We are on thin ice.

Those were German Chancellor Angela Merkels words to Germanys Bundestag (parliament) on April 23, describing the countrys fight against the coronavirus.

One could even say on thinnest ice.

Merkels warning came as Germany began to pull back some of the lockdown restrictions that states had implemented in mid-March. Merkel consulted with experts and coordinated among the 16 states ahead of these reopening plans.

But even then, the moves were modest.

Shops smaller than 800-square-feet previously deemed nonessential were allowed to reopen on April 20, though with limits on the number of customers allowed inside at one time. Merkel strongly urged the use of face coverings inside shops or on public transit, though some states have since gone farther and mandated masks.

Playgrounds, museums, and churches can open again starting May 4. So can hair salons. Many secondary and primary school students will be allowed to return to school that day, though some states and localities opened slightly earlier, with priority going to students who needed to take exams to advance. Other schools will open May 11, though with social distancing rules and likely reduced schedules.

Kindergartens and daycares remain closed. So do bars, sit-down restaurants, nightclubs, and movie theaters. Mass gatherings are prohibited, for now, until August 31.

Yet Merkel continues to caution Germans against taking this fragile success for granted. Germany will re-evaluate the measures every two weeks, and any decisions will be smart and careful, based in science.

The world is watching Germanys careful approach. The country has managed the coronavirus pandemic better than many of its European neighbors, much of it credited to its testing capacity, which reaches 350,000 per week, according to the New York Times.

A country of more than 80 million people, Germany has the fourth-highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Europe, with about 163,000 as of May 1. But the recorded death toll is just 6,600. In comparison, France, with a population of 66 million, has more than 167,000 cases, and more than 24,000 deaths for the same period.

But one week in, German public health officials are already warning how precarious that success is. One indicator suggested earlier this week that the number of infections might be rising again. Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germanys public health agency, encouraged Germans to continue to stay at home as much as possible, keep observing the restrictions and keep a distance of 1.5 meters from one another.

Germanys slow and tentative steps toward reopening might offer a blueprint for the other parts of the world that want to start slackening some of their more stringent lockdown measures.

And it is showing how delicate a process that is. One that exists, as Merkel said, on the thinnest of ice.

Germany recorded its first confirmed case of coronavirus on January 28. A little more than three months later, cases are now around 163,000.

Even as cases surged, the country has kept its death toll low. So far, it has only registered about 6,600 deaths.

How Germany achieved that has to do with a combination of good government policy and some lucky breaks.

Germany acted early and aggressively to roll out comprehensive testing. That meant a lot more people who had no or mild symptoms got tested, helping to identify outbreaks and slow the spread.

Germany also has a robust public health care system. And, critically, its leaders carefully coordinated on any lockdown measures. Germany has 16 states, each of which is largely responsible for managing their own public health. But Merkel worked closely with the states to harmonize Germanys very strict policies.

And Merkel, a scientist by training, straightforwardly communicated information to citizens and government officials, consulting with experts and using data to guide decisions. That likely helped increase trust among Germans about the governments actions.

Merkel has stuck to that approach as Germany sought to reopen. Germany is closely tracking whats known as the effective reproduction number basically the number of additional coronavirus cases directly generated by one infected person. The goal is to keep that number low in order to avoid exponential growth and overload the health care system.

Merkel explained this in mid-April when she talked about the delicate balance of reopening that if that effective reproduction number got too high too quickly, it would overload the health system. Merkel indicated that keeping that number below one was essential. For that reason, Germanys social distancing measures would require constant reevaluation.

The video of her explanation went viral, and she gained a lot of international attention for her no-nonsense breakdown of the situation.

The effective reproduction number isnt a perfect assessment, as it based on the number of those who have tested positive, and theres typically a two-week lag time because of the coronaviruss incubation period. But its still concrete data that can help inform choices, rather than just winging it.

Germany is relying on experts from a broad range of fields to help guide its reopening decisions. Leopoldina, Germanys independent National Academy of Sciences, has been advising Merkel and Germanys governments, and along the way, publishing ad hoc statements that are recommendations on best practices. In March, a working group of experts recommended a country-wide temporary shutdown for about three weeks, with physical distancing.

On April 13, shortly before Merkel announced adjustments to the measures, the working group put out another statement that offered strategies for a gradual reopening, and weighed priorities by assessing some of the legal, political, psychological, and economic implications of the lockdown measures.

Social, cultural and sporting events should begin taking place step by step, subject to the possibility of physical distancing and provided the intensity of contact is low, the statement reads. Infection rates must continue to be monitored.

The advisory grapples with the challenges of easing measures amid a global pandemic where theres still a lot of information experts simply do not know. For example, it its plan to gradually reopen schools, it notes that closures have led to a decline in daycare services and learning, and may have worsened inequality.

There are also practical concerns that factor in as Germany prepares to map its future. Some places, specifically Bavaria, were hit harder than others. Some regions had key industries that had to be considered. Merkel has acknowledged there will be differences in how each state handles the easing of restrictions, but she has consulted with state governors before making announcements on lockdown plans and tried to find ways to unify politics, where possible.

Its a balancing act, between the risks of a deadly pandemic, and the economic, political, and social health of the nation and different regions of Germany. And its an imperfect one.

Its basically an exercise of compromise, Ralph Hertwig, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, told me. Merkel is a very consensus-oriented political leader and tries to bring these different views together.

Hertwig added that, even in making those compromises, these decisions have been informed by scientific input.

Its still wait and see, said Frank Rsler, professor of biological psychology and neuropsychology at the University of Hamburg, who has contributed to Leopoldinas three ad hoc statements about the pandemic.

The problem, I think, is nowhere in the world does anybody have real good data to make a good prediction of whats going to happen, he added.

Small shops have reopened, but so far, the crowds havent come. Employees wear masks; so do shoppers. Strict limits are still in place on how many people can be in stores at once.

Some schools have resumed operations, and others are preparing to reopen next week, with desks placed 1.5 meters apart and facilities stocked with disinfectants. But some students, fearful about contracting and spreading the virus, or unsure about how they will learn in such a strange environment, are boycotting.

Playgrounds, zoos, museums, and houses of worship could be allowed to reopen as soon as Monday as long as they continue to meet social distancing guidelines and hygiene requirements though some states may adopt different timelines.

On May 6, Merkel and state governors will meet again to discuss a further-reaching package for bringing Germany, gradually, to emerge from the lockdown. By then, much more data will be available on how the openings of some shops and services have affected, or not, the spread of the coronavirus.

But Merkel remains circumspect. Every time the restrictions are relaxed, people move around more, she said. Therefore, we must constantly keep an eye on the effects of the relaxation. We have to stay disciplined, keep a safe distance, and follow hygiene measures.

She warned that if infections crept up again, governments would need to react.

Germany, then, is at a critical moment, this in-between time where it is not fully opened but no longer fully closed. Now that it has begun to creep toward normalcy, it may be even harder to pull back if infections pick back up, or another wave arrives.

And in weighing what can reopen and what cant, new complications will emerge that could threaten some of the consensus-building Merkel has so skillfully executed.

I think its the moment now, when Germany is slowly opening up, that you begin to hear critique, sometimes regarding certain decisions, like why open this up and why keep this closed, Sudha David-Wilp, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told me.

Shop owners or companies of bigger stores might complain that only stores of a certain size are allowed to open, for example. Parents of young kids might complain: Why cant my kids go back to school? And parents of older kids and teenagers might say: Why do my kids have to take the risk and be the first to go back?

You have this dynamic that immediately starts when you make an exception here, and thats a problem, Hertwig said. Its like a chain of domino pieces, and once you kick up the first one, it starts this dynamic process.

It might be harder, then, to pull back new freedoms if infections begin to rise again. Germans were remarkably unified in backing the lockdown measures (even 83 percent of the far-right party Alternative for Deutschland supported social distancing measures, according to a poll) in the beginning of April, but as time wears on, that may wane.

Germany saw some protests this week against the lockdown measures, even after some restrictions were loosened. These are likely still outliers. But moving out of lockdown, even slowly and deliberately, is not easy.

Germanys experiment with reopening is happening in real-time. And that might be the biggest lesson for the rest of the world, including the United States, as it continues to evaluate how to reopen society: Its not necessarily a linear path toward normalcy.

Right now, Germany is relying heavily on data, including that effective reproduction number. That number ticked up to just under 1 this week, and public health officials reiterated the importance of maintaining social distancing measures.

But, on Thursday, that number fell back down to .70, according to the Robert Koch Institute. This is of course also a positive development. And as I said, lets keep it that way, Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute said Thursday.

What that number looks like in the next few weeks might offer more clarity on whether Germany can keep the measures where they are, loosen them further, or maybe tighten them up.

William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told me on a press call with reporters Wednesday that even if the effective reproduction number goes up, that doesnt necessarily mean refining or relaxing restriction isnt possible.

But it does indicate, very clearly, that these actions have consequences, he said. And so we should be similarly prepared as we start doing things in United States, to be watching very carefully and to be trying to look at those changes in the effective reproductive number, and then gaming them out into the future to ensure that we dont find ourselves riding another exponential.

But, as experts I spoke to noted, even beyond the data, evaluating the lockdown is going to involve weighing the risks of the coronavirus which are very real with the economic and psychological necessity of giving people back their freedom. But there is no magic formula for that right now, because there is no way to predict the future and all of the unintended consequences of reopening.

And Germany isnt the only country reopening. Others, such as Denmark and Austria, have also loosened measures. Places in East Asia, like Hong Kong, have taken their own approach to social distancing. Experts told me that ideally, the world would coordinate together on best practices, and try to figure out what works and what doesnt, improving the reopening model in real-time.

There is no perfect solution to this, David-Wilp said. Germany, as other countries, are in uncharted territory.

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Germany is reopening. Cautiously. - Vox.com

In the AFR today I write that for those willing to fade the extreme moves in financial markets during March, April offered up an immensely profitable case of so-called regression to the mean. This concept of mean-reversion was first characterised by the British polymath, Sir Francis Galton, in his late 19th century study of genetics. Click on that link to read the full column or AFR subs can click here. Excerpt enclosed:

In financial or bank-issued bond markets where the cost of capital is ultimately determined by central banks, we have observed a predictable and yet nonetheless stunning retracement in credit spreads.

When the world was gripped by extreme fear in March, and investors were universally rushing for the exits, the spreads on the major banks bonds leapt with unprecedented speed to extreme, and in some instances, record levels. Five-year senior bond spreads jumped from 69 basis points above the bank bill swap rate (BBSW) to as wide as 175 basis points over, broadly in line with the levels last touched during the darkest days of the global financial crisis (GFC).

The major banks five-year subordinated bond spreads smashed through their GFC wides, increasing from 160 basis points over BBSW to as high as 400 basis points (the GFC peak was around 300 basis points). And in the hybrid market, spread moves offered extraordinary opportunities as the five year major bank curve exploded from 270 basis points over BBSW in January to as high as 840 basis points in March, way above the GFC peak of circa 590 basis points.

Folks like to talk about being contrarian, but few have the courage of their convictions. Many were exiting these markets at the worst possible time. I am lucky to have some genuinely iconoclastic clients that are prepared to bet against hysteria and exploit the ineluctable regression to the mean in financial spreads.

Three in particularcall them the Jedi, the Adonis, and Croakypumped $100 million into the major banks senior bonds and hybrids during the toughest days in March (I net bought about $800 million of bonds in March). In the ASX hybrid market, which proved to be very liquid in March with up to $120 million trading on individual days, these investors earned capital gains north of 15 percentage points (pre coupons) in just a few weeks. And there is still loads of upside left with investment-grade major bank hybrid spreads some 150 to 200 basis points wider than they should be.

With perfect foresight, you could have very successfully deployed similar mean-reversion strategies in the big shocks in 2009, 2012, 2016, and 2018. The essential driver of this regression is the fact central banks are tasked with controlling borrowing costs. When these interest rates spike to unseemly levels, monetary policys mission swiftly adjusts to bringing them back down to earth. The alternative is that the cost of capital sky-rockets at the worst possible time, severely amplifying the recession.

While the mean-reversion in the second half of March and April was a high probability event ex ante, the initial blow-out was much more speculative. In mid-January the Chinese informed everyone that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, which the World Health Organisation faithfully reaffirmed. While this proved to be the mother-of-all head-fakes, a reasonable person would have assumed the WHOs analysis was credible.

Even allowing for the coronaviruss highly infectious reproduction rate, which was eventually revealed, we now have clear counterfactuals that containment after an initial outbreak is absolutely possible. In countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia, early outbreaks have been effectively eliminated following assertive lockdowns, border controls, and comprehensive testing and tracing.

It was not, therefore, a foregone conclusion in January that COVID-19 was going to become a pandemic. Had the Chinese not waited until January 23 to shut-down Wuhan, not left their international borders wide open during the subsequent Chinese New Year holiday, and not lied to the world, the outbreak could have been prevented.

To conclude COVID-19 was going global, one had to carefully monitor the flow of infection data. We built real-time data-tracking systems for this purpose, and it was pretty obvious in the second half of February that containment failures would propagate a pandemic. At this point, we argued that the patent inability of financial markets to properly price and trade a pandemic would precipitate their outright failure and an ensuing liquidity and solvency crisis. But the liquidity/solvency crises could have been pre-emptively cauterised in late February and early March through actions by central banks and treasuries to provide unconditional liquidity and asset pricing support via aggressive quantitative easing (QE) policies.

We now know this to be true because that is precisely what QE around the world achieved over late March and April. That is, an enormous improvement in the liquidity of bond markets coupled with a dramatic decline in the cost of capital of high-grade credit. Our mistake was to assume policymaking perfection and think that this solution would be forthcoming in early March: it took the savage price action in the first half of that month to convince central banks and treasuries to act, which they eventually did ex post facto.

This is not to take away from the exceptional agility and resolve our monetary policy mavens and politicians have displayed. Once the situation was synthesised, the Reserve Bank of Australia was magnificent, unleashing its QE bazookas on March 19. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has also risen to the occasion, despite consistent efforts by States governments to sheet home blame for their own failings, as they did during Januarys devastating bushfires. We saw a similar playbook in this tragedy, with New South Wales and Victoria pre-announcing policy decisions ahead of National Cabinet meetings in an effort to make the prime minister look silly.

