Monday, October 10, 2022

Rabbit virus has evolved to become more deadly, new research finds

AND AS THEY HAVE FOUND IN CALGARY

australian rabbit — Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A common misconception is that viruses become milder over time as they become endemic within a population. Yet new research, led by Penn State and the University of Sydney, reveals that a virus—called myxoma—that affects rabbits has become more deadly over time. The findings highlight the need for rigorous monitoring of human viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, monkeypox and polio, for increased virulence.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have incorrectly assumed that as the SARS-CoV-2 virus becomes endemic, it will also become milder," said Read.

"However, we know that the delta variant was more contagious and caused more severe illness than the original strain of the virus, and omicron is even more transmissible than delta. Our new research shows that a rabbit virus has evolved to become more deadly, and there is no reason why this couldn't happen with SARS-CoV-2 or other viruses that affect humans."

According to Read, myxoma was introduced to Australia in the early 1950s to quell an out-of-control non-native rabbit population. Known as "myxomytosis," the disease it caused resulted in puffy, fluid-filled skin lesions, swollen heads and eyelids, drooping ears and blocked airways, among other symptoms. The virus was so deadly that it killed an estimated 99.8 percent of the rabbits it infected within two weeks.

Over time, however, the virus became milder, killing only 60% of the rabbits it infected and taking longer to do so.

"Scientists at the time believed this outcome was inevitable," said Read. "What they called the 'law of declining virulence' suggested that viruses naturally become milder over time to ensure that they do not kill their hosts before they've had a chance to be transmitted to other individuals."

Yet, when Read and his team began to study the myxoma virus in rabbits in 2014, they found that the virus had regained the upper hand and was once again killing rabbits at a higher rate. In their most recent study, which published on Oct. 5 in the Journal of Virology, they examined several myxoma virus variants collected between 2012-2015 in the laboratory to determine their virulence. The team determined that the viruses fell into three lineages: a, b and c.

Rabbit virus has evolved to become more deadly, new research finds — Survival plots and virulence grades for trial 1 (Oak rabbits). Credit: *Journal of Virology*

Interestingly, Read said, the rabbits in their study exhibited different symptoms than those induced by viruses collected in the first decades after the release.

"Instead of developing puffy, fluid-filled lesions, these rabbits developed flat lesions, suggesting a lack a reduced immune response," said Read.

"In addition, these rabbits had significantly more bacteria distributed throughout multiple tissues, which is also consistent with immunosuppression. We interpreted this 'amyxomatous' phenotype as an adaptation by the virus to overcome evolving resistance in the wild rabbit population."

Lineage c, however, produced a slightly different response in rabbits. Rabbits infected with lineage c had significantly more swelling at the base of the ears and around the eyelids, where mosquitoes typically bite. These areas also contained extremely high amounts of virus.

"Insect transmissibility is dependent on high amounts of virus being present in sites accessible to the vector," said Read. "We hypothesize that lineage c viruses are capable of enhanced dissemination to sites around the head where mosquitoes are more likely to feed and that they are able to suppress inflammatory responses at these sites, allowing persistent virus replication to high amounts."

Read said that the team's findings demonstrate that viruses do not always evolve to become milder.

"By definition an evolutionary arms race occurs when organisms develop adaptations and counter-adaptations against each other," said Read.

"With myxoma, the virus has developed new tricks, which are resulting in greater rabbit mortality. However, over time the rabbits will likely evolve resistance to these tricks. An analogous arms race may be occurring with SARS-CoV-2 and other human viruses as humans become more immune. This is why it's so important for vaccine manufacturers to keep up with the latest variants and for the public to stay up to date on their vaccines. Better still would be to develop a universal vaccine that would work against all variants and be effective for a longer period of time."

The research was published in Journal of Virology.

