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Human Behavior

Sex Pheromone Alters Brain Circuitry to Drive Both Innate and Learned Sexual Behaviors – SciTechDaily

Medial amygdala nNOS neurons activated by darcin. Neurons are in blue, neurons activated by darcin are in orange. Credit: Ebru Demir/Axel lab/Columbias Zuckerman Institute

The infamously aloof Mr. Darcy had a hard time attracting members of the opposite sex in Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice. But the same cannot be said for a sex pheromone named for him, called darcin. In a new study, a Columbia University-led team of researchers has now uncovered the process by which this protein takes hold in the brains of female mice, giving cells in the brains emotion center the power to assess the mouses sexual readiness and help her select a mate.

These findings, published in the February 6, 2020 issue of Nature, illustrate the power of a single protein to change the brain and drive behavior. They also demonstrate how a cluster of cells in one brain area integrates information from the outside world with the animals own internal state.

Pheromones act as powerful scent messages to signal the presence of danger, food or prospective mates, said Ebru Demir, Ph.D., the papers first author. With todays study, weve mapped the route that the pheromone darcin takes from the nose to the brain, bringing much-needed understanding to the mechanisms by which animals use scents to communicate, added Dr. Demir, who is an associate research scientist in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Richard Axel, MD, at Columbias Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.

While the existence of pheromones in humans is controversial, rodents and many other animals rely on pheromones as a way to signal everything from potential danger to a willingness to mate.

Darcin is one such pheromone, discovered in 2010 by Robert Beynon, Ph.D., and Jane Hurst, Ph.D., and their team at the University of Liverpool. Dr. Hurst and her colleagues found that male mice release darcin in their urine to mark their territory and to initiate courtship displays. Sniffing a males darcin helps a female to both identify him and decide whether to mate with him. This entire process is initiated in a biologically unusual way.

Normally, mice make sense of odors using olfactory receptors in the nose. These specialized proteins send information about a scent to a designated location in the brain for further processing. Dr. Axel, who is codirector at Columbias Zuckerman Institute, received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Linda Buck, Ph.D., for their work identifying the genes that encode these receptors.

Pheromones, such as darcin, are processed somewhat differently. They interact with a second, parallel olfactory system, which exists in animals like mice but not in people.

Unlike people, mice have essentially two functional noses, said Dr. Demir. The first nose works like ours: processing scents such as the stinky odor particles found in urine. But a second system, called the vomernasal nose, evolved specifically to perceive pheromones like darcin.

For todays study, the research team, which also included Dr. Hurst, Dr. Beynon and co-senior author Adam Kepecs, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first exposed female mice to darcin-scented urine and monitored their behavior. Nearly all of the female mice showed an immediate attraction to darcin. Then, after about 50 minutes, some females began leaving their own urinary scent markings. They also started to sing, at ultrasonic frequencies too high for the human ear to hear. Both of these behaviors are an indicator of increased sexual drive.

Not all females performed these displays. Lactating mothers, for example, appeared to largely ignore the darcin-scented areas after an initial sniff of interest.

The reason for this difference, the scientists proposed, may lie in a brain region called the medial amygdala. The research team identified a subset of brain cells, or neurons, in this brain area, called nNOS neurons, that switched on in the presence of darcin.

By artificially activating those neurons, we could simulate the animals response to darcin and elicit the same behaviors, said Dr. Demir. When we silenced these neurons, the animal lost interest in darcin entirely.

The neurons location in the medial amygdala was particularly intriguing. This brain area is generally associated with hardwired emotional responses, such as fear or anger. In the case of the darcin pheromone, though, the medial amygdala may serve another role.

Our results suggest that nNOS neurons in the medial amygdala do not simply pass along information about darcin, said Dr. Demir. These neurons seem to be integrating sensory information about the pheromone with the internal state of the animal, such as whether she is a lactating mother and therefore not interested in mating.

Going forward, the research team plans to delve deeper into the neural circuitry that responds to pheromones and how changes to that circuitry drive behavior. They also hope their findings will serve to update how pheromones are defined.

Pheromones have long been associated with an innate, immediate behavioral response, but here we have shown that darcin can elicit complex behaviors that are dependent on the internal state of the animal, said Dr. Demir. As we continue our investigations, its possible that other pheromones may also act on the brain in similarly unexpected and complex ways.

This paper is titled The pheromone darcin drives a circuit for innate and reinforced behaviours. Additional contributors include Kenneth Li, Natasha Bobrowski-Khoury and Joshua Sanders, PhD.

Reference: The pheromone darcin drives a circuit for innate and reinforced behaviours by Ebru Demir, Kenneth Li, Natasha Bobrowski-Khoury, Joshua I. Sanders, Robert J. Beynon, Jane L. Hurst, Adam Kepecs and Richard Axel, 29 January 2020, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-1967-8

This research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Robert E. Leet and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust Fellowship.

The authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest.

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Sex Pheromone Alters Brain Circuitry to Drive Both Innate and Learned Sexual Behaviors - SciTechDaily

Human Behavior

Vienna Blood Exclusive Clip Sees Jessica De Gouw Seeking to End Relationship with Matthew Beard – Shockya.com

Actress Jessica De Gouw and actor Matthew Beard star in the PBS crime mystery drama, The Lost Child.

