All posts by medical

Neuroscience

Check It Out: It’s time to learn, read about time – The Columbian

Tick tock, tick tock, its almost time to change your clocks. I have to admit that it is much harder for me to spring forward than to fall back during daylight saving time, but I will be happy about having extended daylight especially when Im driving home from work. And more daylight means more time to look at the signs of spring popping up everywhere. Nice.

Since youre going to be adjusting all of your watches and clocks soon (which means youre going to be spending time thinking about time), why not keep the theme going by checking out a title or two about, well, time? No matter your time situation you have too little, you have too much the library has some very timely tomes that can assist you with your past, present and future needs.

If you fall in the I-never-have-enough-time camp, check out Pedram Shojais The Art of Stopping Time. Described as providing innovative and mindful time management as inspired by ancient Chinese spiritual practices, this guide will inform and relieve those who constantly feel pressed for time. On the other hand, if you find yourself having time to fill, heres a suggestion: learn a new skill. Apropos of todays theme, Watch Repairing by D. W. Fletcher instructs watch repair novices on how to clean and make minor repairs to broken timepieces.

The subjects of time and how we perceive time are fascinating ones. Several books in the librarys collection focus on these topics as well as why humans are so obsessed and dominated by time. The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, Timekeepers by Simon Garfield and Why Time Fliesby Alan Burdick are excellent resources for anyone who wants to know more about the mysteries of time and time keeping. For a neuroscientists take on the relationship between the brain and time, be sure to read Your Brain is a Time Machine by Dr. Dean Buonomano. Dr. Buonomano says that our brains [are] not designed to understand the nature of time any more than your laptop was designed to write its own software. His exploration of neuroscience and the concept of time will have you thinking about time long after youve finished the book.

Finally, if youve ever wondered if time travel is possible (any Star Trek fan knows it is the Star Trek crew time traveled multiple times), you may want to read Time Travel: A History by James Gleick. Through a variety of cultural and scientific resources Gleick explores the science and the science fiction of traveling through time.

See the article here:
Check It Out: It's time to learn, read about time - The Columbian

Neuroscience

The Link Between the Brain and Architecture – Science Times

(Photo : Reuters)A view of the urban rooftop farm at Bangkok's Thammasat University's Rangsit campus, said to be Asia's biggest. December 4, 2019. Thomson Reuters FoundationRina Chandran

Architecture design can be closely connected to how our brains respond to particular features of our fabricated environment.

Often times you'd hear a friend or someone give comments on the things they see in their surroundings. They would say something about its aesthetic value, or how it attracted them to explore the place further, or that they feel a certain kind of vibe that makes them comfortable and want to stay there. These are pieces of evidence that prove that our environment influences our brains.

For many years, architects have recognized the buildings that we live, work, learn and worship affects the way we feel and act, setting the stage for invigorating interaction, quiet reflection, or inspiration. Architects are now exploring the neuroscientific application to its craft which is mostly described as neuroscience and architecture.

Neuroscientists are prepared to apply their tools and knowledge to planning spaces that will help unleash the potential in people who use them. Architects as well acknowledge the design has a maximum effect when it reflects our understanding of how our brain reacts to different environments.

In a recent study, 800 people online were asked to participate wherein they will rate their experience of seeing the picture of 200 interiors along with 16 psychological factors. The goal is to know whether the 16 psychological factors can be reduced to a few key dimensions. In doing so, the researchers used the principal component analyses (PCA) and the Psychometric Network Analyses (PNA).

With 90% variance, the PCA proved that the factors could be grouped into three key dimensions- coherence, fascination, and hominess. Coherence is defined as to which a scene is organized; it means that appreciation is based on its beauty. On the other hand, the richness to a scene or the urge to want to explore it refers to fascination. Lastly, hominess is the feeling of being comfortable and a feeling of being personal to space. PNA confirmed that the responses by the participants can be classified among these three factors.

An example of the applicability of neuroscience to architecture is the work of a professor of pediatrics Stanley Graven, M.D. about the effects of the environmental conditions among premature infants in neonatal intensive care units. He stressed that the lighting, noise levels, and staff activities that interfere with an infant's sleep cycles could have long-term effects on their developments.

Another example is the study on group homes of people with Alzheimer's disease conducted by John Zeisel, Ph. D., whose background is both in sociology and architecture. He emphasized the relationship between the particular environmental designs and the changes in symptoms in patients such as becoming agitated or displaying aggressive behavior, psychological problems, social withdrawal, depression, hallucination, and misidentification.

