Genetics

Quinton Eriya Has The Genetics To Be A Future Mr. Olympia Threat – Fitness Volt

Canadian bodybuilder Quinton Eriya is set to return for his first bodybuilding contest in more than a year. Ahead of this event, he is looking like he has the potential to be a future star in the sport.

Eriya is just about three years into his bodybuilding career, having just three competitions under his belt so far, with his highest placing being 5th at the 2019 Toronto Pro. However he has a physique that represents what some have called the best genetics the sport has ever seen.

Whether that is true or not is up to interpretation, but one thing that is clear is that he is extremely aesthetic, and has been working to add mass to his impressive frame. He is set to return to action this weekend, for the first time in 2021, at the Romania Muscle Fest Pro, and the updates that he has been posting to his Instagram paint a picture of a severely improved physique.

One of the biggest takeaways from the 2021 Mr. Olympia, was the fact that the new generation of bodybuilders is beginning to make itself known. By all indications, Quinton Eriya is going to be one of the more impressive members of that group.

With competitors like Nick Walker and Hunter Labrada breaking through the top five at the Olympia, there seems to be a shift in the works. Now it seems that the judges are looking for a mix between the mass monsters like Big Ramy and more aesthetic physiques, which is something that Quinton represents well.

To be clear, being huge is still a relevant factor when it comes to judging, and truthfully Eriya still has some filling out to do if he wants to compete with the best in the world. However he has been making serious strides toward that, and if he can keep up the good work, there is little denying that he could be a future Olympia contender in no time.

As much as he seems to have future contender written all over him, the main objective now is for Quinton Eriya to take on the roster at the 2021 Romania Muscle Fest Pro, this weekend. If he is able to get a win or at least a solid placing, at this event, it will be a step in the right direction for this future star.

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Quinton Eriya Has The Genetics To Be A Future Mr. Olympia Threat - Fitness Volt

Genetics

Genetics, History, and the Mystery of Jewish Resilience Mosaic – Mosaic

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Genetics

Genetic Research Reveals New Clues for the Shared Origins of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Mental Health Disorders – SciTechDaily

Irritable bowel syndrome. Credit: Scientific Animations

An international study of more than 50,000 people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has revealed that IBS symptoms may be caused by the same biological processes as conditions such as anxiety. The research highlights the close relationship between brain and gut health and paves the way for development of new treatments.

IBS is a common condition world-wide, affecting around 1 in 10 people and causing a wide range of symptoms including abdominal pain, bloating, and bowel dysfunction that can significantly affect peoples lives. Diagnosis is usually made after considering other possible conditions (such as Crohns disease or bowel cancer), with clinical tests coming back normal. The condition often runs in families and is also more common among people who are prone to anxiety. The causes of IBS are not well understood, but an international team of researchers has now identified several genes that provide clues into the origins of IBS.

Although IBS occurs more frequently in those who are prone to anxiety, we dont believe that one causes the other our study shows these conditions have shared genetic origins. Miles Parkes

The research team, including more than 40 institutions and coordinated by scientists in UK and Spain, looked at genetic data from 40,548 people who suffer from IBS from the UK Biobank and 12,852 from the Bellygenes initiative (a world-wide study aiming to identify genes linked to IBS) and compared them to 433,201 people without IBS (controls), focusing on individuals of European ancestry. The findings were repeated with de-identified data from the genomics company 23andMe Inc., provided by customers who have consented to research, by comparing 205,252 people with IBS to 1,384,055 controls.

The results showed that overall, heritability of IBS (how much your genes influence the likelihood of developing a particular condition) is quite low, indicating the importance of environmental factors such as diet, stress and patterns of behavior that may also be shared in the family environment.

However, 6 genetic differences (influencing the genes NCAM1, CADM2, PHF2/FAM120A, DOCK9, CKAP2/TPTE2P3 and BAG6) were more common in people with IBS than in controls. As IBS symptoms affect the gut and bowel, it would be expected that genes associated with increased risk of IBS would be expressed there but this is not what the researchers found. Instead, most of the altered genes appear to have more clear-cut roles in the brain and possibly the nerves which supply the gut, rather than the gut itself.

