Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

How human behavior is reshaping the world | Cornell Chronicle – Cornell Chronicle

Human decisions both large and small influence environmental outcomes in profound ways. From forest regeneration in Chinas Himalayan heights to flood responses in New Yorks Hudson Valley, human behavior reshapes the world. But how do culture, social organization, and politics influence these changes and their impacts?

As an environmental sociologist and professor of global development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,Jack Zindaanalyzes global challenges surrounding relationships between human groups and environments. Zinda makes in-depth explorations of locales across the globe, from rural communities in China to metropolitan areas straddling the Hudson River in New York State. His work dives deep to assess two central research questions:How do people's actions and views in relation to the environment differ across individual households, communities and regions? How do these differences create varying social and environmental outcomes?

Jack Zinda, assistant professor of global development

This research homes in on a key aspect of sociology: while individual choices may seem independent, they always draw from surrounding social and material contexts. Zinda works closely with community members to understand why they respond to environmental and socioeconomic changes in certain ways. He follows these responses to understand their impacts on landscapes.

Environments are always social we meet them with cultural frames that tell us what a forest or a river is and how it might best be used or spared from use, and the political and economic pressures that we take into account, Zinda explains. To get it right, whether restoring forests or keeping people safe from flooding, you need to listen to the people on the front lines and understand how their actions interplay with bigger social and biophysical systems.

Southwest China, a vast region bordered by the Himalayas to the west and home to nearly 200 million people, has been at the center of one of the worlds largest reforestation efforts. Not surprisingly, thereforestations impact on social and economic developmentis complicated. Within these environmental programs, the Chinese government seeks torehabilitate rural landscapes, implementing policies such as paying farmers to plant trees or founding national parks. Meanwhile, authorities also boost economic development by promoting tourism, encouraging theplanting of cash crops such as walnuts, or subsidizing alternative sources of energy.

A hired worker in China tosses turnips onto a drying rack.

Understanding how people adapt to Chinas environmental conservation programs is essential. The people these interventions target dont respond to interventions in isolation. When asked to retire farmland and plant trees, people take into account all sorts of things their options for farming, whats going on in their community or whether someone in the household might take a job in the city, Zinda explains. He examines how these processes play out across scales individuals, households, communities, and regions to analyze patterns in decision making and their impacts.

The city of Troy, NY is situated on the banks of the Hudson River near the origin of the Erie Canal. There, approximately 160 miles north of New York City, residents live along rising water levels as more intense and frequent storms spurred by climate change inundate communities along the river. In collaboration with theHudson River Estuary Programand Global Development colleaguesRobin Blakely-Armitage,David KayandLindy Williams, Zinda is working to understand how individuals and governments perceive and respond to flood risk. The research team is addressing the role of flood insurance policies and government regulations, as well as inequalities in vulnerability to flooding and access to resources to prepare for floods.

Our goal is to provide useful information to inform households and local governments about flood risk and tangible actions that they can take, such as implementing preparedness measures or acquiring flood insurance policies, Zinda says.

While flooding is a persistent risk to the region, the deadly Covid-19 crisis presented an immediate and unexpected risk in 2020 just as the researchers began their work. The emergence of the new risk raised important questions: How do peoples perceptions change in therisk of flood compared to risks rising from the coronavirus pandemic? What drives those perceptions and responses? The team adapted their approach to incorporate the pandemics risk impact into their research.

As environmental crises loom larger than ever, Zinda encourages his students to face real world challenges holistically. In his Environmental Sociology course, students produce public-facing articles about issues that interest them, analyzing reasons that produced the issue and also offering potential solutions (check out the2018,2019and2020submissions). In my classes I want my students to know that meaningful solutions deal with the full complexity of a problem, Zinda says. Oftentimes the fetishization of finding a solution quick gets in the way of us actually approaching environmental concerns in ways that address whats fundamentally driving them.

This article also appeared in the CALS Newsroom.

Kelly Merchan is a communications specialist in the Department of Global Development.

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How human behavior is reshaping the world | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

Human Behavior

NSF-supported researchers achieve two-way communication with dreaming people – National Science Foundation

The breakthrough creates a new method for studying the human mind that could lead to innovative ways of learning and problem-solving

Recorded electrical signals from a sleeping participant as they communicated with scientists.

