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Cathrine Axfors & John P. A. Ioannidis, Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in community-dwelling populations with emphasis on the elderly, An overview. medRxiv 2021 , 21260210, 1–29. <DOI:10.1101/2021.07.08.21260210>.
medRxiv2021-a21260210-Supplement.pdf
The IFR of COVID-19 in community-dwelling elderly people is lower than previously reported. Very low IFRs were confirmed in the youngest populations.
Lloyd A. C. Chapman et al., Unexposed populations and potential COVID-19 burden in European countries. medRxiv 2021 , 21266166. <DOI:10.1101/2021.11.10.21266166>.
We estimate the potential remaining COVID-19 burden in 19 European countries by estimating the proportion of each country’s population that has acquired immunity to severe disease through infection or vaccination. Our results suggest that many European countries could still face a substantial burden of hospitalisations and deaths, particularly those with lower vaccine coverage, less historical transmission, and/or older populations. Continued non-pharmaceutical interventions and efforts to achieve high vaccine coverage are required in these countries to limit severe COVID-19 outcomes.
Lloyd A. C. Chapman, Rosanna C. Barnard, Timothy W. Russell, Sam Abbott, Kevin Van Zandvoort, Nicholas G. Davies & Adam J. Kucharski
Max Kozlov, Can the immune system ‘abort’ Covid infection? nature 599 (2021), 543.
UK data suggest some people can clear a nascent SARS-CoV-2 infection but the study has limitations.
Heidi Ledford, How vaccination affects the risk of Long Covid. nature 599 (2021), 546–548.
Coronavirus vaccines reduce the risk of developing COVID-19 — but studies disagree on their protective effect against long COVID.
But for those who do experience a breakthrough infection, studies suggest that vaccination might only halve the risk of long COVID — or have no effect on it at all.
Peter Nordström, Marcel Ballin & Anna Nordström, Effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination against risk of symptomatic infection, hospitalization, and death up to 9 months, A Swedish total-population cohort study. The Lancet (2021), preprint, 1–34. <DOI:10.2139/ssrn.3949410>.
Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals. The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities. This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose.
Peter Nordström, Marcel Ballin & Anna Nordström, Effectiveness of heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and mRNA prime-boost vaccination against symptomatic Covid-19 infection in Sweden: A nationwide cohort study. Lancet Regional Health Europe (2021), preprint, 1–7. <DOI:10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100249>.
The findings of this study suggest that the use of heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and mRNA prime-boost vaccination is an effective alternative to increase population immunity against Covid-19, including against the Delta variant which dominated the confirmed cases during the study period. These findings could have important implications for vaccination strategies and logistics, and consequently in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rolf Steyer & Gregor Kappler, Stellungnahme. unknown 2021 , xi, 1.
Zur Klarstellung: Es handelt sich bei der Notiz weder um eine wissenschaftliche Publikation, noch um eine fundierte wissenschaftliche Studie, die unseren eigenen Qualitätsstandards genügt. Unsere Notiz beweist keineswegs, dass eine erhöhte Impfquote zu einer erhöhten Sterbewahrscheinlichkeit führt. Wir möchten auch nicht, dass sie dahingehend fehlinterpretiert wird. Es gibt zahlreiche Gründe, welche die gefundene positive Korrelation erklären könnten, ohne einen negativen Effekt der Impfquote auf die Übersterblichkeit zu implizieren. Um die aktuelle Übersterblichkeit zu erklären, sind umfassendere wissenschaftliche Analysen geboten. Unter Hinzunahme der jetzt verfügbaren KW 41 ist übrigens die von uns letzte Woche berichtete positive Korrelation nahezu gleich null.
