Human Behavior

Bad bot traffic increases, comprising almost one quarter of all website traffic – Help Net Security

Bad bot traffic has increased compared to previous years, comprising almost one quarter (24.1%) of all website traffic and most heavily impacting the financial services industry, according to Imperva.

In 2019, bad bot traffic comprised 24.1% of all website traffic, rising 18.1% from the year prior. Good bot traffic consisted of 13.1% of traffica 25.1% decrease from 2018while 62.8% of all website traffic came from humans.

Every industry has a unique bot problem ranging from account takeover attacks and credential stuffing to content and price scraping. The top 5 industries with the most bad bot traffic include financial services (47.7%), education (45.7%), IT and services (45.1%), marketplaces (39.8%), and government (37.5%).

Advanced persistent bots (APBs) continue to plague websites and often avoid detection by cycling through random IP addresses, entering through anonymous proxies, changing their identities, and mimicking human behavior. In 2019, 73.7% of bad bot traffic was APBs.

Continuing to follow browser popularity trends, bad bots impersonated the Chrome browser 55.4% of the time. The use of data centers reduced again in 2019, accounting for 70% of bad bot trafficdown from 73.6% in 2018.

In 2019, 21.1% of country blocks were Russia, followed closely by China at 19%. Despite this, with most bad bot traffic emanating from data centers, the United States remains the bad bot superpower with 45.9% of attacks coming from the country.

We closely monitor how malicious bots iterate to evade detection and commit a wide range of attacks, and this years findings have revealed the next evolution: Bad Bots as-a-Service, said Kunal Anand, CTO at Imperva.

Bad Bots as-a-Service is an attempt by bot operators to legitimize their role and appeal to organizations facing increased pressure to stay ahead of competition. Its critical that businesses spanning all industries learn which threats are most pervasive in their field and take the necessary steps to protect themselves.

Bad bots interact with applications in the same way a legitimate user would, making them harder to detect and prevent. They enable high-speed abuse, misuse, and attacks on websites, mobile apps, and APIs. They allow bot operators, attackers, unsavory competitors, and fraudsters to perform a wide array of malicious activities.

Such activities include web scraping, competitive data mining, personal and financial data harvesting, brute-force login, digital ad fraud, spam, transaction fraud, and more.

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Bad bot traffic increases, comprising almost one quarter of all website traffic - Help Net Security

Human Behavior

5 takeaways from the Earth Day 2020 town hall | CU Boulder Today – CU Boulder Today

Historic and current student leadership in sustainability at CU Boulder was a prominent theme in the CU Boulder Earth Day 2020 Town Hall. The event, which featured addresses from Congressman Joe Neguse, CU Regent Lesley Smith and leadership from across campus, was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the inaugural Earth Day in 1970.

Fifty years later, we must continue to forge on with the same boldness and decisiveness that this moment requires, urged Neguse, a former CU Boulder student body president.

Remote panelists included Vice Chancellor for Infrastructure and Sustainability David Kang, Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Akirah Bradley and student government leadership and activists. Each shared their recorded answer to the question: Whats next for sustainability, resilience and climate?

Students, your voice has made a difference, said CU Regent Lesley Smith, announcing her addition of two student representatives to the CU System Sustainability and Deferred Maintenance Committee. Its student leaders like you who create change for our campus, our community and at times, the entire globeI hope you remain just as committed to our efforts in sustainability as the students who founded the Environmental Center 50 years ago, Bradley said.

Town Hall moderator and current CUSG Sustainability representative Travis Torline attested to that power.Never before have I had the pleasure of working in an organization that not only gives students the power to lead and succeed, but cares for them [as I do at the Environmental Center].

CU student climate strike organizers Paul Rastrelli, Alex Meldrum, and Leah Dinkin shared an invitation to friendship, camaraderie and mutual love for the earth, that is not going anywhere with fellow students and activists.

Thanks to [students], we are a leader in sustainability across college campuses, noted Bradley.

COVID-19 reminds us that radical human behavior change is possible if were convinced our lives depend on it remarked Associate Professor of Communication Phaedra Pezzullo, which they also are in the case of climate.

In my lifetime I cant recall our country or the world being so severely impacted by a single event: COVID-19, and there are many correlations that can be made with climate change, equity, migration, wildfire, flooding, and disease emergence, said Kang, sharing that what the campus is learning from our response to the novel coronavirus pandemic is being integrated into the 10-year Campus Master Plan update going on now.

Pezzullo defined sustainability as the hard and messy work of caring about all people living economically, financially and socially enriched lives, during the question and answer session, advising we [learn] from communities that have long histories of being resilient in response to these crises. Pezzullo added that the global impacts of climate change are adding a layer of urgency.

While many panelists shared difficult to face facts, hope and solutions were in abundance. The solutions to all of these problems really require all of us as a species to grow, noted Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences Jim White.

I can tell you that we will come out of this together better and stronger, assured Kang as he shared nascent plans to add 15 megawatts of solar capacity to campus and transition the Buff Bus fleet to electric power, among other campus sustainability improvements his office is planning.

