Immunology

Behavioral and Emotional Challenges for Autistic Children Linked to Mother’s Immunity in Pregnancy – Technology Networks

Children with autism born to mothers who had immune conditions during their pregnancy are more likely to have behavioral and emotional problems, a UC Davis Health study has found. The study examined maternal immune history as a predictor of symptoms in children with autism.

We tested the ability of maternal immune history to predict ASD symptoms and the possible role that the sex of the offspring plays, said Paul Ashwood, professor of microbiology and immunology and faculty member at the UC Davis MIND Institute.

Published Aug. 14 in Translational Psychiatry, the study found that offspring sex may interact with maternal immune conditions to influence outcomes, particularly in terms of a childs cognition.

Maternal immune conditions are caused by a dysfunction of the mothers immune system. They include allergies, asthma, autoimmune diseases, autoinflammatory syndromes and immunological deficiency syndromes. Previous studies have shown that maternal immune conditions are more prevalent in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The researchers enrolled 363 mothers and their children (252 males and 111 females) from the Autism Phenome Project (APP) and Girls with Autism Imaging of Neurodevelopment (GAIN) study at the UC Davis MIND Institute. The median age of the children was three years.

The researchers measured the childrens autism severity and assessed a set of behavioral and emotional problems such as aggression and anxiety. They also measured the childrens development and cognitive functioning.

The study found that around 27% of the mothers had immune conditions during their pregnancy. Of these mothers, 64% reported a history of asthma, the most common immune condition. Other frequent conditions included Hashimotos thyroiditis (hypothyroidism), Raynauds disease (blood circulation disease), alopecia (hair loss), psoriasis (skin disease) and rheumatoid arthritis (joint tissue inflammation).

The study also found that maternal immune conditions are associated with increased behavioral and emotional problems but not reduced cognitive functioning in children with autism.

Does the sex of the offspring interact with the influence of maternal immune conditions on autism symptoms?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ASD is four times more common among boys than among girls.

Our study explored whether offspring sex interacts with the presence of maternal immune conditions to influence behavioral outcomes in children with autism, said Ashwood. Maternal immune conditions may be one environmental factor which contributes to the higher male prevalence seen in ASD.

The study found that a history of maternal immune conditions was more common in male children with ASD (31%) compared to female (18%). Specifically, asthma was twice as common in mothers of male children with ASD than in mothers of female children with ASD.

The study also showed that in cases of ASD where maternal immune conditions are present, female offspring are less likely to be susceptible to adverse cognitive outcomes in response to maternal inflammation than male offspring.

This critical finding links offspring sex and maternal immune conditions to autism, said Ashwood. It provides more evidence that male offspring are at higher risk of adverse outcomes due to maternal immunity activation compared to female offspring.

Future studies would include identifying the type, severity and gestational timing of immune conditions, and then examining offspring outcomes over time.

ReferencePatel, S., Dale, R.C., Rose, D. et al. Maternal immune conditions are increased in males with autism spectrum disorders and are associated with behavioural and emotional but not cognitive co-morbidity. Transl Psychiatry 10, 286 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-00976-2

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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Behavioral and Emotional Challenges for Autistic Children Linked to Mother's Immunity in Pregnancy - Technology Networks

Immunology

HiFiBiO Therapeutics Collaborates with Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium in the Fight Against COVID-19 – Business Wire

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a multinational biotherapeutics company focused on the development of novel antibodies for immunomodulation, today announced a collaboration with the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC), a global, academic-industry, non-profit research alliance headquartered at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI). CoVIC was established to accelerate discovery, optimization, and delivery of life-saving antibody-based therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2. It has received support from the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, which was launched in March 2020 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard with additional funding from a range of donors.

Using a combination of its proteomics and proprietary single-cell profiling technology, HiFiBiO has developed multiple SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies with the potential for both therapeutic and prophylactic applications. With an aligned commitment to deliver accessible therapies to vulnerable individuals globally, the company has submitted 10 distinct antibodies in the format of mono- or bispecific antibodies to CoVIC for in vitro and in vivo testing. HiFiBiO will gain a first look into the performance of its antibodies compared to dozens of other submitted antibodies and synergies among them for combinational therapies.

CoVIC is committed to accelerating the product development pipeline to provide immunotherapeutics that protect vulnerable individuals from severe COVID-19 across the globe, especially in regions where health care resources are severely limited, said Erica Ollmann Saphire, PhD, Professor at LJIs Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Research and Director of CoVIC. We are excited to partner with HiFiBiO to include its antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the CoVIC panel that will be analyzed side-by-side in multiple tests to identify optimal immunotherapeutics for COVID-19 patients.