Researchers also looked for overlap between susceptibility to IBS and other physical and mental health conditions. They found that the same genetic make-up that puts people at increased risk of IBS also increases the risk for common mood and anxiety disorders such as anxiety, depression, and neuroticism, as well as insomnia. However, the researchers stress that this doesnt mean that anxiety causes IBS symptoms or vice versa.

Study co-senior investigator and consultant gastroenterologist Professor Miles Parkes from the University of Cambridge explained: IBS is a common problem, and its symptoms are real and debilitating. Although IBS occurs more frequently in those who are prone to anxiety, we dont believe that one causes the other our study shows these conditions have shared genetic origins, with the affected genes possibly leading to physical changes in brain or nerve cells that in turn cause symptoms in the brain and symptoms in the gut.

The study also found that people with both IBS and anxiety were more likely to have been treated frequently with antibiotics during childhood. The study authors hypothesize that repeated use of antibiotics during childhood might increase the risk of IBS (and perhaps anxiety) by altering the normal gut flora (healthy bacteria that normally live in the gut) which in turn influence nerve cell development and mood.

Current treatments for IBS vary widely and include dietary changes, prescription medications targeting the gut or brain, or behavioral interventions. Lead author Chris Eijsbouts from the University of Oxford suggests that discovering genes that contribute to IBS may aid in the development of new treatments in the long term. He said: Even genetic changes that have only subtle effects on IBS can provide clues about pathways to target therapeutically. Unlike the individual genetic changes themselves, drugs targeting the pathways they tell us about may have a considerable impact on the condition, as we know from other disease areas.

Co-senior investigator Dr Luke Jostins from the University Oxford commented: We anticipate that future research will build on our discoveries, both by investigating the target genes identified and exploring the shared genetic risk across conditions to improve understanding of the disordered brain-gut interactions which characterize IBS.

IBS represents a remarkable challenge for genetic studies. These initial findings have been long awaited, and finally tell us this type of research is worth the struggle, added Ikerbasque Professor Mauro DAmato from CIC bioGUNE, co-senior investigator and coordinator of the Bellygenes initiative.

Reference: Genome-wide analysis of 53,400 people with irritable bowel syndrome highlights shared genetic pathways with mood and anxiety disorders by Chris Eijsbouts, Tenghao Zheng, Nicholas A. Kennedy, Ferdinando Bonfiglio, Carl A. Anderson, Loukas Moutsianas, Joanne Holliday, Jingchunzi Shi, Suyash Shringarpure, 23andMe Research Team, Alexandru-Ioan Voda, The Bellygenes Initiative, Gianrico Farrugia, Andre Franke, Matthias Hbenthal, Gonalo Abecasis, Matthew Zawistowski, Anne Heidi Skogholt, Eivind Ness-Jensen, Kristian Hveem, Tnu Esko, Maris Teder-Laving, Alexandra Zhernakova, Michael Camilleri, Guy Boeckxstaens, Peter J. Whorwell, Robin Spiller, Gil McVean, Mauro DAmato, Luke Jostins and Miles Parkes, 5 November 2021, Nature Genetics.DOI: 10.1038/s41588-021-00950-8

This research received funding and support from National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centres in Cambridge, Oxford, Nottingham and Manchester. Further funding and support was received from the Wellcome Trust, the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research in the UK, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Instituto Salud Carlos III), the Health Department of the Basque Government and the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsradet).

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Genetic Research Reveals New Clues for the Shared Origins of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Mental Health Disorders - SciTechDaily

Human Behavior

Opinion | You Are the Object of Facebooks Secret Extraction Operation – The New York Times

As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, surveillance capitalism is the dominant economic institution of our time. In the absence of countervailing law, this system successfully mediates nearly every aspect of human engagement with digital information. The promise of the surveillance dividend now draws surveillance economics into the normal economy, from insurance, retail, banking and finance to agriculture, automobiles, education, health care and more. Today all apps and software, no matter how benign they appear, are designed to maximize data collection.

Historically, great concentrations of corporate power were associated with economic harms. But when human data are the raw material and predictions of human behavior are the product, then the harms are social rather than economic. The difficulty is that these novel harms are typically understood as separate, even unrelated, problems, which makes them impossible to solve. Instead, each new stage of harm creates the conditions for the next stage.

