It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, September 09, 2023
Archeologists discover 'most important' Paleolithic cave art site in eastern Iberia
A team of archeologists have recently published a scientific paper detailing the discovery of what they call “the most important Paleolithic sanctuary” ever found on the Eastern Iberian Coast.
Cova Dones, located in Millares, Spain, is a common tourist attraction, with records of exploration dating back to the 18th century. However, the Paleolithic paintings within the cave were only discovered in June 2021, when three archeology scholars analyzed markings and engravings on the ancient cave walls. Their findings were published in the British academic journal Antiquity this month.
Researchers deemed this particular cave art “unprecedented in the region” based on the uniqueness of the designs and the techniques in which they were created, Antiquity reports.
Part of the rarity of this discovery, the study explains, derives from the fact that the applied clay has had time to dry in a wet environment, amidst the presence of thick calcite layers which sprawl along the markings and engravings.
The study consists of a thorough analysis of cave markings in the historical context of European Paleolithic Art, confirming the representation of 19 animals (including hinds, horses, aurochs and a deer.)
Archeologists estimate that the ensemble of engravings and markings could have a minimum age of approximately 24,000 years.
With the research still in its early stages, the nearly 500-metre-long cave consists of additional ancient artwork to be assessed, the study concludes, with multidisciplinary investigations hoping to uncover more about anthropological art in the early stages of the Stone Age.
Difficult decisions led to unequal vaccination rates
There was a significant difference in the speed with which different groups were vaccinated against COVID-19. One explanation could be that people absorb information and make decisions in different ways. A new study shows that among people with the highest cognitive ability, 80% had been vaccinated within 50 days. Among those with the lowest cognitive ability, it took 180 days to achieve the same vaccination rate.
“This is important knowledge for future situations in which authorities want to reach a broad public to encourage them to get vaccinated or adopt other health measures, for example. If we are to have equal care for all, we need to take into account the different ways people absorb information,” says Mikael Elinder, Associate Professor in Economics at Uppsala University and one of the researchers behind the study.
The study, now published in the Journal of Health Economics, is based on the results of cognitive ability tests from the military service conscription process. The study covers 750,000 men and 3,000 women born between 1962 and 1979. The test results, which are graded on a nine-point scale, have been compared with vaccination statistics from the Public Health Agency of Sweden. There are major differences between individuals with the highest and lowest scores on these tests of cognitive ability. Among the highest performers (group 9), 80% had already been vaccinated after 50 days, while among the lowest performers (group 1) this figure was only reached after 180 days. “Most Western countries wanted their populations to be vaccinated as soon as possible. It was seen early on that vaccination rates varied considerably between different socio-economic groups. We wanted to investigate whether there was a link to cognitive ability or whether other factors caused the differences and led to people hesitating to get vaccinated,” explains Oscar Erixon, Researcher in Economics at Uppsala University and one of the people responsible for the study.
One example that deviates from the national statistics is Region Uppsala, in Sweden. Once the priority groups had been vaccinated, the region made vaccination appointments for all individuals in the 50–59 age group. They received a letter inviting them to an appointment to get vaccinated, and all they had to do was show up. The result was rapid and high vaccination rates even among those with lower cognitive ability. In Uppsala, it took only 40 days for that group to reach an 80% vaccination rate. This was therefore 140 days faster than the national vaccination rate.
“Logging on to a website, finding an appointment, booking it, going there and getting vaccinated may have been too many steps for some people. A simple measure, such as pre-booking vaccination appointments, proved to be a powerful tool to speed up vaccinations in both groups,” notes Mattias Öhman from Uppsala University, also one of the researchers behind the study.
“It shows that some of the inequalities in vaccination behaviour can be addressed by better designing vaccination campaigns. As it is known that the group with lower cognitive ability was also hit harder by COVID-19, such a measure is likely to contribute to more equal health outcomes. Faster vaccination rates are also likely to help bring an end to the pandemic more effectively,” adds Erixson.
Mikael Elinder, Oscar Erixson, Mattias Öhman; Cognitive ability, health policy, and the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination, Journal of Health Economics, Volume 91, 2023; 102802, ISSN 0167-6296, DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2023.102802 ¸ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629623000796
For more information, please contact: Mikael Elinder, Associate Professor of Economics at Uppsala University, email: mikael.elinder@nek.uu.se, tel: +46-70-769 09 76 Oscar Erixson, Researcher in Economics at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, email: oscar.erixson@ibf.uu.se, tel: +46-70-467 61 10 Mattias Öhman, Researcher in Economics at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, mattias.ohman@ibf.uu.se, tel: +46-18-471 65 05
In this new editorial, researchers Yuxin Ying, Jola Bytyci and Lennard YW Lee from Oxford Medical School discuss their recent investigation into the effectiveness of the third booster vaccine, entitled, “COVID-19: Third dose booster vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough coronavirus infection, hospitalisations and death in patients with cancer: A population-based study.”