Instantly honest relationships can often begin intensely, but ultimately, the connections dont always last forever. Thats certainly the case for Max Liebermann and Amelia Lydgate, the characters played by Matthew Beard and Jessica De Gouw, in the crime drama, Vienna Blood. In honor of the series second mystery, The Queen of the Night, concluding on PBS tonight, February 9 at 10pm, ShockYa is premiering an exclusive clip from the episode.

In the clip, which is titled Saying Goodbye, Amelia tells Max that she values the immediate ease they developed with each other when they first met, and appreciates that they could always be truthful with each other. But she now feels that their case has been solved, they should end their relationship.

Vienna Blood follows Max (Beard), a young Englishman and student of Sigmund Freud, who teams up with Oskar (Juergen Maurer), an Austrian police detective, to solve the most horrific of crimes in turn-of-the-century Vienna. In The Queen of the Night, Oskar asks Max to help investigate a grotesque series of murders in Viennas slums.

The overall show chronicles how in the first decade of the 1900s, Vienna is a hotbed of philosophy, science and art, where cultures and ideas are espoused in the citys grand cafes and opera houses. Yet beneath the genteel glamour, nationalism and anti-Semitism are on the rise. Max is a brilliant young English-born Jewish student of the controversial psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Eager to study actual criminal activity, he is paired with the skeptical Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt, who is struggling to solve a series of particularly gruesome murders. Between Maxs extraordinary understanding of human behavior and deviance, and Oscars practical experience, the two become an unlikely detective duo, called on to solve Viennas most baffling cases.

The Queen of the Night (Part 2) follows Max and Oskar as their latest investigation draws them into the sphere of nationalistic groups who despise Viennas immigrants. Meanwhile, Maxs fiance is provoked into taking daring risks before the murderers shocking rationale is finally revealed.

The thrilling new murder mystery show was penned by acclaimed screenwriter, Steve Thompson, and is based on the best-selling novels by Frank Tallis. Vienna Blood premieres on six consecutive Sundays, January 19-February 23, from 10-11pm ET on PBS, as well as its official website and app. The episodes are also available to stream on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast, the Monday after their original air date.

Filmed on location, the Vienna Blood episodes were directed by Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee, Robert Dornhelm and Umut Da?. The show was produced by Endor Productions and MR Film, in co-production with Red Arrow Studios International, ZDF Germany and ORF (Austria), with the assistance of Fernsehfonds Austria, Film Fonds Vienna and Kultur Niederesterreich.

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Title

ShockYa's Exclusive 'Vienna Blood' Clip

Description

ShockYa is premiering an exclusive clip from the PBS crime mystery drama, 'The Lost Child.'

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Vienna Blood Exclusive Clip Sees Jessica De Gouw Seeking to End Relationship with Matthew Beard - Shockya.com

Human Behavior

In times of fake news and manufactured outrage, how do we reclaim empathy? – Scroll.in

In August 2019, police in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh decided to open an investigation into a local journalist, Pawan Jaiswal, all because he had exposed a government school for feeding its children salt and a chapati as a mid-day meal. This meal was well below the governments minimum nutrition standards. But the state didnt care about the information that was revealed, it didnt care to respond with alarm to the food that was being fed to these young children. Instead of taking action against the school authorities, the Uttar Pradesh government felt the journalist was at fault for making the government look bad, especially on video that could be circulated so widely now online. And so, it decided to charge him with cheating, using false evidence and conspiracy. The Uttar Pradesh government essentially accused him of reporting their version of fake news.

Barely two weeks after this incident, the same state government booked journalists Ashish Tomar, Shakil Ahmed and three others who tried to report on caste discrimination in the city of Bijnor. Discrediting journalists when the story doesnt suit those in power, by accusing them of peddling fake news has become par for course across the world. Populist leaders would like us to believe that news they dont like, or news they want to deny, is fake, simply because it is critical of them and their policies. These are just two cases in point, but the world is littered with such examples.

YouTube and Twitter took down several videos and posts that part of Chinas state propaganda and information wars against the Hong Kong protests aimed to the discredit news stories emerging from there in September last year. Earlier in 2019, an Indian Parliamentary committee led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party asked Twitter to explain a liberal bias, accusing it of only targeting right wing voices as they blocked and took down abusive accounts.

So when we see politicians and world leaders call stories like Pawan Jaiswals fake news, the terminology itself stands discredited. Instead, a bigger, deeper danger confronts us what is in essence the real threat of fake news misinformation, propaganda and hate speech propagated by state machineries and co-opted media voices. Falsehoods, rumours, real news disaggregated and put back together with the aim of feeding fear and diverting public attention from accountability this kind of misinformation is all geared to stop journalists from doing their job. It is geared to sow hate division amongst the people.

We can argue that fake news is as old as time and we would be right. It has been around since news became a concept 500 years ago with the invention of the printing press in the 1400s. Rumors in Italy in the 16th century , for example, about Jewish people drinking childrens blood circulated on printed pamphlets in Italy. Printing technology gave the rumor legitimacy. Today, those rumors are considered the precursor to anti-Semitism in the world. Like the printing presss disruptive technology, broadcast technologies have also been misused to spread hate most visibly in Rwanda, where they pitted the Hutus and Tutsis against each other and exhorted violence.

