Scientists have produced a comprehensive roadmap of muscle aging in mice that could be used to find treatments that prevent decline in muscle mobility and function, according to a report published today in eLife.
The study reveals which molecules in the muscle are most significantly altered at different life stages, and shows that a molecule called Klotho, when administered to mice in old, but not very old, age, was able to improve muscle strength.
Age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function — called sarcopenia — is associated with loss of mobility and increased risk of falls. Yet, although scientists know how sarcopenia affects the appearance and behaviour of muscle tissues, the underlying molecular mechanisms for sarcopenia remain poorly understood. Current treatments for sarcopenia largely involve prescribing physical activity or dietary modifications, and these have shown moderate success.
“Although there are no proven treatments for sarcopenia yet, there are some pharmaceutical treatments entering clinical trials. Interestingly, many of these act on mechanisms that also involve a protein called Klotho,” says co-first author Zachary Clemens, Doctoral Student at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US. “Evidence suggests that Klotho levels gradually decline with age, and so we wanted to test whether supplementation with Klotho may attenuate the development of sarcopenia.”
The team first characterised and compared changes in the structure, function and gene activity in skeletal muscle across the lifespan in mice. They grouped mice into four age categories — young, middle-aged, old and oldest-old — and looked at muscle weight, type of muscle fibers, whether the muscles had accumulated fat, and skeletal muscle function. Although old mice displayed mild sarcopenia, the common clinical features of sarcopenia were only present in the oldest-old mice.
Next, they looked at changes in muscle gene activity and found a progressive disruption in genes known to be associated with the hallmarks of aging from the young to the oldest-old mice.
“To date, most studies in skeletal muscle have focused on the identification of specific pathways that are associated with sarcopenia to identify a molecular mechanism linked to the condition,” explains co-first author Sruthi Sivakumar, Doctoral Student at the Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh. “We employed an integrative approach, where we created a network by converting gene expression levels to protein-protein interactions, and then we studied how this interaction network changed over time.”
From this network, the team determined the ‘network entropy’ of the muscle cells as a means to estimate the loss of molecular order within the system over time. They found the greatest difference in order between the young and old age groups (at which point it reached maximal entropy), with little difference between the old and oldest-old mice. Additionally, when they looked at human muscle gene data from different age groups, they saw that entropy reached its lowest level in the fourth decade of life, after which time entropy escalated. This was of interest to the team as the fourth decade of life is the time point when sarcopenia often starts to develop.
Next, they looked at whether administering Klotho to mice would have beneficial effects on the muscle healing after injury. They found that applying Klotho after muscle injury reduced scarring and increased structures associated with force production in the animals. Injured mice that received Klotho also had better muscle function — such as muscle twitch and force production — and their whole-body endurance improved two-fold.
Finally, the team looked at whether giving the mice Klotho could reverse age-related declines in muscle quality and function. They found that Klotho administration led to some improvements in the old mice: force production was improved by 17% and endurance when supporting whole body weight was 60% greater compared to mice without treatment. But this was only seen in the old mice, and not in the oldest-old animals. Further investigation showed that Klotho affected genes associated with the hallmarks of aging in all age groups, but that the oldest-old mice showed a dysregulated gene response.
“Our data suggest that treatment with Klotho may be more effective in slowing the progression of sarcopenia at an earlier time point, rather than rescuing advanced age-related disease, by which time the gene responses seem to be more random,” concludes senior author Fabrisia Ambrosio, Associate Professor at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh. “It will be interesting in future studies to determine whether boosting Klotho levels at a younger age could prevent muscle declines into old, and even oldest-old, age.”
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An overgrowth of yeast in the gut within the first few months of life may cause changes to the immune system that increase the risk of asthma later on, shows a study published today in eLife.
Asthma is a common and sometimes difficult-to-manage, life-long lung condition that affects one in 10 children in developed countries. The findings explain a possible cause of asthma and may help scientists develop new strategies to prevent or treat the condition.
The period just after birth is a critical window for the development of a healthy immune system and gut microbiome. Disruptions to gut bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory compounds called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) early in life have previously been linked to asthma.