Overall, the study found that the third dose booster improved vaccine effectiveness across various measures. However, the benefits of the booster were not as significant for patients with cancer when compared to the general population. This is because immunocompromised (IC) individuals, including those with cancer, have a diminished response to vaccination.
As a result, they continue to remain at a high risk of experiencing breakthrough infections and severe cases of COVID-19. Unfortunately, vaccination alone does not provide an adequate level of protection for these groups. Consequently, additional measures such as prophylactic antibodies are internally agreed to be the standard of care to address the ongoing impact of the pandemic on affected individuals.
“This study represents the largest global evaluation of the efficacy of the third dose booster vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.”
Keywords: COVID-19, immunocompromised, vaccination, breakthrough infection, cancer
AboutOncoscience:
Oncoscience is a peer-reviewed, open-access, traditional journal covering the rapidly growing field of cancer research, especially emergent topics not currently covered by other journals. This journal has a special mission: Freeing oncology from publication cost. It is free for the readers and the authors.
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A journal with such a rich history must root out inequity
"Let us be honest in admitting that the pages we have published in nearly 70 years have not always been a safe space for historically marginalized people, with serious implications," urges Ebony B. Carter, MD, MPH, the journal's Associate Editor for Equity, in an introductory editorial. "This includes impeding scientific progress in achieving reproductive health equity, limiting the careers of colleagues from historically marginalized communities, and advancing narratives that portend that mothers and pregnancy-capable people are culpable in their adverse outcomes."
Dr. Carter specializes in maternal–fetal medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She notes that "racism is woven into the fabric of every aspect of American society through intersectional systems of oppression," with medicine and academic publishing being no exception. "I have encountered multiple obstetrics and gynecology colleagues vehemently denying this fact, but to do so is to embrace the notion that disparate health outcomes for historically marginalized people in this country are a foregone conclusion."
A diversity of expertise and thought guided the development of the special issue
A transdisciplinary Steering Committee set aspirational goals for the special issue and held a live webinar to introduce them to readers and potential authors. It also created an Equity Rubric, published in the issue, to guide writing and peer review, and expanded the reviewer pool to include faculty who have the expertise to review scientific articles about health equity, now and in the future. Of 120 submissions, 27 were included. A sampling of topics:
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Antepartum Anemia and Severe Maternal Morbidity
Multilevel Community Engagement to Inform a Randomized Clinical Trial
Chronic Hypertension in Pregnancy and Racial–Ethnic Disparities in Complications
Obstetric Clinical Trial Diversity: Analysis of Trial Focus and Representation From 2007 to 2020
Historical Primer on Obstetrics and Gynecology Health Inequities in America
Strategies to Promote Maternal Health Equity: The Role of Perinatal Quality Collaboratives
Racial Disparities in the Infertility Journey
Why Causation Matters: Rethinking "Race" as a Risk Factor
Reproductive Justice in the U.S. Immigration Detention System
Transcending Language Barriers in Obstetrics and Gynecology
Structural Racism and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes Through the Lens of Maternal Microbiome
The Power of Language in Hospital Care for Pregnant and Birthing People
Data Equity for Asian and Pacific Islander People in Reproductive Health Research
Bridging Health Disparities and Improving Reproductive Outcomes With Doula Programs
The Future of Research on Racism in Reproductive Health
The entire issue is open access. Dr. Carter expresses the hope that it will "serve as a primer for some, and a reference document for others, as we work to equip our field with the necessary tools to address and mitigate the effect of racism on obstetrics and gynecology."
Wolters Kluwer provides trusted clinical technology and evidence-based solutions that engage clinicians, patients, researchers and students in effective decision-making and outcomes across healthcare. We support clinical effectiveness, learning and research, clinical surveillance and compliance, as well as data solutions. For more information about our solutions, visit https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/health and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @WKHealth.
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About Obstetrics & Gynecology
Obstetrics & Gynecology, the official journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), is a valuable resource for any physician specializing in women's health. This peer-reviewed journal is the most prestigious in its field. Each monthly issue provides readers with premier clinical research on current developments in obstetrics, gynecology, and women's total health care. The journal regularly features ACOG practice guidelines, editorials, current commentaries, and reviews, as well as periodic supplements.
