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Human Behavior

Desperate Characters and the Chaos That Lies Beneath – The New York Times

This essay is part of Ts Book Club, a series of articles and events dedicated to classic works of American literature. Click here to R.S.V.P. to a virtual conversation about Desperate Characters, to be led by Sigrid Nunez and held on Aug. 4.

IN THE WINTER of 1991, I was a resident for a month at Yaddo, the artists retreat in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. On the second floor of one of the buildings on the property was a small library, which was also where, at that time, artists in residence during the winter season took their meals. One day, I happened to see on a shelf a novel called Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. Though the title was new to me, the author was not. Some years earlier, I had read another book by Paula Fox, a childrens novel called One-Eyed Cat. Published in 1984, it had been assigned to me as part of my freelance work for an agency called Triad Artists, assessing books for possible movie deals. I loved the novel, a beautifully written story set in the mid-1930s in upstate New York, whose main character, 11-year-old Ned Wallis, is tormented by the fear that an air rifle shot he took at a shadow in the moonlight may have put out the eye of a feral cat. His guilt is compounded by the fact that his father, a Congregational Church minister, had forbidden him to use the rifle a birthday gift from Neds uncle until Ned is older. Now he lives in secret shame, unable to confess and trapped in a series of lies he tells to hide what has happened from his parents.

My enjoyment of One-Eyed Cat made me want to read Desperate Characters, Foxs second novel for adults, published in 1970, and one in which a cat also happens to play a significant role. In this case, though, it is the cat that causes the injury by literally biting the hand that feeds it the hand of a woman, the novels main character, Sophie Bentwood. This incident occurs right at the beginning of the book and, as we read on, we are kept in suspense as to how serious the bite is, whether the cat a stray might be rabid and why Sophie, an intelligent and educated woman, would rather deny the problem, even as her hand swells and throbs, than seek medical advice. Another source of suspense has to do with whether or not an extramarital affair she once had will come to light.

Sophie is a literary translator (though at the moment she finds herself unable to summon any enthusiasm for her work) and the wife of a lawyer named Otto. Middle-aged and childless, the Bentwoods live in an area of Brooklyn that, while gentrifying (the period is the late 1960s), remains surrounded by slum people. From their quiet, handsomely furnished townhouse, they can hear disturbing noises, such as the cries of a mistreated dog. They can see piles of garbage and even more sordid sights, including, once, a half-naked drunk sprawled in the street. The Bentwoods own a Mercedes-Benz and a second home on Long Island. When, hoping for a respite from urban disorder, they decide to drive there, they find that the house has been broken into and many of their possessions have been destroyed. So much for escape. Tellingly, it seems, nothing was stolen: the intruders only goal had been vandalism.

Although it received good reviews when it first appeared, Desperate Characters failed to sell. Foxs previous adult novel, Poor George (1967), had met a similar fate, and all together the six adult novels she published sold so modestly that, by 1992, every one of them had gone out of print. Fox continued to write childrens books, however (she would publish more than 20 in her lifetime), and, in addition to being a reliable source of income, that writing brought her several accolades, among them a 1974 Newbery Medal, and, in 1978, for her body of work, the highest international honor given for childrens literature: the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

One of my fellow residents at Yaddo in 1991 was the novelist Jonathan Franzen, who was finishing up work on his second book, Strong Motion (1992). When at breakfast one morning he mentioned that he was looking for something to read, I recommended Desperate Characters. As he would write in an essay published in Harpers in 1996, it produced an effect so profound in him that it felt like an instance of religious grace. A few years later, the writer and editor Tom Bissell, whod read Franzens essay and Foxs novel and who was working at the publishing house W. W. Norton, succeeded in getting Desperate Characters reissued. In an introduction to the new edition, which came out from Norton in 1999, Franzen pronounced the book not just inarguably great but obviously superior to any novel by Foxs contemporaries John Updike, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. Another novelist, Thomas Mallon, called this claim almost more embarrassing than the neglect it sought to remedy, but added if this is what it took to give Foxs oeuvre a commercial pulse, one finds the zeal pardonable enough.

That commercial pulse quickened: Over the next few years Norton brought each of Foxs other adult novels back into print. And so, for the last 18 years of her life (she died, aged 93, in 2017), she had the satisfaction of seeing her long-overlooked work reach a wide and appreciative audience. In response to this turn of events she said, Im surprised, but Im not surprised. Its not that I thought so well of my books, its that in some way I think so well and highly of truth, and I know that my novels have a tiny bit of truth in them. Truth: Thats what I care about.

A not so tiny bit of truth that Fox is clearly after in Desperate Characters can be found in these famous words from Henry David Thoreaus book Walden (1854), which are alluded to in the novels penultimate chapter: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. On the surface, the Bentwoods might seem resigned to the fact that now and then unpleasant things may disrupt their privileged, well-ordered existence and sustained by the belief that they have the means not just their wealth and cultivated tastes but the right middle-class moral values to prevail. But over the course of one long weekend, we see what deep uncertainty and frustration roil just beneath.

Ticking away inside the carapace of ordinary life and its sketchy agreements was anarchy, Sophie at one point reflects. One of the sketchy agreements referred to here is marriage. Husband and wife frequently flare up at each other, but the trouble is always quickly smoothed over. They carry on, seeing themselves grow more and more estranged from each other yet helpless to stop it. For Fox, this kind of estrangement is a common aspect of domestic life, and how unknowable we remain to one another, even in our intimate relationships, is an inescapable part of the human condition.

THE BENTWOODS BEHAVIOR can sometimes strike us as irrational: For example, Sophies simultaneous dread and denial about the possibly serious consequences of the cat bite, and Ottos nearly unhinged response to the breakup of his longtime friendship and law partnership with a man named Charlie Russel. Charlie himself is as desperate as anyone. Unlike the archconservative Otto, who has nothing but contempt for the social and cultural movements of the 60s, Charlie yearns to be a part of them a woke lawyer defending the unlovely and unloved, in Ottos jeering phrase but he comes across as muddled, weak and histrionic. I care about everything, he tells Sophie, giggling. In my desperate fashion. Its desperation that keeps me going.

Though Foxs attitude toward her characters has an element of compassion, she does not spare them. She is a realist, well aware that people rarely escape having to live with the mistakes they have made. A poignant scene reveals Sophie forced to face the truth about her secret affair with Francis Early, a client of Ottos with whom the Bentwoods became friends, and who ended up rejecting her: Yet, for a bitter moment, she was caught up in the old tormenting question: What if Francis had been available? If the door had swung open, would she have gone through it? She glanced over at Otto. Francis had not only deprived her of himself. He had cheated her of her certainty about Otto.

Perhaps the strangest moment in Desperate Characters a work that abounds in strange moments, which is one of the things that makes it so compelling occurs near the end, when Sophie lashes out at an old friend with such gratuitous cruelty that the reader immediately thinks back to that horrid cat sinking teeth and claws into Sophies flesh unprovoked. Up till this point, we have seen Sophie as flawed but mostly sympathetic certainly never vicious and this glimpse into her dark depths is chilling. This scene is soon followed by the spectacle of Otto, in a final outburst of rage against Charlie, who has telephoned in desperate need of speaking with him, smashing a bottle of ink against the Bentwoods bedroom wall. Behold the couple, making their own nasty little contributions to the coarseness and destructiveness theyve been lamenting ever since we met them. Fox makes this bizarre and violent culmination feel entirely inevitable. In what is probably the novels most often cited line, Sophie thinks out loud: God, if I am rabid, I am equal to what is outside. And grim though it may be, the clarity of this epiphany, which comes in the midst of so much bewildering uncertainty, gives her an extraordinary relief. (As I said: strange.)