Viruses up their game in arms race with immune system

More information: Peter J. Kerr et al, Divergent Evolutionary Pathways of Myxoma Virus in Australia: Virulence Phenotypes in Susceptible and Partially Resistant Rabbits Indicate Possible Selection for Transmissibility, Journal of Virology (2022). DOI: 10.1128/jvi.00886-22

Journal information: Journal of Virology

Provided by Pennsylvania State University

FOR MORE ON RABBIT VIRUS OUTBREAK SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for RABBITS

Shrine discovered in Egyptian temple with evidence of previously unknown rituals

by University of Barcelona

The Sikait Project research team, directed by Professor Joan Oller Guzmán from the Department of Antiquity and Middle Age Studies at the UAB, recently published in the American Journal of Archaeology the results obtained from the January 2019 excavation season at the ancient seaport of Berenike, located in Egypt's Eastern desert.

The paper describes the archaeological dig of a religious complex from the Late Roman Period (4th to 6th centuries CE) named the Falcon Shrine by researchers, and located within the Northern Complex, one of the most important buildings of the city of Berenike at that time.

The site, which was excavated by the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology and the University of Delaware, was a Red Sea harbor founded by Ptolomy II Philadelphus (3rd century BCE) and continued to operate into the Roman and Byzantine periods, when it was turned into the main point of entrance for commerce coming from Cape Horn, Arabia and India.

Within this chronological period, one of the phases yielding the most new discoveries was the one corresponding to the Late Roman Period, from the fourth to sixth centuries CE, a period in which the city seemed to be partially occupied and controlled by the Blemmyes, a nomadic group of people from the Nubian region who at that moment were expanding their domains throughout the greater part of Egypt's Eastern desert.

In this sense, the Northern Complex is fundamental in providing clear evidence of a link with the Blemmyes people, thanks to the discover of inscriptions to some of their kings or the aforementioned Falcon Shrine.

Researchers were able to identify a small traditional Egyptian temple, which after the 4th century was adapted by the Blemmyes to their own belief system. "The material findings are particularly remarkable and include offerings such as harpoons, cube-shaped statues, and a stele with indications related to religious activities, which was chosen for the cover of the journal's current issue," says UAB researcher Joan Oller.

The most remarkable consecrated element found was the arrangement of up to 15 falcons within the shrine, most of them headless. Although burials of falcons for religious purposes had already been observed in the Nile Valley, as had the worshiping of individual birds of this species, this is the first time researchers discovered falcons buried within a temple, and accompanied by eggs, something completely unprecedented.

In other sites, researchers had found mummified headless falcons, but always only individual specimens, never in group as in the case of Berenike. The stele contains a curious inscription, reading, "It is improper to boil a head in here," which, far from being a dedication or sign of gratitude as normally corresponds to an inscription, is a message forbidding all those who enter from boiling the heads of the animals inside the temple, considered to be a profane activity.

Joan Oller says that "all of these elements point to intense ritual activities combining Egyptian traditions with contributions from the Blemmyes, sustained by a theological base possibly related to the worshiping of the god Khonsu." He goes on to say that "the discoveries expand our knowledge of these semi-nomad people, the Blemmyes, living in the Eastern desert during the decline of the Roman Empire."

Roman Empire's emerald mines may have fallen into the hands of nomads as early as the 4th century

More information: Joan Oller Guzmán et al, A Falcon Shrine at the Port of Berenike (Red Sea Coast, Egypt), American Journal of Archaeology (2022). DOI: 10.1086/720806

Provided by University of Barcelona

MOON KNIGHT SERVANT OF KHONSU THE MOON GOD

CROWLEY'S STELE 666 THE STELE OF REVEALING

OF THE PRIEST AF-NA- KHONSU

Citizen scientists enhance new Europa images from NASA's Juno

by JPL/NASA

Citizen scientists have provided unique perspectives of the recent close flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa by NASA's Juno spacecraft. By processing raw images from JunoCam, the spacecraft's public-engagement camera, members of the general public have created deep-space portraits of the Jovian moon that are not only awe-inspiring, but also worthy of further scientific scrutiny.

