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yasbxxgie · 5 years ago

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For as long as she can remember, Hanna Wagari, a longtime resident of San Diego and the Director of Marketing for a multinational cosmetics company, has straightened her hair every time she’s had a job interview.

“I feel that white people find me less intimidating and more likable when my hair is straight,” said Wagari, who is Black and has a short afro. “People hire people they like, and I am more liked with straight hair. Once I get in the door and get the job, then I don’t care—I’ll wear my hair curly because my work speaks for itself.”

Wagari is only one among scores of Black people across the country who feel the need to change aspects of their physical appearance to avoid anti-Black bias at work or school. For many, this means going to expensive, taxing, and sometimes dangerous lengths to change their natural hair.

Recently, California took historic first steps to rectify this issue. Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the CROWN Act, making California the first state to legally ban workplaces and public schools from discriminating against Black people due to their hairstyles. But some Black Californians suspect that even with these new legal protections, biases against Black hair won’t change.

The new bill, also known as the act for Creating a Respectful and Open Work Space for Natural Hair, was originally proposed by California Senator Holly Mitchell and mirrors similar legislation passed in New York City earlier this year. Specifically, it bans workplaces and public schools from enforcing dress codes and grooming policies that prohibit natural Black hair, including afros, braids, twists, and locs.

The bill’s passage follows several recent cases of Black people across the country alleging racial discrimination in the workplace and at school due to natural hairstyles. Notably, Chastity Jones, a Black woman from Alabama, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after losing a job offer because she refused to cut her dreadlocks in 2018. In California and across the country, Black children are regularly sent home from school or put in detention because their curls or other natural hairstyles conflict with dress code. And many Black employees have filed lawsuits alleging that they have lost jobs or faced discrimination at work due to their hair.

In California, the Crown Act should be immensely helpful in winning such cases. But some, like Wagari, aren’t confident that it will help correct the notion that natural Black hair is unprofessional or unruly, or prevent the frequent instances of bias and discrimination that are too subtle and insidious to legally pin down.

“I am so glad that the CROWN Act has been passed to protect little girls in schools and also people at work,” Wagari said. “However, it won’t change my practice of straightening my hair for that first or second or third interview. My purpose at an interview is to get the job, so I need to present an image that is acceptable.”

What Wagari is worried about is implicit bias—the ways that negative societal perceptions inform our everyday actions, often without us even realizing it. “Everyone has biases,” explained Bentley Gibson, an assistant professor of Psychology at Georgia Highlands College who studies implicit bias. “Biases don’t have to be racial, but they can absolutely lead to racism. Most people have a bias, positively, for people who are ranked higher in society. It’s easier to see them––in this case, white people—as good.”

Gibson founded The Bias Adjuster, a company that offers implicit-bias training in offices and schools in Georgia. She noted that while the Crown Act should aid in ending explicit biases that employers or schools hold towards Black people and their hair—such as firing employees or sending children home from school because of natural hair—this law is unlikely to change negative societal perceptions.

“This is a good start, and this law can hopefully make workplaces more inclusive and foster some productive conversations,” Gibson said. “But we’re still going to have people who have certain thoughts and biases towards Black hair, and they are going to act and think in ways that are discriminatory, even if that’s no longer as explicit.”

Stigma against Black hair is not new; it has endured for about as long as Black people have been in America. Post-emancipation, Black people began using chemicals–now known as “relaxers”—to soften their hair in order to be accepted into a newly integrated society. In 2016, The Perception Institute conducted the “Good Hair” Study to illuminate the ways that these stigmas persist today. The study, which examined women’s implicit and explicit attitudes towards Black women’s hair, found that on average, white women viewed natural hair as less attractive and less professional than straight hair. It also found that one in five Black women felt social pressure to straighten their hair for work—beyond explicit policies requiring it.

“For so long, the conversation around Black hair has also been attached to messages about professionalism, standards of beauty, cleanliness, and worthiness,” said Kalida Brown, a professor of Sociology and African American Studies at UCLA. “I hate to think about the psychological damage that these patently ridiculous conversations have had on Black people and how we view our worth.”

Michaela-Jolie Gilliard, a 20-year-old from Los Angeles, became familiar with these messages at a young age. “I was five years old the first time I had relaxer put in my hair,” she said. “And that shit burns.”

Gilliard recalled her time in Los Angeles public schools, where she says she was always one of the few Black children in her class. “My hair was always a source of shame growing up,” she said. “I wore my hair in braids in elementary school, and I always felt like an outsider. I remember one day in fifth grade, I was trying to play handball, and these white kids started shouting at me, telling me I wasn’t good enough to play. I never understood why then, but in hindsight, it was because I was Black and wore braids and looked different than them.”

