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Jennifer Esposito to Join New Netflix Series From the Creator of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ – Showbiz Cheat Sheet

February 19, 2020 medical

Shonda Rhimes continues being one of the most ubiquitous creative presences on TV and in the streaming universe, with some of her older shows still going. Now shes delving into the Netflix arena with a new series called Inventing Anna.

Those familiar with Jennifer Esposito will know shes not a part of the usual Rhimes repertory of actors. Shes nevertheless been hired by Rhimes to play a pivotal part in Inventing Anna, a show exploring the true tale of criminal German heiress Anna Delvey.

Its going to be a different role in how Esposito fans usually see her. Take a minute to see what this means based on her more familiar roles in shows from Blue Bloods to NCIS. Even though shell play a more outlandish role in Inventing Anna, shes done comedy very well before.

According to most media sources, Esposito plays Talia Mallay, possibly loosely based on a Martha Stewart lifestyle guru. Her character is like Anna Delvey in being an avid user of Instagram.

Such a role may involve a little bit of comedy or satire since the premise of the series is already a little broad. However, its perfect territory for Rhimes to explore and turn into an interesting portrait of women dealing with unique circumstances.

Whether theres any real comedy in this is still yet to be determined since its marketed as a drama. Also, Esposito will only play her character as a background figure since the main cast has Anna Chlumsky and Julia Garner in the leads.

Should Esposito play someone with a little more comedic flare, it wouldnt be the first time by any means. Shes one of the rare actresses whos been able to fluctuate successfully between doing dramas and comedy in movies/TV.

Her first role on TV was on Law & Order: SVU, setting her up for playing parts in cop-related shows, something shes done several times in her career. The same year (1996), she acted in a TV movie remake of The Sunshine Boys, proving she could split it down the middle when it came to veering into two different genres.

The best example of Espositos early dramatic work in film was Summer of Sam in 1999, leading to a string of dramas for a couple of years until finally moving into a few movie comedies.

As she continued to flourish on TV at the same time, the only Oscar-caliber movie she appeared in happened to be a drama: The notorious Oscar Best Picture winner Crash.

Before this occurred, she did find herself on a comedy series for a brief time (Spin City), later starring in her own sitcom called Samantha Who? on ABC. Latter series lasted a couple of years from 2007-2009, giving everyone awareness she could do comedy with aplomb.

Rather than venture further into sitcoms, she pivoted into playing cop roles more recent audiences would find familiar. A year after Samantha Who? ended, she nabbed a role on CBSs Blue Bloods playing Det. Jackie Curatola. During the third season, however, Esposito found out she had Celiac disease, causing her to collapse one day while filming.

Her doctors told her shed have to take time off from acting to properly recover, hence the producers of Blue Bloods dropping her character, never to return. Esposito was more than a little upset about being laid off from the show, despite it only being a temporary setback.

Since those days, shes been working steadily on shows like The Affair and even briefly on NCIS. Now shes maybe reinventing herself from the cop show persona into something different in Inventing Anna, a plan already started recently by joining the superhero show The Boys.

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Jennifer Esposito to Join New Netflix Series From the Creator of 'Grey's Anatomy' - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Human Behavior

BJ Fogg: Help Build Habits by Celebrating Small Wins – Thrive Global

February 19, 2020 medical

BJ Fogg, Ph.D., founded the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, where he researches how human behavior really works. In his new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, he shares simple steps you can take to improve your life, based on 20 years of groundbreaking research in Behavior Design.

Tiny Habits explains step by step how you go from a dream or an aspiration that you might have, and pick exactly the right habits for you to make them a reality in your own life, Fogg tells Thrive. You change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad. You dont have to rely on willpower. You dont guilt trip yourself. You dont feel shame. Those things are not productive to creating habits or transforming your life.

Fogg wants people to find a path that works best in their lives. Instead of procrastinating change or thinking that its hard, its going to be painful, I encourage you to take a radically different view of how human behavior works and how you can transform your life, he adds.

Fogg sits down with Thrive to share how Tiny Habits work, offers real-life examples and Microsteps that you can try today, and busts some common misconceptions surrounding habits.

Thrive Global: Why do tiny habits work?

BJ Fogg:With tiny habits, you look at the habit you want in your life and you make it super, super small, as small as it can be. Rather than doing 20 push-ups, maybe its just one push-up. Rather than flossing all your teeth, maybe its just one tooth. You make it super tiny. Then you find where it fits naturally in your life. What does it come after? Pushups, at least in my life, come right after I go to the bathroom. If you keep it really tiny,you can do it even when youre tired, sick, or stressed out.

Then to wire in the habit, you do a technique I call celebration. You say, Good for me, or, Way to go, or, Victory anything that makes you feel successful, because its that emotion that wires the habit into your brain. Thats what makes it become automatic.

TG: Tell us about the idea of celebrating your wins.

BF:In Tiny Habits,theres a technique that I call Celebration.Its something you do to create a positive emotion inside yourself, and often thats a feeling of success. So perhaps you just say, Awesome, or perhaps you play a little sound effect in your mind that helps you feel successful. If you dont know what the right celebration is for you because what works for me may not work for you what you can do is imagine that youre watching the Super Bowl, and your favorite team is playing, and then in the last five seconds, your team scores and wins the game. What do you do at that moment? Thats a natural celebration for you.

