Anticipating the species jump: surveillance for emerging viral threats.

Zoonotic disease surveillance is typically triggered after animal pathogens have already infected humans. Are there ways to identify high-risk viruses before they emerge in humans? If so, then how and where can identifications be made and by what methods? These were the fundamental questions driving a workshop to examine the future of predictive surveillance for viruses that might jump from animals to infect humans. Virologists, ecologists and computational biologists from academia, federal government and non-governmental organizations discussed opportunities as well as obstacles to the prediction of species jumps using genetic and ecological data from viruses and their hosts, vectors and reservoirs. This workshop marked an important first step towards envisioning both scientific and organizational frameworks for this future capability. Canine parvoviruses as well as seasonal H3N2 and pandemic H1N1 influenza viruses are discussed as exemplars that suggest what to look for in anticipating species jumps. To answer the question of where to look, prospects for discovering emerging viruses among wildlife, bats, rodents, arthropod vectors and occupationally exposed humans are discussed. Finally, opportunities and obstacles are identified and accompanied by suggestions for how to look for species jumps. Taken together, these findings constitute the beginnings of a conceptual framework for achieving a virus surveillance capability that could predict future species jumps

Strength and tempo of selection revealed in viral gene genealogies

BACKGROUND: RNA viruses evolve extremely quickly, allowing them to rapidly adapt to new environmental conditions. Viral pathogens, such as influenza virus, exploit this capacity for evolutionary change to persist within the human population despite substantial immune pressure. Understanding the process of adaptation in these viral systems is essential to our efforts to combat infectious disease. RESULTS: Through analysis of simulated populations and sequence data from influenza A (H3N2) and measles virus, we show how phylogenetic and population genetic techniques can be used to assess the strength and temporal pattern of adaptive evolution. The action of natural selection affects the shape of the genealogical tree connecting members of an evolving population, causing deviations from the neutral expectation. The magnitude and distribution of these deviations lends insight into the historical pattern of evolution and adaptation in the viral population. We quantify the degree of ongoing adaptation in influenza and measles virus through comparison of census population size and effective population size inferred from genealogical patterns, finding a 60-fold greater deviation in influenza than in measles. We also examine the tempo of adaptation in influenza, finding evidence for both continuous and episodic change. CONCLUSIONS: Our results have important consequences for understanding the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of the influenza virus. Additionally, these general techniques may prove useful to assess the strength and pattern of adaptive evolution in a variety of evolving systems. They are especially powerful when assessing selection in fast-evolving populations, where temporal patterns become highly visible

Sex Differences in Risk Taking Behavior among Dutch Cyclists

The majority of research examining sex differences in risk-taking behavior focuses on overt physical risk measures in which failed risk attempts may result in serious injury or death. The present research describes sex differences in patterns of risk taking in day-to-day behavior among Dutch cyclists. Through three observational studies we test sex differences in risk taking in situations of financial risk (fines for failing to use bike lights, Study 1), theft risk (bike locking behavior, Study 2) as well as physical risk (risky maneuvers, Study 3). Results corroborate previous findings by showing that across these domains men are more inclined to take risks than women. We discuss how these findings might be used in an applied context

Partner choice, relationship satisfaction, and oral contraception: the congruency hypothesis

Hormonal fluctuation across the menstrual cycle explains temporal variation in women’s judgment of the attractiveness of members of the opposite sex. Use of hormonal contraceptives could therefore influence both initial partner choice and, if contraceptive use subsequently changes, intrapair dynamics. Associations between hormonal contraceptive use and relationship satisfaction may thus be best understood by considering whether current use is congruent with use when relationships formed, rather than by considering current use alone. In the study reported here, we tested this congruency hypothesis in a survey of 365 couples. Controlling for potential confounds (including relationship duration, age, parenthood, and income), we found that congruency in current and previous hormonal contraceptive use, but not current use alone, predicted women’s sexual satisfaction with their partners. Congruency was not associated with women’s nonsexual satisfaction or with the satisfaction of their male partners. Our results provide empirical support for the congruency hypothesis and suggest that women’s sexual satisfaction is influenced by changes in partner preference associated with change in hormonal contraceptive use