All of it begins with extraction. An economic order founded on the secret massive-scale extraction of human data assumes the destruction of privacy as a nonnegotiable condition of its business operations. With privacy out of the way, ill-gotten human data are concentrated within private corporations, where they are claimed as corporate assets to be deployed at will.

The social effect is a new form of inequality, reflected in the colossal asymmetry between what these companies know about us and what we know about them. The sheer size of this knowledge gap is conveyed in a leaked 2018 Facebook document, which described its artificial intelligence hub, ingesting trillions of behavioral data points every day and producing six million behavioral predictions each second.

Next, these human data are weaponized as targeting algorithms, engineered to maximize extraction and aimed back at their unsuspecting human sources to increase engagement. Targeting mechanisms change real life, sometimes with grave consequences. For example, the Facebook Files depict Mr. Zuckerberg using his algorithms to reinforce or disrupt the behavior of billions of people. Anger is rewarded or ignored. News stories become more trustworthy or unhinged. Publishers prosper or wither. Political discourse turns uglier or more moderate. People live or die.

Occasionally the fog clears to reveal the ultimate harm: the growing power of tech giants willing to use their control over critical information infrastructure to compete with democratically elected lawmakers for societal dominance. Early in the pandemic, for example, Apple and Google refused to adapt their operating systems to host contact-tracing apps developed by public health authorities and supported by elected officials. In February, Facebook shut down many of its pages in Australia as a signal of refusal to negotiate with the Australian Parliament over fees for news content.

Thats why, when it comes to the triumph of surveillance capitalisms revolution, it is the lawmakers of every liberal democracy, especially in the United States, who bear the greatest burden of responsibility. They allowed private capital to rule our information spaces during two decades of spectacular growth, with no laws to stop it.

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Opinion | You Are the Object of Facebooks Secret Extraction Operation - The New York Times

Human Behavior

Scientist Camilla Pang On Being Neurodivergent And The Power Of Science : Short Wave – NPR

Scientist and author Camilla Pang turns her memoir into an instruction manual for life. Greg Barker/Penguin Books hide caption

Scientist and author Camilla Pang turns her memoir into an instruction manual for life.

Camilla Pang is a postdoctoral scientist and writer. When she was five years old, she asked her mother a vexing question: "Is there an instruction manual for humans - like a guidebook - something that explains why people behave the way they do?"

Years later, Pang was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. At the time, she simply felt like an outsider.

"No, Millie," her mother told her.

Pang did find answers and connection in her uncle's science textbooks. She began scribbling facts and figures in notebooks and reading about all kinds of science. She went on to obtain a Ph.D. in bioinformatics from University College London and she reached a place in her life where she had enough material to write the instruction manual she wished she'd had as a kid.

Short Wave host Emily Kwong talks with Pang about her memoir, An Outsiders Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do And Who We Are.

She says it is a guidebook for anyone searching for a blueprint to the human condition, pairing scientific principles with the more befuddling aspects of human behavior and daily life. In making tough decisions, Pang deploys lessons from machine learning. In seeking harmony in relationships, she turns to wave theory. Her writing is both prescriptive and reassuring and she ultimately wants to help people feel less alone.

"I think there's no greater empathy than enabling people to feel that they can do something, and be assuring them that what they feel is valid," Pang says.

The British version of the book, Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Love, Life and Relationships, won the Royal Society Science Book Prize in 2020. A paperback version of An Outsider's Guide to Humans will be available December 7, 2021 from Penguin Books.

This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Gisele Grayson and fact-checked by Margaret Cirino. The audio engineer was Leo Del Aguila.

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Scientist Camilla Pang On Being Neurodivergent And The Power Of Science : Short Wave - NPR

Human Behavior

Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic – The Apopka Voice

By Sara Sawyer, Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado Boulder; Arturo Barbachano-Guerrero, Postdoctoral Researcher in Virology, University of Colorado Boulder, and Cody Warren, Postdoctoral Fellow in Virology a

Now that kids ages 5 to 11 are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination and the number of fully vaccinated people in the U.S. is rising, many people may be wondering what the endgame is for COVID-19.

Early on in the pandemic, it wasnt unreasonable to expect that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) might just go away, since historically some pandemic viruses have simply disappeared.