Doriana De Marco, Emilia Scalona, Arturo Nuara, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Maddalena Fabbri-Destro & Pietro Avanzini et al., Observation of others’ actions during limb immobilization prevents the subsequent decay of motor performance. PNAS 118 (2021), e2025979118.
pnas118-e2025979118-Supplement.pdf
There is rich clinical evidence that observing normally executed actions promotes the recovery of the corresponding action execution in patients with motor deficits. In this study, we assessed the ability of action observation to prevent the decay of healthy individuals’ motor abilities following upper-limb immobilization. To this end, upper-limb kinematics was recorded in healthy participants while they performed three reach-to-grasp movements before immobilization and the same movements after 16 h of immobilization. The participants were subdivided into two groups; the experimental group observed, during the immobilization, the same reach-to-grasp movements they had performed before immobilization, whereas the control group observed natural scenarios. After bandage removal, motor impairment in performing reach-to-grasp movements was milder in the experimental group. These findings support the hypothesis that action observation, via the mirror mechanism, plays a protective role against the decline of motor performance induced by limb nonuse. From this perspective, action observation therapy is a promising tool for anticipating rehabilitation onset in clinical conditions involving limb nonuse, thus reducing the burden of further rehabilitation.
Keywords: action observation | mirror mechanism | motor rehabilitation | early treatment
Significance: In several clinical conditions, especially those related to orthopedic trauma or specific injuries of the peripheral nervous system, patients may experience a period of limb nonuse that has detrimental cascade effects on corticomotor organization and ultimately, on motor performance. During limb nonuse, treatments based on action observation may be suitable for stimulating the motor system via the mirror mechanism. Using short-term immobilization in healthy volunteers, our study showed that administering action observation during immobilization limits the movement alterations induced by limb nonuse. Given action observation’s protective role against the decline of motor performance, it represents a valid tool for early interventions during limb nonuse, thus reducing the burden of further motor rehabilitation.
Doriana De Marco, Emilia Scalona, Maria Chiara Bazzini, Arturo Nuara, Elisa Taglione, Nicola Francesco Lopomo, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Maddalena Fabbri-Destro & Pietro Avanzini
Vanessa Villalba-Mouco, Adam B. Rohrlach, Roberto Risch & Wolfgang Haak et al., Genomic transformation and social organization during the Copper Age–Bronze Age transition in southern Iberia. Science Advances 7 (2021), eabi7038. <DOI:10.1126/sciadv.abi7038>.
The emerging Bronze Age (BA) of southeastern Iberia saw marked social changes. Late Copper Age (CA) settlements were abandoned in favor of hilltop sites, and collective graves were largely replaced by single or double burials with often distinctive grave goods indirectly reflecting a hierarchical social organization, as exemplified by the BA El Argar group. We explored this transition from a genomic viewpoint by tripling the amount of data available for this period. Concomitant with the rise of El Argar starting 2200 cal BCE, we observe a complete turnover of Y-chromosome lineages along with the arrival of steppe-related ancestry. This pattern is consistent with a founder effect in male lineages, supported by our finding that males shared more relatives at sites than females. However, simple two-source models do not find support in some El Argar groups, suggesting additional genetic contributions from the Mediterranean that could predate the BA.
Vanessa Villalba-Mouco, Camila Oliart, Cristina Rihuete-Herrada, Ainash Childebayeva, Adam B. Rohrlach, María Inés Fregeiro, Eva Celdrán Beltrán, Carlos Velasco-Felipe, Franziska Aron, Marie Himmel, Caecilia Freund, Kurt W. Alt, Domingo C. Salazar-García, Gabriel García Atiénzar, Ma. Paz de Miguel Ibáñez, Mauro S. Hernández Pérez, Virginia Barciela, Alejandro Romero, Juana Ponce, Andrés Martínez, Joaquín Lomba, Jorge Soler, Ana Pujante Martínez, Azucena Avilés Fernández, María Haber-Uriarte, Consuelo Roca de Togores Muñoz, Iñigo Olalde, Carles Lalueza-Fox, David Reich, Johannes Krause, Leonardo García Sanjuán, Vicente Lull, Rafael Micó, Roberto Risch & Wolfgang Haak
Alfred Resch, Agrapha, Außercanonische Schriftfragmente. (Darmstadt 21974). Unveränderter reprographischer Nachdruck der 2. völlig neu bearbeiteten und vermehrten Auflage von 1906.