We look forward to working with CoVIC to further assess the potential of our neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, said Liang Schweizer, PhD, President and CEO of HiFiBiO Therapeutics. This collaboration is another strong validation of our Drug Intelligent Science platform and our ongoing commitment to working with leading research and academic institutions, as well as pharmaceutical and biotech companies to identify and engineer highly potent and durable antibodies that can address unmet medical needs of patients around the world.

Additionally, HiFiBiO Therapeutics is preparing an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the US Food and Drug Administration for HFB30132A, a novel SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The highly differentiated antibody has been rapidly identified, engineered, and evaluated in all key preclinical studies, where it has demonstrated outstanding efficacy, exposure, and safety profile. A planned Phase I single-IV administration ascending dose study will assess the safety and tolerability of HFB30132A in healthy volunteers later this summer.

About HiFiBiO Therapeutics

HiFiBiO Therapeutics is transforming the field of immunotherapy by combining proprietary single-cell profiling technologies with advanced data intelligence and deep knowledge of immune system biology. This approach enables the development of novel antibody therapies that are paired with biomarkers to predict patient response. HiFiBiO Therapeutics is working actively to address unmet medical needs around the world through its own innovative pipeline programs and open-innovation partnerships with world-renowned industry and academic researchers. The companys strong global footprint features cutting-edge laboratories on three continents, in Cambridge, Mass., Paris, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. To learn more, please visit http://www.hifibio.com.

HiFiBiO Therapeutics and the HiFiBiO Therapeutics logo are trademarks of HiFiBiO and its affiliates.

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HiFiBiO Therapeutics Collaborates with Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium in the Fight Against COVID-19 - Business Wire

Immunology

Common cold could generate similar immune responses and antibodies to fight Covid-19 infection – iNews

An article in Science recently generated a lot of interest by providing a possible explanation of why Covid-19 can be deadly to some yet go virtually unnoticed in others.

Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California showed that infection with common cold coronaviruses can generate an immune response that resembles key pieces of the immune response generated by SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes Covid-19. This raises the possibility that previous infection with one of the milder coronaviruses could make Covid-19 less severe. But how likely is this? And how does this relate to what we already know about coronaviruses?

Stephen Kissler, University of Cambridge

A few weeks ago, a different article sat at the centre of the SARS-CoV-2 immunity debate. This one showed that the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 may decline over time.

The findings raised concern that SARS-CoV-2 could infect a person many times and that a vaccine might not generate lasting protection. But the article focused on just one arm of the immune response, the B cells, which produce antibodies that help to clear an infection.

T cells are also key to the immune response against viruses. They play a variety of roles, among them helping B cells to mature into disease-fighting machines. The article by Jose Mateus and colleagues at La Jolla Institute for Immunology is important because it shows that people keep T cells from the milder coronaviruses long enough to potentially interact with a new challenge by SARS-CoV-2 and that those T cells might even recognise SARS-CoV-2 and help to clear the infection.

For epidemiologists, the evidence of waning immunity and cross-immunity didnt come as a surprise. A study from 1990 showed that soldiers infected with one of the milder coronaviruses didnt retain immunity for much longer than a year. Also, the boom-bust cycle that the milder coronaviruses undergo from year to year can be explained by a mix of waning immunity and cross-immunity.

The milder coronaviruses can generate similar antibodies to the ones that are generated by the coronaviruses that cause Sars and Mers. These antibodies are so similar that they nearly tricked a British Columbia care facility into thinking they had an outbreak of Sars after the Sars epidemic had been declared over. In fact, the outbreak was caused by OC43, one of the coronaviruses that causes the common cold.

Nevertheless, infections that generate structurally similar antibodies dont necessarily provide cross-protection in a medically meaningful way.

Evidence for cross-protection between all but the most closely related coronaviruses is scant.

It is difficult to say whether the milder coronaviruses protect against SARS-CoV-2 partly because we have done so little surveillance on them. Ideally, we would be able to look at historical data to identify which communities experienced major outbreaks of each milder coronavirus strain over the past few years and then see if there is a link with less severe Covid-19 cases.

Challenge studies, in which a person is intentionally infected with a milder coronavirus strain and then exposed to SARS-CoV-2, could also address the question but are dangerous and ethically fraught. For now, all we can say is that the possibility that the common coronaviruses might protect against SARS-CoV-2 remains just that a possibility. Indeed, Mateus and colleagues describe this theory as highly speculative.

Stephen Kissler, Postdoctoral Researcher, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University of Cambridge

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Common cold could generate similar immune responses and antibodies to fight Covid-19 infection - iNews

Immunology

Why Young and Female Patients Dont Respond as Well to Cancer Immunotherapy – Newswise

Newswise Cancer immunotherapy empowering a patients own immune system to clear away tumors on its own holds great promise for some patients. But for other patients, immunotherapy just doesnt work.