Ifyou want to wire in a habit lets take the example of flossing floss one tooth and go, Yes. By doing that, you will fire off a positive emotion and that makes your brain go, Whoa, what just happened? I feel good. I want to do that again. As it turns out, its emotions that create habits. Its not repetition. Its the emotion that your brain connects with the behavior that makes it become automatic, or in other words, a habit.

TG: Why is declaring an end to the day an important step in building healthy habits?

BF: My partner and I, whove been together for almost 30 years, have very different careers. He was in a career where theres things to do, but then you could be finished at the end of the day. For me, as a researcher, an investigator, and an innovator, my work is never done. So he would say to me, Hey, are you done for the day? And Im like, Denny, Im never done. But what we had to figure out in our own life is that there needs to be a time when I stop working, I stop checking email, I stop thinking about the challenges Im facing, and we chill together as a couple. Its a bit of a journey to figure out exactly how that works. Im sure its different for different people, but for me, theres a point in the day, whether Im in California or in Maui, where we stop, we have dinner together, I dont go back to email, and I dont answer phone calls. Im done until the next morning.

TG: What is one Microstep you are working on now?

BF: A recent one is that I want to be able to squat all the way down and just hold it there. I didnt grow up doing that, but what I know is if I practice toward that, I will eventually be able to do that.

One of my tiny habits has been that after I pee, I will do two push-ups. So I just shifted it up that after I pee, I will practice squatting. And at the beginning I had to hold onto something in order to stabilize myself and still squat deeply, but eventually I got more and more flexible. And now I can go all the way down. Its a little bit painful, but Ive seen the progress, and Im hoping that eventually I will just be able to go down and do a full squat, and sit there and look at tide pools, or do something in the garden, or just do it as a way of meditating and holding it like that.

Although doing a squat like that may not matter to you, my point is that anything you want to achieve in your life, once you learn the skills of change and once you know how to do it in these incremental small, micro, tiny ways, youll know how to solve for it, and youll know how to start making progress so you can achieve these kinds of outcomes.

One of the habits that Ive incorporated in my own life is if Im in bed at night, and Im worried about some problem at work, or one of my students projects or anything like that, I have the habit of saying, This can wait until tomorrow. So rather than sit there and worry or maybe get up and check email, I just say that to myself: This can wait until tomorrow. It helps put it out of my mind so I can get the sleep I need to get up in the morning and tackle it.

TG: What if we have bad habits can we undo them?

BF:Most of the time when people talk about behaviors that they want to stop, they talk about breaking a bad habit. Well, Im here to tell you that that word break actually sets the wrong expectation. When you say the word break, what youre implying is that if you put a lot of energy in one moment, snap, itll be gone and youll be done with it. For most of the behaviors and habits were talking about, thats not how it works. Its not one and done. The word that I think is much more accurate when we talk about bad habits is untangling bad habits.

Lets take snacking, for example: You snack on a lot of unhealthy things and you want to stop that habit. So rather than think about breaking it, think about it as untangling it. In other words, its a whole bunch of different snacking behaviors that comprise this big knot, this big tangle. Now, untangling implies it is not going to be one and done. Its a process. It might seem overwhelming at the beginning, but just like youve untangled other things, you get started and you can make progress.

Once you look at all those tangles, you start with the easiest one first, not the hardest. Thats like starting with the very inside of the knot and trying to get that. Thats not how you do it. You start with the easiest one and untangle it. Lets say, for example, on the way home from work, you eat a candy bar, and its not a very strong habit, but its snacking and you dont really like it, so you would start with that one, the easiest one. Once youve resolved that little snarl in the tangle, then you go to the next easiest one and so on. And what usually happens is you start untangling the easiest ones. They get easier and easier until youve resolved the behavior. Youve rid yourself of this unwanted habit.

TG: Can you help us myth-bust some habits? Lets start with, What creates a habit is repetition.

BF:So many people have told us for years that repetition creates the habit, whether its 21 days, 66 days, or 108 days. Im here to tell you that is not accurate. What the research shows is that repetition correlates with habits. It does not show that it causes the habit to form. What causes the habit to form is emotions. The emotion you feel as you do the behavior, or immediately after, is the thing that causes the habit to form.

If your brain associates a positive feeling with flossing, or taking your vitamins, or drinking water, or snacking on broccoli, if theres a positive emotion associated with it, your brain takes notice, and it will help you remember to do it again. If youre good at feeling positive emotions as youre doing healthy and good behaviors, youll be really good at rewiring your brain and bringing that new habit into your life.

TG: Myth number two is: If I miss doing my habit just one time, I need to start over completely. Why is that wrong?

BF: In 1890, a guy named William James, who was really smart, wrote a book called Principles of Psychology, and it became a standard textbook for decades. In chapter four, he talks about habits, and he is so accurate on so many things, but theres at least one thing he got wrong. He talked about habits as winding up a ball of yarn, and if you miss one time or if you fail one time, it would all come undone. Im here to tell you thats not accurate. As youre working on creating habits or stopping habits, you dont have to be perfect. In fact, almost nobody is. Its a journey. Its trial and error.

