Neuroscience

Athlete Nia Lee sprints into action on the field and in the classroom – Rolling Out

Nia Lee of Romeoville, Illinois is a 20-year-old nationally ranked sprinter and long jumper at Illinois Wesleyan University. The accomplished athletes list of accomplishments inlcudes but is not limited to her track and field abilities. She is four-year track member; three-year cheer team member and earned All-State in the 41 relay. Lee has also earned Southwest Prairie All-Conference in the long jump, triple jump, and the 41 relay race.

Rolling out spoke with Lee regarding her athletic prowess on academic pursuits.

What does it mean to you to be named all conference?

What has long jumping taught you about yourself ?

Its taught me that the best is yet to come. Just when I think Im stuck jumping at a certain distance, Im able to prove myself wrong by jumping even further.

What is your major and why did you select it?

Im also interested in neuroscience because the brain is the most complex organ we have, and the blueprint for our behavior. Its interesting knowing what brain structures contribute to our actions, or how certain damages can lead to specific deficits.

What are you goals before graduation?

Before I graduate, I would like to get involved with some type of research at my university. My psychology program is filled with amazing professors who conduct their own unique research. I would like to gain experience getting involved in that before I graduate. I would also like to make the nationals for track.

Describe what lead you to be an entrepreneur?

I decided to pick up the skill of doing lashes because there are many different styles and looks to do. I like being able to make natural looks, making eyes more noticeable. Being able to make my own schedule and styles is also a plus.

What is your favorite hobby ?

My favorite hobby is definitely reading. If Im not reading, Im probably somewhere watching The Office.

What is it you enjoy about reading ?

Reading is definetly my escape. I love how Im able to travel without moving my feet. Im able to fall in love with different characters, and read from perspectives I typically wouldnt encounter.

Continued here:
Athlete Nia Lee sprints into action on the field and in the classroom - Rolling Out

Neuroscience

Erasing Traumatic Memories May One Day Be Possible Thanks to New Discovery – SciTechDaily

The team found that flies kept in the dark were unable to maintain a pre-established long-term memory. This was due to the lack of Protein-dispersing factor (Pdf) release, which in turn results in no cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) being produced in the memory center of the fly brain. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University

Environmental light shown to affect retention of traumatic long-term memory in flies.

Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that Drosophila flies lose long-term memory (LTM) of a traumatic event when kept in the dark, the first confirmation of environmental light playing a role in LTM maintenance. The team also identified the specific molecular mechanism responsible for this effect. LTMs are notoriously difficult to erase; this work may lead to novel treatments for sufferers of trauma, perhaps even the erasure of life-altering traumatic memories.

It is impossible to remember everything that happens to us in a day. But a particularly shocking event may be consolidated into our long-term memory (LTM), whereby new proteins are synthesized and the neuronal circuits in our brain are modified. Such memories may be devastating to a victim, potentially triggering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet physiologically speaking, keeping a memory is far from a trivial process; active maintenance is required to keep the changes, protecting against the constant cellular rearrangement and renewal of a living organism. Despite the importance of understanding how memory works in the brain, the mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood and is a key topic for neuroscience today.

It is well known that light, particularly the cycle of night and day, plays an important role in regulating animal physiology. Examples include circadian rhythm, mood and cognition. But how about long-term memory? Thus, a team led by Prof. Takaomi Sakai from Tokyo Metropolitan University set out to study how light exposure affects the memory of diurnal Drosophila fruit flies. As an instance of long-term memory or trauma, they used the courtship conditioning paradigm, where male flies are exposed to female flies which have already mated. Mated females are known to be unreceptive and exert a stress on male flies which fail to mate. Once the experience is committed to long-term memory, they no longer attempt to court female flies, even when the females around them are unmated.

The team found that conditioned male flies kept in the dark for 2 days or more no longer showed any reluctance to mate, while those on a normal day-night cycle did. This clearly shows that environmental light somehow modified the retention of LTM. This was not due to lack of sleep; flies on a diurnal cycle were slightly sleep deprived to match with flies in the dark, with no effect on the results. Thus, they focused on a protein in the brain called the Pigment-dispersing factor (Pdf), known to be expressed in response to light. For the first time, they found that Pdf regulated the transcription of a protein called the cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) in the mushroom bodies, a part of the brain of insects known to be implicated in memory and learning. Thus, they identified the specific molecular mechanism by which light affects the retention of long-term memory.

Traumatic experiences are very difficult to forget and can severely impair a victims quality of life. But the teams discoveries show that these memories can, in fact, be significantly affected by environmental factors in living organisms. This opens up the exciting possibilities of new treatments for victims of trauma, perhaps even the ability to erase traumatic memories which prevent them from leading normal lives.

