The Recent Improvement in the Great Barrier Reef Might Not Be What it Seems.

Hyde Reef on the central Great Barrier Reef. Scientists have recorded the highest levels of coral cover in 36 years in parts of the reef.

Photograph: Australian Institute of Marine Science

One of the most biodiverse marine environments on Earth is Australia's Great Barrier Reef which has been in the news recently as an ecosystem under severe threat from climate-change related problems such as global warming and severe tropical cyclones, as well as the expanding range of the Crown of thorns starfish, which feeds on living coral, destroying large areas of it.

However, recent news seems to indicate that the central and northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef are showing encouraging signs of recovery, although the southern section remains under threat.

But the news might not be as good as the pictures seem to indicate, as Dr. Zoe Richards, PhD, senior research fellow at Curtain University, Western Australia and Marine Invertebrate Curator, Western Australian Museum, explains in an article in The Conversation. Her article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency.

Record coral cover doesn’t necessarily mean the Great Barrier Reef is in good health (despite what you may have heard)

Shutterstock

Zoe Richards, Curtin University

In what seems like excellent news, coral cover in parts of the Great Barrier Reef is at a record high, according to new data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. But this doesn’t necessarily mean our beloved reef is in good health.

In the north of the reef, coral cover usually fluctuates between 20% and 30%. Currently, it’s at 36%, the highest level recorded since monitoring began more than three decades ago.

This level of coral cover comes hot off the back of a disturbing decade that saw the reef endure six mass coral bleaching events, four severe tropical cyclones, active outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish, and water quality impacts following floods. So what’s going on?

High coral cover findings can be deceptive because they can result from only a few dominant species that grow rapidly after disturbance (such as mass bleaching). These same corals, however, are extremely susceptible to disturbance and are likely to die out within a few years.

The Great Barrier Reef Long-Term Monitoring annual summary | AIMS.

The data are robust

The Great Barrier Reef spans 2,300 kilometres, comprising more than 3,000 individual reefs. It is an exceptionally diverse ecosystem that features more than 12,000 animal species, plus many thousand more species of plankton and marine flora.

The reef has been teetering on the edge of receiving an “in-danger” listing from the World Heritage Committee. And it was recently described in the State of the Environment Report as being in a poor and deteriorating state.

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Read more:
This is Australia's most important report on the environment's deteriorating health. We present its grim findings

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To protect the Great Barrier Reef, we need to routinely monitor and report on its condition. The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s long-term monitoring program has been collating and delivering this information since 1985.

Its approach involves surveying a selection of reefs that represent different habitat types (inshore, midshelf, offshore) and management zones. The latest report provides a robust and valuable synopsis of how coral cover has changed at 87 reefs across three sectors (north, central and south) over the past 36 years.

2018: A bare patch of reef at Jiigurru, Lizard Island in 2018 after most of the corals died in the 2016/2017 coral bleaching event.

Andy Lewis, Author provided.

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2022: By 2022, the same patch of reef was covered by a vibrant array of plating Acropora corals.

Andy Lewis, Author provided.

The results

Overall, the long-term monitoring team found coral cover has increased on most reefs. The level of coral cover on reefs near Cape Grenville and Princess Charlotte Bay in the northern sector has bounced back from bleaching, with two reefs having more than 75% cover.

In the central sector, where coral cover has historically been lower than in the north and south, coral cover is now at a region-wide high, at 33%.

The southern sector has a dynamic coral cover record. In the late 1980s coral cover surpassed 40%, before dropping to a region-wide low of 12% in 2011 after Cyclone Hamish.

The region is currently experiencing outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish. And yet, coral cover in this area is still relatively high at 34%.

“Mature coral coverage”?

Rapid increases in cover in parts of the northern and central #GreaBarrierReef since mass coral bleaching in 2016/7 are driven by larval recruitment and fast growth of juvenile weedy corals.

You can’t replace a dead 50 year-old coral in 5 years. https://t.co/bysXqu5dep

— Terry Hughes (@ProfTerryHughes) August 4, 2022

Based on this robust data set, which shows increases in coral cover indicative of region-wide recovery, things must be looking up for the Great Barrier Reef – right?

Are we being catfished by coral cover?

In the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s report, reef recovery relates solely to an increase in coral cover, so let’s unpack this term.

Coral cover is a broad proxy metric that indicates habitat condition. It’s relatively easy data to collect and report on, and is the most widely used monitoring metric on coral reefs.

The finding of high coral cover may signify a reef in good condition, and an increase in coral cover after disturbance may signify a recovering reef.

Acropora hyacinthus, a pioneering species of coral at Lizard Island.

Zoe Richards, Author provided

But in this instance, it’s more likely the reef is being dominated by only few species, as the report states that branching and plating Acropora species have driven the recovery of coral cover.

Acropora coral are renowned for a “boom and bust” life cycle. After disturbances such as a cyclone, Acropora species function as pioneers. They quickly recruit and colonise bare space, and the laterally growing plate-like species can rapidly cover large areas.

Fast-growing Acropora corals tend to dominate during the early phase of recovery after disturbances such as the recent series of mass bleaching events. However, these same corals are often susceptible to wave damage, disease or coral bleaching and tend to go bust within a few years.

Juvenile branching Acropora colonising bare space after a bleaching event.

Zoe Richards, Author provided

Inferring that a reef has recovered by a person being towed behind a boat to obtain a rapid visual estimate of coral cover is like flying in a helicopter and saying a bushfire-hit forest has recovered because the canopy has grown back.

It provides no information about diversity, or the abundance and health of other animals and plants that live in and among the trees, or coral.

Cautious optimism

My study, published last year, examined 44 years of coral distribution records around Jiigurru, Lizard Island, at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

It suggested that 28 of 368 species of hard coral recorded at that location haven’t been seen for at least a decade, and are at risk of local extinction.

