A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

DETERMINACION DE FACTORES ASOCIADOS AL HABITO DE FUMAR EN UNA POBLACION DE MUJERES EN EMBARAZO

Smoking during pregnancy can produce severe damage to the fetus. It is known the habit is more frequent in older, multiparous, nonmarried and lower education level mothers. A pilot study to define the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy and to describe the associated factors. 50 pregnant women at the Hospital de San Jose in Bogota, Colombia were surveyed about smoking habit, demographic variables and knowledge of nocives effects in the fetus. The t test was used to compare proportions and means. The 14% of the patients smoked and six out of seven stoped the habit during the pregnancy. The group of smokers had a higher age mean (p = 0.011) and all the nonsmokers were married (p = 0.013). To develop this study will help to increase the knowledge about this important problem in public health

DETERMINACION DE FACTORES ASOCIADOS AL HABITO DE FUMAR EN UNA POBLACION DE MUJERES EN EMBARAZO

Smoking during pregnancy can produce severe damage to the fetus. It is known the habit is more frequent in older, multiparous, nonmarried and lower education level mothers. A pilot study to define the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy and to describe the associated factors. 50 pregnant women at the Hospital de San Jose in Bogota, Colombia were surveyed about smoking habit, demographic variables and knowledge of nocives effects in the fetus. The t test was used to compare proportions and means. The 14% of the patients smoked and six out of seven stoped the habit during the pregnancy. The group of smokers had a higher age mean (p = 0.011) and all the nonsmokers were married (p = 0.013). To develop this study will help to increase the knowledge about this important problem in public health

A gravid fossil turtle from the Early Cretaceous reveals a different egg development strategy to that of extant marine turtles

Extant sea turtles develop and lay pliable (flexible) eggs; however, it is unknown whether they inherited this reproductive strategy from their closer fossil relatives or if it represents an evolutionary novelty. Here, we describe the first undisputable gravid marine fossil turtle ever found, from the early Cretaceous of Colombia, belonging to Desmatochelys padillai Cadena and Parham, which constitutes a representative of the Protostegidae. Using thin sectioning of one of the eggs, as well as scanning electron microscopy coupled with elemental characterization, cathodoluminescence, and computer tomography, we established that Desmatochelys padillai produced rigid eggs similar to those associated with some extant and fossil freshwater and terrestrial turtles. At least 48 spherical eggs were preserved inside this gravid turtle. We suggest that the development of rigid eggs in the extinct marine turtle Desmatochelys padillai resulted as an adaptation for egg-embryo requirements dictated by the physical attributes of the nesting site. © The Palaeontological Associatio

A gravid fossil turtle from the Early Cretaceous reveals a different egg development strategy to that of extant marine turtles

Extant sea turtles develop and lay pliable (flexible) eggs; however, it is unknown whether they inherited this reproductive strategy from their closer fossil relatives or if it represents an evolutionary novelty. Here, we describe the first undisputable gravid marine fossil turtle ever found, from the early Cretaceous of Colombia, belonging to Desmatochelys padillai Cadena and Parham, which constitutes a representative of the Protostegidae. Using thin sectioning of one of the eggs, as well as scanning electron microscopy coupled with elemental characterization, cathodoluminescence, and computer tomography, we established that Desmatochelys padillai produced rigid eggs similar to those associated with some extant and fossil freshwater and terrestrial turtles. At least 48 spherical eggs were preserved inside this gravid turtle. We suggest that the development of rigid eggs in the extinct marine turtle Desmatochelys padillai resulted as an adaptation for egg-embryo requirements dictated by the physical attributes of the nesting site. © The Palaeontological Associatio

"The Indian’ and ‘Politics": Transgressive Indigeneities in Political Activism before and after State Terrorism in Argentina

In this article we investigate the modes in which transgressive Indigeneities folded in the so-called indio político (the figure of the Indian as activist) inhabit the politicisation of the Indigenous in Argentina. For this purpose we dwell on the circumstances and effects of self-recognition, recognition and misrecognition of the indio político along the curve of indigenous politicisation that goes from the seventies to the present. In particular, we focus on the discourse of an indigenous political organisation during the conjuncture of social and political mobilisation that preceded the last dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983), on one hand, and on the discourses and performances during the trials of State terrorism (ongoing since 2003) in a context characterised by de-indigeneisation, on the other. We conclude with some remarks on the contextual modalisations of the transgressive subjectivities we call indio político.Fil: Lazzari, Axel Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales; ArgentinaFil: Lenton, Diana Isabel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas; Argentin