Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

This Is What Pro Sports, Youth Sports And Esports Need To Do To Manage Coronavirus – Forbes

Juventus' Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo runs on the pitch in an empty stadium due to the ... [+] novel coronavirus outbreak during the Italian Serie A football match Juventus vs Inter Milan, at the Juventus stadium in Turin on March 8, 2020. (Photo by VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images)

By Arthur L. Caplan & Lee H. Igel

Golden State Warriors basketball star Steph Curry was recently sidelined with symptoms of new coronavirus. Fortunately, it was a false alarm. Curry turns out to have come down with a case of the flu, the symptoms of which are easily confused with those of the coronavirus. Still, the scare raises a question: What should the outbreak of COVID-19 infections and deaths mean for those playing sports or attending sporting events?

Many major events, ranging from the Olympic-sized to local pick-up games, are being reorganized to take place without fans, postponed, or canceled. Some are wondering if the gym, locker room, or stands are the place to be right now. Is such an abundance of caution warranted?

In some parts of the world with heavy outbreaks, the answer is Yes.

In Italy's Serie A, soccer matches have already been played without fans in stadiums and there are calls for the league to suspend its current season. In Asia, the Tokyo Marathona primer for the event to be run at the 2020 Olympic Gameswas run by 300 elite athletes instead of its usual 35,000-plus participants and watched by only handfuls of supporters along the route. Events in almost every sport imaginable (and even ones you didn't know existed) have been called off in China, South Korea, and other parts of the region. Even esports is changing its game plan: the three Asia-based teams in the Overwatch League have reportedly traveled to North America to play matches that were originally scheduled to be played in their home cities.

Major sports leagues in locales that are seeing signs of COVID-19 cases beginning to add up are also making plans. The top-tier English Premier League, in which matchday revenues can reach up to $5-million for the home club, is working with government officials and broadcasting executives to determine how things could play out if fans are barred from accessing stadiums. In the United States, decision-makers at the NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and NCAA are considering when it might be time to play games without any fans in attendance.

All of the above examples speak to the larger events being either postponed, relocated, or canceled. They say almost nothing of the local youth sport and amateur sports events slated to be held everywhere from neighborhood parks to tournacation megacomplexes. At all levels of sport, millions of people's livelihoods and billions of people's lifestyles are being affected.

Sport is a key area of attention in many peoples minds on most days. This is especially true in times of crisis, when we look to what is happening in sport to help us make sense of what is happening in economics, politics, society, and public health. It is no less the case when it comes to noticing news about rising numbers of COVID-19 cases, states of emergency, quarantines, social distancing, and social mitigations that are leading to closures of office buildings, schools, malls, houses of worship and other places in which large crowds gather in confined spaces.

It is possible that people who would otherwise attend a sports event might choose to stay home in an effort to avoid catching the virus. But let's be realistic about this line of thinking. For one thing, there is going to be a healthy dose of optimism bias to go around.

That quirk of human behavior, as Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, is a tendency for individuals to be overly confident and overly optimistic about their prospects for taking-on risks. In other words, it's a It won't happen to me syndrome.

Consider that in the context of COVID-19, with its incubation period of up-to two weeks and the reality that there are people who are infected but don't yet experience the full effect of symptoms. Now, consider that in the context of an opportunity to see a beloved athlete or team play, whether in-person at the venue or via television at a pub. And, oddly, it may be less expensive and more accessible to attend an event if the usual fans stay away or some superstars decide to sit out for a few weeks.

The fans are likely to keep coming. But will the athletes stay home if sick? Look at the recent example of University of Oregon star basketball player Sabrina Ionescu being heralded for speaking at Kobe Bryant's memorial service and later in the day earning a triple-double en route to her team winning the Pac-12 championship while battling the flu.

Ionescu played sick. This, for many people, recalled the career performance that Michael Jordan delivered in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals after showing up at the arena dehydrated and suffering from flu-like symptoms. According to public health guidelines, both should have been holed up at home. But, everybody knows, that's not what champions do; they push through the perceived adversity. Yet that is exactly the wrong lesson when applied to viruses seeking to sicken and kill us. If you have a fever, you dont go to the medical tentyou go home with a mask on.

Once COVID-19 emerges at the human level, it can spread easily from one infected person to others. That can happen, for example, by way of a cough or a sneeze, close personal contact such as a handshake, spitting, or touching an object or surface that has virus particles on it, and then failing to wash hands before touching one's mouth, nose, or eyes.

What, then, does all of this mean for how sports events should be managed right now in the USA with COVID-19 swirling around?

