Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

How will reduced activity affect air quality and the environment? – The Hub at Johns Hopkins

BySaralyn Cruickshank

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has sent millions of people around the world indoors as they seek to limit their exposure to the highly contagious virus. Those behavioral changes and containment efforts, mandatory in some places, have had a dramatic and sudden effect on the planet, as well.

Seismologists studying planetary movement have reported less ambient seismic noisethe daily rumbles and vibrations of mass human transitand Belgian scientists have observed the Earth's crust moving less. Widely shared satellite imagery shows fewer cars on the road in China as a result of lockdown orders, prompting speculation about a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Satellite measurements of nitrogen dioxide show dramatic decreases of the dangerous gas over China and Italy.

Environmentally speaking, the Earth has become a very different place since COVID-19 began to spread. But are these changes to human behavior likely to have a lasting, meaningful impact? Will they slow the effects of climate change? For help understanding these and other questions, the Hub reached out to Peter DeCarlo, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins.

In the U.S., we classically focus on PM 2.5 and Ozone. PM 2.5 is particulate matter that's smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter. For reference, your hair is about 80-100 microns in diameter, so we're talking about things that are pretty small. Those are the two kinds of pollutants that we focus on and are the ones that are most detrimental to health. Of those two, particulate matter is the one that is responsible for more deaths annually, but both are bad for health and both are things we try to avoid breathing.

These pollutants occur in all parts of the world. We hear about it in the news as occurring in Asia. India and China certainly have air quality problems. But we've also recognized that places like Africa have a lot of problems, although there hasn't been the same amount of monitoring that we have in other areas. There are people who are working actively to try and get more information on that, but the preliminary data that's out there suggests that this is a significant problem in Africa.

Coverage of how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting operations at JHU and how Hopkins experts and scientists are responding to the outbreak

We've been working on air quality issues in the U.S. for a very long time. The Clean Air Act started in 1970 and put us on the modern path. So we've essentially had 50 years of effort in trying to improve air quality in the U.S. and we've done a fairly good jobit has improved consistently over time. Particulate matter levels are down. Ozone levels are down. But there still can be problems, especially in urban areas where we have the highest concentrations of these pollutants because we have the most activity, the most people, the most cars, and the most industry in these urban areas.

I don't think we can attribute that to social distancing exclusively. Meteorological aspects are important to consider here too. Bottom line, we know there are fewer emissions, so the air that we're breathing outside is going to be cleaner than it would otherwise be. In China and Italy, the two places that were hit the hardest by the virus early on, they also shut down industrial areas. And so we've been seeing decreases in NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) there from the satellite measurements. When you shut down the industrial centers that generate a lot of that type of pollutant, you'll see drops in those concentrations pretty quickly.

In the U.S., where social distancing and stay-at-home measures are becoming more common, we've certainly seen fewer cars on the road, meaning fewer emissions from cars and lower concentrations of traffic-related pollutants than we'd otherwise see. Looking at PM 2.5 data from the February through April period from 2014 to 2020, we're seeing really low concentrations of pollutants, but they're not concentrations we haven't seen previously. Pollutant concentrations are strongly governed by meteorologyhow winds move things around, how sunny it is, and if it's raining or not raining.

But one other thing to consider: I don't know if you've been outside or if you've walked around at all. I have two little kids, and I cannot keep them inside all day. We do a couple laps around our neighborhood on scootersappropriately socially distancing for everyonebut I have been smelling an awful lot of wood smoke when I go outside. And that is not good for air quality. I can understand people are home, they're cooped up and they probably want to light a fire, but that's something that's going to be detrimental to our overall air quality.

So, certainly with fewer cars on the road, we're seeing improvement from decreased emissions, but if more people are lighting fires in their home to pass the time, then that's going to offset some of those gains.

Well, we've been talking about air quality, and climate change is a slightly different issue. Carbon dioxide is not classically considered an air pollutant, but it's one of the main drivers for climate change. With fewer cars on the road, there will be fewer emissions of CO2 from traffic, similar to their being fewer emissions of particulate matter. Compared to our normal lives, we'll have lower CO2 emissions while we're all working from home and basically not driving very often. And that's good for the short term. But how that translates into future gains is kind of an open question. A one- or two-month drop in emissions, for something that has a 100-year lifetime in the atmosphere, is probably not going to change things all that much.

Instead, it gives us a window into what we could potentially do to mitigate climate change going forward. You know, with everyone working from home right now, are companies going to be more open to work-from-home policies moving forward? Maybe this situation inspires us to develop better policies for working from home in the future, which would mean less commuting, less traffic. Or maybe people want to bike more after this experience. You don't know what kind of behaviors are going to come from this experience.

Of course, I have a hard time saying air pollution reductions are a silver lining of the pandemic. I'd like to have us learn from our collective experience ways to improve air quality without the context of a global pandemic and all the issues associated with that.

