#wentk

[oupacademic]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: A common refrain among many frustrated people on th American and European Left is that white working-class people “vote against their own interests.” As U.S. citizens gear up to vote in the 2018 Midterm Elections, we want to know:

Do white working-class people vote against their own interests? 

A fundamental misunderstanding about white working-class interests is that these interests are singular and economic in nature. Many white working-class people balance a variety of interests at once. The average white working-class American or Briton likely supports a range of protectionist economic policies and a range of nativist social policies. Since the 1990s, no mainstream American or British party has advocated for protectionism in the way the Left once did. This shift has left greater contrasts in the realm of social policy. Where white working-class interests are singular, the data suggest that they care far more about social and cultural affairs than those pertaining to the economy. In other words, by supporting UKIP, Donald Trump, and Republicans, white working-class people do vote in their interests—their social interests, not their eco­nomic interests. 

One of the primary conclusions of my research is that white working-class voters are absolutely rational. They seek representatives who care about their perspectives. They seek platforms that act on these perspectives. And they respond to parties and organizations that invest in them with time, resources, and candidates. This is not different from any other group of voters. The difference is that social and economic forces have isolated the British and American white working class as a political constitu­ency to the extent that many feel like an afterthought in the countries they once defined. They have responded with rebellion.

[Page 130-131, The White Working Class: What Everyone Needs to Know® by Justin Gest]

Image credit: “Construction workers” by WikiImages. CC0 via Pixabay .

[oupacademic]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: Today marks the celebration of Confucius' birthday. Confucius (551– 479 b.c.e.) was a teacher and philosopher who lived during the Zhou (Chou) Dynasty (1045– 256 b.c.e.), in what is known as the Spring and Autumn Era (722– 476 b.c.e.). None of Confucius’s writings have survived, and his views come down to us via a text produced after his death called the Analects. To celebrate his birth, we want to know:

What were Confucius’s core ideas?

The vision of morality sketched out in the _Analects _emphasizes the importance of three things— education, ritual, and relationships— that are hierarchical yet provide benefits to both superior and inferior parties. Education was important because it was by studying the classical texts that a person could learn about and begin to emulate the actions of the most virtuous figures of past ages, including the legendary sages Yao and Shun (who lived long before the founding of the Zhou Dynasty) and figures such as the Duke of Zhou (who lived just a few centuries before Confucius). Ritual, which included a variety of social interactions such as greetings, was impor­tant because it was a physical acting- out of the best practices of earlier— and, to Confucius’s way of thinking, purer— ages. And relationships in which there was a clear distinction be­tween higher and lower ranks were valued, since in these the responsibilities of each side were clear.

[Page 4, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Third Edition by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham]

Image Credit: “Konfuzius” by Ash Crow. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

[oupacademic]

Why we need more women to be in top positions in advertising.

GIFS by Nicole Piendel for Oxford University Press.

[oupacademic]

June is Alzheimer’s & Brain Awareness Month. To help spread public awareness and to honor the millions of people living with Alzheimer’s, we want to know:

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was first identified by Alois Alzheimer in 1906 in his patient, Frau Auguste D. Dr. Alzheimer saw Frau D. Dr. Alzheimer saw Frau D in 1901 and observed her rather striking symptoms that normally would have been described as “senile dementia.” It would have been called this in her case as well, except for the fact that she was in her early 50s when Alzheimer saw her. She dis­played severe memory dysfunction, problems speaking and understanding words (aphasia), an inability to perform skilled movements (apraxia), hallucinations (false perceptions), and delusions (false beliefs). Alzheimer performed a postmortem examination of her brain and found that it contained abnormal proteins (beta-amyloid plaques) and changes in neural struc­tures (neurofilbrillary tangles inside neurons, or nerve cells). Although this was discovered in 1906 and named by Emil Kraepelin in 1910, AD was not given a great deal of attention for decades. Even as late as 1970, noted psychologist Brendan Maher commented in his book, _Principles of Psychopathology, _that AD was not found with any significant frequency in the population and was thus of little interest to psychopathology students. As a result of the significant increase in the lifespan of adults in the developed world, however, the incidence of AD has grown significantly, and AD has become of tremendous interest to health care professionals and nonprofessionals alike. Currently, AD affects 5.4 million people in the United States, and 44 million worldwide have been diagnosed with AD or another dementia, with the vast majority of the cost of AD going to nursing home care and care at home (Hurd et al., 2013).

Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia: What Everyone Needs to Know® by Steven R. Sabat, pages 18-19

Image credit: “Brain Human Anatomy” by sbtlneet. CC0 via Pixabay

[oupacademic]

Chemicals in our food are not discussed as they should be. Fruits and vegetables are directly treated with pesticides, sometimes only days or hours before being shipped to market. While the pesticide chemicals are likely to remain present in or on the fruits and vegetables in large amounts while the foods await purchase on grocery store shelves, we want to know:

Are some fruits and vegetables more likely than others to carry pesticide residues?

Yes. According to the Environmental Working Group, which produces an annual “dirty dozen” list of fruits and vegetables containing the highest pesticide residues, the most pesticide-heavy types of produce, as of 2016, were:

Strawberries

Apples

Peaches

Celery

Grapes

Cherries

Spinach

Tomatoes

Sweet bell peppers

Cherry tomatoes

Cucumbers

Fruits and vegetables with soft skins and edible outer layers are more likely to deliver pesticides in human consumption than those with removable skins and shells. Conversely, the EWG’s “clean fifteen,” the least pesticide-burdened fruits and vegetables are:

Avocados

Sweet corn

Pineapples

Cabbage

Sweet peas

Onions

Asparagus

Mangoes

Papayas

Kiwi

Eggplant

Honeydew melon

Grapefruit

Cantaloupe

Cauliflower

Regardless of which list a food item lands on, it behooves consumers to wash all produce thoroughly before consuming it (particularly greens and anything with a waxy coating).

[Page 127-8, Children and Environmental Toxins: What Everyone Needs to Know by Philip J. Landrigan and Mary M. Landrigan]

Image credit:“Vegetables fruit fruits” by Ben_Kerckx. CC0 via Pixabay.

[oupacademic]

23-27 April is Every Kid Healthy Week, highlighting efforts to improve children’s health; from nutrition to exercise, to education.

But what role does the environment and environmental toxins play? Philip J. Landrigan explains which environmental toxins impact children the most and how to keep children safe and healthy from these toxins.

GIFS and video by Nicole Piendel for Oxford University Press.

[oupacademic]

What better way to get into the holiday spirit than with some friendly cubical-decorating competition? From a snowman crime scene caused by climate change to a cube split by the Miser brothers’ dispute, our colleagues at the New York office brought their A game to this festive activity. Which decorations are your favorite? 

[oupacademic]

What Everyone Needs to Know Q&A: As the United States deals with the worst nationwide flu outbreak in nearly a decade, we want to know:

Are we getting any closer to an influenza vaccine that does not have to be changed every year?

Significant resources and focus have been devoted to influenza vaccine development, particularly improvements to the vac­cine’s production and effectiveness. Development of a univer­sal influenza vaccine is high on this priority list as well, but it has proven challenging. A universal vaccine will require the ability to identify a part of the virus that does not change and also sparks a good enough antibody response to provide protection. Some vaccine candidates are focusing on a differ­ent part of the hemaglutinin protein: Current vaccines use the top, or head, of the protein, whereas the newer candidate vaccines use the more stable stalk. Other vaccine candidates focus on different virus proteins altogether, but these options would only make infection less severe, not prevent infection entirely. Last, some vaccine candidates use a helper substance, or adjuvant, that helps boost the antibody response for a wider range of proteins that may be shared across different influenza strains. These new possibilities may mean that a new vaccine would not be needed every year, but most of these vaccine can­didates are still in the preclinical or early clinical trial phases.

Another focus for influenza vaccine development is speed—finding a way to manufacture more vaccine, faster. The current vaccine’s dependence on eggs for vaccine production has made it difficult to scale- up production when need is greatest, especially in lower income countries. Some new vaccines do not require the use of eggs to grow influenza virus; these are known as cell- culture influenza vaccines.

[Page 146-7, Vaccines: What Everyone Needs to Know by Kristen A. Feemster]

Image credit: “Fruit Thermometer Vitamin C Cold Flu Outbreak” by HoliHo. CC0 via Pixabay.