Sources of Thought Two 19th-century Chronobiologists: Thomas Laycock and Edward Smith

This article describes the works of two 19th-century chronobiologists. Thomas Laycock (1812-1876), who held the Chair of Medicine in Edinburgh from 1855-1876, published a series of seven articles in Lancet, all dedicated to periodicities in “vital phenomena.” Laycock considered the understanding of periodicities essential for the advancement of the treatment of diseases. Edward Smith (1818-1874) was a pioneer in experimental chronobiology. In his 1861 book entitled: Health and disease as influenced by daily, seasonal and other cyclical changes in the human, Smith summarized a large number of experiments in which he investigated the occurrence of periodicities in pulse rate, urine flow, urea excretion, and respiration. From his experimental results and those of others, Smith drew practical conclusions regarding patients' care, the timing of drug administration, and the design of night work.     

Two 19th-century Chronobiologists: Thomas Laycock and Edward Smith by P. Lavie

Lavie has written an admirably clear account of some of the work of Laycock and Smith, two researchers whom he considers to be pioneers of chronobiology. In making an assessment of this claim, we will consider two areas in particular: collecting data and interpreting results.     

Two 19th-century chronobiologists: Thomas Laycock and Edward Smith.

This article describes the works of two 19th-century chronobiologists. Thomas Laycock (1812-1876), who held the Chair of Medicine in Edinburgh from 1855-1876, published a series of seven articles in Lancet, all dedicated to periodicities in "vital phenomena." Laycock considered the understanding of periodicities essential for the advancement of the treatment of diseases. Edward Smith (1818-1874) was a pioneer in experimental chronobiology. In his 1861 book entitled: Health and disease as influenced by daily, seasonal and other cyclical changes in the human, Smith summarized a large number of experiments in which he investigated the occurrence of periodicities in pulse rate, urine flow, urea excretion, and respiration. From his experimental results and those of others, Smith drew practical conclusions regarding patients' care, the timing of drug administration, and the design of night work.     

Pioneers of exfoliative cytology in the 19th century: the predecessors of George Papanicolaou

The purpose of our study was to summarize the knowledge on exfoliative cytology during the 19th century and to track down Papanicolaou's predecessors. A thorough study of texts, medical books and reports, together with a review of the available literature in PubMed, was undertaken. The study of cytological preparations as a diagnostic procedure can be traced back to the work of the famous French microscopist Alfred François Donné. However, the systematic study and the criteria for the diagnosis of malignant cells should be attributed to Johannes Müller. The increasing interest in the cytological examination of various fluids of the human body can be confirmed by a plethora of studies published during this period. By the end of the 19th century, the invention of new techniques in pathology, such as the introduction of cell block techniques, tissue sections and new staining methods which provided the opportunity to study surgical specimens in three dimensions, led to a decrease in the interest in exfoliative cytology, which was re‐discovered by George Papanicolaou almost three decades later.     

Stature, economy and migration during the 19th century: Comparative analysis of Haute-Vienne and Hautes-Alpes, France

Data sources are achieved records of men workers' passbooks and registry for work permits in two rural parts of Southern France. We obtained three samples: masons from Rancon, a Limousin village, local sedentary alpine workers and Italian immigrants. The results obtained provide two types of information. The first concerns adult height, which is thought to be a result of both a growth pattern and environmental factors. The second concerns growth rates at the end of adolescence. The results seem to contradict the statements made above concerning the relationships between misery, elevation and height. While the alpine inhabitants are shorter, the Limousin inhabitants are taller in sprite they live in a miserable environment. It appears that taller individuals select themselves into migration. Thus, this model would contradict the idea of a regional genetic base.     