Zeisel wrote in his report in Gerontologist in 2003, that it "demonstrates the great opportunity systematic attention to environmental factors open for improving Alzheimer's." He also noted that environments specifically designed to an able person might be a stressor to a person with Alzheimer's thus explaining the changes in symptoms.

Meanwhile, architects have also designed classrooms for more than a century, paving the way to innovations that could give students a conducive learning space. Social and behavioral scientists have studied the effects of lighting on children in classrooms and almost universally report that learning improves when there is more daylight than artificial light.

Lastly, Lindsay Jones, Ph.D. described in his two-volume series The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture his proposal in studying sacred spaces as not merely an architectural object but as setting for ritual occasions, so as to understand how it should be experienced.

Whatever type of architecture it may be, it is important to know that there are several ways space can impact its users and understanding them can help architects and urban planners to design efficient and healthy spaces.

Here is the original post:
The Link Between the Brain and Architecture - Science Times

Neuroscience

Biogen and Sangamo Ink $2.7 Billion+ Neurodegeneration Deal – BioSpace

Biogen and Sangamo Therapeutics announced a broad global licensing collaboration deal to develop and commercialize several compounds for a range of neurological and neuromuscular diseases.

Under the deal they will work to develop and commercialize ST-501 for tauopathies, diseases caused by abnormal tau proteins, such as Alzheimers disease, and ST-501 for synucleinopathies, neurodegenerative diseases marked by abnormal accumulation of alpha-synuclein proteins, such as Parkinsons disease.

They will also work on a third undisclosed target for neuromuscular disease and up to nine more undisclosed neurological disease targets. The agreement revolves around using Sangamos proprietary zinc finger protein (ZFP) technology that is delivered by way of adeno-associated virus (AAV). In other words, it is a type of gene therapy.

As a pioneer in neuroscience, Biogen will collaborate with Sangamo on a new gene regulation therapy approach, working at the DNA level, with the potential to treat challenging neurological diseases of global significance, said Alfred Sandrock Jr., executive vice president, Research and Development, at Biogen. We aim to develop and advance these programs forward to investigational new drug applications.

Biogen is plunking down $350 million up front, with $125 million a license fee payment and $225 million in new Sangamo stock, coming to about 24 million shares at $9.21 per share. Sangamo will be eligible for up to $2.37 billion in various milestone payments, including up to $925 million in pre-approval milestone payments and up to $1.445 billion in first commercial sale and other sales-based milestone payments. Sangamo will also be eligible for tiered high single-digit to sub-teen double-digit royalties on any sales of products coming out of the partnership.

Zing finger transcription factors (ZF-TFs) modulate genes. By targeting a ZF-TF toward a specific DNA sequence, it is possible to up- or downregulate the expression of the genes. The ZF-TFs are delivered into the cell by a dead adeno-associated virus.

Biogen gains exclusive global rights to ST-501 for tauopathies and ST-502 for synucleinopathies, as well as the third undisclosed target, and up to nine more undisclosed targets for five years. Sangamo will handle early research activities and the expenses will be shared by the companies. Biogen will then take over responsibility and costs for investigational new drug-enabling research, clinical development, regulatory submissions and global commercialization.

Sangamo will handle GMP manufacturing operations for the initial clinical trials for the first three products, with expectations of using its in-house manufacturing capabilities. Then Biogen will take over GMP manufacturing activities beyond the first clinical trial.

In preclinical research, ST-501 and ST-502 have repressed both the proteins tau and alpha synuclein, respectively. Its a very long ways from preclinical work and effective medications for these types of neurodegenerative diseases, however. Still, investors seem pleased with it, with Sangamo shares climbing 39% at the news.

The combination of Sangamos proprietary zinc finger technology, Biogens unmatched neuroscience research, drug development, and commercialization experience and capabilities, and our shared commitment to bring innovative medicines to patients with neurological diseases establishes the foundation for a robust and compelling collaboration, said Stephane Boissel, head of Corporate Strategy at Sangamo. This collaboration exemplifies Sangamos commitment to our ongoing strategy to partner programs that address substantial and diverse patient populations in disease areas requiring complex clinical trial designs and commercial pathways, therefore bringing treatments to patients faster and more efficiently, while deriving maximum value from our platform.