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found evidence that helps explain why patients who are young and/or female have especially low response rates to some types of cancer immunotherapy.

Their findings suggest that since the typically robust immune systems of young and female patients are better at getting rid of tumor cells, the cells left behind are not as readily visible to the immune system to begin with, rendering some types of immunotherapy ineffective.

The study is published August 17, 2020, in Nature Communications.

Now that we know why some patients dont respond as well to immunotherapy, we can begin developing more informed approaches to treatment decisions for instance, developing predictive algorithms to determine a persons likely response before initiating immunotherapies that may have a high probability of not working or working poorly for them, said senior author Hannah Carter, PhD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Cancerous or infected cells wave molecular flags that tell the immune system to clear them away before the problem gets out of control. The flag poles molecules of the Major Histocompatibility Complexes (MHC) are displayed at the surface of most cells in the body. MHCs hold up antigen flags bits of just about everything from inside the cells and display them to immune cell surveyors that are constantly checking for damaged or infected cells. Since tumor cells carry a lot of mutations, they show up frequently among these flags, allowing the immune system to detect and eliminate them.

But some tumor cells evade the immune system by also throwing up a stop sign molecule that keeps the immune system from recognizing the MHC flags. And heres where immune checkpoint inhibitors come in: This type of cancer immunotherapy uses antibodies to make the tumor cell once again visible to the patients immune system.

So why would a persons age or sex influence how well immune checkpoint inhibitors work?

Sex and age differences have long been observed when it comes to immune response. For example, females have twice the antibody response to flu vaccines and are far more susceptible to autoimmune diseases. Similarly, human immune systems tend to weaken as we age. But if females and younger people have stronger immune responses in most cases, you might expect cancer immunotherapy to work better for them, not worse.

To get to the bottom of this conundrum, Carters team looked at genomic information for nearly 10,000 patients with cancer available from the National Institutes of Healths The Cancer Genome Atlas, and another 342 patients with other tumor types available from the International Cancer Genome Consortium database and published studies. They found no age or sex-related differences in MHC function.

What they did find was that, compared to older and male patients with cancer, younger and female patients tend to accumulate more cancer-causing genetic mutations of the sort that MHCs cant present to the immune system as efficiently. Carter said this is likely because robust immune systems of the young and female are better at getting rid of cells displaying well-presented mutant self-antigens, leaving behind tumor cells that rely more heavily on the poorly presented mutations. This selective pressure is known as immuno-editing.

So if a tumor cell doesnt present highly visible, mutated self antigens to begin with, checkpoint inhibitor drugs cant help reveal them to the immune system, she said.

This shows an important thing, that the interplay between the cancer genome and the adaptive arm of the immune system is not a static one, said co-author Maurizio Zanetti, MD, professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and head of the Laboratory of Immunology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. Two simple but important variables, age and sex, influence this interplay. The study also emphasizes the master role of the MHC in dictating the outcome of this interplay, reaffirming its central role in the evolution of disease, cancer included, at the level of the individual and population.

Carter cautions that their findings for younger patients dont necessarily apply to children since, genetically speaking, pediatric tumors are very different from adult tumors. In addition, she noted that, like most genomics databases, those used in this study contain data primarily from people of Caucasian descent, and more diversity is needed to confirm that the findings can be generalized to all populations.

Cancer isnt just one disease, and so the way we treat it cant be one-size-fits-all, she said. All checkpoint inhibitors can do is remove the generic block that tumors put up to hide from the immune system. The more we learn about how interactions between tumors and immune systems might vary, the better positioned we are to tailor treatments to each persons situation.

Co-authors of the study also include: Andrea Castro, Rachel Marty Pyke, Xinlian Zhang, Wesley Kurt Thompson, Ludmil B. Alexandrov, Maurizio Zanetti, UC San Diego; and Chi-Ping Day, National Institutes of Health.

The study was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (grants T15LM011271, DP5-OD017937, RO1CA220009, P41GM103504, 5R01CA155010-02, 5R01HL103532-03, 2P50CA101942-11A1, R50RCA211482A, R35CA197633, P01CA168585, 5P50CA168536, GM08042, 1RO1CA155010-02, 5R01HL103532-03, R21CA216772-01A1, T32HL007627, P50CA165962, P01CA163205, K08CA188615), National Science Foundation (graduate fellowship 2015205295), Mark Foundation for Cancer Research (grant 18-022-ELA), CIFAR Fellowship, Blavatnik Family Foundation, Broad Institute SPARC Program, BroadIgnite, BroadNext10, Francis and Adele Kittredge Family Immuno-Oncology and Melanoma Research Fund, Faircloth Family Research Fund, DFCI Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, American Association for Cancer Research, Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center, Society for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Lung Cancer Research Foundation, Frederick Adler Chair Fund, One Ball Matt Memorial Golf Tournament, Queen Wilhelmina Cancer Research Award, STARR Foundation, Ludwig Trust, Stand Up To Cancer-Cancer Research Institute Cancer Immunology Translational Cancer Research Grant, Stand Up To Cancer-American Cancer Society Lung Cancer Dream Team Translational Research Grant (grant SU2C-AACR-DT17-15), Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation, Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, Benoziyo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Science, DFCI Center for Cancer Immunotherapy Research fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and American Cancer Society (grant PF-17-042-01LIB).