Achad Haam, Am Scheidewege, Ausgewählte Essays. (Berlin 1904).
Achad Haam, Am Scheidewege, Band II. (Berlin 1916).
Mahmood Alam, Subsidence of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta of Bangladesh and Associated Drainage, Sedimaentation and Salinity Problems. In: John Milliman & Bilal U. Haq (Hrsg.), Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Subsidence, Causes, Consequences, and Strategies. (Dordrecht 1996), 169–192.
The Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta is one of the most densely populated areas of the world. The delta occupies most of the Bengal Basin and is slowly subsiding as a result of isostatic adjustment of the crust due to rise of the Himalayas and dewatering of the Proto-Bengal Fan sediments which is now buried under thick Mio-Pliocene-Pleistocene deltaic sediments. Well-log data from northwest of Dhaka indicates that at least a part of the basin is subsiding at a rate of 2.2 cm/year. Three areas of the basin — the Hatiya Trough, Faridpur Trough and Sylhet Trough — may be subsiding at similar or higher rates. Engineering projects that do not consider the subsidence component in planning and designing may produce results detrimental to the environment.
There has been very little net progradation of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in the last 200 years. The early and modern Meghna Delta, on the other hand, is changing rapidly, with new islands appearing and major channel shifting every few years. East of Tentulia River, there has been a general seaward growth of the coastline. The Noakhali coastline eroded about 8 km between 1789 and 1945, whereas it accreted about 20 km between 1959 and 1982. It is not clear if the latter seaward growth was due to increased soil erosion in the Himalayas, following deforestation or due to changes in estuarine circulation.
The subsidence and the relative sea-level rise could cause serious drainage and sedimentation problems in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. With higher sea level, more areas will be affected by cyclonic surge; inland fresh water lakes, ponds and aquifers are likely to be affected by saline and brackish water intrusion. The present limit of tidal influence is expected to extend further north. Expected sea-level rise will cause soil salinity, as well as surface water and ground water salinity for a large part of the coastal area. The above conditions, together with lack of dry-season stream flow, may cause serious ecological and economic problems for the country.
Nicolas Brehm, Marcus Christl & Lukas Wacker et al., Tree rings reveal two strong solar proton events in 7176 and 5259 BCE. Online 2021 , Aug. 10. <DOI:10.21203/rs.3.rs-753272/v1>.
WWW2021-08.10-Supplement1.pdf, WWW2021-08.10-Supplement2.pdf, WWW2021-08.10-Supplement3.pdf
The Sun sporadically produces eruptive events leading to intense fluxes of solar energetic particles (SEPs) that dramatically disrupt the near-Earth radiation environment. Such events are directly studied for the last decades but little is known about the occurrence and magnitude of rare, extreme SEP events. Presently, a few events that produced measurable signals in cosmogenic radionuclides such as 14C, 10Be and 36Cl have been found. Analyzing annual 14C concentrations in tree-rings from Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Russia, and the USA we discovered two spikes in atmospheric 14C corresponding to 7176 and 5259 BCE. The 2 % increases of atmospheric 14C recorded for both events exceed all previously known 14C peaks but after correction for the geomagnetic field, they are comparable to the largest event of this type discovered so far at 775 CE. These strong events serve as accurate time markers for the synchronization with floating tree-ring and ice core records and provide critical information on the previous occurrence of extreme solar events which threaten modern infrastructure.
Keywords: solar energetic particles | 14C concentrations | extreme solar events
Nicolas Brehm, Marcus Christl, Florian Adolphi, Raimund Muscheler, Hans-Arno Synal, Florian Mekhaldi, Chiara Paleari, Hanns-Hubert Leuschner, Alex Bayliss, Kurt Nicolussi, Thomas Pichler, Christian Schlüchter, Charlotte L. Pearson, Matthew W. Salzer, Patrick Fonti, Daniel Nievergelt, Rashit Hantemirov, David M. Brown, Ilya Usoskin & Lukas Wacker
Allison T. Karp, J. Tyler Faith, Jennifer R. Marlon & A. Carla Staver, Global response of fire activity to late Quaternary grazer extinctions. science 374 (2021), 1145–1148.