Gilliard’s experiences speak to the social biases that fall through the cracks of the Crown Act. In Gibson’s view, law reform, while useful on many fronts, is not actually the best way to counteract implicit bias. In addition, schools and workplaces should provide counter stereotypes by offering new and positive information about negatively stereotyped groups, such as representation in media, or by putting people with natural hair in positions of power.

Some experts believe that implementing laws like the Crown Act can be a help in the effort to change perceptions. “I see this going a couple of ways,” said Elizabeth Redford, a behavioral scientist from University of Florida. “People [namely employers or school administrators] could definitely become more defensive, or feel like the law is infringing on their autonomy. Or we could see a shift in behavior. Sometimes when our environments change, we change as well.”

Redford cited a study conducted in India after gender quotas were enforced in order to allow more female leadership in local government positions. After these quotas were introduced, studies showed that attitudes towards women’s leadership in India improved.

For her part, Gilliard is also confident that the new law will have such an effect. “I think that this will change so much,” she said. “It’s incredible that people can wear afros or braids to work now and feel worthy or classy or qualified in their job. Maybe one day I can raise a daughter in Los Angeles who is confident in herself. The CROWN Act gives me hope.”

#black hair #natural hair #the crown act #california #vice news #black women #hanna wagari #the bias adjuster #discrimination #racism #amerikkka #white supremacy #implicit bias #crown act #stereotypes

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idealhairstylesmode-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Trending Hairstyles

New Post has been published on http://www.hairstylesmode.com/african-braids-fashion/

african braids fashion

african braids An appropriate haircut can make thin hair look thicker. Bangs and short hair are two quick tricks to thickening your hair, but avoid layers on medium to long length hair unless your hair is curly—layers with straight hair reduce volume and require extra styling time to fluff up. Very short hair, however, can be volumized with layers. A short, angled bob is a good solution, or even a pixie cut. Experiment with different parts, as well. A side part, messy part, or zigzag part can add extra bounce. If your hair is healthy, try getting a body wave since curly hair will always look fuller than straight hair.

african braids

african braids While hairstyles come and go in the tween years, one that has spanned generations is long, straight hair. Part your girl’s hair down the middle, and allow the hair to fall straight down. You can use a curling iron for some light curling of the ends, for a more polished look. This hairstyle is easily adaptable and changeable; it can be turned into a ponytail, bun or braid without much effort. It also works well for all hair types.

african braids Two of pop culture’s most memorable haircuts — Farrah Fawcett’s 1970s feathered ‘do and Jennifer Aniston’s 1990s Rachel cut — best illustrate the difference between feathered and layered hairstyles. Feathering is a texturizing technique that shapes the ends of your tresses, while layering is a cut that creates variable lengths throughout your hair.

african braids

african braids Write a take-off on the classic Grimm Brothers’ fairytale “Rapunzel.” Have a model with long hair shut in the tower. Other models play the wicked enchantress and the prince. Write funny stories around the prince and his exploits to rescue Rapunzel and the famous line: “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so that I might climb the golden stair.” Make the longest braid possible for Rapunzel using different hair colors, extensions, and different hair textures to make the audience laugh. When Rapunzel and the prince get rid of the wicked enchantress, they can go on to live happily ever after by opening a multi-million dollar chain of hair salons all over the world. african braids

african braids There are several ways to style straight, fine hair. For long straight hair, cut the hair into long layers so that it doesn’t look limp and dull. Add some highlights or lowlights to make the hair look fuller. Volumizing mousse can also be used to thicken up the hair. Other styles for straight, fine hair are different cuts. Short and medium hairstyles works best with straight, fine hair. Try bobs, pixie cuts and feather cuts to make the hair look fuller.

african braids Layers can be very flattering for a round face, but only if they are cut at the correct length. Those with round faces should avoid layers that fall above or right at the jaw line as this will make the face appear wider. If you have a round face and want layers, request long layers and articulate that you want the shortest layer cut below your chin.

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californiaprelawland · 4 years ago

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North Carolina Cities Passes Ban On Hair-Discrimination

By Kaitlin Lee, University of California, San Diego Class of 2024

January 27, 2021

As the country watched its first African American female vice-president get sworn in, a smaller success for black American women happened in North Carolina. Two city councils in North Carolina unanimously passed ordinances banning discrimination for wearing certain hairstyles such as afros, braids, and dreadlocks. [1]

The cities, Durham and Greensboro, passed measures banning employers from discriminating based on hairstyles.[1] Durham City Council member, DeDreana Freeman aimed to put forth an anti-discrimination policy in Durham since 2019 after California became the first state to ban hairstyle discrimination.[1] However, HB 142, a state ban, prevented her from doing so.

