Why we cross our legs

Ever wonder why people cross their legs? No, me neither. Until today, that is. Whether it's ankle-on-ankle with straight legs, the "figure-four" (ankle on opposite knee), or "European-style" (the classic one knee on top of the other), it seems to be almost universal.

Well, it turns out that, despite some claims to the contrary, we don't really know. One website purports to explain that we cross our legs in an attempt to "improve the mechanics of the lower back and take the strain off'. Which kind of makes sense, except that ... the same article later mentions that crossing your legs is "horrible for your posture", "puts undue pressure on your peroneal nerve", "can also stretch out your piriformis", and "can cause your BP to spike by more than 6 percent". Also, "keeping your legs crossed while sitting can purportedly cause varicose, or 'spider', veins".

Another rather unconvincing explanation offered is that crossing one's legs is a "power move", giving the example of various US presidents who cross their legs. But, surely a plurality of people - male and female, powerful and defenceless - cross their legs, not just presidents. And in what way is crossing the legs intimidating? Surely, "manspreading" is much more aggressive and macho.

Another website looks at the issue from a more psychological/sociological point of view and, like so many psychological/sociological explanations, it is equally wooly and unconvincing. Maybe the person is being submissive or anxious or repressed or who knows what. Well, yeah, maybe. But that still doesn't explain why pretty much everyone does it

Slightly more convincing, although far from a revolutionary thought, is the idea that it is just a learned behaviour. We cross our legs because our parents and our siblings and our work-mates cross theirs. Women in particular are "taught' to cross their legs because it is considered polite and elegant and demure. 

So, sorry, no fascinating insights to offer. We cross our legs because ... we cross our legs.

Some things you may not have thought about regarding vaccine trials

Here's an interesting and thought-provoking article by someone who volunteered for the British clinical trials for the Oxford/AstaZeneca COVID vaccine.

As well as giving an insight into the actual process of a double-blind placebo trial, it also looks at the decision-making behind volunteering for such a trial: you might get an early dose of a working vaccine - and make a few hundred bucks - or you might get the placebo and remain unprotected, long after other people have been receiving doses of a perfectly good working vaccine.

It looks at some of the more philosophical and ethical factors involved, as well as some of the pactical considerations, in something that we think of as a purely scientific process. It also considers the implications of the need to continue monitoring trial subjects long-term, and the difficulties that vaccine producers are encountering in continued testing of their products at a time when many people, particularly older people, have either already been vaccinated or at least are expecting to be called up any day now.

When I read about healthcare workers hesitating to get the COVID vaccine because "they feel like they're being treated as guinea pigs", I now think about this article, and the army of volunteer guinea pigs like her who put their time and potentially their health on the line to test out these drugs for the rest of us. What a slap in the face it must be for the actual trial subjects to read about this kind of spurious concern, particularly among healthcare workers who should know better. 

Britain has a "Jenner moment" and gets away with it

If you remember your science history, British physician Edward Jenner revolutionized medicine at the end of the 18th century, when he inoculated an eight-year old boy and then directly exposed him to the smallpox virus. Thankfully for Jenner and the eight-year old boy (and for generations since), the boy survived, and the smallpox vaccine was born. But, in the process, Jenner became the poster boy for unethical medicine.

The British medical establishment came close to revisiting this unfortunate precedent recently when it decided, in its wisdom, that it was perfectly OK to wait as long as 12 weeks for the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, despite clear guidance from the vaccine manufacturers that the second dose should be administered three or four weeks after the first (depending on the particular vaccines).

There was some evidence (although not particularly strong evidence) that it is OK to give the second dose up to six weeks after the first, but no evidence that it was safe to wait any longer than that. The Brits, however, decided to throw caution to the wind and wait 12 weeks by default, and their percentage of population vaccinated looks appropriately rosy as a result. But this was sheer guesswork and not supported by science.