First, big-time athletes, coaches, staff and mascots need to get a flu shot if they haven't received one already. This wont stop new coronavirus infections. But it will help result in reduced incidence of flu cases that stress hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units, which is a duty we all have when there may be a big demand for both services due to coronavirus.

Second, dont practice or play while sick. Stay home. Do not risk infecting others. Take a cue from Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, who is battling a bout of the seasonal flu and will be sitting out his team's upcoming NBA game. This also means cutting back on trips out-of-townwhether to see your favorite big league team play a game or take-in another of junior's little league tourna-cation weekendsand especially to hot zones that are harboring lots of cases.

Third, make hand washing and hand sanitizer stations available and accessible to anyone who is healthy enough to be at the game. At the same time, use the sports event to educate the public on proper health measures. Play 20-second-long jingles in bathrooms and on overhead scoreboards to remind people how long it takes to thoroughly wash hands. And make sure there are messages telling everyone to stop spitting all over the field and dugouts. For that matter, make sure that no one is sharing water bottles, towels, or oxygen masks.

There are also other typical person-to-person activities that need to be reconsidered in ways that use technology to avoid risky contact. For example, ticket windows and concessionaires need to shift to credit card- and contactless pay-only instead of paper money. Team and athlete visits to childrens hospitals and nursing homes, where patients tend to have especially compromised immune systems, need to go virtual for the time being.

Sports decision-makers have plenty to consider about going forward with games. It is not an easy decision to begin with and the pressure from all cornersplayers and fans, sponsors and broadcasters, government officials, residents and visitorsdoesn't make it any easier.

Plus, what happens when, at a game played behind closed doors, someone shows up with a fever? Does everyone get sent home? Do they quarantine everyone who was there? Should athletes and teams be sequestered to keep things going? Should we agree that if you are not ready to sequester, you can't play?

Above all, sports decision-makers need to loudly affirm that protecting lives takes priority over entertainment and human achievement. Eventually, we will find a cure or a vaccine for COVID-19. Until then, however, public health needs to be sent in off the bench to take a starring role.

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This Is What Pro Sports, Youth Sports And Esports Need To Do To Manage Coronavirus - Forbes

Human Behavior

Stop saying employees are the weakest link in cybersecurity – The Next Web

There are a few things we just wont stand for in 2020 but first on the list is the phrase, employees are the weakest link in cyber security. Its a saying that people really should have ditched in 2019.

You can probably guess that since Im writing this, unfortunately, most people havent. Online and even among cyber security professionals, its still a common thought process.

Whats wrong with believing employees are the weak point?, you might ask. Given the ever-increasing frequency data breaches with human error often being either a cause or catalyst in the majority of cases youd be forgiven for thinking that employees are naturally at fault.

But theyre not and there are a few logical reasons why.

Firstly, framing the conversation like this doesnt get us anywhere. Are football players to blame when they lose a match? Well, in a way, but the players are also to blame when they win. And even when they do lose, telling them that theyre the problem is only going to demoralize and lead to further losses.

[Read: Digital transformation projects dont fail because of a shortage of tech]

Secondly, if blame has to lie somewhere, it surely lies with the security awareness programs rather than the employees who rely on those programs to better protect themselves. The reason that human-error breaches continue to occur at such at rate is that and lets be honest here security awareness training in its current form just doesnt work.

Training doesnt work because, in most cases, it focuses solely on awareness. Awareness is all well and good, but increased awareness by itself is not what necessarily matters. Just because people are aware of cyber risks doesnt mean that, in the real world, they will behave in a more secure way.

To reduce human cyber risk, security awareness training a rather misleading moniker when you think about it must go beyond raising awareness. It needs to focus on also changing behavior and building a culture of security simultaneously. Collectively, you can think of this as ABC.

Doing so creates a virtuous circle in which improvements in one area flow into the next. Raising awareness lays the foundation for changes in behavior. Secure behaviors nurture a culture of security. And, completing the circle, a culture of security advances awareness.

How do businesses improve behavior and, in turn, begin to develop a positive culture? While theres no short answer, the first step for any business new to the principle of ABC is to try to understand the origins of undesirable behavior. One of the most useful questions to tackle early on is, Why are my people not complying with security policies?

When businesses begin to probe why, they tend to find that motivation, or rather lack of it, is at the root. Staff are failing to take security on-board as part of their everyday job: They dont see it as a serious issue; they dont see it as their responsibility; they dont see it as something they have much control over; or a combination of the above.

More often than not, businesses also discover that the relationship between security and staff has become strained. In extreme cases, its become adversarial. Security is seen as an inconvenience, an annoyance, as something that exists just to get in the way.

