, theres not much evidence that either of the first two scenarios is in play, but the third possibility that our immunity fades quickly remains an open question, and one we wont be able to answer until more time has passed. Coronaviruses also cause common colds, after all, and humans seem perpetually susceptible to those. In one oft-cited study, for example, people were given a dose of a cold-causing coronavirus, got sick and recovered, then were given another dose a year later. Most of the patients got reinfected, showing how quickly their immunity waned. (And most of them didnt get sick, which opens up a whole new barrel of fun: If COVID-19 works the same way, some people who had the disease and recovered could wind up picking up and spreading the novel coronavirus again despite not being symptomatic.)

One reason is because your immune system just doesnt remember all things equally, and to some extent that memory is tied to how severe the initial infection was, Crotty said.

That said, for SARS and MERS, both of which were also caused by coronaviruses, immune memory cells were detected in patients several years after infection, though because those outbreaks have ended, we dont know if those immune cells would protect against reinfection.

The only way to know if COVID-19 immunity lasts for, say, 10 years is to wait until a decade has passed and see if anyone who was infected once ever got reinfected. (Were just full of good news, arent we?)

Even if it turns out that infected people become immune for some period of time, we still arent close to herd immunity solving our COVID-19 problem for us. So few people have had the disease that were nowhere near herd immunity yet, and the fatality rate is so high that closing that gap would be devastating.

Eventually, reliable serological tests, which detect antibodies, can be administered to large samples of the population. That will give us a better sense of how many people actually had the infection, and thus the diseases true fatality rate. There was some hope that these serological surveys would reveal the disease was much more widespread and therefore way less deadly than we thought. If, for example, you have 50 deaths in a community and 1,000 recorded cases, the fatality rate is 5 percent (50 out of 1,000). But if a serological survey of that community later revealed that there were actually 3,000 cases, that fatality rate drops to 1.7 percent.

Unfortunately, early serological surveys suggest the fatality rate isnt low enough to offer us much comfort.

In the U.S., there have been 81,507 deaths as of May 12. For a fatality rate of 0.1, the same as the seasonal flu, wed have to find out that 81.5 million Americans, or nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, had already had COVID-19. But based on early serological surveys, the World Health Organization says its likely that only about 2 to 3 percent of the population has been exposed so far.

Some serological surveys have reported wildly different estimates of how many people may be immune. A recent survey in California, for example, found that something like 2 to 4 percent of the population had antibodies, while studies in Germany and Massachusetts found antibodies in 15 to 30 percent of those tested.

One reason for these huge variations could be that rates are genuinely higher in hotspots. Indeed, in New York, the hardest-hit city on the planet, as much as 21 percent of the population may have already been exposed, according to preliminary results from a serological survey. But if even in New York, less than a quarter of the population has antibodies, its pretty unlikely that levels are nearly that high in the rest of the country. And New York has also seen a huge number of deaths: at least more than 19,563 as of May 12. Even if this early estimate is correct and 21 percent of New Yorks 8.4 million residents have already been infected, that comes out to 1.8 million people, which still puts the current fatality rate at 1.1 percent, or more than 10 times that of the seasonal flu.

Looking at what percentage of the population might actually have been infected, the numbers of the cases are much higher and the case fatality rate looks like it might be around half a percent, said Jeremy Rossman, a virologist at the University of Kent. People say, Oh thats a trivial number, its minuscule. But, when you think about, say, the population of the United States, 0.5 percent is a tremendous number, and these are peoples lives.

The other potential explanation for why those serology survey results are all over the map is there may be problems with the way they were conducted. None of the papers mentioned above have been published in peer-reviewed journals yet, and many experts have raised concerns about false positives and how people were recruited for studies, suggesting even these low levels might be overestimating the true prevalence of the disease.

So lets go back to that 70 percent herd immunity threshold. If the fatality rate is around 0.5 and 70 percent of Americans have to get sick before their immunity starts protecting others, that means more than 1.1 million people would die. In New York, even having 21 percent of the population exposed, if that serological survey is accurate, has overrun hospitals and led to the death of one in every 400 New Yorkers, while the vast majority of the population remains susceptible.

Thats the cost of getting to 20 percent, said Emma Hodcroft, a postdoctoral epidemiology researcher at the University of Basel in Switzerland. It really illustrates the price youre going to pay if you want to get up to the 60 percent or 70 percent that youll need for herd immunity, and I hope it really illustrates why that just isnt a feasible plan.

Read the original post:
Without A Vaccine, Herd Immunity Wont Save Us - FiveThirtyEight

Even as lockdowns around the world continue, including in India, the number of novel coronavirus cases has crossed 2.7 million. The virus, which started spreading from Wuhan, China, in December, has so far claimed more than 190,000 lives globally. In India, the number of covid-19 cases has crossed 23,000, with 720-plus deaths so far.

But this is not the only major outbreak the world is dealing with right now.

February saw parts of Africa reeling under an Ebola outbreak, while Saudi Arabia had a resurgence of cases of MERS, or the Middle East respiratory syndrome. China had a few cases of the rare but deadly hantavirus disease in March.

The common thread? They are all zoonosesdiseases that crossed the species barrier from animal hosts before infecting human beings.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the world sees an estimated one billion cases of illness and millions of deaths every year from zoonotic diseases. Around 60% of the emerging infectious diseases, or EIDs, are zoonotic. A February 2008 paper, published in the scientific journal Nature, analysed a database of 335 EID events" between 1940-2004. It concluded EID events had risen significantly over time and are dominated by zoonoses, with the majority originating in wildlife.

But why is this happening? Why are viruses making the jump from animals to humans more frequently?

Each time you have a disease, it is a sign that deep down the relationship between man and microbe has changed in some fundamental way. Something has changed," says Thomas Abraham, a former editor at the South China Morning Post and adjunct associate professor at The University of Hong Kongs Journalism and Media Studies Centre. Abraham also authored the 2004 book Twenty-first Century Plague: The Story Of SARS.

Speaking from Bengaluru, he explains that human populations have grown at an unprecedented rate since the 1900s. We have expanded sixfold at least," he says. People have ventured into areas they had never lived in. Forests are being cut, lakes are being drained, the environment is changing, and we are also coming into contact with new forms of animal life. As we come in closer contact, the pathogens that these animals have, which are probably harmless to them, get an opportunity to pass on to man," he adds.