s374-1145-Supplement.pdf
Fire activity varies substantially at global scales because of the influence of climate, but at broad spatiotemporal scales, the possible effects of herbivory on fire activity are unknown. Here, we used late Quaternary large-bodied herbivore extinctions as a global exclusion experiment to examine the responses of grassy ecosystem paleofire activity (through charcoal proxies) to continental differences in extinction severity. Grassy ecosystem fire activity increased in response to herbivore extinction, with larger increases on continents that suffered the largest losses of grazers; browser declines had no such effect. These shifts suggest that herbivory can have Earth system–scale effects on fire and that herbivore impacts should be explicitly considered when predicting changes in past and future global fire activity.
Peter Bellwood, Tracking the origin of Transeurasian languages. nature 599 (2021), 557–558.
A triangulation of linguistic, archaeological and genetic data suggests that the Transeurasian language family originated in a population of grain farmers in China around 9,000 years ago, and that agriculture underpinned its spread.
Mattia Fochesato, Charles Higham, Amy Bogaard & Cristina Cobo Castillo, Changing social inequality from first farmers to early states in Southeast Asia. PNAS 118 (2021), e2113598118.
pnas118-e2113598118-Supplement.pdf
When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they interacted with hunter-gatherer communities with an ancestry in the region of at least 50 millennia. Rigorously dated prehistoric sites in the upper Mun Valley of Northeast Thailand have revealed a 12-phase sequence beginning with the first farmers followed by the adoption of bronze and then iron metallurgy leading on to the rise of early states. On the basis of the burial rituals involving interment with a wide range of mortuary offerings and associated practices, we identify, by computing the values of the Gini coefficient, at least two periods of intensified social inequality. The first occurred during the initial Bronze Age that, we suggest, reflected restricted elite ownership of exotic valuables within an exchange choke point. The second occurred during the later Iron Age when increased aridity stimulated an agricultural revolution that rapidly led to the first state societies in mainland Southeast Asia.
Keywords: Gini coefficient | wealth inequality | climate change | burial rituals | rice farming
Significance: This is an exploration of social change, measured by means of the Gini coefficient, that has been applied to a 2,500-y cultural sequence in Southeast Asia. The results indicate pulses of elevated social inequality from different stimuli, some transient but the last, due to an agricultural revolution consequent to climate change, enduring.
Martine Robbeets, Mark J. Hudson & Chao Ning et al., Triangulation supports agricultural spread of the Transeurasian languages. nature 599 (2021), 616–621.
n599-0616-Supplement.pdf
The origin and early dispersal of speakers of Transeurasian languages—that is, Japanese, Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic—is among the most disputed issues of Eurasian population history1–3. A key problem is the relationship between linguistic dispersals, agricultural expansions and population movements4,5. Here we address this question by ‘triangulating’ genetics, archaeology and linguistics in a unified perspective. We report wide-ranging datasets from these disciplines, including a comprehensive Transeurasian agropastoral and basic vocabulary; an archaeological database of 255 Neolithic–Bronze Age sites from Northeast Asia; and a collection of ancient genomes from Korea, the Ryukyu islands and early cereal farmers in Japan, complementing previously published genomes from East Asia. Challenging the traditional ‘pastoralist hypothesis’6–8, we show that the common ancestry and primary dispersals of Transeurasian languages can be traced back to the first farmers moving across Northeast Asia from the Early Neolithic onwards, but that this shared heritage has been masked by extensive cultural interaction since the Bronze Age. As well as marking considerable progress in the three individual disciplines, by combining their converging evidence we show that the early spread of Transeurasian speakers was driven by agriculture.
