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Human Behavior

Why do dogs get the zoomies? – Care.com

Every morning, my mini dachshund Walter sprints into the day. Yes, sprints. The second the door of his cozy little crate opens, hes rounding the corner out of the bedroom and down the hallway as fast as his short little legs can carry him. While I admittedly love the way Walter enters every day with such gusto, Ive also never understood why in the world he does it.

Zoomies are a sudden explosion of activity from your dog often manifesting as the tucking of their hindquarters as they race wildly, or zoom, around the house or yard, says Dr. Karyn M. Wesley, an assistant professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Arizona. There may be many causes for zoomies, but ultimately, we consider this behavior to be normal in dogs.

Here, experts explain why dogs get the zoomies and the most common times they occur, plus what pet owners should do when their pup gets a crazy case of the zoomies.

The most common reason for the zoomies is that a pet has pent-up energy that it needs to release, says Dr. Lori Teller, a clinical professor at Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. The zoomies arent specific to certain dog breeds, Teller adds, but they may be more common in high-energy dogs, especially those that do not get regular exercise.

However, a lack of exercise is not the only cause of dog zoomies, Wesley says. The zoomies are also a way for dogs to release their emotions, she explains. Many dogs simply have the zoomies because they feel big emotions such as excitement. And just like expressing emotions is healthy for humans, its also perfectly healthy for dogs.

Have a dog that never gets the zoomies? Thats normal as well, explains Dr. Christa Kahuda, the owner and medical director at Charleston Harbor Veterinarians in Charleston, South Carolina. Some dogs may have more outlets for their energy during the course of the day and are too tired for zoomies, Kahuda says. Others may be less likely to exhibit the behavior based on breed, age and personality.

The zoomies are also a way for dogs to release their emotions. Many dogs simply have the zoomies because they feel big emotions such as excitement.

The official scientific term for dog zoomies is frenetic random activity periods or FRAPs. The key word here that dog owners should note? Random. It is most common for zoomies to start without warning, Wesley says. When they take off running, they may jump on furniture, run in circles, take sharp turns, and some may bark.

But despite their unpredictable nature, zoomies do serve a purpose, and some circumstances can tell you a lot when it comes to determining whats causing your dog to zoom. These are a few of the most common types dog zoomies and why they happen, according to experts:

The cause: An abundance of stamina

Puppies get the zoomies because they tend to have higher exercise requirements and more energy to burn than older dogs, Teller explains. In fact, zoomies appear to be most common in younger animals in general, and puppies can start experiencing zoomies at just a few weeks old. Many dogs continue to get the zoomies their entire lives, Wesley adds. But as dogs age, the frequency and duration of zoomies often decline.

The cause: Hours of built-up energy

It is common for dogs to get zoomies at night after spending a day home alone or in a crate since theyve had limited activity to release their energy, Wesley says. The same goes for early morning zoomies for dogs that sleep in a crate like Walter. At these times, dogs may feel the need to expel their built-up energy suddenly with a FRAP, says Wesley.

The cause: Having to be still for too long

Dogs often get the zoomies after a bath, as well as after or even during a training session, says professional dog trainer and behaviorist Sally Grottini who has over 30 years of experience working with canines. This can come from frustration from not being able to move around enough, and the dog suddenly feels the need to get out a burst of energy, Grottini says.

The cause: Excitement or overstimulation

Zoomies during playtime are often due to pure excitement, Wesley says. This is even more likely to occur when your dog is in a new environment, like a new daycare or dog park. For example, Walter used to get the zoomies every time hed enter the playspace at his daycare as a puppy. (He ran so many laps that he garnered the nickname The Blonde Bullet!) According to Kahuda, these zoomies were likely due to a mix of Walters excitement as well as his need to get out his puppy energy. He has lots of excess energy and loves running it off!

Zoomies most often come out of the blue when least expected, and it is the dog using excess energy.

Signs of a happy dog are actually different from signs of the zoomies. Dogs may exhibit happiness when they see a favorite person or when theres the expectation of something good coming, such as when youre making their dinner. This can cause uncontrollable movement, explains Grottini. They may run, jump, spin in a circle, but this is not really zoomies as much as it is over excitement for something they know they enjoy, she says. Zoomies most often come out of the blue when least expected, and it is the dog using excess energy.

That said, experts agree that its safe to say dogs are not unhappy when they get the zoomies. We cant read their minds, but based on their body language, they appear to be having a good time when they have the zoomies, Teller says.

In general, experts recommend letting dogs simply enjoy getting out their energy when the zoomies strike, unless they are in danger of hurting themselves or others. If the time of day is predictable, you can even consider taking your dogs outside to zoom, Teller says. Otherwise, try to make sure they have an unobstructed area to zoom, then sit back and enjoy the fun.

