In a new megastudy, lead author Katy Milkman, along with Angela Duckworth, partnered with 24 Hour Fitness to create a 28-day workout rewards program that tested inexpensive, scalable, science-based interventions for building exercise habits among more than 60,000 of its millions of members.

The study, published in the journal Nature, sought to solve motivational problems most people face when it comes to visiting the gym regularly. The megastudy approach to research is a new take on behavioral science, seeking a better way to compel gym attendance by testing many hypotheses at once.

The research tested 53 programs over four weeks at 24 Hour Fitness gyms, where participants entries into the gym were recorded. The simplest form of the program encouraged participants to plan their workouts ahead of time, reminded them with a text message 30 minutes before they were scheduled to work out, and offered them points convertible for small cash rewards redeemable on Amazon (these were worth about $0.22 per gym visit, so the researchers call them micro-incentives.)

Were incredibly excited about the potential of this new way of identifying promising strategies to promote behavior change, says Milkman, the James G. Dinan Professor at the Wharton School and co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at Penn, which has pioneered the megastudy approach to behavioral science.

One of the key finding from the study is that 45% of these interventionsranging from text reminders to weekly emailssignificantly increased weekly gym visits by 9-27%.

Lots of things worked, and our programs were also extremely cheap, Milkman says. Most programs tested could be deployed at scale for roughly $0.75 per person per month.

The top performing intervention sent gym members who missed a scheduled workout 125 bonus points (or $0.09) on top of their usual micro-incentives if they made it back to the gym for their next planned workout. This led to a 27% boost in gym visits.

We think this finding is really interesting, Milkman explains. It suggests how important it is to avoid having a series of missteps when youre pursuing a goal. Well all slip up from time-to-time, but this simple intervention that discouraged people from letting a single miss accumulate into a streak of failures helped people quite a lot.

Another top-performing incentive informed gym members that most Americans are exercising, and that exercise is trending up resulted in a 24% boost in visits.

The trending norms intervention was developed by our collaborator Robert Cialdinia brilliant psychologist who has long studied the power of norms to shape behavior, says Duckworth, the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences and Wharton who co-directs the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at Penn with Milkman. The contribution here is that learning that exercise is increasingly popular motivated people to visit the gym more often.

The megastudy model allows scientists to compare dozens of different behaviors change interventions, which can accelerate the development and testing of new insights about human behavior.

The study has helpful insights for those hoping to build exercise into more of their daily lives, but its impact stretches beyond that, according to the researchers.

Were really doing two things in this work, Milkman says. The first is introducing a new methodology for accelerating the generation of rigorously tested behavioral science insights. The second is learning more about what techniques can be used to encourage physical activity and more generally motivate the pursuit of effortful goals.

This kind of study is having important implications for the future, and the method has been used to test the best messages to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Were tremendously proud that weve been able to leverage the nearly 150 brilliant scientific minds affiliated with the Behavior Change for Good Initiative to help generate key insights about pressing social problems, says Duckworth. We hope to continue advancing the science and practice of behavior change for good in leaps and bounds in the years ahead.

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A Wharton study on the best ways to boost workout habits | Penn Today - Penn Today

Human Behavior

Into the wild: Scientists strive to stop animal diseases from igniting the next pandemic – AAMC

January 11, 2022 medical

In the mid-1300s, fleas hitching rides on rats helped to set off the deadliest pandemic in human history. The rodents, infected with bubonic plague, had climbed aboard merchant ships and caravans heading from Asia to Europe where, historians believe, the fleas abandoned the dying rats and moved in with humans. The infected bugs are cited as a major cause of the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75 million to 200 million people.

Nearly seven centuries later, another fatal illness that appears to have jumped from animals to people spread more quickly on the efficient wheels of modern travel. While the bubonic plague took weeks (at least) to reach neighboring regions from Asia on the sluggish transportation of the Middle Ages, the COVID-19 virus whisked across continents and oceans from China in days, riding with people on planes, trains, and automobiles. It ranks as the sixth most deadly human epidemic or pandemic in history, claiming 5.4 million lives and counting.

COVID-19 is the latest disease to demonstrate an alarming trend in infections: Zoonoses diseases that spill from animals to humans are occurring more frequently and spreading faster than ever. Zika, swine flu, West Nile virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and Middle East respiratory syndrome are just some of the major zoonotic epidemics and pandemics from the past several decades. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated in 2016 that up to 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic.

Its going to happen more often, says David Morens, MD, senior advisor to the directorat the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), based in Bethesda, Maryland.

Thats not because viruses are getting stronger; rather, infectious disease experts say, human behavior has increased conditions for people to catch diseases from animals and accelerate the spread of infections, largely by bringing people and animals into more frequent contact through development and travel.

The world is getting closer together, says Jay Varma, MD, director of the new Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medicine Medical College in New York City.

The center is among a slew of recent initiatives designed to address the problem. Last year, NIAID began funding an $82 million grant program to create a global network of Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases (CREID), with an emphasis on zoonoses. This past May, several international organizations including the UNEP and the World Health Organization created a One Health High-Level Expert Panel to improve understanding of how diseases with the potential to trigger pandemics, emerge and spread, also with a focus on zoonoses. This fall, the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Vet) in Philadelphia opened the Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases to foster innovative strategies with health researchers, wildlife management agencies, and others.

Among the strategies for all: Improve surveillance of animals to curtail and maybe even prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases.

Preventing spillover [to humans] is the real way to prevent epidemics, says Jonathan Epstein, DVM, PhD, MPH, vice president for science and outreach at EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that leads a collaboration in the CREID Network to improve the understanding of and response to zoonotic outbreaks in Southeast Asia. But because prevention involves so many complicated strategies, thats the hardest thing to do.

Animals and humans trade bacteria, parasites, and fungi all the time, usually to no harmful effect. As explained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people commonly contract animal germs through contact with infected creatures (typically with their bodily fluids or through a bite), time spent in areas where those creatures live (such as among chicken coops, caves, and collections of water), or consumption of contaminated food (such as fruit soiled by animals).

