Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Dogs synchronize their behavior with children, but not as much as with adults, study finds – The News Guard

Dogs synchronize their behavior with the children in their family, but not as much as they do with adults, a new study from Oregon State University researchers found.

The findings are important because there is a growing body of evidence that dogs can help children in many ways, including with social development, increasing physical activity, managing anxiety or as a source of attachment in the face of changing family structures, the researchers said. Yet, very little research has focused on how dogs perceive and socially engage with children.

The great news is that this study suggests dogs are paying a lot of attention to the kids that they live with, said Oregon State animal behaviorist Monique Udell, the lead author of the study. They are responsive to them and, in many cases, behaving in synchrony with them, indicators of positive affiliation and a foundation for building strong bonds.

One interesting thing we have observed is that dogs are matching their childs behavior less frequently than what we have seen between dogs and adult caretakers, which suggests that while they may view children as social companions, there are also some differences that we need to understand better.

The paper was recently published in the journal Animal Cognition. Co-authors were Shelby Wanser, a faculty research assistant in Udells lab, and Megan MacDonald, an associate professor in Oregon States College of Public Health and Human Sciences, who studies how motor skills and physically active lifestyles improve the lives of children with and without disabilities

The researchers recruited 30 youth between the ages of 8 and 17 years old 83% of which had a developmental disability to take part in the study with their family dog. The experiments took place in a large empty room. Color-coded taped lines were placed on the floor, and the children were given instructions on how to walk the lines in a standardized way with their off-leash dog.

The researchers videotaped the experiments and analyzed behavior based on three things: (1) activity synchrony, which means how much time the dog and child were moving or stationary at the same time; (2) proximity, or how much time the dog and child were within 1 meter of each other; and (3) orientation, how much time the dog was oriented in the same direction as the child.

They found that dogs exhibited behavioral synchronization with the children at a higher rate than would be expected by chance for all three variables. During their assessments, they found:

Active synchrony for an average of 60.2% of the time. Broken down further, the dogs were moving an average of 73.1% of the time that the children were moving and were stationary an average of 41.2% of the time the children were stationary.

Proximity within 1 meter of each other for an average of 27.1% of the time.

Orientation in the same direction for an average of 33.5% of the time.

While child-dog synchrony occurred more often that what would be expected by chance, those percentages are all lower than what other researchers have found when studying interactions between dogs and adults in their household. Those studies found active synchrony 81.8% of the time, but at 49.1% with shelter dogs. They found proximity 72.9% of the time and 39.7% with shelter dogs. No studies on dog-human behavioral synchronization have previously assessed body orientation.

The Oregon State researchers are conducting more research to better understand factors that contribute to differences in levels of synchrony and other aspects of bond quality between dogs and children compared to dogs and adults, including participation in animal assisted interventions and increasing the childs responsibility for the dogs care.

While research has found dogs can have a lot of positive impacts on a childs life, there are also risks associated with the dog-child relationship, the researchers said. For example, other studies have found dogs are more apt to bite children versus adults.

We still have a lot to learn about the dog-child relationship Udell said. Were hoping this research can inform the best ways to shape positive outcomes and mitigate risks by helping children interact with dogs in a manner that improves the relationship and ultimately the welfare of both individuals.

Based on this study, Udell also offered some takeaways for families with children and dogs.

What we are finding is that kids are very capable of training dogs, and that dogs are paying attention to the kids and can learn from them, she said. Sometimes we dont give children and dogs enough credit. Our research suggests that with some guidance we can provide important and positive learning experiences for our kids and our dogs starting at a much earlier age, something that can make a world of difference to the lives of both.

Read the original:
Dogs synchronize their behavior with children, but not as much as with adults, study finds - The News Guard

Human Behavior

How Bonobos Help Explain The Evolution Of Nice : Short Wave – NPR

MADDIE SOFIA, BYLINE: You're listening to SHORT WAVE...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SOFIA: ...From NPR.

EMILY KWONG, HOST:

Hey, everybody. Emily Kwong here. Today, we are talking about how humans evolved some key behaviors, like sharing, with our brain guy, NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton. Hi, Jon.

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Hey, Emily.

KWONG: Hi. OK, Jon, are you saying that evolution somehow made us nice?

HAMILTON: I'm saying evolution gave us a brain that is capable of being nice. Of course, our brains are also capable of being, you know, not so nice.

KWONG: Important distinction, yes. So where did this kinder, gentler side come from?

HAMILTON: I actually went to a place where scientists are trying to answer that very question. This was before COVID, I should say, when travel was a bit easier. I went with my colleague Scott Hensley. The place we visited is an animal sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBOS CHIRPING)

KWONG: Oh, this is beautiful. What are we listening to?

HAMILTON: That is a group of bonobos getting ready to have a meal.

KWONG: How would you describe bonobos within the world of primates?

HAMILTON: Well, they look like chimps, and genetically, they are nearly identical, but bonobos don't act like chimps. For example, they don't kill each other. They welcome strangers. And they like to share food.

(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBOS SCREECHING)

KWONG: Those are some chatty bonobos. What is all this shrieking about?

HAMILTON: Right. That was my question, too. So I asked Suzy Kwetuenda. She's a biologist in charge of bonobo well-being at Lola ya Bonobo. That's the name of the sanctuary.

SUZY KWETUENDA: So this is some - is a way, a localization to say that food is coming. So they saw Patrick was going to feed them, so it's just a signal to say ready, food is coming.

KWONG: Is Suzy saying the bonobos are sending out a dinner invite?

HAMILTON: Pretty much. And within a couple of minutes, all these bonobos started coming out of the forest. And then they all sat down together and ate peacefully.

KWONG: These bonobos - what role models for all of us.

HAMILTON: Well, Suzy would definitely agree with you. She told me that years of watching bonobos has made her realize something about her own species.

KWETUENDA: People can also do the same - to stay on the same table and sharing ideas and try to listen each other and to be more patient, tolerant.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KWONG: Today on the show, how our ability to share, empathize and cooperate shows up in bonobos, too, these remarkable creatures Jon got to know very, very well.

HAMILTON: And why a species that embodies these traits is threatened by another species - us.

KWONG: You're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KWONG: So, Jon, tell me more about this sanctuary you visited in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

HAMILTON: Lola ya Bonobo means bonobo paradise, and it is. It's in the forest about 10 miles outside of Kinshasa, lots of birds. It's got a river running through it, which is convenient because bonobos can't swim. The adult bonobos do live in fenced enclosures, but they have enough space so they can pretty much disappear into the forest when they want to.

KWONG: And how many bonobos live here?

HAMILTON: There are about 60 at Lola, several dozen more at a second location where bonobos who were raised here are being released into the wild. And that's a - you know, that's a big deal because there are only about 20,000 bonobos left in the world, and the DRC is the only place where they live outside captivity.

KWONG: And, Jon, scientists are interested in bonobos because they are a close relative of ours, right?

HAMILTON: Yes. Scientists consider chimps and bonobos our closest living relatives. But bonobos haven't been studied as much as chimps because they are so rare and they kind of flew under the radar. They were really only recognized as a separate species in 1929.

KWONG: Got it. So what new things are scientists learning about bonobos?

HAMILTON: Well, one thing they're learning is just how different they are from chimps when it comes to behavior. With chimps, you know, aggression is pretty common, and physical strength is key, so the animal in charge is invariably a dominant male. Bonobos aren't like that. Here's something Dr. Jonas Mukamba told us. He's the lead veterinarian at the sanctuary.

JONAS MUKAMBA: (Non-English language spoken).

HAMILTON: What he's saying is that with bonobos, the females dominate and that a female is always the head of the group. And we saw lots of examples of that. I mean, one day, we were watching a caretaker toss pineapples to the bonobos in one group. It was very organized. Each bonobo seemed to be waiting their turn. Adults were sharing their food with babies. So I asked Suzy Kwetuenda to explain the dynamic, and she started looking around for this one particular female.

KWETUENDA: Sam, Sam (ph). Sammy (ph). Yeah, so she's coming. This is Samantha (ph) - big mom, tough mom. And as you can see, she's in the front. She has to show that she's very concerned by all organization in the group.

KWONG: So the big mama is in charge, and all the males follow.

HAMILTON: The males are bigger than the females, but if a male gets too aggressive, all of the females will go after him and bite him. And they might even chase him into the forest for a day or two.

KWONG: Jon, this is more than bonobo paradise. This is paradise paradise. When I die, I want to come back as a bonobo.

HAMILTON: Yeah, it's very different. And the female's goal is to maintain harmony in the whole group.

KWONG: OK.

HAMILTON: So, like, at feeding time, they make sure that everyone shares. And Suzy told me they have another tactic.

KWETUENDA: And as you see, there is many, many action of sex, many negotiation, so that make peace.

KWONG: So the rumors are true. Bonobos really do have a lot of sex.

HAMILTON: A lot, a lot, especially at meals.

KWONG: OK. And how do scientists go about studying bonobos? How do they even know about these traits of theirs?

HAMILTON: Bonobos in the wild are almost impossible to study, so scientists have spent a lot of time at Lola. You know, a few years ago, a researcher from Duke University named Brian Hare did an experiment there that really surprised a lot of people. Suzy told me about it.

KWETUENDA: So I want to show you - so this is normally the lab. As you see, it has - it's very large, and we have many rooms.

HAMILTON: The scientist would put two bonobos in adjacent rooms. Then they would give one of the bonobos some really special food.

KWETUENDA: It must be the favorite food, like apples. They love bananas. And most of times, we were like - we were normally trying to put bonobo sauce - I remember it was the milk, cream.

KWONG: This all sounds so delicious.

HAMILTON: It does. But the question is, would you eat your special meal alone, or would you share it with your neighbor?

KWONG: Depends on the day, depends on the neighbor.

HAMILTON: Right? Right? As humans, we could go either way. And the scientists really weren't sure what a bonobo would do.

KWETUENDA: In our mind, we thought that because of nice food, they would first eat, but we are surprised to see that roommate is more important than food - than favorite food.

KWONG: The roommate was more important than the food - interesting.