And William James, as right as he was for so many things, that analogy and metaphor of winding the ball and that dropping it and it all comes undone, is not how it really works, at least not in my research. Almost nobody gets it perfect from the start. Its a lot like decorating a room. You might try something, and it doesnt work. Well, dont beat yourself up. Dont blame yourself. Just move the chair around. Move the picture around and try something else. And you can get better and better at designing from the start because thats what youre doing. Youre designing your habits. Youre designing them out of your life, but nobodys perfect, and just understand that when it doesnt work as you intended, thats a sign that you can design again in a different way and try to get all the pieces together.

TG: Myth three is: Exercise alone is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. Why is that wrong?

BF: So many people think that by going to the gym and working out for an hour or two hours, thats how youre going to lose weight. Losing weight is primarily a function of nutrition, of what we eat. So if I were advising somebody on weight loss, I would have them spend so much of their energy looking at how to change what they eat, looking at what could be healthy snacks, find snacks that are healthy and that they like, and then make those habits and really double down on healthy snacks. Find what breakfast works for you. Find how you navigate social events like parties and receptions, what are the things you can eat in airports, and so on.

By investing your time and effort in learning to bring good nutrition behaviors into your life, youre going to make a lot better progress on weight loss, if thats what you want. Exercise is important. It reduces stress, it helps us sleep better, and so on. But when it comes to weight loss, as I see it, its primarily about what we eat and what we dont eat.

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BJ Fogg: Help Build Habits by Celebrating Small Wins - Thrive Global

Human Behavior

The psychology of infidelity: Why do we cheat? – Big Think

February 19, 2020 medical

What personality traits make a person more (or less) likely to cheat on a spouse?

Photo by Prostock-studio on Shutterstock

Defining the human psyche and explaining human behaviors has been a goal of psychologists and researchers for decades.

Pioneer psychologist Gordon Allport (18971967) once compiled a list of 4,500 different personality traits he believed explained the human condition. Raymond Cattel (19051998), a British-American psychologist best known for his research into intrapersonal psychology, later explained a shorter personality model with 16 different types of personality traits.

In the 1970s, we were presented with the model we know today as the Big Five. The Big Five was created by two independent research teams who took different approached to their studies of human behavior and arrived at the exact same result.

The first team was led by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae at the National Institutes of Health. The second was led by Warren Norman of University of Michigan and Lewis Goldberg of University of Oregon.

The Big Five (acronym OCEAN):

In 1998, Oliver John of Berkeley Personality Lab and Veronica Benet-Martinez of UC, Davis created what is known as the "Big Five Inventory" - a 44 item questionnaire that measures a person based on the Big Five factors and then divides those factors into personality facets.

These factors are measured on a spectrum - a person may be highly extroverted or highly introverted, or somewhere in between. You can see a copy of the Big Five Inventory here.

In 2005, researchers Tricia Orzeck and Esther Lung conducted a study where participants voluntarily answered a questionnaire on personality traits about themselves and their monogamous partners. A total of 45 males and 59 females rated themselves and their partners (with a total of 208 people being involved in the study).

The results of this study proved that there is a significant difference between cheaters and non-cheaters when it comes to the Big Five model of personality traits.

This was further explained by a study in 2018, where data from two separate studies looked at the personality traits and relationship dynamics of new married couples. Both studies lasted 3 years in length and examined the associations between personality and infidelity.

Results of this study showed these were the couples who were most likely to experience infidelity in their marriage:

The results of this study suggest that one person's personality traits aren't enough to determine their likelihood of infidelity. Instead, infidelity requires an in-depth look at both the personality traits in each person in the relationship as well as the dynamic between them.

According to a 2013 poll of 1535 American adults, having an affair is considered "more morally wrong" than gambling, human cloning, and medical testing on animals. And yet - so many people still experience heartbreak from infidelity in their relationships.

Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel wanted to understand why people cheat in relationships.

"Why do people do this? Why do people who have often been faithful for decades one day cross a line they never thought they would cross? What's at stake? How do we make sense of this and how do we grow from that?"

In her book "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity", Perel, who has worked with couples for 33 years, takes a look at infidelity not in an evidence-based scientific way, but from a sociological, anthropological angle.

While it's very common to have fantasies about being with someone other than your partner, not everyone who does this takes the step across that line to cheat on their partner. In fact, according to a 2001 study, 98% of men and 80% of women have admitted to fantasizing about someone other than their partner at least occasionally.

This is human nature, to be curious - but what makes a person go from naturally curious to morally ambiguous and cross the line to infidelity? While personality traits and the dynamic of your relationship play key roles, there is a lot of speculation on why people cheat.

Many people speculate that the surge in technology (dating apps and websites such as Ashley Madison, which targets married couples) may be one of the biggest reasons infidelity happens.

However, according to research conducted by Dr. Justin Lehmiller in 2015, the prevalence of cheating isn't any higher today than it was 20 years ago before the introduction of dating websites and apps.

Instead, psychologists have narrowed down some of the most common reasons people give for cheating on their spouses, which include:

These motives vary from how you view yourself to how you view your relationship and the context of the situation at hand. When it comes to putting a label on infidelity, there is very rarely just one factor involved. It's never just about a person's personality traits, or the dynamic in the relationship - it's a combination of personality, events, and circumstance.

From Your Site Articles

Mishpatim: A brutal acknowledgement of human weakness – Arutz Sheva

February 19, 2020 medical

Rabbi Berel Wein Rabbi Berel Wein is a noted scholar, historian, speaker and educator, admired the world over for his audio tapes/CDs, videos and books, particularly on Jewish history.