Jamie McDevitt-Galles, senior program manager for Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Sustainability Innovation Lab, shared the work of those centers on their Drought Resilience Impact Platform, a technology aimed at ending the cycle of drought emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa.

We talked a lot about the importance of community, which I think comes along with a lot of optimism, Torline summed up afterwards.

Climate change is one of the most urgent and pressing challenges of our time and ignoring the impacts it is having on our lives simply is not an option, said Neguse. Every day that we fail to act increases the cost of addressing this crisis for future generations.

In this role I have heard from staff council, faculty council and student governmenttheyre all on board [with sustainability], Smith said.

When you look at the varied backgrounds of panelists and those who sent pre-recorded videos, it really stands out that this is a campuswide effort, Torline said.

It was awesome to see what people across our campus community have accomplished before the pandemic, but even better was hearing about how our community is practicing activism during the pandemic, to better our planet, said CU Boulder senior Kate LeMair, who tuned in to watch the event.

To view the list of presenters and to access the captioned recording, visit the Campus Sustainability Summit webpage.

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5 takeaways from the Earth Day 2020 town hall | CU Boulder Today - CU Boulder Today

Human Behavior

How will Home Designs Change in the Age of Social Distancing? – Archinect

Home design is due for a transformation in the wake of COVID-19. Image courtesy of Flickr user Peter Alfred Hess.

The nature of many of our professions to conduct business and service in close proximity demands us to be confined to our homes and neighborhoods for indefinite period of time resulting in self-isolation or quarantine. What does this mean to design of homes? How will it upend the traditional meaning of our homes? What are the major social factors that will influence the homes of the future? These are some questions that will have to be addressed by architectural, interior, and landscape designers in the future. For one, our traditional view of home has indeed altered.

Although its been only a few weeks since the enforcement of formal lock-downs in American cities to stem the spread of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), its hard to know how long this new lifestyle will last or whether it alters our way of life for good. In this context, social distancing has become the new norm. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this means avoiding crowded places and maintaining approximately a six foot distance from other people. This new measure has already impacted our behaviors in everyday life. The closure of large scale events such as concerts and political gatherings, as well as buildings that involve high social densities such as workplaces, places of worship, schools, and restaurants, are a direct impact of this measure.

A recent article in The New York Times maps workers who face the greatest COVID-19 risks based on two factors:exposure to diseases and physical proximity. Dentists, barbers and paramedics exhibited high physical proximity, while other professional such as lawyers and loggers were the most distant. The nature of many of our professions to conduct business and service in close proximity demands us to be confined to our homes and neighborhoods for indefinite period of time resulting in self-isolation or quarantine. What does this mean to design of homes? How will it upend the traditional meaning of our homes? What are the major social factors that will influence the homes of the future? These are some questions that will have to be addressed by architectural, interior, and landscape designers in the future. For one, our traditional view of home has indeed altered.

As human beings, we already spend over 90% of our time indoors. The application of social distancing now confines us to even more specific spaces such as our homes and immediate neighborhoods. Carol Despres, an environment behavior researcher observes that traditionally homes provide us with several behavioral affordances such as security and control, development of relationship with family and friends, reflection of oneself, a place of refuge, a signifier of personal status, and a place of ownership. Similarly another researcher, Kim Dovey provides a substantive distinction between house (as an object) and home (as a relationship between the dwellers and dwelling). The latter will absorb most stresses in our immediate future.

Ray Oldenburg in his book The Great Good Place observed that besides home (our first place) and workplace (our second place) there is virtue in third places such as churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, bookstores or parks. With the current situation calling for self-isolation at our homes, will the notion of these places collapse onto each other? In this context, the quick embrace of remote technology is making a difference. Some years ago I had written a paper titled Places in the Virtual-Physical Continuum where I proposed that places are characterized not only by physical features (furniture, window placement) and their corresponding behaviors (eating, sitting, walking), but also virtual behaviors (internet browsing, checking e-mails, tele-conferencing etc.). In speculating about authenticity of such virtual behaviors, some phenomenologists, such as Sherry Turkle, argue that in virtual environments, people are merely "pretending" to be in a "real" place while they sit at their computer screens, much like people pretend to be at a "real" French caf when dining in Disneyland. However, Lori Kendall who has written extensively about online communities counter-argues that much like physical locations, virtual behaviors allow for near instantaneous response from physically distant others, and can provide a particularly vivid sense of place. She notes that while engaged in a virtual behavior, there is still a physical environment in which the body resides and hence the potential of two experiential worlds to co-exist simultaneously.

The advent of COVID-19 and its subsequent effects on our behaviors is indeed blurring these distinctions. While we continue to conduct our regular home behaviors, our homes are also becoming electronic hubs of teleconferencing and social media interaction, with popular apps such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, WhatsApp, Instagram, Netflix, and Facebook to name a few. These electronic tools are expanding our behaviors to afford multi-functional activities which is blending our professional work, education, family life, healthcare, politics and faith. Some of the accommodations that we are already making at our homes include home-schooling, remote work, teleworship, telemedicine, home Yoga, movie watching, virtual parties, and home cooking to name a few. Our living rooms are becoming extended workplaces, and our altered food consuming habits are making the kitchen an extended family space.

