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Friday, 12 October 2018

Micro Plastics Hazard

Microplastics are getting into mosquitoes and contaminating new food chains


File 20180918 158240 1dtiepp.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
khlungcenter/Shutterstock
Amanda Callaghan, University of Reading and Rana Al-jaibachi, University of Reading
There is no doubt that plastic pollution in oceans is a growing worldwide problem. The internet is full of images of seabirds and other marine animals entangled in plastic waste, and animals starve because their guts are blocked with plastic bags.
But the problem goes much deeper than this. Much plastic pollution is in the form of microplastics, tiny fragments less than five micrometres in size and invisible to the naked eye. Our new research shows that these microplastics are even getting into tiny flying insects such as mosquitoes. And this means the plastic can eventually contaminate animals in a more unlikely environment: the air.
Microplastics can come from larger plastic items as they break down, but are also released directly into waste water in their millions in the form of tiny beads found in many cosmetic products including face wash and toothpaste (though these are now banned in many countries). Many tiny animals can’t tell the difference between their food and microplastics so end up eating them. Once inside an animal, the plastic can transfer via the food chain into fish and other creatures and eventually become a potential health problem for humans.

Mosquitoes leave the water and take microplastics with them. Shaun Wilkinson/Shutterstock

By studying mosquitoes, we have found a previously unknown way for plastic to pollute the environment and contaminate the food chain. Our new paper, published in Biology Letters, shows for the first time that microplastics can be kept inside a water-dwelling animal as they grow from one life stage to another.
Although most microplastic research has focused on the sea, plastic pollution is also a serious problem in freshwater, including rivers and lakes. Much of the freshwater research has concentrated on animals that live in the water throughout their life. But freshwater insects such as mosquitoes start their lives (as eggs) in water and, after several stages, eventually fly away when they grow up.

Testing the mosquitoes

It occurred to us that aquatic insects might carry plastics out of the water if they were able to keep the plastics in their body through their development. We tested this possibility by feeding microplastics to mosquito larvae in a laboratory setting. We fed the aquatic young in their third larvae stage food with or without microplastic beads.
We then took samples of the animals when the larvae shed their skin to become larger fourth-stage larvae, when they transformed into a non-feeding stage called a pupa, and when they emerged from the water as a flying adult. We found the beads in all the life stages, although the numbers went down as the animals developed.

Plastics were retained as the mosquitoes went through different life stages. Blue Ring Media/Shutterstock

We were able to locate and count the microplastic beads because they were fluorescent. We found beads in the gut and in the mosquito version of the kidney, an organ that we know survives the development process intact. This shows that not only do aquatic insects such as mosquitoes eat both sizes of microplastics, they can keep them in their gut and kidney as they develop from a feeding juvenile larva up to a flying adult.
In this way, any flying insect that spends part of its life in water can become a carrier of plastic pollution. And flying insects are eaten in their thousands by predatory insects in the air such as dragonflies as well as by birds and bats.
Our results have important implications since any aquatic insect that can eat microplastics in the water could potentially carry them in their body to their flying stage where they can move the plastics into new food chains. As a result, freshwater plastic pollution is a problem that has implications far beyond those of water quality and eventual marine pollution.
Clearly these results raise a number of questions, including what effect microplastics have on the survival and development of mosquitoes through their life stages. And we still need to examine the effect of different types and sizes of plastics on more species to see how widespread an issue this could become.The Conversation
Amanda Callaghan, Associate Professor of Zoology, University of Reading and Rana Al-jaibachi, PhD researcher, University of Reading
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wednesday, 3 October 2018

Sexual Violence Against Women in India

India has a sexual assault problem that only women can fix

Nisha Bellinger, Boise State University
India is the most dangerous country for sexual violence against women, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation 2018 survey.
The survey, which measures sexual and non-sexual violence, discrimination, cultural traditions, health care and human trafficking, has been criticized for reflecting more perception than data.
But India barely fares better in other studies that rank its treatment of women. It placed 131st of 152 countries in the Georgetown Institute’s global ranking of women’s inclusion and well-being.
India’s National Crime Records Bureau reported 338,954 crimes against women – including 38,947 rapes – in 2016, the most recent government data available. That’s up from 309,546 reported incidents of violence against women in 2013.
High-profile attacks on Indian women have shocked this nation of 1.3 billion in recent years. The 2012 gang rape of a 23-year-old student in Delhi who died from her injuries caused public outrage. The incident helped spur an amendment to India’s criminal law, which broadened the definition of sexual crimes against women to include stalking, acid attacks and voyeurism.
This year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued an executive order allowing the death penalty as a punishment for people convicted of sexually assaulting a child under 12.
But stricter laws apparently did little to prevent 34 girls from being tortured and raped at government-funded shelters in India’s Bihar state earlier this year.