Lasting the distance: The survival of alien birds shipped to New Zealand in the 19th century

Invasive alien species are a major threat to biodiversity and human activities, providing a strong incentive to understand the processes by which alien invasion occurs. While it is important to understand the determinants of success at each of several invasion stages—transport, introduction, establishment, and spread—few studies have explored the first of these stages. Here, we quantify and analyze variation in the success of individual animals in surviving the transport stage, based on shipping records of European passerines destined for New Zealand. We mined the original documents of Acclimatisation Societies, established in New Zealand for the purpose of introducing supposedly beneficial alien species, in combination with recently digitized newspaper archives, to produce a unique dataset of 122 ships that carried passerines from Europe to New Zealand between 1850 and 1885. For 37 of these shipments, data on the survival of individual species were available. Using generalized linear mixed models, we explored how survival was related to characteristics of the shipments and the species. We show that species differed greatly in their survival, but none of the tested traits accounted for these differences. Yet, survival increased over time, which mirrors the switch from early haphazard shipments to larger organized shipments. Our results imply that it was the quality of care received by the birds that most affected success at this stage of the invasion process.     

Dendrochronological dating and provenance determination of a 19th century whaler in Patagonia (Puerto Madryn,Argentina)

Dendrochronological methods have been widely used to determine the date of construction and provenance of shipwrecks. Despite a large number of shipwrecks, the application of dendroarchaeological techniques is relatively incipient in the coasts of South America. This paper presents the results of a dendroarchaeological study conducted at the shipwreck site "Bahía Galenses" (BG), located in the western sector of Golfo Nuevo, on the Patagonian coast of the South Atlantic Ocean. Based on previous archaeological research, two hypotheses were tested in this study. First, the wreck described in the BG 2 sub-site corresponds to a mid-19th-century whaler built in the northeastern US. Second, these remains correspond to the Dolphin, a northeastern American whaler built in Warren (Rhode Island) in 1850 and shipwrecked in the Atlantic coast of Patagonia in 1859. Using dendroarchaeological provenance methods and a novel approach based on the gridded North American Drought Atlas, we found highly significant correlations between the wreck's tree-ring width series and white oak and yellow pine tree-ring reference chronologies from the eastern US. The latest non-cutting dates obtained in this analysis correspond to the year 1849. To our knowledge, our study pioneered the use of dendrochronological methods for dating and establishing the provenance of a whaler's remains on the Atlantic coast of South America and encourages the feasibility for future dendroarchaeological research based on the large number of wooden shipwrecks that occurred in the region.     

"And This Is How You Shall Ask": Linguistics, Anthropology, and Education in the Work of David Smith

This article celebrates the life and work of David M. Smith, former Council on Anthropology and Education president and founder of the University of Pennsylania Ethnography in Education Research Forum, tracing his contributions to the fields of linguistics, anthropology, and education through the dual lens of his ten research principles and Walt Whitman's life advice. David Smith's pioneering efforts helped push disciplinary boundaries and generate innovations in sociolinguistics, pidgin and creole linguistics, ethnography and education, sociocultural studies of literacy, and Indigenous studies.     

Quantitative analysis of favipiravir and hydroxychloroquine as FDA-approved drugs for treatment of COVID-19 using synchronous spectrofluorimetry: application to pharmaceutical formulations and biological fluids

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious viral infection caused by coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome. It has ravaged several countries and burdened many healthcare systems. As the process of authorizing a novel treatment for human use is extensive and involves multiple phases to obtain safety information and identify potential concerns. Therefore, the fastest and easiest choice was to use United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA)-approved drugs such as favipiravir and hydroxychloroquine. For the simultaneous estimation of both medications, a simple synchronous spectrofluorimetric approach was established in which both drugs were measured at 372 and 323 nm, respectively in the presence of each other without interference at Δλ 60 nm. The effect of various experimental conditions on synchronous fluorescence intensities were thoroughly investigated and optimized. The maximum synchronous fluorescence intensities were obtained at pH 5.4 using acetate buffer (0.2 M, 0.5 ml) and ethanol as a diluent. Excellent linearity ranges were obtained using 1.0–18.0 ng/ml and 10.0–120.0 ng/ml for favipiravir and hydroxychloroquine, respectively. The approach exhibited high sensitivity with detection limits down to 0.25 ng/ml and 1.52 ng/ml and quantitation limits down to 0.77 ng/ml and 4.62 ng/ml, respectively. Spiking human plasma samples with the studied drugs yielded high % recoveries, allowing a significant bioanalytical application. Moreover, the method was validated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines and further applied to commercial pharmaceutical preparations with good results.     