Another reason is our ability to detect and classify these diseases better. When you identify the causes, what you thought was one big disease is actually probably 10 different diseases," he adds.

MANAGING THE ECOSYSTEM

Before covid-19, the most recent flare-up of a zoonotic disease in India was the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala two years ago. In 1957, the western and central districts of Karnataka suffered the Kyasanur Forest disease, caused by a virus of the same name, for the first time. Also known as monkey fever, the virus original carriers are hard ticks that infect other animals as well as humans. Human cases become more frequent when a person comes in contact with infected animals that might also carry the ticks as parasites.

The ticks existed in deep forest areas where humans didnt go. Thats why the disease didnt get transmitted. I correlate this with the covid-19 virus. It supposedly originated from bats because humans have come in much closer contact with them," says Yogesh Gokhale, area convenor, Centre for Forest Management & Governance at The Energy and Resources Institute, a Delhi-based think tank.

Seasonality plays a big role in the spread of this disease, with more cases reported in dry periods. Worryingly, climate change effects have a constant influence on man-animal interface and zoonotic diseases. While some disease vectors are sensitive to temperature changes, extreme changes in temperature also impact transmission patterns. So rising global temperatures become a key factor in the prevalence and re-emergence of zoonotic diseases.

Across the world, warmer temperatures and the combination of warmer temperatures and high humidity widens the transmission window for vector-borne diseases. This is something that India has also been concerned about for some time," says Arunabha Ghosh, founder-CEO of the policy research institution Council on Energy, Environment and Water. Higher temperatures increase the activity, reproduction and frequency of the so-called blood meals of these vectors. These pathogens, harboured by mosquitoes, for instance, also mature faster, resulting in more rapid expansion and increased intensity of disease," he says during a video call.

The notion that warmer temperatures could have an adverse effect on the covid-19 virus was debunked earlier this month when Harvard researchers warned in a study that the virus might not fade away in warmer weather.

Rainfall patterns have similar effects on certain diseases. Dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika and Rift Valley fever are known to spread during periods of heavy rain and flooding, which result in greater vector capacity. The point is to keep looking at the non-linear risk of climate change because there is no flattening of the curve here," adds Ghosh. Warm climate keeps becoming warmer and thats what we have to prepare ourselves for."

FLIGHT AS FEVER

In the past, researchers have traced the origins of some of the deadliest animal-borne disease outbreaks (Marburg virus, Ebolavirus, SARS virus, Nipah, novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2) to one source: bats. But how do bats survive so many viruses in their bodies?

A study published in February in the scientific journal eLife by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley explains how fierce immune systems in bats drive viruses to higher virulence, making them deadlier in humans who have a relatively tamer" immune system.

Rohit Chakravarty, a bats researcher and doctoral candidate at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, explains how viruses mutate among bat species. Bats are really diverse. There are more than a thousand species with their own natural histories, lifestyles. India alone has about 128 bat species," he says. Sometimes, a lot of the species roost together in a cave. When all these species, with different diets and exposure to different viruses, come together and group in one cave (or other natural settings), it is very easy for viruses to keep mutating," he adds.

In April, an Indian Council of Medical Research study found coronaviruses in two local bat speciesthe Indian flying fox and Rousettusbased on swab samples from 25 bats from these two species in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Himachal Pradesh. It noted there was no relation between these coronaviruses and the covid-19 virus, or any evidence that these viruses could be transmitted to humans. Coronaviruses are a large family of hundreds of viruses that circulate among certain animals but sometimes jump to humans.

Aaron T. Irving, a senior research fellow at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, says much of the problem is the human immune system: Its overreacting and killing us". The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes fatal inflammatory responses and acute lung injury in humans. Bat immune systems have a very strong primary antiviral response but they seem to prevent excessive inflammation. They block cytokine storms that are commonly seen in humans and prevent a massive recruitment of immune cells to where the virus is. This means bats tightly regulate their immune system to prevent it going into overdrive," adds Irving, who focuses on bat immunology.

Another hypothesis explains how the ability to fly protects bats: in other words, flight as fever". Their metabolic rates increase in flight and the rigorous physical activity results in a rapid rise in body temperature, similar to the fever we experience when our immune system is trying to ward off an infection.

Yet Chakravarty believes it is important not to forget the role of anthropogenic pressures. When animals are stressed and driven out of their natural comfort zones, their immune systems stop functioning efficiently, which means they are more likely to get infected and then pass on viruses to humans.

Arinjay Banerjee, a postdoctoral researcher at McMaster Universitys Institute for Infectious Disease Research in Canada, says it would not be fair to describe bats as reservoirs of deadly viruses. Banerjee is part of a Canadian research team that last month successfully isolated and cultured the covid-19 virus in a high containment laboratorya big step towards understanding more about the virus biology and developing a vaccine.

Banerjee believes this outbreak stresses the need to understand disease ecology and transmission of pathogens from animals. The unfortunate thing about this coronavirus is that it is more easily transmissible. SARS and MERS have higher mortality rates but they never infected as many people as SARS-CoV-2," he says. We need to be prepared for future outbreaks once we have dealt with covid-19."

Initiatives like the Global Virome Project are already working on understanding how and where the next viral outbreak might come from (GVP is a 10-year scientific effort of public, private and philanthropic organizations to discover zoonotic viral threats). Only by understanding virus diversity and the associated transmission risks may we move from constantly reacting and responding to epidemics to preventing epidemics," says Jonna Mazet, a member and implementation director of the GVP leadership board.

On email, Mazet explains that in seeking out viruses, the project is also strengthening country capabilities to detect and control viral spillover, by improving surveillance, biosecurity and laboratory capacity.

History offers an example. In the 1960s, researchers described the first human coronaviruses HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43, which were studied extensively till the mid-1980s. They caused a worrying infection that is known to us today as the common cold.

See more here:
When a virus jumps: of man, microbes and pandemics - Livemint

In 1937 the art critic Myfanwy Evans published The Painters Object, an anthology of new essays by leading artists of the day including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Nash. While Evanss aim was to present a snapshot of contemporary practice, its clear from her introduction that she wasnt holding out for consensus. In fact, she suggested, the art world was currently in the middle of a series of all-encompassing battles between Hampstead, Bloomsbury, surrealist, abstract, social realist, Spain, Germany, heaven, hell, paradise, chaos, light, dark, round, square.