First and foremost, everyone should listen to the advice of health professionals. But I can also share a few tips about what I'm trying to do to limit my own exposure, informed by what I know about particles and the way they move in the air. I think the most important thing is to limit your exposure to potential carriers by minimizing the time spent in shared indoor environments. If you think about an indoor space, you're in air that's trappedit's not blowing with the wind. So if you're sharing an indoor space such as the grocery store with someone who is a carrier and may be asymptomatic, they're adding virus to the air in that environment continuously.

Even if you are 6 feet away from a person outdoors and you walk past them, they're not continually adding to the air that you're breathing. And even in a city, there's plenty of space and there's a lot more dilution going on outdoors than there is indoors. These stay-at-home orders are important, but for me with two little children at home, we need to get outside every day so they can burn off some energy.

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How will reduced activity affect air quality and the environment? - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

Human Behavior

Vice President of the ENMU Student Association of Social Workers Discusses Volunteering and Career Goals – ENMU News

In February, Cece Torres, Hope Evans, Connor Sparks, Jordyn Peralta and Alyssa Martinez attended a Presidents Ambassadors Conference in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Jordyn Peralta, a senior at Eastern New Mexico University, chose to become a social work major because she has "always had a passion for helping people. Social work touches many people's lives, and I am humbled by the idea of being a part of the process that helps people become the best versions of themselves."

Upon graduating this December, Jordyn plans to pursue a master's degree in social work to open up doors in her future career. Her goal is to work the foster care system of child protective services and open peoples' eyes to the positive impact social workers have in their communities.

"It is no secret that social workers are not always seen as the good guys," she shares. "In my career, I ultimately want to change this reputation for the better. Getting even a few people to trust in social workers again would bring hope to the profession.

Jordyn is working toward her dreams at ENMU. She serves as the vice president of the Student Association of Social Workers (SASW), which focuses on fundraising, advocacy, volunteering and educational opportunities on campus and in the community. This includes visits to the Baptist Children's Home, the Christian Children's Home and the Retirement Ranch, as well as collaborating with other student organizations, like Voice of Educators, the Wildlife and Fisheries Club and the Spirit Squad. "SASW is a very focused group of social workers who are hoping to bring positive change to the world," she says.

The Greyhound has been a President's Ambassador for two years. "I absolutely love the opportunity to meet with prospective students, talk to them about ENMU and be a part of their college experience," she explains.

Jordyn has had many mentors at Eastern: "One person that has believed in me and encouraged me from early on is Diana Cordova, director of Multicultural Affairs. She has always jumped at the opportunity to support me, and I am so grateful for her. Tyleen Caffrey, a social work professor, has been my mentor throughout the program. I have taken all of her classes and continue to grow from her guidance and love for the profession. Jacquelyn Campbell, the coordinator of Recruiting Events in the Office of Enrollment Services, has helped me grow as a leader, and I am grateful to have learned from her professionalism and grace."

The five-time dean's list honoree's favorite spot on the ENMU campus is the Golden Student Success Center because it gives her the opportunity to "study with friends, take advantage of the resources offered and meet and collaborate with new people, all while enjoying a warm cup of coffee."

The class that has stood out to her the most was Human Behavior in the Social Environment. "This course is the foundation course for social work; it covers theory and human behavior in settings of bio-psycho-social, cultural, spiritual and political influence," she describes.

Her advice to Future Greyhounds interested in pursuing a career in social work is to "become an active member in your community. Find the gaps in service and be the person who advocates for the change. Social work is all about being of service to others, advocating for others and, most importantly, connecting people with the services they need."

Discussing her own Eastern Experience, Jordyn shares that she loves being a Greyhound because the campus is "full of opportunity. Everywhere you look, Eastern offers an abundance of opportunities to get involved, receive help and succeed. The friendliness of the campus, combined with the small class sizes, ensures that you will see and interact with familiar faces, along with meeting new people and creating friendships."

She chose to attend ENMU because of the campus community and the University's focus on student success. "The atmosphere is so positive, and there is always something to get involved with," she shares.

Jordyn was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and moved to Los Lunas, New Mexico, when she was 10. She graduated from Valencia High School in 2017. Her younger sister, Ashlyn, is a freshman at ENMU and is a member of the Spirit Squad.

Jordyn's hobbies include going to concerts, spending time with friends and taking care of her dogs, Tuxedo and Bowtie.

2019/2020 Student Association of Social Workers Officers: Stuart Dietz, Jordyn Peralta, Rachael Elbus and Jasiah Ruiz.