HAMILTON: The bonobo with the plate would invite their neighbor in, and they would eat together. Sometimes there was sex, too. But then, the scientist did the experiment again with three bonobos, including one who was a stranger. And most of the time, the bonobo with the food would share it with the stranger first, then the friend.

KWONG: Wow. So when humans are nice, are we tapping into our bonobo side?

HAMILTON: Maybe. We know that humans can be clever and aggressive.

KWONG: Yes.

HAMILTON: And those are behaviors you definitely see in chimps. But we also can be remarkably tolerant and empathetic. And those are behaviors you are much more likely to see in bonobos.

KWONG: OK, because going back to chimps for a second, I can see why cleverness and aggressiveness would be advantageous - passed on through natural selection, survival of the fittest. But sharing - what difference does that make to the survival of a species?

HAMILTON: Well, remember Brian Hare, who did the sharing experiment?

KWONG: Yeah.

HAMILTON: He and his partner, Vanessa Woods, wrote a book called "Survival Of The Friendliest." And it makes the argument that what they call prosocial traits are what gave Homo sapiens an advantage over other early humans. You know, the idea is that being the smartest or strongest only gets you so far. It's cooperation that has allowed us to farm and form governments and send people into space. And cooperation requires a brain that is able to empathize and trust and communicate shared goals.

KWONG: I mean, it kind of sounds like there's a lot to learn about how we're stronger together. But, Jon, I'm also thinking about how being nice hasn't worked out so well for the bonobos themselves. I mean, this is an endangered species after all.

HAMILTON: Yeah. They've been the victims of human behavior that's not so nice. Of course, humans have encroached on their habitat. Also, bonobos in the wild have been hunted for meat, and poachers have killed adult bonobos so they could sell their babies as exotic pets. But bonobos' friendly side has won them a lot of human friends.

CLAUDINE ANDRE: I am Claudine Andre, and I am the founder of Lola ya Bonobo, the paradise of bonobo.

HAMILTON: Claudine grew up in the Congo. Her father was a veterinarian, and she has spent more than 20 years trying to make sure that bonobos have a future. She's also what you might call the alpha female at Lola.

ANDRE: I love men a lot (laughter). I'm a bonobo, you know? But, you know, in the sanctuary is more women than men.

HAMILTON: I should mention that this sanctuary is partly an orphanage. Most of the bonobos were brought here when they were very young. Many of them actually saw their mother killed. And bonobos are like human children. They need many years of parenting. You know, they have tantrums.

(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO CRYING)

KWONG: Oh, poor baby bonobo - sounds like a human.

HAMILTON: So each baby bonobo gets a human mother, someone who carries them around and plays with them and teaches them until they're ready to join the adults. It's kind of like visiting a bonobo daycare. I was interviewing one of the surrogate moms, Mama Yvonne, one day when a baby named Asake (ph) decided she really wanted the microphone.

KWONG: Got to watch your gear, Jon.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Yelling in non-English language).

HAMILTON: It's OK. It's OK.

YVONNE VELA: So this is to be dad, yeah.

HAMILTON: (Laughter).

VELA: So you say that she was...

HAMILTON: What stands out when you visit Lola is just how socially aware bonobos are. Claudine Andre told me that that is what first got her attention.

ANDRE: I cross eyes of one bonobo one day in '91 in the zoology garden of Kinshasa, and I think I fall in love with this species.

HAMILTON: Claudine told me that for her, it was all about the eyes.

ANDRE: If you look to a chimpanzee, every three seconds, it turn its eyes. A bonobo - he want to know, who are you? What is the connection we can have?

KWONG: I mean, these creatures are so remarkably intelligent and clearly important. Can this one sanctuary in the DRC really save an entire species?

HAMILTON: Sadly, no. I mean, fortunately, the government has made it illegal to kill or own a bonobo in the DRC, but the entire nation will have to embrace this idea that bonobos are a national treasure. So Lola has its own educator on staff, and they've brought thousands of schoolchildren to the sanctuary.

UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOLCHILDREN: (Chanting in non-English language).

HAMILTON: But he told me they get calls from some of these kids years later, and they're calling to report a bonobo who needs rescuing.

KWONG: Wow. The folks at Lola are really thinking about how to pass on this work to the next generation. Jon, thank you for sharing this reporting and your stories from this trip. It has been such a journey.

HAMILTON: Always fun to talk, Emily.

UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOLCHILDREN: (Chanting in non-English language).

KWONG: This episode was produced by Brit Hanson, edited by Gisele Grayson and fact-checked by Rasha Aridi. I'm Emily Kwong. Thanks for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Laughter) What is your name?

HAMILTON: Jon.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Bonjour, Mr. Jon.

UNIDENTIFIED SCHOOLCHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).

Visit link:
How Bonobos Help Explain The Evolution Of Nice : Short Wave - NPR

Human Behavior

Data Collected from IoT Devices Will Breed the Next New ‘Uber’ or ‘Netflix’, Predicts Eseye – insideBIGDATA

What organizations can do with data is set to dramatically shift in 2021 and beyond, according to IoT connectivity specialist Eseye, as more IoT devices are deployed and the data they generate dwarfs that collected through traditional online channels. Eseye predicts that data mined from user interactions with things rather than digital services will create a wealth of rich data, bigger and more detailed than online data ever was, enabling new business models, the creation of new products and services and new levels of understanding of human behavior.

Services like Amazon, Facebook and Netflix capture a wealth of consumer usage and behavior data which is stored, analyzed, and used to digitize and reinvent shopping, social interactions, and entertainment as custom personalized, data-driven services. This has had an extraordinary effect on the creation of new personalized services and new disruptive business models. As radical a change as this was, now IoT data is set to power unprecedented levels of innovation over the coming years.

According to Eseye, this innovation will be seen not just in the next generation of classic IoT devices, which will become much more interactive and personalized to real time behavior, but also in the development of a new set of devices created through the fusion of multiple sensors, cellular connectivity to the cloud and advanced AI techniques. This combination will enable near real time predictions of what services should be dynamically configured into those devices to maximize revenue and collect even more data and deliver huge value.

IoT companies that see the potential, not just in the device but also in the data collected, will be the big winners, comments Nick Earle, CEO, Eseye. As we come out of the pandemic, organizations will be looking for new ways to innovate, and IoT data has the potential to disrupt business models and processes in practically every industry. Disruption, by its nature, comes from places we havent even dreamed of, but it can be radical. For example, the people who invented the internet could never have predicted the emergence of services such as Uber and Netflix. Likewise, we can only speculate around what IoT entrepreneurs will come up with once they have access to data from billions of devices capturing rich intelligence on every aspect of our lives and businesses. We predict it will be an even bigger wave of innovation than the first wave of IoT adoption.

One of Eseyes customers is already using rich data to predict diseases before they happen. A leading digital therapeutics provider manufactures and sells a next-generation clinical-grade wearable, which delivers actionable insights powered by machine learning, deep neural networks, and AI on real time disease trajectory. This helps clinicians predict and prevent serious medical events. For example, chronic diseases, like heart failure, can lead to billions of pounds of unnecessary hospitalizations and re-admissions. Therefore, the potential benefits across the healthcare sector if this model becomes widely adopted are enormous.

Another example is how IoT is helping vulnerable people remain independent through condition monitoring, whereby such devices use personal health data combined with behavioral patterns, and analytics predict when changes in care regimes might be required. These are just two examples of millions of potential applications.

In 2020 the pandemic has accelerated many of the IoT trends we predicted last year. Thats because an economic slowdown, like we are experiencing, puts enormous pressure on enterprises to reduce costs and increase customer delivered value. IoT does both of these things, and so the pressure for adoption is growing. This sudden need for new technological approaches has happened at a time when IoT is reaching a level of cost and maturity that allows for mainstream adoption. This will increase the ability to collect rich data from these next generation IoT devices, delivering unimaginable insights to power innovation in years to come, adds Earle.

This is just one of 10 IoT predictions that Eseye is forecasting for 2021 and beyond. Others include how IoT can deliver real time visibility into the food supply chain with technology advances such as printing IoT circuits, batteries, and cellular connectivity onto flexible labels. Its exploring how IoT as it becomes more integrated into consumer and industrial products can provide brands with a direct line to customers, collapsing supply chains to bring original equipment manufacturers closer to consumers.

Furthermore, Eseye is also analyzing how mobile network operators (MNOs) are adapting to compete globally and why a federation approach creates a more viable economic model for MNOs to deliver IoT, as well as the emergence of virtual MNOs. Eseye announced its global alliance of MNOs, The AnyNet Federation, in 2019 and over the last year the AnyNet Federation has grown to 12 MNO members, a number which Eseye expects to further grow in 2021.

Sign up for the free insideBIGDATAnewsletter.

Join us on Twitter:@InsideBigData1 https://twitter.com/InsideBigData1

More here:
Data Collected from IoT Devices Will Breed the Next New 'Uber' or 'Netflix', Predicts Eseye - insideBIGDATA

Human Behavior

Self-Driving Cars Spurring Nearby Human Drivers Into Speeding And Abysmal Reckless Driving – Forbes

Human drivers are reacting to the driving styles of self-driving cars.

Lets take a close look at some crucial driving statistics from last year entailing everyday conventional driving.

The driving-related stats of last year are an eye-opening and quite revealing instance of what likely happens when a significant element of prevailing traffic conditions gets demonstratively altered.

Due to the pandemic, there was a lot less traffic last year, logically so. You would naturally assume that this would ergo suggest that there would be lowered number of car crash fatalities since there is much less traffic all told. Indeed, the count of car crash fatalities did decrease, though only by a slim difference of about 2% (not as much a decrease as might be expected).

Meanwhile, heres the twist to the statistical intrigue.

Despite the sizable drop in the volume of cars on the roadways and the modest drop in the count of related fatalities, the car crash fatality rate per miles driven rose by about 18% reaching a level of 1.25 car-related crash deaths per 100 million vehicle miles (it was approximately 1.06 the prior year).

In short, the frequency of getting into a death producing car crash was greatly enhanced.

Thats bad.

Thats real bad.

