Land Ho! Two Words an Injured Longshore or Harbor Worker Never Wants to Hear

In 1927, the United States Congress passed the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) to provide workers’ compensation coverage to maritime workers injured outside the purview of state workers’ compensation laws. Rigid judicial interpretation of the original Act, however, led to inequitable outcomes in the maritime industry. Workers neither on land nor on the water when injured could not claim workers’ compensation benefits under state or federal laws. The 1972 amendments to the LHWCA sought to cure this inequity. The amended Act included a situs requirement. This Comment analyzes the most important judicial interpretations of the situs requirement of the amended LHWCA. This Comment suggests that inequity remains in the coverage of maritime workers’ compensation claims because the federal courts of appeals subscribe to differing interpretations of the situs requirement. This Comment concludes that a definitive interpretation of the situs requirement by the United States Supreme Court is necessary to alleviate the resultant inequity

Ten years of coverage of trophy hunting in UK newspapers

Hunting is an increasingly contentious topic. Trophy hunting, whereby people hunt individual animals with desirable characteristics in order to keep body parts (e.g. horns, heads, hides, antlers) as mementos, is especially contested. Political pressure, often in the form of trophy import bans, is being applied in multiple nations, and campaigns to ban trophy hunting, or trophy imports, attract considerable media attention. However, trophy hunting often has conservation value, acting to protect habitat and provide income for local communities. Assuming that media coverage can influence public and political opinion, negative or simplistic media coverage of trophy hunting has the potential to cause adverse outcomes for conservation and local communities. Here, we analyse coverage of trophy hunting from July 2010 - June 2020 (five years before and five years after the death of Cecil the Lion) in the most popular UK media outlets (624 articles in total), assessing the overall sentiment of each article, and the species and countries covered. Ninety percent of all coverage occurred after the death of Cecil the lion, marking this event as a watershed moment in UK mainstream media depiction of trophy hunting. The overall sentiment of articles was largely against trophy hunting (63.1%), and this was more pronounced in tabloids (84.2%) than broadsheets (42.2%). Pro-trophy hunting articles were very uncommon overall (3.5%). Articles that described the complexity of trophy hunting decreased following Cecil and were most common in pre-Cecil broadsheets (35.7%, dropping to 30.6%) and rarest in post-Cecil tabloids (3.1%). Articles focussed mainly on charismatic but rarely hunted species including lion, elephant and rhino, with commonly hunted species (such as impala or Cape buffalo) only rarely being mentioned. When countries were mentioned, southern African nations predominated, with four nations (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana) being named in 68% of qualifying articles. We conclude that simplistic media depiction of trophy hunting has the potential to cause negative outcomes for conservation through its impact on public perception and political opinion

Acute exercise alters skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration and H2O2 emission in response to hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp in middle-aged obese men

Obesity, sedentary lifestyle and aging are associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired insulin sensitivity. Acute exercise increases insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle; however, whether mitochondria are involved in these processes remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of insulin stimulation at rest and after acute exercise on skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiratory function (JO2) and hydrogen peroxide emission (JH2O2), and the associations with insulin sensitivity in obese, sedentary men. Nine men (means ± SD: 57 ± 6 years; BMI 33 ± 5 kg.m2) underwent hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps in two separate trials 1–3 weeks apart: one under resting conditions, and another 1 hour after high-intensity exercise (4x4 min cycling at 95% HRpeak). Muscle biopsies were obtained at baseline, and pre/post clamp to measure JO2 with high-resolution respirometry and JH2O2 via Amplex UltraRed from permeabilized fibers. Post-exercise, both JO2 and JH2O2 during ADP stimulated state-3/OXPHOS respiration were lower compared to baseline (P<0.05), but not after subsequent insulin stimulation. JH2O2 was lower post-exercise and after subsequent insulin stimulation compared to insulin stimulation in the rest trial during succinate supported state-4/leak respiration (P<0.05). In contrast, JH2O2 increased during complex-I supported leak respiration with insulin after exercise compared with resting conditions (P<0.05). Resting insulin sensitivity and JH2O2 during complex-I leak respiration were positively correlated (r = 0.77, P<0.05). We conclude that in obese, older and sedentary men, acute exercise modifies skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration and H2O2 emission responses to hyperinsulinemia in a respiratory state-specific manner, which may have implications for metabolic diseases involving insulin resistance