For instance, SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the first SARS pandemic in 2003, spread to 29 countries and regions, infecting more than 8,000 people from November 2002 to July 2003. But thanks to quick and effective public health interventions, SARS-CoV hasnt been observed in humans in almost 20 years and is now considered extinct.

On the other hand, pandemic viruses may also gradually settle into a relatively stable rate of occurrence, maintaining a constant pool of infected hosts capable of spreading the virus to others. These viruses are said to be endemic.

Examples of endemic viruses in the United States include those that cause the common cold and the seasonal flu that appear year after year. Much like these, the virus that causes COVID-19 likely wont die out, and most experts now expect it to become endemic.

We are a team of virologists and immunologists from the University of Colorado Boulder studying animal viruses that infect humans. An essential focus of our research is to identify and describe the key adaptations that animal viruses require to persist in the human population.

So why did the first SARS virus from 2003 (SARS-CoV) go extinct while this one (SARS-CoV-2) may become endemic?

The ultimate fate of a virus depends on how well it maintains its transmission. Generally speaking, viruses that are highly contagious, meaning that they spread really well from one person to the next, may never die out on their own because they are so good at finding new people to infect.

When a virus first enters a population with no immunity, its contagiousness is defined by scientists using a simple mathematical term, called R0, which is pronounced R-naught. This is also referred to as the reproduction number. The reproduction number of a virus represents how many people, on average, are infected by each infected person. For example, the first SARS-CoV had an R0 of about 2, meaning that each infected person passes the virus to two people on average. For the delta variant strain of SARS-CoV-2, the R0 is between 6 and 7.

The goal for public health authorities is to slow the rate by which viruses spread. Universal masking, social distancing, contact tracing and quarantines are all effective tools to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses. Since SARS-CoV was poorly transmissible, it just took a little bit of public health intervention to drive the virus to extinction. Given the highly transmissible nature of the delta variant, the challenge for eliminating the virus will be much greater, meaning that the virus is more likely to become endemic.

Its clear that SARS-CoV-2 is very successful at finding new people to infect, and that people can get infected after vaccination. For these reasons, the transmission of this virus is not expected to end. Its important that we consider why SARS-CoV-2 moves so easily from one person to the next, and how human behavior plays into that virus transmission.

SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus that is spread through the air and is efficiently transmitted when people congregate. Critical public health interventions, like mask use and social distancing, have been key in slowing the spread of disease. However, any lapse in these public health measures can have dire consequences. For instance, a 2020 motorcycle rally brought together nearly 500,000 people in Sturgis, South Dakota, during the early phases of the pandemic. Most of the attendees were unmasked and not practicing social distancing. That event was directly responsible for an increase in COVID-19 cases in the state of South Dakota and nationwide. This shows how easily the virus can spread when people let their guard down.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is often associated with superspreading events, in which many people are infected all at once, typically by a single infected individual. In fact, our own work has shown that just 2% of the people infected with COVID-19 carry 90% of the virus that is circulating in a community. These important supercarriers have a disproportionately large impact on infecting others, and if they arent tracked down before they spread the virus to the next person, they will continue to sustain the epidemic. We currently dont have a nationwide screening program geared toward identifying these individuals.

Finally, asymptomatically infected people account for roughly half of all infections of COVID-19. This, when coupled with a broad range of time in which people can be infectious two days before and 10 days after symptoms appear affords many opportunities for virus transmission, since people who dont know they are sick generally take few measures to isolate from others.

The contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2 and our highly interconnected society constitute a perfect storm that will likely contribute to sustained virus spread.

Given the considerations discussed above and what we know about COVID-19 so far, many scientists believe that the virus that causes COVID-19 will likely settle into endemic patterns of transmission. But our inability to eradicate the virus does not mean that all hope is lost.

Our post-pandemic future will heavily depend on how the virus evolves over the coming years. SARS-CoV-2 is a completely new human virus that is still adapting to its new host. Over time, we may see the virus become less pathogenic, similar to the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold, which represent little more than a seasonal nuisance.