Among the challenges to preventing zoonoses is that their routes to humans can be direct or circuitous. The viruses that cause versions of swine flu, for example, jump from pigs to humans mostly at farms, researchers believe. Other zoonoses are delivered by so-called vector insects, which transfer pathogens from host animals to people. These illnesses include Zika (from monkeys via mosquitos) and Lyme disease (from deer and mice via ticks). Some zoonoses use animals as intermediaries: The leading theory behind the outbreak of COVID-19 is that a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) jumped from bats to other animals in China before infecting humans through contact with infected animals sold for consumption at wet markets.

The ensuing pandemic has given scientists an opportunity to focus the worlds attention on the zoonotic phenomenon and how to protect against more pandemics. The reasons for the growing risk include the expansion of human development (such as suburban sprawl) and activity (such as deforestation) into the territories of wild animals; climate change, which is forcing animals to migrate into areas populated by people; the globalization of trade, including of animals and animal meat for consumption; urbanization, which is squeezing people and animals into denser living conditions; and more frequent and speedy human travel around the world.

In summary, Morens says, Were stirring the pot.

Some of the worlds most active pots are in Southeast Asia, where scientists frequently venture into animal habitats to track zoonotic outbreaks.

In Thailand, bats are ubiquitous around woodlands, waterways, farms, and homes; theyre even pitched as tourist attractions. Bats are also among the worlds most prolific culprits of zoonoses because they host lots of viruses that dont sicken them but that they spread as they fly from place to place, biting and getting eaten by other creatures and dropping guano, which people harvest as fertilizer.

Thats why scientists spent two decades there (2001-20) collecting blood, urine, and nasal samples from fruit bats, pigs, and hospital patients to see if they carried the Nipah virus (NiV), a rare but deadly zoonotic disease that killed 100 people in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore in 1999 and keeps reemerging among humans in several countries. The pig and human samples in Thailand tested negative, but in 19 of the years the scientists found the virus in bats.

The risk of a NiV outbreak in Thailand is increasingly possible, the researchers warned in a report published last July.

Animal surveillance is a growing strategy to detect the spread of pathogens from one species to the other. The process is routine among livestock used in food production to get an early jump on diseases that might wipe out animals as well as infect people but scattershot among wildlife, due to the effort and cost of getting to habitats and collecting samples. The scientists in Thailand, for example, visited farms to swab mucus from pig noses and forests to draw blood from bat wings and lay tarp under trees to catch bat urine all to track a potential outbreak.

Putting in that effort for an uncertain return is why preventive surveillance is not the norm. Governments and universities typically launch surveillance after a patient is stricken by an illness suspected of coming from an animal because the virus is unknown among humans or has been found in animals before. The detective work includes determining what animals and animal spaces the patient had been in contact with and searching genetic databases kept by universities and governments to see if the pathogen in the patient matches any that have been found in animals.

You want to get an idea of where the problem is most likely to be coming from, then do more close-up surveillance of animals and humans in that area to hone in on the hot spots where transmission is most likely occurring, Morens says.

Once hot spots are found, mitigation actions include continuously testing people and animals to track the contagion; improving human sanitation practices; minimizing human contact with species that host the pathogen (such as by not consuming the host animal and not entering its habitats); and, as a last and controversial resort, killing off thousands of the host animals.

During the project in Thailand, government and academic institutions launched a campaign based on a book, Living Safely with Bats, developed by the U.S. Agency for International Development to teach people how to protect themselves. The strategies included not killing, cooking, or eating bats (which is common in parts of Asia) and not drinking water that might include bat droppings.

Sampling animals also increases knowledge about how a pathogen works. Understanding these viruses gives us the ability to inform the development of drugs and vaccines, to know what other related viruses are out there, and to more rapidly trace outbreaks, says Epstein at EcoHealth, which is based in New York City.

He adds, however, that animal surveillance as its currently carried out has significant limitations.

Early research indicated that Ebola was transmitted to humans by apes maybe. And that SARS was transmitted to humans by civets maybe. Later evidence pointed to bats as the natural reservoir. One limitation of animal surveillance and genetic sequencing of viruses is that they cannot always determine precisely how a pathogen spilled over to people.

Another drawback is the after-the-fact nature of all responses to zoonoses.

Thats the traditional paradigm: Wait until theres a human outbreak, then put intervention into place, Epstein says. Look what happened with COVID. By the time we recognized a handful of cases, it was too late.

He and other veterinary leaders advocate for more surveillance to be regularly carried out in places with high concentrations of animals that harbor viruses that might infect humans and where people come in frequent contact with them. Scientists could see what known and potential zoonoses are spreading among animals and monitor humans more closely, as was done in Thailand.

We need to be thinking about doing that in areas where spillover events are quite possible, like wet markets, notes Daniel Beiting, PhD, associate director of Penn Vets new Institute for Infectious and Zoonotic Diseases.

That approach has limits, too: Its impossible to predict what virus or bacteria from an animal might infect people. I cannot take a sequence of a virus that came out of an animal and tell you that it is definitely going to be a human pathogen, says W. Ian Lipkin, MD, director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

Thats one reason that surveillance is just one of several strategies against zoonoses. Epstein and others who follow the One Health approach which emphasizes managing the shared environments of people, animals, and plants advocate for larger changes in human behavior, such as curbing development into areas heavily populated by wildlife, reducing deforestation, confronting climate change, and reducing consumption of certain animals.

At Weill Cornell Medicine, Varma sees academic medicine playing a larger role in these efforts, including increasing coordination among veterinary, academic medicine, and public health institutions to share data; providing more interdisciplinary training in medical and veterinary education to increase understanding of contagion; and helping physicians know when to ask ill patients about their contacts with animals that might spread disease.

Says Varma: Doing cross-education about the role of environmental change in the emergence and transmission of disease, understanding how diseases emerge in animals and how human and animal health is integrated building that into the training of clinicians will, over time, help to build the cultural change that leads to better protection for everyone.

