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An African history of cannabis offers fascinating and heartbreaking insights – an expert explains

Retrieved on:

Saturday, December 30, 2023

I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including obscure plants and more widely known ones, such as the African baobab.

Key Points:

I’ve studied plants from perspectives ranging between ecology and cultural history, including obscure plants and more widely known ones, such as the African baobab.
Cannabis has a truly global history associated with a wide range of uses and meanings.
Cannabis has been under global prohibition for most of the last century, which has stunted understanding of the people-plant relationship.
Africa, Africans and people of the African diaspora have had crucial roles in the plant’s history that are mostly forgotten.

Medicinal potential

The African history of cannabis highlights its medicinal potential, a topic of growing interest.
The African past is absent from this medical literature, even though historical observers reported how Africans used cannabis in contexts that justify current interest in its medicinal potential.
Their experience justifies exploring cannabis as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and other conditions.

Exploitative labour

Africans have valued cannabis for centuries, though it’s difficult to know all the uses it had, because most weren’t documented.
Despite its limits, the historical record clearly shows that people used cannabis as a stimulant and painkiller in association with hard labour.
affirm that it wakes them up and warms their bodies, so that they are ready to start up with alacrity.

Africa’s place in global culture

I also study cannabis to understand how African knowledge has shaped global culture.
Oral histories from Brazil, Jamaica, Liberia and Sierra Leone tell that enslaved central Africans carried cannabis.
Around the Atlantic, many terms for cannabis trace to central Africa, including the global word marijuana, derived from Kimbundu mariamba.

Drug policy reforms

Drug policy reforms worldwide have opened lucrative, legal markets for cannabis.
Most African countries that have enacted drug-policy reforms – notable exceptions being South Africa and Morocco – did so only after foreign businesses paid for cannabis farming licences.
These drug-policy reforms don’t meaningfully extend to citizens of African countries.
Cannabis-policy reforms in Africa have mostly benefited investors and consumers in wealthy countries, not Africans, a textbook example of neocolonialism.

Way forward

In any case, the plant’s African past provides insight into both long-term and emerging issues in humanity’s interactions with cannabis.
This is why I study African cannabis.

Chris S. Duvall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

How data protection law can prevent harm in the housing sector

Retrieved on:

Friday, December 29, 2023

Housing organisations require personal data to provide services and support to their residents – this could be anything from contact details to medical records.

Key Points:

Housing organisations require personal data to provide services and support to their residents – this could be anything from contact details to medical records.

Meeting highlights from the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) 27-30 November 2023

Retrieved on:

Monday, December 18, 2023

EMA’s safety committee, PRAC, has recommended new measures for medicines containing pseudoephedrine to minimise the risks of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES)…, Agenda Agenda of the PRAC meeting 27-30 November 2023DraftFirst published: 27/11/2023Reference Number: EMA/PRAC/477373/2023…, PRAC statistics: December 2023, Glossary:Safety signal assessments. A safety signal is information which suggests a new potentially causal association, or a new aspect of a known association between a medicine…, Ongoing referralsProcedureStatusUpdateHydroxyprogesterone-containing medicinal products – Article-31 referralUnder evaluationPRAC continued its assessment

Key Points:

EMA’s safety committee, PRAC, has recommended new measures for medicines containing pseudoephedrine to minimise the risks of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES)…, Agenda Agenda of the PRAC meeting 27-30 November 2023DraftFirst published: 27/11/2023Reference Number: EMA/PRAC/477373/2023…, PRAC statistics: December 2023, Glossary:Safety signal assessments. A safety signal is information which suggests a new potentially causal association, or a new aspect of a known association between a medicine…, Ongoing referralsProcedureStatusUpdateHydroxyprogesterone-containing medicinal products – Article-31 referralUnder evaluationPRAC continued its assessment

Cranberries can bounce, float and pollinate themselves: The saucy science of a Thanksgiving classic

Retrieved on:

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Cranberries are a staple in U.S. households at Thanksgiving – but how did this bog dweller end up on holiday tables?

Key Points:

Cranberries are a staple in U.S. households at Thanksgiving – but how did this bog dweller end up on holiday tables?
But as a plant scientist, I’ve learned much about cranberries’ ancestry from their botany and genomics.

New on the plant breeding scene

Humans have cultivated sorghum for some 5,500 years, corn for around 8,700 years and cotton for about 5,000 years.
In contrast, cranberries were domesticated around 200 years ago – but people were eating the berries before that.
Today, Wisconsin produces roughly 60% of the U.S. cranberry harvest, followed by Massachusetts, Oregon and New Jersey.