Global vaccination programs will have the greatest impact on curbing new cases of the disease. However, the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine campaign so far has touched only a small percentage of people on the planet. In addition, breakthrough infections in vaccinated people still occur because no vaccine is 100% effective. This means that booster shots will likely be needed to maximize vaccine-induced protection against infection.

With global virus surveillance and the speed at which safe and effective vaccines have been developed, we are well poised to tackle the ever-evolving target that is SARS-CoV-2. Influenza is endemic and evolves quickly, but seasonal vaccination enables life to go on as normal. We can expect the same for SARS-CoV-2 eventually.

Four seasonal coronaviruses circulate in humans endemically already. They tend to recur annually, usually during the winter months, and affect children more than adults. The virus that causes COVID-19 has not yet settled down into these predictable patterns and instead is flaring up unpredictably around the globe in ways that are sometimes difficult to predict.

Once rates of SARS-CoV-2 stabilize, we can call it endemic. But this transition may look different based on where you are in the world. For instance, countries with high vaccine coverage and plentiful boosters may soon settle into predictable spikes of COVID-19 during the winter months when the environmental conditions are more favorable to virus transmission. In contrast, unpredictable epidemics may persist in regions with lower vaccination rates.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

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Is COVID-19 here to stay? A team of biologists explains what it means for a virus to become endemic - The Apopka Voice

Human Behavior

How COVID Broke the Way We Respond to Crises, and Why Experts Are Terrified of What’s Next – Daily Beast

The COP26 climate change conference held by the UN is finally at a close. World leaders and representatives descended on Glasgow for two weeks to hash out plans to save the planet from calamity, all in the midst of an ongoing public health crisis. The intersection of these two crises is remarkablenot least because how Americans have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic may be illustrative of how the country will react to an even greater threat. And for psychologists and other experts of human behavior, we should be terrified.

In a time of crisis, people tend to come together. It frequently happens after natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, and during times of national strife like WWII and the months after 9/11. Regardless of their differences, people typically try to do what they can to help others when theyre facing dire circumstances.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not, however, been a time of national healing and unity in the U.S. Debates over lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination only exacerbated divisions. Polarized politics maimed the public health response to COVID. The pandemic brightened the spotlight on how tribal America has become.

Whats so strange about what happened with COVID is the world handed Republicans and Democrats a common enemyof the COVID virusand everyone could have joined together to fight it, Jon Krosnick, a social psychologist at Stanford University told The Daily Beast. In fact, it went the opposite way.

Psychologists like Krosnick have been stunned by this outcome. And they fear it is a stark warning for what may happen when climate changeone of the biggest existential threats humanity has ever facedbecomes a greater threat in our daily lives.

To better understand how psychologists have traditionally viewed human behavior in times of crisis, it may be helpful to take a look at something called the Robbers Cave experiment. In the summer of 1954, social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues brought two groups of 11-year-old boys to a summer camp and had each group socialize and do activities in their own respective areas, with only members of their own group. They were called the Eagles and the Rattlers.

The researchers then brought these two teams together and had them compete for prizes through activities like football and hunting for treasure. A fierce rivalry soon developed between these teamsthey even started burning each others team flags.

At this point, the researchers introduced a common threat: The water supply had been cut off, and they had to work together to solve that problem. That was just one of the outside threats they introduced. Sherif and his colleagues found that in the presence of something called a superordinate goala need that can only be addressed together, for the common goodthe rivalry dissipated.

According to Krosnick, this is typically what you would expect from people. When theres a common enemy, groups that are typically at odds will join forces to face it.

Some of the participants in the Robbers Cave experiment.

The British Psychological Society/University of Akron

Thats not what weve seen in this country during the COVID-19 pandemic. One study published in Science Advances in January found that partisanship is a far more important determinant of an individuals response to the COVID-19 pandemic than the impact of COVID-19 in that individuals local community. Regardless of what the public health guidelines and rules were where they lived, Democrats were more likely to stay home when infection rates in their community spiked; while Republicans were more likely to go out.

Krosnick was shocked the crisis wasnt a unifying moment. He said its clear politics has brought us to a place where we cant come together at times when one would expect that we would.

Its literally life or death. It couldnt have been any more non-trivial than it has been. For partisanship to win out over that is an amazing thing, Krosnick said. Its a testimony to how powerful partisanship is.