February 18, 2021

Researchers supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation have successfully achieved two-way communication with dreaming research participants sleeping in a laboratory at Northwestern University, creating a new method for studying the human mind.

The breakthrough was also achieved at Osnabrck University in Germany, Sorbonne University in France and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where researchers independently tested methods for two-way communication in dreams. The collective results from all the laboratories are published today in the journal Current Biology.

The Northwestern University scientists played randomly selected audio recordings of simple math problems as their research participants were asleep and lucidly dreaming. A lucid dream is one in which the sleeper is aware that they are dreaming. Participants then perceived the scientists' questions within their dream. By monitoring electrical signals from the sleeping participants' brain and eyes, the researchers showed that participants successfully answered the questions while remaining in REM sleep. The breakthrough challenges current paradigms of human consciousness.

"We know that a great deal of cognitive processing takes place during sleep. This discovery points to an entirely new way to explore not only how sleep affects our memory but also how we solve problems and think creatively when we're awake," says Betty Tuller, co-director of NSF's Perception, Action and Cognition program, which supported the research. The program funds theoretically motivated research on a wide range of topic areas related to human behavior, with particular focus on perceptual, motor and cognitive processes and their interactions.

"NSF investments in fundamental science research like this study are critical to understanding what goes on behind the scenes in our brain," said Mike Hout, program co-director. "This study challenges what we think we know about human consciousness, and there is still a great deal more to uncover."

For the full story, check out NSF's Science Matters blog: "Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams."

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NSF-supported researchers achieve two-way communication with dreaming people - National Science Foundation

Human Behavior

How COVID-19 changed the way we use Google and Twitter, according to UCLA-Harvard study – LA Daily News

LOS ANGELES The coronavirus pandemic has changed virtually everything in the U.S., including online behavior, according to a new study.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of Internet activity changed in the country for the 10 weeks before and the 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 the date that then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

According to the study, one change was Google searches.

The other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and Internet forums, suggesting a resurgence of community-oriented values and support of one another.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, dedicated to the pandemic.

According to the study, use of the word help on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word share increased by 24%.

In addition, sacrifice more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

Sacrifice was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID, according to Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research.

The studys authors said that Internet evidence also suggests Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others while coping with frightening COVID-19 statistics.

Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the studys lead author, said the idea of placing value on others welfare applied even if it meant people putting their own lives at risk.

One example Evers cited was peoples willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic.

The study further found the use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter and other online platforms.

The researches reported that Google searches increased by 344% for grow vegetables and by 207% for sewing machine. On Twitter, mentions of Home Depot jumped by 266%, the study found.

While drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from such evidence might seem a stretch, Greenfield said that language provides a window into peoples concerns, values and behavior.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the report also found an increase in peoples concerns about mortality.

The report said that, after March 13 when the death toll began increasing dramatically search activity for survive increased by 47%, while searches for cemeteries rose by 41%, bury by 23% and death by 21%.

During the 10 weeks after Trumps emergency declaration, there was a 115% jump in Twitter mentions of the phrase fear of death compared to the 10 weeks before.

Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable, Evers said.

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How COVID-19 changed the way we use Google and Twitter, according to UCLA-Harvard study - LA Daily News

Human Behavior

Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities – UCLA Newsroom

American values, attitudes and activities have changed dramatically during COVID-19, according to a new study of online behavior.

Researchers from UCLA and Harvard University analyzed how two types of internet activity changed in the U.S. for 10 weeks before and 10 weeks after March 13, 2020 the date then-President Donald Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency. One was Google searches; the other was the phrasing of more than a half-billion words and phrases posted on Twitter, blogs and internet forums.

The study is the lead research article in a special issue of the journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies dedicated to the pandemic.

Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and senior author of the research, said the study determined that the pandemic inspired a resurgence of community-oriented values, with people thinking more about supporting one another. Use of the word help on Twitter increased by 37% in the period after March 13, while use of the word share increased by 24%.

Thinking about others

The research also found that use of the word sacrifice more than doubled on Twitter from before the pandemic to the period after March 13.

Sacrifice was a complete nonstarter in U.S. culture before COVID, Greenfield said.