Reference: Environmental Light Is Required for Maintenance of Long-Term Memory in Drosophila by Show Inami, Shoma Sato, Shu Kondo, Hiromu Tanimoto, Toshihiro Kitamoto and Takaomi Sakai, 12 February 2020, Journal of Neuroscience.DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1282-19.2019

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 18H04887 and 16H04816.

Read the original post:
Erasing Traumatic Memories May One Day Be Possible Thanks to New Discovery - SciTechDaily

Neuroscience

Quantum Death Human Cells Carry Quantum Information That Exists as a Soul (Weekend Feature) – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel

Posted on Mar 14, 2020 in Cosmology, Physics, Science

The physical universe that we live in is only our perception and once our physical bodies die, there is an infinite beyond. Some believe that consciousness travels to parallel universes after death. The beyond is an infinite reality that is much bigger which this world is rooted in. In this way, our lives in this plane of existence are encompassed, surrounded, by the afterworld already The body dies but the spiritual quantum field continues. In this way, I am immortal, suggest researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich

The Max Planck physicists are in agreement with British Physicist Sir Roger Penrose who argues that if a person temporarily dies, this quantum information is released from the microtubules and into the universe. However, if they are resuscitated the quantum information is channeled back into the microtubules and that is what sparks a near death experience. If theyre not revived, and the patient dies, its possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul.

Steve Paulson writing for Nautil.us describes the 88-year-old Penroses theory as an audaciousand quite possibly crackpottheory about the quantum origins of consciousness. He believes we must go beyond neuroscience and into the mysterious world of quantum mechanics to explain our rich mental life. No one quite knows what to make of this theory, developed with the American anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, but conventional wisdom goes something like this: Their theory is almost certainly wrong, but since Penrose is so brilliant (One of the very few people Ive met in my life who, without reservation, I call a genius, physicist Lee Smolin has said), wed be foolish to dismiss their theory out of hand.

While scientists are still in heated debates about what exactly consciousness is, the University of Arizonas Hameroff and Penrose conclude that it is information stored at a quantum level. Penrose agrees he and his team have found evidence that protein-based microtubulesa structural component of human cellscarry quantum information information stored at a sub-atomic level.

It was Hameroffs idea, writes Paulson, that quantum coherence happens in microtubules, protein structures inside the brains neurons. And what are microtubules, you ask? They are tubular structures inside eukaryotic cells (part of the cytoskeleton) that play a role in determining the cells shape, as well as its movements, which includes cell divisionseparation of chromosomes during mitosis. Hameroff suggests that microtubules are the quantum device that Penrose had been looking for in his theory. In neurons, microtubules help control the strength of synaptic connections, and their tube-like shape might protect them from the surrounding noise of the larger neuron. The microtubules symmetry and lattice structure are of particular interest to Penrose. He believes this reeks of something quantum mechanical.

Somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here, Penrose told Paulson during an interview. Theres intelligent lifeor consciousnesssomewhere else in the cosmos, Penrose added. But it may be extremely rare. But if consciousness is the point of this whole shebang, wouldnt you expect to find some evidence of it beyond Earth Paulson asked? Well, Im not so sure our own universe is that favorably disposed toward consciousness, Penrose replied.

In Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death, Robert Lanza asks does the soul exist? The new scientific theory he propounds says were immortal and exist outside of time. Biocentrism postulates that space and time are not the hard objects we think. Death does not exist in a timeless, spaceless world. His new scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal event we think.

There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feelingthe Who am I?- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesnt go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

The Daily Galaxy, Max Goldberg, via Nautil.us, Robert Lanza and Sunday Guardian Live

Image credit: via Pixabay

Read this article:
Quantum Death Human Cells Carry Quantum Information That Exists as a Soul (Weekend Feature) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

Immunology

Store shelves wiped clean? Heres how you can make homemade hand sanitizer – WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) Store shelves across the country are being wiped clean of disinfectant products in the midst of the rapid spreading COVID-19 virus, including products like hand sanitizer.

We got advice from Dr. James Palmieri, the Associate Professor for Microbiology and Immunology at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VT Campus), about creating homemade hand sanitizer with common household items that are also obtainable in pharmacies or supermarket chains.

WHAT YOU NEED:

PROCEDURE:

Dr. Palmieri still recommends washing your hands 20 times a day and use the isopropyl alcohol to wipe down your keyboard and cell phones. He also suggests buying baby wipes to clean surfaces.

37.540725-77.436048

Read the original here:
Store shelves wiped clean? Heres how you can make homemade hand sanitizer - WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

Immunology

Saturday night, everything’s closed, what to do? Curl up with this video about the coronavirus! – Morristown Green

Saturday night. The pandemic has shut down theaters, concerts and bars. Patrons cleaned out the librarys DVD rack. You have exhausted your Netflix binge-list.

What to do for entertainment?

Pour yourself a tall glass of your favorite beverage after thoroughly wiping down the bottle and scrubbing your hands and chill with a video about

the coronavirus!