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Into the wild: Scientists strive to stop animal diseases from igniting the next pandemic - AAMC

Human Behavior

Using Protection Motivation Theory to Predict Adherence to COVID-19 Behavioral Guidelines – DocWire News

January 11, 2022 medical

This article was originally published here

Behav Med. 2022 Jan 10:1-10. doi: 10.1080/08964289.2021.2021383. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 has become a global pandemic. Throughout most of the pandemic, mitigating its spread has relied on human behavior, namely on adherence to protective behaviors (e.g., wearing a face mask). This research proposes that Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) can contribute to understanding differences in individual adherence to COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. PMT identifies four fundamental cognitive components that drive responses to fear appeals: perceptions of susceptibility (to the disease), severity (of the disease), self-efficacy (to protect oneself), and response efficacy (i.e., recommended behaviors effectiveness). Two online self-report studies assessed PMT components capacity to predict adherence to protective behaviors concurrently and across culturally different countries (Israel, Germany, India; Study 1), and again at six-week follow-up (Israeli participants; Study 2). Study 1s findings indicate excellent fit of the PMT model, with about half of the variance in adherence explained. No significant differences were found between participants from Israel (n = 917), Germany (n = 222) and India (n = 160). Study 2 (n = 711) confirmed that PMT components continue to predict adherence after six weeks. In both studies, response efficacy was the PMT component most strongly associated with adherence levels. This study demonstrates that PMT can serve as a theoretical framework to better understand differences in adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors. The findings may further inform the design of adherence-promoting communications, suggesting that it may be beneficial to highlight response efficacy in such messages.

PMID:35000566 | DOI:10.1080/08964289.2021.2021383

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Using Protection Motivation Theory to Predict Adherence to COVID-19 Behavioral Guidelines - DocWire News

Human Behavior

Faith and Values: The important distinction between justice and equity – The Spokesman-Review

January 11, 2022 medical

What, exactly, is fair? What is justice? Definitions abound but few satisfy. One example, the principle of moral rightness, begs more questions. What is moral? What is rightness?

A recent Faith and Values column called for a higher standard that reflects Christs teachings so that they become visible in our own life by the way we show unity and love in a world of division and violence. Such morality is captured by the golden rule, an ideal found in most religions but rarely realized. Bahaullah wrote, if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself.

Elsewhere he wrote, The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice. Justice provides inherent wisdom. It allows us to see with our own eyes and not through the eyes of others and know with our own knowledge and not through the knowledge of our neighbors. Verily justice is My gift to thee, writes Bahaullah, and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

Equity confers a higher justice. Often confused with justice, equity implies a justice that transcends the strict letter of the law. It is in keeping with what is reasonable rather than what is merely legal. Essentially, justice is the letter of the law, equity the spirit of the law.

Justice isnt always equitable; applying a law equitably seems sometimes impossible, partly because of legal precedents. Is it justice to prosecute a trespasser who cant read the No Trespassing sign? What would be an equitable application of this law?

Justice and equity are twin Guardians that watch over men the cause of the well-being of the world and the protection of the nations, Bahullh wrote.

Abdul-Baha observes that humans are created and adorned differently from, and above, other animals. This requires man to have love and affinity for his own kind, nay rather, to act towards all living creatures with justice and equity.

Such guidance suggests that human behavior toward all living things, as well as the nonliving elements that support them, should reflect this ethic. Ecosystems provide sustenance, life itself. Is it equitable for some of us to damage and degrade systems that support all of us? We create pollution and greenhouse gases that affect our entire planet. These are not easy questions to resolve, but resolve them we must if we are to avoid further consequences of our reckless behavior.

A standard of behavior based on justice and equity was described by Shoghi Effendi, grandson of Abdul-Baha. He calls for a rectitude of conduct, with its implications of justice, equity, truthfulness, honesty, fair-mindedness, reliability, and trustworthiness.

High standards indeed! Yet essential if we are to overcome division and violence. Solving these problems must employ, yet transcend, technological solutions. It will require morality justice and equity for all sisters and brothers sharing our planet.

Its unlikely any of us can meet all these standards, yet we can try even knowing we wont attain them. Staying aware of such standards is a good beginning. We can bring ourselves to daily account and ask, Howd I do? And we can respond truthfully. Maybe resolve to do better.

By doing this, we purify our characters and improve our conduct. The purpose of Gods revelation is to educate the souls of men, and refine the character of every living man.

This education begins with parents prayers before the birth of each child. It continues as children learn to speak and pray, and to love the Creator. Such love generates a spiritual sense of equity and justice in us all.

Armed with a bachelors degree in English literature, Pete Haug plunged into journalism fresh out of college. That career lasted five years while he reported for a metropolitan daily, edited a rural weekly and worked in industrial and academic public relations. Petes columns on the Bahai faith represent his own understanding and not any official position.

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Faith and Values: The important distinction between justice and equity - The Spokesman-Review

Human Behavior

Gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon impact behavior of all organisms even humans – Study Finds

January 11, 2022 medical

SO PAULO, Brazil Maybe there really is something to the stories that strange things happen during a full moon. A new study finds that all biological organisms, from plants, to animals, to human beings, all have a connection to the gravitational forces coming the Sun and Moon.

Researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom say their work reinforces the historical link between gravitational tides and how they affect the behavior of all life on Earth.

All matter on Earth, both live and inert, experiences the effects of the gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon expressed in the form of tides. The periodic oscillations exhibit two daily cycles and are modulated monthly and annually by the motions of these two celestial bodies. All organisms on the planet have evolved in this context. What we sought to show in the article is that gravitational tides are a perceptible and potent force that has always shaped the rhythmic activities of these organisms, study author Cristiano de Mello Gallep says in a media release.

The team reviewed past studies and also conducted experiments of their own, examining how both plants and animals set their biological clocks to the movement of these celestial objects. The new study shows that even when organisms dont have light to judge the time of day, their bodies alter their behavior according to the gravitational tides acting on the planet.