Lizard Island is one location where coral cover has rapidly increased since the devastating 2016-17 bleaching event. Yet, there is still a real risk local extinctions of coral species have occurred.

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Read more:
Almost 60 coral species around Lizard Island are 'missing' – and a Great Barrier Reef extinction crisis could be next

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While there’s no data to prove or disprove it, it’s also probable that extinctions or local declines of coral-affiliated marine life, such as coral-eating fishes, crustaceans and molluscs have also occurred.

Without more information at the level of individual species, it is impossible to understand how much of the Great Barrier Reef has been lost, or recovered, since the last mass bleaching event.

Based on the coral cover data, it’s tempting to be optimistic. But given more frequent and severe heatwaves and cyclones are predicted in the future, it’s wise to be cautious about the reef’s perceived recovery or resilience.



Zoe Richards, Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University

Trumpanzee News - More on the Dangerous Legacy of Donald J Trump

I've written recently about the legacy of the disastrous Trump presidency, especially in regard to anti-science, racism, Christo-fascism and making lies part of mainstream American politics, so it's good to see at least one American seeing it that way too. In this article, reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence and reformatted for stylistic consistency, Baylor assistant professor, Samuel Perry, spells out the danger to democracy from post-Trump American far-right Christian Nationalism:

I hate to Say it, But I told You So!

Kansas votes to protect abortion rights in state constitution | US news | The Guardian

Back in mid-July when the SCOTUS decision overturning Roe vs Wade was announced, I said it looked like a Pyrrhic victory for the forces of American Christo-fascism and a wake-up call for the forces of democracy, human rights, and female bodily autonomy, as about two thirds of American adults supported the right of women to choose and were in favour of decriminalised abortions.

Now the stunning victory for the pro-choice cause in Kansas, that most conservative of states which has voted Republican in every election since the mid-1960s, vindicates everything I said in that article - SCOTUS now represents only a small, vociferous minority of Americans to whom Donald Trump effectively handed control of the US judiciary by stuffing the Supreme Court with fundamentalist Christo-fascists.

According to this article in The Daily Yonder, the result is even more impressive when analysed in detail. Although the rural parts of Kansas voted 'Yes' (to allow the prohibition of abortions in the state) by 58% to 42%, the swing away from the pro-Trump vote in the same areas was about 17%. Across the state, the result was 58% to 42% against the proposal in a state which voted 56% to 42% for Trump and against Biden. The pro-abortion position was even more popular than Biden, showing that what was thought to be a core Republican issue is in fact a major vote loser for them.

On Abortion Referendum, Kansas Rural Voters Shifted Further from 2020 Presidential Results

by Tim Marema and Bill Bishop, The Daily Yonder
August 4, 2022

Kansas voters in small cities and rural areas swung further from the Republican Party vote just two years ago than their more urban counterparts in Tuesday’s defeat of an anti-abortion state constitutional amendment.

Statewide, the amendment, which would have removed abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution, failed by about 16 percentage points, 42% to 58%.

Voters in large and medium-sized metropolitan areas defeated the amendment 2 to 1. Voters in small metropolitan areas split evenly over the amendment. And rural (nonmetropolitan) voters favored the anti-abortion amendment 58% to 42%.

But the bottom-line vote is only part of the picture. Another story arises from how much the anti-abortion amendment underperformed compared to Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. And by that measure, Kansas’ small-city and rural voters shifted further away from the Republican Party than voters in bigger cities.

Republican Trump won Kansas by 14 points, 56% to 42% in the 2020 presidential election. (The total percent is less than 100 because it doesn’t include third-party candidates.)

The anti-abortion constitutional amendment was thought to be a bedrock Republican issue. The Kansas party initiated the referendum and scheduled it for the August primary, as opposed to the November general election, thinking a highly motivated base would make up a larger proportion of the turn out and get the amendment passed.

The strategy didn’t work. Turnout was extremely high – double the last midterm election. The anti-abortion vote shifted 30 points away from the support Trump received in 2020. And the amendment failed.

Across the state, the pro-abortion vote outperformed Biden’s vote in 2020. In other words, the issue of abortion rights was far more popular than the Democratic candidate.

And the anti-abortion amendment was far less popular than the Republican presidential candidate.

Small metropolitan and rural areas had the greatest shift away from the 2020 Republican vote. The pro-abortion rights vote was about 19 points more popular than Biden in 2020 in these smaller communities (see graph above). And the anti-abortion vote was about 17 points less popular than Trump (see graph at the top of the story).

From this data, we may be able to draw a couple conclusions. One is that politicians can’t assume small-city and rural voters are in lock-step behind banning abortion. And, two, voters behave differently when they have the chance to vote straight issues without party labels. The proposed constitutional amendment was nonpartisan.

One caveat is that turnout affects elections. The high turnout means there were likely some different types of voters than the ones who typically go to the polls for a relatively low-key midterm primary.

The abortion vote in Kansas will certainly inform party strategy in the general election in November. Democrats are concluding that the Kansas vote means they should be campaigning more on abortion rights. And others think the Supreme Court’s dismantling of Roe v. Wade may motivate a different type of turnout in the November election to blunt some of the Republican momentum in congressional elections.

This data tells us that the vote in small cities and rural areas is also up for grabs.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Americans now need to follow up this magnificent victory for secular, human rights values, in the mid-terms with a similar vote for Democrats and against the largely pro-life, (read, anti-choice), minority opinion the Repugnican Party now represents.

American women, supported by fair-minded American men, can take back control of their bodies from the extremist Christian minority that SCOTUS handed it to.

Malevolent Designer News - How Creationism's Favourite Sadist is Making a Fungus Better at Harming Us.