"Starting with our flyby of Earth back in 2013, Juno citizen scientists have been invaluable in processing the numerous images we get with Juno," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Center in San Antonio. "During each flyby of Jupiter, and now its moons, their work provides a perspective that draws upon both science and art. They are a crucial part of our team, leading the way by using our images for new discoveries. These latest images from Europa do just that, pointing us to surface features that reveal details on how Europa works and what might be lurking both on top of the ice and below."

JunoCam snapped four photos during its Sept. 29 flyby of Europa. Here's a detailed look:

Europa up close

JunoCam took its closest image at an altitude of 945 miles (1,521 kilometers) over a region of the moon called Annwn Regio. In the image (not shown), terrain beside the day-night boundary is revealed to be rugged, with pits and troughs. Numerous bright and dark ridges and bands stretch across a fractured surface, revealing the tectonic stresses that the moon has endured over millennia. A circular dark feature in the lower right is Callanish Crater.

Such JunoCam images help fill in gaps in the maps from images obtained by NASA's Voyager and Galileo missions. Citizen scientist Björn Jónsson processed the image to enhance the color and contrast. The resolution is about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel.

Science meets art

JunoCam images processed by citizen scientists often straddle the worlds of science and art. In the image at right, processed by Navaneeth Krishnan, the enhanced color contrast causes larger surface features to stand out more than in the lightly processed version of the image above (left). An example of the results can be seen in the lower right of the enhanced image, where the pits and a small block cast notable shadows. Small-scale texturing of the surface in the image needs to be carefully studied to distinguish between features and artifacts from processing, but the image draws us deeper into Europa's alien landscape.

"Juno's citizen scientists are part of a global united effort, which leads to both fresh perspectives and new insights," said Candy Hansen, lead co-investigator for the JunoCam camera at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. "Many times, citizen scientists will skip over the potential scientific applications of an image entirely, and focus on how Juno inspires their imagination or artistic sense, and we welcome their creativity."

Fall colors

Citizen scientist Fernando Garcia Navarro applied his artistic talents to create this image. He downloaded and processed an image that fellow citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill had previously worked on, producing a psychedelic rendering he has titled "Fall Colors of Europa."

The processed image calls to mind NASA's poster celebrating Juno's 2021 five-year anniversary of its orbital insertion at Jupiter.

More groovy details about the flyby

With a relative velocity of about 14.7 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second), the Juno spacecraft only had a few minutes to collect data and images during its close flyby of Europa. As planned, the gravitational pull of the moon modified Juno's trajectory, reducing the time it takes to orbit Jupiter from 43 to 38 days. The close approach also marks the second encounter with a Galilean moon during Juno's extended mission. The mission explored Ganymede in June 2021 and is scheduled to make close flybys of Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system, in 2023 and 2024.

Juno's observations of Europa's geology will not only contribute to our understanding of Europa, but also complement future missions to the Jovian moon. NASA's Europa Clipper mission, set to launch in 2024, will study the moon's atmosphere, surface, and interior, with a primary science goal to determine whether there are places below Europa's surface that could support life.NASA's Juno will perform close flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa

Provided by JPL/NASA

Spanking related to other forms of discipline, intimate partner violence

by American Academy of Pediatrics

Spanking is more common among parents who report using many types of discipline with children and in families where there is intimate partner violence, according to a new research abstract presented during the 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition.

Authors of the abstract, "Predictors of Corporal Punishment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: National Survey Findings," found that 64.5% of caregivers who reported spanking their child or children also reported intimate partner violence. The study found that caregivers who used an increased number of non-violent discipline strategies like timeouts had increased odds of using corporal punishment.

"Caregivers want what is best for their children. Our data suggest that caregivers are utilizing many forms of non-aggressive discipline; however, those strategies might not be working for them," said Dr. J. Bart Klika, Chief Research Officer, Prevent Child Abuse America. "For those working directly with families, we cannot simply give caregivers a list of discipline strategies. Instead, we must talk with caregivers about how to use those non-aggressive strategies in developmentally appropriate ways. During follow-up visits, our question should be about the effectiveness of those strategies, not only asking what strategies were used."