Businesses will likely need to address both before significant improvements are seen. Making cyber security more personalized and relatable to staff, gamification, bringing leaders on-board, and getting employees involved in cyber security conversations, will all go some way to boosting motivation. Meanwhile, making security policies and procedures simple ensuring that doing the right thing is the easiest thing will help to address issues of tension between security and staff.

So, if I could ask businesses to adopt two new approaches to cyber security this year, the first would be to leave behind the weakest link language. The second, to hopefully avoid a data breach in next years stocking, would be to pay more attention to behavior and culture.

By treating people as a useful and powerful security asset, and by addressing security awareness, behavior and culture in tandem, businesses can bring about real and tangible reductions in their human cyber risk.

Published March 10, 2020 06:00 UTC

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Stop saying employees are the weakest link in cybersecurity - The Next Web

Human Behavior

Stocking up to prepare for a crisis isn’t ‘panic buying’. Its actually a pretty rational – The Jakarta Post – Jakarta Post

Recent days have brought reports of shoppers clearing out supermarket shelves from Wuhan and Hong Kong to Singapore and Milan in response to the spread of coronavirus. This behavior is often described as panic buying.

However, the research shows that whats going on here is nothing to do with panic. Its a perfectly rational response to the situation.

Responding to disaster

Panic is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted of all human behaviors. The common, traditional understanding of the phenomenon is based on myth rather than reality.

If we understand panic as a state of uncontrollable fear that drives irrational behavior, then how people usually respond in the face of disaster is something else entirely.

Its a common belief that social law breaks down in a disaster. In the Hollywood version, chaos ensues and people act in illogical or unreasonable ways. The reality is very different.

Most research rejects the notion of a disaster syndrome described as a state of stunned shock or the occurrence of mass panic. In real disasters, people usually hold on to tenets of acceptable behavior such as morality, loyalty, and respect for law and customs.

Planning ahead

If we are not seeing panic, what are we seeing? Unlike most animals, humans can perceive some future threats and prepare for them. In the case of something like the coronavirus, one important factor is the speed at which information can be shared around the world.

We see empty streets in Wuhan and other cities, where people are unable or unwilling to go outside for fear of contracting the virus. It is natural that we want to prepare for the perceived threat of similar disruption to our own communities.

Stocking up on food and other supplies helps people feel they have some level of control over events. It is a logical thought process: if the virus comes to your area, you want to be able to reduce your contact with others but also ensure you can survive that withdrawal period.

The greater the perceived threat, the stronger the reaction will be. At this stage it is believed that virus has an incubation period of up to 14 days, so people want to be prepared for at least 14 days of isolation.

A reasonable response

Preparing for a period of isolation is not the result of an extreme or irrational fear but rather an expression of our ingrained survival mechanisms. Historically, we had to protect ourselves from things such as harsh winters, failing crops or infectious diseases, without the aid of modern social institutions and technologies.

Stocking up on supplies is a valid response. It indicates citizens are not helplessly reacting to an outside circumstance but instead are thinking forward and planning for a possible situation.

While part of this response is due to the urge for self-reliance, it may also be a herd behavior to some extent. A herd behavior is one driven by imitating what others do these behaviors can be a kind of conditional cooperation with others (for example, yawning).

Erring on the side of caution

A lot of uncertainty surrounds disasters, which means all advanced decisions are made on the basis of perceived threats not the actual disaster itself. Because of this uncertainty, people tend to overreact. We are generally risk-averse and aim to prepare for the worst-case scenario rather than the best.

When it comes to stocking up (or hoarding) a large private collection of goods to see us through a disaster, we dont know how much we will need because we dont know how long the event will last.

Accordingly, we tend to err on the side of caution and buy too much rather than too little. This is the natural response of a rational person who faces future uncertainty and seeks to guarantee their familys survival.

The importance of emotions

Buying up large stores of supplies which can lead to empty supermarket shelves may seem like an irrational emotion response. But emotions are not irrational: they help us decide how to focus our attention.

Emotions allow individuals to attend to issues longer, to care about things harder and to show more resilience. They are an instinctual element of human behavior that we often fail to include when trying to understand how people act.

Changes in individual behaviors can have large-scale implications. For example, a supermarket will normally organize its supply chain and stocks on the basis of average levels of consumption.

These systems do not handle big fluctuations in demand very well. So when demand surges as it has in parts of China, Italy and elsewhere the result is empty shelves.

Should I be stocking up?

In general Australians are not as well prepared for disaster as our kin across the ditch in New Zealand, who routinely have emergency kits in their homes due to the prevalence of earthquakes. However, the recent summer of fires, floods and disease should have given us all a wake-up call to be prepared.

