Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Heres How To Use the HALT Method To Figure Out Why Youre So Grumpy – Well+Good

When you're feeling worked up, its always better to take a pause in order to figure out what your body needs before you say or do something you'll regret. (You're never too old for a nap or a snack.) To do this efficiently, therapists often recommend the HALT method as an excellent way to tame emotions and create calmness by addressing basic human and bodily needs to prevent taking out your frustrations on someone else.

HALT stands for:

The HALT method is based around the premise that youre more likely to make poor, highly emotional decisions when hungry, angry, lonely or tired. The purpose is to help us identify these experiences when we are tempted to engage in a negative behavior and to instead address the underlying issue, says Kassondra Glenn, LMSW, a social worker and addiction specialist for Diamond Rehab.

HALT comes from the recovery community, however it can be applied to many scenarios beyond addiction, as it is, at its core, a mindfulness technique that promotes greater emotion regulation by building awareness around the root of urges, says Glenn.

The HALT method addresses how states of being and human needs might be linked to making hasty decisionswith words, actions, and thoughts. People are less likely to think clearly and practically when in distress.

The purpose of the HALT tool is to help us feel better when we are not feeling great emotionally, and its often used when we're feeling upset or emotionally off-centered, says physician and integrative medicine expert Catherine Uram, MD.

Use it by asking yourself what seems off about your body and mindset, so if you notice you are not feeling like your usual self, you can go through the HALT acronym, questioning whether youre hungry, angry, tired or feeling more isolated and alone, than usual.

Asking these questions brings more self-awareness, so you see what causes you to feel unlike yourself and then also to have more emotional regulation and to stay in a more centered and peaceful state," says Dr. Uram.

And with more control over your emotions, youre better able to prevent dramatics and hostility towards others while fostering a better sense of perspective and rationality.

When hungry, you tend to make hasty, emotional decisions, rather than use logic, as your body cries out for food and your stomach grumbles. This is because our blood glucose (blood sugar) can be lower than usual, affecting our physiology, how we think, feel and therefore make decisions, says Dr. Uram.

The connection between hunger and lack of control over emotions is that when we don't have enough energy, and need to replete with food, we do not have enough energy to physiologically regulate emotions and how theyre handled. This results in uncomfortable feelings that we sometimes do not want to investigate, which we label a bad mood, when were actually getting upset because of hunger and that our body and mind do not have enough physical energy to function optimally, says Dr. Uram.

It is well-researched that human behavior changes when we are hungry, where hunger causes us to value the short term over the long term and leads to hastiness with decisions, and chemicals released in our brain also change when we are hungry, to chemicals which then heighten anger, in response, says Glenn.

The best action plan is to identify hunger signals (rumbling stomachs, headaches, irritability, etc.) and find food as soon as possible. Oftentimes we must eat before taking any further action to alleviate discomfort, because sufficient calories and glucose are physically foundational for any mood improvements to occur, says Glenn.

If hunger is the cause, it's best to eat something light and nutritious, like vegetables, fruits, nuts, or seeds, which gradually brings physiology back to baseline, rather than bombarding yourself with large meal and overeating or with a meal thats high in sugar, unhealthy calories and fats, which may backfire and leave you feeling sick or moodier.

An example of satiating this urge first would be if you discovered the cause of feeling not well emotionally was hunger, you could take a momentary break from whatever you are doing, eat a handful of nuts or dried fruits, rest and enjoy them as much as you can, while your body and brain come back to baseline, called homeostasis, says Glenn.

Then eat a meal, or add on to your snack, with slow speed and mindfulness to help you think more clearly and to feel calmer. As your body and brain are coming back into homeostasis, you will think more clearly and feel calmer, avoiding hasty remarks and snappiness and alleviating uncomfortable moods, says Glenn.

We often act out when angry because anger conjures up a lot of physical and emotional reserves, which make it difficult to settle mentally, emotionally, and physically, and so instead our bodies respond with a fight-or-flight response, says Dr. Uram.

Anger is a normal human emotion, but unless managed, it can lead to poor decision making in the moment. Anger promotes impatience and stimulates chemicals in the brain (like adrenaline) and when we act out in anger, the amygdala, which is the part of the brain responsible for processing strong emotion and threat stimuli, also becomes involved, says Glenn. The connection between the two can be tricky to navigate, and the amygdalas involvement can be too strong at times and take over.

Use the HALT method by recognizing that youre angry, and then choosing to use mindfulness to rest, with exercises that bring self-awareness, acknowledgement and a sense of calm. Glenn recommends deep breathing, sending energy into the feet, or touching fingertips together one-by-one as three simple techniques with potential to regulate anger quickly and with ease by bringing more attention to the present moment and anger.

Another way to use the HALT method is to target anger as the cause and then workout, which will release anger and stress. Running, walking, or some other form of vigorous exercise can be helpful, because when we are angry, we have increased adrenaline and glucose (blood sugar), so intense exercise allows us to put it to good use physically, rather than keeping it all pent up inside, to then explode outwards, says Dr. Uram.

People are wired to seek belonging, so when youre feeling lonely, it may lead to depression and anxiety, as well as making decisions without connecting to yourself and your authenticity or power. Theres confusion on how to stay connected to yourself and to those around you. There are also multiple ways to feel lonelywe can feel as though we haven't found our group, and we can also feel as though we are disconnected from ourselves, says Glenn.

When depressed, HALT helps you handle emotions better and avoid taking them out on others. It gets you a little uncomfortable by urging you to use self-reflection to address the root of your loneliness and the ways in which you can improve your sense of community and attract love, says Dr. Uram.

Use the HALT method by reaching out to someone you feel you can be your authentic self with, and face-to-face, if possible, to reduce the loneliness youre feeling. Connection promotes nervous system co-regulation, which allows us to move from depressed/anxious back toward our baseline, says Glenn.

Practice self-connection, especially if the identified feelings of loneliness are centered on disconnection from the self, as it can be beneficial to engage in an activity that puts us back in touch, says Glenn. You might try yoga and meditation, exercising, reading a book, painting or doing any other hobby you love.

You can even just go for a walk alone, and not with company, outdoors for some fresh air and to feel at peace and centered. Connection with ourselves allows for increased emotional identification and processing, explains Glenn.

Without physical energy, its hard to maintain enough mental energy and focus, as well as clarity with thinking and judgment. Tiredness causes us to feel foggier and increases stress around making decisions, causing those decisions to be more rash, says Glenn.

Use the HALT method by targeting the root cause (tiredness), and then prioritize tasks, to check off items accordingly, but also by prioritizing sleep, as well. Once we've paused and identified tiredness, prioritizing the tasks we need to complete and decisions we need to make can decrease stress levels, says Glenn. We are letting ourselves off the hook and acknowledging that we don't need to do everything right now, Glenn continues. A break might signify sleep, a vacation, a walk outside, an episode of your favorite television show or even simply sitting in silence for a brief pause, just for yourself.

Tiredness is an indicator of rest, so pause current tasks, engage in something relaxing and enjoyable, or take a nap or go to bed, if you havent been sleeping well and need to catch up.

The HALT method is a beneficial tool for people with anger management issues or chronic stress, for couples who are struggling to connect intimately or communicate well, and for those recovering from addiction and require greater self-awareness and ability to pause before doing things hastily to reflect and center themselves first.

In general, HALT requires us to pause before choosing our next action and this pause creates space in which we can identify core emotions and choose a less harmful route, says Glenn. This is helpful for anger and stress management, with couples, and in addiction recovery, as theres possibility for intense emotions and negative urges, and thats where HALT and use of mindfulness helps us slow down, says Glenn.

It's important to remember that the HALT method is a tool for our toolbox, and it isn't a cure-all or a technique for every scenario. It can be useful to talk to a professional in the area(s) in which youre struggling to determine whether the HALT method can help with handling your emotions.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) for confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year support for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

Continued here:
Heres How To Use the HALT Method To Figure Out Why Youre So Grumpy - Well+Good

Human Behavior

Will Smiths behavior left me stunned and confused – Chicago Sun-Times

Actor Will Smith shouldn't have run up on the stage at the Oscars and slapped comedian Chris Rock.

Let's get that out of the way first.

It shouldn't have happened. It was a moment that I'm sure Smith would take back if he could.

The fallout has overshadowed his award for best actor for his portrayal of Richard Williams, the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, in "King Richard."

No one's talking about that rich performance. What people are talking about is the slap.

It's hard to imagine that Smith's behavior beat Kanye (now known as Ye) West's shocking interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009.

But it did.