“We recently showed that overgrowth of a type of gut yeast called Pichia kudriavzevii in newborns in Ecuador is associated with an increased risk of asthma,” says first author Rozlyn Boutin, an MD/PhD student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. “In this study, we wanted to see if we could replicate these findings in children from an industrialised setting and identify how fungi of the gut microbiota affect the development of the immune system.”
Boutin and colleagues began with a study of 123 newborns in Canada, who are part of the CHILD Cohort Study. They again found that an overgrowth of Pichia kudriavzevii in the stools of the newborns during the first three months of life was associated with a higher risk of asthma.
To understand how this yeast overgrowth might contribute to asthma later in life, the team applied Pichia kudriavzevii to newborn mice with immature gut microbiota communities. In this mouse model of asthma, the team found that the newborns exposed to the yeast experienced more lung inflammation than those who were unexposed. Applying Pichia kudriavzevii to an adolescent mouse model, however, did not cause this excess inflammation.
“Our findings show that there is a critical window in early life where disruptions in the gut microbiota caused by Pichia kudriavzevii affect the development of the immune system and increase the risk and severity of asthma later in life,” Boutin says.
Previous studies have shown that bacterial SCFAs have beneficial effects on immune development that protect against asthma. In this study, the team also showed that anti-inflammatory SCFAs produced by gut bacteria inhibit the growth of Pichia kudriavzevii.
“Immune responses to gut microbe disruptions early in life have long-term consequences for diseases of the immune system later in life,” concludes senior author Brett Finlay, Professor at the Michael Smith Laboratories and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia. “Our study adds to our understanding of microbiota-associated asthma and suggests that inhibiting yeast overgrowth with SCFAs in early life could be an effective approach to preventing this condition.”
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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersThe EU’s drugs regulator has said that blood clots should be listed as a “very rare” side effect of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.The European Medicines Agency said in a statement that it had found a “possible link” between the jab and clots.But it added that the benefits of the Covid-19 vaccine outweighed the risks.Out of more than seven million people who have received the jab in the US, eight people developed rare blood clots, including one person who died.Earlier this month, the EMA made the same recommendation for the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Oxford-AstraZeneca.That recommendation, made on 7 April, came after 86 out of 25 million Europeans administered with the jab developed the unusual blood clots.The UK then stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to people under 30 years old.Last week, the EU, the US and South Africa paused the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson jab in response to the reports of rare blood clotting.What did the EMA say?In a statement released on Tuesday, the EMA recommended that blood clots should be listed as a “very rare” side effect of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (also known as the Janssen vaccine).The cases of clotting in the US “occurred in people under 60 years of age within three weeks after vaccination, the majority in women”, the regulator said.Covid-19 vaccines: Which ones are availableRare blood clots – what you need to knowIs the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine safe?”One plausible explanation for the combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is an immune response, leading to a condition similar to one seen sometimes in patients treated with heparin called heparin induced thrombocytopenia, HIT,” it said.Heparin is a blood thinner given to people with clotting disorders.But the risks associated with the virus itself are still higher than the vaccine, it added.”Covid-19 is associated with a risk of hospitalisation and death,” the EMA said. “The reported combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is very rare, and the overall benefits of [the Johnson & Johnson] Covid-19 vaccine in preventing Covid-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.”These possible side effects seen with the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and now the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson shot are very rare.It doesn’t mean either are no good or unsafe to use in vaccination programmes. Experts say, for most individuals, the benefits of getting immunised clearly outweigh any potential risks. Covid infection can be extremely dangerous and cause harmful blood clots at a much higher frequency than these ultra-unusual events that have been linked to vaccination. Any approved treatment or vaccine will have some side effects and these are listed on or in the pack. The EMA’s safety committee says a warning about rare blood clots should be added to the Janssen vaccine’s product information. Experts are still exploring the link but say it might be related to an unusual immune response in some individuals. What are the symptoms?While the risk of developing a blood clot is extremely low, and the risks associated with Covid-19 itself are still greater, the EMA is warning people to be aware of the symptoms of clots if they’re getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.The symptoms to be aware of after getting the vaccine are:Shortness of breathChest painLeg swellingPersistent abdominal painNeurological symptoms, such as severe and persistent headaches or blurred visionTiny blood spots under the skin beyond the site of the injectionIf a person develops any of these symptoms within three weeks of getting the jab, they should seek urgent medical attention.