What I find most striking about this very detailed, mainly legal and technical parsha of the Torah, is the brutal acknowledgement it makes of human nature and its weaknesses. One would think that after the exalted moment when the people of Israel accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, when humankind finally achieved its highest moral and intellectual level, that the Torah would no longer find it necessary to burden us with laws, details and rules regarding murder, theft, damages, law suits and sexual misconduct.

We should have been led to believe that we are past all that. We are a kingdom of priests and a very holy congregation. Yet, immediately after the lofty description of granting the Torah to Israel at Sinai, it follows immediately with a legal penal code that is based on the worst behavior and attitudes of human beings. The Torah harbors no illusions about human nature. It proclaims to us, at the very beginning of its teachings in Genesis, that the nature and desire of humans is evil from the very first moments of life. In fact, the Torah poses the challenge to overcome the struggle against our own evil impulses and base desires. The Torah was granted to us to serve as a handbook, to instruct us how this is to be accomplished. But the Torah never promised us that this struggle would ever disappear from our human existence.

There are other faiths, social ideas and programs that are based on the idea that human nature can be altered and changed by fiat, legislation, persuasion and, if necessary, even by coercion. Perhaps human behavior can indeed be so controlled, but it cannot be manipulated. It contains many attributes, but It certainly is never to be viewed as being wholly negative in its attitudes and desires. Human nature desires freedom of mind, body and society. It is optimistic and forward looking. it desires continuity of family and nationhood, and it pursues love and well-being.

Human nature desires structure and has a real appreciation of the fleeting gift of time. All these facets of human nature are also exhibited in the rules and laws promulgated in this weeks Torah reading. The Torah teaches us that there is no escape from human nature but that the good in our nature which Lincoln called our better angels, can make us into the holy people envisioned for us at Sinai.

Part of the nature within us is our longing for immortality and a connection with what is eternal. The laws and rules that appear in this weeks Torah reading are meant to help foster that drive for eternity. Jews view these laws and rules as a complementary companion to the Ten Commandments of Sinai and the guidebook for Jewish life and society throughout all the ages of our existence.

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein

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Mishpatim: A brutal acknowledgement of human weakness - Arutz Sheva

Human Behavior

U of A Anthropology Hosts Fifth Annual Open House Today – University of Arkansas Newswire

February 19, 2020 medical

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Do you ever wonder what makes us human?

Come join theDepartment of Anthropologyin exploring this question and more during their Open House event between 4 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 19, on the first floor of Old Main.

This is the fifth year for this event, which is sponsored by the U of A's Department of Anthropology in theJ. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Visitors will have the opportunity to talk with faculty and students about ongoing research and teaching in the department. Many topics will be covered, including primate anatomy and evolution, remote sensing and GIS, understanding how human cultures vary, and how dental patterns and wear can reveal secrets of human behavior.

Exhibits and artifacts will also be presented by the Arkansas Archaeological Survey and the University of Arkansas Museum.

"We're always excited to make our space open to the public and be able to talk about what anthropology is and how we can better understand what it means to be human," said Claire Terhune, assistant professor of anthropology and organizer of the event.

The event will offer a variety of activities for children and adults of all ages and will also include a prize drawing for those interested in learning more about anthropology. Everyone from the community is invited to attend.

Terhune said the event also recognizes and celebrates theAmerican Anthropological Association's Anthropology Day.

For more information, visit theDepartment of Anthropologywebsite andcheck out this interview with KUAF.

About the Department of Anthropology:TheDepartment of Anthropologyexamines similarities and differences among people, lifestyles and world views through time by the study of artifacts and material remains, the evolution of humankind and other primates, and issues such as ethnicity, gender, class, social inequity, and religion. Courses help students explore many approaches to the various subfields.

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U of A Anthropology Hosts Fifth Annual Open House Today - University of Arkansas Newswire

Human Behavior

Minke whales are struggling to communicate over the din of ocean noise – Science Magazine

February 19, 2020 medical

An adult minke whale off the coast of Australia. As the ocean becomes louder, minke calls are being drowned out.

By Katherine KorneiFeb. 18, 2020 , 1:05 PM

Imagine a frog call, but with a metallic twangand the intensity of a chainsaw. Thats the boing of a minke whale. And its a form of animal communication in danger of being drowned out by ocean noise, new research shows.

By analyzing more than 42,000 minke whale boings, scientists have found that, as background noise intensifies, the whales are losing their ability to communicate over long distances. This could limit their ability to find mates and engage in important social contact with other whales.

Tyler Helble, a marine acoustician at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, and colleagues recorded minke whale boings over a 1200-square-kilometer swathof the U.S. Navys Pacific Missile Range Facility near the Hawaiian island of Kauai from 2012 to 2017. By measuring when a single boing arrived at various underwater microphones, the team pinpointed whale locations to within 10 to 20 meters. The researchers then used these positions, along with models of how sound propagates underwater, to calculate the intensity of each boing when it was emitted.

The team compared these measurements with natural ambient noise, including waves, wind, and undersea earthquakes. (No military exercises were conducted nearby during the study period.)They found that minke whale boings grew louder in louder conditions. Thats not surprisingcreatures across the animal kingdom up their volume when theres background noise. (This phenomenon, dubbed the Lombard effect, holds true for humans, toothink of holding a conversation at a loud concert.)