Once the zoomies start, they may be hard to stop until your dog decides theyre tired, Wesley adds. Some human behaviors can intensify a zoomie session, like chasing your dog or making excited noises. Once you have ensured your valuables and fragile items are out of the path of the wild zoomies, I would try leaving the room or [staying] quietly out of harms way. Your calm energy may help your dogs excitement subside more quickly.

Again, dog zoomies are normal and not a cause for concern. However, to keep your dog safe, try to discourage zoomies from occurring around stairs or slippery floors like tile or hardwood to keep them safe indoors, says Wesley. Outside, make sure the space is enclosed and do your best to remove hazards like holes, water and sharp objects.

Think your dog is zooming a bit too much? Take note of the timing of your dogs bursts of energy. If your dog always zooms after being home alone, after extended periods of rest, or in the middle of your sleep schedule, this may be your dogs way of telling you they need more exercise or mental stimulation, Wesley explains. In that case, she recommends adding these activities to your dogs day to avoid a build-up of explosive energy:

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Why do dogs get the zoomies? - Care.com

Human Behavior

How Stuart Robinson’s misconduct went overlooked for years – Washington Square News

The ensuing case would detail Robinsons harassment and unequal treatment of mens and womens sports teams at the university, and be the first publicly-recorded allegation of a decadeslong pattern of behavior.

The complaint claimed that Robinson allotted unequal resources to and purposefully derailed womens athletics programs, such as in one case, where he allegedly refused to plow womens lacrosse fields during the winter at the same time that he dedicated a large amount of funding to new facilities for mens teams. After years of proceedings, Students case ended without a jury trial. As a result, the state paid Student a sum of $200,000.

New Paltz chose to protect the abuser rather than their staff and students. NYU either ignored Robinsons past or was too lazy to do the proper hiring diligence to protect NYU from Robinson, a former coach at New Paltz told WSN. Sadly, Robinsons victims could have avoided the degradation.

Multiple people close to the New Paltz athletics department said that many staff members and student-athletes were impacted by Robinsons behavior, but that few were in a position to take legal action. Many said they made complaints to the universitys human resources department or to the Title IX office, and others said they went to their union. When no action was taken, some decided to leave the university. New Paltz did not respond to questions about allegations against Robinson during his time at the university.

He had been called into investigations within the administration about his behavior, one source said. Nothing was ever done with it, and that was very frustrating.

The way that female coaches were treated was unheard of, another source said. If that was my daughter, I would have hit him with my car.

Robinsons alleged harassment was not limited to athletics department staff. Rachael Purtell, a former student-athlete at New Paltz who played for Student, said she experienced sexual harassment involving Robinson. When Purtell reported her experience to the universitys department of human resources and Title IX office, she said nothing changed. This pattern would continue at NYU.

I observed Stuarts impact on the department in the forms of disparities in scheduling, facility maintenance, funding and uniform quality disadvantaging the womens sports teams, Purtell wrote to WSN. This was a consensus among the student-athletes as was the fact that sexually harassing behaviors were normalized and condoned within the department.

The university has maintained that it was not aware of Robinsons history when it hired him as athletics director. According to email correspondence obtained by WSN, now NYU president Linda Mills was a member of the committee that selected Robinson. The university did not respond to questions about Mills role in Robinsons hiring.

NYU has told WSN that it used a search firm to conduct a background check on Robinson during the hiring process, which it said included looking into candidates civil and criminal legal history. University spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement that NYU was not aware of Students case before it was reported by WSN.

NYU had not seen the lawsuit before it was reported in the WSN, and the search firm has indicated that it likewise had not seen the lawsuit before it appeared in the WSN, Beckman wrote. Thats a source of concern to us, and we intend to look into this matter to see how that can be avoided in the future.

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How Stuart Robinson's misconduct went overlooked for years - Washington Square News

Human Behavior

Whatchamacolumn: Homeless camps back in the news – News-Register

By Jeb Bladine President / Publisher October 27, 2023

Its clear, as reporter Scott Unger continues News-Register coverage of homelessness in McMinnville, that the laws of physics have analogies in human behavior: When you squeeze one part of a balloon, another part expands, and thats how homeless camps respond to enforcement of laws against illegal camping.

Consider the past decade: Homeless camping downtown triggered a public outcry leading to aggressive enforcement, and camp sites spread to city streets, Marsh Lane and Dustin Court. One controversial response was to let homeless RVs turn parking lots at Joe Dancer Park into a homeless RV campground. When the program drew strong public protest, residents of that well-kept homeless village moved back onto public streets from whence they came.

Now, as illegally parked RVs continue to be confiscated, Marsh Lane has become more of a tent city with growing piles of debris and garbage.

Behind the scenes, theres a complicated, contentious body of court decisions on enforcement of homeless camping laws. It began in 2018 when a Boise panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declared: as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.

One-time Oregon congressional candidate Diarmuid OScannlain, now a senior 9th Circuit Court judge, joined 14 other judges this year in protesting the original decision. OScannlain wrote that it wrongfully forced cities to surrender their sidewalks and other public places to homeless encampments, and that the full 9th Circuit Court should reconsider our unfortunate constitutional mistake.

