Research from Harvard Medical School reveals how western equine encephalitis (WEEV) has evolved, losing its ability to infect humans due to changes in its spike proteins, which now fail to target human receptors but can still infect birds
in past outbreaks, hundreds of humans got sick and about 15 percent died.
it has to do with the ability of their spike protein to latch onto cells.
The team observed that the strains circulating during the years of frequent outbreaks could use multiple receptors that are expressed on brain cells of humans and horses, including proteins known as PCDH10 and VLDLR.
Although the virus still circulates between birds, mosquitoes, and other animals, the most recent outbreak in the United States in humans was in 1987, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since then, there have been only five cases identified in the United States.
By contrast, when the researchers tested more recently isolated strains recovered from mosquitos in California in 2005, they found that the viral spike protein failed to recognize the human receptors, but could still interact with similar proteins found in birds.
In 2022, the prevalence of feeling lonely always, usually, or sometimes among adults in 26 U.S. states was highest for bisexual (56.7%) and transgender persons (range = 56.4%–63.9%); these groups also reported the highest prevalence of stress, frequent mental distress, and history of depression (range = 34.3%–67.2%).
Prevalence of lack of social and emotional support was elevated among transgender adults.
What are the implications for public health practice?
Addressing the threat to mental health among sexual and gender minority groups should include consideration of loneliness and lack of social and emotional support...
statistics suggest the breakdown of family ties is the background for this:
Overall prevalence estimates were 32.1% for loneliness and 24.1% for lack of social and emotional support (Table 2). Within the corresponding demographic categories, prevalences of loneliness and lack of social and emotional support were respectively highest among those aged 18–34 years (43.3% and 29.7%), those with less than a high school education (41.1% and 36.3%), those who never married (45.9% and 34.7%), and those with household income below $25,000 (47.9% and 39.8%); prevalences were lowest among non-Hispanic White adults (29.6% and 20.1%) and those who had two adults living in a household (27.4% and 19.1%).
Loneliness was significantly more common among women than among men (33.5% versus 30.7%), whereas lack of social and emotional support was more common among men than among women (22.3% versus 26.1%).
The prevalence of loneliness was significantly higher among adults who identified as gay (41.2%), lesbian (44.8%), bisexual (56.7%), or something other than gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight (50.7%), than among those who identified as straight (30.3%).
I wonder if the statistics would be similar here in the Philippines, where gays and trans are part of the extended family, and where the hard core gay culture does not have an anti normal bias as it does in the USA...
Scientists are trying to understand how cannabis may affect long term neurodevelopment when people were exposed to it in the womb. Previous work by WashU researchers Sarah Paul and David Baranger in the Behavioral Research and Imaging Neurogenetics (BRAIN) lab led by Ryan Bogdan found associations between prenatal cannabis exposure and potential mental health conditions in childhood and adolescence, but potential biological mechanisms that could possibly explain this association were unclear.
In research published in Nature Mental Health this month, Bogdan, the Dean's Distinguished Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and Postdoctoral Fellow Baranger, outline some of those potential mechanisms, the intermediate biological steps that could play into how prenatal cannabis exposure leads to behavioral issues down the line.
"We see evidence that cannabis exposure may influence the developing brain, consistent with associations with mental health," said Baranger.
In my spare time, I am reading/re reading the Tale of Genji, and this has led to me looking into all sorts of side issues of that period of Japan, including the feminist ones (were all those ladies being exorcized not possessed but acting in a passive aggressive way because it was the only way they could fight back the patriarchy?) I am also checking about epidemics back then (did Murasaki's husband die of smallpox?) and if some of the diseases described in the novel could be identified (Aoi died suddenly: post partum pulmonary emboli or toxemia seizure? Yugao's death was sudden, and since Genji was sick for months afterward, one suspects poison, Kashiwagi's lingering death started with weak numb legs, beriberi? )
The Tale of Genji is hard to follow just like War and Peace, with all the complicated characters and plots. But if one believes the author of the Sharashita diarySharashita diary, these tales were cherished by women who loved the stories in the same way that modern stay at home housewives loved the soap operas.
Ironically while the men were writing official and often stiff non fiction in Chinese, the women stuck inside were writing literature: not just the first novel (Genji) but satirical observations like the Pillow book, and other diaries and short stories.
One of the tales back then, probably written by a lady in waiting. and is about the girl who loved insects. The tale suggests it was a story to warn young girls not to be eccentric but to follow the rules, and alas, the tale is unfinished.
But to modern eyes, it seems to be a story of a non conformist who today would be respected as a scientist.
so she doesn't blacken her teeth. She doesn't care for her hair and clothes And she has the local boys collect insect etc. for her collection. And to make things worse, she spurns a man trying to court her.
In short, she resembles those eccentric Victorian ladies who collected stones, fossils, plants or helped their brother observe the stars, but didn't get much encouragement for their work.
so anyway modern women look at the story and see a pioneer of science but back then she was just seen as eccentric.
She loved insects and worms, while other princesses loved butterflies. But she was incredibly intelligent and perceptive (from our standpoint). She said "Beauty is only superficial. You have to see the real nature of things to understand them", and loved to watch caterpillars changing into pupas. \
When her parents tried to persuade her to give up her "hobbies", she replied, "To understand anything, you have to look into it deeply, and see it through from the beginning to the end. This caterpillar will become a butterfly someday. The silks you are wearing came from silkworms, too."
and that sense of wonder of nature, stubborness, and non conformity is what inspired Miyazaki
Miyazaki wondered how this princess survived as an adult, and what her fate had been. We can see the traits of this princess in Nausicaä.
Manga version here, but the story evolved so it is not the same as the movie.
and if you are too lazy to read all the links, Linfamy tells that story (with a lot of his satirical observations and hawking products) here:
Firstly, mpox is now readily spreading from person to person although scientists are not entirely sure why.
well, traditionally the way animal pox spreads is via small lacerations in contact with a lesion. Such as cowpox on the hands of milkmaids. Or in this case, spread in raves via anal sex which is notorious for causing minor abrasions etc. but of course, it will spread in families via close contact (especially in poor countries where dry skin causes minor cracks in the skin, or to babies whose skin is thin.
indeed, the article states:
While animal to human transmission can occur, the recent healthcare messages have focused on high-risk groups such as sex workers and men who have sex with men, two groups that have been disproportionately affected by the recent outbreak.
so shut down the raves and bathhouses. Oh no: that has been a no no since the 1980s when Diane Feinstein as mayor of San Francisco tried to do this to stem an epidemic of HepB and syphilis, but faced a recall election so changed her mind. Ironically, if she had done that, the HIV epidemic would not have spread so quickly in the USA.
but now the bad news:
Secondly, because of this sustained transmission, it is also mutating faster and two sub-clades (side branches) called clade Ib and IIb have been discovered.
The gain-of-function project proposed by NIAID virologist Bernard Moss would splice genes conferring high pathogenicity from the clade I virus into the more transmissible clade II virus. The new “chimeric” (combined) virus could have retained up to a 15 percent fatality rate and a 2.4 reproductive number, a measure of transmissibility indicating every sick person could infect up to 2.4 people on average, giving it pandemic potential.
back to original article
Thirdly, there is no licensed, mpox-specific vaccine to prevent infection, nor are there specific antiviral drugs available to treat clinically vulnerable people who can get very ill and die with the virus.
not quite true. Actually there is an unlicensed vaccineunlicensed vaccine that works fairly well to stop MPox, and that vaccine was being given out in the gay community, and there is an unlicense medicine that might work.