Coronovirus Biology: Separating Fact from Fiction is an hour-long talk by Brianne Barker, assistant professor of biology at Drew University in Madison.

Video: Drew biology professor Brianne Barker on the coronavirus:

Barker, host of the podcast This Week in Virology, has a biology degree from Duke University and a PhD in immunology from Harvard. Shes an expert on HIV/AIDS, the immune system, infectious diseases, inflammation and vaccines.

Her crisp presentation, moderated by Drew President MaryAnn Baenninger on Thursday, traces what is known and unknown about the novel coronavirusfrom its name (its not about beer!), family tree (cousins MERS and SARS) and likely origins (what the heck is a pangolin, anyway?), to why Tamilflu wont work, and which drugs might.

Barker demystifies the soap vs. sanitizer debate, offers data suggesting how long the coronavirus can live on various surfaces, and shares life-and-death lessons about social distancing learned from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Why are children under 10 at little risk for COVID-19 the disease caused by the novel coronaviruswhile octogenarians are in serious peril? How, precisely, is this virus transmitted?

Mortality rates, mutations and immunity are explained, and Barker ends the video by fielding questions from students.

We give this movie four stars. But lets hope there arent too many sequels.

MORE COVERAGE OF THE CORONAVIRUS

Continued here:
Saturday night, everything's closed, what to do? Curl up with this video about the coronavirus! - Morristown Green

Immunology

Coronavirus: The Most Essential People To Follow On Twitter During The COVID-19 Outbreak – Forbes

(Photo by Giannis Alexopoulos/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Whats true, and whats not? Who should you believe, and who shouldnt you? The coronavirus outbreak has much of America asking itself these questions. Heres a list of doctors, officials and researchers who have answers, facts and stiff upper lips. And where we could, we asked them to suggest more like-minded people to follow. Well update as their responses come in.

If you want to follow them en masse, go to this Twitter list built through my Twitter account.

(H/T to my colleagues Alex Knapp and Leah Rosenbaum for helping put this roster together.)

A.K.A.: @bogochisaac

Bonafides: Clinician investigator, Toronto General Hospital Research Institute

Who He Follows: @mackayIM, @aetiology, @adamjkucharski

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @SueDHellmann

Bonafides: Former CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @DrTomFrieden

Bonafides: President and CEO, Resolve to Save Lives; former CDC director

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @DrTedros

Bonafides: Director general, World Health Organization

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @ScottGottliebMD

Bonafides: Former FDA commissioner

Retweetable Tweet:

Tom Inglesby

A.K.A.: @T_Inglesby

Bonfides: Director, Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Who He Follows: @mlipsitch, @trvrb, @cmyeaton, @kakape, @HelenBranswell, @ScottGottliebMD,

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @ashishkjha

Bonafides: Director, Harvard Global Health Institute

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @JeremyKonyndyk

Bonafides: Senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @florian_krammer

Bonafides: Professor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @mlipsitch

Bonafides: Director, Harvards Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @DrNancyM_CDC

Bonafides: Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @michaelmina_lab

Bonafides: Assistant professor, epidemiology and immunology, Harvard School of Public Health

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @profvrr

Bonafides: Assistant professor, epidemiology and immunology, Harvard School of Public Health

Who He Follows: @Baric_Lab, @MattFrieman, @DenisonLab, @drSteveMorse, @weisssr,

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @chngin_the_wrld

Bonafides: Associate dean of global health, University of California San Diego

Who She Follows: @Laurie_Garrett, @sciencecohen, @CarlosdelRio7, @DrNeeltje, @arimoin, @aslavitt, @UWVirology, @angie_rasmussen, @trvrb, @MackayIM, @VirusesImmunity

Retweetable Tweet:

A.K.A.: @aetiology

Bonafides: Professor, Kent State University

Retweetable Tweet:

Continue reading here:
Coronavirus: The Most Essential People To Follow On Twitter During The COVID-19 Outbreak - Forbes

Embryology

Men only: Oh baby, not now please, lets talk in 2040 – The Standard

There are many young women out there who want to get all their educational papers in order, before starting a family (Shutterstock)

March is Men Onlys month to do pieces that are useful to women.

ALSO READ: Bad boy: To date a colleague or not?

So, my men, just think of this month here as a kind of Lent, during which time Ive rented space out to house the ladies health and relationship issues.

One of the things I do, when not writing books and columns, is to mentor young local writers.

And one of the woke spaces we do that is at the Goethe Institute, under AMKA a programme set up to nurture the writing skills of young women (although we also welcome men, thanks to the liberal feminism of lady Lydia Gatirira).

As part of the programme, we invite women, even from different fields, to address the young women writers of AMKA, in ways that will stimulate their imagination.

Which is how last Saturday, we managed to have the consultant senior embryologist and lab director, Dr Anitah Francis Darshi of the NMC Fertility Point, to give a talk about embryology.

