#south china morning post

[lemondedelamode]

Michelle Laff by Stanislaw Boniecki for SCMP Style/ South China Morning Post Style Magazine Dec23

[a-state-of-bliss]

South China Morning Post 15Sept 2013 - Nyasha Matonhodze by Carter Bowman

[indizombie]

Social activist Ramendra Kumar who is general secretary of the Delhi Shramik Sangathan, a federation of unorganised workers, says gig workers are slightly better treated than domestic workers because, while they may be excluded from public spaces, they do not have to enter homes and this spares them the worst humiliations. “What older Indians do immediately on meeting a maid, cook or cleaner is to ask their name. That tells them instantly both their caste and religion so that Hindus can then exclude certain people, from, say, working in the kitchen because of caste purity” Kumar said. “India is the most stratified and divided society in the world and even new areas of the economy, such as gig workers, are not exempt from the old attitudes that affect traditional workers like maids and cooks which divide us Indians. These people want gig workers to deliver what they want but don’t want to see them or hear them.”

Amrit Dhillon, ‘Delivering discrimination? India’s gig workers see access denied by class divide’, South China Morning Post

[imsovoguesblog]

Swedish Model Vilma Sjoberg for (SCMP STYLE )- South China Morning Post September 2024 Issue- shot by David Roemer and styled by Aryeh Lappin

[unes23]

Lameka Fox by Stanislaw Boniecki for South China Morning Post

[artfulfashion]

Aliane Uwimana for Style South China Morning Post March 2023, photographed by DeMarcus Allen

[panicinthestudio]

Remembering Hong Kong’s ‘City of Darkness’, May 22, 2024

The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong was once considered the densest settlement in the world. The sprawling neighbourhood was often characterised as a lawless enclave with poor living conditions, criminal activity and a thriving black market, trading anything from pirated goods to drugs and sex. It was demolished in 1994, but its legacy lives on through the memories of its former residents. Thirty years after it was torn down, former residents and others who worked there shared some of their most vivid recollections of what was known as the “City of Darkness”. South China Morning Post

[thoughtportal]

For patients battling diabetes, a group of Chinese scientists and clinicians may offer a glimmer of hope. For the first time in the world, a patient’s diabetes has reportedly been cured using cell therapy.

The patient, a 59-year-old man who had been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years, was at serious risk of complications from the disease. He had a kidney transplant in 2017, but had lost most of his pancreatic islet function which controls blood glucose levels, and relied on multiple insulin injections every day.

“He was at great risk of serious diabetes complications,” Yin Hao, a leading researcher at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, told Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper earlier this month.

The patient received the innovative cell transplant in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the transplant, he was free of the need for external insulin, and the dose of oral medication to control blood sugar levels was gradually reduced and completely stopped one year later.

“Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored,” Yin said. The patient has now been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months.

The medical breakthrough, achieved by a team of doctors and researchers from institutions including Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, the Centre for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Renji Hospital, all based in Shanghai, was published in the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

“I think this study represents an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes,” said Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way our bodies convert food into energy.

What we consume is broken down into glucose – a simple sugar – and released into the bloodstream. Insulin, produced by the islets of the pancreas, is essential for regulating blood sugar levels.

In diabetes, this system is hijacked: either the body does not produce enough insulin, or it cannot use the insulin it produces effectively.

There are several types of diabetes, of which type 2 is the most common, affecting almost 90 per cent of sufferers. It is largely diet-related and develops over time.

Regardless of the type of diabetes, failure to maintain normal blood glucose levels over time can lead to serious side effects, including heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, “there isn’t a cure yet for diabetes”.

Along with losing weight, eating well and taking medication, insulin is the mainstay of treatment for some, but this requires frequent injections and monitoring.

Scientists around the world are researching islet transplant as a promising alternative, mainly by creating islet-like cells from human stem cell cultures. Now, after more than a decade of work, the group of Chinese scientists has come a step closer.

The team used and programmed the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells, Yin said, which were then transformed into “seed cells” and reconstituted pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment.

While preclinical data from Kieffer’s team supports the use of stem cell-derived islets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, the report by Yin and colleagues is, to Kieffer’s knowledge, “the first evidence in humans”.

Yin said the breakthrough was another step forward in the relatively new field of regenerative medicine – where the body’s own regenerative capabilities are harnessed to treat illness.

“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Globally, China has the highest number of people with diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there are 140 million people with diabetes in the country. Of those, about 40 million depend on lifelong insulin injections.

China’s diabetic population is disproportionately high, according to Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In an article last year, he pointed out that while China accounted for 17.7 per cent of the world’s population, the country’s diabetic population made up a staggering quarter of the global total, placing a huge health burden on the government.

If this approach for cell therapy ultimately works, Kieffer said, “it can free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures”.

But to get there, he added, studies in more patients based on the findings of this Chinese study were needed.

[black-is-no-colour]

Dorrit Li, photographed by Ekin Can Bayrakdar for South China Morning Post Style Magazine, June 2023

[saulcastillo]

⩔ Continuamos haciendo referencia al primer aniversario desde que estallara la invasión de Rusia en Ucrania con el completísimo póster que la pasada semana publicaron en el South China Morning Post haciendo un resumen sobre el conflicto.

En este trabajo de Dennis Wong podemos ver la evolución de la contienda en mapas, los eventos más importantes sucedidos durante la guerra y la situación actual de la misma.

» South China Morning Post, del 16 de febrero de 2023

[lemondedelamode]

Michelle Laff by Stanislaw Boniecki for SCMP Style/ South China Morning Post Style Magazine Dec23

[the-technocracy]

Whilst it's certainly important to create and instill safeguards and guidelines to protect humanity - in all the definitions that implies - from the growing proliferation of humanoid robots, I also hope there is a growing debate as to what protections robots ought to have for their safety, especially as they become imbued with more and more sophisticated AI systems.

With the advent of GPT-4o especially, presenting the user with more engaging, humanlike interactions, I think an argument can begin to be made that there should be more consideration given to them to be treated with more empathy and compassion, especially as such machines become more ubiquitous in the home, as either domestic helpers or personal companions.

I think for them to be considered on the same level as humans right now and in the near future may be a bit of a stretch, but certainly there should be a developing mentality to regard them with a similar consideration to, perhaps, the family dog or a welcome houseguest.

Simply put, do unto others (including our robots) as you'd have them do unto you; if we want our mechanical companions and helpers to be benign and helpful and considerate to our needs, then we also need to learn to treat them with the consideration we expect from each other.

I can't say I'm hopeful though.

[indizombie]

Some gated communities have implemented policies that segregate service workers. The Indian Express newspaper reported that DLF Hamilton Court in Gurgaon displays signs such as “staff and service lift” and “residents and guests only” in its lobby. Public amenities like lawns are off-limits, and workers are discouraged from resting on park benches. “What the rich are doing is walling themselves off in their ‘citadels’ from the real India, from the ordinary people outside who are trying to earn a living,” said trade unionist A. K. Padmanabhan, vice-president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

Amrit Dhillon, ‘Delivering discrimination? India’s gig workers see access denied by class divide’, South China Morning Post

[popsixsquishcicerolipschitz]

[unes23]

Lameka Fox by Stanislaw Boniecki for South China Morning Post

[artfulfashion]

Aliane Uwimana for Style South China Morning Post March 2023, photographed by DeMarcus Allen