These behavior changes might be well-served when seen through studies of the past, particularly conducted by sociologists and environmental psychologists in the 1960s and 1970s through a still-emerging discipline called environment and behavior. Irvin Altman and Robert Sommer, for example, studied human behavior relating to social distancing, privacy, personal space, and territoriality. These studies indicate how human beings create territorial defenses, even in mundane practices such as in defending a table in a cafeteria, or guarding an adjacent empty seat on a bus. Some of the social experiments conducted during this time revealed that increased distances reduced acquaintance, friendliness and talkativeness. It also revealed that an increase in eye contact counteracted these effects. Factors such as personality differences also played a part, with introverts preferring more social distancing than extroverts. Fear of rebuke tended to increase social distance while approval-seeking reduced it.

Social distancing should also be seen in the context of other behaviors such as privacy and personal space. Privacy is the virtue through which people regulate interaction with others by a biological need for personal space and territoriality. Personal space is an area of invisible boundary surrounding a persons body in which intruders may not come in, while territoriality is a specific zone characterized by physical markers or verbal signs. In the current context, the push for social distancing at our homes is creating a pull effect at our homes, altering the degrees of personal space and territoriality. Designer Christopher Alexander in his seminal book on pattern language, pointed out the need for an intimacy gradient, which suggests that as one goes deeper into a house, one finds rooms that provide increasing levels of intimacy, and decreasing level of publicness. While at home, our intimacy levels are much more forgiving, but violations of privacy can be a source of stress even within a close-knit family. It should also be noted that, in these times, there is also a dark side to such home density. According to media reports, of the 20 large Metropolitan cities, double-digit jumps were observed in 9 departments in domestic violence cases compared to previous months. Victims become inadvertently stuck in close proximity with abusers unable to reach out for safety.

While discussing behaviors, one needs to be cautious in overgeneralization, because it omits other variables such as cultural behavior. In his pioneering book House, Form and Culture, Amos Rapaport suggests that environment is shaped by cultural templates, and that cultural codes ( people beliefs, attitudes, roles and activities) need to be decoded in order to understand our built environment. Hence, social distancing factors will be impacted with the type of culture one belongs to. For instance, eastern cultures, function in a more co-operative manner and do not mind close contact, as compared to western counterparts who thrive on personal freedoms and individualism. Similar differences could be said of our attitude of living in varying social densities, urban v/s rural lifestyles, our social etiquettes, age, gender, personality and so on.

While confined in the inside of our homes, our desire to interact with outside becomes even more immediate. In this context, two design features have consistently shown in design literature to improve our well-being: nature and daylighting. A recent report by American Society of Interior Designers have correlated aspects of nature (popularly known as biophilic design), to have an impact on health and well-being, stress reduction, cognitive performance, emotion, mood, and preference. Nature lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and correlates with 8.5 percent shorter hospital stays. Similarly, adequate exposure to daylighting has indicated improvement in circadian system functioning (sleep-wake cycle), and correlates with healthcare patients requesting 22 percent less pain medication.

Another important but perhaps unpredicted effect of COVID-19 on our daily life has been our attitude towards touch, not only between people, but also between people and surfaces. With the recent media blitz on infection control, we are constantly revisiting our sense of washable surfaces in terms of wet mopping, cleaning and hosing. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that coronavirus is detectable for up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. These findings point out that we will have a renewed sense of materials in terms of hygiene and touch.

While the preceding discussion has largely focused on our own traditional forms of home, what would be the impact of social distancing in non-traditional housing types? According to Sherry Ahrentzen, from the University of Floridas Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, some examples of non-traditional housing include transitional shelter for teenage mothers (homes which share a lounge/kitchen), co-housing (homes consisting of shared dining areas, childrens play spaces, neighborhood societies), shared housing (2 or more families living in one unit with shared facilities) and hybrid housing (where residences act as both business and residence). In these facilities, boundaries between private and public spaces are challenged. In addition, what becomes of facilities such as homeless shelters where social stigma is prevalent ? It seems that social distancing will alter our attitudes towards these places even further. These are some challenges designers and policy-makers will have to address in the short and long term.

As environmental psychologists Powell Lawton and Lucille Namehow point out, the more vulnerable we are, the more environment affects us. This means that vulnerable population such as older adults, the sick, children, and persons with physical/mental disabilities will be most affected by the environments we create and live. In the context of COVID-19, these populations might be at most risk in terms of exposure to sickness, infection control, and everyday functioning. Hence, Anne Vernez Moudons description of resiliency becomes critical. Resiliency is the ability of a place to adapt to changing social structures without major disruption to the principles of structure. We need resiliency to counteract the effects of social distancing that will continue to disrupt our traditional ways of living in our homes. In the design of such homes, we might look beyond brick and mortar, by enhancing our resiliency in the form of self- sufficiency (cooking our own meals, growing our own food), tolerance and flexibility to traditional household roles (who cooks?, who gardens?), increased awareness of each others personal space and territoriality, creative use of technology in interacting with others, celebrating lifes little family moments, and a renewed sense that we are all connected, for better or for worse.

PS: An abbreviated version of this article will be featured in Florida International University News Web Forum.