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan burst on to the intellectual scene by defining the media as an extension of ourselves. The phone extends our voice, the TV extends our eyes and ears, the computer extends our brain, and electronic media overall extends our central nervous system. This extension of technology, McLuhan argued can allow us to detach ourselves from the world around us. If we think about it, in an era of social media, of trolls and online abuse, the keyboard has placed distance between the abuser and the victim. That distance has empowered people to speak in the most hateful ways something that face-to-face interaction censures and discourages. Today, just as computing technology gives us access to all sorts of news and information at the click of a button it also spreads opinion, propaganda and unverified information that masquerades as news quicker than anyone could have ever imagined with more damaging consequences that anyone could have imagined.

In 2018, a spate of deaths by lynching that were the result of rumors about child kidnappers in India forced the Indian public to sit up and take a hard look at just how we were becoming part of this rumor factory. These deaths finally forced the platform, WhatsApp, to restrict our ability to forward messages without a second thought and realise, through identifiable markers that what we get isnt always an original, fresh piece of information.

In 2014, the World Economic Forum called misinformation one of the ten greatest perils confronting society. It sows the seeds of hate, waters them and harvests them. Think of these numbers WhatsApp, which is accused of being used to disseminate rumor and whip up hysteria, has 400 million users in India alone. Facebook has 2.5 billion monthly active users around the world. How often does it shock us to read comments from some of these users below the most innocuous posts? Politics, gender rights, festivals, food just about anything can spark off a verbal war about choices and biases.

Digital platforms have brought yellow journalism back to the fore. For one, algorithms that create news feeds and compilations have no regard for accuracy and objectivity. Content moderation tools need to work in tandem with human intervention. At the same time, the digital news trend has decimated the journalistic force measured in both money and manpower of the traditional free press. The advertising-based business model that supported journalism all these years has collapsed, platforms like Google and Facebook have become the most powerful news disseminators in history.

Speed and time have become compressed in our hyperconnected world and it has become next to impossible to reconcile the need for speed with the need to verify information that we either get or pass along. Technology serves not only to amplify disinformation and hate, but also creates the scope for its automated spread through bots that are learning to mimic human behavior and imitate legitimate users. This sort of technology has no use for borders, so people and machines in Ukraine can influence public opinion in America, Russian agencies can interfere with the US electoral process. And as the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed us, specific audiences that could be influenced were targetted. The manufactured information they received disguised as news confirmed their anxieties and biases.

In India, propaganda and disinformation is being used constantly to discredit political leaders, and political legacies inimical to the government. Pictures of Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru being affectionate and social with women friends, or family; or lighting a cigarette, were shared by the head of BJPs IT cell accusing him of being a womaniser with westernised values; and in turn rally political support for the BJPs current leadership, projected as one that upholds/respects traditional values.

This is all profitable the flow of fabricated stories, rearranged half-truths and decontextualised facts has corroded trust in the media. Worse, it co-opted some in the mainstream media via unscrupulous politicians and media managers looking at a profitable bottom lines.

In fact, journalists in Rwanda stood trial at a United Nations court accused of inciting genocide of 800,000 people by Hutu extremists. But the legitimacy we as readers and viewers get from text, sound and images, taken out of context, however incorrectly projected, is hard to undo. Today, newsrooms around the world are prioritising the role of fact checkers precisely to call out this sort of propaganda.

But peddlers of propaganda and disinformaton have no real reputation to maintain, no incentive to stay honest. Their concern is limited to reach. And they thrive on anonymity. Automation allows them to be here today, on to another story tomorrow. Their campaigns seek to destroy what exists, what is built. They are almost messianic mobilising to raze what is, with the promise of what is to be of a phoenix rising from the ashes.

This is why conversations about the health of our democracies converge naturally around the threat from misinformation and the role its manipulators play in blurring the lines between news and opinion, rumor and fact. Misinformation is a key part of hate campaigns.

Hate for political gain.

Troll armies both, human and automated, carry out concerted campaigns especially against religious or caste minorities and refugees creating enemies out of ordinary people trying to live their lives. These campaigns prey on the most basic human emotions of fear and anger. Anger against corruption or unemployment or reservations. Anger against real or perceived economic and social privilege, for example. And fear fear of terrorism and refugees being a threat to security. The goal of disinformation is to divide and polarise society, make us less tolerant, believe that another group is worse than we are.

Hate and polarisation need an enemy, and they need fuel. In India, both are dutifully provided by politicians who harness anger and resentment with populist rhetoric. Politicians who confirm existing biases against minorities and reinforce perceptions about the targets of their hate. These campaigns disrupt beliefs in fundamental basic principles like freedom of speech, the right to life and liberty, to privacy, the right to have different opinions.

They thrive on the chaos they create forcing us, the citizens to conform to binary identities national or anti-national, globalist or patriot, Hindu or Muslim. Political groups selectively mobilise genuine devotion or religious emotion in order to manufacture both, offense and a sense of being offended Hate spin, as media theorist Cherian George calls it. They create an atmosphere of mistrust. And suddenly we dont know who or what to believe, our own convictions of right and wrong are tested.

The wedges they drive are filled by populist politicians quickly who claim they speak on behalf of the disenfranchised, when all they really want is to hold on to power. An authoritarian leader who fashions himself both as kindred underling and as a demagogic messiah to the public uses a fractured polity to his advantage. And social media gives hate and division much need oxygen. Divisive politicians use the media to foment prejudice, create confusion and celebrate ignorance.

Vitiated, ideologically polarised and aggressive politics is fast becoming a cauldron of victimhood and rage. Its objective is met when the support base is widened, a divisive narrative is created, and people are mobilised around a political agenda. The binaries are challenging our definitions of liberal democracy, of identities and nationalism. The success of propaganda and hate speech that fuels populism lies in a careful calculation of the use of state power, the manipulation of public sentiment, the rhetoric of populist politics and the influence of the media.