Peter Coleman, a psychologist at Columbia University, told The Daily Beast that we may be learning that national crises are no longer sufficient to overcome polarization in America. He said the political climate has become very reactionary and tribal.

I think were in an us vs. them place, and I think it could get worse, Coleman said.

The failure of Americans to come together during the pandemic doesnt inspire hope that Americans will be able to unite to face an even bigger crisis: climate change. President Bidens appearance at the UNs climate change summit in Glasgow this month was hampered by the fact Congress cant seem to come together to pass the Build Back Better bill to address the climate issue. Even more fundamentally, cultural divisions in America could greatly intensify if climate change gets bad enough that people are feeling desperate, angry and lacking basic resources.

If it turns out that we start to run out of resourcesif we start running out of food, if we start running out of places to live, if the price of air conditioning goes way up so poor people are getting cooked at homethat kind of stuff very much has the potential to create social conflict, Krosnick said.

Between the constant wildfires out West, a battery of hurricanes hitting the South every year, and temperatures increasing annually, there are concerns that civil society could burst at the seams if things continue to get worse and resources start to become much more scarce.

Its literally life or death. It couldnt have been any more non-trivial than it has been. For partisanship to win out over that is an amazing thing.

Jon Krosnick

Humans arent particularly good at responding to those kinds of conditions, Coleman added. When we dont feel like our basic needs are covered and were facing great uncertainty, we dont tend to behave logically.

I think it puts us on edge, and when were in places where were exhausted, worried, frustratedwe tend not to be our best selves, Coleman said. Were more easily manipulated, and theres so much manipulation thats been happening.

Climate change could exacerbate divisions in a number of ways. People may differ on how to respond to disasters based on whether a more conservative or more liberal area is facing the worst conditions. We could see subdivisions along class lines because the wealthy arent facing the brunt of the issue, Krosnick said.

Polls do show the vast majority of Americans76 percent see climate change as an important or critical threat. Where we tend to divide in these polls is when were asked what to do about the problem.

Ezra Markowitz, an environmental social scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told The Daily Beast that its sometimes the belief that society is very divided that is the hardest problem to tackle. That belief can affect how people behave and how they view others.

Theres the potential for climate change to be taken seriously in future years, across the board, but it still leads to very divisive responses, Markowitz said.

One way we could help fix these perceptions, Markowitz said, is by simply informing people what the people in their area think about these issues. He pointed to the Yale Climate Opinion Maps as a good example of how this can be done. If people know that were not quite as divided as we might think we are, that could help reduce conflict and encourage consensus actions.

The Yale Climate Opinion Map lets you zoom in on different parts of the country and see what people in those areas think about climate change.

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

Coleman said were not particularly good at reducing tensions with people we disagree with on our own, so we need more organizations working on mediating these kinds of conversations in our communities. A trained professional can help make such conversations more fruitful. He said it has to be treated like a widespread addiction.

I liken our current state of toxic polarization to addiction, said Coleman, because toxic polarization is a biopsychosocial structural phenomenon, which means its in my neurological structures now. Im easily triggered by things. Its in my psychology. Its in the relationships that I do have and dont have. Its in my social networks. Its in my social media. Im surrounded by this thing.

Like an addiction, what you have to start to realize is that its bigger than you, and you cant just deal with it yourself. You need some kind of support for that.

We could have people engage in a kind of group therapy, Coleman said. Those who have been most influenced by increasing polarization couldif theyre able to recognize the signsbe persuaded to enter into a program to help them essentially get deprogrammed. This could help them identify whats contributing to this tribal mindset and change their perspective long-term.

If it sounds like many of these solutions take their cues from mental health therapies, thats not entirely a coincidence. America is still very flawed when it comes to addressing the mental health needs of its citizens, but we have seen a rising awareness of these issues over the last several years, and Coleman and others suggest that applying these strategies on a grander scale could bring America back to unifying around superordinate goals.

These kinds of initiatives will have to be made a priority soon. In the aftermath of the Trump administrations dismantling of many critical climate initiatives, COP26 was a welcome course correction, if a bit too modest. Even the U.S. and China managed to come together on a joint pledge for reducing carbon emissions.

