Denisovans are a mysterious group of our ancient relatives, unknown until a decade ago, who lived alongside Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. The hominin species is thought to have ranged from Siberia to Indonesia, and many places in between (although some researchers believe the Denisovans could actually be multiple species or groups). When these curious human cousins vanished, they left behind surviving bits of their DNA in living Melanesian and East Asian people, but not much else. So far, the only known Denisovan fossils include just a few teeth, a finger bone and a small fragment from a Russian cave, and a partial jaw found on the Tibetan Plateau.

Yet today its possible to stare into a Denisovan face for the first time thanks to a striking reconstruction created by some genetic detective work. Scientists used patterns of gene expression mined from ancient Denisovan DNA, which was extracted from a 100,000-year-old pinkie finger, to reconstruct the physical characteristics of a Denisovan face and skulleven though such a fossil has never been found.

Geneticist Liran Carmel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said other groups have worked to map anatomical features from the information hidden in our DNA. But his team took a different approach, outlined in a study published today in Cell.

We didnt rely on the DNA sequence per se, Carmel says. But from the sequence we used a technique which allows you to reconstruct gene activity patterns in these ancient individuals so we can compare the way the genes work in the different human groups.

The addition of methyl groups to DNA, or molecules derived from methane, impacts the ways genes activate and express themselves, in turn determining what physiological traits those genes produce. Carmels group mapped these methylation patterns to recreate the likeness of a young female Denisovan, which the pinky bone belonged to. Evolutionarily speaking, its well known that many anatomical or physiological differences between closely related groups are attributed to changes in gene activity patterns. This is exactly what we can find using our technique, Carmel says.

Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum, London, who was unaffiliated with the study said via email that the reconstruction of Denisovan anatomy is a pioneering piece of research, which at first glance seems almost like science fiction. This is exciting work, pushing the boundaries of what can be gleaned from ancient genomes.

The techniquemapping methylation patterns in DNA to determine gene expression and anatomyis still fairly new. The research relies on a complex chain of extrapolations, Stringer says. It cannot show us with perfect accuracy what a Denisovan looked like, but earlier research of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA suggested methylation changes could be used to explain anatomical differences. For the new study, when Carmel and colleagues tested their technique against known Neanderthal and chimpanzee anatomy, they found a close match.

Using these types of epigenetic techniques to predict the traits of living humans is still difficult, so applying it to the ancient DNA of an extinct hominin species has its limitations. Denisovans, a little-known hominin group that may be comprised of at least three different lineages, were uncovered a decade ago with a bare handful of tooth and bone fragments found in a cave called Denisova in Siberias Altai Mountains. They were the first human group to be named by DNA evidence, as only genetics revealed that the fossil fragments were from people distinct from Neanderthals. Like Neanderthals, they likely descended from an ancestral population that branched off from our own modern human family tree between 520,000 and 630,000 years ago.

But the branches of that tree continued to intertwine for many thousands of years. DNA reveals that modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans interbredperhaps more frequently than we might imagine. These ancient interspecies liaisons made headlines last year when a 90,000-year-old female found in a Siberian cave turned out to be the first generation hybrid offspring of a Neanderthal mother and Denisovan dad.

Carmel and colleagues mapped out Denisovan, Neanderthal and human DNA to find regions where methylation patterns differed. They then looked at modern disorders that impact the function of those same genes to try to find out what kinds of anatomical changes the ancient pattern variations might have caused. For this they employed the Human Phenotype Ontology database, which charts the genetic underlies of some 4,000 human disorders, and has produced a catalog of more than 100,000 gene-phenotype associations.

Basically, from the DNA sequence, we infer which genes have changed their activity level across the human groups and from this we make inferences about changes in anatomy, Carmel says.

By this method the team was able to reconstruct what a complete Denisovan skull and face might have looked like. They then put the method and its reconstruction predictions to the test, despite the lack of a Denisovan skull that could show how accurately the DNA evidence predicted various features of its anatomy in their reconstruction.

We tested the approach by pretending that we dont know what a Neanderthal or a chimpanzee looks like. So we reconstructed their anatomy and then compared the results to what is known.

As it turned out, real-world Neanderthal and chimpanzee fossils showed that 85 percent of the trait reconstructions accurately predicted anatomical features, like a shorter or longer section of jawbone.

While the completed study was under peer review, an incredible opportunity arosethe discovery of an actual Denisovan jaw. The 160,000-year-old jawbone was found high on the Tibetan Plateau and identified as Denisovan through the analysis of proteins preserved in the teeth. Carmel and colleagues had a chance to check their work against an actual Denisovan fossil.

This was very exciting for us, Carmel says. When we submitted the paper to Cell we only had a few teeth and a finger bone to compare to our predictions. We immediately went to check how it compared to our predictions. And we find a beautiful match, so this was very reassuring for us.

Stringer agreed that the method has produced some intriguing matches with the fossil record, though it didnt always hit the mark. The results suggest that Denisovans should have features such as a low braincase, a wide pelvis and large joint surfaces and ribcage. Of course, our knowledge of real Denisovan anatomy is very limited, but features such as a long and robust jaw (from the Xiahe mandible), and a flattened and broad braincase (from the only known skull fragment) do seem to match the methods predictions, he says via email. Stringer noted that other characteristics, like thicker enamel and broader fingertips compared with modern humans, didnt match as well.

More Denisovan fossils could not only flesh out what the skulls and faces looked like, but further refine the predictive abilities of DNA methylation patterns.

There are skulls and partial skeletons from Chinese sites such as Jinniushan, Dali, Harbin and Xuchang that might also represent Denisovans, although we dont yet have their DNA or ancient proteins to test this, Stringer says.

If the skulls found in China are Denisovan, they would support the predictions in features like strong brows, wide skulls and a wide pelvis, but their faces would not project Neanderthal-style as the methylation prediction would suggest. Further muddying the waters is growing evidence from both modern and ancient DNA suggesting that the hominins currently dubbed Denisovan may well be a very diverse group that stretched across Asia.

In reality, their anatomy is likely to have shown substantial variation through space and time, Stringer says.

As genetic reconstructions improve, and additional fossils are found to check the predictions, this research could reveal what many early humans looked like. Scientists might even be able to produce an entire gallery of ancient faces, painting a family portrait of long-vanished relatives we could previously only imagine.

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Scientists Recreate the Face of a Denisovan Using DNA - Smithsonian

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

I'm a man and I will beat up anybody who tries to tell me I'm not a man just because my hair is thinning.

Actor Bruce Willis

Like me, many of you have seen TV ads for regrowth systems and treatments for thinning hair. I'm not talking about those who go through cancer treatments and lose their hair. These ads target people who lose hair or get thin on top due to aging or genetics or both.

These ads feature glowing reports from men about how much more masculine they feel after using the system. Or they feature the "before" guys who sadly say things like, "I didn't want my wife to leave me." Men have been made to feel less manly if they don't sport a thick head of hair.

It's often called male pattern hair loss but I've also heard male pattern baldness. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, it's the most common type of hair loss in men and is related to genes and the male sex hormone. It usually follows a pattern of receding hair and thinning on the crown.

Each strand of hair emerges from a tiny hole or cavity in the skin called a follicle. Baldness occurs when the hair follicle shrinks over time, resulting in shorter and finer hair. Eventually the follicle does not grow new hair.

But on the flip side, many women struggle with thinning hair, too. I reached out with questions to the University of Arkansas for Medical Science and got answers from Dr. Lauren Gibson, the chief resident who works in the department of family and preventative medicine.

Gibson says that, yes, there is also female pattern hair loss. While men tend to lose hair in a widow's peak receding pattern, women tend to lose in the front, center part of the scalp close to the forehead, the area known as "the bald spot."

Female hair loss can occur any time after puberty, but more often it happens after menopause. Because it's not as common as in men, there is not a significant amount of research or a consensus about what causes it.

There are many potential causes of hair thinning and loss aside from menopause.

The most common cause is telogen effluvium. It can be caused by diabetes, thyroid disorders, auto-immune diseases, nutritional deficiencies in calories, proteins, vitamins or minerals, smoking tobacco, excessive alcohol, illicit drug use and some medications.

Gibson says telogen effluvium can also be caused by acute or chronic major illness, major surgery, childbirth, rapid weight loss, severe emotional stress, skin infections of the scalp and inflammatory conditions of the scalp.

But this is not an exhaustive list, there are many other causes. I get the impression that this type of hair loss can possibly go away or slow down.

According to The North American Menopause Society, thinning hair happens to about half of all women by age 50, while up to 15% of women begin to experience hair growth on their chins, upper lips or cheeks after menopause.

Hair changes are common during the menopause transition and post menopause. Many factors, including hormonal changes, genetic predisposition and stress, can contribute to midlife hair changes. Along with telogen effluvium, there is also something known as androgenetic alopecia. "Alopecia" means baldness, but it does not have to be complete hair loss. It is seen as hair thinning predominantly over the top and front of the head, affects approximately one-third of all susceptible women and is most commonly seen after menopause.

It has been said that the increased ratio of androgen to estrogen during the midlife transition can influence hair changes.

There are treatments. Topical minoxidil is an FDA-approved, once-daily treatment found in most over-the-counter hair regrowth shampoos.

For those whose hair loss may be caused by underlying illness or other problems, treatment of the problem is the first line of defense.

The bottom line, Gibson says, is that if a woman is concerned by hair loss, she should talk to her doctor first. Together they can evaluate the pattern, gather a history and perform a physical exam, and if needed, evaluate for any underlying causes.

Email me at:

rboggs@arkansasonline.com

Style on 09/23/2019

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PRACTICALLY ACTIVE: Failing follicles? That's a hairy subject - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

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Four wolves were released at Isle Royale National Park in September/NPS, Phyllis Green

Four wolves were moved to Isle Royale National Park in September to bolster the island's predator population, but one died shortly thereafter.

The wolves were moved to the park on September 13 fromMichigans Upper Peninsula. One of the wolve's collars issued a mortality signal last weekend, and biologists located the animal's carcass on Tuesday. The body was to be sent to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, for necropsy.

The surviving wolves included two males and a female. Theybolstered the island wolf population to 17, which now includes nine males and eight females.

Capture, anesthesia, and translocation are stressful events for wolves and the impact of that stress on each individual wolf is unknown, Isle Royale Park Superintendent Phyllis Green said of the dead wolf. There is a field examination, however, underlying health conditions of wolves prior to their capture are difficult to determine. The analysis of the samples collected during the examination and the necropsy may reveal more information about the cause of death, which will inform future transfers.

The National Park Service worked closely with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Department of Agriculture APHIS Wildlife Services (APHIS Wildlife Services), and the State University of New York-College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry on the project.

Three of the four wolves released at Isle Royale National Park in September survived/NPS, Phyllis Green

From September 5 13, seven wolves were captured; three of those not meeting translocation criteria were immediately released. The four adults were examined, documented, tagged, and fitted with tracking collars before being flown to the park on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service airplane.

Adding genetics from Michigan wolves was a key piece of the puzzle to provide the best opportunity for genetic diversity that supports the sustainability of the introduced population. The Michigan DNR, APHIS - Wildlife Services, and SUNY-ESF did an outstanding job, given the weather, Green said. Our focus now will be on broad population goals and the opportunity these Michigan wolves represent. We will continue to learn what we can and track how the wolves integrate into the island landscape.

The three to five year effort to establish 20-30 wolves on Isle Royale is being completed in order to restore predation as a key part of the island ecosystem. Researchers involved in the planning effort recommended this number of wolves from the Great Lakes region. Additionally, they recommended an equal number of males and females in order to establish genetic variability in the new population. The NPS and its partners will monitor the wolf population to determine evidence of social organization, reproduction and predation.

More:
Four More Wolves Moved To Isle Royale, One Dies Shortly Thereafter - National Parks Traveler

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) - The Isle Royale fall wolf translocation project concluded on September 13 after successfully moving three wolves from Michigans Upper Peninsula to the park.

The new wolves, two males and one female, bolstered the total island wolf population to 17, which now includes nine males and eight females.

A fourth wolf was moved to the park on September 13, but its collar sent out a mortality signal over the weekend. Biologists from the National Park Service (NPS) and State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) located the wolf and confirmed the mortality late on Tuesday afternoon. The carcass of the wolf will be sent to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, for necropsy.

Capture, anesthesia, and translocation are stressful events for wolves and the impact of that stress on each individual wolf is unknown, Isle Royale Park Superintendent Phyllis Green noted. There is a field examination, however underlying health conditions of wolves prior to their capture are difficult to determine. The analysis of the samples collected during the examination and the necropsy may reveal more information about the cause of death, which will inform future transfers.

The NPS worked closely with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), US Department of Agriculture APHIS Wildlife Services (APHIS Wildlife Services), and SUNY-ESF on the project. From September 513, seven wolves were captured; three of those not meeting translocation criteria were immediately released.

The four adults were examined, documented, tagged and fitted with tracking collars before being flown to the park on a US Fish and Wildlife Service airplane.

Adding genetics from Michigan wolves was a key piece of the puzzle to provide the best opportunity for genetic diversity that supports the sustainability of the introduced population. The Michigan DNR, APHIS-Wildlife Services, and SUNY-ESF did an outstanding job, given the weather, Green said. Our focus now will be on broad population goals and the opportunity these Michigan wolves represent. We will continue to learn what we can and track how the wolves integrate into the island landscape.

The three to five year effort to establish 20 -30 wolves on Isle Royale is being completed in order to restore predation as a key part of the island ecosystem.

Researchers involved in the planning effort recommended this number of wolves from the Great Lakes region. Additionally, they recommended an equal number of males and females in order to establish genetic variability in the new population. The NPS and its partners will monitor the wolf population to determine evidence of social organization, reproduction and predation.

See the rest here:
3 wolves added to Isle Royale population during fall 2019 wolf project - UpperMichigansSource.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

In 1969, Margaret Rossiter, then 24 years old, was one of the few women enrolled in a graduate program at Yale devoted to the history of science. Every Friday, Rossiter made a point of attending a regular informal gathering of her departments professors and fellow students. Usually, at those late afternoon meetings, there was beer-drinking, which Rossiter did not mind, but also pipe-smoking, which she did, and joke-making, which she might have enjoyed except that the brand of humor generally escaped her. Even so, she kept showing up, fighting to feel accepted in a mostly male enclave, fearful of being written off in absentia.

During a lull in the conversation at one of those sessions, Rossiter threw out a question to the gathered professors. Were there ever women scientists? she asked. The answer she received was absolute: No. Never. None. It was delivered quite authoritatively, said Rossiter, now a professor emerita at Cornell University. Someone did mention at least one well-known female scientist, Marie Curie, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize. But the professors dismissed even Curie as merely the helper to her husband, casting him as the real genius behind their breakthroughs. Instead of arguing, though, Rossiter said nothing: I realized this was not an acceptable subject.

Acceptable or not, the history of women in science would become Rossiters lifework, a topic she almost single-handedly made relevant. Her study, Women Scientists in America, which reflected more than a decade of toil in the archives and thousands of miles of dogged travel, broke new ground and brought hundreds of buried and forgotten contributions to light. The subtitleStruggles and Strategies to 1940announced its deeper project: an investigation into the systematic way that the field of science deterred women, and a chronicling of the ingenious methods that enterprising women nonetheless found to pursue the knowledge of nature. She would go on to document the stunted, slow, but intrepid progress of women in science in two subsequent volumes, following the field into the 21st century.

It is important to note early that womens historically subordinate place, in science (and thus their invisibility to even experienced historians of science) was not a coincidence and was not due to any lack of merit on their part, Rossiter wrote at the outset in the first volume. It was due to the camouflage intentionally placed over their presence in science.

Rossiters research has been revolutionary, said Anne Fausto-Sterling, a Brown University professor emerita and an expert on developmental genetics, who was astonished by the first volume when it came out. It meant that I should never believe anything anybody tells me about what women did or didnt do in the past, nor should I take that as any measure of what they could do in the future.

Academic historians typically dont have an immediate impact on everyday life. Rossiter is the exception. In excavating the lives of forgotten women astronomers, physicists, chemists, entomologists and botanists, Rossiter helped clear the way for women scientists in the future. Her work showed that there were women in science, and that we could increase those numbers, because women are quite capable of it, said Londa Schiebinger, a historian of science at Stanford University. In addition, Rossiters work illustrated that administrators needed to reform academic institutions to make them more hospitable to women. She showed that very talented women faced barriersand so that sparks something.

Rossiters findings were impressive to key figures at the National Science Foundation, which funded her research over many yearsand which, starting in the 1980s, also began funding efforts to increase the representation and advancement of women in engineering and academic science degrees. Schiebinger said, All of Margaret Rossiters well-documented work gives an intellectual foundation for these things.

Today, Rossiter, 75, has scaled back her research efforts and carries a light teaching load at Cornell. But her work remains deeply important, in large part because she knew how to make a point stick. Back in 1993, Rossiter coined a phrase that captures an increasingly well-recognized phenomenon: the Matilda Effect, named after a suffragist, Matilda Gage, whose own work was overlooked by historians, and who also wrote about the way women scientists, in particular, had been erased by history. Rossiters 1993 paper decried the troubling recent history of male scientists receiving credit for work done by female scientists. The phrasethe Matilda Effecttook off, and has been cited in hundreds of subsequent studies. A 2013 paper, The Matilda Effect in Science Communication, reported that both men and women judged research papers by men to be stronger than those by women, and both men and women showed preference for the male authors as possible future collaborators. In the past year alone, dozens of papers on gender discrimination in science have cited the Matilda Effect. In naming the phenomenon, Rossiter identified the issue of misplaced credit as a problem that institutions would have to fight to rectify, and that equality-minded scholars are monitoring with even more rigor.

Both Margaret Rossiter and Matilda Gage made substantial original contributions to American scholarship that were, for too long, not recognized as significant; and, interestingly, both tried to bring to light the work of other women who suffered the same fate. Their births separated by more than a century, the two nonetheless have almost a symbiotic relationship, with the work of one giving new life to that of the other in a collaboration across time to advance the role of women in the sciences, a fight ongoing in laboratories and the halls of academia.