Besides the slap, Smith's warning to Rock to keep his wife's name out of his "f---- mouth" could be perceived as a threat.

Rock's comedic style is irreverent and stinging. He takes no prisoners, and his presentation of the award for best documentary was no different.

But his joke targeting Jada Pinkett Smith, who suffers from alopecia a disease that causes extreme hair loss went too far.

And ridiculing a Black woman about her hair is never a good idea. That's something Rock should have learned from the controversy over his documentary "Good Hair."

After a couple of mild jokes targeting other celebrities, Rock let loose, saying he was looking forward to seeing G.I. Jane 2, referring to Smith's wife's shaved head.

It took a moment to sink in, and Rock appeared to be aware that it wasn't well received.

So when Smith walked on stage, the exchange seemed scripted.

But while a slap could be faked, the bleeped-out profanity and Smith's angry scowl told me the confrontation was for real.

Will Smith sits alongside his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, with the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for King Richard during the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, on Sunday, March 27, 2022.

Rock shook off the slap and moved on with his monologue.

Smith's behavior left me stunned and confused.

Instead of confronting Rock behind closed doors, Smith let pride get him. He was in full "I got this mode.

But if Smith was defending his wife's honor, he was a little late.

In 2016, Rock targeted Pinkett Smith with another joke that ridiculed her decision to boycott the Oscars because of its lack of diversity.

Pinkett Smith first revealed her hair condition in 2018 during the first season of "Red Table Talk," her online talk show.

Pinkett Smith said she could only laugh after she found a new patch of hair loss in December 2021.

"Y'all know I've been struggling with alopecia. And this is going to be a bit more difficult for me to hide. So I thought I'd just share it, so y'all are not asking any questions," according to a quote in the Los Angeles Times.

Rock must have missed that segment.

Because he clearly didn't understand the toll alopecia was taking on Pinkett Smith.

In 2009, after a battle with breast cancer, I was diagnosed with end-stage alopecia. After struggling for years to hold onto the little hair I had left, I finally gave up the fight and shaved my head.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

For Rock to joke about Pinkett Smith's shiny head is like joking about a disabled person. The joke was in poor taste, especially at an awards ceremony where Pinkett Smith's husband was up for a significant award. The biggest award of the night went to a movie about a deaf family.

Despite Pinkett Smiths beauty, I'm sure she misses her hair.

It must have taken a lot for her to dress up in a fabulous gown and not be able to top it off with what my father called "a crown of glory."

But slapping Rock for his lousy joke isn't going to make Will Smith or his wife feel better.

It is going to cause them more grief.

Although Rock has said he isn't pressing criminal charges, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't waste any time releasing a public statement condemning the violence.

"We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further actions and consequences in accordance with our Bylaws, Standards of Conduct, and California Law," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That declaration likely won't be enough to save Smith from the consequences of his impulsive behavior.

By Monday afternoon, the officers of the Academy were gathering to come up with sanctions.

This is where things get complicated.

Yes, Rock had it coming.

But maybe what's needed is more explicit rules about how far the presenters at these award shows can go.

Celebrities may look invincible to the rest of us, but they are human too.

They make bad wardrobe choices. They have bad personal relationships, they get ill and they can make fools out of themselves just like the rest of us.

In his acceptance speech, Smith acknowledged that in his business, "You gotta be able to take abuse and have people talk about you, you gotta have people disrespecting you, and you gotta smile and pretend that's OK."

No one likes being the butt of a joke, but when you are a celebrity it comes with the territory.

Smith made a wrong decision and has apologized to the Academy, Rock and viewers.

I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions are not indicative of the man I want to be, Smith said in a written statement.

Both men should move on.

But what Smith did can't be overlooked because it sent a terrible message. This kind of behavior leads to the violence that occurs every day on the street.

Smith humiliated Rock with an open-handed slap in a feeble attempt to prove himself a man.

See the article here:
Will Smiths behavior left me stunned and confused - Chicago Sun-Times

Human Behavior

DTEX Systems Extends Microsoft 365 E5 Defender NGAV, Information Protection & Compliance Capabilities with DTEX InTERCEPT for Behavioral DLP -…

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DTEX Systems, the Workforce Cyber Intelligence & Security CompanyTM, today announced new capabilities within its DTEX InTERCEPT for Behavioral DLP solution that expand the scope and protection provided by multiple Microsoft 365 E5 modules to provide wholistic behavioral data loss prevention and workforce activity intelligence capabilities across the entirety of an enterprises application, data, and operating system architecture.

Through enhanced integration with the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Cloud Apps modules, as well as Information Protection & Governance, DTEX InTERCEPT delivers cross-platform user behavior telemetry collection, visibility, and analysis capabilities that answer the questions of Who, What, Why, When, Where and How related to a user's intent when interacting with organizational data and IP regardless of geo-location, on or off-network without employing invasive surveillance data gathering techniques.

The behavioral, contextual workforce intelligence provided by DTEX InTERCEPT extends the capabilities of the Microsoft 365 E5 modules to detect and capture intentional data loss incidents, stop intellectual property theft, pinpoint human behavior attribution as well as malware root cause, and prevents the use and misuse of unsanctioned and sanctioned SaaS applications.

DTEX InTERCEPT extends Microsoft Information Protection and Governance modules data classification capabilities with policy templates and multi-factor data sensitivity algorithms to identify the precursors associated with intentional data loss incidents and protect non-regulated intellectual property such as source code, design documentation, and other unregulated data types and formats.

Our customers understand that Microsoft 365 E5 Defender and Information Protection tools offer the foundation they need to identify and classify structured, regulatory mandated data and limit negligent data loss, said Rajan Koo, Chief Customer Success Officer with DTEX Systems. With DTEX InTERCEPT, our customers are addressing use-cases that require deeper and wider visibility than Microsoft 365 E5 tools can offer, specifically the ability to proactively detect malicious behaviors involving unstructured data and IP, perform real-time analysis in the context of human activity, and to interrupt suspicious behavior sequences and block data exfiltration to prevent a breach.

DTEX InTERCEPT infuses Microsoft Defender for the Endpoint with powerful human behavior attribution and malware root cause analysis created by mapping user activity against the MITRE ATT&CK framework and its own patented DMAP+ metadata collection, correlation and analytics engine to contextualize IOCs and alerts with user activity intelligence. The result is single-click access to dynamic, insider risk and data loss dashboards that offer evidentiary quality incident and file lineage intelligence with drill-down investigative capabilities that inform rapid, targeted incident response and remediation in support of Microsofts IRM case-management tools.

Customers are also utilizing DTEX InTERCEPT to extend Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps powerful IAM capabilities to include the continuous profiling of endpoint access to all web-based resources to detect suspicious SaaS-based uploads and anomalous behavior in real-time without additional configuration. This gives SOC teams and IR analysts the ability to detect both user and peer group anomalies occurring across the entirety of their IT environment including Windows, macOS, Linux, Citrix, VMWare, and other cloud-based environments such as AWS Workspaces.

The additional user attribution, data movement and file lineage, as well as endpoint access intelligence across and beyond an organizations Microsoft 365 environment captured by DTEX InTERCEPT is seamlessly available within Microsoft Sentinel to enrich SOC operations with user behavior telemetry.

For more information about DTEX InTERCEPT for Microsoft 365 E5, please visit https://www.dtexsystems.com/platform/dtex-intercept/dtex-intercept-for-microsoft-365-e5/ and read our blog post at https://www.dtexsystems.com/blog/utilizing-dtex-intercept-to-maximize-investment-in-microsoft-365-e5.

About DTEX Systems

DTEX Systems helps hundreds of organizations worldwide better understand their workforce, protect their data, and make human-centric operational investments. Its Workforce Cyber Intelligence & Security platform brings together next-generation DLP, UEBA, digital forensics, user activity monitoring and insider threat management in one scalable, cloud-native platform. Through its patented and privacy-compliant meta-data collection and analytics engine, the DTEX platform surfaces abnormal behavioral indicators of intent to mitigate risk of data and IP loss, enabling SOC enrichment with human sensors and empowering enterprises to make smarter business decisions quickly. To learn more about DTEX Systems, please visit http://www.dtexsystems.com.

More:
DTEX Systems Extends Microsoft 365 E5 Defender NGAV, Information Protection & Compliance Capabilities with DTEX InTERCEPT for Behavioral DLP -...

