It is striking that East Asian, South East Asian and South Pacific Populations appear relatively unscathed by the second and subsequent waves of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic compared to the rest of the world. This is more so with the more infectious G614 mutation of COVID-19. Adherence to social distancing measures and face protection do not explain the almost 30-fold difference in infection incidence between Asian and European/American populations. The populations in the Indian Subcontinent are an exception, as infections rates were elevated compared to other Asian countries. Differences in immune responses between European and African populations have been alluded to because of archaic introgression of immune-related Neanderthal genes in the European genome. As opposed to the European genome, the Asian genome has a higher introgression of the Neanderthal’s sister species’ genes, the Denisovan genes, which are more commonly found in East and South East Asia and the South Pacific populations. Contrastingly the Denisonvan genes are scantily found in the populations of the Indian Subcontinent.Lockdown in China and bordering nations, led to significant reductions in atmospheric pollution, which itself significantly attenuates pulmonary immunity. Following lockdown in January the G614 variant emerged in China. With improved immunity following lockdown, the Denisovan immunity-related gene may have been allowed to be expressed more effectively, protecting Asian populations against the more infectious G614 variant of SARS-CoV-2 during the subsequent waves of the pandemic.
The history of literature will be reconstructed in terms of developmental psychology. From myth over epic, drama, and tragedy to novel there is a historical development of narration discernible. The modern novel, as it has developed over the past centuries, has a greater competence to reflect social and psychological realities, the full complexity and depth of life, than archaic, ancient, and medieval forms of narration. Growth of consciousness and mind both in authors and readers during history is the cause to this advancement of literature. Thus, developmental psychology explains both the development of mind and narrative forms in history.
This article develops a reflection which considers geographical and philosophical discourse as contaminated interpretations, not as two separate and distinct areas. Humanistic geography is based on these assumptions: at its core is the analysis of the subjective value of the relationship between individuals and places. Starting from this framework, the article analyses the topos of the pandemic in The Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Plague (1947) by Albert Camus, Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez alongside contemporary testimonies of the COVID-19 pandemic. This comparative analysis allows to examine the ongoing relevance of this literary for a wider reflection on the relationship between subject and object, between human beings and the world, on historical time, the indefinite past, and on the concept of space. In pandemic periods, temporality appears not as a process, but as a cyclical succession of recurring phases, as it lacks the experience of a transformation directed towards a future end. So, what is subjectivity in a fleeting and fragile space like that of pandemic confinement? To answer this question, the article’s analysis draws on the philosophical work of De Martino and Benjamin, linking them to the current pandemic crisis. What becomes clear, as the article demonstrates is a relationship of mutual co-implication between geography and philosophy, based on a re-configuration of subjectivity and on the relationship between subject and object.
This research demonstrates in a documented manner the continuity in the direct male line, from father to son, of the Da Vinci family starting with Michele (XIV century) to fourteen living descendants through twenty-one generations and four different branches, which from the XV generation (Tommaso), in turn generate other line branches. Such results are eagerly awaited from an historical viewpoint, with the correction of the previous Da Vinci trees (especially Uzielli, 1872, and Smiraglia Scognamiglio, 1900) which reached down to and hinted at the XVI generation (with several errors and omissions), and an update on the living.Like the surname, male heredity connects the history of registry records with biological history along separate lineages. Because of this, the present genealogy, which spans almost seven hundred years, can be used to verify, by means of the most innovative technologies of molecular biology, the unbroken transmission of the Y chromosome (through the living descendants and ancient tombs, even if with some small variations due to time) with a view to confirming the recovery of Leonardo’s Y marker. This will make available useful elements to scientifically explore the roots of his genius, to find information on his physical prowess and on his possibly precocious ageing, on his being left-handed and his health and possible hereditary sicknesses, and to explain certain peculiar sensory perceptions, like his extraordinary visual quality and synesthesia. Open Access to this article is sponsored by the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project, Inc.