Evanss breathless list was meant to be playful, but she was making a serious point. Within the broad church of modernism, you could find the cool abstract grids of Piet Mondrian, the increasingly politically engaged style of Picasso or, more recently, the curve ball of surrealism, as represented by Salvador Dal and his lobster telephone. What made the struggle for dominance more intense is that much of it was being played out within a few streets around Hampstead and neighbouring Belsize Park in north-west London.

It wasnt simply that British artists including Henry Moore and Nash had piled into NW3, attracted by cheap studio space and good northern light. It was that the area was increasingly home to distinguished migrs, driven out of Europe by the Nazis conviction that modernisms machine-tooled, mass-produced aesthetic was the product of a covert communism. Following the closure of the Bauhaus in 1933, many of the influential art schools faculty, including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Lszl Moholy-Nagy had taken refuge in the Isokon building, a sleek new residential complex on Lawn Road in Hampstead that was the closest that British architecture ever got to the modernist ideal of a machine for living.

Above all, Evans understood that the current culture wars involved not just ideologies and manifestos but flesh-and-blood people. She knew all about the drunken japes, open marriages, shabby accommodation, ecstatic assignations and slow wars of attrition through which art got made in the 1930s. An affair with another painter, for instance, might bring someone towards a new way of seeing, while a feud with a flatmate could result in a sculptors violent change of direction. Artists continued to produce work in the midst of babies arriving, holiday leases being taken, motor cars giving up the ghost, savings running dry. And it is this human story or rather these stories that Caroline Maclean delivers in this hugely enjoyable and well-plotted book.

A good place to start is with Evans herself, quite possibly the only bona fide Hampstead native in this story. As a clever Oxford undergraduate she had admired the published art criticism of a young unknown painter called John Piper. Invited by friends for a weekend on the Suffolk coast then, as now, an outpost of north London Evans was picked up at the station by a fellow house guest who took her straight to the beach for a swim. He turned out to be Piper and they lived happily ever after, at least once hed obtained a divorce from his painter wife who was already in love with someone else. Modernist life, unlike its art, never ran in straight lines.

Together and separately John and Myfanwy Piper worked through the implications of the move towards pure form that they witnessed in the work of contemporaries including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Nash. The Pipers worried that their erstwhile friends lofty, depersonalised approach to object and image-making actually constituted a political dereliction in these increasingly desperate times. In The Painters Object, Myfanwy included a reproduction of Picassos Guernica, which violently depicts the destruction of humanity by aerial bombardment during the Spanish civil war. Its brilliant horror was enough to nudge John Piper away from abstraction and towards a figuration of ordinary, everyday things, which he now reported seeing with a new intensity. Where once Pipers landscapes had been as spare as an architects plans, now they bristled with churches, trees and monuments all those dear sights that would soon be at risk of wartime obliteration.

More topsy-turvy is the story of Hepworth and Nicholson how the sculptor and the painter met when married to other people and how they tried their best, as civilised people (not to mention positive-minded Christian Scientists), to avoid causing emotional pain. Inevitably, however, their inability to take decisive action resulted in extra suffering all round. Nicholsons discarded wife Winifred behaved like an absolute dear, according to Barbara, who suggested that the two women should live together and welcome periodic visits from the man whom they both loved. Nicholson, conveniently, believed that as long as he stayed true to his own desires then happiness would automatically follow for everyone else.

Despite all the comings and goings, all three artists found time to practise their tennis, with Winifred perfecting what Ben called a very pretty stroke. What really threw a spanner in the works was the birth of triplets to Ben and Barbara in 1934. This was the sort of corporeal reality that abstract artists might find difficult to absorb. Who was going to look after the babies while Ben developed his constructivist painting and Barbara concentrated on her pebble-smooth sculptures? The nanny, of course. One of the happier results of the flatlined economy of the 1930s was that there was always a local girl around whether you were in Hampstead or St Ives, to mop floors and wipe noses.

Circles and Squares is a skilful work of synthesis, which draws on the piles of biographies that already exist of the principals and supporting players. Given the huge cast of characters, it is perhaps inevitable that there are times when the narrative starts to sound like a boho court circular, an endless list of who has left for the south of France and who has turned up for dinner. But Maclean never forgets that ordinary life matters too. Someone takes the No 24 bus into town, while Jack Pritchard, co-designer of the Isokon building, quarrels with his architectural partner Wells Coates over where the bins are to go.

Circles and Squares: The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists is published by Bloomsbury (RRP 30).

See the original post:
Circles and Squares by Caroline Maclean review the Hampstead modernists - The Guardian

Dear Common Dreams Readers:Common Dreams is the one news source that cares about making the world a better place. We dont just transcribe the events of the day, checking our values at the door. We believe in providing the news in a way that makes a better world possible. And that is needed now more than ever.

We believe that with a pandemic spiraling out of control, people desperately need information they can trust. And we believe that hard-hitting journalism is essential to hold the Trump administration accountable for their deadly incompetence. Common Dreams Spring Fundraising Campaign is critical to ensure that we can continue to provide the nonprofit progressive journalism you count on every day. Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable. Please donate today. Thank you. -- Craig Brown, Co-founder

Please select a donation method:

Support Independent Journalism. The only thing that keeps us going is support from readers like you. Every contribution makes a huge difference. PLEASE GIVE NOW

Read this article:
Global Coalition: COVID-19, Climate Crises Linked, Must Be Addressed as One - Common Dreams

Sir,

Im writing this letter to raise awareness of the countless women and men whose hopes of having a family are currently on hold due to the cancellation of all fertility treatments.

All fertility clinics in Ireland have ceased providing any treatment that could result in pregnancy. This is in line with recommendations from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), and with fertility treatments not being deemed an essential service.

Two main reasons have been given. Firstly, clinics have said they are taking a precautionary approach given the limited data on how the coronavirus could affect women and babies in early pregnancy; and secondly, treatments have been stopped in an effort to prevent any additional burden fertility patients may place on the healthcare system.

Im 42 years of age, and more than two years ago, I started down the precarious road of fertility treatment. After three rounds of IVF, countless diagnostic tests, and three early miscarriages, two weeks ago I was due to have my fourth embryo transferred.

