Summary

Author(s):  
Joanna D. Haigh ◽  
Peter Cargill

This concluding chapter talks about how the Earth's climate is fundamental to the well-being of humanity, and any factor with the potential to affect that is obviously of concern. Thus, an understandable interest in the body that provides the energy for all life on Earth has driven a long history of study of how changes in the Sun might influence the climate. The wealth of physical, chemical, and biological processes involved also makes the topic of intrinsic scientific fascination. Observations of the Sun, alongside theoretical advances and developments in models, are helping to further understanding of its behavior. In particular, significant advances have been made in determining how different activity indicators relate to the physical processes involved in the evolution of the solar magnetic field, sunspots, and radiation over the 11-year cycle.

2021 ◽  
pp. medhum-2020-012038
Author(s):  
Rhonda Shaw ◽  
Robert Webb

In this article, we refer to the separation of solid organs from the body as bio-objects. We suggest that the transfer of these bio-objects is connected to emotions and affects that carry a range of different social and cultural meanings specific to the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. The discussion draws on research findings from a series of qualitative indepth interview studies conducted from 2008 to 2013 with Māori (the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) and Pākehā (European settler New Zealanders) concerning their views on organ donation and transplantation. Our findings show both differences and similarities between Māori and Pākehā understandings of transplantation. Nevertheless, while many Māori draw on traditional principles, values and beliefs to reflect on their experiences in relation to embodiment, gift-giving, identity and well-being, Pākehā tend to subscribe to more Western understandings of identity in terms of health and well-being, in line with international literature on the topic. Rather than reflecting individualistic notions of the body and transplantation as the endpoint of healthcare as do Pākehā, Māori views are linked to wider conceptions of family, ancestry and belonging, demonstrating how different rationalities and ontologies affect practices and understandings surrounding organ transfer technology. In the article, we focus predominantly on Māori perspectives of organ transfer, contextualising the accounts and experiences of our research participants against the backdrop of a long history of settler colonialism and health inequalities in Aotearoa New Zealand.


Author(s):  
Joanna D. Haigh ◽  
Peter Cargill

This chapter discusses how there are four general factors that contribute to the Sun's potential role in variations in the Earth's climate. First, the fusion processes in the solar core determine the solar luminosity and hence the base level of radiation impinging on the Earth. Second, the presence of the solar magnetic field leads to radiation at ultraviolet (UV), extreme ultraviolet (EUV), and X-ray wavelengths which can affect certain layers of the atmosphere. Third, the variability of the magnetic field over a 22-year cycle leads to significant changes in the radiative output at some wavelengths. Finally, the interplanetary manifestation of the outer solar atmosphere (the solar wind) interacts with the terrestrial magnetic field, leading to effects commonly called space weather.


Author(s):  
Joanna D. Haigh ◽  
Peter Cargill

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the Earth's climate system—its composition, structure, and circulation—and some of the ways in which these vary naturally with time. It examines the key features of the structure of the Sun, its magnetic field, atmosphere, and its emission of radiation and particles. A comprehension of how the sun affects the Earth is a fundamental requirement for understanding how climate has varied in the past and how it might change in the future. This is particularly important in the context of determining the cause(s) of climate change and understanding natural factors in order to be able to attribute to human activity any past or potential future influence on a range of timescales.


Health ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Peter Adamson

This introduction to the volume gives an overview of the chapters, setting out a case for integrating the history of philosophy with the history of medicine and sketching some of the key philosophical issues that arise around the concept of health. These include the difficulty of defining “health,” the mind-body relationship, and questions about how philosophy informs medical science and practice. A central idea is that the concept of health operates at two levels, the mental and the physical (or the soul and the body), so that ethical virtue and physical well-being have often been seen as parallel or mutually dependent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-104
Author(s):  
George Wilson ◽  
Jerry Hill ◽  
Daniel Martin ◽  
James P. Morton ◽  
Graeme L. Close

Flat jockeys in Great Britain (GB) are classified as apprentices if they are aged less than 26 years and/or have ridden less than 95 winners. To gain experience, apprentices are allocated a weight allowance of up to 7 lb (3.2 kg). Given that there is no off-season in GB flat horseracing, jockeys are required to maintain their racing weight all year round. In light of recent work determining that current apprentices are considerably heavier than previous generations and that smaller increases have been made in the minimum weight, the aim of this study was to assess if the minimum weight in GB was achievable. To make the minimum weight (50.8 kg) with the maximal weight allowance requires a body mass of ∼46.6 kg while maintaining a fat mass >2.5 kg (the lowest fat mass previously reported in weight-restricted males). Thirty-two male apprentice jockeys were assessed for body composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The mean (SD) total mass and fat mass were 56 (2.9) kg and 7.2 (1.8) kg, respectively. Given that the lowest theoretical body mass for this group was 51.2 (2.3) kg, only one of 32 jockeys was deemed feasible to achieve the minimum weight with their current weight allowance and maintaining fat mass >2.5 kg. Furthermore, urine osmolality of 780 (260) mOsmol/L was seen, with 22 (out of 32) jockeys classed as dehydrated (>700 mOsmols/L), indicating that body mass would be higher when euhydrated. Additionally, we observed that within new apprentice jockeys licensed during this study (N = 41), only one jockey was able to achieve the minimum weight. To facilitate the goal of achieving race weight with minimal disruptions to well-being, the authors’ data suggest that the minimum weight for GB apprentices should be raised.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Brenda Ivonne MORALES-BENÍTEZ ◽  
Ramiro MORALES-HERNÁNDEZ ◽  
Ramsés Josafath ALCARAZ-GONZÁLEZ

Sport is regularly seen as one of the forms of activation of the body that provide motor skills and contribute to healthy health, however it is important to appreciate it from the point of view of knowledge, so its contribution in aspects of academic competencies in students was analyzed upper middle level. In the first part, the history of sport was discussed, as well as the contributions of authors about educational sport and the learning generated. Subsequently, a comparison was made in young upper-middle-level students divided into two groups: the experiential group (they practice and perform exercise, sport and physical activity) and the control group (individuals who are totally sedentary), in order to observe performance. in school performance, class participation, decision making as well as knowing how influential or manipulable their peers can be to analyze and solve problems, in the study a questionnaire was applied to both groups using the Likert scale to know these results. The information obtained shows the positive influence that sport has on the development of educational capacities in students.


