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Two Audrain County residents who recovered from COVID-19 now have antibodies to the virus. Nineteen were tested, however, which means 17 do not have an immunity to the virus and it is not known how long those with antibodies will remain immune.

The Audrain County Health Department presented testing information in a weekly collaborative teleconference Wednesday with education, business, governmental and health leaders.

The two who tested positive for antibodies are a husband and wife, Health Administrator Sandra Hewlett said.

"This is kind of confirming the two Lancet papers, where the journal has shown is most people do not have immunity after three weeks," she said.

A study was done in Spain, and a majority of the thousands tested did not have COVID-19 antibodies, even in hot spots, which means even if a person had COVID-19 there is a chance for reinfection.

Of those who do test positive for antibodies, the concentration reduces over time a few weeks up to a few months. This also means there is the potential for reinfection months after ones initial recovery. COVID-19 cousins "such as SARS and MERS result in antibodies that remain in the body for nearly a year."

COVID-19 patients will have to undergo multiple tests to determine length of immunity. The downside is that testing is at the patients cost, Hewlett said.

"It is going to be a voluntary thing if people want to go get tested," she said. "The state is not really paying for that right now. There is no fund, so it would really be up to that individual."

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services now is studying wastewater looking for the genetic markers that cause COVID-19. The state is doing this in counties with higher numbers of the virus, including Audrain. Results are expected in the next couple of weeks, Hewlett said.

The amount of genetic markers associated with COVID-19 in wastewater can serve as an indicator of the actual level of infection within a community, she said.

"This helps them monitor the trends we have for the emergence of new cases or the re-emergence," she said. "What we know now is if someone only has immunity for two to eight weeks, they can get COVID again. That is the new thinking."

This also means herd immunity likely is not achievable based on World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention information, Hewlett said. This is when a majority of people either are vaccinated or have immunity to a disease that end up protecting those who have compromised immune systems or cannot be vaccinated.

The immunity rate right now is about 4%. More than 50-70% is needed for herd immunity, Hewlett said.

"They [WHO and CDC] dont see us as reaching herd immunity numbers in the next year or two," she said. "If we want to stomp this [case] number down we have to be practicing good social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands and staying home if sick."

Of the total cases in Audrain County it is nearly a 50-50 split women to men of who tested positive.

As of Friday morning, there are eight active cases of COVID-19 in Audrain County out of a total case count of 145. This is down from 14 active cases Wednesday, with nine from the Womens Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia. Nearly 3,200 people in Audrain County have been tested for COVID-19.

The health department as of Wednesday still was waiting to see if there will be a jump in the case number from the July 4 weekend.

"We know our numbers will go up," Hewlett said. "If we look at the counties all around us from the last couple weeks, Boone is up at least 200 cases. Callaway has doubled. Camden has doubled [and] Cole is up by 30%."

People are starting to be more serious about social distancing and mask wearing, she added. Hewlett warned against using hand sanitizer containing methanol, referencing a CDC advisory.

"Methanol is a toxic alcohol and it can cause blindness or death when absorbed through the skin or if it is swallowed," she said.

FREE ADULT FLU SHOTS

The health department received criteria from DHSS on Wednesday for a free flu vaccine program for adults later this year.

"It is going to be given first to high-risk groups," Hewlett said. "So, people with chronic conditions, staff and residents of long-term care facilities, adults with underlying concerns, African-Americans and adults part of the countrys critical infrastructure."

Critical infrastructure refers to agriculture, manufacturing, food processing plants, grocery employees and health care professionals.

Availability for the vaccine will be in November and December. More concrete dates will be available closer to those months.

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Recovery from COVID-19 does not always lead to immunity, Audrain County Health Department says - Moberly Monitor Index

Oral Hull volunteers, staff, clients socialize via Zoom during time of isolation

Navigating low-vision or blindness is no easy task. But add to that the inability to tell if you're six feet away from someone during a global pandemic, and life becomes even more difficult.

Though finances at Oral Hull Foundation for the Blind and Low-vision are down from normal, the mission for staff and volunteers remains the same: to create a better quality of life for those unable to experince things visually.

To keep that endeavor alive while apart from the people they serve, Executive Director Sharon Elder and Oral Hull staff members are offering Zoom gatherings to encourage socialization for those in the visually impaired community.

"This crisis has had a toll on the blind community," Elder said. "It's horribly demoralizing."

As part of the distanced socialization experience, Elder and staff have been hosting a virtual walk across America. During this project they encourage participants to be active by taking a guided nature hike or doing housework and log their mileage with the staff. Then, every day, the staff count up the miles and let those participating know how far across the country they've walked and some fun facts and fictional stories about the places they've stopped for the day. The starting point was Lincoln City, Oregon, and the group will end their trek in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

"They are loving it," Elder said of the project thus far. On Thursday, June 25, the group was on day 51 of the walk and had made it to Iowa. The day before the group walked a collective 99.3 miles.

"They're having a ball and they're moving," Elder said.

Aside from the walk across America, Oral Hull staff are also offering Braille classes via Zoom. Those interested in participating can contact the office at 503-668-6195.

Those in need of assistive equipment can also call Oral Hull to set up an appointment for pick up.

As usual, and especially now due to losses in revenue from rentals, Oral Hull is welcoming donations from the community. Every dollar helps.

You can call the office, mail a check made out to the Oral Hull Foundation to P.O. Box 157, Sandy, Oregon, 97055, or make a donation online at oralhull.org.

Give back, win a prize

To try and combat the loss in income, Oral Hull's staff is hosting an online raffle with three large prizes. The drawing will take place at 10 a.m. Friday, July 31. Winners will be notified by phone.

Payment for tickets should be made on the foundation's online donations page at hullparkfortheblind.org. For more information on entering the raffle, visit bit.ly/OralHullRaffle.

Prizes range from an $800 Visa gift card to a rental of the pool at the Oral Hull Park for up to 15 people.

Tickets are $10 each, three for $25, or eight for $50. Only 500 tickets will be sold. For more information about prizes, visit bit.ly/HullRafflePrizes.

Donations of any amount are always welcome.

For those unable to give financially, Oral Hull also needs people to help maintain the grounds and the Garden of Enchantment.

If you have questions about the raffle or helping at Oral Hull Park, call 503-668-6195.

You count on us to stay informed and we depend on you to fund our efforts.Quality local journalism takes time and money. Please support us to protect the future of community journalism.

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Foundation for the blind offers virtual community, resources - Pamplin Media Group

On our wedding day

Once Pete was out of the rehab centre, he took me for dinner in the city, and a kind waiter read us the menu.

Soon, friendship blossomed into love.

Our connection felt so genuine none of it was based on looks; it was about our energy and personalities. Pete was always making me chuckle with silly jokes, so I knew he was the one for me.

As hed had vision in the past, he would tell me about things I never knew.

When youre speaking to someone, its important to look at them. It lets them know youre interested in what theyre saying, he said.

After four years together, Pete and I got married.

Moving in together, we put braille labels on things to help us out.

My confidence definitely encouraged him, but Petes determined attitude meant he usually wanted to work things out for himself.

Living without vision had its challenges, though.

One time, I got home to Pete boiling some cabbage for dinner. But instead of salt, hed poured powdered Ajax all over it!

Eventually, Pete got his first guide dog, Jasper, who made such a big difference. Our ambassador, he helped us socialise and led us through life.

Wanting to help others, we set up a charity, travelling the world and supporting blind kids from disadvantaged areas.

David, Winsome, Pete and me

We also went on to have our own children, Winsome and David. Id often put the kids on a rein and attach them to me, so I knew where they were.

My sister-in-law, Jenny, guided me through things such as changing nappies and feeding, so that I could gradually do it alone.

I would sometimes get covered in the kids mess though!

At bedtime, instead of reading books to them, Pete would make up incredible stories.

We also had a regular support worker, and I joined a blind mothers club, where I learned a lot.

To clear up after the kids, I was taught to shut them out of the room and feel around, putting any toys in a big bag.

When I dressed them, Id work out what colour an item was by feeling the texture.

Sometimes, Im sure their socks were mismatched!

As they got older, our golden rule was that if we called their name, they had to answer immediately so we knew where they were.

Over the years, I wished I could see their faces change.

When they brought home schoolwork, Winsome and David would take our fingers and carefully trace over their words or drawings.

They helped me at the supermarket too, but sometimes theyd take full advantage of my low vision.

Do you really need all of those lunch wraps? a checkout lady asked one day.

Id asked Winsome to grab a pack and she cheekily piled about 50 into the trolley!

Pete, Kobie, Gracie and me

Pete, Kobie, Gracie and me

Winsome, now 52, and David, 50, have both gone on to have their own children.

How did you both do it? Winsome often says in awe.

Pete and I both have a guide dog I have Gracie, and Kobie is Petes. Theyre smart animals and make a big impact on our lives. If I lose Pete in the supermarket, Ill say to Gracie, Find Pete, find Kobie, and shell work her way around the store until she finds them.