Well, as it turns out, the figures seem to be indicating that, for the AstraZeneca vaccine at least, which is the most commonly administered COVID vaccine in the UK, those who received a second dose 12 weeks after the first are actually even better-protected than those who recieved a second dose up to six weeks later. So, more by luck than judgement, the British health authorities have dodged a bullet and happened on an important virus management finding. It should be noted that there is no such finding (as yet) concerning delaying the second doses of other vaccines like Pfizer or Moderna.

I imagine, though, that the British health officials concerned are breathing a ragged sigh of relief, rather than celebrating a major scientific breakthrough.

A billion years of continental drift: the movie

Well, this is fascinating, I think.

The journal Earth Science Reviews has published an animated simulation of the last billion years of tectonic movements of the earth's landmasses. Don't ask me how they can do that, but it's done and it seems to be science.

It's interesting to me that at no point is there an obvious "Pangaea moment" when all the continents as we know them today were clustered together and attached as one super-continent. Pangaea is supposed to have existed from 335 million years ago until 175 mlion years ago. This simulation does show various islands clustered around that time, and many of the islands are at least peripherally attached to each other, with narrow connecting bridges and isthmuses. But this is not the huge, wide block of land I usually envisage.

Also interesting: for much of the time, most of the earth's land masses were clustered around the south pole, with most of the globe just one vast ocean.

The Mirror & The Light is Hilary Mantel's apotheosis

I have finally got around to reading the last of Hilary Mantel's excellent Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and The Mirror & The Light is every bit as good as Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and then some.

The quality of the writing is astonishing, and she somehow contrives to keep it up for nearly 900 pages. This would normally be long enough to intimidate me into avoiding it completely - I read so slowly and painstakingly - but I have settled into this particular tome, luxuriating and glorying in its class and its transcendence. 

Characters from the previous books continue to develop, in all their complexity, wit and malice, and several new ones are introduced. It is sometimes hard to keep track of the myriad personalities at play, especially given the various titles and nicknames they employ, although there is a handy-dandy guide at the beginning of the book.

Ms. Mantel's language, both in the more descriptive passages and in the dialogue, seems quite modern and familiar, and yet she is also employing some ancient vocabulary and phrasing, little used in this day and age, that makes it seem convincingly medieval at the same time. Sometimes poetic, sometimes salty, sometimes deadpan I don't know quite how an educated Tudor would have spoken, and I don't really care, but this hybrid of her own devising is a wonderful compromise. It is full of courtly elegance, but immediately comprehensible and even contemporary, like a too-perfumed courtesan masking the rank odours of too few baths (my own contribution to the genre). It is quite a feat and, in my view, quite a triumph. 

Just a few little snippets, almost at random:

About his neck is a heavy gold chain, where the emblems of the Howards alternate with the Tudor rose. Under his shirt, in a filigree case, he wears the relics of saints, faded hairs and splinters of bone; on his sword hand, a stout gold band, set with a greyish diamond like a chipped tooth.

'Why would he do it now, when the sentence is already passed, his proven offences so rank that the most merciful prince who ever reigned would not remit his punishment. For I should think that if he were to be excused the penalty, the common people would stone him in the street; or failing that, God would strike him down.' 'And we should spare God the trouble,' Richard said. 'He has much to do.'

We will dress the city for Jane. At every corner a paradise, with a maiden seated in a rose arbour, the roses being striped, argent, vermilion, a serpent coiled about the apple tree, and singing birds, trapped by Adam, hanging in cages from the bough.

'I do not understand you, Cremuel. You are not afraid, when you should be afraid. You are like someone who has loaded the dice.' 'Loaded the dice?' He says. 'Is that what people do?'

Christophe's head declines from view, a greasy planet in a crooked cap.

The very swans on the river stunned with heat, the trees drooping, the hounds from the courtyard making their hound music, till their bell-like voices withdrew into the distance, and the train of gallant horsemen moved away over the meadows, and the queen knelt praying in the afternoon light, and the king who went hunting never came back.