Sangamo is a very busy company, with 17 separate preclinical or early-stage clinical projects ongoing. Five of the compounds are in Phase I/II clinical trials, with BIVV003 in sickle cell disease and ST-400 for transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia. ST-920 is for Fabray disease and SB-525 is aimed at hemophilia A.

See the rest here:
Biogen and Sangamo Ink $2.7 Billion+ Neurodegeneration Deal - BioSpace

Neuroscience

New genes preventing healthy aging in China – Free Press Journal

Chinese researchers found that two new genes can prevent healthy aging, which provides a theoretical basis for delaying brain aging, according to a report by Science and Technology Daily.

The research published in Nature was jointly carried out by two research teams from the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, CAS.

Previous studies found that longevity genes do not necessarily delay the behavioral deterioration of animals in aging, which means increasing longevity is rarely accompanied by an extended healthspan.

Through screening of genes that regulate behavioral deterioration in aging Caenorhabditis elegans and the examination of human databases, researchers found that the expression of two genes, BAZ2B and EHMT1, increases with age and correlates positively with the progression of Alzheimer's disease, said the research paper.

The research further showed that reducing the function of BAZ2B can improve cognitive function and behavioral ability of aging C. elegans or mice.

Considering the large species differences between human beings and animals, there is still great uncertainty as to whether the study can be applied to human beings, the researchers said.

Read more:
New genes preventing healthy aging in China - Free Press Journal

Neuroscience

‘Out of control:’ students share their struggles with eating disorders – University Press

Editors note: The Counseling and Psychological Services hotline is 561-297-3540.

Breanna Jomsky didnt get her period for four years.

From late 2011 to 2015, she lived with anorexia, an eating disorder characterized by difficulties maintaining an appropriate body weight for height, age, and stature and, in many individuals, distorted body image, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). Because she was exercising too much and eating too little, her body wasnt able to release an important hormone thats necessary for periods.

She also bruised easily, slept awfully and cried frequently at the thought of eating food.

Now, the cellular neuroscience major says shes as fully recovered as possible. But there are college students who are still struggling with eating disorders. According to the NEDAs most recent data, roughly 5 percent of students enter college with an eating disorder.

This week, NEDA celebrated Eating Disorder Awareness Week, where they encouraged people to reflect on the positive steps youve taken including those stemming from setbacks or challenges toward accepting yourself and others, their website says.

While Jomsky dealt with anorexia, another FAU student, environmental engineering major Samuel Gerstein is currently recovering from binge eating disorder, which is characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food often very quickly and to the point of discomfort and a feeling out-of-control while binging, according to NEDA.

Here are Jomskys and Gersteins stories with each of their eating disorders:

Around August 2011, when Breanna Jomsky was 13 years old, her parents sent her to an endocrinologist because of her menstrual pains. Jomsky said the rude doctor had zero bedside manner, and told her she should lose 15 to 20 pounds. After that, she lost 30 pounds in just three months.

I slowly started eating healthier, Jomsky said, but that just went out of control.

Over the next few years, she ended up visiting five different psychologists. She also saw a nutritionist but was reluctant to.

Jomsky started out lying to her nutritionist about what and how much she was eating and became obsessed with counting calories.

Id be in class and have my calculator out and it would be Spanish and Id be trying to plan things out for the day, she said. That was something that took a lot of brain space and energy.

There are apps that count calories for you now, like MyFitnessPal and Lifesum. But a BBC investigation last year reported that those apps can exacerbate such behaviors and make recovery harder.

Jomsky had eventually lost so much weight that when she would sit in the passenger seat of her moms Honda, the dashboard would notify her that the airbag in her seat was off. She said she didnt weigh enough to activate it.

During that time, she would go to the gym and just to cardio. She avoided parties because of the food and cried at the thought of eating a bowl of pasta.

After getting comfortable with her nutritionist, Jomsky began to gain back weight and she eventually started getting her period again.

Having an eating disorder is like: you want to get better but you dont, Jomsky said. Theres a lot of cognitive dissonance, or inconsistent thoughts about your own attitude or behavior.

Now, Jomsky doesnt just eat the crusts of her turkey sandwiches as a snack anymore or bruise just from sleeping. She lifts at the gym, paints in her Jupiter dorm and sings covers of rock songs.

She thought that once she gained a certain amount of weight, she would just lose it all again.

That didnt happen, luckily, she said. I worked too hard to get to where I was and I was starting to feel better about myself and my body and I just didnt want to go back there.