This time around ScoMo saw the dummy coming and adjusted his defence. As I have explained before, one of his strengths is his unusual (for a politician) propensity for preternaturally underpromising and overdelivering. The PM has done this impressively with COVID-19. The shock-and-awe of ScoMos conservative six month hibernation plan helped to crush Australias infection curve more effectively than most countries globally save for New Zealand and Hong Kong.

In March we advised the prime minister that he would need to pivot away from this six month containment policy towards a much more rapid than expected exit one to two months after the lockdowns initiation. This was partly because our proprietary forecasts for COVID-19s trajectory signalled that the peak in the Australian, US and European curves would pass in early April, months before most epidemiologists estimates. This has been borne out by the data since with the likes of Australia, the US, UK, Italy, Spain and France all moving through their peaks in the first half of the month.

And while the prime minister did not initially embrace our assessment, he has promptly pivoted to a graduated exit in May miles ahead of schedule as the data validated our projections. This has important consequences for fiscal policy and Australias AAA credit rating. At around 10 per cent of GDP, the original fiscal policy package was designed to thwart the full-blown depression that would follow from shutting-down the economy for half a year.

If we can normalise activity much more quickly, the PM and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg can prudently pare back this stimulus, which would (once again) save Australias AAA rating, sparing borrowers unnecessary interest rate increases. ScoMo did this in 2017 and 2018 by bringing the budget back to balance years ahead of schedule. And I reckon he and his successor will do it again.

Similar prudence has been evidenced with the major banks cautious capital management plans. We expected one major bank to defer its dividends, which ANZ has done, and the others to slash them. While this loss of income hurts shareholders, it appropriately protects creditors and ultimately the banks cost of funding. While the banks share prices have reacted poorly to declining dividends, the credit spreads on their bonds have compressed materially as investors reward their desire to build world-beating capital buffers. It is effectively a transfer of wealth from borrowers (equity) to creditors (debt).

If you want to watch or listen to a Youtube podcast I did this week on our macro outlook, COVID-19, housing and much more, click on this link.

See original here:
Exploiting mean-reversion in financial markets - Christopher Joye - Livewire Markets

I write this in the midst of the coronavirus crisis in New York City. It is a difficult time to know exactly how to respond to what is happening. Normally in a situation of this kind, we anti-capitalists would be out on the streets, demonstrating and agitating.

Instead, I am in a frustrating position of personal isolation, at a moment when the time calls for collective forms of action. But as Karl Marx famously put it, we cannot make history under circumstances of our own choosing. So we have to figure out how best to make use of the opportunities we do have.

My own circumstances are relatively privileged. I can continue to work, but from home. I have not lost my job, and I still get paid. All I have to do is to hide away from the virus.

My age and gender put me in the vulnerable category, so no contact is advised. This gives me plenty of time to reflect and write, in between Zoom sessions. But rather than dwelling upon the particularities of the situation here in New York, I thought I might offer some reflections on possible alternatives and ask: How does an anti-capitalist think about circumstances of this kind?

I begin with a commentary that Marx makes on what happened in the failed revolutionary movement of the Paris Commune of 1871. Marx writes:

The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. They have no ready-made utopias to introduce by decree of the people. They know in order to work out their own emancipation and along with it that higher form to which present society is irresistibly trending by its own economical agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of historic processes transforming circumstances and men. They have no ideals to realize but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant.

Let me make some comments on this passage. First, of course, Marx was somewhat antagonistic to the thinking of the socialist utopians, of which there were many in the 1840s, 50s and 60s in France. This was the tradition of Joseph Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, tienne Cabet, Louis Auguste Blanqui, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and so on.

Marx felt that the utopian socialists were dreamers, and that they were not practical workers who were going to actually transform the conditions of labor in the here and now. In order to transform conditions here and now, you needed a good grasp on exactly what the nature of capitalist society is about.

But Marx is very clear that the revolutionary project must concentrate on the self-emancipation of the workers. The self part of this formulation is important. Any major project to change the world will also require a transformation of the self. So workers would have to change themselves, too. This was very much on Marxs mind at the time of the Paris Commune.

However, he also notes that capital itself is actually creating the possibilities for transformation, and that through long struggles, it would be possible to set free the lineaments of a new society in which the workers could be released from alienated labor. The revolutionary task was to set free the elements of this new society, already existing within the womb of an old collapsing bourgeois social order.

Now, lets agree that were living in a situation of an old, collapsing bourgeois society. Clearly, its pregnant with all kinds of ugly things like racism and xenophobia that I dont particularly want to see set free. But Marx is not saying set free all and everything inside of that old and awful collapsing social order. What hes saying is that we need to select those aspects of the collapsing bourgeois society that will contribute to the emancipation of the workers and the working classes.

This poses the question: What are those possibilities, and where are they coming from? Marx does not explain that in his pamphlet on the Commune, but much of his earlier theoretical work had been dedicated to revealing exactly what the constructive possibilities for the working classes might be. One of the places where he does this at great length is in the very large, complex, and unfinished text called the Grundrisse, which Marx wrote in the crisis years of 185758.

Some passages in that work shed light on exactly what it is that Marx might have had in mind in his defense of the Paris Commune. The idea of setting free relates to an understanding of what was then going on inside a bourgeois, capitalist society. This is what Marx was perpetually struggling to understand.

In the Grundrisse, Marx dwells at length upon the question of technological change and the inherent technological dynamism of capitalism. What he shows is that capitalist society, by definition, is going to be heavily invested in innovation, and heavily invested in the construction of new technological and organizational possibilities. And that is because, as an individual capitalist, if Im in competition with other capitalists, I will get an excess profit if my technology is superior to that of my rivals. Thus, every individual capitalist has an incentive to search for a more productive technology than those used by other firms with which that capitalist is competing.

For this reason, technological dynamism is embedded within the heart of a capitalist society. Marx recognized this from the Communist Manifesto (written in 1848) onward. This is one of the prime forces that explains the permanently revolutionary character of capitalism.

It will never rest content with its existing technology. It will constantly seek to improve it, because it will always reward the person, the firm, or the society that has the more advanced technology. The state, nation, or power bloc that possesses the most sophisticated and dynamic technology is the one that is going to lead the pack. So technological dynamism is built into the global structures of capitalism. And thats been the case since the very beginning.

Marxs perspective on this is both illuminating and interesting. When we imagine the process of technological innovation, we typically think of somebody making something or other and seeking out a technological improvement in whatever it is that theyre making. That is, the technological dynamism is specific to a particular factory, a particular production system, a particular situation.

But it turns out that many technologies actually spill over from one sphere of production to another. They become generic. For instance, computer technology is available to anybody who wants to use it for whatever purpose. Automating technologies are available to all kinds of people and industries.

Marx notices that by the time you get to the 1820s, 30s, and 40s in Britain, the invention of new technologies had already become an independent and freestanding business. That is, its no longer somebody whos making textiles or something like that who is interested in the new technology that will increase the productivity of the labor they employ. Instead, entrepreneurs come up with a new technology that can be used all over the place.

The prime initial example of this in Marxs time was the steam engine. It had all of these different applications, from drainage of water out of the coal mines to making steam engines and building railroads, while also being applied to the power looms in the textile factories. So if you wanted to go into the business of innovation, then engineering and the machine tool industry were good places to start.

Whole economies such as that which arose around the city of Birmingham, which specialized in machine toolmaking became oriented to the production of not only new technologies, but also new products. Even in Marxs time, technological innovation had become a freestanding business in its own right.

In the Grundrisse, Marx explores in detail the question of what happens when technology becomes a business, when innovation creates new markets, rather than functioning as a response to a specific, preexisting market demand for a new technology. New technologies then become a cutting edge of the dynamism of a capitalist society.

The consequences are wide-ranging. One obvious result is that technologies are never static: theyre never settled, and they quickly become obsolete. Catching up with the latest technology can be stressful and costly. Accelerating obsolescence can be disastrous for existing firms.

Nevertheless, whole sectors of society electronics, pharmaceuticals, bioengineering and the like are given over to creating innovations for the sake of innovation. Whoever can create the technological innovation that is going to capture the imagination, like the cell phone or the tablet, or have the most varied applications, like the computer chip, is likely to win out. So this idea that technology itself becomes a business becomes absolutely central in Marxs account of what a capitalist society is about.

This is what differentiates capitalism from all other modes of production. The capacity to innovate has been omnipresent in human history. There were technological changes in ancient China, even under feudalism. But what is unique within a capitalist mode of production is the simple fact that technology becomes a business, with a generic product that is sold to producers and consumers alike.

This is very specific to capitalism. This becomes one of the key drivers of how capitalist society evolves. This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not.

Marx goes on to point out a very significant corollary of this development. In order for technology to become a business, you need to mobilize new forms of knowledge in certain ways. This entails the application of science and technology as distinctive understandings of the world.

The creation of new technologies on the ground becomes integrated with the rise of science and technology as intellectual and academic disciplines. Marx notices how the application of science and technology, and the creation of new forms of knowledge, become essential for this revolutionary technological innovation.

This defines another aspect of the nature of a capitalist mode of production. Technological dynamism is connected to a dynamism in the production of new scientific and technical knowledge and new, often revolutionary mental conceptions of the world. The fields of science and technology mesh with the production and mobilization of new knowledge and understandings. Eventually, wholly new institutions, like MIT and Cal Tech, had to be founded to facilitate this development.

Marx then goes on to ask: What does this do to the production processes within capitalism, and how does it affect the way in which labor (and the worker) is incorporated into these production processes? In the pre-capitalist era, say the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the laborer generally had control of the means of production the necessary tools and became skilled in the utilization of these tools. The skilled laborer became a monopolist of a certain kind of knowledge and certain kind of understanding that, Marx notes, was always considered an art.

However, by the time you get to the factory system, and even more so by the time you get to the contemporary world, that is no longer the case. The traditional skills of laborers are rendered redundant, because technology and science take over. Technology and science and new forms of knowledge are incorporated into the machine, and the art disappears.

And so Marx, in an astonishing set of passages in the Grundrisse pages 650 to 710 of the Penguin edition, if you are interested talks about the way that new technologies and knowledge become embedded in the machine: theyre no longer in the laborers brain, and the laborer is pushed to one side to become an appendage of the machine, a mere machine-minder. All of the intelligence and all of the knowledge, which used to belong to the laborers, and which conferred upon them a certain monopoly power vis--vis capital, disappear.

The capitalist who once needed the skills of the laborer is now freed from that constraint, and the skill is embodied in the machine. The knowledge produced through science and technology flows into the machine, and the machine becomes the soul of capitalist dynamism. That is the situation Marx is describing.

The dynamism of a capitalist society becomes crucially dependent upon perpetual innovations, driven by the mobilization of science and technology. Marx saw this clearly in his own time. He was writing about all of this in 1858! But right now, of course, were in a situation where this issue has become critical and crucial.

The question of artificial intelligence (AI) is the contemporary version of what Marx was talking about. We now need to know to what degree artificial intelligence is being developed through science and technology, and to what degree it is being applied (or likely to be applied) in production. The obvious effect would be to displace the laborer, and in fact disarm and devalue the laborer even further, in terms of the laborers capacity for the application of imagination, skill, and expertise within the production process.

This leads Marx to make the following commentary in the Grundrisse. Let me cite it to you, because I think its really, really fascinating:

The transformation of the production process from the simple labor process into a scientific process, which subjugates the forces of nature and compels them to work in the service of human needs, appears as a quality of fixed capital in contrast to living labor ... thus all powers of labor are transposed into powers of capital.

The knowledge and scientific expertise now lies within the machine under the command of the capitalist. The productive power of labor is relocated into the fixed capital, something that is external to labor. The laborer is pushed to one side. So fixed capital becomes the bearer of our collective knowledge and intelligence when it comes to production and consumption.

Further on, Marx homes in on what it is that the collapsing bourgeois order is pregnant with that might redound to the benefit of labor. And its this: capital quite unintentionally reduces human labor, expenditure of energy to a minimum. This will redound to the benefit of emancipated labor and is the condition of its emancipation. In Marxs view, the rise of something like automation or artificial intelligence creates conditions and possibilities for the emancipation of labor.

In the passage I cited from Marxs pamphlet on the Paris Commune, the issue of the self-emancipation of labor and of the laborer is central. That condition is something that needs to be embraced. But what is it about this condition that makes it so potentially liberatory?

The answer is simple. All of this science and technology is increasing the social productivity of labor. One laborer, looking after all of those machines, can produce a vast number of commodities in a very short order of time. Here again is Marx in the Grundrisse:

To the degree that large industry develops, the creation of real wealth comes to depend less on labour time and on the amount of labour employed than on the power of the agencies set in motion during labour time, whose powerful effectiveness is itself in turn out of all proportion to the direct labour time spent on their production, but depends rather on the general state of science and on the progress of technology, or the application of this science to production ... real wealth manifests itself, rather and large industry reveals this in the monstrous disproportion between the labour time applied, and its product.

But then and here Marx quotes one of the Ricardian socialists writing at that time he adds the following: Truly wealthy a nation, when the working day is 6 rather than 12 hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labour time ... but rather disposable time outside that needed in direct production, for every individual and the whole society.

It is this that leads capitalism to produce the possibility for the free development of individualities, including that of the workers. And, by the way, Ive said this before, but Im going to say it again: Marx is always, always emphasizing that its the free development of the individual which is the endpoint of what collective action is going to push for. This common idea that Marx is all about collective action and the suppression of individualism is wrong.

Its the other way around. Marx is in favor of mobilizing collective action in order to gain individual liberty. Well come back to that idea in a moment. But its the potential for the free development of individualities that is the crucial objective here.

All of this is predicated upon the general reduction of the necessary labor, that is, the amount of labor that is needed to reproduce the daily life of society. The rising productivity of labor will mean that the basic needs of society can be taken care of very easily. This will then allow abundant disposable time for the potential artistic and scientific development of individuals to be set free.

At first, this will be time for a privileged few, but ultimately, it will create free disposable time for everyone. That is to say, setting free individuals to do what they want is critical, because you can take care of the basic necessities by use of sophisticated technology.

The problem, says Marx, is that capital itself is a moving contradiction. It presses to reduce labor time to a minimum while it posits labor time on the other side as a sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labor time in the necessary form that is, what is really necessary to increase it in the superfluous form.