The AAP, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevent Child Abuse America, and Tufts Medical Center, surveyed 9,000 caregivers to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on family life and parenting practices. Three rounds of surveys (with 3,000 different caregivers in each survey) were conducted by YouGov between November 2020 and July 2021. The survey asked caregivers about financial stress, employment changes, family violence, positive and negative coping strategies for stress and discipline methods.

Participants were asked about the use of corporal punishment in the past week and other forms of violence in the home. Most caregivers (83.5%) reported not spanking their child or children in the past seven days. However, one in six reported spanking during this timeframe.

"It's vital to consider everyone's safety in the home if a parent reports that they hit or spank a child, as intimate partner violence may also be present," Dr. Klika said. "Understanding the co-occurrence of corporal punishment and intimate partner violence is especially important for health care workers and doctors. This knowledge can help providers assess for violence in the home and provide appropriate supports and resources for families."

Study authors found that this information can be helpful in assisting providers to talk with families about discipline and violence in the home, but that additional research is needed to understand why caregivers using multiple discipline strategies turned to spanking.

Study explores the co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment

More information: Predictors of corporal punishment during the COVID-19 pandemic: National survey findings, 2022 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition

Provided by American Academy of Pediatrics

'Non-native species aren't the boogie man.' Biologist calls for a more balanced view

by Brown University

Awareness of non-native—often called "invasive"—species has vastly increased over the past half-century, to the point where anyone with a green conscience has heard of them and their negative impacts.

Less recognized are the benefits of non-native species—and according to Brown University biologist Dov Sax, that needs to change.

In a review article published on Thursday, Oct. 6, in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Sax and two co-authors pointed out that most research on non-native species focuses on their negative consequences. They argued that long-standing biases against non-native species within the scientific literature have clouded the scientific process and hindered public understanding. In the new article, the authors try to shift the focus to consider the benefits of non-native species for a more balanced discussion.

"Positive impacts of non-native species are often explained as serendipitous surprises—the sort of thing that people might expect to happen every once in a while, in special circumstances," said Sax, a professor of environment and society, and of ecology, evolution and organismal biology. "Our new paper argues that the positive impacts of non-native species are neither unexpected nor rare, but instead common, important and often of large magnitude."

Sax—who is affiliated with the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society—said the study borrows from a recent framework that examines the benefits of biodiversity for people and nature and applies it to non-native species, showing the diverse, frequent and important ways that non-native species provide positive value for people and nature.

"We want to provide a framework for the way that scientists can think about non-native species constructively going forward and explicitly document their benefits," Sax said. "It's only then that we'll be able to accurately and fully compare and contrast them in order to perform the kind of cost-benefit analyses that can be truly helpful in making policy decisions."

The authors, who include Martin Schlaepfer from the University of Geneva and Julian Olden from the University of Washington, recognized that some non-native species, such as introduced pathogens and agricultural pests, involve indisputably large net costs. But they noted that most domesticated species, including food like wheat and tomatoes, fibers such as cotton and wool, and pets including dogs and goldfish, provide large net benefits to human societies. They focused their review on species that are not directly managed by people—so-called "wild" or "naturalized" species, noting that many of these simultaneously provide both costs and benefits for people and nature.

As one example of a non-native species with underappreciated benefits, Sax cited the earthworm. While they can negatively change forest ecosystems, Sax said that earthworms can also augment organic agriculture: Some research has shown that when earthworms are present, there can be a 25% increase in agricultural productivity. The resulting decrease in food cost and increased ability to feed people is a direct economic benefit, Sax said.

Sax also extolled the unexpected benefits of another non-native species—brown trout. Looking at New Zealand as an example, he said most of the non-native species that have invaded the country have negative consequences, and residents therefore focus on eradicating them. Yet the nation has effectively embraced brown trout, Sax said: New Zealanders value the nutritional benefits of eating brown trout and the recreational benefits of fishing brown trout so much that they've established new environmental regulations to protect the species within their waters.

The framework the authors used to considered non-native species describes a comprehensive range of nature-based values, including intrinsic, instrumental and relational values.