Samuel Gersteins eating disorder started to develop when he was around 13 years old, he said. Thats when he started the ketogenic diet, which is very restrictive in carbs and high in fat.

Even though it was very extreme, he said, he lost 60 pounds in a year and maintained it for longer than that. But he eventually started to stray away from it and started binging on weekends.

I would eat copious amounts of carbs and sugary food because I was depriving myself of it, he said. As school started to get harder, I noticed I would binge and I would literally just shove food down my throat. And it kind of got out of hand.

Now 16 years old, the FAU High environmental engineering major said hes recently started to recover by going to therapy.

He stopped following the ketogenic diet around last September, since Hurricane Dorian hit Florida and the same high-fat foods werent going to be available to him. But once he stopped, he said he felt so much better.

Why was I eating that way? he asked himself after coming off the diet. I shouldnt be having this infinite sense of hunger.

One of the biggest misconceptions he thinks people have about eating disorders is that you have to look a certain way specifically, he said, its not just people who are skinny that have eating disorders.

According to NEDA, binge eating disorder is three times more common than anorexia and bulimia combined.

People like myself, that do engage in disordered eating, arent aware that you dont need to be 2 percent body fat to have an eating disorder, he said. You can be skinny and you can be healthy; you can be chubby and you can have anorexia; or you can be skinny and have binge eating disorder.

Gerstein also advocated for people who may have eating disorders but dont yet know it because they cant afford the means to get help, like low-income families. He argued that structural change needs to be made to allow more people access to nutritious food rather than frozen and canned foods.

I think that we have a very fatphobic culture inside of our health institutions, as well as inside of our inside of our social system, he said. And its a very degrading system of oppression that we see.

Kristen Grau is the editor-in-chief of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [emailprotected] or tweet her at @_kristengrau.

Continued here:
'Out of control:' students share their struggles with eating disorders - University Press

Human Behavior

Children With Autism Saw Their Learning and Social Skills Boosted After Playing With This AI Robot – Newsweek

Scientists who designed an artificially intelligent robot that helped children with autism boost their learning and social skills hope such technology could one day aid others with the developmental disorder.

The study saw seven children with mild to moderate autism take home what is known as a socially assistive robot, named Kiwi, for a month. According to a statement by the University of Southern California where the team is based, the participants from the Los Angeles area were aged between three and seven years old, and played space-themed games with the robot almost daily.

As Kiwi was fitted with machine-learning technology, it was able to provide unique feedback and instructions to the children based on their abilities. For instance, if the child got a question wrong Kiwi would give prompts to help them solve it, and tweak the difficulty levels to challenge the child appropriately.

The authors of the paper published in the journal Science Robotics found all of the children saw their reasoning skills improve. Some 92 percent had better social skills after playing with Kiwi for a month, according to the statement.

Cameras hooked up to Kiwi enabled the team to also monitor how engaged the kids were with the robot, based on where their eyes were looking, the position of their heads, their speech and how well they performed on a task. The team found engagement ranged from 48 to 84 percent on average among the participants, and Kiwi was able to detect a disengaged child with 90 percent accuracy. That was despite potential distractions such as home appliances, as well as friends and family. The team found participants were most engaged immediately after the robot had spoken, but this went down if the gap lasted longer than a minute.

Lead author Shomik Jain, told Newsweek the children became less engaged as the month went on.

"Examples of child behavior during these disengaged periods included playing with toys, interacting with siblings, and even abruptly leaving the intervention setting."

"This served as a motivation for our work, which created models that could be used for real-time recognition and response to disengagement in order to re-engage the child to continue with the educational and/or therapeutic activity," he said.

Around one in 59 children in the U.S. have autism, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People with the condition, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), can find it challenging to communicate and interact in the same way as neurotypical people. While therapists can give individualized services that help to teach such children social skills, not everyone can afford this, the team said. As such, they wanted to explore the potential of plugging the gap with robots.

Co-author Maja Matari Maja J Matari, distinguished professor of computer science, neuroscience, and pediatrics at the University of Southern California told Newsweek:

"We and other researchers have been actively exploring SAR [socially assistive robotics] for children with ASD, because SAR has great potential in supporting the learning of children with ASD. Since we were one of the very few labs that has worked in SAR from its inception, we used our experience over the past 15 years to develop the robot that would meet the needs and interests of children with ASD while being safe and non-threatening."