A few days before the procedure, I got a call from my fertility clinic to say it was cancelled indefinitely. My hopes of having a baby in 2020 shattered, and with all treatments stopped, there is no sight of when I will get to try again.

People speak about fertility treatments as elective procedures, much like they would of breast implant surgery or a face lift, yet fertility treatment is anything but. The World Health Organization recognises infertility as a disease and fertility procedures as a treatment.

The American College of Reproductive Medicine in one of its recent Covid-19 updates continues to emphasise that infertility is a disease and infertility care is not elective. Elective procedures generally refer to surgery that can be delayed for a period of time without undue risk to the patient, and this is not the case with fertility treatment.

We know a womans age is the single most important factor when it comes to fertility. Any delay, even a month, can mean the difference between success and failure.

For me, one of the hardest and most frustrating parts of the IVF process has been my inability to translate into words the sheer desperation and sense of urgency I feel. If I was drowning, someone would throw me a life line. If I was starving, someone would find me food.

For me, the longing and desire to have a child is just as strong and instinctual as wanting to survive or eat, yet when it comes to infertility, it is somehow okay to say, sorry your treatment has been cancelled indefinitely. Would we tell a person with depression that their treatment has been put on hold?

While the reason for cancellation of taking a precautionary approach is a noble one, surely if this was being taken seriously as a real threat, like the Zika virus, our radio and TV screens would be filled with experts advising all women to avoid pregnancy, not just women undergoing fertility treatment.

This is not the case.

Currently, to my knowledge, there is not one governing body advising fertile women to avoid pregnancy. Only women requiring assistance are being asked to avoid pregnancy. As a fertility patient reliant on treatment, the talk of a baby boom in nine months time is agonising.

As regards to the intent of reducing any unnecessary burden on the healthcare system: in Ireland, fertility clinics are run as private entities and therefore operate outside the realm of public health. It is estimated that 5,000-6,000 women undergo fertility treatments in Ireland each year.

Many of these women will not interact with the public system until they are 12 weeks pregnant. Early pregnancy complications are a concern in both fertility patients and women who conceive naturally.

However, is it really equitable to say to fertility patients, we are not providing treatments as we dont want you to be a burden, yet we accept we will be treating the complications of fertile women?

As a someone who works in healthcare, I am acutely aware of the current situation and truly sorry for the tragedy that will befall so many. I know our Government is fighting fires and doing the best it can during this very uncertain time.

However, as the powers that be get to grips with the situation, I am pleading with them to strongly consider the time-sensitive nature of this treatment.

It is well published and widely accepted that a womens fertility begins to decline after the age of 35. At 42, fertility takes a nosedive. Women my age have about a 6 per cent chance of success per IVF treatment. Just one month could determine if I become a parent, one of the most natural miracles of our existence, or live for the rest of my life wondering.

As a nation we have made great strides to acknowledge and address mental health issues, and so I would ask ESHRE, the National Public Health Emergency Team, our Government, the Medical Council and the clinics to take into consideration the massive unintended psychological distress this action has already caused, and will continue to have, if fertility treatments are not resumed.

Fertility Network UK has reported a 50 per cent increase in the use of its counselling helpline, and psychologists in the UK have said the shutdown is having a devastating impact on IVF patients. The Hippocratic Oath says, first, do no harm. Are we doing more harm by doing nothing?

Sarah K is not the writers real name. It has been changed to protect her privacy

View post:
Suspension of fertility treatment having a devastating effect - The Irish Times

Beyond keeping up with the latest IHME model and rising unemployment numbers, how can we spend these days that seem to drone on, one obscurely melding into the next? Unless youre incredibly popular and find yourself attending more than several Zoom happy hours a week, chances are that you have some extra, government-mandated margin in your life. And during that extra time, it can be tempting to spend many of those waking hours feeling listless, lonely, and languid.

Although most of us would choose for things to go back to normal as soon as today, chances are that we are stuck in this holding pattern for a while longer. We are justified in our desire to feel secure again, to re-establish normalcy. But until were able to give our friends a much-needed hug, meet colleagues for coffee, or finally take that trip we had to postpone, we should consider that we might never get this highly concentrated dosage of personal time ever again. If this happens to be a once-in-a-lifetime event, how can we make the most of it?

Here are some habits we can develop during this period that will help us create structure and security in our private lives, even during a time when the world around us feels unpredictable and unsafe.

We arent a society that is built for atrophy. Instead of behaving like were a besieged city, many of us are looking for ways to contribute and be productive. Thankfully, we dont need to wait for permission to think innovatively or invest in our personal or professional development.

By being intentional, even when it feels like our social and outside lives have gone into hibernation, we not only boost our morale, but also contribute to a resilient spirit.

Learn a new skill or invest in passing along your wealth of knowledge to someone just getting started. Whether its working toward a professional certification, learning a new instrument, or tutoring a middle schooler in math, dont let your mental muscles atrophy. Keep them sharp by challenging yourself to acquire new knowledge or sharing your expertise with a novice.

Whether its a virus, a trade war, or the upcoming election, having a reliable way to filter and spot disinformation is important and empowering. The best way to begin this is by asking questions. Dont take for granted that the information youre reading is infallible. People, even experts, can misread or misrepresent data.

For weeks now, weve received a barrage of infection stats, death rates, and transmission models. Perhaps the two most alarming came to us in the form of the Imperial College report, led by epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, and the University of Washingtons IHME model. Dire warnings set off alarm bells in government, healthcare, and the public at large. However, when situations are highly fluid, models can change.

Even experts can get their calculations wrong or incorporate previously unavailable data to lend to a different result. A little bit of skepticism toward claims of inevitability or false choices is healthy.

By building structure in our lives, even during times that seem incredibly unstable, were creating the framework needed to make the most of the time were given. Two immediate ways to build structure into our lives are:

Establish regular rhythms. Unpredictability has its place in our lives, keeping us flexible and nimble enough to face uncertainties with confidence, but oftentimes the successes we experience come from long practiced habits that shape our lives much like the water has served to carve out the beauty of the Grand Canyon. Developing and sticking to a daily cadence removes the sense of aimlessness that can easily creep in when schedules have been upended.

Recognize your decision rights. A requisite to dealing with uncertainties is to acknowledge that there are certain things you possess decisions rights over. You dont have a say in determining which businesses are deemed essential by local governments or which travel bans are lifted and which arent, but you do have a say in where you choose to shop, volunteer, or worship and how you spend your time each day.