The change, the authors wrote, signified that Americans were placing more value on the welfare of others even if it meant putting their own lives at risk. One example was peoples willingness to participate in the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations, even in the midst of a pandemic, said Noah Evers, a Harvard undergraduate psychology major and the studys lead author.

At the same time, there was strong evidence of the nations collective mindset returning to a more rural form of society. The use of words referring to basic needs for food, clothing and shelter increased significantly across Google searches, Twitter, internet forums and blogs. For instance, Google searches increased by 344% for grow vegetables and by 207% for sewing machine, while Twitter mentions of Home Depot increased by 266%.

Drawing conclusions about shifting psychology from search engine and social media activity might seem to be a stretch, but Greenfield said there are good reasons to put stock in the findings. For one thing, Greenfield said, language provides a window into peoples concerns, values and behavior. In addition, the same types of shifts were evident in both types of internet activity the authors studied.

Internet activity also revealed a dramatic increase in peoples concerns about mortality. After March 13, when the death toll began increasing dramatically, search activity for the word survive increased by 47%, for cemeteries by 41%, for bury by 23% and for death by 21%.

And during the 10 weeks after Trumps emergency declaration, there were 115% more mentions on Twitter of the phrase fear of death than in the 10 weeks before.

Death went from something taboo to something real and inevitable, Evers said, adding that he frequently discussed plans for death with his family for the first time during that period.

Survival mindset

Of all the words the authors analyzed, the one whose usage increased the most during the pandemic was sourdough, as baking bread became a trendy pastime while people were instructed to stay at home.

Google searches for sourdough increased by 384% after the pandemic began, and Twitter mentions shot up by 460%. Baking bread surged as well: Google searches for the phrase increased by 265%, and Twitter mentions rose 354%.

Given that bread is considered the most basic food, the fact that increases in sourdough and baking bread were so large across Google searches and social media suggests that the survival motive is an important factor in shifting values and activities during the pandemic, Greenfield said.

Greenfield said the psychological and behavioral changes remind her of social interactions she observed in an isolated Mayan village in Chiapas, Mexico, that she has studied since 1969. When she began her work there, life expectancy was very low, approximately 35% of children died before age 4 and basic resources like food were scarce.

Death was very much a part of life, she said. People would go to the cemetery every week to put food and drink on family graves and would look after one another, she said. With greater focus on mortality and helping others, were moving in that direction.

Lauren Greenfield

Noah Evers

Its remarkable how quickly these changes have occurred in the United States during the pandemic. As mortality rose during the pandemic and people lost their jobs, the lifestyles of 21st century America began, in many fundamental ways, to increasingly resemble those of that Maya village.

How lasting will the changes be? Greenfield expects the behavioral trends will likely reverse as the threat from COVID-19 recedes and Americans feel more prosperous and safer. However, based on the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, she predicts the changes will be more enduring for American teenagers and people in their 20s, whose values are more likely to be shaped by the pandemic.

Said Evers: Perhaps this means that todays youth will, in the future, create a country more attuned to sharing and helping others, or just that baking sourdough bread will always have a special place in our hearts.

The study was a family affair: Evers conceived the idea and methodology before developing it with Greenfield, his grandmother. The papers co-author is Gabriel Evers, Noahs younger brother, a high school student at Crossroads School in Santa Monica who is spending the year at Mulgrave School in Vancouver, British Columbia. The brothers carried out the data analysis of Google Trends and social media; this is the second publication on which Noah Evers has collaborated with Greenfield.

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Internet trends suggest COVID-19 spurred a return to earlier values and activities - UCLA Newsroom

Human Behavior

For mindfulness programs, ‘with whom’ may be more important than ‘how’ – Brown University

PROVIDENCE, R.I.[Brown University] For people who feel stressed, anxious or depressed, meditation can be a way to find some emotional peace. Structured mindfulness-based meditation programs, in which a trained instructor leads regular group sessions featuring meditation, have been shown to be effective in improving psychological well-being.

But the precise factors for why these programs can help are less clear. A new study teased apart the different therapeutic factors of mindfulness-based meditation programs and found that the effects of the instructor and the group are often more significant than the type or amount of meditation practiced.