Author(s):  
Carol Turley ◽  
Kelvin Boot

Human development, inspiration, invention, and aspiration have resulted in a rapidly growing population, with each generation aspiring to greater wealth and well-being, so having greater needs than the previous generation. Amongst the resulting negative impacts are over-exploitation of planetary resources and the build-up of gases in the atmosphere and oceans to the extent that they are changing earth’s climate and ocean chemistry (IPCC 2007). However, the history of humanity’s relationship to the environment has shown that, if threatened, society can respond rapidly to environmental risks, introducing better practices, controls, regulations, and even global protocols, for example the reduction of city smog, the move from leaded to unleaded petrol, and reduction of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) production to reduce loss of the ozone layer. Nearly all of these changes have led to direct and obvious positive gain to human health and well-being which has been a driving force in the production, agreement and implementation of the policies and laws that have brought them about. The spatial scale or ‘ecological footprint’ of these risks has increased with time, such that international agreements and protocols, like the Montreal Protocol for CFCs, have been increasingly necessary for reducing them. Along with the globalization of agriculture, business, industry, and financial markets and the expansion of the human population goes the globalization of risk to the environment. Climate change and ocean acidification are global issues with solutions that are only possible through global agreements and action. Substantial proportions of nations’ gross domestic product (GDP) were used to secure the banks and major industries in the economic crises that have swept the world in the last few years, far greater than the 1 to 2% per annum estimated to be required to mitigate climate change (Stern 2006). However, the response to the economic crisis does show that global society can react rapidly when it believes it is necessary. The question is, when do society and governments deem it necessary to act, and to act together? One issue may be time, the perceived immediacy of the crisis.


Over the past two days, we have covered many facets of the basic interactions between the solar activity and the Earth’s climate. As an astronomer, I should perhaps first comment on the fact that solar activity is not the only astronomical or astrophysical phenomenon to influence physical conditions in the biosphere. Over a very long timescale of thousands of millions of years the evolution of the Sun from a pre-main-sequence star to a star of G type has not only fundamentally controlled the physical and chemical processes in the formation of the planets but has controlled their surface physical characteristics. Over timescales an order of magnitude less, the location of the Solar System in the Galaxy may have influenced life on Earth. For example it has been noted that when the Sun crossed the spiral arms of the Galaxy and their dense dust clouds, some catastrophies might have resulted; the disappearance of the dinosaurs could be accounted for by such phenomena, as was once suggested by Sir William McCrea, F.R.S.; but nearby supernovae, grazing comets, and on large meteorites might very well have played a decisive role in the evolution of species and of our Earth. On a smaller timescale, a million years, the variation in solar energy falling on the Earth, due to secular changes in the terrestrial orbit parameters (Milankovitch-Berger theories), would have caused climatic changes and have been shown to account for the successive ice ages of the Quaternary. While bearing this in mind the role of solar activity on the timescale of recent millennia, but also on shorter timescales, is of obvious importance to society and, as we have seen in this meeting, is only now being properly investigated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Lucy N. W. Mungai ◽  
Zanuba Mohammed ◽  
Michuki Maina ◽  
Omar Anjumanara

Vitamin D is an important hormone that is known for the regulation of calcium and phosphate metabolism. Vitamin D deficiency leads to rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults leading to poor bone mineralisation and can also lead to serious dental complications in the same population. Recent studies have shown vitamin D to work as a hormone needed not only in bone and teeth but also in other body organs from intrauterine life up to old age. It has been demonstrated that Vitamin D has various effects on biological processes that deal with cell growth, differentiation, cell death, immune regulation, DNA stability, and neuronal growth. Despite being readily formed in the body through the intervention of the sun, patients are still found to have low vitamin D levels. We review studies done to show how vitamin D works.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-139
Author(s):  
P. I. Rekwot ◽  
V. O. Sekoni ◽  
S. P. Mallam ◽  
E. K. Bawa ◽  
Y. U. Abubakar ◽  
...  

It is known. that many of the advances which have been made in improving the feeding, fertility and health of livestock in developed countries would not have been possible without nuclear tech-niques. Nuclear techniques have been used by scientists to study and understand those biological processes which are responsible for growth, reproduction and disease resistance in animals. Tracer tech-niques based on isotopes have been used for tagging feed constituents, amino acids and other metabolites, whereby their fate .can be fol-lowed within the digestive system and other parts of the body. This forms an integral part of the armoury used by animal nutritionists to establish the nutri-tional value of all the materials potentially available to feed animals. The development and use of highly sensi­tive immunoassay methods, to measure the minute quantities. of reproductive hormones in the blood enables us to determine when. animals are ready- for breeding, check whether animals have been inseminated at the correct time, diagnose pregnancy early enough, and devise corrective measures for reproductive disorders and improve the efficiency of artificial insemination and embryo transfer programmes. Radioisotopic methods have been used to study the immune system. to examine infec­tious agents and how they Stimulate this system, and to develop specific and sensitive methods for development of veterinary vaccines and diagnostic tests.


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