Human Behavior

Caldor Fire evacuation will have rippling and lasting effects on bear behavior for seasons to come – South Tahoe Now

Bear caught attempting to break into the crawl space of a home in South Lake Tahoe. Photo: Calif. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

Bear damage at a South Lake Tahoe home from Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. - The community can expect increased bear activity as bears prepare to emerge from their winter dens for the first since the Caldor Fire, according to the Lake Tahoe Interagency Bear Team.

The team is a partnership between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California State Parks, Nevada Department of Wildlife, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the USDA Forest Service.

Generally, fire can be a revitalizing event for a forest, with downed logs providing great forage spots for hungry bears looking for insects such as termites and grubs. Wild animals are typically resilient and able to adapt to fire and other environmental changes: Its part of their nature. However, during last years Caldor Fire, some bears and other wildlife were forced to flee from the flames. While some bears were hit by vehicles on highways, others may have traveled to the Tahoe Basin for refuge, while many sheltered in large pockets of unburned forest or were temporarily displaced.

During the evacuation last fall, when streets and homes were empty and no one was around to secure houses, vehicles, dumpsters, or other attractants, habituated bears in the Tahoe Basin meaning those bears already comfortable around people or those bears that look to people, their homes, and cars for food were left to roam neighborhoods freely with little resistance. These habituated bears suddenly had no humans yelling, making noise, chasing or hazing them, and no electric deterrents because of power outages.

In the Tahoe Keys community, bears broke into garage doors, windows, and vehicles, causing some homeowners thousands of dollars in property damage. The lack of consequences during the evacuation period will have rippling and lasting effects on bear behavior for seasons to come. Because bears are so intelligent, once they learn something, its difficult to break their bad habits. For this reason, its extremely important to be proactive in preventing bad habits from forming in the first place.

Due to the amount of damage bears caused to homes, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife last year conducted a Trap/Tag/Haze operation in South Lake Tahoe to provide relief to hard-hit areas, which allowed residents to begin repairs, replace doors, refrigerators, and other damaged items in order to move back into their homes. Bears were marked and moved to nearby, unburned habitats in an attempt to interrupt the cycle of break-ins and food rewards that went unchecked during evacuations.

Once moved, these bears were hazed upon release with airhorns, paintball guns, and non-lethal rounds, to give the bears a negative human interaction that will hopefully prevent them from returning to the area. Not all these problem bears were caught and hazed, as evidenced by the continued presence of several bears that continued to break into homes in the Tahoe Keys area throughout the fall and winter months.

One of the more famous bears, "Hank the Tank," has been one of the few causing break-ins in the Tahoe Keys. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has not yet started its 2022 Trap-Tag-Haze program in the Tahoe Keys, but there are plans to move "Hank" from the area.

While what happened during the Caldor Fire evacuation couldnt be prevented, homeowners, residents, and visitors can do their part to prevent or deter this kind of bear behavior in the future, especially as this mild winter turns to spring and bears begin to emerge from their dens in search of food.

Below are steps everyone can take to help Tahoe bears live a wild but fruitful and healthy life:

Businesses should require employees to keep dumpsters locked at all times!Use bear-resistant trash containers!Do not allow unsecured attractants such as bird feeders!Remember that feeding bears (or any wild animal) is against the law!

For more information on peacefully coexisting with bears, visit TahoeBears.org.

To report human-bear conflicts:In California, contact the California Department of Fish and Wildlife at 916-358-2917 or report online using the Wildlife Incident Reporting (WIR) system at apps.wildlife.ca.gov/wir.

Non-emergency wildlife interactions in California State Parks can be reported to its public dispatch at (916) 358-1300.

In Nevada, contact the Nevada Department of Wildlife at 775-688-BEAR (2327).

If the issue is an immediate threat, call the local sheriffs department or 911.

More here:
Caldor Fire evacuation will have rippling and lasting effects on bear behavior for seasons to come - South Tahoe Now

Human Behavior

Magnetized killers for the treatment of solid tumors – Newswise

Newswise Cancer immunotherapya type of treatment that enlists our own immune cells to attack tumorshas revolutionized the way that many types of cancer are treated. One type of immunotherapy under investigation uses natural killer cells, a type of immune cell that can seek and destroy harmful cells. However, current strategies to stimulate these cells to harness their tumor-killing abilities are costly and time-intensive. To overcome this, NIBIB-funded researchers are developing a method to activate natural killer cells using an external magnetic field, which not only enhances their cytotoxicity, but allows them to be tracked using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to verify that theyve reached their target.

Adoptive cellular therapieswhere immune cells are removed from the body, modified to better attack cancer cells, and infused back into the patientrepresent a breakthrough in cancer treatments, said Tatjana Atanasijevic, Ph.D., manager of the NIBIB program in Molecular Probes and Imaging Agents. This early work outlines a new and creative way to stimulate natural killer cells by modifying them with magnetic nanocomplexes, facilitating their activation upon exposure to a magnetic field and enabling an image-guided treatment approach.

How do natural killer cells work? These white blood cells are part of the innate immune response, which means that they can kill harmful cells (like cancer cells or infected cells) without having prior exposure to them. They do this by looking for specific receptors on neighboring cells that identify them as self, meaning that they belong in the body. If the cell doesnt have those receptors, the natural killer cell believes it to be foreign and releases a cocktail of cytotoxic molecules, which penetrates the offending cell and causes it to die.

While natural killer cells are efficient and lethal, cancer cells can find ways to evade them, especially in established tumors. One strategy to beef up natural killer cells is to incubate them with specific interleukins, or signaling molecules that stimulate the natural killer cells and enhance their lethality (or cytotoxicity). However, this process is both time-consuming and expensive, and this approach has resulted in limited clinical success, especially in solid tumors.

In addition to signaling molecules, natural killer cells can be stimulated through physical interactions with their environment, like traveling through the bloodstream, squeezing through tight spaces, or attaching to other cells. These physical interactions can exert force on the natural killer cells and activate them, a concept known as mechanical force-mediated immune signaling. Instead of priming natural killer cells with interleukins, we are investigating an alternative way to stimulate these cells by subjecting them to mechanical forces, explained Dong-Hyun Kim, Ph.D., an associate professor at Northwestern University.

But their strategy doesnt rely on typical environmental interactions to exert these mechanical forces. Rather, Kim and colleagues are attaching magnetic nanocomplexes to the natural killer cells, and then subjecting them to a magnetic field.

The magnetic field can remotely control the movement of the nanocomplexes, which in turn applies a mechanical force to the natural killer cells that they are attached to, Kim said. These perturbations caused by the magnetic field tug on parts of the cell which signals them to generate cytotoxic molecules, he explained. By applying the appropriate magnetic field conditions, we are able to elicit the natural killer cells to generate and secrete molecules that enhance their cytotoxicity and tumor-killing potential.

In their study, reported in ACS Nano, the team evaluated their magneto-activated natural killer cells both in a culture dish with human liver cancer cells and in a mouse model of liver cancer. They found that the magneto-activated natural killer cells had significantly enhanced cytotoxicity compared with unmodified natural killer cells in their cell culture experiments. Further, in the animal experiments, treatment with the magneto-activated natural killer cells resulted in a reduced tumor growth rate compared with treatment using modified natural killer cells that were not stimulated using an external magnetic field.

Our early results outline a new method to prepare and activate natural killer cells, which is cheaper, faster, and demonstrates more effective anti-cancer effects than traditional methods, Kim said.

Another advantage of the magnetized natural killer cells is their ability to be monitored in the body using MRI. MRI visibility of our tagged natural killer cells allows us to confirm their successful delivery to the tumor region, Kim said. Indeed, using MRI, the researchers were able to guide the delivery of their magnetized natural killer cells and verify that they had reached the liver tumors in their animal studies.

Kim stressed the preclinical nature of this feasibility study and noted that more rigorous investigations are needed before this method could be translated to humans.

This study was supported by a grant from NIBIB (EB026207) and a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI; CA218659).

Study reference: Taehoon Sim, Bongseo Choi, Soon Woo Kwon, Kwang-Soo Kim, Hyunjun Choi, Alexander Ross, and Dong-Hyun Kim. Magneto-Activation and Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Natural Killer Cells Labeled with Magnetic Nanocomplexes for the Treatment of Solid Tumors. ACS Nano202115(8), 12780-12793. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c01889

This Science Highlight 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 processeach research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. Most clinical advances would not be possible without the knowledge of fundamental basic research.