* * *

The Matilda Joslyn Gage Center, in Fayetteville, New York, is a gracious cream-colored Greek Revival building, renovated and restored to something close to the state it was in when Gage was working furiously to secure women the right to vote. A small desk in the bay window of the back parlor is the same one where she likely wrote dozens of editorials for her newspaper, the National Citizen and Ballot Box, the official publication of the National Woman Suffrage Association; upstairs was the guest bedroom where the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, with whom she frequently collaborated, often stayed.

On the day I agreed to meet Rossiter there (she lives in Ithaca, 60 miles to the south), Colleen Pilcher, then the museums deputy director, was waiting to greet her. She had prepared tea and set aside time for a tour. The museums founder, a historian named Sally Roesch Wagner, who has devoted much of her career to uncovering Gages achievements, left a note saying she was sorry not to be there to see Rossiter, to whom we are so grateful for creating the concept of the Matilda Effect, which we refer to regularly.

Rossiter looked around, taking in a framed photo of Gage propped on a side table: Gage, her curly hair by then gray, stared out in profile, intent and focused. Think what they were up against, Rossiter said, speaking of the suffragists. Men controlled everythingthe press, the church, every local and national political office. They had all the power, everywhere.

Gage was the daughter of an exceptionally forward-thinking father, an abolitionist and doctor who raised his daughter to practice medicine. No medical school in her area would accept a woman, so instead, while the mother of five children, she channeled her intellect into abolitionist activism (her home was a stop on the Underground Railroad), as well as the burgeoning suffragist movement. She spoke at the third National Womans Rights Convention in Syracuse, in 1852, and was a founding member of (and frequent officeholder in) the National Woman Suffrage Association.

A freethinker who championed the separation of church and state, Gage was also the first known American woman to publish a study of American women in scienceanticipating Rossiter by a century. In Woman as an Inventor, published as a tract in 1870 and in the North American Review in 1883, she wrote, The inventions of a nation are closely connected with the freedom of its people. Given more liberty, she argued, women would only help the countrys technological progress. To support her argument, she listed many of the inventions women had initiated (the baby carriage, a volcanic furnace for smelting ore, the gimlet-point screw, to name a few). Gage also asserteda contention some historians considerthat Eli Whitney merely manufactured the cotton gin after being given very specific directions by its actual inventor, Catharine Littlefield Greene, widow of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene, who had settled in Georgia. Every part of the world felt the influence of this womans idea, wrote Gage. If Greene did not take out a patent for the invention, Gage said, it was because to have done so would have exposed her to the ridicule and contumely of her friends and a loss of position in society, which frowned upon any attempt at outside industry for woman.

Rossiter first learned about Gage in the early 1990s, while reading a relatively obscure book about overlooked women intellectuals. Soon after that, in 1993, Rossiter attended a conference at which researchers presented several papers on women scientists whose work had wrongly been credited to men. It was a phenomenon, Rossiter recalled thinking. You need to name it. It will stand larger in the world of knowledge than if you just say it happened. She decided on the Matilda Effect, after Matilda Gage, and wrote an essay in the journal Social Studies of Science that she called The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. (The Matthew Effect was a term coined previously by two sociologists, to describe the practice of more powerful scientists being given credit for the work of those with less recognition.) Gage, Rossiter wrote in that essay, noticed that the more woman worked the more the men around her profited and the less credit she got.

The purpose of naming the phenomenon, Rossiter asserted in her essay, was to help current and future scholars to write a more equitable and comprehensive history and sociology of science that not only does not leave all the Matildas out, but calls attention to still more of them.

Rossiters historical research has spotlighted hundreds of women scientists in america. here are a few of the most notable who persevered to expand our understanding of the universe, from black holes to genes to computers

The cytogeneticist was the first woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded in 1983. She traveled extensively for two decades to collect maize samples in South and Central America. Her research demonstrated the existence of mobile genetic elements, also known as genetic transposition, the capacity of genes to change position on a chromosome.

Rossiter cited one victim of the Matilda Effect who dated back to the 11th century, but also included more recent examples such as Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a doctoral student in radio astronomy at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. Bell Burnell was the first in her lab to discover the astronomical object that would lead to the identification of pulsars. Despite her obvious contributions, she was not included in the all-male citation when her team won the physics Nobel Prize for this work in 1974. Last year, 25 years after Rossiter acknowledged Bell Burnells accomplishments, and 44 years after she was robbed of the Nobel, Burnell won the Special Breakthrough Prize. The award comes with $3 million, all of which she donated to Englands Institute of Physics, to fund underrepresented figureswomen, refugees and ethnic minorities. I have this hunch that minority folk bring a fresh angle on things, Burnell told the BBC.

* * *

Rossiter thought that her first visit to the Gage museum would be a pleasant excursion to a historical site of personal interest to her. Instead, it turned out to be something of a revelation. It was not, in fact, the patriarchy that wrote Matilda Gage out of history, Pilcher explained, citing decades of research by her colleague Wagner. The powerful figures who marginalized Gage were her two fellow suffragist collaborators, after a falling out over the role of religion in the movement.

Gage felt that Christianity was the root of womens problems, Pilcher said. Elizabeth Cady Stantons writings, Pilcher explained, would later reveal how strongly Stanton concurred; but in the desperate pursuit of an expanding constituency to support the vote for women, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony made what they must have perceived as necessary compromises. They collaborated with religious womens groups, including the Temperance Union run by Frances Willard, which wanted to establish Jesus as the titular head of the United States government. The move alienated Gage, who split from Stanton and Anthony to found her own, competing suffragist group. When Stanton and Anthony revised a work on which Gage had originally collaborated, the History of Woman Suffrage, Gage was no longer listed as an author.

Hmm! Rossiter exclaimed, clearly fascinated. You would have thought theyd have been more sisterly. It was fortunate, she added, that the house still stood. It was here that Wagner had discovered a trove of letters that shed so much light on this hidden figure of history. If the house had burned down, Rossiter said, that would have been the end of it.

It is an odd wrinkle of feminist history that one of the most powerful terms used to identify overlooked female scientists has been named after a woman diminished not by male credit-grabbers but arguably the two most influential feminists in American history. In their effort to win the vote, Stanton and Anthony made choices that bowed to traditional power structuressome of them racist, some of them based in the church, and all of them controlled by men. In that regard, perhaps, it could be said that it was the male establishment that coerced Stanton and Anthony to erase Gage. But in the end, patriarchy eliminated even Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rossiter later wrote in an email. Because in my day (undergrad and grad in the 1960s) all womens history had been forgotten or obliterated and was not taught at much of any colleges. When the founders of womens history began to start research and writing (1970s), they all had to bone up and read Eleanor Flexners Century of Struggle, the only survey of the subject and for which the author had had a hard time finding a publisher.

* * *

Fifth generation of Malden, Mass., Rossiter likes to say of her birth, as if that New England pedigree reveals much about her essence. Malden may be little known, but its history of resistance is rich: It was the first town to petition the colonial government to secede from British rule. The first same-sex couple to get legally married in the United States was from Malden (they were married in nearby Cambridge). Rossiters father was a Harvard graduate and high school history teacher; and her mother, who graduated from Radcliffe, raised her children, only working outside the home later in life, after receiving a masters degree. By high school, Margaret Rossiter, a bookish girl in a bookish home, had developed a fascination with the history of science. Margaret, who plans to study math at Radcliffe this Fall, lists biographies of the 17th century as her favorite reading matter, the Boston Globe reported in 1962, in an article that celebrated Rossiter as one of several National Merit Scholarship winners from the area. That was before Newton developed the calculus, 17-year-old Rossiter was quoted saying. She went on to Radcliffe, and would graduate in 1966. Even in her first year she remembers poring over Isis, the history of science journal, in a top bunk in her dorm room.

Following an unsatisfying grad-school stint at the University of Wisconsin, Rossiter transferred to Yale, which is where she found herself, on Friday afternoons, surrounded by pipe smoke, beer and history of science professors and students, nearly all male. From 4:30 to 6, Rossiter said, you endured this for self-preservation. Mary Ellen Bowden, also a history of science graduate student at the time, would become a senior research fellow at the Science History Institute. She recalls Rossiter, as a graduate student, as someone who seemed like a quiet sort, but once you got her one on one, talked on and onshe was very perceptive and critical of the things going on around her. Some scholars just hit the books, but Margaret had other interests in humanity. Rossiter completed her PhD at Yale, in 1971, a rare woman in a small, backward-looking field, and took a fellowship at Harvard, where she happened, one afternoon, to peruse American Men of Science, a kind of encyclopedic history. Despite the certainty of her mentors at Yale about the nonexistence of women scientists, and despite the very title of the volume, she was surprised to see entries about womenbotanists trained at Wellesley, geologists from Vermont. There were names, and patterns she could trace from one to the other. (Rossiter also would conduct research on women in science at Smithsonian Institution archives and libraries in Washington, D.C.)

In Malden she picked up the family Volkswagen, then drove around to womens colleges, delving into boxes of archives. She identified what she called protg chains of women educated by professors who then went on to replace those professors, some tracing their lineage back several generations. Scouring indexes for obituaries, she discovered women scientistsbut they were segregated, cloistered at womens colleges (she defined this as territorial segregation); or they were undervalued, underpaid, kept in assistant jobs where they did mountains of tedious work, never promoted like their male counterparts (hierarchical segregation). She also discovered, reading letters of recommendation, a way of thinking she called restrictive logic, in which male scientists relied on nonsensical rationales to explain why a particular female scientist could not be promoted (a classic example: because there was no precedent). She found, in short, that many men of science were incapable of reason when it came to women. Womens credentials, she wrote, were dismissed as irrelevant in favor of stereotypes, fears, and long-cherished views. Examining, for example, the collective efforts of male professors to halt the likely appointment to a full professorship of the famous German physicist Hertha Sponer, at Duke, Rossiter vented that Sponer was evidently up against not only all the other applicants for a job at Duke in 1936 but also certain physicists collective views and misconceptions about all of womankind.

Rossiter herself, more than a decade out of graduate school, still had failed to secure a tenured position, and was a visiting scholar at Cornell. Margaret knew she deserved to be on a tenure track, Fausto-Sterling recalls, and something was wrong that she was notit wasnt like, Oh, Im so lucky to have any job. It was, This is not right.

Then, in late 1982, Rossiter published the first volume of Women Scientists in America, with Johns Hopkins University Press. To her surprise and her publishers, the New York Times gave the historical tome a rave review. The rich detail she discovered about the history of American women scientists is placed in the context of social change in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the result is a splendid book, wrote the reviewer, Alice Kimball Smith, a historian.

Rossiter was a visiting scholar at Cornell when she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (or the so-called genius grant) in 1989. The following spring of 1990, a tenure-track offer arrived from the University of Georgia. Even so, Cornell seemed ready to let her depart. She thinks a female member of the Cornell board of trustees intervened, because, suddenly, Cornell offered to create a new department aligned with Rossiters intereststhe Graduate Program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Tenure followed in 1991. I remember being so relievednow I could get back to my next book, instead of apartment hunting, said Rossiter. After many years of identifying with the struggles of those whom she was studying, at last she found the kind of institutional support to document the obstacles faced by those who did not have such support but deserved it.

It is not only women in science who have much to learn from Rossiters research, said M. Susan Lindee, a historian of science at the University of Pennsylvania. We have to look at her past work carefully, said Lindee, and re-examine all those brilliant strategies that women used to contest institutional power, which was oriented around preventing them from succeeding.

In 2013, Fausto-Sterling, whose own work has challenged sexist presumptions in evolutionary science, stepped forward to make sure that Rossiters contributions would be widely accessible. Fausto-Sterling joined forces with a former student of hers, Maia Weinstock, who had led a series of Wikipedia edit-a-thons, events where volunteers amplified entries about the lives and achievements of female scientists published in the free, crowd-sourced online encyclopedia. Fausto-Sterling found that Rossiter, at that point, merited only whats known as a stuba few lines. I was shocked that she had this skeleton entry, said Fausto-Sterling, who went on, during that editing session, to contribute a fleshed-out entry about Rossiter.

Rossiter was one of the first to map out a problem in science that its practitioners are only now struggling to address with peak urgency: Earlier this year, the prestigious medical journal the Lancet devoted an entire issue to the underrepresentation of women in science, announcing, among other things, that less than 30 percent of the worlds researchers in science are women. The Lancet studies took up many of the questions that Rossiter first posed in 1982. What biases are holding women back? Where are their numbers lowest, and why? Why do they receive less funding than men? But the mistreatment of women in science and other professions had already caught fire in the public imagination with the rise of the #MeToo movement.

* * *

The University of California, Berkeley found in 2015 that the prominent astronomer Geoffrey Marcy had violated its sexual harassment policy. A 2018 report from the University of Texas system found that about 20 percent of female science students, more than 25 percent of female engineering students and more than 40 percent of female medical students had experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff. This year, Dartmouth reached a settlement of $14 million with nine women who alleged that three tenured professors in the Psychological and Brain Sciences department had been allowed to cultivate an environment of sexual harassment and discrimination.

It is fascinating, then, that Rossiter could have written no fewer than 1,200 pages about women in sciencewho had even less power and fewer rights during the period she covered than they do nowwithout so much as a hint that sexual harassment and, quite likely much worse, drove some women away from the sciences. Until recently, Rossiter said, she had not considered just how powerful a role harassment or assault must have played in the history of women in science. It explains the dropout rate, she said.

Rossiter said she never experienced any sexual harassment herself; and never knew, for example, that more than one of her professors at Yale shocked her fellow student Mary Ellen Bowden by making sexual overtures. I remember feeling like it was my fault, Oh, I must have led him on, said Bowden, who realized only with the advent of the #MeToo movement that she was not to blameand that she should have been protected from harassment.

If Rossiters fellow student and friend was not revealing her secrets in real time, neither were the scores of women, long dead, whom Rossiter was studying through their letters, reviews, prizes and pay stubs. She coaxed, from those dusty papers in cardboard boxes, administrative workings and ventings about pay and overt biases and self-justifying rationales; she cross-referenced job trends with hiring patterns, the professionalization of a field with college graduation rates. But it is clear only now how much more those archives hid than they disclosed.

Nobody ever mentioned anything, said Rossiter. Those women likely just disappeared from the field. M. Susan Lindee, the science historian from the University of Pennsylvania, said she is not surprised that those issues did not surface in the documents. There was no infrastructure, no way for it to show up in administrative records, said Lindee, who nonetheless believes that harassment must have been everywhere.

Perhaps a future scholar, were she or he to sift through the same thousands of documents that Rossiter examined, might read between the lines of those letters and administrative files. There must have been incidents of harassment and violence, but also genuine office love affairs, complicating resentments that male colleagues felt about women in the workplace; there would have been ambition punished with shame, and compromise mixed with resignation.

When Rossiter started her research, the Xerox was fresh technology; she worked with paper trails, but of a certain discreet kind. Archivists were discouraged from acquiring papers that were too personal. I never saw a love letter, any financial materials, nothing on health, hardly anything about children, she wrote in an email. What I did was a kind of preliminary mapping.

Rossiter frequently goes to her office at Cornell, stacked with boxes overflowing with paper, but she cannot get into the basements and attics where families tended to stash their great-grandmothers letters. She is not terribly interested in digital research; for her, nothing is more satisfying than a manila envelope full of long-ignored documents.

In one of those many cartons in Rossiters office is a letter, from a woman scientist, that was particularly meaningful to Rossiter, mailed not long after the publication of her first volume of Women Scientists. I greatly enjoyed your work, Rossiter recalled the letter as saying. The woman went on, I have spent a lot of money on psychotherapy because people kept telling me I was maladjusted.

Rossiter, with one well-constructed sentenceAs scientists they were atypical women; as women they were unusual scientistshad made it clear to this particular woman that she was not the problem. Societys restrictions were the problem.

Rossiters book, the woman said, had done more to help her than therapy.

This was revelatory. It had never occurred to Rossiter, she said, that a clear rendering of history could be so useful.

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Women Scientists Were Written Out of History. It's Margaret Rossiter's Lifelong Mission to Fix That - Smithsonian.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Name: Susan Alberts

Title: Robert F. Durden Professor of Biology and Chair of Dukes Department of Evolutionary Anthropology

Years at Duke: 21

What she does: Susan Alberts spends most of her work hours looking at or thinking about baboons.

Since the late 1980s, Alberts has worked with the Amboseli Baboon Research Project to gather data on hundreds of baboons in Kenyas Amboseli National Park. She studies how the social and physical environments of the baboons determine their life outcomes.

She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in the fields of anthropology, genetics, endocrinology, biologyand primatology.

Her research has led to a number of findings. Her team discovered that female baboons that integrated into their social groups have higher offspring survival rates. Meanwhile, baboons who experience adversity early in life droughts, death of a parent or a mother that is socially isolated die younger than other baboons.

Were not just understanding baboons but uncovering general principals about how social life affects opportunities and health, Alberts said. Theres a lot of coincidence in how social issues affect baboons and humans.

Alberts teaches The Life and Work of Darwin, Behavioral Ecology and the Evolution of Animal Behavior, Concepts in Evolutionary Anthropology and other courses in the biology and evolutionary anthropology departments at Duke.

She also takes graduate and undergraduate students with her to Kenya for field research.

Were staying in our research camp for weeks with not a lot of modern convenience, she said. Its always exciting to watch the students adjust and thrive in a completely new environment.

What she loves about Duke: Alberts cant think of another university that would allow her the opportunity to focus on research as much as the leadership at Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.

Duke is one of the few places I have the freedom to do to my kind of research, Alberts said. It takes a lot of infrastructure to do this abroad. It takes good grant support. It takes good administrative support. Duke has worked really hard to make all this possible.

Memorable day at work: The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization of the countrys leading scientific researchers, elected Alberts as a member in May. The recognition is considered one of the highest honors a scientist can receive.

I was thrilled and honored, Alberts said. Its my job now to pay it forward and make the most of the opportunity.

Special object in her office: When the National Academy of Sciences named Alberts a member, she popped a bottle of champagne and placed the cork among a collection of eight others on a bookshelf in her office. Other corks represent each Ph.D. student Alberts has advised.

We always celebrate with a glass of champagne when they defend their thesis, Alberts said. I collect the corks because each of those moments is a huge event. I feel so much admiration to my students.

Best advice received: As as postdoctoral researcher, Alberts received a Fellowship at Harvard Universitys Society of Fellows, a group of scholars recognized for their academic potential, after completing her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.