Embryology is of course all about the ovary, eggs and female fertility a priory to child birth, a topic not only important to women, and men, but at the very heart of life itself.

There was a time in Africa when teenage mums were the norm, instead of being a problem...

ALSO READ: Men talk: Midlife has eventually caught up with you, so what?

My paternal grandmother, who passed away in 2011, was already a widow at 18 by early 1945, when she gave birth to my dad; who just happened to be her third and last born son.

A couple of months before, her husband had been killed fighting the Japanese, on behalf and at the behest of the Brits, in some godforsaken corner of Burma.

Grandma was simply wife inherited by an in-law, and went on to give birth to six more children.

Fast forward the clock by 63 years to 2020.

Now, as Dr Anitah explained, there are many young women out there who want to get all their educational papers in order, before starting a family.

Picture the ambitious academic, determined not just to do her Masters, but also her PhD.

By the time she is done, she is in her early 30s, and if she is lucky and gets a good man to marry, that takes her Time Line into the mid-thirties domain.

ALSO READ: Men talk: Five dire mistakes we make when choosing our life partners

And by this time, getting children can prove to be quite a challenge.

But in the near future, as the storage of sperm and eggs becomes cheaper, as Anitah explained, all this will change dramatically.

For More of This Stories Subscribe to the Standard Epaper to get a copy of Eve Woman in the Standard

Young women in their early 20s will be able to freeze their eggs until they are done with academia, or reached a happy plateau in their career, or met someone they are ready to sire children with.

Because you will simply go to the clinic where the eggs are stored, get them fertilised by your new spouse/partner via IVF, put back in your uterus to create an embryo so you can say voila, we are pregnant.

It is these kinds of presently possible but futuristically easily available scenarios that we encouraged our lady writers to experiment with, that day, as their story project.

For now, the cases that Dr Darshi deals with at their ultra-modern IVF laboratory are mostly more common place. Couples with fertility issues come in, tests are run on them, then depending on the results, it is determined the type of fertility procedure to be done.

[emailprotected]

Do not miss out on the latest news. Join the Eve Digital Telegram channel HERE.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Evewoman.co.ke

Read more here:
Men only: Oh baby, not now please, lets talk in 2040 - The Standard

Embryology

Marquee magic where the crepe jasmine grew – Mid-day

Aao, aao, aao" the husky chant reaches me from the auditorium door briefly ajar for an usher exiting. Other employees of Maratha Mandir solicitously assure I will soon meet the theatre's executive director, Manoj Desai. Meanwhile, I'm fascinated to explore the various foyer levels of a theatre with decidedly more distinguished interiors than its bland facade.

Unravelling inside, the matinee to beat all matinees ticketed averaging an affordable 20 bucks, flashes the pigeon feeding scene of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, in its unprecedented 25th year. It was an impromptu sequence. Reporting on Aditya Chopra's set ahead of Amrish Puri, SRK started to scatter grain for the birds. Puri came, adding the gravelly "Aao". An earlier Chopra family link here was BR Chopra's Sadhna, inaugurating Maratha Mandir in 1958.

The theatre hugs a corner address, unrecognisably once among Bombay's poshest. Maratha Mandir Marg was Club Road and Club Back Road was subsequently marked by the YMCA. Skirting Lamington Road to Morland Road (present site of the Mumbai Bagh protests), it embraced the wide north flank of elite Byculla Club, the city's first residential club in 1834.

Manoj Desai, executive director of Maratha Mandir theatre, in the Belgian glass-panelled interior of the 1958-built cinema that creates history this year, screening Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge for 25 consecutive years since its release. The interiors are resplendent with the Art Deco ceiling and wall flourishes along the grand staircase.

"Indians were prohibited in numerous British clubs. Foremost were the Byculla Club and Yacht Club," writes Advocate Abhinav Chandrachud in An Independent, Colonial Judiciary: A History of the Bombay High Court During the British Raj: 1862-1947. Those discriminatory clubs were classist and sexist too"The Yacht was a social Mecca, membership to it for a European meant he had socially arrived. The Byculla Club was for men only, useful when 'a man wanted to get away from his wife'."

Rejecting racial segregation, two rival clubs were established for Indians and Europeans. "Founded at the turn of the 20th century by Chief Justice Lawrence Jenkins, with others, the Orient Club was the oldest such in India," Chandrachud continues. "Willingdon Sports Club was set up towards the end of the First World War by the Governor of Bombay, Lord Willingdon because he had a direct mandate from the Secretary of State to do away with the 'damning racial exclusiveness' of European clubs in Bombay."

Sir Stanley Reed recounted how, following the introduction of electricity in town, Byculla Club members "fought against the barbarism of fans in the dining room and when you sat, in came a hamaal with the traditional fan on a six-foot pole, swaying it to and fro behind you at meals." The vast premises eventually closed after World War II.