About the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is the premier professional membership organization for obstetrician–gynecologists. The College produces practice guidelines for health care professionals and educational materials for patients, provides practice management and career support, facilitates programs and initiatives to improve women's health, and advocates for members and patients. It has more than 60,000 members in North and South America.
About Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer (EURONEXT: WKL) is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the healthcare, tax and accounting, financial and corporate compliance, legal and regulatory, and corporate performance and ESG sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.
Wolters Kluwer reported 2022 annual revenues of €5.5 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs approximately 20,900 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands.
JOURNAL
Obstetrics and Gynecology
ARTICLE TITLE
Racism in Reproductive Health, Lighting a Path to Health Equity
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Sep-2023
Many people have biased perceptions of EDI leaders
For the past decade, companies across North America have paid more attention to supporting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). This has prompted many organizations to create a leadership role fully dedicated to advancing EDI — so much so that between 2015 and 2020, the job title “head of diversity” increased 107 percent on LinkedIn. By 2021, more than half of S&P 500 firms had named a chief diversity officer.
But a new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business shows many people have deeply held beliefs about who should be an EDI leader, and they are rooted in racial stereotypes.
For the study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, roughly 500 participants with hiring experience were given a press release announcing a new leader at a fictitious company; some were told the person was the head of finance, while others were told they were the head of EDI. They were then asked to identify the necessary traits for leaders in those positions and asked what they believed the race of the leader would be.
“We found that, even though the new leader had a generic name and description, people were significantly more likely to assume the finance leader would be white, while the EDI leader would be non-white,” says UBC Sauder assistant professor Dr. Rebecca Paluch (she/her), who co-authored the study with Dr. Vanessa Shum, assistant professor of business administration at California State University San Marcos.
In a second experiment, researchers asked respondents about which traits they associated with different racial groups and leader roles. They found people not only assumed non-white individuals were more likely to be committed to social justice and to have experienced discrimination but also viewed those traits as the most critical for successful EDI leadership.
In a final study, the researchers examined how hiring managers evaluate prospective EDI leaders based on information from a candidate packet. They found hiring managers rated non-white candidates as having stronger leadership qualities for the role and were more likely to recommend hiring them over white candidates. Similar to the findings from the second experiment, this was because hiring managers assumed non-white candidates would be more social justice-minded and would have experienced discrimination.
“We were surprised by how strong the findings were,” says Dr. Paluch, who links the results to Role Theories, which suggest people associate certain groups with particular occupations because of their past and current experiences.
For decades, researchers have found that people often expect business leaders to be white and believe white employees are more likely to possess traits required for successful organizational leadership.
“Although historically business leaders have traditionally been white, which drives that association between being a leader and being white, social justice movements or diversity initiatives have historically been driven by non-white leaders or groups.”
Dr. Paluch says the findings are promising in that they represent a shift in people’s perceptions of who leaders are. What’s more, when they see non-white people in EDI leadership roles, they will be more likely to expect non-white leaders in other top corporate spots as well.
At the same time, the study reveals continued race-based stereotyping in hiring, adds Dr. Paluch, and as a result, EDI roles risk being perceived as less important. In fact, many businesses have already started reducing or eliminating EDI leadership spots as they look to cut costs.
“It’s never good to hire based on biased presumptions. We can't assume things about people just because of the way they look,” she says. “Those biases could ultimately hurt equity, diversity and inclusion in the long run, particularly if there are racial minorities in the role.”
Dr. Paluch says leaders need to understand that discrimination is often built into employment systems. Once they’re aware of those biases, they’re more likely to bring in accountability measures and standardize hiring practices. They also need to prioritize equity, diversity and inclusion; see EDI leaders as central to the management team; clearly define their roles; and compensate EDI leaders equitably.
“Because we find a racial bias for the EDI leader role, it's particularly important not to downgrade the status or necessity of this role, particularly in comparison to other leader roles,” she says.
“Organizations should make sure they're giving EDI leaders the same type of resources, prestige and attention as other leaders in the organization. Just like a Chief of Operations or a Chief of Finance, EDI leaders should be guaranteed a seat at the table.”