The stats almost seem like one of those oddball paradoxes. There was less overall traffic and fewer (somewhat) driving-related fatalities, and yet at the same time, there was a humongous jump in the frequency of car crash deaths per miles driven.

Why did this happen?

The explanation that seems most sensible is that for those drivers behind the steering wheel during the pandemic time period, it was readily feasible to drive at higher speeds due to the lessened traffic in their way.

Yes, that indubitably makes sense.

And by going faster, they tended to suffer mightily when getting into a car crash, which is a usual outcome of high speeds and the consequences of car accidents. There is also the added chances of actually getting into a car accident per se since there is less time to react and it becomes problematic to avoid being embroiled in a crash when such an emerging moment arises.

Some pundits have characterized the presumed phenomena as indictive that people will drive recklessly, including and especially speeding if they are given an opportunity to do so.

Intuitively this all makes sense, albeit a sad commentary on human behavior and the role of driving a car (as a side note, alternative explanations include the possibility of selection bias due to the types of drivers on the roads during the pandemic versus pre-pandemic, etc.).

In a more Utopian world, it could have been that the drivers during the pandemic were keenly aware of the frailty of existence and therefore would drive extraordinarily safely and with extreme caution. They would undertake the driving task in an abundantly lawful and cautious way. No speeding. There presumably would be no need to speed since the roads were ostensibly more open and traffic flow was smoother and closer to allowable maximum speeds than is usually the case.

The reality seems to be that the reaction of some drivers was that the lessened traffic meant that the roadways were wide open for driving like a racecar driver. Put the pedal to the metal. Punch it and let those tires peel.

I dont want to appear to be saying that all drivers did this. Assuredly, some drivers undoubtedly drove safely, perhaps even more safely than normal. For those drivers, thanks for being a mindful user of the highways and byways.

For those drivers that seemed to abuse the advantage of less traffic, well divide them into two camps.

One group of such drivers would be those that drove faster by happenstance and were somewhat lulled into being a less safe driver. They found themselves going faster and faster, not aware of the potential consequences. The roads were open. Open roads allow for going fast. In fact, they might argue that they werent aware of how fast they were going since there wasnt traffic that they were passing during the driving journey. We all know how easy it is to incur highway hypnosis whereby you become a mental zombie that becomes entrenched while at the driving controls.

In short, they didnt know any better.

The other group of drivers will be labeled herein as roadway aggressors (Im being exceedingly polite and shall mildly note that cruder terminology characterizing these drivers is often used).

These are people that will exploit any traffic condition, regardless of packed lanes versus empty lanes. When the roads are jammed with cars, these drivers are nonetheless going to weave in and out of traffic and do whatever they can to make progress. Imagine their glee when there is less traffic on the roadway. You might as well have declared that NASCAR racing is now allowed on the nations highways. Since they were no longer confined to their traffic congestion driving skills, the aggressors opted to employ freewheel driving acumen and relished the rabid excitement of doing so.

In short, they knew better but consciously chose to be exploitive.

Does it matter that there were two camps?

Somewhat, to the degree that it would be relatively easy to raise the awareness of the segment that didnt know any better and perhaps get them to tone things down and drive more cautiously. The aggressor group is seemingly immune to being told to slow down and take things more mindfully. Someone that has that in-your-face driving attitude is usually shaped only by getting caught red-handed, nailed by the police for speeding and driving recklessly. Of those that get caught, some wont even learn to adjust their driving and will instead try to find better ways to avoid getting nabbed.

Shifting gears, the future of cars involves the advent of self-driving cars.

An important consideration about the emergence of AI-based true self-driving cars is how human drivers will react or respond to having self-driving cars intermixing on the roadways with humanity. Few are putting much thought into the possible reactions by human drivers to driving next to and with nearby self-driving cars.

The driving stats about the pandemic showcase that humans alter their driving behaviors depending upon the traffic circumstances.

Heres an interesting question to ponder: Will the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars prod or spur nearby human drivers to drive differently?

Lets unpack the matter and see.

Understanding The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

As a clarification, true self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isnt any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5 (see my explanation at this link here), while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-ons that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we dont yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some contend, see my coverage at this link here).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars wont be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so theres not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as youll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect thats been arising lately, namely that despite those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And Nearby Human Drivers

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there wont be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

This bodes for exciting times.

The hope is that there will be a lot fewer car crashes due to the AI doing the driving. AI driving systems are not going to drink and drive. AI driving systems are not going to drive in a distracted manner. The focus entirely of the AI driving system is devoted to driving the car. Human drivers are apt to drive while intoxicated or drive while watching cat videos. Right now, there are about 40,000 car crash-related fatalities annually in the United States and an estimated 2.3 million related injuries to people (see my analysis of driving stats at this link here).

Some believe that the number of fatalities will drop to zero because of self-driving cars, but Ive debunked this claim and exhorted repeatedly that there is a zero chance of zero fatalities (see the link here). The physics of a car and the driving task will inevitably lead to some amount of car crashes and deaths, even including the use of self-driving cars. That being said, the deaths and injuries will inevitably be significantly lessened (every life spared is decidedly notable), and the number of self-driving car specific crashes will be much lower than conventional driving.

One assumption that some people keep making is that there will be a magical overnight switcheroo of us driving conventional cars to suddenly having all and only self-driving cars on our roadways.

Thats just not sensible.

The introduction of AI-based true self-driving cars is going to be quite gradual. It will take years upon years for the amount of traffic to shift toward being self-driving cars versus being undertaken by conventional human-driven cars. There are about 250 million conventional cars in the U.S. today and those cars are not going to simply disappear out of thin air. They will continue to be used and there will be an ongoing mix of both human-driven cars and self-driving cars on our roadways.

As an aside, there is a brewing controversy associated with the potential extinction of human driving.

If you believe that self-driving cars are going to radically reduce bad driving, and save lives, the natural assertion is that human-driven cars ought to be outlawed and banned from our roadways. This is an extreme viewpoint in certainly the short-term as it will take many years, likely decades, for enough self-driving cars to be produced and made available to meet our driving journey needs.

Some oppose the idea of banning human driving. This idea of disallowing human driving seems altogether Dystopian to them. Driving is considered a privilege, but many see it as a basic human right. There are passionate debates on this topic, including those that say you will only get them to give up their driving when you pry their cold dead hands from the steering wheel.

Putting aside that controversy for the moment, well focus herein on the reality that there will be an intermixing of self-driving cars and human-driven cars on our roadways, which will exist for quite a while.

Hopefully, we can all agree to that at face value.

You might be thinking that there is no difference between how humans drive today and how they will drive whence there are self-driving cars on the roadways, thus, mixing together self-driving cars and human-driven cars is a non-issue and without any semblance of hullabaloo.

I dont think such an assumption is fully thought through.

Ill explain why in a moment.

Before we get into the details, when referring to the mixture of self-driving cars and human-driven cars, keep in mind that the proportions are going to adjust over a moderated time period. For example, we might begin with less than 1% of the total cars on the roads being self-driving cars, and the rest of the 99% consists of human-driven cars. At some time thereafter, the proportion will shift and become (lets say) about 20% of self-driving cars and 80% of human-driven cars. This will continue adjusting, eventually reaching 50/50, then tipping toward more self-driving cars than there are self-driving cars.

On a somewhat finer technical point, the number of vehicles is not as vital as the number of miles driven. I say this because it is anticipated that self-driving cars might be operating 24x7, continually underway and only rarely not in motion, while a conventional human-driven car sits unused for about 95% or more of its available time. Rather than comparing the number of vehicles, it is usually preferred to compare based on miles driven, a more universal metric.

Okay, we will have self-driving cars on our roadways and they will gradually become more prominent and in a sense more dominant in terms of the likely volume of traffic activity.

How will those human drivers react?

If a self-driving car drove in precisely the same manner as a human driver, the easy answer is that there would presumably be no difference in how human drivers will be driving. The human drivers would ostensibly not even realize that the car ahead of them is a self-driving car (well, perhaps the sensory gear is a telltale sign, but even that is getting streamlined and all cars might eventually have the same overall appearance, both human-driven, and self-driving).

You would drive as you do today.

Most of the time, you know nothing whatsoever about the drivers in the other cars nearby to you. All that you know is that they are driving a car and the car is nearby. You attempt to infer what kind of a driver they are by observing their driving. You rarely observe them directly as a human being, and instead, you watch how their car moves and maneuvers. From the actions of their car, you might ascribe some beliefs to the type of person they are, though this is just a guess and based on the driving that you see, and not by having sat with them over a cup of coffee and discussed global politics and the like.

Overall, the point is that if self-driving cars could drive in exactly the same manner as human drivers, the human drivers on the roadways with self-driving cars would not have any apparent means to realize that there are some cars around them being driven by humans and some being driven by an AI driving system (all else being equal).

The thing is, at least right now, self-driving cars arent driving exactly like humans.

For example, by-and-large the automakers and self-driving tech firms are programming their self-driving cars to always drive in a fully legal manner. This means that there is no speeding allowed. The AI driving system is supposed to adhere to whatever posted speed limit exists in any passage of roadway.

I ask you, do humans always abide by the speed limits?

Unless youve never been on the road, you would for sure acknowledge that human drivers are apt to go faster than the speed limit. Routinely so. This is true not only on highways and freeways, it happens in places you would think it absolutely ought to not occur, such as in school ground zones. Yes, people drive past the speed limit on all manner of occasions.

This lambasting of human drivers is not intended as a rebuke of human driving (though it certainly has that edge), and instead simply emphasizes that there is an already pronounced difference between todays self-driving cars and the nature of human drivers, namely, self-driving cars abide by the speed limit, while human drivers will often speed.

There are other ways in which self-driving cars are driving differently than human drivers, right now, but I wont belabor that point and merely establish that speeding is one of many such differences. Speeding is a big one since it is highly noticeable.

Heres what sometimes happens when a human driver encounters a self-driving car on todays roadways.

There is a self-driving car up ahead of a human driver. For human drivers that have already seen self-driving cars, they know that the self-driving car is going to strictly abide by the speed limit.