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Vice President of the ENMU Student Association of Social Workers Discusses Volunteering and Career Goals - ENMU News

Human Behavior

Tom Waits Writes Moving Tribute to Hal Willner, Lamb and Black Sheep, Lover of the Afflicted and the Blessed – Variety

It was just a matter of time before the iconic and eccentric singer-songwriter Tom Waits paid tribute to his friend Hal Willner, who died on April 7with symptoms consistent with coronavirus.Willner was renowned as a multi-talented producer of albums by Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull, Lucinda Williams as well as elaborate multi-artist tribute compilations (featuring Waits) to Charles Mingus, Kurt Weil and others, not to mention the producer of nearly 40 years of music for Saturday Night Live sketches.

Waits did not disappoint. His moving tribute written, like many of his songs, in collaboration with his wife, Kathleen Brennan appears in full below

Hal. Dear Hal. Brother. Uncle. Father. Son. Husband. Godfather. Friend. Wise and reckless. Lamb and black sheep. Lover of the afflicted and the blessed. More than kin and more than kind, more than friend and more than fiendish in his daunting and devoted pursuit of the lost and the buried, long may his coattails run and long may we now ride, and those that follow us continue to ride upon them.

Hal was the wry and soulful and mysterious historical rememberer. He specialized in staging strange musical bedfellows like Betty Carter and the Replacements or The Residents backing up Conway Twitty. Oh, the wild seeds of Impresario Hal. He was drawn equally to the danger of a fiasco and the magical power of illumination that his legendary productions held. Many years ago he bought Jimmy Durantes piano along with Bela Lugosis wristwatch and a headscarf worn by Karen Carpenter. Some say he also owned Sarah Bernhardts wooden leg. He had a variety of hand and string puppets, dummies, busts of Laurel and Hardy, duck whistles and scary Jerry Mahoney dolls and a free ranging collection of vinyl and rare books. These were his talismans and his vestments because his heart was a reliquary. Hal spoke regularly in asides and mumbling footnotes no doubt to dense tomes no one had heard about or read. Every story he told was followed by several inaudible and impossible to decipher remarks, (as if he was heckling himself), that were only intended for him. He frequently kvetched. He could conjure up the past like a crystal ball or Ouija board. He reminded us of a bumblebee crawling out of a calla lily He was a furtive and clandestine and crafty treasure seeker and archeologist of forgotten islands in popular culture.

His laugh. Well, it was an inside pocket and an impish rumpelstiltskin delight dance of laughter that offered refuge to those suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or the slights of a critics pen. He encouraged mayhem and folly and celebrated all things genuinely weird and spooky from Soupy Sales to Ella Fitzgerald singing Sunshine of your Love.

I (Tom) met him after one of my shows in 1974. He was 18 and I was 24 and he looked like he was already retired. He wanted to show me around the town and get me into some of the clubs. Hal applauded riptides and deviants of musical, literary and human behavior. And, of course, he loved the exceptions to every rule. He loved to pull back the curtain of artifice and sayta-dahlook at this pageant of crumbling beauty and human disasterthis is the heart that is truly beating. To Hal, Vaudeville was Valhallaand his bottomless knowledge was a great spreading tree.

How did Hal get poets, actors, musicians, performers, directors, magicians, puppeteers, madmen, politicians, pundits, tv, radio and film studios from every era and pocket of the world to accompany him? We cant tell you.

Hal wasnt what you would call a smooth talker or a hustler, but one night we followed him to a street corner in Chinatown at 3 am where together we witnessed a homeless man singing a passionate one-word aria to Bacteria. BAC-Ter-I-A ..Bac Ter- I A with a heartbreaking tenor voice that equaled anyone we had heard at the Met, it was unforgettable.

If you took a cross section of Hals heart you would see the rings of a wise old tree. Above all, lets remember that Hal loved music and from all appearances it seems very much to have loved him right back big time. We share our love and sympathy, as do our children, with his wife Sheila and his son Arlo and Hals extended family and all the many friends and colluders who loved him.

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Tom Waits Writes Moving Tribute to Hal Willner, Lamb and Black Sheep, Lover of the Afflicted and the Blessed - Variety

Human Behavior

Researchers restore sight in mice by turning skin cells into light-sensing eye cells – National Institutes of Health

News Release

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

NIH-funded study offers new path to modeling eye disease, advancing therapies

Researchers have discovered a technique for directly reprogramming skin cells into light-sensing rod photoreceptors used for vision. The lab-made rods enabled blind mice to detect light after the cells were transplanted into the animals eyes. The work, funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), published April 15 in Nature. The NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Up until now, researchers have replaced dying photoreceptors in animal models by creating stem cells from skin or blood cells, programming those stem cells to become photoreceptors, which are then transplanted into the back of the eye. In the new study, scientists show that it is possible to skip the stem-cell intermediary step and directly reprogram skins cells into photoreceptors for transplantation into the retina.