Gracie and Kobie enable us to experience so much; simple things like going for a coffee or enjoying a walk.

Pete and I have been married for 55 years now.

Like any marriage, weve had our ups and downs.

Pete sometimes quips, Love is blind, but marriage is an eye opener!

But we both know we are so lucky to have each other were kindred spirits.

Support Guide Dogs Australia by walking for theirPawgustcampaign.

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Love is blind - meet the Aussie couple who have been married for 55 years - That's Life!

The ability to recognize faces is a complex neurocognitive skill with important social implications. The disorder, which, according to some estimates, affects more than 2 percent of the population, can lead to isolation and anxiety and impair personal and work relationships.

The traditional view of face blindness--prosopagnosia in scientific parlance--has held that the disorder arises from deficits in visual perception. Under that view, individuals with face blindness are unable to visually distinguish the features of faces presented side by side and unable to determine whether the faces are the same or not.

Now a new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the VA Boston Healthcare System shows that face blindness may arise from deficits beyond visual perception and appears to involve glitches in retrieving various contextual cues from memory.

The results, published July 5 ahead of print in the journal Cortex, suggest that the traditional view of face blindness as a purely visual perceptual disorder may be reductive, the researchers said. Further, they reveal that successful facial recognition requires recollection, or the recall of relevant contextual details about a person, such as their name or profession.

The new findings can help explain a mystifying discrepancy in face blindness research: People with the condition often fail to visually identify familiar faces, but many also perform normally on visual-perception tests.

"This inconsistency has always hinted that there may be other factors at play that go beyond visual perception," said study senior author Joseph DeGutis, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at VA Boston. "Our findings suggest that one important deficit beyond perception is face recollection."

The ability to recognize a face requires two forms of memory: Recollection and familiarity. Recollection is the retrieval of contextual information upon seeing a face--a fellow shopper greeting you in the store and you recognizing them as the person you met through work a few weeks back. Familiarity, on the other hand, is a fuzzier "feeling of knowing" without any contextual information, the researchers explained. Think of the fellow shopper looking vaguely familiar but without any of the relevant details that tell you how you know them.

The findings can help inform the design of techniques to boost face recognition in people with developmental prosopagnosia--a form of face blindness that is not caused by brain injury, poor vision or neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.

"Our results underscore that prosopagnosia is a far more complex disorder that is driven by more than deficits in visual perception," said study first author Anna Stumps, a researcher in the Boston Attention Learning Laboratory at VA Boston. "This finding can help inform the design of new training approaches for people with face blindness."

The research team is currently working to design one such experimental program in the VA Boston laboratory where the work was conducted.

The study involved 6o people, ages 18 to 65, half of whom had lifelong face blindness.

The participants were asked to perform a series of facial-recognition tasks by studying and then identifying sets of faces that the participants had not seen prior to the study.

Participants were asked to study 60 faces shown on a computer screen, one at a time. The participants were then shown a scramble of 120 faces--some of them already seen during the study session and some completely new.

To tease out the differences in recognition memory between participants with and without face blindness, DeGutis and colleagues measured their degree of confidence in classifying each face as "old" or "new" on a scale of 1 to 6. Correctly identifying a face as old with high confidence reflects the use of recollection, the researchers said, whereas correctly identifying a face as old with less confidence reflects the use of familiarity.

Compared with participants who had face blindness, people without it were significantly more confident that they had seen these faces before. However, those with face blindness were still able to correctly identify many of the faces they had seen before, although with less confidence. In other words, when trying to recognize a face, participants with face blindness relied on familiarity, the vague sense of knowing or having seen someone before without specific contextual information. In contrast, individuals without face blindness relied on recollection.

Taken together, these findings suggest that people with face blindness use different memory processes for face recognition.

The results, the researchers said, demonstrate that successful face recognition requires more than a vague familiarity with a face--a sense of having seen a face before but without recalling any other details to "place" the face. Memory researchers call this inability to identify a familiar face out of context "butcher-on-the-bus" phenomenon. Though everyone experiences this from time to time, for people with true face blindness this can happen frequently, as often as multiple times a day.

"Our findings suggest that people with developmental prosopagnosia use a different memory system when trying to learn and remember faces and that system is less optimally suited for the task of recognizing faces," DeGutis said.

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More than meets the eye - Science Codex

In closing, I wish to make three observations: first, the egregious actions of just a single officer greatly complicate the work of the many officers still conscientiously performing their duties. Trust, once broken, is hard to restore. Yet trust between officers and citizens, and between police departments and their communities, is essential. Second, I worry that police departments will have trouble attracting, hiring, and retaining good people, especially African Americans, when a diverse police force is critical. And third, it seems to me that police are too often charged with treating the symptoms, as it were, of conditions which our society has failed to effectively address. We are to blame, at least as much as the police.

It was a privilege to meet and observe police officers from Roanoke, Virginia Tech, and surrounding counties. I trust we will afford them the respect we expect them to show us. I hope police departments will be open to change and active in helping to facilitate that change. Crisis can be opportunity, if we are able to be patient with each other, act constructively, and look to the future.

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Bechtel: What the sculptor saw - Roanoke Times

A blind cane user feels her way along the sidwalk while carrying a brightly colored umbrella in the rain.

Amidst the current resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the celebration of LGBTQ pride, I have come across admirable efforts to educate. I have appreciated the Black and LGBTQIA creators of literature, podcasts, music, and memoirs for helping me better understand diverse lived experiences of oppression. I write this not to dilute or distract from the potency of racism in the United States or from the celebration of LGBTQIA rights, but instead because I wish to share in efforts to elucidate realities about marginalized experiences.

Before my vision deteriorated, I admittedly had no concept of blindness.My lived experience and connection to members of the blind community have given me a more nuanced perspective, and I hope to share this information to help answer questions or clarify misconceptions about blindness.

1. Myth: Blind people see all black.

Fact: Blindness is a spectrum, and many blind people have some functional vision.On one end of the blindness spectrum is seeing absolutely nothing. Though I havent had this experience, I have heard that for most, the experience is not seeing all black, but instead is an absence of sight. Have you eaten something with your nose clogged and not kind of clogged, but completely, totally clogged? If so, you have likely experienced being unable to taste. You could not describe the flavor because there is an absence of information. That lack of input is what blindness is like. There simply is no visual information.

Related: Download The Mighty app to connect in real time with people who can relate to what you're going through.

On the other end of the blindness spectrum is the threshold of legal blindness. Visual acuity worse than 20/200 with correction (glasses or contact lenses) constitutes legal blindness. This means that even with correction, the legally blind person sees from 20 feet away what a typically-sighted person can see from 200 feet. Although everyones visual experience is a little different, for me, when I saw 20/200, I could recognize people around 15 feet away and read print using enlarged text (e.g. 24 point font). Complete lack of sight is rare; most blind people perceive some light and shapes.

Story continues

2. Myth: Blindness is stable.

Fact: Many forms of blindness lead to differences from day to day and over the course of weeks and years.Blindness varies between people and within people over time. I experience fluctuations I affectionally referred to as bad vision days. My cause of vision loss is degenerative, which means it continues to change over time. Even within a day, my degree of functional vision changes dramatically.

Related: Vision Portraits Documentary Chronicles Lives of Artists With Low Vision

I hear this facet of blindness is hard for sighted people to understand sometimes. I like to describe it as more intense experiences of typical visual fluctuations. For example, most sighted people will have a difficult time seeing upon walking into a dark room after being outside in the sun. Most sighted people will experience eyestrain after using a laptop for long hours. For me, these visual changes are far more exaggerated and longer-lasting and generalizes to other visual experiences like glare.

3. Myth: Blind people like to feel faces.

Fact: I have never met or heard of a blind person wanting to feel others faces.That is all.

4. Myth: When someone loses sight, their other senses get stronger.

Fact: When someone loses sight, they may learn ways to rely on other senses more, and reliance on other senses can lead to changes in the brain.My senses of hearing, taste, smell and touch work the same way they did before I lost my sight. I have, however, learned to use other senses in lieu of vision. To illustrate, I use my sense of touch to determine whether a surface is clean. Using my sense of touch instead of vision does not inherently mean my sense of touch is stronger. Over time though, I have spent years relying on non-visual senses and I have now trained myself to use these senses. For instance, I have learned to listen to books and podcasts at increasing speeds, often four to five times the average listening speed. Though I have no way of confirming, I imagine this has changed my brains wiring.

Related: To My Fellow Moms With an Invisible Disability

5. Myth: You can tell if someone is blind.

Fact: You usually cannot tell someone is blind.Though some people use assistive tools like white canes and guide dogs, many blind people do not.A Google search indicates that only 2-8 percent of blind people use white canes and 5 percent use guide dogs. The vast majority of blind people, like myself, often navigate without a visible form of mobility assistance. It is also a myth that you can tell someone is blind by looking at their eyes. While some blind people have forms of vision loss that influence their eye movements and focus, many blind people can and will direct their gaze to where they are focusing even with very low functional vision. I have been told I appear to make eye contact most of the time, despite the reality that when I look at someone they disappear into my blindspot.