"We posit that this framework provides a useful topology for considering the diverse array of ways that non-natives provide value and use this framework here to illustrate representative, but not exhaustive, examples of these values from diverse ecosystems and regions," they wrote.

The authors advocate using the same framework often used to talk about the benefits of nature, especially the benefit of biodiversity, and apply that to non-native species. "How people relate to nature, to the intrinsic value of nature, to the ecosystem services, to the provisioning of resources—these are all things that we value in native species, and there are also ways to see that non-native species are contributing to these benefits, too," Sax said. "It's not like there's some inherent trade-off: Non-natives aren't the boogie man."

For example, non-native species can be a leading cause of species extinctions, but also contribute, through their own migration, to regional biodiversity; they can reduce certain ecosystem functions, such as water clarity, while increasing others, such as erosion control; they can provide new resources, such as recreational hunting and fishing opportunities.

Yet because of the research bias against non-native species that focuses on threats and harm, Sax said that the net consequences of most non-native species are less certain. That is why he and his co-authors call for a re-evaluation of non-native species, informed by data.

"We argue that long-standing biases against non-native species within the literature have clouded the scientific process and hampered policy advances and sound public understanding," they wrote. "Future research should consider both costs and benefits of non-native species."

New standardized framework allows conservationists to assess benefits of non-native species

More information: Dov F. Sax et al, Valuing the contributions of non-native species to people and nature, Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.08.005

Journal information: Trends in Ecology and Evolution

Provided by Brown University

Seasonal change in Antarctic ice sheet movement observed for first time

by University of Cambridge

Some estimates of Antarctica's total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Austrian engineering company ENVEO, identified distinct, seasonal movements in the flow of land-based ice draining into George VI Ice Shelf—a floating platform of ice roughly the size of Wales—on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Using imagery from the Copernicus/European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, the researchers found that the glaciers feeding the ice shelf speed up by approximately 15% during the Antarctic summer. This is the first time that such seasonal cycles have been detected on land ice flowing into ice shelves in Antarctica. The results are reported in the journal The Cryosphere.

While it is not unusual for ice flow in Arctic and Alpine regions to speed up during summer, scientists had previously assumed that ice in Antarctica was not subject to the same seasonal movements, especially where it flows into large ice shelves and where temperatures are below freezing for most of the year.

This assumption was also, in part, fuelled by a lack of imagery collected over the icy continent in the past. "Unlike the Greenland Ice Sheet, where a high quantity of data has allowed us to understand how the ice moves from season to season and year to year, we haven't had comparable data coverage to look for such changes over Antarctica until recently," said Karla Boxall from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), the study's first author.

"Observations of ice-speed change in the Antarctic Peninsula have typically been measured over successive years, so we've been missing a lot of the finer detail about how flow varies from month to month throughout the year," said co-author Dr. Frazer Christie, also from SPRI.

Prior to the detailed records of ice speed made possible by the Sentinel-1 satellites, scientists wanting to study short-term variations in Antarctic-wide ice flow had to rely on information collected by optical satellites such as NASA's Landsat 8.

"Optical measurements can only observe the Earth's surface on cloud-free days during summer months," said co-author Dr. Thomas Nagler, ENVEO's CEO. "But by using Sentinel-1 radar imagery, we were able to discover seasonal ice-flow change thanks to the ability of these satellites to monitor year-round and in all-weather conditions."

Currently, the causes of this seasonal change are uncertain. It could be caused by surface meltwater reaching the base of the ice and acting like a lubricant, as is the case in Arctic and Alpine regions, or it could be due to relatively warm ocean water melting the ice from below, thinning the floating ice and allowing upstream glaciers to move faster.

"These seasonal cycles could be due to either mechanism, or a mixture of the two," said Christie. "Detailed ocean and surface measurements will be required to understand fully why this seasonal change is occurring."

The results imply that similar seasonal variability may exist at other, more vulnerable sites in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in West Antarctica. "If true, these seasonal signatures may be uncaptured in some measurements of Antarctic ice-mass loss, with potentially important implications for global sea-level rise estimates," said Boxall.