But those initiatives wont go anywhere if the next president simply reverses them like the previous one didand they will have no qualms with doing so if half the country gives their consent. The window to save the world from climate-related reckoning is shrinking with every passing month, and its better to be prepared than caught off guard.

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How COVID Broke the Way We Respond to Crises, and Why Experts Are Terrified of What's Next - Daily Beast

Human Behavior

How Would Your Prayer Life Change If You Saw It As An Opportunity For Fellowship, Rather Than An Obligation? – WFMZ Allentown

LANDENBERG, Pa., Nov. 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Author Barbara A. Richmond shares to enlighten the purpose and benefits of prayer as well as the effects of prayerlessness in Men Ought Always to Pray: God Wants an Intimate Relationship ($58.99, paperback, 9781662834011; $9.99, e-book, 9781662834028).

Even though He had no sins to confess and knew the Father better than anyone, Jesus spent a good chunk of His earthly life praying. He encouraged His followers to pray as well, providing them with a model prayer to get them started. Richmond takes His example and other Biblical teachings and helps readers see the true purpose behind prayer and how to achieve the sweet fellowship God offers.

"Prayer is the most earnest way we exemplify our love to God. During prayer, we are most conscious of God's presence, and this is the time that we can give all of our being to Him," said Richmond.

Dr. Barbara A. Richmond is a highly educated, anointed woman of God who loves to pray. She is an ordained minister, pastor and evangelist with a Ph.D. in Human Behavior, a Master's in Psychology and a Certificate in Biblical Studies.

###

Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the world's largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 15,000 titles published to date. Men Ought Always to Pray is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com.

Media Contact

Dr. Barbara A. Richmond, Salem Author Services, 484-751-7551, Barbyalobruc2@gmail.com

SOURCE Xulon Press

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How Would Your Prayer Life Change If You Saw It As An Opportunity For Fellowship, Rather Than An Obligation? - WFMZ Allentown

Human Behavior

Teen Girls Survive Tragic Accident, Only To Have To Take Drastic Action To Stay Alive In Yellowjackets – Forbes

(L-R): Jane Widdop as Laura Lee, Alexa Barajas Plante as Mari, Mya Lowe, Courtney Eaton as Lottie, ... [+] Sophie Thatcher as Natalie, Princess Davis and Sophie Nlisse as Shauna in YELLOWJACKETS.

If she was to become stranded in the wilderness, Christine Ricci feels like she would know what to do.

I'm personally a huge survival TV fan, she says, I know how to do pull-ups, because I know if you fall off a cliff, you need to be able to pull your body weight onto things.So, I would actually do very well, she says with a slight laugh.

She may not exactly need that knowledge for her new show, because its a scripted series, but it is all about survival.

Ricci and a bevy of actresses star in Yellowjackets, a drama about a high school girls soccer team who survive a plane crash deep in the wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a thriving team to a cannibalistic clan, while also tracking them years later as they attempt to move forward in their lives.

Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress, and Ricci portray the teammates as adults, while Sophie Nlisse, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Ella Purnell play the teammates in their younger years.

Lynskey says that she was drawn to the project because, honestly, I just was so excited to read something that was so different. There was a genuine edge to this, and I really loved [that] it was so female centered; the story really got to the heart of female relationships.

Lewis agrees, adding, This script was one of the best scripts I'd read in the last ten plus years. It was absolutely riveting on the page, which is so rare. And I'm always interested in dichotomies or contrasts and all these multi-layered problems within a human being.

For Nlisse, her interest was heightened by the extreme conditions examined in the series. I think we've all imagined what it would be like to be facing a life and death situation.It brings out the worst in us, but also the best in us. We all think we know ourselves, until we're put in this situation.[So], just to see how far these women will go is just very interesting.

Playing the same character, Lewis and Thatcher connected in a unique manner, says Lewis. Sophie and I, we would just share music. We had old music swapping that was fun.

Music was a really big thing for me, because I think it's really important to her, says Thatcher. She also recalled, one of our first phone calls how [Juliette] talked about how the way that [our character] dresses is just so important. We were just on the same path.

Working with their younger counterparts was inspiring, admits Lynskey. seeing the [them] and how much talent there is, and [seeing] people who are just so full of enthusiasm and that their voices are so strong.