6. Myth: Blind people wear dark sunglasses all the time.

Fact: Some blind people wear sunglasses or tinted lenses, some do not, and others use varies.Because there are diverse causes of vision loss and diverse experiences of vision, some people benefit from tinted lenses. Personally, I have learned that blue light blocking glasses are really helpful for reducing eye strain. I also wear dark sunglasses outdoors and benefit from green-tinted lenses when it is cloudy. I am especially sensitive to glare and will wear sunglasses inside if the sun is shining in, otherwise I usually only wear blue light blocking lenses indoors. Lenses come in diverse shades amber, green, yellow and it can be helpful to work with a low vision specialist to try out the various options.

7. Myth: Blind people dont care about appearance.

Fact: Many blind people care about appearances; there are diverse preferences just as there are with sighted people. Blind people can and do care to create an aesthetic in their style and in their physical spaces. How? Many blind people have had some sight and may have visual preferences. Many also rely on sighted people for assistance. My friends and family know my preferences, often better than I do, and help me identify items that express who I am. Again, blind people come in all varieties some like doing their make-up, some like decorating their homes, some take immense pleasure in fashion.

A key thread across many of these myths pervades across culture and identity: there is diversity in lived experiences, preferences, and expressions. Some blind people are obsessed with interior design. Some blind people use a cane. Some blind people wear tinted glasses. Not all blind people cannot see anything. And frankly, no blind people go around touching peoples faces. A step towards mitigating bias and discrimination is creating empathy through understanding.

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Let's Bust These 7 Myths About Blindness - Yahoo Lifestyle

A shameless grandmother who stole more than 1 million in benefits has been called the "craftiest woman ever" by her husband.

Christina Pomfrey, 65, used the first name of his husband's late first wife, and falsely claimed she was blind, disabled and suffering from multiple sclerosis as she carried out the con for 15 years, a court heard last month.

At one point she was banking more than 13,000 a month after fraudulently claiming a number of benefits - and she will not have to pay back a single penny of it.

Pomfrey, from Runcorn, Cheshire, convinced her third husband, John, that she owned a string of newsagents and blew the money on everything from clothes and cosmetic treatments to luxury getaways in the Caribbean.

She laundered almost 89,000 over six years through the bank account of her 34-year-old daughter Aimee Brown, the court heard.

Mr Pomfrey said he had no idea his wife of 15 years was carrying out the scam - or claiming to be blind and confined to a wheelchair - until she was caught.

He told the Daily Mail: "She has destroyed my life and I cannot forgive her. She is the craftiest woman I have ever known."

When he met his wife at a Seventies disco at a Butlin's holiday park in Skegness, Lincolnshire, she claimed she was a millionaire who owned seven newsagents around Liverpool.

She was always well-dressed and had "immaculate hair", she bought him an MG car just months after the met and she paid for their holidays abroad, he said.

But she was hiding the truth - she worked in a newsagent's until she was sacked for stealing cash.

She kept up the pretence until December 2017.

Mr Pomfrey, a water softener engineer, added: "I fell for her because I was at a low ebb after my previous wife of 21 years left me for someone else. Tina told me she would look after me and that I should not worry about anything.

"I now think she picked on me because I was another name, in another county, that she could use for her cons. I feel a fool."

Neighbours were stunned that she was able to get away with the con for so long.

The scam unravelled in 2017 when undercover investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) put her under surveillance.

They filmed her walking around Asda unaided, driving a car, reading a newspaper and picking up her grandchildren from school, the Liverpool Echo reported.

Pomfrey confessed, but launched another bogus claim while on bail.

Last month, at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, she was sentenced to three years and eight months for 34 counts including fraud, false accounting and making or supplying articles for use in frauds.

When she was jailed, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that Pomfrey was not subject to a confiscation order.

A spokesperson for the CPS said no assets linked to Pomfrey could be traced during the DWP's investigation into her claims.

Meaning she had squandered a staggering 1,010,090.66 over 15 years.

During one fraud, she claimed it took her up to ten minutes to walk three yards because of her MS. She also claimed she had been totally blind since 2007.

Pomfrey claimed that her sister acted as a personal assistant helping her with her care - a claim her sister remained oblivious to.

As such, when her sister tried to make a legitimate claim for tax credits, she was refused because of Pomfreys fraudulent claims.

When she was arrested in 2017, Pomfrey immediately admitted her guilt.

Despite this - while still under investigation - she made further dishonest benefit claims for Universal Credit in which she lied again about her health and circumstances and falsified documents.

Promfrey's daughter, Aimee Brown, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended for two years for money laundering.

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Gran who lied blindness to steal 1 million in benefits was 'craftiest woman ever' - Mirror Online

"Nice to meet you. And when were you saved?"

Umm I hesitated.

"I remember the exact date" he interjected while I was still thinking. "August 3, 1972!"

This was the date that he had attended a revival, felt a stirring, and "accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior." He told me about this holy experience and then turned back to me, expecting me to now have an answer.

I wondered if I was to tell him about the year I started to attend church, or perhaps he wanted the date of my baptism - was that the day I was "saved"? Or perhaps I should cite the time I felt a call to ministry (the first time), the radical deconstruction of the first faith in college, the emergence of renewed faith formation in graduate school, or the second calling into ministry that I had now pursued, or the incredibly recent moment that I was introduced to theologians who possessed the language I had been seeking all my life???

I settled on the time of sensing a gravitation toward ministry and responded, "I guess it would be the summer of 1999?"

"Oh." He was bewildered. And because I could not offer a particular date, he was suspicious.

The idea of immediate and radical conversion has become quite prominent within the Christian tradition. Where one "was blind but now one sees," as the hymn goes. Where the "scales fall from the eyes" and the entire identity changes to the degree that it requests a new name - Saul to Paul. I do not intend to discount the power of experience to reshape and reform us instantly and drastically, but I think that the dominance of this image of conversion is more influenced by human desire for effortless change and convenient resolution rather than sincere reflection on the experience of human transformation.

When we look at the example of the conversion of Saul to Paul in Acts 9, even there we read that the story of the conversion was not instantaneous. Instead, Saul has a revelation, is blind for three days (symbolism), has a mentor assigned to him, and dwells within the learning community "for several days." This is the pace of the most prominent image of conversion within the tradition, and there is wisdom and grace with this image for us today.

Within the white church, there is a great awakening to the pervasive presence of racist ideas and racist power. White Christians are awakening to the power and reality of racism within America and also within the systems and structures of the church itself (white supremacy and substitutionary atonement theory are a hell of a toxic combination). While there is blessing in the revelation and the desire to repent and change (convert), this is certainly not the time to uphold an image of immediate conversion.

Instead, now is a time to remember the pace of conversion that is more common to lived experience and described in the journey of Saul to Paul. There is a revelation that cannot be dismissed, there is a time of blindness (of acknowledging that we do not see clearly), of listening to mentors (those who do see clearly), and a time of entering into community with those who are striving to live in a more faithful way. As white communities and white Christians are coming to understand the calling to anti-racist work and living, we must be clear about the process of this conversion and what it will require.

This is and will be a lengthy journey of conversion - there is much to understand, repent, heal, and transform within the body and within the nation. So let us hold the urgency of change before us, and the pace of conversion within us, that we may remain prepared and committed to the process of transformation.

The Rev. Chris McCreight is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and currently serves as minister of the Hiram Christian Church and chaplain of Hiram College. He is on Twitter @revmccreight.

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The Pace of Conversion - Suburbanite

Just dont drink it full stop (Credits: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

People have reportedly been cracking their way into communal hand sanitiser stations so that they can drink the gel inside, which contains a potentially lethal mix of chemicals and alcohol.

Dispensers in places such as South Shields, South Tyneside have been broken into, with vandals putting the gel into bottles so it can be drunk.

These hand gel stations have been made with a view to helping people keep safe from coronavirus but while the gel can save lives and kill germs when applied externally, if consumed, hand sanitiser can be highly dangerous.

Worryingly, York-based company BusinessWaste.co.uk have been tasked with dgetting rid of thousands of damaged gel containers every week.

Director Mark Hall spoke to the Independent on the matter, saying: Its happening all over the place, pretty much everywhere. We take these away for councils and businesses, and were seeing so many damaged you wouldnt believe.

Visit our live blog for the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

Its mindless idiocy. This stuff is 80% proof with who knows what other chemicals inside. Do not drink it.

While actions like this suggest extreme foolishness or and/or terrible addiction in the perpetrators, it bears repeating that you should not under any circumstances drink hand sanitiser.