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightPA MediaIndia’s addition to the UK’s “red list” of banned countries due to rising Covid cases and concerns over a new variant may have come too late, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser has said.Prof Mark Walport told the BBC he believed the new variant was “more transmissible” and there were “good reasons” for keeping it out of the UK.Health officials say it is too early to know whether it is more transmissible.India has been reporting more than 200,000 cases daily since 15 April.Its capital Delhi announced a week-long lockdown after a record spike in cases overwhelmed the city’s healthcare system.From 04:00 BST on Friday 23 April, most people who have travelled from India in the last 10 days will be refused entry to the UK.British or Irish passport holders, or people with UK residence rights, will be allowed in but must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to hold a coronavirus press briefing in Downing Street at 17:00 BST.He will joined by the medical director of primary care for NHS England, Dr Nikita Kanani.Why was India not already on the red list?What is the Indian variant?’Avoid 80% of countries’ because of pandemic – USOf the decision to put India on the UK’s red list, Prof Walport told BBC Breakfast: “These decisions are almost inevitably taken a bit too late in truth, but what’s absolutely clear is that this variant is more transmissible in India.”He said he believed it was becoming the “dominant variant” in India, while there were also concerns it could be more effective at escaping a natural or vaccine-induced immune response, “so there’s good reasons for wanting to keep it out of the country if at all possible”.The Indian variant – officially known as B.1.617 – has been designated a “variant under investigation” in the UK, with 103 cases – almost all linked to travel – identified in Britain so far.Prof Sharon Peacock, director of the UK’s genetic surveillance programme, Covid-19 Genomics UK, said the variant had been around for “some time” and was first identified in October last year.She said it was “not clear at the present time” whether it was “the main driver” for the wave of infections in India, but putting the country on the travel red list was necessary due to an “upward trend” in UK cases involving the variant.Viruses change or mutate all the time, so the arrival of this new variant is not surprising. It’s one of many thousands. But how worrying is it?Chat with the experts and they will tell you “watch this space”.Certainly, some of the genetic changes it’s undergone might make it more contagious or able to escape some of the protection given by current vaccines or past Covid-19 infection.More checks and tests are needed to know for sure.Scientists are urgently studying its behaviour and spread to judge the threat.It’s possible it will need to be added to the UK government’s variants of concern list, alongside the variants first seen in South Africa, Brazil and Kent.These variants are on the list because evidence suggests they appear to transmit and infect more easily, may be riskier to health or might compromise vaccination efforts if left to run rampant.There’s no suggestion yet that the Indian variant will outcompete these or become dominant in the UK.More than 100 cases of the Indian variant have been confirmed in the UK. That may sound like a large number, but it is less than 1% of the Covid samples that have been analysed for their genetic make-up in the UK.In the meantime, keeping all cases of Covid down will help prevent illness and deaths while the vaccine rollout continues.Non-essential travel is banned from the UK and those arriving must quarantine. People can currently travel abroad for a limited number of reasons, such as education or work.The earliest date non-essential travel will be allowed from England, Scotland or Wales is 17 May, while Northern Ireland has not set a date.All returning passengers must show proof of a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours before travelling – which can take the form of a printed document, email or text message.On Tuesday, MPs heard that about 100 people are trying to enter England each day with a fake negative Covid certificate.Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, which represents UK border and customs staff, told the All Party Parliamentary group on coronavirus that the documents are “very easy” to forge.Asked how many fakes could be slipping through the net, Ms Moreton said it is “inherently unknowable”, adding that a lot of border and quarantine controls are based on “trust”.She told the committee that long queues found at airports could be a “breeding ground” for coronavirus.When can I go on holiday in the UK or abroad?India to start vaccinating all adults over 18’New flights to beat quarantine will cost us up to £6,000’Kirthi Mundhada and her husband Nishant Mehta travelled to Hyderabad, India, for her brother’s wedding and to see her parents, who are unwell.The couple, who live in Brighton, have return flights for 16 May and are now trying to find flights home before 23 April – which is when India is added to the red list.But they say flights will cost between £2,000 and £6,000, which is money they do not have.”It’s so stressful,” Kirthi, 35, says. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with work and we have a mortgage and bills to pay. “Hotel quarantine will cost us around £2,500 and we don’t have much money.”image copyrightVick BusaVick Busa says he and his wife Isha had to travel to India with their two-year-old daughter Aahana for a family emergency.The family, who are from Essex, were due to return to the UK last month, but after India started restricting flights, theirs was cancelled. Vick, who is currently in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, tried to find flights returning before the new rules kick in, but says the family will now have to quarantine as their flights are not until 4 May.He worries it will be “very difficult” being “locked up in a room for 10 days with stringent rules” with their young daughter.A briefing document drawn up by officials at Public Health England shows that between 25 March and 7 April, 3,345 arrivals from India were registered in UK border travel data. Of those 161 – or 4.8% – tested positive for Covid-19 after a PCR test.The new travel rule applies to England and Scotland. There are currently no direct international flights into Wales or Northern Ireland.The announcement came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled a planned trip to India, which had been due to take place on 26 April, amid rising cases there.Meanwhile the UK recorded a further 33 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test and 2,524 new infections, according to the latest government figures.The data also showed that more than 33m people in the UK have had a first dose of a Covid vaccine, while more than 10.4m have received both doses. LOOK-UP TOOL: How many cases in your area?LOCKDOWN RULES: What are they and when will they end?SOCIAL DISTANCING: How can I meet my friend safely? MENTAL HEALTH IN THE PANDEMIC: Stacey Dooley experiences how the pandemic is affecting patientsA HARMLESS ACT TURNED INTO A SEVERE ADDICTION: Gambling turned Tony’s life upside downHow will these new travel restrictions affect you? Get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSayPlease read our terms & conditions and privacy policy

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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersThe US state department is to advise Americans to avoid 80% of countries worldwide because of the coronavirus pandemic.In a note to the media about its updated travel guidance, it said the pandemic continued to “pose unprecedented risks to travellers”.The current US “Do Not Travel” advisory covers 34 out of 200 countries.Covid-19 has now claimed more than three million lives worldwide – more than half a million of them in the US. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned the world was “approaching the highest rate of infection” so far, despite the global rollout of vaccination programmes.India – currently in the grip of a second wave – is to begin offering vaccinations to all adults over 18 in a bid to control the surge in infections.Covid map: Where are cases the highest?The US state department said its decision to update its travel advisories was to bring it more in line with those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and “does not imply a reassessment of the current health situation in a given country”.However, it said the move would “result in a significant increase in the number of countries at Level 4: Do Not Travel, to approximately 80% of countries worldwide”. Anyone planning to travel to a country in the remaining 20% is advised to reconsider before proceeding.Which countries move to level four?The state department has not revealed which countries will be added to the level four category – the highest of its four risk levels. Guidance will be issued individually for each country in the next few days.Currently, only three places in the world are assessed at the lowest tier – level one, which advises “Exercise normal precautions”. They are Macau, Taiwan and New Zealand. Even Antarctica is at level two – “Exercise increased caution” – while the UK is at level three – “Reconsider travel” – with an extra warning to exercise caution because of the risk of terrorism. The CDC currently recommends all Americans refrain from travelling domestically until they have been fully vaccinated and warns that international travel “poses additional risks” even for those vaccinated. In addition, all air passengers coming to the US, including US citizens, must have a negative Covid test result or documentation of recovery from the virus before they board a flight.Will Covid vaccines work against new variants? How will Covid vaccines be shared around the world?While more than 860 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered in 165 countries worldwide, many countries are still struggling to contain the virus.Brazil has recorded the third-highest number of cases and, at 368,749, the second-highest number of deaths in the world. Canada has also reported a recent rise in cases and Papua New Guinea has been highlighted as a cause for concern. While some countries – such as Israel and the UK – have secured and delivered doses to a large proportion of their population, many more countries are still waiting for their first shipments to arrive.That is leading to warnings about growing “vaccine inequity” – jabs not being being shared fairly between rich and poorer countries.