Discussing her approach to writing about people, Fox once said: I think its not helpful to overpsychologize. It substitutes for the chaos that most of us live in. And thats what Ive been writing about, that chaos. One of Desperate Characters most admired qualities is Foxs ability to write about that chaos in such unfailingly controlled, elegant and lucid prose.

In the era of Covid-19, it is especially unsettling to read a narrative driven by dread of a deadly infection. And what a shudder of recognition this image of Sophie brings: Whats going to happen? she burst out. Everything is going to hell Oh, dont we know all about it: the anarchy ticking away, threatening at any moment to be explosively loosed upon the world. Rabid strikes me as a good way to describe how what is outside can feel to us today: the race and class conflicts, the polarized rage, the fear that at any moment we or a loved one could be the victim of some violent act. The center not holding, the thin veneer of civilization and how little it takes to fall through how often, lately, do we come across these sentiments? Resonant, too, is the books sharp analysis of gentrification: the inequality and social segregation and displacement of the have-nots that are among its consequences, as well as the hapless flailing of the displacing haves over what position to take in regard to this harsh reality.

A root of Foxs obsessions with disorder and incomprehensible human behavior was revealed in 2001, when she published Borrowed Finery, a memoir distinguished both for its enthralling portrait of an unusually chaotic childhood and an utter absence of self-pity. An inconvenience to her selfish parents, Fox was dumped in a Manhattan foundling home right after her birth in 1923. Growing up, between occasional visits with her parents, which went very badly, she was handed off to various friends, relatives and sometimes strangers. But in one way, her parents brutal negligence was also a stroke of luck, for it brought Fox, from the age of 5 months to 6 years, into the care of a man named Elwood Corning. Like the good, loving father in One-Eyed Cat, for whom he was obviously a model, Corning was a Congregational minister who lived in a hamlet in upstate New York. He was so good to me, Fox recalled, and she loved him dearly. Among other kindnesses, Uncle Elwood taught her how to read, and I have no doubt that spending those critical early years under his wing and away from her hostile, unstable mother saved Fox from what the psychiatrist Leonard Shengold called soul murder: the common fate of people traumatized as children by abusive and neglectful parents.

Fox once spoke to an interviewer about the strength of life of the injured cat in One-Eyed Cat, which she called the heart of that book, and how much it meant to her. Her stories for young readers are often ones of resilience, showing lonely or uncared-for children struggling to make their way in a baffling and at times treacherous world. Many of these children are outsiders, and Fox always saw herself as someone with an outsiders point of view. She was also exceptionally resilient and persistent, continuing to write, which she first began doing as a child, despite much disappointment and rejection. It is this grit that wins my greatest admiration. Without it, Foxs strange, beautiful, truth-telling work would not exist.

Sigrid Nunez is the author of nine books, including The Friend, winner of the 2018 National Book Award for fiction, and, most recently, What Are You Going Through (2020).

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Desperate Characters and the Chaos That Lies Beneath - The New York Times

Human Behavior

Tyranny of the majority: The spiraling overreach of the federal government – Washington Times

OPINION:

Which is better to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or three thousand tyrants one mile away? Rev. Mather Byles (1706-1788)

Does it really matter if the instrument curtailing liberty is a monarch or a popularly elected legislature? This conundrum, along with the witty version of it put to a Boston crowd in 1775 by the little-known colonial-era preacher with the famous uncle Cotton Mather addresses the age-old question of whether liberty can long survive in a democracy.

Byles was a loyalist, who, along with about one-third of the American adult white male population in 1776, opposed the American Revolution and favored continued governance by Great Britain.

He didnt fight for the king or agitate against George Washingtons troops; he merely warned of the dangers of too much democracy.

No liberty-minded thinker I know of seriously argues today in favor of a hereditary monarchy, but many of us are fearful of an out-of-control democracy, which is what we have in America today. I say democracy because there remain in our federal structure a few safeguards against runaway federal tyranny, such as equal state representation in the Senate, the Electoral College, the state control of federal elections, and life-tenured federal judges and justices.

Of course, the Senate as originally crafted did not consist of popularly elected senators. Rather, they were appointed by state legislatures to represent the sovereign states as states, not the people in them. Part of James Madisons genius was the construction of the federal government as a three-sided table. The first side stood for the people the House of Representatives. The second side stood for the sovereign states that created the federal government the Senate. And the third side stood for the nation-state the presidency. The judiciary, whose prominent role today was unthinkable in 1789, was not part of this mix.

In his famous bank speech, Madison argued eloquently against legislation chartering a national bank because the authority to create a bank was not only not present in the Constitution but also was retained by the states and reserved to them by the 10th Amendment.

In that speech, he warned that the creeping expansion of the federal government would trample the powers of the states and also the unenumerated rights of the people that the Ninth Amendment his pride and joy because it protected natural rights prohibited the government from denying or disparaging.

He gave that speech in February of 1791, 11 months before the addition of the Bill of Rights the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Given the popular fears of a new central government, Madison assumed that the Bill of Rights would be quickly ratified. He was right.

His bank speech remains just as relevant today.

Had Madison been alive during the presidency of the anti-Madisonian Woodrow Wilson who gave us World War I, the Federal Reserve, the administrative state and the federal income tax he would have recoiled at a president destroying the three-sided table. Wilson did that by leading the campaign to amend the Constitution so as to provide for the direct popular election of senators. Nor would Madison have stomached the efforts today by liberal Democrats to amend the Constitution to provide for the direct popular election of the president.

Part of Madisons genius was to craft anti-democratic elements into the Constitution. And some of them like retaining state sovereignty created laboratories of liberty. President Ronald Reagan reminded the American public in his first inaugural address that the states formed the federal government, not the other way around. Had I been the scrivener of that speech, Id have begged him to add: And the powers that the states gave to the feds, they can take back.

Reagan also famously said that we could vote with our feet. If you dont like the over-the-top regulations in Massachusetts, you can move to New Hampshire. If you are fed up with the highest state taxes in the union in New Jersey, you can move to Pennsylvania.

But the more state sovereignty the feds absorb the more state governance that is federalized the fewer differences there are among the regulatory and tax structures of the states. This has happened because Congress has become a general legislature without regard for the constitutional limits imposed on it.

If Congress wants to regulate an area of human behavior that is clearly beyond its constitutional competence, it bribes the states to do so with borrowed or Federal Reserve-created cash. Thus, it offered hundreds of millions of dollars to the states to lower their speed limits on highways and to lower the acceptable blood alcohol level in peoples veins this would truly have set Madison off before a presumption of DWI may be argued; all in return for cash to pave state-maintained highways.

The states are partly to blame for this. They take whatever cash Congress offers, and they accept the strings that come with it. And they, too, are tyrants. The states mandated the unconstitutional and crippling lockdowns of 2020-2021, not the feds. The states should be paying the political and financial consequences for their misdeeds, not the feds. They took property and liberty without paying for it as the Constitution requires them to do, not the feds.

Byles feared a government of 3,000. Today, the feds employ close to 3 million. Thomas Jefferson warned that when the federal treasury becomes a federal trough, and the people recognize it as such, they would only send to Washington politicians faithless to the Constitution who promise to bring home the most cash.

In a democracy, faithless to constitutional guarantees, the majority will take whatever it wants from the minority including its liberty and property.

Andrew P. Napolitano is a former professor of law and judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey who has published nine books on the U.S. Constitution.