An unethical trial and the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: The case of Prevent Senior

The Brazilian Federal Senate created a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) to investigate the Bolsonaro government's irregularities in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the cases that drew attention was the research conducted by Prevent Senior, a private health insurance company, on the early treatment of COVID-19. The article analyzes the scientific validity of the research and the ethical problems related to its implementation. It is based on analysis of Prevent Senior's report of the clinical study, the Brazilian and USA clinical trial registries, the Senate's CPI report, and on the information reported by the media. This case of scientific fraud and political-ideological bias exemplifies how Prevent Senior, using a questionable protocol to enhance its reputation and gain government support, was instrumental in building the “early treatment” narrative for COVID-19, and shows how it served as a basis for a government public policy that promoted the use of ineffective drugs.     

Justifying the risks of COVID-19 challenge trials: The analogy with organ donation

In the beginning of the COVID pandemic, researchers and bioethicists called for human challenge trials to hasten the development of a vaccine for COVID. However, the fact that we lacked a specific, highly effective treatment for COVID led many to argue that a COVID challenge trial would be unethical and we ought to pursue traditional phase III testing instead. These ethical objections to challenge trials may have slowed the progress of a COVID vaccine, so it is important to evaluate their merit. One common way of doing so is to make an analogy to other social practices that are relevantly similar and which we currently sanction. We submit that non-directed live organ donation (NDLOD) is a promising analogy. After arguing that the risks to volunteers for each activity appear similar, we explore potential disanalogies that would undermine the comparison. We note that there are differences in both the kind and certainty of benefit secured by NDLOD compared to challenge trials. We conclude these differences are insufficient to make NDLOD permissible and challenge trials impermissible. Ultimately, if we think the risks associated with NDLOD are ethically permissible, then we should think the same of the risks associated with COVID challenge trials.     

Contribution of physiologists to the identification of the humoral component of immunity in the 19th century

The history of antimicrobial humoral immunity usually focuses on the works of the German school at the end of the 19th century, born in the tradition of chemistry and disinfection. Starting from an old quarrel of priority about serotherapy between Emil von Behring (1854–1917) and the French physiologists Charles Richet (1850–1935) and Jules Héricourt (1850–1938), we first confirm that the latter stated the principle of serotherapy in 1888 and put it into practice before the seminal Behring's article in 1890, observing several adverse effects of this new immunotherapy. We also find that researchers who can be considered heirs of the French school of Physiology founded by Claude Bernard (1813–1878) also investigated the field of humoral immunity in the 1870–1880s. Maurice Raynaud (1834–1881), Auguste Chauveau (1827–1917), and eventually Charles Richet applied the experimental method of Claude Bernard to the young field of microbiology, illustrating a movement called by Jacques Léonard “physiologization of the pasteurism.” However, the contribution of physiologists in this field started before Louis Pasteur, leading to the conclusion that physiologists and chemists synergistically contributed to the birth of bacteriology and immunology.     

Labor and the Human Relationship with Nature: The Naturalization of Politics in the Work of Thomas Henry Huxley, Herbert George Wells, and William Morris

Historically labor has been central to humaninteractions with the environment, yetenvironmentalists pay it scant attention. Indeed, they have been critical of those whoforeground labor in their politics, socialistsin particular. However, environmentalists havefound the nineteenth-century socialist WilliamMorris appealing despite the fact that he wroteextensively on labor. This paper considers theplace of labor in the relationship betweenhumanity and the natural world in the work ofMorris and two of his contemporaries, theeminent scientist Thomas Henry Huxley, and theFabian socialist Herbert George Wells. Isuggest that Morris's conception of labor hasmuch to recommend it to environmentalists whoare also interested in issues of socialjustice.     