HB142 states in section 3 that “No local government in this State may enact or amend an ordinance regulating private employment practices or regulating public accommodations”. This was a controversial ban that many activists protested against up until its expiration on Dec. 1, 2020. [3]

Now, Durham, a city that is 38% African American, is on track to becoming one of the first cities in North Carolina on track to fully prohibit discrimination based on hairstyle, texture, and types historically connected with race. The ordinance passed also protects residents from discrimination based on gender, sexuality, and military status. This follows the expiration of HB2, a controversial bathroom bill that led to a moratorium on nondiscrimination ordinances. [2]

On January 22, Durham City Council is scheduled to vote on a resolution in support of Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, or CROWN Act, a federal bill that bans discrimination on hair.

The CROWN Act is a law proposed by Dove, the National Urban League, Color of Change, and Western Center on Law and Poverty that “prohibits race-based hair discrimination, which is the denial of employment and educational opportunities because of hair texture or protective hairstyles” [4]. This act is already a state-wide law in several states -- California, Washington, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. [4]

In the text of the Bill read to Congress, it states that “discrimination on the basis of natural or protective hairstyles that people of African descent are commonly adorned with violates Federal Law” including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 1977 of the Revised Statutes, and the Fair Housing Act. [5]

To start with, The Civil Rights Act does have several provisions that could apply to the CROWN Act. The clearest example would be in Section 202, which states that “The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color,... or national origin”[6]. This indicates that discriminating against employees for their natural hairstyles deeply linked with their culture violates the Civil Rights Act.

Furthermore, Section 1977 of the Revised Statutes has a section that states that Congress found that “additional remedies under Federal law are needed to deter unlawful harassment and intentional discrimination in the workplace” [7], which serves as a precedent for the CROWN Act.

On the other hand, the Fair Housing Act may be the least connected to the CROWN Act beyond their connection as anti-discrimination laws. [8] However, the Fair Housing Act sets up a precedent of setting up more specific anti-discrimination laws that the CROWN Act will be doing.

All in all, it’s evident the CROWN Act, if passed in Congress, will become an important law. According to a research study done by Dove for CROWN, Black women are 80% more likely to agree with the statement, “I have to change my hair from its natural state to fit in at the office”[9]. Furthermore, Black women are 1.5x more likely to be sent home from the workplace because of their hair and are 83% more likely to report being judged harshly on her looks than other women. [9]

This conformity to racially-unfair hair standards for workers can be damaging to not only the self-esteem of black women but also damaging to their hair and economic account. In Greensboro, salon owner Kito Jones noted an incident of a neurosurgeon client who used hair relaxers to conform at her office [1]. The client’s hair started to fall out because of the excessive use of chemicals. Not only that but the financial cost of constantly changing one’s natural hair to fit in can be great. “Many of us are spending thousands of dollars, to have, you know, straightened hair or to participate in having a certain aesthetic that is going to get them that next job promotion. It’s just too much,” stated attorney and advocate Crystal Richardson [2].

Durham and Greensboro passing their preambles to the CROWN Act is definitely something to celebrate, pushing for a more equal workplace in America. Hopefully, in the future, more legislation like this will be seen in the country.

______________________________________________________________

[1] The Associated Press. “North Carolina Cities OK Ban on Hairstyle Discrimination .” ABC News, ABC News Network, abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/north-carolina-city-oks-ban-hairstyle-discrimination-75369070?cid=clicksource_4380645_8_heads_hero_live_headlines_hed.

[2] Innis, Charlie. “Black Women Say Their Natural Hair Can Get Them Fired. That May Change Soon in NC.” Raleigh News & Observer, Raleigh News & Observer, www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article248532205.html.

[3] Berger, Philip E, and Tim Moore. “House Bill 142.” General Assembly of North Carolina, 30 Mar. 2017.

[4] “About.” The Official Campaign of the CROWN Act, www.thecrownact.com/about.

[5] Johnson, Cheryl L. “H.R. 5309.” 116th Congress.

[6] “42 USC 2000e.” [USC02] 42 USC 2000e: Definitions, uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=%28title%3A42+section%3A2000e+edition%3Aprelim%29.

[7] “Public Law 102-166.” Congressional Record, 21 Nov. 1991.

[8] “Fair Housing Act.” The United States Department of Justice, 6 Aug. 2015, www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-2.

[9] Joy Collective. “DOVE_2019HAIR_reseach.” DOVE.