Liberalism that requires checks and balances and limited governance is trumped by politicians who want us to believe the state is in mortal danger. Misinformation is a common strategy of populist demagogues who try to subvert peoples trust in verifiable facts and cultivate cynicism.

As the crucible of hate speech bubbles over, space for civil debate in the public sphere has yielded to coarse, abusive conversations, fueled by manufactured outrage in TV studios. Electoral contests or policy debates are no longer based on reason but on personal charisma and tribal loyalties.

The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we can lay all the blame at technologys door? If we do that, we open up the possibility of authoritarian governments and companies driven by profit to try and regulate our responses.

That is a slippery slope.

What we can and must do instead is identify, report, counter each time we see something abusive or hateful. We must push platforms to act. We must ensure governments dont misuse calls for regulation to silence critics.

This is a fine balancing act, but one that can only work if we the public invest in our right to accurate information. So, it is really up to us to recognise now that we are just pawns on a political chessboard. Should we allow malign actors, divisive politicians or automated technologies to take over our thought process, our societal obligations? Does the keyboard replace all our interactions and determine our behaviour?

Technology is making is numb, the absence of human contact has an overwhelming impact on basic values the respect for rights and freedoms, plurality, intellectual pursuits. And most importantly, it is impacting our ability to empathise with groups targeted by this violent discourse refugees and immigrants fleeing violence or poverty in detention centres across the world, children separated from their parents, families bereft as the main breadwinner is killed by rampaging mobs all justified as retribution for perceived, past injustices.

There are examples of suffering all around us. But can we re-center ourselves and be empathetic to the suffering of those at the receiving end of this violence today? Can we initiate truth and reconciliation amongst people so that we can overcome this polarising hatred?

Instead of weaponising stereotypes or past pain and injustice, instead of retreating into nativist, tribal identities fueled by propaganda and misinformation, can we reclaim empathy as an antidote to hate?

Can we ensure we think before we share? And prevent conspiracies from spreading? Can we educate our young? Can we tell them from the minute they have a smartphone in their hands what responsible behavior online is all about? High levels of education from an early age is proving to be one of the most effective antidotes to misinformation and hate in countries like Finland can we learn from their lessons?

The media is considered democracys fourth pillar. It creates awareness about our environments, bears witness to our triumphs and to our pain, it is meant to hold power accountable. For one co-opted journalist or media manager, there are many more rededicating themselves every day to ethical, factual reporting each morning. These are committed journalists putting their life and liberty on the line to bring us stories that no one wants us to read or see.

Journalists who exposed Cambridge Analyticas influence operations did the public a service and made both governments and platforms more accountable. Journalists like Pawan Jaiswal who exposed government schools for not doing what they were mandated to do open our eyes to the everyday injustices of false political promises around us. It will take a collective of stories from good old-fashioned journalists, and a public that seeks to build bridges rather than expand gulfs between communities to turn the tide on hate and pull us out of the abyss that todays propaganda has led us into.

This article first appeared on Maya Mirchandanis blog.

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In times of fake news and manufactured outrage, how do we reclaim empathy? - Scroll.in

Human Behavior

Addressing technology concerns with technology – SME10X

Challenge 1: Empathy vs. AI

Jun Wu, an industry-expert, shares her thoughts: Empathy is at the heart of ethics issues related to AI Systems. Augmented reality is only believable if that reality is as close to real as possible. Commenting on the possible solution, she says: This means that AI Systems have to mimic real human emotions. Only through real human emotions and personal data from you can AI systems augment a reality that you will believe in. With the popularity of social media applications, collecting personal data from you is no longer a problem. However, the real problem lies in modeling real human emotions. If scientists can train the AI System to mimic empathy, then scientists can train the AI System to have regard for law, order and societal values. In conjunction with developing empathy in our AI Systems, we can also place limits on our AI Systems. Same way that societal values, moral code and standard of social behavior help humans live better in society, AI Systems can be integrated in a similar way to help us instead of to hurt us. Speaking along the same lines, Jesus Mantas, Global Head of Strategy and Offerings at IBM Global Business Services, shareshis thoughts with weforum.org: The road to this next stage of progress begins with designing human-AI interactions that prioritize enhancing peoples humanity, not replacing it. A passionless, automatonic future would weaken what has allowed humans to survive and thrive throughout millennia. The biggest benefits of AI will be achieved by chemistry-matching of humans and AI - and in teaching AI to be more human, we will find opportunities to learn how to be more human ourselves.

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Addressing technology concerns with technology - SME10X

Physiology

Local News: Cox Nursing program to start in spring 2021 (2/8/20) – Monett Times

Non-traditional program has seen a 93 percent success rate

Students wanting to fast-track their education to earn an associate degree in nursing will have the opportunity to take part in a non-traditional program that allows them to attend either day or night and weekend classes in Monett.

This is a great opportunity for students who need more flexibility due to family obligations or jobs, said Dr. Sonya Hayter, vice president of student affairs. We are excited to come educate your students who want to stay in your community.

The program offers lectures, skills training and clinical practices locally, with the exception of pediatric clinics, which are held in Springfield.

Classes will start with the spring semester 2021, but students wishing to enroll must have completed human anatomy, human physiology and chemistry classes beforehand. Students are required to have a minimum of 3.0 cumulative grade point average, and a 2.5 cumulative GPA for completed science courses.