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How will Home Designs Change in the Age of Social Distancing? - Archinect

Human Behavior

Rewriting the definition of 2020 | News, Sports, Jobs – timesobserver.com

Leigh Rovegno is the Executive Director at ACNC.

2020 marks the beginning of a new way forward in more ways than one. Its the beginning of a new decade, one of which that is already filled with many uncertainties. The year is defined by Wikipedia as follows:

The 2020s (pronounced twenty-twenties) is the current decade in the Gregorian calendar, which began on 1 January 2020 and will end on 31 December 2029.

The decade began with the coronavirus pandemic which quickly spread to 210 countries and territories. The pandemic led to severe global socioeconomic disruption, the postponement or cancellation of sporting, religious, political and cultural events, and widespread shortages of supplies exacerbated by panic buying. Due to reduced travel and closures of heavy industry, there was a decrease in air pollution and carbon emissions.

The interesting thing about Wikipedia is that its definitions change with time. This definition is not written in stone. As I read about all of discussions of when and how we will all return to normal once the coronavirus pandemic passes I find myself wondering SHOULD we return to normal, or perhaps instead should we take advantage of this opportunity to create a NEW normal'?

If I were to rewrite the definition of 2020 it would read:

The 2020s, which began on 1 January 2020 and ended on 31 December 2029, was a transitional time for humanity. The decade began with the outbreak of the coronavirus which led to unprecedented socioeconomic disruption. This disruption inspired a significant shift in the human perspective that changed the trajectory of the entire planet.

It was during this time when humans returned to their basic skills and values. They re-learned the once-lost art of growing their own food. They began giving back to their local businesses and communities through volunteerism, financial support, and providing services to those in need. Humanitys appreciation of nature was renewed. An increased determination to protect the environment around them resulted in saving hundreds of plants and animal species from extinction. During this decade, many lives were lost, but many lives were also saved as a result of this greatly transitional time.

We are being presented with an opportunity to change history and to rethink what we value, to reshape our economy and our society based on our values. I wonder, what do you envision as the new normal? What do you want this time to be remembered as? What do you want the future to look like? Now is the time to make those changes. Now is the time to put people and planet first.

Fifty years ago, on April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated. As a result, many environmental habits and laws came into being including the Clean Air and Water Acts and the Endangered Species Act. Fifty years is a long time to see real results, and many of us may have forgotten just how far we have come since then. It is a hard thing to remember when you are ten how the river looked compared to how it looks now. Slow change is very hard to measure, so hard that sometimes we forget that the change has even occurred. The truth is that great strides have been made, but theres still some ways to go.

The changes right now are much faster, because the change in human behavior has been much faster. My wish is that we expand our desire to preserve and protect humanity through this crisis to include the preservation and protection of all species, and of the Earth as a whole. For all those who say We cant make a difference, we ARE making a difference RIGHT NOW. A huge one. The difference is life-changing for so many.

In Belgium, seismologists have reported that their instruments on the Earths surface are able to pick up the subtleties of the planet usually picked up by instruments buried 100 meter under the surface. Noise has fallen 30%, as if there were two people talking and suddenly one stopped. Weather patterns are changing, air quality is improving, people in cities are hearing birds sing that they didnt even know lived in the city. Audubons birdseed is flying off the shelves because people at home are noticing the birds in their backyards, perhaps for the first time, and theyre taking the time to stop and enjoy their incredible beauty.

This moment is a remarkable opportunity. We, as humans, can make a difference in life across the planet. Our daily choices, though influenced now by efforts to contain a pandemic, affect the world.

I hope that when the Wikipedia entry is finalized for 2020, that it tells the story of a people that rose to the challenge, that overcame personal loss, community loss, and global hardship to create a safer, healthier planet for all. That humans became a beneficial part of the natural world, not a collective user and abuser. That they embraced the spirit of the 50th Earth Day Anniversary and bettered the entire planet as they bettered their own cultures.

Now THAT would be the epic start to a new decade.

Leigh Rovegno is the Executive Director at ACNC.

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Rewriting the definition of 2020 | News, Sports, Jobs - timesobserver.com

Human Behavior

How the Use of Tape Helps Visualize Social Distancing Around the World – My Modern Met

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A post shared by Observing Safe Distancing (@tape_measures) on Apr 9, 2020 at 1:03am PDT

Since the coronavirus has forced us to rethink how close we are to each other, businessesand entire citieshave had to get creative about how they impose the six feet apart guideline. A humble roll of tape has proven an effective way to promote these practices, and the Instagram account @tape_measures chronicles how this looks around Singapore. Often, the solutions are simple. By just adhering X on a park bench seat, you know that youve got to find somewhere else to sit.

The use of tape demonstrates its power to curb human behavior as well as its versatility. The most common way in which the material is employed is to deter people from sitting or standing in certain places. But, its also an effective tool for way-finding. There are many instances in which taped arrows and simple hash marks demonstrate how someone needs to proceed in stores and lobbies where maintaining proper physical distancing would be an issue.

Perhaps the most striking thing about @tape_measures is the unintended beauty that it documents. In some of the images, the geometric design elementsmade using tapeadds an unexpected pop of color to an otherwise ordinary place.