You dont need to rush out this very minute to buy several dozen tins of baked beans, but you might want to start assembling this kind of kit. Look through the ABCs survival kit list, figure out what you already have and what you need to get.

Then you can make a shopping list and steadily gather the things you need. Done this way, it gives shops time to restock and wont leave the shelves bare.

***

David A. Savage, Associate Professor of Behavioural Economics , Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle andBenno Torgler, Professor, Business School, Queensland University of Technology

The article was first published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.

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Stocking up to prepare for a crisis isn't 'panic buying'. Its actually a pretty rational - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post

Human Behavior

The Characteristics of Moral Judgment of Psychopaths: The Mediating Ef | PRBM – Dove Medical Press

Shenglan Li,1,2 Daoqun Ding,1,2 Ji Lai,1 Xiangyi Zhang,1,2 Zhihui Wu,1 Chang Liu3

1Department of Psychology, School of Education Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Peoples Republic of China; 2Cognition and Human Behavior Key Laboratory of Hunan Province, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Peoples Republic of China; 3Department of Criminal Justice, Ningxia Police Vocational College, Ningxia, Peoples Republic of China

Correspondence: Daoqun DingDepartment of Psychology, School of Education Science, Hunan Normal University, 36 Lushan Road, Changsha 410081, Hunan, Peoples Republic of ChinaTel +86 15575851428Email psychding@hunnu.edu.cn

Purpose: Many studies explore the relationship between moral judgment and psychopathy in western culture, but the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. By far, no research about this topic in the background of Chinese culture exists. In the current study, we adopt one of the creative process-dissociation approaches to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.Methods: Adopt the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale, the Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity and Process-dissociation approach to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.Results: Traditional utilitarian moral score of the high psychopathy group are significantly higher than that of low psychopathy group (t= 2.97, p< 0.05), people with high psychopathy utilitarian tendency U factor score and people with low psychopathy have no significant difference (F= 0.85, p = 0.36).Conclusion: Individuals with high psychopathy tend to make fewer deontological moral judgments because of their decreased deontological tendencies rather than their increased utilitarian tendencies. They may make more acceptance choices not to increase the well-being of the majority of people, but because of their increased acceptance of hurting others in the moral dilemma.

Keywords: psychopathy, moral judgment, deontological inclination, utilitarian inclination

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Human Behavior

humanID: Reclaiming the Web for Humans – Harbus Online

A nonprofit co-founded by Bastian Purrer (MBA 20) is giving real humans real digital IDs; Shuyao Kong (MBA 20) reports.

We have all been there. Upon downloading a new app, we are prompted with two registration options: Sign up with Facebook or Sign up with Google. Most people would choose either one of them because, after all, who wants to waste time registering through email or phone number when Facebook or Google sign-up is just one click away?

This is precisely the human behavior that Bastian Purrer (MBA 20) and his humanID team strive to change. Social media sign-up is dangerous, for two reasons. On one hand, by signing up with Facebook, Google or any other social media platform, consumers essentially give these internet giants permission to access and track their online footprint, losing data privacy and turning themselves into a product for internet giants to make money from selling ads.

On the other hand, third-party websites dont benefit from social media sign-up either. In fact, they could be the victim because Facebook registration does not require stringent Know-Your-Customer (aka background check). As a result, anyone can use an email address to sign up for Facebook and subsequently use that account to sign up for third-party applications. As a result, bots, aka fake identities that are created to spread false information on the internet, become the new human, in the age of internet trolling.

The humanID team wants to give the internet a better option: Sign up with humanID.

humanID is different from conventional social media sign up for three reasons. First, only real humans are allowed to use humanID because the team puts stringent criteria to register an account. To create an account, consumers must register with their unique SIM cards, and each account is bound by only one device. The platform will also run algorithms to check human-like behavior. In other words, the team wants to make sure that no fake IDs are created to troll the internet. Time to say bye to bots.

Second, all data will remain anonymous and private because humanID does not host any data, or share consumers data with third parties. Instead, all data will be kept on consumers devices. Even better, humanIDs services will create an untraceable identity for users so that no one other than themselves knows who they are.

Third, humanID log-in is as convenient as any other social media log-in. The application is designed to give the same user experiences as Facebook and Google sign-up. Once signed up, users can use their fingerprint as log-in to any third-party application, as easy as that.

humanID was first bootstrapped in Indonesia where Purrer met his co-founder Gilang Bhagaskara. Both felt strongly that political misinformation, powered by internet trolling, was polluting Indonesias nascent democracy. Both believed that the root cause was digital identity management and therefore started humanID, a nonprofit open-source project.

The team later expanded beyond Indonesia when Purrer returned to HBS to finish his degree. In 2020, Adar Arnon (MS/MBA 20) joined the team and brought almost a decade of experience in cybersecurity.

