Primates and philosophers de Waal, Frans; Macedo, Stephen; Ober, Josiah
2006., 20090112, 2009, 2006, 2006-01-01, Letnik:
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"It’s the animal in us," we often hear when we’ve been bad. But why not when we’re good? Primates and Philosophers tackles this question by exploring the biological foundations of one of humanity’s ...most valued traits: morality. In this provocative book, primatologist Frans de Waal argues that modern-day evolutionary biology takes far too dim a view of the natural world, emphasizing our "selfish" genes. Science has thus exacerbated our reciprocal habits of blaming nature when we act badly and labeling the good things we do as "humane." Seeking the origin of human morality not in evolution but in human culture, science insists that we are moral by choice, not by nature.
From bank bailouts and corporate scandals to the financial panic of 2008 and its lingering effects, corporate governance in America has been wracked with crises. Amid a weakening system of checks and ...balances in which corporate executives have little incentive to protect shareholder interests, U.S. corporations are growing larger and more irresponsible at the same time. But dependence on corporate profit was crucial to the early republic's growth, success, and security: despite protests that incorporated business was an inefficient and potentially corrupting system, U.S. state governments chartered more corporations per capita than any other nation-including Britain-effectively making the United States a "corporation nation." Drawing on legal and economic history, Robert E. Wright traces the development and decline of corporate institutions in America, connecting today's financial failures to deteriorating corporate law.In the nineteenth century, checks and balances kept managerial interests aligned with those of stockholders, and public opinion grew supportive as corporations raised billions of dollars to finance infrastructure such as transportation networks, financial systems, and manufacturing operations. But many of these checks and balances were dismantled after the Civil War, allowing leeway for the managerial malfeasance that spiraled into economic crisis in the twenty-first century. Bolstered with archival and original data, including the first complete count of American business corporations before the Civil War,Corporation Nationmakes a compelling argument for improved internal governance and more effective external government regulation.
To illustrate the role of the exposome in child health while highlighting unique aspects of this research pertinent to children, such as the time dependency of environmental exposures on fetal ...programming, as well as the time-dependent nature of child behavior, diet, and motor function, which alter the probability of exposure to different compounds. Future environmental health research will be more hypothesis generating but will also need to heed lessons learned from other 'omic' sciences. The NIH Child Health Environmental Analysis Resource (CHEAR) is a major step toward providing the infrastructure needed to study the exposome and child health.
Environmental exposures have overlapping mechanisms such as endocrine disruption and oxidative stress, among others. The nature of the long-term health impact of an exposure is dependent not only on dose, but also on the timing of exposure. Advances in exposure science, toxicology, and biostatistics will create new opportunities to identify and better define windows of susceptibility to environmental exposures.
As exposure science matures, we will better understand the role of environment on health. Linking the exposome with genomics will unlock the root origins of multiple complex diseases.
The influence of particulate air pollution on respiratory health starts in utero. Fetal lung growth and structural development occurs in stages; thus, effects on postnatal respiratory disorders may ...differ based on timing of exposure.
We implemented an innovative method to identify sensitive windows for effects of prenatal exposure to particulate matter with a diameter less than or equal to 2.5 μm (PM2.5) on children's asthma development in an urban pregnancy cohort.
Analyses included 736 full-term (≥37 wk) children. Each mother's daily PM2.5 exposure was estimated over gestation using a validated satellite-based spatiotemporal resolved model. Using distributed lag models, we examined associations between weekly averaged PM2.5 levels over pregnancy and physician-diagnosed asthma in children by age 6 years. Effect modification by sex was also examined.
Most mothers were ethnic minorities (54% Hispanic, 30% black), had 12 or fewer years of education (66%), and did not smoke in pregnancy (80%). In the sample as a whole, distributed lag models adjusting for child age, sex, and maternal factors (education, race and ethnicity, smoking, stress, atopy, prepregnancy obesity) showed that increased PM2.5 exposure levels at 16-25 weeks gestation were significantly associated with early childhood asthma development. An interaction between PM2.5 and sex was significant (P = 0.01) with sex-stratified analyses showing that the association exists only for boys.
Higher prenatal PM2.5 exposure at midgestation was associated with asthma development by age 6 years in boys. Methods to better characterize vulnerable windows may provide insight into underlying mechanisms.