Scroll down for some of our favorite rule-abiding designs by @tape_measures and then follow the account for more. You can even submit how you see tape used around where you live, too.

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@tape_measures: Instagramh/t: [Colossal, Kottke]

Cartoonist Reimagines Wheres Waldo in the Age of Social Distancing

Iconic Album Covers Are Reimagined With Social Distancing in Mind

Artist Uses Tape to Turn Flat Surfaces into Fun and Colorful 3D Illusions

Eye-Popping Works of Street Art Made Using Masking Tape

Fitness Trainer Joyfully Leads His Neighbors in a Group Workout During Coronavirus Lockdown

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How the Use of Tape Helps Visualize Social Distancing Around the World - My Modern Met

Human Behavior

Names in the news – Jacksonville Journal Courier

Journal-Courier staff, dbauer@myjournalcourier.com

Kenneth Babyface Edmonds

Kenneth Babyface Edmonds

Kenneth Babyface Edmonds

Kenneth Babyface Edmonds

Babyface-Riley

battle fades out

The much-hyped battle between Kenny Babyface Edmonds and Teddy Riley was derailed by audio issues, forcing the R&B producers to postpone the Instagram Live event.

More than 400,000 tuned in to watch the livestream with Riley and Edmonds. But sound and technical issues plagued the friendly competition. Riley appeared to prepare more for a concert, with a set-up that led to echoing and playback.

The battle had already been postponed from April 12 after Edmonds was diagnosed with COVID-19. The Grammy-winning singer and producer, said last week he and his family who also tested positive were recovering.

After about an hour of troubleshooting Saturday, the 61-year-old singer said they would try again another time.

I think that its only right that we postpone this thing until another time when there arent any technical difficulties, and everybody can hear the music the way it needs to be heard, said Edmonds.

The technical struggles of two legendary producers with a stripped-down Instagram performance spawned widespread mockery and disappointment on social media, including from other quarantined musicians who had tuned in.

Come on its 2020 we aint meant to get what we want, Adele commented.

The digital battle was part of a series dubbed Verzuz organized by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland.

Goodall sees

closings good

Even though the planet has reaped the benefits of a cleaner environment from society shutting down during the coronavirus outbreak, Jane Goodall worries about human behavior resorting back to a business as usual mindset after the pandemic is over.

The famed primatologist wants people to grow wiser and live an enjoyable life without harming the environment and animals that live within it.

We have to learn how to deal with less, said Goodall, who began her lauded career as a pioneering researcher of chimpanzees in Africa more than 50 years ago. Shes worked for decades on conservation, animal welfare and environmental issues.

Goodall has encouraged young people since 1991 to become stewards in their communities through her Roots & Shoots program, which operates in 60 countries. She normally travels 300 days per year to advocate her endeavors, but these days shes been staying busy inside her family home in Bournemouth, England, to practice social distancing. She calls it more exhausting than traveling.

Her new documentary Jane Goodall: The Hope, premieres today on National Geographic and Nat Geo WILD, while streamed on Disney Plus and Hulu. The two-hour documentary focuses on her lauded career of transforming the scope of environmentalism.

Associated Press

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Names in the news - Jacksonville Journal Courier

Human Behavior

2020 was supposed to be the ‘super year for nature.’ What now? – Conservation International

A pandemic has slowed the pace of life. It has not, however, slowed climate breakdown.

Before COVID-19 appeared on anyones radar, world leaders and climate activists declared 2020 a super year for nature", with several global climate conferences set to chart a course for slowing climate breakdown and protecting biodiversity over the next decade.

But most of these conferences have been pushed to 2021, leaving observers wondering: What does a super year for nature look like during a pandemic?

On Earth Day, Conservation International climate experts offer the steps that countries and individuals must take to ensure that postponing climate conferences wont mean postponing action and give reasons for hope amid a time of crisis.

1. Listen to the science

From practicing safe social distancing techniques to developing proper medical treatments, one of the most crucial ways that countries can help curb the spread of COVID-19 is to follow guidelines backed by research, public health experts agree.

The same is true of the climate crisis, said Shyla Raghav, the vice president of climate change Strategy at Conservation International.

We have the science that tells us exactly how we can confront climate change as a global community and we must listen to it.

To help governments determine where to focus their efforts to slow climate change, recent research by Conservation International scientists revealed how much carbon is stored in various ecosystems across the globe and which areas of nature we can least afford to lose.

The scientists identified pockets of irrecoverable carbon vast stores of carbon that are potentially vulnerable to release from human activity and, if lost, could not be restored by 2050. (Why 2050? Its the year by which humans need to reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change).

Irrecoverable carbon spans six of the seven continents, including vast stores in the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Indonesia, northwestern North America, southern Chile, southeastern Australia and New Zealand. These ecosystems contain more than 260 billion tons of irrecoverable carbon, most of which is stored in mangroves, peatlands, old-growth forests and marshes. This amount of carbon is equivalent to 26 years of fossil fuel emissions at current rates.