Now, the superfluous form is what Marx calls surplus value. The question is, who is going to capture the surplus? The problem that Marx identifies is not that the surplus is unavailable, but that it is not available to labor. While the tendency on the one side is to create disposable time, on the other it is to convert it into surplus labour for the benefit of the capitalist class.

It is not actually being applied to the emancipation of the laborer when it could be. Its being applied to the feathering of the nests of the bourgeoisie, and therefore to the accumulation of wealth through traditional means within the bourgeoisie.

Heres the central contradiction. Truly, Marx says, the wealth of a nation. How would we understand that? Well, he says, you can understand it in terms of the mass of money and all the rest of it that somebody commands. But for Marx, as we have seen, a truly wealthy nation is one in which the working day is six rather than twelve hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labor time but rather disposable time outside that needed in direct production for every individual in the whole society.

That is: the wealth of a society is going to be measured by how much disposable free time we all have, to do whatever the hell we like without any constraints, because our basic needs are met. And Marxs argument is this: you need to have a collective movement to make sure that kind of society can be constructed. But what gets in the way is, of course, the fact of the dominant class relation, and the exercise of capitalist class power.

Now, theres an interesting echo of all this in our current situation of lockdown and economic collapse as a consequence of the coronavirus. Many of us are in a situation where, individually, we have a lot of disposable time. Most of us are stuck at home.

We cant go to work; we cant do things that we normally do. What are we going to do with our time? If we have kids, of course, then we have quite a bit to do. But weve arrived at this situation in which we have significant disposable time.

The second thing is that, of course, we are now experiencing mass unemployment. The latest data suggested that, in the United States, something like 26 million people have lost their jobs. Now, normally one would say this is a catastrophe, and, of course, it is a catastrophe, because when you lose your job, you lose the capacity to reproduce your own labor power by going to the supermarket, because you have no money.

Many people have lost their health insurance, and many others are having difficulty accessing unemployment benefits. Housing rights are in jeopardy as rents or mortgage payments fall due. Much of the US population perhaps as many as 50 percent of all households have no more than $400 of surplus money in the bank to deal with small emergencies, let alone a full-blown crisis of the sort we are now in.

These people are likely to be hitting the streets very soon, with starvation staring them and their kids in the face. But lets look more deeply at the situation.

The workforce that is expected to take care of the mounting numbers of the sick, or to provide the minimal services that allow for the reproduction of daily life, is, as a rule, highly gendered, racialized, and ethnicized. This is the new working class that is at the forefront of contemporary capitalism. Its members have to bear two burdens: at one and the same time, they are the workers most at risk of contracting the virus through their jobs, and of being laid off with no financial resources because of the economic retrenchment enforced by the virus.

The contemporary working class in the United States comprised predominantly of African Americans, Latinos, and waged women faces an ugly choice: between suffering contamination in the course of caring for people and keeping key forms of provision (such as grocery stores) open, or unemployment with no benefits (like adequate health care).

This workforce has long been socialized to behave as good neoliberal subjects, which means blaming themselves or God if anything goes wrong, but never daring to suggest that capitalism might be the problem. But even good neoliberal subjects can see that there is something wrong with the response to this pandemic, and with the disproportionate burden they must bear of sustaining the reproduction of the social order.

Collective forms of action are required to get us out of this serious crisis in dealing with COVID-19. We need collective action to control its spread lockdowns and distancing behaviors, all of those kinds of things. This collective action is necessary to eventually free us up as individuals to live the way we like, because we cannot do what we like right now.

This turns out to be a good metaphor for understanding what capital is about. It means creating a society in which most of us are not free to do what we want, because we are actually taken up with producing wealth for the capitalist class.

What Marx might say is, well, maybe those 26 million unemployed people, if they could actually find some way of getting enough money to support themselves, buy the commodities they need to survive, and rent the house in which they need to live, then why wouldnt they pursue mass emancipation from alienating work?

In other words, do we want to come out of this crisis by simply saying that theres 26 million people who need to get back to work, in some of those pretty awful jobs they may have been doing before? Is that how we want to come out of it? Or do we want to ask: Is there some way to organize the production of basic goods and services so that everybody has something to eat, everybody has a decent place to live, and we can put a moratorium on evictions, and everybody can live rent free? Isnt this moment one where we could actually think seriously about the creation of an alternative society?

If we are tough and sophisticated enough to cope with this virus, then why not take on capital at the same time? Instead of saying we all want to go back to work and get those jobs back and restore everything to the way it was before this crisis started, maybe we should say: Why dont we come out of this crisis by creating an entirely different kind of social order?

Why dont we take those elements with which the current collapsing bourgeois society is pregnant its astonishing science and technology and productive capacity and liberate them, making use of artificial intelligence and technological change and organizational forms so that we can actually create something radically different than anything that existed before?

After all, in the midst of this emergency, we are already experimenting with alternative systems of all sorts, from the free supply of basic foods to poor neighborhoods and groups, to free medical treatments, alternative access structures through the internet, and so on. In fact, the lineaments of a new socialist society are already being laid bare which is probably why the right wing and the capitalist class are so anxious to get us back to the status quo ante.

This is a moment of opportunity to think through what an alternative might look like. This is a moment in which the possibility of an alternative actually exists. Instead of just reacting in a knee-jerk manner and saying, Oh, weve got to get those 26 million jobs back immediately, maybe we should look to expand some of the things that are already going on, such as the organization of collective provision.

This is already happening in the field of health care, but it is also beginning to happen through the socialization of food supply and even cooked meals. In New York City right now, several restaurant systems have remained open, and thanks to donations, theyre actually providing free meals to the mass of the population that has lost its jobs and cant get around.

Instead of saying, Well, okay, this is just what we do in an emergency, why dont we say, this is the moment when we can start to tell those restaurants, your mission is to feed the population, so that everybody has a decent meal at least once or twice a day.

And we already have elements of that society here: a lot of schools provide school meals, for example. So lets keep that going, or at least learn the lesson of what might be possible if we cared. Isnt this a moment where we can use this socialist imagination to construct an alternative society?

This is not utopian. This is saying, all right, look at all those restaurants on the Upper West Side that have closed and are now sitting there, kind of dormant. Lets get the people back in they can start producing the food and feed the population on the streets and in the houses, and they can give it to the old people. We need that kind of collective action for all of us to become individually free.

If the 26 million people now unemployed have to go back to work, then maybe it should be for six rather than twelve hours a day, so we can celebrate the rise of a different understanding of what it means to live in the wealthiest country in the world. Maybe this is what might make America truly great (leaving the again to rot in the dustbin of history).

This is the point that Marx is making again and again and again: that the root of real individualism and freedom and emancipation, as opposed to the fake one that is constantly preached in bourgeois ideology, is a situation where all of our needs are taken care of through collective action, so that we only have to work six hours a day, and we can use the rest of the time exactly as we please.

In conclusion, isnt this an interesting moment to really think about the dynamism and the possibilities for construction of an alternative, socialist society? But in order to get onto such an emancipatory path, we first have to emancipate ourselves to see that a new imaginary is possible alongside a new reality.

Read more here:
David Harvey: We Need a Collective Response to the Collective Dilemma of Coronavirus - Jacobin magazine

Westworld season 3 takes the story to the outside world, where Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is executing a plan that's very similar to the original 1976 Westworld sequel, Futureworld. At the end of season 2, Dolores put a version of her own mind inside a copy of Charlotte Hale's (Tessa Thompson) body for the purposes of smuggling several "pearls" (containers for host minds) out of the park. However, in season 3 it was revealed that rather than smuggling out any other hosts, Dolores had simply made more copies of her own mind for the purposes of replacing key humans in the outside world.

Released in 1976, Futureworld was a hastily-made sequel intended to cash in on the success of the original movie. Unfortunately, Westworld's writer-director Michael Crichton wasn't interested in making a sequel, and Futureworld was instead directed by Richard T. Heffron. The film is set two years after the original, with Delos having reopened its robot-filled theme parks. Westworld has been left in ruins, and replaced by two new parks: Spaworld (where older guests can live out the fantasy of being young again) and Futureworld (which simulates life in space).

Related:Westworld Season 3 Poster Detail Teases Dolores' Death

Futureworld is a pretty weird sequel. The only returning cast member from the original movie is Yul Brynner as the Gunslinger, and he only appears for a couple of minutes as the rescuing hero in an erotic dream that TV reporter Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner) has. The plot, however, is interesting when compared to that ofWestworld season 3. While putting together a story on the supposedly new and improved Delos parks, Tracy and her fellow reporter Chuck (Peter Fonda) discover that Delos is now being run by robots, who are inviting world leaders and other powerful figures to the parks so that they can be cloned and replaced.

These clones are human in almost every respect, but have been brainwashed to destroy their originals and carry out Delos orders. The parallels to Futureworld actually began in Westworld season 2, when it was revealed that Delos had been closely monitoring guests at the park and their behavior with the goal of ultimately making copies of their minds, like they did with James Delos. In Futureworld, the targeted visitors are under constant surveillance and their appearance and mannerisms are recorded by a team of robot scientists for the purposes of creating perfect clones of them.

The similarities between Futureworld and Westworld season 3 don't stop there. The ultimate goal of this program of cloning and replacing people is to save the planet from humanity's destructive tendencies, which was Serac's goal with the creation of Rehoboam - a supercomputer that uses mass data collection to project the future of everyone in the world, and decide which people are worthy of promotion, reproduction and social advancement, and which ones should have their lives stalled. The result is, as Caleb puts it, a world with a "coat of paint on it - but inside, it's rotting to pieces."

Unfortunately Futureworld doesn't delve as deeply into the idea of computers controlling free will as Westworld season 3 does. As in the original movie, the robots are portrayed more or less as straightforward villains, and the humans triumph over them in the end. In that sense, Westworld has an opportunity in season 3 to capitalize on an interesting idea thatdidn't get the attention it deserved in the 1976 movie. With two episodes left in season 3, it remains to be seen whether Dolores' plan to conquer the world with the strategic replacement of humans will work better than the last time it was attempted.

More:Westworld Season 3: Who Is The REAL Villain?

How Endgame's Ending Would Be Different If Captain America Did The Snap

Hannah has been with Screen Rant since the heady days of 2013, starting out as a humble news writer and eventually clawing her way up the ladder through a series of Machiavellian schemes and betrayals. She's now a features writer and editor, covering the hottest topics in the world of nerddom from her home base in Oxford, UK.Hannah enjoys weird horror movies, weirder sci-fi movies, and also the movie adaptation of Need for Speed - the greatest video game movie of all time. She has lived and studied in New York and Toronto, but ultimately returned home so that she could get a decent cup of tea. Her hobbies include drawing, video games, long walks in the countryside, and wasting far too much time on Twitter.Speaking of which, you can follow Hannah online at @HSW3K

See the article here:
Westworld Season 3 Is Copying The Original Movies Super Weird Sequel - Screen Rant

The krill and plankton that form the foundation of the marine ecosystem are also being affected by the increasing acidification of the ocean. More CO2 being absorbed by the ocean means that some of these species will be unable to form and maintain their protective calcium carbonate shells, threatening key species further up the food chain. Studies show that plankton populations could decrease by as much as 40% by 2050. Coral reefs and polar regions are on the frontline of the acidification crisis, with North Pacific salmon, mackerel, herring, cod and baleen whales among the species under the most immediate threat.

Warmer seas will also affect the distribution of whales. If their prey moves as a result of climate change, they will likely follow. Mass movement of species to different habitats will result in increased competition for diminishing amounts of prey.

Toxic chemicals banned decades ago could kill off more than half of the worlds killer whale population in 30-50 years, scientists believe. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are man-made organic compounds once used in electrical equipment, flame retardants and paints until they were found to be so dangerous to human health that they were banned in the US in the 1970s and Europe in 1987. Resistant to heat, chemicals and natural degradation, the same things that made PCBs so attractive also makes them hard to destroy, and so they remain in the ecosystem decades later. Some were improperly stored or disposed of, or even directly discharged into soils, rivers, wetlands and the ocean.Entering the food chain, they have worked their way up to concentrate in top predators, causing cancers, altering behaviour, damaging immune systems and harming reproduction. European killer whale populations, along with dolphins and porpoises, are the most contaminated in the world, and some of the most heavily exposed populations are not expected to survive the next few decades.

See the article here:
Priceless poo: the global cooling effect of whales - chinadialogue ocean

Diseases have plagued mankind throughout history. The Neolithic Revolution, which was marked by a shift to agrarian societies, preceded by hunting and gathering communities, brought about increased trading activities. The shift created new opportunities for increased human and animal interactions, which in turn, introduced and sped up the spread of new diseases. The more civilized humans became, the more the occurrences of pandemics was witnessed.

This led to outbreaks that left an indelible mark in history due to their severity. Three of the deadliest pandemics include the Plague of Justinian (541-542 BC) that killed about 30-50 million people, Black Death (1347-1351) that killed 200 million and Smallpox (1520 onwards) that killed 56 million.

Infographic courtesy: Visual Capitalist

In modern history, the most notable major pandemic was the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919. Over a century later, the world is grappling with the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has currently infected over 2 million people and killed over 140,000.

But how does the Spanish flu compare to the current COVID-19 pandemic?

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is sometimes referred to as the mother of all pandemics. It affected one-third of the worlds population and killed up to 50 million people, including some 675,000 Americans. It was the first known pandemic to involve the H1N1 virus.

The outbreak occurred during the final months of World War I. It came in several waves but its origin, however, is still a matter of debate to-date. Its name doesnt necessarily mean it came from Spain.

An emergency hospital during Spanish flu influenza pandemic, Camp Funston, Kansas, c. 1918 Image Courtesy: National Museum of Health and Medicine

Spain was one of the earliest countries where the epidemic was identified. Historians believe this was likely a result of wartime media censorship. The country was a neutral nation during the war and did not enforce strict censorship on its press. This freedom of the press allowed them to freely publish early accounts of the illness. As a result, people falsely believed the illness was specific to Spain and hence earning the name Spanish flu.

Influenza or flu is a virus that attacks the respiratory system and is highly contagious.

Initial symptoms of the Spanish flu included a sore head and tiredness, followed by a dry hacking cough, loss of appetite, stomach problems and excessive sweating. As it progressed, the illness could affect the respiratory organs, andpneumonia could develop. This stage was often the main cause of death. This also explains why it is difficult to determine exact numbers killed by the flu, as the listed cause of death was often something other than the flu.