Not only is the alcohol content high enough for you to overdose before you even start to feel drunk, but the other chemicals that make up hand gel are not remotely fit for human consumption

As if that wasnt bad enough, theres often no way to tell exactly how toxic the ingredients of communal hand gels are.

According to Sciencenotes.org: Two types of alcohol are used in alcohol-based hand sanitisers. The most common type contains between 60% and 95% ethanol (ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol).

This type of hand sanitiser can get you buzzed or drunk, but its the equivalent to 120-proof liquor. In contrast, vodka is 80-proof.

The webpage adds: The other type of alcohol-based hand sanitiser contains isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol or rubbing alcohol).

This kind of alcohol is toxic and can cause brain damage, blindness, kidney damage, and liver damage.

However, the ingredient with the potential to be the most toxic will often be listed as just fragrance, because said scents are often made using petrochemicals.

So please, we implore you, do not drink hand sanitiser.

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Please don't drink hand sanitiser just because it has alcohol in it - Metro.co.uk

MADISON Parasitic filarial nematodes infect hundreds of millions of people, causing diseases such as river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, which can lead to elephantiasis, a severe swelling of the limbs.

Mosquitoes spread the parasitic worms, which engage in sophisticated migrations within their insect and mammal hosts. One worm, Brugia malayi, starts in the mosquitos gut, migrates to its flight muscles, then to its mouth. In its human host, the worm travels between the lymphatic system and the blood. Researchers have little idea how the nematodes achieve these nomadic lifestyles that are crucial for their survival.

In new research, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists provide the first look at the genetic underpinnings of the worms migration through their hosts. They identified two genes the nematodes use to respond to cues in their host environment. When the genes are disrupted, the worms are lost and less effective at infecting their hosts.

The genes are part of the nematodes chemosensation network, a combination of chemical-sensing proteins and nerve cells that let the parasites detect and respond to molecules in their environment. Because these responses are key for the nematodes complex life cycle, theyre a potential target for future treatments.

Were hopeful that a better understanding of how worms are transmitted between hosts and move within them may lead to new approaches for parasite treatment and control, says Mostafa Zamanian, a professor of pathobiological sciences in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and senior author of the report. The work was published in June in the journal PLOS Biology.

STORY CONTINUES AThttps://news.wisc.edu/parasitic-worms-use-their-keen-senses-to-wriggle-through-their-hosts/

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UW-Health: Parasitic worms use their keen sense of smell to wriggle through their hosts - Wisbusiness.com

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a formal warning on several new hand sanitizer products, which comes after numerous reports that adults and children in the United States have been blinded, hospitalized and even died in some instances. The incidents also indicated that people had apparently drunk hand sanitizers that were contaminated with methanol, a highly toxic alcohol.

In an updated safety warning, the FDA identified five more brands of hand sanitizers that contain methanol, which can be poisonous if ingested, inhaled, or simply absorbed through the skin, according to Ars Technica. These new products are in addition to nine methanol-containing sanitizers the FDA identified back in June, all of which are made by the Mexico-based manufacturer Eskbiochem SA de CV. According to FDA testing, one of the products contained 81 percent methanol and no ethanol at all, which is a safe alcohol that's commonly used in hand sanitizers. At the time, the FDA reported that it was "not aware of any reports of adverse events associated with these hand sanitizer products." The five new products are as follows.

The FDA's current warning, which was updated on Monday, indicated that state officials have since reported that "adults and children ingesting hand sanitizer products contaminated with methanol that has led to recent adverse events including blindness, hospitalizations and death." As the agency pushes for recalls, they are advising consumers to stop using the products from Eskbiochem SA de CV immediately and to seek immediate care if there are any signs of poisoning. If any of the products are currently in use, it's recommended they be disposed of in hazardous waste containers, and not down the drain.

Of course, the FDA is still recommending that people wash their hands with soap and water frequently and for at least 20 seconds. In instances where soap and water are not readily available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that hand sanitizer containing an alcohol-base, with at least 60 percent ethanol may be used instead.

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FDA Releases Warning on Hand Sanitizer Products After Reports of 'Blindness' and 'Death' - PopCulture.com

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Kodiak Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: KOD), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in novel therapeutics to treat chronic, high-prevalence retinal diseases today announced promising additional safety, efficacy and durability data from the ongoing Phase 1b study of its investigational therapy KSI-301, an intravitreal anti-VEGF antibody biopolymer conjugate, in patients with treatment-nave wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), diabetic macular edema (DME) and retinal vein occlusion (RVO).

The data are presented online today at the American Society of Retina Specialists 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting by Mark Barakat, M.D., an investigator in the study and physician at Retina Consultants of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ. The study findings presented by Dr. Barakat can be found on the Kodiak Investor Relations website at http://ir.kodiak.com. A livestreamed Q&A panel discussion will be held on Sunday, July 26, 2020, for ASRS Virtual Annual Meeting attendees.

"Now supported by over 100 patient-years of clinical data in the Phase 1b study and over 150 patient-years across the KSI-301 development program, we continue to be very encouraged by the safety, efficacy, and durability of KSI-301," said Jason Ehrlich, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of Kodiak Sciences. "In the data presented today for Virtual ASRS, we observed that 82% of wet AMD eyes and 76% of DME eyes treated with KSI-301 were extended to four months or longer after the last loading dose before receiving their first retreatment. 68% of wet AMD eyes have achieved a six-month interval at least once during follow-up. In DME, with all patients having now been followed for six months or longer after only three initial loading doses (versus the five required with current standard-of-care), it is remarkable that nearly half of patients have yet to require any retreatment, and two-thirds of our DME patients have gone six months or longer before receiving their first retreatment."

"Importantly, KSI-301 is well-tolerated, and the safety profile of KSI-301 remains excellent," continued Dr. Ehrlich. "With 546 doses given in the Phase 1a/1b program, only two events of trace to 1+ intraocular inflammation have occurred, the same two cases as reported previously. These events resolved completely, and both patients have gained over five eye chart lines of vision from their baseline (+30 and +27 letters, respectively). The durability of KSI-301 is exceeding my expectations. It is notable that we see very few retreatment injections in fact, only an average of 1.3 injections were given in the wet AMD patients in the eight months after the loading phase, and only 0.6 injections in DME patients and 1.3 in RVO patients. This compares very favorably to the best current standard-of-care anti-VEGF therapy (4.0, 5.0 and 8.0 injections, respectively). We believe these results strongly support both the disruptive KSI-301 dosing regimens in our pivotal study designs and the studies' likelihoods of success."

"The latest Phase 1b study data, where we see the durability of KSI-301 over longer periods of treatment and follow-up, strongly reinforce the potential for KSI-301 to be a foundational anti-VEGF therapy with a durability profile that patients, physicians and payors are asking for," said Victor Perlroth, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Kodiak Sciences. "We believe that a disruptive 'Generation 2.0' anti-VEGF therapeutic would allow nearly all wet AMD and DME patients to be treated on a three-month or longer dose interval and most RVO patients on a two-month or longer interval. Our maturing Phase 1b study data continue to surpass those goalposts. Indeed, for many wet AMD and DME patients, our data suggest KSI-301 may be a once every five- or six-month medicine."

"With all of our pivotal studies enrolling treatment-nave patients similar to those in our Phase 1b, we retain a high confidence in our KSI-301 development program," Dr. Perlroth continued. "Our DAZZLE study in wet AMD, where KSI-301 is given as infrequently as every five-months, continues to recruit well with over 340 patients randomized to date in the US and Europe. We are very appreciative of the support from the ophthalmology community. We look forward to initiating pivotal studies in DME, RVO, and potentially diabetic retinopathy later this year, as we continue advancing KSI-301 on track for our 2022 Vision of a BLA filing in these key indications. We will be discussing these clinical plans in more detail at our July 27, 2020, R&D webinar on the heels of the livestreamed Virtual ASRS panel."

About KSI-301

KSI-301 is an investigational anti-VEGF therapy built on the Company's Antibody Biopolymer Conjugate, or ABC Platform and is designed to maintain potent and effective drug levels in ocular tissues for longer than existing agents. Kodiak's objective with KSI-301 is to develop a new first-line agent to improve outcomes for patients with retinal vascular diseases and to enable earlier treatment and prevention of vision loss for patients with diabetic eye disease. The Company's DAZZLE pivotal study in patients with treatment-nave wet AMD was initiated in October 2019. Kodiak plans to initiate additional pivotal studies of KSI-301 in 2020 in diabetic macular edema, retinal vein occlusion and diabetic retinopathy. These studies are anticipated to form the basis of the Company's initial BLA to support potential approval and commercialization. KSI-301 is being developed and is fully owned globally by Kodiak Sciences Inc. In December 2019, Kodiak entered into an agreement to sell a 4.5% capped royalty right on global net sales of KSI-301 to Baker Bros. Advisors for $225 million.