Disclosure: Co-author Rachel Marty Pyke is an employee and holds stock in Personalis.

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Why Young and Female Patients Dont Respond as Well to Cancer Immunotherapy - Newswise

Human Behavior

Does the Government have the power to control human behaviour based on public health? COVID-19 and Government Power – Lexology

INTRODUCTION

The government controlling human behaviour is no longer a distant concept in a COVID-19 world. Control of human behaviour through government orders, requirements and directions have become part of our vernacular and behavioural patterns. But how far do these powers go? Can the government make orders to take a COVID test? Or if a vaccine becomes available, can Australians be required to take this vaccine?

There are three means available for governments to control human behaviour in response to a public health concern. These options have granted powers to the government to make new laws and requirements on individuals to comply in response to COVID-19:

This article will focus on the powers of government to make determinations and directions concerning measures on human behaviour based on public health.

A. THE COMMONWEALTHS POWERS DECLARING A HUMAN BIOSECURITY EMERGENCY

The Health Ministers broad emergency powers under sections 477 and 478 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 (Cth) are activated in response to the declaration of a human biosecurity emergency by the Governor General.

A human biosecurity emergency is declared in circumstances including where a listed human disease is posing a severe and immediate threat, or is causing harm, to human health on a nationally significant scale under section 475(1)(a).

Under sections 477, the Health Minister may determine any emergency requirements during a human biosecurity emergency period that the Minister is satisfied is necessary to:

I. Prevent or control any of the following, in relation to the disease in Australia or any part of Australia:

II. Prevent or control the spread of the disease to another country

III. Give effect to a recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO) under Part III of the International Health Regulations in relation to the disease.

Requirements which may be made that control human behavior may include:

These have been evident in the ban on overseas travel, cruise ships and the number of people at select venues, for example.

Under section 478, the Health Minister may give directions to any person that the Minister is satisfied is necessary to also achieve the above criteria. These refer to individual directions.

Directions which control human behavior may include:

These requirements and/or directions may be given despite any provision of any other Australian law.

A person who fails to comply with a requirement determined under either section may constitute an offence under section 479, with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 5 years or 300 penalty units (approximately $66,600), or both.

B. THE POWERS OF THE STATES AND TERRITORIES PUBLIC HEALTH RISKS

The National Partnership on COVID-19 Response and the Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) (commenced on 27 February 2020) confirms that all States and Territories have public health responsibilities pursuant to Federal legislation.

However, the primary responsibility for responding to such health risks and implementing measures controlling human behavior in response to COVID-19 rests with the State and Territory governments, who reserve the powers to respond differently to, though substantially consistent with, the opinions formed by the National Cabinet.

These powers are available to States and Territories through their respective Public Health and Biosecurity Acts.

i. NSW PUBLIC HEALTH LAWS

In NSW, where the Minister for Health considers on reasonable grounds that a situation has arisen that is, or is likely to be a risk to public health, section 7 of the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW) gives the Minister power to take any action and may by any order give any directions as the Minister considers necessary to deal with the risk and its possible consequences.

An order may also specify any part of NSW to be a public health risk area and may contain directions considered necessary by the Minister to reduce or remove the risk, segregate or isolate the inhabitants and prevent access to the area.

A failure to comply without a reasonable excuse may constitute an offence with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for 6 months or a fine of up to $11,000 (or both), with an ongoing fine of $5,500 each day the offence continues.

Corporations who fail to comply with a direction face a maximum fine of $55,000, with an ongoing fine of $27,500 each day the offence continues.

In relation to further implications of these powers on controlling human behaviour, the Minister, provided they consider it necessary, may make an order giving directions for each person with symptoms of COVID-19 to undertake a compulsory test as dealing with the risk and its possible consequences.