Thesesymptomsare very similar to those of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

For decades, the Spanish flu virus was lost to history and scientists still do not know for sure where the virus originated. Several theories as to what may have caused it point to France, the United States or China.

Research published in 1999 by a British team, led by virologist John Oxford theorized a major United Kingdom staging and hospital camp in taples, France as being the centre of the flu. In late 1917, military pathologists reported the onset of a new disease with high mortality in the overcrowded camp that they later recognized as the flu. The camp was also home to a piggery, and poultry was regularly brought for food from neighbouring villages. Oxford and his team theorized that a significant precursor virus harboured in birds, mutated and then migrated to the pigs.

Other statements have been that the flu originated from the United States, in Kansas. In 2018, another study found evidence against the flu originating from Kansas, as the cases and deaths there were fewer than those in New York City in the same period. The study did, however, find evidence suggesting that the virus may have been of North American Origin, though it wasnt conclusive.

Multiple studies have placed the origin of the flu in China. The country had lower rates of flu mortality, which may have been due to an already acquired immunity possessed by the population. The argument was that the virus was imported to Europe via infected Chinese and Southeast Asian soldiers and workers headed across the Atlantic.

However, the Chinese Medical Association Journal published a report in 2016 with evidence that the 1918 virus had been circulating in the European armies for months and possibly years before the Spanish flu pandemic.

COVID-19, on the other hand, was first discovered in the Wuhan province of China late last year. There has been no argument against this so far. Research is still ongoing as to whether it was passed on from bats or the newly found connection to pangolins.

Much like COVID-19, the Spanish flu was spread from through air droplets, when an infected person sneezed or coughed, releasing more than half a million-virus particles that came into contact with uninfected people.

The close quarters and massive troop movements during the war hastened the spread of the flu. There are speculations that the soldiers already weakened immune systems were increasingly made vulnerable due to malnourishment and the stresses of combat and chemical attacks. More U.S soldiers in WW1 died from the flu than from the war.

A unique characteristic of the virus was the high death rate it caused among healthy adults 15-34 years of age. It lowered the average life expectancy in the U.S by more than 12 years.

COVID-19, on the other hand, does not discriminate in terms of age, but older people and those with other underlying medical conditions are being considered more vulnerable.

The measures being taken today to curb the spread of COVID-19 are very similar to those taken in 1918. Back then, physicians advised people to avoid crowded places and shaking hands with other people. Others suggested remedies included eating cinnamon, drinking wine and drinking Oxos beef broth. They also told people to keep their mouths and noses covered with masks in public.

Image courtesy: National Museum of Health and Medicine

In other areas quarantines were imposed and public places such as schools, theatres and churches were closed. Libraries stopped lending books and strict sanitary measures were passed to make spitting in the streets illegal.

Due to World War I, there was a shortage of doctors in some areas. Many of the physicians who were left became ill themselves. Schools and other buildings were turned into makeshift hospitals, where medical students had to step up to help the overwhelmed physicians.

Though the severity of COVID-19 has not gotten to the level of the Spanish flu, most of the effects the world is experiencing now are very relatable.

The Spanish flu killed with reckless abandon, leaving bodies piled up to such an extent that funeral parlours and cemeteries were overwhelmed. Family members were left to dig graves for their deceased loved ones. Strained state and local health centres also closed, hampering efforts to chronicle the spread of the flu and provide much-needed information to the public. Similar scenes are being witnessed in Italy today, which has so far recorded the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19.

The Spanish flu also adversely affected the economy as the deaths created a shortage of farmworkers, which in turn affected the summer harvest. A lack of staff and resources put other basic services such as waste collection and mail delivery under pressure. COVID-19 has seen some companies send their employees home on unpaid leave and others have imposed pay cuts. If the situation worsens, a majority is likely to lose their jobs.

Fake news during this time was also a problem. Even as people were dying, there were attempts to make money by advertising fake cures to desperate victims. On June 28, 1918, a public notice appeared in the British papers advising people of the symptoms of the flu. It however turned out this was actually an advertisement for Formamints, a tablet made and sold by a vitamin company. The advert stated that the mints were the best means of preventing the infective processes and that everyone, including children, should suck four or five of these tablets a day until they felt better.

Image courtesy: ICDS

Fake news has been a concern since the outbreak of COVID-19, with the Internet making it even easier to spread it. See some of our fact checks on the subjecthere.

The deadliness of WW1 coupled with censorship of the press and poor record-keeping made tracking and reporting on the virus very tedious. This explains why the flu remains of interest to date as some questions are yet to be answered. In contrast, Media coverage on COVID-19 has been commendable and very useful to the public in providing much-needed answers.

When the Spanish flu hit, medical technology and countermeasures were limited or non-existent at the time. No diagnostic tests or influenza vaccines existed. The federal government also lacked a centralized role in helping to plan and initiate interventions during the pandemic.

Many doctors prescribed medication that they felt would be effective in alleviating symptoms, including aspirin. Patients were advised to take up to 30 grams per day, a dose now known to be toxic. It is now believed that some of the deaths were actually caused or hastened by aspirin poisoning.

The first licensed flu vaccine appeared in America in the 1940s and from there on, manufacturers could routinely produce vaccines that would help control and prevent future pandemics.

Fast forward to 2020; clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments/vaccines are either ongoing or recruiting patients. The drugs being tested range from repurposed flu treatments to failed Ebola drugs, blood pressure drug (Losartan), an immunosuppressant (Actemra- an arthritis drug) and malaria treatments developed decades ago.

An antiviral drug called Favipiravir or Avigan, developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in Japan is showing promising outcomes in treating at least mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.

As of now, doctors are using available drugs and health support systems such us ventilators to alleviate symptoms. There have been over 500,000 recoveries so far.

Doctors in China, South Korea, France and the U.S. have been using Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on some patients with promising results. The FDA is organizing a formal clinical trial of the drug, which has already been approved for the treatment of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The mistakes and delays in taking quick action we are experiencing today with COVID-19 are not new. In the summer of 1918, a second wave of the Spanish flu returned to the American shores as infected soldiers came back home. With no vaccine available, it was the responsibility of the local authorities to come up with plans to protect the public, at a time when they were under pressure to appear patriotic and with a censored media downplaying the diseases spread.

Some bad decisions were made in the process. In Philadelphia for instance, the response came in too little too late. The then director of Public Health and Charities for the city, Dr Wilmer Krusen, insisted that the increasing fatalities were not the Spanish flu but the normal flu. This left 15,000 dead and another 200,000 sick. Only then did the city close down public places.

The pandemic came to an end by the end of the summer of 1919. Those who were infected either died or developed immunity. The world has experienced other flu outbreaks since then but none as deadly as the Spanish flu.

The Asian flu (H2N2), first Identified in China from 1957-1958, killed around 2 million people worldwide. The Hong Kong (H3N2), first detected in Hong Kong, from 1968-1969, killed about 1 million people. Between 1997-2003, Bird flu (H5N1), first detected in Hong Kong, killed over 300 people. More recently in 2009-2010, the Swine flu (H1N1), which originated from Mexico, killed over 18,000 people.

The worlds population has increased from 1.8 billion to 7.7 billion since 1918. Animals alike, which are used for food, have also increased significantly, giving room for more hosts for novel flu viruses to infect people. Transport systems have gotten better making global movement of people and goods much easier and faster, further widening the spread of viruses to other geographical regions.

Even though considerable medical, technological and societal advancements have been made since 1918, the best defence against the current pandemic continues to be the development of vaccine or herd immunity. The biggest challenge, however, is the time required to manufacture a new vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, it generally takes about 20 weeks to select and manufacture a new vaccine.

Dr Eddy Okoth Odari, a senior lecturer and researcher of Medical Virology in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology breaks it down as follows:

It is anticipated that herd immunity would protect the vulnerable groups. We must, however, appreciate that natural herd immunity may only occur when a sizeable number of the population gets infected. I note with concern that we may not know and should not gamble with the immunity or health of our populations. This would then call for an induced herd immunity through vaccination. Therefore as at now, we must increase our efforts in developing an effective vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) published instructions for countries to use in developing their own national pandemic plans, as well as a checklist for pandemic influenza risk and impact management. But even with all these plans, there are still loopholes that could still be devastating in the face of a pandemic, as we are currently witnessing.

Healthcare systems are getting overwhelmed and some hospitals and doctors are struggling to meet the demand from the number of patients requiring care. The manufacture and distribution of medications, products and life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators, masks and gloves have also significantly increased, seeing as there is already a shortage being experienced. Dr Okoth has a good explanation for this:

Translation of research findings into proper policies has been slow since policy formulators have insisted on evidence. For example, as early as March 2019, publications had hinted into a possibility of a virus crossing over from bats to human populations in China, but unfortunately, there was no proper preparedness and if any, perhaps the magnitude of this potential infection was underestimated. Finally, the geopolitical wars and political inclinations among the superpowers are not helping much in the war against infectious diseases. When the pandemic started it was viewed as a Chinese problem, in fact, other nations insisted in it being called a Chinese virus or Wuhan virus. Even with clear evidence that the virus would spread outside China, the WHO (perhaps to appear neutral) insisted that China was containing the virus and delayed in declaring this a pandemic the net result of this was that other countries became reluctant in upscaling their public health measures, yet other countries seem to have been keen not to be on the bad books of China.

There is no telling how long the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will go on for or when and how it will end, but global preparation for pandemics clearly still warrant improvement as Dr Okoth advises.

Perhaps the lessons that we learn here is that diseases will not need permission to cross borders and since the world has become a global village, there should be proper investments in global health and scientific research.

This article was originally published by Africa Uncensored. Graphics by Clement Kumalija.

Excerpt from:
GICHUHI A. WAITITU - Modelling the COVID-19 Pandemic in East Africa - The Elephant

In the third episode of Mrs. America, the National Women's Political Caucus heads to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, where Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba) continuesand ultimately endsher historic campaign for President of the United States.

The convention is an important battleground for feminist activist Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), who has plans to force a vote on abortion on the floor. She wants "reproductive freedom" to be part of the party's plank; Democratic candidate George McGovern refuses to support its addition. So, Steinem makes a deal with McGovern's campaign: McGovern won't influence his delegates on the abortion vote, or allow any right-to-lifers to speak before it, if Steinem helps get McGovern the votes he needs to win the nomination. She also promises not to talk about how "women are being butchered on kitchen tables" before the vote.

FX

But once McGovern's campaign realizes a majority of North Carolina delegates plan to vote in support of abortion, his campaign undermines Steinem and asks his delegates to vote no. According to their polling, McGovern can't be associated with legalizing abortion if he wants to win the election in November.

After they lose the vote, Steinem rails at McGovern's staffer, calling him a liar and a bastard, before talking to Chisholm about fighting to get her the vice presidential slot on McGovern's ticket. But Chisholm says she isn't interested in a symbolic positiononly true political power. She tells Steinem, "Power concedes nothing. If we dont demand true equality, we are always going to be begging men for a few crumbs from the pie, trading women for an empty promise."

So, how did the abortion vote go down in real life? According to a New York Times article from July 1972, there was a vote about an abortion proposal, though the word itself was not used. The proposed amendment to the "rights of women" plank said, "In matters relating to human reproduction, each person's right to privacy, freedom of choice, and individual conscience should be fully respected, consistent with relevant Supreme Court decisions."

The Times reports that the amendment was seen as something that could "discomfort and ultimately defeat Mr. McGovern's race for the White House" and in the end "McGovern forces were moving around the floor, urging delegates to vote against the plank."

Steinem confirmed some of the events in her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, writing that "[t]he consensus of the meeting of women delegates held by the caucus had been to fight for the minority plank on reproductive freedom; indeed our vote had supported the plank nine to one. So fight we did, with three women delegates speaking eloquently in its favor as a constitutional right." In the end, Steinem writes, "[W]e made a very good showing. Clearly we would have won if McGovern's forces had left their delegates uninstructed and thus able to vote their consciences."

Agence France PresseGetty Images

Shirley MacLaine, a McGovern supporter, also wrote about the vote for the Times in July 1972. She said the McGovern staff agreed to a "hands off" policy on the vote, but once the campaign got wind that non-McGovern supporters were trying to convince delegates to vote yes "in order to embarrass" McGovern, the campaign sent out the word to have delegates vote no.

MacLaine reported that after a delegate from Missouri made a speech about the "murder of little children" before the vote, Steinem yelled at Joe Duffey, a McGovern floor manager. MacLaine wrote, "She tore into him shrieking, 'You are a bastard for allowing the right-to-life man to speak. You lied to us. You promised you wouldn't allow anyone like that to speak.' Joe was shocked. He was speechless. He claimed he had agreed to go along with a legitimate vote of conscience. Near hysteria, Gloria burst into tears before the television cameras and rushed down the aisle."

Go here to see the original:
The True Story Behind the 'Mrs. America' Abortion Vote at the 1972 DNC - ELLE.com

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It's almost as if the mayfly is a metaphor for something an organism with a life that seems so hectic and brief as to be futile. But whether it serves a metaphor for a brief, explosive love affair or the basket of french fries you just devoured, the mayfly might not be as much an emblem of ephemeral glory as it seems.

Mayflies are flying insects in the order Ephemeroptera the name "mayfly" translates to "short-lived with wings" in Greek. However, no matter how brief their lives may appear, like an iceberg, most of their lifespan happens under the surface of the water. Mayflies are common in almost any standing or running body of fresh water, where most of their lives are spent as larvae, growing bigger, shedding their skin over and over as they grow. A lot of species live in their larval stages for over a year about as long as your average house mouse, which isn't a heroically long time by human standards, but it's more than just the few hours mayflies are generally given credit for.

That said, adult mayflies have only one job: to mate. They don't even have mouth parts because they don't take to the air to eat. The adults of some species live as few as two hours, which doesn't give them very much time to do all their reproduction business, but such is life for a mayfly.

"The winged stages of a mayfly's life are all about reproduction," says Luke Jacobus, a biology professor in the division of science at Indiana University Purdue University Columbus, in an email interview. "The females lay eggs directly on or in the water, so they don't need to build burrows or nests. With only one thing to do, you don't need to live very long to get it done."

"Mayflies are the oldest living group of winged insects, dating back to the Carboniferous Period, about 300 million years ago," says Jacobus. "They have evolved to be specially adapted for life in water during their nymphal stages, and to be specially adapted for rapid and efficient reproduction."