In theory, if you are behind a self-driving car that is going the speed limit, you ought to keep your proper driving distance and also be going the speed limit, matching whatever speed the self-driving car is doing. This would be the proper and sensible way for a human to drive.

Sure, some human drivers will do that.

Unfortunately, some human drivers wont tolerate those darned slow-poke self-driving cars. It is almost the same as coming up behind a car that has a bright sticker saying it is a student driver. You know that means the car is going to do the speed limit, stop at all stop signs, allow pedestrians to fully cross the road, etc. This can be infuriating to those drivers that prefer the more assertive style of driving.

What do such drivers do when encountering a driving school teenage driver?

Many of these aggressive drivers decide to take matters into their own hands. They realize that driving on the bumper of the novice driver wont do much good and only makes the student driver nervous, likely sparking them to go even more slowly. So, the best option would be to circumvent that driver. Drive around them. Furthermore, since the driver has caused you to suffer a delay, the odds are that when you drive around them, you are going to speed-up to compensate for the exasperating delay.

This is the same reaction that those aggressive drivers are having when coming upon a self-driving car.

The reaction involves consternation that they are perhaps once again stuck behind a strict law-abiding self-driving car. The human driver anticipates that the AI driving system will proceed purely at the speed limit and no more so, it will stop fully at stop signs, and so on. This is going to be a huge inconvenience and not to be tolerated.

Thus, aggressive drivers go around the self-driving car. They sometimes rocket past, wanting to make up for a lost time while having followed behind the self-driving car. The irony, of sorts, would be that these aggressive drivers are likely to speed, more than usual, based on their belief that they need to overcome the delay while having been behind the self-driving car.

Remember earlier the point made that human drivers would adjust their driving behavior depending upon the traffic conditions?

Well, a self-driving car is changing the driving conditions.

Currently, a self-driving car is driving in a legal manner that is generally unlike the driving of many human drivers. There are so few self-driving cars on the roadways that this is not especially evident as yet. Only those people that perchance live in an area where self-driving cars are being fielded would have experienced this phenomenon.

Also, the phenomenon is only in the small at this time since few self-driving cars are being used on the roadways. Imagine that once there is a significant proportion of self-driving cars on the roads, this would become a quite pronounced difference between the way that self-driving cars drive and the way that human drivers drive.

Presumably, there will be those human drivers that opt to cope with self-driving cars by doing all kinds of reckless driving and speeding too. Some of those human drivers will be like those mentioned earlier that are unaware of how they are reacting to self-driving cars. They will be doing so without the realization that is doing so. Youll also have the other camp. Those are the aggressive drivers that will be gunning for self-driving cars in the sense of the moment they spot one, they will go into their super-aggressive human driving mode.

One facet is that if an aggressive driver did something untoward related to another human-driven car, there is a chance that the other driver will react adversely. This happens quite frequently, at times leading to road rage.

Will a self-driving car be irked by these aggressive drivers and go into a road rage mode?

No, it seems highly unlikely.

This would be a possibility if programmed to react that way, though it seems hard to imagine that automakers and self-driving tech firms are going to include a road rage mode into their AI driving systems (a dicey idea).

Recall that I mentioned there are other differences between an AI driving system and human driving?

Believe it or not, the aspect that the AI wont go into road rage mode is yet another difference. A subtle one, for sure, but demonstrative. Human drivers that realize the self-driving car will not react to nearby bad driving or will react submissively, are more than happy to exploit this difference (spurring the humans toward further reckless driving acts).

Conclusion

What to do about this conundrum?

One reply is that this proves that human drivers have to be given the heave-ho. Get rid of human drivers and this problem is solved.

Another perspective is that self-driving cars should be programmed to be aggressive drivers and thus be more human-like in how the driving is taking place. If humans are speeding, by gosh, the AI driving systems should be doing the same. Mimic human driving and then all drivers will essentially be on the same playing field.

Thats a quite abhorrent notion for many, since the concept of having self-driving cars drive as atrociously as human drivers send shivers up the spine and would seem to undercut the hoped-for benefits of having self-driving cars.

Time will tell.

Meanwhile, if you see a self-driving car coming down the street, be prepared for not what the self-driving car will do, but instead for what the human drivers nearby the self-driving car will do. Those pesky and inconsiderate human drivers will do what they do, including and especially when they come upon a self-driving car.

See the article here:
Self-Driving Cars Spurring Nearby Human Drivers Into Speeding And Abysmal Reckless Driving - Forbes

Human Behavior

Shadley: How To Address Utah’s Wildfires, Air Quality, and Climate Change All at Once – Daily Utah Chronicle

(Fire in Neff Canyon on Sept. 22, 2020 | Photo Courtesy of Sue Oldroyd)

Last summer, outdoor activities were the only refuge from COVID-19, but the 2020 wildfire season made even that a danger to our health. Whether indoors or out, every breath posed a threat. While our state has rightfully dedicated millions to fighting the pandemic, only one bill in the current session for the Utah State Legislature, H.B. 65, is aimed at directly addressing fires in Utah, and it comes up far short of the action we need to mitigate climate-enhanced wildfires.

After a record-breaking fire season in 2012, Gov. Gary Herbert asked his Commissioner of Agriculture to develop a strategy aimed at reducing the severity and frequency of wildfires. But with record-breaking property damage in 2018 and record-breaking quantity of fires in 2020, I dont think its controversial to say that their strategy failed. What may be controversial is to argue that the reason for its failure is, primarily, climate change. Only 55% of Utahns are concerned about climate change, but three Utah counties Uintah, San Juan, and Grand show reported temperatures that are rising at twice the national average. Those alarming numbers set us up for an increased likelihood of abnormally hot and dry conditions, which are prerequisites for worse fire seasons.

As wildfires become more destructive, their economic and health effects do as well. This past year, the state spent about $60 million suppressing wildfires. In addition to additional suppression costs, wildfire smoke contains small particles of burnt plant-matter which can cause inflammation and exacerbate other health problems. Those health complications add to our healthcare costs and decrease the quality of life for countless people. Contrast those costs with the meager additional $435,000 that would be appropriated by H.B. 65 for hiring full-time fire wardens and creating a public risk assessment map. While these proposals are net-positives, the size and scope of the bill is greatly underwhelming. Such an inconsequential bill squanders a unique opportunity for the legislature to address Utahs air quality an issue that 90% of Utahns consider a top priority.

But if Im going to assert that the legislature is doing too little to address the wildfires in our state, then I owe it to them and to you to offer some guidance on specific policy proposals we should adopt. There are three areas of policy that need to be addressed to reduce the severity and frequency of wildfires: climate change, fire management practices and human behavior.

To get a better understanding of wildfires, I spoke with Dr. Derek Mallia, a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utahs Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Mallia agrees that climate change is the biggest factor pushing us towards more intense fire seasons. Action on climate change has been slow in Utah, with only 6% of our energy coming from renewable sources in 2018. While more aggressive policies are necessary, itll take far more than my allotted 1000 words to explain all of the ways we can reduce emissions.

On the topic of fire management practices, Mallia noted that a secondary kind of problem [in addition to climate change] is the extra vegetation that we have because weve been putting out fires so much, and prescribed burns are the one way that we can very quickly address that. The extra vegetation, exposed to hotter and drier conditions, becomes fuel that leads to more severe wildfires. Mallia and his associates have created a model that could be used to determine when to perform prescribed burns. The full-time fire wardens that would be added via H.B. 65could utilize the model with input from ecologists and air pollution specialists to limit the dry vegetation for wildfires.

Of the 1539 wildfires in Utah this year, 1202 of them were started by people. While those fires only accounted for about one-third of the acres burned, any comprehensive wildfire prevention program from the legislature would address the human behaviors that lead to wildfires. The majority of human-caused wildfires are a result of campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, automobiles and other equipment use, cigarette butts, and arson. Wildfire education efforts tend to be successful and cost-effective and extra funding would be a simple inclusion to H.B. 65.

Additionally, Utahs fire restrictions are currently released intermittently and only prevent activities in a given area once that activity is deemed to be too risky because of the conditions. With this system, only the most diligent and fire-conscious outdoor recreationists are apprised of the fire restrictions at any given time and place. Naturally, these arent the people most likely to spark wildfires. As our seasons get hotter and drier, sensible restrictions on campfire use, off-roading, target shooting, debris burning and firework use would make the rules clearer and more accessible to all outdoor enthusiasts, leading to a decrease in human-induced wildfires.

While these recommendations represent only a fraction of the possible ways to reduce the severity and frequency of wildfires, they would nonetheless increase the effectiveness of H.B. 65. Utahs lackluster commitment to addressing climate change and properly funding wildfire prevention is destroying valuable property and unique ecosystems, costing our state millions of dollars and creating unnecessary chronic health conditions. And, while Prof. Mallia noted that wildfires are not just a Utah problem, but a western U.S. problem, there is no reason our state should not strive to be a leader in addressing wildfires.

The past year has been evidence enough that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yet, on an issue that a vast majority of the state believes needs to be addressed, the legislatures most wildfire-centered bill, H.B. 65, offers up little more than a gram.

[emailprotected]

@shadleywill

See the original post:
Shadley: How To Address Utah's Wildfires, Air Quality, and Climate Change All at Once - Daily Utah Chronicle

Human Behavior

To err is not just human: U of T researchers develop AI that plays chess like a person – News@UofT

For more than a decade, advances in artificial intelligence have made computers capable of consistently defeating humans in chess. But despite their clever moves, they've made relatively lousy teachers until now.

By trading raw power for a more human-like playing style, a new neural network chess engine developed by University of Toronto researchers and collaborators is poised to make for a more effective learning tool and teaching aid.

The Maia Chess engine can accurately predict the way humans of different skill levels play chess and can even point out the mistakes a player should work on to improve their game.With this new chess engine, the researchers open the door to better human-AI interaction in chess and other domains

Ashton Anderson, assistant professor in the department of computer science, and PhD student Reid McIlroy-Young collaborated on the project with Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science and information science at Cornell University, and Siddhartha Sen, principal researcher at Microsoft Research.