This direction may then be enforced with the maximum penalties above. The same conclusion is likely to apply if a vaccine becomes available and the Minister makes an order under these provisions.

ii. NSW BIOSECURITY LAWS

Under the Biosecurity Act 2015 (NSW), if activated in the case of an emergency under section 122, an authorised officer may issue general or individual biosecurity directions, which includes:

General biosecurity directions include:

Individual biosecurity directions include:

(a) to ensure the person discharges a biosecurity duty of the person under this Act;

(b) to ensure that the person remedies a contravention, suspected contravention or likely contravention by the person of a requirement imposed by or under this Act;

(c) to prevent, eliminate, minimise or manage a biosecurity risk posed by a dealing of the person, or suspected dealing of the person, with biosecurity matter, a carrier or a potential carrier.

Based on the expansive application of these general and individual directions, the State under these laws may have the power to enforce a vaccine if one becomes available, by reference to a general biosecurity direction to eliminate or minimize a biosecurity risk posed by COVID-19, or an individual biosecurity direction to ensure a person discharges a biosecurity duty of the person.

A failure to comply with a biosecurity direction, without a reasonable excuse, is a category 2 offence.

The maximum penalty for a category 2 offence under NSW Biosecurity Law is $220,000 for an individual, with an ongoing fine of $55,000 each day the offence continues. The maximum penalty for a corporation is $440,000, with an ongoing fine of $110,000 each day the offence continues.

Where an offence is committed negligently (to the criminal standard of proof), the maximum penalty for an individual is $1.1 million, with an ongoing fine of $137,000 each day the offence continues. For a corporation, the maximum penalty is $2.2 million, with an ongoing fine of $275,000 each day the offence continues.

C. SUMMING UP

So, can the Government make it a requirement to receive a COVID vaccine if one becomes available? This power may be available under both Commonwealth and NSW jurisdictions. If applicable, failure to comply under either of these directions or requirements may attract pecuniary penalties and/or imprisonment.

The Commonwealths powers under a human biosecurity emergency may include determining any emergency requirements and giving directions to any person. These requirements and/or directions may be given despite any provision of any other Australian law.

Under NSW Public Health laws, the Minister for Health may by any order give any directions as the Minister considers necessary to deal with the risk and its possible consequences. Under NSW Biosecurity laws, the Minister has expansive powers to give general and/or individual directions including to eliminate or minimize a biosecurity risk.

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Does the Government have the power to control human behaviour based on public health? COVID-19 and Government Power - Lexology

Human Behavior

Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn’t mean patriarchy is forever – Thehour.com

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Christopher von Rueden, University of Richmond

(THE CONVERSATION)

Kamala Harris candidacy as vice president of the United States provoked familiar criticism, based in part on her identity as a woman. Critics find her too angry, too confident, too competitive. But when women do act less competitively, they are seen as less capable of leadership. This is the double-bind women face when aspiring to leadership positions.

To overcome it, we need to understand where it comes from. Why do gender norms privilege men as leaders?

Some psychologists tie the origins of gender norms to aspects of our nature the greater physical strength of men and pregnancy and breastfeeding in women. The idea is that in our hunter-gatherer ancestors, physical strength made men more efficient at, and thus more likely to specialize in, tasks like hunting or warfare. Ancestral women specialized in tasks like infant care, which could be compromised by excessive risk-taking or competitiveness. This got the ball rolling, so the argument goes, toward gender norms that women be less competitive than men, including in the pursuit of leadership.

As an evolutionary anthropologist who studies leadership, I think this evolutionary explanation is not especially persuasive on its own. My view is that gender norms are not just influenced by the evolution of our bodies, but also by the evolution of our minds.

Men didnt specialize in tasks like hunting just because of greater muscle mass, but also because men evolved to take risks to show-off and to overtly compete more than women. These are only average differences many women are more overtly competitive than the average man.

Nevertheless, evolved sex differences in behavior contribute to but neither determine nor ethically justify the gender norms that societies create. I suggest that taking an evolutionary perspective can actually help reduce gender inequality in leadership.

Evolutionary origins of sex differences in competition

Across animal species, males tend to compete more violently and more frequently than females. Many evolutionary biologists theorize this is due to sex differences in parental investment. As females spend time bearing and nursing young, males have access to a smaller remaining pool of potential mates. Facing greater competition over mates, males tend to evolve greater body mass, weaponry such as horns, and physical aggression to prevail against rivals. Females tend to evolve greater selectivity in their use of aggression, in part because injury can impede parenting.

Do human beings fit these trends? A man of average physical strength is stronger than 99% of women. Even in the most egalitarian small-scale societies, studies find that men are likely to be more physically aggressive and more likely to directly compete against others.

Across studies, women are more often observed to engage in indirect competition, such as gossip or social exclusion. Womens willingness to compete may also be more selective. For example, when competition directly benefits their children or when results are not made public, women, on average, can be as competitive as men.