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expatimes · 4 years ago

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African genomics: The scientists unlocking cures encoded in DNA

Dr Ambroise Wonkam carries hundreds of thousands of years of history in his blood. The impacts of pathogens, migration, environment and geography are written into the braids of DNA he inherited from tens of thousands of generations of ancestors.

This richness, he remarks, is not unique. It is a shared legacy for more than one billion people: in South Africa, where he works; in Cameroon, where he is from; and across the African continent – the most genetically diverse landmass on earth. With such wealth all around him, how could he not spend his life studying it?

Wonkam is one of several scientists from Africa who made significant gains in 2020 towards understanding diseases that affect millions – and are not novel pandemic viruses. He and others lead large experiments that analyse whole genome data from thousands of African volunteers in South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and beyond.

The knowledge these scientists are collecting is broadening humanity’s reference genetic archive, the libraries scientists around the world use to identify and compare genomic information. It is filling in blind spots in a field that has been dominated for a generation by institutions in the Global North and in data that has historically not included African participants. Despite lockdowns and working from home, 2020 was a productive year for Wonkam and his peers.

Dr Ambroise Wonkam presenting his work to the 2018 American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting, in San Diego, US

The power of place

Humans diverged from chimpanzees 5 to 6 million years ago in East Africa. Modern humans appeared just 300,000 to 200,000 years ago, and some time after that (about 100,000 years ago, though the evidence is still being interpreted), our species started migrating beyond Africa, probably over several attempts. As we walked, humans homogenised, sharing traits, discarding others and becoming more similar the further we went.

“We are all African,” Wonkam said from Cape Town. “But ancestral Africans, like me, who have stayed on the continent for a very long time, have at least 300,000 years of human genetic history in their blood, which makes the variation in the African population thousands of times higher than in any other populations in the world.”

When presented on a chart, the data shows the exodus effect: a plot of genetic diversity among humans against distance from East Africa looks like a slender, almost 45-degree line sloping downwards, through the Middle East, Europe, Asia and, finally at the tail end, the Americas, where populations tend to be the most genetically similar.

Africa’s rich, varied dataset is attractive to scientists, and also to companies and health institutes abroad. Over the years, several have exploited lax patient privacy laws and left scandal and mistrust in their wake. A drug company settled a high-profile lawsuit after running trials that were poorly explained to its African participants; one health technology company shut down a product after a whistle-blower revealed it would be sold against the agreements of volunteers whose data was used to produce it; and during and after the West Africa Ebola epidemic, certain European governments were accused of “biological colonialism” after allegations that blood samples extracted from survivors could not be requested back by their home countries for research purposes. The legacies of these missteps persist, and investigators today must work hard to instil trust and accountability into their process.

Equipment used inside a DNA lab in China

Solving sickle cell

Dr Wonkam’s lab at the University of Cape Town studies the genetics of people living with sickle cell disease, a congenital misshaping of the blood cells that affects how effectively they transport oxygen. The disease is prevalent in Africans and some people of African ancestry.

Having one of the genes that cause sickle cell disease confers some natural resistance to malaria, a parasite that targets the blood and is also often fatal. This was a nudge by evolution to relieve pressure from the parasite on early humans. But when the gene is inherited from both parents, the resulting condition is brutal. Sickle cell disease can cause anaemia, frequent pain, increased illnesses due to a weakened immune system, and vision and growth problems. It can lead to a life of complications that ends too early, before the age of 50 in developed countries. Across Africa, 2 to 3 percent of babies are born with it, but the mortality rate before the age of five is more than 50 percent.

“ years ago.”

The US is a leader in medical research, but also a place of well-documented racial disparities in access to healthcare. Sickle cell disease, which affects Black Americans almost exclusively, received far lower federal research funding per patient than cystic fibrosis, which mostly affects white children, a 2020 study showed. The study also cited a similar inquiry from 40 years ago, which showed the same disparities.

At the start of his career, Wonkam saw the inequity in medical research and vowed to correct it from within Africa. “There is a lack of interest by researchers, or by funders, and someone had to take the battle somewhere. Fortunately, we have a network on the continent that is getting stronger and stronger.”

A researcher injects DNA material onto a laboratory dish at a genomics lab in Shenzhen, China

Wonkam’s laboratory sequences entire exomes – the parts of DNA that code proteins – from hundreds of Africans who have lived past the age of 50 with sickle cell disease – so-called “long survivors” – and compares the results to those patients who have experienced stroke or shock, as well as a control group. Volunteers in the five-year-long study were mainly from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where sickle cell is more prevalent – fewer people in South Africa are born with the disease.