The rest is here:
Magnetized killers for the treatment of solid tumors - Newswise

Human Behavior

Emerging Trends in Culture Reform: The New York Fed’s Perspective – FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK – Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Thank you, John, for your kind introduction. And welcome to everyone who is participating today from different parts of the world. Before I begin my remarks, I would like to state that the views I express today are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.1

I lead the New York Fed'sGovernance & Culture Reform initiative, which aims to focus the financial services industry's attention on the issue of organizational culture. Our initiative has three specific goals:

Three Emerging Factors

Over the past decade, my colleagues and I have seen a range of approaches to culture develop across the sector. In those firms that are most engaged on the issue, there has been an evolution in their understanding of how to assess and influence the norms and behaviors that drive decisions in their organizations.

Let me highlight three emerging factors that have deepened the study and analysis of culture. I am sure all of them will be explored during your discussions today.

First, we see the increasing use of behavioral science to better understand ordinary human behavior. Such science begins with the insight that humans are not simply rational actors at least not if by "rational" we mean something narrow, economic, and mechanistic. Rather, our thinking and decisions are driven by a multitude of inputs and motivations, some "rational," some "irrational," through both conscious and unconscious mental processes. Another important insight of behavioral science is that humans are fundamentally social animals. That is, our individual identity and actions are strongly influenced by our need to be a member of a group. We look to our group usually those most immediate to us for approval. This has important implications for the creation of norms within an organization and expectations around conduct.

Second, it is notable how culture "data" seem to be ever-expanding and becoming more reliable. In addition to traditional surveys, rapid changes in technology, including the use of artificial intelligence, big data, and network analysis hold out the promise of accurate, real-time information about the state of an organization's culture and the possible identification of future trouble spots in a firm.

These two factors the use of behavioral science and more voluminous and reliable data are helping to support a third development, which is the growing maturity of culture assessments or audits. In my own view, the most useful kinds of assessments require a few key elements. Most importantly, along with information gleaned from culture surveys and the new sources of data I just mentioned, I am a strong advocate for the "human touch" in cultural diagnosis. For example, through direct behavioral observation of groups, culture auditors are able to gather evidence, using all their senses, about how decisions are made and work gets done in an organization. Likewise, conducting interviews with individuals about their experiences can yield insights into the norms, unspoken rules, subcultures, and underlying mindsets in an organization. There is, as you'll no doubt hear through the course of the day, a great deal more to be said about culture assessments. But I believe these methods involving careful, human listening can play a crucial role in helping to reveal the root causes of conduct and culture problems.

Given these advances in our understanding of human behaviour, the availability of new forms of data, and the maturing of culture audits, I do wonder why firms haven't started to govern culture more systematically. Most firms have departments to address all kinds of other risks, but very few (with some notable exceptions) have central teams to comprehensively assess, intervene, monitor and report on behavioural risk. If this approach became more widespread, maybe it could help the industry prevent issues from arising, rather than trying to fix them afterwards.

Update on Culture Initiative Activities

Let me turn now to describe the work of the New York Fed's Culture Initiative, its areas of particular focus in the coming year, and suggest some issues for your consideration along the way.

Our work is organized into three broad categories. These include "Awareness & Dialogue," which refers to our public events, such as webinars and podcasts, that continue to shine a spotlight on the culture issue and provide fresh insights from academics, the industry, and other experts; "Education & Research" through our Education and Industry Forum, which brings together representatives from business schools and firms to integrate ethics into educational resources and training of the next generation of the banking workforce; and "Governance & Supervision," which involves periodic meetings with regulatory agencies from around the world to share information on evolving practices. Across these categories of work, we have settled on three related themes that will underlie much of our efforts in 2022.

First, we are examining the meaning and importance of trust in the financial sector broadly and within organizations. In fact, trust will be the topic for our first culture webinar of the year, on March 29th (register here). It's often stated that banks are in the business of trust, and yet we know that trust in the financial industry has remained low for many years now. But how central is trust to banking in the 21st century? We want to understand how it has evolved over time, how perceptions of financial sector culture contribute to trust in banks, and how trust matters or does not in our highly networked world.

Second, we are focusing on the impact of digitization on financial sector culture, including the influence of a greater share of technologists in banks. We are interested in the seeming contradiction between acting as a stable financial intermediary or fiduciary and the Silicon Valley mantra of "moving fast and breaking things." We also wonder whether cultural norms valuing demonstrations of intellect the need to be "the smartest person in the room" could hinder the understanding and governance of new digital products. Are firm leaders willing to ask questions that might reveal some misunderstanding of technology-enabled instruments, such as those offered on decentralized platforms? We all saw during the financial crisis what can happen when the risks and unintended consequences of complicated financial products are not fully explored because someone is afraid to ask "the dumb question."

Finally and probably like all of you we are trying to absorb and understand the cultural transformations driven by pandemic-induced changes to the way we work and interact with others. We're particularly interested in their impact on psychological safety and speaking up within firms. On the positive side, we have heard that, for some teams, working remotely or in hybrid fashion has helped de-emphasize hierarchy and power dynamics that can often loom large in person. Those same-sized Zoom boxes may be empowering some employees, creating space for different voices to be heard. Nonetheless, when interactions occur solely via a computer screen, it can be difficult to pick up on culture cues and the norms of an organization. This can leave people feeling lost, demoralized, and invisible within their group. It will likely take more time and experimentation to find the optimal conditions to support a culture of speaking up in the new work environment.

ConclusionBy focusing on developments in trust, digitization, and hybrid work over the next year, we hope to shed light on what is in flux, as well as what is foundational, in financial services culture. Gatherings like this conference, representing a growing community of interest and practice, sustain my belief that we are all becoming better equipped to understand and drive change for the better. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts; I wish you a very productive conference.

View post:
Emerging Trends in Culture Reform: The New York Fed's Perspective - FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK - Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Human Behavior

Tennessee, Georgia wildlife officials warn of spring black bears on the move – Chattanooga Times Free Press

A 500-pound male black bear relocated in March from the neighborhood of a Northeast Tennessee university campus is a striking reminder of why humans should be vigilant this spring when bears rising from their winter slumber are on the move looking for food.

Items like loosely-contained garbage, barbecue grills, pet food and bird feeders amount to ringing the dinner bell for unwanted predators, according to officials with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Georgia Department of Natural Resources and others.

TWRA spokesperson Mime Barnes said while the relocation of the big male bear in the northeast corner of the state attracted a lot of attention, the action itself stemmed from worries about human-bear interactions because of the animal's contact with human food sources.

Intentionally and unintentionally feeding bears can lead to serious problems for bears and humans, Barnes said Monday in a telephone interview. Black bears are the region's largest predator.

If you see a bear in your yard, try to look large and make a lot of noise, back slowly away.

Never approach or follow a bear to take photos.

Do not purposefully feed bears.

Remove all attractants from your yard including bird feeders, uneaten pet food and ripe fruits or garden vegetables.

Store grills in a garage or outbuilding.

Store trash and recycling in bear-proof containers.

Do not feed birds between April and January, when bears are most active.

Remove uneaten pet food from outside areas or feed pets indoors.

Do not add greasy foods to your compost piles or compost in bear-proof containers.

Keep cooking grills clean and stored indoors when not in use.

Source: Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

So far this year there have been no major problems between humans and bears, "but May and June are just around the corner," Barnes said.

Black bears, particularly females with cubs, have been in a state of dormancy since Thanksgiving, referred to as "torpor," according to officials. During that period of slumber, bears' normal processes like eating, drinking and other bodily functions slow dramatically to allow them to endure the cold months.

Bears wake up hungry.

(READ MORE: Black bears spreading across North Alabama)

The big bruin relocated this month had been living near Tusculum University in Greeneville in recent years and had "become habituated to human and unnatural foods," according to the TWRA.

According to TWRA Sgt. David Carpenter, the bear had regular access to garbage, birdseed and pet food and had been in the area for a few years but its activity and property damage increased last year.

Agency officers decided to trap it due to the increasing potential for negative interactions, but struck out after the bear changed its travel routine, Carpenter said this month in a statement on the 500-pounder.

The bear's recent activity indicated it was back to its old habits, and Carpenter and officers Ryan Rosier and Austin Wilson located the bear in a small, vacant wooded lot and tranquilized it, officials said. Because of its size and weight, the Greeneville Fire Department provided muscle and equipment to relocate the bear.

While Tennessee's bears are just getting out and about, Georgia's bears live in slightly warmer southern climes, according to Gerald D. Hodge, founder and CEO of the non-profit Appalachia Georgia Friends of the Bears based in Ellijay, Georgia.

"We already have received reports of adult males and sub-adults that are out and about," Hodge said in an email on bear activity. "Second to emerge will be the solitary females and sows with yearlings in late-March, mid-April. Finally, are the sows with cubs of the year in mid-April to early May."