Cities can enforce limits on sleeping at certain locations and in certain times. As Unger reported last week, McMinnville police recently filed 36 prohibited camping notices and five arrests for prohibited camping in a three-day period.

However, results of enforcing homeless camping laws in McMinnville are little more than whack-a-mole. We havent solved homeless camping problems, and were paying high public costs just moving them from one place to another.

Weve tried everything but city-run homeless camps. Portland, in contrast, opened its first of several city-sanctioned homeless camps in July. Responses from homeless residents range from safer than on the streets to feels like a minimum-security prison.

McMinnville toyed with that idea in 2019, but surrendered to citizen opposition; Sheridan City Council discussed similar ideas in August.

Perhaps in McMinnville, despite the controversy, its time to test those waters again.

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.

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Whatchamacolumn: Homeless camps back in the news - News-Register

Human Behavior

Stunted Growth in Infants Reshapes Brain Function and Cognitive … – Neuroscience News

Summary: Research reveals that infants with stunted growth show cognitive ability disruptions as early as six months.

The study demonstrates that visual working memory in these infants is compromised, leading to higher distractibility and poor cognitive outcomes by age one. This is the first time stunted growth has been linked to functional brain differences in infancy.

The findings underscore the importance of early intervention to counter cognitive disadvantages later on.

Key Facts:

Source: University of East Anglia

Children who are too short for their age can suffer reduced cognitive ability arising from differences in brain function as early as six months of age, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers compared the visual working memory the memory capacity that holds visual cues for processing in children who had stunted growth with those having typical growth.

Published today in the journalNature Human Behaviour, the study found that the visual working memory of infants with poor physical growth was disrupted, making them more easily distracted and setting the stage for poorer cognitive ability one year later.

Stunted growth had previously been linked with poor cognitive outcomes later in life, but this is the first time that this association has been found in infancy. It is also the first time stunted growth has been linked to functional differences in how the brain works in early development.

Led by Prof John Spencer of UEAs School of Psychology, the team of researchers studied more than 200 children in the first ever brain imaging study of its kind.

We expected that poor growth might impact cognition in early development, but it was striking to see this at the level of brain function, said Prof Spencer.

Typically-developing infants in our study showed engagement of a working memory brain network and this brain activity predicted cognitive outcomes one year later. But the stunted infants showed a very different pattern suggesting that they were quite distractable.

This distractability was associated with a brain network typically involved in the allocation of attention to objects or tasks, suppressing distraction, and maintaining items in working memory said Dr Sobana Wijeakumar, first author of the study. Dr. Wijeakumar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham.

The brain activity and cognitive abilities of the infants were assessed at six to nine months, and cognitive ability was followed up one year later. The results showed that infants with so-called stunted growth, often caused by poor nutrition or ill-health, had significantly poorer cognitive abilities at both stages than their typically-developing counterparts.

Interestingly, the children who bucked the trend and did well in their second year of cognitive testing despite having restricted growth were those whose visual memory had been unexpectedly strong at the six to nine months stage.

The discovery suggests that efforts to improve working memory and tackle distractibility in children during their crucial early months may reduce or prevent cognitive disadvantages later in life. This research also highlights the importance of studying brain function in early development.

The research was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University of Nottingham, the Community Empowerment Lab, Durham University, University of Iowa, Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks is published byNature Human Behaviour.

This publication is based on research funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Funding: Further funding came from the US National Institutes of Health and the Leverhulme Trust.

Author: Lisa Horton Source: University of East Anglia Contact: Lisa Horton University of East Anglia Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Closed access. Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks by John Spencer et al. Nature Human Behavior

Abstract

Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks

Stunting is associated with poor long-term cognitive, academic and economic outcomes, yet the mechanisms through which stunting impacts cognition in early development remain unknown.

In a first-ever neuroimaging study conducted on infants from rural India, we demonstrate that stunting impacts a critical, early-developing cognitive systemvisual working memory. Stunted infants showed poor visual working memory performance and were easily distractible.

Poor performance was associated with reduced engagement of the left anterior intraparietal sulcus, a region involved in visual working memory maintenance and greater suppression in the right temporoparietal junction, a region involved in attentional shifting.

When assessed one year later, stunted infants had lower problem-solving scores, while infants of normal height with greater left anterior intraparietal sulcus activation showed higher problem-solving scores.

Finally, short-for-age infants with poor physical growth indices but good visual working memory performance showed more positive outcomes suggesting that intervention efforts should focus on improving working memory and reducing distractibility in infancy.

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Stunted Growth in Infants Reshapes Brain Function and Cognitive ... - Neuroscience News

Human Behavior

Social medias role in modeling human behavior, societies – kuwaittimes

By Ghadeer Ghloum

KUWAIT: The extent of the power of social media on societies and individuals, especially after the revolution of smartphones and wide spread of multiple social media platforms, is no secret today. Now, almost every individual can open their own page or channel and broadcast through it whatever they perceive, which holds the possibility of being true or misleading, besides the difficulty of censoring and controlling violent scenes on different social media platforms, which may contribute to subconsciously normalizing inhumanity among individuals.