Like a lot of other insects, mayflies cycle through different metamorphic stages during their lives think of them as insect costume changes. The first two take place in the water as an egg and then a larva. After hatching, a mayfly larva feeds, grows and develops, some males building burrows to live in and feed from, while others just cruise around in the aquatic vegetation, finding snacks. During this time, they grow and molt over and over as many as 50 times for some species.

Because they're such an old group of insects, they do things a little differently than the new-fangled insects you see these days. What's unique about mayflies is that, of their four life stages egg, larva, subimago and imago, or adult two of them have wings. This is unusual a bit like Clark Kent going into his phone booth already wearing his spandex number with the cape and changing into another Superman costume.

"Mayflies are the only group of insects with two winged stages as part of their life cycle: the subimago and imago stages," says Jacobus. "The subimago is usually the stage that leaves the water, and the imago is usually the stage that reproduces."

So, if you time it right in the spring or fall, you can go down to the riverside at dawn or dusk and see quite a spectacle: thousands of seemingly adult mayflies crashing to the ground and writhing out of their winged skins to unveil yet another winged body that will only live a couple of days, on average.

Because time is of the essence during the adult life stage, some mayflies don't even need to mate to reproduce females can produce viable female offspring through a process called parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which an egg can develop into an embryo without being fertilized by a sperm.

In some places, during some times of the year, mayflies can seem overwhelming to people their sheer numbers can make it difficult to go outside sometimes. Gigantic swarms of them show up on weather radar during mass emergences from large lakes and big rivers.

However, unless you manage to accidentally inhale a mayfly and choke on it, they will not hurt you. In fact, in many cultures, mayflies are used as human food, and they have one of the highest protein contents of any edible insect. Their bodies even produce a molecule called low molecular weight chitosan, which has a lot of potential as an antitumor medicine.

Indeed, mayflies are an important part of the food chain in rivers, streams, ponds and lakes. Certain fish populations would be severely impacted if all mayfly species suddenly disappeared.

So, respect the mayfly they are ancient, harmless, possibly helpful and you've got to hand to any creature that shows up on Doppler radar.

Link:
The Ancient Mayfly Briefly Lives Only to Reproduce and Die - HowStuffWorks

By Philip Daileader, Ph.D., College of William & Mary Civil Law and Marriage in Medieval Europe

Women in Medieval Europe were legally dependent on their husbands. In the scope of civil law, women were restricted from signing contracts, being witnesses in court, or borrowing money in their names. All of these had to be carried out under the legal authority of their husbands. In short, married women were considerably dependent on their spouses. Interestingly, these restrictions existed in many European countries until very recently.

Perhaps, youll be surprised to know that these laws did not apply to unmarried adult females, who were allowed to sign contracts, borrow money, and do the things that one would expect of a legally responsible adult. This was quite a significant advantage compared to the Roman Empire. In that era, all women, regardless of their marital status and age, needed a male guardian.

This is a transcript from the video series The High Middle Ages. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

Businesswomen in medieval Europe were able to protect their assetsif they were in a trade that was different from that of their husbands. As an example, if awoman was working as a tailor and her husband was a brewer, their assets were completely separate from each other.Therefore, if the husband faced bankruptcy, his wife had no legalresponsibility to pay his creditors. The term femme sole (literally womanalone) was coined to describe these women.

Learn more about the Middle Ages and its origins.

As opposed to civil law, a womans marital status never mattered to criminal law. In other words, when a married woman committed a crime, she was subject to the same penalties as an unmarried one. The only exception was in the case of pregnancy: pregnant women were exempt from execution or any kind of torture. In addition, regardless of their marital status, all women were exempted from certain forms of torture by medieval courts. For example, women could not be broken on the wheel.

In some cases, the judicial system in the High Medieval Ages treated female offenders more leniently. For example, same-sex relationships, which carried the death penalty for men, were no crime at all for women because such a relationship did not affect human reproduction.

Women who were found guilty of a capital offense were not so luckythough. In fact, they had to suffer the most brutal and painful type of executionsin that era: burning at the stake. Unlike men who were sentenced to differentkinds of execution depending on the severity of their crimes, female executiontook only one form.

Contemporaries claimed this was necessary for the preservation of female modesty, because other forms of execution were deemed unbecoming of women. Although there may be some truth to this justification, modern historians have identified misogyny, as well as a deep-rooted suspicion and dislike of women on the part of males, as the root cause of this practice.

Learn more about the Empire vs. the Papacy.

Politically, women were able to rise to thehighest levels of sovereignty. They could become queens and rule over kingdoms,or become regents and rule in the name of a minor child. Whether a woman was aqueen or a regent, ruling either temporarily or permanently, her powers werenot different from those of a male ruler.

This equality of powers was only because medieval politics were dynastic. In other words, offices passed down from fathers to sons. Therefore, in the absence of a legitimate male heir, an office could fall into the hands of a woman. This applied to both kingdoms and smaller political units. Counties passed among family members, duchies, and even castellanies areas controlled by a single castellan, 15 or 20 miles in radius. In rare cases, these areas were ruled by women.

However, women in Medieval Europe were completely absent in public political roles. This was mainly because medieval towns followed a more republican form of government in which officials were elected and served for a set term. Therefore, a woman could not inherit a political office. The situation only changed in recent times. Ironically, democracy has been very unfriendly to female participation throughout history.

In Medieval Europe, women were relatively active in themarketplace. A survey of 100 guilds in Paris in 1300 showed that 86 percent werewilling to admit female workers. Although some companies required permissionfrom the womans husband, getting a job was not impossible.

There was also some sense of equality in terms of training. Female professionals were able to train apprentices regardless of their gender. No one seemed to think that a woman training a man was odd.

Learn more about the Demography and the Commercial Revolution of the High Middle Ages.

It is reasonable to expect similar trends in religious settings, where women were absent in some areas and yet actively involved in others. For example, monasticism was prevalent among women. Woman could easily choose to become nuns and live in a nunnery. They could even rise through the ranks and one day command a nunnery. Back in the Middle Ages, convents were large organizations with various affairs and housed dozens of people. So, being the head of a nunnery allowed women to exert power over others. This power was especially appealing to high-born women who could not reach a status of authority in any other way.

However, women could never enter the realms of the priesthood. In otherwords, they were not allowed to take the position of a secular clergy as theywere non-ordained members of achurch who did not live in a religiousinstitute and did not follow specific religious rules.

There was a large extent of inequality between men and women in Medieval Europe. Women did not have the right to vote or to choose whether they wanted to marry, have children, or even work in some instances.

Womenin the Middle Ages were able to work as a craftswoman, own a guild, and earn money in their own ways. They could also divorce their husbands under certain conditions. Many outstanding femaleauthors, scientists, and business owners lived during that age.

Women in medieval Europe were able to work in the majority of guilds. Other than being wives or mothers, they often chose to become artisans or nuns.

Most women in the Middle Ages wore kirtles, ankle-to-floor length dresses that were made of dyed linen. Among the peasant women, woolwas a more favorable and affordable option. Womens clothing also consisted of an undertunic called smock or chemise.

More here:
The Status of Women in Medieval Europe - The Great Courses Daily News

The rise of the all-encompassing COVID-19 pandemic has handed us the opportunity to collectively examine and understand ecofascist rhetoric. Suggestions that humans are the virus and the earth is fighting back feed into myths about overpopulation, rather than placing the onus of responsibility on the unsustainable structures and systems we rely on under late-stage capitalism.

To summarise, ecofascism centres Malthusian theoretical ideals, which contend that exponential population growth is unsustainable and will eventually outstrip Earths resources if left unchecked. At its core, this notion of overpopulation suggests that population control measures need to be implemented in order to conserve the environment. The overpopulation myth often posits that countries in the Global South with high birth rates are to blame for unsustainable population growth, failing to recognise that carbon emissions from the Global South are a mere fraction of those produced by the Global North. The idea that humans are collectively bringing about our planets demise also ignores the complex and sustainable land management systems developed by Indigenous people around the world. In reality, the wealthiest 10% of the global population are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions, while the poorest 50% are responsible for 10% of emissions. This cements for us that the overpopulation rhetoric is predicated on racism, colonialism and classism.

Population growth is not unsustainable: the Wests way of life is unsustainable. Unless we realise this, its easy to conflate sustainability with the choice not to have children in aim of reducing overpopulation. Here is where the burden falls disproportionately on people with a uterus: we each have to individually consider whether bringing children into the world is the right thing to do amidst the existential threat that is global warming. Ecofascist, anti-natalist rhetoric weaves its way into our consciousness here, causing people to decide that choosing not to have children is the best thing they can do to help fight climate change.

Internalising ecofascist narratives about reproduction is particularly insidious because it speaks to people on the left in a way that other ecofascist arguments fail to. The left is historically the most concerned with mitigating anthropogenic climate change. Thus, choosing not to bear children might help people with uteruses feel like they are doing their bit, as if they were choosing to lower their meat consumption or take public transport. It is so easy to sell the idea of a childless future to ourselves under the guise of progressiveness without realising that in doing so we are reinforcing sexist norms which regulate bodies that can become pregnant.

Reproductive justice champions the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy: to have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. When people feel as if the best thing they can do for the planets wellbeing is abstain from having children, it exhibits yet another mechanism through which peoples choice on how, when and if they choose to reproduce is limited by the patriarchal structures they reside under.

In the instance that we were to decide that population control measures were necessary, the solution to this would still not lie with antinatalism. The key to lowering birth rates is in the education and empowerment of women on a global scale. When women are given the resources and autonomy to control their own reproductive choices, not only do birth rates lower, but death rates lower too. Access to contraception, sexual health education and safe and legal abortions are necessary steps not only in achieving sustainable population growth, but in providing women, non-binary people and trans men with equal rights, opportunities and independence.

To individually perform population control on our own wombs is to invite ecofascism into our lives. We must remain wary of how perpetuating overpopulation myths by limiting our own reproductive choices might exert normative pressure on others to do the same, and consider how a society that has internalised antinatalist ideals might strip resources for parents and families from its public health policies and campaigns. Thus, our continued pro-choice fight for reproductive justice must also strive for a world in which the choice and ability to have children is not constrained by ecofascist rhetoric.

Original post:
Where ecofascism and reproductive justice meet - Honi Soit

Cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) controls cell division and is central to oncogenic signaling. We used an in situ approach to identify CDK2 substrates within nuclei isolated from cells expressing CDK2 engineered to use adenosine 5-triphosphate analogs. We identified 117 candidate substrates, ~40% of which are known CDK substrates. Previously unknown candidates were validated to be CDK2 substrates, including LSD1, DOT1L, and Rad54. The identification of many chromatin-associated proteins may have been facilitated by labeling conditions that preserved nuclear architecture and physiologic CDK2 regulation by endogenous cyclins. Candidate substrates include proteins that regulate histone modifications, chromatin, transcription, and RNA/DNA metabolism. Many of these proteins also coexist in multi-protein complexes, including epigenetic regulators, that may provide new links between cell division and other cellular processes mediated by CDK2. In situ phosphorylation thus revealed candidate substrates with a high validation rate and should be readily applicable to other nuclear kinases.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

Read more from the original source:
A novel landscape of nuclear human CDK2 substrates revealed by in situ phosphorylation - Science Advances

Public Reading Rooms is publishing these theses on the pandemic, the nature of the crisis and the necessary next steps. We want to initiate a wide-ranging discussion on the left. Please send us any comments, thoughts or longer pieces to transform@prruk.org

1) We live in the age of the pandemic. We live in an age of environmental destruction and climate change. None of these are natural disasters they all result from the way society and production is currently organised. The pandemic is one of many diseases emerging in, and resulting from, late capitalism, including HIV, Avian Flu, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Ebola.

These new illnesses have all developed in a similar way and are linked to the processes of capitalist agriculture and environmental destruction which are also major contributors to climate change. The wanton destruction of nature by capital creates the perfect conditions for the emergence and spread of pandemics. The destruction of the tropical rain forests and the depletion of the oceans destroys the livelihoods of millions of poor people pushing them to desperation. The Amazon, the lungs of the world, is being cut down to make way for corporate livestock production. Capitalism drives the engine of environmental destruction and climate change. The COVID-19 virus and other viruses that emerge in this period are a product of a decaying economic system in its barbaric phase; they travel through the circuits of capital. The continuation of capitalism represents a mortal threat to human survival on the planet.

2) The pandemic is not just a global health crisis: it also exacerbates the economic and social crises which express the structural limits of the entire system of social reproduction. It exposes the deep wells of inequality which exist between peoples and classes throughout the world and underscores the oppression of women, affected not only by poverty but by a tidal wave of domestic violence in the wake of the lockdown. In the metropolitan capitalist countries it is the working class, the poor and the vulnerable who bear the biggest burden of the virus. In the global south and the oppressed and colonised countries of the world, the pandemic threatens the lives of millions. In those countries medical systems have been hollowed out and destroyed by the neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 90s. The privatisation programmes demanded by Western governments have been a catastrophe for public health. More than 1 billion people have no access to proper sanitation or running water, nor any means of sustaining themselves during the pandemic without going out to work. We need to ensure that our politics recognises the impact of the virus in respect of imperialism, of class, race and gender. Neo-liberal economic policies were then imposed wholesale across Europe and beyond, destroying the post-war welfare states, depriving public services of adequate funding and leaving health systems unfit to confront the pandemic.

3) The most important factor in world politics is the struggle of working people, the poor and dispossessed to remake the world: most immediately it is to defend themselves against both the pandemic and the poverty of their everyday lives, resulting from decades of redistribution from the poor to the rich. In that struggle to defend themselves they can challenge the brutality of the existing system and a space can open up in which the possibility of creating a new society becomes real. The pandemic has vividly demonstrated which work has real value in society and which doesnt often those whose work is most essential are on the lowest levels of pay; this is clear to all and can help transform the discontent of the oppressed into a new consciousness. The people already know that the current organisation of society is profoundly wrong. They no longer wish for life to return to the way it was before: they sense that the world can and must be changed to meet their needs and the needs of humanity as a whole. The emergency policies that have been implemented demonstrate that there are alternatives; society and the economy can be organised in other ways. Extensive and spontaneous social solidarity, as well as material international solidarity, are ongoing and essential examples of what can be achieved. What was once impossible is now made possible. The pandemic indicates the possibility of ending the permanent subordination of labour to capital.