Willoughby Britton, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University who led the study, says that mindfulness-based meditation programs often operate with the assumption that meditation is the active ingredient, but less attention is paid to social factors inherent in these programs, like the group and the instructor.

Its important to determine how much of a role is played by social factors, because that knowledge informs the implementation of treatments, training of instructors and much more, Britton said. If the benefits of mindfulness meditation programs are mostly due to relationships of the people in the programs, we should pay much more attention to developing that factor. This is one of the first studies to look at the significance of interpersonal relationships in meditation programs.

Interestingly, social factors werent what Britton and her team, including study author Brendan Cullen, set out to explore; their initial research focus was the effectiveness of different types of practices for treating conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression. Britton directs theClinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Brown,which investigates the psychophysiological and neurocognitive effects of cognitive training and mindfulness-based interventions for mood and anxiety disorders. She uses empirical methods to explore accepted yet untested claims about mindfulness and expand the scientific understanding of the effects of meditation. With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Britton led a clinical trial that compared the effects of focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation and a combination of the two (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) on stress, anxiety and depression.

The goal of the study was to look at these two practices that are integrated within mindfulness-based programs, each of which has different neural underpinnings and different cognitive, affective and behavioral consequences, to see how they influence outcomes, Britton said.

The answer to the original research question, published in PLOS ONE in January, was that the typeof practice did matter but less than expected.

Some practices on average seem to be better for some conditions than others, Britton said. It depends on the state of a persons nervous system. Focused attention, which is also known as a tranquility practice, was helpful for anxiety and stress and less helpful for depression; open monitoring, which is a more active and arousing practice, seemed to be better for depression, but worse for anxiety.

But importantly, the differences were small, and the combination of focused attention and open monitoring didnt show a clear advantage over either practice alone. All programs, regardless of the meditation type, had large benefits. This could mean that the different types of mediation were largely equivalent, or alternatively, that there was something else driving the benefits of mindfulness program.

Britton was aware that in medical and psychotherapy research, social factorslike the quality of the relationship between patient and providercould be a stronger predictor of outcome than the treatment modality. Could this also be true of mindfulness-based programs?

To test this possibility, Britton, with researchers Kristina Eichel, Nicholas Canby and other Brown scholars, compared the effects of meditation practice amount to social factors like those related to instructors and group participants. Their analysis assessed the contributions of each towards the improvements the participants experienced as a result of the programs.

There is a wealth of psychological research showing that community, relationships and the alliance between therapist and client are responsible for most of the outcomes in many different types of therapy, said Canby, a senior research assistant at Brown and a fifth-year Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Clark University. It made sense that these factors would play a significant role in therapeutic mindfulness programs as well.

Working with the data collected as part of the trial, which came from surveys administered before, during and after the intervention as well as qualitative interviews with participants, the researchers were able to correlate variables such as the extent to which a person felt supported by the group with improvements in symptoms of anxiety, stress or depression. The results were published Frontiers in Psychology in January.

The findings showed that instructor ratings predicted changes in depression and stress, group ratings predicted changes in stress and self-reported mindfulness, and formal meditation amount (for example, setting aside time to meditate with a guided recording) predicted changes in anxiety and stress while informal mindfulness practice amount (such as paying attention to ones present moment experience throughout the day, Canby explained) did not predict improvements in emotional health.

The social factors were stronger predictors of improvement in depression, stress and self-reported mindfulness than the amount of mindfulness practice itself. In the interviews, participants frequently talked about how their relationships with the instructor and the group allowed for bonding with other people, the expression of feelings and the instillation of hope, the researchers said.

Our findings dispel the myth that mindfulness-based intervention outcomes are exclusively the result of mindfulness meditation practice, the researchers wrote in the paper, and suggest that social common factors may account for much of the effects of these interventions.

In a surprise finding, the team also learned that amount of mindfulness practice did not actually contribute to increasing mindfulness, or nonjudgmental and accepting present moment awareness of thoughts and emotions. However, bonding with other meditators in the group by sharing experiences did seem to make a difference.

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For mindfulness programs, 'with whom' may be more important than 'how' - Brown University

Human Behavior

Did positive thinking boost college faculty’s online teaching? – Inside Higher Ed

With little time to prepare or plan, many instructors found last years COVID-19-induced transition to remote learning difficult. But some managed to weather the storm with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn new skills, according to a recent study.