The new chess engine emerged from their paper,Aligning Superhuman AI With Human Behavior: Chess as a Model System, presented last year at the Association for Computing Machinery SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining.

Faced with a problem to solve, self-trained AIs can take a very different route to a solution than a human might. On top of that, a human can also have a hard time learning how the AI completed its task. To bridge the gap in understanding, the researchers attempted to model the individual steps humans take to solve a task, rather than focus on overall human performance.

For Maia, the researchers asked themselves: Instead of designing an AI that focused on the task of playing chess well, what if we designed one that would play chess well in a human-like manner?

If we algorithmically captured human style, human ability, and crucially, human errors, maybe we would have a chess AI that was much easier to learn from and play with, Anderson explains, adding that this approach could be expanded to other domains of AI research.

AI first demonstrated its superiority over human chess players in 1997 with IBM's Deep Blue beating then-world champion Garry Kasparov. Now, desktop computers can run chess engines even stronger than Deep Blue.

The U of T researcherstrained nine versions of Maia, corresponding to nine different chess skill levels. At each level, the deep learning framework was trained on 12 million online human games.

By training on games played by humans instead of training itself to win every time, Maia can more closely match human play, move by move, the researchers say.

Other attempts to develop chess engines that match human play have been somewhat effective, but Maias performance sets the bar higher, they added.

Versions of two popular chess engines, Stockfish and Leela Chess Zero, match human moves less accurately and without always faithfully mimicking human play at specific skill levels. Maia is built on the open-source AlphaZero/Leela Chess framework and is trained on real human games, rather than games played against itself. It achieves higher accuracy than other engines, correctly predicting human moves more than half the time.

In addition to predicting smart moves, Maia is also adept at predicting human mistakes, even egregious ones or blunders.This can be especially helpful for players looking to improve.

Current chess AIs dont have any conception of what mistakes people typically make at a particular ability level. They will tell you all the mistakes you made all the situations in which you failed to play with machine-like precision but they cant separate out what you should work on, Anderson says. Maia can identify the repeated mistakes you make that are typical of your level, and that you could work on to improve. No other chess AI has that ability.

The researchers are currently developing a personalized version of Maia that can play like a particular person.

This will make our training tools even more powerful: you could have your own personalized AI that plays like you do, and it could point out the mistakes you make that it predicts you will make in other words, mistakes you make so often that it correctly guesses you will do it again, Anderson explains.

Looking ahead, the team plans to conduct a chess Turing test to see if human players can tell the difference between a human opponent and Maia.

Ultimately, the researchers hope Maia demonstrates the value in considering the human element when designing AI systems.

We want to show that AI systems can be easier to work with and learn from if they are built with human interaction, collaboration, and improvement in mind, Anderson says.

Chess players can face off against three versions of Maia on the free online chess server Lichess: Maia 1100, Maia 1500, and Maia 1900.

Ashton Anderson was supported in part by an NSERC grant, a Microsoft Research Award, and a CFI grant. Jon Kleinberg was supported in part by a Simons Investigator Award, a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, a MURI grant, and a MacArthur Foundation grant.

See original here:
To err is not just human: U of T researchers develop AI that plays chess like a person - News@UofT

Human Behavior

Dog Study: OSU researchers find the animals are paying attention – The Chief News

Dogs synchronize their behavior with the children in their family, but not as much as they do with adults, Oregon State University (OS) researchers have found.

While research has found dogs can have a lot of positive impacts on a childs life, there are also risks associated with the dog-child relationship.

The new findings are important because there is a growing body of evidence that dogs can help children in many ways, including with social development, increasing physical activity, managing anxiety or as a source of attachment in the face of changing family structures, the researchers said. Yet, very little research has focused on how dogs perceive and socially engage with children.

The great news is that this study suggests dogs are paying a lot of attention to the kids that they live with, said Oregon State animal behaviorist Monique Udell, the lead author of the study.

Udell said dogs are responsive to children and, in many cases, behaving in synchrony with them, indicators of positive affiliation and a foundation for building strong bonds.

One interesting thing we have observed is that dogs are matching their childs behavior less frequently than what we have seen between dogs and adult caretakers, which suggests that while they may view children as social companions, there are also some differences that we need to understand better," Udell said.

Co-authors were Shelby Wanser, a faculty research assistant in Udells lab, and Megan MacDonald, an associate professor in Oregon States College of Public Health and Human Sciences, who studies how motor skills and physically active lifestyles improve the lives of children with and without disabilities

The researchers recruited 30 youth between the ages of 8 and 17 years old 83% of which had a developmental disability to take part in the study with their family dog. The experiments took place in a large empty room. Color-coded taped lines were placed on the floor, and the children were given instructions on how to walk the lines in a standardized way with their off-leash dog.

The researchers videotaped the experiments and analyzed behavior based on three elements:

(1) Activity synchrony, which means how much time the dog and child were moving or stationary at the same time.

(2) Proximity, or how much time the dog and child were within 1 meter of each other.

(3) Orientation, how much time the dog was oriented in the same direction as the child.

They found that dogs exhibited behavioral synchronization with the children at a higher rate than would be expected by chance for all three variables. During their assessments, they found:

While child-dog synchrony occurred more often that what would be expected by chance, those percentages are all lower than what other researchers have found when studying interactions between dogs and adults in their household. Those studies found active synchrony 81.8% of the time, but at 49.1% with shelter dogs. They found proximity 72.9% of the time and 39.7% with shelter dogs. No studies on dog-human behavioral synchronization have previously assessed body orientation.

The Oregon State researchers are conducting more research to better understand factors that contribute to differences in levels of synchrony and other aspects of bond quality between dogs and children compared to dogs and adults, including participation in animal assisted interventions and increasing the childs responsibility for the dogs care.

While research has found dogs can have a lot of positive impacts on a childs life, there are also risks associated with the dog-child relationship, the researchers said. For example, other studies have found dogs are more apt to bite children versus adults.

We still have a lot to learn about the dog-child relationship Udell said. Were hoping this research can inform the best ways to shape positive outcomes and mitigate risks by helping children interact with dogs in a manner that improves the relationship and ultimately the welfare of both individuals.

Based on this study, Udell also offered some takeaways for families with children and dogs.

What we are finding is that kids are very capable of training dogs, and that dogs are paying attention to the kids and can learn from them, she said. Sometimes we dont give children and dogs enough credit. Our research suggests that with some guidance we can provide important and positive learning experiences for our kids and our dogs starting at a much earlier age, something that can make a world of difference to the lives of both.

The OSU research paper was recently published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Sean Nealon is a news editor at Oregon State University's University Relations and Marketing Department. He may be reached at sean.nealon@oregonstate.edu

Read more here:
Dog Study: OSU researchers find the animals are paying attention - The Chief News

Human Behavior

Podcast: Improving health messaging in fight to slow COVID-19 Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis – Washington University School of…

Visit the News Hub

This episode of 'Show Me the Science' examines how to convince people to take steps to slow the spread of COVID-19, particularly as many are targeted with misinformation

In this episode of "Show Me the Science," experts in decision-making at Washington University School of Medicine and the Olin Business School in St. Louis explain how our biases, judgments and health behaviors might be shaped, even changed, by targeted, consistent messages from health-care providers and government leaders.

A new episode of our podcast, Show Me the Science, has been posted. At present, these podcast episodes are highlighting research and patient care on the Washington University Medical Campus as our scientists and clinicians confront the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the past year, weve heard about the importance of wearing masks, avoiding crowds, maintaining physical distance and regularly washing our hands. All of us have been asked to take simple steps to protect ourselves and those around us. But nothing is simple when you have to do it every day for months, particularly while receiving mixed messages from some friends and leaders. In this episode, well hear about how focused marketing and health communication could help more people do the right thing and make better decisions to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. We speak to Mary C. Politi, PhD, a health psychologist and a professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences in the Department of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; and to Robyn LeBoeuf, PhD, a professor of marketing at the universitys Olin Business School. They discuss how our biases, judgments and health behaviors might be shaped, even changed, by targeted, consistent messages from health-care providers and government leaders.

The podcast, Show Me the Science, is produced by the Office of Medical Public Affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

[music]

Jim Dryden (host): Hello and welcome to Show Me the Science, conversations about science and health with the people of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, the Show-Me State. As we continue to detail Washington Universitys response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus in this episode on messaging. Its been about a year since COVID-19 first was diagnosed in the United States, and weve not yet been able to agree about the best ways to communicate to help keep people safe.

Mary Politi, PhD:Everybody is trying to do the best thing for themselves. No one is purposely I could be wrong, and there are some people willingly trying to be harmful. But I dont really think thats the fundamental reason. I think when people make decisions about their health and the health of society, theyre trying to make sense of this data in a way that works for them. And its much easier to hear a message from someone that says, Dont believe the numbers, because its hard to hear those numbers.

Dryden:Thats Mary Politi, a professor of public health sciences at Washington University School of Medicine. This week, we speak with Politi and with Robyn LeBoeuf, a professor of marketing in the Olin Business School at Washington University. LeBoeuf says if public health messages could be crafted better, they might be more effective.

Robyn LeBoeuf, PhD:The people respond to certainty. And so when people deliver messages that are clear and certain, then sometimes those messages are very persuasive. And so, again, the challenge is for us to figure out how to deliver messages about taking precautions, about social distancing, about mask wearing, and how to deliver those messages with as much clarity and certainty as we can.

Dryden:As cases and deaths have climbed, theres been debate about how to move forward, and there have been some very mixed messages from various government officials. During a recent Grand Rounds lecture at Washington University School of Medicine, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the major figures involved in the federal response to COVID-19, talked about his surprise at how many people inside and outside of government seemed to want to ignore science.

Anthony Fauci, MD:What were dealing with now is an absolutely explosive outbreak that, in a very truncated period of time, has essentially immobilized the planet. We have something that Ive never seen before in public health. Public health has been immersed in a divisive society which has made it very, very difficult to have a uniform response. I mean, I might give an example of something that I believe you all there are aware of, that there are regions of the country where hospitals are filled with people in intensive care units who are dying, and the people in the community still feel its fake news, its a hoax, and its a conspiracy. That, to me, is unimaginable that that is going on in the United States.