When asked why he joined the team, Arnon said, Cybercrime is harming so many people around the globe, and its still only getting worse. If we want to contain what gets exposed, we must be able to effectively control our online identity. When I heard of humanID, it just clickedthis is it. I wanted to be a part of this team

In addition to Arnon, two other HBS students also joined. Shuyao Kong (MBA 20), who worked at the intersection of blockchain and privacy space, and Umang Sota (MBA 21), who specializes in the Cybersecurity space. The rest of the team is decentralized across the US and Asia.

humanID launched its web and Android versions in December 2019. An iOS version will be launched in March. The team believes that humanID solves the global digital identity issue on both sides of the equation. Users benefit from better usability and increased protection, and businesses avoid breach risks and botnets, all by design.

Shuyao Kong (MBA 20) worked at ConsenSyss Global Strategic Initiative team prior to business school, opening up business across Middle East and Greater China. Prior to ConsenSys, she worked as a consultant at IBM, helping her clients craft digital strategy and deliver innovative retail banking applications. She also interned at Brave as a Product intern between her two years at HBS. In her spare time, she writes a weekly column with Decrypt on the state of crypto in China. She also contributes to the Beijing-based journal Caixin as a global reporter.

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Human Behavior

ALERT FROM ROCKLAND HEALTH DEPT: Atrium Wedding Hall Among Locations Exposed To Coronavirus – Yeshiva World News

New City, NY, Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert advises residents that two Rockland County residents who have been confirmed to have Coronavirus (COVID-19) potentially exposed others to the disease from February 28 to March 2.

Anyone who visited the following locations in Rockland County may have been exposed to Coronavirus (COVID-19):

150 Remsen Avenue, Monsey, NYFriday, February 28, 2020, between 11:00 am and 11:45 pmSaturday, February 29, 2020, between 11:30 am and 4:00 pm

The Atrium Ballroom, 401 NY-59, Monsey, NYMonday, March 2, 2020, between 2:30 pm and 11:45 pm

STAY UPDATED WITH BREAKING UPDATES FROM YWN VIA WHATSAPP SIGN UP NOWJust click on this link, and you will be placed into a group.

It was previously believed that these infected individuals had not worked as caterers during these events and it was only through the detective work of one of our investigators that this discovery was made, said Dr. Ruppert. Any person who believes they may have been exposed should contact their health care provider by phone right away. I also ask that anyone who becomes ill with this disease be completely forthcoming with our investigators, it is only with your help that we can prevent the spread of this disease.

[TEHILLIM Young Man From Flatbush In Serious Condition After Returning From Italy]

The Health Department is asking all health care providers to immediately report all possible cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) to the Rockland County Department of Health Communicable Disease Program staff by calling 845-364-2997 during normal business hours, or 845-364-8600 after hours/weekends. Health Care Providers can call this number for additional information.

The Rockland County Department of Health is currently monitoring 22 people under quarantine and is following CDC and New York State Department of Health protocols.

[DOCTOR ALERTS ABOUT PURIM PARTIES: Coronavirus and Purim: Changing Human Behavior]

It is recommended that Rockland residents take the following precautions to prevent the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19):

The New York State Department of Health has established a Novel Coronavirus hotline at 1-888-364-3065 to speak with a NYSDOH expert who will answer questions, Monday Sunday 9:00 am 6:00 pm. After hours, you may leave a voicemail that will be returned.

(YWN World Headquarters NYC)

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ALERT FROM ROCKLAND HEALTH DEPT: Atrium Wedding Hall Among Locations Exposed To Coronavirus - Yeshiva World News

Human Behavior

Prefer Tea Over Coffee? It Could Be Your Genes, Study Finds – CBS Baltimore

(CNN) Whether youre inclined to choose coffee or green tea for your morning boost could be determined by your genes, a recent study found.

To examine genetic associations with food preferences, researchers from the Riken Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) and Osaka University in Japan studied the genetic data and food preferences of more than 160,000 people in Japan.

The research, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, found genetic links for 13 dietary habits including consumption of alcohol, other beverages and foods, and also complex human diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

We know that what we eat defines what we are, but we found that what we are also defines what we eat, said Yukinori Okada, Senior Visiting Scientist at Riken IMS and professor at Osaka University, in a press release.

Genome studies are typically conducted to associate specific genetic variations with particular diseases, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the US National Institutes of Health.

This involves grouping thousands of people together depending on whether they have a disease and looking at DNA markers called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, which can be used to predict the presence of that disease. If researchers find a SNP that is repeatedly associated with the disease group, they can assume that people with that genetic variation might be at risk for the disease.