Each volunteer signed a consent form that offered options: allow their genetic data to be studied solely within the context of the experiment, for other experiments as well, or more broadly (anonymously) as part of a global dataset. Wonkam’s lab drew blood and extracted the DNA in Africa, sent the condensed samples to a sequencing facility in the US, and returned the data to Cape Town where his team did a sort of mathematical “brute-force analysis”. They looked as wide as they could, without bias, at the activity of every gene on the genome, trying to glimpse unique differences that might be keeping these long survivors alive. They found much more than they were looking for.

The results were curious. Some confirmed pathways that were known to be implicated in sickle cell disease, such as the body’s production lines for Vitamin B, anticoagulants or nitrous oxide. But other findings surprised the researchers. “The pathway we could not anticipate at all was low blood pressure. Most sickle cell disease patients tend to have lower blood pressure already,” Wonkam said, so why would an otherwise unhealthy tendency for lower blood pressure be associated with rare long-term survival? That is a question the researchers are trying to answer. Additionally, some genes associated with insulin, which processes starches in the body, were mutated in the long-term survivor group, meaning that this pathway is connected to their overall longevity. Wonkam’s findings have kicked open the door for future analysis.

“What we found is that if you look at what nature ,” he said.

Dr Ambroise Wonkam and his research team at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa

The study, published in June 2020, revealed a dozen mutated genes that were shared across the volunteer group; genes that were different, often by only one letter, from the general population and, as a result, built abnormal proteins. “Basically, every single discovery we found in that paper might be a route for a new treatment for sickle cell disease.”

Wonkam intends to build a cohort of patients and follow them for life. His data will add to large repositories of other human genomic data held in facilities in Europe, the US and, now, in Africa. This, he said, is vital.

“Without an African population database, at least 10 percent of variation is not present,” in global archives. He was referring to a 2018 study carried out with Johns Hopkins University, that showed up to 300 million base pairs – or a tenth of the human genome – appearing in unique forms in Africans compared with the references from the Human Genome Project, which largely excluded Africans. “Every variation discovered in Africa more genomic sequencing in the public database, and that has a value for all studies – not just African studies, but all studies.”

Siren’s call

In 2016, while filming and producing a report on DNA research for Al Jazeera, I visited the stroke clinic at the Korle Bu teaching hospital in Accra, Ghana. At the clinic, a man was learning to move again. Slowly, he pulled himself onto a low rung of a wooden ladder while a physical therapist held his arm. He had lost basic motor skills in an instant when a stroke hit deep in his brain, and his rehabilitation was expected to take weeks or years. He was not yet 50.

Dr Albert Akpalu was doing rounds through the clinic and told us about a future in which this patient’s treatment could be improved by tailoring medications to his genetic profile. Akpalu was running one part of the SIREN stroke study collaboration with colleagues in Nigeria and within a consortium called Human Heredity and Health (H3) Africa that stretches across the continent – and is jointly supported by the UK’s Wellcome Trust and the US’s National Institute of Health.

Were it not for COVID, SIREN might have published its most comprehensive findings yet in 2020. “To make a genetic inference, you need a sample power of more than 3,000 ,” Akpalu explained from Accra in December. “We’re getting close to that.”

Dr Rufus Akinyemi, right, with Samuel Diala, the SIREN biorepository manager, measuring DNA samples

Akpalu works closely with Dr Rufus Akinyemi, a stroke specialist in Ibadan, Nigeria. In addition to running experiments, Akinyemi oversees several biobanks – storage centres that keep hundreds of thousands of samples of patient blood, serum, DNA and tissue at subfreezing temperatures – in Nigeria and Ghana.

A stroke happens when blood flow to the brain is blocked, suddenly choking oxygen to neurons, which often leads to loss of function, dementia or death. Stroke is the leading cause of neurological emergency in Africa, Akinyemi said, though granular detail is not as well recorded as in other regions.

Africa maintains a higher incidence rate of stroke than the US – according to overviews from 2015 and 2016 – and strokes probably kill at least 300,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa every year, according to one review.

Akinyemi began his career studying the cognitive impairments like dementia that so often follow a stroke. “I realised that if I study this, the risk factors and the genomics, I would be tackling one of the greatest disease burdens in Africa,” he said.

Over four years, SIREN colleagues collected samples from stroke survivors and control-group, non-stroke volunteers in West Africa. Now they have nearly 4,000 of each – enough to run a Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) to identify genes linked to the condition, its risks and recovery. “The initial findings,” Akinyemi said, “are looking exciting.”

Akinyemi, Akpalu and their colleagues hope to build bedside tools. “We want to develop Afrocentric risk scores that can help us predict stroke. We have these for populations of European descent, but for people of African ancestry, they do not give very accurate results. We need these for populations in Africa to correctly predict the chances of stroke.”