This is the first study to show that direct, chemical reprogramming can produce retinal-like cells, which gives us a new and faster strategy for developing therapies for age-related macular degeneration and other retinal disorders caused by the loss of photoreceptors, said Anand Swaroop, Ph.D., senior investigator in the NEI Neurobiology, Neurodegeneration, and Repair Laboratory, which characterized the reprogrammed rod photoreceptor cells by gene expression analysis.

Of immediate benefit will be the ability to quickly develop disease models so we can study mechanisms of disease. The new strategy will also help us design better cell replacement approaches, he said.

Scientists have studied induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells with intense interest over the past decade. IPSCs are developed in a lab from adult cells rather than fetal tissue and can be used to make nearly any type of replacement cell or tissue. But iPS cell reprogramming protocols can take six months before cells or tissues are ready for transplantation. By contrast, the direct reprogramming described in the current study coaxed skin cells into functional photoreceptors ready for transplantation in only 10 days. The researchers demonstrated their technique in mouse eyes, using both mouse- and human-derived skin cells.

Our technique goes directly from skin cell to photoreceptor without the need for stem cells in between, said the studys lead investigator, Sai Chavala, M.D., CEO and president of CIRC Therapeutics and the Center for Retina Innovation. Chavala is also director of retina services at KE Eye Centers of Texas and a professor of surgery at Texas Christian University and University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) School of Medicine, Fort Worth.

Direct reprogramming involves bathing the skin cells in a cocktail of five small molecule compounds that together chemically mediate the molecular pathways relevant for rod photoreceptor cell fate. The result are rod photoreceptors that mimic native rods in appearance and function.

The researchers performed gene expression profiling, which showed that the genes expressed by the new cells were similar to those expressed by real rod photoreceptors. At the same time, genes relevant to skin cell function had been downregulated.

The researchers transplanted the cells into mice with retinal degeneration and then tested their pupillary reflexes, which is a measure of photoreceptor function after transplantation. Under low-light conditions, constriction of the pupil is dependent on rod photoreceptor function. Within a month of transplantation, six of 14 (43%) animals showed robust pupil constriction under low light compared to none of the untreated controls.

Moreover, treated mice with pupil constriction were significantly more likely to seek out and spend time in dark spaces compared with treated mice with no pupil response and untreated controls. Preference for dark spaces is a behavior that requires vision and reflects the mouses natural tendency to seek out safe, dark locations as opposed to light ones.

Even mice with severely advanced retinal degeneration, with little chance of having living photoreceptors remaining, responded to transplantation. Such findings suggest that the observed improvements were due to the lab-made photoreceptors rather than to an ancillary effect that supported the health of the hosts existing photoreceptors, said the studys first author Biraj Mahato, Ph.D., research scientist, UNTHSC.

Three months after transplantation, immunofluorescence studies confirmed the survival of the lab-made photoreceptors, as well as their synaptic connections to neurons in the inner retina.

Further research is needed to optimize the protocol to increase the number of functional transplanted photoreceptors.

Importantly, the researchers worked out how this direct reprogramming is mediated at the cellular level. These insights will help researchers apply the technique not only to the retina, but to many other cell types, Swaroop said.

If efficiency of this direct conversion can be improved, this may significantly reduce the time it takes to develop a potential cell therapy product or disease model, said Kapil Bharti, Ph.D., senior investigator and head of the Ocular and Stem Cell Translational Research Section at NEI.

Chavala and his colleagues are planning a clinical trial to test the therapy in humans for degenerative retinal diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa.

The work was supported by grants EY021171, EY025667, EY025905, and EY025717 and NEI Intramural Research Program grants ZIAEY000450, ZIAEY000474 and ZIAEY000546.

The University of North Texas has a patent pending on the chemical reprogramming method reported in this paper. CIRC Therapeutics is a start-up company that plans to commercialize treatments using the technology.

This press release describes a basic research finding. Basic research increases our understanding of human behavior and biology, which is foundational to advancing new and better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Science is an unpredictable and incremental process each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research.

NEI leads the federal governments research on the visual system and eye diseases. NEI supports basic and clinical science programs to develop sight-saving treatments and address special needs of people with vision loss. For more information, visit https://www.nei.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

Mahato B, Kaya KD , Fan Y, Sumien N, Shetty RA, Zhang W, Davis D, Mock T , Batabyal S, Ni A, Mohanty S, Han Z, Farjo R, Forster M, Swaroop A and Chavala SH. Pharmacologic fibroblast reprogramming into photoreceptors restores vision. Published online April 15, 2020 in Nature.http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2201-4

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Researchers restore sight in mice by turning skin cells into light-sensing eye cells - National Institutes of Health

Human Behavior

Living Through History: Thinking about the meaning of time | – theberkshireedge.com

Jarice Hanson is, among other things, Professor Emerita from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was a member of the Department of Communication.