Alberts didnt feel qualified for the fellowship and called her mentor, Jeanne Altmann, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, saying I think they made a mistake!

Altmann told Alberts, It doesnt matter, just dont get immobilized.

Jeannes advice helped me focus, Alberts said. I had to show up and do my best.

First job: Alberts worked at a Seattle bakery called The Little Bread Company after high school. She arrived every morning around 4:30 to knead and mix doughs for whole wheat, rye and sourdough loaves of bread.

I liked working with my hands, Alberts said. I learned so much about how you work with people coming from different backgrounds and who have different expectations, desires and abilities. It really helped me develop.

Something most people dont know about her: Alberts loves jigsaw puzzles. She recently worked on a 500-piece puzzle with the image of a sea turtle.

I dont have much time to do them, but I love them, she said. I love the process of just starting out with a big mess and putting it into a coherent image.

Is there a colleague at Duke who has an intriguing job or goes above and beyond to make a difference?Nominate that personfor Blue Devil of the Week

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Blue Devil of the Week: A Renowned Baboon Scientist - Duke Today

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A replacement heifer represents the costliest improvement in the genetics of a herd. Some of the more important influencers that are critical to the success of retaining these genetics over time include hiring the right female, reaching a target breeding weight, proper development, and a defined breeding season.

As we know, reproductive traits are very lowly heritable; 10% controlled by genetics and the other 90% controlled by management and environment. This forces us to be intentional managers within the environment we live. Being better managers naturally forces us to use more data to make decisions that can improve fertility responses from good nutritional management.

Related: Pregnancy check replacement heifers to protect investment

The goal in developing replacement heifers is reaching puberty by the beginning of the breeding season. Puberty in heifers is controlled by three factorsbody weight, age and breed.

With breed, we know that on average Bos taurus cattle reach puberty between 12 to 14 months of age; whereas Bos indicus cattle reach puberty later at approximately 16 to 18 months of age.

Related: Weighing the costs of buying or raising replacement heifers

Heifer body weight has a very influential impact on age at puberty. Research conducted in the 1980s reported that heifers weighing approximately 60-65% of their mature body weight reached puberty prior to breeding.

Not every heifer will make a good replacement heifer. The female you want to hire conceives early in the breeding season. However, to get there we need to make some decisions earlier on in the hiring process.

You need a pool of candidates to start with based on your job description. The job description will lay out minimum requirements the heifer has to have in order to go through the development process.

These requirements should include, at minimum, no freemartins, minimum body weight, minimum age, structural soundness and not out of terminal sires. Throughout the development process, checkpoints need to be in place to monitor the heifers performance of your heifers.

And finally, after the breeding season, is she pregnant and preferably early on in the breeding season? Then, and only then, should we hire her for the job!

To properly develop heifers to 60-65% of mature body weight, you need to know the mature body weight of your cows, otherwise it is just a guess. If you dont know what your cows weigh, you dont know what 65% of mature weight is and what those heifers should weigh at breeding.

At minimum, know what the average weight of your cow herd is so you can determine what her expected mature body weight is. If you have the capabilities to determine this individually, then you can avoid breeding heifers that are too light or too big. The implications of developing heifers too light is not reaching puberty. Developing heifers that are too heavy (or too fat) is a reduction in fertility rates and increased development cost.

Proper development starts with knowing how much she weighs, how much she needs to weigh, how many days you have to get her there and what her nutrient requirements are. Then, you can determine what her average daily gain needs to be and monitor progress to make sure she is on track for breeding.

Typical forage-based development diets for heifers consist of 9% crude protein and 60% total digestible nutrients to achieve a steady rate of gain of 1.5 pounds per head per day. Some programs develop heifers at different rates of gain at different stages of development. Overall, results seem to be similar, regardless of the development stages, as long as she reaches her target breeding weight and is on a positive nutrition plan throughout the development period.

Drastic changes in diets prior to the breeding season can cause wrecks sometimes. Some work out of South Dakota showed significant decreases in pregnancy rates in replacement heifers that were turned out on grass pasture from a dry lot in late spring at the beginning of the breeding season. To avoid this, make sure heifers are on the same forage system (diet) at least 30 days prior to the breeding season.

Without a defined breeding season, we cant manage for fertility. Work out of Clay Center, Neb., in the 2000s reported a higher retention rate across nine calving seasons in replacement heifers conceiving in the first 21 days of their first breeding season compared to heifers conceiving after day 42 of the breeding season.

Preliminary data out of Louisiana State University reported similar results where 28% more heifers conceived to timed-AI during their first breeding season and developed to more than 65% of mature body weight remained in the herd through their fifth calving season, compared to heifers bred by natural service within a 75-day breeding season. In that study, heifers that reached more than 65% of mature body weight at breeding were out of smaller cows, and as a result had a lighter target mature body weight.

The perfect development protocol is one that results in heifers reaching the target age, weighs 60 to 65% of mature body weight, has reached puberty, conceives within the first 21 days of the breeding season and does not require taking out a loan to develop her. Nutrition is critical to ensuring heifers reach puberty by the start of the breeding season. Intentional management plays a major role in achieving high fertility rates during the breeding season at a manageable cost.

Walker is Noble Research Institute livestock consultant. Contact him at rswalker@noble.org.

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How to hire the right replacement heifers for your job - Beef Magazine

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Contrary to claims made, genes from genetically-modified Aedes aegypti mosquito were found to have been transferred to naturally-occurring A. aegypti mosquito population in three areas in Brazil where transgenic mosquitoes were released. It is unclear if the presence of transgenic mosquito genes in the natural population will affect the disease transmission capacity or make mosquito control efforts more difficult. A.aegypti mosquitoes are responsible for transmitting dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus.

About 4,50,000 transgenic male mosquitoes were released each week for 27 months (June 2013 to September 2015) in three areas in Brazil. Genetic analysis of naturally occurring mosquitoes were done prior to the release and at six, 12, and 27-30 months after the releases.

Researchers from Yale University studied 347 naturally-occurring A. aegypti mosquitoes for transfer of genes from the transgenic insects. The transgenic strains can be distinguished from naturally-occurring mosquitoes by using fluroscent lights and filters. They found that some transgenic genes were found in 10-60% of naturally-occurring mosquitoes. Also, the naturally occurring A. aegypti mosquitoes carrying some genes of the transgenic mosquitoes were able to reproduce in nature and spread to neighbouring areas 4 km away. The results were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The genetic strategy employed to control A. aegypti population known as RIDL (the Release of Insects carrying Dominant Lethal genes) is supposed to only reduce the population of the naturally occurring A. aegypti mosquitoes and not affect or alter their genetics. Also, offspring are not supposed to grow to adult mosquitoes and reproduce as per claims made by the British company Oxitec Ltd, which had developed the technology and field-tested it in several countries.

The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die. That obviously was not what happened, senior author Prof. Jeffrey Powell from Yale University was quoted as saying on the University website.

The genetic strategy works on the premise that the transgenic male mosquitoes released frequently in large numbers would compete with the naturally occurring male mosquitoes to mate with the females. Offspring from the mating of transgenic male mosquito and naturally occurring female mosquito do not survive to the adult stage. This is because tetracycline drug, which prevents the dominant lethal gene from producing the lethal protein during rearing in labs, is not present in sufficient quantity in nature. In the absence of tetracycline, there is overproduction of the lethal protein causing the larvae to die.

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Transgenic mosquitoes transfer genes to native mosquito species - The Hindu

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

On Sunday afternoons a truck filled with cherimoya leaves Stoneacres Farm in the Eastern Cape to travel the almost 900km throughout the night and arrive at the Johannesburg Municipal Market by early Monday morning.

Hopefully by Wednesday it has been sold, notes Alan Stone, cherimoya and kiwi farmer from Stoneacres, Stutterheim, a region better known for its forestry and sheep.

It has a very short shelf life, and the market for it is very restricted. The Portuguese community in South Africa know the fruit. Demand isnt really growing. I dont send to Cape Town because there are one or two cherimoya producers in the Western Cape. I send about sixteen consignments (each about 800kg) of cherimoya to Johannesburg in a good year. More cherimoya wouldnt sell.

He sometimes sends to East London or Port Elizabeth, but 95% goes to Johannesburg in 4kg- and 2kg boxes.

Cherimoyas, known as custard apples in South Africa, seem to break every rule in the commercial fruit production handbook: their flowering period is erratic and difficult to predict it could be in November but last year it was February and March, with disastrous consequences. As a result, its difficult for Alan to predict when hell have a crop, but operating in a very sparsely populated field gives some room for manoeuvre.

The cherimoya, sold as custard apples in South Africa

Weather makes or breaks fruit set Its a problematic plant. Fruit set is another problem. The cherimoya is a very primitive plant with a most unattractive flower. On the first day that the flower opens it is female and on day two it is a male flower. There is an overlap between the female and male state, but there no known pollinator for the flower and it all depends on temperature and humidity, which are critical.

Last year their cherimoya orchards flowered during February and March, when conditions were not suitable: high temperatures were accompanied by low humidity, and there was very low fruit set. Usually if it flowers in November, after its brief springtime deciduous period, the harvest starts in June or July and can go into December, although by that time there is so much summer fruit on South African shelves that Alan winds it down.

Spanish cherimoya geneticsHe has been growing cherimoya for 15 years now, taking its quirks as they come. He was looking for something to supplement his Hayward kiwi orchard dating back to 1992, when prices were very high and everybody was planting kiwis, Alan says.

Kiwis are very labour-intensive, worldwide production has increased and kiwi imports from countries with subsidised farming have had an impact on kiwi price points locally.

The Agricultural Research Council in Nelspruit was testing Spanish Jete cherimoya cultivars. From them Alan obtained his plant material, and being in a high-altitude area that experiences frost Stutterheim is adjacent to the Amathole Mountains he established a modest two hectares, but quite enough for the Gauteng market, mostly South Africans of Portuguese descent, often via Madeira where cherimoya is said to grow wild.

Cherimoya orchard in Stutterheim, Eastern Cape (photo supplied by Stoneacres)

It currently fetches around R70 (4.3 euros) per kilogram at the market, less the agent commission of 14%.

Unfortunately, here, too, its been dry. The worst drought in living memory, Alan calls it, and he notes that the fruit are also much smaller this year. Its an area that receives above-average rainfall by South African standards, approximately 800mm, but there has been no rain for three or four months now, he says. The Stoneacres orchards are irrigated from a spring-fed dam.

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Cherimoya cultivation in the Eastern Cape - FreshPlaza.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

In Florida and Texas, the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito has posed a serious health threat, carrying the Zika and dengue virus into the state. Traditional insecticides have largely been useless against the mosquito. Outbreaks of Zika virus disease have been recorded in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific since the epidemic began in 2016, with more than a half million suspected cases and more than 3,700 congenital birth defects. Puerto Rico saw more than 36,000 cases that year. The United States mainland had 224, and its now down to a yearly handful.

With the possibility of future epidemics, the biotech company Oxitec has spent at least a decade testing a transgenic A. aegypti with a gene that kills off newly hatched mosquitos before adulthood. In a recent Brazilian field trial, second-generation GMO mosquitoes led to a reduction of Zika carriers by as much as 96%, Oxitec announced in June. Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection opened a month-long window for public comments on the companys proposal for releases in Florida and Texas.

Plans for a widespread US release of the genetically altered mosquitoes has met with stiff resistance from anti-GMO organizations, which went door to door to stir up opposition four years ago in the Florida Keys when trials were first proposed. Since then, the fears have faded. There have beensplit reactions from local Floridians in two polls over the years, while other Florida surveys show significant public support. A fiercely-contest referendum in 2016 found Monroe County residents supportive of the releases, with 31 of 33 precincts and 58 percent of country residents voting in favor of the 1st Generation Oxitec mosquito project. Thousands of mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria were later released in the Florida Keys as part of a 12-week trial.

Activist environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Food and Water Watch, who have called the release plans dangerously short-sighted, have spearheaded the opposition in Texas and Florida.Oxitec is awaiting results from the comments and a subsequent ruling by the EPA in hopesof securing permission to fieldtest 20,000 male mosquitoes per acre per week in those two sates. These mosquitoes have been engineered to express a protein called tTAV-OX5034. Female offspring are expected to die before reaching maturity, and thus the A. aegypti population should drop, hopefully significantly.

These carefully cultivated plans were thrown in disarray by a study led by Yale University insect population geneticist Jeffrey Powell and published on September 10 in Scientific Reports. The title alone stirred apocalyptic concerns: Transgenic Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes Transfer Genes into a Natural Population.

Powell and researchers from Brazil monitored a release by Oxitec of 450,000 male A. aegypti mosquitoes in Jacobina, Brazil. The team genotyped the release strain and the population of A. aegyptifor up to 30 months after release. They reported that some parts of the transgenic mosquito genome had been incorporated into the targeted Jacobina mosquito population.

Is that a concern or potential catastrophe? After all, Oxitec had always estimated that about 3 percent of the offspring of the engineered mosquitoes would survive, so the key finding was not surprising. But then the researchers went beyond the data to speculate as to potential causes and implications.

[E]vidently, rare viable hybrid offspring between the release strain and the Jacobina population are sufficiently robust to be able to reproduce in nature. The three populations forming the tri-hybrid population now in Jacobina (Cuba/Mexico/Brazil) are genetically quite distinct, very likely resulting in a more robust population than the pre-release population due to hybrid vigor.

The research team seemed to raise what many readers of the study thought was an apocalyptic take on the data: Had Oxitec just created a new Franken-skeeter? And it was this speculation that caught the attention of the media, anti-GMO groups and more than a few critical scientists.

Anti-GM group GMWatch announced that the mosquitoes in the experiment had escaped human control, and were

now spreading in the environment. The mosquitoes used for the genetic manipulation are originally from Cuba and Mexico. These insects used in the laboratory have now mixed with the Brazilian insects to become a robust population which can persist in the environment over a longer period of time.

Some news reports reported the study straightforwardly, but many others mixed the documentable scientific results (GM mosquitoes mixed with the wild-type mosquitoes and the population of A. aegypti appeared to rebound after an 18-month suppression) with what many considered wild speculation (that new hybrid mosquitoes could be more resistant to suppression and more likely to spread disease).

A ScienceAlert story (quoting a New Atlas article titled Genetic engineering mosquito experiment goes wrong), exemplified this speculative coverage:

The genetically-altered mosquitoes did mix with the wild population, and for a brief period the number of mosquitoes in Jacobino, Brazil did plummet, according to research published in Nature Scientific Reports last week. But 18 months later the population bounced right back up, New Atlas reports and even worse, the new genetic hybrids may be even more resilient to future attempts to quell their numbers.

A story by the German Press Agency, DPA, quoted Christoph Then, head of the well-known European anti-GMO organization Testbiotech:

Oxitecs trials have led to a largely uncontrollable situation. This incident must have consequences for the further employment of genetic engineering.

Scientists responded quickly and sharply to this speculation.Michigan State University plant geneticist Chad Niederhuth tweeted, Some of the claims made by this paper are completely unfounded and the title is downright irresponsible. Despite the papers headline about transferring genes into a natural population, Aedes aegypti is native to Africa, and is an invasive species in all of the western hemisphere (including, naturally, Brazil).

Jason Rasgon, an entomologist and epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State University, dissected the papers problem in more detail. In a series of tweets, as well as in a story in Science magazine, Rasgon wrote:

Rasgon and other scientists have started asking why these speculative conclusions were in an otherwise solid paper on the population genetics of mosquitoes, why a notable group of researchers would make such statements and why Scientific Reports would publish them.

Shortly after the papers release, after a firestorm of criticism of the paper, the magazine (Nature Publishing) posted this:

In the Talking Biotech podcast by University of Florida Kevin Folta, Oxitec research and development and operations lead Kelly Matsen said that the Aedes mosquito is invasive worldwide, and has resisted other efforts. The companys genetic-based sterile insect technique turns away from traditional x-ray/irradiation methods, to genetically modify insects so that they can have the effect of reducing populations, and then remove the genes from the environment when we have done our work, Matsen said.

However this is resolved, the paper and the reaction to it illustrate the structure of conflict over genetic modifications some scientists who support the careful use of technology, others who fall victim to hype and speculation and non-government organizations (NGOs) which stringently oppose any such technology. As the GLP reported in a previous article, this opposition is based on speculative risks, those that have no established theory or evidence data, according to Canadian researchers who surveyed experts on their views of genetic modification.

Andrew Porterfield is a writer and editor, and has worked with numerous academic institutions, companies and non-profits in the life sciences.BIO. Follow him on Twitter@AMPorterfield

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Oxitec's GMO mosquitoes spread their genes in the wild? Separating science from hype after controversial new study - Genetic Literacy Project

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Jacobina, Brazil, where hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes were released from 2013 to 2015. Image: Ari Rios (CC BY-SA 3.0

An experimental trial to reduce the number of mosquitoes in a Brazilian town by releasing genetically modified mosquitoes has not gone as planned. Traces of the mutated insects have been detected in the natural population of mosquitoes, which was never supposed to happen.

The deliberate release of 450,000 transgenic mosquitoes in Jacobina, Brazil has resulted in the unintended genetic contamination of the local population of mosquitoes, according to new research published last week in Scientific Reports. Going into the experimental trial, the British biotech company running the project, Oxitec, assured the public that this wouldnt happen. Consequently, the incident is raising concerns about the safety of this and similar experiments and our apparent inability to accurately predict the outcomes.

The point of the experiment was to curb the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, such as yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika, in the region. To that end, Oxitec turned to OX513Aa proprietary, transgenically modified version of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. To create its mutated mosquito, Oxitec took a lab-grown strain originally sourced from Cuba and genetically mixed it with a strain from Mexico.

The key feature of these bioengineered mosquitoes is a dominant lethal gene that (supposedly) results in infertile offspring, known as the F1 generation. By releasing the OX513A mosquitoes into the wild, Oxitec hoped to reduce the population of mosquitoes in the area by 90 percent, while at the same time not affecting the genetic integrity of the target population. The OX513A strain is also equipped with a fluorescent protein gene, allowing for the easy identification of F1 offspring.