Psychologists refer to this as having an internal locus of control, which is fundamentally a belief that your ultimate success and failure have more to do with your choices than external circumstances. Citing a study of college students over the decades, writer and professor Arthur Brooks points out that, an external locus is correlated with worse academic achievement, more stress and higher levels of depression, while an internal locus of control recognizes that ultimately the buck stops with the individual. We are each responsible for our actions and the habits we create.

Long after this virus leaves, your characteryour substance and you-nesswill remain. Is the you underneath the surface doing okay during this time? Or do you find that the moments when all is quiet, with no IG or Hulu to provide distraction, that you feel incredibly uncomfortable? There isnt a better time than now to add a greater level of discipline and character development to your self-care routine.

People keep saying that were living in an unprecedented moment. And we are. But merely existing during a significant and difficult period in history does not automatically guarantee personal growth. However, taking the time to reflect on your decisions and habits, while many of your outside commitments are in hibernation until the winter of this virus is over, could be a significant step in emerging from this challenging time as a stronger, wiser, and more resilient you.

See the article here:
3 Ways to Grow and Feel More Secure During This Time of Uncertainty | Brooke Medina - Foundation for Economic Education

Ten eggs have been harvested from the last two remaining northern white rhinos in an effort to save the near extinct subspecies. Natural reproduction is now impossible as the last male of the subspecies died in March 2018.

Northern white rhinos are considered critically endangered by the IUCN Red List. Poaching and civil war in the countries they call home have decimated populations over the last three decades. Rhinos are particularly vulnerable because they are relatively unaggressive and are hunted for their horns which are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

It is work that is becoming more and more important as the human race continues to ravage the natural world, said Richard Vigne, managing director of Ol Pejeta Conservancy. We very much hope that our efforts keep drawing attention to the threats posed to biodiversity across the globe.

After a delay due to COVID-19, conservationists have renewed their programme to try and save the rhinos from dying out completely.

The team of international scientists working in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya hope that they will be able to use frozen sperm from now dead male rhinos to create viable embryos.

The news comes almost exactly a year after the teams first groundbreaking move to save the subspecies using artificial reproduction methods. This is the third ovum pickup and plans are now in place to move to the next phase of the mission.

As neither of the two remaining females is able to carry a pregnancy to full term, once fertilised, the eggs will then be implanted into a surrogate. A female southern white rhino from a herd at Ol Pejeta Conservancy will be selected and then the team will create the ideal hormonal environment for the embryos to survive.

Time works against us as the oocytes that are not harvested will be lost physiologically anyway so we must try to do as many collections as possible in absolute safety, said Cesare Galli, director of Avantea - the lab in Italy where the embryos are being created.

But collecting oocytes in Ol Pejeta is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of work is taking place behind the scenes in European zoos to be able to establish the first pregnancy with southern white rhino embryos as this will be instrumental before we thaw and transfer any northern white rhino embryos.

Only time will tell if the conservationists can manage to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.

Link:
Scientists harvest eggs in last bid to save northern white rhinos - Euronews

Infertility is deeply personal and affects 15% of the population. Many who struggle to conceive may never access care because of cost, inertia, or embarrassment associated with having difficulty conceiving. Those with infertility endure many anxieties, uncertainties, feelings of helplessness, and fears about the future -- and now, there's theCOVID-19 pandemicon top of it all.

Amid rapidly evolving public health guidelines, COVID-19 places healthcare providers in a similar climate of anxiety, uncertainty, feelings of helplessness, and fears about the future. Some of us physicians are developing a finer appreciation of the fear of the unknown that regularly complicates decision-making for our fertility patients. For those of us who see things as "black-and-white," and who may be overly dependent on guidelines and algorithms, it is likely a particularly difficult time. We all need to start appreciating nuances and gray areas in medicine. In learning to live with uncertainty, we should learn that with every plan, we must be flexible, ready to absorb new information, and ready to change direction with very little notice.

Over the past month, we have had many questions from our patients about COVID-19, pregnancy, and fertility. Here is a summary of common questions, current data, and recommendations from our national societies:

What are the risks of birth defects with COVID-19?

There are inadequate data to suggest any increased risk of birth defects with COVID-19 infection in the mother. This is reassuring, especially compared to the clearly increased risk of birth defects with varicella, rubella, and Zika virus infections in the mother. Further studies are needed.

Is there evidence of vertical transmission (mother-to-fetus transmission) of COVID-19?

There are inadequate data to suggest that COVID-19 can be passed from mother to fetus. Further studies are needed.

What do we know about the impact of COVID-19 virus infection in utero?

There are few reports of COVID-19-positive women who have given birth. One report from China suggests a possible increased risk of preterm delivery or intrauterine growth restriction; however, these limited data only address COVID-19 infection in late pregnancy. More data will emerge as women who were infected during the early stages of pregnancy progress to delivery over the coming months.

It is unclear whether the reported implications and outcomes associated with COVID-19 are the same as those with other types of coronavirus infections (such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV) during pregnancy. Further studies are urgently needed.

What are the national recommendations?

On March 17, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM)published guidance for fertility specialists, which included five key recommendations: (1) suspend initiation of new treatment cycles; (2) strongly consider cancellation of all embryo transfers; (3) continue to care for patients who require urgent stimulation and cryopreservation (such as in cases of fertility preservation prior to impending cancer treatment); (4) suspend elective surgeries and non-urgent diagnostic procedures; and (5) minimize in-person interactions and increase utilization of telehealth.

In a March 31 update, ASRM reaffirmed this guidance and noted that they plan to reassess and issue updated recommendations every 2 weeks.

ASRM further noted that infertility should *not* be considered elective. Indeed, the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have recognized infertility as a disease and a global public health issue.

What services are available and considered "urgent" during this pandemic?

This is a loaded question that likely needs to be individualized in different geographic regions. Regarding "urgent" surgeries, the American College of Surgeons states, "The medical need for a given procedure should be established by a surgeon with direct expertise in the relevant surgical specialty to determine what medical risks will be incurred by case delay."

Can patients begin treatment cycles right now?

