For decades, public health officials have directed the containment of emerging pandemics – perhaps most notably – the worldwide eradication of smallpox starting in the early to mid-1960s. Since then, surveillance systems have increased in number and sophistication with advances in data collection, analysis, and communication. From influenza to smallpox, the establishment of systematic reporting...
Russian researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of RAS, and Russia’s famed Tretyakov Gallery have conducted a comprehensive preconservation study of “The Portrait of F.P. Makerovsky in a Masquerade Costume” (1789) by the Russian painter Dmitry Levitsky. The paper was published in the journal Heritage Science....
Hundreds of Aboriginal men who became native mounted police in colonial Australia carried a significant burden of responsibility for law and order for white settlers in Queensland and other settlements. A long-running ARC-funded archaeology project has turned the lens on the recruitment to the Queensland Native Mounted Police and their part in the violent ‘frontier...
An independent investigative as well as an international offender database are needed to tackle allegations of abuse in elite youth sport properly, urges a McMaster University expert, in an editorial published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Much is being done to protect young athletes, but “there are still significant gaps,” says Margo Mountjoy,...
Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, provide people with a lot of information, but it’s getting harder and harder to tell what’s real and what’s not. Researchers at the University of Washington wanted to know how people investigated potentially suspicious posts on their own feeds. The team watched 25 participants scroll through their...
Every train car in “La Bestia” – The Beast – is a world unto itself, with all the good and evil that entails. Ariel saw the worst of this world when he witnessed, helplessly, as eight people raped one of his fellow train passengers, a young girl, in July 2019. Ariel – not his real...
Amidst the flurry of social media updates about the COVID-19 pandemic, a chart illustrating the importance of flattening the curve has gone viral. The idea is that taking measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 lowers the chances of overwhelming hospitals and increases the chances that all of those who become ill will have access...
At its core, the United States Declaration of Independence argues that all human beings have “unalienable rights.” These include right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights apply to all human beings, and cannot be given away. What is more, the Declaration says that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among...
Fear and blame appear to be fast becoming Americans’ defining emotions around COVID-19. Headlines seem to offer either worst-case estimates or government leaders’ mutual accusations. Amid the bewildering figures and contradictory political narratives, it is important to recall that numbers and governments are abstractions – whereas people actually live with and through disease. By fixating...
Melbourne researchers have mapped immune responses from one of Australia’s first novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patients, showing the body’s ability to fight the virus and recover from the infection. Researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) – a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne hospital –...