Scanning electron micrograph of infectious yeast spores (purple) on the surface of the structure where they are produced following sexual reproduction (in blue, the basidium)

© Chaoyang Xue, Kasey Carroll, and Joseph Heitman (Duke University Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology); and Valerie Knowlton (North Carolina State University, Center for Electron Microscopy)

This is how highly resistant strains of fungi emerge - Newsportal - Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Creationist mode:

Something you can almost bet your house on is that, if there is a way to make sick people sicker or suffer more, Creationism's intelligent [sic] designer will find a way to do it. It will then take on the challenge of making sure it's design can continue to do its work despite the efforts of medical science to combat it with drugs to cure us of infections or to prevent us getting them.

An obvious case in point is the way it keeps redesigning the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 to make it more infectious and/or help it evade any immunity we may have got from previous infections or medical science's vaccines. Another example is the growing number of dangerous bacterial pathogens that are becoming antibiotic resistant.

Yet another example is the subject of this paper by scientists from Duke University in the USA and Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), Germany who have shown how a pathogenic fungus, Cryptococcus neoformans has developed resistance to the antibiotics of choice used to treat patients infected with it.

The news release from RUB explains the problem:

Evolution News - An Entire Bacterial Genome Integrated Into the Genome of a Fruit Fly

2022 News - Researchers Discover One of the Largest Known Bacteria-to-Animal Gene Transfer Inside a Fruit Fly | University of Maryland School of Medicine

The fruit fly, Drosophila ananassae, is not just an ordinary fruit fly. In fact it's not just a fruit fly. It is actually a hybrid but not even a bog-standard hybrid between related species. It is actually a hybrid between two entirely different organisms. It is a hybrid between a fruit fly and a bacterium. This fusion of genomes is believed to have happened about 8,000 years ago.

So, if anything was designed to challenge the childish creationist notion of 'kinds' it is this biological peculiarity, because it is not a fruit fly and it's not a bacterium. It's Drosophila ananassae.

Biologically, there is no real mystery here because horizontal gene transfer has been known to science for several decades and the bacterium involved, Wolbachia is a common endoparasite or endosymbiont in many insects. Some insects have even come to depend on it for some functions, such as reproduction in the tsetse fly, resistance to some viruses and avoiding being parasitised by parasitoid wasps.

But what is unusual is for an entire genome, from what was presumably an endosymbiont, to be transferred to the host genome. The scientists from the University of Maryland who made this discovery have published their findings, open access, in the journal Cell Biology. The press release from the University of Maryland explains the research and its significance:

Covidiot News - Trump's Legacy: More Americans Now Think it is Right to Harass and Threaten Public Health Officials and Scientists

May 17 2020 Donald Trump praised protesters who harassed a journalist on Long Island this week at a rally where one man called for the execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Source: The Intercept

US Adults’ Beliefs About Harassing or Threatening Public Health Officials During the COVID-19 Pandemic | Violence | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

One of the more enduring and insidious legacies of the disastrous single-term US president, Donald J. Trump, is that distrusting public Health Officials who tried to explain the science behind the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to mitigate it, and by extension, all scientists, to the extent of harassing them, attacking them, and even making death threats against them when they deliver unwelcome news, has now become acceptable to a significant proportion of American adults.

That proportion appears to be growing according to an investigation by scientists from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, the University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, USA, the Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, Ithaca, New York, USA. Their findings are published open access in the online Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Open Network.

Their key findings were:

Key Points

Question What factors shape US adults’ beliefs regarding whether threatening or harassing public health officials was justified during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Findings In this survey study of 1086 US adults, the share who believed that harassing or threatening public health officials because of business closures was justified rose from 20% to 25% and 15% to 21%, respectively, from November 2020 to July and August 2021. There were increases in negative views over time among higher earners, political independents, those with more education, and those most trusting of science.

Meaning These findings suggest that restoring trust in public health officials will require strategies tailored to engage diverse viewpoints.

They give more detail in the abstract to their paper:

Endemic US Racism News - Black and Hispanic Areas of USA Were Less Likely to Get COVID Vaccine Supplies

Table 1. Disparities in United States COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution

Figures provided a few days ago by investigators from the University of California San Diego, show that health care facilities serving underrepresented, rural and hardest-hit communities in the USA were less likely to administer COVID-19 vaccines in the early phase of the vaccine rollout and that the reason could well have been the lower availability of sites having vaccines to administer, rather than vaccine hesitancy or distrust, as has previously been suggested.

In particular, there were significantly fewer vaccination facilities in rural counties that were predominantly black or Hispanic and even where the mortality figures for COVID-19 were highest.

As the UC San Diego press release explains:

Proportion of facilities serving as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations.

When reports showed COVID-19 vaccination rates were lower among racial/ethnic minority groups, most discussions focused on mistrust and misinformation among these populations or their reduced access to health care facilities. But new research from University of California San Diego and collaborating institutions has identified an additional barrier to equity: whether or not each health care facility actually received and administered vaccines.

[…]

In a study published July 28, 2022 in PLOS Medicine, researchers demonstrated that health care facilities serving underrepresented, rural and hardest-hit communities were less likely to administer COVID-19 vaccines in the early phase of the vaccine rollout.

Led by Inmaculada Hernandez, PharmD, PhD, associate professor of clinical pharmacy at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Diego, the study is the first to quantify disparities in the early distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to health care facilities across the country.

Previous studies of vaccine accessibility have not distinguished whether lower access in underserved neighborhoods was a product of the lower concentration of health care facilities in these areas or of inequities in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to each health care facility.

To answer this question, Hernandez and colleagues tested whether the likelihood of an eligible health care facility administering COVID-19 vaccines varied based on the racial/ethnic composition and urbanicity of the local county. The team focused on the initial phase of vaccine rollout, using data from May 2021 when states were officially required to make vaccines available to the public.