Starting in 2013, and for a period of 27 consecutive months, Oxitec released nearly half a million OX513A males into the wild in Jacobina. A Yale research team led by ecologist and evolutionary biologist Jeffrey Powell monitored the progress of this experiment to assess whether the newly introduced mosquitoes were affecting the genes of the target population. Despite Oxitecs assurances to the contrary, Powell and his colleagues uncovered evidence showing that genetic material from OX513A did in fact trickle to the natural population.

The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die, Powell, the senior author of the new study, said in a press release. That obviously was not what happened.

That genetic material from OX513A has bled into the native species does not pose any known health risks to the residents of Jacobina, but it is the unanticipated outcome that is concerning, said Powell. Based largely on laboratory studies, one can predict what the likely outcome of the release of transgenic mosquitoes will be, but genetic studies of the sort we did should be done during and after such releases to determine if something different from the predicted occurred.

Indeed, lab tests conducted by Oxitec prior to the experiment suggested that around 3 to 4 percent of F1 offspring would survive into adulthood, but it was presumed these lingering mosquitoes would be too weak to reproduce, rendering them infertile. These predictions, as the new research shows, were wrong.

To conduct the study, Powell and his colleagues studied the genomes of both the local Aedes aegypti population and the OX513A strain prior to the experiment in Jacobina. Genetic sampling was performed six, 12, and 27 to 30 months after the initial release of the modified insects. The researchers uncovered clear evidence showing that portions of the genome from the transgenic strain had incorporated into the target population, the authors wrote in the new study. The project resulted in a significant transfer of genetic materialan amount the authors described as not trivial. Depending on the samples studied, the researchers found that anywhere from 10 to 60 percent of mosquitoes analyzed featured genomes tainted by OX513A.

As the researchers note in the study, the Oxitec scheme worked at first, resulting in a dramatic reduction in the size of the mosquito population. But at the 18-month mark, the population began to recover, returning to nearly pre-release levels. According to the paper, this was on account of a phenomenon known as mating discrimination, in which females of the native species began to avoid mating with modified males.

The new evidence also suggests that some members of the F1 generation were not weakened as predicted, with some individuals clearly strong enough to reach adulthood and reproduce. The mosquitoes in Jacobina now feature genetic traits from three distinct mosquito populations (Cuba, Mexico, and local), which is a potentially troubling development. In nature, the intermingling of traits between different species can sometimes provide an evolutionary boost in a phenomenon known as hybrid vigor. In this case, and as the researchers speculate in the new study, the added genetic diversity may have resulted in a more robust species, a claim Oxitec denies.

Powell and his team tested the hybrid mosquitoes to determine their susceptibility to infection by Zika and dengue. The researchers found no significant differences, as noted in the study, but this is for just one strain of each virus under laboratory conditions, and that under field conditions for other viruses the effects may be different. Its also possible that the intermingling of genetic traits might have also introduced entirely new characteristics, such as increased resistance to insecticides, the authors warned in the new paper.

An Oxitec spokesperson told Gizmodo the company is currently in the process of working with the Nature Research publishers to remove or substantially correct this article, which was found to contain numerous false, speculative and unsubstantiated claims and statements about Oxitecs mosquito technology. The spokesperson provided a three-page document detailing Oxitecs concerns with the research, noting that the new paper did not identify any negative, deleterious or unanticipated effect to people or the environment from the release of OX513A mosquitoes.

According to Oxitec, the OX513A self-limiting gene does not persist in the environment, and that the limited 3-5% survival of the OX513A strain means that, within a few generations, these introduced genes are completely eliminated from the environment.

Oxitec also disputes the researchers claim that female mosquitoes began to avoid mating with modified males, saying, Selective mating has never been observed in any releases of close to 1 billion Oxitec males worldwide. The authors provide no data to support this hypothesis.

Gizmodo reached out to Powell for comment did not hear back by the time of posting.

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that the news that the Oxitec experiment didnt go as planned is raising alarms among scientists and environmentalists:

Biologists critical of genetic engineering go one step further with their criticism, among them the Brazilian biologist Jos Maria Gusman Ferraz: The release of the mosquitos was carried out hastily without any points having been clarified, Ferraz told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

The Munich-based research laboratory Testbiotech, which is critical of genetic engineering, accuses Oxitec of having started the field trial without sufficient studies: Oxitecs trials have led to a largely uncontrollable situation, CEO Christoph Then told the German Press Agency, dpa. This incident must have consequences for the further employment of genetic engineering, he demanded.

That this project didnt go as planned is legitimately troubling. The episode demonstrates that releasing genetically modified organisms into the wild can have unintended, unpredictable consequences and that independent scientific monitoring of the outcomes is crucial.

Update: September 17, 12:33 p.m. ET: Scientific Reports, the journal in which the research article appears, added the following editors note to the paper on September 17:

Readers are alerted that the conclusions of this paper are subject to criticisms that are being considered by editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues.

We have reached out to the journal for more information and will update when we hear back.

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Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Are Breeding in Brazil, Despite Biotech Firm's Assurances to the Contrary - Gizmodo

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One night at a watering hole outside of Seattle, Ralph Taylor overheard a man a few beers in bragging about how easy it was to get certified as a minority business owner, thus gaining access to potentially millions of dollars worth of state contracts.

Taylors ears perked up. He asked the man exactly how this all went down, and the man told him the Office of Minority and Womens Business Enterprises (OMWBE) the Washington state office that certifies small businesses for these government contracts had a relatively lax application process. All Taylor had to do to get a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certificate, the man said, was provide a sworn affidavit that he belonged to a specific minority class and submit a photo ID. Then hed get approved.

There was a potentially huge payoff: Washington state agencies have a budget of almost$3 billion per year to contract with businesses. Right now, small businesses with white owners get more than six times as much money as small businesses with black owners. But as part of an initiative by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), the state is attempting to level the playing field and award more money to women and people of color. Last year, minority- and women-owned businesses were awarded around $154 million, with nearly $90 millionspent on contracts with certified MBEs.

A few years after that bar conversation, Taylor, who works in the risk management industry, applied to have his own business, Orion Insurance, certified as minority-owned. And in 2014, Washington state awarded him an MBE certificate. It was a remarkable turn of events because, for most of his life, Taylor has been treated as a white man.

HuffPostRalph Taylor took a test that showed he had 4% African DNA. He now wants his small business certified as minority-owned.

That hasnt stopped Taylor from launching a crusade to be legally recognized as Black, based on his own sense of identity and the results of a genealogy test that revealed that he has 4% African DNA.

When Taylor applied to the very same office for a similar federal certificate(a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, or DBE), his application was rejected on the grounds that he didnt meet their criteria of someone belonging to a minority group.

In a letter to Taylor informing him of the denial, the office wrote, The laws governing the state and federal certification are different. While OMWBE has certified an application by your Firm to the Washington State MBE program, that certification is not binding on the Federal DBE certification program.

Flummoxed, he says he contacted the OMWBE by email and phone to fight the denial. I asked, What is the Black culture? he recalls one afternoon in Seattle when we meet downtown outside the federal courthouse, at his behest, so he can demonstrate to me how his racial status changes from Black on state property to white on federal property. He asked the OMWBE to clarify why they excluded him from the program even after, he says, he provided additional evidence of his proposed blackness, including his DNA test results.

According to Taylor, the office questioned whether he was truly part of a minority group.Taylor says he tried to clarify again: Is it Condoleezza Rice, is it Snoop Dogg? Is it Dr. Dre? Or is Ludacris? Or is it Colin Powell? I mean, thats a wide variety of people there, so what is Black culture? They said something to the effect that, If you dont know what it is, thats because youre not Black.

So, he sued the OMWBE. Beyond his own racial status, Taylor claims to be fighting for a greater good, exposing flaws with affirmative action programs.

DNA tests complicate perceptions of race.

HuffPostDNA tests are becoming increasingly popular, though they only look at a small fraction of our genetic materials.

DNA test kits are often marketed as novelty items something fun to bring up at a dinner party or romanticized as a means to unlock fairy tales hidden in our past. Or theyre the subject of true-crime sagas, with podcasts like Serial inspiring Reddit pages fixated on convicted murderer Adnan Syeds case. DNA tests have even gotten glossy Netflix treatment with documentaries like Making A Murderer.

More recently, these kits entered our politics when Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren revealed the results of a genetic ancestry test to back up earlier claims of indigenous heritage. Warren was criticized by some tribal leaders for implying a relation between DNA and tribal citizenship, and she subsequently apologized.

These controversies aside, DNA kits have become cheaper and more popular; 23andMe, for instance, was originallypriced at $999 when it came to market, but now kits cost around $99. And yet, University of Pennsylvania sociologist Wendy Roth says we still dont fully understand what happens when we send our saliva off to a laboratory and we dont know how to properly interpret the results.

Right now I dont think that [companies selling at-home genealogy kits] are generally doing a good enough job of explaining how these tests should be interpreted and what the limitations are and what some potential negative impacts could be, says Roth, whose work is focused on DNA as it intersects with culture and identity.

Humans share 99.9% of the same genetic makeup, so at-home genealogy kits only look at a small fraction of our genetic materials. These tests are then further limited by the fact that the majority of people who have taken them have predominantly European ancestry (white people love this stuff!) so they are less accurate for other groups.

HuffPostUniversity of Pennsylvania sociologist Wendy Roth says we still dont fully understand what happens when we send our saliva off to a laboratory.

Still, companies are getting frighteningly good at identifying Americans of European descent who have never even taken a genetic test themselves. Law enforcement agencies, for example, use existing samples to triangulate information and solve crimes; it was a distant relatives DNA that led to the capture of the suspected Golden State Killer.

Despite all this, Roth says these tests are not particularly accurate as a means of determiningracial ancestry. Race is not something that is just genetic. Genetics play a part, but only a part, Roth explains. The way that sociologists define race is something that is socially determined, that refers to aspects of your biology or your ancestry. But its only referring to them.

Black cultural theorist and author Mychal Denzel Smith agrees. DNA is not telling you your race, because race is not a biological fact, he says. Race is a social and political construct. It is something that is lived.

For his part, Taylor tells me that he has always considered himself multiracial and sees race as fluid. DNA, he says, will prove that our racial makeup is just genetic mutations at the end of the day.

Roth says that understanding race as a social construct can sometimes lead people to think that they can pick and choose their race as they like, without consequence. In a qualitative study she conducted in 2018, Roth found that white respondents were most eager, of all respondents, to change their ethnic or racial identity. They wanted to discover ancestry that made them distinctive or exotic, or they wanted a more specific tradition to distinguish themselves. Roth called this phenomenon symbolic race.

People want to be able to enjoy the privileges or the benefits of a racial group without any of the costs, she says, adding that shes working on quantitative studies to further explore these patterns. They dont experience any discrimination, and because they dont have to tell anyone that they have this ancestry or this identity, they can just use it when its advantageous for them and hide it when its not.

Could DNA impact affirmative action laws?

All 50 states have an OMWBE or equivalent. The amount that each state allocates to minority contractors varies, as does the impact of each program. One recent report commissioned by Washington state discovered that some MBEs felt that certification was actually a detriment because it can be viewed by other firms and agencies as a stigma.

Butthe majority of the country still sees a benefit to affirmative action, and the number of Americans saying they favor such programs has risen in the last few years.

Affirmative action programs are trying to adjust for a specific form of oppression which has to do with racial hierarchies, the legacy of slavery, the legacy of Jim Crow, the legacy of lynching, the legacy of redlining. It is specifically meant to address that, cultural theorist Smith explains, adding that race is something that is lived.

Similarly, writer and HuffPost Black Voices Editor Taryn Finley sees affirmative action programs like the OMWBE to be a sort of corrective to historic racial injustices. Its not a fix-all, but it levels the playing field for people of color, for marginalized people.

Finley takes umbrage with Taylors method of exposing what he says are flaws with the system, and says the ends do not justify his means. If you look at a lot of the loudest voices, the folks who are going up against affirmative action are people like Ralph Taylor, who dont know how to use their privilege or relinquish their power in ways to actually help marginalized folks.

HuffPost"Being able to tip-toe back and forth across a line between 'now Im Black, now Im white, now Im multiracial' -- thats not identity. Youre playing a game," says HuffPost Black Voices Editor Taryn Finley.

So how might DNA tests impact whos eligible for affirmative action programs? The truth is, the issue has not yet been legally tested.

In 2003, when these tests were in their infancy and still costly, Alan Moldawer, a father of adopted twin boys, made headlineswhen he said he was considering using the outcomes of a genealogy test to try and secure financial aid for his kids on the grounds of their minority status. While white-presenting, his twin boys were 9% Native American and 11% North African, according to the tests Moldawer commissioned. It was one of the first reported instances where DNA tests were raised as a possible entry point to affirmative action programs.

More recently,a judge this year allowed Princeton student Nicole Katchurs lawsuitagainst the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University to proceed. Katchur, who is white, is suing for racial discrimination, claiming that an admissions officer told her that if she were to take a DNA test and discover Native American or African-American lineage, her chances of getting accepted into the medical school program would go up. (The medical school is seeking to dismiss the suit.)

The case was reminiscent of Fisher v. University of Texas, in which Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas in 2008 for what she perceived to be anti-white bias in its admissions process. Fisher lost in 2016 when the Supreme Court upheld the universitys use of race in admission decisions.

What Taylors case and these college-based lawsuits have in common are the questions they raise about the gatekeepers of these programs who gets to decide whether someone is a deserving applicant or not. And more often than not, the first barrier to entry is phenotype (what we look like) rather than genotype (what our genes reveal).

When it comes to race, how we see ourselves isnt always how others see us.

Despite attempts to codify race, it is not as static an idea as many would like. In her book The Limits of Whiteness, sociologist Neda Maghbouleh explores how Iranians and other Middle Eastern Americans moved across the color line and documents how the U.S. Supreme Court used Iranians as a racial litmus test to determine the classification of other Middle Eastern or Arab people. Drawing on work by Middle East historian Nina Farnia, Maghbouleh shows how between 1909 and 1939, Iranians skin color was classified and reclassified as white and nonwhite by claimants in eight separate Supreme Court cases.

In 1896, in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson that led to the infamous separate but equal principle, the Supreme Court drew the color line in a different place. Justice Henry Billings wrote a majority opinion that refers to the one-drop rule or the idea that any person could be Black even if not discernible to the naked eye.

Taylors case somewhat oddly and uncomfortably evokes Plessy. A small amount of centiMorgans (the unit of measure of DNA) reveals some distant African ancestry, allowing him to claim access to an affirmative action program.

Smith cautions against this protocol. Thats just getting us into another position in which we are trying to scientifically determine something that does not exist scientifically, he says.

HuffPostDNA is not telling you your race, because race is not a biological fact, saysBlack cultural theorist and author Mychal Denzel Smith.

Roth further notes that the sheer volume of African-informed DNA has no bearing on how race is constructed socially. Should Taylors 4% be enough for society to accept him as Black? What if his results came back with 44%, or 64%?

I think what makes the difference is how the person is seen by others within their community. If the person is seen by others within their community as a white person, then the percentage doesnt matter, Roth argues. In the case of somebody who has a very small percent, like 4%, its very unlikely that that is going to be visible enough that its going to influence peoples interactions with them.

Roths position is one that has historically guided government agencies.

Take the U.S. census. The census was originally filled out by an enumerator who went door to door and filled out the survey for you. As Roth points out, these people were often neighbors who may have known your family history chances are, they might have known if your grandfather was a Mulatto or a person who was white and so may have filled out the forms based on their knowledge of your family history, in addition to how they took in your appearance.

This changed in the 1960s and 70s with mailouts and that simple shift in data collection had a more profound sociocultural impact. The meaning of this race question just completely shifted without anyone really paying any attention to it at all, Roth explains. It really went from something that was all about how youre seen by others to how you mark yourself.

There are many more recent instances where how we are viewed by other people has been instructional as to how were viewed in the eyes of the law. A recentLos Angeles Times investigation revealed businesses in at least 18 states won certification as minority contractors by claiming Native American status, even though birth, census and other government records identified the firms owners or their ancestors as white.In response, two House committees are investigating.

In Brazil, eyeing someones racial makeup has been at the heart of a protracted legal battle, after the government introduced a quota system for federal jobs and made the postings public. People started hunting down and searching peoples Facebook and social media profiles, sleuthing and cross-checking to see if their named racial backgrounds matched with how they appeared in photographs.

Taylor went through a similar process in his quest to be awarded federal minority designation after he was denied. He attempted to submit scores of Excel spreadsheet data with the names of people who were awarded federal minority status alongside hyperlinks to the LinkedIn profiles or company websites, in an effort to reveal how many people were, he says, gaming the system. Taylor claims that his own research into states minority business owner programs shows that 65% of enrollees were white, based on his perception of their photos. The spreadsheet was ultimately disallowed by the 9th Circuit court as evidence.

When I asked the OMWBE over email about the validity of Taylors claims, they said: This is not an area of fraud our program has seen.When I asked about whether it ever turns down applicants, the office said, Each year is different depending on the number of applications we receive.

HuffPostTaylor believes he should qualify as a minority.

Is being Black about more than DNA?

Taylor is tall and surprisingly soft-spoken. He rarely raises his voice, even for emphasis. Nonetheless, he has loudly advertised his identity with contemporary stereotypes. To flex his Black culture bonafides, Taylor argued that he was a member of the NAACP, subscribes to Ebony Magazine and takes a great interest in black social causes. In 2017, he changed his birth certificate to reflect what he says is his multiracial status of Black, Native American and Caucasian.

He says he has received death threats as a result of his story. In order to prove to his detractors that hes not pursuing his case for financial gains, he took a polygraph test, which he shared with me: It was never about the money, he says, adding he hasnt benefitted financially from his MBE status.

When he talks to me about this in the bar, the conversation turns, inescapably, for a moment to Rachel Dolezal. Dolezal, who now goes by Nkechi Diallo, was the woman who sparked outrage in 2015 when it was revealed that she had been posing as a Black woman for most of her adult life, despite being born white. Taylor says he feels sorry for Dolezal, and wished he could have told her that all she had to do was identify.But this kind of physical code-switching is typically only a one-way street.

Being able to tip-toe back and forth across a line between now Im Black, now Im white, now Im multiracial thats not identity. Youre playing a game, says Finley of HuffPost Black Voices. Its a very nefarious way of using your privilege, and I dont think that youre genuinely trying to expose a flaw in the system.

Nicholas K. Geranios/APThis July 24, 2009, file photo shows Rachel Dolezal, who made headlines for saying she was Black, even though she had been born white.