Hundreds of thousands of human biological samples like blood, DNA, serum and tissue must be kept at -80 degrees C, even when the power cuts, necessitating a cold chain that stretches from Ghana to Nigeria

The genomics of stroke have been studied before. Previous analyses have described the genetics of the disease, but are often based on data gathered from mostly caucasian volunteers. A June 2020 study in the US, Canada and Europe looked at the genomes of 22,000 people of African descent, identifying genes implicated in the disease. The SIREN study focuses on Africans in Africa, where it will be the first and the largest yet.

“One thing the consortium has done is develop a very unique chip that is enriched in African content, derived from African populations,” Akinyemi explained. Built by the H3 Africa network in partnership with Illumina, the American genomics company, the card-sized gene chip is an array of tiny wells that hold thousands of genes and genetic variations that are more prevalent in Africa. Introduced just a few years ago as a not-for-profit tool, and developed from early H3 studies, it allows researchers to capture a broad snapshot of the genetics at work in a chosen sample, tailored for populations on the continent.

H3 Africa ensures that genomic data collected will be added to accessible global databases. “We do hope that the findings from this study will unmask some novel variants,” Akinyemi concluded, “perhaps genetic variants that are associated with ischaemic stroke that have not been previously reported in other populations … which will benefit not just African patients, but all global stroke patients in terms of prevention, early detection, treatment and rehabilitation.”

Three million unique variants

Dr Nicola Mulder thumbs through her notes when I ask how many human genome samples from Africa have been added to global databases over recent years. She is a scientist, so it is an unfair prompt on a Zoom call, but she accepts, tabulating aloud “…We put in 348 sequences, additional exome sequences, 10,000 samples on the genotyping array, exomes from Botswana, shotgun metagenomic studies, deep-sequencing of neurological diseases … we’re getting a flood of data…” She makes an estimate: “If I look briefly, I would say maybe 11 or 12 thousand samples for which we have genomic data in the repository, which is significantly different to what we had before. This is probably over the past three years.”

Mulder is the principal investigator for H3ABioNet at the University of Cape Town, a bioinformaticist overseeing a team of 50, working with a network of 28 institutions spread across the continent. “We do all the support: data collection, some analysis, processing, submission, and training to analyse the data,” she said from Cape Town. Although Mulder works with Dr Wonkam, his sickle cell study was conducted independently of H3Africa.

A forensic doctor examines DNA samples in a lab in Bogota, Colombia

In October, Mulder co-authored a paper in the journal, Nature, that combined some of the most intriguing genomic findings from across the continent.

Mulder and colleagues looked for unique single-letter changes in genes and compared these anomalies to public datasets. “In other studies you’re looking for signals that jump from the noise. In this study, we’re looking for something that doesn’t exist elsewhere,” she explained. The work produced 300 terabytes of genetic sequence data, enough to make the problem of sending it all from the US to South Africa a three-month project.

The analysis revealed the undocumented richness of genetics in Africa in one bold headline: three million unique genetic variants, letters along DNA’s thread that had never been seen where they were being seen; each one found, named and recorded. Only more interesting was the small size of the volunteer group they studied. The team had analysed just over 400 people from 13 countries, covering 50 ethnolinguistic groups – Africa is not only the most genetically diverse continent, it also hosts the highest number of languages spoken on earth.

“Three million is a lot,” Mulder said when asked about what that number meant to her as a bioinformaticist, the type of specialist who deals with large datasets. “We never hit a plateau, we just keep finding novel variants. These are variants that have never been seen, but some populations are walking around with many people having it. The number is quite significant.”

Blood samples waiting to be processed

Within the data, more links. Some of the unique variants revealed evidence of the pressures that diseases have exerted on populations since the dawn of the species. Others indicated tendencies towards decreased mortality for certain infectious diseases like flu. There were dozens of genetic locations that were undergoing “strong selection”, areas that are still actively evolving today. A wider look at the dataset showed the history of migration between populations, revealing evidence of movements and geographical stopovers that were lost to archaeology, but etched into the genome.

The study pointed to a wide horizon yet to be explored, and piqued the curiosity of institutions around the world.

Where to now? Some of the genomics hardware these researchers rely on was repurposed during the coronavirus pandemic to identify unique variants of COVID-19 as they appeared. In South Africa, Wonkam’s lab was working from home for several months before instituting an office-return schedule. Patient recruitment was delayed in Ghana but has begun again.

Now colleagues, funders and startup genomics companies are watching closely, designing the experiments they will embark on as the continent opens up again.