About the DAZZLE Study

The DAZZLE study (also called Study KSI-CL-102) is a global, multi-center, randomized study designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of KSI-301 in patients with treatment-nave wet AMD. Patients are randomized to receive either KSI-301 on an individualized dosing regimen as infrequently as every five months and no more often than every three months or to receive standard-care aflibercept on its every eight-week dosing regimen, each after three monthly initiating doses. The primary endpoint is at one year and each patient will be treated and followed for two years. Additional information about DAZZLE can be found on http://www.clinicaltrials.gov under Trial Identifier NCT04049266 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT04049266).

About the KSI-301 Clinical Program

The KSI-301 Clinical Program is designed to assess KSI-301's safety, efficacy and durability in wet AMD, DME, RVO and non-proliferative DR (without DME) through clinical studies run in parallel. We have agreed on the order and number of clinical studies required to support the licensure of KSI-301 in wet AMD, DME, RVO and non-proliferative DR at an end of phase 2 meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We confirmed that two clinical studies conducted in a single indication are expected by FDA to demonstrate the initial safety and efficacy of KSI-301. One clinical study each in the additional disease indications, if successful, can be used to support approval in the additional indications. We intend to conduct two Phase 3 studies in DME (the GLEAM and GLIMMER studies) to provide the mutually confirmatory studies required by FDA for initial demonstration of safety and efficacy. We also intend to conduct one study in wAMD (our ongoing DAZZLE study) and one study in RVO (the BEACON study) to support approval of these additional indications. We intend to file this package together in a single BLA in 2022. We also plan to run an additional study in patients with non-proliferative DR without DME (the GLOW study) which depending on data readiness may be combined either into the single initial BLA or may be filed as a supplemental BLA. We expect that the global KSI-301 clinical program will be conducted at 100+ study sites in more than 10 countries.

About Kodiak Sciences Inc.

Kodiak (Nasdaq: KOD) is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat chronic, high-prevalence retinal diseases. Founded in 2009, we are focused on bringing new science to the design and manufacture of next generation retinal medicines to prevent and treat the leading causes of blindness globally. Our ABC Platform uses molecular engineering to merge the fields of antibody-based and chemistry-based therapies and is at the core of Kodiak's discovery engine. Kodiak's lead product candidate, KSI-301, is a novel anti-VEGF antibody biopolymer conjugate being developed for the treatment of retinal vascular diseases including age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in elderly patients, and diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness in working-age patients. Kodiak has leveraged its ABC Platform to build a pipeline of product candidates in various stages of development including KSI-501, our bispecific anti-IL-6/VEGF biopolymer conjugate for the treatment of neovascular retinal diseases with an inflammatory component, and we are expanding our early research pipeline to include ABC Platform based triplet inhibitors for multifactorial retinal diseases such as dry AMD and glaucoma. Kodiak is based in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.kodiak.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical fact and include statements regarding our belief that KSI-301 may achieve disruptive dosing regimens; the likelihood of success of our KSI-301 Clinical Program; the potential for KSI-301 to be a foundational anti-VEGF therapy with a durability profile that patients, physicians and payors will seek; our ability to initiate pivotal studies in DME, RVX and potentially diabetic retrinopathy in 2020; our ability to achieve our 2022 Vision, including a single BLA submission in wet AMD, DME, RVO and diabetic retinopathy in 2022; our platform technology and potential therapies; future development plans; clinical and regulatory objectives and the timing thereof, anticipated design of planned clinical trials, expectations regarding the potential efficacy and commercial potential of our product candidates; the anticipated presentation of data; the results of our research and development efforts and our ability to advance our product candidates into later stages of development. Forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, and include words such as "may," "will," "should," "would," "expect," "plan," "believe," "intend," "pursue," and other similar expressions among others. Any forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the preliminary safety, efficacy and durability data for our KSI-301 product candidate will not continue or persist; cessation or delay of any of the ongoing clinical studies and/or our development of KSI-301 may occur; future potential regulatory milestones of KSI-301, including those related to current and planned clinical studies may be insufficient to support regulatory submissions or approval; anticipated presentation of data at upcoming conferences may not occur; our research and development efforts and our ability to advance our product candidates into later stages of development may fail; any one or more of our product candidates may not be successfully developed, approved or commercialized; adverse conditions in the general domestic and global economic markets; as well as the other risks identified in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a discussion of other risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, any of which could cause our actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our most recent Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and Kodiak undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

Kodiak, Kodiak Sciences, ABC, ABC Platform and the Kodiak logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Kodiak Sciences Inc. in various global jurisdictions.

SOURCE Kodiak Sciences Inc.

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That's the case for Fargo resident Dan Haglund, who has the most common type of red-green color blindness but special glasses are now allowing him to see the shades like everyone else, and he's excited to see more of what he's been missing his whole life.

He recently shared a video of his initial reaction to the new view on Facebook.

For roughly 8 percent of men and .5 percent of women of Northern European descent, these colors are seen in a very different way.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, color blindness is the inability to see colors in a normal way, often happening when an individual can't distinguish between certain colors. In an article written for the group, author David Turbert explains how the eyes work to allow us to see.

"In the retina, there are two types of cells that detect light," he writes. "They are called rods and cones. Rods detect only light and dark and are very sensitive to low light levels. Cone cells detect color and are concentrated near the center of your vision. There are three types of cones that see color: red, green and blue. The brain uses input from these cone cells to determine our color perception."

However, when one or more of the color cone cells are absent, not working properly or show a different color than normal, the affected person perceives color in an entirely different way.

Colorblind individuals cannot see the numbers formed by the different colored dots in these images. iStock / Special to The Forum

Haglund has dealt with the most common type of color blindness scientifically known as deuteranomaly and protanomaly since birth, and has family members who are also affected.

"I know when I was in elementary school, they gave all the kids a test," he says. "And then, you know, page by page, (they asked me) 'Can you see the number in these dots?' and I could only pick out, I think there were 20 pages and I could pick out about four of the pages and the rest were just blobs."

But Haglund's perception of the world got a little brighter this week, thanks to a gift from his girlfriend.

"I wasn't anticipating (what I saw), because you wait your whole life it's like opening a present," Haglund says. "(I) waited decades to see what everyone else is seeing and then when I saw I just couldn't believe the shades. Everything's so much more vivid and brighter than I'm seeing them."

Haglund's new glasses give him the ability to see colors in a new way by enhancing the contrast between colors by filtering out light. Since his first experience with these color-enhancing glasses, Haglund says he's looking forward to experiencing a whole new side of life.

"The couple things that I came up with yesterday (that I am excited for) are sunrises and sunsets," he says. "The sky has got some amazing colors that I've never seen, and then rainbows because I think there's a color or two in the rainbow that I'm probably misidentifying. I mean, I see the colors of the rainbow, but I don't know if I'm seeing them correctly."

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Glasses that correct color blindness give Fargo man a bright new lease on life - INFORUM

Parasitic filarial nematodes infect hundreds of millions of people, causing diseases such as river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, which can lead to elephantiasis, a severe swelling of the limbs.

Mosquitoes spread the parasitic worms, which engage in sophisticated migrations within their insect and mammal hosts. One worm, Brugia malayi, starts in the mosquitos gut, migrates to its flight muscles, then to its mouth. In its human host, the worm travels between the lymphatic system and the blood. Researchers have little idea how the nematodes achieve these nomadic lifestyles that are crucial for their survival.

Researchers prepare to inject an anaesthetized mosquito infected with parasitic Brugia malayi nematodes with gene-disrupting molecules to study how the nematodes rely on chemical sensation to migrate within their hosts. Courtesy of Zamanian lab

In new research, University of WisconsinMadison scientists provide the first look at the genetic underpinnings of the worms migration through their hosts. They identified two genes the nematodes use to respond to cues in their host environment. When the genes are disrupted, the worms are lost and less effective at infecting their hosts.

The genes are part of the nematodes chemosensation network, a combination of chemical-sensing proteins and nerve cells that let the parasites detect and respond to molecules in their environment. Because these responses are key for the nematodes complex life cycle, theyre a potential target for future treatments.

Were hopeful that a better understanding of how worms are transmitted between hosts and move within them may lead to new approaches for parasite treatment and control, says Mostafa Zamanian, a professor of pathobiological sciences in the UWMadison School of Veterinary Medicine and senior author of the report. The work was published in June in the journal PLOS Biology.

All animals use chemosensation. Its what allows a bee to follow the scent of a flower or a human to track down the aroma of baking cookies. The Zamanian lab figured that filarial nematodes used the same system to travel to the right part of their mosquito and human hosts at the right time by following specific chemical signatures their hosts produce.

To test this idea, the researchers mined over 40 parasite genomes to identify sensory genes in filarial parasites. Then they measured the expression of chemosensory genes throughout the parasites life cycle. They looked at chemoreceptors proteins that detect a specific signal during distinct stages of the parasites life cycles within human and mosquito hosts, when the parasites migrate to different tissues.