Stay on established trails.

Hike in groups during daylight hours only.

Keep children close and in sight at all times.

Make your presence known call out.

Bears may be more aggressive during droughts, storms and forest fires.

Avoid carcasses. Report dead animals near a trail or campsite to local wildlife officials.

If an animal approaches, back away to maintain a safe distance.

Taking pets on hiking trails is not advised they may attract bears or cougars.

SUDDEN CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Dont panic! Calmly group together and pick up small children. Do not run, make sudden movements or direct aggressive eye contact, which may instinctively cause the bear to charge.

If the black bear clacks its teeth, woofs, pants, growls or slaps its paws on the ground, it is warning you to back off.

Give the bear a chance to identify you as a human, and not a threat. Let the bear calm down and retreat. Talk firmly in a low-pitched voice while backing away.

A bear that continues to follow or circle you, disappears and reappears or enters your campsite during the day or night is possibly exhibiting predatory behavior. If the bear continues to approach or becomes threatening, your group should become increasingly aggressive by shouting, throwing rocks or using bear spray.

BEAR ATTACK

If a black bear attacks you, fight back by hitting its nose and eyes with your fists and by kicking. Your hiking companions can help you fight with walking sticks, pans, branches and rocks or their bear spray. Dont play dead with black bears.

Source: http://www.bebearaware.org

Hodge echoed Barnes' mantra of keeping attractants under control for the bears' sake.

"Humans are not securing their trash, and the bears are getting into it," he said Monday in a follow-up email.

To help get the word out, "We launched a Facebook-targeted ad campaign for the center and east side of Appalachia Georgia last night," he said.

Georgia's Department of Natural Resources reports 1,000-1,800 bear-human conflicts each year, and officials spend up to 1,400 hours annually addressing those contacts, Hodge said.

"Two-thirds of all human-bear conflicts are related to improperly stored trash," he said. "A screened-in porch is not a secure location for trash, recyclables, pet food, bird feed."

Tennessee: If bears present safety or property problems call the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in Southeast Tennessee at 800-262-6704 or in upper East Tennessee at 800-332-0900 or visit tn.gov/twra to find more information.

Georgia: Call the Georgia Department of Natural Resources 770-918-6401 or go to georgiawildlife.com to find information on how to deal with bears and other problem wildlife.

Alabama: Go to alabamablackbearalliance.org/bear-report or call 800-822-9453 to report a bear sighting.

Hodge and Barnes said people can take steps to keep wildlife officials from having to move or euthanize bears.

Barnes said no one should misunderstand the difficulty in relocating animals because not only is the animal stressed in the move from its familiar territory to a new one, it also can increase pressure on other bears in its new home. Permission must be garnered from federal and state land managers to allow a new bear in because of its impact, she said.

"Relocation is not the answer," Hodge said, pointing to a 1989-1993 study in Yosemite National Park that showed 80% of efforts to relocate 124 bears there failed.

"The bad human behavior must be changed to reduce the bad bear behavior," he said.

(READ MORE: Tennessee is full of animals that can kill you. Here's a guide to staying alive)

Homeowners aren't the only neighbors of bears with choices to make, according to Barnes.

"Businesses can do their part by keeping dumpsters locked," she said. "It's a bad day for a person to work in wildlife to put down an animal because humans choose to keep up bad practices."

Bear and human encounters can end badly and the furry omnivores can turn up anywhere, as in June 2020 when an Athens, Tennessee, police officer snapped a photo of a small bear galloping through town.

In September 2020 a young black bear was euthanized after running around downtown Chattanooga, and in 2014, a large male black bear was struck and killed by an SUV on Dayton Boulevard, just two blocks from Red Bank City Hall.

Attacks are uncommon but they have happened in the region before.

On June 6, 2015, a 16-year-old boy was dragged from his hammock and mauled as he slept at a campsite in North Carolina's portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He sustained multiple injuries before his father managed to drive the bear away.

On April 13, 2006, a 6-year-old Ohio girl was killed, and her mother and 2-year-old brother were injured in a black bear attack on Chilhowee Mountain in Polk County, Tennessee. A large bear that might have been stalking the family burst from the woods and grabbed the little boy by the head while the mother and others tried to fend the bear off. The mother was eventually dragged off the trail and in the chaos, the 6-year-old girl vanished. She was found later with the bear hovering over her body.

Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.

Black bears can be found across most of North America. Black bear habitat varies from the lowlands of Florida to the mountains, deserts and subarctic tundra. Black bears can be found in and adjacent to metropolitan areas.

Colors: Black, brown, blond, rust or cinnamon. Rare colors are white and blue.

Size: Adults measure about 3 feet at the shoulder and 5 to 6 feet when standing.

Weight: Adults weigh 125-425 pounds or more. Some Tennessee bears can weigh as much as 500 pounds.

Life span: Approximately 20 years.

Eyesight: Similar to humans.

Sense of smell: Excellent; miles of range.

Attributes: Very agile; climb trees well; are good swimmers; and can run as fast as 35 mph.

A black bears diet can include acorns, berries, insects, vegetation, fish and other live prey as well as carrion. They mate during May and early June. They hibernate between November and April when food is scarce, though this may vary. Healthy mothers produce one to three cubs.

Source: http://www.bebearaware.org

Visit link:
Tennessee, Georgia wildlife officials warn of spring black bears on the move - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Human Behavior

Ali Siddiq will never forget when Moses Malone took him to a strip club: "He said they have the best buffet in town" – Basketball Network

Ali Siddiq and Moses Malone built a friendship over the years

Famous stand-up comedian Ali Siddiq will never forget his first encounter with the late great NBA center Moses Malone who took him to a strip club the first time they had lunch together.

When it comes to some of the most underrated NBA players of all time, the late great center Moses Malone definitely falls into that category. Despite being a 3-time NBA MVP, NBA champion, multiple All-Star, and one of the most accomplished big men from his era, Moses doesn't get the recognition he deserves and rarely gets mentioned among NBA fans and analysts today. The main reason for that is that most younger fans never had the opportunity to watch him play since his best years were in the '70s, and 80's when he was in the same conversation as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

However, unlike most fans who never had the opportunity to know more about Moses Malone, famous stand-up comedian Ali Siddiq built a relationship with the legendary center throughout the years. During his appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, Siddiq talked about the early days when he was working for a record label, and the owner of the business was close with Moses, who spent a lot of time in his office. That presented an opportunity for Siddiq to meet Moses, and their relationship kicked off after the first time they had lunch together at Moses's favorite place.

Scroll to Continue

Siddiq recalls their first lunch together in a strip club called Treasures in Houston, the go-to place for Moses during lunch breaks. In the interview with Rogan, Siddiq said how Moses loved going to that place because he said they had the best buffet, which was pretty strange for Siddiq since it was a strip club. Usually, people go to strip clubs for other activities not necessarily tied to food but for pure entertainment. Interestingly enough, Siddiq challenged Moses on why he was going there, saying there was no way he would go to that place it wasn't for all the beautiful naked ladies working there.

"We were working in the same building, and Moses would always recognize me. One day he invited me for lunch, and there was this strip club called Treasures in Houston he loved going to. And he said they have the best buffet in town, and I am like are we going to a strip club, or we are going to eat. This was my first time going to a strip club for food. It was a huge buffet with a chef, and it looked like a cafeteria with all the lamps, but there were all these naked women in here. So we were arguing about is it the buffet or is it the strip club. So that is how me and Moses got tight arguing about the treasures in the buffet."

Siddiq also talked about the important lesson he learned about human behavior when hanging out with Moses: you can't make someone do something unless they really want to do it themselves. Siddiq mentioned he once asked Moses to borrow him 5 thousand dollars to jump-start his career as a comedian. Moses was willing to help him but forgot about their conversation and instead spent the money on a custom-made seat for his motorcycle. Months after, when Siddiq asked Moses why he spent such an amount of money on a seat instead of helping him with his career, Moses was stunned and felt sorry for not taking Siddiq seriously and stepping up to help him financially.

Moses had a quiet personality, and after he retired from the NBA in 1994, he stayed away from the spotlight, rarely gave interviews, and was gone from the public eye. That is perhaps one reason why most people don't remember him that well, since he literally became a ghost after his NBA career was over. However, that shouldn't undermine all of his personal and team accomplishments in the league because, at one point in his career, Moses was without a doubt the most dominant center in the NBA and a true marvel that needs to get more recognition.