A flexible and adaptable plant

Like roses, lilies and daffodils, cranberry flowers are hermaphroditic, which means they contain both male and female parts.
The flower’s resemblance to the beak of a bird earned the cranberry its original name, the “craneberry.”

They can also be propagated sexually, by planting seeds, or asexually, through rooting vine cuttings.
This is important for growers because seed-based propagation allows for higher genetic diversity, which can translate to things like increased disease resistance or more pest tolerance.
These pockets serve a biological role: They enable the berries to float down rivers and streams to disperse their seeds.

Reading cranberry DNA

The cranberry is a diploid, which means that each cell contains one set of chromosomes from the maternal parent and one set from the paternal parent.
It has 24 chromosomes, and its genome size is less than one-tenth that of the human genome.
Insights like these help scientists better understand where potentially valuable genes might be located in the cranberry genome.
Researchers are developing molecular markers – tools to determine where certain genes or sequences of interest reside within a genome – to help determine the best combinations of genes from different varieties of cranberry that can enhance desired traits.

Ripe at the right time

Fresh cranberries are ready to harvest from mid-September through mid-November, so Thanksgiving falls within that perfect window for eating them.
In recent decades, the cranberry industry has branched out into juices, snacks and other products in pursuit of year-round markets.

Serina DeSalvio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Narges Mohammadi: 2023 Nobel peace laureate on hunger strike after being denied medical treatment over hijab ban

Retrieved on:

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Narges Mohammadi, the recipient of the 2023 Nobel peace prize for her long fight against the oppression of women in Iran, is reported to have started a hunger strike.

Key Points:

Narges Mohammadi, the recipient of the 2023 Nobel peace prize for her long fight against the oppression of women in Iran, is reported to have started a hunger strike.
Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences in Iran’s infamous Evin prison on charges that include spreading propaganda against the state.
Her rights campaigns were characterised by the Nobel prize committee as a “brave struggle [that] has come with tremendous personal costs”.
According to data gathered by non-profit organisation Iran Human Rights, five protesters and 13 women have been executed in 2023.

Women, life, freedom

Social media – among women in Iran and worldwide – has been buzzing with the hashtag.
Women were at the forefront of the mass protests that led to the downfall of the last shah of Iran.
In 1983, four years after the revolution, the Islamic authorities passed a law making the wearing of the hijab compulsory.
But those who stayed increasingly used newly developing digital tools such as social media to campaign and share stories of harassment and discrimination.

Hunger strike

Narges Mohammadi has become a key figure in the women’s rights movement in Iran.
Despite having trained as an engineer, she took up journalism and wrote regular criticisms of the treatment of women, as well as the the country’s poor human rights record in general.

As an inmate in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, she has led women’s resistance in support of the woman, life, freedom campaign.
According to a statement from her family released by the Free Narges Mohammadi campaign, she began her hunger strike in response to two issues: “The Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates, resulting in the loss of the health and lives of individuals.
A 17-year-old girl, Armita Geravand, died in October after receiving a head wound while riding Tehran’s metro without a headscarf.
In the fight against the global rise of authoritarianism, the key might lie in supporting women’s rights and grassroots feminist activism.

Hind Elhinnawy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

When Marx met Confucius: Xi Jinping's attempt to influence China's intellectual loyalties has met with a mixed reception at home and abroad

Retrieved on:

Thursday, November 9, 2023

The Chinese Communist Party has published regular communiques pushing Xi’s ideological line and When Marx met Confucius is the latest version of this propaganda drive.

Key Points:

The Chinese Communist Party has published regular communiques pushing Xi’s ideological line and When Marx met Confucius is the latest version of this propaganda drive.
Its aim is to reconcile the regime’s official Marxist underpinnings with an appeal to a more specifically Chinese cultural heritage.
This idea was introduced by Xi in July 2021, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
Some analysts view Xi’s propaganda efforts through the lens of his steady encouragement of a cult of personality in China.

Challenges of legitimacy

As Ci observes, the CCP “can have no other publicly avowable source of legitimacy than the one tied to its communist revolutionary past”.
But this legitimacy was significantly weakened after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
But this performance legitimacy, relying heavily as it does on economic success, contains inherent vulnerabilities that could undermine the regime.

