Monday, October 24, 2022

RISHI BACKGROUNDER

Think Sunak will be a relief as prime minister? Think again


The new prime minister is a Brexit true believer who believes in making the rich richer



ALASTAIR CAMPBELL
Photo: The New European


With Liz Truss having been so useless, and Boris Johnson having made millions feel sick at the idea of his return, Rishi Sunak’s ascent to the premiership may feel to many like something of a relief. Amid that relief, it would be all too easy to overlook the fact that he is well over on the right of his party.

Sunak is a Sovereign Individual type, who very much believes in the rich getting richer at the expense of the rights and prosperity of those further down the economic chain. He was also, unlike Johnson, a Brexit true believer, and the economic mess he takes over was exacerbated by Trussonomics, but did not start with it.

Nor should we forget, though he did finally knife Johnson, that he had sat alongside the Charlatan-in-Chief as the second most important figure in that Cabinet, knowing who and what he was, and defending him to the hilt. Oh, and he broke lockdown laws with him too.

He is now trying to do what Theresa May, Johnson and Liz Truss all did, and present himself as the leader of a new government. It is not. Only a general election can give us that.

Five Tory prime ministers in six years. We used to laugh at Italy. We are the global joke now. All five, Sunak included, have played a part in making it happen.

Words we should all worry about as Rishi Sunak becomes the new Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak has previously made clear what his politics really are, writes Liam Thorp



NEWS
By Liam Thorp 24 OCT 2022


Rishi Sunak is to be the new Prime Minister.

As the former Chancellor heads for Downing Street, some will remember the words of warning he issued as he failed to defeat Liz Truss in the summer's leadership election. He suggested her plans would lead to economic chaos, a run on the pound and rising interest rates - and he was right.

Others may think back to his work to quickly implement the furlough scheme at the onset of the pandemic. While there were some gaping holes in the policy, Sunak will still have some credit in the bank with people from that period.

But when it comes to knowing who Sunak really is and what he believes in, I would suggest we look to comments made on a sunny lawn in Royal Tunbridge Wells in July, surrounded by Conservative members, whose votes he was desperate for.

Microphone in hand, the ex-Chancellor bragged to the crowd about how he had worked hard to divert vital funding away from areas of deprivation and towards more affluent, Tory-voting communities.

He said: "I managed to start changing the funding formulas, to make sure that areas like this are getting the funding that they deserve, because we inherited a bunch of formulas that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas, that needed to be undone and I started the work of undoing that."

Even if you take into account his desperation for votes in what was a flailing leadership bid, this was still a moment of remarkable mask-slipping honesty - and others soon followed.

Just days later he was proudly declaring that if elected he would "govern as a Thatcherite." While this idea may appeal to large sections of Conservative members, it will strike fear into the hearts of the communities - like Liverpool - that suffered so badly under the rule of Margaret Thatcher.

This pledge is particularly worrying for communities that have been torn apart by the past decade of austerity and when talk is rife in government of the need for further spending cuts to try and plug the huge black hole created by Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng's disastrous economic announcements.

More evidence of the hard-lined right wing approach behind Sunak's slick and professional presentation style arrived when he promised to do "whatever it takes" to get the government's cruel plan to send desperate and vulnerable asylum seekers to Rwanda and vowed to pursue more “migration partnerships” with other countries.

As if that wasn't harsh enough, he vowed to cap the number of refugees the UK accepts each year, tighten the definition of who qualifies to claim asylum in this country and even discussed housing asylum seekers in cruise ships instead of hotels to save money.

These were of course all statements that were made in a previous leadership election (although it was only a few weeks ago) - but as we have heard absolutely nothing on policy from the man who will now become the next Prime Minister, it is probably fair to assume this is what he still believes.

Rishi Sunak may be a more polished performer than Liz Truss, he may seem more competent and even moderate compared with the bizarre, short-lived Truss experiment. But you can see from his previous promises and pledges that this is not a moderate politician we are talking about and is one who many in communities that have already suffered greatly over the past 12 years of Tory rule will be very worried about.

Rishi Sunak may be the UK’s next leader. Here’s what he doesn’t want you to know

Rishi Sunak, reportedly the richest MP in the United Kingdom, would be a boon for the financial lobby if he became the next prime minister, tax justice campaigners have warned.

As talk turns to the next Conservative leader, the man trounced by Liz Truss just weeks ago is now the favourite to replace her. But Sunak has not been transparent with his finances and that his hedge fund background raises questions about his commitment to fighting tax avoidance.

His profile has risen sharply since he became chancellor in early 2020, just weeks before the first lockdown began. But critics say a slick public marketing campaign has disguised a person with an ultra-privileged background, who is a committed Thatcherite ideologue. 

Here’s the openDemocracy guide to the man who might just end up as the UK’s next prime minister, originally published in January 2022.

Private school

Sunak marked his first year in the exchequer by tweeting two photos of himself, one as a child in school uniform, and one as the chancellor, standing outside Number 11. 

He wrote: “Growing up I never thought I would be in this job (mainly because I wanted to be a Jedi) … It’s been incredibly tough but thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way.”

