Jul 24, 2024 05:36 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 24, 2024 07:11 PM by C C.)
The unintended consequences of success against malaria
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1052275
INTRO: For decades, insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor insecticide spraying regimens have been important – and widely successful – treatments against mosquitoes that transmit malaria, a dangerous global disease. Yet these treatments also – for a time – suppressed undesirable household insects like bed bugs, cockroaches and flies.
Now, a new North Carolina State University study reviewing the academic literature on indoor pest control shows that as the household insects developed resistance to the insecticides targeting mosquitoes, the return of these bed bugs, cockroaches and flies into homes has led to community distrust and often abandonment of these treatments – and to rising rates of malaria.
In short, the bed nets and insecticide treatments that were so effective in preventing mosquito bites – and therefore malaria – are increasingly viewed as the causes of household pest resurgence... (MORE - details, no ads)
Male caregiving may be as much biological as cultural
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/is-th...pe-for-men
EXCERPT (John Horgan): Sarah Blaffer Hrdy was “astounded” and caught “off guard” by this trend, and she set out to investigate it. Is male caregiving entirely cultural, or does it have biological underpinnings? The latter, it turns out. Research reveals that men caring for babies undergo hormonal changes; they have lower levels of testosterone, associated with aggression, and higher levels of oxytocin, which promotes emotional bonding.
These findings apply to gay as well as heterosexual dads and even to men dandling others’ kids. Men in close proximity to babies, Hrdy writes, undergo hormonal changes that “resemble those of mothers.” Hrdy’s experiments on her own male family members—which involved collecting saliva samples for analysis—corroborate the emerging scientific consensus.
Another striking finding: brain-imaging studies reveal that infant-care activates neural circuits within the limbic systems of men as well as women. These neural circuits, Hrdy says, are ancient, dating “back to the first mammals, and even further, to their early vertebrate precursors.”
Biological changes in men like her son-in-law, Hrdy concludes, are not entirely the product of recent hominid evolution. After all, male caregiving is rare among other primates and especially in our closest relatives, chimpanzees. In fact, paws-on fatherhood is rare among mammals as a whole.
These facts push Hrdy toward a bold conjecture: modern men’s parental potential stems at least in part from adaptations that predate mammals. Male caregiving, she points out, has been observed among many species of birds and fish, whose lineages are older than mammals’. Consider the seahorse, which inseminates his mate and brings her fertilized eggs to term in his belly... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1052275
INTRO: For decades, insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor insecticide spraying regimens have been important – and widely successful – treatments against mosquitoes that transmit malaria, a dangerous global disease. Yet these treatments also – for a time – suppressed undesirable household insects like bed bugs, cockroaches and flies.
Now, a new North Carolina State University study reviewing the academic literature on indoor pest control shows that as the household insects developed resistance to the insecticides targeting mosquitoes, the return of these bed bugs, cockroaches and flies into homes has led to community distrust and often abandonment of these treatments – and to rising rates of malaria.
In short, the bed nets and insecticide treatments that were so effective in preventing mosquito bites – and therefore malaria – are increasingly viewed as the causes of household pest resurgence... (MORE - details, no ads)
Male caregiving may be as much biological as cultural
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/is-th...pe-for-men
EXCERPT (John Horgan): Sarah Blaffer Hrdy was “astounded” and caught “off guard” by this trend, and she set out to investigate it. Is male caregiving entirely cultural, or does it have biological underpinnings? The latter, it turns out. Research reveals that men caring for babies undergo hormonal changes; they have lower levels of testosterone, associated with aggression, and higher levels of oxytocin, which promotes emotional bonding.
These findings apply to gay as well as heterosexual dads and even to men dandling others’ kids. Men in close proximity to babies, Hrdy writes, undergo hormonal changes that “resemble those of mothers.” Hrdy’s experiments on her own male family members—which involved collecting saliva samples for analysis—corroborate the emerging scientific consensus.
Another striking finding: brain-imaging studies reveal that infant-care activates neural circuits within the limbic systems of men as well as women. These neural circuits, Hrdy says, are ancient, dating “back to the first mammals, and even further, to their early vertebrate precursors.”
Biological changes in men like her son-in-law, Hrdy concludes, are not entirely the product of recent hominid evolution. After all, male caregiving is rare among other primates and especially in our closest relatives, chimpanzees. In fact, paws-on fatherhood is rare among mammals as a whole.
These facts push Hrdy toward a bold conjecture: modern men’s parental potential stems at least in part from adaptations that predate mammals. Male caregiving, she points out, has been observed among many species of birds and fish, whose lineages are older than mammals’. Consider the seahorse, which inseminates his mate and brings her fertilized eggs to term in his belly... (MORE - missing details)