These optimistic instructors were the ones who were better able to avoid burnout and ended up receiving stronger evaluations from their students.

The longitudinal study, conducted by researchers at the University of Augsburg and the University of Mannheim in Germany, was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. It examined the goals and attitudes of 80 faculty members in the semesters before and after the transition to remote instruction. The researchers also reviewed 703 student ratings of these faculty members teaching quality.

Authors of the study were planning to look at faculty members attitudes toward teaching prior to COVID-19, they said via email. But when the pandemic hit, the context of the higher education landscape along with that of our study changed completely," said one of the study's authors, Raven Rinas. Rinas responded to questions in an email with replies put together with the study's other authors, Martin Daumiller, Julia Hein, Stefan Janke, Oliver Dickhuser and Markus Dresel.

The study continued to explore the motivation of faculty members but added exploring how they responded to the pandemic.

We felt that gaining insights into how faculty members motivations impacted their perceptions of and experiences during the pandemic could be a catalyst for further research, with the ultimate goal of identifying those who are struggling and better supporting them, Rinas said.

Much like in the U.S., universities in Germany transferred from face-to-face to remote teaching in March 2020. For many faculty members, it was their first time teaching online, and there was little time to prepare for this new modality and learn how to approach it effectively. Though administrators did their best to support faculty members, many found the experience stressful, the study authors said. German universities are still primarily teaching remotely, and it is expected this will continue into the upcoming summer semester, though things are still relatively uncertain at this point, Rinas said.

Survey results showed that faculty attitudes toward the change from face-to-face to online teaching were generally more favorable than unfavorable, but responses varied widely. The study found that instructors who indicated a lack of willingness to learn new skills, embrace new technology or improve their teaching before the COVID-19 outbreak reported a higher perceived threat from the shift to remote learning. These instructors also experienced higher burnout levels and more negative student evaluations.

The authors were pleased with the responses from 80 faculty members, especially considering how busy they were. But they would have liked input from a larger sample.

We are also aware that faculty members who were more distressed may have been less likely to respond to our survey in the first place, meaning that the results in our study likely depict more conservative estimates, Rinas said.

A key takeaway message from our research is that also personal, especially motivational factors of faculty members are important to consider (particularly their goals and attitudes towards unexpected challenges), Rinas said. Dealing with unexpected challenges is and will continue to be an issue that has important implications for university faculty members well-being, professional learning and teaching quality.

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Did positive thinking boost college faculty's online teaching? - Inside Higher Ed

Human Behavior

Saratoga Shakespeare and the Sonnet Man offers the Bard as hip hop – The Saratogian

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. Since everything closed last March most theater companies struggled to stay connected to their audiences.

Many turned to small-cast productions or play readings on Zoom. In the majority of cases, that didnt work mostly because audiences didnt accept theater on digital platforms.

Since digital was the only game in town, the new struggle became how do you find innovative ways to maintain a presence with your audience.

For Saratoga Shakespeare the answer is a program titled Ghost Light. According to Marcus Fuller, the executive and artistic director of Saratoga Shakespeare, the series features a variety of podcasts, interviews and anything they feel might be enlightening, and hopefully thought-provoking.

Their first program certainly fits this description. Its titled Sonnet Man and features Brooklyn-based educator Devon Glover using Shakespeares sonnets delivered to young audiences in the form of rap music.

Fuller met Glover at a convention that focused on using the works of Shakespeare as educational tools. Impressed with Glovers talent, Fuller invited him to Saratoga last fall. What was planned to be a one-day visit was so successful it kept getting extended.

The same is true of the taped episodes. Fuller says the material was so rich the one planned episode was expanded to six. Two are already on line; the others will be released one at a time, every other week.

Glover is a math teacher who has gained fame as Sonnet Man. His recitations of Shakespeares sonnets and soliloquies in the form of a hip-hop tune have given him international status. His music appeals to both adults and students.

Glover says he learned from his own experience that learning to love Shakespeare just by reading the plays is almost impossible. He insists that because they were written for the stage they must be seen and heard.

Furthermore, he finds that to involve modern youngsters with Shakespeare the format must be more contemporary.