Dryden:Those who study messaging and decision-making like Politi and LaBoeuf say that although the pandemic is almost a year old, some people still dont think its that big a deal. And one has to wonder what can be done to convince them. But Politi says the news isnt all bad. She says it is clear that messages are having an effect on some people.

Politi:Everywhere I go, I see people masking. People are walking their dogs across the street from each other, and they pass each other, and they give each other space. So I think people have made a lot of behavior changes that were very, very new and unusual. Where I think the messaging has broken down and then peoples behaviors have broken down is a lack of coordinated policy and leadership that consistently sent the same message, particularly about masking. So you have some communities with mandatory mask policies and other communities that dont, where weve never really had this strong reaction to data and to science, and that confused a lot of people. So although youve heard this message, weve heard this message and, probably, everyone in the public has heard this message about masking and distancing, I think there has been confusion on the ground about what that means as we live our lives, especially with mixed policy messages.

Dryden:But on the other hand, one of the more recent messages was, Lets not have big gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lets not travel. Lets Zoom for Christmas.

LeBoeuf:Many people are hearing the messages and are responding

Dryden:This is Robyn LaBoeuf.

LeBoeuf: but I think some of it, too, is that people are very influenced by what they see in front of them. People are influenced by whats vivid and whats concrete to them. So if they look around in their immediate family, they say, Well, everybody I see seems healthy. I feel healthy. I dont know of anybody whos maybe either had COVID, or if theyve had COVID maybe they dont know of anybody who has gotten severely ill. They may have known somebody whos only had a mild case. And so, in many cases, people rely on whats very concrete and vivid to them, whats happened to the people around them. And so I think the challenge for the messaging is to make the message as concrete and as vivid as the anecdotal evidence that people are seeing.

Dryden:Now, you both are experts in decision-making, and I wonder about that. How do people make these kinds of decisions, whether that be about their health or about what brand of cereal theyre going to buy in the cereal aisle? And how do some of those sorts of things apply here, in this particular public health crisis?

Politi:People make decisions both on the evidence that they have, the data, and then also whats important to them and what matters for them and their core values. And in this situation, a lot of people felt that their core values were their family, were getting together and sharing something in person, and people were tired of Zoom. The conflict between the data and their values really struck a chord, especially around the holidays. It is so painful for my mom and my in-laws to not see their grandkids. You havent seen them in a year, over a year, so I understand the dilemmas that people face. I think we can do a much better job pulling from communication science and decision science and sending clear, consistent messages in simple-to-understand language, but more so connecting to peoples values and helping them find a way to work within those values and make these behavior changes that align with those values and are safe.

LeBoeuf:I think one thing that people respond to is, frankly, the norms that are set by the people around them. What they see other people doing, for lack of a better definition, right? So when people start to see other people around them wearing masks, it becomes just more comfortable to wear one, more expected that youll wear one, it becomes the thing to do. I think that one of the challenges, also, is to focus some of the messaging on showing other people doing the right things. Showing like, Look how many people are wearing masks, how many people are not traveling. Look how many people are following these guidelines. I think something like that might just set the standards, OK, this is how were acting, right? So if we want to protect our community and we want to protect ourselves, this is what everybodys doing. So were all coming together to do this. This is a spirit of shared sacrifice. But not traveling doesnt make news; traveling makes news. And so I think one of the things, in terms of just general principles, what do people respond to? People respond to norms. They respond to what other people are doing.

Politi:I also think there needs to be representation

Dryden:Again, this is Mary Politi.

Politi: or local community members who are trusted community members, and not just public-health experts that may be seen by people as scientists living in a bubble. We can do a lot better with connecting, on the local level, with people from the communities where were trying to reach.

Dryden:Now, were here in St. Louis. Is the sort of thing youre talking about I mean, should we be seeing campaigns where Ozzie Smith or Yadier Molina is wearing not just a catchers mask but a surgical mask? Is that the sort of thing youre talking about?

Politi:Yeah, people do respect celebrities, and they have some pull, and people on television, anchors, news anchors. But theres also local individuals who are part of the communities theyre serving that were trying to reach that I think have a lot of connection to individuals on the ground. News stories that are in papers about people you might recognize and that you might know. That can go a long way in terms of delivering a message. There is a tendency to forget that this is really hard and this isnt something were asking people to do for one day. This has been going on almost a year now, and I really appreciate the fact that its hard for people to do this all the time and day in and day out. So we could work with people and get people who can relate and that they respect and can talk about risk reduction. I think it would be a lot easier for people to follow the guidelines and feel like theyre being heard.

Dryden:At least from my point of view on the outside, it seems like you do related work but are focusing, maybe, on different audiences and objectives. And Im wondering if you think that the principles of good marketing and good public health messaging are at all similar?

LeBoeuf:Personally, Mary and I both have PhDs in psychology, right, so were both interested in human behavior and understanding human behavior. But certainly, in both cases, whether its marketing or public health, one of the goals is maybe to communicate an idea, whether its to sell an idea about a product or to sell an idea about an idea or about a policy, right? So I think there definitely are some similarities there. Mary, I dont know what your thoughts are.

Politi:A lot of the principles of decision-making overlap between marketing and health. In fact, we look at the marketing literature to help understand, How do we clarify peoples preferences? How do we get people to think about whats important to them when these health-related issues tend to be new? When someones newly diagnosed or, for example, with COVID theres a new virus. And the other thing thats interesting from both perspectives is that the biases or the shortcuts, the mental shortcuts we take when were making decisions and interpreting lots of data and information. We tend to look at data, and then our brain can trick us into thinking that its behaving rationally when its not. And so we tend to overlap in understanding how to work within those and overcome some of those mental shortcuts that might not serve our best interests.

Dryden:But, Mary, I wonder if there might be some people who are so convinced of their correctness that nothings going to get through to them?

Politi:We really need to approach this as, Everybody is trying to do the best thing for themselves. No one is purposely I could be wrong, and there are some people willingly trying to be harmful to others or themselves. But I dont really think thats the fundamental reason people make decisions. I think when people make decisions about their health and the health of society, theyre trying to make sense of this data in a way that works for them. And its much easier to hear a message from someone that says, Dont believe the numbers, because its hard to hear those numbers. Its people that worked in the ICU that have seen COVID patients are mentally exhausted. It is very, very sad to see whats happening to people. And its much easier not to think about that or to think, That will never happen to me, but thats not the reality that people who are working in the health setting see. And Im not saying that individuals need to see that, but I think we could do a better job of letting people know the seriousness of the situation rather than dismissing it. And I dont think theres anyone thats wanting to contribute to that, to somebody else that could be their neighbor or their parent or their relative, potential illness.

LeBoeuf:And I would agree with what Mary said. To go back to your question, too, I think we can also focus on how far weve come. If you had said nine months ago, ten months ago, however long its been now, that mask wearing would be normalized, right, and in a relatively short amount of time, I think it would have been hard for us to believe that we would make these vast shifts in how people work and how people go to school almost overnight, right? So weve done a lot, and as Mary said, people have been working very hard on their ends. The people respond to certainty. And so when people deliver messages that are kind of clear and certain, then sometimes those messages are very persuasive. And so, again, the challenge is for us to figure out how to deliver messages about taking precautions, about social distancing, about mask wearing, and how to deliver those messages with as much clarity and certainty as we can. And so when people hear big numbers like that, they become numb to those numbers. And so, breaking it down to the more human level. And even thinking about 3,000 people a day, what is that? Thats 10 airplanes crashing a day, right? Those are all humans with families, with faces, right? And so trying to also just make that really vivid and remind people that without trying to scare people unnecessarily, but really just to bring it home. That these arent just numbers, these are people, I think is another thing that sometimes gets lost in the focus on the numbers, is trying to actually humanize that and make everybody remember these are people who did not have to die.

Dryden:Weve been talking about peoples beliefs and some of their implicit assumptions about this, and, I mean, I admit, part of my implicit assumption in this interview is that maybe this didnt have to be this bad. That with better messaging, better public cooperation, wed look more like some other countries. Still not safe or normal, but way fewer infections and deaths. But I wonder about that assumption of mine. Do you think some of what weve experienced in these months might have been avoided? And if so, how?

Politi:Yes, I absolutely agree. You can use cognitive biases that we have or these mental shortcuts that trick us into thinking things for positive reasons or for negative reasons. I think that there are a lot of messages that were sent by some who didnt want to believe the message, some in leadership positions, that were really manipulative and played on peoples fears, and then played on the fact that we might trick ourselves into numbing ourselves to the vast number of deaths because its much easier not to have to think about that. And connecting on a personal level and having people be seen as people and not as these large collections of a number that doesnt have meaning might be useful.

LeBoeuf:And one thing I think that may make it a challenge, maybe, in the U.S. compared to some other countries is just the vastness of the country. And so the pandemic rolled out at different times, and crisis levels even continue to be hit at different times in different places. And so, for some people, the initial messaging about, Stay home. Dont go anywhere. Keep apart from everyone, may have hit them before it was really a problem in their community. And so they then thought, Well, nothings happening. No ones getting it. It must be over, right? So we can go back to normal life, right? And so I think even now, though, were seeing that still playing out, where some areas of this country are in crisis right now and others are in things are bad, but not nearly as dire.

Dryden:Its that everybody needs to mask. Everybody needs to social distance. And, as soon as possible, everybody needs to get vaccinated, right? So thats another layer of, How do we convince people to do something? Because some folks arent convinced its going to be safe. So are there lessons we can learn from what has happened with masking and social distancing and travel, things like that, that might be applied to the vaccine as it rolls out around the country?

Politi:And there is a lot of data on how to communicate about vaccines. Lots of other vaccines that are developed for other illnesses, its already being applied to this vaccine, the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. And so Im hoping we will learn a lot from those messages. There are a lot of biases that impact peoples decisions to get a vaccine or not. One of the biggest ones is called the omission bias, where, if you fail to do something and a bad outcome happens, you feel less guilty than if you do something then a bad outcome happens. Its a flaw in our thinking because the vaccines protect people from diseases, and when there are mild side effects, theyre mild and treatable. Most vaccines, including this one, have transient short-term side effects that are manageable with over-the-counter medication or rest, and they go away within a day or so. But people often feel this intense fear and guilt if something happens, where they felt they contributed to it by doing something as opposed to failing to do something.