But minke whales responses differ from those of other whales, the team found. Orcas and humpbacks seem to compensate fully for increasing noisethe intensity of their calls grows in lockstep with ambient noise levels. The calls of minke whales, on the other hand, increased only marginally in the presence of loud noise. Thats similar to the responses of bottlenose dolphins and even some terrestrial animals, such as bats and frogs.

The minkes relatively quieter calls mean that population estimates of the small, elusive whalestypically conducted using acoustic surveysare probably inaccurate, the researchers suggest. The animals arent endangered, but very little is known about them, says team member Regina Guazzo, a marine ecologist at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. Sound is the primary way whales sense and understand their environment.

Helble and hiscolleagues estimate that minke whales calling in a relatively low-noise environment could be heard by others as far as 114 kilometers away; as noise levels increased, that range dropped to just 19 kilometers, they report this month in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Its an order of magnitude change in communication range, Guazzo says. [Because] its hard to know how far they need to be able to communicate, this could have a really negative impact.

The researchers say humanmade noisecaused by shipping activity or military exercises, for examplewould likely have the same effect as natural noise. Thats significant, as the ocean has been getting louder by roughly 3 decibels per decade, primarily because of commercial shipping.

As prolific noisemakers, we have an obligation to limit the potentially harmful sounds permeating the ocean, says Cornell University marine ecologist Michelle Fournet, who was not involved in the work. If we start to understand where the inability to communicate kicks in, we can change our human behavior.

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Minke whales are struggling to communicate over the din of ocean noise - Science Magazine

Human Behavior

Demystifying feline behavior – Penn: Office of University Communications

February 19, 2020 medical

One study of cat behavior showed that cats recognize their names, and another showed they can bond securely to their owners. Overall, however, there seem to be a lot more studies of dog behavior. Why is that?

Siracusa: Even though I consider myself a cat person, most of the work that Ive done is on dogs because thats where the funding is. In our behavior clinics we see many fewer cats than dogs, Im talking like 95% dogs and 5% cats. I think this is related in part to the fact that there is much less expectation for cat behaviors. If you have a dog growl and bark at everyone who comes to your apartment, thats a major problem, but if your cat hisses and then runs and hides, nobody cares.

Serpell: Studies show that people are on average less attached to their cats and spend less money on their cats. Cats are numerically more common than dogs in the United States, but there are fewer cat-owning households than dog-owning households, which means that people may be owning more than one cat and thus have less to spend on each one.

But recently the Morris Animal Foundation sent a survey to veterinarians around the country and asked what they consider to be areas of primary importance that they needed help with. Almost at the top of the list was cat behavior problems.

So, I think people are getting on board slowly with the idea that pet owners are becoming more attached to their cats and that they are becoming much more significant members of peoples social groups.

Is there something intrinsic to cats that explains this lack of attention to behavioral science compared to dogs?

Siracusa: Dogs evolved from a social species, whereas cats come from an ancestor that was solitary. I dont think theyve evolved a social behavior as complex as dogs social behavior. And maybe as a result its harder for people to understand cats social behavior since its mostly based on distance and nonprolonged contact. Thats why when you put cats in a small environment, like an urban apartment, especially with other cats, you may run into problems.

Serpell: But cats have lived with humans now for about 9,500 years. Thats a long time, and theyve evolved to be more tolerant of living in close proximity with people and with other cats.

Theres all this evidence now coming out about dogs having a gene mutation equivalent to Williams syndrome in humans, which causes hypersociality. I suspect that we might find some of that in domestic cats. These animals are much more sociable than their wild ancestors.

You have a wealth of data about cat behavior from Fe-BARQ [the Feline Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire, developed by Serpell]. What are some of the things that the data tell you about cats and their relationship with people?

Serpell: From our Fe-BARQ data we see that a surprising number of owners are reporting moderate to severe behavioral problems in a cat when separated from its owner. So much for the theory that cats dont really care about their owners, that theyre only there for their food; these cats really do seem to be distressed from being away from their human buddies.

Siracusa: We see this in clinics. For example, cats may eliminate or vomit if theyre left alone for more hours than usual. So, I think they are definitely attached to people. But the way theyre showing theyre attached is very different from dogs. Dogs make a lot of prolonged physical contact, whereas cats may stay close to the person they like, but they dont necessarily engage. Some cats may engage a littleone of my cats plays fetch with mebut only for a short time, and then shes like, Oh, Ive had enough of this.

Do you think that cats are more varied in their sociability than dogs?

Serpell: I do. Some cats, as soon as you sit down, theyll be on your lap, and theyll monopolize you, but others wont at all. One of my cats loves people; when you arrive at the door, she rushes to the door, and she rubs against you. But she hates being picked up, and she does not want to sit on you ever. Whereas her brother is much more physically affectionate. He wants to be held; he wants to sit on people.

There are very few dogs I've met that are standoffish the way a cat is often.

Cat behavior can be puzzling. Is the problem that people just arent good at interpreting their cats behavior?

Siracusa: People really do need help understanding their cats behavior, and they dont know where to go or who to ask about these problems. In a recent survey, somewhere between 50 and 60% of cat owners said, I have problems bringing my cat to the vet, or My vet doesnt understand the problems of my cat, or I will only bring my cat to the vet when its strictly necessary. For many cat owners, just picking a cat up and putting it in the crate is a major drama.