At that time, 61 percent of eligible health care facilities and 76 percent of eligible pharmacies across the U.S. provided COVID-19 vaccinations. When researchers began comparing these rates with the socioeconomic features of the county each facility was located in, several patterns emerged.

Both the national policy and public opinion agreed that vaccine distribution should prioritize disadvantaged communities and those hit hardest by COVID-19, but the data shows that is not what happened.

Dr Inmaculada Hernandez, PharmD, PhD, lead author
Associate professor of clinical pharmacy
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

Facilities in counties with a high proportion of Black people were less likely to serve as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations compared to facilities in counties with a low proportion of Black people. This was particularly the case in metropolitan areas, where facilities in urban counties with large Black populations had 32 percent lower odds of administering vaccines compared to facilities in urban counties with small Black populations.

To achieve health equity in future public health programs, including the distribution of booster shots, it is crucial that public health authorities review these early COVID-19 distribution plans to understand how and why this happened.

Dr Jingchuan (Serena) Guo, MD, PhD, senior author
Assistant professor
University of Florida, FL, USA

Facilities in rural counties and in counties hardest hit by COVID-19 were also associated with decreased odds of serving as a COVID-19 vaccine administration location. In rural counties with a high proportion of Hispanic people, facilities had 26 percent lower odds of administering vaccines compared to facilities in rural counties with a low proportion of Hispanic people.

Further research is necessary to identify the reasons why vaccines were not equitably distributed to all health care facilities and how the involvement of these facilities evolved across subsequent phases of vaccine distribution, the authors said.

The following charts show the researchers' findings (click the buttons for greater clarity):

Fig 1. Adjusted odds ratios of facilities serving as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations, main effects.
The figure shows the results of logistic regression models fitted with generalized estimating equations for the primary outcome of a healthcare facility (or a pharmacy) serving as a COVID-19 vaccine administration location. The model only included main effects. All healthcare facilities included pharmacies, FQHCs, RHCs, and HODs. The circles represent the point estimate for the odds ratio, and the whiskers represent the 95% confidence interval. COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019; FQHC, federally qualified health center; HOD, hospital outpatient department; RHC, rural health clinic.

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Fig 2. Adjusted odds ratios of facilities serving as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations, interaction for proportion non-Hispanic Black population and urbanicity.
The figure shows the results of logistic regression models fitted with generalized estimating equations for the primary outcome of a healthcare facility (or a pharmacy) serving as a COVID-19 vaccine administration location. All healthcare facilities included pharmacies, FQHCs, RHCs, and HODs. The model adjusted for all covariates listed in Fig 1. Additionally, the model constructed for all healthcare facilities included an indicator variable for facility type (pharmacy vs. others). The circles represent the point estimate for the odds ratio, and the whiskers represent the 95% confidence interval. COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019; FQHC, federally qualified health center; HOD, hospital outpatient department; RHC, rural health clinic.

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Fig 3. Adjusted odds ratios of facilities serving as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations, interaction for proportion Hispanic population and urbanicity.
The figure shows the results of logistic regression models fitted with generalized estimating equations for the primary outcome of a healthcare facility (or a pharmacy) serving as a COVID-19 vaccine administration location. All healthcare facilities included pharmacies, FQHCs, RHCs, and HODs. The model adjusted for all covariates listed in Fig 1. Additionally, the model constructed for all healthcare facilities included an indicator variable for facility type (pharmacy vs. others). The circles represent the point estimate for the odds ratio, and the whiskers represent the 95% confidence interval. COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019; FQHC, federally qualified health center; HOD, hospital outpatient department; RHC, rural health clinic.

Copyright: © 2022 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

More detail is given in the abstract and authors' summary in the team's open access paper in PLOS Medicine:

Abstract

Background

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly called for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine equity. The objective our study was to measure equity in the early distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare facilities across the US. Specifically, we tested whether the likelihood of a healthcare facility administering COVID-19 vaccines in May 2021 differed by county-level racial composition and degree of urbanicity.

Methods and findings

The outcome was whether an eligible vaccination facility actually administered COVID-19 vaccines as of May 2021, and was defined by spatially matching locations of eligible and actual COVID-19 vaccine administration locations. The outcome was regressed against county-level measures for racial/ethnic composition, urbanicity, income, social vulnerability index, COVID-19 mortality, 2020 election results, and availability of nontraditional vaccination locations using generalized estimating equations.

Across the US, 61.4% of eligible healthcare facilities and 76.0% of eligible pharmacies provided COVID-19 vaccinations as of May 2021. Facilities in counties with >42.2% non-Hispanic Black population (i.e., > 95th county percentile of Black race composition) were less likely to serve as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations compared to facilities in counties with >12.5% non-Hispanic Black population (i.e., lower than US average), with OR 0.83; 95% CI, 0.70 to 0.98, p = 0.030. Location of a facility in a rural county (OR 0.82; 95% CI, 0.75 to 0.90, p < 0.001, versus metropolitan county) or in a county in the top quintile of COVID-19 mortality (OR 0.83; 95% CI, 0.75 to 0.93, p = 0.001, versus bottom 4 quintiles) was associated with decreased odds of serving as a COVID-19 vaccine administration location.

There was a significant interaction of urbanicity and racial/ethnic composition: In metropolitan counties, facilities in counties with >42.2% non-Hispanic Black population (i.e., >95th county percentile of Black race composition) had 32% (95% CI 14% to 47%, p = 0.001) lower odds of serving as COVID administration facility compared to facilities in counties with below US average Black population. This association between Black composition and odds of a facility serving as vaccine administration facility was not observed in rural or suburban counties. In rural counties, facilities in counties with above US average Hispanic population had 26% (95% CI 11% to 38%, p = 0.002) lower odds of serving as vaccine administration facility compared to facilities in counties with below US average Hispanic population. This association between Hispanic ethnicity and odds of a facility serving as vaccine administration facility was not observed in metropolitan or suburban counties.

