LINKS - October 5th, 2022
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human. LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
COVID deaths: more than 10 million children lost a parent or carer
By Jude Coleman, Nature
“Losing a parent or carer can inflict life-long consequences on children; on top of their traumatic grief from the loss, orphaned children are more likely to experience mental-health problems, abuse and chronic illness. Despite the heartbreaking situation, Hillis says that governments and communities can make a difference if they act in time. She urges people to check in on children they know who lost a parent, and on families with kids.
“She adds that decades of research on children whose parents died from AIDS shows that three ‘accelerators’ are the foundation to helping children to recover: educational support, economic assistance and assistance for the remaining parent or carer. Identifying the children who need help, and providing it quickly, is ‘where we need to go on the action’, Hillis says.”
How to get a crying baby to sleep, according to science
By Deborah Balthazar, Science News
“Carrying a crying infant for about five minutes, then sitting for at least another five to eight minutes can calm and lull the baby to sleep long enough to allow a parent to put the child down without waking them, researchers report September 13 in Current Biology.”
Inside the unique London community built by residents to defy housing discrimination
Directed by Timi Akindele-Ajani, It’s Nice That
“Nubia Way is a documentary directed by filmmaker and photographer Timi Akindele-Ajani, which explores the story of a group of Black Londoners who came together to build their own homes in Lewisham during the early 1990s. The project was a means of both highlighting and fighting against the persistent housing discrimination faced by Black British communities. Incorporating archival footage from the build alongside present day interviews with self-builders, architects, historians and economists, the documentary offers an insightful look into a momentous act of architectural self-reclamation that, until now, has remained largely undocumented.”
Nobel Prize Awarded to Scientist Who Sequenced Neanderthal Genome
By Benjamin Mueller, The New York Times
“In 2010, Dr. Pääbo unveiled the Neanderthal genome. The publication opened a window into questions about what made early humans different from modern ones. It also helped scientists track genetic differences in modern humans and understand what role those differences play in disease, including Covid-19. In 2020, Dr. Pääbo and a colleague found that the coronavirus caused more severe symptoms in people who had inherited a stretch of Neanderthal DNA.”
Dogs can smell when we're stressed from our breath and sweat
By Corryn Wetzel, New Scientist
“In a test to see if dogs can identify material that has been exposed to breath and sweat from stressed humans, they got it right around 94 per cent of the time”