Serpell: Of course, many dogs also dont like to go to the vet, but dogs are more biddable; theyll just go along with it. But cats, boy. I had to bring both of my cats in a week ago, and it was an ordeal.

Siracusa: I do think cats are very sensitive to changes in their environment.

Serpell: Some of it may relate to the fact that cats are a prey species as well as being a predator. Being in an unfamiliar environment is potentially very unsafe for them, so its natural for them to go, Oh, crikey, where am I, and whats going to come at me next?

What are some of the big myths or misperceptions about cat behavior?

Siracusa: Many people want a cat to be a surrogate for a dog, like a low-maintenance dog, and its not.

Another misperception is that because cats are so fluffy and soft, people like to touch them a lot, but cats dont necessarily like this. Some dosome that Ive had were always on top of mebut others were like, Ok, were friends, but you stay there, and I stay here. So, its a matter of respecting their desire for distance in those cases.

Also, people often fail to provide cats with enough stimulation. Its important to give them opportunities to show their natural feeding behavior, for instance. So instead of simply putting their food in a bowl, give them a chance to stalk it, to toss it in the air and pounce, and reproduce the whole sequence of events that they would do when they hunt.

How do you try to correct clients misguided impressions about cats?

Siracusa: [Laughing] This is the reason our behavior appointments are very long. We try to set realistic expectations, and we provide them with alternative strategies. For example, if you want a nice interaction with your cat, use something cats like. Teach them to do a trick to get a treat. Use a stick-and-feather toy.

Serpell: Some cats will play for hours. My cats, they exhaust me. Theyll run all around the house for hours with a piece of string.

Siracusa: Sometimes I say, If you need to hug something, get a stuffed toy. Dont do that to your cat if she doesnt like it.

The one recent study about cats showed the same or an even greater degree of attachment to their owners as dogs have. You seem skeptical about those findings.

Serpell: Carlo is more than I am.

Siracusa: I think the methodology is rigorous. But Im skeptical because the study assumed that the vocalization of the cats indicated separation distress. I think its very likely to be distress from being in an unfamiliar environment, but Im not convinced that its separation distress.

Serpell: Speaking on behalf of the article, I would say that there is a perception out there another one of these myths, if you likethat cats arent really attached to their owners, that theyre only there to get fed. I think this study is a demonstration that cats respond similarly to this experimental paradigm as do dogs and for that matter as do human infants, and that's interesting, just in itself.

What about the study suggesting cats recognize their name?

Siracusa: I think this study is similar; the experiments seem rigorously done, but the results are prone to overgeneralization. For cats its not, Oh, my name is Jack. Its, Usually when I hear this word something is about to happen.

Serpell: Its a demonstration that the cat has some kind of association with this sound. I think thats right; my cats respond to their names. But its different from what weve seen in dogs, some of which have amazing vocabularies and can discriminate between more than a thousand different words.

Have you seen the cat whisperer quiz thats going around, based on a recent publication about cat facial expressions?

Serpell: It sounds dubious. Cats lack the facial muscles that dogs have so theyre limited in the expressions they can make.

Siracusa: Because cats in general were solitary animals evolutionarily, staying at a distance from one another, the facial expressions wouldnt have been so important in communicating. If I want to communicate with someone who is far away, I wouldnt show it on my face but in my body, my posture.

Serpell: The sense of smell.

Siracusa: Smell, definitely. Pheromones are very important. Also, they leave visual signs. The scratching of a cat is a visual sign to leave a message for someone who didnt find them but will find the scratch.

It sounds like the book you have coming out soon might also help pet owners interpret their cats.

Siracusa: Yes, Decoding Your Cat is coming out in June. Its a project of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, and all the chapters are written by diplomates of the College and edited by myself and two of my colleagues. Our goal was to make sure as much as possible was science-based, and the information that hasnt been studied was based on our clinical experience.

What is on the horizon in terms of cat behavior research?

Siracusa: Cat cognition studies will be the next big thing.

Serpell: Yes, there are some groups now that are starting to get interested in cat cognition, but its still way behind dogs. There are so many dog cognition groups now around the world its almost funny.

How might studies of cat cognition be helpful?

Serpell: Well, it would be interesting to see whether the process of domestication has shifted the cat cognitively in the way that people say its shifted the dog.

Siracusa: It may help with the animals welfare, too, because if we understand them better, we can make sure we create an environment for them that will make them happier in their homes.

Link:
Demystifying feline behavior - Penn: Office of University Communications

Human Behavior

Come see some great authors at UntitledTown 2020 and donate to help the cause – UWGB

February 19, 2020 medical

UntitledTown is getting closer! UW-Green Bay has many organizers and partners. Events will take place from Thursday, April 23 to Sunday, April 26, 2020. In order to bring top talent to the community for free, the festival relies on generous donations from the community. A Leap Day fundraiser starts on Saturday, Feb. 29, and the goal is to raise $15,000. Please donate if you can.

The 2020 Festival theme is community, which raises questions of identity, art, citizenship, caretaking and craft-making for readers and writers in Northeastern Wisconsin.Programming will include stories of adoptive families, domestic violence survivors and immigrant experiences.