Jain said: "Currently, robots are limited in their ability to autonomously recognize and respond to human behavior, especially in atypical users and real-world settings such as homes and schools. Engaging users is a key HRI [human-robot interaction] capability previously unexplored in the context of long-term, in-home SAR interventions for children with ASD.

"Therefore this study is the first to apply machine learning modeling to long-term in-home data with children with ASD. "

Asked why the children's engagement and learning improved after interacting with the robot, Matari said: "The purpose of a socially assistive robot, in general, is to serve in the role of a motivating and supportive companion. In the specific context of this study, the robot served to motivate the children to do the math exercises, and to support them as they were succeeding or failing during those exercises."

However, children with autism don't need robots to reap the benefits seen in the study, Matari said.

"The most therapeutic effects come from caring human interactions," Matari explained. "Parents, siblings, caregivers and friends can effectively motivate and support learning and therapy of children with ASD by paying careful attention to what children find rewarding and encouraging, and focusing on those interactions, shaping toward the child's specific needs."

Link:
Children With Autism Saw Their Learning and Social Skills Boosted After Playing With This AI Robot - Newsweek

Human Behavior

Why a go-it-alone approach to combatting the coronavirus won’t work | TheHill – The Hill

Global health is a public good, which means that successfully addressing the current coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) requires internationally coordinated efforts. While spillover events like COVID-19 cannot be prevented, there are investments that the international community can make to minimize their overall effects.

First, current information on economic activity can be used to produce estimates of hotspots. Second, a strategic global response network can create an infrastructure for rapidly addressing health risks. Finally, when designing policy to manage an outbreak, it is important consider how its incentives affect human behavior. This helps ensure that the policy actually achieves the intended outcome (reducing the spread of infection).

More than one month after the outbreak of COVID-19 was reported in China, the White House requested $1.25 billion in emergency funds to combat the outbreak. While only a handful of infections have reached U.S. soil, addressing infectious disease overseas is a form of national defense.

Further, the United States alone cannot manage the outbreak; there needs to be a globally coordinated response. This global effort does not preclude domestic investments in building capacity to respond to outbreaks either. Our work shows that this type of self-insurance via having plenty of nurses and hospital beds complements investments in preventing domestic outbreaks by fighting disease abroad.

The current coronavirus outbreak will not be the last disease outbreak, and these risks are also highly transferable. Isolated efforts to respond to risks in one location without a coordinated policy can leave other locations vulnerable through wildlife trade, human travel and other vectors.

The coronavirus is a zoonotic disease, meaning that the first human infections of the virus were transmitted (or spilled over) from animal populations. These spillover events are extremely rare. Since we cannot predict where or when the next spillover will happen, we cannot prevent outbreaks from occurring.

As a result, our ability to detect and rapidly respond to an event once it occurs is our best bet for reducing the economic and human cost of infectious disease. Since controlling a zoonotic disease outbreak is effectively a race between the spreading pathogen and containment, the more developed our response network before an outbreak happens, the faster and more readily we will be able to respond to it. Recent proposed cuts to both the domestic and global health funding in the form of cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization budgets, as well as the elimination of the cabinet-level position tasked with preparing for disease outbreaks, have made the United States less prepared for events like COVID-19.

While the number of the new infections that can be attributed to a single infected individual is influenced by characteristics of the pathogen, there are ways in which people can mitigate or exacerbate their risk of infection. The economics literature has shown that people respond to the risk of infection they cancel trips, keep their children out of school and avoid potential sources of infection. Additionally, typical public health interventions such as contact tracing and encouraging hand washing are designed to reduce new infections. These efforts to avoid infection come with a cost that forgone travel or time at school is costly to the people who miss trips or class.

In addition to infection and loss of human life, outbreaks such as the coronavirus have a broader economic cost. In January, Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million people, was placed in a travel ban and 10 other Chinese cities were placed under quarantine orders to contain the virus. The outbreak and regional containment measures aligned with the celebration of the Chinese New Year, which for most Chinese means long-distance travel and celebration with family. To date, travel bans and a reduction in flights to Asia are projected to cost the airline industry $28 billion. Similar travel restrictions are now in place in South Korea and Europe, and the CDC has suggested that Americans prepare for major disruptions in the form of school closures, cancelled events and more.