Assessment of the Environmental and Economic Impacts of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Renewable sources of energy remove dependence on fossil fuels. When renewable sources are adopted, they reduce damage to the environment from burning fossil fuels. Currently, fossil fuels are cheaper to produce, causing renewable energy to be used less. In the United States, fossil fuels receive heavy subsidies, keeping renewable energy in the periphery. This research explores the environmental and economic effects of subsidizing fossil fuels. Findings include that governments and citizens lose money when fossil fuels are subsidized. While subsidization initially makes them cheaper, they create expenses that are not factored into original costs, such as damage to human health and the environment. When these expenses are accounted for, fossil fuel costs exponentially outweigh renewable energy costs. Research identifies methods of decreasing fossil fuel subsidies such as “subsidy swapping,” measured workforce sector transitions, regional markets for pollution trading, and adoption of the Green New Deal or similar policy proposals, all of which reduce damage from climate change. When these methods are implemented, job creation results from a growing renewable energy sector, and billions of dollars are saved from stranding in a fossil fuel industry that will soon become economically inefficient and obsolete. Case studies of the United States and developing nations are compared to illustrate how the United States is bound by fossil fuel subsidies, whereas developing nations are taking steps to subsidize renewable energy because they will be disproportionately affected by environmental disasters caused by climate change

The Utopia Within: Some Psychological Aspects of Edward Bellamy\u27s Early Writing

This study examines the early writing of Edward Bellamy, that done before the publication of Looking Backward, to determine whether he himself was justified in calling it psychologic. Because of the highly autobiographical nature of his work and his own tendency toward introspection, I have reviewed and thoroughly examined the few known facts of his early life. His preoccupation with guilt feelings and anxiety may be partially attributed to his own early rejection of the orthodox religion of his parents and to his seeming inability to meet their high expectations. For the most part I have chosen to study those early short stories that have been largely neglected, most notably those written specifically for Sunday Afternoon, a reform magazine edited by Washington Gladden, and others that were also not included in his final collection, The Blindman\u27s World. The stories have a dual psychological aspect. They reveal a great deal about Bellamy\u27s own emotional problems, proving to be autobiographical on the psychological as well as the factual level. In light of psychological theory developed since Bellamy\u27s time, much of what is revealed was apparently unconsciously incorporated into his fiction. On the other hand, Bellamy considered himself a student of psychology and deliberately applied current theories of psychology to his writing of fiction. There is clear evidence of his knowledge of the work of the faculty psychologists and of Darwinian physiological psychology. Bellamy used his early writing, as he states in his journals, as a means of acquainting himself with the inner man. The emotional problems of the characters of his early stories are often painfully intense and vividly realistic. In following a psychological progression in his stories it appears that the closer Bellamy came to a true revelation of his own psychological conflicts, the less realistic his fiction became and the more he pursued romance and fantasy in his writing. By the time he wrote Looking Backward he had largely abandoned realism. The demands of Nationalism put an end to his career of fiction writing, but even if it had not, Bellamy probably would have continued to attempt to solve psychological problems through the creation of a utopian, rational, ideal humanity rather than by neurotic man\u27s often painful confrontation with his own psyche as depicted in his early stories

Viral factors in influenza pandemic risk assessment

The threat of an influenza A virus pandemic stems from continual virus spillovers from reservoir species, a tiny fraction of which spark sustained transmission in humans. To date, no pandemic emergence of a new influenza strain has been preceded by detection of a closely related precursor in an animal or human. Nonetheless, influenza surveillance efforts are expanding, prompting a need for tools to assess the pandemic risk posed by a detected virus. The goal would be to use genetic sequence and/or biological assays of viral traits to identify those non-human influenza viruses with the greatest risk of evolving into pandemic threats, and/or to understand drivers of such evolution, to prioritize pandemic prevention or response measures. We describe such efforts, identify progress and ongoing challenges, and discuss three specific traits of influenza viruses (hemagglutinin receptor binding specificity, hemagglutinin pH of activation, and polymerase complex efficiency) that contribute to pandemic risk