Men may also have evolved greater motivation to compete by forming large, hierarchical coalitions of same-sex peers. Men can be quicker to resolve low-level conflicts which goes along with valuing relationships based on how much they help with coalition-building. Womens same-sex coalitions tend to be smaller and more egalitarian, enforced through threat of social exclusion.

Historically, these average sex differences influenced the creation of gender norms to which women and men were expected to conform. These norms restricted womens activities beyond the household and increased mens control over politics.

Importantly, different environments can strengthen or weaken sex differences. Evolution is not deterministic when it comes to human behavior. For example, in societies where warfare was frequent or food production was more reliant on mens labor, youre more likely to find cultural emphasis on male competitiveness and coalition-building and restriction of womens opportunities.

Implications for dismantling patriarchy

Recognizing the influence of evolution on behavior and gender norms isnt just of academic interest. I think it can suggest ways to reduce gender inequality in leadership in the real world.

First, trying to get women and men to on average behave the same like simply encouraging women to lean in is unlikely to have tremendous effect.

Second, people should call attention to those traits that help elevate many unqualified men to positions of power. These traits include larger body size, and mens greater tendency to self-promote and to exaggerate their competence.

Third, people should scrutinize the extent to which organizations reward mens more than womens preferred forms of competition and cooperation. Organizational goals can suffer when competitive masculinity dominates an organizations culture.

Fourth, organizations that have a more equitable mix of male and female leaders have access to more diverse leadership styles. This is a good thing when it comes to tackling all kinds of challenges. In certain scenarios, leader effectiveness may hinge more on risk-seeking, direct competitiveness and creation of rigid hierarchies on average favoring male leaders.

In other contexts, perhaps the majority, leader effectiveness may depend more on risk aversion, less direct forms of competition, and more empathy-driven forms of relationship-building on average favoring women leaders. This case has been made for responses of women-led governments to the current coronavirus pandemic, particularly relative to the bravado of presidents like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro.

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Finally, people can rely on other human tendencies including the impulse to emulate the prestigious to chip away at gender norms that favor men as leaders. The more that existing leaders, male or female, promote women as leaders, the more it normalizes women at the top. A now-famous study in India randomly assigned villages to elect women as chief councilors; girls in those villages subsequently completed more years of formal education and were more likely to aspire to careers outside the home.

Patriarchy is not an inevitable consequence of human nature. Rather, better understanding of the latter is key to ending the double-bind that keeps women out of leadership.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/nature-and-nurture-both-contribute-to-gender-inequality-in-leadership-but-that-doesnt-mean-patriarchy-is-forever-123311.

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Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership but that doesn't mean patriarchy is forever - Thehour.com

Human Behavior

Voice of the People 08/18/20 | Letters To Editor | leadertelegram.com – Leader-Telegram

The TSA and CDC both are saving lives

I find human behavior endlessly fascinating but confusing. A current example of this is the furor over wearing masks in public to combat COVID-19. Those opposing this measure, forwarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are the most vociferous claiming it is an infringement of their personal freedoms.

These folks, of course, stand in endless Transportation Security Administration lines waiting for an agent to demand specific personal information and X-ray their personal belongings and their bodies. They suffer these indignities with bovine acceptance to prevent a minuscule risk of being killed by a terrorist.

Over the past 20 years fewer than 4,000 Americans were killed by terrorists and that includes the 9/11 carnage. One is statistically more likely to be killed by an animal attack. However these same people are outraged about having to wear a mask in public to protect themselves and others from a virus that has killed over 160,000 Americans with no end in sight.

We must alter this irrational behavior long enough to shorten this accursed pandemic to get our lives back and restart our economy. If China and Europe can do it, so can we. (By the way, I support both the TSA and the CDC because they save lives.)

Incidents abound that need explanation

Is stabbing someone four times not attempted murder? This is the third time recently judges have given probation for either a stabbing or a shooting.

After one stabbing, the individual admitted he was trying to finish the other guy off. Result: probation.

Another time the individual puts a mask on attempting a robbery and shoots a guy in the leg. Result: probation.

Now another stabbing. Only four times. Result: probation.

When does attempted murder come into play? The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram should have a section titled, Judge, please explain yourself.

And explain when you sentence all these people doing drugs around their children why they are sentenced to not have contact with known drug dealers. If you know who the drug dealers are, why dont you do something about it?

President Trump move instills confidence

I want to thank the president of the United States for putting my mind at ease concerning voting by mail.

I have seen in several news sources that the president, and the first lady, have requested absentee ballots in Florida.

By demonstrating his faith in the USPS to deliver his ballot safely and securely, he is truly leading by example. If it is good enough for the president, its good enough for me.

Including everyone would improve mural

I would like to see a mural that reads: red lives matter, brown lives matter, black lives matter, white lives matter, yellow lives matter.