Mehroo Golvala, nee Khambatta, in her Pedder Road home. The 1930s resident of Club Road has vivid memories of the lush garden of their Shirin Villa home. The bungalow once belonged to timber merchants. Pics/ Atul Kamble

"Our initial 1930s years were inseparable from Byculla Club," recalls Mehroo Golvala, nee Khambatta. "It occupied a sprawling block with its own stables and hosted grand dance balls. We walked casually to its grounds for games of 7 Tiles and I Spy." The green canopy thickened with the road's raintrees, palms and ashokas. In her Number 10, Club Road garden grew honeysuckle vines and colourful cannas. On a pretty profusion of crepe jasmine flowers crawled caterpillars that kids caught and cared for in boxes with lid holes allowing air, till they transformed to butterflies set free. Trees hung heavy with mangoes, drumsticks, papayas, elaichi bananas. And methi so tender tasting that, plucked fresh to form a base layered over with fried eggs, resulted in "the best 'bhaji per eedu' for miles". The Parsi penchant for eggs over veggies is a standard culinary delight.

The Khambattas of Shirin Villa had memorable musician neighbours in Hetty and Wilfred Fernandes in Meher Villa from 1954. Hetty's internationally renowned pianist daughter, Marialena, writes from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna: "Byculla Club was extremely colonial, stately on a street with hardly any traffic. It stared down on the street habitants, almost artificial for us children starved for noise, laughter, spontaneous fun.

A stained glass window with the family crest initials of the Colahs who lived at 8, Club Road. From their balcony they clearly saw the Bombay Central Station clock across open maidan stretches and could hear the zoo animals of Rani Baug

"My mother had a voice not only beautifully inspiring but capable of soothing the disturbed. According to her, I played piano before I spoke. She encouraged me to keep up my talent, to the irritation of my siblings who preferred cricket on Club Cross Road where the Seventh Day Adventist Church still stands. It was even more British than the British, with daily evening ceremonial service, perfectly harmonious choir and representative congregation. In a mixture of mischief and cheap thrill, we peeped through our barricaded windows and front gate, with lights off, so they couldn't see us. Thanks to mom's friendliness, an American Adventist family sold us the first marimba (a percussion instrument of wooden panels on metal pipes, hit with mallets held in both hands) seen in India."

That became the entertaining highlight at their parties, Marialena remembers"Mom at the piano, me on the marimba, our guests singing loud. People dropped by, joining the community singing in different languages. My mother put us all in the mood and accompanied everything, so great was her ear. My sister Joanne and I sang with her as a trio known as Wilf's Wonderful Women. Dad was Wilfred. A major part of my life, Club Road holds a special place in my heart."

A friend of Marialena's brother Andrew in their schoolboy days, executive search consultant Ramgopal Rao spent his childhood in the iconic RBI Staff Colony across the road. The Raos shifted into the horseshoe-shaped complex's new "M" Block four summers after 1954, when, at the initiative of Sir CD Deshmukh, the first Indian RBI Governor, these quarters rose with the best amenities. "The society was fantastically self-contained, with a medical dispensary, provision store, Irani stall selling cakes and a basement badminton court where the likes of Nandu Natekar came to play," says Rao. The colony was conceived in a utilitarian, civic-minded manner. For instance, chutes from the topmost floors slid garbage smoothly into wheelbarrows waiting below."

A painting of the landmark Byculla Nursing Home, made famous by Dr Stanislaus Patrao. Signed by the artist Trivedi, it wonderfully captures the precincts peace and quiet. The Patraos were actually able to see the Trombay gas flares and even flames, so unobstructed were the views all around.

A lane-off landmark is Dr Stanislaus Patrao's now dilapidated Byculla Nursing Home, shuttered 15 years ago. The good doctor, Grant Medical College's sole student holding a triple graduate qualification in Medicine and Surgery, was awarded the degree in the Department of Anatomy and Embryology, a First Class with Distinction. Purchasing the property in the 1940s, he shifted his hospital in 1955 from Morland Road to this largely wooden structure with jack arched roofs crowning 18-feet-high ceilings. Once the King's Lodge hotel, the layout was well suited for a hospital, the central lobby and rooms with attached bathrooms on either side, a garage and workers' rooms at the rear.

Where the road behind this nursing homeSouter Street (Meghraj Sethi Marg)forks, Motlibai Street on the left brings me to Terrace View. Stepping into Soraya and Fabia Postel's penthouse Airbnb atop Noon Baker Apartments reveals uncommon charm. The sprightly mother and daughter lead me to the patio commanding a spectacular east-facing panorama of Baby Garden, Gloria Church and gleaming white Hasnabad dargah, considered the city's Taj Mahal. The Postels' location lets travellers connect within minutes to the bus depot and three stations of Bombay Central, Mahalaxmi and Byculla. "Throwing open our home has been life-changing and given me economic independence," says Soraya. "I have it in me to be welcoming. My parents would always greet me with the warmest smiles at our door."