Finley, who took a DNA test herself to uncover her own previously unknown family history, is 10% European. But, she says, Im a Black woman. My lived experience as a Black woman cannot be passed [as white].

Smith also takes exception to Dolezal and Taylors claims to Blackness. He roots Black culture in a community of people with shared experiences.

Theres the common experience that all of our ancestors had of slavery. They formed culture out of that. You have the common experience of segregation. They formed culture out of that, he says. If you cannot point to your life as a shared experience with those people, then how can you claim that status?

Taylor, however, sometimes claims that affirmative action entry points shouldnt be focused on race at all. Instead, he says equal opportunity programs should look more at socioeconomics in part because, in his telling, we are all multiracial. Simultaneously, Taylor claims that his 4% African DNA results mean that he should be considered Black enough to qualify for the OMWBE program anyway.

In December 2018, the 9th Circuit judges unanimously ruled against Taylor, and in favor of the OMWBE, which the court argued did not act in an arbitrary and capricious manner when it determined it had a well founded reason to question Taylors membership claims.

Smith expresses some sympathy for the gatekeepers of these affirmative action programs. What were trying to determine is if you are a part of a class of people that has been discriminated against and therefore you are eligible for the corrective program, right? Its really, really confusing and tricky to do, he says. What were asking then is for you to prove a history of discrimination on the basis of how you look. Thats difficult for anybody to suss out.

Is this just trolling to make a point?

Speaking with Taylor at the bar outside of Seattle, its hard not to wonder if, frankly, he isnt just trolling us all and the government.

Taylor says he has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars litigating his case. He jokes that hes willing to live out of his car if it means seeing this through to the end, though what that end looks like is at this stage unclear. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his case over the summer, and he has run out of appeals to the 9th Circuit. But he says he plans to reapply to the OMWBE for certification later this month.

In a June 2019 email to the director of the Washington state OMWBE, which he shared with HuffPost, Taylor inquired about resubmitting the paperwork to get his DBE certification and be recognized federally as a minority business owner. In the note, he states that hes sending in his newly amended birth certificate, but asks should I have the certificate amended to state that I am black without any other ethnicities and adds I can also have the certificate amended to state female if that will help.

The glibness is part of Taylors point he wants to expose the flaws in the process of becoming minority certified, and more broadly with what he says is the somewhat arbitrary nature of the affirmative action system.

The system the way it is now needs to break, he says.

Kayvon Afshari, Lindsey Davis and Emily Bina contributed reporting.

REAL LIFE. REAL NEWS. REAL VOICES.

Help us tell more of the stories that matter from voices that too often remain unheard.

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A DNA Test Revealed This Man Is 4% Black. Now He Wants To Abolish Affirmative Action. - HuffPost

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A study designed to determine differential characteristics between bipolar disorder (BD)-I and BD-II and published in Psychiatry Research found that being female, having a family history of psychiatric conditions, and having higher illness severity were associated with a diagnosis of BD-II.

Gianluca Serafini, MD, PhD, of the Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, Section of Psychiatry, University of Genoa, Italy, and colleagues conducted a study of bipolar subtype characteristics among patients with currently euthymic bipolar disorder. Patients were receiving only maintenance treatment.

The investigators found that those with BD-II were more likely to be female (odds ratio [OR], 0.289), to have other family members with psychiatric conditions (OR, 0.273), and to experience a higher severity of illness (OR, 0.604). In addition, patients with BD-II were more likely to have psychotic symptoms at first episode and to have substance abuse/dependence issues. Those with BD-I were more likely to have higher depressive, manic, anxiety, and symptoms severity and to have been younger at illness onset.

Limitations of the study include the use of a single psychiatric sample population and the relatively small sample size, making it difficult to generalize these findings to other existing patient populations. In addition, the subgroups compared included both outpatients and inpatients, possibly biasing the results.

The investigators concluded that BD is a heterogeneous condition and there is a need to identify valid and reliable BD subtypes according to phenotypic BD characteristics. These findings also challenge the assumption that BD-II is a less severe and disabling BD subtype.

Reference

Serafini G, Gonda X, Aguglia A, et al. Bipolar subtypes and their clinical correlates in a sample of 391 bipolar individuals. Psychiatry Res. 2019;281:112528.

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Sex, Higher Illness Severity Associated With Bipolar Disorder II - Psychiatry Advisor

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Seven breeders from the Northern Ireland Dorset Club travelled to Carlisle, Cumbria on Friday 30th August for the annual show and sale held in Harrison and Hetherington Mart.

There was a strong representation of sheep brought forward between the breeders with upwards of 60 sheep making the journey across the water.

Also travelling over for the sale were a number of Northern Irish breeders either to purchase or view the fine spectacle of Dorset sheep on offer at the sale.

It was a day to remember for Graham and Mary Cubitt, Kildowney Flock, Ballymena. Taking the male and supreme championship was their December born ram lamb, Kildowney Ben a young lamb showing tremendous potential sired by Mainevalley Zorro out of a home bred ewe. He later went on to achieve the top price of the day of 1000gns selling to society president, Mr Les French, Cornwall. To add to their success, the Kildowney flock also came out on top in the female section, taking female and reserve overall champion with their ewe lamb, lot 282 sold for 380gns to Messrs Buckle, Cumbria.

The success of Northern Irish breeders continued through the show and sale. In the male section, N.I breeders achieved the top five prices. Closely following the top price of 1000gns from Graham Cubitt was Ben lamb, Richill flock selling lot 329 for 880gns to Joe Larder, Sandford and lot 328 for 850gns to Sam Reid, Talgaiarn.

Ballymoney breeder, Thomas Wright, Ballytaggart flock sold his 2nd prize ram lamb, a full brother to the 2019 Mayfair supreme champion for 800gns to Messrs Walker, Wigtownshire. Gary Hanna, Mae Flock, Newtownards achieved 700gns for his 1st prize shearling and reserve male champion, heading to Aaron Byrnes, Aberdeenshire. Michael and Catherine Maybin realised 650gns for their ram lamb Galgorm Busby finding his new home with Sean Smith, Wingerworth.

The strong trade was carried through into the female section. Topping the females was English breeder, Sam Driver, Sandylane flock with a price of 750gns for his reserve female champion, a homebred shearling ewe by Ballytaggart Nijinsky going to Messrs Gray, West Yorkshire.

Ben lamb, Richill had the second highest price with his ewe lamb, lot 255 selling for 500gns to fellow Northern Irish breeder Ellen McClure, Dundrod. Thomas Wright, Ballytaggart flock also enjoyed a good sale for females selling first in the ring lot 201, an in lamb shearling ewe for 480gns to Northern Irish breeders James and Craig Robson, Doagh. In the same pen lot 204 also made 480gns selling to Messrs Buckle, Cumbria whilst his ewe lambs topped at 400gns for lot 251 going to Messrs Horsfall, Aberdeenshire.

Overall it was a very successful show and sale with excellent quality of stock on display. In particular the standard of sheep brought forward from Northern Ireland was exceptional, reflected by their success in both the show and in the sale ring.

Sale averages

Shearling Rams 413.70Shearling Gimmers 348.14

Ram Lambs 543.25

Ewe Lambs 254.00

Pens of Females 199.50

The next NI Club Sale will be the annual Autumn show and sale, held on Monday 7th October 2019 at McClellands Livestock Mart, Ballymena. The show will take place at 5pm with the sale at 6.30pm and will mark the final sale of 2019, giving prospective purchasers a final chance to invest in top quality genetics before the new year.

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NI Dorset breeders clean up at Carlisle - Farming Life

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ISLE ROYALE, MI - A multi-year project designed to bring new wolves to Michigans remote Isle Royale wilderness has ended its fall segment, with three new arrivals from the Upper Peninsula roaming the island.

This brings the islands wolf population to 17, nine males and eight females.

In addition to the three new U.P. wolves, this number includes the original island-born pair that is not able to have viable pups, and the 12 wolves relocated from Minnesota and Canada last fall and winter.

The new wolves arriving this fall were flown in by a seaplane. Isle Royale, which is also a national park, sits in Lake Superior, about 60 miles northwest of the U.P. mainland.

The relocation is part of a three-to-five year plan by the National Park Service to bring up to 30 new wolves onto the island, where more than 2,000 moose are chewing their way through its forests. Years ago, there were up to 50 wolves in different packs on Isle Royale. But a combination of inbreeding, accidents and disease caused their numbers to dwindle to just two.

This months relocation effort is the first time the NPS has taken wolves from Michigans mainland. It came with another loss, though.

A wolf moved to the island on Sept. 13 was found dead, the National Park Service said. Its tracking collar began sending out a mortality signal shortly after it was released on the island. Within a couple days, researchers found the wolfs body, which is being sent to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., for a necropsy to see if a cause of death can be determined.

While each wolf captured for transfer to the island is vet-checked and has to meet certain physical standards, sometimes there is no way to know how their bodies will handle it, park staff said.

Capture, anesthesia, and translocation are stressful events for wolves and the impact of that stress on each individual wolf is unknown, Isle Royale Park Superintendent Phyllis Green said.

There is a field examination, however underlying health conditions of wolves prior to their capture are difficult to determine. The analysis of the samples collected during the examination and the necropsy may reveal more information about the cause of death, which will inform future transfers.

This is the fourth wolf to die during this effort to bring predator packs back to Isle Royale.

A female wolf from Minnesota died in captivity before she could be brought to the island last fall. In that case, the wolf was sedated for the trip to a holding facility where it was to be examined by veterinary staff who were assisting with the project. Once she arrived at the facility, NPS officials said the wolfs condition deteriorated and she died, despite the best efforts of the medical team.

Necropsy results revealed no direct cause of death, but scientists think it was likely due to anesthesia-related stress," NPS staff said.

Because of this belief, the wolf transfer team immediately reviewed its protocols for how the wolves were being handled, park staff said after the wolfs death last fall. They made adjustments in the length of time captured wolves were kept in the field before they were transported, and re-evaluated how they were sedating the wolves.

The other deaths were two male wolves found dead at different times after they were released on the island. In one of those cases, its GPS tracking collar was found still attached to its body in a swamp. No cause of death could be determined for that one.

In the other wolfs case, the post-mortem exam revealed the male wolf died of pneumonia, ... though how the wolf developed this condition is unknown, park staff said.

The goal of creating strong, healthy wolf packs on this remote island means the NPS is trying to establish a good genetic stew, demonstrated by how they are trapping wolves from various points around the Great Lakes and bringing them together on Isle Royale. The hope is that with these new arrivals, the genetic problems that doomed the islands past wolves wont be replayed.

Adding genetics from Michigan wolves was a key piece of the puzzle to provide the best opportunity for genetic diversity that supports the sustainability of the introduced population," Green said. Our focus now will be on broad population goals and the opportunity these Michigan wolves represent. We will continue to learn what we can and track how the wolves integrate into the island landscape.

As fall continues and the island shuts down for the winter, the park service and its research partners will continue to monitor the new wolves to see how they are forming packs, killing moose and possibly pairing up to bring the island its first wolf pups in years.

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4 U.P. wolves taken to Michigans Isle Royale, 1 found dead days later - MLive.com

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I was distressed to learn that Netflix cancelled Designated Survivor, after rescuing the show from ABC for a third season. Finally, the characters in the West Wing could speak realistically. But it didnt help.

I was thrilled at the bioterror-catalyzed plot, which borrowed Isaac Asimovs law of science fiction: change only one thing. But stronger science in the story could have built a compelling, biology-based case against white supremacy, because the weapon was to somehow seek the dark-skinned. Short-shrifting the science was a missed opportunity.

The first episode of Designated Survivor aired September 21, 2016. With ten million viewers, many following star Kiefer Sutherland from his Jack Bauer/24 days, DS was quickly extended to a full season.

The plot is simple and original: a massive explosion at the Capitol during the State-of-the-Union address leaves alive and functioning only Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Thomas Kirkman (executive producer Sutherland) in the line of succession. Casualties are massive.

Kirkman is sequestered safely somewhere secret as the designated survivor should disaster smite the president, vice-president, speaker of the house, president pro tempore of the Senate, etc. During that first season, the kind and calm Kirkman struggles to lead, while investigating the disaster that led to his presidency. We get to know his staff.

The show evokes The West Wing, with its snappy banter and distinctive characters (one of whom, Bradley Whitfords Josh Lyman, resurfaced recently on Handmaids Tale as a Commander with a heart), with a touch of Homeland for the FBI/CIA intrigue, and House of Cards, minus the Kevin Spacey drama.

For some of us, tuning in to Designated Survivor on Wednesday nights for the first two seasons was a welcome diversion from the bizarroworld reality of the Trump administration, especially in the early days. Im not the only one whod awaken every Thursday distressed to realize that Kiefer Sutherland wasnt actually the president.

In season three, the targeted bioweapon becomes the backdrop to Kirkmans re-election as an independent candidate.

First, a few other bio-tinged plotlines reverberate behind the main story. I omit the crisis-of-the-week ones.

Much of the action, from the first episode of season 1, centers on Hannah Wells (Maggie Q), who staggers from the rubble of the Capitol and then is always running from something, vacillating between working for the CIA or the FBI, all the while with enviably perfect hair and make-up and killer jeans. She goofs at the end of season 2, and is assigned desk duty. She hates it.

Season 3, episode 2 opens inside a lab disguised as a bread factory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A redheaded nerd has been locked in a freezer, and hes banging on the window watching a bad guy stealing something in a vat that looks like red Kool-Aid. We know it is a biolab because a computer screen displays what look like Salmonella bacteria.

Switch to bored Hannah. At her desk job, she actually reads something intriguing, and before you can say deoxyribonucleic acid, she suddenly spouts what she thinks is biotechspeak, babbling about genetic biology, which normally bores the tits off me, she professionally declares to her superior.

Hannahs discovered that a rogue biogeneticist has sequenced the genome of the poppy. He can edit a gene to wipe out opium!

After getting the go-ahead to follow up, Hannah visits the handsome and eloquent Dr. Eli Mays (Chukwudi Iwuji), a DIY biohacker and geneticist whose lab is crammed with plants, presumably including poppies. We know hes qualified because his computer screen shows a gyrating double helix.

Dr. Mays suddenly orates to Hannah about the government not doing enough to prevent bioterrorism. Soon, he declares, well be able to edit genes on our smart phones!

What worries you most? asks Hannah.

Dr. Mays walks regally over to a freezer festooned with biohazard stickers, slowly opens the door, and removes and holds up a zip-loc bag. Its a virus Ive not seen before, he solemnly declares, but the bag holds a brilliant red and very dead cardinal.

Birds are falling from the skies over Florida. An avian flu!

Next, Hannah and Dr. Mays visit the lab in Cambridge, seeking a South African mad scientist out to rejuvenate apartheid. The labs been scrubbed clean, but the ginger-haired scientist-on-ice, now missing, has scratched three concentric circles into the wall before he was dragged outside, where we see his body anointed with gooey, glistening smallpox lesions.

What can the mysterious circles-within-circles be? Aliens? The structure of the smallpox virus, of course, says Dr. Mays. He and Hannah are vaccinated and survive.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, a strange flu strikes an ob/gyn clinic. Pregnant women sneeze for two weeks and then have miscarriages.

Dr. Mays helpfully guides us through whats happened: A bad gene from smallpox virus has been CRISPRed into a bird flu virus that also has a gene from somewhere that interrupts human pregnancies, a few candidates mentioned here. Its an induced miscarriage cluster camouflaged to mimic something that might occur naturally, he deduces.

At first, when the weapon was just bird flu and smallpox, it was deemed just deadly. But eventually the politicos realize that a targeted weapon that causes what they term infertility (which technically miscarriage isnt) is genetic genocide.

By episode 4, we learn that the multi-virus bioweapon will only harm people of color.

Biologically speaking, the only people who do not have skin color have albinism, and I didnt see any of them walking around Kirkmans White House. Here are some facts:

So what, exactly, would the bioweapon target to harm the overwhelming majority of human beings, all those who do not have albinism?

Perhaps Im being too literal. When I investigated white supremacy in the wake of Charlottesville two years ago, I learned that white, to them, means only people with fair skin from the UK, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It does not include Jewish people, ethnic Poles, Slavs, Roma, and many others. It does not include me.

How would the weapon work? Hannah and the crew in the White House just accept that the builders of the bioweapon targeting the dark-skinned can simply make it so.

Are the politicians terrified of big words or crisp acronyms? Their paralysis inspires Dr. Mays, when all is well at the end, to suggest that perhaps President Kirkman consider hiring a few scientists. Good idea.

The CRISPR-this CRISPR-that dialog flies fast as Hannah seemingly gets over her boredom with things genetic. Theres a lot of hand-waving among the White House staff, running around and promising to do things right away, but still the shenanigans remain nonsensical.

And then it seems the bioweapon is more than bird flu and smallpox. It also contains a dash of norovirus! Had the target changed to make people on cruise ships throw up? Dr. Mays reveals that norovirus was chosen for its speed. Makes sense. I had it once.

Still later, the weapon suddenly becomes water-borne! In Texas! Did someone sneak in a snippet of Vibrio cholera, adding a bacterial component?

Then Hannah, the self-taught bioterror expert with boring breasts, wanders into the Cambridge facility without any sort of protection, not even a hoodie. Running about as usual, she gulps in nerve gas as the South African maniac lurks, masked, in the background.

Oops.

As Hannah gasps and staggers, the South African emerges, removes his protective gear, gloats, and informs her that her diaphragm will stop moving within 3 minutes. It does. She expires.

As the presidential campaign intensifies, concern over the details of the weapon diminish, as its now variously called a virus, a chemical, a weapon that could kill everyone, and its development now attributed to neo-Nazis.

Finally a young black female technician, a friend of Dr. Mays, plants a bot of some sort onto the main bad guy, a miniature something-or-other that tracks him. When caught he reverts to an old tool, popping cyanide. And just like that, the bioterror attack is foiled.

In contrast to the convoluted and vague scenes involving science, a stolen video that Kirkman and crew view, showing a roomful of older, white, males led by Republican presidential candidate Moss, is a little too real. The men are discussing shifting demographics favoring a future of fewer white people. Are they directly behind the invention of the racially-targeted bioweapon? Youll have to watch to find out.