Rather than looking at diseases, the Riken team examined dietary habits to find out if there were any markers that made people at risk for typically eating certain foods.

The researchers used data of more than 160,000 Japanese people from the BioBank Japan Project, launched in 2003 with a goal to provide evidence for the implementation of personalized medicine. The project collects DNA and clinical information, including items related to participants lifestyles such as dietary habits, which were recorded through interviews and questionnaires.

They found nine genetic locations that were associated with consuming coffee, tea, alcohol, yogurt, cheese, natto (fermented soybeans), tofu, fish, vegetables and meat.

Variants responsible for the ability to taste bitter flavors were also observed. This association was found among people who liked to eat tofu; while those without the variant consumed less alcohol or none at all.

Those who ate more fish, natto, tofu and vegetables had a genetic variant that made them more sensitive to umami tastes, best described as savory or meaty flavors.

The main ingredients of the foods mattered, too for example, there were positive genetic correlations between eating yogurt and eating cheese, both milk-based foods.

In order to find whether any of these genetic markers associated with food were also linked with disease, the researchers conducted a phenome study.

The phenome comprises all the possible observable traits of DNA, known as phenotypes. Six of the genetic markers associated with food were also related to at least one disease phenotype, including several types of cancer as well as type 2 diabetes.

Since the research studied only people native to Japan, the same genetic variations associated with food preferences are likely not applicable to populations across the globe. However, similar links have been discovered in different groups.

A 2014 study presented at the European Journal of Human Genetics meeting in Milan identified a genetic variant that affects preferences for butter or oil on bread. A separate European study from the same year found genetic variants related to the perception of saltiness of a food.

A form of a bitter receptor gene was found, in a 2014 study, to contribute to differences in the enjoyment of coffee: People who perceived stronger bitterness liked coffee more; those with a lower bitterness perception liked coffee less.

The study authored by Okada also didnt measure environmental factors. Our environment, demographics, socioeconomic status and culture such as whether we eat food from work or home; our age; how much money we make; and what our families eat are some of the biggest drivers of our food choices.

These factors would weigh more than the genetics in some cases, said Dr. Jos Ordovs, director of Nutrition and Genomics at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study.

Given all the findings that genetic differences influence not only responses to foods but preferences as well, experts think considering them can help nutritionists personalize diets to each persons needs and tastes while still hitting nutritional requirements.

Something that sometimes we have felt is that the nutrition field has been focusing too much on nutrients rather than on foods, Ordovs said.

Previous studies have been looking at genes that were associating with higher protein intake or higher fat intake or higher carbohydrate intake, Ordovs said. But this study is more aligned with the fact that people eat foods. They dont just eat proteins, carbohydrates and fats. People tend to eat within a specific pattern.

Further research is needed to explain an exact balance between genetic predisposition and volition when it comes to food choices in different groups of people, but Okada suggests that by estimating individual differences in dietary habits from genetics, especially the risk of being an alcohol drinker, we can help create a healthier society.

The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Human Behavior

Want to know if COVID-19 was there before you? – The Japan Times

NEW YORK Like it or not, we may have to submit to the intrusion of big data because of the coronavirus.

South Korea is at the cutting edge of how this could work in a democracy. Tracking down patient zeros the first documented cases and the ones who follow is becoming critical to containment and public safety. There wont be a cure or vaccine anytime soon. The global number of cases is nearing 100,000. South Korea has the largest outbreak outside China, with over 6,000 cases. The surge has largely been contained to the city where it erupted, Daegu, around a religious cult.

Central to South Koreas approach has been the extensive collection and effective use of data as a public good in this case, disease surveillance and testing. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Preventions daily reporting details patients affected and being tested, connections between them and what provinces theyre in. It includes fatality rates by age and gender. Health authorities posted a detailed log of patients whereabouts prior to confirmation of infection. Their names werent given, but they were numbered. People were informed that this personal information was being collected and publicized. They didnt have a choice.

A Wall Street Journal report chronicled this: Patient No. 12 had booked seats E13 and E14 for a 5:30 p.m. showing of the South Korean film The Man Standing Next. Before grabbing a 12:40 p.m. train, patient No. 17 dined at a soft-tofu restaurant in Seoul. Patient No. 21 drove her car to attend a weekday evening church service.

From a visit to a funeral home to a restaurant and bakery, a website that uses government data now allows tracing infected individuals. Color-coded by timing, it allows people to avoid those places and enables so-called social distancing, or staying away from large groups and crowds. Its a more focused way to confront the epidemic than living in a generalized state of paranoia. And far more targeted than locking down entire cities. App developers are using the public data to warn users if an infected person is within 100 meters. Because the coronavirus has been asymptomatic in some cases, tracing those infected is even more important.