Martine Robbeets, Remco Bouckaert, Matthew Conte, Alexander Savelyev, Tao Li, Deog-Im An, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Yinqiu Cui, Takamune Kawashima, Geonyoung Kim, Junzo Uchiyama, Joanna Doliñska, Sofia Oskolskaya, Ken-Yojiro Yamano, Noriko Seguchi, Hirotaka Tomita, Hiroto Takamiya, Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama, Hiroki Oota, Hajime Ishida, Ryosuke Kimura, Takehiro Sato, Jae-Hyun Kim, Bingcong Deng, Rasmus Bjorn, Seongha Rhee, Kyou-Dong Ahn, Ilya Gruntov, Olga Mazo, John R. Bentley, Ricardo Fernandes, Patrick Roberts, Ilona R. Bausch, Linda Gilaizeau, Minoru Yoneda, Mitsugu Kugai, Raffaela A. Bianco, Fan Zhang, Marie Himmel, Mark J. Hudson & Chao Ning
Albert Bauer & Reinhold Rau, Quellen zur Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit, Widukinds Sachsengeschichte, Adalberts Fortsetzung der Chronik Reginos, Liudprands Werke. Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters 8 (Darmstadt 1971).
Amy Bogaard et al., Reconsidering domestication from a process archaeology perspective. World Archaeology (2021), preprint, 1–23. <DOI:10.1080/00438243.2021.1954990>.
Process philosophy offers a metaphysical foundation for domestication studies. This grounding is especially important given the European colonialist origin of ‘domestication’ as a term and 19th century cultural project. We explore the potential of process archaeology for deep-time investigation of domestication relationships, drawing attention to the variable pace of domestication as an ongoing process within and across taxa; the nature of domestication ‘syndromes’ and ‘pathways’ as general hypotheses about process; the importance of cooperation as well as competition among humans and other organisms; the signi8cance of non-human agency; and the ubiquity of hybrid communities that resist the simple wild/domestic dichotomy.
Keywords: Domestication | process | agriculture | herding | niche | hybridity
Amy Bogaard, Robin Allaby, Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Robin Bendrey, Sarah Crowley, Thomas Cucchi, Tim Denham, Laurent Frantz, Dorian Fuller, Tom Gilbert, Elinor Karlsson, Aurélie Manin, Fiona Marshall, Natalie Mueller, Joris Peters, Charles Stépanoff, Alexander Weide & Greger Larson
Adam B. Rohrlach et al., Using Y-chromosome capture enrichment to resolve haplogroup H2 shows new evidence for a twopath Neolithic expansion to Western Europe. Scientific Reports 11 (2021), 15005. <DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-94491-z>.
Uniparentally inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the nonrecombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective. Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conversely, the NRY is less susceptible to back mutations and saturation, and is potentially more informative than mtDNA owing to its longer sequence length. However, due to comparatively poor NRY coverage via shotgun sequencing, and the relatively low and biased representation of Ychromosome variants on capture assays such as the 1240 k, ancient DNA studies often fail to utilize the unique perspective that the NRY can yield. Here we introduce a new DNA enrichment assay, coined YMCA (Y-mappable capture assay), that targets the “mappable” regions of the NRY. We show that compared to low-coverage shotgun sequencing and 1240 k capture, YMCA significantly improves the mean coverage and number of sites covered on the NRY, increasing the number of Y-haplogroup informative SNPs, and allowing for the identification of previously undiscovered variants. To illustrate the power of YMCA, we show that the analysis of ancient Y-chromosome lineages can help to resolve Y-chromosomal haplogroups. As a case study, we focus on H2, a haplogroup associated with a critical event in European human history: the Neolithic transition. By disentangling the evolutionary history of this haplogroup, we further elucidate the two separate paths by which early farmers expanded from Anatolia and the Near East to western Europe.
Adam B. Rohrlach, Luka Papac, Ainash Childebayeva, Maite Rivollat, Vanessa VillalbaMouco, Gunnar U. Neumann, Sandra Penske, Eirini Skourtanioti, Marieke van de Loosdrecht, Murat Akar, Kamen Boyadzhiev, Yavor Boyadzhiev, MarieFrance Deguilloux, Miroslav Dobe, Yilmaz S. Erdal, Michal Ernee, Marcella Frangipane, Mirosaw Furmanek, Susanne Friederich, Emmanuel Ghesquiere, Agata Hauszko, Svend Hansen, Mario Kusner, Marcello Mannino, Rana Ozbal, Sabine Reinhold, Stephane Rottier, Domingo Carlos SalazarGarcia, Jorge Soler Diaz, Philipp W. Stockhammer, Consuelo Roca de Togores Munoz, K. Aslihan Yener, Cosimo Posth, Johannes Krause, Alexander Herbig & Wolfgang Haak
Eberhard Gamm, Was ist Geld? Die fehlerhafte Buchführung der Banken und ihre Folgen. (unpublished 2021).