The data shows that in the absence of other rhythmic influences such as lighting or temperature, local gravitational tides are sufficient to organize the cyclical behavior of these organisms. This evidence questions the validity of so-called free-run experiments, in which several environmental factors are controlled but gravitational oscillations are not taken into consideration. These oscillations continue to exist, and may modulate the behavior of living organisms, Gallep explains.

Body rhythms which sync up with night and day, better known as circadian rhythms, are a popular topic in sleep studies. Despite their importance to sleep patterns and general health, researchers found that they could take creatures out their natual light-and-dark environments, and they still maintained a regular body rhythm cycle in line with Sun-Moon tidal forces. One of these animals are crustaceans, such as crabs and lobsters.

These animals modulate their behavior in tune with the ebb and flow of the tides, in a cycle of approximately 12.4 hours that derives from lunisolar dynamics, even when theyre moved to a laboratory with stable and controlled aquatic conditions, Gallep says. The pattern persists for several days, matching lunisolar tidal timing at the site where the organisms were collected in nature.

The team notes that even though the gravitational effect of the Sun and Moon only have a fraction of the impact Earths gravity has on life, its still enough to cause changes to the oceans, rivers, lakes, and planets tectonic plates.

In experiments examining the sprouting of seeds, the team found that even plants make periodic adjustments to these cycles.

I observed that changes in the signal collected appeared every 12 or 24 hours, but differed in each germination test. When I looked for support in the literature, I found studies pointing to a possible correlation with gravitational tides. We explored this phenomenon in subsequent tests on various types of seed, and also added results obtained in the laboratory by collaborators in Prague, Czech Republic, in Leiden, Netherlands, and in Hamamatsu, Japan, Gallep concludes.

Previous studies have revealed that people can also sync up with the Moon cycles when they dont get enough sunlight. Study authors note that humans staying in the dark for long periods of time (like living in a cave) still established a cyclical fluctuation of 24.4 to 24.8 hours which is in harmony with a lunar cycle.

This body rhythm cycle manages a persons sleeping and wake times, mealtimes, and other metabolic processes.

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

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Gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon impact behavior of all organisms even humans - Study Finds

Human Behavior

Letters to the editor Jan. 9 – Daily Inter Lake

January 11, 2022 medical

Second Amendment

Dont let the anti-Second Amendment crowd distract you from the actual problem we face with violence here in the USA.

We dont just have a gun violence problem here in the United States of America we have a people violence problem. Whenever people are using guns, knives, baseball bats, hammers, sticks, stones, vehicles, explosives, or poison to kill each other, it is never the fault of the method, or inanimate object used. It is always due to the common denominator; criminal minded humans.

Humans are very ingenious when it comes to harming their fellow humans. Humans are also very ingenious at skirting the law when they are so inclined. It is extremely foolish to try and control human behavior by controlling the inanimate objects used to commit crimes. Humans have been harming each other since we first appeared on Earth and will continue to do so long after guns, etc. have been replaced with more potent weapons. At this point all object control laws will be obsolete, but behavior control laws will not.

A criminal mind set is a character flaw and that is what needs to be controlled. The motive for any criminal act is a perceived reward. Remove that reward and replace it with an unwanted consequence and the criminal will be discourage from doing it.

The severity of the unwanted consequence is not what stops criminal acts. It is the surety of that consequence that does it.

Lets put our thinking caps on and make sure each criminal act results in an appropriate unwanted consequence for the criminal and only the criminal.

Catch-and-release is not working and repeatedly writing ineffective laws against inanimate objects while expecting a different result is insane.

Gerald W Hurst, Marion

The Dec. 8 edition of the Inter Lake included a story entitled No Permit, No Problem, about Montana joining the growing number of states allowing constitutional carry of guns. Some proponents of the permitless carry bill argue that people needing protection quickly do not have time to take an eight-hour class or wait through the permitting process. I believe that by eliminating the requirement for gun owners to take classes and undergo background checks to carry a firearm, the likelihood increases that unhinged people with easy access to concealed firearms will put law enforcement and citizens at greater risk of harm.

For example, a Helena court recently sentenced a Montana man charged with felony assault with a weapon and two concealed weapons charges. Police alleged that he got into an altercation with employees at a Helena restaurant when he was asked to wear a mask. He reportedly threatened the restaurant manager and employees, at one point patting his handgun and saying, Im going to get you.

Montanas attorney general Austin Knudsen told the Lewis and Clark County prosecutor to dismiss the concealed carry charges. Although the district judge strongly disagreed with Knudsens decision, he reduced the sentence to disorderly conduct, a $100 misdemeanor charge.

As another example, a year-old Inter Lake article entitled Flathead Man with Long Criminal Record Gets Prison Time, a local man stole an unlocked truck containing a handgun. During three reported confrontations, he used the handgun to intimidate and threaten individuals. He was eventually spotted by Montana Highway Patrol and a high-speed chase ensued, some of it the wrong way down U.S. 93. HIs criminal record dates back 20 years. He is precisely the wrong person you want having easy access to firearms.

I believe that those who threaten violence when asked by restaurant staff to follow public safety rules or flee at high speeds armed with stolen guns pose a danger to all of us. Making guns accessible to all without background checks invites lawlessness and chaos. There is an old adage: when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. We have arrived at a place, the Wild West, where all of us have guns including the outlaws.

Joseph Biby, Kalispell

Just like the frog in slow boiling water who didnt notice the danger, we seem to be in a similar situation where things are consistently changing at every moment. But because the change is small, most of us fail to notice it.

The Epoch Times newspaper put out a series of articles on How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World.

The series explains: The specter of communism has been working for centuries to corrupt and destroy humanity. It began by crippling man spiritually, divorcing him from his divine origins. From here, the specter has led the peoples of the world to cast out their millennia-old cultural traditions that the divine had meticulously arranged as the proper standards for human existence.

The series explains how the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our family values, schools, universities, government, media, real estate every aspect of American life, bringing the U.S. into a chaotic state, and how it is causing the destruction of our beliefs. This series helps us to understand how we are being slowly manipulated into accepting communism. Also, this global pandemic could have been avoided if the CCP hadnt been deceitful and lied.