The message carefully tip-toed around his privileged upbringing. Until the age of 11, Sunak attended Oakmount Preparatory School and then the Stroud Independent Preparatory School, the latter of which now charges fees of up to £18 500 a year. 

From there, he studied at King Edward VI School in Southampton (now £17 000 a year) before moving to Winchester College (now £43 335 a year). 

Five chancellors and one prime minister have attended Winchester, one of England’s oldest public boarding schools and a long-standing rival of Eton, before Sunak.

“[Sunak’s] tweet made me smile,” said Richard Beard, an author whose latest book Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England assesses the private education system and the many politicians that have been through it.

“The idea that, while studying in Winchester College, he would have never thought he would be at the top of government is very unlikely to me. Leadership qualities are one of the things that they teach you and you’re bound to think of your future in those terms.

“So he would definitely have thought that that is the kind of job that he’d be in, even if he didn’t explicitly think of chancellor of the exchequer.”

In media profiles, Sunak’s allies describe him as “immaculate”“calm” and “organised”, qualities befitting of a former Winchester head of college. None volunteer that he is empathetic or compassionate. When given examples of people who are experiencing hardship in Parliament or in press interviews, as he was on Good Morning Britain last year, Sunak listed policies in response but offered no consolations.

Beard, whose book is partly based on his own experiences, believes all-male boarding schools emotionally harden their students. To survive, he says, boys cannot show any vulnerability among their peers.

“If you repress emotion for yourself then ultimately it becomes very easy to repress feelings for other people,” he argues. 

And although boarding schools like Winchester may prepare students well to advance in politics, Beard says they instil a worldview that is far from ordinary. 

“Money is at the centre of it all because everyone knows it costs a lot of money, including the boys, but the actual money is abstract. The needs of everyday life are simply taken care of for you,” said Beard. 

“How can you actually then think in terms of people struggling for five pounds and ten pounds?” 

Cut benefits

Last year, Sunak was heavily criticised for axing a £20-a-week increase to Universal Credit that had helped some of the poorest families through the pandemic. More than 200 000 would have been pushed into poverty as a result of the cut, according to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Just weeks before the cut was confirmed in July, the chancellor requested planning permission to build a private swimming pool, gym and tennis court at the Grade II-listed Yorkshire manor that Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, purchased for £1.5-million in 2015. 

After several MPs from his own party spoke out against the Universal Credit cut, Sunak increased in-work benefits in his autumn budget – but not by enough to offset the cut.

A lot of money

The Sunaks’ Georgian mansion, where locals described attending parties with liveried staff pouring champagne from magnums, is not the only property they own. There is also the £7-million, five-bedroom house in Kensington, west London; a flat, also in Kensington, that the couple reportedly keep “just for visiting relatives”; and an apartment in Santa Monica, California.

The chancellor’s extensive property portfolio is just one source of his wealth. After studying at Oxford University, Sunak went on to work for the US investment bank Goldman Sachs for four years. He left to pursue a business degree at Stanford University in California, where he said meeting influential figures in the multi-billion US tech industry “left a mark” on him.

From there, Sunak had a stint working at hedge funds back in London. He was a partner at the Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) where he is believed to have made millions of pounds from a campaign that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis.

Sir Chris Hohn, the fund’s founder, paid himself a record £343-million in the first year of the pandemic. TCI is ultimately owned by a company registered in the Cayman Islands, according to its accounts. Its philanthropic arm, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), donated £255-million to charitable causes last year. (Full disclosure: openDemocracy has received funding from CIFF since 2019).

Sunak then left to co-found his own firm, Theleme, which had an initial fund of £536-million and is also registered in the Cayman Islands.

Financial interests aren’t transparent

The Cayman Islands are one of the world’s top offshore tax and secrecy havens. When an investment is made through a hedge fund in the Caymans, “nobody can possibly know where the money has come from”, said Alex Cobham, the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.

Not all the money that goes through the Caymans is dirty, and hedge funds argue that they need to keep their investment strategies secret to be competitive.

Nevertheless, “it is probably the best, certainly the most reputable, way of allowing fairly questionable money in large volume to go into mainstream financial markets”, said Cobham.

An estimated $483-billion (£357.62-billion) a year is lost in cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals hiding assets in havens such as the Cayman Islands, according to the Tax Justice Network

“Somehow, in the financial sector, we still have this idea that it’s basically smart to game the system. If these are the people, and the culture, that is coming into public life then we’ve got a real problem,” said Cobham.

When Sunak became a minister in 2019, he placed the investments he held from his years of working in finance into a “blind trust”. Such agreements are intended to avoid conflicts of interest by handing over control of assets to a third party, but whether that works in practice is questionable.

“These trusts don’t necessarily come with any legal mechanism to prevent the owner of the assets actually dictating what happens, or indeed seeing through any claimed blindness,” said Cobham.

“If politicians were willing to make the arrangement transparent, including the legal documents, we might have some confidence in them.”

Sunak has declared the trust in his entry on the Register of Ministers’ Financial Interests, but not the contents of it. The rest of his disclosures are remarkably minimal for a man with an estimated net worth of £200-million.