Lukewarm public response

Outside of official endorsements, the film seems to have received few positive comments within China.
Significantly, initial responses from two main ideological camps – the Maoists and the Confucianists – have diverged dramatically.
So this attempt to promote “Xi Jingping thought” to the Chinese public appears to be a hard sell.

Tao Zhang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Kandinsky at the Art Gallery of New South Wales: a precious gem of a show celebrating the transformative power of art

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

His work and theories on art profoundly influenced the School of Paris, the American Abstract Expressionists, as well as the expressionist painters working in Australia.

Key Points:

His work and theories on art profoundly influenced the School of Paris, the American Abstract Expressionists, as well as the expressionist painters working in Australia.
This is a precious gem of a show that celebrates the transformative power of art – its ability to transcend the material realm and to nourish us spiritually.

Russian imagery, spiritual realm and colour auras

He expressed a profound belief in Russian Orthodoxy as the sole true faith.
Building on the heritage of spiritualism inherent in Russian Orthodox icons and the inventive whimsical narratives in Russian folk art, Kandinsky also explored the spiritual realm and colour auras integral to theosophy.
He wrote the single most influential essay in 20th-century art, On the spiritual in art, in 1911.

Speaking directly to the soul

Kandinsky invites the viewer to take a walk in the painting and explore an enchanted landscape.
A mistrust of science was linked to a mistrust of the physical world observed through the senses and the desire to explore a spiritual reality that bypasses empirical observation and speaks directly to the soul.
The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings […] [harmony rests] on the principle of innermost necessity.
The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings […] [harmony rests] on the principle of innermost necessity.
Read more:
Three questions not to ask about art – and four to ask instead

Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Want a healthier lawn? Instead of bagging fall leaves, take the lazy way out and get a more environmentally friendly yard

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Can leaves on a landscaped property ever be left as they are, or should they always be mulched?

Key Points:

Can leaves on a landscaped property ever be left as they are, or should they always be mulched?
Susan Barton: A layer of leaves on the lawn will exclude light, which would be detrimental to the lawn.
So when the leaves fall, either rake them up or chop them up with a lawn mower so they are finer and can sift down in through the grass blades.
But if they fall in a landscape bed, or under trees, shrubs and larger plants, it’s fine to just leave the leaves without mulching them.
How can people get the most out of their lawns and make their landscaping more environmentally friendly?
It’s just a different way of thinking about the landscape, and much more environmentally sensitive.

Susan Barton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

'Beauty' in architecture can't be enforced -- but design competitions could help architects strive for it

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, which received royal assent on October 26 2023, now requires local authorities to use design codes to deliver beauty in new developments.

Key Points:

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, which received royal assent on October 26 2023, now requires local authorities to use design codes to deliver beauty in new developments.
Everyone agrees that more housing is needed, but no one wants it to be built near them.
And under-resourced local authorities are in no position to help because they have so little design expertise.

The British designer Thomas Heatherwick has gone so far as to claim that boring architecture has brought us “misery, alienation, sickness and violence”.
The best way “to build beautiful” – to reprise Gove’s leitmotif – might be to regulate design processes, rather than outcomes.

The problem with beauty

This is because beauty is mutable, multifaceted, emotive and subjective.
This is evident in the way national design guidance sidesteps the issue of how beauty should actually be achieved.
There is evidence that even planning inspectors are opting not to use beauty in their decisions on planning applications.

Regulating processes rather than outcomes

In Sydney, Australia, rather than prescribing design outcomes, the approach is to regulate the design process.
In other words, planning rules do not specify the exact types of buildings and spaces that must be developed on a site.
Instead, they specify that a particular process must be used to find the right design.
Developers of residential blocks, office buildings and even electrical substations cannot simply produce a design in-house, or hire their tried-and-tested architect to do the work.
But by regulating the design process through competitions, Sydney’s planners can require that new developments achieve design excellence without needing to define or prescribe it.

Gethin Davison has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Fluoride: very high levels in water associated with cognitive impairment in children

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

It suggests a link between high fluoride levels in water and cognitive impairment in children.

Key Points:

It suggests a link between high fluoride levels in water and cognitive impairment in children.
The study, published in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology, was based on 74 children in Ethiopia who were exposed to high fluoride in drinking water – averaging 7.6 milligrams per litre.
This latest study found that children drinking water with high levels of fluoride performed worse in tests designed to evaluate new learning and memory.
The recent paper did not find a strong association between high fluoride in drinking water and the mental abilities of children aged five to 14 years.