Courses are completed in two years, or four semesters, allowing students to gain employment as registered nurses while continuing to work toward a bachelor of science in nursing.

Many healthcare institutions offer financial assistance to their students, Hayter said.

The program started three years ago in Springfield, and thus far, has an established pass rate of 93 percent.

I hope we get a lot of bilingual nursing students, said Darren Bass, president of Cox Monett Hospital and system vice president of the Community Hospital Group at CoxHealth. That would be awesome. People want to be able to converse in their native language when they are sick. We have been waiting for this program [in Monett] for two-and-a-half years.

For more information on the ASN nights and weekend program, people may visit CoxCollege.edu or call Allison Rainey, admissions counselor and recruiter, at 417-269-3069.

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Local News: Cox Nursing program to start in spring 2021 (2/8/20) - Monett Times

Physiology

Abidemi Baloguns dream to be a nurse comes true in ResU nursing program – Rolling Out

Photo courtesy of Isaiah Heath

Abidemi Balogun followed her dream to become a nurse. Her aspiration was to help reduce health disparities in impoverished communities. In the pursuit of reaching her goals, Balogun began the nursing journey at Resurrection University in Chicago. While attending, Balogun was in the accelerated nursing program as well as in the esteemed Interprofessional Scholar Program. The program prepares students to enter a healthcare industry increasingly focused on interdisciplinary teamwork and communication.

The aspiring caregiver graduated in December 2019, and currently works as a nursing assistant at Rush University Medical Center.

What inspired you to show up to nursing school every day?The lives and the patients that I [would] serve is what inspired me to show up to nursing school. Nursing is one of the hardest undergraduate degrees, and if there is no passion for it, it will be extremely difficult to keep going.

What is the best and worst thing about nursing school?The best thing is the bonds your form with your study group and the free food that is provided during the semester. The worse thing is waking up extremely early to get to clinical no matter if it rains, snows or shines.

How important is it for a nurse to create small talk with patients?It is extremely important to create small talk with patients because this is where rapport is built. Nursing is the most trusted profession and I think its because of the inter-personal relationship that is formed between the nurse and patient during these small talks. When the patients trust the nurse, it makes their healing process smoother and the nurses job easier in my opinion.

Finish these sentences:I am committed to providing excellent care that is equal across gender, race, sexuality, and religion.I work to make a difference by ensuring that I am aware of my personal bias.Annual checkups and visits are the best ways to prevent or delay the progressing of an underlying disease process.

What has attributed to todays nursing shortage?I think there has been a substantial shortage due to the fact a lot of seasoned nurses are retiring and there is a limited supply of new nurses. In addition, nursing is a meticulous and gruesome field and its not for everyone.

What courses should a high school student consider if interested in a nursing career?I would recommend that they take anatomy and physiology very seriously. I had a solid background in anatomy and physiology, and this helped me tremendously in nursing school, especially in pathophysiology.

Name three reasons why its cool to consider nursing?

About Abidemi BalogunWhats the coolest thing about you? I make and dye wigs.Favorite Restaurant: Yummy Thai (Chicago, IL)Favorite Non-Work Hobby: Writing fictional stories

Tigner is Media personality, Inspirational & Motivational writer based in Atlanta, Georgia

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Abidemi Baloguns dream to be a nurse comes true in ResU nursing program - Rolling Out

Physiology

Athlon Takes It to the Next Level Paso Robles Press – Paso Robles Press

Athlon Fitness and Performance has long been a training ground for many of San Luis Obispo Countys top-performing athletes. And yes, sweat, weightlifting, and hard work are a part of the regiment. However, so are deeply rooted values such as integrity, personal responsibility, and the desire to improve.

Ryan Joiner, owner, and coach, opened Athlon in San Luis Obispo in 2003 to fulfill a need for a high-level sports training facility. With an emphasis on coaching and personal training, the membership quickly grew to include athletes from all over the county many going on to compete professionally. Over the years, Athlon evolved from an elite sports performance facility focused only on the strength and conditioning needs of athletes to a more extensive clientele anyone who has fitness goals they would like to achieve.

We help people look and perform their best and help them to create the life they want, Joiner said.

In October 2019, Joiner added a long-planned second Athlon location in the Woodland Shopping Center in Paso Robles.

We have worked with a lot of professional athletes and quite a few high school kids many who were commuting to train with us on their sports performance and athleticism, Joiner said. We knew we wanted to be in Paso Robles and see the area as a powerhouse in California for young athletes. The community is very supportive of its youth and has a huge demographic of strong, young kids, matching our love for coaching young athletes.

The new location offers all of the same services as the San Luis Obispo location, including personal training, sports performance training, and general gym memberships.

If you are looking for a hot tub, sauna, tennis court and ping-pong table, we are not your health club, said Joiner who earned a bachelors degree in exercise physiology from Fresno State and a masters degree in kinesiology from Cal Poly. We are results-driven and focused on getting people the specific results they hope to achieve.

Joiner admits that because of the focus on an athletic approach to training it can be difficult for some people to know if the gym is the right fit for them. But everyone is welcome. We see everyone as an athlete, Joiner said. If you have to step off a curb while carrying a bag of groceries while hanging onto a dog leash at the same time, you are an athlete. Athleticism is the ability to multitask and do many physical things. It is also the ability to work all day without being in pain.

The gyms coaches also work with people who are overcoming injuries or facing physical setbacks.