On the very first day of Massachusetts Stay At Home Order, the band on my watch broke. My old EMS watch with the light-up dial wasnt an expensive one but when I couldnt wear it on my wrist anymore, I missed it. I put the functioning part of the watch in my pocket and for the next few days I felt a comfort knowing it was there. I found myself tapping my pocket, just to reassure me that my need to know what time it was was still within my reach.

As the days passed, I realized that my sense of time was out of whack. It wasnt just that we were on spring break at the University of Massachusetts where I teach, or that I didnt have my watch, but everything around me was changing. My equilibrium was off. In the first few days of the Stay At Home Order I checked all of my other devices multiple times a day, whereas I would normally check them twice at the most, usually because of work. My friends kept recommending streaming services that would keep me amused, keep me tied to my computer or cell phone, and made me a passive recipient of streams of news, information, and diversion that sometimes frightened me, sometimes appalled me, and most often, made my mind race with questions such as how long?; how bad?; when will it end?; when will there be a vaccine? and I realized that all my most important questions had to do with the existential question of time. Because my University closed and shifted to remote teaching/learning for the rest of the semester, I had to focus on converting the course I teach called Digital Communication and Society to an online format. The first topic on the syllabus listed for the return after spring break and the shift to online teaching? The role of the concept of time in history.

The last time my class met in a classroom, we talked about how technologies exhibit characteristics that influence our relationship to time, but social indicators like race, class, gender, and age all exert their own pull toward how humans think about what the concept of time means as the seconds and minutes of this world click by. We debated how tech companies structure our attention and keep us hooked on content, thereby creating what we call an attention economy and how easy it is to find one addicted to the constant streaming presence of personal technologies and social media platforms. We discussed how business and industry incorporate a sense of time for tasks and accountability, and how long it takes our legal system to adjudicate difficult cases like privacy and security in an age of big data and the Internet. The relationship among technology, social values, and human behavior that shift radically in times of disruption was the focus of the course, and now we were experientially living the theoretical framework of the course.

Studies of the importance of a concept of time structured by technology or imprinted upon us by the technologies we use have a long history. Lewis Mumford wrote about the invention of the clock in the fourteenth century and how it structured social behavior of everyone in earshot of the clock chimes, regulating store openings, worship, and social interaction. The telegraph, strung on wires along railroad tracks organized the continental U.S. into four time zones, making commerce and the railroads run on time. Telephones, radio and television all erased a sense of space and structured peoples time by allowing us to interact with voices and see images from far away, in the comfort of our own homes, and digital technologies like computers, cell phones, and smartphones enabled us to move freely about while not having to worry about time. We say that we can multitask and our technologies allow us to be more efficientbut these are convenient excuses for allowing the technologies to control our time.

The current pandemic has pulled the rug out from under us in many ways, but one important feature is to think about how we use the time we now have, and how unsettled we feel when our routines are upended. Many people say its taking longer to get things donewhich may be true, but at the same time, is it just that when time becomes all we have, do we value it differently?

If my class were in session, I would lock eyes with my students and ask them whether they are conscious of their choices. Do they choose to be distracted by technology or is the technology a means to an end to feel the gratification of being with others, even though so many of us are in isolation? I would pose the critical question of time for those heroic first responders who are racing against time as the virus spreads and we flail around with an outdated supply chain that has its own sense of time. I would ask them whether grocery store clerks, personnel at take-out restaurants, or delivery people have a very different experience of time these days. I would prod them to think about what just in time thinking and action means, when weve already harnessed time by creating models of peaks and curves, and race to find supplies to meet the numbers we expect to have to serve.

But perhaps most of all, I would try to reinforce for them, as I do myself, how the one constant weve explored throughout every life, is the same constant of time that our agricultural forebears experienced. Every day the sun comes up. Every evening the sun goes down. And when we come through this snapshot in the history of the world, will we find the balance we need in the constants that are given to us, or in the behaviors we need to let this time pass?

Even though we may choose to fill our time with certain actions or behaviors, what we all share as human beings, is the sense of time that grounds us all when we need it most. Globally a second, a minute, an hourare all the same. When we remember that, we find something a little more stable, a little more reliable, and much more profound when we realize that we are all living through history with the same clock.

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Living Through History: Thinking about the meaning of time | - theberkshireedge.com

Human Behavior

Stress causes physical changes in the brains of mice, and it may help us design medicine to fight it – ZME Science

New research at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Sciences Center points the way to a potential treatment against stress.

The team shows that stress can physically alter the structures of mouse brains, with long-lasting effects. They also identify a molecular pathway that could be used to prevent or reverse such changes.

Stress alters brain function and produces lasting changes in human behavior and physiology. The experience of traumatic events can lead to neuropsychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression, and drug addiction, explains Si-Qiong June Liu, MD, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU and lead author of the paper.