Katherine Combes, Kalispell

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Letters to the editor Jan. 9 - Daily Inter Lake

Human Behavior

Coughing down toward the ground reduces the spread of COVID droplets, researchers say – WGNO New Orleans

January 11, 2022 medical

WASHINGTON (StudyFinds.org) Feel a cough coming on? Look down, fast! Researchers say the best way to keep virus particles from spreading indoors this winter is to point our heads down when we feel the need to cough.

As more people head indoors during the winter months, how the public keeps COVID-19 droplets from spreading in tight, enclosed environments becomes vitally important. Previous studies show that coughs and sneezes spread viral aerosols up to six feet away and possibly even farther.

To see how human behavior can eitherhelp or hurt this flow, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences modeled how respiratory droplets react when people go up or walk down a flight of stairs.

Two different patterns of droplets dispersion are observed due to the different wake flows, reports researcher Hongping Wang in amedia release. These results suggest that we should cough with the head down toward the ground to ensure that most of the droplets enter the wake region.

Study authors used mannequins expelling white resin tosimulate coughsfrom people on stairs. They also positioned the mannequins to lean forward, in the way many people do while walking upstairs, and lean back like many do while walking down.

In a water tunnel, results revealed a wake forming around the bodies while they were in motion. This wake was able to sweep up coughing particles falling towards the ground. However, particles above the head were able to spread outover a relatively large area as if the particles were coming from the very top of the persons head.

For mannequins simulating people walking up the stairs, most of the particles stayed below the shoulder, moving downward over a short distance. For the mannequins simulating people walking down the stairs, more particles moved above the head and were able totravel farther through the air.

The major challenge is how to use particles in water to simulate the droplets in the air, Wang says. The most surprising part was that the particles higher than the head can travel a much longer distance than those particles lower than the head due to the induction of the wake flow.

The study is published in the journalAIP Advances.

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Coughing down toward the ground reduces the spread of COVID droplets, researchers say - WGNO New Orleans

Human Behavior

Year of the grizzly: how 2021 conflicts might shape our perspectives on bears – Missoulian

January 11, 2022 medical

Editor's note:

This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have comemoreinto focusin recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced byreporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

OVANDO - Which grizzly bear defined the summer of 2021?

Was it Monica, the aging sow on the northern edge of Glacier National Park who had to be killed by game wardens after she and her subadult cubs of the year went on garbage-raiding sprees at cabins along the North Fork of the Flathead River?

Or Felicia, an equally prolific female with cubs who became a traffic hazard on Togwotee Pass east of Grand Teton National Park, inspiring a posse of volunteer bear patrollers who tried to keep the peace between camera-slinging tourists and bears trying to make a living along a federal highway?

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Or was it the unnamed 4-year-old male grizzly that killed a bike-camper in her tent in Ovando, roughly halfway between Glacier and Grand Teton, in the middle of whats fast become one of the most contentious Endangered Species Act debate in the nation?

The July 6 mauling death of Leah Davis Lokan, 65, made international headlines.

To say the incident happened in downtown Ovando overstates the size of the ranching center along Highway 200 thats grown equally popular with trout anglers and long-distance bike tourists. But looking at where Lokan pitched her tent, a dozen feet from the Brand Bar Museum, next door to the post office and across the main street from a grocery, caf, and fly-fishing store, puts the attack squarely in the center of human habitat.

Grizzly attack 1

Jamie Jonkel, a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife management specialist, helped search for the bear that was involved in the fatal Ovando mauling.

Grizzly attack 2

Businesses in Ovando were open the day after the attack. The mauling remained a topic of discussion.

Grizzly attack 3

State wildlife officials eventually matched DNA taken from a grizzly killed on July 9 to evidence from the fatal mauling in Ovando on July 6. The suspect grizzly had also raided two chicken coops in the Ovando area, and was killed by a federal Wildlife Services agent near one of the coops.

Grizzly attack 4

One of five bear traps that was set up in Ovando shortly after the attack.

Grizzly attack 1

Jamie Jonkel, a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife management specialist, helped search for the bear that was involved in the fatal Ovando mauling.

Grizzly attack 2

Businesses in Ovando were open the day after the attack. The mauling remained a topic of discussion.

Grizzly attack 3

Grizzly attack 4

One of five bear traps that was set up in Ovando shortly after the attack.

The details of the other two grizzlies, including the names Monica and Felicia, illustrate how humans have pushed the other way, into places grizzlies used to dominate. When Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery at the opening of the 19th century, an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears inhabited the Lower 48 States west of the 100th meridian the longitudinal line running roughly from North Dakota to Texas.

A dozen decades later, the bear emblazoned on the flag of California was nearly extinct throughout its natural range. Systematic destruction of its habitat and numbers, by ranchers, farmers and government agents, removed the grizzly bear from virtually every place except the preserves of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

Remarkably, the grizzlys attractiveness to tourists spared it from National Park Service predator culls. An 1895 Yellowstone superintendents report mentions the bears had increased notably after the U.S. Army put out garbage to feed them, while other bounty hunters were eradicating the wolves, mountain lions and coyotes in the park.

When the grizzly bear became the eighth animal given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, somewhat fewer than 600 individual bears remained between Canada and Mexico. Over the next 45 years, two numbers changed: Grizzly populations grew from 600 to an estimated 2,100 in the recovery zones of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. And humans in the same space expanded from 1.9 million to 3.4 million.

What didnt change was the size of the landscape. Put another way, people in the Rocky Mountain West went from 5.9 per square mile to 10.3 per square mile between 1975 and 2020. Grizzlies went from .002 to .006 per square mile.

Monica the North Fork grizzly was about 20 years old when Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks killed her and her three yearling cubs in early September. In her lifetime, annual visitation to Glacier National Parks Polebridge entrance went from 31,000 to 89,000, data shows.