In addition to avoidance behavior and quarantine, containment measures produce tremendous indirect economic effects. Travel bans and reduced sales of jet fuel lowered demand for oil and impacted global oil prices. Asia is a tremendous player in global supply chains, and understaffed ports have halted the transportation of all goods, from fresh food to electronics. Companies like Apple are affected when, as travel bans and trade restrictions are put in place, they are forced to source materials and manufacture parts in different locations. These efforts can affect international supply chains and lead to economic chaos.

Unfortunately, these changes in behavior, while potentially chaotic, do not by themselves eliminate the risk of infectious disease. Travel bans are imperfectly enforced, driving trade and travel underground. This makes it more difficult to screen for the disease.

Whats more, uncoordinated quarantine efforts and communication strategies intended to mitigate economic damages risk downplaying the threat and complicate the politics of investing in what does work, while time to react is scarce. A public that does not understand the risk will be less likely to support the investments needed to counter outbreaks. When the potential outcome of being proactive is becoming an international pariah and economic disaster, policymakers face perverse incentives to underreport.

Additionally, go-it-alone policies, while immediately satisfying, may damage longer run efforts to build capacity and international cooperation, both of which are necessary to effectively manage the risk of not just of the current outbreak but a future pandemic.

KevinBerryis an assistant professor of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is an author on seven peer-reviewed academic papers on prevention and infectious disease.Follow him on Twitter @kberry6788. KatherineLee is an assistant professor of agricultural economics and ruralsociology at the University of Idaho.

Read the original here:
Why a go-it-alone approach to combatting the coronavirus won't work | TheHill - The Hill

Human Behavior

Epidemics Reveal the Truth of the Societies They Hit – The Atlantic

Graeme Wood: Iran cant handle the coronavirus

Part of the problem is that the danger cannot be seen: A pestilence does not have human dimensions, so people tell themselves that it is unreal, that it is a bad dream that will end, Albert Camus wrote in The Plague. This, of course, very much describes the current situation: many people cannot bear the idea that something invisible can change their plans. Published in 1947, The Plague has often been read as an allegory, a book that is really about the occupation of France, say, or the human condition. But its also a very good book about plagues, and about how people react to thema whole category of human behavior that we have forgotten.

In the novel, a part of the quarantined town continued with business, with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions. Why should they have thought about the plague, which negates the future, negates journeys and debates? Their modern equivalents in the city of Milan have already launched a #Milanononsiferma Milan Doesnt Stophashtag campaign. Other cities have followed. Social media is full of Italian business owners and hotel managers denouncing the government for the unnecessary precautions.

But invisibility also creates uncertainty, and uncertainty can be manipulated so that it serves other ends. One of Camuss characters is a priest, for example, who uses the plague to increase his flock: He tells his congregation that the epidemic is Gods way of punishing unbelievers. In modern Italy, the first person to seek to manipulate the anxiety created by coronavirus was Matteo Salvini, the Italian far-right leader who immediately called for the government to shut the countrys borders, stop all public meetings, and keep people home.

Salvini would no doubt have pressed this point farther had it not begun, almost immediately, to backfire. The virus first appeared in Lombardy and Veneto, the two Italian provinces where his party, the Northern League, is strongest. When Salvini realized that a shutdown would inflict the worst economic damage there, he switched to a different argument: a call on the government to defend Italy and Italians from African refugees. There is no evidence that African refugees are carrying the virus, but still, the link between foreigners, impurity, and disease is a very old one. Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, has also called on France to shut the border with Italy, even though that too is nonsensical, since the first French cases seem mostly to come from elsewhere, as well.

I am due to fly to London in a few days, and have been carefully watching the British right-wing tabloids, to gauge their level of hysteria. So far, it has been relatively lowthey are distracted by Prime Minister Boris Johnsons engagement to his pregnant girlfriendwhich means that the planes will continue flying. Once they focus on the virus, I am certain that there will be calls to block all contacts with Italy, and I am certain that this tabloid-dependent British government will heed them.

Visit link:
Epidemics Reveal the Truth of the Societies They Hit - The Atlantic

Human Behavior

Better rat control in cities starts by changing human behavior – Salon

For centuries, rats have thrived in cities because of human behavior. In response, humans have blamed the rats and developed techniques for poisoning them.

We research urban rat populations and recognize that rats spread disease. But they are fascinating creatures that think, feel and show a high level of intelligence. Public concerns about rat poison harming wildlife are growing a trend that we believe could eventually lead to rodenticide bans in many parts of the world. Without poison as an option, humans will need other rat control methods.