Mostafa Zamanian

Nicolas Wheeler

We saw chemoreceptors turned on and turned off at very specific time points, likely to help the nematodes get to the right destination at the right time, says Nicolas Wheeler, a postdoctoral researcher in the Zamanian lab and lead author of the new study.

The researchers tested whether disrupting the chemosensation network would impair the worms ability to migrate within and infect their hosts. They singled out two genes known to act as messengers for chemosensation in distantly related nematodes: OSM-9 and TAX-4.

To test OSM-9s function, they exposed the nematodes to the OSM-9-disrupting chemical nicotinamide at different stages of their life cycles. When these nicotinamide-laced worms were fed to mosquitoes, the insects ended up infected with 20 to 40 percent fewer parasites. Those nematodes that did survive in the mosquitoes were worse at migrating to the insects flight muscles compared to nematodes with normally functioning OSM-9.

The researchers also extracted larvae from mosquitoes during the stage when they can infect humans and exposed them to nicotinamide. In a petri dish experiment, the larvae became less likely to move toward chemical signals in mammalian blood. The results of the nicotinamide experiments suggested that OSM-9 is key for helping the worms navigate.

The filarial nematode Brugia malayi during the larval life stage when it can infect humans, where the parasite can cause severe swelling in the limbs known as elephantiasis. Courtesy of Zamanian lab

Using another system, the research team was able to disrupt both OSM-9 and TAX-4 while the nematodes were developing within their mosquito hosts. The researchers had to inject hundreds of mosquitoes by hand with molecules tailored to disrupt each gene finicky, time-consuming work.

Because the mosquitoes were infected with the parasites and potentially able to transmit them, the researchers had to don head-to-toe protective clothing to avoid getting bitten. Then they tested how well the nematodes could respond to chemical signatures in mammals.

The filarial nematode Brugia malayi during the lifestage when it is taken up by mosquitoes feeding on infected humans. In mosquitoes, the parasite must travel from the insects gut to its flight muscles and eventually its mouth to make it back to human hosts. Courtesy of Zamanian lab

It was worth it in the end, because we were able to show both OSM-9 and TAX-4 are involved in the infective larvas ability to crawl toward (host signals in the blood), says Wheeler. These are the first two genes to be linked to migratory behavior in these parasitic nematodes.

There are effective treatments against filarial parasites, but the complex drug regimens have potentially severe side effects, and the nematodes have developed drug resistance. There is also growing evidence that sensory systems play an important role in how parasites respond to existing antiparasitic drugs. A better understanding of how the worms detect chemical signatures and find their way within hosts could one day help researchers disrupt these critical migrations, potentially bolstering treatment.

This is a starting point, says Wheeler.

This work was funded in part by the National Institutes for Health (grants K22AI125473 and R01AI151171).

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Parasitic worms use their keen senses to wriggle through their hosts - University of Wisconsin-Madison

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Ivannikov Institute for System Programming, and the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Schepens Eye Research Institute have developed a neural network capable of recognizing retinal tissues during the process of their differentiation in a dish. Unlike humans, the algorithm achieves this without the need to modify cells, making the method suitable for growing retinal tissue for developing cell replacement therapies to treat blindness and conducting research into new drugs.

The study was published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

This would allow to expand the applications of the technology for multiple fields including the drug discovery and development of cell replacement therapies to treat blindnessIn multicellular organisms, the cells making up different organs and tissues are not the same. They have distinct functions and properties, acquired in the course of development. They start out the same, as so-called stem cells, which have the potential to become any kind of cell the mature organism incorporates. They then undergo differentiation by producing proteins specific to certain tissues and organs.

The most advanced technique for replicating tissue differentiation in vitro relies on 3D cell aggregates called organoids. The method has already proved effective for studying the development of the retina, the brain, the inner ear, the intestine, the pancreas, and many other tissue types. Since organoid-based differentiation closely mimics natural processes, the resulting tissue is very similar to the one in an actual biological organ.

Some of the stages in cell differentiation toward retina have a stochastic (random) nature, leading to considerable variations in the number of cells with a particular function even between artificial organs in the same batch. The discrepancy is even greater when different cell lines are involved. As a result, it is necessary to have a means of determining which cells have already differentiated at a given point in time. Otherwise, experiments will not be truly replicable, making clinical applications less reliable, too.

To spot differentiated cells, tissue engineers use fluorescent proteins. By inserting the gene responsible for the production of such a protein into the DNA of cells, researchers ensure that it is synthesized and produces a signal once a certain stage in cell development has been reached. While this technique is highly sensitive, specific, and convenient for quantitative assessments, it is not suitable for cells intended for transplantation or hereditary disease modeling.

To address that pitfall, the authors of the recent study in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience have proposed an alternative approach based on tissue structure. No reliable and objective criteria for predicting the quality of differentiated cells have been formulated so far. The researchers proposed that the best retinal tissues those most suitable for transplantation, drug screening, or disease modeling should be selected using neural networks and artificial intelligence.

Study co-author Pavel Volchkov, who heads the Genome Engineering Lab at MIPT, commented on growing artificial organs:

One of the main focuses of our lab is applying the methods of bioinformatics, machine learning, and AI to practical tasks in genetics and molecular biology. And this solution, too, is at the interface between sciences. In it, neural networks, which are among the things MIPT traditionally excels at, address a problem important for biomedicine: predicting stem cell differentiation into retina.

The human retina has a very limited capacity for regeneration, the geneticist went on. This means that any progressive loss of neurons for example, in glaucoma inevitably leads to complete loss of vision. And there is nothing a physician can recommend, short of getting a head start on learning Braille. Our research takes biomedicine a step closer to creating a cellular therapy for retinal diseases that would not only halt the progression but reverse vision loss.

The team trained a neural network that is, a computer algorithm that mimics the way neurons work in the human brain to identify the tissues in a developing retina based on photographs made by a conventional light microscope. The researchers first had a number of experts identify the differentiated cells in 1,200 images via an accurate technique that involves the use of a fluorescent reporter. The neural network was trained on 750 images, with another 150 used for validation and 250 for testing predictions. At this last stage, the machine was able to spot differentiated cells with an 84% accuracy, compared with 67% achieved by humans.

Evgenii Kegeles of the MIPT Laboratory for Orphan Disease Therapy and Schepens Eye Research Institute, U.S, commented:

Our findings indicate that the current criteria used for early-stage retinal tissue selection may be subjective. They depend on the expert making the decision. However, we hypothesized that the tissue morphology, its structure, contains clues that enable predicting retinal differentiation, even at very early stages. And unlike a human, the computer program can extract that information!

This approach does not require images of a very high quality, fluorescent reporters, or dyes, making it relatively easy to implement, the scientist added. It takes us one step closer to developing cellular therapies for the retinal diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, which today invariably lead to blindness. Besides that, the approach can be transferred not just to other cell lines, but also to other human artificial organs.

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Machine learning will help to grow artificial organs - Open Access Government

Newswise The ability to recognize faces is a complex neurocognitive skill with important social implications. The disorder, which, according to some estimates, affects more than 2 percent of the population, can lead to isolation and anxiety and impair personal and work relationships.

The traditional view of face blindnessprosopagnosia in scientific parlancehas held that the disorder arises from deficits in visual perception. Under that view, individuals with face blindness are unable to visually distinguish the features of faces presented side by side and unable to determine whether the faces are the same or not.

Now a new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the VA Boston Healthcare System shows that face blindness may arise from deficits beyond visual perception and appears to involve glitches in retrieving various contextual cues from memory.

The results, published July 5 ahead of print in the journal Cortex, suggest that the traditional view of face blindness as a purely visual perceptual disorder may be reductive, the researchers said. Further, they reveal that successful facial recognition requires recollection, or the recall of relevant contextual details about a person, such as their name or profession.

The new findings can help explain a mystifying discrepancy in face blindness research: People with the condition often fail to visually identify familiar faces, but many also perform normally on visual-perception tests.

This inconsistency has always hinted that there may be other factors at play that go beyond visual perception, said study senior author Joseph DeGutis, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at VA Boston. Our findings suggest that one important deficit beyond perception is face recollection.

The ability to recognize a face requires two forms of memory: Recollection and familiarity. Recollection is the retrieval of contextual information upon seeing a facea fellow shopper greeting you in the store and you recognizing them as the person you met through work a few weeks back. Familiarity, on the other hand, is a fuzzier feeling of knowing without any contextual information, the researchers explained. Think of the fellow shopper looking vaguely familiar but without any of the relevant details that tell you how you know them.

The findings can help inform the design of techniques to boost face recognition in people with developmental prosopagnosiaa form of face blindness that is not caused by brain injury, poor vision or neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.

Our results underscore that prosopagnosia is a far more complex disorder that is driven by more than deficits in visual perception, said study first author Anna Stumps, a researcher in the Boston Attention Learning Laboratory at VA Boston. This finding can help inform the design of new training approaches for people with face blindness.