Aside from the trust, he has listed his London flat and the fact his wife, Akshata Murty, owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures, which the couple founded together in 2013.

Murty, who Sunak met at Stanford, is the daughter of Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murthy, who co-founded the IT company Infosys. Her shares in that firm are worth £430-million alone, a fortune large enough to make her one of the richest women in Britain.

The Murthy/Murty family (Narayana’s children have dropped the ‘h’ from their name) is reported to have invested part of their wealth through Catamaran Ventures, although how much is unclear. Sunak resigned his directorship of the company in 2015.

Ministers must declare the financial interests of their close family — including in-laws — which might give rise to a conflict, but Sunak has declared only one of the companies that his wife owns. A host of other family assets — including a £900m-a-year joint venture with Amazon in India, owned by his father-in-law — are not mentioned, according to The Guardian.

Sunak is said to have met with the government’s then-head of propriety and ethics, Helen MacNamara, before becoming chancellor, to review what interests should be declared. MacNamara said she was satisfied with what had been registered at the time.

Sunak reportedly led the hawks  in the cabinet who opposed taking action when scientists recommended a circuit-breaker lockdown in September 2020, arguing that restrictions would be too economically damaging. Bosis Johnson delayed the decision and infections spiralled leading to a more punitive and lengthier lockdown in November.

“Sunak’s been the voice most consistently pushing for watering down of Covid restrictions in the cabinet. So, if you like, he is a kind of a logical continuation of that Thatcherite impulse within the Tories,” said Phil Burton-Cartledge, the author of Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Tory Britain.

Soon after becoming an MP in 2015, Sunak wrote a report calling for the creation of “freeports” around the UK for the right-wing think tank, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), which was co-founded by Margaret Thatcher. 

The policy idea — that tax-free, deregulated outposts will revitalise post-industrial coastal cities — was fittingly tried by the former PM in the 1980s, before being dropped by David Cameron in 2012 after proving unsuccessful.

Sunak also worked for another right-wing think tank, Policy Exchange — which, like the CPS does not declare its donors — before becoming an MP, and has spoken at the Institute of Economic Affairs since becoming chancellor. All three think tanks have been consistently ranked among the least transparent in the UK.

Slick PR operation

During the pandemic, billionaires such as NR Narayana Murthy saw their wealth increase — Murthy’s fortune was up 35% to £2.3bn in 2021 — while inequality between the richest and poorest grew. What, then, explains the seeming popularity of a former hedge fund manager like Sunak at a time in midst of a cost-of-living crisis?

Part of the answer might be the way Sunak has presented himself. Unusually for a chancellor, he hired the co-founder of a social media agency to manage his public image after he was appointed. 

Since then, the content on his social media channels — from casual “ask me anything”-style YouTube videos to puppy pictures on Instagram — have more closely resembled a celebrity influencer than a frontrunner for Tory leader.

unak hired t

Jonathan Dean, an associate professor of politics at Leeds University, says this reflects broader political trends: “Forms of celebrity are increasingly prominent within politics, and that can either take the form of people who were conventional celebrities entering electoral politics, or it can also take the form of politicians trying to ape the publicity and performance traditionally associated with celebrity culture.”

Politicians draw on tactics from the world of celebrity influencers, Dean suggests, partly because they can mask their political views. 

“A lot of politicians don’t have a particularly coherent or well-thought-through set of ideological commitments or kind of policy ideas. And I think certain forms of celebritisation allow them to circumvent that,” he said. 

In Sunak’s case, it seems he has been even more successful in influencing journalists than the public. A picture of him working from home in a hoodie became a media frenzy after columnists from Vogue and GQ complimented his looks, which, in turn, spawned mockery on social media. It wasn’t long after that Sunak was being asked how he felt about being described as “Dishy Rishi” in an interview with British digital publisher LADbible.

Although Sunak may be the most popular Tory politician among the public, among party members he came second to then foreign secretary and later prime minister Truss

Burton-Cartledge suggests that this might be because he has not demonstrated the same zeal as Truss for pursuing a “war on woke”.

“He is of the same mould as [former prime minister David] Cameron: economically Thatcherite, but socially liberal,” said Burton-Cartledge. “That said, I can’t see him rowing back on the tough rhetoric about migrants in the Channel.”

This is an edited version of an article first published by openDemocracy.

 

BRITAIN WAS RECOLONISED BY TWO DISTINCT POPULATIONS AFTER LAST ICE AGE

SCIENTISTS HAVE OBTAINED THE FIRST GENETIC DATA FROM PALAEOLITHIC HUMAN INDIVIDUALS IN BRITAIN, AND THE OLDEST HUMAN DNA FROM THE BRITISH ISLES THUS FAR, INDICATING THAT THE UK WAS RECOLONISED BY TWO DISTINCT POPULATIONS AFTER THE LAST ICE AGE.

Researchers from the Natural History Museum, University College London (UCL), and the Francis Crick Institute, obtained DNA samples from the remains of an individual in Gough’s Cave in Somerset, and from an individual in Kendrick’s Cave in North Wales.