Our analyses did not include nontraditional vaccination sites and are based on data as of May 2021, thus they represent the early distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Our results based on this cross-sectional analysis may not be generalizable to later phases of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution process.

Conclusions

Healthcare facilities in counties with higher Black composition, in rural areas, and in hardest-hit communities were less likely to serve as COVID-19 vaccine administration locations in May 2021. The lower uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations among minority populations and rural areas has been attributed to vaccine hesitancy; however, decreased access to vaccination sites may be an additional overlooked barrier.

Author summary

Why was this study done?

• Equity in the distribution of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine is of major relevance.
• It is unknown whether there were differences in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare facilities depending on the demographic composition of the population.

What did the researchers do and find?

• We tested whether healthcare facilities serving minority or disadvantaged neighborhoods were less likely to administer COVID-19 vaccines in the early phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout process.
• We found that healthcare facilities in counties with higher Black composition, in rural areas, and in hardest-hit communities were less likely to administer COVID-19 vaccines in May 2021.

What do these findings mean?

• There were disparities in the early distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to healthcare facilities across the country.

Hernandez I, Dickson S, Tang S, Gabriel N, Berenbrok LA, Guo J (2022)
Disparities in distribution of COVID-19 vaccines across US counties: A geographic information system–based cross-sectional study.
PLoS Med 19(7): e1004069. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004069

Copyright: © 2022 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

From these figures it is clear that there was a differential in the availability of vaccines between the wealthier, white and less deprived areas of the USA and the predominantly black, deprived areas and that even differences in mortality rates did not reverse that trend. It is also clear that there was a differential based on voting patterns in the 2020 presidential elections.

More research is now needed to determine whether this was due to political/racial prejudice on behalf of the suppliers or on behalf of the local authorities responsible for requesting supplies of the vaccine and providing facilities for their administration, and to what extent Donald Trump's disastrous lead in downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic to cover for his own incompetence, played a part in this disparity.

But, whatever the cause, it is clear that, in the early phase of the vaccine roll-out, there was not equitable distribution of the vaccines and that racial minorities and people in deprived areas of the USA and in Trump-supporting counties were least likely to get them.

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Evolution News - A Beautiful Example of Co-Evolution

The white egret orchid, Habenaria radiata, superficially resembles a dancing white egret.

Orchid helps insect get a grip | Research at Kobe

The explanatory power of the Theory of Evolution was demonstrated yet again recently, when five biologists from Japan published a paper in the journal Ecology in which they explained what had been a mystery in the form of a peculiarly shaped orchid flower, the so-called white egret orchid, Habenaria radiata syn. Pecteilis radiata, or sagisō, native to China, Korea and Japan, which has a superficial resemblance to a flying Egret.

The mystery had been the reason for the bizarre, jagged edge to two of the three petals of the flower. Orchids are well known for their adaptation to pollination by specific species of insects, notably bees and moths and for their part in co-evolutionary, co-dependent relationships, often with a single species.

Evolution News - Evolution of Biting in Fish Led to an Explosion of New Species

Reef Fish Evolution Driven by Biting | UC Davis

Rainbow parrotfish on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
Reef fish evolved the ability to feed by biting prey from surfaces relatively recently, a UC Davis study shows. The innovation has driven an explosion of evolution in reef fish.

Getty Images

One of the many fascinating aspects of evolution is the way that, when a new capability evolves, it can lead to a rapid radiation of new species as that capability opens access to new niches. For example, the evolution of flight in mammals and birds led to rapid radiation and speciation into all the bats and flying birds, respectively.

In the case of fish, the ability to bite rather than suck is a relatively recently evolved ability that led to a radiation of new species of fish that graze on surfaces such as the feeding method seen in very many different species of fish living on coral reefs, within the last 60 million years.

There may have been some biting done by teleosts before the end-Cretaceous, but our reconstructions suggest that it was very uncommon.

Katherine Corn, lead author
Graduate student
Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology
University of California Davis Davis, CA, USA.

In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) recently, a research team led by Katherine Corn, of the Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology at the University of California at Davis, CA, USA, with colleagues from the Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA, report finding that, feeding by grazing, nibbling or gnawing food off rocks and corals didn’t appear among the teleosts (the group that includes most bony fish) until after the dinosaur-killing mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 60 million years ago.

As the article by in UCDavis News by Andy Fell explains:

Covidiot News - More Good Reasons to Have Your Children Vaccinated Against COVID-19

International study identifies risks for long COVID in children | News | University of Calgary

While to most children, COVID-19 is a relatively mild illness, a significant number become ill enough to be admitted to hospital. According to an international study led by Dr Anna Funk, PhD, an epidemiologist and University of Calgary postdoctoral fellow, of those who were hospitalised for 48 hours or more, had 4 or more symptoms at the initial Emergency Department (ED) assessment and were aged 14 years or older, 60% went on to develop 'Long Covid' and show symptoms 90 days later.

The results of the study were published yesterday in the open access Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Network Open).

According to UCalgary News:

We found that in some children, illness with COVID-19 is associated with reporting persistent symptoms after three months.

Our results suggest that appropriate guidance and followup are needed, especially for children at high risk for long COVID.

Dr. Stephen Freedman, MD, principal investigator
Paediatric emergency medicine physician
Alberta Health Services
And associate professor of medicine
Cumming School of Medicine (CSM).

The study included 1,884 children with COVID-19 who had 90-day followup. Long COVID was found in nearly 10 per cent of hospitalized children and five per cent in children discharged from the ED.

Reported rates of long COVID in adults are substantially higher than what we found in children.

Our findings can inform public health policy decision regarding COVID-19 mitigation strategies for children and screening approaches for long COVID among those with severe outcomes.