In anticipation for the full schedule of 100+ readings, workshops, panels and discussion for all ages to be revealed in March, heres a reminder of the headliners that will be at UntitledTown for this years festival:

Top Ten Headliners of 2020For Young Readers

Rosemary Wells: illustrator and writer creator of Max & Ruby series about quarrelsome sibling bunnies published 120 childrens books over 40 years

Jonah Larson: seventh grader from La Crosse, Wisconsin crochet prodigy author of Hello, Crochet Friends!: Making Art, Being Mindful, Giving Back: Do What Makes You Happy appearances on The Today Show, NPR youngest-ever UntitledTown Festival headliner

-Adult NonfictionLulu Miller: science journalist co-founder Invisibilia, an NPR program about unseen forces of human behavior founding producer of Radiolab podcast first book, Why Fish Dont Existabout nature, science, history, and Millers experiences debuts in April 2020

Donna Hylton: author, A Little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound advocate for incarcerated women and girls and the impact of prison on communities featured speaker at 2017 Womens March

Adult FictionTayari Jones: novelist, author of An American Marriage, which was selected for Barack Obamas 2018 year-end reading list and Oprahs Book Club, and won the international 2019 Womens Prize for Fiction

Laila Lalami: novelist, author of The Other Americans, a 2019 finalist for the National Book Award forthcomingnonfiction exploration of immigrant and American identity, Conditional Citizens, debuts in April 2020

Lisa Wingate: author, historical fiction novel about black-market adoption, Before We Were Yours, sold over 2 million copies and spent 54 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list next novel, The Book of Lost Friends, debuts in April 2020

Peter Geye: novelist, author of Minnesota-set family epics novel, Wintering, won the Minnesota Book Award and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award final book in Lake Superior trilogy, Northernmost, debuts in April 2020

Poetry/Spoken-Word PerformanceDasha Kelly Hamilton: Poet Laureate of Milwaukee Arts Envoy for the US Embassy performed on HBOs Def Poetry Jam commissioned production, Makin Cake, is making a national tour author of four books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

Jos Olivarez: debut collection, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award, winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize, and selected by the New York Public Library and National Public Radio as a best book of 2018 next book, BreakBeat Poets: Latinext, re-mixes the soundtrack of the Latinx diaspora in poetry, and debuts in April 2020

Human Behavior

A Viral Coyote-Badger Video Demonstrates The Incredible Complexity Of Nature – Longmont Observer

February 19, 2020 medical

Jennifer Campbell-Smith High Country News

Somewhere in the Southern Santa Cruz Mountains of California, a coyote playfully bows to an American badger just before both duck into a culvert under a highway, the coyote casually trotting along with the badger waddling close behind. When thePeninsula Open Space TrustandPathways For Wildlifeshared a remote video of the crossing online in early February, it went viral. The video is part of a project to help wild animals move around safely in high-traffic, dangerous areas, something critical to maintaining populations genetic health. I greatly admire this work. However, what makes this particular crossingexceptional,to me, as abehavioral ecologist, are the deeper implications of the video itself.

The first thing that excites me is that it allows the charisma of this partnership to reach a broad audience. Scientists have observed coyotes and badgersworkingtogetherbefore;one studyeven demonstrated that both species have an easier time catching prey when they hunt together. But the more the general public sees the playful, social side of twoextremely persecutedcarnivores, the better. I will never stop sharing videos of coyotesplaying with dog toysordomestic animal companions, orscaling crab-apple trees for a snack.

The second thing that excites me is what the video means for animal research, management and behavioral ecology. Thereisnt a consistentnatural rulethat coyotes and badgers get along; in fact, the two species sometimeskill and eat one another. This demonstrates theflexibilityin natural processes. Humans (many scientists included) are often guilty of thinking animal behavior must follow hard and fast rules: Stimulus A elicits Behavior B, always. I see this a lot when people ask me about canine behavior or crow calls; a wagging tail doesnt always indicate a happy dog, for instance, and certain crow calls mean very different things in different circumstances, much the way the intention behind a humans use of the word hey varies with tone, inflection and context.

Experiments and rules that eliminate context often end up framing animal behavior and ecological associations as coded, robotic and inflexible. People tend to think of animal actions as simply instinct, denying the role of thinking, plasticity and decision-making in other creatures lives.

Scientifically, we arefinally emergingfrom a dark period of studying nature simply as a stimulus-and-instinct-driven movie that humans can observe the kind of thinking used to justifygovernment-funded culls and mass indiscriminate killing of native species.Recent researchdemonstrates the cognitive and cultural capabilities of non-human animals, as well as the importance of their proclivities and personalities, and more data keep piling up. Some individual animals, for example, have the right combination of bold, exploratory traits to do well in human-dominated landscapes, while more cautious ones may flourish in relatively rural and wild landscapes. In fact, researchers have observedpopulation-level genetic changesin city-dwellers compared to their country cousins of the same species, in everything from coyotes toanolesandblack widow spiders.

Different animals alsohold different social statuses within an ecosystem. Much like what can happen within a human community, the death of a specific individual may have a large impact on social structure. Ive watched whole regions of crows restructure their social dynamics and movements due to the death of a single key individual, and Ive seen how age and experience shape individuals and the behavior they pass on to others. Wildlife managers must take all of this into account rather than relying on the traditional, numbers-only management style that treats all individuals of a species as if they have equal weight in an ecosystem.