For those couples desiring to start fertility treatments, unfortunately, there is currently a national stoppage in America (and also in Europe). While infertility is not elective, fertility treatments (except for very specific indications) are considered non-urgent treatment. While this will be re-evaluated every 2 weeks, we are currently in a "wait and see" situation. While everyone wants to reinstate care as soon as possible, we also need to be conscious of the rapidly evolving nature of COVID-19, and the need for our healthcare system to preserve, conserve, and even hopefully build up some reserves of valuable personal protective equipment during this worldwide COVID-19 public health emergency.

Can COVID-19 be transmitted with fertility treatments?

Specifically, can a woman without COVID-19 acquire it using sperm from a man with COVID-19? There are no data on this question, and further studies are needed.

Regarding fertility treatments, do we need to "quarantine" frozen sperm, oocytes, or embryos from COVID-19 patients?

Most fertility laboratories keep cryopreserved sperm, oocytes, or embryos from HIV-positive individuals in separate freezing tanks to "quarantine" them from frozen genetic material from the general population. Should these labs similarly "quarantine" frozen genetic material from COVID-19 patients separately? Further studies are needed.

Are there any risks of complications for fertility treatments in COVID-19 patients?

One potential risk with in vitro fertilization (IVF) is a phenomenon called "severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome," which may result in respiratory and cardiovascular difficulties. Given that COVID-19 infection can similarly result in respiratory and cardiovascular difficulties, it is unknown how women with COVID-19 will handle severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. There are currently no reports of such complications.

Is it safe to try to conceive naturally?

For those couples who wish to try to conceive on their own, we individualize counseling based on patient health status. According to the CDC: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, morbid obesity, and immunocompromise are risk factors for critical illness from COVID-19 infection.

Similar to the 1918 flu pandemic, there are also some concerns that there may be a second wave of COVID-19 cases this fall or winter. Furthermore, we know that a small percentage of pregnant women may have a pregnancy complication (such as preterm labor, premature rupture of membranes, or eclamptic seizures) that may require a hospital stay; however, hospitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic may confer an increased risk of COVID-19 infection. Labor and delivery during this time of COVID-19 may be complicated by recommendations for early epidural placement, a higher chance of cesarean section, and emerging policies to separate mom and baby to minimize the risk of transmission of COVID-19 to the newborn.

For healthy patients who are willing to accept these risks if they conceive now and deliver during a possible resurgence of COVID-19 cases this fall or winter, it would be reasonable to try to conceive naturally.

Should the non-COVID-19 patient delay pregnancy during the current pandemic?

For those debating whether to continue contraception (versus whether to immediately start trying for a natural cycle pregnancy) during these uncertain times, it would be reasonable for certain patients to continue contraception.

While there are no recommendations about contraception for the American public, the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology advises that "all fertility patients considering or planning treatment, even if they do not meet the diagnostic criteria of COVID-19 infection, should avoid becoming pregnant at this time." This difference may be due to healthcare systems in certain European countries becoming overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases, leaving those healthcare workers with a lack of resources, personal protective equipment, and availability to treat routine patients outside of their pandemic response.

Finally, there remains much uncertainty about COVID-19, in general.

Infection rates: we will not have reliable data on true infection rates until widespread and accurate testing is more readily available.

Prevalence rates: we will not have reliable data on the number of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 until we have an accurate and reliable test for COVID-19 antibodies.

Fatality rates: without knowing how many cases we truly have, any estimate of true case fatality rates is doomed, except for closed systems like theDiamond Princesscruise ship.

We also have important unknowns, regarding the course of the pandemic, local hospital resources, and the effects on small businesses and the economy.

We empathize with our fertility patients who want to be pregnant already; unfortunately, so much remains unknown about COVID-19. The decision to try for conception, or to continue with contraception, is highly personal and needs to be individualized based on personal health, local conditions, and the current state of the pandemic in your local area.

Here are three questions that fertility patients should consider asking themselves:

Is my personal health and lifestyle in a place where I believe I can have a safe pregnancy?

Am I comfortable becoming pregnant and seeking care (including emergency care if complications arise) in an environment that may be wholly focused on combating COVID-19?

Am I confident that I will have the support I need during and after the pregnancy in a society that may still be practicing high levels of social distancing?

Our state and national leaders are right: this is a war, and we need to band together, so that we don't get overwhelmed. Our hope is that our collective global response to this pandemic will increase our sense of community and togetherness. We need to fight fear, panic, social isolation, and coronavirus cabin fever, while also remembering to take care of ourselves and each other. This too shall pass.

Nikki Kagan is a medical student, and Albert Hsu, MD, is a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of Missouri. All opinions expressed here are their own.

Read the rest here:
Fertility treatments in the age of COVID-19 - The Miami Times

Love, sex and mate choice are topics that never go out of fashion among humans or, surprisingly, among some Australian birds. For these species, choosing the right partner is a driver of evolution and affects the survival and success of a bird and its offspring.

There is no better place than Australia to observe and study strategies for bird mate choice. Modern parrots and songbirds are Gondwanan creations they first evolved in Australia and only much later populated the rest of the world.

Here, well examine the sophisticated way some native birds choose a good mate, and make the relationship last.

For years, research has concentrated on studying birds in which sexual selection may be as simple as males courting females. Males might display extra bright feathers or patterns, perform a special song or dance or, like the bowerbird, build a sophisticated display mound.

In these species, females choose the best mate on the market. But the males do not stick around after mating to raise their brood.

Read more: How the Australian galah got its name in a muddle

These reproductive strategies apply only to about tiny proportion of birds worldwide.

Then there are lovers for a season, which account for another small percentage of songbirds. Males and females may raise a brood together for one season, then go their separate ways.

These are not real partnerships at all theyre simply markets for reproduction.

But what about the other birds those that raise offspring in pairs, just as humans often do? Those that form partnerships for more than a season, and in some cases, a lifetime?

More than 90% of birds worldwide fall into this joint parenting category and in Australia, many of them stay together for a long time. Indeed, Australia is a hotspot for these cooperative and long-term affairs.

This staggering figure has no equal in the animal kingdom. Even among mammals, couples are rare; only 5% of all mammals, including humans, pair up and raise kids together.

So how do long-bonding Australian birds choose partners, and whats their secret to relationship success?

The concept of assortative mating is often used to explain how humans form lasting relationships. As the theory goes, we choose mates with similar traits, lifestyle and background to our own.