Dr. Nathan Kuppermann, MD, MPH, co-principal investigator
University of California
Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento.

Our finding that children who had multiple COVID-19 symptoms initially were at higher risk for long COVID is consistent with studies in adults.

Unfortunately, there are no known therapies for long COVID in children and more research is needed in this area. However, if symptoms are significant, treatment targeting the symptoms is most important. Multidisciplinary care is warranted if symptoms are impacting quality of life.

Dr. Todd Florin, MD, MSCE, co-principal investigator
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital
Chicago and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The most-reported persistent symptoms in children were fatigue or weakness, cough, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath.

Copyright: © 2022 The authors.
Published by American Medical Association. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

More technical detail is given in the study report in JAMA Network Open:

Key Points

Question What proportion of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 who were tested in emergency departments (EDs) reported post–COVID-19 conditions (PCCs) 90 days after their ED visits?

Findings In this cohort study of 1884 SARS-CoV-2–positive children with 90-day follow-up, 5.8% of patients, including 9.8% of hospitalized children and 4.6% of discharged children, reported PCCs. Characteristics associated with PCCs included being hospitalized 48 hours or more, having 4 or more symptoms reported at the index ED visit, and being 14 years of age or older.

Meaning This study suggests that, given the prevalence of PCCs, appropriate guidance and follow-up are required for children testing positive for SARS-CoV-2.


Abstract

Importance Little is known about the risk factors for, and the risk of, developing post–COVID-19 conditions (PCCs) among children.

Objectives To estimate the proportion of SARS-CoV-2–positive children with PCCs 90 days after a positive test result, to compare this proportion with SARS-CoV-2–negative children, and to assess factors associated with PCCs.

Design, Setting, and Participants This prospective cohort study, conducted in 36 emergency departments (EDs) in 8 countries between March 7, 2020, and January 20, 2021, included 1884 SARS-CoV-2–positive children who completed 90-day follow-up; 1686 of these children were frequency matched by hospitalization status, country, and recruitment date with 1701 SARS-CoV-2–negative controls.

Exposure SARS-CoV-2 detected via nucleic acid testing.

Main Outcomes and Measures Post–COVID-19 conditions, defined as any persistent, new, or recurrent health problems reported in the 90-day follow-up survey.

Results Of 8642 enrolled children, 2368 (27.4%) were SARS-CoV-2 positive, among whom 2365 (99.9%) had index ED visit disposition data available; among the 1884 children (79.7%) who completed follow-up, the median age was 3 years (IQR, 0-10 years) and 994 (52.8%) were boys. A total of 110 SARS-CoV-2–positive children (5.8%; 95% CI, 4.8%-7.0%) reported PCCs, including 44 of 447 children (9.8%; 95% CI, 7.4%-13.0%) hospitalized during the acute illness and 66 of 1437 children (4.6%; 95% CI, 3.6%-5.8%) not hospitalized during the acute illness (difference, 5.3%; 95% CI, 2.5%-8.5%). Among SARS-CoV-2–positive children, the most common symptom was fatigue or weakness (21 [1.1%]). Characteristics associated with reporting at least 1 PCC at 90 days included being hospitalized 48 hours or more compared with no hospitalization (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.67 [95% CI, 1.63-4.38]); having 4 or more symptoms reported at the index ED visit compared with 1 to 3 symptoms (4-6 symptoms: aOR, 2.35 [95% CI, 1.28-4.31]; ≥7 symptoms: aOR, 4.59 [95% CI, 2.50-8.44]); and being 14 years of age or older compared with younger than 1 year (aOR, 2.67 [95% CI, 1.43-4.99]). SARS-CoV-2–positive children were more likely to report PCCs at 90 days compared with those who tested negative, both among those who were not hospitalized (55 of 1295 [4.2%; 95% CI, 3.2%-5.5%] vs 35 of 1321 [2.7%; 95% CI, 1.9%-3.7%]; difference, 1.6% [95% CI, 0.2%-3.0%]) and those who were hospitalized (40 of 391 [10.2%; 95% CI, 7.4%-13.7%] vs 19 of 380 [5.0%; 95% CI, 3.0%-7.7%]; difference, 5.2% [95% CI, 1.5%-9.1%]). In addition, SARS-CoV-2 positivity was associated with reporting PCCs 90 days after the index ED visit (aOR, 1.63 [95% CI, 1.14-2.35]), specifically systemic health problems (eg, fatigue, weakness, fever; aOR, 2.44 [95% CI, 1.19-5.00]).

Conclusions and Relevance In this cohort study, SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with reporting PCCs at 90 days in children. Guidance and follow-up are particularly necessary for hospitalized children who have numerous acute symptoms and are older.

Funk AL, Kuppermann N, Florin TA, et al.
Post–COVID-19 Conditions Among Children 90 Days After SARS-CoV-2 Infection.
JAMA Netw Open. 2022; 5(7): e2223253. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.23253

Copyright: © 2022 The authors.
Published by American Medical Association. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The irony is it is more or less the same antivaxxer covidiots who were jubilant when SCOTUS effectively took away the right of American women to plan their parenthood on the grounds that they were 'pro-life', who are campaigning to persuade people to risk their children's lives and welfare by not getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Clearly, these people don't really believe in the sanctity of life; what they believe in is imposing their will on other people. Religion merely provides them with the excuse they need.

Although the figures above are statistically interesting, I would suggest the only one that should interest responsible, loving parents is the one that shows your children run a significant risk of contracting 'Long COVID' if they become infected. Other studies have shown that all the vaccines are effective at reducing the risk of a serious breakthrough infection, so there really is no valid argument:

Don't be a Covidiot!
Get vaccinated and get your children vaccinated, now!

