Gender gaps in child nutrition in Malawi: Does cultural lineage matter?

The paper investigates whether cultural lineage mediates gender gaps in child nutrition. It captures nutrition using height-for-age and stunting. The analysis uses the 2014 Malawi Millennium Development Goals Endline Survey data. We find evidence of male child nutrition deprivation in matrilineal cultural lineage. The gender of the household head does not relate to the mediating role of lineage on gendered nutrition gaps. As such, the analysis of gendered nutrition should account for the potential impact of culture to produce policy relevant estimates. Furthermore, deficiencies in male nutrition remains a strong health problem, particularly in cultures that benefit most from returns on female children. In these cultures, lineage dominates personal parental preferences. Therefore, there is a need to revisit received wisdom that providing more resources to female heads eliminates gender gaps by provision of culture-tailored nutritional interventions.

Lettuce Chlorosis Virus Disease: A New Threat to Cannabis Production

In a survey conducted in Cannabis sativa L. (cannabis) authorized farms in Israel, plants showed disease symptoms characteristic of nutrition deprivation. Interveinal chlorosis, brittleness, and occasional necrosis were observed in older leaves. Next generation sequencing analysis of RNA extracted from symptomatic leaves revealed the presence of lettuce chlorosis virus (LCV), a crinivirus that belongs to the Closteroviridae family. The complete viral genome sequence was obtained using RT-PCR and Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (RACE) PCR followed by Sanger sequencing. The two LCV RNA genome segments shared 85–99% nucleotide sequence identity with LCV isolates from GenBank database. The whitefly Bemisia tabaci Middle Eastern Asia Minor1 (MEAM1) biotype transmitted the disease from symptomatic cannabis plants to un-infected ‘healthy’ cannabis, Lactuca sativa, and Catharanthus roseus plants. Shoots from symptomatic cannabis plants, used for plant propagation, constituted a primary inoculum of the disease. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of cannabis plant disease caused by LCV.