Women’s representation in India

My research on diversity in government suggests that one of the reasons India has not been able to effectively address crimes against women is the lack of women in national political office.
That’s because, research shows, having women in government can lead to more and better laws that safeguard women’s well-being.
India’s population is 48 percent female. But women hold just under 12 percent of seats in the national legislature.
That falls well below the 30 percent “critical mass” that the United Nations Equal Opportunity Commission believes is necessary for women lawmakers to be influential in policymaking.
Local governments in India actually have a quota system that ensures women hold one-third of seats in rural and city councils. But female representation in India’s far more powerful national government remains comparable to countries like the Republic of Congo and Mauritius, where women hold about 11 percent of legislative seats.
Rwanda, where 61 percent of legislators are female, has the most women in government of any nation in the world, followed by Cuba, with 53 percent.
These are not necessarily the safest places in the world for women. According to the Georgetown Institute’s ranking of women’s well-being, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Slovenia and Spain are some of the safest – all countries where women hold over 30 percent of legislative seats.
Political representation does not translate precisely, directly or immediately into physical security for a given population. But it’s a start.

Read more: child-abuse-begins-with-touch

Women help women

Research demonstrates that governments that include representatives from across society – that is, of different political parties, races, classes, genders, geographies and religions – produce better quality of life for citizens than less inclusive governments.
My latest book shows that countries with a vibrant political party system enable diverse groups to influence decision-making. Because they are a product of deliberation and cooperation between politicians with divergent ideologies, policies formulated in such societies are more likely to reflect the needs of diverse groups.
Scholarship likewise indicates that women in office may prioritize different kinds of policies than men – including those that address the needs of women and children.
In New Zealand, where women hold 38 percent of parliamentary seats and the prime minister is a woman, lawmakers recently guaranteed paid leave for victims of domestic violence. That gives victims time to relocate, protecting themselves and their children from their abusers.
Women in the United States Congress have also proactively addressed sexual harassment inside government.
In March, female senators from both parties – who make up 22 percent of the U.S. Senate – pushed Senate leadership to call a vote on legislation that would give legal representation to women who complain of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill and reduce barriers to filing a formal complaint. The bill passed in May, and is currently being reconciled with the House’s version of a similar bill.
And it was the late chief minister of India’s Tamil Nadu state, J. Jayalalithaa, who in 2010 announced a 13-point action plan for the state to better protect sexual violence survivors. Her provisions, which have since been partially implemented, included state-paid medical expenses after abuse, female investigating officers and fast-track courts for sexual violence cases.
India’s 2013 national legislation on sexual violence ignores many of these victims’ rights issues, as the human rights organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have pointed out.







Villagers gather near a crime scene in a field near Jewar, India, where a gang of highway robbers allegedly raped four women in May 2017. AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
Testing 123

Getting women at the table

India has contemplated the need for more women in public office.
In 2010, the upper house of its legislature voted on a bill that would have designated one-third of seats in national and state legislative assemblies for women. Then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described it as a “historic step forward toward emancipation of Indian womanhood.”
But the lower house never voted on the bill. And though Prime Minister Modi has expressed support for a gender quota in Indian government, he has made little effort to work with parliament to get the legislation passed.
Putting Indian women in positions of political power won’t solve a longstanding, pervasive and entrenched social issue like violence against women.
But evidence suggests that an Indian government with more women in it could better protect Indian women by passing comprehensive laws that defend women from abuse and help victims recover.The Conversation
Nisha Bellinger, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Monday, 24 September 2018

Meningitis - மூ ளை க் கா ய் ச் ச ல்

 Meningitis - cause, symptoms, prevention and cure:

Note: Only for information and precaution.

There are two types of Meningitis, viral and bacterial.The microbes that cause both viral and bacterial meningitis spread through close contact that includes activities like kissing and also sharing food, drinks or eating utensils.

Meningitis refers to the inflammation of the membranes surrounding the spinal cord. It can produce severe symptoms such as persistent headache, stiff neck, fever and nausea. Swelling can cause a range of long-term effects from memory loss and weakness to paralysis and seizures.



Meningitis can produce symptoms such as persistent headache, stiff neck, fever and nausea. Viral meningitis cases usually resolve themselves in seven to 10 days and are almost never fatal. There is no vaccine that can prevent viral meningitis 
Most with the viral form of the disease recover with no long-term effects. Though it is much less deadly than its bacterial counterpart, viral meningitis is much more common
It is encouraged to get vaccinated for bacterial meningitis even if diagnosed as viral. If person are diagnosed with meningitis others, near and dear, can take a  preventive dose of antibiotics just in case they might have been infected.