She is quite simply the best historical fiction author writing today. Only 750 pages still to go. Bring it on!

Canada's domestic vaccine production finally shows some promise, just not soon

And while we are on the subject of vaccines - and what other subject is there right now? - the Liberal government is making a big deal of the news that Canada is to have its own production facilities in Montreal to manufacture the Novavax vaccine, belatedly securing a domestic COVID-19 vaccines. even as our imports of pre-ordered vaccines grind to a halt and recriminations on all sides abound.

Minor caveat: the Novavax vaccine is not yet approved for use in Canada, and the National Research Council-owned facility (not even fully built yet!) will not be churning out doses until the end of the year at the earliest, well after the government's September deadline for all Canadians to be vaccinated. The building work is expected to be complete by the summer, but approvals and certifications and paperwork could well take several months more. Ultimately, the facility is expected to be able to produce up to 2 million doses a month.

Too little, too late, as opposition politicians assert? Maybe, but I have a suspicion that we may well be still looking for vaccine doses by that time. And then, of course, there's always the next pandemic, and the next...

What I don't really understand is why this idea of licencing production facilities was not thought about a year ago? Well, arguably, it was, and the Montreal facility was originally being built for the ill-fated CanSino vaccine, and it ran afoul of "good manufacturing practices" requirements, and encountered delay after delay.

As for the other vaccine manufacturers, Procurement Minister Anita Anand has confirmed that the government did in fact strenuously and repeatedly raise the issue of domestic manufacture, and all of them refused to allow Canada to manufacture their products here under license, due to the state of our "biomanufacturing capability".

As usual, Canada is being compared (unfavourably) with Australia, which has an agreement to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, starting sometime this spring (as has Japan). Canada apparently passed on domestic manufacturing rights for the AstraZeneca product. But, hey, Australia has hardly even started vaccinations. Not that they really need it, with six new cases a day to deal with!

Canada embarrasses itself by plundering its COVAX contribution

Canada's COVID-19 vaccine rollout is not, it has to be said, going particularly well, although it's not going as disastrously as opposition politicians would have you think, and it's mainly the fault of the vaccine manufacturers rather than anything our various governments are doing wrong.

That said, the latest news has me shaking my head. Canada signed up with the WHO-sponsored COVAX program last September, and this seemed like a good and worthy thing to do. The program pools funds from wealthy countries to help buy vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries that can't afford to buy for themselves. However, the program also allows countries to dip into the funds for themselves - why? I have no idea - and Canada has decided in its wisdom that it needs to do just that. 

So, Canada, a G7 country, is to take 1.9 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine out of its COVAX pledge (when we finally get around to approving that vaccine, that is), despite having already ordered 20 million doses of that vaccine through regular commercial channels, and having ordered enough doses from seven different conpanies to vaccinate the entire population at least four times over.

That's 1.9 million doses that will not therefore be available to poor developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America.  A spokesperson for the International Development Ministry explained, "Our contribution to the global mechanism has always been intended to access vaccine doses for Canadians as well as to support lower-income countries" - as though that makes things any better!

From the other point of view, a spokesperson for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that is coordinating the COVAX program, explained, "Does it help when countries that have a lot of bilateral deals don't take doses? Of course it helps, because then there are more doses available for others". Clearly, Gavi was not anticipating "donor" countries taking doses for themselves out of the scheme, even if there is the facility to do that. And these doses are not goong to arrive anytime soon, so they are not going to help Canada's current vaccine crunch.

Canada is not the only rich country to exercise its options under the scheme - New Zealand and Singapore are also on that list - but it is the largest and richest. It's a mite embarrassing.

Hospital masks policy makes no sense

Does anybody know why, when I visit a hospital for an appointment, they insist that I take off my snug-fitting, double cloth masks (four layers), and put on their flimsy, ill-fitting, single-layer, blue "medical" mask?

Makes no sense to me.