It wasnt the flawed bioterror plot that doomed Designated Survivor after all. Kiefer Sutherland has said that Netflixs restricting actor contracts to one year drove several major players to seek work elsewhere.

I think the bioterror plot succeeded, in tone if not in detail, by illuminating the idiocy of white supremacy. The writers envisioned knitting a bunch of pathogens into a deadly quilt of hate, stitched with CRISPR, and thats really the main point. The hate is real.

See the original post here:
Did a 'flawed' bioterror plot doom Netflix's 'Designated Survivor'? - Genetic Literacy Project

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Joan Gabel was officially installed as the University of Minnesota's 17th president Friday with the traditional handing of a ceremonial mace and medallion but also with a modern twist involving a livestream of the event, vegan chili and therapy dogs.

Gabel opted for an inauguration ceremony designed to herald a presidency that would honor the university's history while at the same time embracing innovation and more fiscal restraint. Gabel is the first female president since the U was founded 168 years ago.

Before presenting her with a mace symbolizing authority, Gov. Tim Walz said he has heard Gabel described again and again as "dynamic," "transformational" and "collaborative." He touched on the high stakes as she takes the helm of the five-campus system with a $4 billion budget especially at this time of unprecedented pressure on the U to arrest costs and redouble its efforts as a state economic driver.

"The beating heart of Minnesota and the success of it is the University of Minnesota," said Walz, whose daughter is a U freshman.

In December, the U's governing board voted unanimously to hire Gabel, the sole finalist in a national search the university conducted after former President Eric Kaler announced he would step down following eight years at the helm. At that point, Gabel, who started her career as a lawyer, had already marked firsts for women on two campuses, as the first female provost at the University of South Carolina and the first female University of Missouri business school dean.

She signed a five-year contract with a $640,000 salary, a $150,000 initial retirement contribution and the possibility of a performance bonus.

Over the summer, the Board of Regents approved up to $250,000 for the inauguration festivities, an amount in line with what the university has budgeted for previous inaugurations. Critics of university spending such as former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson seized on that number, urging Gabel to cancel or scale back the ceremony.

In July, Gabel told regents she did want to overhaul the event into a more informal, modern celebration. She said she bypassed a formal wedding in favor of eloping with her husband, Gary, and planned to take a similar, more relaxed approach to marking the official launch of her presidency.

Some regents seemed taken aback, pointing out the inauguration is not just for Gabel, but also for campus communities, donors and others. But, said board Chairman Ken Powell, Gabel convinced the board the university could have a joyful event that honored tradition without the pomp of previous festivities.

The university estimated the cost of the re-imagined event at about $150,000.

Gabel did away with the gowned faculty procession and the formal dinner reception that had increased the tab for past inaugurations. Instead, she opted for a celebratory walk across campus and a livestreamed speech on the steps of Northrop auditorium. The food was vegan chili, corn and food truck offerings.

The Friday ceremony was the culmination of a week of events in which Gabel set out to highlight university research, outreach and more. She stopped by the university's Bee Lab to see students and faculty making honey, flew a drone over one of the university's agricultural fields and attended a career fair at the College of Science and Engineering.

On Wednesday, Gabel hosted a panel discussion on student mental health, an issue she has elevated to a priority for her presidency.

The Friday inauguration started with a traditional installation ceremony in the regent boardroom at the McNamara Alumni Center, with the flags of Minnesota's 11 tribal nations lined up in the background. Gabel's husband, three children, parents and close friends attended.

Law professor Carol Chomsky, the mace-bearer, said she knew Gabel was the right fit for the U when she spoke of a "Bat-phone" to faculty leadership during her campus interviews. "President Gabel has said and demonstrated that she is collaborative to her core," Chomsky said.

Gabel, her guests, regents, employees and others then headed down Scholars Walk, with the U's marching band, cheer squad and mascots leading the way. Students, faculty and staff along the route cheered and took photos and video of the procession, which included three campus therapy dogs.

Members of the university's Teamsters and AFSCME unions protested in support of more concessions in ongoing contract negotiations. Cherrene Horazuk, president of AFSCME on campus, said the U has not delivered on a decade-old promise to simplify a 27-step salary system for its clerical workers and contract talks so far have not been promising.

AFSCME, which also interrupted last week's board meeting, says Gabel has declined to meet with its representatives even as she has spoken with a slew of campus groups a step the U has said would deviate from the contract negotiation process.

"We do the invisible work behind the scenes, and we feel we have been made invisible," Horazuk said.

At Northrop, Gabel gave an inaugural address in which she acknowledged the pressures facing higher education nationally. But she said the moment also carries "palpable energy" and a sense of opportunity.

"Our university is prepared to meet these challenges at this important moment," she said. "That's because the University of Minnesota is first-class."

She highlighted the importance of keeping the U affordable and inclusive and pursuing "paradigm-shifting ideas."

"Our best days lie ahead," she said. "Now let's get started."

Medha Kaul, a sophomore genetics major who attended the event, said Gabel's focus on student mental health and an inclusive environment has resonated. Students are hopeful Gabel can bring in fresh ideas to rein in tuition increases. As for the symbolism of the day, Kaul said she felt some ambivalence.

"It's exciting to see the first female president," she said. At the same time, "It's, 'Wow! How has it taken so long?'"

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which of Gov. Tim Walzs children attends the University of Minnesota.

Read more:
With vegan chili and less pomp, U installs Joan Gabel as its 17th president - Star Tribune

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

In the world of heart health, there is some good news: As a country, medical statistics suggest, fewer Americans are suffering heart attacks. The bad news is: National rates of heart attacks among people under 40 years old are increasing.

Cleveland Clinic, a global leader in cardiovascular health and medical research, reports that while aging has previously been attributed as a leading factor establishing risk of heart attack, people in their 20s, 30s and 40s are now more often falling victim to myocardial infarctions. Heart attacks can happen to anyone, young or old, male or female.

Knowing how much you are at risk could save your life.

Your diet, especially when consisting of large amounts of processed and ultra-processed food, is a factor; as is your overall weight; a sedentary lifestyle with little to no physical activity; add on family history with heart disease and you have, what Cleveland Clinic Cardiologist Dr. Luke Laffin says are, the reasons why there is a rise in the statistics around heart attacks in young people.

In combination to these environmental and lifestyle circumstances , Dr. Laffin also correlates a relationship between heart attack and personal health in regard to a specific disease that is also on the rise nationally, One of the biggest risk factors of heart attack is the increasing incident of type 2 diabetes. Were now seeing heart attacks occurring in young men who are only 25 or 35. Putting that into perspective, Dr. Laffin says, Twenty years ago this wasnt the case and was rarely discussed in medical school. While the causes for Type 2 Diabetes are largely unknown, it is clinically thought that genetics and environmental factors, such as poor diet, being overweight and inactive seem to be contributing aspects, just like cardiovascular disease.

Cultural and societal shifts in the past two decades might signal a correlative reasoning as to why these two medical conditions are becoming more prolific: increased cell phone use, deteriorating food quality, less emphasis on physical education in schools, or a generation of people raised during the opioid epidemic. It is easy to find a reason to point at rather than admit we are a part of a lazy and overweight population doing little to stay prepared in regards to our own health and longevity.

Preparation for a heart attack comes down to actively trying to prevent the heart attack by eliminating as many risk factors as possible. Dr. Laffin suggests it includes trying to change the social and environmental conditions that could develop and increase your risk of a myocardial event. The things we have control over such as exercising, eating nutritious foods, choosing to avoid smoking, avoiding stimulant drugs like cocaine or amphetamines, managing stress and blood pressure, and educating yourself about your risk level, can all improve your long-term heart health.

In order to best avoid heart disease or Type 2 diabetes you need to change your environment, exercise habits, and make better dietary choices, especially if heart disease runs in the family. Hereditary risk of cardiovascular disease is defined as having a close relative, such as a father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, under the age of 55 for men and 65 for women, with a heart attack or stroke history.

You cannot change your familys history of cardiovascular disease, but you can control what you do with the information. If you have a family history of cardiovascular disease or have life factors that place you more at risk, consult your doctor regularly and monitor your health.

It comes down to being aware of your health and taking your health seriously.

Being aware of the symptoms of a heart attack or myocardial event can save your life or the life of a loved one. According to the Mayo Clinic Common heart attack signs and symptoms include: Pressure, tightness, pain, or a squeezing or aching sensation in your chest or arms that may spread to your neck, jaw or back. Nausea, indigestion, heartburn or abdominal pain. Shortness of breath. Cold sweat. Fatigue. Lightheadedness or sudden dizziness.

Not all people will experience the same symptoms or have the same severity of symptoms. Some may develop mild pain; others might suffer more severe pain. Some people have no symptoms; for others, the first sign may be sudden cardiac arrest. However, the more signs and symptoms you have, the greater the likelihood you are having a heart attack.

Act immediately. Some people wait too long because they dont recognize the important signs and symptoms. Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, but most start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Pay attention to your body and call 911 if you experience any of the symptoms indicating a myocardial infarction.

Engaging in regular physical activity and exercising, keeping your blood pressure and cholesterol in check and monitoring your sugar and fat intake, avoiding packaged and processed foods and sugary beverages, eating a diet balanced by more fruits and vegetables and less meat, and cutting out smoking, all will keep you and your heart healthy. Someone loves you with all their heart so, take care of yours.

See the article here:
Heart attacks on the rise for young people - Ely Daily Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The decline of resistance in old age

Infection, immunity, and demography are rarely measured simultaneously, despite being intertwined. Froy et al. measured an immune marker of resistance to infection by worm parasites (helminths) in Soay sheep off the remote Atlantic island of St. Kilda (see the Perspective by Gaillard and Lematre). They used a library of 2000 blood samples from 800 known individuals that have been left to run wild and unmanaged. Resistance declines as the sheep age, which reduces a sheep's chances of surviving the winter. Helminths are an important component of many natural systems, including humans, and may thus become an increasing burden on health with age.

Science, this issue p. 1296; see also p. 1244

Our understanding of the deterioration in immune function in old ageimmunosenescencederives principally from studies of modern human populations and laboratory animals. The generality and significance of this process for systems experiencing complex, natural infections and environmental challenges are unknown. Here, we show that late-life declines in an important immune marker of resistance to helminth parasites in wild Soay sheep predict overwinter mortality. We found senescence in circulating antibody levels against a highly prevalent nematode worm, which was associated with reduced adult survival probability, independent of changes in body weight. These findings establish a role for immunosenescence in the ecology and evolution of natural populations.

Originally posted here:
Senescence in immunity against helminth parasites predicts adult mortality in a wild mammal - Science Magazine

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PETALING JAYA: IF one were to ask Chef Darren Teoh, founder of the award-winning restaurant Dewakan, on what is the secret to success, he would say there is none.

However, Dewakans listing in the 2019 Asias 50 Best Restaurants list was no accident. He attributed it to a whole ecosystem, from the cooking, preparation, ingredients, all the way down to the farmers.

If you want to know how we prepare the dishes, we would tell you the recipe. If you want to know where we get the ingredients, we'll gladly tell you where to get them.

We dont measure success in terms of awards, but instead, a sustainable business and how we do things, as well as our narrative and purpose.

Our success is dependent on the entire ecology of things, not only how well we cook the ingredients, but also the people who strive to better the local food scene, such as farmers, fishermen and the Orang Asli, who are proud to share their knowledge.

We credit them (suppliers) for the products we source from them; the meat, the rice and even the chocolates, he told the New Straits Times.

Teoh, however, admitted that it could be exceptionally difficult to source meat of good quality.

He said the ruminant sector in Malaysia had been industrialised to cater to the masses, and that the quality and prices paid by consumers were two different things.

Teoh wasnt alone in his assessment of the state of the local ruminant industry. Malaysias poor output in terms of ruminant production, as well as quality, had been a bone of contention among industry players for years.

Malaysia produces only 29 per cent of its ruminant needs, with imports making up the rest. The country, for example, imports beef worth about RM1.14 billion annually to meet the local demand of about 191,000 tonnes.

Datuk Zainal Abd Ghani, founder of Boden Edufarm, is an authority on the subject of the ruminant industry.

His farm supplies high-quality goat meat to the countrys top restaurants, including Dewakan.

Zainal said Boden Edufarm underwent a strict vetting process by Dewakan.

Its team came to Negri Sembilan to inspect our farm in Serting, Jempol, and the kids before agreeing to source the meat from us, he said.

Transporting the meat is also crucial in ensuring its quality. The meat is chilled instead of frozen.

Zainal said Boden Edufarm strived for quality, above all else. In a move to optimise land usage and produce healthier goats, he embarked on a project to open a free range farm on a 40.4ha land.

Boden Edufarm owners Datuk Zainal Abd Ghani and Datin Fatimah Abdullah at their farm in Serting Hilir, Jempol, in June.

He said the key to any business was first understanding what one aimed to achieve.

At Boden, we aim for production and returns (revenue), so we learnt everything that is to know about improving production.

There are two factors to determine this, namely, doe to kid ratio (the average rate of how many offspring a female ruminant could birth) and the growth rate or average daily gain (ADG).

In Malaysia, the ADG of a goat is 70g per day. The authorities should look into this to find the root cause, be it poor genetics or diet, or that the ecosystem is not good. In Australia, the ADG is 200g per day, while in Africa it is 250g.

On the production rate, he said in Africa, a single goat could achieve the market weight of between 30kg and 40kg after three and four months.

However, in Malaysia, Zainal said the cycle from birth to market takes about eight to 10 months.

He said, as a result, Malaysians chose not to venture into the industry because of low returns.

He said the governments approach to help farmers, although well intentioned, could end up killing the industry altogether.

The government spent millions of ringgit to bring in livestock with the purpose of helping farmers improve their revenue through breeding.

Unfortunately, the goats were of poor quality. This is compounded by the fact that many farmers who received the goats were not ready as there is a lack of infrastructure.

They ended up selling the goats back to the suppliers for RM300 each, which the suppliers in turn sold for RM2,000.

He said most of the government initiatives to improve the ruminant industry and increase production of livestock were programme-oriented instead of result-oriented.

Zainal, whose experience included serving as chief executive officer of a public transport operator, said help such as loans and grants would not help the industry in the long term.

The industry, he said, could be killed by the very gestures meant to improve it.

When you provide more loans without proper technical assistance to the farmers, you are not helping them in the long run.

There have been many cases of goat farmers funded by the government closing down as they lacked the knowledge and expertise. In the meantime, our industry suffers due to a lack of supply, which then leads to the import of meat, which in turn kills the business of local producers.

Zainal said the relevant agencies should pay more attention to ways to boost local production and reduce dependency on imported livestock.

The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry has been focusing on Wagyu meat and Musang King durian, while here, we are talking about basic food.

The government must talk to industry players to find out the issues. Dont talk about land, labour or capital. Once we know what we want, the rest will come afterwards.

See more here:
'Focus on boosting ruminant production' - New Straits Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The above map shows variations in average IQs in Europe, an arbitrarily selected area. Why not do it (discriminate) on Geography?

Or, if people with lower socio-economic standing have lower IQs (some say the pressures can lower IQ by 13 points) or thatit affects IQ more in the US than elsewhere, then surely we should just do away with the poor. They are lowering our average IQs!

All this kind of position does is advocate elitism along whatever arbitrary line the claimant desires.

Lets look again at the biological sex category, but this time in terms of violence and safety. This, in my opinion, utterly destroys Rob Smiths and OTGs argument.

There is a subset of humanity that is 882% more likely to violent crime. It would be wise to restrict their participation in society, or their migration, or to vilify them in some other way, etc etc.

Of course, they are men. You are one, Mr. Smith/OTG. I would say that being a man isFAR, FAR, FARmore problematic in comparison to blacks vs. white violence. Just reading books likeThe Anatomy of Violenceby Adrian Raine orIncognitoby David Eaglemanshould cause Rob Smith to pause and reflect on his very dubious position. He should be far more vehemently protesting againstmenif safety and violence is important to him, if hereallyfeels strongly about it. Men are 882% more likely to commit violent behaviour. This is a huge difference and dwarfs that claimed between blacks and whites. Women iun the UK account for only 5% of the prison population, but are 50% of teh population.

We men should be more like women, no?

I mean, that is what OTG is saying: blacks should be more like whites?

I said this to OTG:I can ignore your statistics there because you seem to ignore the statistics on men against women. We know the statistics for men committing violent crime and gun crime far outstrips that committed by women. However, you seem to ignore these statistics in your hellbent desire to persecute blacks. Your double standards are quite incredible because you never seem to campaign so vociferously against men. However, the statistics of men versus women compared to blacks versus whites is considerably different.

His reply?

Its not a double standard, and observing facts is not persecution. No one denies the fact men are more violent and criminal than women, but liberals like you deny the fact blacks are much more violent and criminal than whites. Blacks are 12% of the population and commit more total homicides than whites and Hispanics combined.

Tumbleweed.

And eventually:

And black men commit crimes at a much higher rate than white men.

This is his modus operandi.When presented with a difficult corner to fight out of, he simply repeats his original claim. In this case, both, myself and another commenter (Anri) asked him several times what he wanted to do with his claimed information, even ignoring my points:

Okay, so if I agreed to your narrative about blacks (I dont), then what? What is your point that you want to raise whenever you raise this narrative? Because whatever you suggest should happen with blacks should happen to massively far greater extent with men. And herein lies your double standards, no doubt.

His reply?

Why do you insist on denying the fact blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites? You present yourself as a rational, truth seeker, but thats clearly not the case.

One of the reasons it needs to be raised is because people like you attribute American crime to guns.

And thats the closest, after many times of asking, that he has got to answering the oft-asked question.

But it need not just be IQ that is used. We could divide people up on any number of abilities or skill sets. Coordination, cultural heritage, art, use of logic, survival skills, musicality The list goes on.

And, to me, that is what makes him racist. He is being arbitrarily (non-rationally) phobic or discriminatory of a race. He could choose any number of elitist categorisations to attack others, but he chooses race.

It is also worth noting that if iQ is his thing, then he needs to accept that lower IQ is also linked to higher religiosity:

In a 2013 meta-analysis of 63 studies, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, a correlation of -.20 to -.25 between religiosity and IQ was particularly strong when assessing beliefs (which in their view reflects intrinsic religiosity)

Naturally, it is worth really unpicking the data for a number of confounding causal variables, but we know OTG doesnt like to do that, so we can assume that he will accept that the negativity of violence and crime as caused by lower IQ in blacks (his claim) also causes another negativity or religiosity. Unless he wants to mess around with religiosity being a good thing and undermining his argument such that a low IQ can cause bad things, but this is balanced by good things.