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Tyranny of the majority: The spiraling overreach of the federal government - Washington Times

Human Behavior

What is the association between long-term salt usage behavior and risk of premature mortality? – News-Medical.Net

In a recent study published in the European Heart Journal, researchers assessed the impact of increased salt consumption on life expectancy.

The impact of dietary salt intake on human health has always been debated. Recent studies report that sodium intake was inversely related to the risk of all-cause mortality and thus positively associated with healthy life expectancy across 181 countries globally. On the other hand, previous studies have found contradictory results stating the negative association between sodium intake and mortality risk.

In the present study, researchers assessed the correlation between the number of times a person adds salts to foods and the risk of premature mortality.

In a population-based study called the UK Biobank study, the team recruited over 0.5 million individuals from 22 assessment centers across England, Scotland, and Wales between 2006 and 2010. Based on the availability of complete data, 501,379 individuals were eligible for the main analysis.

The participants answered a questionnaire at baseline asking them if they added salt to their foods. The individuals were required to answer the question by selecting one of the five options, including: (1) never/rarely, (2) sometimes, (3) usually, (4) always, and (5) prefer not to answer. The participants were also asked if they had made any dietary changes in the last five years, which were answered by choosing one of the five options: (1) no, (2) yes, because of illness, (3) yes, because of other reasons, and (4) prefer not to answer.

The team also obtained urinary samples from the participants at baseline. Potassium and sodium levels present in the samples were detected using the ion-selective electrode method. The team subsequently log-transformed the concentrations of urinary potassium and sodium to normalize data distribution. Furthermore, the 24-hour sodium excretion was evaluated based on the urinary concentrations using the gender-specific INTERSALT equations.

The eligible participants were further asked to complete the 24-hour dietary recalls conducted based on the Oxford WebQ from 2009 to 2012 which queried the persons about their consumption of over 200 food types and more than 30 drinks over the past 24 hours. Almost 189,266 participants had complete data on the number of times they added salt to their foods, dietary information, and realistic total energy intake.

The team obtained data related to the deaths and death dates and calculated the person-years at risk from the beginning of the study to the end of the follow-up period, date of death, or 14 February 2018, whichever occurred first. Mortalities that occurred before 75 years were termed premature. Furthermore, the team constructed a life table to estimate the life expectancy of eligible participants based on: (1) population mortality rates specific to the gender and age obtained from the Office for National Statistics, (2) the sex-specific hazard ratios (HRs) of all-cause mortality in each group for which the frequencies of adding salt to foods were identified as compared to the reference cohort, and (3) the prevalence of each gender based on the frequencies of adding salt to foods.

The study results showed that participants with a higher frequency of adding salt to foods were likelier to be non-White, male, and have a higher body-mass index (BMI). Participants who added salt more often were also more likely to have cardiovascular diseases and diabetes but less likely to have hypertension and chronic kidney disease (CKD).

The team observed a graded association between a higher frequency of adding salt to foods and higher urinary sodium levels. Participants who never/rarely, sometimes, usually, and always add salt to their food had log-urinary sodium concentrations of 1.86, 1.90, 1.92, and 1.94 mmol/L, respectively. On the other hand, there was an inverse association between the frequency of salt addition and urinary potassium concentrations. Furthermore, the team found a substantial positive correlation between the frequency of salt added to foods and the evaluated 24-hour sodium excretion.

Among participants who never/rarely, sometimes, usually, and always add salt to their food, the HRs for all-cause premature mortality were 1, 1.02, 1.07, and 1.28, respectively. In the case of cause-specific mortality, a higher frequency of salt added to foods was remarkably correlated with the increased hazard of cancer mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality, but no such association was observed for respiratory mortality and dementia mortality.

The team also noted that 50-years older women who self-reported that they always added salt to their food had approximately 1.50 years less life expectancy. Men who always added salt had 2.28 years less life expectancy compared to their counterparts who rarely or never added salt to their foods.

Overall, the study findings showed that the higher frequency of adding salt to foods increased all-cause premature mortality and a decline in life expectancy.

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What is the association between long-term salt usage behavior and risk of premature mortality? - News-Medical.Net

Human Behavior

Mass shootings and the news media: Catching up to the science of PACEs – ACEs Too High

How do we, as a country, learn about mass shootings and gun violence? The news media. How do we learn about the best approaches to prevent mass shootings and gun violence? The answer should be the news media, but its not. Yet.

People who know about the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) understand that PACEs are at the root of violence. The news media is getting there. In the last couple of years of mass shootings, more articles examined the childhood of the shooter, but more could be done, as I pointed out in essays I wrote after theBuffalo, New York, andUvalde, Texas, shootings.

After last weeks mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, two new threads appeared:

My take on examining shooters families: I think its great to report what happened in a shooters familyas long as a reporter takes a trauma-informed approach. That means reporting without using words of blame, shame or punishmentso a headline that says Are the parents to blame? would change to What happened in that family?

Parents pass on ACEsand positive childhood experiences (PCEs), for that matterto their children. So, if they arent cognizant of their own ACEs, how can they possibly understand their childs ACEs? And where did parents get their ACEs and PCEs? Fromtheirparents and environment. How to break the cycle? Educate families, organizations and communities about PACEs science, and integrate practices and policies based on PACEs science in all organizations in every community.

My take on the online cultures of violence:At the moment, the proposed solutions are to understand the subculture and moderate the content. Its not hard to figure out where different violent spaces are, Emmi Conley, an independent researcher of far-right extremist movements, digital propaganda and online subculturestold NPR. Whats hard is what do you do once you find one, if the red flag still falls within free speech territory. Because currently we have no intervention abilities, we only have law enforcement. I have another idea: It seems to me that these subcultures provide a perfect opportunity to reach out and help youth who are in dire need of a caring adult and counseling. Thats a project worth funding!!

Ongoing issues: Theres the ongoing issue of the news medias obsession with mass shootings, while mostly ignoring aggregate shootings,which receive little attention. And then the dire news of too many incidents of violence that lead news organizations to not cover important stories, and in almost every community, not cover the type of violence that costs communities the most in heartbreak and dollarsfamily violence. This headline in the Washington Post points out that mass shootings may be going the way of family violence coveragetoo little coverage to help a community figure out how to prevent the violence.There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to cover: News organizations must make agonizing decisions about which shootings deserve on-the-ground reporting, and for how long.

Theres a more contextual, solution-oriented way to cover crime and violence. First, incorporate violence coverage into a health section. Then:

Here are a few thoughts about where we are now. (Make a note of the next few graphs. You might be surprised.)

Violence prevention proponents note that the challenge to change attitudes toward violenceto convince Americans that violence is predictable and preventableis no different from the attitudes public health experts faced when they suggested in the 1950s that stopping smoking would reduce lung cancer rates and in the 1960s that wearing seat belts and not driving under the influence of alcohol would reduce automobile deaths and injuries.

For example, until the 1960s, traffic deaths and injuries were typically blamed on the nut behind the wheel. Prevention approaches were limited to admonitions to drive safely. Then, public health experts, law enforcement agencies, transportation departments, injury control scientists, consumer advocates, public policy makers and vehicle manufacturers began looking at auto deaths and injuries as a public health issue. Instead of studying only how the human factor contributed to crashes, they also investigated the vehicle and the environment. In 1975, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began accumulating information through its Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS). FARS uses police records and death certificates to accumulate data on the driver (age, sex, blood alcohol level, if wearing seatbelt), the vehicle (vehicle identification number that reveals make, manufacturer and product characteristics) and the environment (weather, location and roadway conditions). To recommend specific safety improvements, researchers used FARS data to identify unsafe conditions in driver behavior, vehicles and the environment.