Rats' many negative traits are well known. They are among the most detrimental invasive animals in cities. Urban rats are like disease sponges, congregating in the foulest reaches, where they pick up harmful pathogens. They carry the antibiotic-resistent MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius). Inside the rat gut, MRSA can interact with other diseases like ingredients in a mixing bowl, creating newer bugs that can be transported from septic systems into homes.

But common approaches to managing rats often fail to address the most important factor contributing to infestations: humans and the prolific quantities of food that they waste. The more research we do on rats in New York City and worldwide, the more we realize that rat behaviors contribute less to infestations than do humans.

Advertisement:

Piles of trash near large homeless camps in Los Angeles encourage rats and the diseases they carry.

Concerns about rat poison

On Jan. 4, 2020, Malibu, California banned rodenticides due to their harmful effects on nontarget wildlife, such as mountain lions. This came after the California Assembly passed a bill to ban rodenticides statewide; the measure died in the State Senate, but could reappear this year.

If curbs on use of rat poison start to spread, communities will need other ways to manage infestations. Rats cost the world's economy billions of dollars yearly, mostly from contaminating food in warehouses, restaurants and home kitchens. The costs of illnesses vectored by rats are unknown because medical providers treat many sicknesses without knowing what caused them. As human populations become increasingly clustered in cities, these effects could increase.

Meanwhile, climate change is shortening winter seasons that limit rat reproduction. Globalization, climate change and inability to use rodenticides could result in a "perfect storm" of vulnerability to rodents on a scale humans have not experienced since the Middle Ages.

https://twitter.com/WorldAnimalNews/status/1181994915120570368 A food-focused approach

Research shows that to address this problem effectively, people must start by understanding the ecology of wild rodents. Rats adapt to human food sources and reproduce at remarkable rates. If enough food is present, a single Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) can give birth to up to 12 pups in a litter. And each well-fed pup could give birth to 12 pups of its own in as few as six weeks.

We believe the key to controlling rats is appreciating a key point: Because rats have short life spans of one to two years and reproduce often, they adapt quickly to changing environments. In our view, until people change their behavior, they may fail at controlling rat numbers.

Current mechanisms for rat control are more reactive than proactive. Urban hygiene has become big business for exterminators, but does little to control rat populations.

A typical approach is to take action once rodent populations are high enough that their presence cannot be ignored. But rats are mostly nocturnal, small and elusive, so they typically are noticed only after their numbers are already high.

This reactive approach makes any control measures excluding rats from buildings and feeding sites, setting poison baits, introducing predators, asphyxiating them with dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) or treating them with immuno-contraceptives comparable to putting a bandage on a cancer.

In our lab, we study the scents that rats prefer. As nocturnal animals, rats have poor vision and rely on olfaction to identify potential mates, habitats and food sources.

Molly, a rat in the authors' study, wearing a GPS tag. Determining what scents rats are attracted to could aid the development of rat control tools. Michael Parsons, Author provided

Rats' dietary habits are predictable. In Brooklyn, New York, they eat pizza, bagels and beer. In Paris they consume croissants, butter and cheese. Whatever local tastes people prefer, rats eat. Interrupt the continuous food supply and the rat population will drop.

Many city dwellers eat when they are busy, stuck in traffic or otherwise on the run. They drop wastes, such as grease-soaked napkins and hot dog buns, onto streets, playgrounds and subway tracks. Even highly conscientious people may hastily toss uneaten food and wrappers onto the top of an overflowing rubbish bin when they are stressed for time.

People who are working and caring for families do not take time to think about what unseen rats are doing. But our research convinces us that society can learn to stop feeding rats inadvertently. Pest management professionals, academics, policymakers and citizens can all help advance this goal, because people can radically change the ways in which they handle and dispose of food.

We believe that giving people incentives to create sanitary environments is an effective and socially progressive strategy. Here is one example: Because so much of the rat problem in New York City is driven by curbside garbage sitting outdoors overnight, we suggest hiring unemployed or homeless individuals as evening sentinels. They would move garbage bags from the curbside into guarded common areas and then return them to the curb for early morning collections.

Some cities could establish citizen rat patrols that would train residents to identify and notify property owners when they detect that rats are present. The typical indicators are barely noticeable openings appearing around buildings, or dark grease stains on sidewalks, parks or undeveloped lots. This approach eliminates the social stigma often associated with rats by showing people how to take proactive steps before an infestation develops.

Neuroscientist Kelly Lambert taught rats to drive miniature cars in order to study neuroplasticity and learning skills.