A novel system of chilled panels that can replace air conditioning can also help reduce the risk of indoor disease transmission, suggests new analysis from the University of British Columbia, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University.
The researchers computed air conditioning requirements in 60 of the world’s most populous cities — with the additional ventilation required due to COVID-19. Then, they compared the energy costs with their cooling method, using the chilled panels and natural ventilation.
The results, published in the COVID-19 edition of Applied Energy, showed that the alternative solution can save up to 45 per cent of the required energy, while ensuring building occupants are comfortable and rooms are adequately refreshed.
Dr. Adam Rysanek, a professor in the school of architecture and landscape architecture at UBC and co-author of the paper, notes that many public health guidelines, as well as building industry bodies, recommend increasing the flow of fresh, outdoor air into buildings in order to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 and other diseases.
“However, if we continue to rely on conventional HVAC systems to increase indoor fresh air rates, we may actually double energy consumption. That’s the nature of conventional HVAC.”
“Alternatively, we can encourage people to install new types of radiant cooling systems, which allow them to keep their windows open even when it’s hot outside. These alternative systems can provide a sufficient level of thermal comfort, increase protection against disease while lessening the impact on the environment,” noted Rysanek, director of the Building Decisions Research Group at UBC’s faculty of applied science.
Rysanek and his colleagues earlier demonstrated their cooling system in the hot and humid climate of Singapore. They built a public pavilion featuring a system of chilled tubes enclosed within a condensation-preventing membrane. This allowed occupants to feel comfortable, and even cold, without changing the air temperature surrounding the human body.
“You can think of it as lean A/C — or, even better, as a green alternative to energy-guzzling air conditioning,” said Rysanek.
Toronto is one of the cities included in the latest analysis, as are Beijing, Miami, Mumbai, New York and Paris. In all these regions, peak summer temperatures can soar past 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).
“A key impact of climate change is the accelerating rise in average and peak temperatures, particularly in urban areas. We are expecting the appetite for indoor cooling will ramp up in the years ahead. Yet, if we want to mitigate urban heat and ensure people are healthy and comfortable while reducing our energy use, we need to seriously consider revolutionising our historical approach to air-conditioning,” adds Rysanek.
Rysanek notes that, though chilled panel systems have been around for decades, adding the special membrane devised by the research team could be the key to making it a commercially viable alternative to traditional HVAC systems in all climates.
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Flushing a toilet can generate large quantities of microbe-containing aerosols depending on the design, water pressure or flushing power of the toilet. A variety of pathogens are usually found in stagnant water as well as in urine, feces and vomit. When dispersed widely through aerosolization, these pathogens can cause Ebola, norovirus that results in violent food poisoning, as well as COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Respiratory droplets are the most prominent source of transmission for COVID-19, however, alternative routes may exist given the discovery of small numbers of viable viruses in urine and stool samples. Public restrooms are especially cause for concern for transmitting COVID-19 because they are relatively confined, experience heavy foot traffic and may not have adequate ventilation.
A team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science once again put physics of fluids to the test to investigate droplets generated from flushing a toilet and a urinal in a public restroom under normal ventilation conditions. To measure the droplets, they used a particle counter placed at various heights of the toilet and urinal to capture the size and number of droplets generated upon flushing.
Results of the study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, demonstrate how public restrooms could serve as hotbeds for airborne disease transmission, especially if they do not have adequate ventilation or if toilets do not have a lid or cover. Most public restrooms in the United States often are not equipped with toilet seat lids and urinals are not covered.
For the study, researchers obtained data from three different scenarios: toilet flushing; covered toilet flushing and urinal flushing. They examined the data to determine the increase in aerosol concentration, the behavior of droplets of different sizes, how high the droplets rose, and the impact of covering the toilet. Ambient aerosol levels were measured before and after conducting the experiments.
“After about three hours of tests involving more than 100 flushes, we found a substantial increase in the measured aerosol levels in the ambient environment with the total number of droplets generated in each flushing test ranging up to the tens of thousands,” said Siddhartha Verma, Ph.D., co-author and an assistant professor in FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering. “Both the toilet and urinal generated large quantities of droplets smaller than 3 micrometers in size, posing a significant transmission risk if they contain infectious microorganisms. Due to their small size, these droplets can remain suspended for a long time.”