#technology Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=16293&feed_id=26266 #africa #features #health #scienceandtechnology

#Africa #Features #Health #ScienceandTechnology

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cascadiadeafnation · 4 years ago

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An Upcoming Virtual Event:

Do you enjoy watching dances by Deaf community members?

Check out Bay Area International Dance Festival 2020!

Urban Jazz Dance Company presents:

The 8th Annual Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival VIRTUAL!

August 14-16, 2020: Fri-Sat 6:00 PM (PST), Sun, 5:00 PM (PST)

Workshops Fri-Sat 10:00 AM-12:00 PM (PST)

Sun 10:00 AM-1:00 PM (PST)Location: 100% VIRTUAL

https://www.realurbanjazzdance.com/bay-area-international-deaf-dance-festival-virtual.html

Suggested Donation: $5-25

(San Francisco) The Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival is back for its eighth year and 100% virtual!

Highlighting the important contributions that Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) artists make to our community, the Festival features three days of performances and workshops.

Sunday’s performance is family-friendly. In addition to the Bay Area, this year the Festival welcomes Deaf artists from California specifically, San Diego and Los Angeles, across the USA and Internationally from India, Colombia, Venezuela, Canada and Mexico.

The Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival is a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts space, presenting groundbreaking works in the literary, performing, visual and interdisciplinary arts. www.theintersection.org.

In addition to performances, the festival will feature workshops in Classical Indian Dance, Cumbia Dance, Jazz, Contemporary Ballet, Flamenco and more different types of dance classes taught by International, National and Local Deaf, Hoh artists. These workshops will be taught for both Youth and Adult participants in VIRTUAL.

For more detailed information on workshops, please visit our website. All workshops and performances are open to both Deaf and Hearing community members in ANY location around the world.

Accessibility Details

All events will have ASL and English voice interpretations, International Sign interpretation and CART captioning. Saturday’s performance will have Spanish voice interpretation.

Sunday’s 5 PM event will have Audio Descriptions by Gabriel Christian of Gravity Access Services (www.jesscurtisgravity.org/access) supported by a generous grant from the Haas Fund, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and the National Arts and Disability Center at the University of California Los Angeles and Ability Central.

ABOUT URBAN JAZZ DANCE COMPANY:

Urban Jazz Dance Company is a convergence of artistic forces, where raw energy is rooted in an athletic expression of freedom and passion, featuring the syncopation of urban jazz rhythms. These dancers are a mix of trained deaf and hearing dancers from all over the world. The mission of Urban Jazz Dance is to provide opportunities for Deaf and disabled artists to contribute to the arts and the larger society and to promote the educational awareness of Deaf issues through the performing arts. The company values the importance of play and performance to connect cultures of all races, ages, disability and backgrounds to live their dreams.

About Antoine Hunter, Director

Bay Area native, Antoine Hunter also known Purple Fire Crow is an award-winning Internationally-known African-American, Indigenous, Deaf, Disable, choreographer, dancer, actor, instructor, speaker, Producer and Deaf advocate. He creates opportunities for Disable, Deaf and hearing artists and produces Deaf-friendly events, and founded the Urban Jazz Dance Company and Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival.Antoine has received numerous grants and awards including the inaugural Jeanette Lomujo Bremond Award for Humanity, Isadora Duncan (Izzie) for Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival, and SF King of Carnaval. Antoine’s work has been performed globally, most recently in Turkey, UK and Russia. He has lectured across the U.S. including at Kennedy Center’s VSA, Harvard and Duke University, and the National Assembly of State Arts. In 2019 alone, his company Urban Jazz Dance Company, an ensemble of professional Deaf and Hearing dancers, performed for and engaged more than 4,200 schoolchildren. His shoe company DropLabs and Susan Paley just released an innovative product to help people feel music through their shoes. He is Vice President of Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency (DCARA's) Board. DCARA is a non-profit, community-based social service agency serving the deaf community. Established in 1962 as one of the first deaf-run agencies in the country.

www.RealUrbanJazzDance.com

Image Description for the flyer:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

Image of a poster with Purple background strip across the top with the bottom ¾ of the poster with a white background and various pictures and text.In the top purple strip white bold text as follows"BAY AREA INTERNATIONALDEAF DANCEFESTIVAL”

Picture overlayed across the banner of Zahna Simon leaping through air with her front leg reaching out into the white background below. She is wearing black shorts and sportsbra, long blonde hair is down and looks in action

On the left bottom of the picture in white bold text "AUGUST 14-16, 2020" To the right bottom of the picture "A VIRTUAL SHOWCASE"On the right is text in black "PRESENTED BY ANTOINE HUNTER’SURBAN JAZZ DANCE COMPANY"In purple bold text “WITH PERFORMANCES BY”