Rats cause very expensive problems, but they also are surprisingly engaging animals that exhibit human-like qualities, such as remorse and empathy. Scientists have trained them to drive tiny cars. As evidence that rats are thinking, feeling beings accumulates, we expect that it could make many communities more reluctant to poison them.

In our view, since rats are deeply rooted in human society, people need to understand how their own actions encourage rat behavior. We want to encourage brainstorming about this issue and help identify the most promising ways to manage urban rat problems effectively and humanely.

Michael H. Parsons, Visiting Research Scholar, Fordham University and Jason Munshi-South, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Fordham University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Follow this link:
Better rat control in cities starts by changing human behavior - Salon

Human Behavior

Walking The Talk On Change – Forbes

Getty

In the United States, leadership is front page news as primary voters cast their ballots for the candidates running for president. Wherever in the world they take place, political contests come down to a question of leadership, and, hopefully the ability to lead change.

My first model of leadership was my father, a self-made entrepreneur. The first in his family to go to college, he trained as a dentist, and in the late 1970s had his entrepreneurial break-out when he launched a pioneering dental insurance company. When it comes to leadership and change, he mostly does things instinctually. Whats so complicated? he says. Just go do it!

Its a simple but fair question. After all, what is so complicated?

The reality is that most leaders, whether politicians or CEOs, struggle with change, and the data bears this out. One of the saddest numbers in business is the statistic on how many corporate change efforts fail. Bain research has found 88% fall short of their original goals, and multiple other studies, while they vary in their specific findings, also conclude that the figure is high, indeed, too high.

Most of the business executives I talk with genuinely understand both the importance and the difficulty of getting organizations and the people within them to change. Their instinct is right. Their talk is right. But then the action falls short. They can talk the talk, but dont walk the walk.

Why is it so hard? Let me offer up three potential reasons, and some hope for whats on the horizon.

First, change can feel vague and intangible, and, consequently, hard to act on. Its like the wind: you feel its influence all around you, but cannot reach out and grab it. Managing change doesnt lend itself easily to clean, analytic problem solving the way mathematics and engineering do. Its complicated by human behavior and all the richness and, sometimes, craziness that brings. Because of this complexity, its often hard to know exactly what to do. So we retreat to our instincts with all the best intentions, and end up falling well short of what we could be. Luckily, there are practical tools and approaches that make it possible to break down change and tackle it analytically, just like any other challenge or opportunity.

Second, because change is hard to measure, its also hard to manage. If executives want to improve the change-ability of their organization, they need to answer some basic questions: What baseline are we starting from? What should we do first? How do we measure progress? An instructive analogy here would be to examine the impact that measurements of customer loyalty have had over the past 20 years. Companies have long had a strong financial currency, a way to measure, talk about, and manage financial impact, but prior to these new measures, they had no equivalent currency for the health of their customer base. The advent of simple and effective ways to measure customer advocacy, including the Net Promoter Score, ushered in a revolution of investment, activity and improvement. We need the equivalent currency for change, to develop practical solutions.

Third, and perhaps most profoundly, we all suffer from a number of cognitive biases, often unconcious, that can hold us back. Perhaps the most relevant is the natural human tendency to assume that how we did something in the past will also work in the future. What behavioral scientists term outcome bias stems from judging decisions by their outcome without sufficiently considering that chance or some other factor may have had an important impact. The outcome, even if positive, may have been even better if we had followed a different process, something we also tend to discount. Decision making generally can be improved by focusing more on process than outcome.

Change can also take a long time, and this conflicts with another bias behavioral economists have recognized: time discounting. We weigh present rewards more heavily than future ones. Indeed, the further out the reward or change, the less valuable we see it. As humans, we gravitate toward immediate gratification, and therefore prioritize short-term action. But real change requires linking long-term thinking and strategy to implementation in order to see results.

As my father also says, there are always reasons, but never excuses. Recognizing these reasons can help us better understand why its so hard to walk the talk, but whats most important is what we do about that.

How does a leader choose to react to these forces described above? Does he or she retreat to instinct? Refocus on more tangible and pressing topics? Delegate the problem to others? Or does he or she instead take up the challenge? Open up to learning new things? Make change tangible and part of the strategic plan? Fight accepting change is hard as the final answer?

It may be complicated, yes, but with the right choices, we can indeed just go do it.

See original here:
Walking The Talk On Change - Forbes