The droplets were detected at heights of up to 5 feet for 20 seconds or longer after initiating the flush. Researchers detected a smaller number of droplets in the air when the toilet was flushed with a closed lid, although not by much, suggesting that aerosolized droplets escaped through small gaps between the cover and the seat.

Finland, for the fourth consecutive year, topped a list of countries evaluated on the well-being of their inhabitants. “Really?” Finns ask.When governments around the world introduced coronavirus restrictions requiring people to stand two meters apart, jokes in Finland started circulating: “Why can’t we stick to the usual four meters?”Finns embrace depictions of themselves as melancholic and reserved — a people who mastered social distancing long before the pandemic. A popular local saying goes, “Happiness will always end in tears.”But for four consecutive years, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which publishes an annual report evaluating the happiness of people around the world.The latest report, published last month, has led some Finns to ask: Really?“Four times in a row is too much,” said Jukka Lindstrom, a writer and standup comedian. The weather is “like the worst day in London, every day,” he said. “There’s definitely something in our history that makes us have this kind of low self-esteem as a nation, always feeling like an underdog.”The World Happiness Report uses data from interviews of more than 350,000 people in 95 countries, conducted by the polling company Gallup. The rankings are not based on factors like income or life expectancy, but on how people rate their own happiness on a 10-point scale.“We believe that these subjective, or self-perceived evaluations are a more reliable way to tell how good life is,” said Shun Wang, professor of the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in South Korea and one of the authors of the report.Questions included, “Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?”, “Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?” and “Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?”Other questions relate to trust. Someone who thought the police or strangers were “very likely” to return his or her lost wallet had, on average, a much higher life evaluation score than someone who thought the opposite, researchers found. .The authors came up with six categories to explain most of the difference in happiness between countries: gross domestic product per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perception of corruption levels. Dr. Wang said some results were surprising: Parts of Eastern Europe ranked relatively low on the list, despite having relatively good income levels, while in South America, the reverse was true: Happiness levels tended to be high, given relatively low income levels.In Finland, a relatively egalitarian society, people tend not to be fixated on “keeping up with the Joneses.” “People often do pretty well in social comparison,” said Antti Kauppinen, a philosophy professor at the University of Helsinki. “This starts from education; everybody has access to good education. Income and wealth differences are relatively small.”David Pfister, an architect from Austria who lives in Oulunkyla, a suburb of Helsinki, said that he would describe Finns as content, but that it was hard to say if they were happy. “The baby has increased our happiness,” said his wife, Veera Yliniemi, a teacher. Another man in the same suburb, Janne Berliini, 49, said he was happy enough. “I have work,” he said. “The basic things are in order.”People in Finland also tend to have realistic expectations for their lives. But when something in life does exceed expectations, people will often act with humility, preferring a self-deprecating joke over bragging, said Sari Poyhonen, a linguistics professor at the University of Jyvaskyla. Finns, she said, are pros at keeping their happiness a secret.The report this year received little attention in the Finnish news media. “Finland is still the happiest country in the world,” began a short article that ran on Page 19 in Ilta-Sanomat, a daily newspaper.All of the countries that ranked in the top 10 — including the four other Nordic countries — have different political philosophies than in the United States, No. 14 on the list, behind Ireland and ahead of Canada. Lower levels of happiness in the United States could be driven by social conflict, drug addiction, lack of access to health care and income inequality, Dr. Wang said.Things in Finland are far from perfect. Like other parts of the continent, far-right nationalism is on the rise, and unemployment is 8.1 percent, higher than the average unemployment rate of 7.5 percent in the European Union.But there is a lot about Finland that is, indeed, great. Aside from the country’s public school system, which rarely tests children and is among the best in the world. College is free. There is a good universal health care system and child care is affordable. And Finland has been one of the least affected European countries by the pandemic, which experts attribute to the high trust in government and little resistance to following restrictions.Heikki Aittokoski, an international affairs correspondent at Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest daily Finnish newspaper, said that what struck him, after traveling to countries including Britain, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Botswana, Denmark and the United States to research happiness for a book, was the ordinary aspects of Finnish life that he had taken for granted.For example, people trust each other, he said. Each morning, it is common in Helsinki to see children as young as 7 walking by themselves with their backpacks to school, feeling completely secure.“That epitomizes the Finnish happiness,” Mr. Aittokoski said. “There’s something we’ve done right.”