If nothing else, the Broadway musical Hamilton proved that the general public is willing to accept the once foreign sounds of hip-hop music.

Indeed, go to YouTube and listen to Glover offer Shakespeares Sonnet 18, the one recognized by the line Shall I compare thee to a summer day, or listen to him deliver the inner monologue To be or not to be from Hamlet as hip hop. Its a revelation.

And it works as a teaching tool. On the first two sections of Sonnet Man, available on Saratoga Shakespeares website, it shows students struggling to read passages from a Shakespeare play. However, they begin to light up when Glover recites some pieces like Sonnet 18 - using the beats and rhythms of spoken word music.

The idea of incorporating rap and Shakespeare isnt new. Many have compared the themes in Shakespeares plays to the contemporary social issues addressed by rap artists.

Not long ago, Doug Rappaport gave a TED Talk calling Shakespeare the biggest gangster rapper of all time. He calls him The Notorious BARD.

Rap is often condemned in many circles for advocating gang violence, and partying behavior. Rappaport points out there are 34 deaths in Macbeth and the tragedy in Romeo and Juliet started with two factions who hated each other, fighting in the street.

As for celebrating a party culture, the character Falstaff has become a synonym for carousing behavior. He also points to Othello as a play to understand the durability of racism and states the obvious - calling The Merchant of Venice a play about antisemitism.

Glover, Rappaport and Fuller recognize that the social issues Shakespeare wrote about are still with us. Fuller says, We didnt invent all our social problems. Theyve existed forever.

Rather, he finds Shakespeares greatness in his ability to illuminate the essence of the issues through beautiful language.

As for the delivery system, Fuller is pro hip hop music, pointing out that Glover doesnt change the language. Its still Shakespeares words, he says.

He further makes the point that at the time the plays were written, people didnt go around talking in verse. Shakespeare, he says, wrote in iambic pentameter and used rhymed couplets. Thats what engaged the audience.

Its hard to accept that if Shakespeare was living today that hed be a rap star. But,even if he were that would not detract from his genius and insights into human behavior.

The entertainment industry has learned through the COVID 19 pandemic that even though delivery platforms change, social problems are consistent.

To learn more about Sonnet Man go to saratogashakespeare.org. He can also be found on You Tube.

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Saratoga Shakespeare and the Sonnet Man offers the Bard as hip hop - The Saratogian

Human Behavior

With A Decarbonized Future Bearing Down, Refineries Look At The Nitty-Gritty Of The Transition – Forbes

This Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 photo shows a Dow Chemical plant in La Porte, Texas. Dow Chemical and ... [+] the DuPont will attempt to merge in an all-stock deal that would create a colossal chemical producer worth $130 billion, before splitting into three separate companies. The deal announced Friday, Dec. 11, 2015 is being billed a merger of equals, to be called DowDuPont. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

As the Biden administration makes good on its promises to heat up the conversation on climate change, owners of refineries and chemical plants are zeroing in on ways to cut their use of carbon-emitting fuels.

Refineries and other industrial plants are widely recognized as significant contributors to carbon emissions: industrial processes accounted for 27% of all carbon emissions in 2019, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The challenge is that industrial processes require massive amounts of energy for the transformative processes that make gasoline or cement. Many of these processes require really high temperatures sometimes 1000 degrees or more; and heating is responsible for more than half of carbon emissions. The remaining emissions mostly come from the electricity required to run motors and other equipment, and from carbon dioxide produced as a byproduct in in some of the processes.

There are several reasons oil refining and chemical companies in the US are thinking hard about their carbon footprint.

The first is the growing acknowledgement by the vast majority of the public that climate change exists and is a result of human behavior.

An added incentive is the very real possibility that carbon pricing might be adopted by the Biden administration, given worldwide trends.

And then there is the growing investor and shareholder interest in how companies are making the transition.

Independent refiners are absolutely feeling the same pressure and the same premise of the energy transition as majors like BP and Shell, said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James RJF . The independent refiners are also subject to shareholder pressure to decarbonize.

So, what are the options for refineries hoping to lessen their carbon contribution, other than abandoning the sector?

Theres a number of them, according to Alan Rossiter, the executive director, external relations and educational program development for UH Energy at the University of Houston. Rossiter spent much of his career as a chemical engineer advising refineries and chemical plants on how to become more energy efficient.