Tech giants have mined data this way in marketing for at least a decade. Scientists have analyzed data from Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google Trends to understand human mobility. Cellphone data has been used to track cholera outbreaks and the role of crowds. South Korea is pulling these threads together. Its also collecting data from pharmacies and doctors on how medication is being dispensed, and plans to use a similar system to ensure people arent hoarding masks.

The more information you have, the more you can do with it. South Koreas growing pile of data has enabled authorities to quickly test for the disease and keep pace with its rapid spread. Knowing that the cases are concentrated in Daegu has helped ramp up testing there. Thats a big step forward. In previous outbreaks, delays in collecting and tracking led to slow response times.

This capacity hasnt been conjured from nothing. South Korea has spent years investing in technology and, more recently, biotechnology. Research and development spending accounts for around 4.5 percent of gross domestic product, topping the list of countries in the OECD, where the average is around 2.37 percent. Given the out-sized role of companies like Samsung and SK Hynix in the countrys life, South Koreans are highly tech-enabled, with nine out of 10 people on the internet and 95 percent using smartphones.

To be sure, disease surveillance isnt new. Typically, health care professionals need to inform public health officials for selected diseases. That takes time. Voluntary sharing risks misreporting, with no validation from lab tests. There are other pitfalls, especially data collection based on human behavior and media coverage. For instance, Google and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention teamed up for web data on searches around the flu. In 2013, Googles estimates for Christmas-time flu peak were almost double the CDCs. Meanwhile, Google underestimated swine flu.

Putting data to work effectively isnt an easy task. In China, a highly connected and watched society, fears of misuse and mass-scale surveillance abound. Beijing has resorted to data to track citizens in the ongoing quarantines across the country. The U.S. doesnt seem to have the data, or at least isnt marshaling it effectively. Much of what it collects is in the hands of Big Tech. Testing and reporting for the coronavirus is proving difficult. In Europe, even if governments wanted to fully utilize all available information, new privacy laws would get in the way.

South Korea is conscious of risks to privacy; there are laws to protect data about children and personal information. But having a watchful eye in the name of public health has helped in this time of crisis. Without using data as ammunition, it isnt clear how to effectively contain the spread of this disease without locking down large parts of a country. So, wouldnt you rather know if someone with coronavirus had been sitting where youre now sipping coffee?

Anjani Trivedi is a Bloomberg columnist.

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Want to know if COVID-19 was there before you? - The Japan Times

Human Behavior

"Fake News" Web Sites May Not Have a Major Effect on Elections – Scientific American

During the 2016 election cycle, certain Web sites spread false information across the Internet. But a new study suggests they did not have as much impact as some have feared.

About 44 percent of voters, mostly right-leaning, saw at least one site, the study found.* Yet those voters also saw plenty of legitimate news on the Web. This content, while worrisome, is only a small fraction of most peoples information, says Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College and one of the three authors of the study, which was published today in Nature Human Behaviour.

The research provided the most systematic examination of peoples exposure to these fringe Web sites to date. It showed that while these untrustworthy sources might have a small effect on public opinion, in 2016 they did not substantially move individuals positions about then presidential candidate Donald Trump or whether to go to the polls.

Emily Thorson, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, says she is not surprised that these sites did not have a huge effect. A single piece of information rarely changes anyones opinion, whether its true-or false, says Thorson, who was not involved in the new study. Thats a good thing. The idea that a handful of unreliable outlets were going to substantially alter views or behaviors is pretty far-fetched, given what we know about the stability of peoples political attitudes, she says.

The research paired responses to an online survey with data about which Web sites participants visited. In 2016 the survey responses were collected from 3,251 volunteers between October 21 and 31, and the Web traffic was recorded between October 7 and November 14. The election was held that year on November 8.

The study is consistent with, and adds to, prior research that suggests that while a fair number of people had some exposure to fake news, that the exposure was highly concentrated among a small number of conservatives, says David Lazer, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University.

Lazer, who provided feedback for the paper but was not involved in the work, notes that it examined an individuals browsing behavior,whereas previous studies looked solely at sharing false information on Facebook or, in the case of his own research, on exposure to, and dissemination of, such content on Twitter.

In his study, Lazer and his colleagues showed that untrue material accounted for nearly 6 percent of all news consumed on the Twitter. But only 1 percent of users were exposed to 80 percent of this misinformation, and 0.1 percent shared 80 percent of it.

Nyhan and his colleagues new research concludes that most people find these untrustworthy Web sites through social media, particularly Facebook. It shows Facebook as a major conduit to fake news [and] misinformation, Lazer says.