LeBoeuf:I think for the vaccine, again, we can think also about leveraging the power of social norms, and theres times that weve seen that. Weve seen politicians getting it publicly, right, showing that people are getting it, right? And so focusing on the idea that this is being accepted by major figures, whether its politicians, whether its celebrities, whether its people on the news, right? And so trying to emphasize that, too. To show that this is something that people are doing, that people are regarding as safe, and not necessarily giving more oxygen to somewhat specious claims about the vaccine. I think, at the same time, we do need to take peoples concerns seriously and understand what theyre concerned about and talk about what kinds of long-term effects would it be possible to would it be expected to see from the vaccine and have we looked for those, right? And so, has the time horizon been long enough? And talk about, Well, like with most vaccines, we would have seen any sort of effects by now, so the fact that we havent is relatively reassuring. But understand that when people hear long-term effects, theyre thinking on the order of 20, 30 years down the line. And so trying to find a way to tell people, No, thats not what happened with vaccines. We shouldnt expect any long long-term consequence.

Politi:A lot of people in the communities that are hesitant about vaccine feel like theyre not listened to; theyre just dismissed. I completely understand why people have questions about anything in health. And I think peoples questions deserve to be answered, and they need to find people that they trust who can answer their questions.

[music]

Dryden:Politi and LeBoeuf say continuing to address concerns and questions is key moving forward. And although both say that weve come a long way since last year when COVID-19 first started infecting Americans, they admit that with high post-holiday infection rates and millions of people to vaccinate, finding the best messages to convince people to behave safely and to get vaccinated when they become eligible will be vital to any future return to normal life. Show Me the Science is a production of the Office of Medical Public Affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The goal of this project is to keep you informed and maybe teach you some things that will give you hope. Thank you for tuning in. Im Jim Dryden. Stay safe.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

Read more from the original source:
Podcast: Improving health messaging in fight to slow COVID-19 Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis - Washington University School of...

Human Behavior

New coronavirus variants keep popping up. Here’s what we know about them – WXII The Triad

A variant suspected of helping fuel a surge of coronavirus in Brazil's Amazon region shows up in Minnesota. Another that's been worrying officials in South Africa pops up in two places in South Carolina.Scientists are not surprised to see the coronavirus changing and evolving it's what viruses do, after all. And with so much unchecked spread across the U.S. and other parts of the world, the virus is getting plenty of opportunity to do just that.Four of the new variants are especially worrisome."The variants that have been identified recently seem to spread more easily. They're more transmissible, which can lead to increased number of cases, and increased stress on our already overtaxed system," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing Wednesday.What scientists most fear is that one will mutate to the point that it causes more severe disease, bypasses the ability of tests to detect it or evades the protection provided by vaccination. While some of the new variants appear to have changes that look like they could affect immune response, it's only by a matter of degree.Governments are already reacting. Colombia banned flights from Brazil, and Brazil banned flights from South Africa. It's almost certainly too late to stop the spread, and there's some indication the mutations in these variants are arising independently and in multiple places.Here's what's known about the top four.B.1.1.7At the top of the list for researchers in the U.S. is the B.1.1.7 variant first seen in Britain. The CDC has warned it could worsen the spread of the pandemic. It reports more than 300 cases in 28 states but those are only the cases caught by genomic sequencing, which is hit and miss in the U.S. Although hearing about mutant new viruses can frighten people, scientists say they are reassured by what they have found: The human immune system can handle the variants that have sprung up so far, especially B.1.1.7."As far as we know it is transmitted in exactly the same way," Gregory Armstrong, who directs the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at CDC, told CNN.That means the same measures already known to reduce spread will also stop the new variants: mask use, social distancing, avoiding large groups or crowds and frequent handwashing.However, the mutations in the variant help it enter cells more easily which means if someone, says, breathes in a lungful of air that has virus particles in it, those particles are going to be more likely to infect some cells in the sinuses or lungs rather than bouncing off harmlessly. The worrisome changes enhance the spike protein that the virus uses to attach to cells, meaning people are more likely to become infected by an exposure.So people need to try harder to prevent spread until vaccination can be sped up."In order to interrupt transmission, we are going to need higher rates of what we do to slow transmission," Armstrong said. "We are going to need to pay more attention to wearing masks. And we will need to increase vaccine coverage."There have been some confusing reports about whether B.1.1.7 has caused more severe disease in Britain."The most recent data indicate from the UK that it appears to be a bit more virulent in the sense of potentially causing more serious disease," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told a webcast Thursday sponsored by the National Education Association.B.1.351The variant first seen in South Africa called B.1.351 or 501Y.V2 was reported for the first time in the U.S. Thursday, in South Carolina.The two people lived in different parts of the state and neither had traveled recently, although Dr. Brannon Traxler, the health department's interim public health director, declined to say whether that indicated the variant must be spreading in the community.It's been seen in more than 30 other countries, according to the World Health Organization."The variant which was first detected in South Africa has spread quickly beyond Africa and so what's keeping me awake at night right now is that it's very likely circulating in a number of African countries," Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said Thursday.It has a different pattern of mutations that causes more physical alterations in the structure of the spike protein than B.1.1.7 does. One important mutation, called E484K, appears to affect the receptor binding domain the part of the spike protein most important for attaching to cells.It could help the virus partly escape the effects of vaccines. "There is more concern about immune escape," Armstrong said. Vaccine makers and academic researchers are testing samples of this variant, along with others, to see if it can evade the immune response caused by vaccination.Fauci says even so, there's an extra cushion of immunity caused by vaccination. It gives some wiggle room. "The good news is the vaccines as they exist now still would be effective against the mutants. The sobering news ... as you get more and more replication, you can get more and more of evolution of mutants, which means you always got to be a step ahead of it," Fauci told CNN on Monday.Teams at Columbia University, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University and elsewhere have also been testing lab-made versions of the viral mutations against the blood of vaccinated people and say while there does seem to be a somewhat diminished effect of vaccination, its not enough to weaken protection yet.But Maryland-based vaccine maker Novavax released preliminary results of its coronavirus vaccine Thursday that showed while the vaccine was more than 89% effective in a Phase 3 trial in Britain, a smaller, earlier Phase 2 trial conducted in South Africa while the variant was circulating showed efficacy there was only 60%.Just in case, Pfizer and Moderna say they are working to make booster vaccines that would address mutant versions. The design of the vaccines is meant to make that a quick and easy process just plugging in a new version of the genetic code used to generate the vaccines will do it.There's also evidence the changes may help some escape from monoclonal antibody treatments made by Eli Lilly and Co. and Regeneron, also.P.1A variant suspected of fueling a resurgence of viral spread in Brazil turned up in Minnesota for the first time this week. It was in a traveler from Brazil, so there's no indication yet of community spread.This variant, called P.1, was found in 42% of specimens in one survey done in the Brazilian city of Manaus, and Japanese officials found the variant in four travelers from Brazil."The emergence of this variant raises concerns of a potential increase in transmissibility or propensity for SARS-CoV-2 re-infection of individuals," the CDC said. P.1 also carries the E484K mutation.L425RFinally, there's a new variant seen in California, as well as a dozen other states. "We don't know yet what the significance of that one is," said Armstrong. It also has a mutation in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein. It is called L425R and while it's being found commonly, it's not yet clear if it's more transmissible.Any viral strain can become more common because of what's known as the founder effect. "The founder effect is a matter of a virus being in the right place at the right time," Armstrong said. If a particular strain happens to be circulating when transmission increases because of human behavior, that strain will ride along and become more common not because it spreads more easily, but simply because it was there.It will take more study to show whether these variants can increase the already astronomical spread of the virus. The U.S. has more than 25 million diagnosed cases and more than 430,000 deaths."The emergence of variants underscores the need for public health action," Walensky advised. "First, get vaccinated when it's your turn. Also, some people may need help getting vaccinated please consider helping your neighbors and loved ones schedule or travel to their appointments. Second, wear a mask. Practice social distancing and wash your hands. And finally, now is not the time to travel."

A variant suspected of helping fuel a surge of coronavirus in Brazil's Amazon region shows up in Minnesota. Another that's been worrying officials in South Africa pops up in two places in South Carolina.

Scientists are not surprised to see the coronavirus changing and evolving it's what viruses do, after all. And with so much unchecked spread across the U.S. and other parts of the world, the virus is getting plenty of opportunity to do just that.

Four of the new variants are especially worrisome.

"The variants that have been identified recently seem to spread more easily. They're more transmissible, which can lead to increased number of cases, and increased stress on our already overtaxed system," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing Wednesday.

What scientists most fear is that one will mutate to the point that it causes more severe disease, bypasses the ability of tests to detect it or evades the protection provided by vaccination. While some of the new variants appear to have changes that look like they could affect immune response, it's only by a matter of degree.

Governments are already reacting. Colombia banned flights from Brazil, and Brazil banned flights from South Africa. It's almost certainly too late to stop the spread, and there's some indication the mutations in these variants are arising independently and in multiple places.

Here's what's known about the top four.

At the top of the list for researchers in the U.S. is the B.1.1.7 variant first seen in Britain. The CDC has warned it could worsen the spread of the pandemic. It reports more than 300 cases in 28 states but those are only the cases caught by genomic sequencing, which is hit and miss in the U.S.

Although hearing about mutant new viruses can frighten people, scientists say they are reassured by what they have found: The human immune system can handle the variants that have sprung up so far, especially B.1.1.7.

"As far as we know it is transmitted in exactly the same way," Gregory Armstrong, who directs the Office of Advanced Molecular Detection at CDC, told CNN.

That means the same measures already known to reduce spread will also stop the new variants: mask use, social distancing, avoiding large groups or crowds and frequent handwashing.