The first group seem to be the same people who created the Magdalenian stone tools, a culture known also for iconic cave art and bone artefacts, and were the first group to expand into Northwest Europe around 16,000 year ago.

The second group appeared in northwest Europe around 2,000 years later, and are known as “western hunter-gatherers”. They seem to have their ancestral origins in the Near East. As Britain sits at the extreme northwest corner of the continent, it’s the end of the line for these human migrations.

“We really wanted to find out more about who these early populations in Britain might have been,” says Dr Selina Brace, a principal researcher at the Museum. “We knew from our previous work, including the study of Cheddar Man, that western hunter-gatherers were in Britain by around 10,500 years BP, but we didn’t know when they first arrived in Britain, and whether this was the only population that was present.”

“The period we were interested in, from 20-10,000 years ago, is part of the Palaeolithic – the Old Stone Age. This is an important time period for the environment in Britain, as there would have been significant climate warming, increases in the amount of forest, and changes in the type of animals available to hunt,” said Dr Sophy Charlton, lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of York. “There are very few human remains of this age in Britain; perhaps around a dozen individuals from six sites. We looked at two of these Palaeolithic individuals – one from Gough’s Cave in Somerset and the other from Kendrick’s Cave in North Wales.”

“The individual from Gough’s Cave died about 15,000 years ago, and her DNA indicates that her ancestors were part of the initial migration into northwest Europe,” says Prof. Ian Barnes from the Museum. “On the other hand, the individual from Kendrick’s Cave is from a later period, around 13,500 years ago, and his ancestry is from the western hunter-gatherer group.”

Furthermore, the study found that these populations were not just genetically different, but culturally different too. “Chemical analyses of the bones showed that the individuals from Kendrick’s Cave ate a lot of marine and freshwater foods, including large marine mammals. Humans at Gough’s Cave, however, showed no evidence of eating marine and freshwater foods, and primarily ate terrestrial herbivores such as red deer, bovids (such as wild cattle called aurochs) and horses,” says Dr Rhiannon Stevens, Associate Professor of Archaeological Science at UCL Institute of Archaeology.

Their mortuary practices also differed. There were no animal bones showing evidence of being eaten by humans found at Kendrick’s Cave, indicating that the cave was used as a burial site by its occupiers. Animal bones that were found included portable art items such as a decorated horse mandible. In contrast, animal and human bones found in Gough’s Cave showed significant human modification including human skulls that have been modified into “skull-cups” and interpreted as evidence for ritualistic cannibalism.

“Finding the two ancestries so close in time in Britain, only a millennium or so apart, is adding to the emerging picture of Palaeolithic Europe, which is one of a changing and dynamic population,” says Dr Mateja Hajdinjak, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Francis Crick Institute.

The study shows that it is possible to obtain useful genetic information from some of the oldest human skeletal material in Britain.

“These genome sequences now represent the earliest chapter of the genetic history of Britain, but ancient DNA and proteins promise to bring us back even further,” says Dr Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.


Natural History Museum

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01883-z

Header Image – Goughs Cave – Image Credit : Shutterstock

Exclusive: Twitter Employees Protest Elon Musk's Plan to Fire 75% of Workforce


Billy Perrigo
Mon, October 24, 2022

SpaceX And T-Mobile Hold Joint Event In Texas

Elon Musk, SpaceX founder, during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. Credit - Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images

Employees at Twitter are circulating an open letter protesting Elon Musk’s plan to fire as much as 75% of the company’s workforce, as the deadline for him to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the company looms, TIME has learned.

Musk must complete the acquisition by Friday or face the resumption of a lawsuit in a Delaware court.

Elon Musk told prospective funders of his Twitter acquisition that he planned to replace or eradicate the jobs of nearly 75% of Twitter’s staff, reducing headcount from 7,500 to just 2,000, the Washington Post reported last week. Musk has previously claimed that the social media company is bloated, and has also said its workforce has a “strong left-wing bias.”

Read More: Whether or Not He Buys Twitter, Elon Musk Has Thrown the Company Into Turmoil

TIME reviewed a draft of the open letter circulating among Twitter employees on Monday. “Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation,” said the draft of the letter, which has not yet been published. “A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.”

The letter demands that Musk commits to preserving Twitter’s current headcount if his takeover of the company goes through. It also demands he does not discriminate against employees based on their political beliefs and that he commits to “fair” severance policies and more communication about working conditions. “We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires,” the list of demands says.

It was unclear how many Twitter employees had signed the letter at the time of publication. “Signatures will not be made public unless we have critical mass,” said a note sent to prospective signatories.

The full text of the open letter

Staff, Elon Musk, and Board of Directors:

We, the undersigned Twitter workers, believe the public conversation is in jeopardy.

Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation. A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.

Twitter has significant effects on societies and communities across the globe. As we speak, Twitter is helping to uplift independent journalism in Ukraine and Iran, as well as powering social movements around the world.

A threat to workers at Twitter is a threat to Twitter’s future. These threats have an impact on us as workers and demonstrate a fundamental disconnect with the realities of operating Twitter. They threaten our livelihoods, access to essential healthcare, and the ability for visa holders to stay in the country they work in. We cannot do our work in an environment of constant harassment and threats. Without our work, there is no Twitter.