Crafting the narrative, Creator/Executive Producer/Showrunner Ashley Lyle says that, we knew we didn't want to be a show about what happened, but about why it happened.And, what was interesting to us about having it be a championship soccer team is that it's all about collaboration.

She adds, Spoiler alert:[this is ] not really a soccer show. It's about how these girls were able to really work together as a group, and then to see how that might really start to fall apart and shatter over the course of a season.

Director Karyn Kusama give her take on the series, saying that its, asking a larger question.

She explains her thought-process with, to go from keggers and carpools and winning a soccer match in high school, to something so extreme, it begs the question of What are people capable of?So, it creates this internal suspense and an internal set of questions that help drive the whole series.

With this in mind, Kusama feels that what Yellowjackets is truly exploring isnt just about survival, its really about the mysteries of human behavior.

Yellowjackets airs Sundays at 10e/p on Showtime and is available for streaming at Showtime.com.

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Teen Girls Survive Tragic Accident, Only To Have To Take Drastic Action To Stay Alive In Yellowjackets - Forbes

Human Behavior

Five Poets Who Find Music in the Personal, the Political or in Music Itself – The New York Times

HOWDIE-SKELPBy Paul Muldoon179 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27.

Howdie-skelp: the slap a midwife gives a newborn. Poem-sequences dominate Muldoons storm of slaps against piety, prudery, cruelty and greed. American Standard, named after a toilet brand, riffs for pages on lines from T. S. Eliots The Waste Land while churning through contemporary concerns like gerrymandering, immigration, and grotesque politicians and their media platforms. Like Eliot, Muldoons after big, apocalyptic vision; unlike Eliot, Muldoon is willing no, compelled to clown.

In one long sequence Muldoon dives into the human ook that underlies great paintings. His bawdiness is political. Muldoons version of Leonardos Last Supper pictures the tablecloth as Mary Magdalenes bedsheet, the crease in it A gutter filled with candle grease. / The semen stain where Judas spilled his salt. Like many important poets before him, from John Milton to Tim Rice, Muldoon knows that sinners and villains are more interesting, maybe more human, than self-appointed good guys. Poems, for Muldoon, are occasions to plumb the language for a truth thats abysmal: as in appalling, and as in deep. Its clear that underneath the play Muldoon is furious, maybe even terrified, about the state of things.

PLAYLIST FOR THE APOCALYPSEPoemsBy Rita Dove114 pp. Norton. $26.95.

Plenty of poems here address disability, history and quotidian human behavior, but racism and economic oppression are the former poet laureates primary concerns in this book, her first in 12 years. In Aubade West, set in Ferguson, Mo., the speaker might be Michael Brown or anyone subject to poverty and racism in a small town. A day just like all the others, / me out here on the streets / skittery as a bug crossing a skillet. In less fraught poems, Doves affable voice occupies a tonal middle distance. I love the hour before takeoff, / that stretch of no time, no home, she writes in Vacation, observing a bachelorette trying / to ignore a babys wail, and an athlete waiting to board like a seal trained for the plunge. The poem doesnt lift off, and doesnt want to after all, the passengers are still at the gate. But Bellringer, the books first poem, certainly does. Here Dove assumes the voice of Henry Martin, born to slavery at Monticello the day Thomas Jefferson died, who worked as a bellringer at the University of Virginia. Voiced by Dove, Martin imagines that, hearing his bells ring, down in that/ shining, blistered republic, /someone will pause to whisper / Henry!and for a moment / my name flies free. A fitting way to start a book trying to understand saving graces and the things they save us from.

Explore the New York Times Book Review

Want to keep up with the latest and greatest in books? This is a good place to start.

PROGNOSISPoemsBy Jim Moore102 pp. Graywolf. Paper, $16.

I am still so very thirsty, ends one poem in Prognosis. Moore is preoccupied with old age, loneliness, mortality, and also with the American body politics own failure. These are poems of arresting lyric reportage; whimsical, tragic, a touch fantastical. Watching from a window in The Pandemic Halo the poet notices a glow appearing around the nurse who wears a pink cape and parks / in the lot across from me, almost always empty now.

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Five Poets Who Find Music in the Personal, the Political or in Music Itself - The New York Times