In native birds that form long-lasting bonds, including butcherbirds, drongos and cockatoos, differences between the sexes are small or non-existent that is, they are monomorphic. Males and females may look alike in size and plumage, or may both sing, build nests and provide equally for offspring.

So, how do they choose each other, if not by colour, song, dance or plumage difference? Theres some research to suggest their choices are based on personality.

Many bird owners and aviculturists would attest that birds have individual personalities. They may, for example, be gentle, tolerant, submissive, aggressive, confident, curious, fearful or sociable.

Read more: Magpies can form friendships with people here's how

Research has not conclusively established which bird personalities are mutually attractive. But so far it seems similarities or familiarity, rather than opposites, attract.

Cockatiel breeders now even use personality assessments similar to those used for show dogs.

There is practical and scientific proof to support this approach. In breeding contexts, seemingly incompatible birds may be forced together. In such cases, they are unlikely to reproduce and may not even interact with each other. For example, research on Gouldian finches has shown that in mismatched pairs, stress hormone levels were elevated over several weeks, which delayed egg laying.

Conversely, well-matched zebra finch pairs have been shown to have greater reproductive success. Well designed experiments have also shown these birds to change human-assigned partners once free to do so, suggesting firm partner preferences.

Now to some extraordinary, little-known facets of behaviour in some native birds.

Bird bonds are not always or initially about reproduction. Most cockatoos take five to seven years to mature sexually. Magpies, apostlebirds and white winged choughs cant seriously think about reproducing until they are five or six years old.

In the interim, they form friendships. Some become childhood sweethearts long before they get married and reproduce.

Socially monogamous birds, such as most Australian cockatoos and parrots, pay meticulous attention to each other. They reaffirm bonds by preening, roosting and flying together in search of food and water.

Even not-so-cuddly native songbirds such as magpies or corvids have long term partnerships and fly, feed and roost closely together.

Bird species that pair up for life, and devote the most time to raising offspring, are generally also the most intelligent (when measured by brain mass relative to body weight).

Such species tend to live for a long time as well sometimes four times longer than birds of similar weight range in the northern hemisphere.

So why is this? The brain chews up lots of energy and needs the best nutrients. It also needs time to reach full growth. Parental care for a long period, as many Australian birds provide, is the best way to maximise brain development. It requires a strong bond between the parents, and a commitment to raising offspring over the long haul.

Read more: Bird-brained and brilliant: Australia's avians are smarter than you think

Interestingly, bird and human brains have some similar architecture, and the same range of important neurotransmitters and hormones. Some of these may allow long-term attachments.

Powerful hormones that regulate stress and induce positive emotions are well developed in both humans and birds. These include oxytocin (which plays a part in social recognition and sexual behaviour) and serotonin (which helps regulate and modulate mood, sleep, anxiety, sexuality, and appetite).

The dopamine system also strongly influences the way pair bonds are formed and maintained in primates including humans and in birds.

Birds even produce the hormone prolactin, once associated only with mammals. This plays a role in keeping parents sitting on their clutch of eggs, including male birds that share in the brooding.

Given the above, one is led to the surprising conclusion that cooperation, and long-term bonds in couples, is as good for birds as it is for humans. The strategy has arguably led both species to becoming the most successful and widely distributed on Earth.

With so many of Australias native birds declining in numbers, learning as much as possible about their behaviour, including how they form lasting relationships, is an urgent task.

Much of the information referred to in this article is drawn from Gisela Kaplans books Bird Bonds. See also Bird Minds and Tawny Frogmouth

Follow this link:
What Australian birds can teach us about choosing a partner and making it last - The Conversation AU

Frances Starks work is in theorizing relationships. Sometimes these relationships are human, sometimes even sexual, but on other occasions they are the relationships between things, between events, between institutions. This is clear in many of Starks most well-known works; her video pieces My Best Thing (2011) and Nothing is Enough (2012) focus on the sexual-psychological, post- coital intimacy of internet conversations between her and unknown Italian men she meets on Chatroulette, while the body of work associated with her installation, Bobby Jesuss Alma Mater b/w Reading the Book of David and/or Paying Attention is Free (2013), was sourced from her then-unfolding relationship with her assistant, Bobby Jesus, and their mutual exchange of ideas and inspirations.

A pseudo-self-portrait by Frances Stark titled Drawing from a Study of Bobby Jesus (2013).

Yet despite the fact that conversation is so blatantly at the core of Starks workor even the literal material of the work itselfit is often described critically as the work of a narcissist, a position that woefully misses the point. Starks work, if that of a narcissist, demonstrates that the narcissists satisfaction is dependent on others; even when the self is at the center, it is a self resplendent in, and indeed indebted to, the gaze of those around it. This observation alone negates the work of narcissism and thus, Starks work could more aptly be described as that of the anti-narcissist. Instead, it is a deep dependency on and even collaboration with others that seems to be the core of her practice, a fact consistently elided in art writing on Stark. When she discusses the men in her Chatroulette series, Stark says, they were making the work with me, a similar sentiment to that which she expressed regarding her friendship with Bobby Jesus: I offered Bobby something akin to free schooling and he offered me free schooling in return. Yet these collaborations are never accomplished simplythey are messy, incomplete, productive of unlikely results, outcomes impossible to capitalize on: mutual sexual satisfaction; friendships delegitimized by art (and other) institutions; empathy for uncouth men; shamelessness in self-expression; or as Stark calls it, free love. Easy to intuit, difficult to comprehend: the connections between people in Starks work lace it at the seams.

I have so many people to keep satisfied*

But Starks focus on relationships, on the in- betweenness of everything, takes shape in other objects too, beyond human forms. What Im doing in a lot of my work is having a kind of love affair with an artists voice, Stark told Dennis Cooper in 1997. This was a reflection on Untitled (Goethe), one of many pieces in which Stark uses literary texts as resources for imagery, sometimes copying single words or letters from a text, other times recreating physical copies exactly, including annotations left by previous readers as in the works: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1993) and I Hate Language (1995). As Stark wrote in 2007, Whether spontaneous thoughts or ready-made insights delivered from a teacher, marginalia shows a reader perching intermittently on the body of a text, leaving reminders to re-enter here or summaries to say no need to cover this ground again. Its clear that in Starks world, whats worth honing in on are the unexpected ways we, objects and art are connected. And in this world, once entered, the relationships multiply. The marginalia of a used book offers a glimpse into the conjunction between reader and text, its reproduction that between original and copy the notes serving as waymarkers on the trail for future readings (and readers), each annotation a relationship between past and future. Yet this seems to be another site where art writing on Stark goes astray, often hovering nstead around the question: is this language or image? as if to say the two are separable. I wonder why it doesnt feel like the work is interested in interrogating questions regarding the distinctions of language versus imageinstead, Stark presumes their inextricability. As a de facto ontology through Starks oeuvre, this presupposition about forms of meanings (and their inseparability) makes room for other questionsquestions more provocative, ostentatious, perverse.