"It's the first time this seasonal signal has been found on the Antarctic Ice Sheet, so the questions it raises regarding the possible presence and causes of seasonality elsewhere in Antarctica are really interesting," said co-author Professor Ian Willis, also from SPRI. "We look forward to taking a closer look at, and shedding light on, these important questions."Ice shelves hold back Antarctica's glaciers from adding to sea levels, but they're crumbling

More information: Seasonal land-ice-flow variability in the Antarctic Peninsula, The Cryosphere (2022). DOI: 10.5194/tc-16-3907-2022

Journal information: The Cryosphere

Provided by University of Cambridge

THAT'S WHERE THEY BELONG

Conspiracy theories flourish on YouTube, study reports

by University of Sydney

A new study by social media researchers at the University of Sydney and QUT has found conspiracy theories are thriving on YouTube despite the platform's efforts to harden posting rules and guidelines.

The study, published in the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, examined YouTube comments on COVID-19 news videos featuring American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates and found conspiracy theories dominated.

The comments covered topics such as Bill Gates' hidden agenda, his role in vaccine development and distribution, his body language, his connection to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, 5G network harms, and ideas around Gates controlling people through human microchipping and the "mark of the beast."

The results suggest that during the COVID-19 pandemic, YouTube's comments feature, such as anonymous message boards 4chan and 8kun, may have played an underrated role in conspiracy theories growing and circulating.

The findings support previous studies that argue misinformation is a collective, socially produced phenomenon.

Dr. Joanne Gray, a University of Sydney researcher on digital platform policy and governance, said, "We found that the process of developing a conspiracy theory is quite social. People come together and socially 'join the dots' or share new pieces of information that they use to build conspiratorial narratives. The social media platforms' current approaches to content moderation (which are often automated) are not good at detecting this kind of social conspiracy theorizing."

Co-authors of the study include Lan Ha and Dr. Timothy Graham from Queensland University of Technology.

YouTube and conspiracy theories

During the COVID-19 pandemic, YouTube introduced new policies and guidelines aimed at limiting the spread of medical misinformation about the virus on the platform.

But the study found the comments feature remains relatively unmoderated and has low barriers to entry for posting publicly, with many posts violating the platform's rules, for example, comments that proposed vaccines are used for mass sterilization or to insert microchips into recipients.

The researchers studied a dataset of 38,564 YouTube comments drawn from three COVID-19-related videos posted by news media organizations Fox News, Vox, and China Global Television Network. Each video featured Bill Gates and, at the time of data extraction, had between 13,000 and 14,500 comments posted between April 5, 2020, and March 2, 2021.

Through topic modeling and qualitative content analysis, the study found the comments for each video to be heavily dominated by conspiratorial statements.

Some comments were considered "borderline content," which YouTube defines as content that "brushes up against" but does not cross the lines set by its rules.

Examples of borderline content include comments that raise doubts about Bill Gates's motives in vaccine development and distribution and the suggestion that he seeks to take control in a "new world order." These comments implied or linked to theories about using vaccines to control or track large populations of people.

YouTube recommendations

The researchers said the platform should consider design and policy changes that respond to conversational strategies used by conspiracy theorists to prevent similar outcomes for future high-stakes public interest matters.

Three common conversational strategies include: strengthening a conspiracy theory ("joining the dots of disparate information"), discrediting an authority ("casting doubt") and defending a conspiracy theory. These comments can be amplified when readers 'like' the comment.

"YouTube almost completely lacks the community-led or human moderation features that are needed to detect these kinds of strategies," said Dr. Gray.

The researchers said that for YouTube to address this problem adequately, it must attend to both the conversational strategies that evade automated detection systems and to redesign the space to provide users with the tools they need to self-moderate effectively.

News publishers and moderating comments

The study urges YouTube to develop best practice content moderation guidelines for news publishers that outline strategies used by conspiracy theorists that are invisible to automated moderation. In addition, news publishers could turn off comments on high stakes public interest videos to ensure they do not exacerbate the circulation of conspiracy theories.