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Unintelligent Design - More on Moths vs Bats Arms Races

Moths enlist additional troops in an evolutionary arms race – Florida Museum Science

Evolutionary arms races are the inevitable and predictable result of evolution by natural selection, but make absolutely no sense at all as the product of intelligent design by a single designer, so they are one of the strongest arguments against Creationism of the sort preached by the Discovery Institute and its hirelings.

Where is the intelligence in designing solutions to solutions you designed earlier and which you now regard as problems to be solved?

One of these many arms races to be found in nature is that between bats and moths. Now a new research paper by scientists from Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA with colleagues from Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA, and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Patagonia Norte, Ingeniero White, Argentina, has shown that arms race is even more extensive that was previously known.

Fortunately, most of this occurs at night at sound frequencies above our hearing range, or summer nights would be a deafening cacophony of sound as bats use pulses of sonar to detect their staple diet, moths, and moths use screens of sound to deter and confuse bats, rather like a warplane uses chaff to confuse radar, or warn them that they have a bitter taste or other noxious defences, in a way analogous to warning colouration used by many diurnal prey species. To complicate things further, there are examples of the auditory equivalent of Batesian mimicry, where a harmless species mimics the signals of a harmful or distasteful one.

The news release from the Florida Museum explains the research findings:

Unintelligent Design - Moth vs Bat Evolutionary Arms Races

Prompted by a recent research paper which announced the discovery that many more moths use ultrasound to deter attack by bats than was previously recognised, I reproduce here an article from The Conversation by Professor David Jacobs of Cape Town University, South Africa, which I drew on for the section on arms races in my popular book, The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax.

These sorts of evolutionary arms races are the predictable and inevitable result of predator-prey and parasite-host relationships and are one of the strongest arguments against intelligent design.

The article is republished under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Explainer: the evolutionary arms race between bats and moths

Bats have adapted new hunting techniques in their pursuit of moths who in turn have developed defensive strategies.

Sarun T/Shutterstock

David Jacobs, University of Cape Town

In the struggle for survival, predators need to capture and consume prey, and prey have to avoid being eaten. Over evolutionary time this has evolved into a kind of arms race between the two, in which predators have evolved specialised weapons of attack and prey have evolved specialised defences. One particular example of this is the arms race between bats and moths.

The interaction between bats and their insect prey, in particular moths, is one of the most cited examples of such an evolutionary arms race. It comes with a twist – the weaponry used by each is largely based on sound and hearing.

UK Politics - Good Bye and Good Riddance, Boo Boo Johnson!

In a bit of a departure for this blog, here is how departing U.K. Prime Minister, Boris (Boo Boo) Johnson is seen by Australians. It's probably no secret that I have no time for the UK Conservative Party and lean distinctly to the left in politics, so it's rewarding to see that someone who looks at UK politics from afar, sees it pretty much the way I do.

For me, Boris Johnson represents all that is nasty in the Tory Party - a party of entitled spivs, con artists and shysters, united only by the single slogan, "What's in it for me?". Hopefully, his behaviour has tarnished the reputation of the Tory Party for another generation much as the sleave and greed scandals under John Major did. The sad thing is that he has also tarnished the reputation of all politicians and damaged confidence in our parliamentary democracy in the process.

The comedian Russell Brand once described Boris Johnson as, "our very own Pound-Shop Donald Trump". The Tory Party is our very own Pound-Shop Repugnican Party.

The following article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Boris Johnson says his time as UK PM was ‘mission largely accomplished’. How does that actually stack up?

Ben Wellings, Monash University

Boris Johnson has declared his time as United Kingdom prime minister was “mission largely accomplished”. How does that self-diagnosed legacy stack up?

Evolution News - Every Fossil Tells a Story.

Every fossil tells a story but some have more to say than other. This one, from the period when some lobe-finned fish like Tiktaalik were transitioning into terrestrial tetrapods, shows that evolution is not a straightforward progress towards a desired goal but can go off at a tangent and even into a reverse of sorts. It is a close relative of Tiktaalik, from the same region, but it stayed in the water and probably adapted to living in open water.

The story of how Qikiqtania wakei. was discovered and analysed is told in this article from The Conversation. (Read the original article). Reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Meet Qikiqtania, a fossil fish with the good sense to stay in the water while others ventured onto land

An artist’s vision of Qikiqtania enjoying its fully aquatic, free-swimming lifestyle.

Alex Boersma, CC BY-ND

Thomas Stewart, Penn State

Approximately 365 million years ago, one group of fishes left the water to live on land. These animals were early tetrapods, a lineage that would radiate to include many thousands of species including amphibians, birds, lizards and mammals. Human beings are descendants of those early tetrapods, and we share the legacy of their water-to-land transition.

But what if, instead of venturing onto the shores, they had turned back? What if these animals, just at the cusp of leaving the water, had receded to live again in more open waters?

COVID-19 News - Why You Should Get a Booster Vaccination as Soon as Possible.

Vaccine-Induced Immune Response to Omicron Wanes Substantially Over Time | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Be under no illusions, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over.

We are currently seeing yet another wave of infections as the Omicron variant diverges into new and even more infections variants, and investigators at the US National Insitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have shown that the antibody levels following vaccination wane significantly in about 3 months.

From the NIH news release:

Malevolent Designer News - Why Creationism's Divine Malevolence Gave Us Junk DNA

‘Junk’ DNA could lead to cancer by stopping copying of DNA - The Institute of Cancer Research, London

Creationists hate junk DNA because no intelligent designer would have included lots of DNA that does nothing apart from being replicated endlessly in every cell and passed on to each new generation. They also hate it because it contains 'fossil' relics from our remote ancestors and we share much of it with our close relatives, so it is very compelling evidence for evolution and common descent. The third reason they hate it is because it is available to mutate and occasionally give rise to new genetic 'information' when Creationist dogma says that no new genetic information can arise because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics' [sic].