Link:
Ali Siddiq will never forget when Moses Malone took him to a strip club: "He said they have the best buffet in town" - Basketball Network

Human Behavior

Attention to objects in peripheral vision is not driven by tiny eye movements – National Institutes of Health (.gov)

News Release

Friday, March 25, 2022

Findings resolve controversy about brain systems for attention.

Minuscule involuntary eye movements, known as microsaccades, can occur even while one is carefully staring at a fixed point in space. When paying attention to something in the peripheral vision (called covert attention), these microsaccades sometimes align towards the object of interest. New research by National Eye Institute (NEI) investigators shows that while these microsaccades seem to boost or diminish the strength of the brain signals underlying attention, the eye movements are not drivers of those brain signals. The findings will help researchers interpret studies about covert attention and may open new areas for research into attention disorders and behavior. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Scientists working on the neuroscience of attention have recently become concerned that because both attention and eye movements, like microsaccades, involve the same groups of neurons in the brain, that microsaccades might be required for shifting attention.

If microsaccades were driving attention, that would bring into question a lot of previous research in the field. said Richard Krauzlis, Ph.D., chief of the NEI Section on Eye Movements and Visual Selection, and senior author of a study report on the research. This work shows that while microsaccades and attention do share some mechanisms, covert attention is not driven by eye movements.

Krauzlis previous research has shown that covert attention causes a modulation of certain neuronal signals in an evolutionarily ancient area of the brain called the superior colliculus, which is involved in the detection of events. When attention is being paid to a particular area for example, the right-hand side of ones peripheral vision signals in the superior colliculus relating to events that occur in that area will receive an extra boost, while signals relating to events occurring somewhere else, like on the left-hand side, will be depressed.

When something shows up in our peripheral vision, we quickly shift our eyes make a large saccade toward the event to take a better look. This movement brings the event into our high-resolution central vision. These eye movements are accompanied by a general decrease in visual signals, as the brain ignores the quickly shifting visual information received by the eye. In laboratory studies of covert attention, primates or people are directed to avoid those types of large saccades, keeping the attended event in the peripheral vision. However, involuntary microsaccades, which are accompanied by similar decreases in visual signals, often occur anyway.

In this study, led by first author Gongchen Yu, Ph.D., the researchers asked whether attention-based signal changes in the superior colliculus are driven by microsaccades, or if the two processes can be separated.

The researchers trained monkeys to hold their eyes straight ahead, while attending to their peripheral vision. The researchers would cue either the left or right side by flashing a ring on the cued side. After the cue, the monkeys would release a joystick if they detected a color change on the cued side, while ignoring any color changes on the uncued side. The researchers could measure changes in neuronal activity on both sides of the superior colliculus, detecting a boost to the cued side, and lower signals on the uncued side.

At the same time, the researchers used high-resolution eye-tracking cameras to measure microsaccades during the trials. Sometimes, there would be no microsaccades. In other trials, the monkeys would make a microsaccade toward the cued side, or away from the cued side. By lining up the signals based on the time any microsaccade began, the researchers found that the neuronal signals for attention in the superior colliculus were present before the microsaccade, and then would re-establish after the microsaccade.

In essence, although the eye movement would also trigger changes to neuronal signals in the superior colliculus, attention-related signals occurred independently of the eye movement signals.

While the neuronal circuits activated by these two systems do overlap, the link between microsaccades and attention is not a causal one, Krauzlis said.

The majority of vision neuroscientists have been using this type of experimental system to study visual attention for decades. Its a big relief to reconfirm that microsaccades are not the driver of the neuronal changes seen with visual attention, said Yu. This result means we dont need to reevaluate decades of work!

This study was funded by the NEI Intramural Program.

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. To learn more about basic research, visit https://www.nih.gov/news-events/basic-research-digital-media-kit.

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

Yu G, Herman JP, Katz LN, and Krauzlis RJ. Microsaccades as a marker not a cause for attention-related modulation. eLife 2022;11:e74168.https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74168

###

More here:
Attention to objects in peripheral vision is not driven by tiny eye movements - National Institutes of Health (.gov)

Human Behavior

The Metaverse: What Is It, and Why Should You Care? – TechSpot

The Metaverse. Some are calling it the next evolution of the Internet, others say it's already existed for years. One way or another, it's the focus of some of the most influential media companies in the world, and you should look into it, too.

I've always been fascinated with the Metaverse, long before I even knew there was a name tied to the idea. Going all the way back to when I was a young boy. Like most other little boys, I was dreaming of being a superhero, a knight, a swashbuckler, and on the most whimsical days, some conglomeration of those and many more action-y archetypes rolled into one as I adventured through various worlds built in the collective fantasy of my friends and I.

Illustration by Mo

As time went on, I relegated those realm-treading ideas to the section at the back of my mind labeled "fanciful nonsense," right next to light-sabers and world peace-thinking that videogames and books would be the closest of proxy for exploring other worlds that I'd have in my lifetime.

That course of thinking was changed in an instant one Saturday afternoon on a visit to a friend's house. I had popped in unannounced to find many of my peers lumped into a crowd, trilling with unabashed awe. When they had enough sense about them collectively to notice the new arrival, I was ushered to the center of the crowd, and strapped into a bulky headset, the Oculus Rift, playing a game called Robo Recall a simple affair where you shoot at errant robots rampaging through a futuristic city.

Totally enveloped, with a level of immersion I had never approached, even with the most thrilling of media I'd ever consumed, I was gleefully tearing through these hordes of robots.

I wasn't pointing a crosshair at these robots and clicking like had always been the case before. Instead, I was looking down the sights of the wacky, futuristic weapons by moving my hand to eye level, pinching my real fingers together to catch a bullet, and slinging my wrist forward to throw things.

It was mere seconds before the thoughts of the bulky headgear and alien controllers were completely gone, and I was completely within this game. Alas, the game came not without danger- I whipped to my right to shoot one of those rampaging robots and felt a sharp crack in the back of my hand, and pulling the headset off, I realized I had clubbed one of my boys with the Rift's controller.

As he picked himself up from the floor I put myself into time-out for being a danger to myself and others, and as I sat off to the side watching as others took their own turns shooting robots I was totally elated. This thing I was seeing -- I knew it was monumentous. Not just because this technology on its own was revolutionary and kind of amazing to behold, but because it was a tiny baby-step between the real world and a fantastical and truly infinite one, appealing to some latent hope deep within me. Something that seemed so impossibly far away, was emerging into reality, and having the incredible courtesy not only to happen during my lifetime, but in front of my very eyes.

Before we delve into the vast and complex issue of trying to divine the future of technology a task in which many more qualified before me have failed miserably or become exalted in their unparalleled facticity, I would like to include something akin to a disclaimer.

Takes on the internet, smartphones, television, and basically every other innovation of technology at the time of their conception and adoption have a tendency to skew outwards to those two extremes. We highlight and make prolific use of the most egregious deniers using the clarity of hindsight to make those speakers of antiquity into a mockery, or highlight people who were ahead of their time while ignoring the middling opinions that make up the contemporary thought.

Image credit: Jezael Melgoza

While I sing the praises of the amazing technological advancements, I also hope to forewarn that there are terrible dangers afoot. The more we become lost in the coming wonderland, the more the masters of that domain will have the ability to influence our lives, ideas, and perception an opportunity we know they will seize if given.

I believe that the Metaverse is an inevitability, save for a catastrophe of infrastructure or a foundational shift in human behavior. As is the order of our society, what once was a whimsical idea will be breathed into reality moving forward, even if it manifests as malignant and damnably corrupted.

As I see it, humanity approaches the Metaverse, treading a narrow and harrowing path. Waiting at the end, the ultimate reward for going where we have never dared, nor had the ability to go before, an Eden where humanity's technological staking will allow us to meaningfully transcend many of the boundaries of our primary physical reality and largely eliminate the logistical hurdles of space and distance from a myriad of activities.

The danger lies on either side of that path, pulling at us with an avaricious gravity towards gray quagmires of corporate control. Places where many of humanity's base freedoms are an illusion. The barons of those desolate kingdoms having complete control over what may exist within this new reality that we adopt.

As we explore the idea of the Metaverse here today, I plead with you to consider that the technology that will soon be at our disposal does not have the innate quality of being a supreme good, nor an ultimate, undoing evil. It is something that will be built and guided by the actions and ideals of many people, and has the capability to end up in either of these final destinations, and so many in between.

The prefix "Meta-" means beyond, and "-verse" refers to the Universe. Combine them to get the rather fitting term "Metaverse," meaning "beyond the Universe." All things considered, Metaverse feels an appropriately extravagant word for the ideas it represents.