Or it could be: brown lives matter, black lives matter, yellow lives matter, white lives matter, red lives matter.

Or any one of 118 other combinations.

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Voice of the People 08/18/20 | Letters To Editor | leadertelegram.com - Leader-Telegram

Human Behavior

How Do We Synchronize Our Behavior? – American Council on Science and Health

Synchronization of cells, so that they act in concert, is mediated by the chemistry and electricity, as neural impulses, in their environment. Cytokine storm, a feature of COVID-19 and other abnormal immunologic responses, might be the posterchild of asynchrony. That Internet lag that makes a Zoom conversation less than natural is another example.

Does human synchronization rely solely on the environment and its clues, or is there a behavioral component? Because we are social creatures, the answer has implications to how we share, information, and more pertinent these days, disease. Trying to answer that question was the subject of a study recently published in Nature Communications. Studying synchronization is made difficult because there are so many channels providing information simultaneously. Consider applause by an audience, where rhythmic clapping may result from what you see, hear, and feel. How do you isolate and evaluate each component?

The researchers used a novel method, 16 violinists, sonically isolated by headphones, visually separated by partitions. As each violinist repeated identical musical phrases, the researchers were able to control what they heard, not only from their instrument but from one or two other violinists. The researchers were then able to alter which audio inputs were paired along with their strength and delay.

The researchers first identified a strength of the signal; in this case, the volume of the other violinists playing that assured synchronization. As you might expect, the more connected one individual was with the network, the less volume was necessary to induce synchronization. Multiple weak signals were as powerful as fewer stronger ones.

They then introduced a delay. With small delays, the playing slowed a bit to compensate. When the delay resulted in the violins being half "out of phase," the players synchronized with one following stably behind the other. Longer delays created a "frustrated state," where the violinist couldn't synchronize at all; as a result, the violinist ignored the additional input and returned to their intrinsic playing.

Until this time, the theoretical underpinnings of network theory included a belief that in the presence of "frustration," a network member would split the difference and seek the average, to compromise. But the researchers found that we behaved differently, choosing to ignore the frustrating input.

"In a state of frustration they don't look for a 'middle', but ignore one of the inputs. This is a critical phenomenon that is changing the dynamics of the network."

Moti Fridman, PhD

Unlike networks of cells, where synchronicity may be achieved by compromise, humans take actions and behave differently. We have seen this in the discussion of the early epidemiologic models of COVID-19 that project high overall mortality because they did not consider that some of the population would spontaneously protect themselves by social distancing.

Put in another context; we ignore what does not coincide with our beliefs. Part of the power of information, in this case, the sound of another violinist, is that it allows us to synchronize with our tribe. But at some deeper behavioral level, when our ability to synch up with our tribe is frustrated, by alternative information, we simply chose to ignore it, perhaps calling it "fake news."

Source: Synchronization of complex human networks Nature Communications DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17540-7

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How Do We Synchronize Our Behavior? - American Council on Science and Health

Human Behavior

How Deforestation Leads to the Spread of Deadly Viruses from Animals to Humans – One Green Planet

A growing body of evidence shows that deforestation can greatly increase the prevalence of zoonotic viruses in which viruses are passed from animals to humans. Six out of every 10 infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic. In an uninterrupted environment, viruses carried by animals are limited by their ecosystems. However, deforestation and other environmental disturbances displace the animals carrying these viruses as their sources of food are lost and habitats destroyed. As humans encroach on these areas, human-wildlife contact can increase, resulting in a high incidence of zoonotic viruses as pathogens jump from animals to humans.

More than a third of the Earths land is used for agricultural purposes, and humans desire for beef, soy, palm oil, and wood products destroy tropical forests at staggering rates each year. In South America specifically, beef and soy production drive more than two-thirds of the habitat loss with around 75% of soy production becoming livestock feed. Deforestation also occurs at alarming rates in Southeast Asia and the Congo Basin, the worlds second-largest rain forest.

In addition to the ecological issues of biodiversity, deforestation has major implications for human health. Studies focused on malaria and Ebola have all demonstrated how destroying and fragmenting forests can increase transmission rates.

The Amazon is the worlds largest rainforest and home to 10% of all known species on Earth. Amazon is also the target of major deforestation effortsmore than a quarter of the rainforest has been destroyed from deforestation alone. In Brazil, the resurgence of malaria in recent decades has been linked to intense deforestation and settlement in the Amazon due to political and economic pressures.

A 2019 study found that areas of the Amazon with significant deforestation saw many more cases of malaria. Using trends in deforestation and data on malaria rates, the same study estimated that a 10% increase in deforestation leads to a 3.3% increase in malaria incidence in Brazil. In some Brazilian municipalities, the incidence of malaria is even greater. For example, in Mancio Lima, Brazil, a 4.3% increase in deforestation is associated with a 48% increased in malaria incidence.