We, the workers at Twitter, will not be intimidated. We recommit to supporting the communities, organizations, and businesses who rely on Twitter. We will not stop serving the public conversation.

We call on Twitter management and Elon Musk to cease these negligent layoff threats. As workers, we deserve concrete commitments so we can continue to preserve the integrity of our platform.

We demand of current and future leadership:

Respect: We demand leadership to respect the platform and the workers who maintain it by committing to preserving the current headcount.

Safety: We demand that leadership does not discriminate against workers on the basis of their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. We also demand safety for workers on visas, who will be forced to leave the country they work in if they are laid off.

Protection: We demand Elon Musk explicitly commit to preserve our benefits, those both listed in the merger agreement and not (e.g. remote work). We demand leadership to establish and ensure fair severance policies for all workers before and after any change in ownership.

Dignity: We demand transparent, prompt and thoughtful communication around our working conditions. We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.

Sincerely,

Twitter workers

New book, with accompanying video series, is first to present how musical care can be delivered throughout the human life course

‘Collaborative Insights’ takes an interdisciplinary approach to how musical care is understood and undertaken during different stages of a person’s life, offering perspectives from practitioners and what the research evidence says

Book Announcement

CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON

Co-edited by academics from the Royal College of Music and City, University of London, a new book introduces the term ‘musical care’: the role that music - music listening as well as music-making – can play in supporting aspects of a person’s developmental and health needs, including for their physical and mental health, cognitive and behavioural development, and interpersonal relationships.

Entitled, Collaborative Insights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course’, it is a compendium of up-to-date knowledge on musical care and is aimed to act as a resource for anybody involved in the field to learn from and to influence their own practice or research - from music therapists working with children with special needs; to palliative care nurses seeking to introduce musical care to their practice; to academic researchers seeking to investigate the role of music in care contexts.

It is the first book to provide interdisciplinary insights into how musical care is understood and undertaken during different stages of a person’s life, sharing a variety of perspectives from practitioners and academic researchers to create a holistic overview of how musical care may be best delivered in different settings.

Each chapter has been written collaboratively by a music therapist and an academic in a related discipline (e.g. developmental psychology, music psychology, sociology); focuses on one life stage from infancy to the end of life; and provides a brief overview of musical care during that life stage, citing the supporting evidence, and offering new calls to action to inspire further work to better implement or understand musical care.

The eight chapters of the book are:

  • Introduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course
  • Musical Care in Infancy: Supporting Infants and their Caregivers
  • Musical Care in Childhood: How Music Nurtures the Developing Child
  • Musical Care in Adolescence: Supporting Healthy Musical Identities and Uses of Music
  • Musical Care in Adulthood: Sounding Our Way Through the Landscape
  • Musical Care in Older Age: A Score for Healthy Ageing
  • Musical Care at the End of Life: Palliative Care Perspectives and Emerging Practices
  • Synthesis: The Future of Musical Care

The book is also the cornerstone of a wider initiative to expand awareness of musical care as a concept and to drive new collaborations and interdisciplinary learning.

Created by the book’s editors, the ‘Musical Care’ website contains a number of resources including a fun and freely accessible series of animations outlining to a general audience the roles of musical care in each of the six life stages, matching the chapters of the book.

Filmed at the Royal College of Music, a launch video to the book features the editors and other experts in the field discuss the importance of the book, the musical care network the editors have set up, and the accessible animations.

Co-editor of the book, Dr Katie Rose Sanfilippo, Research Fellow at the Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research at City, University of London said:

“We are delighted to have such a highly experienced and wide-ranging team of authors contribute. We hope that discussion of this book brings together all those interested in musical care, including music therapists, music psychologists, music educators and the public, to explore through collaboration and interdisciplinary working, the potential place of musical care throughout our lives.”

Co-editor, Dr Neta Spiro, Reader at the Centre for Performance Science at the Royal College of Music said:

“Alongside the book we have developed the interdisciplinary network Musical Care International to welcome discussion and connection among the wide range of people that musical care touches around the world. We hope to get more people involved in this conversation.”

Commenting on the book, Raymond MacDonald, Chair of Music Psychology and Improvisation, University of Edinburgh said:

“This is a fabulous book. Written by some of the world's leading researchers, each chapter is beautifully crafted to convey how music is a fundamental feature of human existence across the whole life. An essential read for anyone interested in the relationship between music and wellbeing.”

Helen Odell Miller, OBE PhD, Professor of Music Therapy and Director of the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research (CIMTR) at Anglia Ruskin University said:

“This fascinating book shows how music can enhance and transform care for infants, children, young people, adults, and older people living with a wide range of diverse needs, in different communities across the world."

The book is published by Oxford University Press (OUP) and currently available at the OUP website, on Blackwell’s Bookstore website and on Amazon.co.uk.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Contact details:


To speak to co-editors, Dr Katie Sanfilippo and Dr Neta Spiro, contact Shamim Quadir, Senior Communications Officer, School of Health Sciences. Tel: +44(0) 207 040 8782 Email: shamim.quadir@city.ac.uk.