The research team is currently working to design one such experimental program in the VA Boston laboratory where the work was conducted.

The study involved 6o people, ages 18 to 65, half of whom had lifelong face blindness.

The participants were asked to perform a series of facial-recognition tasks by studying and then identifying sets of faces that the participants had not seen prior to the study. Participants were asked to study 60 faces shown on a computer screen, one at a time. The participants were then shown a scramble of 120 facessome of them already seen during the study session and some completely new.

To tease out the differences in recognition memory between participants with and without face blindness, DeGutis and colleagues measured their degree of confidence in classifying each face as old or new on a scale of 1 to 6. Correctly identifying a face as old with high confidence reflects the use of recollection, the researchers said, whereas correctly identifying a face as old with less confidence reflects the use of familiarity.

Compared with participants who had face blindness, people without it were significantly more confident that they had seen these faces before. However, those with face blindness were still able to correctly identify many of the faces they had seen before, although with less confidence. In other words, when trying to recognize a face, participants with face blindness relied on familiarity, the vague sense of knowing or having seen someone before without specific contextual information. In contrast, individuals without face blindness relied on recollection.

Taken together, these findings suggest that people with face blindness use different memory processes for face recognition.

The results, the researchers said, demonstrate that successful face recognition requires more than a vague familiarity with a facea sense of having seen a face before but without recalling any other details to place the face. Memory researchers call this inability to identify a familiar face out of context butcher-on-the-bus phenomenon. Though everyone experiences this from time to time, for people with true face blindness this can happen frequently, as often as multiple times a day.

Our findings suggest that people with developmental prosopagnosia use a different memory system when trying to learn and remember faces and that system is less optimally suited for the task of recognizing faces, DeGutis said.

Additional authors on the study include Elyana Saad, David Rothlein and Mieke Verfaellie.

The research was supported by the National Eye Institute (grant RO1EY026057).

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More Than Meets the Eye - Newswise

The gift will help the charity to continue its sight-saving research in the UK

The optical products manufacturer has donated 1 for every order of their blue light blocking screen protectors for phones, tablets and computers.

Fight for Sight works to fund treatments and cures for the leading causes of sight loss and blindness in the UK. The charity is currently invested in over 150 research projects at 42 universities and hospitals across the country, and also campaigns on issues related to sight loss and blindness.

Ikram Dahman, Fight for Sights director of fundraising, said that the charity is so pleased that Ocushield has raised this money to help fund our vital sight-saving research.

He added: Their support has come at a really important time, when lockdown and social distancing have presented real obstacles for our researchers.

Ocushields gift will go towards ensuring we continue to work towards future scientific breakthroughs for the two million people living with sight loss in the UK. We are really grateful for their support.

A recent Fight for Sight survey revealed that COVID-19 is putting new sight-saving treatments at risk. 90% of researchers in the field of ophthalmology reported that the future funding for their research has become uncertain as a result of the pandemic.

Dhruvin Patel, founder of Ocushield, (pictured) said: Its good to know our support will go towards ensuring the charity can continue to fight for better outcomes for people living with sight loss and visual impairment.

Fight for Sight is an important charity in this sector, and we wish it all the best moving forward and will continue to support it where we can.

Fight for Sight has launched an urgent appeal to help researchers cover the costs in delays to projects. You can support the appeal by visiting Fight for Sights website here.

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Ocushield makes 5000 donation to Fight for Sight - AOP

The first six months of this new decade have forced us to reconsider nearly everything: how we work, how we connect with each other and, with increasing urgency, the purposes, functions and futures of the structures and institutions at the core of our social and economic systems. The COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread reckoning with racism brought about by the latest resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement are both happening in the shadow of a global climate emergency. The confluence of crises has forced our collective hand. These are not polite invitations to consider incremental change, they are radical disruptions that are shaking us by our collective shoulders and asking: What will you do now?

If we have learned anything in the first half of 2020, its that our public institutions and policy machinery can be far more nimble than we sometimes give them credit for. Were doing things we didnt think we could do before from the universal income support of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit to a massive shift in public consciousness and engagement with anti-racism movements. Many of our assumptions about the way we do government can and should be re-examined. Its not so much that the convergence of multiple crises has broken our socio-economic systems, its that they have exacerbated the cracks and crevices that were already there, with the kind of acute clarity that means they can no longer be ignored.

One such increasingly volatile fault line is the rural-urban divide. The tendency toward conflict between rural and urban communities, despite their many interconnections, long predates this unexpectedly chaotic year. Contributors to Policy Options noted the growing disconnect between rural and urban Canada in 2017. In 2018, the economic geographer Andrs Rodrguez-Pose drew direct links between such divides and their socio-economic and political consequences by calling the geographic distribution of growing populism the revenge of the places that dont matter. Whether its the glaring ineffectiveness of the way we approach investments in rural broadband, the social and economic pressures linked to disaster gentrification or renewed awareness of the centrality of rural places in providing critical resources like energy or food (and the racialized dynamics of the labour of some parts of Canadas agri-food system) 2020 has surfaced serious sinkholes in Canadian rural policy.

These issues are not new to anyone who has spent time in rural Canada. However, the political and policy machinery that governs our country has become increasingly centralized in large urban centres and managed by generalists. This disconnect is a major part of the problem. Canadian public policy has developed a place-blindness that assumes that what works in Nelson, BC, should work in Dundalk, Ontario, or North Battleford, Saskatchewan all while taking for granted that, of course, Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal need their own specific approaches. Theres never been a better time to unravel these assumptions.

As we sit with the stinging feeling that comes when sunlight lands on the darkest recesses of our institutional dynamics, we must address three critical questions if we are going to make any progress toward reimagining resilient rural futures:

Do we value rural places?

In general, rural value is framed as extractive value or consumptive value, whether its timber, agriculture, energy or tourism, recreation or empty spaces to escape to. Rural places are most frequently positioned in terms of what they can provide to non-rural people, rather than through any lens that recognizes their inherent worth. The tendency to frame the value of both individuals and communities only in terms of their productive or consumptive value is dehumanizing.

By contrast, we position cities as places of innovation and culture. There is a tendency to embed these values in the idea of the city itself. If we can do this for some places, why not others? Why is it so difficult to consider and then centre the value of rural people and places in their own right? What if rural policy deeply respected rural communities, rather than treating them as cities in waiting or something broken that needs to be fixed?

Is there a right to be rural?

It can be difficult to feel like our current approach to rural policy actually does value rural places as unique contributors to the complex interconnections between communities of all shapes and sizes that make up the social and economic fabric of our country. This is mostly because the underpinning assumption of most contemporary rural policies and programs seems to be that successful rural development is urbanization. The geographically uneven results of current approaches to investing in infrastructure, social safety nets, and economic development mean that, to a large degree, geography is destiny. Place-blind policies neglect the importance of place in shaping our lives and communities.

The combination of external forces pushing rural places toward urbanization and rural peoples perception that they are being left out of the decision-making processes that deeply affect their lives has produced arguments about the right to be rural. They echo the philosopher Henri Lefebvres vision of the right to the city, which has become a slogan of urban renewal around the world.

Interestingly, marginalized and underserved communities in both rural and urban contexts have far more in common than one might imagine. For example, the experience of living in a food desert will be similar, regardless of whether your urban community is served only by convenience stores or your rural community grocery store has closed and you must drive an hour to the next city. If we consider things like broadband connectivity, access to health care and education, and the opportunity to pursue meaningful and sustainable livelihood as rights, why should we accept lower standards and, by extension, lesser rights for those living in rural communities?

As we face the possibility of increasingly uncertain futures, approaching rural policy through the lens of rights requires us to start from questions of equity and radically rethink the quality, quantity and speed of our investments in rural communities.

Who gets to decide what happens next?

The transformation of rural Canada has been and will continue to be shaped by both the formal decisions and the informal relationships that continually constitute and reconstitute the structures that govern our societies. However, governments across Canada seem to struggle to develop robust, flexible and effective rural policies to meet the ever-changing needs of rural communities. Evidence-based policy-making remains a challenge. Critically, there often appears to be little questioning about who gets invited to the table when rural issues are being discussed, based on (incorrect) assumptions that all rural communities are the same or that there is a singular policy response that can meet every rural persons needs and aspirations.

Rural policy is typically positioned as a sub-portfolio within ministries of agriculture, natural resources or infrastructure. The tendency to see agricultural or other sector-specific policy as representing the whole of rural policy ignores the layered identities, needs and aspirations of rural places. Further, the assumption that cities are our primary engines of growth ignores the outsize contributions of rural areas to both our GDP and Canadian culture. The dismantling of the federal Rural Secretariat in 2013, the general trend toward centralization of government and service delivery, and the emphasis of all orders of government on sectoral development rather than holistic community development has all but erased rural people from the policies and programs supposedly designed to support them. Re-centering the priorities of rural people and places in rural policy will require fundamental changes in where, how and by whom rural policy decisions are made if we are ever to develop effective tools for addressing contemporary rural realities.