In the viral video, I see an elegant demonstration of how complex and flexible nature is. How intelligent these two animals are not simply two animal-robots reacting solely to stimuli. How the body language and ease between them suggests that they know each other as individuals, and that those individuals matter.

While its scientifically prudent to acknowledge only the data that exist in peer-reviewed studies, we humans must broaden our lens and see the metaphorical forest before we get lost in the trees. We must hold each other, management agencies and policymakers accountable for the broader picture that the evidence is highlighting and use it to better relate to the world we live in, and the organisms that exist alongside us.Stay up to date on the West with our free newsletter

The key struggle is getting these ideas into the zeitgeist of modern human culture, a mission that social media has greatly enhanced. So here I am, a behavioral ecologist who is grateful that a single 12-second viral video of a coyote and badger sauntering through a culvert together can help more people observe and consider what I and many in my scientific generation see: A thinking, complex, dynamic, individual nature that demands our respect and mindfulness as we move through this world.

Jennifer Campbell-Smith has a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology from Binghamton University. She currently resides in Denver, Colorado, where she is working to get high school students involved in urban wildlife research. You can find her on Twitter@drcampbellsmith.EmailHigh Country Newsateditor@hcn.orgor submit aletter to the editor.

Originally published on High Country News. See original story by Clicking Here.

Human Behavior

Siri Co-Inventor: The Internet Is a Vast Psychology ExperimentAnd It Scares Me – Observer

February 19, 2020 medical

The amazing success of Siri and the resulting stranglehold AI-powered technology has on humans day-to-day lives makes Siri co-inventor Tom Gruber extremely nervous. Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Tom Gruber is a vastly successful psychologistpossibly one of the most successful of all time. This is because a creation of his happens to be a very large, very ongoing and continuously expanding experiment. If you have an iPhone in your pocket or in your hand, you co-exist with his creation. You may not be able to live without it. And that, Gruber recently told Willamette Week, isnt good!

Gruber is a co-inventor of Siri, the artificial intelligence-powered assistant that uses machine learning to answer billions of queries every week, according to the Computer History Museum. Gruber and his partners sold Siri, a Norse term that roughly translates as beautiful woman who leads you to victory, in 2010 to Apple for a reported $200 million.

SEE ALSO: Flea-Sized Robots Can Crawl Inside YouAnd Maybe Control Your Mind

In the years since, Siri has become near-ubiquitous. And where you cannot find Siri, you may find a clone, like Amazons Alexa or whatever Android-powered genie you summon with the magic words, Hey, Google.

The amazing success of Siri and the resulting stranglehold AI-powered technology has on humans day-to-day lives makes Gruber extremely nervous, he recently told the Portland-based alt-weekly. Like a digital Dr. Frankenstein, Gruber is increasingly wary and horrified at what he hath wrought, a science experiment gone wrong, according to the paper.

In certain areas, AI can already demonstrably outperform humans, hes said before, according to a talk he gave last year in London. And its one thing to create a product, but its another thing to have an entire generation transformed by this technology.

Former chief of the Siri digital assistant team at Apple Tom Gruber speaks at the TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada, on April 25, 2017. GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP via Getty Images

Our millennials check their phones 150 times a day, he noted in a recent interview he gave WW ahead of a lecture on AI he plans to deliver at TechfestNW. (Since his exit from Apple in 2018, Gruber has spent much of his time on the lecture circuit, delivering a 2017 TED talk as well.) So far, rather than fix humanitys illsliteral or spiritualAIs main contribution to the species is that it has shown that if you want to get two billion people addicted to something thats not good for them, you can do it, he told the paper.

The analogy may not be perfect, but Gruber compared the devotees of the worlds religions, whoat maximumpray five times a day, or merely attend services once a weekto the adherents of technology companies, with their billions of users logging on throughout the day, every day. That makes Google or Facebook the worlds biggest religions. So who does that make Godand who are the prophets? And which of them are machinesand if theyre all machines, what does it all mean?

The uncanny valley is the term coined to describe the gulf between human behavior and a machine that uses AI and machine learning to behave like a human. By some metrics, the valley has narrowed, perhaps to a mere chasm. As Gruber has pointed out (and many agree), AI-powered medical diagnostics are outperforming human doctorsand AI-powered marketing is very, very good at getting humans to buy things.

More recently, AI creep has appeared in the humanities. An AI-drawn picture was sold at auction at Christies last year for $432,500. One of Grubers recent projects, an AI music startup called LifeScore of which he is co-founder and CTO, promises to make music that sounds just like a human created it. Yet another is Humanistic AI, in which Gruber is attempting to help companies use machine learning to harmlessly cooperate with humans rather than supplant or dominate the species.

Despite all this, Gruber remains an AI optimistbecause, he pointed out, hes a human optimist. Facebooks programming is bad at discerning real news from fake newsbut its employees are pretty good at it. Twitter is policed by people, not machines.

While it seems, very clearly, that the endgame for most large tech firms is to eliminate the human factorself-driving cars, digital assistantsit seems clear that people are the best option to police social networks. And likewise, if people use AI as a prosthesis or a supplement rather than a replacement, there may be hope for the future of both.

The ways in which AI is abused, he told WW, is to benefit humanscertain humans, those concerned with advertising dollars going up or human-resource costs going down.

Thus, the only real problem with artificial intelligence appears to be human nature. And what could go wrong there?