Bacterial meningitis, in addition to inflaming the meninges,  sometimes causes dangerous blood infections called septicaemia.
If not treated quickly with powerful antibiotics, bacterial bloodstream infections can cause multi-organ failure, permanent neurological damage and death.
Bacterial meningitis, which has a five percent to 10 percent death rate, can be treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics work to treat only the bacterial form of the disease.according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.














Saturday, 15 September 2018

Social isolation of Older People



Social networking to empower older people


John*, a widower, is a retired engineer aged in his 90s. He lives alone in the family home and has struggled with loneliness and depression since his wife passed away. He feels frustrated that as he gets older he can no longer do many of the things he used to enjoy, which exacerbates his sense of feeling alone in the world.

Read more: Is a vegetarian diet really more environmentally friendly than eating meat?

Social isolation in old age

In Australia, one-quarter of people aged 65 and above live alone. Some older people, like John, will be vulnerable to social isolation, which occurs when people have limited opportunities for human contact and become disconnected from society.
Not all older people who live alone are socially isolated. And social isolation is certainly not limited to old age. But social isolation in old age is a significant concern. It is linked to a range of health problems and, in extreme cases, can lead to people growing old and dying alone.
There have been public calls to address social isolation. Earlier this year, UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt controversially urged people to invite lonely elderly strangers into their homes in an effort to avoid “lonely deaths”. In Australia, many aged care organisations and local councils offer social programs designed to help older people stay connected to others.
But for older people with limited mobility it can be difficult to take part in organised social activities. And not everyone wants to invite strangers into their homes. For these people, social technologies could provide valuable opportunities to stay connected to the world.

Read more: Protecting older residents from Hurricane Florence

Older people and social technologies

Older people are going online at growing rates and social networking is no longer considered the domain of the young. Pew Research Centre found that that more than half of American internet users aged over 65 now use Facebook.
But not all older people feel comfortable using social networking sites. Existing sites, such as Facebook, can be confusing, with too many functions, distractions and extraneous information. Some older people, meanwhile, fear a loss of privacy and malicious intent when communicating online.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne developed a prototype iPad application, Enmesh, to explore how social technologies can be used to help alleviate older people’s experience of social isolation. The app was a simple social networking tool designed to be easy, fun and safe to use. Its simplicity meant it avoided many of the problems that make existing social networking tools difficult or unattractive for older adults.


Image: Sjoerd Lammers, Creative Commons, via Flickr

Enmesh was used to share captioned photographs and messages within a closed group. The photographs then appeared on an interactive display on each person’s iPad screen. This provided a safe and fun space for people to learn how to use the iPad’s touchscreen and camera while also developing new friendships.John was one of several older adults, mostly aged in their 80s and 90s, who took part in a series of studies to trial Enmesh. During the study, John shared over 100 photographs and messages with other older adults, all strangers to him at the start of the project.
Sharing photographs might seem like a simple and familiar form of communication to those of us who use social media every day. But for John, and others like him, it was a revelation.
Many of John’s captioned photographs provided personal, poignant – and sometimes humorous – descriptions that illustrated how he felt about ageing. Others could relate to his experiences and felt they got to know John through his photographs.
One of the older adults John connected with was Sarah*. She said the project gave her a sense of belonging to a group. She enjoyed sharing and seeing other people’s photographs. They provided “little snippets” that gave her insight into people’s lives. Sarah said:
It’s lovely to have conversations and I don’t have nearly enough, as I rarely go out or have visitors. I love it when one of those things is possible, but in the meantime this is a wonderful way of keeping in touch with folk.
Older adults who are socially isolated may have few opportunities to share information about their day-to-day lives. Photo-sharing with peers provides an important outlet for this communication.

Empowering older people

Technological innovations for older people – such as emergency alarms and devices that monitor activity – are typically designed to compensate for frailty and provide peace of mind for family members.
While these innovations are important, the Enmesh study has shown that technologies can offer powerful social opportunities for older people too.
As consumer technologies continue to advance, there will be more opportunities to enhance older people’s social worlds through technology. Alongside growing innovation, we need to build capacity in the aged care workforce to ensure the aged care industry is mobilised to take advantage of new technologies.
*Names have been changed.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Tuesday, 11 September 2018

Only 1 in 3 Indians are Vegetarians

The myth of a vegetarian India






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Indian has a booming poultry market. Pau Casals/Unsplash
Tani Khara, University of Technology Sydney
India has a reputation as a vegetarian nation, and Indians certainly consume far less meat than the global average. But the view of India as a predominantly vegetarian nation may not be quite accurate.
India, whose population is predicted to overtake China’s, is rapidly changing from an agricultural society to an industrial economy with a surging urban population. This is driving the fastest-growing poultry market in the world, as cultural norms change and eating meat becomes a status symbol.

