Kinship and Bystander Effect: The Role of Others in Ethical Decisions

This study asked college students (n=454) from four different locations to determine their course of action in response to ethical dilemmas based on scenarios from previous students’ personal reports and well-publicized events (e.g. Enron, WorldCom, and Martha Stewart). Results provide support to a previous study (Fredricks & Hornett, 2005), indicating that students are more likely to take ethical action where kinship is a factor than where it is not. In addition, this study provides empirical support to the ‘bystander effect’ (Zyglidopoulos & Fleming, 2008). Students, given information on how others are acting, respond to ethical dilemmas. The effect of the behavior of others moves them from innocent bystanders to guilty perpetrators (Zyglidopoulos & Fleming, 2008). Therefore, this study provides empirical support for theories that relationships impact ethical judgment and behavior. These findings pose implications for ethics pedagogy

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

World Café: Simulating Seminar Dialogues in a Large Class

This paper discusses the use of World Café technique, an aspect of Appreciative Inquiry, to facilitate class discussion. The author creates the thinking and feeling of a seminar dialogue in a class too large for a seminar approach. The preliminary results suggest increased participation and improved critical thinking when using World Café. More research is needed and that may be of interest to ABSEL members

Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England

AbstractThe evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021.</jats:p