We are talking about a generations worth of carbon contained in these critical ecosystems, explained Allie Goldstein, a climate scientist at Conservation International and the papers lead author, in a recent interview. The good news is that we now know where this irrecoverable carbon can be found and it is largely within our control to protect it.

And countries dont need to wait for global negotiations to protect these places, according to Raghav.

There is a suite of conservation tools that governments can use to protect this carbon, from establishing or expanding protected areas and national parks, to providing financial incentives for sustainable agriculture, to supporting community conservancies and indigenous peoples' rights over the land they steward.

Not only could conserving these places help avoid climate catastrophe, research shows that protecting nature could also help prevent future pandemics by limiting humanitys exposure to wild animals and the diseases they may carry.

When human activities such as logging and mining disrupt and degrade these ecosystems, animals are forced closer together and are more likely to be stressed or sick, as well as more likely to come into contact with people, said Lee Hannah, an ecologist and senior climate change scientist at Conservation International, in a recent interview.

Fundamentally, we need to reimagine our relationship with nature.

2. Engage local communities and make sure everyones voice is heard

While global climate conferences are put on hold, country governments have an opportunity to build new connections with cities and communities and to look locally for climate action, explained Shyla Raghav, Conservation Internationals vice president of climate change strategy.

Countries and communities have long been divided on how to address climate change. Slowing down has given us a chance to strengthen connections between local communities and governments and start making changes right now.

As individuals self-isolate to curb the spread of COVID-19, many governments are already using technology such as webinars and virtual meetings to continue climate negotiations at both a local and national level. Climate activists are also moving their efforts online and using social media campaigns directed at government offices to push for climate action.

But not every community has equal access to technology, added Maggie Comstock, Conservation Internationals senior director of climate policy.

Technology has the power to connect people worldwide but it is difficult to match the pace of progress achieved through in-person negotiations, Comstock said. Governments must make an extra effort to engage those that might not have access to a full suite of technology, such as indigenous peoples. All voices are important in the fight to stop climate change, and we cant leave any countries or individuals behind.

For indigenous peoples and vulnerable communities worldwide, the impact of COVID-19 is exacerbating existing challenges such as food insecurity and limited access to information, explained Kristen Walker Paneimilla, senior vice president of Conservation Internationals Center for Communities and Conservation.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, countries and organizations must support indigenous and local communities both financially and by recognizing indigenous rights.

3. Take a breath but dont take your foot off the pedal

There is at least one bright side to the postponement of these global climate conferences, according to Raghav.

The brief hiatus gives us time to prepare even more for success when the conferences occur in 2021 and to advocate for more ambitious targets and commitments for countries and sectors to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

While this hiatus offers an opportunity for countries to prepare, Comstock emphasized that world leaders must continue to act on climate policy where they still can.

2020 can still be a year of ambition we cant take our foot off the pedal. Even though most global climate negotiations are postponed, now is the time to accelerate climate action at a national level, said Comstock.

This year, countries are encouraged to update their country-level commitments under the Paris Agreement how each country is supporting efforts to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Countries must find ways to make their emissions reductions goals a reality and increase the ambition, conferences or no conferences.

4. Learn from the worlds response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Experts agree that countries must take similarly rapid and decisive actions to end the climate crisis which could kill approximately as many people as the number of individuals who die of cancer and infectious diseases today if global warming is not limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), research shows.

The silver lining: The worlds response to COVID-19 shows that it is possible for humanity to take action at the scale necessary to stop climate change, Raghav said.

Crises like this pandemic demonstrate the incredible capacity of societies to come together in the face of unprecedented, insurmountable challenges and adapt, she said. This is exactly what we need to tackle climate change.

Additionally, the recent decline in global emissions illustrates that changes in human behavior can show tangible results for climate action even at an individual level.

In the same way that the world is cooperating to slow this pandemic, it is going to take just as much urgency and participation from governments and individuals to slow the rise in global temperature, Comstock said.

If there is one positive thing that people can learn from this pandemic, it is that every single person has a role to play to end global crises.

Kiley Price is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updateshere.Donate to Conservation Internationalhere.

Cover image: The Atlantic Forest in the Brazilian Amazon ( FG Trade)

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2020 was supposed to be the 'super year for nature.' What now? - Conservation International

Human Behavior

12 movies on Netflix that critics think are terrible but audiences cant get enough of – Business Insider

captionSpenser ConfidentialsourceNetflix

Netflix said in its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday that 85 million member households had watched its original movie Spenser Confidential. With a 38% Rotten Tomatoes critic score (and a 56% audience score), its the latest Netflix movie with poor reviews to gain popularity.

Netflix has a history of touting the popularity of some movies that critics hate. But now it doesnt need to say anything for people to notice how popular those movies are. In February, Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its top titles right on the service for all to see (Netflix counts a view if an account watches two minutes of a show or movie, which is how it calculates the lists).

The streaming search engine Reelgood has been providing Business Insider weekly lists of Netflixs most popular movies, based on the streamers daily lists, for the past four weeks. From Spenser Confidential to Coffee and Kareem, its clear that viewers cant get enough of critically panned Netflix movies.

But it goes beyond originals. Licensed titles like M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender and The Roommate, both shunned by critics and audiences upon their initial releases, have appeared on the top lists.