As a result, over the last 30 years and often amid great controversy, car manufacturers added collapsible steering columns, seat belts, shoulder harnesses, roll bars, padded dashboards, anti-lock braking systems, airbags and safety glass to the vehicles they made. States passed laws requiring seat belts for all riders and car seats for young children, and they created stiff penalties for people driving under the influence of alcohol. Highway engineers improved the safety of roadways and intersections. If the death rate from auto crashes had remained the same as it was 30 years ago, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people would be dying annually on the nations highways compared with the 40,000 who now die in highway crashes.

When public health researchers began identifying the risk factors that contribute to auto crashes, journalists began reporting breaking news of traffic injuries and fatalities differently. They began including the type of car and its manufacturer, whether people were driving drunk or wearing seatbelts, the conditions of the road or intersection, and whether stop lights were functioning or stop signs were in place. Feature articles focused on automobile safety design, laws to prevent drinking and driving, vehicle recalls to correct safety problems and court cases that addressed auto safety issues.

Similarly, since the 1980s, hundreds of national, state and local violence prevention research projects and programs have emerged. Physicians, public health experts, epidemiologists and social scientists are using the public health model to study violence. They analyze the relationship among the person who is killed or injured, the weapon and the physical, economic and social environments in which violence occurs. In 1983, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiated a program to study the causes of violence and founded the Center for Injury Control and Prevention. In 1984, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that violence was as much a public health issue for todays physicians as smallpox was for the medical community in previous generations.

Identifying the risk factors of violence is a complex undertaking. There are many different types of violenceviolence in which women, children, the elderly and men are injured and killed in their homes by family members; gang violence; dating violence; violence by acquaintances; violence by strangers; etc. Risk factors vary with different types of violence and often from community to community. Some of the risk factors that have been identified as contributing to high levels of the many types of violence include: poverty, racial segregation and discrimination, unemployment, the ready availability of alcohol, the ready availability of firearms, the portrayal of violence in the media, being male, being young, a lack of education in child rearing, childhood exposure to lead, abuse as a child, witnessing violent acts in the home or neighborhood, the belief in male dominance over females and isolation of the nuclear family.

Violence is a difficult epidemic to understand and control because no one factorelimination or redesign of guns, decrease in availability of alcohol or reduction of media violencewill prevent all violence. Each type of violence in a community results from a unique combination of social, cultural, biological and economic risk factors and thus requires a unique combination of preventive measures. Therefore, prevention approaches must involve a unique combination of people who attempt to solve the problem: doctors, researchers, community organizers, lawmakers, police officers, judges, social workers, teachers, parents and citizens.

Traditionally, journalists have reported violent incidents as only a law enforcement and criminal justice issue. But now that an epidemiological approach to violence has been established, the media can expand their reporting of violencein breaking news as well as featuresto identify factors that contribute to violence.

_______________

I wrote the eight paragraphs above in 1997.(Reporting on Violence, a handbook for journalists.) Thats 25 years ago! And I wasnt the first to make these points.

Over those last 25 years, the main development that has changed our understanding of violenceand one that is actually leading to remarkable solutionsis theCDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, which was published in 1998 and opened the door to our understanding of why humans do what they do. Since then, weve learned that the roots of violence and being a victim of violence are the same roots that lead to chronic disease, mental illness, and economic problems; they lie in the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences. This knowledge has provided a new mindset on how to change human behaviorcriminal, unhealthy or unwanted behavior. This mindset changes a traditional approach of using practices and policies based on blame, shame and punishment to an approach that uses practices and policies grounded in understanding, nurturing and healing. (SeePACEs science 101for more details about the science as well as links to articles about people who are using it.)

If reporters or editors want some ideas on how to provide more context in crime reporting (with a deeper understanding of PACEs science),send them here.

____________________

If youre interested in becoming more involved in the PACEs science community, join our companion social network, PACEs Connection. Just go toPACEsConnection.comand click Join. PACEsConnection.com is the leading advocate for information about the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences (PACEs) and the rapidly expanding, global PACEs science movement.

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Mass shootings and the news media: Catching up to the science of PACEs - ACEs Too High

Human Behavior

New study sheds light on the link between racial resentment and perceptions of reverse racism in the United States – PsyPost

Increased engagement with politics on social media predicts future decreases in racial resentment among liberals in the United States, according to new research published in Computers in Human Behavior. But this doesnt appear to be the case for conservatives or independents.

What drew my interest to this topic was the public opinion data and individual stories telling us that an increasing number of White Americans perceive that they are facing discrimination for being White, also called reverse racism, study author Ian Hawkins, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

This perception seems to conflict with what is actually occurring as extensive research tells us that minority groups still face the most discrimination. But regardless of whether increased reverse racism is occurring or not, perception is key and can be a motivating factor for some White Americans. I wanted to further understand what influences and possibly contributes to this idea of reverse racism.

For their new study, Hawkins and his colleagues analyzed longitudinal data from 621 White participants, who completed online surveys in August 2016, October/November 2016, and November/December 2016. The participants completed questionnaires regarding their engagement with politics on social media, strength of white identity, political identity, racial resentment, and perceptions of reverse racism.

The researchers found that increased engagement with politics on social media was indirectly linked to decreased perceptions of reverse racism via lower racial resentment.

That is, participants who reported greater engagement with politics on social media were less likely to agree with statements such as Its really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder, they could just be as well off as Whites. Lower racial resentment, in turn, was associated with decreased perceptions of reverse racism (e.g. These days non-Whites benefit from preferential treatment that puts Whites at a disadvantage.

However, the negative relationship between social media engagement and racial resentment was only observed among political liberals not conservatives or independents.

We found that engaging with politics on social media reduced reverse racism through reduced racial resentment, but that this relationship was influenced in part by participants who identified as liberal, Hawkins told PsyPost. We also show that having a more conservative political identity is related to increased reverse racism beliefs via higher racial resentment attitudes. Altogether, social media engagement, political identity, and racial resentment all had an influence on reverse racism beliefs.

But the study, like all research, includes some caveats.

Our study only examined how social media use influences different beliefs like racial resentment and reverse racism, Hawkins explained. But media content that might contribute to these attitudes likely comes from various sources rather than just solely social media. Future research should examine how entertainment television, video games, the news, etc. might also influence reverse racism.

Beliefs like reverse racism are harmful and increasingly becoming more widely held and mainstream, Hawkins added. These attitudes do not operate in a vacuum as they likely have implications for policies or political candidates that individuals support or their willingness to participate in collective action. Because of this we need continued information on what is motivating reverse racism and what role social media and identity play.

The study, How social media use, political identity, and racial resentment affect perceptions of reverse racism in the United States, was authored by Ian Hawkins and Muniba Saleem.

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New study sheds light on the link between racial resentment and perceptions of reverse racism in the United States - PsyPost

Human Behavior

Dr. Mark Goulston on why Democrats keep losing: They’re afraid of their own anger – Salon

In a series of recent decisions that have taken away women's reproductive rights and freedoms, given guns more protection than human lives, neutered the federal government's power to protect the environment in a moment of global climate disaster and further dissolved the separation of church and state, the radical right-wing justices on the Supreme Court are attempting to force American society back to the Gilded Age if not before.

As a practical matter, the new-old America that the Supreme Court is serving as a wicked midwife for will be a society where women, Black and brown people, gays and lesbians, and other marginalized groups will have their basic civil and human rights greatly reduced, if not stripped away altogether.