It is likely that the increased rate of malaria is due to the favorable conditions for mosquitos created by deforestation. More sunlight exposure warms pools of water making these areas better breeding grounds, and constant forest destruction causes ditches and puddles which are conducive places for larvae development.

The exact transmission cycle of the Ebola virus remains unknown; however, bats are suspected to be reservoirs for the virus and humans may contract Ebola directly from these reservoirs or indirectly through larger wildlife such as apes.

Through deforestation and forest fragmentation, humans not only come in close contact with wildlife but also directly consume the animals infected with the virus in the form of bushmeat. Studies have demonstrated the outbreaks of Ebola in humans occurred mostly in hotspots of deforestation in West and Central Africa as forest loss disrupts bat and wildlife movements and densities.

Although the origin of novel coronavirus is not proven, it likely came from a bat and was transmitted to humans through another animal, likely the pangolin. The role of deforestation in the emergence of COVID-19 is unclear, but this virus and its grave social, economic, and biological consequences highlight the need to examine human behaviors that increase human-animal contact.

The underlying causes of zoonotic spillover from bats or from other wild species have almost alwaysalwaysbeen shown to be human behavior, Andrew Cunningham, Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology at the Zoological Society of LondontoldCNN. Human activities are causing this.

Studies demonstrating the relationship human-driven actions, like deforestation, with viruses could help prevent the next global pandemic. Protecting the environment not only preserves biodiversity and animal habitats but also it is a matter of public health.

This is a good time to reconsider our intake of animal products to stay healthy. Reducing your meat intake and eating more plant-based foods is known to help withchronic inflammation,heart health,mental wellbeing,fitness goals,nutritional needs,allergies,gut health,andmore! Dairy consumption also has been linked to many health problems, includingacne,hormonal imbalance,cancer,prostate cancerand has manyside effects.

For those of you interested in eating more plant-based, we highly recommend downloading theFood Monster App with over 15,000 delicious recipes it is the largest plant-based recipe resource to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy! And, while you are at it, we encourage you to also learn about theenvironmentalandhealth benefitsof aplant-based diet.

Here are some great resources to get you started:

Sign this petition to Support California Bill that Would Protect Endangered Species and Humans from Zoonotic Diseases!

Read more of our recent coverage on zoonotic diseases:

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How Deforestation Leads to the Spread of Deadly Viruses from Animals to Humans - One Green Planet

Human Behavior

Pandemic behavior: Why some people don’t play by the rules – Japan Today

Lockdowns and social distancing measures introduced around the world to try and curb the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping lives, legislating activities that were once everyday freedoms and creating new social norms.

But there are always some people who don't play by the rules.

Rule-breaking is not a new phenomenon, but behavioral scientists say it is being exacerbated in the coronavirus pandemic by cultural, demographic and psychological factors that can make the flouters seem more selfish and dangerous.

Here are some questions and answers on the science of human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic:

WHAT MAKES SOME PEOPLE FLOUT AND OTHERS OBEY THE RULES?

A key factor is individualism versus collectivism.

"Some countries...tend to be higher on individualism, which is about expressing your sense of identity and who you are as an individual," said Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology at New York University.

People in individualist cultures tend to reject rules and ignore attempts by public health authorities to "nudge" behaviour change with risk messages or appeals for altruism.

"If you say, for example, that wearing a mask will help protect others, people in individualistic cultures just care less," said Michael Sanders, a expert at the Policy Institute at King's College London.

In collectivist cultures, people are more likely to do what's best for the group.

ARE TRUST AND FEAR IMPORTANT?

Yes. These and other instincts are significant influences on human behaviour.

In societies with more political division, for example, people are less likely to trust advice from one side or the other, and also tend to form pro- and anti-camps.

Optimism and fear are also crucial. A little of both can be positive, but too much of either can be damaging.

"In a situation like a pandemic, (optimism) can lead you to take risks that are incredibly dangerous," said Van Bavel.

WHY IS SOCIAL DISTANCING DIFFICULT?

"We are truly social animals," said Van Bavel. "Our bodies and brains are designed for connection and the pandemic in many ways goes against our instincts to connect."

That's partly why local outbreaks can crop up in bars and nightclubs, or religious ceremonies, weddings and parties.

"People have a hard time resisting that tendency for social and group connection."

IF RULE-BREAKERS ARE A MINORITY, WHY DOES IT MATTER?

"The problem is that, in a massive collective problem like the one we're facing now, if everybody breaks the rules a little bit, then it's not dissimilar to lots of people not following the rules at all," said Sanders.

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Pandemic behavior: Why some people don't play by the rules - Japan Today