Energy efficiency is great place to start decarbonization, as it not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but also brings in cost savings from reduced energy consumption, Rossiter explained. And there is a range of improvements plants can make for example, operational improvements, better maintenance, and facility improvements. The first two options are relatively cheap for plants, but facility improvements typically require additions and upgrades, or even completely new plants, which can be extremely costly.

The most common applications of energy efficiency in a refinery or a chemical plant are around recovering and reusing heat, Rossiter explained. This means recovering heat that would otherwise be wasted.

As a result, improvements like upgrading an inefficient boiler system can reduce the need to burn fuel. Yet while these improvements are significant, a typical boiler upgrade, for example, only reduces energy demand by two to three percent. More can be achieved by major process revamps, but even these have limitations.

There is just so far you can go with energy efficiency, Rossiter said. These plants make chemical transformations and separations that require a certain minimum amount of energy, and well before you get to these limits, you find that the equipment gets very expensive and you run into practical problems.

Using electricity to replace natural gas or coal-fired heating is another option for plants. However, the electricity must come from low-carbon or carbon-free sources, or electrification would simply move the plants emissions to power generation facilities.

Electrification can reduce your steam demand, therefore reducing the cost of environmental upgrades, said James Turner, an executive director of process technology for engineering company Fluor FLR FLR , in a recent webinar. Burning less fuel already means that youll make less CO2, which is a strategic driver for many companies.

One of the biggest hurdles in using electricity to replace fossil fuels in industry will be the delivery of power to the industries that need it. A multibillion-dollar investment in power transmission and distribution lines will be needed, along with huge batteries.

Furthermore, Inside the plant youll need a whole lot of investment for new equipment to electrify processes that currently use natural gas or other fossil fuels for heating, Rossiter said.

In theory, about 70% of the services that currently burn fuel in these plants could use electricity to replace it.But for the oil refiners, the biggest challenge will be the costs of revamping the equipment.

Using hydrogen as fuel is another interesting option for refineries under investigation.

It is a virtually unlimited store of energy, and it is available everywhere. It is contained in water, Rossiter said. However, it takes much more energy to convert it into a fuel than you get when you burn it. This is a major challenge.

The use of hydrogen in cars is already popular in California, which now has more than 40 hydrogen fueling stations. And hydrogen is also being used as a fuel in refineries and chemical plants but only in small amounts, mixed with natural gas.

The leap to using pure hydrogen as a fuel is still under development, with companies like Shell and Dow Chemical studying the challenges involved in a transition from natural gas to hydrogen.

If you want to burn it, you can, but you might have to do a lot of redesign on the furnace, Rossiter said. Hydrogen is very corrosive, and damage can occur to conventional materials if you expose them to hydrogen in high concentrations.

Biofuels are yet another option. And while used cooking oil and algae tend to capture the publics imagination when discussing biofuels, synthetic natural gas is actually a better option for decarbonizing refineries and chemical plants, as it can directly replace natural gas. This is a big advantage, as plants can use their existing equipment pretty much as is, greatly lowering the investment bar.

Yet biofuels face production challenges, as they take precious water and land resources as well as additional energy to produce.

All of the options involve a balancing act. Its all part of the transition, while keeping an eye on containing the costs to ensure that the business itself remains competitive.

Emily Pickrellis a veteran energy reporter, with more than 12 years of experience covering everything from oil fields to industrial water policy to the latest on Mexican climate change laws. Emily has reported on energy issues from around the U.S., Mexico and the United Kingdom.Prior to journalism, Emily worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office and as an auditorfor the international aid organization, CARE.

UH Energy is the University of Houstons hub for energy education, research and technology incubation, working to shape the energy future and forge new business approaches in the energy industry.

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With A Decarbonized Future Bearing Down, Refineries Look At The Nitty-Gritty Of The Transition - Forbes

Human Behavior

Combination treatment for common glioma type shows promise in mice – National Institutes of Health

Media Advisory

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

NIH-funded preclinical study suggests new approach to treat a type of brain tumor

Gliomas are common brain tumors that comprise about one third of all cancers of the nervous system. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, researchers tested a novel combination treatment approach on mice with tumors with characteristics similar to human astrocytomas a type of slow-growing gliomaand found tumor regression in 60 percent of the mice treated. These encouraging results, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could be the first step toward developing a treatment for this type of brain cancer.