To dig deeper into this issue, Kuwait Times interviewed Associate Professor of Communication and Culture Studies at Kuwait University Dr Haneen Al-Ghabra, Professor of Mass Communication at Kuwait University Dr Khaled Al-Qahs and Psychologist and Therapist Jumanah Mohammad. Ghabra said the media is an integral factor that affects society just like other parts of society, such as the laws that make up the country, economy, education sector, etc. The influence of any structural institution such as the media will affect individuals values, ethics and behaviors, which means it can affect our thoughts around racism, classism, nationalism and even issues of violence.

For instance, stereotypes about Muslims being terrorists were spread in US media, which led to the Muslim travel ban law in 2017 in the US. This does not stop there, as it seeps into other sectors such as schools. Hence, we cannot deny the medias impact on humans attitudes and behavior.

On his part, Qahs said studies indicate that social media has diverse and multiple effects on the audience receiving the messages and content delivered to them. The process does not end with just sending the message (media content) from the sender to the final receiver. There are various effects on the ideas, values and behaviors of the audience, such as changing attitudes or perspectives, cognitive changes, socialization, collective excitement, emotional arousal, social control, reality construction and reinforcement of the status quo. However, media is not the sole cause of influencing humans. It operates through a network of elements and influences to create impact, such as the time we spend using social media, the nature of what we watch and our life experiences.

Moreover, Ghabra spoke about the relationship between exposure to inhuman actions through media and humans behavior, as she said that the problem with the ethics and responsibility of reporting does not only fall upon the media it is much deeper than that. It is the ideologies that circulate; for example, if we look at the promotion of violence against women, it is not necessarily that the media and popular culture are promoting it. It is the ideology of patriarchy that taught individuals, both women and men, that men are superior to women, and this can also seep into our education, our upbringing (family), certain interpretations of religion and so forth.

Hence, people that write and produce the news, films, music, TV shows and so forth have already internalized this sort of thinking unknowingly, and this is reflected in different forms of media and popular culture. Qahs added that many researchers in the field of media and its relationship with society have been concerned with the phenomenon of increasing violence in media content. Some studies suggest that the spread of violence in societies is due to the audiences exposure to content that contain verbal and physical violence. These studies have yielded several findings about violence, such as the fact that the audience (especially children and teenagers) learn violence through observation and watching, especially in TV series and movies.

Qahs also clarified that people do not automatically apply the aggressive behavior they observe but internalize it to moments of anger and stress. The repetition of viewing leads to desensitization towards violence and aggressive behavior, resulting in a lack of concern and tolerance towards violent behavior in the media, making people more inclined to tolerate violence in all its forms. Therefore, it is necessary to educate society about the dangers of the spread of violence, and the need to monitor media content, particularly the depiction of intense violence in news bulletins, TV series and movies.

Ultimately, Mohammad explained how individuals can protect themselves from adopting and normalizing wrongful behavior, as she said individuals should avoid excessive consumption of content that goes against human values and ethics, in order to prevent the burying of condemnation and the development of acceptance towards such content or actions. On the other hand, they should strengthen their thinking and good behavior through reading or engaging in dialogues with experts in the field, in order to close any intellectual gaps that social media influences may exploit, as the consequences can be significant.

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Social medias role in modeling human behavior, societies - kuwaittimes

Human Behavior

The gift of reformation – Living Lutheran

Toward the end of his life, church reformer and educator Martin Luther (1483-1546) looked back on an important moment in his faith development. As a young university professor, he was studying Pauls Letter to the Romans when he came to a new understanding. Previously he believed the righteousness of God was a standard by which God measures human behavior. As he wrestled with Romans, Luther began to see the righteousness of God as a gift that God gives us.

This insight transformed the way Luther read the Scriptures. He described the wisdom of God as how God makes us wise, the strength of God as how God makes us strong and so on.

Several years after this breakthrough, Luther wrote an introduction to a collection of sermons (A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels) to help preachers communicate the life-giving encounter with Gods gracious action that he had experienced. Luther was critical of those who looked to Jesus primarily as an example to be followed. This, he thought, turned Jesus into a new Moses. Instead, Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize [Jesus] as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. We should read the Scriptures, he wrote, as a book of divine promises in which God promises, offers, and gives us all [Gods] possessions and benefits in Christ.

This is a powerful message. This is good news.

Luther didnt intend to start a new church. He wanted to reform the Christian church to place this Gospel good news at its center. In addition to good preaching, education was key to this work of reformation.

Luther wrote catechisms to encourage the teaching and learning of the faith. We might think of the Small Catechism, which many lifelong Lutherans remember from confirmation class, and the Large Catechism, written for pastors and teachers, as the 16th-century equivalent of a student workbook and an instructors manual.

