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🔗 Medicine 🔗 Psychology

The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century, named after researcher James Flynn (1934–2020). When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first; the average result is set to 100. When the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.

Test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For example, a study published in the year 2009 found that British children's average scores on the Raven's Progressive Matrices test rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008. Similar gains have been observed in many other countries in which IQ testing has long been widely used, including other Western European countries, as well as Japan and South Korea. Improvements have also been reported for semantic and episodic memory.

There are numerous proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, such as the rise in efficiency of education, along with skepticism concerning its implications. Some researchers have suggested the possibility of a mild reversal in the Flynn effect (i.e., a decline in IQ scores) in developed countries, beginning in the 1990s. In certain cases, this apparent reversal may be due to cultural changes rendering parts of intelligence tests obsolete. Meta-analyses indicate that, overall, the Flynn effect continues, either at the same rate, or at a slower rate in developed countries.

🔗 United States 🔗 Disaster management 🔗 Medicine 🔗 Viruses 🔗 Korea 🔗 COVID-19 🔗 Europe 🔗 China/Chinese history 🔗 Iran 🔗 North America 🔗 Medicine/Pulmonology 🔗 Italy 🔗 China 🔗 East Asia

The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March. As of 28 March 2020, more than 663,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in over 190 countries and territories, resulting in approximately 30,800 deaths. More than 141,000 people have since recovered.

The virus is mainly spread during close contact and via respiratory droplets produced when people cough or sneeze. Respiratory droplets may be produced during breathing but the virus is not considered airborne. People may also catch COVID-19 by touching a contaminated surface and then their face. It is most contagious when people are symptomatic, although spread may be possible before symptoms appear. The time between exposure and symptom onset is typically around five days, but may range from 2 to 14 days. Common symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Complications may include pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. There is no known vaccine or specific antiviral treatment. Primary treatment is symptomatic and supportive therapy. Recommended preventive measures include hand washing, covering one's mouth when coughing, maintaining distance from other people, and monitoring and self-isolation for people who suspect they are infected.

Efforts to prevent the virus spreading include travel restrictions, quarantines, curfews, workplace hazard controls, event postponements and cancellations, and facility closures. These include the quarantine of Hubei, national or regional quarantines elsewhere in the world, curfew measures in China and South Korea, various border closures or incoming passenger restrictions, screening at airports and train stations, and outgoing passenger travel bans. Schools and universities have closed either on a nationwide or local basis in more than 160 countries, affecting more than 1.5 billion students.

The pandemic has led to severe global socioeconomic disruption, the postponement or cancellation of sporting, religious, and cultural events, and widespread fears of supply shortages which have spurred panic buying. Misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus have spread online, and there have been incidents of xenophobia and racism against Chinese and other East and Southeast Asian people.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Death 🔗 Countries

The article documents lists of countries by average life expectancy at birth by various sources of estimates.

🔗 Human rights 🔗 Medicine 🔗 Religion 🔗 Death 🔗 China 🔗 Religion/New religious movements 🔗 Religion/Falun Gong

Reports of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China have raised increasing concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights campaigner David Matas and Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation researcher Ethan Gutmann, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, may be executed "on demand" in order to provide organs for transplant to recipients.

Reports on systematic organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners first emerged in 2006, though the practice is thought by some to have started six years earlier. Several researchers—most notably Matas, Kilgour and Gutmann—estimate that tens of thousands of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience have been killed to supply a lucrative trade in human organs and cadavers and that these abuses may be ongoing. These conclusions are based on a combination of statistical analysis; interviews with former prisoners, medical authorities and public security agents; and circumstantial evidence, such as the large number of Falun Gong practitioners detained extrajudicially in China and the profits to be made from selling organs.

The Chinese government long denied all accusations of organ harvesting. However, the failure of Chinese authorities to effectively address or refute the charges has drawn attention and public condemnation from some governments, international organizations and medical societies. The parliaments of Canada and the European Union, as well as the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, have adopted resolutions condemning the forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. United Nations Special Rapporteurs have called on the Chinese government to account for the sources of organs used in transplant practices, and the World Medical Association, the American Society of Transplantation and the Transplantation Society have called for sanctions on Chinese medical authorities. Several countries have also taken or considered measures to deter their citizens from travelling to China for the purpose of obtaining organs. A documentary on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, Human Harvest, received a 2014 Peabody Award recognizing excellence in broadcast journalism. China eventually admitted that it had engaged in systematic organ harvesting from death row prisoners, though it denies that such an organ harvesting program is ongoing.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Medicine/Toxicology 🔗 Pharmacology 🔗 Medicine/Society and Medicine

Some fruit juices and fruits can interact with numerous drugs, in many cases causing adverse effects. The effect was first discovered accidentally, when a test of drug interactions with alcohol used grapefruit juice to hide the taste of the ethanol.

The effect is most studied with grapefruit and grapefruit juice, but similar effects have been observed with certain other citrus fruits. One medical review advises patients to avoid all citrus juices until further research clarifies the risks. Effects have been observed with apple juice, but their clinical significance is not yet known.

One whole grapefruit, or a small glass (200 mL (6.8 US fl oz)) of grapefruit juice, can cause drug overdose toxicity. Fruit consumed three days before the medicine can still have an effect. The relative risks of different types of citrus fruit have not been systematically studied. Affected drugs typically have an auxiliary label saying “Do not take with grapefruit” on the container, and the interaction is elaborated upon in the package insert. People are also advised to ask their physician or pharmacist about drug interactions.