Investigation of the neurobiology of stress can reveal how stress affects neuronal connections and hence brain function. This knowledge is necessary for developing strategies to prevent or treat these common stress-related neurological disorders.

The team found that, for mice, experiencing even a single stressful event was enough to cause quick, long-lasting changes in the structure of astrocytes, brain cells that help feed neurons and maintain synaptic function. Such events cause the outer branches of these cells to shrink away from synapses (the contact spaces between neurons used to transmit impulses via chemical messengers).

Synapses perform the same role in our brains as transistors do in computers they give us our processing power. And, without astrocytes, they can become clogged with waste ions.

During a stressful event, the team explains, the stress hormone norepinephrine suppresses a molecular pathway that normally produces a protein, GluA1. This protein is essential in allowing nerve cells and astrocytes to communicate with each other.

Stress affects the structure and function of both neurons and astrocytes, adds Dr. Liu. Because astrocytes can directly modulate synaptic transmission and are critically involved in stress-related behavior, preventing or reversing the stress-induced change in astrocytes is a potential way to treat stress-related neurological disorders.

They explain that the pathway they identified should, in theory, be targeted with medicine to prevent or even potentially reverse stress-induced changes.

For now, the findings only apply to mice. But many signaling pathways are conserved throughout evolution, the team notes. The molecular pathways that lead to astrocyte structural remodeling and suppression of GluA1 production may, therefore, also occur in humans who experience a stressful event and they could hold the key to fighting stress.

The paper . Emotional stress induces structural plasticity in Bergmann glial cells via an AC5-CPEB3-GluA1 pathway has been published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

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Stress causes physical changes in the brains of mice, and it may help us design medicine to fight it - ZME Science

Human Behavior

When should we reopen the economy? – Brandeis University

An analysis by International Business School professor Anna Scherbina shows we would hurt more than help the economy if we do it before mid-June.

The U.S. risks hurting the economy more than helping it if the economy is restarted before mid-June, new research shows.

In the paper, which was published March 27 on the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) website and updated this week, Scherbina found that for at least two more months, the economic benefits of controlling the virus and preventing illness and death are greater than the economic cost of closing most non-essential businesses.

She also found that even after we lift the lockdown, or what economists call suppression, we must keep in place more moderate measures, such as wearing face masks and limiting public gatherings, until a vaccine or an effective drug or treatment becomes widely available.

Otherwise, the economic harm from the viruss spread will be greater than keeping the economy shuttered.

Before coming to the Brandeis International Business School in 2019, Scherbina worked for two years as a senior economist at the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. While there, she coauthored a paper modeling the economic costs and health impact of a theoretical influenza pandemic on the United States.

When Scherbina wrote her paper for AEI, some 30,000 Americans were infected with COVID-19; as of last week the figure stood at 460,000; Scherbina revised her conclusions to include the new data.

She also stressed that some assumptions in her model depend on still unfolding government policies and human behavior while others may change as we learn more about the virus.

In her analysis, Scherbina compared the economic costs of businesses staying closed, which causes a steep drop in the gross domestic product, with the economic benefits of a lockdown that prevents people from getting sick and dying.

With widespread illness, productivity drops as people skip work to recover or care for their sick relatives. There are also increased medical costs. Policymakers and economists also assign a dollar value to every life, based on a calculation of how much we would be willing to pay to prevent the death.

In determining the mid-June date, Scherbina used a relatively optimistic estimate of how successful we are in limiting the virus's spread during the lockdown.

Left to spread uncontrollably, the virus has a reproduction rate of 2.4, meaning the typical person would infect an average of 2.4 people over the course of their illness (assuming that no one in the population is immune).

Scherbina's optimistic scenario assumes that our current containment efforts reduce the reproduction rate to 0.5 by the time the economy reopens.

Both these estimates assume that mitigation efforts will be in place when the lockdown lifts and will largely succeed in slowing the spread of the virus until a vaccine or other treatment is available.

If mitigation efforts fail, the gains from the lockdown will be negated, and we may have to enter another lockdown period, Scherbina said.

Scherbina also calculated the cost to the economy if we made no efforts to control the virus at $9 trillion, a more than 40% drop in the gross domestic product.

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When should we reopen the economy? - Brandeis University

Human Behavior

Bandwagon effect beats advice from human experts and AI – Futurity: Research News

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Advice from artificial intelligence experts may be just as influential as from human experts, researchers report.

Both human and robotic bearers of bad news may find, however, that they lose influence when their negative opinions run contrary to a positive crowd, according to a new study.

Machines that generate recommendationsor AI expertswere as influential as human experts when the AI experts recommended which photo a user should add to their online business profile, researchers found.

But both AI and human experts failed to budge opinions if their feedback was negative and went against popular opinion among other users, says S. Shyam Sundar, professor of media effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, and an affiliate of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) at Penn State.