In diesem Buch wird gezeigt, dass
- Geld eine Buchführungsgröÿe ist, mit der erbrachte und in Anspruch genommene Leistungen abgerechnet werden;
- es sich bei einer Zahlung um die Verbuchung einer Leistungstransaktion handelt;
- sich ein Kredit fundamental von einem Darlehen unterscheidet;
- die Bilanzen der Banken in zwei Teile aufgespalten werden müssen: ein Abrechnungssystem und die Bilanz eines Bankbetriebs;
- die Insolvenz einer Bank nur den Bankbetrieb betrifft und keine Auswirkungen auf das Abrechnungssystem hat;
\noindent- die Insolvenz eines Wirtschaftsteilnehmers nicht zwangsläufig dazu führen muss, dass ausstehende Zahlungen nicht mehr erfolgen und die entsprechenden Verkäufer leer ausgehen;
- die Zentralbanken ein Relikt aus der Zeit der Gold- und Silber-Währungen sind und die klassischen Instrumente der Zentralbanken heute weitgehend wirkungslos sind;
\noindent- zahlreiche allgegenwärtige Aussagen über Geld aus der Zeit der Goldund Silber-Währungen stammen und unter den heutigen Bedingungen nicht mehr zutreffen;
- die Buchführung der Banken und der Zentralbanken nicht den Grundsätzen der kaufmännischen Buchführung entspricht;
- es im Geldwesen nur um zwei Fragen geht:
(1) Wer bekommt wie viel Kredit?
(2) Wie werden die Lasten von Kreditausfällen verteilt?
Chloe Wittenberg, Ben M. Tappin, Adam J. Berinsky & David G. Rand, The (minimal) persuasive advantage of political video over text. PNAS 118 (2021), e2114388118.
pnas118-e2114388118-Supplement.pdf
Concerns about video-based political persuasion are prevalent in both popular and academic circles, predicated on the assumption that video is more compelling than text. To date, however, this assumption remains largely untested in the political domain. Here, we provide such a test. We begin by drawing a theoretical distinction between two dimensions for which video might be more efficacious than text: 1) one’s belief that a depicted event actually occurred and 2) the extent to which one’s attitudes and behavior are changed. We test this model across two high-powered survey experiments varying exposure to politically persuasive messaging (total n = 7,609 Americans; 26,584 observations). Respondents were shown a selection of persuasive messages drawn from a diverse sample of 72 clips. For each message, they were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a short video, a detailed transcript of the video, or a control condition. Overall, we find that individuals are more likely to believe an event occurred when it is presented in video versus textual form, but the impact on attitudes and behavioral intentions is much smaller. Importantly, for both dimensions, these effects are highly stable across messages and respondent subgroups. Moreover, when it comes to attitudes and engagement, the difference between the video and text conditions is comparable to, if not smaller than, the difference between the text and control conditions. Taken together, these Results call into question widely held assumptions about the unique persuasive power of political video over text.
Keywords: political persuasion | communication modality | video | text | generalizability
Significance: Video is an increasingly common source of political information. Although conventional wisdom suggests that video is much more persuasive than other communication modalities such as text, this assumption has seldom been tested in the political domain. Across two large-scale randomized experiments, we find clear evidence that “seeing is believing”: individuals are more likely to believe an event took place when shown information in video versus textual form. When it comes to persuasion, however, the advantage of video over text is markedly less pronounced, with only small effects on attitudes and behavioral intentions. Together, these results challenge popular narratives about the unparalleled persuasiveness of political video versus text.