Family size and vaccination among older individuals: The case of COVID-19 vaccine

While vaccination is generally considered efficient in protecting against transmissible diseases, the compliance is not complete in many countries. In this study, we investigate how an individual-specific factor – family size – affects the probability of getting vaccinated against COVID-19. To answer this research question, we focus on individuals above 50 years of age, who are at a higher risk of developing severe symptoms. The analysis uses the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe Corona wave, conducted in the summer of 2021. To identify the effect of family size on vaccination, we exploit an exogenous variation in the probability of having more than two children, due to the sex composition of two firstborns. We document that a larger family size increases the probability of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine among older individuals. This impact is economically and statistically significant. We propose several potential mechanisms behind this result and document that family size can be related to the higher probability of being exposed to the disease. This effect can be by knowing someone who tested positive for COVID-19 or had symptoms similar to it, and by network size and frequency of contact with children, before the outbreak of COVID-19.     

Two new subspecies of Bacillus thuringiensis isolated in Japan: Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kumamotoensis (serotype 18) and Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. tochigiensis (serotype 19)

Bacteriological and serological characteristics of three Bacillus thuringiensis isolates obtained in Japan were investigated. They formed typical rhomboidal parasporal inclusions but flagellar (H) antigens of these isolates were different from those of the known 17 H serotypes of B. thuringiensis. The three isolates were divided into two new serotypes (serotypes 18 and 19). The serotype 18 isolate (3–71) produced thermostable exotoxin and the inclusions of this isolate were toxic to larvae of the silkworm, Bombyx mori, but nontoxic to larvae of the mosquito, Aedes aegypti. The other isolate (119-72) belonging to serotype 18 produced inclusions nontoxic to larvae of B. mori and A. aegypti and did not produce thermostable exotoxin. However, other bacteriological properties of the isolate 119-72 were similar to those of the isolate 3–71. The serotype 19 isolate (117-72) produced inclusions nontoxic to larvae of B. mori and A. aegypti and did not produce thermostable exotoxin. Acid production from saccharose and the production of brownish purple pigment were observed in the two serotype 18 isolates, while neither of them was observed in the serotype 19 isolate. In other 29 biochemical properties tested, there was no difference among the three isolates. Based on these characteristics, the following two subspecies names are proposed: Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kumamotoensis (serotype 18) for the type strain 3–71 and Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. tochigiensis (serotype 19) for the type strain 117-72.     

Management of COVID-19: current status and future prospects

COVID-19, a highly transmissible pandemic disease, is affecting millions of lives around the world. Severely infected patients show acute respiratory distress symptoms. Sustainable management strategies are required to save lives of the infected people and further preventing spread of the virus. Diagnosis, treatment, and vaccination development initiatives are already exhibited from the scientific community to fight against this virus. In this review, we primarily discuss the management strategies including prevention of spread, prophylaxis, vaccinations, and treatment for COVID-19. Further, analysis of vaccine development status and performance are also briefly discussed. Global socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 is also analyzed as part of this review.     

COVID-19: Pathogenesis,cytokine storm and therapeutic potential of interferons

The outbreak of the novel SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has developed into an unprecedented global pandemic. Clinical investigations in patients with COVID-19 has shown a strong upregulation of cytokine and interferon production in SARS-CoV2- induced pneumonia, with an associated cytokine storm syndrome. Thus, the identification of existing approved therapies with proven safety profiles to treat hyperinflammation is a critical unmet need in order to reduce COVI-19 associated mortality. To date, no specific therapeutic drugs or vaccines are available to treat COVID-19 patients. This review evaluates several options that have been proposed to control SARS-CoV2 hyperinflammation and cytokine storm, eincluding antiviral drugs, vaccines, small-molecules, monoclonal antibodies, oligonucleotides, peptides, and interferons (IFNs).