The constant refrain in the Small Catechism is the question What does this mean? Its important for us to recognize that this was a real question for Luther. More than a formula for memorization, he intended the questions and answers in the Small Catechism as a way for Christians to understand the gifts of Gods grace that are at the heart of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles Creed, the Lords Prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and communion.

Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize Jesus as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own.

These gifts were personal for Luther. The gifts of Gods grace are intended to be received! By us! Writing about communion, he said the most important words are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Explaining the meaning of the Apostles Creed, he doesnt describe the work of the Triune God as abstract but emphasizes that the Creator of all has created us, the Savior has redeemed us and the Spirit makes us holy.

These gifts are personal but not private, as we see when Luther wrote that the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and makes me holy together with the whole Christian church on earth.

In order for Christians to read the Scriptures for themselves, Luther and the other reformers insisted on the importance of a basic education for allboys and girls, regardless of the social or economic status of their families.

The University of Wittenberg, where Luther and his colleague Phillip Melanchthon taught, quickly became the largest school in Germany. Even William Shakespeare knew of its reputation since his character Hamlet returns to Denmark from his studies at Wittenberg.

Students came to Wittenberg from throughout Europe and returned to their home countries to promote education and to share the Reformation insight of grace as Gods gift to us in Jesus Christ. The Reformation was definitely a team effort!

The Castle Church in Wittenberg is a monument to this effort. Statues of Luther, Melanchthon and other German reformers are placed around the nave. In 1983, for the 500th anniversary of Luthers birth, a dozen stained-glass windows were installed in the church featuring the work of students who had spread the Reformation to their countriesJan aski of Poland, Leonhard Stckel and Matthias Dvai Biro of Hungary, and Johannes Honter of Transylvania (now Romania), among others.

Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize Jesus as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own.

Lutherans of German or Scandinavian descent, like many in the ELCA, may not be familiar with the spread of Lutheranism into Eastern Europeyet spread it did, already in Luthers lifetime. A Lutheran witness continued in Eastern Europe even under four decades of Communist repression following World War II.

This September, hundreds of Lutherans from around the globe are gathering in Krakow, Poland, for the 13th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Founded in 1947, the LWF is a communion of 149 member churches in 99 countries, representing over 77 million Christians in the Lutheran tradition. How the Reformation has spread! Of the 10 largest church bodies in the LWF, three are in Africa (Ethiopia, Tanzania and Madagascar) and two are in Asia (India and Indonesia). The ELCA, with nearly 3.3 million members, is part of a much larger global family!

As we in the ELCA challenge ourselves to engage new, younger and diverse members, lets remember that this is not new behavior for Lutherans. From the beginning, Lutherans have reached out beyond themselves, bearing witness to the life-giving good news of Gods gift in Jesus Christ. May our Reformation heritage be the gift that keeps on giving!

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The gift of reformation - Living Lutheran

Human Behavior

After pandemic, birds are surprisingly becoming less fearful of humans – Study Finds

LOS ANGELES When the COVID-19 pandemic forced UCLA to switch to remote instruction, the campus became quieter and less populated. Still, it wasnt deserted by all inhabitants. A group of approximately 300 dark-eyed juncos, birds that have made the university grounds their home for about two decades, continued to thrive. Now, a recent study finds birds may be changing their opinion of humans thanks to all that time apart.

Seeing a unique research opportunity, UCLA scientists, who had previously been studying these birds fear and aggression levels in urban settings, embarked on an experiment. They sought to understand: with reduced human interaction for a year, would the juncos become more apprehensive when the campus buzzed back to life?

Their findings went against their initial assumptions. Once campus life returned to normal, the birds acted drastically less fearful of humans, according to the study.

To gauge this fear response, the team measured the distance a person could approach the bird before it flew off. Pre-pandemic data from 2018 and 2019 showed that juncos would typically fly off when someone approached within about 65 inches. By 2022, when campus activity largely resumed, this distance dropped to just 39 inches.

What makes this observation intriguing is that the birds, whether born during the pandemic or before it, showed no significant difference in behavior. This was determined using identification bands on the juncos legs.

The dark-eyed juncos are especially interesting subjects because they primarily feed and nest on the ground, which results in frequent human encounters. Earlier research indicated that the campus birds were already more at ease with humans than their counterparts in less urbanized areas.

Study author Eleanor Diamant, former UCLA doctoral student and current postdoctoral scholar at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, highlighted that the current findings dont align with the predominant biological theories about how wild birds adapt to urban environments. Neither the habituation theory which posits birds become less fearful through frequent human interaction nor the idea that urban birds are inherently less scared, seem to fit the juncos observed behavior during the campus closure and reopening.

If less fearful birds had chosen to live on campus in the first place, we would have expected their fear response to be essentially unchanged. If they were habituated, we would have thought theyd become more fearful during the closure and then less fearful after, or not shift their behavior at all, Diamant says in a university release. But these birds didnt shift fear response with humans absent and they shifted toward much less fearful after humans came back.