Not resisting smoked mince samosas from an aromatic kitchen, I bask in the women's effervescent hospitality. A single mother and French teacher, Soraya is as passionate about taking guests on unusual customised "experiences". This week, her Supermen of the City tour has guided a group to understand the vital contribution of ragpickers, cleaners and washermen.

A late 1980s photograph of pianist Marialena Fernandes (in red) with her mother Hetty and sister Joanne, the famous singing trio of Meher Villa, 14 Club Road. Pic courtesy Marialena Fernandes

Desis and foreigners post a flood of reviews: "Ending an incredible 80-day journey throughout Indiathis oasis is the best lodging of my entire trip" and "I was nervous finding my correct train. They actually walked me to the platform and came aboard to make sure." Touched by them driving her to a mango vendor when she mentioned her mother loves the fruit, a Baltimorean looks forward "to be back to my new home in Mumbai".

Passing by a young swain softly murmur the achingly romantic "Palat ke dekhegi" dialogue, I finally enter Manoj Desai's office, crammed with jubilee trophies that celebrated blockbuster hits including Kabhi Kabhie, Mr India, Amir Garib and Coolie. Desai, also executive director of Bandra's G7 Multiplex, reels off real-life dramatic moments. Dilip Kumar rode a horse to K Asif's glittering premiere of Mughal-e-Azam at Maratha Mandir on August 5, 1960. Madhubala shone, vision-like, in a palanquin. The print arrived on festooned elephants.

Soraya Postel with her daughter Fabia on the sprawling terrace of the cosy Airbnb they run on neighbouring Motlibai Street. Pic/ Bipin Kokate

"Paying cheap prices, labourers from the area are able to relax for three hours with air-conditioned comfort and clean toilets," reasons Desai. "People make plans around DDLJ. Passengers boarding evening trains to Gujarat schedule time to catch our 11.30-2.30 show. Couples who dated here return bringing their children to watch the same. This phenomenon is like no other anywhere."

Imbibing much lively movie lore, I ready to leave. It's the hour of Tapsee Pannu acing the nuanced Thappad. But the craze for one film alone seems seeped into the very walls of this hall. "Come fall in love", the tagline invites. I hail a cab. Whose driver promptly asks, "Kitni baar dekha hain yeh picture aapne?"

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. Reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.mehermarfatia.com

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

Follow this link:
Marquee magic where the crepe jasmine grew - Mid-day

Human Behavior

Finding Connection and Resilience During the Coronavirus Pandemic – The New Yorker

Across the globe, a coronavirus culture is emerging, spontaneously and creatively, to deal with public fear, restrictions on daily life, and the tedious isolation of quarantine. This is a bad science-fiction movie that is real, Agustn Fuentes, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame, told me, in a late-night discussion this week, about how COVID-19 may alter the human journey. He envisions a profound evolutionary process to insure the survival of the species as pandemics become more common. Its already visible.

What is so important to humanity is connection. The kind of quarantinesin New York and Seattle, and what will happen in thousands of other places in the United Stateswill require people to connect in other ways, he said. One of the amazing things about the human speciesonce harmless critters not much more than monkeys running aroundis that, over time, we have become very creative. Weve adapted to survive. Thats what people will rely on nowcoming up with incredibly imaginative ways to find connections even when theyre not in the same physical space together.

In these early days of the global pandemic, human creativity has centered largely on simple forms of relief and release. In China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak and a nation where almost eight hundred million people have experienced some form of lockdown, night clubs that were forced to shut their doors have turned to virtual cloud clubbing. Viewers can watch d.j. sets on streaming platforms and send in messages to be read live, to create the illusion that they are connected. The new reality show Home Karaoke Station features famous singers taking requests, engaging with viewers, and performingfrom self-quarantine in their own homes. Shuttered gyms have offered workout classes online or via the popular WeChat social-messaging app. Other Chinese people on WeChat created a group looking for love under lockdown. In one of the twenty-plus mass-quarantine centers in Wuhan, the megacity where this coronavirus first emerged, women have turned to karaoke to lift the spirits of sequestered groups. At night, echoes of Wuhan Jiayouor Stay Strong Wuhanhave been heard as Chinese shout encouragement at each other from their windows.

In Iran, another of the COVID-19 red zones, doctors and nursesindividually and in groupshave participated in a coronavirus dance challenge, posting videos of themselves dancing to lively music in hazmat suits. Other medical staff in quarantine serenaded each other or brought instruments to perform for sequestered patients. A third-grade teacher in Khuzestan Province improvised to keep her classes going online after schools were closed nationwide. Stuck at home, she used the side of her refrigerator as a whiteboard. With a blue marker, she wrote out the rules, with diagrams, to explain how to calculate the area of squares, rectangles, and triangles. A photo of her lesson went viral on Twitter.