4) The pandemic is global; it cannot be stopped in one country. The response of most countries to the emergence of COVID-19 has been to treat the pandemic as a series of national crises, always refusing to learn from the experience of others; it has included competition within and between states for scarce medical and protective resources rather than collective action to provide sufficient for all. Racism and reactionary national insularity play a central role in this process. Each country aims to protect its own economy at the expense of others and at the expense of the majority of its own population. Thus the leading capitalist economies avoided taking essential preventative action to stem the virus only to have to retreat at a later stage when the damage had been done and their populations had been seriously imperilled. But in a pandemic no country is an island. The key to ending the conditions which give rise to this and other pandemics lies not only in breaking capitalist productive processes but in ending the nation state as the dominant form of political and economic organisation. This challenge cannot be underestimated but it must be addressed and debated by the left.

5) Reactionary nationalism has arisen from the crisis of neo-liberalism. The structures of capitalist globalisation no longer guarantee its own reproduction. The basic institutional structures of the post-war world order are being dismantled. International bodies are starved of funds and their national components are likewise undermined. Central to the development of a world economy had been the establishment of bodies like the World Health Organisation through which the international community sought to invest in disease prevention. Now we are witnessing the end of long-established international co-ordination; its disintegration sharply expresses the limits to global capitalism.

Trump who blames the Chinese for the pandemic has been central to this process and embodies the increasingly destructive role of the US during its long decline as the pre-eminent global power and the erosion of its hegemony following defeat in Vietnam and economic decline from the 1970s. It has turned to its unrivalled military power to retain its global standing, while its economic supremacy has been increasingly challenged by the rise of China. US imperialism is in its most dangerous phase and a military response to Chinas economic advance cannot be ruled out.

In the European Union tensions have been fuelled by the failure of states such as Germany, France and Austria to come to the aid of Italy when it asked for help. This stretches beyond the pandemic into the financial structures of the European Union and threatens its end. A central truth is illuminated by this descent into nationalism: only on a socialist basis can there be the integration of Europes political and economic structures and the development of a world economy that meets the needs of the worlds population.

6) We understand that the system, in attempting to resolve its own inner contradictions, will enter into ever more destructive and authoritarian forms as it spirals into decline. Should progressive and socialist forces in society fail to rise to the challenges created by the interlocking crises that we are facing, then the road will be clear for the strengthening of existing reactionary parties and movements. Orban in Hungary has taken the opportunity presented by the crisis to move from authoritarianism towards dictatorship, and laws extensively limiting rights including womens reproductive rights are being passed in many countries. Generally, the rise in social solidarity and support for migrant workers in health and social care and other key sectors of the workforce has been a setback to the racist, anti-migrant narrative of the far right. But as the health crisis lessens and the economic crisis increases, the far right will grow in strength to the extent that the left fails to offer an alternative vision of society.

7) There can be no support for those in the labour movement who present the struggle against the virus as a national crisis in which class war is suspended; they should recognise that the ruling class seeks to co-opt the labour movement. Leaders of the movement who fight for the interests of their members must be given every backing. But we cannot support those who seek to corral the working class into subordination to the existing system. The institutions of social democracy have failed to adequately challenge capitalism, and have even failed to defend their own achievements the post-war introduction of the welfare state and modest industrial reform. Indeed, their embracing of neo-liberalism in the 1990s made them complicit in the savaging of the welfare state. The pandemic exposes the illusory nature of systemic transformation through incremental social change.

8) Recognition of the need for, and the possibility of, replacing capitalism with a planned economy meeting the needs of the people and protecting humanity and the environment as a whole. To nationalise and take into public ownership all those companies whose functioning is essential to society the current state intervention must be developed and extended for the benefit of all in the post-virus world. To implement a full arms conversion programme not just for the period of the pandemic to produce to sustain and enrich life, not to bring death and destruction.

9) Recognition of the splintering of the forces of the left over many decades. The acceptance of the need to overcome this on the basis of a common understanding of the tasks necessary in the coming period to meet the challenges faced by humanity. The socialist movement must be radically re-articulated as a truly international undertaking that will work to resolve the crisis in the interests of the people. The convocation of a Zimmerwald conference which united the anti-war left in 1915 for our times, to unify all those prepared to fight for a fundamental change in society; who understand the necessity of renewing the lefts strategic and theoretical framework as well as going beyond its existing organisational forms.

10) Millions of people are developing their own ideas about how their lives should be lived in the future. They are no longer prepared to accept life as it once was. There is a general understanding that the provision of essential public services are a vital human need and express the essence of solidarity between peoples. All human beings have a right to health and welfare and a productive existence. The most urgent political task is to create a world that works in the interests of all the peoples of our planet. We refuse to look away from those condemned to poverty and starvation and disease. All the threats to humanity are global in character so our response must rise to that level too. There can be no return to life as normal: there is either the building of a new society or a descent into barbarism. The pandemic is a wake-up call to humanity. Let us build a new international movement. There is no going back.

Read more from the original source:
No Going Back The COVID-19 Pandemic Theses - prruk.org

A leading fertility specialist has said it is unlikely that IVF treatments will resume in Ireland before June.

Fertility clinics have been closed since the middle of last month leaving hundreds of patients in limbo.

Dr John Kennedy, Group Medical Director of Sims IVF, told RT's Morning Ireland that the cancellation of treatment was "awful", but that it was not possible to keep clinics open and maintain social distancing.

"You can take all the precautions with regard to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), but it is by no means perfect and if you have a good stockpile of PPE that should probably be in the hands of the general hospitals at this point," he said.

Around 6,000 IVF cycles are undertaken every year in Ireland.

"We generally would have (egg) transfers booked four to six weeks in advance so we had a full transfer list for April.

"That's four or five transfers a day, five days a week. We are having to cancel all of them on a rolling basis so the numbers are mounting up all the time," Dr Kennedy explained.

He said Sims, like other clinics around the country, are still carrying out video consultations and responding to patient queries. However, no clinical procedures are being undertaken.

The initial decision to stop treatment came following advice from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) on 15 March.

The ESHRE recommendation was based on concerns over the impact of Covid-19 on early pregnancy, however, many IVF patients felt their personal choice was being taken away.

Speaking to RT's Morning Ireland, awoman, who did not want to be named, said:"We have been treated like brood mares. I feel as though my rights, my liberty has been taken away.

"I do not have autonomy over my own body, my own reproductive system. It is abhorrent."

Dr Kennedy described the timeline for reopening clinics as the "million dollar question".

"My gut is telling me nothing good is going to happen in April, it is unlikely something will happen in May, but certainly after that if all the clinics are still closed really everything is going to start to struggle an awful lot."

Caitriona McPartlin, Chief Operating Officer of the ReproMed clinics in Dublin and Galway, said they were attempting to establish protocols to continue to treat patients.

"Once we know that we can open safely following the guidance of the Department of Health, we will do so," she said.

Dr Kennedy said that "in the fullness of time" clinics may have to "live with" additional risks.

"A lot of women that we have are on the clock and as months go by and people get older statistical chances of success drop and that's a terrible thing," he said.

Denise Phillips from Newbridge, Co Kildare, was just about to start a cycle of IVF when she was told the treatment could not proceed.

"It was a big shock because you mentally build yourself up so much that when somebody tells you that you can't go ahead it is just devastating. Beyond devastating."

Denise and her husband, Mark, have a five year-old daughter from a previous IVF treatment and had hoped to expand their family this year.

"I had an initial consultation and was going in to start my scans, get my medication and start our journey but then I got a phone call saying that all IVF cycles were postponed or cancelled.

"Obviously, the Government has to do things that are right, but it's awful for somebody to take away your chance after all that's already been taken from you. What happens if this is around for a long time?"

Denise said that fertility patients are suffering "huge anxiety".

"Their families don't know they are having treatment and they are in isolation. They don't want to leave the house in case they pick up something and then won't be able to get treatment once the clinics reopen. Everyone's mind is racing."

Once fertility services resume, there are concerns over a potential backlog of patients. However, Dr Kennedy said plans are being made to increase opening hours and treatment capacity.

He said: "We are retaining staff and holding on to people so when it comes time to hit the ground running we are in a position to do so.

"It is in everyone's interest to reopen. It will be all hands to the pump."

See original here:
Hundreds of patients affected by closure of IVF clinics - RTE.ie

Faith, safety, panic, control

With these uncertain times we saw a spate of panic buying. This got me wondering why humans would react in this way. My first thought was that it was the fear of the unknown. We had little to no information or knowledge of COVID-19, how it could be managed or treated effectively. The only information was on China's experience of the seriousness of COVID-19, its impact on communities and the death rate. With this in mind, and the clearing of essential goods on supermarket shelves, our animal instincts were triggered by what we had control over - protecting ourselves and family by making sure our food and medical reserves were stocked sufficiently when we were in isolation. We were faced with the unknown. The lack of certainty in terms of treatment for the virus as well as limited supplies of essential goods and protective equipment. Why is certainty important? Certainty is the amount of confidence attributed to particular knowledge; like available and effective medical treatment and the replenishing of stocks and supplies to meet demands in a timely manner. The need for certainty is part of the human search for order and security. But certainty is only certainty, as far as it can be. We are certain when we know something is true, and have no doubts. If the facts are unknown, validation is important to convince compliance, in other words 'seeing is believing'. Hence the gathering at the beaches and backyard parties in Bondi instead of practising social distancing. There are seven fundamental human needs and the seventh is subsistence. Maslow's hierarchy of human needs are survival, safety, security, self-care, structure and control. Survival needs include physiological needs such as food, water, air, breathing, excretion, reproduction, warmth, shelter, rest, sleep, homeostasis, etc. Safety and security needs include personal security, work, resources, property, and health. Self-care needs include things like leisure, entertainment, healthcare, etc. Subsistence includes everything needed to sustain life. Individuals also need control and structure their lives to make them feel safe and secure. According to research by Dr Lauren Leotti and her colleagues, "the need for control is a biological imperative for survival". Globally, COVID-19 is affecting our physical and psychological health and safety. People are losing their jobs, essential services are stretched with limited resources, and fatigue management is non-existent. With lockdown and indefinite isolation, humans may develop cabin fever and begin to feel stressed and anxious. To get through this outbreak, communication and connectivity is essential among colleagues. It provides support and unity in these times of isolation and uncertainty. Faith Eeson is a safety consultant with FOCCALE Safety Management

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/SZjBdCvXzdW4Ygt94axh3r/f65e6ef0-4127-44c6-a6f2-61e3052ef008.JPG/r0_183_1192_856_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

OPINION

April 6 2020 - 8:00PM

Faith Eeson

With these uncertain times we saw a spate of panic buying. This got me wondering why humans would react in this way.

My first thought was that it was the fear of the unknown. We had little to no information or knowledge of COVID-19, how it could be managed or treated effectively. The only information was on China's experience of the seriousness of COVID-19, its impact on communities and the death rate.

With this in mind, and the clearing of essential goods on supermarket shelves, our animal instincts were triggered by what we had control over - protecting ourselves and family by making sure our food and medical reserves were stocked sufficiently when we were in isolation.

We were faced with the unknown. The lack of certainty in terms of treatment for the virus as well as limited supplies of essential goods and protective equipment.

Why is certainty important?

Certainty is the amount of confidence attributed to particular knowledge; like available and effective medical treatment and the replenishing of stocks and supplies to meet demands in a timely manner. The need for certainty is part of the human search for order and security. But certainty is only certainty, as far as it can be. We are certain when we know something is true, and have no doubts. If the facts are unknown, validation is important to convince compliance, in other words 'seeing is believing'. Hence the gathering at the beaches and backyard parties in Bondi instead of practising social distancing.

There are seven fundamental human needs and the seventhissubsistence.

Maslow's hierarchy of human needs are survival, safety, security, self-care, structure and control. Survival needs include physiological needs such as food, water, air, breathing, excretion, reproduction, warmth, shelter, rest, sleep, homeostasis, etc. Safety and security needs include personal security, work, resources, property, and health. Self-care needs include things like leisure, entertainment, healthcare, etc. Subsistence includes everything needed to sustain life.

Individuals also need control and structure their lives to make them feel safe and secure.

According to research by Dr Lauren Leotti and her colleagues, "the need for control is a biological imperative for survival".

Globally, COVID-19 is affecting our physical and psychological health and safety. People are losing their jobs, essential services are stretched with limited resources, and fatigue management is non-existent.

With lockdown and indefinite isolation, humans may develop cabin fever and begin to feel stressed and anxious.

To get through this outbreak, communication and connectivity is essential among colleagues. It provides support and unity in these times of isolation and uncertainty.

Faith Eeson is a safety consultant with FOCCALE Safety Management

Read the original:
Opinion | Why panic buying highlights the human need for control and structure - Newcastle Herald

You may have seen a version of the infographic (below) that explains the potential impact of social distancing. It nicely illustrates that reducing the total number of disease-spreading contacts each infected person has can have a dramatic effect on the total number of infections a short time later. The numbers rely on the mathematical concept of exponential growth.

The total number of infected people reduces dramatically after 60 days with relatively small changes to the reproduction number of the disease. Christian Yates, Author provided

Recently, Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, told the press that it looks as though were now approaching the fast growth part of the upward curve. And without drastic action, cases could double every five or six days. The consistent doubling of cases in a fixed period is the hallmark of exponential growth.

The number of new infections that a single infectious individual will cause during their infectious period is known as the basic reproduction number of a disease. This number is key to determining how widespread a disease will become.

For COVID-19, early estimates of the basic reproduction number have it somewhere between 1.5 and 4. The infographic assumes a figure somewhere in the middle, at 2.5 infectious contacts per infectious individual.

If the reproduction number of a disease can be brought below one, then the spread will slow until the disease dies out. The revised infographic below shows the number of currently infected people. Reducing contact with others by 75% will bring the reproduction number below the critical level, allowing the number of infected people to decrease almost to zero in just two months.

The number of currently infected people after 60 days (assuming recovery after 10 days) changes with the reproduction number of the disease. Christian Yates, Author provided

However, the basic reproduction number of the current stage of the outbreak is way above one. This means that each newly infected person will pass on the disease to at least one more person, on average, and consequently the disease will take off exponentially.