There are a lot of people who give up on living an active lifestyle because of pain, Joiner said. We are here to help them get past that with a methodical approach to fixing movement patterns.

Joiner has spent the last decade studying functional neurology to better understand the bodys nervous system and its connection to muscles, using that knowledge to help clients reach their goals.

Joiners first client as a personal trainer 25 years ago shaped his future career. The young woman, who suffered a spinal injury that left her unable to walk, came to him determined to not only walk again but run.

Her determination was so powerful for me that I dove in 100 percent and said lets do this, he said. Insurance authorized her to train with me for a year. On our final session, we met at the park and she ran. It instilled the passion in me to want to help people find solutions and I built my business around that.

The values that form the foundation of Athlon have guided not only Joiners interaction with clients but the provided the philosophy for all of the nine fitness coaches, who have a combined 75 years of experience, that work at the two facilities. Some principles are simple: be happy and friendly, act with honor and integrity. Others entail reflection: a reminder that taking personal responsibility requires bravery and sometimes it is necessary to struggle.

We live by those values and ultimately we attract customers that believe in them as well, he said. We lead with good coaching and sportsmanship and the values fall into place.

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Athlon Takes It to the Next Level Paso Robles Press - Paso Robles Press

Physiology

Not Sure What to Eat? Just Breathe (Literally) – The Spoon

When deciding which diet to follow, most of us rely on friends recommendations, online questionnaires, or internet wisdom. Then again, why not shape your food choices off of your actual breath.

Israel-based startup Lumen gives dining recommendations based off of the amount of CO2 which you exhale into their proprietary device (which reveals whether youre burning carbs or body fat).

We think that breath-based dietary guidance is pretty cool, so we invited Dana Varrone, Lumens VP of Strategic Partnerships, to speak at Customize, our food personalization summit, in NYC later this month. Join us there to hear her talk about how personalization can unlock the power of food as medicine (use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off those tickets).

But first if you want to learn more about how your breath can indicate what you should be eating, check out our Q&A with Varrone below.

Tell us a little bit about what Lumen does. Lumen is a device and app that helps you take control of your metabolism. Through your breath, the Lumen technology measures your fuel source in real time, telling you if youre using fats or carbs for energy, and provides you with a personalized nutrition plan to help you reach your health and fitness goals.

A metabolic measurement (RQ) that was once costly and time-consuming in a clinical setting is now available through a single breath with Lumen.

Why do you think that there has been a rise in interest around personalized nutrition over the past few years?I think there are three main reasons for the rise. Firstly, people are fed up with going on diets and not getting the results they want, and are starting to recognize that what may work for one person may not work for them. Go Keto as carbs are the devil is on the one extreme and follow the myplate and eat a balanced plate of grains, protein, fruit, veggie and dairy is on the other extreme of the advice spectrum. Couple this with advanced research being published on how various foods may impact your gut and the increase in allergies nationwide, and question marks start going off in peoples minds of perhaps one size does not fit all.

Secondly, with the rise in technologies such as the AppleWatch, fitbit and the like, consumers are seeing the value in getting personalized feedback. Consumers can now see how many steps theyve walked, calories theyve burned and can even get feedback on their heart rate. This immediate feedback empowers consumers to feel like they can now be in control of their own lives, whereas before it was left to your doctor and your yearly physical visits.

Lastly, with the rise in social media and newsfeeds being curated for you, people are demanding speed and instant gratification. This is specifically the case with the millennial generation that have grown up with this being their norm. This results in people wanting answers fast, based on them and their needs, now.

What are the biggest hurdles towards creating personalized dietary guidance towards consumers?I think the biggest hurdles are in asking the right questions to the consumer at the onset and being able to adjust the personalization over time based on both qualitative and quantitative data that takes into account lifestyle changes, life events, food tolerances, goals, and physiology.

What do you think personalized food or drink will look like 5 years down the road?I think data from a variety of touch points will be the primary driver in personalizing a consumers nutrition and will be housed with an engagement app that makes sense of all the data, with Lumen being at the helm of this.

If you want to see Dana speak about how personalization can unlock the power of food as medicine, join us at Customize this month in NYC! Use code SPOON15 to get 15 percent off tix.

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Read more from the original source:
Not Sure What to Eat? Just Breathe (Literally) - The Spoon

Physiology

What It Means To Put Humanity At The Center Of Business In The 21st Century – Forbes

Glass globe photographed in a moth forest

Three weeks ago, the World Economic Forum held its 50th annual meeting, with the theme of Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World. Across a variety of sittings, the Forum focused onrenewing the concept of stakeholder capitalism, community engagement and platform capabilities to support global, regional and national initiatives that can possibly generate a positive impact for all stakeholders. At the same time, the Forum announced its wish to rejuvenate the Davos Manifesto to re-imagine its purpose and a clear scorecard for companies and governments.

Indeed, influential businesses such as Microsoft, Unilever, Infosys and Visa announced their commitment to sourcing 100% of their global electricity consumption from renewable sources in pursue of environmental sustainability during the week and just days after the Forum, The Guardian newspaper announced it would stop accepting advertisements from oil and gas companies to limit their financial ties to fossil fuel businesses.

The desire to ground community around a common purpose and a set of shared principles to provide sustained value creation is both timely and amicable; and, it is equally important to take a step back and understand why we are trying to put back humanity at the center of our businesses.