From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, “monstrous births”—malformed or anomalous fetuses—were, to Western medicine, an object of superstition. In 19th-century America, they became instead an object of the “modern scientific study of monstrosity,” a field formalized by French scientist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. This clinical turn was positioned against the backdrop of social, political, and economic activity that codified laws governing slavery, citizenship, immigration, family, wealth, and access to resources. In a new article published in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, “Monstrosity in Medical Science: Race-Making and Teratology in the Nineteenth-Century United States,” Miriam Rich demonstrates how scientific interest in monstrous births served as a mechanism for stabilizing notions of race and racial hierarchy, and shaped modern medical discourse into a project of making race.
Rich presents three frameworks, or “logics of race,” that structured the study of monstrous birth, beginning with the schema of development in the field of teratology. Teratology, informed by the theory of epigenesis, proposed that monstrosity was caused by an arrest in the development of a fetus before it could reach its final, more perfect form. This model was predicated on a belief in both teleological progress and a hierarchy of being. It overlapped with taxonomies of race that placed white Europeans at the top, and therefore implied a correlation between infant “monsters” and the racialized subjects who fell farther down the continuum of species. As Rich writes, “Through the scientific framework of teratological development, monstrosity gained specificity as a way to articulate the nature of racial difference—as hierarchical, temporalized, and biologically embodied.”
The second logic of race articulated by Rich is that of the monster as “a race apart.” The “race apart” framework proposed that monstrous births comprised their own species, distinct even from human race categories, and was supported by the fact that monsters could be born to women of any race. Rich draws upon the examples of an enslaved Black woman in Georgia and a white English woman in Philadelphia, both of whom gave birth to infants with anencephaly. As she notes, “Within a leading taxonomic cosmology of the era’s medical science…the two women in these cases did not belong to the same species as one another—but, remarkably, their monstrous infants did.” Rich suggests that despite the departure this theory represents from contemporary notions of race as congenital and immanent, the “race apart” thesis was ultimately used to legitimize a system of racial hierarchy.
The third and final logic of race examined in this article is that of “monstrosity as racial degeneracy.” In the aftermath of Emancipation, fears on the part of white hegemony regarding the destabilized racial categories that slavery had once upheld were transmuted into fears regarding social and evolutionary decline. Since the favored model of Darwinian evolution at this time was one of progress, and the theory of teratology had conflated fetal developmental progress with whiteness, monstrous births in this period were seen as signs of atavism, and thus of regression into non-whiteness. In addition to reinforcing the racial boundaries of the late 19th-century, Rich writes, this schema of monstrosity would also pave the way for early 20th-century eugenics.
In this article, Rich argues that the interpretation of monstrosity used by 19th-century scientists had significant implications for the racial caste system in the United States and for medicine as a discipline. The study of monstrous births shaped human reproduction into a site of the inscription of fixed racial difference, and embedded within modern medical discourse a practice of racial hierarchy.
IMAGE: WHILE MOST SPECIES HAVE GONE EXTINCT, EASTERN AFRICA IS HOME TO VIBRANT NATURAL COMMUNITIES OF MAMMALIAN MEGAFAUNA, INCLUDING ELEPHANTS, ZEBRAS, HIPPOPOTAMUSES, ANTELOPE, GIRAFFES, AND MANY OTHERS.view more
CREDIT: JESS HUNT-RALSTON, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Large-bodied mammals play crucial roles in ecosystems. They create habitats, serve as prey, help plants thrive, and even influence how wildfires burn. But now, fewer than half of the large mammal species that were alive 50,000 years ago exist today, and those that remain are threatened with extinction from intensifying climate change and human activities.
While mammal extinctions are well-documented, very little research has explored the impact those losses had on the nuanced ways in which mammal communities interact with their environments. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using a novel methodology to investigate how mammals’ ability to function in their environments has been threatened in the past, and what challenges they can expect to face in the future.
Jenny McGuire, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and leader of the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab, and Daniel Lauer, a graduate student, looked millions of years into the past, observing how and why eastern African herbivores’ relationships with their environments changed across space and time in the face of biodiversity loss. They used a novel approach to build models that show how specific mammal traits — like body mass and tooth shape — evolved with their changing environments over time, revealing the factors that caused the biodiversity losses and how the losses affected the functioning of mammal communities. Their method offers a new strategy for investigating the implications of changing ecologies and prioritizing conservation efforts toward helping mammal communities flourish in the future.
Their research paper was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Combing the Data
The researchers began by diving into a collection of data from 186 sites across eastern Africa. The data contained records of over 200 extinct and 48 modern herbivore species (including the African elephant, giraffe, zebra, and hippopotamus), showing where and when each species lived at a given point in time over the past 7.4 million years. The data showed that mammal biodiversity in eastern Africa began to decline around 5 million years ago. It also revealed that aspects of biodiversity decline happened at multiple points, and that extinctions coincided with environmental changes and the emergence of early humans. But McGuire and Lauer wanted to know more.