Over time, the impact of the novel coronavirus may be so sweeping that it alters human rituals and behaviors that have evolved over millennia. This could change everything from the way we conduct our economy to our greeting and grieving rituals, Fuentes said. Weve had plenty of things thrown up at us before, although this is on an unprecedented scale.

One of the keys to stemming the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, between 2013 and 2016, was changing long-standing traditions about dealing with the dead, including touching a corpse before burial. In just one case, in 2014, twenty-eight people became ill with Ebola from the three-day funeral of a prominent pharmacist in Sierra Leone; eight later died. The Ebola virus causes a horrific death. You bleed all your fluids out, Terrence Deacon, a professor of biological anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, told me. The worst thing you can do with Ebola is to touch the dead, because their bodies are filled with virus-filled fluids. People had to go in with guns to prevent families from interacting with their dead. Behavior changed; the epidemic eased.

Traditions develop because they fit the ecology and biology of the timesand get passed on because the people who do them are better off. The evolution of rituals has already begun in small waysnot congregating, not travelling, or attending meetings virtually. Around the world, many people have stopped shaking hands, a tradition that originated as a sign of trust but is now the most common way of transmitting the disease.

Were such a social species that its hard not to touch each other, Deacon said. So much of our communication is about touch. We dont have conventions about how to behave under circumstances like these. Well develop new cultural habits, new tricks, new mnemonics to get by. Were already experimenting. After the coronavirus outbreak, he attended a workshop of his peers at Stanford. People were bowing or touching elbows. We didnt know what to do, he said. But we knew we had to avoid shaking hands.

I asked Deacon if he thought COVID-19 would mark the end of the handshake. It could be, he replied. Behaviors are driven by the context. Shaking hands is about trust. If that behavior passes on a deadly virus, then it affects our trust markers.

Last week, Sylvie Briand, the director of the Department of Pandemic and Epidemic diseases at the World Health Organization, tweeted a cartoon of handshake alternatives, captioned the elbow, the Thai wai bow with hands together in front, and a sort of queenly wave. We need to adapt to this new disease, Briand wrote. In China, the so-called Wuhan shakea kind of foot-shake, tapping shoes togetheremerged initially in jest but soon in seriousness. At the ceremonial opening of a bridge in Tehran last month, the mayor and the provincial governor traded fist-bump gestures, coming close but not touching their hands.

In Europe, adaptations to COVID-19 even crept into Fashion Week last month. Giorgio Armani cancelled his show at Milan Fashion Week, and instead dbuted his winter collection from an empty theatre to an online audience. Even with no viewers, he opted to wear a face mask. At Paris Fashion Week, models for Marine Serre strode the catwalk in outfits with matching masks. Women in the front row of Dries Van Notens show were photographed wearing their own masks. In Croatia, the designer Zoran Aragovi, of the BiteMyStyle brand, created mask accessories in bright colors inspired by comic books, Pop art, and Disney characters. Theyre more fashion accessories than medical protection.

The need to adapt almost certainly will not end with a vaccine for COVID-19. The Darwinian story here is that we are in environments where these viruses mutate. The common cold is a coronavirus that keeps mutating. Viruses are evolution in actionon steroids, Deacon said. In the twenty-first century, changes in the pattern of human existencefrom global commerce and travel to climate changecould produce viruses that breed faster and move farther.

But Darwinian evolution is not necessarily all bad, Samuel Paul Veissire, an evolutionary anthropologist and the co-director of the Culture, Mind and Brain Program at McGill University, told me. Quarantines date to Neolithic timesand the transition from hunter-gathering to sedentary agricultural lifewhen zoonotic pathogens transferred from animals to humans produced infectious diseases and early epidemics. Communities eventually developed immunities to local diseases, but not to others nearby. Its quite possible that we evolved into being fearful of diseases and of strangers, he said. For millennia, people have been overly attentive to potential threats, because our psychological bias makes us assume that there are pathogens in other humans.

See more here:
Finding Connection and Resilience During the Coronavirus Pandemic - The New Yorker

Human Behavior

Opinion: Change your behavior now to prevent spread of COVID-19, implores Berkeley native quarantined in Italy – Berkeleyside

I am a Berkeley girl quarantined in Italy. Although the measures taken here are drastic, the coronavirus outbreak is not isolated in a distant paradise land of pizza and opera, but rather pressing on, inching closer to home each day.

Before moving to Italy, I lived my entire life in Berkeley. I am an alumna of Oxford Elementary, MLK Middle School, Berkeley High School and UC Berkeley. My Dansko clogs, Birkenstocks and mom jeans all came with me when I decided to take advantage of my Italian citizenship and explore life abroad to complete a masters in human rights, migration and development at the University of Bologna.