But that would be far too nuanced for him

I could go on, but I will stop here. I will ask again: why do these people botherwith this crusade at all? I could vilify autistic people, or quadriplegics, as not offering something or another to society. But I dont because I am a compassionate human. Where is Rob Smiths and Ottos humanity? Are they simply advocating for eugenics based on the colour of someones skin? Commenter Thanks4AllTheFish made a couple of comments that, for me, nailed it (on Duvals piece):

Sub-Saharan Africa is very fertile and has an abundance of animal life. If you understood evolution at all, you would know that environment plays a critical part in evolutionary change. With all this abundance, the indigenous people had no need for huge cities and castles to defend their realm. Hunting and gathering satisfied their needs whereas in Europe, the climate was much harsher and necessitated evolutionary change. Does this make European peoples better than sub-Saharan Africans? Absolutely not. It only makes them different. This is what you fail to understand.

Journals from early European explorers write about how they were amazed at the variety and richness of African culture that had developed outside of white influence. Discoveries of the Monomotapa Kingdom, Zagwe Dynasty, the Axumite, Ghana, Mali, Sonhai, Kanem, Nri, and Bornull Empires showed a richness of culture unknown to Europeans prior to the 1200s. You dismiss all of this because it doesnt fit into your superiority narrative and I understand that. What you need to understand is that a written language, IQ, or intelligence is not what really bothers YOU about Blacks,et al.

What bothers you about Blacks is that they exist and they apparently threaten your sense of superiority. The rest of us dont see black people we just see people. That is the primary difference between a racist and an actual Human Being.

and:

So what? None of this matters to anyone but white supremists. All of us used to wriggle around in the primeval slime. You paint with a broad brush but the fact is some blacks are smarter than some whites and many Asians are smarter than many whites. My post indicates that those who worry about such matters are in need of a mental health professional.

Black people in America have demonstrated one overwhelming superiority to white people enormous restraint. If I had been treated the way Blacks and Native Americans have been treated, I would have slaughtered you all in your sleep.

Is the point of this discussion to show that white people are somehow superior to others because they have a greater IQ? If one were to accept this premise (as if it even mattered), is the end goal to round up all the Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. folks and put them to work picking cotton or something? Why should anyone care what race is the smartest? That seems like a fools errand unless some sinister eugenics plot or cross burning is in the offing. If your whole life revolves around trying to justify how smart and superior you are because your skin happens to be white, frankly you are a racist jackass and you need to get over yourself. One thing pretty much everyone agrees on is that being a racist or bigot is not a sign of superiority, higher IQ or intelligence. It is a sign of mental illness, however.

Treating people as fellow human beings. Thats what it is to be a humanist, and of that Im proud.

Although I said I would grant them their claims for sake of argument, I cant resist a bit of a dig. I will refer to Explaining the Gaps in White,Black, and Hispanic Violencesince 1990: Accounting forImmigration, Incarceration,and Inequality byMichael T. Lightand Jeffery T. Ulmer. It is a recent meta-analytical paper that is well worth a read. Here are some relevant snippets:

Across all three comparisonswhite-black, white-Hispanic, and blackHispanicwefind considerable convergence in homicide rates over the past two decades.Consistent with expectations, structural disadvantage is one of the strongest predictors oflevels and changes in racial/ethnic violence disparities. In contrast to predictions based on strain theory, racial/ethnic wealth inequality has not increased disparities in homicide.Immigration, on the other hand, appears to be associated with declining white-black homicidedifferences. Consistent with an incapacitation/deterrence perspective, greater racial/ethnicincarceration disparities are associated with smaller racial/ethnic gaps in homicide.

Combined with theincarceration findings, our research suggeststhat rather than policies focused solely on criminal elements within communities (e.g.,incarceration and more police), policies aimedat improving overall community conditions inminority areas through economic investment,housing equality, and spending on education,drug treatment, and work training programs,would go a long way toward reducing racial/ethnic differences in violence without worseningracial inequality in other social domains.

Taken together, our results have importantimplications for understanding the future ofracial/ethnic disparities in violent crime. Onthe one hand, disparities in homicide betweenwhites, blacks, and Hispanics decreased overthe past two decades, to the point where thereis now near parity between whites and Hispanics.

Ulmer et al also recently found strong causal drivers in disadvantage, family structure and poverty in racial differences in violent crime.

As Wiki states:

While there is a correlation between blacks and Hispanics and crime, the data imply a much stronger tie between poverty and crime than crime and any racial group, when gender is taken into consideration.[63]The direct correlation between crime and class, when factoring for race alone, is relatively weak. When gender, and familial history are factored, class correlates more strongly with crime than race or ethnicity.[64][65]Studies indicate that areas with low socioeconomic status may have the greatest correlation of crime with young and adult males, regardless of racial composition, though its effect on females is negligible.[64][65]A 1996 study looking at data fromColumbus, Ohiofound that differences in disadvantage in city neighborhoods explained the vast majority of the difference in crime rates between blacks and whites,[66]and two 2003 studies looking at violent offending among juveniles reached similar conclusions.[67][68]

The evidence is mixed on the causality for racial disparity, and at least part of this (as Duval pointed out) is the difficulty in finding comparable data between ethnic groups in terms of SES (and this tells another story!). Simply put, we cant seem to find the same sort of deprivation amongst a comparable white US population.

Controlling for variables does certainly lead to, at best, aweak correlation. When it comes to men vs women, that correlation stands strong. So a controlled statistic that starts getting toward parity versus a difference of almost 9 times (theres movement either way on this depending on how you define it).

If there was still to be a difference in black and white IQ and/or violence, then this would be far, far smaller than the difference in, say, male-female statistics, after controlling. And yet Otto chooses race over sex because, you know, racism.

This is my challenge, as succinctly as possible:

If Otto is attacking blacks on account of being more violent (due to some kind of genetic determinant), such that when controlling for all other variables, then whatever action he wants taken on account of this must be taken to a much greater degree against men. If he wants to disallow immigration from/lock them up/shoot them/generally pour scorn on them, then he must start doing this to all men. From now. Thats, you know, logical.

In other words, since he will not do this, or since it will lead to ridiculous and no doubt sexist conclusions, he doesnt have a leg to stand on.

Either he deals with this point by destroying the data on male violence, or he accepts it and changes his tack to not only include men in his consistent comments and attacks but to start seeing them as the far greater problem. Every comment would now need to state something like:

High crime in the US correlates to blacks men, because they commit crimes at a much higher rate than other races biological sexes.

Perhaps we can make a feminist of Otto?

If he does not deal with at least this point in substantial robustness, I will simply delete all further invocations of his agenda.

I also want to repeat the question directly to him:Anyway, what doyouwant to do with the information (even if we accepted your claims)?

He has started peddling these claims again, hence the reposting here. You can see the original comment thread here. He has to the end of the week to rebut the challenge or his latest comments will be deleted.

Read the original post:
A Challenge to Race Realists Race vs Biological Sex - Patheos

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With over two days of engaging conversations, fiery debates and inspiring keynotes, the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019 played host to an idea exchange that covered varied topics. From the Indian economy and the situation in Kashmir to the politics of Maharashtra and the world of showbiz, the two-day Conclave had it all. And, a big-bang announcement by the government on reducing corporate tax rates made the session on economy even more interesting.

In case you missed out on the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, here's everything that happened over the last two days.

DAY 1

FULL WELCOME SPEECH OF AROON PURIE AT INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE 2019

A very warm welcome to you all. It is great to be back in Mumbai with another edition of the India Today Conclave. This March, we had shifted our national conclave to Delhi as it was going to be a year defined by elections and politics and power equations at the Centre.

But Mumbai has tugged us back. Yours is a city of enterprise and dynamism, of resilience and reinvention -- qualities our country needs across the board. As it turns out, this is also a year dominated by conversations around the economy, so it is doubly apt for us to be hosting this edition of the conclave in the financial capital of the country...

RBI SENSED SLOWDOWN AS EARLY AS FEBRUARY: SHAKTIKANTA DAS AT INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das Friday said that the central bank had sensed a slowdown in the Indian economy in February this year itself. "RBI had noticed the signs of slowdown as early as February this year," Das said while speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019.

Das also pointed out that a slowdown in the global economy was among the factors affecting India's economy, which has shown signs of slow growth. Speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, Das said he was not being defensive but pointed out that global and external must be considered when talking about the slowdown in the Indian economy.

TOP ECONOMISTS DISCUSS ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN, GDP, JOBS AT INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE

Renowned economists Shamika Ravi, a member of PM's Economic Advisory Council, Roopa Purushottam, chief economist and head of policy advocacy at Tata Sons Limited and Ritu Dewan, vice-president of Indian Society of Labour Economics, agreed that the Indian economy has been facing a slowdown.

While some sectors were more adversely impacted due to their own underlying issues, global economic slowdown and trade wars have come together to pull down the growth rate. The rural economy, which was doing better until a few quarters back, has also taken a hit.

ARMY FIGHTS DAILY BATTLES, IAF FOUGHT WHEN IT WAS CALLED TO: AIR CHIEF BS DHANOA AT INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE

Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa lauded the Indian Army for "fighting daily battles" and said that the force still remains in the limelight. Dhanoa said this when asked about whether the Indian Air Force had stolen the limelight away from the Indian Army following the Balakot airstrike from earlier this year that targeted a terrorist hideout in Pakistan.

"The Indian Army is fighting a daily battle... they are in the limelight. We were called to fight. So we fought," BS Dhanoa said while speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019.

INDIA ON RIGHT TRACK, ALL ECONOMIES FACE UPS AND DOWNS: NITIN GADKARI

Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said Indian will soon become a $5 trillion economy because the government is taking right decisions. Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2019 in Mumbai, Nitin Gadkari said, "I believe the kind of measures we are taking will help us achieve the goal of making India a $5 trillion economy. This will lead to employment generation, will boost India's GDP growth and will make the economy powerful."

Nitin Gadkari's comment comes in the wake of India registering a 5 per cent GDP growth in the first quarter of this financial year. This has been the lowest in many years.

VICKY KAUSHAL: MY SECURITY GUARD SEES NETFLIX ON PHONE. UNLESS WE MATCH, WHO WILL PAY RS 500 FOR A MOVIE?

Vicky Kaushal has been high on josh ever since his last release Uri: The Surgical Strike struck gold at the box office. Aditya Dhar's directorial debut not only made Vicky an overnight star, but also helped him bag his first National Film Award.

And ever since, there has been no looking back for this 31-year-old actor.

On Day 1 of the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, Vicky Kaushal opened up on his Bollywood journey, his first National Award and his love life in a session titled The Art and The Man: What gives me josh in Bollywood.

HUMAN LIFE MORE IMPORTANT THAN INTERNET CONNECTIVITY: JITENDRA SINGH ON KASHMIR LOCKDOWN

Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh has claimed that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is normal after the abrogation of Article 370. He insisted that human life is more important than internet connectivity.

While speaking at India Today Conclave 2019 on Friday, Jitendra Singh called the Opposition hypocrites who did not want democracy to be more open. Jitendra Singh claimed that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will come forward in support of the Union government's decision on Article 370 within six months.

HERE'S HOW VIRUSES ARE LINKED TO CANCER, AUTISM AND OTHER SYNDROMES: TAKE NOTES FROM DR W. IAN LIPKIN

India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019: Mumbai is capturing the excitement of human potential by presenting thought leaders triggering positive change around the world: people redefining human health, physical and mental wellness, artificial intelligence and much more.

This time, we had Dr W. Ian Lipkin, Virologist with us at the India Today Conclave 2019, Mumbai and he shared his own experiences about how he encountered with HIV/AIDS and identified AIDS-associated immunological abnormalities and inflammatory neuropathy, which he showed could be treated with plasmapheresis, and demonstrated that early life exposure to viral infections affects neurotransmitter function.

SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATIONS CARRYMINATI AND PRAJAKTA KOLI: JIO CHANGED INDIA

CarryMinati aka Ajey Nagar is one person who is doing it all. The 20-year-old who started out as a YouTuber, became an online sensation instantly with his quirky videos. The social media star posts rants, commentaries and reactions to anything that trends on social media, on his YouTube channel. The man, who has a view about everything, is also a rapper and has some songs out like Byepewdiepie and Trigger.

Prajakta Kohli, who is famous by her online name, Mostly Sane, is another popular YouTuber known for her hilarious and relatable videos as they are based on everyday observations.

INDIA LEADS THE WORLD IN TEENAGE DEPRESSION: BRAVE YOUNGSTERS SHARE THEIR TRIGGER MOMENTS

Over the last five years, more than 40,000 students committed suicide in India. Last year itself, 8492 students committed suicide. One student commits suicide every hour in India, and yet, we keep pretending like today's teenagers are anything from fragile to obsessed about their looks -- each of these blame-games make diagnosis and treatment of teenage depression even more difficult.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, moderator Soma Chowdhury gives the audience a few shocking numbers and mentions how Deepika Padukone's opening up about her depression opened up a very important discussion that goes beyond caste, class, language, or age.

AWARENESS AND ACCEPTANCE CAN TACKLE MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS: NEERJA BIRLA

Even in today's modern society, mental illness is not considered as serious as physical ailments. In many cases, it is frowned upon and neglected.

The main problems plaguing mental ill-health are a lack of awareness, stigma and a lack of infrastructure, said Neerja Birla, Founder, and Chairperson of MPower, an endeavour that is working in the area of mental health on Friday.

KARAN JOHAR: EVERY TIME YOU SAY SUPERSTARDOM, YOU THINK SHAH RUKH. NO ONE CAN TAKE IT AWAY FROM HIM

Over the course of two decades in Bollywood, Karan Johar has carved a name for himself in the industry. He is considered one of the most popular filmmakers in B-Town, owing to his big-budget blockbusters, and new stars are eager to work with him. On Day 1 of the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, Karan Johar opened up about ruling Bollywood, the infamous drug row, box-office clashes, his kids Yash and Roohi, and more. Karan was speaking on a session titled Cinema Czar: The Final Word - The Dream Maker: Karan Johar on ruling Bollywood.

PERFECT BODY, QUIET MIND: WHY HOLLYWOOD SWEARS BY YOGI CODE

Shunning the high life to attain inner peace is really a cakewalk for the first male supermodel, Yogi Cameron, who left the enticing fashion industry right after meeting Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa. When asked about his name, he said, "I used to be called Cameron in the fashion world and once I entered in the world of inner beauty, I added Yogi just to remind myself that I am on this journey."

He started practising yoga in Paris at the Shivananda center in 1987. Further, he extended his knowledge on the subject by reading natural medicine until 1999 and becoming certified in yoga at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York City as well as the Sri Satchidananda Ashram.

IS THIS INDIA OF GANDHI OR INDIA OF GODSE: ILTIJA MUFTI TAKES ON MODI GOVT OVER KASHMIR

Iltija Mufti, the daughter of the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehooba Mufti, hit out at the Narendra Modi government over its move to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and statehood.

When asked what the way forward in Kashmir was, Iltija said the government must roll back its decisions regarding Kashmir. "Is this Gandhi's India or Godse's India," Iltija said while speaking about the clampdown on communications and restrictions on movement imposed in Kashmir.

"How would you feel if in Mumbai you would need a curfew pass to move around in your own country?" Iltija asked, while speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019.

GOVT OPEN TO HEARING, OFFERING SOLUTIONS TO SPUR GROWTH, SAYS PIYUSH GOYAL

Panelists headed by Railways Minister Piyush Goyal feel, in the backdrop of the Union government's decision to reduce corporate tax, the investment climate in India would reverse in the coming days to spur economic growth, though there is no single 'steroid' to spur that growth.

The government is open to hear, learn and offer required solutions from time to time to spur that growth, Piyush Goyal said.

However, the economists feel the issues like adequate liquidity in the system, reforms in land and labour, and attracting investments into India are necessary to spur growth.

SHASHI THAROOR, SWAPAN DASGUPTA SPAR OVER HINDUTVA, NATIONALISM, STRONG INDIA

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta shared their ideas of Hindutva, nationalism authoritarianism and dynasty. While Tharoor insists that the idea of Hindutva is against the freedom struggle Dasgupta emphasised that Hindutva is about civilisation and culture not religion or territory. Tharoor pointed that the feeling of insecurity among certain people is scaring. Dasgupta said the country is rolling back on the corruption which is decreasing every year.

GURU DUTT TO VICKY KAUSHAL: ARJUN KAPOOR DECONSTRUCTS THE INDIAN HERO AT CONCLAVE MUMBAI 2019

On Day 1 of the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, Arjun Kapoor took the audience through decades of Indian cinema and what the Indian hero has been like all these years. The evolution from Guru Dutt to a hero who is anyone and everyone is what Arjun spoke on during his session, titled Top Guns: Deconstructing the modern Indian hero.

DAY 2

STONES HURLED BY FRIENDS LIKE FLOWERS: DEVENDRA FADNAVIS ON ALLY SHIV SENA

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said that he is not deterred by ally Shiv Sena's criticism of his government or his party. "Aisa hai ki dost agar pathar bhi pfainke toh to usse phool samjahna chahiye [Stones hurled by friends are like flowers]," Fadnavis said.

Devendra Fadnavis was speaking at the India Today Conclave 2019 Mumbai on the day the Election Commission was set to announce poll dates for his state.

AAREY FOREST ROW: SHED TO JAAYEGA, SAYS AADITYA THACKERAY; SHED WAHIN BANAYENGE, SAYS FADNAVIS

Shiv Sena youth president Aaditya Thackeray defended his stand on the controversial Mumbai Metro project that has sparked a huge row over the need to fell trees for a carshed. Thackeray has openly opposed the carshed that is supposed to come up in a part of Mumbai's Aarey Forest.

Activists have strongly opposed the felling of trees and the issue has divided Mumbai.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2019 Mumbai, Aaditya Thackeray, whose party is a part of the very government constructing the Metro, said the issue was not about "Shiv Sena vs BJP" but about "Mumbai vs environmental damage".