"A major implication of our study is that YouTube needs to redesign the space to provide social moderation infrastructure," said Dr. Gray. "Otherwise, the discursive strategies of conspiracy theorists will continue to evade detection systems, pose insurmountable challenges for content creators, and play into the hands of content producers who benefit from and/or encourage such activity."

YouTube will remove videos making harmful claims rooted in conspiracy theories

More information: Lan Ha et al, Where conspiracy theories flourish: A study of YouTube comments and Bill Gates conspiracy theories, Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review (2022). DOI: 10.37016/mr-2020-107

Provided by University of Sydney

NOTHING IS PERMITTED, EVERYTHING IS TRUE

How affirmative action bans make selective colleges, and the workforce, less diverse

by Natasha Warikoo, The Conversation

graduation — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in two lawsuits on Oct. 31, 2022, brought by a group that opposes affirmative action in college admissions. Here, Natasha Warikoo, a sociology professor at Tufts University and author of the newly released "Is Affirmative Action Fair?: The Myth of Equity in College Admissions," shares insights on how the racial and ethnic makeup of student bodies at selective colleges and universities will change if the Supreme Court decides to outlaw affirmative action.

What's at stake with the cases against affirmative action?

Currently, many selective colleges consider race when they make decisions about which students to admit. In several cases since 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that it is constitutional to do so to ensure diversity on campus.

A ruling in favor of Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiffs in the case, would require all colleges—both private and public—to no longer consider race when they make admissions decisions.

Since nine states already have bans on affirmative action, it's easy to know what will happen if affirmative action is outlawed. Studies of college enrollment in those states show that enrollment of Black, Hispanic and Native American undergraduate students will decline in the long term.

Undergraduate enrollment is not the only area of higher education that will be affected. A ban on affirmative action will ultimately lead to fewer graduate degrees earned by Black, Hispanic and Native American students.

One study found that medical school enrollment for underrepresented minorities fell by an average of 5% in eight states with bans on affirmative action. Wages will also be affected: A recent study estimates that among Hispanic young adults in California who applied to University of California colleges after the the state's ban on affirmative action, earnings were 5% less than for Hispanics who applied before the ban. The evidence suggests that applicants after the ban attended lower-ranked colleges and, consequently, were less likely to graduate from college, which drove down their wages as graduates.

What do people regularly get wrong about affirmative action?

Many assume that affirmative action plays a bigger role in admissions decisions than it actually does. Some worry that the policy leads colleges to admit students who cannot cope with the academic demands of the colleges to which they are admitted. This "mismatch theory," as it is sometimes called, has not proved to be true.

Research shows that Black students who are admitted with help from affirmative action are more likely to go on to earn advanced degrees than Black students with similar academic achievement but whose admission was not helped by affirmative action.

And California's 1998 ban led to fewer STEM degrees attained by Black and Hispanic students in California colleges. This was especially true for those with weaker academic preparation—that is to say, those thought to be most negatively affected by "mismatch."

How will things change if affirmative action ends?

Based on what happened in states where affirmative action has already been banned, there will be sharp drops in the numbers of Black, Hispanic and Native American students at selective colleges, especially those that are the most selective.

Students who end up at less selective colleges will be less likely to graduate. That's because lower-ranked colleges tend to have fewer resources to support student success and, as a result, tend to have lower graduation rates.

Ending affirmative action will make it harder to increase the percentage of professionals and leaders from minority backgrounds. This is because, as research has shown, affirmative action has increased the number of Black college graduates and, in turn, increased the number of Black professionals with advanced degrees.

If such a setback takes place, it will come at a time when many organizations and companies are pledging support for racial justice and an increase diversity among their staff and leadership.

What's the main takeaway from your book?

Overall, I argue that admissions should be less about who gets into college and more about what students will do once they get out. I believe this requires less emphasis on individual achievements—and more emphasis on the broader mission of college. That mission includes preparing people from a wide range of ethnic and racial backgrounds to make contributions to society. Affirmative action, I argue, is one tool to do just that.Affirmative action bans had 'devastating impact' on diversity in medical schools, study finds

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.