In her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff writes about regeneration of the most basic existential questions that have been asked for centuries around social strata, generations, society, wealth, power, etc. She explains how in many ways this era is similar to the industrial era and how surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data, which would arguably then be used for production of new technologies. She argues instead of labor, the current era feeds on various aspects of humans experience and while industrial civilization flourished at the expense of nature, now, threatening our world, the information civilization will thrive at the expense of human nature, in time, threatening our humanity. Accordingly, she names a number of valid examples to make her case and raises a number of social economical and spiritual questions that deserve in depth discussion for their philosophies.

Unfortunately, when it comes to building spirituality into an organization whether it is a family, a corporation or a government, we have got it a bit wrong. The majority of us carry a bias in our hearts against any cause that feels non-economical in value. Admittedly or not, most of us associate the word spiritual with religion. In reality, the word originates from Old Latin word of spiritus,which referstosoul, courage, vigor, breath, implying liveliness across life experiences.

Businesses, as centers of activity, are uniquely positioned to carry a spirit (and do so), yet, the idea going back to the core purpose of business or the call to re-focus on humanity feels like a catch phrase to many. Some understand it as a suggestion for only caring about the human-beings, others understand it as swapping employees for key stakeholders, others believe it is yet another humanitarian movement raised by a few disadvantaged colleagues.

The Enlarged Definition of Humanness

Though people undoubtedly should be a primary stakeholder for any organization and there is a legitimate need for future organizations to make employees a key priority, recognize the term human expands way beyond a human being in its current philosophy.

In its most common usage, the word human generally refers to the only extant species of the genusHomo anatomically and behaviorally describing modernHomo sapiens as we know it. In scientific terms, the meaning of human, we find has changed on several occasions pointing across a diverse group of animalistic species over time. In anthropology, some identify the category of the human with the speciesHomo sapiens, others equate it with the whole genusHomo, some restrict it to the subspeciesHomo sapiens sapiens while a few others take it to encompass the entire hominin lineage. Finally, in the discipline of psychology, humans designate a certain taxonomic category in which having a physiology is not sufficient to belong to the category.

You see? Although the concept of a human vastly varies in definition etymologically speaking, philosophers distinguish the linguistic meaning of indexical expressions from their content. As such, the content of an indexical is whatever it names.

Another example comes from a collaborative study between the University of Washington and Osaka University, professors Kahn et all., where scholars have jointly studied and tried to characterize what it means to be human to aid robotics design and interactions. They were able to name 10 different aspects of humanness ranging from practicing autonomy to engagement in creativity to carrying moral value and caring for reciprocity.

These descriptions are all relevant because they each provide different angles into the way we define something.

What we are witnessing for the way we have and continue to define a human is that humanness is and continues to be a direction. If we were to name it in poetry, it would likely read something like: With every step I do, I walk to you, because who am I and who are you without each other? In other words, there is a constant across many definitions that suggests there is a relational aspect to humanness. The Oxford English dictionary lists the hu of human represents the soul of any being physical and other dimensional as a representative part of bigger creation. In that, any being with a soul, living and non-living, may exist but cannot thrive and reach its potential without the other/ the opposite.

Therefore, when we point to the growing need to focus on humanity as the center piece of our 21st century organizations, we are referring to human beings (you and me alike) as a key part, yes, and we are also referring to the nature and other beings whom which human beings cannot survive without as well as the collective and the robotics and intelligent machinery we will have to rely on/ live with in the future.

Indeed, in that dynamic reliance and interconnection lays the fundamentals of any terminology. Taxonomy is vastly critical to creating unprecedented experiences as it shapes our way of becoming, relating and doing/ working through philosophy.

The Benefits of Carrying a Humanity Focus

In order to challenge current claims and bearings of our way traditional way of working, once our taxonomy is enlarged, we must establish new bearings.

We cannot evaluate the trajectory of our businesses separate from civilization and without a clear appreciation for an enlarged definition of humanity. Just as we cannot separate technology from new world order or 21st century business, a business cannot single-handedly be oriented toward profit-making if we want to survive history. Business is not and can no longer be a thing in itself, isolated from economics, society or culture.

That centering around humanness brings relativity with a potential to drive equality and equity into the conversation that is otherwise missing. That centering gives us the benefit to claim every time we single out our focus for example, when we only going after profit; every time we disintegrate or categorize for example, when we look down on a new or a different player; or every time we separate in class for example, when we choose to see certain groups fit for our culture, we are consciously or unconsciously breaking down multiplicities and relying on theories that no longer provide predictability. Realize when we are not actively working towards unity under a set of agreed upon values that honor all thats going to support our individual and collective thriving equitably, we are, indeed, dis-serving our initial intent and becoming blind sided for future possibilities.

On the other hand, when we can learn to integrate, to include and to innovate together, we are contributing to the creation of many and more prosperous opportunities we may not even be able to imagine... Take Goldman Sachs and Amazon, as an example, who arereportedly in talksabout establishing a partnership in which the investment bank would offer small business loans to merchants through the e-commerce giants platform. What might such an arrangement mean for their current customer base or for those looking to pivot into entrepreneurship and the industry? What consumer opportunities we may be missing without the entertainment of such partnership possibilities?

Putting humanity back in the center of business is not only necessary for sustainable value creation and it is equally good for all stakeholders holistic wellbeing.