Pamela Yeh, a UCLA professor, and the studys senior author, proposed two explanations. Either the birds fear continues to decrease with each new event or, after diminishing, it resets to a standard level.

The effects of humans on wild animals are really complex and what we expect isnt always what we get, notes Yeh. So our research shows both the complexity of the juncos response to humans and of their response to other changes.

A striking element of the study is the reflection on the broader challenges faced by North American birds. It is estimated that the continent has nearly three billion fewer adult birds than in 1970, with the dark-eyed junco population dropping by about 175 million. This decline has largely been attributed to human disruptions in their natural habitats.

The research not only underscores the multifaceted reactions animals exhibit toward human behavior but also emphasizes the potential of such unforeseen global events to illuminate these complexities.

For me, the takeaway is that theres so much complex animal behavior that we dont know about, even though they are our neighbors in cities, concludes Diamant. There are these surprising reactions animals have to collective human behavior. We might not know what they are because we cant test for them, but only these kinds of massive and unexpected events like the pandemic bring them into focus.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.

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After pandemic, birds are surprisingly becoming less fearful of humans - Study Finds

Human Behavior

Nick Treglia: The trouble with fairness and the search for truth – 1819 News

Overnight, it seems Americas grasp on reality just disappeared. We read headlines daily, wondering what on earth is happening, as things that would normally be met with scorn, or at least concern, are celebrated and promoted at the highest levels of our culture and government.

There is no better illustration of this than the dumpster fire that is childrens education, where common sense was traded for insanity, ranging from pornographic childrens books in libraries to teachers secretly transitioning students. Perhaps the worst of this mess is the childrens drag queen story hour, which sounds like a sting operation.

This degenerate behavior is tolerated and even celebrated with no thought given as to why a grown man has the urge to read to children in a wig and fake breasts. Let me tell you, we didnt have any of this grooming crap until NBC canceled To Catch a Predator.

Why are we not allowed to ask why someone wants to behave this way? Why must we pretend this is normal human behavior? Call me old-fashioned, but the list of things needed for school story hour consists of:

A non-pornographic book

An hour

It is absolutely insane that we allow these nuts into our schools. These are the kinds of people who, 30 years ago, lurked outside school in the free candy van. Now were letting the fox in the henhouse.

Those who oppose this kind of behavior are attacked as bigots, extremists, or white supremacists. Such baseless arguments appeal solely to emotion, and it is embarrassing that we allow these claims to prevail and this insanity to continue.

But the insanity is by design. As George Orwells famous 1984 line reads: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. By demanding that you consciously ignore your revulsion and doubts, those with an agenda change the meaning of words through conditioning. If you are told that modern art is beautiful enough times, you will begin to believe it.

I believe such things as truth, beauty, and appropriate childrens literature exist, and I also believe man instinctively recognizes those things. But when your truth doesnt line up with The Truth, and you can just change what The Truth is by transforming the language through an appeal to fairness a potent tactic in this nation especially then we are being deceived.

We worry too much about being accepting, inoffensive, and fair in todays culture, having little regard for what is actually right. There are right and wrong ways to do just about anything, so it follows that the same is true of living a human life. Mankind has understood this and sought the right way to live for thousands of years; go read Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics for an excellent example.

But somewhere along the way, we lost the plot as our relationship with good, evil, and the truth got more nuanced. Movements cropped up promoting radical acceptance of all lifestyles, no matter how disordered. What was billed as an effort to make society fairer and more accepting turned into a licentious fiasco with no end in sight. I guess what they say is true: if you give a mouse a cookie, hell transition your kids.

It is time for capital-T Truth to reassert itself in our society and discourse. We should vigorously promote what is good and right while treating what is vile with contempt.

Nick Treglia is a student at Samford Universitys Cumberland School of Law.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to[emailprotected].

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Human Behavior

Science has an answer for why people still wave on Zoom – Press Herald

It happens at the end of most virtual meetings: One person waves goodbye, and colleagues follow suit. Why we still do this, nearly four years after remote work went mainstream, is one of the mysteries of the modern workplace.

To some experts in human behavior and communication, the so-called Zoom wave emerged due to our need to recreate the social connections that the pandemic ruptured. For others, its a simple way to signal the meeting is over before digitally departing. Some wave just to be polite, others enjoy it. Whatever the reason, its as much a remote-work ritual as wearing sweatpants with a business-friendly top (known as the Zoom mullet).

I am a big fan of the wave, said Erica Keswin, a workplace strategist and author. People like to know when something begins and ends. Those beginnings and endings are what I call prime rituals real estate, and rituals give us a sense of belonging and connection.

Shes not alone. A survey this month by the professional network Fishbowl found that 55% of workers wave. Thats down from the 57% who said they did so last year in a survey by Zoom and the 3 out of 4 who said so in 2021. That gradual decline, as the pandemic receded and millions of workers returned to offices, doesnt surprise Susan Wagner Cook, associate professor at the University of Iowas Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the schools Communication, Cognition and Learning Lab.