Realizing the radical potential of rurality

It is easy to feel like we might collapse under the weight of the tasks ahead of us; there is much to do if we are going to reimagine a more just world. There is no recovery from our current crises without social, economic and climate justice and this work includes supporting efforts to realize the full potential of rural Canada.

It is time to rise to the invitation offered by American activist and community organizer Mariame Kaba and let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. To realize the radical potential of the rural, we must leave behind outdated assumptions that both rural decline and unchallenged urbanization are the twin edges of some inevitable compromise.

As we look toward the future, we need to overcome the laziness of viewing the application of public policy interventions through the lens of urban versus everywhere else and develop place-based approaches that recognize the value of a diversity of both rural and urban communities and the critical linkages between them. As we recommit to new ways of building interesting, inclusive futures from here on out, we must not let our imagination end at the city limits.

This article is part of theThe Coronavirus Pandemic: Canadas Responsespecial feature.

Photo:Bruce Bird opens a gate on his familys cattle farm near Cremona, Alta., on May 28, 2020, amid a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

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Will post-COVID policies realize the full potential of rural Canada? - Policy Options

On June 14, I sat in a pew at a local parish for the first time in months. After weeks of virtual celebrations, I found it fitting that we would gather in-person on the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. It felt good to be together as a communal body. Though our faces were partially covered, the familiar space and feeling of ritual allowed the anxiety of gathering to succumb, for a moment, to the peace of place and presence.

I cherished the peace, yet, as I listened to the presider's homily and then to the prayers of the faithful, I winced not at what was being said, but what wasn't.

We prayed for an end of violence, for peace, and for those working to end injustice, never once using the words race or racism, let alone "Black Lives Matter."

In the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd and weeks of protests that swelled across the country and on our city streets, there was an implicit silence. This parish, which I'd come to know as progressive, failed to name the racism and white privilege/supremacy that has been thrust into the public consciousness.

I winced because I thought this was a place where I would be able to grapple with the Gospel and the issues of our day. I thought this was a place where I would find challenge in the face of systemic social sin and I didn't.

I also winced because I knew that most Sundays before that I wouldn't have batted an eye at the absence of the issue and these words from the preacher's mouth or our communal prayer. Speaking of justice and peace would have soothed my soul and I would have been able to carry on as usual without even noticing the omission. Yet, now, rightfully, everything seems far from normal.

"There is no way to tell the truth about race in this country without white people becoming uncomfortable." Bryan Massingale poignantly writes, "Because the plain truth is that if it were up to people of color, racism would have been resolved, over and done, a long time ago. The only reason for racism's persistence is that white people continue to benefit from it."

That last line from Massingale's must-read op-ed on white privilege and what we can do about it continues to stick with me. This is not a problem separate from me or the church or my religious congregation. It is something whose effects I witness on a daily basis be it in the classroom with students from Central and South America, watching students at our local inner city public school line up for laptops months after instruction went online, or meeting with neighbors, a majority of whom are Black and Latino, in need of food assistance and other basic needs.

We serve the needs we are aware of and learn the stories of those we walk with, all while striving to root out the causes of such racism. In the end, however, if we are honest with ourselves, we also must face the fact that we a congregation of women religious that is predominantly white benefit from unjust systems and perpetuate, despite our best efforts, implicit biases and cultural norms based on our whiteness.

The demand to admit and counteract our personal, ecclesial, societal, and congregational blindness to racism is clear. As Sr. Mumbi Kigutha clearly conveyed in these pages a few weeks ago, we must "move from a place of tokenism to a place of egalitarianism," making efforts across the board to "critically interrogate" as well as recognize, celebrate and proclaim that Black Lives Matter.

So often we pray to have our eyes opened, to see as God sees. Perhaps the first step in gaining that vision is admitting our blindness. Awakening to the fact that we might not be seeing everything is an unsettling admission. It pushes us to expand our vision, to let new light illuminate the larger reality of the world we may never have seen or wanted to see.

These past few weeks, I've heard stories of individuals in staff meetings asking for forgiveness of transgressions in sweeping statements like "if I've ever done anything to offend anyone, please accept my apology." I don't doubt the sincerity of these statements but I wonder if they are meant more to make the offender feel better than to name specific transgressions, to do the work of identifying and naming microaggressions in everyday life, or to admit to (and begin to see) the ways in which those of us in the majority have benefited and continue to benefit from a society that assumes that white lives matter more, good intentions can carry the day, and that white lives are innocent, good and somehow more worthy of protection than others.

In the same way, I think about the multitude of black squares that "blacked out" Instagram in early June in an effort to amplify black voices. This act which genuinely intended to raise awareness instead ended up largely playing out as performative allyship, giving those from non-marginalized groups who posted it a sense of having done the right thing without really helping the marginalized groups it was intended to benefit.

If we remain blind to our actions and intentions, carrying on what is "normal" and thus perpetuating the racism ingrained in our society, we serve only ourselves and impede the work of movements that are trying to create change. Our intentions, which I believe are good, can unintentionally cause harm to our sisters and brothers. Without a critical eye, we can never see what we are blind to and without naming our blind spots and those in the people we interact with, we can never hope to have the open eyes we've prayed for.

Once we can admit our blindness, we can see our blind spots more clearly.

For the past few years, I've gone to a local rec center in the city of Camden early each morning to work out. Within the first few months, I became friendly with the people who would arrive at the same time. Because it was so early, we needed to be buzzed from one part of the building to the next. The security guard on duty was notoriously tired by the time we arrived at the end of his all-night shift. One morning, two men, both of whom were black, and I arrived at the same time but the security guard was nowhere to be found.

Having seen him push the button on the desk numerous times, I wondered aloud if we might go behind the desk and do the same. My two companions looked right at me and quickly responded they were fine waiting as I craned my neck to better see the button; just then the security guard emerged from the back office wiping the sleep from his eyes. The men chuckled nervously and the guard buzzed us in. Recounting the story to a friend later that day, I heard my own confusion at the men's reaction. Then, like a light bulb going off, I realized how blind (and privileged) I had been.

I have work to do. (We all do.) More work than I can even realize at this point. I don't say this to be commended or comforted; I am simply acknowledging the uncomfortable grace I'm encountering.

This does not cover all the areas of our/my blindness. Nor does it offer an answer (or answers) to the issue of racism. In writing it, I had to admit to my blind spots and shortcomings and the inadequacies of my language. I had to face the inadequacy of the energy I have put forth in becoming anti-racist and better educating myself about the struggles of my Black and brown sisters and brothers.

In all honesty, this is an unfinished piece because we as a society and as groups and individuals are in an unfinished process. Acknowledging this fact is not to dismiss it but to underscore the work yet to be done. I pray that we all might have the presence of mind and heart to go deeper, to lift up voices we have failed to hear or seek out to listen to before, and to humbly see our blindness and illuminate it as we continue to engage in the work of change.

[A Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, Colleen Gibson is the author of the blog Wandering in Wonder and has been published work in various periodicals including America, Commonweal and Give Us This Day. She currently serves as coordinator of services at the Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center in Camden, New Jersey.]

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Admitting blindness: seeing my blind spots and trying to do better - Global Sisters Report

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) The Department of Health is urging Pennsylvanians to take steps to prevent eye injuries that can occur more frequently during the summer months.

During the summer, many children and adults are staying active by playing outside and taking part in organized or recreational sports, Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said. While we need people to take additional precautions as part of COVID-19 when participating these types of activities, it is also very important that individuals take the proper steps to protect their eyes from serious injuries. Eye injuries can be severe and impact an individuals future and entire way of life.

According to theAmerican Academy of Ophthalmology, more than 40 percent of eye injuries each year are related to sports or recreational activities. Eye injuries are the leading cause of blindness in children in the United States, and most injuries that are reported in school-aged children are sports-related.

Ninety percent of eye injuries can be prevented through wearing protective eyewear, including safety glasses and goggles, safety shields, and eye guards. Ordinary prescription glasses, contacts, and sunglasses do not protect against eye injuries.

The Department of Health says as part of COVID-19, it is important to take steps to protect yourself from the spread of the virus while participating in organized sports. Coaches, athletes, and spectators must wear face coverings, unless they are outdoors and can consistently maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet. Athletes are not required to wear face coverings while actively engaged in workouts and competition that prevent the wearing of face coverings, but must wear face coverings when on the sidelines, in the dugout, etc. and any time 6 feet of social distancing is not possible.

The sun can also damage eyes, which is why it is important to wear sunglasses and sport-appropriate UV-protective goggles.

Even eye injuries that seem minor at first should be checked out, as serious eye issues can cause vision loss or blindness.

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Department of Health: Steps to protect eyes this summer - ABC27