This is a judicial coup by a nakedly partisan institution that is publicly collaborating with the Republican-fascist movement to end America's multiracial, pluralist democracy. To this point, the response of Democratic leaders, including President Biden, has been pathetically, pitiably, embarrassingly weak.

RELATED:The Joe Biden reality show: Most stage-managed presidency in history keeps undermining itself

Shortly after the Supreme Court issued its rulingin the Dobbs case that reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, House Democrats responded by singing "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps.

Two weeks later, the Biden administration finally responded to the court's evisceration of reproductive rights and freedoms by issuing an executive order that enhances some protections for women seeking reproductive health services as well as their medical providers. The executive order is intended to "protect access to medication abortion," emergency medical care for pregnant people and contraception. It mandates both the Department of Justice and Health and Human Services to defend the rights of women who need to travel across state lines to access reproductive health care and to ensure that those who experience pregnancy-related medical emergencies can access the care they need, no matter where they are in the country.

It had been clear for at least two months how the Supreme Court would rule in the Dobbs case; nothing about this decision came as a surprise. Yet for some reason, the Biden administration took two weeks to respond. When it finally did so, as Claire Lampen writes at the Cut, Biden's response was wholly insufficient to the challenge. Republicans are openly pursuing "new laws that penalize not just providers but also patients, opening them up to surveillance by their neighbors ... and by data brokers," Lampen notes, as in Missouri's attempt "to incentivize private citizens to report people they suspect of crossing state lines" to terminate a pregnancy. Some legislators have already "proposed criminally charging patients directly," and sincerely intend to "pass a federal abortion ban, reconsider gay marriage, scrap the right to birth control."

Joe Biden continues to oppose expanding the Supreme Court in order to neutralize its radical right-wing justices, and has declined to explore allowing access to abortion and other reproductive health services on federal land, including military bases. He now says he supports a Senate filibuster "carve-out" on the issue of reproductive rights, but has done nothing to make that happen.In a statement to the Washington Post on Saturday, the Biden administration even suggested that those who want a more robust defense of women's reproductive rights and freedoms are "out of step" with "the mainstream of the Democratic Party."

Have today's Democrats forgotten how to fight? Or are they refusing to do so because too many of them are beholden to the same moneyed interests that also back the Republican-fascists and the "conservative" movement? Whatever the explanation, at a moment when America desperately needs spirited defenders of democracy, the Democratic Party's leaders are acting demoralized, with little fighting spirit.

In a recent essay at Medium, Dr. Mark Goulston, a leading psychiatrist, former FBI hostage negotiation trainer and the author of the bestsellers "Just Listen" and "Talking to 'Crazy,'" offers a provocative explanation for the Democratic Party's weakness. He argues that Democrats are "highly conflict avoidant" and that such a temperament has made them "mincemeat to the vast majority of the GOP who is allegiant to Donald Trump."

In my recent conversation with Goulston, he expanded on this analysis, arguing that Democrats keep losing to the Republicans because they refuse to speak passionately, clearly and in declarative terms to the American people. He warns that Republicans, especially Trump loyalists, are bullies who embrace and welcome conflict, and that Democrats do not fight back effectively because they refuse to acknowledge the reality that bullies must be confronted and cannot be negotiated with or defeated with rational arguments. Goulston further explains that Trump's followers remain loyal to him precisely because of his antisocial and anti-human behavior, not despite it.

Goulston also explains that many members of America's political class and the news media are naive or in denial about the nature of human evil, and therefore continue to express shock and surprise at each new revelation about the obvious crimes of the Trump regime.At the end of this conversation Goulston shares the advice he would give to Biden and other Democratic leaders about how to break their pattern of self-defeating behavior and formulate a winning plan to defeat the Republicans and preserve American democracy.

American society is experiencing multiple crises at once. Democracy is in crisis, and fascism is in the ascendancy. The pandemic has killed more than a million people in this country. There is extreme social inequality. There are mass shootings. The country is in a state of perennial grief and mourning but with no real catharsis or reckoning. It feels like America is on the verge of self-destruction, a form of societal and political suicide. How are you making sense of all this?

What you are describing is not just one moment of "suicidality." There are actually several moments or a prolonged period of time where people who feel suicidal form psychological adhesions to death as a way to take away their pain. It's not a psychological attachment, because a person can reason through that. A psychological adhesion is different: A person tucks that in their back pocket, so to speak. When you get slightly past the impulse, you reassure everybody: "I'm fine." But in your back pocket is this option, this exit strategy, this permanent solution to a temporary problem that you can always exercise if things get really bad. People don't talk about it because they don't want to scare others.

People who are depressed and suicidal feelhelpless, powerless, useless, worthless, meaningless and purposeless. It appears pointless to go on. We are seeing this on a societal level.

People who are really depressed and suicidal feel despair at the end. If you break down the word despair, it means "unpaired." Unpaired with the future, hopeless. Unpaired with the ability to get out of the challenging situation. You feel helpless, powerless, useless, worthless, meaningless and purposeless. When those feelings are all lined up like some dark one-armed slot machine, it appears pointless to go on. Death is viewed as a way to take the pain away. We are seeing this on a societal level.

America is also in the midst of a moral crisis. Fascism is a form of evil. What Trumpism has wrought and encouraged is fundamentally evil, yet the country's leaders and the larger political and news media class appear terrified of using the appropriate moral language.

It is important to identify evil at the earliest opportunity and then to stop it. You have to confront and stop evil in order to protect the people that you care about. You also need to identify evil in order to escape it. Most people we encounter are not evil. We are lucky in that way. But evil people do in fact exist. Denial of that fact is not healthy.

As a clinician, when you look at Donald Trump and his followers, what do you see?

The people that have trouble with conflict are not bullies. Bullies like to stir up conflict. Such people can get the best of us not only through their bullying behavior but also through their whining and excuse-making behavior. They can outrage us with their behavior. But if we are the type of person who is uncomfortable becoming enraged, then we will do everything we can to suppress our desire to confront that bully, to fight back, to stand up to them in a strong way.

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As soon as the bully sees that we are restraining ourselves, then they push us harder from being outraged to turning that anger inward through a dynamic I call "in-rage." Most people are so uncomfortable with their anger and rage they use almost all their energy to keep a lid on their feelings. Many Democrats, and other rational-minded people more generally, believe in respectful discourse. Those feelings of rage, and how the bully behaves, neuters and neutralizes them.

Here is how to confront a bully. Step one, identify those bullies in your life. Step two, never expect them to act differently when you talk with them. Never expect them to be decent because that's not who they are. Step three, always hold a bit of yourself back so that you're not off balance if the bully tries to provoke you. Finally, when the bully tries to provoke you, look clearly in their eyes. Stare at them firmly.

Don't try to intimidate them, but hold their gaze. By doing that you are communicating to the bully: "You know and I know what you just did and it didn't work." When you communicate that in a measured way, the bully is going to get more agitated. You can then try to engage the bully in a reasonable way or decide to disengage. Tell the bully, "If what you have to say is important, you need to talk to me instead of at me." You just hold your ground from there.

Why are so many members of America's political class and the mainstream media repeatedly "shocked" and "stunned" by Donald Trump's antisocial and anti-human behavior? This is a common reaction to the "revelations" about Jan. 6 and the violence at the Capitol, including Trump wishing death on Mike Pence. Trump has behaved this way for most if not all of his public life. If a person keeps being shocked by obvious behavior, what does that reveal about their personality defects? Are they really shocked, or are they just pretending?