As peoples need for connection declines, they are less likely to wave, said Cook, who has spent years studying why and how humans use hand gestures from the friendly wave to the unfriendly middle finger to communicate and connect.

Cook and other experts dont foresee the wave going away completely, though. One big reason is something called motor resonance when a person waves, its almost automatic to wave back. Multiple social-psychology studies show that were more likely to be empathetic and cooperative toward people that weve synchronized movements with, and empathy and teamwork were things many organizations struggled to instill during the stressful days of COVID-19 lockdowns.

In a video call, last impressions are as important as first impressions, and waving sends a signal that others can feel safe in our presence, said Darren Murph, a hybrid-work adviser who now handles strategic communications at automaker Ford.

The dynamics of virtual versus in-person meetings also play a role in the wave, according to Jesper Aagaard, an associate professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at Denmarks Aarhus University. After a face-to-face meeting, theres a so-called interstitial period, where people linger and chat as they walk out together. But video calls end abruptly, so we need to say our farewells all at once. This, in turn, lends an exaggerated and cartoonish quality to the Zoom wave, Aagaard said.

Its the awkwardness of the wave that puts some people off, but by not waving, workers risk being seen as rude.

It bothers me when I wave and people dont wave back, says Molly Beck, founder, and CEO of enterprise communications software maker WorkPerfectly. I would compare it to when you hold the door for someone and they dont say thank you.

In other words, Cook said, the cultural cost of being perceived as impolite outweighs this momentary feeling of, Am I a weirdo?'

Some workers are conditional wavers. Cali Williams Yost, a flexible work strategist, says she waves when Zooming with new contacts, almost as a nice to meet you gesture. But if its the same group every week, rarely does anyone wave, including me.

For others, its the type of wave that matters. I recommend the fast wave, as if another car was letting you go first at a busy intersection, not the type of slow wave if you were on a parade float, Beck said. And while shes waving with one hand, Beck leaves the call with the other.

Its a little embarrassing, aggressively corny, and serves no purpose other than sincerely acknowledging the other people in the call, journalist Justin Pot wrote in a 2021 blog post about Zoom waves on the website of Zapier, a fully remote maker of business software whose staff often deploy the Zoom wave. But thats why its great. No one should feel bad for doing it.

Not everyone agrees, but workers likely wont be saying farewell to the Zoom wave anytime soon.

Humans adapt to media, and some of the habits which have evolved to manage the strangeness of videoconferencing have endured, said Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford Universitys Virtual Human Interaction Lab, who has studied another remote-work phenomenon: Zoom fatigue, the exhaustion suffered from videoconferencing all day. The long wave may be with us for some time.

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Science has an answer for why people still wave on Zoom - Press Herald

Human Behavior

Orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors. Are they getting smarter? – Livescience.com

In March 2019, researchers off the coast of southwestern Australia witnessed a gruesome scene: a dozen orcas ganging up on one of the biggest creatures on Earth to kill it. The orcas devoured huge chunks of flesh from the flanks of an adult blue whale, which died an hour later. This was the first-ever documented case of orca-on-blue-whale predation, but it wouldn't be the last.

In recent months, orcas (Orcinus orca) have also been spotted abducting baby pilot whales and tearing open sharks to feast on their livers. And off the coast of Spain and Portugal, a small population of orcas has begun ramming and sinking boats.

All of these incidents show just how clever these apex predators are.

"These are animals with an incredibly complex and highly evolved brain," Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington and the nonprofit Wild Orca, told Live Science. "They've got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and emotion that are significantly more developed than even in the human brain."

But the scale and novelty of recent attacks have raised a question: Are orcas getting smarter? And if so, what's driving this shift?

They've got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and emotion that are significantly more developed than even in the human brain.

It's not likely that orcas' brains are changing on an anatomical level, said Josh McInnes, a marine ecologist who studies orcas at the University of British Columbia. "Behavioral change can influence anatomical change in an animal or a population" but only over thousands of years of evolution, McInnes told Live Science.

Related: Scientists investigate mysterious case of orca that swallowed 7 sea otters whole

But orcas are fast learners, which means they can and do teach each other some terrifying tricks, and thus become "smarter" as a group. Still, some of these seemingly new tricks may in fact be age-old behaviors that humans are only documenting now. And just like in humans, some of these learned behaviors become trends, ebbing and flowing in social waves.

Frequent interactions with humans through boat traffic and fishing activities may also drive orcas to learn new behaviors. And the more their environment shifts, the faster orcas must respond and rely on social learning to persist.

There's no question that orcas learn from each other. Many of the skills these animals teach and share relate to their role as highly evolved apex predators.