We compiled a list of the most rotten movies to appear on the weekly lists over the last month and ranked them from bad to worst. A movie is rotten on Rotten Tomatoes if it has a critic score below 60%. We broke any ties with audience scores (and 10 of the movies also have rotten audience scores).

Below are are the most popular bad movies on Netflix, according to critics:

Netflix description: When a deadly virus spreads throughout a small town, a team of Army doctors works to contain it before the military can execute an extreme alternative.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 59%

Audience score: 56%

What critics said: The irony is that Outbreak, for all its lurid finesse, ends up leaving us more dazed than terrified. Entertainment Weekly

Netflix description: A detective with a license to kill roams the Old West to wrangle Confederate war criminals and meets a pioneer woman who throws his journey off track.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 43%

Audience score: 51%

What critics said: Badland is ultimately too beholden to the past to be as energized as it should be. Los Angeles Times

Netflix description: After an air traffic controllers mistake results in a tragic accident, a man who lost his wife and daughter seeks answers from the man responsible.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 41%

Audience score: 25%

What critics said: The movie shows little interest in either dramatic context or the realities of human behavior. AV Club

Netflix description: When a flood of natural disasters threatens to destroy the world, a divorced dad desperately attempts to save his family in this doomsday thriller.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39%

Audience score: 47%

What critics said: 2012 is so long, and its special effects are at once so outrageous and so thunderously predictable, that by the time I lurched from the theatre I felt that three years had actually passed and that the apocalypse was due any second. New Yorker

Netflix description: Secret Service agent Mike Banning is caught in the crossfire when hes framed for a deadly attack on the president and forced to run for his life.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 39%

Audience score: 93%

What critics said: If this type of no-brow entertainment is your thing, you may find something to like in Angel Has Fallen but that doesnt mean you need what these guys are reselling. RogerEbert.com

Netflix description: Spenser, an ex-cop and ex-con, teams up with aspiring fighter Hawk to uncover a sinister conspiracy tied to the deaths of two Boston police officers.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 38%

Audience score: 56%

What critics said: There are many things to like about Mark Wahlberg as an actor, but hes not very good when his characters have to put their thinking cap on. Newsday

Netflix description: Different versions of the same day unfold as Jack juggles difficult guests, unbridled chaos and potential romance at his sisters wedding.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 34%

Audience score: 38%

What critics said: At least the Italian scenery and the stranded actors look good. Just dont mistake this charmless, mirthless and shameless ripoff of Four Wedding and a Funeral and Groundhog Day for a comedy with actual laughs. Rolling Stone

Description: Looking to make ends meet, a young single mother paying for college and childcare gets introduced to the fast moneymaking world of stripping.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 31%

Audience score: 85%

What critics said: Rich with colorful dialogue and characters, its sometimes ungainly but never boring, and theres a core of truth in its portrait of exotic dancers. Chicago Sun-Times

Netflix description: Using special powers from a magical mask, a young WWE fan causes chaos when he enters a wrestling competition and fights an intimidating rival.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 25%

Audience score: 34%

What critics said: The Main Event is harmless, sure, but its also completely disposable. By the final 3-count, it has already disappeared. Detroit News

Netflix description: An inept Detroit cop must team up with his girlfriends foul-mouthed young son when their first crack at bonding time uncovers a criminal conspiracy.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 19%

Audience score: 32%

What critics said: A profoundly irritating, cacophonous mess. Tribune News Service

Netflix description: In a world ravaged by the Fire nations aggression toward the peaceful Air, Water and Earth nations, a young boy holds the key to restoring peace.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 5%

Audience score: 30%

What critics said: One is bored and stupefied by what seems like an eternity of vacuous spectacle, cod-Buddhist tosh and clunking dialogue. Time Out

Netflix description: While acclimating to campus life, college freshman Sara begins to realize that her new roommate, Rebecca, is becoming obsessed with her.

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 4%

Audience score: 27%

What critics said: There are some interestingly nasty moments and some chills, but its predictable and derivative. Guardian

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12 movies on Netflix that critics think are terrible but audiences cant get enough of - Business Insider

Immunology

22/04/2020 Could your sex hold the secret to finding a Covid-19 vaccine? – FRANCE 24

Issued on: 22/04/2020 - 11:33

Immunologists racing to find a vaccine are looking at which immune responses are most successful in protecting against disease from the novel coronavirus. Philip Goulder, professor of immunology, Oxford University, says differences in mortality between the sexes, age, and people with pre-existing health conditions, all provide clues.

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22/04/2020 Could your sex hold the secret to finding a Covid-19 vaccine? - FRANCE 24

Immunology

Duke health experts call for patience, testing, improved federal coordination in pandemic battle – ncpolicywatch.com

Image: Adobe Stock

Sudden reopening would jeopardize progress made thus far

This is Day 50. It feels like Day 500.

A new coronavirus, which technically isnt even alive, has outwitted us. The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed the state and the nation, vanquished our economy and killed 40,000 people in the U.S. including 235 in North Carolina and another 131,000 worldwide, all of whom were loved by someone.