The effects are caused by furanocoumarins (and, to a lesser extent, flavonoids). These chemicals inhibit key drug metabolizing enzymes, such as cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4). CYP3A4 is a metabolizing enzyme for almost 50% of drugs, and is found in the liver and small intestinal epithelial cells. As a result, many drugs are affected. Inhibition of enzymes can have two different effects, depending on whether the drug is either

1. metabolized by the enzyme to an inactive metabolite, or
2. activated by the enzyme to an active metabolite.

In the first instance, inhibition of drug-metabolizing enzymes results in elevated concentrations of an active drug in the body, which may cause adverse effects. Conversely, if the medication is a prodrug, it needs to be metabolised to be converted to the active drug. Compromising its metabolism lowers concentrations of the active drug, reducing its therapeutic effect, and risking therapeutic failure.

Low drug concentrations can also be caused when the fruit suppresses drug absorption from the intestine.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Medicine/Neurology 🔗 Medicine/Medical genetics

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic disorder that affects many parts of the body. Facial features frequently include a broad forehead, short nose and full cheeks, an appearance that has been described as "elfin". While mild to moderate intellectual disability with particular problems with visual spatial tasks such as drawing is typical, verbal skills are generally relatively unaffected. Those affected often have an outgoing personality, interact readily with strangers, and appear happy. Problems with teeth, heart problems, especially supravalvular aortic stenosis, and periods of high blood calcium are common.

Williams syndrome is caused by a genetic abnormality, specifically a deletion of about 27 genes from the long arm of one of the two chromosome 7s. Typically this occurs as a random event during the formation of the egg or sperm from which a person develops. In a small number of cases, it is inherited from an affected parent in an autosomal dominant manner. The different characteristic features have been linked to the loss of specific genes. The diagnosis is typically suspected based on symptoms and confirmed by genetic testing.

Treatment includes special education programs and various types of therapy. Surgery may be done to correct heart problems. Dietary changes or medications may be required for high blood calcium. The syndrome was first described in 1961 by New Zealander John C. P. Williams. Williams syndrome affects between 1 in 7,500 to 1 in 20,000 people at birth. Life expectancy is less than that of the general population, mostly due to the increased rates of heart disease.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 COVID-19 🔗 Medicine/Pulmonology 🔗 Medicine/Cardiology

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), also known as extracorporeal life support (ECLS), is an extracorporeal technique of providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange or perfusion to sustain life. The technology for ECMO is largely derived from cardiopulmonary bypass, which provides shorter-term support with arrested native circulation. The device used is a membrane oxygenator, also known as an artificial lung.

ECMO works by temporarily drawing blood from the body to allow artificial oxygenation of the red blood cells and removal of carbon dioxide. Generally, it is used either post-cardiopulmonary bypass or in late-stage treatment of a person with profound heart and/or lung failure, although it is now seeing use as a treatment for cardiac arrest in certain centers, allowing treatment of the underlying cause of arrest while circulation and oxygenation are supported. ECMO is also used to support patients with the acute viral pneumonia associated with COVID-19 in cases where artificial ventilation alone is not sufficient to sustain blood oxygenation levels.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Psychology

Capgras delusion is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical impostor. It is named after Joseph Capgras (1873–1950), a French psychiatrist.

The Capgras delusion is classified as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. It can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms. Cases in which patients hold the belief that time has been "warped" or "substituted" have also been reported.

The delusion most commonly occurs in individuals diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but has also been seen in brain injury, dementia with Lewy bodies, and other dementia. It presents often in individuals with a neurodegenerative disease, particularly at an older age. It has also been reported as occurring in association with diabetes, hypothyroidism, and migraine attacks. In one isolated case, the Capgras delusion was temporarily induced in a healthy subject by the drug ketamine. It occurs more frequently in females, with a female to male ratio of approximately 3 to 2.

🔗 Medicine

Wake therapy is a form of sleep deprivation used as a treatment for depression. The subject stays awake all night, or is woken at 1AM and stays awake all morning, and the next full day. While sleepy, patients find that their depression vanishes, until they sleep again. Combining this with bright light therapy make the beneficial effects last longer than one day. Partial sleep deprivation in the second half of the night may be as effective as an all-night sleep deprivation session.

Wake therapy is a therapy that falls under chronotherapeutics. Chronotherapy (treatment scheduling) is a process to manipulate biological rhythms and sleep that can help to improve affective disorders quickly.

Wake therapy is beneficial for those experiencing major depression along with unipolar, bipolar, and melancholic types of depression. Wake therapy is best used to jump start the effects of the use of an antidepressant. Wake therapy is the use of prolonged times of wakefulness, along with periods of recovering sleep. It is a fast way to improve symptoms of depression. This therapy is best used with other chronotherapeutic techniques. Months of use of this therapy and other therapies can be quite effective to help prevent relapse of depression.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Neuroscience

Pain in babies, and whether babies feel pain, has been a large subject of debate within the medical profession for centuries. Prior to the late nineteenth century it was generally considered that babies hurt more easily than adults. It was only in the last quarter of the 20th century that scientific techniques finally established babies definitely do experience pain – probably more than adults – and developed reliable means of assessing and of treating it. As recently as 1999, it was commonly stated that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old, but today it is believed newborns and likely even fetuses beyond a certain age can experience pain.