But what, precisely, is exponential growth? The mathematical definition says that a quantity that increases with a rate proportional to its current size will grow exponentially. This means that as the quantity increases so does that rate at which it grows. The more infected people we have in the early stages of a disease outbreak, the more people they will infect and the more the cases will rise.

The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the UK is increasing exponentially. Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2020) Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Statistics and Research, CC BY

Other situations in which exponential growth plays a critical role range from pyramid schemes to nuclear weapons. In a pyramid scheme, each new investor invites two more recruits who in turn invite two more. This rapid growth, at a rate proportional to the current number of members, inevitably leads to a situation in which there arent enough new recruits to keep the scheme going and it eventually collapses. When the pyramid tumbles, most investors lose their money.

In a nuclear fission bomb, a single uranium atom splits in two, jettisoning fast-moving neutrons and large quantities of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The neutrons then collide with more atomic nuclei, splitting more atoms and releasing yet more energy in a nuclear chain reaction that increases exponentially.

At about 8:15 in the morning of August 6 1945, the atomic bomb known as the Little Boy detonated releasing energy equivalent to 30 million sticks of dynamite in an instant, devastating the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced nine days later. This is the awesome power of exponential growth.

Although the concept of exponential growth is not new in the public consciousness, a lot of misconceptions surround the idea. Exponential is often used as a byword for rapid or large. As a counterpoint, consider the money in your bank account. Provided the interest is compounded (that is, interest is added to your initial amount and earns interest itself) then the total amount of money in your account increases in proportion to its current size the hallmark of exponential growth.

As Benjamin Franklin put it: Money makes money, and the money that money makes, makes more money. If you could wait long enough, even the smallest investment would become a fortune. But dont lock up your rainy-day fund just yet. If you invested 100 at 1% per year it would take you over 900 years to become a millionaire. Very few people would accuse the exponential growth associated with their bank account of being large or rapid.

So exponential growth does not necessarily deal with big quantities, and it is not necessarily fast. Unfortunately, across a wide range of different countries, the term exponential is appropriate to describe the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. With cases doubling every three to four days in the UK and deaths doubling every two to three days, things could get ugly quickly.

One small crumb of comfort is that almost nothing can grow exponentially forever. The only exception, ironically, is the all-too-slow growth of money in your bank account, which, at least on paper, could grow indefinitely. Unfortunately, COVID-19 cases dont have to grow exponentially forever, or even for much longer, before the disease becomes one of the most devastating pandemics the world has ever seen.

Because the exponential proliferation of the disease is so undeniably dramatic, any changes we can make at this relatively early stage can make a huge difference even a few days down the line. Now is the time to act, to double down on our containment efforts to bring the exponential spread under control.

This article is republished from The ConversationbyChristian Yates, Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Biology, University of Bathunder a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Coronavirus is growing exponentially here's what the numbers mean - The Next Web

Study design

The present study is a retrospective cohort study (Trial registration: ChiCTR-OOC-14005389, 2014). In this study, 321 PCOS cases was conducted from October 2015 to April 2017 to assess the effect of short-term vitamin E administration on infertile PCOS women undergoing ovulation induction with CC and HMG in the Reproductive Medicine Center, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China. This retrospective cohort study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Department of Chinese Medicine Hospital of Jiangsu Province.

The inclusion criteria of this study were as follows: (i) Undergoing ovulation induction with CC and HMG; (ii) no previous infertile treatment; (iii) age less than 40 years; (iv) normal in hysterosalpingography; and (v) normal in semen analysis. The diagnostic criteria of PCOS was according to the 2006 Rotterdam criteria [17]: (1) Anovulation or olig-ovulation, (2) Clinical evidence of hyperandrogenism (on the basis of hirsutism or an elevated testosterone level), (3) Polycystic ovaries (a more than 10ml ovarian volume or at least 12 antral follicles with 29mm in diameter). PCOS could be confirmed if any 2 out of the following 3 criteria were met and if any other diseases that caused hyperandrogenism or anovulation could be excluded.

Other disorders that mimic the PCOS, including hyperprolactinemia, thyroid disease, late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia, androgen-secreting tumors and Cushings syndrome were ruled out. The PCOS patients with the major myocardial, liver and renal disorders, and taking confounding medications (primarily sex steroids, other infertility drugs, and insulin sensitizers) were excluded. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to the vitamin E used.

In this study, as shown in Fig. 1a, 110 of 321 PCOS cases underwent controlled ovarian stimulation but without vitamin E administration (Group A, n=110). Based on previous clinical medication experience, a dosage of 100mg/day vitamin was selected. Two-hundred eleven of or 321 PCOS cases underwent controlled ovarian stimulation combined with vitamin E administration (100mg/day, p.o.) started from follicular phase (Group B, n=105) and luteal phase (Group C, n=106), respectively. Administration of vitamin E in follicular phase(Group B) began from the 3rd day of the menstrual cycle to 14th day of luteal phase. Administration of vitamin E in luteal phase (Group C) started when ovulation was confirmed, and lasted for 14 consecutive days. After 14days of the HCG administration, serum -HCG was measured. The presence of a gestational sac on ultrasound was performed at 6 and 12weeks of gestational age to determine clinical pregnancy rate and ongoing pregnancy. The women enrolled in this study were followed up until miscarriage or delivery.

Summary of patient flow diagram a and Vitamin E administration and stimulation protocol b. EV=estradiol valerate; HCG=urinary human chorionic gonadotropin; Pg=progesterone;CC=clomiphene citrate;VE=vitamin E;TVU=Transvaginal ultrasonography; HMG=human menopausal gonadotropin

As shown in Fig. 1b, the ovulation was stimulated with CC (Merck Serano, China) at 100mg/day for 5days starting on day 3 of a spontaneous menstrual cycle or withdrawal bleeding. Starting from day 8, HMG (Livzon, China) was injected at 75IU every second day and estradiol valerate (Progynova, Bayer, China) was administered at 2mg/day. Transvaginal ultrasonography was performed from day 10 to adjust the HMG dosage. When at least one follicle had reached a diameter of 18mm, 10,000IU urinary human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) (Livzon, China) was administered. All patients received luteal phase support by oral administration of progesterone (Dydrogesterone, Abbott Biologicals B.V, China) at 10mg three time a day for 14days starting on the day of ovulation. In each cycle, medroxyprogesterone acetate was used to induce withdrawal bleeding in cases in which there was no response. The complete participation considered as pregnancy or anovulation within a total of 6 cycles.

Body mass index (BMI) was used to evaluate the body weight. According to World Health Organization(WHO) criteria [18], women with a BMI <18.5, 18.525, 2529 and30kg/m2 were defined as underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese, respectively. Scores on the modified FerrimanGallwey scale [19], range from 0 to 36, were used for hirsutism evaluation. Higher scores indicated a greater degree of hirsutism.

Age, height, weight, waist, FerrimanGallwey hirsutism score, age of menarche, incidence of oligomenorrhea and amenorrhea, numbers of previous pregnancies and previous ovarian were obtained from patient medical records.

Levels of estradiol (E2), androstenedione (T), luteinizing hormone (LH), prolactine (PRL) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) were tested by RIA (Beijing North Institute of Biological Technology of China and the CIS Company of France). Peripheral blood samples were taken on the 3th day of menstrual cycle after overnight fasting.

In this study, we measured four oxidative stress serum markers (malondialdehyde (MDA), ischemia modified albumin (IMA), total antioxidant capacity measurements (TAC), and vitamin E) in 3 time points (T0:before stimulation, T1: the day of HCG treatment, and T2: the day of complete participation) to evaluate the levels of oxidative stress. Serum levels of MAD, an end-product formed during lipid peroxidation that is released into the extracellular space and finally appears in the blood [20], were measured using a thiobarbituric acid-reactive commercial kit (Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, China). Serum TAC, provided better information on antioxidant status than individual antioxidant compounds [21], were tested using an antioxidant assay kit (Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, China). Serum levels of IMA, a novel marker of oxidative stress, were evaluated by cobalt to albumin binding capacity kit (CUSABIO, China). Serum contents of vitamin E were evaluated by colorimetric method using assay kit (Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute, China).

Statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS (version 23, USA). Data were presented as either median (Min-Max) or meanSD as appropriate. Quantitative data analyses were carried out by independent samples t-test or Mann-Whitney U-test depending on the normality of data. Categorical variables were compared with Chi-Square test. A P value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

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Effect of a short-term vitamin E supplementation on oxidative stress in infertile PCOS women under ovulation induction: a retrospective cohort study -...

CU Boulder will lead a groundbreaking new international research network dubbed Odor2Action starting this fall. The work is aimed at understanding how animals use information from odors in their environment to guide behavior, with far-ranging implications for our understanding of the human brain.

The network was announced Monday as part of the Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) Program. Over the next five years, CU Boulder will be leading 16 scientists from 16 prestigious institutions around the world to better understand the brain and its evolution by reverse-engineering how it interprets odors. The project is funded by a $20.2 million award from the National Science Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the UK Research and Innovation Medical Research Council.

The network will examine all the steps involved in how an odor stimulus gets encoded by the brain and then activates the motor circuits to produce a behavioral response in an animal. The model species they will work with to do this, like fruit flies and mice, will make headway in understanding these same steps in humans.

Theres a lot of engineering involved in understanding what odors look like.In John Crimaldi's lab, he and his colleagues use lasers to track them. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa, CU Boulder)

The chemical sensing process (i.e. smell) evolved in the very earliest life forms on Earth, said John Crimaldi, lead principal investigator on the network and professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at CU. The idea here is that all brain evolution has taken place in the presence of chemical sensing. And so it's thought to be a primal portal from which to view brain function.

While Crimaldi and CU Boulder have previously received significant awards to research how animals find the source of an odor, this project is much broader and aims to understand the whole brain and the mechanism that goes into a behavioral response to smelling something.

Crimaldi said smell is the least understood sense and that humans have struggled to replicate odor-based searches with machines. Doing so, however, would allow robots to take over treacherous duties instead of humans or dogs, unlocking a new area of advancement for autonomous systems. These robots could one day rescue a person buried in an avalanche, locate valuable natural resources, or find chemical weapons and explosives on their own, for example.

Keith Molenaar, interim dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, said the network was truly a special project and among the largest the college had ever been involved in. He said the work would result in transformational research around our understanding of the brain that could also lead to cures for diseases that connect to our sense of smellor even understanding why loss of smell is a symptom of some diseases like COVID-19 among many other areas and across many different fields.

The fact that an engineer, Professor John Crimaldi, is leading a group of neuroscientists, mathematicians and biologists, speaks to the truly interdisciplinary nature of the research, Molenaar said.

The network is composed of three interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs) that form a loop in animal sensing and behavior. The first is focused on theoretical mathematics and mapping to better understand how the characteristics of smells are encoded in the brain. The second builds on this and will determine how the encoded odors produce a behavioral response. The third group will investigate how this behavioral response alters the animals perception of the odor it is sensing.

As an engineer, Crimaldi said he never expected to end up working in neuroscience but it turns out theres a lot of engineering involved in understanding what odors look like. He currently studies fluid mechanics from a theoretical perspective; using lasers in a non-intrusive way to measure flowslike odorsthrough air and liquids. Hes looked at everything from why coral reproduction underwater is successful to how animals can tell where a smell is coming from.

Life forms have evolved to take advantage of specific opportunities and constraints that are imposed by their physical environment, Crimaldi said. I like to say we don't just use physics to understand biology or ecology, or the brain. We also use evolutionary processes that have evolved in animals to help us understand details of what's going on in the physical world.

Partners include Caltech, Penn State University, Duke University, Salk Institute, University of Utah, University of Pittsburgh, NYU School of Medicine, McGill University, Scripps Research, Arizona State University, Francis Crick Institute, University of Hertfordshire, Yale University and Weill Cornell.

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Only the nose knows: New international network explores how odors lead to actions - CU Boulder Today

Prosocial behavior is paradoxical because it often entails a cost to ones own welfare to benefit others. Theoretical models suggest that prosociality is driven by several forms of reciprocity. Although we know a great deal about how each of these forms operates in isolation, they are rarely isolated in the real world. Rather, the topological features of human social networks are such that people are often confronted with multiple types of reciprocity simultaneously. Does our current understanding of human prosociality break down if we account for the fact that the various forms of reciprocity tend to co-occur in nature? Results of a large experiment show that each basis of human reciprocity is remarkably robust to the presence of other bases. This lends strong support to existing models of prosociality and puts theory and research on firmer ground in explaining the high levels of prosociality observed in human social networks.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

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The robustness of reciprocity: Experimental evidence that each form of reciprocity is robust to the presence of other forms of reciprocity - Science...

Credit: Pixabay.

One of the most easily recognizable features of sexual dimorphism in humans is the fact that males grow beards whereas women dont. But what is the point of having a beard in the first place, evolutionary-speaking?

Whenever there are important physiological differences between males and females of a species, these features are more often than not due to the evolutionary pressure of sexual selection the process that favors traits that promote mating opportunities.

Charles Darwin proposed the concept of sexual selection 150 years ago in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, but his definitive work on sexual selection was undoubtedly covered in ones of his lesser-known works: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, which was published in 1871. Although Darwin wrote extensively about sexual selection and offered ample evidence to support his thesis, this simple quote from the book illustrates the concept quite clearly:

We are, however, here concerned only with that kind of selection, which I have called sexual selection. This depends on the advantage which certain individuals have over other individuals of the same sex and species, in exclusive relation to reproduction.

Essentially, Darwin argued that sexual selection drove variation in traits such as skin and hair color, and also shaped many differences between men and women. According to Darwin, such traits help, not with the struggle for survival (natural selection), but with the struggle for reproduction.

However, determining the effects of sexual selection in humans is very tricky because our behavior is also largely driven by culture. It may be difficult to identify a human complex behavior that is completely independent of culture or social learning. For instance, we dress in fashionable clothes to attract the opposite sex and fashion always changes with the times and varies depending on the geographical location. Footbinding in ancient China and neck rings in the Kayan are some extreme examples of such behavior.

So what does all of this have to do with beards? Being a defining feature of men, it stands to reason that beards evolved to attract mates. However, studies have been rather inconclusive in this respect.

One 2013 study found that women judged faces with heavy stubble as most attractive and heavy beards, light stubble and clean-shaven faces as similarly less attractive. However, a 1996 study reached the opposite conclusion, finding that men with facial hair were perceived as more aggressive, less appeasing, less attractive, older, and lower on social maturity than clean-shaven faces.