Thorson says that while the Nature Human Behaviour study was expensive and difficult to conduct, Facebook already has much of the same information readily availableand should provide more of it to researchers. One of the big takeaways for me is how important it is to start being able to look inside of what Facebook is doing, she says.

In 2018 voters were less exposed to misleading content than they had been in 2016, Nyhan says. But it is unclear if that reduction is because social media platforms such as Facebook were taking measures to minimize the effects of these fringe sites or whether there was simply less activity during a midterm election year.

Nyhan adds that he and his colleagues conducted the study because of shortcomings they saw in some other research and common misconceptions about the role of these Web sites. I do worry that peoples often incorrect sense of the prevalence of this type of content is leading them to support more extreme responses, he says. Measures to halt the transmission of material can raise important concerns about the free flow of information and the exercise of power by the platforms over the information that people see.

The main problem with these sites, Nyhan says, is not what they post but the risk that someone in power will amplify their lies. One implication of our study is that most of the misinformation that people get about politics doesnt come from these fringe Web sites. It comes from the mainstreamit comes from the media and political figures who are the primary sources of political news and commentary, he says.

A Web site might promote unscientific theories about the origins of the coronavirus without changing a lot of minds, Nyhan says. But when someone like conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh talks on air about those same theories, it has a bigger effect, he adds.

Will the 2020 election prove to be any different than the one in 2016 in terms of the power of these fringe sites? It is too soon to tell, Nyhan says. The public is at least potentially more aware of the issue, though I dont know of any systematic evidence helping them make better choices, he says. The year 2020 will be the first real test.

*Editors Note (3/3/2020): This sentence was edited after posting. It originally said 20 percent of voters, mostly right-leaning, saw such Web sites.

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"Fake News" Web Sites May Not Have a Major Effect on Elections - Scientific American

Human Behavior

SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: The resilience we need – News – Wicked Local

What does it mean to be people of resilience, in these times?

What does it mean to be people of resilience, in these times? Resilience means the ability to recover, sometimes described in terms of elasticity the ability to spring back into shape. I dont think thats exactly the kind of resilience we need now. Were learning more and more about how the familiar shape of things wasnt so great.

At the very least, we can say that the way that business as usual has unfolded in this country is not good for the planet. Our collective lifestyle demands far too much of the Earth too many resources extracted, too much pollution dumped in, WAY too much carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere which means that, like any overstressed system, the climate is becoming unpredictable. While I certainly believe in the resiliency of the Earth, in the sense that our planet will rebalance and recover itself in many ways once we stop creating so many new problems for it, Id like to see a permanent change in human behavior. A temporary change followed by a spring back into our old habits is not what we need.

And how about human relations? It seems like most elements of our society are difficult these days, as folks who have been marginalized call out for recognition and folks who have been coasting along at the center of things feel surprised and off balance. Of course, human identity constellations being the mix that they are, a lot of us occupy some marginalized and some centered identities. A white woman may say #MeToo! and ask for men to make space in the center for her, and then might need to make space for her neighbor who says #BlackLivesMatter. The old shape of things would put a lot of people right back on the margins, struggling to be included.

The resilience we need has much less to do with returning to a familiar shape, however comfortable it might have been for some of us. Instead, we need the kind of resilience that the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman described when he wrote about the experience of recovering balance when catapulted from one's place. It is the quiet forming of a pattern of recollection in which there is called into focus the fragmentary values from many encounters of many kinds in a lifetime of living. It is to watch a gathering darkness until all light is swallowed up completely without the power to interfere or bring a halt. Then in that darkness, to continue one's journey with one's footsteps guided by the illumination of remembered radiance. This is to know courage of a peculiar kind, the courage to demand the light to continue to be light even in the surrounding darkness. To walk in the light while darkness invades, envelopes, and surrounds.

In other words, the resilience we need has to do with letting go of our superficial ideas about the shape of life, and instead assembling the pieces, scattered all around us, of the true shape our lives together need to take. When we find that shape, then we will know what to spring back to when old messages and habits push us into trouble again.

How will we know this true shape? It will have a lot to do with what the Greeks called agape the kind of love for others that earnestly desires their wellbeing and wholeness, whether those others are people we know, people were just meeting, people we dont like, creatures, or even ecosystems. Living in this shape will also mean knowing that as you desire the wellbeing of others, others desire YOUR wellbeing.

Now THAT is a shape worth springing back to, over and over again.

The Rev. Monica Jacobson-Tennessen is pastor of First Parish Church, Unitarian Universalist, Kingston, and a member of the Plymouth Area Interfaith Community Alliance.

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SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: The resilience we need - News - Wicked Local