Scientists described orcas killing and eating blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) for the first time in a study published last year. In the months and years that followed the first attack in March 2019, orcas preyed on a blue whale calf and juvenile in two additional incidents, pushing the young blue whales below the surface to suffocate them.

This newly documented hunting behavior is an example of social learning, with strategies being shared and passed on from adult orcas to their young, Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute, told Live Science in an email. "Anything the adults learn will be passed along" from the dominant female in a pod to her offspring, he said.

Taking down a blue whale "requires cooperation and coordination," Pitman said. Orcas may have learned and refined the skills needed to tackle such enormous prey in response to the recovery of whale populations from whaling. This know-how was then passed on, until the orcas became highly skilled at hunting even the largest animal on Earth, Pitman said.

Some of the gory behaviors researchers have observed recently may actually be long-standing habits.

For instance, during the blue whale attacks, observers noted that the orcas inserted their heads inside live whales' mouths to feed on their tongues. But this is probably not a new behavior just a case of humans finally seeing it up close.

"Killer whales are like humans in that they have their 'preferred cuts of meat,'" Pitman said. "When preying on large whales, they almost always take the tongue first, and sometimes that is all they will feed on."

Tongue is not the only delicacy orcas seek out. Off the coast of South Africa, two males nicknamed Port and Starboard have, for several years, been killing sharks to extract their livers.

Killer whales are like humans in that they have their 'preferred cuts of meat.'

Although the behavior surprised researchers at first, it's unlikely that orcas picked up liver-eating recently due to social learning, Michael Weiss, a behavioral ecologist and research director at the Center for Whale Research in Washington state, told Live Science.

Related: Orcas attacked a great white shark to gorge on its liver in Australia, shredded carcass suggests

That's because, this year, scientists also captured footage of orcas slurping down the liver of a whale shark off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. The likelihood that Port and Starboard transferred their know-how across thousands of miles of ocean is vanishingly small, meaning liver-eating is probably a widespread and established behavior.

"Because there are more cameras and more boats, we're starting to see these behaviors that we hadn't seen before," Weiss said.

Orcas master and share more than hunting secrets. Several populations worldwide have learned to poach fish caught for human consumption from the longlines used in commercial fisheries and have passed on this information.

In the southern Indian Ocean, around the Crozet Islands, two orca populations have increasingly scavenged off longlines since fishing in the region expanded in the 1990s. By 2018, the entire population of orcas in these waters had taught one another to feast on longline buffets, with whole groups that previously foraged on seals and penguins developing a taste for human-caught toothfish.

Sometimes, orcas' ability to quickly learn new behaviors can have fatal consequences. In Alaska, orcas recently started dining on groundfish caught by bottom trawlers, but many end up entangled and dead in fishing gear.

"This behavior may be being shared between individuals, and that's maybe why we're seeing an increase in some of these mortality events," McInnes said.

Orcas' impressive cognitive abilities also extend to playtime.

Giles and her colleagues study an endangered population of salmon-eating orcas off the North Pacific coast. Called the Southern Resident population, these killer whales don't eat mammals. But over the past 60 years, they have developed a unique game in which they seek out young porpoises, with the umbilical cords sometimes still attached, and play with them to death.

Related: 'An enormous mass of flesh armed with teeth': How orcas gained their 'killer' reputation

There are 78 recorded incidents of these orcas tossing porpoises to one another like a ball but not a single documented case of them eating the small mammals, Giles said. "In some cases, you'll see teeth marks where the [killer] whale was clearly gently holding the animal, but the animal was trying to swim away, so it's scraping the skin."

The researchers think these games could be a lesson for young orcas on how to hunt salmon, which are roughly the same size as baby porpoises. "Sometimes they'll let the porpoise swim off, pause, and then go after it," Giles said.

Humans may indirectly be driving orcas to become smarter, by changing ocean conditions, McInnes said. Orca raids on longline and trawl fisheries show, for example, that they innovate and learn new tricks in response to human presence in the sea.

Human-caused climate change may also force orcas to rely more heavily on one another for learning.

In Antarctica, for instance, a population of orcas typically preys on Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) by washing them off ice floes. But as the ice melts, they are adapting their hunting techniques to catch leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) and crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga) two species that don't rely on ice floes as much and are "a little bit more feisty," requiring orcas to develop new skills, McInnes said.

While human behaviors can catalyze new learning in orcas, in some cases we have also damaged the bonds that underpin social learning. Overfishing of salmon off the coast of Washington, for example, has dissolved the social glue that keeps orca populations together.

"Their social bonds get weaker because you can't be in a big partying killer-whale group if you're all hungry and trying to search for food," Weiss said. As orca groups splinter and shrink, so does the chance to learn from one another and adapt to their rapidly changing ecosystem, Weiss said.

And while orcas probably don't know that humans are to blame for changes in their ocean habitat, they are "acutely aware that humans are there," McInnes said.

Luckily for us, he added, orcas don't seem interested in training their deadly skills on us.

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Orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors. Are they getting smarter? - Livescience.com