So, creationist frauds put a great deal of effort into trying to debunk the idea that junk DNA really does do nothing. For that reason they should welcome this piece of research that shows that, far from doing nothing, junk DNA may actually cause cancer.

Yep! You read that right. Creationists such as Michael J. Behe will often use examples that, if they were intelligently designed, would portray the designer as a malevolent sadist who invents way to make his creation suffer.

For example, Behe has used both the flagellum of the bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) which better equips it for causing food poisoning, and the resistance of the Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria to the drugs used to prevent it, as examples of 'irreducible complexity' which he claims must have been designed, so Creationists are used to portraying their putative creator as an evil sadist. The fact that, if we subscribe to their superstition and apply their logic we have here an example of their god deliberately causing cancers, should come as no surprise.

Evolution News - How Gonorrhoea Probably Gave Us Grandparents

Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria may have driven the evolution of human gene variants that protect against dementia.

Photo credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
National Institutes of Health

Did Gonorrhea Give Us Grandparents?

In an earlier study, researchers at the University of California - San Diego (UCSG), showed that a set of mutant genes help protect older adults against cognitive decline and dementia. Now the same team has shown that we may have evolved with these mutation as an evolutionary adaptation to the sexually-transmitted disease organism, Neisseria gonorrhoeae that causes gonorrhoea.

These mutations are only found in Homo sapiens and not in our close extinct relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans, who share the same genes with our common ancestors, the chimpanzees, suggesting that these mutations only became widespread in the H. sapiens genome after we split from our common ancestor with Neanderthals and Denisovans (possibly H. erectus) a few hundred thousand years ago.

The implication of that is that having adults that survived longer and who could be actively involved in child-care of their grandchildren, may have been what gave us an advantage over the archaic hominins we came into contact with, both in Africa and in Eurasia.

The finding is an example of how a mutation which became fixed in the species genome in response to environmental pressure can then be adapted further for an entirely different purpose. The research also shows how the scientists were in no doubt at all about the power of the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection to explain what we observe in biology. There is no sign of even a shadow of doubt about the TOE or any sign that the TOE is a theory in crisis, as Creationist frauds are continually telling their credulous dupes. The TOE is fundamental to any understanding of biology for anyone who knows anything about it.

Here is how the research is explained in the UCSG news release:

Evolution News - How the Environment Drives Evolution

Plant study hints evolution may be predictable | YaleNews

Similar leaf types evolved independently in three species of plants found in cloud forests of Oaxaca, Mexico and three species of plants in similar environment in Chiapas, Mexico. This example of parallel evolution is one of several found by Yale-led scientists and suggests that evolution may be predictable.

On of the enduring debates in biology is to what extent evolution is predictable. If we could somehow rewind the tape and play it again, would we end up with the same species as we have today, or would the result be a very different planet with different taxons and different dominant species? Would it in fact produce an intelligent species capable of going to the moon and building computers?

The problem is that the environment, which is the underlying driver of evolution, is itself subject to unpredictable changes and the operation of chaos, where a small change here or there can have a large effect some way down the line - the proverbial butterfly effect where a butterfly flapping its wings on a Pacific island can result in a hurricane in the Himalayas. Small, randon fluctuations in weather patterns or ocean currents can have widespread effects on the distribution of different species in food chains, for example.

This piece of research, although interesting in that it shows the effect of the environment as a driver of evolution, doesn't really answer that question because it shows what can happen when the environment is a constant. This is, of course, the prerequisite for convergent evolution, where, not surprisingly, from a similar starting point, in a given environment, evolutions tends to home in on the same phenotypic solutions, albeit by different genetic routes.

As explained in a Yale News article by Bill Hathaway:

Transitional Fossil News - Now it's Lots of Transitional Forms, All In One Place!

Ecological reconstruction of the Liexi fauna

Drawn by J. Sun

Ecological reconstruction of the Liexi fauna

Drawn by J. Sun

A new Early Ordovician Lagerstätte reveals the early stage of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event----Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology Chinese Academy of Sciences

Creationist mode:

The Problem is probably that the Chinese don't have the Bible, like American fundamentalist Christians do, so how were they to know that they should be ignoring the evidence they find in the natural world and dismissing it as a Satanic plot, because the Bible says all living organisms were magicked up all at the same time, by a supernatural magician using magic? Nor did they know that while the physical world created by the same supernatural magician contains masses of misleading evidence and lies designed to trick us, all the truth was put in a book by the same magician, which is guaranteed to be the truth because the magician who lied in all the physical evidence said so.

These Chinese! They just can't do the logic!

Malevolent Designer News - How a Fungus Fools a Fly

Zombie fly fungus lures healthy male flies to mate with female corpses – University of Copenhagen

A male fly trying to mate with a female corpse held in place by a dab of Vaseline. The fungus has grown out of the rear body segment and is visible as large white patches from which spores are ejected

Credit: Filippo Castelucci

I describe several examples of these parasitic fungi taking control of their hosts and turning them into zombies in my popular, illustrated book, The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is Not Good. While this example might not be the most horrific, it is certainly up there amongst the top few.

It is the fungus known to science as Entomophthora muscae which not only takes control of the female fly it parasitizes, but then uses her dead body to release powerful pheromones that take control of males, forcing them to try to mate with the dead female, so it can spread the fungal spores to a living female.

How The SCOTUS Now Represents an Extremist Minority of Americans

Political and Religious Activation and Polarization in the Wake of the Roe v. Wade Overturn | PRRI

A survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) into attitudes to abortion and the overturning of Roe vs Wade shows the extent to which the ruling represents the viewpoint of a small, extremist religious minority of Americans - white evangelical Christians. But there are signs that this extremist minority may have shot themselves in the foot in this case.

The following charts tell their own story.