Evidence supports an association between maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and children's health outcomes. Recent interest has focused on identifying critical windows of ...vulnerability. An analysis based on a distributed lag model (DLM) can yield estimates of a critical window that are different from those from an analysis that regresses the outcome on each of the 3 trimester-average exposures (TAEs). Using a simulation study, we assessed bias in estimates of critical windows obtained using 3 regression approaches: 1) 3 separate models to estimate the association with each of the 3 TAEs; 2) a single model to jointly estimate the association between the outcome and all 3 TAEs; and 3) a DLM. We used weekly fine-particulate-matter exposure data for 238 births in a birth cohort in and around Boston, Massachusetts, and a simulated outcome and time-varying exposure effect. Estimates using separate models for each TAE were biased and identified incorrect windows. This bias arose from seasonal trends in particulate matter that induced correlation between TAEs. Including all TAEs in a single model reduced bias. DLM produced unbiased estimates and added flexibility to identify windows. Analysis of body mass index z score and fat mass in the same cohort highlighted inconsistent estimates from the 3 methods.
Climate change is a major threat to human respiratory health and associated allergic disorders given its broad impact on the exposome. Climate change can affect exposure to allergens, such as pollen, ...dust mites, molds, as well as other factors such as temperature, air pollution, and nutritional factors, which synergistically impact the immune response to these allergens. Exposome change can differentially exacerbate allergic reactions across subgroups of populations, especially those who are more vulnerable to environmental stressors. Understanding links between climate change and health impacts can help inform how to protect individuals and vulnerable populations from adverse health effects.
Using data from the 2015 China Household Financial Survey (CHFS) this paper examines the effect of culture on the gender gap in financial literacy. We exploit geographical differences in culture in ...China, comparing outcomes between rural and urban areas and between areas in the east and west (Shanghai and Chongqing). Using the Blinder‐Oaxaca decomposition we show that, nationally, the gender gap in financial literacy is entirely the product of differences in the way men and women acquire financial literacy. It is a result consistent with cultural effects. When considering just women in Shanghai and Chongqing we observe a raw financial literacy differential of 13% (favoring Shanghai). This gap is also the product of differences in the way financial literacy is acquired. It provides additional evidence as to the importance of culture when it comes to understanding financial literacy.
Psychosocial stress contributes to placental oxidative stress. Mitochondria are vulnerable to oxidative stress, which can lead to changes in mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn). We examined ...associations of maternal lifetime stress, current negative life events, and depressive and posttraumatic-stress-disorder symptom scores with placental mtDNAcn in a racially/ethnically diverse sample (n = 147) from the Programming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) study (Massachusetts, March 2011 to August 2012). In linear regression analyses adjusted for maternal age, race/ethnicity, education, prenatal fine particulate matter exposure, prenatal smoking exposure, and the sex of the child, all measures of stress were associated with decreased placental mtDNAcn (all P values < 0.05). Weighted-quantile-sum (WQS) regression showed that higher lifetime stress and depressive symptoms accounted for most of the effect on mtDNAcn (WQS weights: 0.25 and 0.39, respectively). However, among white individuals, increased lifetime stress and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms explained the majority of the effect (WQS weights: 0.20 and 0.62, respectively) while among nonwhite individuals, lifetime stress and depressive symptoms accounted for most of the effect (WQS weights: 0.27 and 0.55, respectively). These analyses are first to link increased maternal psychosocial stress with reduced placental mtDNAcn and add to literature documenting racial/ethnic differences in the psychological sequelae of chronic stress that may contribute to maternal-fetal health.
Exposure to chemical mixtures is recognized as the real-life scenario in all populations, needing new statistical methods that can assess their complex effects.
We aimed to assess the joint effect of ...in utero exposure to arsenic, manganese, and lead on children's neurodevelopment.
We employed a novel statistical approach, Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR), to study the joint effect of coexposure to arsenic, manganese, and lead on neurodevelopment using an adapted Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development™. Third Edition, in 825 mother-child pairs recruited into a prospective birth cohort from two clinics in the Pabna and Sirajdikhan districts of Bangladesh. Metals were measured in cord blood using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.
Analyses were stratified by clinic due to differences in exposure profiles. In the Pabna district, which displayed high manganese levels interquartile range (IQR): 4.8, 18 μg/dl, we found a statistically significant negative effect of the mixture of arsenic, lead, and manganese on cognitive score when cord blood metals concentrations were all above the 60th percentile (As≥0.7 μg/dl, Mn≥6.6 μg/dl, Pb≥4.2 μg/dl) compared to the median (As=0.5 μg/dl, Mn=5.8 μg/dl, Pb=3.1 μg/dl). Evidence of a nonlinear effect of manganese was found. A change in log manganese from the 25th to the 75th percentile when arsenic and manganese were at the median was associated with a decrease in cognitive score of −0.3 (−0.5, −0.1) standard deviations. Our study suggests that arsenic might be a potentiator of manganese toxicity.
Employing a novel statistical method for the study of the health effects of chemical mixtures, we found evidence of neurotoxicity of the mixture, as well as potential synergism between arsenic and manganese. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP614.
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