Watch the launch video of Collaborative Insights filmed at the Royal College of Music (with contributions from the editors and other experts in the field):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0LCYB38ISw

Further information/to purchase ‘Collaborative Insights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Care Throughout the Life Course’:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/collaborative-insights-9780197535028?cc=gb&lang=en&

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Collaborative-Insights-by-Neta-Spiro-editor-Katie-Rose-M-Sanfilippo-editor/9780197535028

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Collaborative-Insights-Interdisciplinary-Perspectives-Throughout/dp/019753502X

Visit the Musical Care website:

https://musicalcareresearch.com

About City, University of London

City, University of London is a global higher education institution committed to academic excellence, with a focus on business and the professions and an enviable central London location.

City’s academic range is broadly-based with world-leading strengths in business; law; health sciences; mathematics; computer science; engineering; social sciences; and the arts including journalism and music.

City has around 20,000 students (46% at postgraduate level) from more than 160 countries and staff from over 75 countries.

In the last REF, City doubled the proportion of its total academic staff producing world-leading or internationally excellent research.

More than 140,000 former students from over 180 countries are members of the City Alumni Network.

The University’s history dates from 1894, with the foundation of the Northampton Institute on what is now the main part of City’s campus.  In 1966, City was granted University status by Royal Charter and the Lord Mayor of London became its Chancellor. In September 2016, City joined the University of London and HRH the Princess Royal became City’s Chancellor.

US Voters agree on need for more protections from chemicals

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

American voters overwhelmingly say they want government and industry to ensure the products they buy are free of harmful chemicals, and they are willing to pay more for it, according to a national online survey commissioned by the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

“At a time when most issues are politically polarized, the issue of keeping people safe from harmful chemicals finds widespread agreement among Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters,” said Celinda Lake, President of Lake Research Partners, which conducted the poll. 

The survey of 1,200 registered voters found broad agreement that the government require products to be proven safe before they are put on the market. More than 90% of those surveyed support this requirement and two-thirds strongly agree with these ideas.

The poll also found:

  • 92% of voters agree and 63% of voters strongly agree that the government should require products to be proven safe before companies are allowed to put them on the  market. 
  • 93% of voters agree and 62% strongly agree that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products. 
  • 88% agree that companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products.
  • 76% are concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change.  
  • 54% say chemical regulations are not strong enough, while 21% say they are about right and 10% say they are too strong. 
  • 89% support (56% strongly support) the goal of the Toxic Substances Control Act to make it easier to limit or ban harmful chemicals and better protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children and people who live near polluting factories. 
  • 93% agree (57% strongly) that it is important to remove harmful chemicals from where we live, work and go to school even if it increases the costs for some products, and similar numbers agree that it is important for companies to keep harmful chemicals out of everyday products, even if it increases costs for some products.

Voters are concerned about all of the chemicals they were asked about in the survey and expressed the most worry about chemicals ingested through water, food and food packaging. Still, they are unsure of how the chemical regulatory system works. About half (49%) say the chemicals in food and consumer products have been tested for safety, although this is not true.

“People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isn’t the case,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, who directs PRHE and the EaRTH Center at UCSF. “The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals.”  

The poll was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. 


Survey methodology: Lake Research Partners designed and administered this online dial survey that was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. The survey reached a total of 1,200 registered voters nationwide including 800 base voters and oversamples of 100 Black registered voters, 100 Latinx registered voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander registered voters, and 100 Gen-Z registered voters. Oversamples were designed to ensure the results were representative of the U.S. voting population.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at https://ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

Making the invisible water crisis visible

Sustainable Development Goal for wastewater treatment not enough

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT FACULTEIT GEOWETENSCHAPPEN

Wastewater treatment plant 

IMAGE: WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT, PICTURE BY IZZET CAKALLI view more 

CREDIT: IZZET CAKALLI

While achieving the United Nations (UN) ambitious Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for wastewater treatment would cause substantial improvements in global water quality, severe water quality issues would contain to persist in some world regions. So conclude researchers at Utrecht University. They developed a new water quality model to further elucidate the current and future pollution status of rivers and streams globally. The paper was published on 6th October in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Water quality issues are branded an “invisible crisis” by the World Bank, being under-monitored, difficult to detect and often imperceptible to the human eye. Nevertheless, the quality of global water resources is increasingly coming under pressure due to population growth, economic development and climate change. Yet, clean water is vital for our societal needs – such as public health, energy generation and crop production – and for protecting ecosystem health. To illustrate, an estimated 829,000 deaths worldwide are attributed each year to diarrhoea caused by the use of contaminated water for drinking or sanitation purposes.

In this study, the authors developed a new high-resolution global water quality model which can “help to fill-in-the-gaps in water quality knowledge, particularly in world regions where we lack observations”, says lead author Edward Jones. In addition to identifying hotspots of water quality issues, the model can help with attributing the source of pollution to particular sectors. “For instance, large-scale irrigation systems for agriculture drive salinity issues in Northern India, while industrial processes are more responsible in eastern China. Conversely, the domestic and livestock sectors drive organic and pathogen pollution worldwide”, Jones remarks.