While she often spent time near homes and was observed by residents, she did not cause conflicts that we knew about until the fall of 2018 when she had just two of her three yearlings with her, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Tim Manley noted in a report to the North Fork Preservation Association. The initial reports we had were that the family group had ripped into a yurt, damaged two vehicles, got into unsecured garbage and had pushed on a trailer.

Wardens captured Monicas two yearlings, who were suspected of causing the most trouble, and killed them. She gave birth to three more cubs in 2020, but had no reported conflicts. Things stayed quiet until this summer.

Manley said in late August, Monica and her triplet yearlings got into trouble all over the Polebridge vicinity. They knocked over barbecues, broke into improperly closed bear-resistant trash cans, pulled garbage out of a horse trailer, broke windows out of a pickup topper to get food, damaged a car that didnt have any food, and tore the wall out of a camper trailer to get a big food reward.

The sow and all three of her yearlings were captured and killed.

I have said it many times before, killing bears is the worst part of my job, Manley told the homeowners. We try to avoid having to do it, but when bears become very food-conditioned and start causing property damage and breaking into vehicles, trailers and cabins, those bears are removed.

Outside Grand Teton, the opposite problem developed. People wouldnt leave Felicia alone.

Wildlife biologists call the bear by her number, 863, which means she was the 863rd bear to be caught and affixed with a telemetry collar in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. On social media, she became Felicia.

Either way, the female with cubs wholikes to munch on grass and clover near Highway 26/287 in western Wyoming has become one of the most famous grizzly bears after fellow Grand Teton Bear 399. And her propensity to be near traffic and apparent nonchalance about hordes of people gathering to take pictures helped make her into a bit of a social media sensation. She also created a traffic hazard, according to Wyoming wildlife and law enforcement officials, not to mention the daily possibility that one of those photographers will inch just a little too close before everyone remembers too late that grizzly bears on the side of the road are still grizzly bears.

Wildlife watchers pull off along the side of U.S. Highway 26/287 east of Moran, Wyoming, to catch a glimpse of grizzly bear 863, known as Felicia.

Were trying to alter the bears behavior but also trying to fix peoples behavior, and thats where the big challenge is, said Dan Thompson, large carnivore section supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. From a human psychological standpoint its been fascinating to be involved with.

Draw a line about 25 miles to the south and the human behavior aspect of the story changes.

Ranchers say theyre struggling against an increasing number of grizzlies preying on their cattle. Problem grizzlies must be managed, and often lethally removed. Their ranching livelihoods depend on it. Conservation groups are suing to stop those killings, and leasing in general. Grizzlies and cattle dont mix, they say, among other things.

At the same time, new homeowners are buying houses and property, often sight unseen, throughout the stretch of land bordering Yellowstone National Park on any side. The buffer has long been a place where grizzlies could wander with minimal impact, with its human residents long-ago trained in the art of keeping food away from bears. Wildlife managers worry the flood of new residents may not be so bear wise, and that conflicts will only increase.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Highway Patrol and Forest Service tried placing flashing signs telling people not to stop on the side of the road. They threatened tickets to those standing in traffic, ignoring oncoming vehicles. Eventually, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to spend a couple of weeks hazing the female with cubs to make her leave the road and move further into the mountains.

Jack Bayles understands that some people behaved irresponsibly. Watchers started a live video stream from Togwotee Pass to alert anyone following them when she appeared. People from as far as Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah and Colorado came to the area, and some approached her and her cubs far too closely.

The grizzly sow known as Felicia and her cub of the year saunter down the highway onTogwotee Pass in 2019. A multi-agency effort has begun to haze the grizzly away from the roadside due to regular traffic jams.

But the best reaction wasnt to shoot the bear with rubber bullets and bean bags, he said. Instead, Bayles said he believes officials should have managed the human side of the situation.

They have no problem when that section is a parking lot in the weekend in the winter and people are dragging trailers 90 mph down icy roads, Bayles said. Its not the land of many uses, just the land of uses we approve of.

Bayles is one of countless guides in the Yellowstone region and across bear country stretching from Jackson to Katmai National Park in Alaska that take people out to watch bears and other wildlife. He started his business in 2015 with his wife, Gina, and named it Team 399 after the regions other famous bear.

The accidental ambassador of her species, she is representative of a new age in human wildlife relationships where coexistence and understanding are the new way, where a love of the wild is foremost in our hearts and minds, their website reads.

He wants to raise awareness for conservation issues. He wants to give back to the wild places and wild creatures that have given so much to us. He also knows that most people coming to Yellowstone or other areas with grizzly bears are there, at least in part, for the chance to see a grizzly bear.

Its the only place in the world where the common middle class person can see a grizzly bear in the wild, Bayles said. You could say over the course of our life, bear 399 is a billion-dollar bear to the Wyoming economy.

Grizzly bear No. 399 and her four cubs cross a road as Cindy Campbell stops traffic in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Nov. 17, 2020. Many people watched and followed the travels of the well-known 24-year-old bear and her cubs right up until they denned for the winter.

There is going to be conflict between bears and people, Thompson said. We will have to lethally remove grizzly bears for the greater good theres the potential for humans to be injured and even killed, and thats the reality of it. The notion of a future of bears and humans together without conflict is very nave.

As far as the future? I dont think its going to get any easier.

In Ovando, the future holds a lot of work.

While complete details surrounding the death of Lokan await the release of a Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Board of Review report, a big part of the small town was on the scene that night, trying to staunch the campers fatal wounds and wondering what had triggered the attack.

For many, it was a replay of The Night of the Grizzlies, the famous book chronicling the 1967 tragedy when two women in two separate campgrounds were attacked and killed by two separate grizzlies on the same night in Glacier National Park. At the time, resort managers in both Glacier and Yellowstone national parks deliberately left garbage out to attract grizzly bears for tourist viewing. Some Yellowstone hotels even set up bleachers to watch the evening show.

That food conditioning combined with growing popularity of backcountry camping put two 19-year-old hotel workers in the path of two predators in a place marketed and managed for recreation.