I moved a year ago with the specific goal to travel and create a strong international community. I travel by train for class, by plane for work, and by bus for everything else. An average week consists of dinner parties, aperitifs, concerts, art shows, lectures, coffee dates, teaching English in the local prison, museum visits, hikes, cultural festivals and picnics. There are always new adventures to other parts of Italy, to visit friends hometowns, explore hidden natural gems or see other expats.

Then, coronavirus landed. What started as an occasional dinner conversation turned, in a matter of weeks, to the most severe clampdown on personal freedoms in a European country since World War II. The quarantine is less dramatic than the American media outlets are portraying, yet simultaneously extremely serious and multifaceted. The series of unprecedented emergency measures published by the Italian government requires us to stay inside our homes. We cannot leave without a legally permissible reason like urgent work or grocery shopping and we are prohibited from gathering in groups. Parks, museums, cafes, restaurants and stores have been closed. Regulations are being implemented inconsistently dependent on regional autonomy. So, while I can still leave the house to take a short walk (with a permission document), friends in Milan are being stopped by police for trying to exercise that small freedom. For a country in which social lives are vibrant and present, where walks into the center of town are a normal daily activity, where public transportation is safe and works, this is a huge change. These measures, of course, pale in comparison to warfare and other horrors around the world but, as most people reading this and myself have spent most if not all their lives in the Global North, these events are unique and shocking.

While I write to give a greater understanding of my situation for friends and family back home, so many others are facing actual danger or harsher consequences. Some are just attempting like me to suddenly have to conceptualize a month at home while the sun is just beginning to peek out from behind the winter clouds. But I also have had many friends lose their jobs and fear deeply for their vulnerable elders or family with underlying health problems. Inmates in prisons are rioting because they are unable to see their loved ones. Six have died. Parents working from home are struggling to find or pay for childcare for kids whose schools have been closed. Others are unsure of when or how they will graduate from high school or university. Students who have been looking forward for years to a ceremony to celebrate their academic success, must defend their dissertations and graduate online. Funerals and weddings are canceled. Celebrations, birthdays and all other types of small and often forgettable privileges in life for 60 million people have been taken by this virus.

Yet more serious effects are still on the horizon. Small businesses are in crisis, stores and restaurants must close, and Italys already weak economy has a bleak forecast for the coming months. This comes as many are just getting back on their feet after the 2008 recession.

These new restrictive decrees were a response to the fact that, besides China, Italy has the most coronavirus cases with 15,113 confirmed and 1,016 deaths as of March 12. Coronavirus is not just a flu. Many need to be hospitalized for weeks in the ICU, yes especially the elderly and those with underlying health problems, but we have also seen those in their 30s and as young as 18 seek treatment. Theres a 14-day incubation period and we still have not reached the peak of cases. Even with these drastic measures, Italian hospitals are at capacity. In northern Italy, patients are being put in hallways because theres so little space. The government is considering converting warehouses into hospitals, and doctors, nurses and other medical staff are working nonstop. We do not have enough respirators for those most affected. Doctors are having to decide who out of the dozens of serious cases should be prioritized for a chance to live. The quarantine is drastic, but if Italy had not done everything in its power to stop the spread of the virus, this situation would have only gotten worse and the entire healthcare system would have completely collapsed.

Although coronavirus has put enormous stress on the country both financially and socially, unlike in the U.S., public health in Italy is viewed as a civic right and responsibility. What is often not in the headlines is that the high rate of cases is a result of Italys transparent reporting. Over 40,000 have been tested thanks to the accessible, universal Italian healthcare system. Although I feel the uncomfortable intrusion of the government, I have been humbled and inspired by the unity of the Italian people to sacrifice their freedom and economic growth for the protection of the most vulnerable in society. Italys restrictions, while harsh, have reflected a strong democracy as these laws are overall in alignment with the peoples will.

This quarantine foreshadows what is likely to become a more frequent part of life as climate change and other destabilizers will soon threaten us all in the same way that coronavirus has mutated Italy. Please do not view Italy, China or Iran as special cases. Germany, Japan and even home in the Bay Area are all experiencing outbreaks like that of Italys a few weeks ago. This is a global pandemic and I encourage you to take it seriously, yet also be wary of alarmist panic. Supermarkets do not need to be emptied and medical masks do not need to be bought. Wash your hands, reduce time in public spaces, stay home if you have any sort of fever and stop unnecessary travel.

This is not a post for the government or for administration, this is a plea from a Berkeley girl to all my fellow citizens in the Bay Area to act preemptively and change your behavior. It is everyones responsibility to mitigate the harm of this indiscriminate virus.

Continue reading here:
Opinion: Change your behavior now to prevent spread of COVID-19, implores Berkeley native quarantined in Italy - Berkeleyside