The authors extended their focus beyond just past and current water quality. They applied their model to investigate how achieving the SDG target to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater entering the environment in 2030 would benefit global river water quality. “Our simulations show that, for a large part of the year, water quality in several regions would still exceed critical thresholds for human uses and ecosystem health. This is especially the case for developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia”, Jones explains. So, while the SDG target improves water quality, it is not always enough.

Difficult puzzle

Finding an optimum way to manage these problems is a difficult puzzle, however. “Even achieving the current SDG target will pose serious economic challenges, as expansion of wastewater treatment can be an expensive process”, Jones warns. “Yet the cost disadvantages of inadequate water quality for sectoral uses must also be considered. Ultimately, however, we also need to reduce our pollutant emissions and develop new approaches towards wastewater management”. Jones concludes “As such, with this paper we hope to underline the water quality problems we’re facing and firmly place these issues back on the political agenda."

Publication

Edward R. Jones, Marc F.P Bierkens, Niko Wanders, Edwin H. Sutanudjaja, Ludovicus P.H van Beek, Michelle T.H. van Vliet (2022), Current wastewater treatment targets are insufficient to protect surface water qualityNature Communications Earth & Environmenthttps://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00554-y (available on 6 October)

Re-spun silkworm silk is 70% stronger than spider silk

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CELL PRESS

Stress-strain curves of representative artificial and natural silks 

IMAGE: STRESS-STRAIN CURVES OF REPRESENTATIVE ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL SILKS view more 

CREDIT: JINGXIA WANG, TIANTIAN FAN, & ZHI LIN

Spiders hold the market for the strongest silks but are too aggressive and territorial to be farmed. The next best alternative involves incorporating spider DNA into silkworms, an expensive and difficult-to-scale process. On October 6 in the journal Matter, scientists at Tianjin University show how the silk naturally produced by silkworms can be made 70% stronger than spider silks by removing a sticky outer layer and manually spinning the silk.

“Our finding reverses the previous perception that silkworm silk cannot compete with spider silks on mechanical performance,” says senior author Zhi Lin, a biochemist at Tianjin University.

Historically, silkworm silk has been used in fashion as a source of luxury robes and apparel fitting of royalty, but today, silk-based materials are more likely to be found in biomedicine as a material for stitches and surgical mesh. It’s also used for tissue regeneration experiments due to its mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.

The most common way to acquire silk is by farming silkworms. However, these silks are not as durable and are weaker than silk spun by spiders, specifically spider dragline silks which naturally do well under high tension. “Dragline silk is the main structural silk of a spider web. It is also used as a lifeline for a spider to fall from trees,” says Lin. Silkworms, on the other hand, use their softer silks for the construction of their cotton-ball-like cocoons during transformation into their moth forms.

While other groups have combined DNA from spiders to make silk, Lin’s group wanted to use common silkworms, which are more accessible and easily managed. They were by inspired by the artificial spinning of spider eggcase silk, which is a close relative to silkworm silk and has been shown to do well in the spinning process.

Natural silkworm silk fiber is composed of a core fiber wrapped by silk glue, which interferes with the spinning of the fibers for commercial purposes. To get around this, the researchers boiled silk from the common silkworm Bombyx mori in a bath of chemicals that could dissolve this glue and minimize the degradation of silk proteins. Then, to enhance the silk for spinning, the research team solidified the silk in a bath of metals and sugars.

“Since silkworm silk is very structurally similar to eggcase spider silk, which has previously been demonstrated to do well in a mix of zinc and iron baths, we thought to test this alternative method to avoid hazardous conditions used elsewhere,” says Lin. “Sucrose, a form of sugar, may increase the density and viscosity of the coagulation bath, which consequently affects the formation of the fibers.”

Once manually spun and drawn, the silks are thinner than the original silkworm silk, reaching nearly the same size as spider silks. Upon observation under a microscope, Lin describes them as “smooth and strong,” indicating that the artificial fibers could withstand force.

“We hope that this work opens up a promising way to produce profitable high-performance artificial silks,” Lin says.

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Financial support was provided by a startup grant from Tianjin University and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Matter, Wang and Fan et al. “Artificial superstrong silkworm silk surpasses natural spider silks.” https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(22)00517-3

Matter (@Matter_CP), published by Cell Press, is a new journal for multi-disciplinary, transformative materials sciences research. Papers explore scientific advancements across the spectrum of materials development—from fundamentals to application, from nano to macro. Visit https://www.cell.com/matter. To receive Cell Press media alerts, please contact press@cell.com.