Led by senior authors Maria Castro, Ph.D. and Pedro Lowenstein, M.D., Ph.D. along with a team of researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center in Ann Arbor specifically tested inhibitors of the compound D-2-Hydroxyglutarate (D-2-HG), which is produced by cancer cells, on a mouse version of astrocytoma carrying mutations in the genes IDH1 and ATRX, along with an inactivated form of the tumor suppressor protein 53 (TP53) gene.

When the implanted mice were treated with a drug to block the production of D-2-HG along with standard of care radiation and temozolomide (chemotherapy) treatments, their survival significantly improved. Looking more closely at tumor cells grown in dishes, the researchers saw that blocking D-2-HG caused the cells to become more susceptible to radiation treatment. However, the treatment also increased the amount of an immune checkpoint protein, which tumors use to turn off T cells and evade the immune system.

Inhibiting this immune checkpoint protein with an additional drug resulted in an even greater improvement in survival, because the mouses own immune system was able to attack the tumor. Importantly, this combination therapy also led to immunological memory against the glioma, meaning that the mouse now had T cells tailored to the specific tumor. Because gliomas almost always grow back after treatment, these T cells make the animal better prepared to fend off regrowth.

It must be emphasized that these experiments were performed in mice. Nonetheless the preclinical results produced by this combination therapy could represent a key advance in developing an improved treatment regimen, which combines D-2-HG and immune checkpoint inhibition, radiation, and temozolomide, for patients with astrocytomas.

Jane Fountain, Ph.D., program director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Kadiyala P. et al. Inhibition of 2-Hydroxyglutarate Elicits Metabolic-reprogramming and Mutant IDH1 Glioma Immunity in Mice. Feb. 15, 2021. Journal of Clinical Investigation. DOI: 10.1172/JCI139542

This study was supported by the NIH (NS091555, NS094804, NS074387, NS076991, NS082311, NS096756, EB022563); Department of Neurosurgery, University of Michigan; Rogel Comprehensive Cancer Center; Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation; American Brain Tumor Association; Leahs Happy Hearts; and Chad Tough Foundations.

This media availability 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.

NINDS (https://www.ninds.nih.gov) is the nations leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.

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

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Combination treatment for common glioma type shows promise in mice - National Institutes of Health

Human Behavior

Duluth police chief recounts officers’ ‘dangerous’ encounter with fugitive – Bring Me The News

Credit: Duluth PD Chief Mike Musken

Two police officers were hospitalized and treated for minor injuries after a run-in with an individual described as a "fugitive."

The incident happened Wednesday around 11:30 a.m., according to Duluth Police Department Chief Mike Musken, who described the encounter as a prime example of the "unpredictability of human behavior."

Musken said officers from the Duluth and Superior police departments were attempting to detain a fugitive with multiple arrest warrants when the situation went from "good planning and safe staffing" to "chaos in a moment." Musken wrote:

"The suspect fled the scene in a vehicle and a DPD Sergeant/Lake Superior Violent Crimes Task Force officer took cover behind a garage to a place where he thought he was safe until the suspect drove through the garage throwing a cascade of garage parts upon him as he scrambled for cover."

"The suspect continued to flee the scene and came upon a second DPD Investigator/Lake Superior Violent Crimes Task Force officer seated in his car and rammed the officers car in his path of flight."

The suspect was ultimately arrested near Interstate 35 and 40th Avenue West, but not before the officer taking cover behind the garage and the officer whose squad car was rammed were injured.

Musken said they "are counting our blessings" that both officers only sustained minor injuries.

The suspect is being held in the St. Louis County Jail on pending charges of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, second-degree sale of cocaine, second-degree possession of methamphetamine and cocaine, in addition to crimes for possession of ammunition and fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle.

According to Fox 21, the incident began on the2000 block of Hammond Avenue and was one of two police pursuits in Duluth on Wednesday.

Note: The details provided in this story are based on the polices latest version of events, and may be subject to change.

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Duluth police chief recounts officers' 'dangerous' encounter with fugitive - Bring Me The News