The reason they're shocked is because a person cannot be partially sociopathic or narcissistic. It's a slippery road when you allow sociopaths or narcissists to ride over you unchecked. The denial, and giving such people the benefit of the doubt, just encourages them.

People on the left are afraid to acknowledge the dark parts of their personalities, such as anger and rage. Therefore, they deny to themselves that Donald Trump and other sociopaths and narcissists are dangerous.

People on the left, the Democrats especially, are also afraid to acknowledge the dark parts of their personalities, such as anger and rage. Such feelings fill them with shame. Therefore, they deny to themselves that Donald Trump and other such sociopaths and narcissists are so dangerous. Leading Democrats such as Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi need to learn to talk to the public in a very authoritative way. They smile and talk so rationally. They need to show some emotion and passion.

One of the reasons I believe Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton is that Donald Trump was declarative, and Hillary was explanatory. Hillary Clinton was showing the American people that she was really prepared for the responsibilities of being president of the United States. In an effort to be convincing, she wasn't compelling. Donald Trump was declarative, which meant you knew where he stood. You might not have agreed with him. But Trump was able to hook his base precisely because of how declarative he was, and is, in his speech.

Trump was also being a type of role model for his followers. He showed them that you don't have to sit on your anger and suppress it. You can act on it. Why keep in all that built-up frustration? Trump told his followers, "Let's go get even with whoever's bothering us! Join me, because we could all shoot someone in Times Square and still get elected! Hey, it's fun!"

Ultimately, Trump appeared on the stage and let the genie out of the bottle as a role model for unsuppressed and unrepressed thoughts and feelings. Many Americans of a certain background and political orientation who have a buildup of frustration and anger psychologically adhered themselves to Donald Trump. This is not a mere attachment. It is a psychological adhesion, which explains why they remain so loyal to him.

When the Supreme Court announced that it was taking away women's reproductive rights and freedoms, leading Democrats went outside on the Capitol steps and started singing. Nancy Pelosi read a poem. It was one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.How do the Democratic Party's leaders see the world? Why would they default to that kind of pitiful behavior and think that's how you fight back against a bully?

Maybe they were singing to keep themselves from forcefully responding to the Republicans. They were trying to suppress their rage. It may also be that those Democrats were singing hymns to calm themselves down because they were being triggered, and they realized that it is dangerous to escalate with a sociopath or narcissist.

The latter are much more comfortable going off the cliff than most people are. They're going to push you to the limits of what you can tolerate emotionally. A sociopath or narcissist is not afraid of being outrageous. If it is your nature to be uncomfortable with becoming enraged, you're going to want to steer away from those feelings.

By comparison, the Republicans and Trump's other followers love becoming outraged. They use a vocabulary full of rageful words. They love that Trump is disrespectful to others, that he calls his enemies and people he dislikes names. Trump is getting his feelings off of his chest. His followers love that. Meanwhile, the Democrats just repress and suppress their dark feelings.

What do the Republicans and the larger right-wing movement understand about emotion that the Democrats do not?

Many Republicans, especially the likes of a Ted Cruz or Mitch McConnell, don't care about contradicting themselves. To them, it doesn't matter what they say. They're aligning themselves with who they perceive to be the person in power in this case, Donald Trump because they don't want to trigger his ire and they don't want to lose their own followers.

I'm guessing that a lot of the Republicans were raised by decent parents, and at least when they were children they were taught that certain values and ethics and morality were important. But being a politician became more important than those values. "Politician" became the core identity that supersedes other things.

In your recent article at Medium, you described the Democrats as being "highly conflict avoidant," and said that they deal with conflict in an unhealthy way, which helps explain why the Republicans and Trumpists are rolling over them. How does this unhealthy behavior manifest itself on a day-to-day basis?

They are hiding their legitimate outrage and other feelings under a mask of civility. They appear neutered in the eyes of the public because they are not expressing healthy, aggressive feelings. When someone who is neutered goes up against someone who is outrageous in their behavior, the neutered person loses.

If you had the opportunity to speak with President Biden in private what would you say to him?

I would ask him, "What is really going on?" I would keep pushing him on this question to get at the real answer. At some point Biden would say, "I'm a decent person but I am really angry at Trump and want him to get his comeuppance." Biden could never say that in public because it would be taken out of context.

Today's Democrats appear to be obsessed with compromise and finding an acceptable middle ground with the Republicans. But the Republicans only care about winning and power and are now openly willing to embrace fascism, political violence, white supremacy and other anti-democratic and anti-human values. In essence, this is an abusive relationship on a national scale and the Democrats are content to keep being abused. How can they break this cycle?

If I was consulting for the Democratic Party's leadership, I would ask them, "What is your desired outcome?" They might say, "Well, the desired outcome is that we find a way to get the Republicans and Trump to listen to reason and that would in turn break their cult."

I would continue by asking them, "What's the specific approach that you're taking that you believe will get Trump's followers away from his cult?" I would continue pushing them by asking, "Do you actually believe that what you just said would work?"

I would get the Democrats to agree that their current approach is flawed and doomed to failure. Perhaps that would help them open up and admit that they don't know what else to do.

I would get the Democrats to agree that their current approach is flawed and doomed to failure. Perhaps that would help them open up and admit that they don't know what else to do. I would continue pressing them by asking, "What has been your success rate these last four or so years?" In that moment, perhaps the Democratic Party's leadership could have some type of realization or epiphany and come up with a better plan.

You can't convince another person of their flawed approach to decision-making or life more generally. You have to get them to a point of self-discovery. Brainstorming with them is helpful too. "Good, now you're being open. Let's be open and see what might work. What do we know about these other kinds of personalities? What do we know about bullies?"

The Democratic Party's leaders need to have a moment where they realize: "We have to find a way to sound really angry, pissed off and insulted by Donald Trump and his followers. We have to do it a way so that whoever watches us knows that we're pissed off in no uncertain terms. We can't act like we are trying to sugarcoat our anger." That is how the Democrats can start to win.

Read more on Donald Trump and America's mental health:

Originally posted here:
Dr. Mark Goulston on why Democrats keep losing: They're afraid of their own anger - Salon

Human Behavior

‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ Explores Individual Liberty As A Survival Tool – The Federalist

In another time, Where the Crawdads Sing, written by Delia Owens, would be a coming of age, murder-mystery, romance drama with a raw and magnetic appeal. But in a time when all is politically scrutinized, reviewers ask whether Crawdads is green enough, and if Kya Clark is a pink hat-aligned woman.

However, what America finds in both the bestselling novel and the Reese Witherspoon-Taylor Swift-Daisy Edgar-Jones movie coming to theaters this week, is that Kya Clark governs herself in liberty and discipline, keeps to her family values, and is hard not to see as an all-American inspiration.

Editors note: Minor spoilers ahead.

Kyas story begins near the age of birth suffering violent child abuse. Her father physically and emotionally destroys the family that would have raised her. Crawdads pulls no punches on Pas brutality, yet also describes the way his prior choices in the face of economic depression and war corrupted his habits and decayed his mental health. Owens, a wildlife biologist with nonfiction science publications to her name, paints nature as a struggle for survival, and from the novels start rises an undercurrent that society is like an ecosystem in which all are susceptible to pitfalls, yet responsible for their steps and missteps.

Fully abandoned by age six, Kya comes into tension with truancy officers. The district pursues her, but throughout the hunt, Crawdads' tone favors an independent life in the marsh that suits the young girl. The feeling evoked is remarkably real for a child in an almost unbelievable situation. We grip onto the girl who increasingly thrives in nature, who would lose the nesting birds who provide her comforting songs and feathers if child protection were able to pluck her out. Her victory over their chase affirms that seemingly ruinous events in life may need to compost, as detritus in the marsh, enabling regeneration without intervention.

