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How ghost cities in the Amazon are rewriting the story of civilisation

Try to imagine an environment largely untouched by humans and the Amazon rainforest might spring to mind. After all, large swathes of this South American landscape are blanketed in thick vegetation, suggesting it is one corner of the world that humans never managed to tame. Here, there must have been no deforestation, no agricultural revolution and no cities. It seems like a pristine environment.

Or so we thought. But a very different picture is emerging. Archaeologists working with Indigenous communities have been shown crumbling urban remains and remote sensing technologies such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) are revealing the footprints of vast ghost cities. With so much evidence of ancient human activity, it is now thought the pre-Columbian Amazon was inhabited by millions of people – some living in large built-up areas complete with road networks, temples and pyramids.

But that’s not all this research reveals. Paradoxically, it also provides evidence that the traditional view of the Amazon isn’t completely wide of the mark. For instance, while the ancient Amazonians managed their landscape intensively, they didn’t deforest it. And although they developed complex societies, they never went through a wholesale agricultural revolution. This might suggest that the pre-Columbian Amazonians broke the mould of human cultural development, which is traditionally seen as a relentless march from hunting and gathering to farming to urban complexity. The truth is more surprising. In fact, we are now coming to understand that there was no such mould – civilisation arose in myriad ways. What looks like an anomaly in the Amazon is actually a shining example of a process that was as vibrant and diverse as the rainforest itself.

Adapted from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26334980-500-how-ghost-cities-in-the-amazon-are-rewriting-the-story-of-civilisation/

Text III

How ghost cities in the Amazon are rewriting the story of civilisation

Try to imagine an environment largely untouched by humans and the Amazon rainforest might spring to mind. After all, large swathes of this South American landscape are blanketed in thick vegetation, suggesting it is one corner of the world that humans never managed to tame. Here, there must have been no deforestation, no agricultural revolution and no cities. It seems like a pristine environment.

Or so we thought. But a very different picture is emerging. Archaeologists working with Indigenous communities have been shown crumbling urban remains and remote sensing technologies such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) are revealing the footprints of vast ghost cities. With so much evidence of ancient human activity, it is now thought the pre-Columbian Amazon was inhabited by millions of people – some living in large built-up areas complete with road networks, temples and pyramids.

But that’s not all this research reveals. Paradoxically, it also provides evidence that the traditional view of the Amazon isn’t completely wide of the mark. For instance, while the ancient Amazonians managed their landscape intensively, they didn’t deforest it. And although they developed complex societies, they never went through a wholesale agricultural revolution. This might suggest that the pre-Columbian Amazonians broke the mould of human cultural development, which is traditionally seen as a relentless march from hunting and gathering to farming to urban complexity. The truth is more surprising. In fact, we are now coming to understand that there was no such mould – civilisation arose in myriad ways. What looks like an anomaly in the Amazon is actually a shining example of a process that was as vibrant and diverse as the rainforest itself.

Adapted from: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26334980-500-how-ghost-cities-in-the-amazon-are-rewriting-the-story-of-civilisation/

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What’s good about personalized medicine

For a long time, the practice of medicine has largely been reactive, waiting for the onset of disease before treating or curing it. But we’re all unique in terms of genetic makeup, environment, and lifestyle factors. Our growing understanding of genetics and genomics – the study of all of a person’s genes – and how they drive health, disease and treatment in individual people offers an opportunity to step away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach based on broad population averages and adopt an individualized approach.

In addition to advances in the field of genomics, developments in the fields of science and technology play a crucial role in personalized medicine (for example, the development of high-resolution analytics, biotech research and chemistry, and the ability to decipher molecular structures, signaling pathways, and protein interactions that underpin the mechanisms of gene expression).

Personalized medicine is about more than prescribing the best drugs, although that’s a large part of it. Proponents say it would shift medicine’s emphasis from reaction to prevention, better predict disease susceptibility and improve diagnosis, produce more effective drugs and reduce adverse side effects, and eliminate the inefficiency and cost of adopting a trial-and-error approach to healthcare. […]

Despite its numerous benefits, the adoption of a personalized medicine approach raises several issues. For it to reach peak efficiency, a lot of genomic data must be collected from a large and diverse section of the population, and it’s critical that participants’ privacy and confidentiality are protected.

Adapted from: https://newatlas.com/medical/personalized-medicine-benefits-concerns/

Text I

What’s good about personalized medicine

For a long time, the practice of medicine has largely been reactive, waiting for the onset of disease before treating or curing it. But we’re all unique in terms of genetic makeup, environment, and lifestyle factors. Our growing understanding of genetics and genomics – the study of all of a person’s genes – and how they drive health, disease and treatment in individual people offers an opportunity to step away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach based on broad population averages and adopt an individualized approach.

In addition to advances in the field of genomics, developments in the fields of science and technology play a crucial role in personalized medicine (for example, the development of high-resolution analytics, biotech research and chemistry, and the ability to decipher molecular structures, signaling pathways, and protein interactions that underpin the mechanisms of gene expression).

Personalized medicine is about more than prescribing the best drugs, although that’s a large part of it. Proponents say it would shift medicine’s emphasis from reaction to prevention, better predict disease susceptibility and improve diagnosis, produce more effective drugs and reduce adverse side effects, and eliminate the inefficiency and cost of adopting a trial-and-error approach to healthcare. […]

Despite its numerous benefits, the adoption of a personalized medicine approach raises several issues. For it to reach peak efficiency, a lot of genomic data must be collected from a large and diverse section of the population, and it’s critical that participants’ privacy and confidentiality are protected.

Adapted from: https://newatlas.com/medical/personalized-medicine-benefits-concerns/

Text I

What’s good about personalized medicine

For a long time, the practice of medicine has largely been reactive, waiting for the onset of disease before treating or curing it. But we’re all unique in terms of genetic makeup, environment, and lifestyle factors. Our growing understanding of genetics and genomics – the study of all of a person’s genes – and how they drive health, disease and treatment in individual people offers an opportunity to step away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach based on broad population averages and adopt an individualized approach.

In addition to advances in the field of genomics, developments in the fields of science and technology play a crucial role in personalized medicine (for example, the development of high-resolution analytics, biotech research and chemistry, and the ability to decipher molecular structures, signaling pathways, and protein interactions that underpin the mechanisms of gene expression).

Personalized medicine is about more than prescribing the best drugs, although that’s a large part of it. Proponents say it would shift medicine’s emphasis from reaction to prevention, better predict disease susceptibility and improve diagnosis, produce more effective drugs and reduce adverse side effects, and eliminate the inefficiency and cost of adopting a trial-and-error approach to healthcare. […]

Despite its numerous benefits, the adoption of a personalized medicine approach raises several issues. For it to reach peak efficiency, a lot of genomic data must be collected from a large and diverse section of the population, and it’s critical that participants’ privacy and confidentiality are protected.

Adapted from: https://newatlas.com/medical/personalized-medicine-benefits-concerns/