The findings may show that there are times when the opinion of the crowd, also called the bandwagon effect, can beat out the opinions of experts whether they are AI or human, Sundar says.

Both AI-powered and human experts with a positive evaluation on a business profile picture were able to influence users own assessment of the photo, he says. However, if experts did not like the photograph and the crowd offered a positive evaluation of it, the experts influence waned.

Because people are increasingly using social media to look for feedback, cues that suggest expert opinions and the bandwagon effect may be important factors in influencing decisions, according to first author Jinping Wang, a doctoral candidate in mass communication.

Nowadays, we often turn to online platforms for opinions from other peoplelike our peers and expertsbefore making a decision, says Wang. For example, we may turn to those sources when we want to know what movies to watch, or what photos to upload to social media platforms.

AI experts are often less expensive than human experts and they can also work 24 hours a day, which, Wang suggests, might make them appealing to online businesses.

The researchers also found that the AIs group statusin this case, national origin was designateddid not seem to affect a persons acceptance of its recommendation. In human experts, however, an expert from a similar national origin who offered a negative assessment of a photograph tended to be more influential than a human expert from an unknown country who offered a similar negative rating of a photograph.

While findings that suggest group status may not affect whether a person values the judgment of AI experts sounds like good news, Sundar suggests that the same cultural biases might still be at work in the AI expert, but they could be hidden in the programming and training data.

It can be both goodand badbecause it all depends on what you feed the AI, says Sundar. While it is good to have faith in AIs ability to transcend cultural biases, we have to keep in mind that if you train the AI on pictures from one culture, they could give misleading recommendations on pictures meant for use in other cultural contexts.

The researchers recruited 353 people through an online crowdsourcing service to take part in the study. Researchers randomly selected the participants to view a screenshot of a website that offered users recommendations for their business profile photos.

Researchers also told participants that the website allowed feedback from other users of platform, in addition to expert raters. The screenshots represented the various conditions the researchers studied, including whether the expert raters were human or AI; whether their feedback was positive or negative; and whether the source of the rater came from a similar, different, or unknown national identity.

In the future, researchers plan to investigate the group dynamics of influence more deeply and examine whether the experts gender plays a role in influencing opinion.

The research appears Computers in Human Behavior.

Source: Penn State

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Bandwagon effect beats advice from human experts and AI - Futurity: Research News

Human Behavior

From the Chamber: Tips During the COVID-19: Era Part 1 – Press Herald

These are trying times, and were all having our limits tested on how much we can adjust and adapt to in order to keep ourselves and our families safe. This new sense of normal has been a struggle to create, yet, being at the beginning of my fourth week of social distancing, I can say that there is now at least a temporary routine to my days now. Having even a temporary routine helps.

As the executive director of the chamber of commerce in our region, Ive been fortunate to help direct hundreds of people to the resources they need over the last month. By the nature of our business, Ive been on dozens of calls every week with legislators, with business owners and with citizens. Ive been distributing as much information as possible on new funding programs, social programs and safety protocols to try and help as many people as I can. And to be honest, being able to help people right now, has given me a purpose that I can focus on, and I think some people are struggling without such a focus.

Below are a collection of tips you can do to help yourself, your family or your community. Take them as they are intended- simply as unsolicited advice intended to help. Right now, I think the best thing we can do is to try and help as many people as possible. I hope this helps.

Be Vigilant

A common refrain echoed across social media and in press briefings is, When can we go back to normal? It stems from people being tired of the isolation and frankly exhausted from being a worker-teacher-mentor-entertainer-cook-task masker for 16 hours per day, 7 days per week, to help their families cope.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and all other experts will tell you there is no date they can predict because there still isnt enough known on how prevalent the virus is. We dont know where it is and new hot spots are popping up daily.

The metaphor I find myself returning to time and again, is a burning city. You cant re-enter the city until the fire is gone, or at the very least controlled. No one would say, Yeah, Im tired of not being able to go to my city, and even though its still burning Im going to move back in.

So yes, the monotony, uncertainty and this adjustment we have made to survive is a tough situation to deal with. But be vigilant. Take it day by day, and step by step. To rush back to normal would undoubtedly bring the virus roaring back. We literally cannot afford that, both in human lives and monetarily.