Along the way to maturity in the wild, Kya discovers that affordable gasoline lets her motor through the marsh and beyond the Intracoastal waterway. She can make private transactions of collected mussels for lifes basic necessities with the local merchants. Storekeepers Jumpin and Mabel take to her as would family.

Her mind and body developing, Kya and a boy, Tate, meet for private instruction on subjects beyond schoolbook reading alone. Sharing lessons on how awareness of nature all around them can quicken their verbal faculties, Kya and Tates schooling arrangement is far from standardized public education. Tate teaches Kya without union job security because he sincerely wants to. Their educational and social relationship is fruitful, pure, and passionate, illustrating both academic and social benefits of school choice.

Kyas worst fortunes gradually turn promising. At the pubescent onset of bleeding, Kya privately confides and asks Mabel for guidance. Mabel reassures Kya that startin life is special, and only women can do it. A shared life with someone in marriage becomes Kyas intimate yearning.

Kya breaks into financial independence as a wetlands biology author. Her fastidious illustrations earn the trust of her publisher and readers. Previously a total unknown, her uncensored solo discoveries are not only her economic lifeline but a boon to scholars. Despite town gossip about her swamp filth and mobs attacking her shack, Kya is undistracted from her patient observations.

Even Kyas ancestors, in their absence, endanger her independent life on the land through neglect of the property taxes. Her free way of life, though, is ultimately preserved when, to Kyas relief, she is able to cover the low back taxes by herself.

To all this wild growth, Chase Andrews is a foil, a life subsumed by the same public administrations whose officers would have hunted Kya down. Popular and victorious on the ball field, Chase is made into a hero in a school district so out of touch that it looks down its collective nose at Kya. Chase is lionized within the district despite prevalent beliefs that he tramples on the hearts and bodies of women and wildlife.

When Chases body is discovered, the novels suspense surges to a head. An intricate trial ensues til almost the finale. Most of the town hardly entertains critiques of Chase, nor itself, for the treatment of the types like Kya who live in the marsh. Their miseducations would never let them.

Unlike the pretenders who warp reality by evading true contact with it, as does Chase, the traditional working men are in-touch, reliable, strong, and sensible, including Scupper, Tate, Jumpin, Tom, and Jodie (Kyas brother). With woman and man connecting in nature, Crawdads envisions the sexes in harmony.

Owens says her idea for Crawdads came while face to face with lions and elephants, as she realized how much our behavior is similar to the animals. A spellbinding theme to todays readers, the idea of the animal in human nature also emerged in framing the U.S. Constitution. The founders realized our moral state was animal-like in its capability for both sublimity and tyranny. This inspired the Constitutions enumerated limits, checks, and balances on power, as well as the complimentary idea that moral cultivation is essential to civil society.

Inalienable rights let us, like Kya Clark, chart our own course. Conservative undertones are woven into Crawdads' earthy narrative in a way that seems more than coincidental. Owens muses on survival and territorial advantage in nature and human behavior. If the author were probed about consent of the governed, liberty, and family values in relation to the theme of the wild-like human condition, it would be interesting to hear her thoughts.

Crawdads is a cultural achievement; it does not need to be a culture warrior. It speaks to the soul not of environmentalist America or feminist America, but, refreshingly, the soul of America.

If true to the book, the movie directed by Olivia Newman (Chicago Fire, FBI) and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People) as Kya, will showcase indefatigable red-blooded boys and girls, free men and women living unbridled and steadfast.

Michael Bedar works in media and design, enjoys building and managing small construction, wrote a novel, "Sweet Healing," about freedom and wellbeing, and is married and raising children. He learned boating in and around marshes.

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'Where The Crawdads Sing' Explores Individual Liberty As A Survival Tool - The Federalist

Biochemistry

Post-Doctoral Associate in the Division of Science, Biochemistry, Dr. Azam Gholami job with NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ABU DHABI | 300813 – Times Higher…

Description

Applications are invited for a fully-funded Post-Doctoral Associate position in the newly established multidisciplinary group of Prof. Azam Gholami at New York University Abu Dhabi. The appointed candidate will be expected to work on:

We seek a highly qualified candidate with a strong background in protein production and purification with a focus on trans-membrane proteins. The appointed candidate will be expected to be familiar with bacterial protein expression and chromatographic purification techniques. Expertise in the reconstitution of membrane proteins into lipid vesicles/polymersomes and skills in microfluidics and optical microscopy are highly advantageous.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in protein biochemistry or a related field and an excellent track record of original research on the relevant topics. For consideration, applicants need to submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae with full publication list, statement of research accomplishments and interests and contact information for at least three references, all in PDF format. If you have any questions, please email Prof. Azam Gholami atag9141@nyu.edu

This position is not located in the United States and the applicant must be willing to relocate to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The terms of employment are very competitive and include housing and educational subsidies for children. Applications will be accepted immediately and candidates will be considered until the position is filled.

About NYUAD

NYU Abu Dhabi is a degree-granting research university with a fully integrated liberal arts and science undergraduate program in the Arts, Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering. NYU Abu Dhabi, NYU New York, and NYU Shanghai, form the backbone of NYUs global network university, an interconnected network of portal campuses and academic centers across six continents that enable seamless international mobility of students and faculty in their pursuit of academic and scholarly activity. This global university represents a transformative shift in higher education, one in which the intellectual and creative endeavors of academia are shaped and examined through an international and multicultural perspective. As a major intellectual hub at the crossroads of the Arab world, NYUAD serves as a center for scholarly thought, advanced research, knowledge creation, and sharing, through its academic, research, and creative activities.

EOE/AA/Minorities/Females/Vet/Disabled/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity Employer

UAE Nationals are encouraged to apply

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

For people in the EU, click here for information on your privacy rights under GDPR:www.nyu.edu/it/gdpr

NYU is an equal opportunity employer committed to equity, diversity, and social inclusion.

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Post-Doctoral Associate in the Division of Science, Biochemistry, Dr. Azam Gholami job with NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ABU DHABI | 300813 - Times Higher...

Biochemistry

Seeing the molecular beauty of life – ASBMB Today

When Collins Maina was in secondary school in Kenya, a genetics class piqued his interest in science. He found especially fascinating how certain mutations can be disastrous to the well-being of organisms. And when he took his national exams, he was placed into a biochemistry program, which coincidentally turned out to be a good move for him.

Collins Maina

Collins Maina earned his bachelors degree in biochemistry and molecular biologyfrom South Eastern Kenya University in November.

Maina attended South Eastern Kenya University, where he earned his bachelors degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in November. He said two particularly memorable classes were Biochemistry of Tumors and Biochemical Techniques and Instrumentation.

Not only were these classes interesting, he said, but he also was able to apply what he learned to his own life situation. Learning about the molecular and cellular bases of tumors helped him and his family when his grandfather developed prostate cancer.

I remember I was the go-to guy for the family when they wanted to sort of analyze and translate the pathologists reports, he said.

Learning about laboratory techniques in biochemistry was a highlight for Maina because of the physics involved. He was also able to carry and apply some of this knowledge to his career in industry as a medical representative.

In general, Maina said, biochemistry has helped him better understand what life is and how complex it is at the molecular level.

Its really fun knowing very well that beyond what you see in a person, you see there are a couple of three-letter sequences (codons) that determine who you are, determine the personality, determine so many things in your life how a mishap in the placement of an amino acid, how a molecule that lacks the right conformation can have very detrimental effects on an organism, he said. At the basic level they are nothing more than molecules, very beautiful molecules.