However, the mutations in the variant help it enter cells more easily which means if someone, says, breathes in a lungful of air that has virus particles in it, those particles are going to be more likely to infect some cells in the sinuses or lungs rather than bouncing off harmlessly. The worrisome changes enhance the spike protein that the virus uses to attach to cells, meaning people are more likely to become infected by an exposure.

So people need to try harder to prevent spread until vaccination can be sped up.

"In order to interrupt transmission, we are going to need higher rates of what we do to slow transmission," Armstrong said. "We are going to need to pay more attention to wearing masks. And we will need to increase vaccine coverage."

There have been some confusing reports about whether B.1.1.7 has caused more severe disease in Britain.

"The most recent data indicate from the UK that it appears to be a bit more virulent in the sense of potentially causing more serious disease," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci told a webcast Thursday sponsored by the National Education Association.

The variant first seen in South Africa called B.1.351 or 501Y.V2 was reported for the first time in the U.S. Thursday, in South Carolina.

The two people lived in different parts of the state and neither had traveled recently, although Dr. Brannon Traxler, the health department's interim public health director, declined to say whether that indicated the variant must be spreading in the community.

It's been seen in more than 30 other countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"The variant which was first detected in South Africa has spread quickly beyond Africa and so what's keeping me awake at night right now is that it's very likely circulating in a number of African countries," Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said Thursday.

It has a different pattern of mutations that causes more physical alterations in the structure of the spike protein than B.1.1.7 does. One important mutation, called E484K, appears to affect the receptor binding domain the part of the spike protein most important for attaching to cells.

It could help the virus partly escape the effects of vaccines. "There is more concern about immune escape," Armstrong said. Vaccine makers and academic researchers are testing samples of this variant, along with others, to see if it can evade the immune response caused by vaccination.

Fauci says even so, there's an extra cushion of immunity caused by vaccination. It gives some wiggle room. "The good news is the vaccines as they exist now still would be effective against the mutants. The sobering news ... as you get more and more replication, you can get more and more of evolution of mutants, which means you always got to be a step ahead of it," Fauci told CNN on Monday.

Teams at Columbia University, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University and elsewhere have also been testing lab-made versions of the viral mutations against the blood of vaccinated people and say while there does seem to be a somewhat diminished effect of vaccination, its not enough to weaken protection yet.

But Maryland-based vaccine maker Novavax released preliminary results of its coronavirus vaccine Thursday that showed while the vaccine was more than 89% effective in a Phase 3 trial in Britain, a smaller, earlier Phase 2 trial conducted in South Africa while the variant was circulating showed efficacy there was only 60%.

Just in case, Pfizer and Moderna say they are working to make booster vaccines that would address mutant versions. The design of the vaccines is meant to make that a quick and easy process just plugging in a new version of the genetic code used to generate the vaccines will do it.

There's also evidence the changes may help some escape from monoclonal antibody treatments made by Eli Lilly and Co. and Regeneron, also.

A variant suspected of fueling a resurgence of viral spread in Brazil turned up in Minnesota for the first time this week. It was in a traveler from Brazil, so there's no indication yet of community spread.

This variant, called P.1, was found in 42% of specimens in one survey done in the Brazilian city of Manaus, and Japanese officials found the variant in four travelers from Brazil.

"The emergence of this variant raises concerns of a potential increase in transmissibility or propensity for SARS-CoV-2 re-infection of individuals," the CDC said. P.1 also carries the E484K mutation.

Finally, there's a new variant seen in California, as well as a dozen other states. "We don't know yet what the significance of that one is," said Armstrong. It also has a mutation in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein. It is called L425R and while it's being found commonly, it's not yet clear if it's more transmissible.

Any viral strain can become more common because of what's known as the founder effect. "The founder effect is a matter of a virus being in the right place at the right time," Armstrong said. If a particular strain happens to be circulating when transmission increases because of human behavior, that strain will ride along and become more common not because it spreads more easily, but simply because it was there.

It will take more study to show whether these variants can increase the already astronomical spread of the virus. The U.S. has more than 25 million diagnosed cases and more than 430,000 deaths.

"The emergence of variants underscores the need for public health action," Walensky advised.

"First, get vaccinated when it's your turn. Also, some people may need help getting vaccinated please consider helping your neighbors and loved ones schedule or travel to their appointments. Second, wear a mask. Practice social distancing and wash your hands. And finally, now is not the time to travel."

Originally posted here:
New coronavirus variants keep popping up. Here's what we know about them - WXII The Triad

Human Behavior

Sundance Review: All Light, Everywhere Brilliantly Questions the Bonds Between Filmmaking, Perspectives, and Policing Technology – The Film Stage

Seemingly birthed from some kind of virtuosic computer algorithm or beamed directly from outer space, Theo Anthonys debut feature Rat Film was a peculiarly engaging, wholly fascinating documentary. Using the population of rats to chart the history of classism and systemic racism throughout Baltimore over decades, it heralded an original new voice in nonfiction filmmaking. When it comes to his follow-up All Light, Everywhere, Anthony casts a wider focus while still retaining the same unique vision as he explores how technological breakthroughs (and pitfalls) in filmmaking have reverberated throughout history to both embolden and trick our perceptions of perspective. To thread these strands and see its modern-day effects, the majority of the film looks at the engineering behind police body cameras, and the extensive use of those devices and other surveillance equipment to support officers in cases where evidence might otherwise come down to only verbal testimonies.

More sprawling than the clearly delineated sections of Rat Film, All Light, Everywhere is split into three chapters and an epilogue, but its areas of focus are spread throughout the film. We get a executive-guided tour of the company Axon (formerly TASER International, Inc.), who now have the vast market share when it comes to police body cameras; a Baltimore PD training session where participants equip these body cameras; a neuromarketing focus group exploring how people emotionally respond to various forms of media; a look inside a new birds-eye-view surveillance company; and groups of people experiencing the solar eclipse of August 2017. (this is a bit confusing as I cant tell whether youre describing the chapters or just a swath of things seen?) Through all of these contexts, Anthony once again excels at synthesizing immense research, weighty ideas, flashes of the surreal, and the oddities of human behavior into an enlightening, entertaining experience.

Once again employing carefully manipulated voice-over while expanding his use of on-screen text, some of the films most compelling sequences show how early forms of moving pictures were intertwined with military advancement. We see how Pierre Jules Csar Janssens revolver, which originated chronophotography to capture movement, was inspired by the gatling gunan invention that was intended by its creator to reduce bloodshed in the hope of having less human soldiers. During this sectionthe only images of violence in a filmAnthony brilliantly and heartbreakingly shows fields of fallen troops who died because of the advancement in warfare technology. Later in Janssens life, we see how the military then co-opted some of his long-range targeting advancements for ballistic weaponry. Flash forward a century and half later and humanitys interest in technologically perfecting violence has only increasedas evidenced in a boastful taser firing presentation from the Axon spokesman, Steve Tuttle.

Its in these Axon sections that Anthony rather brilliantly subverts ideas of the slick promotional marketing that a guided tour is built to deliver. Leaving in footage that any other documentarian would immediately cut away from, we see Steves awkward dismount after delivering a rousing speech as well as his contradictory statements about how their transparent workplace lets everyone see everything all at onceeven as theres an opaque black box for R&D unsettlingly hovering above. In different editing hands, one could easily see this footage being cleanly packaged for a prime-time news story on the technological skill and economic boom Axon provides. Instead, its rather disturbing to see how such a well-oiled machine mass produces equipment that is meant to exonerate police officers. Anthony also breaks the fourth wall, providing glimpses of awkward explanations for setting up the perfect shot. Its in this repeated shattering of the filmmaking illusion that Anthony invites us into another layer of surveillance: that of his own production. We go behind-the-scenes of set-ups intended to be grand optical illusions; we see the actual on-screen editing system the film is being crafted in; and even in shooting police traininghe focuses on officers talking, taking sips by the water cooler, and their watches. Seeking out these strange anomalies within both societal and documentary norms makes All Light, Everywhere continually fascinating as ideas of perspective are challenged.

These questions of perspective give the film its most woefully timely qualities. We witness how police body cameras are conceived to strictly capture the officers perspectivewere seeing only what happened to them, not what they did. When a crime occurs, officers are then able to make statements after they watch their own body camera video to better fit a new narrative if desired. Due to extensive metadata tracking courtesy of Axon, these recordings are then certified as evidence in court cases, presumably holding more legal sway than a suspect or onlookers cellphone video. With these cameras now becoming mandatory in more and more states, Anthony smartly interrogateswithout ever making a declarative statementif these are the key tools of police reform that citizens should be demanding.

In the most heated section of the film, a resident of a Baltimore community claps back at a man attempting to sell surveillance tools that essentially track every movement that occurs on every street. (Imagine if Google Earth was a live feed and fashioned solely like military drone surveillance.) He lambasts the salesperson for using perpetually high crime levels as bait to trick people into giving up all their rights. With his face blurred in post-production, he then points the finger at Anthony and his crew for being there when they gave him no consent to be filmed. Its a revelatory sequence of confrontation and one that unifies the questions of access, perspective, and technology exploitation throughout All Light, Everywhere. One imagines Steve from Axon may be asking the same question to Anthony after seeing the documentary.

I hesitate to call it a fault, but the only questionable moment of the documentary comes in its epilogue. In crafting a work of reflexive filmmaking, Anthony chooses to follow through with the transparency hes shown thus far to make a decision most directors would never dare to do. Its a bold, unexpected choice, but one that doesnt feel completely satisfyingas if opening this new door would be better served in the form of a complementary short. Nonetheless, All Light, Everywhere is staggering in its expressive yet concise ability to explore a topic as urgent as rampant police violence and excessive surveillance from a strictly technological perspective. Its essential not because it enrages you with a laundry list of CTA items like a more straightforward issues documentary, but because it forces the viewer to question the veracity of everything that crosses their eyes.

All Light, Everywhere premiered at Sundance Film Festival.

Read the original post:
Sundance Review: All Light, Everywhere Brilliantly Questions the Bonds Between Filmmaking, Perspectives, and Policing Technology - The Film Stage