Total vegetarianism is rare

Vegetarianism in India has been gradually becoming less strict over the past 30 years. Only about three in ten Indians now claim to be vegetarian, and a 2016 national survey found that more than half of people aged between 15 and 34 eat meat.
A recent National Family Health Survey found that only 30% of women and 22% of men describe themselves as vegetarian. Other studies have similarly found that a relatively small minority practise vegetarianism.

Read more: Is a vegetarian diet really more environmentally friendly than eating meat?

Even these numbers may well be underestimates. Indians are said to underreport their meat consumption due to religious and cultural stigmas associated with it.

Tastes like chicken

Poultry is India’s most popular type of meat, and India is projected to be one of the world’s largest growth markets for poultry consumption.
The rise in meat consumption is predominantly driven by urban India, and the highest percentages of non-vegetarians come from southern states such as Telgana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Another reason may be that chicken can be considered a universally acceptable meat, given the religious taboos associated with beef among Hindus and pork among Muslims. Although 80% of Indians are Hindus, India is home to several other major religions and sub-faiths, each with its own strictures about food and eating. Vegetarianism is less common among Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Bahais, Parsis and Jews who collectively make up 15% of India’s population.

Read more: Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico, but will it help the locals?

Upwardly mobile urbanites

In addition to religious and cultural variations, several key factors have influenced India’s shift, overall, towards meat consumption. These include rising urbanisation, increasing disposable incomes, globalisation and cross-cultural influences. Many urban Indians are embracing consumerism as a sign of upward social mobility and meat is widely considered to be a status symbol.
Despite this, others still consider meat-eating to be socially and culturally unacceptable. A 2015 study found young people felt “you eat [meat] in secret, away from your family”.
This appears to reflect differences in front-stage and backstage behaviours, a trait mainly found in collectivist cultures. “Front-stage behaviours”, which is how we act in public, may have more role-playing elements than backstage behaviours, which tend to be carried out in private.
It seems urban Indians today face a dissonance. On one hand, increasing exposure to new lifestyles is creating cultural change, but there is still pressure to adhere to traditions that have prevailed for centuries.
This contradiction is reflected in some of the urban Indian attitudes from the 2015 study on meat consumption. On one hand, some felt:
…in our Bhagvad Gita, Ramayan (in reference to the Hindu holy books) there are old teachings that non-veg is impure. It is the food of demons/monsters.
On the other hand, it was also claimed:
[When it comes to] holy men and Brahmins, it’s not like they don’t like eggs or meat. In front of people they will behave, but on the quiet/sly, they will smoke and drink and eat everything else.
Meat eating in India is a complex issue, with many facets. However, recent trends and figures certainly seem to indicate one thing: it is a mistake to label India as a vegetarian nation.The Conversation
Tani Khara, PhD student in Sustainability, University of Technology Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Thursday, 6 September 2018

An Aspiring Olympian needs more than Hard Work and Dedication

The secret formula for becoming an elite athlete





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Specializing in a specific sport at an early age is not necessary to become an Olympic athlete. In fact, the opposite is true. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
Nicole W. Forrester, Ryerson University
The next Olympics are less than two years away and for many athletes, the Games in Tokyo will be the pinnacle event in their career. Aspiring Olympians strive to compete on the world’s largest sporting stage, but only a few will ever realize that goal.
While anatomical and physiological factors clearly play a role in the development of a super-elite athlete, there are other critical components necessary to achieve success.
So, just how does somebody become an Olympian? As an Olympian and former world-class high jumper, I know that hard work and dedication are just part of the formula for success.
It is not uncommon for coaches, parents and athletes to believe that specializing in a sport at an early age is the secret ingredient to becoming a world-class athlete — especially when you consider the success of athletes like Tiger Woods and Rafael Nadal, who excelled in their sports at an early age. However, research exploring elite athlete development suggests their chosen path is less common than the typical case.

Read more: child-abuse-begins-with-touch

The 10,000-hour myth

In addition to the belief that starting early is a path to success, the popularity of the 10,000-hour rule has given rise to the belief that a certain numeric value of time must be acquired for an individual to become an expert.
The 10,000-hour rule is a fallacy that has been taken out of context, neglecting the most significant research findings by Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson.
In that seminal study into the development of expertise in musicians, Ericsson and colleagues found talent to be the result of “deliberate practice” that occurred over a span of 10 years — or approximately 10,000 hours for some individuals. The study stated the concept of deliberate practice was more important than any magical number.
Deliberate practice is a highly structured activity requiring intense effort and is not inherently enjoyable. It is not about training and clocking in the hours of practice. Rather, it is about being immersed in the action at hand, with the end goal of improving one’s performance. In fact, the acquisition of expertise has been achieved with as few as 4,000 hours of deliberate practice.




Testing the theory of deliberate practice and 10,000 hours, Dan McLaughlin, at the age of 30, quit his job and began to learn how to golf with the hopes of achieving his PGA Tour card. He reached a golf handicap of two by the summer of 2018.

The importance of play

Musicians, athletes and other people in other fields pursuing excellence appear to share the need for deliberate practice. However, sport also requires the unique element of deliberate play — arguably just as important as deliberate practice.
Deliberate play is intrinsically motivating unstructured play in sport, designed to provide a high degree of enjoyment. An example of deliberate play is a group of kids playing shinny instead of an organized hockey game. Ice time and positions are not structured by an adult, and kids of different ages and skills play against each other for the sake of fun.
On the surface, deliberate play may not appear to provide immediate benefits in the advancement of an athlete’s ability. The real benefits of deliberate play are actually realized later in an athlete’s development.
Deliberate play provides a breadth of cognitive and motor experiences while supporting an athlete’s later involvement in deliberate practice activities. Most importantly, it is fun and keeps children enjoying sports. The most common reason youths drop out of sport is that it is no longer fun. That means the best way to ensure your child drops out of sport is to force them to specialize at an early age.
In a study exploring the amount of training time elite hockey players acquired, researchers from Queen’s University found that by the age of 20, an equal amount of time was shared between deliberate play and deliberate practice.

Sport specific vs. multiple sports

There is also a myth that participating in many different sports is not advantageous in advancing an athletes’ ability. By engaging in various sports, athletes are able to develop a breadth of skills transferable to their eventual primary sport. In fact, researchers have found elite athletes spent less time training in their primary sport before the age of 15 compared to their less successful counterparts.
Sports researchers use something called the development model of sport participation to study elite athletes. The model shows that having a diverse sports background does not hinder the performance of elite athletes.
Athletes who develop skills in one sport are able to transfer those skills to another seemingly different sport and still reap the gains. For example, a child who has played soccer may have developed the skill of reading the field of play. This skill is also applicable and transferable to a sport like basketball, where that same athlete must learn to read plays on the court.




Recognizing the progression of athlete development, the Long-Term Athlete Development model is a framework enacted by sport organizations to promote skill learning in accordance to human development. Sport for Life Society

In the initial phase of the development model, termed the sampling years, athletes are introduced to various sports with a focus on having fun and deliberate play. In their teens, athletes enter the specializing years and begin to reduce their involvement in numerous sports. In this phase, the element of having fun is still important and coupled with the introduction of intentional effort.
As athletes advance in age (approximately 15 years and older), they enter the investment years and begin to focus on a primary sport. It is here where deliberate practice plays a larger role and the role of deliberate play lessons.
While this model is not intended to be the universal approach to developing sport expertise for all athletes, it certainly provides a framework for recognizing the integral role of deliberate play, deliberate practice and diversification in sport play.
It is worth noting that other factors, such as one’s date of birth and the size of their town, have also been associated with predicting elite athlete development. These cases highlight the role that environment plays in an athlete’s development.

Sometimes luck plays a role

And then there’s the element of luck, which was a factor in my own athletic career.




Author Nicole Forrester, seen here competing at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, didn’t start high jumping until she was 18 years old. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

I was almost 18 when a track and field coach saw me and my tall, lean physique working at McDonald’s and gave me the phone number of a high jump coach at the University of Toronto. That fateful day led me to become a member of 20 national teams, an eight-time Canadian champion, an Olympian and a multi-medalist on various major Games, spanning a career more than 15 years.
I attribute my quick progression in the high jump to the various sports I played growing up. Had I started specializing in my sport at an earlier age, I doubt I would have lasted for as long as I did or had the same level of success.
The path to becoming an Olympian requires a mixture of important ingredients that may vary according to the sport and the individual athlete. Ultimately, for many, the path is navigated through deliberate play and involvement in various sports, developed through a commitment of deliberate practice, and reinforced by support, resources, motivation and effort.
Most importantly, in sports where peak performance occurs after maturation, early sport specialization is not the answer to becoming a super elite athlete.The Conversation
Nicole W. Forrester, Assistant Professor, School of Media, Ryerson University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.