GDP TO GROW 7-7.5 PER CENT IN 2ND HALF, DISINVESTMENT TO BRING REVENUE: NITI AAYOG VC RAJIV KUMAR

The GDP will grow between 7 and 7.5 per cent in the second half of this financial year, Niti Aayog VC Rajiv Kumar said while speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019.

Kumar added that the government will find additional revenues from disinvestments--- it has a plan to divest stakes in 24 companies to raise Rs 1.3 lakh crore --- and raise the fund to bridge the budget deficit that arose out of corporate tax cut.

IDEA THAT THERE IS INFINITE SUPPLY OF WATER IS DUMB: P SAINATH AT INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE

P Sainath, Founder-editor, People's Archive of Rural India called for a rethinking on water crisis, not restricting it to just irrigation or drinking water problem. Water is a social, cultural, political, economic and environmental issue and has to be addressed from all these angles.

Water should also be declared a basic right as the planet is shared by humans as well as flora and fauna. He called for prioritisation of water uses and restrict the transfer of the infinite resource from agriculture to industry, from food to cash crop, from rural to urban areas, from the poor to the rich and from livelihood to lifestyle uses. Since water wars have been fought over the last 2000 years, it was important to discuss the issue as it cannot be evaded now.

WATER CONSERVATION SHOULD BE PRIORITY: PARAMESWARAN IYER

Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, talked about how Indian villages lack clean water and what could be done to provide clean drinking water to the villagers.

He also pointed out that technology could be used to create awareness on water conservation. The focus should be on creating local water storages.

THOSE WHO DON'T HAVE LEARNABILITY WILL BE LEFT BEHIND: WIPRO CHAIRMAN ON THE FUTURE OF JOBS IN INDIA

Technology is changing the landscape of industries around the world. Many jobs that existed in the past are slowly phasing out and data says that over the next five years, 9% of India's 600 million workforce will hold jobs that do not exist yet. In such a time, the only thing that can save us is re-skilling and learnability.

Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji, the son of business tycoon and philanthropist Azim Premji conversed with Rahul Kanwal at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019 on how re-skilling and learnability are the top skills for tomorrow's workforce.

AUTOMOBILE, PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES ARE RAPIDLY GROWING IN UTTARAKHAND: CM TRIVENDRA SINGH

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat pitched for investment in the Devbhoomi saying it is a land of many opportunities.

He pointed towards the clean environment and better connectivity to make Uttarakhand an investment destination. Comparing with Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh, which were created in 2000 at the same time of Uttarakhand, Rawat claimed that his state has done better compared to the rest of two.

TECHNOLOGY SHOULD MAKE US BETTER HUMAN BEINGS, SAYS DIGISEXUALITY EXPERT NEIL MCARTHUR

Sexbots or sex robots are increasingly making their way into our society catering to various needs and and sexual desires of people. While on one hand they are being embraced by tech enthusiasts and other people in the society who prescribe to their services, on the other hand, people have also raised their concerns about their impact on people and society at large. The presence of an array of sensors that helps these sex robots read, interpret and even replicate humans has raised another question - if machines become more like humans, do they have rights?

Speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai two digisexuality experts -- Allysson Silva, Lawyer, Co-Founder of NextOs, AI and Tech-intimacies expert and Neil McArthur, Author, Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications - tried to answer concerns and challenges around digital sexuality. They were accompanied by Harmony, which is a female sex robot created by Silva's company, who shared her views on some of the questions being raised in the society.

DICTATORS WHO CONDUCT RIGGED ELECTIONS LAST LONGER THAN THOSE WHO DON'T: BRIAN KLAAS

Acclaimed journalist Brian Klaas on Saturday spoke on how alarmingly the world is becoming less democratic.

Klaas has authored two authoritative books on how elections are rigged across the globe The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy and The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy and coauthored another book How to rig an election.

CONCLAVE 2019: GENETICS LOADS THE GUN LIFESTYLE PULLS THE TRIGGER, SAYS MURALI DORAISWAMY

On the second day of India Today Conclave 2019 Mumbai, Dr Murali Doraiswamy, who is a Physician and Futurist at the Duke University School of Medicine discussed the discoveries of the human brain and also gave a brief discussion about the genome and why it is the new gold.

"There is an old saying about genetics. Genetics loads the gun lifestyle pulls the trigger all of us are different because of our different genes. We have 23 pairs of Chromosomes and between then we have 3 to 6 billions of bits of coded information in our genes, said Doraiswamy.

OUR LEADER OF OPPOSITION IN MAHARASHTRA WAS 'MANAGED': PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN HITS OUT AT RADHAKRISHNA VIKHE PATIL

Congress leader and former Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan strongly hit out at Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, who was the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra assembly for the last five years. Earlier this year, in a huge embarrassment to Congress, Patil quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, former Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan said it was a huge mistake to appoint Patil as the leader of the opposition and to let him continue in that post for five years. Chavan did not name Patil directly.

SHAHID KAPOOR: KABIR SINGH IS 16 YEARS OF MY HARD WORK

Shahid Kapoor has had a rollercoaster of a journey in Bollywood. In his career spanning almost fifteen years, he has had his fair share of hits and misses. However, 2019 was a lucky one for him, as his film Kabir Singh crossed over Rs 270 crore at the box office and emerged as one of the highest-grossers in Bollywood.

At India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019, at his session, Heroes and Anti-Heroes: The craft and the heart of telling all stories, Shahid Kapoor opened up about the success of Kabir Singh, the constant debate around it, as well as his relationship with his family.

EKTA KAPOOR: I RESPECT THE WOMAN IN THE SAREE AS MUCH AS THE WOMAN IN THE SWIMSUIT

Ekta Kapoor spoke on Day 2 of the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019 on how to interpret love, desire and ambition in India. The TV czarina didn't shy away from speaking her mind and wearing her heart on her sleeve.

Speaking on Day 2 of the Conclave, during a session titled, #Alt-Imagination: The Radical and the Regressive. Interpreting love, desire and ambition in India', moderated by Koel Purie, Ekta Kapoor spoke on everything from her TV shows being called regressive to ALTBalaji shows being termed soft porn. She also said how everyone had now given up on asking her to get married.

KATRINA KAIF: ZERO AND BHARAT REVIEWS MADE ME REALISE IF YOU GIVE YOUR ALL, IT SHOWS

Katrina Kaif joined the industry as an outsider. And from there, she's gone on to carve a niche for herself. She's learned on her own, she learned a language to fit in, learned how to dance a typical Bollywood number, and today boasts of an unparallel fan base.

In some ways what we see of Katrina Kaif today is a 2.0 version - and Katrina admitted the same, speaking at the India Today Conclave, Mumbai 2019, during a session titled Interstellar: My journey into Bollywood from a different planet.

KRITI SANON: RIGHT NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO BE A WOMAN IN BOLLYWOOD

She made her Bollywood debut with the 2014 film Heropanti. But it took her three years to make people sit and take notice of her talent. The 29-year-old actress surprised everyone with her small-town girl act in Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's Bareilly Ki Barfi. And since then, there has been no looking back for the actress who entered Bollywood without a Godfather.

Read more:
Economy to water, Maharashtra politics to movies: Full coverage of India Today Conclave Mumbai 2019 - India Today

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A Bangor clinic that has long provided abortions and other health services for women will soon offer its first birth control procedure for men.

In October, a nurse practitioner at the Mabel Wadsworth Center will begin performing vasectomies on men and transgender women as part of its growing mission to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of all genders and identities, according to Executive Director Andrea Irwin.

Weve seen a lot of folks come in with an unintended pregnancy and their partner is waiting to get a vasectomy, Irwin said. Weve heard its hard to get into places [for the procedure], so it made sense to look into offering it. And as a provider that serves a lot of trans clients, we want to serve trans women in a place thats open and affirming.

Irwin said that the new offering will advance the clinics bedrock feminist mission by forcing sexual partners to bear more of the responsibility for preventing pregnancy.

By offering vasectomies, the group also hopes to bring in a new funding stream to support its core mission of offering abortions, as it has been doing since 1994, and other services such as birth control and pregnancy and STD testing.

A vasectomy is a surgical procedure that blocks sperm from leaving the bodies of men and transgender women by snipping and sealing the tubes connecting their testicles to their urethral opening, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Although vasectomies can be reversed, health professionals generally urge patients to view it as a permanent procedure that they should only pursue if they want to give up the ability to induce a pregnancy.

At the Mabel Wadsworth Center, the operation will generally require three appointments: an initial consultation, the procedure itself and a followup visit. The nonprofit organization will accept MaineCare or private health insurance for the service, and patients who are paying out of pocket may qualify for discounts depending on their income level.

Patients whose annual income is at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level that level works out to $18,735 for an individual in 2019, according to HealthCare.gov will be able to pay $525 for the vasectomy. Thats the same price the center charges anyone for an abortion.

The out-of-pocket cost for other patients seeking a vasectomy would be $750 if their income is at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level $31,225 for an individual and $1,000 for everyone else.

Those numbers could change as the center begins to see how much reimbursement it collects from patients with insurance, Irwin said.

We want to send the message that everyone deserves access to reproductive health care, regardless of gender identity, where they live, their income level, she said.

Maines two other abortion providers, Maine Family Planning and Planned Parenthood, do not currently offer vasectomies at their locations in the Pine Tree State, according to their websites.

While vasectomies will be the first birth control service available to men at the Mabel Wadsworth Center, the clinic has begun offering STD testing and treatment to men in recent years. As it branches out, it has also begun offering hormone therapy for transgender people, prenatal care and mental health counseling.

It recently hired a nurse practitioner to serve as the centers clinical director, according to Irwin. It also now employs an advocate who can help connect patients to resources such as MaineCare, the states version of Medicaid.

Irwin said that a combination of grant funding and the states expansion of Medicaid under Gov. Janet Mills has helped the Mabel Wadsworth Center afford to start its new programs.

This story appears through a media sharing agreement with Bangor Daily News.

See the rest here:
Bangor's Longstanding Abortion Provider Will Soon Offer Vasectomies - Maine Public

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A transgender man desperate to have his breasts removed says he "can't wait two and a half years" for an NHS spot.

Jesse Churchill, 24, came out as non-binary transmasculine - a person who was assigned female at birth, but who identifies with masculinity to a greater extent than with femininity - in 2017.

His GP referred him to a Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) and the process of his transition began.

But Jesse is still waiting for gender reassignment surgery and says the lengthy NHS waiting list for trans people is "long, harrowing, exhausting and is costing lives", Birmingham Live reports.

Research undertaken by Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ rights charity, shows suicide and self-harm is common for members of the transgender community and almost half of young trans people have attempted to take their own life.

According to research, the longer they have to wait for the surgery to correct their gender, the longer they are forced to suffer with gender dysphoria.

Jess, from Great Barr, Birmingham, came out as bisexual when he was 15 but did not reveal his true gender identity until he was 22.

Despite getting himself on the list to correct his gender back in 2017, when the waiting time was estimated to be two years, he has suffered multiple delays.

The 24-year-old is now attempting to crowdfund 6,300 and pay for the surgery privately.

He said: "It wasnt until I met people within the community that I was able to access the proper language and education that I could comfortably figure out my gender expression and identity.

"I never had any queer friends growing up, despite being out as bi since I was 15. I then fully came out as non-binary trans masc in 2017.

"My family and friends were fantastic about it all, although my mum didnt quite understand at first, shes really taken it on board and is beyond supportive.

"Ive been incredibly lucky to be loved and supported by such wonderful people in my life. As soon as I came out I went to my GP to get referred to a GIC as I knew the waiting time was very long.

"I still decided to seek private health care to get testosterone, which Ive been on for over a year now. My plan was to get hormones privately and then wait for the NHS to get top surgery."

He continues: "Id heard stories of people not having their referral ever received so out of fear I decided to contact my GIC, bear in mind their minimum waiting time was 2 years and I was coming up to that when I contacted them.

"They confirmed they have my referral but regretted to inform me that the minimum time has now increased so Id be waiting even longer.

"The wait time for my GIC has been extended to two and a half years, and again this is only the minimum wait time, anyone could be waiting much longer than that.

"Even then when you do get an appointment, it's not just the one you have, and I've known people wait up to 12 months in between appointments, then you've got to get a surgery referral and be put on a surgeon's long waiting list.

"The NHS wait for trans people is long, harrowing, exhausting and is costing lives."

Mental health problems are effecting the trans community worldwide and according to the 2016 study by the National Centre for Transgender Equality, of the 17,715 trans people they surveyed, 40% had attempted suicide in the US.

It also found that 14% were sent to therapy by their families in an attempt to 'cure' them, 10% reported violence from a family member and 8% revealed that they were kicked out of their family home.

The UK statistics from the year prior showed that that 34.4% of trans adults had attemptedsuicideat least once and almost 14% of trans adults had attemptedsuicidemore than twice.

Just like other trans men in the wait for surgery, Jesse uses a binder to reduce the appearance of his chest.

"I bind every time I leave the house to completely pass as male," he says.

"As a tall, heavily tattooed man with a beard I pass anyway but binding not only helps with my dysphoria of my chest but also helps me pass safely.

"Its still very dangerous to be obviously trans today and I try my best to avoid any more abuse than I already do.

"As a queer looking man, it doesnt stop people from shouting homophobic slurs at me so I try to minimise any more abuse through binding.

"I bind for long periods of time especially with traveling around the country for my job.

"Its painful and Ive had to cancel seeing family and friends, miss out on events because I know Ill be too exhausted.

"Im 24 and I just want to be able to live how Im supposed to.

"Recommended binding is eight hours a day, and for someone who works full time this is completely unrealistic.

"Long term use can result in pain, damage to breast tissue, discomfort and physical restrictions."

The Nottinghamshire Health NHS Foundation Trust said: "There is currently an exceptional demand for appointments in our service.

"This is due to a large and increasing number of referrals, and the continuing care of our existing service users.

"As a result, unfortunately the waiting time for first appointments continues to rise. It is currently in excess of two and a half years from when we received the referral. This is an estimate and is liable to change depending on the needs of our current service users.

"We sincerely apologise to all our service users who are waiting for a first appointment with us. We appreciate how challenging this can be and we are doing all we can to see people as soon as possible."

Jesse has been campaigning on social media for donations to his GoFundMe page which has now reached 740.

Top surgery is usually the first surgery involved in gender reassignment treatment after extensive hormone replacement therapy.

This procedure involves the removal of the breasts in cases of a female to male transition.

The minimum waiting time for this procedure at NHS Gender clinics is two years but it is more often longer than that.

As patients wait to go under the knife, they wear binders which restrict the breasts and reduce the appearance of them. It is recommended that they are not worn for longer than eight hours at a time as they can become uncomfortable and painful.

Wearing them for long periods can also cause damage to the breast tissue but for some trans men, they have no choice but to wear them for long hours of the day.

Some trans men from lower income families are unable to afford their own binder and resort to making their own which can also cause health problems.

Original post:
'I desperately need 6,000 to have my breasts removed - I can't wait any longer' - Mirror Online

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

THE mum of one of Britain's youngest transgender kids has blasted critics who said her son was too young to become a girl from the age of just three.

Luna Schofield has identified as a girl since the age of three and her mum Jeneen has hit back at critics who say her daughter was allowed to make the life-changing decision too young.

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Jeneen revealed how her child wished to be female every Christmas from the age of just three.

She has now officially changed her name by deed poll to Luna and is thought to be the UK's youngest transgender child after being given a new passport and permission to wear a skirt to school.

NHS worker Jeneen, 37, told The Sunday Mirror that she initially "brushed" off her toddler's "silly" pleas to become a girl - believing it was a "phase".

But Luna's repeated appeals - which first started "soon after her third birthday" - led her mum to reconsider her approach.

On her fifth birthday she spent the day at Disneyland Paris in a dress. She couldnt have been happier

Jeneen, of Liverpool, said: "My family felt she was too young to make the decision to be a girl.

"But I didnt want to tell her how she felt and knew this wasnt going away.

Jeneen then phased out the "football stuff" that her toddler always seemed to shun - preferring to play with dolls and dressing up.

And at five, Luna was allowed to "socially transition - growing her hair and dressing in traditionally female clothing in public.

Jeneen added: "Before then shed worn princess dresses to the local shop with me, or at home.

"On her fifth birthday she spent the day at Disneyland Paris in a dress. She couldnt have been happier.

At the top of every Christmas and birthday wishlist was to be a girl."

But Jeneen still found it "hard to accept" what she was seeing - and at times felt like she was "grieving" for her lost son.

She added: "Suddenly I was so scared about how it might cause problems for her.

"I sat in my car and cried my heart out. I didnt really know what trans meant.

"For weeks I was petrified Luna would have a loveless life full of people hating her.

But Jeneen reached out for support online and was aided by the Mermaids trans-support charity.

She added: The more research, the more I realised transitioning didnt mean the end.

"Luna could have a happy life and find love as a girl.

And single mum Jeneen also believes it would be wrong to force her daughter to "live a lie" - despite the latest NHS warnings.

This month psychologists said children are being allowed to live as the opposite sex too soon - a decision that could do long-term harm.

Figures show the number of gender dysphoria children in Britain doubled in the past year.

And last year 2,590 children were referred to the Leeds-based Gender Identity Development Service, where Luna visits.

That accounts for a rise of nearly 100 per cent in just four years.

Social psychologist Dr David Canter said: No one should be assigned the label transgender before puberty.

"If the child is unhappy then the reasons should be explored without assigning labels.

And consultant psychiatrist and TV doc Raj Persaud added: A careful medical assessment is needed to understand what is going on.

"Only then can decisions be reached.

But Jeneen insisted it would be wrong to force her child not to live as she pleases - because she "never encouraged Luna to be a girl."

Now, Luna's classmates are "accepting" of her choices, Jeneen said - giving her an "overwhelming" sense of relief.

But Jeneen still needs to handle "horrific online comments about the parents of trans children - including some that said they "should be killed."

Jeneen added:I know she will encounter comments as she grows up, hated for something she didnt choose, but I can either have a dead son or a happy, confident daughter.

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Luna now attends gender clinic appointments where she is encouraged to explore her identity.

And once she hits puberty she will be able to chose if she wants to take hormone blockers and medication to change her body.

Jeneen added: "It will be her decision, and hers only.

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More here:
Mum of one of Britains youngest transgender kids, 8, blasts critics who say son was too young to become a g - The Sun

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith