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To review the evidence for the effects of adapted bicycle riding on body structures and functions, activity, participation, and quality of life outcomes in children with disabilities, along with family-level participation outcomes.A systematic review with searches of nine electronic databases to identify studies involving participants with a developmental disability aged 4 to 18 years who used a dynamic adapted bicycle was completed in August 2021. Risk of bias was assessed based on individual study designs. A narrative synthesis integrated the findings of the included studies. Certainty of evidence was synthesized using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Ten studies were included with 234 participants. Five studies reported outcomes at the body structures and functions level, ten reported activity-level outcomes, two reported participation-related outcomes, and none assessed quality of life or family participation in social and recreational activities.Adapted bicycle riding interventions may improve gross motor function, enhance lower-limb muscle strength, and promote physical activity; however, certainty of evidence of effects was rated very low using GRADE. Further research is required to understand the impact of adapted bicycle riding on the participation outcomes of children and adolescents with disabilities and on family-level participation in social and recreational activities.

Background Chagas disease remains a persistent vector-borne neglected tropical disease throughout the Americas and threatens both human and animal health. Diverse control methods have been used to target triatomine vector populations, with household insecticides being the most common. As an alternative to environmental sprays, host-targeted systemic insecticides (or endectocides) allow for application of chemicals to vertebrate host resulting in toxic bloodmeals for arthropods (xenointoxification). Methods In this study, three systemic insecticide products were evaluated for their ability to kill triatomines by treating chickens orally and allowing triatomines to feed on treated birds. The products included: Safe-Guard® Aquasol (fenbendazole), Ivomec® Pour-On (ivermectin), and Bravecto® (fluralaner). Triatoma gerstaeckeri nymphs were allowed to feed on live birds at 0, 3, 7, 14, 28, and 56 days post-treatment. Triatoma gerstaeckeri survival and feeding status were recorded and analyzed using Kaplan-Meier curve and logistic regression. Results Fluralaner caused up to 100% mortality in T. gerstaeckeri through 14 days post treatment but not after; in contrast, all insects which fed on fenbendazole and ivermectin-treated birds survived. Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-QQQ) analysis was used to detect the concentration of fluralaner and fenbendazole in chicken plasma. Fluralaner was detected at 3-, 7- and 14-days post treatment but not later, while fenbendazole concentration was below the limit of detection at all time points. Conclusions Xenointoxification using fluralaner in poultry is a potential new tool for integrated vector control to reduce risk of Chagas disease.

Purpose Growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) is a key signaling protein required for proper development of many organ systems. Only one prior study has associated an inherited GDF11 variant with a dominant human disease in a family with variable craniofacial and vertebral abnormalities. Here, we expand the phenotypic spectrum associated with GDF11 variants and document the nature of the variants. Methods We present a cohort of six probands with de novo and inherited nonsense/frameshift (4/6 patients) and missense (2/6) variants in GDF11. We generated gdf11 mutant zebrafish to model loss of gdf11 phenotypes and used an overexpression screen in Drosophila to test variant functionality. Results Patients with variants in GDF11 presented with craniofacial (5/6) , vertebral (5/6), neurological (6/6), visual (4/6), cardiac (3/6), auditory (3/6) and connective tissue abnormalities (3/6). gdf11 mutant zebrafish show craniofacial abnormalities and body segmentation defects that match some patient phenotypes. Expression of the patients’ variants in the fly showed that one nonsense variant in GDF11 is a severe loss-of-function (LOF) alleles whereas the missense variants in our cohort are partial LOF variants. Conclusion GDF11 is needed for human development, particularly neuronal development, and LOF GDF11 alleles can affect the development of numerous organs and tissues.

This chapter argues that first-hand accounts of mystical experiences are rare nowadays. It follows the events that led up to Francis Spufford's first mystical experience back in 1997. The chapter examines how Spufford became aware of something else, a ‘whisper of presence’, the sense of being watched but absolutely safe, and it brought with it the conviction that the universe is sustained by ‘a continual and infinitely patient act of love’. As the chapter emphasizes, Spufford readily concedes that identical feelings could be caused by sensory deprivation or biochemical imbalances or drugs or electrical stimulation of his brain. He admits that they correspond closely to the sensations of transcendence reported by worshippers in many other religions — and, he might have added to the ‘oceanic feeling’ for which Freud offered a psychoanalytic explanation. The chapter also contends that it is its impossibility as a rule of life that distinguishes Christianity from other religions. Ultimately, the chapter looks at Spufford's attempt to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus. It also highlights Spufford's vision of philosopher A.C. Grayling leading us on the great journey into the secular light ‘tossing his miraculously bouffant locks’.

This chapter reflects on Germaine Greer's book on William Shakespeare, which examines Shakespeare's opinion about marriage, specifically his own. When he married Ann Hathaway, a local farmer's daughter, in 1582, he was eighteen, she was twenty-six and three months pregnant. Some scholars have taken these facts to mean that Shakespeare was trapped into marriage by a designing older woman. Greer is convinced that, on the contrary, Shakespeare wooed Ann, not vice versa; that she proved a good, true wife, enjoying her husband's love and respect; and that she took a keen interest in his writing, and was quite possibly instrumental in getting the First Folio of his works printed after his death. She suggests that The Comedy of Errors, with its moving depiction of wifely loyalty, reveals Shakespeare's ‘attitude to marriage’, so he would be unlikely to have treated Ann in the way her denigrators allege.

This chapter follows the own musical history of American freelance writer Thad Carhart. It introduces younger Desforges partner, Luc, who took Carhart one day through the mysterious door at the back of the shop and into the glass-roofed atelier that lay beyond. It was enormous, flooded with sunlight, and stacked with pianos — upright, spinets, grands — in every state of disrepair. The chapter describes pianos as living things with distinct personalities. It argues that Carhart feels their sounding boards tremble like animals as the hammers dance over the strings. His interest divides between voluptuous reverie and hard fact. The chapter also recounts the piano's social history, from its invention around 1700 to its apogee just before the First World War when half a million pianos a year were being manufactured. It emphasizes that pianos live in symbiosis with humans and have adapted to their mechanical progress. The chapter tracks how Carhart's own musical history gradually emerged in the intervals of his talks with Luc.

This chapter explores Chartres Cathedral through Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind (2008) by Philip Ball. Begun in 1200 and finished in 1226, it was the crowning example of the Gothic style. The cathedral marked, Ball suggests, a shift in the way the Western world thought about God, the universe, and man's place in it. Chartres' architecture is shown to expectations of how cathedrals were built at the time. Universe of Stone explores the ideas surrounding Chartres' architecture and the history behind the school of Chartres, which was one of the great centres of European learning. It also provides a section on how to build a medieval cathedral, complete with diagrams.

This chapter talks about Jaroslav Hašek, who joined the Austrian army, got himself captured by the Russians, became an ardent tsarist, and mutated into a commissar with the Red Army and editor of Red Europe. It mentions the policy of non-resistance that is adopted by Hašek's hero, Švejk, in The Good Soldier Svejk. Švejk's appointment as batman to a drunken and blasphemous regimental chaplain gives Hašek scope to satirise the Catholic church, which he detested almost as much as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The chapter looks at gaps in the humour when Hašek shows true atrocities in his work, such his description of manacled peasants that march to parade grounds to be shot for mutiny during call-up. Though unfinished, Hašek's novel has been classed with the comic epics of Cervantes and Rabelais and is funnier and more fearful than either.

This chapter discusses Miriam Darlington's Owl Sense, which is a vivid, engaging, and adventurous book that focuses on a great deal about owls. Darlington's intrigue started with the ghoulish shrieks of tawny owls near her Devon home while patrolling the woods at dawn. It emphasizes Darlington's hatred of the idea of wild birds being used as pets or companions or human accessories, noting how the popularity of J.K. Rowling's books caused Harry Potter fans to hire owls to deliver wedding rings at their nuptials. The chapter mentions Darlington's time at the Barn Owl Trust and recounts how she had the opportunity to examine scrupulously a deceased owl, from its ferocious raptorial talons to its mask-like face. It reviews her discovery of another owl secret when she ran her fingers over the super-soft, comb-like edges of the dead owl's wing feathers.

This chapter narrates how Douglas Malcolm, a brave, boneheaded artillery officer, came home on leave from the Western Front to find that his wife, Dorothy, was having an affair with a Russian immigrant called Anton Baumberg. It recounts how Malcolm tracked Baumberg down to a seedy lodging house in Paddington and shot him dead. The chapter then investigates how the trial aroused avid public interest. Sir John Simon, for Douglas, argued that his client had acted in self-defence, an explanation that raised some practical difficulties. The chapter presents the contrasting characters of the two men. Douglas was a gallant British officer, whereas Baumberg was foreign, half-Jewish and, it was alleged, a white-slave trafficker and a spy, although neither charge was supported by any evidence. The chapter then shifts to discuss the early life of young Derek Malcolm, born in 1932, who soon became aware of his parents' unhappiness. It follows his educational career which began when he was packed off to boarding school aged four. The chapter investigates how he progressed to a horrible prep school in Oxford, his entrance at Merton College, Oxford, and his own post-Oxford doings.

This chapter examines how, from Bevis Hillier's biography, John Betjeman emerges as exploitative, querulous, calculating and deceitful, his worship of wealth and rank sorting oddly with his earnest professions of Christianity. Hillier's second volume opens in 1933, shortly after Betjeman had wed Penelope Chetwode. Although lacking qualifications, and allergic to work of any kind, Betjeman managed to secure a succession of employments through adroit use of the old-boy net. Mostly his jobs were in journalism, so his slackness could do little harm. The only job for which he showed any flair was when he was made press attaché to the senior British diplomat in Dublin. Betjeman had to keep Anglo–Irish relations sweet by dissimulation, and by ingratiating himself with those in power. Utimately, Hillier's biography is much richer than a mere life of Betjeman. It is an in-depth investigation of every section of the English upper middle class that he inhabited.

This chapter introduces Yuval Noah Harari, who is a young Israeli academic and an intellectual acrobat whose logical leaps have readers gasping with admiration. Harari wrote Sapiens, which presents a brief history of life on earth, starting with the big bang and ending 1,000 years in the future. It looks at Harari's prediction of the extinction of Homo sapiens because science will have replaced people with genetically engineered immortals and super-cyborgs, part human, part machine, with faculties unimaginable. The chapter talks about the prospect of the disappearance of old-style humans that Harari does not regret as humans proved to be the most destructive species ever to plague the planet. It mentions how human ancestors lived peacefully among the other animals for many millenniums until about 70,000 years ago when Homo sapiens developed superior cognitive powers and, crucially, invented language.

This chapter reviews IQ: The Brilliant Idea that Failed (2007) by Stephen Murdoch. The book argues against intelligence tests and abominates psychologists for inventing them. Indeed, IQ is heavily prejudiced in this view, as Murdoch argues that psychologists are a ruthless set of parvenus, avid for funding and respect, neither of which they deserve, and unable even to define the ‘intelligence’ they are supposed to be testing. The worldwide ascendancy they now enjoy came about, he contends, through historical accident. However, the chapter also reveals that, despite the title of the book, IQ tests have succeeded on every level, as they are used worldwide in multiple fields and institutions.

This chapter talks about the second volume of Sylvia Plath's letters, which is described like Greek tragedy. It recounts the story of how Ted Hughes walked out of his marriage with Plath after a passionate affair with Assia, the wife of Canadian poet David Wevill. It also covers the feelings expressed in the Beuscher letters that lie behind poems such as ‘Daddy’ and ‘Lady Lazarus’ written by Plath in her final months and have won her global fame. The chapter considers Plath's letters as astonishing in themselves, terrible in their intensity, and as raw as freshly sliced meat. As a real-life depiction of a mind in agony, Plath's letters can be recognized as unmatched in literature.

This chapter examines cannibalism in nature as well as in human society through Bill Schutt's Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism (2017). It begins by discussing the fact that cannibalism is common throughout the natural world. Invertebrates are the star performers at this kind of showy exit, but cannibalism also occurs in every class of vertebrates from fish to mammals, including chimpanzees, humanity's closest relatives. The focus then turns to cannibalism in human history, where since biblical times it has been resorted to as a means of survival. Aside from survival cannibalism, the chapter also examines cultural cannibalism, as Schutt approaches the question of whether revulsion from cannibalism is really hard-wired in the human brain, or whether it might borne of western prejudice. To conclude, the chapter reflects on what cannibalism might mean for humanity in the future.

This chapter tackles how Robert Gottlieb produced a book on the life story of Sarah Bernhardt. Duc de Morny, the brother of the emperor Napoleon III, entered Bernhardt in Paris Conservatoire and Comédie-Française in an effort to develop her skills as an actress. However, she failed both jobs and lived as a prostitute for the next two years of her life. After giving birth, Bernhardt scored a job with Odéon theatre and thrived. The chapter cites how Bernhardt turned the Odéon into a military hospital where she tended the wounded and dying During the disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1870. It expounds on how Bernhardt kept flourishing under her own acting company touring across Europe and America.

This chapter discusses the letters Alan Macfarlane wrote for his granddaughter Lily. The letters aim to tell the granddaughter what human beings are like when she finally turns seventeen years old. The chapter assumes that Lily will be surprised by her grandfather's favourable estimate of witchcraft. Throughout the letters, Macfarlane grows indignant about thousands of innocent people who were hanged and burned as witches in sixteenth-century Europe and likens the event to America's witch hunt against the alleged axis of evil. The chapter paints a picture of Western culture that is not morally better than a nation where criminals run the justice system.

This chapter highlights the point of gardening, which repairs that part of the brain which words and thinking are constantly threatening to destroy. It stresses how vegetable gardening naturally redoubles self-approval due to producing food, which is one of the few worthwhile human activities. By growing what is eaten, a person keeps in touch with economic realities that lie deeper than money. The chapter explains that vegetable gardening contains a strong element of submerged sensuousness as home-grown stuff tastes better than the plastic shrouded organisms that pass themselves off as vegetables in supermarkets. Most of the rich experiences obtainable from the vegetable garden are untainted by any thought of actual consumption.