In black text a list of performers “Urban Jazz Dance Company (Bay Area)

Samantha Figgins (New York)Deaf Pride Dance Company (Bay Area)

Danzaluz (Venezuela)

Natasha Bacchus (Canada)

Irit Specktor (Los Angeles, California)

Carlos Javier Ortega Opisno (Colombia)

Matthew J Posh Schwartz (New York)

Proyecto Paz (Mexico/Bay Area)

Fusion in Motion (San Diego, California)

Lark Detweiler (Los Angeles, California)

Fusion in Motion (San Diego, California)

Shruti Neelesh Kelkar (India)

Visceral Roots Dance Company (Bay Area)

Listen With Your Eyes Dance Troupe (Arkansas)

And MORE local, national and international artists!

FRIDAY AUGUST 14 | 6 PM PST

SATURDAY AUGUST 15 | 6 PM PST

”In purple text: “RECOMMENDED DONATIONS: $5-25”

3 purple background logos in with white inside of sign language interpreter, closed captioning and audio descriptions.Below is a collage of 15 different pictures of the performers in the shape of a “D”.

Going from left to right, descriptions are as follows:An artist portrait of a single dreadlock visible across his cheek and the rest of his hair in a low braid. Antoine has a full beard and is bare chested with his left hand raised artistically near his face. His right hand is gently supporting his left forearm.

Picture of a Young Black Woman smiles and poses with her hand on her hip with her left leg lifted to her side. Wearing a pink floral jumpsuit.

Lark, a young nonbinary person wearing a red sequined long sleeve crop top posing at a beachstands against the sky. Lark looks up and while extending their left elbow artistically toward the sky.

Blue-eyed woman looking directly at the camera, her face is partially hidden by a red flamenco abanico (fan). She is wearing an embroidered silk shawl.Two Dancers posed in black dark background. They pose in a modern stylistic way connected to each other, one in a ponche, the other with their head back.

----Next Line-----

Picture of 5 UJDC dancers reaching to the camera upwards. Background is on a stage with green strips of hanging fabric behind. They are wearing black leotards with wraps, from the left the colors of the wraps are purple, blue, green, blue and purple.

Deynis, a Latinx presenting person wearing a black tank top, dancing barefoot crouched down on a stage wearing a dark sequined jacket and black pants.Black and white photo of headshots of all the dancers with bare shoulders. From left to right is one male and four females.

----Next Line-----

Jewish male with brown pompadour hairstyle with blended blue green yellow blonde on sides of head, wearing black top, cape, and tights. Silver tree branch necklace while signing sign name: JPosh with right hand using the ILY

Handshape Headshot of a Black presenting female with short hair wearing a green long shirt crossing their arms smiling directly at the camera.Three females and one male, looking straight into the camera, standing closely together, horizontally with right shoulders visibly and standing in front of a board full of multi-art decors that were glued on, and overlapping in some areas and some photos pasted on as well like a Betty Boop character photo, and a Marilyn Monroe photo.

Starting from left to right: (far left side)

A male, with dark brown thin cut beard and mustache, wearing a baseball hat with letterings of a baseball team, and wearing a burgundy colored polo shirt. (next left)

A female with dark brown long thick curly hair pulled up in back, with bright red lipstick, wearing a yellow sleeveless turtleneck shirt and mixed brown and tan colored earrings. (in the middle)

A female with light brown curly hair pulled back with long bangs pulled to the right side of face, wearing a blue tank top with a black tank top layered underneath, and soft mauve colored lipstick. (far right side)

A female, with long blond braided hair hanging over left shoulder, wearing a black fedora style hat, silver hoop earrings and a cheetah-print short sleeve shirt.

Professional portrait of Noelle taken from above. Noelle has long, curly brown hair and is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a black dance top with a mesh pattern of small rectangles over their chest.

----Next Line-----

Picture of 2 latinx presenting humans sitting in crossed legs position facing profile towards the camera in between folded up red and white striped lawn chairs. Background is outside. They are facing away from each other. On the left is a male wearing black shirt and black cap. On the right is wearing a red shirt, blue long skirt and dark hair half pulled back.

Carlos, a Latinx presenting person is leaning against a wall made of colorful flattened rocks. He is wearing a white sweater with a blue banana around his neck as he holds a wide brimmed straw and brown colored hat.

Picture of an indian presenting female with dark hair smiling. She is wearing a white sari with yellow wrap and arms are in a dance pose.

[END IMAGE DESCRIPTION]

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