As one museum has pledged to return skulls held in an infamous collection, others, including the Smithsonian, are reckoning with their own holdings of African-American remains.The Morton Cranial Collection, assembled by the 19th-century physician and anatomist Samuel George Morton, is one of the more complicated holdings of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Consisting of some 1,300 skulls gathered around the world, it provided the foundation for Morton’s influential racist theories of differences in intelligence among races, which helped establish the now-discredited “race science” that contributed to 20th century eugenics. In recent years, part of the collection was prominently displayed in a museum classroom, a ghoulish object lesson in an infamous chapter of scientific history.Last summer, after student activists highlighted the fact that some 50 skulls had come from enslaved Africans in Cuba, the museum moved the displayed skulls into storage with the rest of the collection. And last week, shortly after the release of outside research indicating roughly 14 other skulls had come from Black Philadelphians taken from pauper’s graves, the museum announced that the entire collection would be opened up for potential “repatriation or reburial of ancestors,” as a step toward “atonement and repair” for past racist and colonialist practices.The announcement was the latest development in a highly charged conversation about African-American remains in museum collections, especially those of the enslaved. In January, the president of Harvard University issued a letter to alumni and affiliates acknowledging that the 22,000 human remains in its collections included 15 from people of African descent who may have been enslaved in the United States, and pledging to review its policies of “ethical stewardship.”And now, that conversation may be set to explode. In recent weeks, the Smithsonian Institution, whose National Museum of Natural History houses the nation’s largest collection of human remains, has been debating a proposed statement on its own African-American remains.Those discussions, according to portions of an internal summary obtained by The New York Times, have involved people who have long prioritized repatriation efforts as well as those who take a more traditional view of the museum’s mission to collect, preserve and study artifacts, and who view repatriations as potential losses to science.In an interview last week, Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, declined to characterize the deliberations but confirmed the museum was developing new guidance, which he said would be undergirded by a clear imperative: “to honor and remember.”“Slavery is in many ways the last great unmentionable in American discourse,” he said. “Anything we can do to both help the public understand the impact of slavery, and find ways to honor the enslaved, is at the top of my list.”The anthropologist Samuel George Morton began collecting the skulls in the 1830s, as part of an effort to prove differences in intelligence across races.Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesAny new policy, Dr. Bunch said, would build on existing programs for Native American remains. It could involve not just the return of remains to direct descendants, but possibly to communities, or even reburial in a national African-American burial ground. And the museum, he said, would also strive to tell fuller stories of individuals whose remains stay in the collection.“It used to be that scholarship trumped community,” he said. “Now, it’s about finding the right tension between community and scholarship.”The quantity of enslaved and other African-American remains in museums may be modest compared with the estimated 500,000 Native American remains in U.S. collections, which were scooped up from burial grounds and 19th-century battlefields on what Samuel J. Redman, an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, termed “an industrial scale.”But Dr. Redman, the author of “Bone Rooms,” a history of remains collecting by museums, said the moves by Harvard, Penn and especially the Smithsonian could represent a “historical tipping point.”“It puts into shocking relief our need to address the problem of the historical exploitation of people of color in the collecting of their objects, their stories and their bodies,” he said.The complexities around African-American remains — who might claim them? how do you determine enslaved status? — are enormous. Even just counting them is a challenge. According to an internal Smithsonian survey that has not previously been made public, the 33,000 remains in its storerooms include those from roughly 1,700 African-Americans, including an estimated several hundred who were born before 1865, and so may have been enslaved.A page from from Morton’s “Crania Americana,” one of a series of works outlining a supposed hierarchy of intelligence based on skull size, with Europeans on top.via National Library of MedicineMorton’s work helped establish the dubious “race science” that flourished in the 19th century and went on to contribute to 20th century eugenics.via National Library of MedicineSome remains come from archaeological excavations. But the majority are from individuals who died in state-funded institutions for the poor, whose unclaimed bodies ended up in anatomical collections that were later acquired by the Smithsonian.In addition