Human cocaine and heroin addiction is found tied to impairments in specific brain circuit initially implicated in animals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL / MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Rita Goldstein Neuron paper 

IMAGE: STRUCTURAL CONNECTIONS WITH THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX MODELED FROM TARGETED NUCLEI IN THE SUBCORTEX (BLUE: HABENULA, YELLOW: ANTERIOR THALAMUS, RED: VENTRAL TEGMENTAL AREA) USING DIFFUSION MRI TRACTOGRAPHY. MICROSTRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF THE HABENULA TRACT WERE UNIQUELY REDUCED IN INDIVIDUALS WITH COCAINE OR HEROIN USE DISORDER. RESULTS HIGHLIGHT THE POTENTIAL SPECIFICITY OF DISTINCT PREFRONTAL CORTICAL CONNECTIONS TO THE NEUROPATHOLOGY OF DRUG ADDICTION view more 

CREDIT: MOUNT SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM

White matter in the brain that was previously implicated in animal studies has now been suggested to be specifically impaired in the brains of people with addiction to cocaine or heroin, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Baylor College of Medicine. The study was published October 6 in Neuron.

The study looked at the connectivity of the tract between the prefrontal cortex (PFC), a brain region critical for regulating higher-order executive functions, and the habenula, a region that plays a critical role in reward and reward-associated learning. The habenula has emerged as a key driver of drug-seeking behaviors in animal models of addiction. Specifically, signaling from the PFC to the habenula is disrupted in rodent cocaine addiction models, implicating this PFC-habenula circuit in withdrawal and cue-induced relapse behaviors. However, until now, the PFC-habenula path has remained poorly understood in the human brain. Furthermore, its involvement in the neuropathological effects of drugs other than cocaine has not been previously explored.

For the first time in the human brain, a team led by Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, and Junqian Xu, PhD, used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography to investigate the microstructural features of the PFC-habenula circuit in people with cocaine or heroin addiction compared to healthy control participants. Diffusion MRI tractography uses noninvasive brain imaging to model fiber bundles in the living human brain.

Dr. Goldstein is the Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction and Director of the Neuroimaging of Addictions and Related Conditions Research Program at Icahn Mount Sinai. Dr. Xu is Associate Professor of Radiology, and Psychiatry, at Baylor College of Medicine.

“In addition to identifying microstructural differences, specifically reduced coherence in the orientation of the white matter fibers in the cocaine-addicted group that comprised both current cocaine users and those with short-term abstinence, we extended results beyond cocaine (a stimulant) to heroin (an opioid), suggesting that abnormalities in this path may be generalized in addiction,” said Sarah King, a PhD student in Neuroscience in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Icahn Mount Sinai, who led the analyses and is first author of the paper. “Importantly, we found that across all addicted individuals, greater impairment was correlated with earlier age of first drug use, which points to a potential role for this circuit in developmental or premorbid risk factors.”

The results advance ongoing research in the field by targeting a previously unexplored circuit in the pathophysiology of addiction in humans, where deficits may predispose an individual to both the development of drug addiction and to relapse and which may be potentially amenable for individually tailored treatment or prevention efforts.

About the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is internationally renowned for its outstanding research, educational, and clinical care programs. It is the sole academic partner for the eight member hospitals* of the Mount Sinai Health System, one of the largest academic health systems in the United States, providing care to a large and diverse patient population. 

Ranked 14th nationwide in National Institutes of Health (NIH)  funding and among the 99th percentile in  research dollars per investigator according to the  Association of American Medical Colleges, Icahn Mount Sinai has a talented, productive, and successful faculty. More than 3,000 full-time scientists, educators and clinicians work within and across 34 academic departments and 35 multidisciplinary institutes, a structure that facilitates tremendous collaboration and synergy. Our emphasis on translational research and therapeutics is evident in such diverse areas as genomics/big data, virology, neuroscience, cardiology, geriatrics, as well as gastrointestinal and liver diseases.

Icahn Mount Sinai offers highly competitive MD, PhD, and Master’s degree programs, with current enrollment of approximately 1,300 students. It has the largest graduate medical education program in the country, with more than 2,000 clinical residents and fellows training throughout the Health System. In addition, more than 550 postdoctoral research fellows are in training within the Health System.

A culture of innovation and discovery permeates every Icahn Mount Sinai program. Mount Sinai’s technology transfer office, one of the largest in the country, partners with faculty and trainees to pursue optimal commercialization of intellectual property to ensure that Mount Sinai discoveries and innovations translate into healthcare products and services that benefit the public.

Icahn Mount Sinai’s commitment to breakthrough science and clinical care is enhanced by academic affiliations that supplement and complement the School’s programs.

Through the Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), the Health System facilitates the real-world application and commercialization of medical breakthroughs made at Mount Sinai. Additionally, MSIP develops research partnerships with industry leaders such as Merck & Co., AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, and others.

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is located in New York City on the border between the Upper East Side and East Harlem and classroom teaching takes place on a campus facing Central Park. Icahn Mount Sinai’s location offers many opportunities to interact with and care for diverse communities. Learning extends well beyond the borders of our physical campus, to the eight hospitals of the Mount Sinai Health System, our academic affiliates, and globally.
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*  Mount Sinai Health System Member Hospitals: The Mount Sinai Hospital; Mount Sinai Queens; Mount Sinai Beth Israel; Mount Sinai West (previously known as Mount Sinai Roosevelt); Mount Sinai Morningside (previously known as Mount Sinai St. Luke’s); Mount Sinai Brooklyn; New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai; and Mount Sinai South Nassau (previously known as South Nassau Communities Hospital).

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