Find Authentic Resources

What stores are open? Who are considered essential workers? Where can my boss findbusiness loans? Where can I donate my time or efforts? These are all good questions. The best place to start in our area, is the chambers website. We have a COVID-19 Community Resource page. On it we list resources for Brunswick and Bath business updates (created by Brunswick Downtown Association and Main Street Bath), we have government postings from local town ordinances to State of Maine Executive Orders, we have links to information on the Paycheck Protection Program and other SBA loans for businesses, information on unemployment and more. Find the resource link on our homepage at http://www.midcoastmaine.com or directly at http://www.midcoastmaine.com/covid-19

Build a Budget

Many families already do this, but I remember when I was single, I took each bill and expense as they came. I knew the big ones like rent and car payments but I wasnt tracking my food budget or other medical bills. I paid them as they came in. Do yourself a favor and write out a brief budget. What bills are due and when is a good basic starting point. Then figure out what you can spend on food and other essentials. Right now, many debt collectors are offering payment plans or deferments, so if your budget right now wont allow for you to pay all of your bills, its time to be proactive in contacting these people, rather than ignoring the bills and hoping theyll go away. Its no fun to look at what you have and realizing you need to adjust your lifestyle, but knowing is better than not knowing, and it will help you make better decisions.

Nobody Prefers This, Except Dogs

This may seem obvious, but nobody likes to adjust their lives so drastically and so rapidly. Even those essential workers who still go into work have had their work protocols, their commutes and their work environments be overhauled. I remind you of this because change is difficult for many people.

A communications studies professor named Everett Rodgers had a ground-breaking book in the mid-1960s called Diffusion of Innovations that studies what rate people will accept and adopt a new idea. The study notes that 2.5% of the population are Innovators, while only 13.5% are Early Adopters (meaning those who accept something immediately when its introduced). This is followed, over time, by the Early Majority (34%), the Late Majority (34%) and the Laggards (the final 16%).

This is to say that even when people know social distancing is working, exactly half of us are innovators, early adopters or the early majority, meaning it takes the other half of us, more time to accept this change. Change leads to stress. Stress changes attitudes. Stress changes human behavior.

So what can you do? Again, be vigilant with safety and health protocols. Accept that some people will take longer to be convinced (though you should continue to tell them the best way). And check in on friends and family more regularly to ensure they are handling this well.

Were all in this together. More tips next week. Be safe and wash your hands.

Cory King is the executive director of the Southern Midcoast Maine Chamber.

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From the Chamber: Tips During the COVID-19: Era Part 1 - Press Herald

Human Behavior

Grace Sprecher: Did you really ‘choose’ to read this article? – PostBulletin.com

Our lives are constantly filled to the brim with hasty decision-making, wearisome contemplation, and trivial everyday choices ... right? Maybe it's a debate over which college to attend, which job to apply for, or even which cat to adopt. Whatever the choice may be, its normal to experience anxiety over the possibility of making an incorrect decision.

However, as daunting as a momentous decision may seem, take comfort in knowing that a choice wasnt actually made in the first place.

A lot of the time, we neglect to realize the lack of control we actually possess over the events that occur within our lifetime. Much of the human race is convinced theyre consciously making their own choices, but because we are a product of evolution, its impossible to be in control of how our lives progress.

While we experience the illusion of making a choice, only one possible outcome can occur for every situation -- and the probability of that outcome after it has occurred is consistently 100 percent. Because of this, the free will were convinced we maintain is nothing more than our lives unfolding as they were destined to from the start.

Imagine life as a movie youre about to watch for the first time. While you can enjoy in anticipation the uncertainty of the upcoming scenes, you still understand that the plot of the movie is predetermined. The movie progresses exactly as it does, and the previous scenes happened exactly as they did with no room for any alternate realities created by the concept of choice. There exists only what is and never what isnt or what couldve been.

So why do we even believe in free will? The answer may lie in the question itself. As human beings, we possess an advantage over any other animal we share the planet with -- our ability to ask why and seek the answer. Because of this unique feat, our perception of reality heightens and our self awareness is brought to a new level.

As the very particles were made up of work endlessly to understand themselves, were convinced this level of intelligence is enough to allow our choices to govern entire sections of our lives. As Neel Mukherjee blatantly puts it, We credit ourselves with far more agency than we actually possess. Things happen because they happen.

For some, the troubling part includes how the realization of free will as an illusion could understandably invalidate a sense of purpose. A lack of control over ones life is not necessarily a pleasant idea, so the illusion of choice exists partly to console.

However, would understanding the illusoriness of free will actually change how life is perceived? If anything, the idea is expansive. By eliminating the free will aspect, were able to gain a more in-depth knowledge of human behavior by investigating the true causes of an event rather than dubbing it as, They did it because they felt like it. Additionally, the absence of free will can promote less self judgment and a more efficient, constructive outlook on life.

If we truly were in possession of free will, wouldnt every bacteria and microorganism contributing to our bodys composition also need to possess free will? How could a brainless, unicellular organism without the knowledge of self awareness possibly make its own decisions?

Its impossible, so at what point during the coming-together of these life forms could they possibly create a truly independent being? How many trillions of unaware bacterium would it take to form an entity with conscious volition, and does our own self awareness truly validate our sense of free will?

Have you really chosen to read this column, or was it inevitable?

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Grace Sprecher: Did you really 'choose' to read this article? - PostBulletin.com