to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires museums to return remains to tribes or lineal descendants that request them, the Smithsonian allows remains from named individuals of any race to be claimed by descendants. While many African-American individuals in the anatomical collections are named, none have ever been reclaimed, according to the natural history museum.Kirk Johnson, the museum’s director, said that the anatomical collections, while disproportionately gathered from the poor and marginalized, included a cross-section of society in terms of age, sex, race, ethnicity and cause of death, which had made them extremely useful for forensic anthropologists and other researchers.But when it comes to African-American remains, a broader approach to repatriation — including a more expansive notion of “ancestor” and “descendant” — may be justified.“We’ve all had a season of becoming more enlightened about structural racism and anti-Black racism,” he said. “At the end of the day,” he added, “it’s a matter of respect.”Dr. Bunch, the Smithsonian’s first Black secretary, said he hoped its actions would provide a model for institutions across the country. Some who have studied the history of the trade in Black bodies say such guidance is sorely needed.In early April, new research claiming that the collection included roughly 14 skulls of Black Philadelphians taken from pauper’s graves in the 1830s and 1840s prompted renewed protests.Sukhmani Kaur“It would be wonderful to have an African-American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” said Daina Ramey Berry, a professor of history at the University of Texas and author of “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh,” a study of the commodification of enslaved bodies from birth to death.“We’re finding evidence of enslaved bodies used at medical schools throughout the nation,” she said. “Some are still on display at universities. They need to be returned.”Penn’s Morton collection vividly embodies both the sordid side of the enterprise, and the way the meanings of collections change.Morton, a successful doctor who was an active member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, has sometimes been called the founder of American physical anthropology. He was a proponent of the theory of polygenesis, which held that some races were separate species, with separate origins. In books like the lavishly illustrated “Crania Americana,” from 1839, he drew on skull measurements to outline a proposed hierarchy of human intelligence, with Europeans on top and Africans in the United States at the bottom.Morton’s skull collection was said to be the first scholarly anatomical collection in the United States and, at the time, the largest. But after his death in 1851, it fell into obscurity, even as his racist ideas about differences in intelligence remained influential.In 1966, the collection was relocated to the Penn Museum, from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. And it quickly became a useful tool for all sorts of scientific research — including studies aimed at debunking the racist ideas it had helped create.In a famous 1978 paper (later adapted for his book “The Mismeasure of Man”), the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that Morton’s racist assumptions had led him to make incorrect measurements — thus turning Morton into a symbol not just of racist ideas, but of how bias can affect the seemingly objective procedures of science.The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which has the country’s largest collection of human remains, is debating a statement on potential repatriation of African-American remains.Robert Alexander/Getty ImagesGould’s analysis of Morton’s measurements has itself been hotly disputed. But in recent years, the appropriateness of possessing the skulls at all has been sharply questioned by campus and local activists, particularly after student researchers connected with the Penn & Slavery Project drew attention to the remains of the enslaved Cubans.Christopher Woods, who became the museum’s director earlier this month, said the new repatriation policy (which was recommended by a committee) would not change the collection’s status as an active research source.Although there has been no access to the actual skulls since last summer, legitimate researchers can examine 3-D scans of the entire collection, including those of 126 Native Americans that have already been repatriated.“The collection was put together for nefarious purpose in the 19th century, to reinforce white supremacist racial views, but there’s still been good research done on that collection,” Dr. Woods said.When it comes to repatriation, he said, the moral imperative is clear, even if the specific course of action may not be. For the skulls of Black Philadelphians taken from pauper’s graves (a major source for cadavers of all races at the time), he said the hope is they can be reburied in a local African-American cemetery.The enslaved remains from Cuba, however, would require future research and possibly testing, as well as a search for an appropriate repatriation site, possibly in Cuba or West Africa, where most of the individuals were likely born.The Black remains may have become a particularly urgent issue, he said. But repatriation requests for any skulls would be considered.“This is an ethical question,” he said. “We need to consider the wishes of the communities from whence these people came.”