Night of the Grizzlies newspaper clip

Link:
Year of the grizzly: how 2021 conflicts might shape our perspectives on bears - Missoulian

Human Behavior

Comment: Closing schools won’t halt omicron; it will hurt kids | HeraldNet.com – The Daily Herald

January 11, 2022 medical

By Westyn Branch-Elliman, Elissa Schechter-Perkins and Shira Doron / Special To The Washington Post

With the omicron variant raging across the country, school systems are again shutting down in-person learning as communities grope for ways to protect school staff and ease the strain on overburdened hospitals. Just this week, schools in Chicago and parts of metropolitan Washington, D.C., announced they would move temporarily to remote learning, and more are likely to head in this direction as cases of covid-19 continue to mount.

This approach is rooted in misunderstandings about how viruses spread and a refusal to acknowledge what we have learned two years into the coronavirus pandemic. We have ample evidence that closing schools is not an effective way to contain the virus and is, in fact, harmful to children. We have better ways of keeping the community safe than robbing children of valuable in-school learning.

Consider first what we know about the coronavirus, including the omicron variant. Cases in the United States started skyrocketing over the holidays, while children were home for the winter break and not in school. This is due to the properties of the virus, specifically omicrons higher contagiousness compared with earlier variants and its ability to infect vaccinated people. This is also because of human behavior: People traveled around and gathered indoors for the holidays.

We also know from many studies from the United States and around the world that schools are not major drivers of community spread. A study published in October in the journal Nature Medicine found that, in the 12 weeks after schools reopened in 2020, there were no significant increases in hospitalizations or deaths in surrounding communities.

One reason for this is that the alternative to in-person schooling is not a perfect lockdown; people continue to mix and socialize, and most transmission occurs at home and in social settings, among family and friends when people let their guard down. Schools, on the other hand, are relatively controlled environments, where mitigation measures can be implemented and monitored.

Parents who cannot send their kids to school are forced to find other child care options, which may lead to more mixing and less consistent use of mitigation measures. And other businesses like indoor restaurants and large sports venues where people who do not usually interact gather together and where mitigation measures such as masking cannot be enforced remain open. For all these reasons, kids will get covid-19, whether schools are open or closed.

Another factor to consider is that we have powerful vaccines that dramatically reduce the risk of severe disease. These are widely available for school-age children, ages 5 and older, as well as adults. Many people have access to additional doses that bolster their protection against the worst outcomes. Additionally, although the case numbers are reaching record highs, a glimmer of hope is that omicron appears to cause milder disease, possibly because of mutations that render it less able to infect lung cells.

If in-person learning is not driving the exponential rise in cases or increase in hospitalization rates, then switching to remote learning clearly wont succeed in relieving the strain on the health care system. It might even worsen it.

Schools are not islands; they exist as part of a larger, interconnected community and system. The entire complex community network, including the health care system, relies on open schools to function. More than 4.6 million health care workers are parents of children under the age of 14, according to the Center for American Progress. Many of these health care workers are women, who are responsible for the majority of child care in our society. Hospitals are already struggling with staff shortages and are on the verge of implementing crisis-level staffing to stay afloat. Closing schools will only exacerbate this strain; school closures may mean that at least some of the 30 percent of health care workers who are also parents of young children will stay home to take care of their children, worsening the health care staffing and burnout crisis.

Schools unlike some other businesses are essential, both for children and for working parents. We also know that remote school is a failed experiment; children have suffered learning loss, behavioral challenges abound, and the surgeon general has declared a pediatric mental health crisis.

Nevertheless, schools are closing. And in many of the districts that have not, unscientific and, in some cases, harmful mitigation measures are being implemented, such as silent lunches, instructions to pull masks down only to take bites and then pull it back up to chew, and keeping all doors and windows open in frigid environments.

Living in a constant state of fear and stress is harmful to kids. So why are school leaders doing this, at a time when children need these forms of human connection and normalcy more than ever to help alleviate so much of the damage already done? School leaders may be responding to the fear that staff and families are communicating to them, but fear-based decision-making is not appropriate at this stage of the pandemic. We now know much more than we did about how to maintain safety in school settings and about the harms we are inflicting with school closures.

The pressure on school leaders to act is understandable. Rising cases are often publicized on district dashboards, and leaders are worried they will be accused of making unsafe choices. But the reality is that doing something is not always better than doing nothing; and many of these measures undertaken out of an abundance of caution do more harm than good. The unfortunate reality is that the virus is here to stay, and there will always be another variant. The time is now to commit to putting the best interests of children first.

The other unfortunate reality is that schools across the country may be forced to close because of unsafe staffing ratios when staff members with covid-19 need to isolate. With community case rates as high as they are, some closures are inevitable. However, these closures are of practical necessity, and need to be temporary and short-lived, rather than pandemic-control policy.

Two years ago, those calling for school closures could argue that we didnt know what the impact might be. But now we do; and they are severe. School closures are not an effective measure for controlling spread, they hurt children, and they limit our ability to keep the hospitals open. Theres no justification for putting these policy options back on the table.

Westyn Branch-Elliman is an infectious diseases specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Elissa Schechter-Perkins is vice chair of research in the department of emergency medicine at Boston Medical Center and associate professor of emergency medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Shira Doron is an infectious-disease physician and the hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. She is an associate professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

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Comment: Closing schools won't halt omicron; it will hurt kids | HeraldNet.com - The Daily Herald

Human Behavior

Life in Our Foothills January 2022 – Mountain Page Theater – The Tryon Daily Bulletin – Tryon Daily Bulletin

January 11, 2022 medical

Mountain Page Theater Local Stage and Creative Haven

Story and Photographs By Erin Boggs

If you want to escape the hustle and bustle of our modern life, one of the best ways to refocus is through creative pursuits. What better place to retreat than a little cabin in the woods of Saluda, N.C. known as Mountain Page Theater?