When in doubt, consider the 5Ps of a 21st century business: (1) Passion beyond ability brings intent to ones sense of self-organizing. (2) Purpose beyond profit brings clarity to common mission. (3) Principles over value drives alignment and increases standards of quality. (4) Focus on potential enables impact beyond human beings specifically toward society and environment. (5) People you think do not speak your language may come in as key stakeholders to save your business in a new market creation dynamic.

5Ps of 21st Century Business

Research validates for us high performing organizations carry spirituality and they differfrom the ordinary kind in that they have a much deeper connection and better self-righting mechanisms than their peers.The individual employees inside organizations, where we record sustained growth over time often demonstrate greater self-mastery and higher self-respect, thus, operating on a basis of trust, creativity and collaboration. They take full accountability jointly for dealing and resolving with issues in kind, even if doing so introduces more emotional risk for individuals singularly. Ultimately, these organizations see every single challenge as a collective opportunity. We can certainly multiply that through other organizations world-wide. The key remains in our intent and choices we make appropriately.

Remember, as paradoxical as it may seem, the success of businesses hoping to take advantage of this new revolution depends on their capacity to put humanity at the center. And by humanity, we dont just point to single categories. For our life and work experiences to be reinvented, we must reflect on new ways of understanding and fulfilling peoples needs, a new economic model that can see beyond profit and a new social contract that can sustain it altogether. Thats exactly what the World Economic Forum is trying to drive with its revised manifesto.

Workplace transformations are no longer an aspect of the distant future. Where traditional value chains are being collapsed and new market innovations are being sought through by minute, we invite HR and business leaders to engage in a regenerative process and lead organizations to take advantage of a rapidly closing window to create a new future of work and equitable life experiences for all new century citizens.

Excerpt from:
What It Means To Put Humanity At The Center Of Business In The 21st Century - Forbes

Embryology

Digital revolution: Embryonic horses briefly have five toes – Horsetalk

(a) Illustration of arrangement and relative sizes of pre-cartilaginous condensations in developing Equus forelimb and hindlimb digits based on reconstructions of histological sections of 3035 dpc embryos from this study.(b) Fossil transition series of adult horse FL digits (isometrically scaled) showing the sequence of reduction of anterior and posterior digits and increasing dominance of central digit III. (i) Phenacodus, (ii) Hyracotherium, (iii) Mesohippus, (iv) Hypohippus, (v) Hipparion, (vi) Dinohippus. Illustration from Solounias et al.

For a few short days in the womb, horses have five tiny toes, research reveals.

Horses are born with feet that are effectively a single digit, with two flanking remnants identified as digits 2 and 4.

Now, Kathryn Kavanagh, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and her colleagues have shown that early horse embryos go through a stage with five-digit condensations.

These effectively condense during fetal development into the foot structure familiar to all horse owners.

Surprised by their discovery, the researchers re-examined the initial stages of digit condensation of all digit-reduced four-limbed animals where suitable information was available.

They found that, in all cases, early embryos have five or four digits, with the first digit missing in the case of the latter.

The persistent five-digit initiation in the horse and other digit-reduced modern animals underscores a durable developmental stability at the initiation of digits.

Kavanagh launched into the research after sorting through preserved horse embryos. She noticed that, in early gestation, there were unmistakeably five clusters of developing cells in the area where the foot goes on to develop.

As Kavanagh and her colleagues noted in their paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the evolution of the modern horse limb is one of the most iconic evolutionary transitional stories documented in the fossil record, in particular the reduction of the number of toes during the evolution of the horse lineage.

Recent work has concurred with older hypotheses that modern horses arose from a five-toed ancestor with intermediate descendants that have reduced numbers of digits.

Modern horses are called single-toed because they possess an enlarged central digit 3 with a thick metapodial called the cannon bone and three smaller distal phalanges that complete the main digit in both their front and bag legs.

Alongside this large third digit lie two very small splint metapodials, identified as remnants of digits.

Research has shown that just a month or so after the formation of the embryo, the central digit of the modern horse is already relatively large and the two digits that will become the remnants are being reduced.

The limited data on horse embryology suggested that horses only ever formed three digit remnants during their development and it became an important cornerstone of the general view of the evolutionary developmental biology of digits.

By contrast, a recent palaeontology paper proposed a novel hypothesis, based on bone articulations and ridges in fossil horses and vasculature in late foetal horses, that the identities of all five ancestral digits might be preserved in the metacarpal anatomy of the modern horse adult, but direct evidence was lacking.

This same study also proposed that the frog in the hoof is a remnant of all five digit condensations, although embryological evidence was again lacking.

For their study, Kavanagh and fellow researchers Scott Bailey and Karen Sears assessed early digit development by studying embryonic limbs from horses aged 29 to 35 days after the stallion was mated to the mare.

They found evidence of five digits in the embryonic horse, but this formation lasted only a couple of days. Their subsequent reduction follows a striking parallel with evolution in the famous fossil transition series in the horse lineage, they reported.

Looking at the data on a wider array of four-legged animals, it appears there is both a developmentally favoured maximum of five and a developmentally favoured minimum of four for early digit condensations, with digit 1 missing.

Careful scrutiny is warranted to determine whether digit 1 initiation is truly missing in species in which only four digit condensations are thus far reported.

Kavanagh Kathryn D., Bailey C. Scott and Sears Karen E. Evidence of five digits in embryonic horses and developmental stabilization of tetrapod digit number.287 Proc. R. Soc. B http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.2756

The study can be read here.

Read more:
Digital revolution: Embryonic horses briefly have five toes - Horsetalk