Maina values how relatable biochemistry is to real life. If I dont watch my health currently, Im expecting to develop osteoporosis as I get into my 40s, he said. And so, its like reading the future.

While applying to postgraduate programs and reading extensively about various areas of research, Maina has developed a passion for molecular microbiology and is particularly interested in quorum sensing, which involves responding to cell population density via gene regulation. He plans to continue his studies by earning a Master of Science degree, preferably in Canada, the United States, Scotland or New Zealand. He easily excelled in his undergraduate courses, but the high cost of and limited access to good schools make this goal quite difficult. Few research jobs are available in Kenya. Still, he remains hopeful.

Eventually, Maina said, he sees himself completing a Ph.D. program, doing a lot of research and retiring as a lecturer.

I have so many questions I think I need to answer, he said.

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Seeing the molecular beauty of life - ASBMB Today

Biochemistry

10 scientists elected leaders of the ASBMB – EurekAlert

Members of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology have elected several new leaders. Three members of the governingCouncilwere re-elected. Theres a new secretary. And both theNominating Committeeand the Publications Committeehave new members.

Council

TheASBMB Councilserves as an advisory board to the president and the executive director for setting priorities and strategic directions, overseeing resource allocations, and ensuring that all activities align with the mission of the society. Councilors are elected for three-year terms and can be re-elected or reappointed to serve one additional term. Three incumbents were re-elected to the Council.

Suzanne Barbourisa professor anddean of the Graduate School at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She wrote in her candidate statement: During my first term, I have learned more about our society, its challenges and opportunities. I am particularly intrigued by an opportunity that was discussed at a recent Council meeting: pursuing philanthropic support for the ASBMB. My experience as a dean, working with alumni, friends and prospective donors, will be helpful for this effort. Barbour is a former member ofthe Minority Affairs Committee (now the Maximizing Access Committee), has organizedannual meeting symposiaand was honored as a member ofthefirst class of ASBMB fellowsin 2021.Read herfull candidate profile.

Joan Broderickis a professor and department head atMontana State University. In 2022, she becamean elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. Broderick has been at Montana State since 2005; before that she was on the faculty ofa small liberal arts college and a research-intensive state university. This range of experiences has given me a broad perspective on science education and academic research and the intersection of the two, she wrote.Read herfull candidate profile.

Matthew Gentryis a professor at theUniversity of Kentucky. He has served on the societys Membership Committee, Public Affairs Advisory Committee andJournal of Biological Chemistry editorial board. For this term on the Council,he has prioritized sharing with members how to utilize their passions to serve on an ASBMB committee, recruiting the societys next executive director; serving as a resource and adviser to PresidentAnn Stock, who was elected in 2021, and headquarters leaders; and spreading the word about how the ASBMB can help biochemists at all career stages.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Nominating Committee

TheASBMB Nominating Committeenominates regular members of the society to stand for election for president, the Council, the Publications Committee and the Nominating Committee.Committee members are elected for three-year terms and can be re-elected or reappointed to serve one additional term. ASBMB members elected two new committee members this year.

Juan L. Mendozais an assistant professor at theUniversity of Chicago. He twice has co-chaired the Enzyme Interest Group at the ASBMB annual meeting and is an active advocate for diversity and inclusion. I am passionate about making education in STEM accessible to everyone and inspiring future generations of scientists. For me, this includes active participation in community outreach and societies such as the ASBMB, he wrote.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Jeremy Thorneris a distinguished professor emeritus at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. He won the ASBMBsHerb Tabor Research Award in 2019. The many activities of ASBMB are best achieved by ensuring gender equity and diversity in its advisory bodies and leadership, as well as in its general membership, he wrote. To thrive, our organization needs to be inclusive, and to hear from and recruit diverse voices. Hence, the most important function of the Nominating Committee is to make certain we draw on the rich pool of our membership and secure the participation of individuals from all quarters of the biochemical sciences.Read the full candidate profile.

Secretary

The secretary is responsible for reviewing the minutes of the society, serving on the Nominating Committee and the Audit Committee, and completing other duties as assigned by the Council, which may include certifying Council resolutions to support the operations of the society.The secretary is a voting member of Council and participates in the governance of the society. The secretary serves a three-year term.

George Carmanis a distinguished professor atRutgers Universityand director of theRutgers Center for Lipid Research. He won the ASBMBsAvanti Award in Lipids in 2012,has beenan associate editorfor the societys Journal of Lipid Research and Journal of Biological Chemistry, and has served on the Council and several committees. He co-directs the societysLipid Research Division. The ASBMB has been a large part of my professional life since I joined the society in 1980, he wrote. Throughout my career, I have profited from formal and informal mentors, and I am obliged to pay forward my knowledge and experiences to early-career scientists including undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral associates. Carman was a member of the societysinaugural class of fellowsin 2021.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Publications Committee

TheASBMB Publications Committeeoversees the societys scholarly publishing activities, advises the Council on policy and ethical issues that may arise, and advises journal editors about editorial matters, including the approval of associate editor appointments. Committee members are elected for five-year terms and can be re-elected or reappointed to serve one additional term. ASBMB members elected four new committee members.

Walid Houryis a professor at theUniversity of Toronto. Hes been a member of the Journal of Biological Chemistry editorial board since 2017. During his term on the committee, he intends to advocate for innovative article review and publication formats. He wrote: I find this to be especially important given the new and different article reviewing and publishing approaches being used by other journals. Hence, a clear policy needs to be established to address how ASBMB journals will interact with open-access preprint repositories such as bioRxiv and what value will be placed on reviews provided by journal-independent peer-review platforms such as the Review Commons.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Marcelo Kazanietzis a professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. He has been an editorial board member for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and several other peer-reviewed publications. I understand emerging challenges to keep disseminating our scientific discoveries in a highly competitive environment.I aim to support efforts toward facilitating communication between editors, authors and readers, with the ultimate goal of promoting high-impact science while affirming strong ethical publishing values, he wrote.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Daniel Leahyis a professor atUniversity of Texas at Austin. He served on the ASBMB Council from 2012 to 2015, has helpedorganize meeting themes and other society events,and is a member of the societys2022 class of fellows. Chief among the jewels in the ASBMB crown are its publications, which are run by scientists for scientists, and I am delighted at the opportunity to help continue the ASBMBs tradition of excellent publications as modes of scientific communication continue to evolve, he wrote.Read hisfull candidate profile.

Anne-Frances Milleris a distinguished professor at theUniversity of Kentucky. She has been a member of the Journal of Biological Chemistry editorial board and a member of the Publications Committee before. I understand that publications are central to both the professional conduct of science and also its social fabric, she wrote. I am a big admirer of how ASBMBs publications have spanned both spheres via the several journals the society produces. ASBMB Today nurtures networks of people and interest and keeps the science fun, engaging us all beyond the boundaries of our own specializations and keeping the best of our humanity connected to the best of our science. Meanwhile, ASBMBs established research journals provide critical channels for sharing high-quality scientific progress, complete with the assurances of expert peer review.Read herfull candidate profile.

About the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)

The ASBMB is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization with more than 12,000 members worldwide. Founded in 1906 to advance the science of biochemistry and molecular biology, the society publishes three peer-reviewed journals, advocates for funding of basic research and education, supports science education at all levels, and promotes the diversity of individuals entering the scientific workforce. For more information about the ASBMB, visitwww.asbmb.org.

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10 scientists elected leaders of the ASBMB - EurekAlert