“We wondered what we would find if we investigated how the mammals’ physical traits changed as their environments changed over time, rather than just looking at patterns in their biodiversity,” Lauer said. “This is important because if a mammal species possesses traits that are well-suited to its environment, it’s better able to contribute to the functioning of that environment. But if that is not the case, environments may not function as well as they could.”
To paint a fuller picture, they needed to examine biodiversity from a different perspective. This required a fresh approach, which led them to adapting a methodology known as ecometrics.
Ecometrics is an approach that looks at the relationships between the environmental conditions where animal communities are found — such as weather and vegetation — and the animal’s functional traits, which are traits that affect its biological performance. The team chose to focus on three traits: body mass, tooth height, and loph count (the number of ridges on molars).
Each of these traits exhibits a relationship based on the degree to which an environment is dominated by grasses versus woody plants. For example, if a species has a taller tooth, it can more durably consume the abrasive grassy vegetation of grasslands. With a shorter tooth, a species is instead suited to consume softer, woody vegetation, like shrubs.
For each of the three traits, they built a model of trait-environment relationships. They used trait data to estimate what the surrounding vegetation was like in each mammal community over time, specifically the percentage of trees and shrubs versus grassland.
“Using our models, we were able to use information about the traits occurring within mammal communities to estimate how the surrounding vegetation looked,” Lauer said. “Because these communities existed at different points in time, this enabled us to observe how consistent the mammals’ relationships with their environments remained through time.”
Analyzing Disruptions
Using their ecometric framework, the researchers uncovered a key difference between the mammal biodiversity declines that occurred before approximately 1.7 million years ago and those that occurred after. While biodiversity began declining around 5 million years ago, trait-environment relationships remained consistent despite that loss.
Their analysis demonstrated that earlier biodiversity losses were a result of species adapting to grassland environments or tracking their preferred environments across geographies. In short, those biodiversity losses didn't necessarily have any sort of negative impact on the ability of mammal communities to function properly in their environments.
But later, around 1.7 million years ago, when climates became more arid and variable and tree cover declined to below 35%, a major shift occurred. Rapid losses in the number and variety of species occurred, along with a significant disruption in trait-environment relationships. The researchers’ findings suggest that, unlike prior biodiversity losses, those occurring over the past 1.7 million years likely threatened the ability for many mammal species to function well in local environmental conditions.
“Our findings fascinated us, because we were able to differentiate between the different biodiversity losses that were happening and their implications,” Lauer said. “This work reinforces the idea that not all biodiversity losses are the same.”
Protecting the Vulnerable
Their findings have important implications for the types of environmental and climatic changes that could affect mammals going forward. In the past, when changes were gradual and wildlife were able to move freely on the landscape, they could readily adapt to these environmental conditions.
Now, fragmentation of wildlife habitats by fences, roadways, and cities has the potential to limit the ability of wildlife to adapt to the rapid environmental changes occurring today. That is exacerbated by both the fast pace and increasing variability of today’s climate, which puts animals at risk of losing their ability to function properly in their local environments.
Moving forward, the team’s analysis can shed light on which mammal communities should be prioritized for future conservation efforts. The study demonstrates that among all the communities that are experiencing biodiversity losses, priority should be given to those most at-risk — the communities for whom future biodiversity losses will profoundly affect their ability to function properly.
“By examining the past, we can get a remarkably clear understanding of how animals have responded to prior environmental changes,” McGuire said. “We plan to work with conservation practitioners to use our findings to develop well-informed strategies for conserving the most at-risk mammal communities.”
Zebra skull at a wildlife education center in eastern Africa. In places or times with less precipitation, mammal communities overall will have more robust, rugged, resistant teeth.
CREDIT
Jess Hunt-Ralston, Georgia Institute of Technology
Yaxi Wang, an epibiotic bacteria researcher, at an anaerobic workstation in a microbiology lab at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.
CREDIT
S. Brook Peterson/University of Washington
CAPTION
Jenny McGuire, associate professor of biological sciences at Georgia Tech
CREDIT
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Co-authors include A. Michelle Lawing (Texas A&M University), Rachel A. Short (South Dakota State University), Fredrick K. Manthi (National Museums of Kenya), Johannes Müller (Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science), and Jason J. Head (University of Cambridge).
The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 45,000 undergraduate and graduate students, representing 50 states and more than 148 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.