To complicate things even further, research suggests that in times when beards are fashionable, being clean-shaven is more attractive, while if there are many clean-shaven men, beards become more attractive simply by contrast.

Some women really like beards, while others cant stand them. Theres no universal preference for beards across the board.

The lack of consistent evidence and the fact that most studies are performed with Westerner participants makes a poor case that mens beards serve to attract females. However, were not out of sexual selection territory yet.

Traits favored by sexual selection do not necessarily serve to attract, they can also improve reproductive outcomes by making men appear more dominant, hence more able to fend off competition for mates.

Studies suggest that men with beards are perceived as older, stronger, and more aggressive than those that are clear-shaven.

One interesting study that assessed British facial hair styles between 1842 and 1971 found that beards and moustaches became more fashionable during times when there was a great proportion of single men competing for fewer women.

A 2015 study, which was published in the journal Behavioral Ecology, found that perceptions of mens dominance increased with features of masculinity (lower-pitched voices and greater beard growth). Beards didnt appear to affect a mans attractiveness rating.

Together, these results suggest that the optimal level of physical masculinity might differ depending on whether the outcome is social dominance or mate attraction. These dual selection pressures might maintain some of the documented variability in male physical and behavioral masculinity that we see today, the authors wrote.

Aside from enhancing traits of dominance (and providing the perfect breeding grounds for bacteria and other germs), beards may also serve a very practical purpose.

A recent study, which was published in April 2020 in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology, suggests that growing a thick beard offers protection for the human jaw from the impact of blunt force.

Previous research suggested that human hands evolved to be used as weapons and the human face is naturally developed to withstand blunt force.

The new study suggests that the beard can also offer men an edge during physical confrontations with other males. The researchers covered a human skull with fiber epoxy composite and grafted a beard made of untrimmed sheepskin.

Their trials found that the faux beard absorbed 37% more energy than hairless models. Whats more, beard-covered skulls broke bones only 45% of the time, compared to hair-free skulls that broke almost all of the time.

These differences were due in part to a longer time frame of force delivery in the furred samples. These data support the hypothesis that human beards protect vulnerable regions of the facial skeleton from damaging strikes, the authors wrote.

Bottom line: its highly unlikely that beards are some fluke of evolution. Instead, theyre likely the result of evolutionary pressures meant to enforce dominance hierarchies, perhaps enabling some men to intimidate competitors for mates. They may also aid in physical confrontations with other men by softening the impact of blunt force. In the end, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for you), there is limited evidence that beards make men more attractive.

More here:
Why do men have beards? An inquiry from an evolutionary biology perspective - ZME Science

Diseases have plagued mankind throughout history. The Neolithic Revolution, which was marked by a shift to agrarian societies, preceded by hunting and gathering communities, brought about increased trading activities. The shift created new opportunities for increased human and animal interactions, which in turn, introduced and sped up the spread of new diseases. The more civilized humans became, the more the occurrences of pandemics was witnessed.

This led to outbreaks that left an indelible mark in history due to their severity. Three of the deadliest pandemics include the Plague of Justinian (541-542 BC) that killed about 30-50 million people, Black Death (1347-1351) that killed 200 million and Smallpox (1520 onwards) that killed 56 million.

Infographic courtesy: Visual Capitalist

In modern history, the most notable major pandemic was the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919. Over a century later, the world is grappling with the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has currently infected over 2 million people and killed over 140,000.

But how does the Spanish flu compare to the current COVID-19 pandemic?

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is sometimes referred to as the mother of all pandemics. It affected one-third of the worlds population and killed up to 50 million people, including some 675,000 Americans. It was the first known pandemic to involve the H1N1 virus.

The outbreak occurred during the final months of World War I. It came in several waves but its origin, however, is still a matter of debate to-date. Its name doesnt necessarily mean it came from Spain.

An emergency hospital during Spanish flu influenza pandemic, Camp Funston, Kansas, c. 1918 Image Courtesy: National Museum of Health and Medicine

Spain was one of the earliest countries where the epidemic was identified. Historians believe this was likely a result of wartime media censorship. The country was a neutral nation during the war and did not enforce strict censorship on its press. This freedom of the press allowed them to freely publish early accounts of the illness. As a result, people falsely believed the illness was specific to Spain and hence earning the name Spanish flu.

Influenza or flu is a virus that attacks the respiratory system and is highly contagious.

Initial symptoms of the Spanish flu included a sore head and tiredness, followed by a dry hacking cough, loss of appetite, stomach problems and excessive sweating. As it progressed, the illness could affect the respiratory organs, andpneumonia could develop. This stage was often the main cause of death. This also explains why it is difficult to determine exact numbers killed by the flu, as the listed cause of death was often something other than the flu.

Thesesymptomsare very similar to those of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

For decades, the Spanish flu virus was lost to history and scientists still do not know for sure where the virus originated. Several theories as to what may have caused it point to France, the United States or China.

Research published in 1999 by a British team, led by virologist John Oxford theorized a major United Kingdom staging and hospital camp in taples, France as being the centre of the flu. In late 1917, military pathologists reported the onset of a new disease with high mortality in the overcrowded camp that they later recognized as the flu. The camp was also home to a piggery, and poultry was regularly brought for food from neighbouring villages. Oxford and his team theorized that a significant precursor virus harboured in birds, mutated and then migrated to the pigs.

Other statements have been that the flu originated from the United States, in Kansas. In 2018, another study found evidence against the flu originating from Kansas, as the cases and deaths there were fewer than those in New York City in the same period. The study did, however, find evidence suggesting that the virus may have been of North American Origin, though it wasnt conclusive.

Multiple studies have placed the origin of the flu in China. The country had lower rates of flu mortality, which may have been due to an already acquired immunity possessed by the population. The argument was that the virus was imported to Europe via infected Chinese and Southeast Asian soldiers and workers headed across the Atlantic.

However, the Chinese Medical Association Journal published a report in 2016 with evidence that the 1918 virus had been circulating in the European armies for months and possibly years before the Spanish flu pandemic.

COVID-19, on the other hand, was first discovered in the Wuhan province of China late last year. There has been no argument against this so far. Research is still ongoing as to whether it was passed on from bats or the newly found connection to pangolins.

Much like COVID-19, the Spanish flu was spread from through air droplets, when an infected person sneezed or coughed, releasing more than half a million-virus particles that came into contact with uninfected people.

The close quarters and massive troop movements during the war hastened the spread of the flu. There are speculations that the soldiers already weakened immune systems were increasingly made vulnerable due to malnourishment and the stresses of combat and chemical attacks. More U.S soldiers in WW1 died from the flu than from the war.

A unique characteristic of the virus was the high death rate it caused among healthy adults 15-34 years of age. It lowered the average life expectancy in the U.S by more than 12 years.

COVID-19, on the other hand, does not discriminate in terms of age, but older people and those with other underlying medical conditions are being considered more vulnerable.

The measures being taken today to curb the spread of COVID-19 are very similar to those taken in 1918. Back then, physicians advised people to avoid crowded places and shaking hands with other people. Others suggested remedies included eating cinnamon, drinking wine and drinking Oxos beef broth. They also told people to keep their mouths and noses covered with masks in public.

Image courtesy: National Museum of Health and Medicine

In other areas quarantines were imposed and public places such as schools, theatres and churches were closed. Libraries stopped lending books and strict sanitary measures were passed to make spitting in the streets illegal.

Due to World War I, there was a shortage of doctors in some areas. Many of the physicians who were left became ill themselves. Schools and other buildings were turned into makeshift hospitals, where medical students had to step up to help the overwhelmed physicians.

Though the severity of COVID-19 has not gotten to the level of the Spanish flu, most of the effects the world is experiencing now are very relatable.

The Spanish flu killed with reckless abandon, leaving bodies piled up to such an extent that funeral parlours and cemeteries were overwhelmed. Family members were left to dig graves for their deceased loved ones. Strained state and local health centres also closed, hampering efforts to chronicle the spread of the flu and provide much-needed information to the public. Similar scenes are being witnessed in Italy today, which has so far recorded the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19.

The Spanish flu also adversely affected the economy as the deaths created a shortage of farmworkers, which in turn affected the summer harvest. A lack of staff and resources put other basic services such as waste collection and mail delivery under pressure. COVID-19 has seen some companies send their employees home on unpaid leave and others have imposed pay cuts. If the situation worsens, a majority is likely to lose their jobs.

Fake news during this time was also a problem. Even as people were dying, there were attempts to make money by advertising fake cures to desperate victims. On June 28, 1918, a public notice appeared in the British papers advising people of the symptoms of the flu. It however turned out this was actually an advertisement for Formamints, a tablet made and sold by a vitamin company. The advert stated that the mints were the best means of preventing the infective processes and that everyone, including children, should suck four or five of these tablets a day until they felt better.

Image courtesy: ICDS

Fake news has been a concern since the outbreak of COVID-19, with the Internet making it even easier to spread it. See some of our fact checks on the subjecthere.

The deadliness of WW1 coupled with censorship of the press and poor record-keeping made tracking and reporting on the virus very tedious. This explains why the flu remains of interest to date as some questions are yet to be answered. In contrast, Media coverage on COVID-19 has been commendable and very useful to the public in providing much-needed answers.

When the Spanish flu hit, medical technology and countermeasures were limited or non-existent at the time. No diagnostic tests or influenza vaccines existed. The federal government also lacked a centralized role in helping to plan and initiate interventions during the pandemic.

Many doctors prescribed medication that they felt would be effective in alleviating symptoms, including aspirin. Patients were advised to take up to 30 grams per day, a dose now known to be toxic. It is now believed that some of the deaths were actually caused or hastened by aspirin poisoning.

The first licensed flu vaccine appeared in America in the 1940s and from there on, manufacturers could routinely produce vaccines that would help control and prevent future pandemics.

Fast forward to 2020; clinical trials of COVID-19 treatments/vaccines are either ongoing or recruiting patients. The drugs being tested range from repurposed flu treatments to failed Ebola drugs, blood pressure drug (Losartan), an immunosuppressant (Actemra- an arthritis drug) and malaria treatments developed decades ago.

An antiviral drug called Favipiravir or Avigan, developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in Japan is showing promising outcomes in treating at least mild to moderate cases of COVID-19.

As of now, doctors are using available drugs and health support systems such us ventilators to alleviate symptoms. There have been over 500,000 recoveries so far.

Doctors in China, South Korea, France and the U.S. have been using Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine on some patients with promising results. The FDA is organizing a formal clinical trial of the drug, which has already been approved for the treatment of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

The mistakes and delays in taking quick action we are experiencing today with COVID-19 are not new. In the summer of 1918, a second wave of the Spanish flu returned to the American shores as infected soldiers came back home. With no vaccine available, it was the responsibility of the local authorities to come up with plans to protect the public, at a time when they were under pressure to appear patriotic and with a censored media downplaying the diseases spread.

Some bad decisions were made in the process. In Philadelphia for instance, the response came in too little too late. The then director of Public Health and Charities for the city, Dr Wilmer Krusen, insisted that the increasing fatalities were not the Spanish flu but the normal flu. This left 15,000 dead and another 200,000 sick. Only then did the city close down public places.

The pandemic came to an end by the end of the summer of 1919. Those who were infected either died or developed immunity. The world has experienced other flu outbreaks since then but none as deadly as the Spanish flu.

The Asian flu (H2N2), first Identified in China from 1957-1958, killed around 2 million people worldwide. The Hong Kong (H3N2), first detected in Hong Kong, from 1968-1969, killed about 1 million people. Between 1997-2003, Bird flu (H5N1), first detected in Hong Kong, killed over 300 people. More recently in 2009-2010, the Swine flu (H1N1), which originated from Mexico, killed over 18,000 people.

The worlds population has increased from 1.8 billion to 7.7 billion since 1918. Animals alike, which are used for food, have also increased significantly, giving room for more hosts for novel flu viruses to infect people. Transport systems have gotten better making global movement of people and goods much easier and faster, further widening the spread of viruses to other geographical regions.

Even though considerable medical, technological and societal advancements have been made since 1918, the best defence against the current pandemic continues to be the development of vaccine or herd immunity. The biggest challenge, however, is the time required to manufacture a new vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, it generally takes about 20 weeks to select and manufacture a new vaccine.

Dr Eddy Okoth Odari, a senior lecturer and researcher of Medical Virology in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology breaks it down as follows:

It is anticipated that herd immunity would protect the vulnerable groups. We must, however, appreciate that natural herd immunity may only occur when a sizeable number of the population gets infected. I note with concern that we may not know and should not gamble with the immunity or health of our populations. This would then call for an induced herd immunity through vaccination. Therefore as at now, we must increase our efforts in developing an effective vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) published instructions for countries to use in developing their own national pandemic plans, as well as a checklist for pandemic influenza risk and impact management. But even with all these plans, there are still loopholes that could still be devastating in the face of a pandemic, as we are currently witnessing.

Healthcare systems are getting overwhelmed and some hospitals and doctors are struggling to meet the demand from the number of patients requiring care. The manufacture and distribution of medications, products and life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators, masks and gloves have also significantly increased, seeing as there is already a shortage being experienced. Dr Okoth has a good explanation for this:

Translation of research findings into proper policies has been slow since policy formulators have insisted on evidence. For example, as early as March 2019, publications had hinted into a possibility of a virus crossing over from bats to human populations in China, but unfortunately, there was no proper preparedness and if any, perhaps the magnitude of this potential infection was underestimated. Finally, the geopolitical wars and political inclinations among the superpowers are not helping much in the war against infectious diseases. When the pandemic started it was viewed as a Chinese problem, in fact, other nations insisted in it being called a Chinese virus or Wuhan virus. Even with clear evidence that the virus would spread outside China, the WHO (perhaps to appear neutral) insisted that China was containing the virus and delayed in declaring this a pandemic the net result of this was that other countries became reluctant in upscaling their public health measures, yet other countries seem to have been keen not to be on the bad books of China.

There is no telling how long the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will go on for or when and how it will end, but global preparation for pandemics clearly still warrant improvement as Dr Okoth advises.

Perhaps the lessons that we learn here is that diseases will not need permission to cross borders and since the world has become a global village, there should be proper investments in global health and scientific research.

This article was originally published by Africa Uncensored. Graphics by Clement Kumalija.

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