I dont think its possible to return from such audaciousness, do you?

Lately, Stark has taken her reflections on the world to the informal spaces of social media, through her Instagram @therealstarkiller. But this practice is not surprising; for years, she has displayed a notable prescience when it comes to technologies of communication. Perhaps this prescience is also unsurprising: both of Starks parents worked in communications, her father as an electrical engineer for a printing company and her mother for a phone company. Her series, Cat Videos, (1999-2002) featured home recordings of her cats each set to its own soundtrackfrom Black Flags Jealous Again to live recordings of Throbbing Gristleyears before the genre of YouTube videos, not to mention the platform itself, had emerged. The foresight of this series was made even more explicit in a drawing from 2004 that included the text, Hopefully all of my cat videos will be available soon in a more practical and technologically advanced format for easier distribution and viewing.

you are the artist n.1 I fucked in internet

Years later, in her Chatroulette videos, Stark would highlight the kind of internet exchanges which today have become not only naturalized (such as FaceTime) but monetized as key forms of neoliberal capital (e.g. cam girls; Patreon; OnlyFans, etc.). At the time, the inability to capitalize on the connections she formed on Chatroulette was central to Starks interest in the platform. She describes the experience as initiated from this thing where you could see into anybodys room who would let you in it was the utopian perverse aspect of mass surveillance. The sexual energy and even compulsion for sexual transaction (the constant flashing of genitals) that drove the site forward problematized how to capitalize on the individuals who used it, creating instead strange forms of anti-capitalist labor, as well as safety in the common ground of needing to jerk off. Beyond voyeurism, My Best Thing and Nothing is Enough illumine a surprising space where, as the result of a strange, illicit tourism, visitors can see each other in a dignified way.

It feels equally good and equally bad

While working on her most recent show, US Greatest Hits Mixtape: Volume 2, at her London gallery, greengrassi, another moment of eerie prescience occurred. The show featured a series of paintings, each juxtaposing a historical moment of US invasion or involvement in international coups with lyrics from the number-one pop song of the time. In the midst of work on these paintings, the regime change in Venezuela, which many cited as resulting from US involvement, took place. Stark had been choosing one event per decade to include in the show, not expecting that the one for our current decade would occur while the show was in progress. The painting that resulted shows the shock of this realization with a reflexivity typical of Stark; unlike the other paintings in the series that feature only text, Venezuela 2019 (2019) shows Stark herself at work on the painting, perched on a ladder and wearing a Karl Marx sweatshirt, etching in the lyrics to 7 Rings by Ariana Grande. Rather than weaken the political sensibility of the series, Starks ease towards automatic reflexivity exposes the crux of political reasoning in all of us; only when we come full circle, when we see our own embeddedness in the struggle, does the significance dawn on us. This requires humility, another thread through much of her workthe humility to admit, as Stark says, the paradoxes we face, the difficulty of dealing with being complicit, the discomfort about where power lies.

She lives on top of her cage

Starks Venezuela 2019 (2019) from US Greatest Hits Mixtape: Volume 2 at greengrassi.

Yet sometimes Stark herself features as the central figure of power, even in her earliest pieces. In her application to study with Mike Kelley at the Art Center College of Design, she included Total Performance (1990), a photo in which she appears in a green bikini and heels astride the Suzuki motorbike she had just raced across the Bonneville Salt Flats, breaking the land speed record. The piece is demonstrative of the straightforward feminism that runs through Starks work; a strength and sexuality that is not derivative of any particular feminisms or feminist texts. Of course, these moments of autonomy and strength are never left uncomplicated, as Stark is quick to admit her struggle with the desire to disappear once attention has been gathered. In two works titled Emergency Exit and Exhibitionists Venue (both 2009), Stark envisions through collage and simple modeling an exhibitionists venue repurposed to entertain the possibility of a way out for a performer between acts, a sentiment that drives at the core of her practice. For just as soon as she takes space for her own body, her own voice, she admits the fear that inheres in such a position. The work becomes inseparable from the experiences that ignite the work; the vision is totalizing, suffocating. Rather than step up to the task, she asks the more embarrassing question: how, when it is all so self-encompassing, do we escape? Are we allowed to disappear? These are the fair questions, for Starks world is total performance; in it, art does not begin and endit continues.

Instead of feeling bad after, I just dont have an after

*Italic lines from Nothing is Enough (2012)

Original post:
Relationship Status: Frances Stark Investigates Where We Begin and End - Cultured Magazine

The female reproductive system is one of the most vital parts of the human reproductive process.

Although a man is needed to reproduce, it is the woman who incubates the developing fetus and delivers the child into the world.

Females are born with a large number of potential ova (female sex cells, also called egg cells). However, it isnt until after the onset of puberty, typically around age 12, that these cells are mature enough to sustain life. The cells ripen on a regular basis, but only one is released each month until a woman reaches menopause. Menopause commonly begins between the ages of 45 and 55.

The major organs of the female reproductive system include:

When properly fertilized with a mans sperm either through intercourse or artificial insemination a womans egg carries all of the necessary material to produce children.

While pregnant, a woman will go through several internal signs before the typical baby belly begins to show. These signs are the bodys reactions to the hormones generated during the fertilization process.

As a fetus grows, a womans body will prepare for the birthing process, which includes the widening of the pubic symphysis, a joint between the two pubic bones.

Vaginal birth is the most common form of delivery, but the use of cesarean section (removing the child through a surgical incision in the mothers abdomen) is on the rise.

Because carrying a child and giving birth is such a delicate process, numerous physical problems for the mother can arise. Common pregnancy complications include:

Read more from the original source:
Female Reproductive System Anatomy, Diagram & Function ...