This shiny new buzzword we're throwing around isn't actually so new. It originated in the 1992 Sci-fi novel, Snow Crash. I feel it is of note that this is the same place that is thought to have popularized the term "avatar" when referring to a digital representation of someone, so just with that accolade you can tell Snow Crash had its effect on the tech decades beyond when it was written.

While that's all good and dandy, choosing to use this term feels like a terrible, looming omen when you look at the source material. Snow Crash presents a dystopian, fractured state in a year very near to our own. In this shattered vision of America, what are essentially corporate oligarchs have all of the power in the presented society, and aim to employ literal memetic viruses that reprogram the human mind.

Facebook, a company constantly under fire for misuse of information and largely accused of shady and unscrupulous practices, taking up its new mantle of "Meta," and pledging to build the Metaverse seems to be about as on the nose as falling face first into asphalt. The cynic in me almost sees this as a brazen admission. Like, they're coming right out and saying, "Yup, we're done hiding it. We are untenably unconcerned with the well being of you lowly peasants. Our hegemony over information will be brutal and unceasing."

"Well," you might be asking, "now that you've scared me with your grossly exaggerated pessimism, what actually is this Metaverse thing you're talking about?" And I'd say that it's rather difficult to pin down.

What might have someone said if you asked them what an automobile was in the early 1880's, prior to their public sale? There were some brilliant people, and they probably could have come up with some idea of what that might be, but the first automobiles were not yet available for them to see.

The Metaverse exists in this same space at the moment. We can talk about it, and think about it, but it is rather impalpable in that the Metaverse is very different from anything that exists right now.

Illustration by Mo

As simply as I can put it, the Metaverse is a network of virtual 3D spaces we would be able to venture into and move between, functioning as a sort of 3D internet- or an "internet of places." Ideally, it would be engaged with using virtual reality devices, but would likely allow for augmented reality and traditional 2D displays to participate as well.

Imagine the world in The Matrix or Ready Player One. Those are two contemporary, and also dystopian (is anyone else noticing a pattern emerge?), examples of a Metaverse. Hopefully, the emerging real world version won't involve enslavement by robotic overlords or a large, and rather uncomfortable looking port being drilled into the back of your head, but I'm not going to file it away as an impossibility.

There have been things that you might have interacted with before that are tiny microcosms of what the Metaverse might be when it comes into reality. Games like World of Warcraft and Runescape have full blown human-driven economies, in worlds populated by millions of people. Fortnite has been host to live and synchronous events for millions of users on several occasions now, and regularly incorporates through collaboration the intellectual properties of other companies in the form of events and cosmetics. Roblox allows users to create games, events, and cosmetics that other users can buy and use. Twitch and YouTube allow for viewers to consume content in a live and social way, regardless of location.

Now, to imagine the Metaverse all you need to do is roll all of those, and a million other things, into one simultaneously cohesive and disjointed package. I'm not going to lie to you here and pretend I know what's going to happen in the future, but I sure can try to take my best guess.

The Metaverse wouldn't just be for gaming, even if most of my examples might indicate otherwise. Digital games just serve as a great jumping off point for many of the ideas involved because they are our most common foray into virtual worlds. Instead, the Metaverse would serve as humanity's new Mecca for interaction if everything goes as planned, where instead of heading to a website on the Internet, you would navigate to a virtual space within the Metaverse. At this point in time it's a set of ideas that we have a rough outline to strive towards in the future.

Matthew Ball, a venture capitalist in the realm of tech, and now rising to a higher strata of fame as some sort of Metaverse oracle figure, has many writings on the Metaverse that are openly praised by enthusiasts and the figureheads of tech alike. He laid out these core elements of the Metaverse as a part of a growing series of essays discussing this upcoming new era of technology.

Persistent - Possibly the least controversial element in discussions I have found. There must be no ending to the Metaverse, nor stoppages. It would just go on in perpetuity. Like today's internet, the Metaverse must always be there. Individual pieces, say a particular game or virtual plaza, might lose support from their owners or have a lapse in availability due to extenuating circumstances, but the Metaverse as a network needs to be something that is always available if you have a device and a connection.

Image credit: Sandro Katalina

Live - The Metaverse should largely take place in real time. Even though there will be instanced content maybe in the order of a dungeon in a video game, or a private movie showing, most things taking place should be happening for everyone at the same time.

A very solid example of this is the aforementioned live events hosted in Fortnite. When Ariana Grande's music was playing at her digital concert, everyone was hearing it simultaneously and participating in mini-games with other players for the duration.

A complete economy - In the Metaverse people will be able to own, trade, and invest in just about anything that goes on there. This likely begins with digital goods and real estate, but will become more diverse with a variety of services and speculative assets as time goes on. It's highly likely that there will be jobs that exist entirely within the Metaverse, and the currencies of choice will become legitimized and able to be exchanged with real world money.

If you're like me, the concept of digital property may sound preposterous, but in doing research about the Metaverse I found examples going back almost two decades that offered a small bit of legitimacy. Entropia Universe, an MMO that launched in 2003, has had virtual land and buildings sold for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars in at least one case.

Unlimited user capacity - Like today's internet, there should be hypothetically no limit to how many people might be using the Metaverse at once. Not every single place within the Metaverse needs to be able to house the entire world, but the overall network of spaces should be unlimited in capacity.

Inter-usage of data and assets - A good portion of the items that exist within the Metaverse should be able to move with you from one setting or scene to another. Your favorite "I'm with stupid" hat for your avatar should be able to follow you from a movie viewing, to a game, to your company's virtual workspace (though you might want to take that off unless your boss is really cool) to most other places you go in the Metaverse.

Populated by a diverse pool of creators - In the Metaverse, anyone should be able to develop experiences for others to enjoy. Games, videos, movies, episodicals, and more should be able to enter this realm from any person with the know-how.

Like how anyone can make a website on the internet today, anyone should be able to set up their own space within the Metaverse and populate it with whatever they like. With the amazing programs some of which I'll touch on later in this piece this creation will be easier and more accessible to people without the specialized skills you need to make similar things today.

This last criterion is one glimmering shard of hope for the Metaverse. I know it is the general impression that Meta, Epic and Microsoft own the Metaverse before it even exists, however this is not the reality. Just like the Internet, no sole proprietor will own the Metaverse. Undoubtedly, some of the existing titanic tech companies, and a handful of new ones, will have a large influence and an equally large share of the traffic there, but it is something that belongs to everyone. There is the possibility that if the Metaverse is treated as such from the get-go, we might steer it away from the failings that plague the Internet in its current state.

The Metaverse won't be some monolithic piece of sci-fi level tech. It is an intricate web of slowly developing pieces that will come together into a global conglomerate. Hopefully, just like the internet before it, there will be constant evolution and change throughout the life of the Metaverse.

Now that the Metaverse is on people's minds and making waves in the media, we're sure to see a growing wave of support pouring into its development. Even if there is no shortage of people who will disparage the very concept, the Metaverse is still likely to be adopted quickly if it follows the trend of emerging technologies of the past.

Image credit: Muhammad Asyfaul

Humans are creatures of convenience, and if this new stuff makes their lives easier or more enjoyable they will use it. I may not be ancient and wizened, but I have been around long enough to remember when smartphones were "just a silly little fad."

Here are some examples of companies and their projects that are making a push into the Metaverse.

Meta, formerly Facebook, has made quite the show hiring a force of ten thousand European workers to develop the Metaverse. What exactly they have in mind is still shrouded in some mystery. We can take a look at one of their latest projects to get a glimpse into what they might be up to. Meta launched Horizon Worlds at the end of last year. This project works as a hub to explore user-designed 3D worlds in virtual reality.

In its current state, this appears to be rather rudimentary and impractical, but if you can look beyond the simplistic graphics and the horrifically puny 20 user limit per world, you can get a glimpse of how the Metaverse might work from a user standpoint.

Horizon has you open into a miniature hub-world where you can browse through community made content. Once you find a place to go, you just tap a button and you're teleported there.

Something like this will be a necessity in a realized Metaverse. Just like the Internet, you'll need some sort of browser program unless you just love punching in direct addresses. It looks like Meta's goal here is to create Metaverse navigation tools and they are largely neglecting to make content of their own.

Epic has been very forward that they hope to be on the vanguard of the Metaverse's creation. Massive hit game, Fortnite, has proven to be more culturally significant than you might expect from a cartoonishly styled game for all ages. Without trying to be disparaging, at least some of the astronomical success Fortnite has seen is from its events and crossovers with other massive brands.