Whether a performer in the Theaters YAK Group (Young Acting Krew) or an audience member, you will feel a marked change in your mood as soon as you pull into your parking space. Handmade glass and metal sculptures surround the building, evoking childhood memories of characters from C.S. Lewiss The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lewis Carrolls Alice In Wonderland all at once. The sculptures, a whimsical, fantastical mix of animals, plants and everyday objects, were created and donated to the Theater by local artist Susan Cannon. At first sight you know you are about to enter a very special and creative place.

In fact, the entirety of the Theater is a donation. Everything from the building to the paint and dcor, the sound system, fireplace, lighting and stage, and even the snacks for the YAK crew and after school program held weekly, are all provided by Saluda community members. Warm colors and sights surround you as soon as you enter. A cozy hearth and kitchen welcoming actors and visitors alike immediately set one at ease.

The Mountain Page Community is the oldest settlement in Henderson County, where the headwaters of the Pacolet River flow into our foothills of South Carolina. The building was donated to the cause in 2018 by the Theaters very first patron Hilda Pace, and after extensive renovations by community members and professionals, Mountain Page Theater was established in 2020. Originally the building and land belonged to Hildas family and was the long-closed site of Mountain Page Community Center. The 13 actors who formed the original group in 2016, after Executive Director Corinne Gerwe posted a notice at the Post Office about starting up a theater troupe, rehearsed at several local venues before finding their permanent home in Mountain Page. Funded by profits made from plays and the YAK Concession Stand, along with donations of supplies and professional services, the work to breathe new life into the building began.

Executive Director Corinne Gerwe, an internationally known neuropsychologist, researcher, professor and author, designed the theater to be a haven for children in the community, where they can develop their creative talents in a safe, warm and inclusive environment. Her lifes work has focused on understanding how the experiences of childhood impact a persons entire life.

As a neuropsychologist, she has worked around the world with high-risk behavior individuals and addiction treatment. Corinne says, During the course of my work, I came to one startling revelation, that when I would investigate the life histories of most of my patients, it just seemed to me that this was where, during their childhood developmental period, their most damaging behavior stemmed from. It could have been averted if these children had been able to talk about what they experienced, or told someone, or at least had another outlet other than the dysfunction that they were caught in, or the abusive situation they were caught in, or whatever damage was done.

After realizing that only writing about it, or working in hospitals where funding was not available, or teaching about it at universities was not a sufficient way to effect the most change, Corinne decided the best way to combat this systemic dysfunction was to work directly with children in a positive and nurturing environment. Practicing many years as a clinician, writer and teacher, Corinne didnt realize at first that the theater would be the next iteration of her career. But when the original 13 young actors showed up, she says When I looked at those kids, I thought this is what Im supposed to do. This is it!

Corinne says I have come full-circle in fulfilling an early childhood desire to live an artistic life, and as a writer I wanted to develop intriguing characters and stories based on what I had learned about human behavior and its extraordinary variations and motivations. Ive always been interested in theater and Im a big fan of anything in the arts. I always thought thats what I should have done, but I was led in that other direction. Now after living for over thirty years in Saluda, Corinne is able to realize her true gifts and brings her invaluable experience to help children and families in the community through the Theater.

Besides directing the YAK Group, Corinne also hosts an after-school program at the Theater on Thursdays for children K-5. She hopes to expand the program to Saturdays as well, with the parents also participating on that day.

The YAK troupe performed a musical play for Christmas, Scrooge, which included members of the Theaters adult player group. The performances on December 17th and 18th, were from an adaptation of the play by Corinne from Charles Dickens original, and she added songs from various Scrooge musicals that have been done through the years, as well as a song that has never been done in any performance of Scrooge.

Formerly from Los Angeles and now a Saluda resident, television, movie and stage actor Gerard Prendergast brought all his experience with childrens theater and donates his time and expertise to the group. Now the Theaters Director, Gerard played Scrooge in the December performances. A big fan of classic radio, Gerard also provided the idea for the troupes performance earlier this year of an on-stage old time radio show featuring Westerns Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger, with the stage set up like the studios from the Golden Age of Radio, complete with vintage microphones and sound effects. The next radio shows will begin this month and will include suspenseful Sherlock Holmes, then comedy by George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Richard Rutherford, also formerly from L.A. and now a Saluda resident, lives within walking distance of the theater and created the state of the art stage, donated the sound system, and handles all the sound and lighting for the Theater. Local electrician Chad Blotner has given many of his weekends to install all the electrical work. Singer and Songwriter Dan Foster from Atlanta also supports the troupe, writing original songs about the Saluda area.

On November 12th and 13th, the Theater hosted Dacre C. Stoker for the event Stoker on Stoker, the Mysteries Behind the Writing of Dracula. Mr. Stoker is an author and the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. The performance featured dramatic readings by Gerard Prendergast and Susan Theodosia Parke, and details all the behind the scenes research and never published text and photographs, a true delight for Dracula fans and scholars around the world.

If you are interested in tickets for any of the upcoming performances mentioned here, learning more about the Theater, or becoming a volunteer or actor in the troupe, you may contact the Mountain Page Theater at: https://mountainpage.theater https://m.facebook.com/groups/792646134782145/

Phone: 828-749-4803

Address: 1303 Mountain Page Rd, Saluda N.C. 28773

For further reading about Corinne Gerwe and her written and professional work, you may visit her website at: https://corinnefgerwe.com

Medical School

Monthly Archives: January 2022

A Wharton study on the best ways to boost workout habits | Penn Today – Penn Today

Using Protection Motivation Theory to Predict Adherence to COVID-19 Behavioral Guidelines – DocWire News

Faith and Values: The important distinction between justice and equity – The Spokesman-Review

Gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon impact behavior of all organisms even humans – Study Finds

Letters to the editor Jan. 9 – Daily Inter Lake

Coughing down toward the ground reduces the spread of COVID droplets, researchers say – WGNO New Orleans

Year of the grizzly: how 2021 conflicts might shape our perspectives on bears – Missoulian

Comment: Closing schools won’t halt omicron; it will hurt kids | HeraldNet.com – The Daily Herald

Life in Our Foothills January 2022 – Mountain Page Theater – The Tryon Daily Bulletin – Tryon Daily Bulletin