At the peak of the hype around the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you could log into Fortnite to find a special game-mode where you had the chance to play as Thanos. When they changed the game's iconic map out for a newer one, there was a lead up event with cutscenes starring Dwayne Johnson.

They have used the game as a platform for live digital events for massively popular musical guests. You can find character crossovers from every place imaginable. There's John Wick, Spiderman, and even some real people like Ninja and Ariana Grande have been immortalized as skins in the game.

The point in all this is: Epic is doing the type of stuff that has to make the Metaverse a very fun and interesting place, and are setting a gold standard for the types of entertainment that will be huge within it. Furthermore, Fortnite gives people the opportunity to make their own island, and design the games and activities there, giving users a taste of that network-of-places style so important to the Metaverse.

Some of Epic's other efforts can be seen as both steps towards establishing themselves within the Metaverse and being very developer friendly. They are selling access to Unreal Engine licensing at a very competitive rate, and offering a desirable shopfront for smaller developers by taking a much smaller cut of the pie when it comes to revenue relative to other major sellers.

They are also giving free access to developers for their Easy Anti-Cheat and Voice services, both used in the smooth multiplayer experience of Fortnite (and many other titles you've probably heard of). By having this shared communication infrastructure built into many games, including one of the largest of all time, they are establishing a stronger case that those platforms define the standard when moving forward.

Since the interchange of assets and information from place to place is a key element of a realized Metaverse, there will be a coming standardization of many things, and it appears that Epic is trying now to establish leverage for their own creations to set that standard in the areas where they are staked.

With those things in mind and the absolutely staggering visuals of the new Unreal Engine 5, it wouldn't surprise me if Epic's engine, communication services, and storefront are worked to become a foundational piece of the Metaverse as it moves forward.

Epic has also recently fought legal battles with Apple and Google over what they call antitrust behavior about their market practices, claiming that among other things, the high share they demand, is harmful to developers using their storefronts. While Apple was found in their case not to be monopolistic, there was an injunction made that forbids them from continuing some practices that limited consumer choices in their stores.

While none of us are green enough to think that this is done out of altruism on Epic's part, the fact that corporate maneuvering has a side effect that is beneficial to smaller developers offers hope that some of these giant players might come to challenge the practices of their competitors moving forward.

For the Metaverse to live up to its potential, it will need to be an environment where developers of all sizes have the opportunity to add their own creations with fair chance at compensation.

Microsoft is trying to advance remote business solutions for the Metaverse with something called Mesh. Microsoft mesh is touting its "Holoportation" technology- live scanning and rendering of something inside of a virtual space.

In the Mesh trailer below you see the participants each wearing AR or VR headsets working together over a holographic display laid out on the table. Beyond that, Mesh allows integration with Office 365, and can allow users to introduce their files into the shared space for real-time edits from their team.

Any movement or changes should be visible wherever the viewers are within about a tenth of a second. As high-speed internet becomes available ubiquitously, this is just about as close to teleportation as we're gonna get short of a real life teleportation device. By making remote work and meetings as seamless as they can be by utilizing this new software with augmented reality, we are likely to see more and more people become remote workers.

Nvidia is definitely a contender in the literal shaping of the Metaverse, with Omniverse, a suite of programs used to create virtual spaces and bring them to life. It is kind of like the aforementioned Mesh, but for building 3D environments.

By coupling with the tools that people are using today to shape, edit, texture, render etc. 3D places and things, and adding the ability to collaborate these things in real time, this program is leaping forward in how streamlined and cooperative the process of building in 3D can be.

Either Omniverse, or something like it is going to be what shapes the places that make up the Metaverse. Omniverse makes it easier than ever to create high quality virtual spaces, which are the foundation of anything happening in the Metaverse. Imagine the things that you might see if entire teams of environmental designers, and animators working together in one live space.

On top of all of that, there are AI-powered solutions within these programs to speed up the tedium inherent to these types of tasks. The most amazing tool that I saw automatically animated faces speaking by tying them to a video or script. As these tools become more and more powerful, making a world of your own will eventually become easy enough for most anyone to do it.

Even though I've only spoken of corporate endeavors in this section, in a place that's designed to be an endless world of experiences, the user generated will vastly outnumber the proprietary in volume. Everyone, if they so desire, will be able to leave their own mark on this new world.

Image credit: S R

The Metaverse needs you to exist. There will be a need for the creative types to fill it with interesting things to do. We need to be technically oriented to design the necessary infrastructure to support it. We need the politically inclined to vote for policy makers that resist the iron grip of those that would pervert these new vistas for personal gain. We need people who understand this new technology and how to drive it to its fullest potential. Only together with our wonderful tapestry of skills can make real this new place that not long ago we all relegated as fanciful nonsense.

As with every other wave of technology, this one will bring with it solutions to old problems, and pose new ones of its own. The creation and operation of a project of this scale will create many, many jobs. Meta is hiring ten thousand to work on building the Metaverse.

As it comes closer to reality, there will be a growing need for specialized development of hardware and software ecosystems that rise to the myriad challenges present in bringing the Metaverse to fruition. Not only will these rising fields create employment for many people, but they will need people to teach them, and design their software and equipment.

Image: Mo

Furthermore, in this environment where you need only to log in to work instead of commute, startups utilizing the new tech can hire workers from anywhere in the world and invite them to their virtual space. As the Metaverse is embraced by the masses, many people will be untethered physically from their job.

As of March 2021, 21% of Americans were teleworking, and according to Global Workplace Analytics' expectations, by the end of 2021, 25-30% of the global workforce was to be working from home. During the era of the Metaverse, that section of the workforce will only grow, and they can choose to live wherever they like with little consideration for where their employers may be. Perhaps this new paradigm will allow people to move closer to their families, or maybe an introverted professional would like a remote house far away from the bustle of cities.

There is something going on in Venezuela that we'll see more of after the Metaverse becomes accessible. Due to a period of unprecedented inflation, many people there have turned to selling gold and items in the aforementioned multiplayer game Runescape, because it has a relatively stable in-game economy and using it to bring in foreign money from the global player-base was more sustainable and effective in earning than even high-skill jobs within Venezuela.

In ways similar to this, the Metaverse might be utilized creatively to open up avenues of capital to those that need it the most.

For certain types of disabilities, the Metaverse has the potential to be an even field in a way that real life can't quite match. Those with reduced mobility will likely be able to participate in events they might be barred from in real life, while perhaps a deaf individual might have the option to render subtitles for the goings on in a way to feel more included. As a physically disabled person, the Metaverse shines as a rapturous decoupling of the bodies of the enfeebled and their ability to participate in things like exploration and socialization.

It's no secret that being endlessly connected to everyone else has some negative modifier on social interactions and mental health, especially in teenagers. From 2008 to 2019, the reported rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young adults rose by 47% along with the meteoric rise of social media and those two phenomena are largely believed to be intertwined.

Image credit: Shubham Dhage

The Metaverse might worsen this social woe, but some say the opposite. Virtual worlds are thought to be more socially intimate than scrolling through your feed. Maybe a new form of social media based on doing and experiencing things together will be a mentally healthier alternative than looking at selectively chosen snapshots and snippets of others' lives. It's unknown what effect this will have on socialization, but we can all try to hope for a turn to the positive. I for one, know anecdotally that Twitter and Instagram introduced leagues more strife into my life than stacking blocks with my friends in Minecraft.

The Metaverse will likely require a staggering amount of energy to keep running. We know little so far about how the Metaverse will be hosted, or how its data will be managed, but it is almost a certainty that it will have its costs. There's no telling which available technology, or new ones, we will use to create and distribute electricity in the future, but as it stands now there is a likelihood that the Metaverse has the potential to be environmentally deleterious within the existing state in which energy is produced.

Like with the internet, we can imagine there will be an army of scammers trying to defraud normal people, and any new tech is going to empower them with new tools and strategies. Americans are defrauded out of billions of dollars each year through internet and telephone scam strategies. Unless preventive measures are taken to protect people in the Metaverse, or there is education made available on how to protect yourself in this environment, more Metaverse users than necessary will fall victim to these new methods.

Like all new things, the Metaverse will be unpredictable, and tainted by certain less than desirable elements, but has the potential to be something wonderful and fun to reignite that childish whimsy so often pushed away in our modern world. A new and endless frontier for exploration waits just over the horizon. Together we can dive in and experience a whole new universe of possibilities as it unfolds right in front of us. Not long ago, this kind of technology would have been impossible to tell apart from magic, and we are so lucky to see it all coming together.

Masthead credit: julien Tromeur

Read more:
The Metaverse: What Is It, and Why Should You Care? - TechSpot