How do we gain the upper hand over an invisible pathogen that moves stealthily and with no regard for its target?

On April 21, three doctors affiliated with Duke University discussed the prospects for reopening the nation, the inconsistent federal response, and clarified the nuances of testing, both for coronavirus antibodies and active COVID-19 infections. The conversation was held via videoconference with the media.

Dr. Michael Dee Gunn is an immunology professor at the Duke University School of Medicine. From a medical perspective, people advocating a premature opening of the economy, Gunn said, are advocating that every person in this country become infected with coronavirus.

Reopeners are primarily far-right conservatives inspired by the likes of Infowarss Alex Jones and other discredited conspiracy theorists. They have staged numerous demonstrations nationwide to protest not only states stay-at-home orders but also science.

Yet the publics impatience is expected. No one has shown them the light at the end of the tunnel, Gunn said. It would be very beneficial if at the federal level someone said, This is the schedule were on, and give people an expectation to work with. As it is now, [the message] changes every day. No wonder everyone is frustrated.

The Trump administration has whipsawed the public with conflicting messages that are driven by politics, not science. Even though he had been briefed to the contrary months earlier, President Trump said in early March that the virus was no worse than the flu, and would soon disappear. Instead of disappearing, over the next six weeks 40,000 people in the U.S. died and in the hardest-hit areas, the entire medical system was overwhelmed with cases.

Despite the presidents assurances that plenty of testing and medical equipment were available, there have been severe shortages of both, resulting in a Lord of the Flies-like competition among states for ventilators, masks and protective gowns.

The sideshow continued in late March, when Trump said the country would open by Easter. Then under pressure from public health officials, Trump postponed the date until May 1, which experts said was still too soon. Shortly afterward, Trump said he had total authority to reopen the country, an assertion that has no constitutional basis. Then he backtracked, and put the onus on state governors to decide how to lift their stay-at-home orders.

But Trump soon undermined the states efforts; within a day via Twitter he incited demonstrations against the governors in several states where stay-at-home orders are in place: Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.

Like a virus, those demonstrations spread to other states, including North Carolina. U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop of the ninth congressional district and State Sen. Vickie Sawyer, both Republicans, are among the elected officials who attended the protests. Gov. Roy Cooper has said as long as protesters remain six feet apart the standard recommendation for social distancing the demonstrations are allowed.

Dr. Thomas Denny, chief operating officer of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, said the country should be reopened gradually or risk higher rates of infection and death. Im concerned that in this rush were forgetting everything weve learned, Denny said.

I know there are a lot of people who have lost their jobs. They may be motivated by that, and I understand, but we need to address the economics on a national level and take this slower. There could be rings of containment and rings of loosening, based on health data, Denny said.

While the reopeners are seizing their moment in the spotlight, most people in America are quietly and nervously trying to avoid becoming infected. A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that of 1,013 people surveyed, with 57% saying they are very or somewhat worried about becoming infected and seriously ill from the coronavirus. Multiple polls have found that Americans are more worried about reopening the economy too quickly than too slowly.

What the federal government needs to do right now is to come up with a coherent plan, Gunn said. The American people are willing to sacrifice for the common good. The government needs to say, Were asking you to buy into it. Thats who were going to get control of this virus.

Testing free-for-all must be reined in, better coordinated

Gaining control of the coronavirus will require widespread testing: One type to determine if someone has an active infection and should be treated and isolated; another to detect antibodies in the blood, which indicate the person has been infected at some point in the past.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially shipped thousands of flawed test kits that had been made in a contaminated lab. Subsequently the FDA fast-tracked millions of antibody testing kits some that had never been verified to county health departments, only to learn later that many of them were faulty.

Its been a free-for-all, Gunn said. Every company that could put out a test, did. Theres not been the quality control that this needs. We need a national coordination.

Test kits, enzymes, chemicals, reagents, protective gear for health care workers administering the tests: All of these must be manufactured en masse, quickly but precisely.

Its a complicated test, Gunn said. Its not instant. We need to develop tests that are sensitive enough so that we have rapid results like pregnancy tests.

Once reliable antibody tests are available, first responders and health workers should be the first to receive them, Denny said. Hopefully if we have another surge well have a better understanding of the risk those individuals have.

Its nearly certain that even in states where the number of reported cases is declining, there will be another surge in the fall or sooner, depending on how quickly the stay-at-home orders are lifted.

A robust tracking system, including painstakingly tracing an infected persons contacts could help contain smaller outbreaks, Gunn said. Its like a forest fire. Once its under control, its a matter of managing the hotspots.

And there will be hotspots. Since the virus is new, scientists dont yet fully understand how it behaves. For example, simply having antibodies for the virus doesnt mean you are immune to it, Gunn said.

And after people recover, its unclear who is immune and how long people shed the virus. What risk that poses is not well understood, said Dr. Chris Woods, co-director of the Center for Global Health at Duke University and chief of the infectious diseases division Durham VA Medical Center. Were still learning a lot about how its transmitted, and whether or not there is a change in the virus that makes it more transmissible or more or less virulent over time.

An estimated 7,000 people in North Carolina have tested positive for COVID-19. That is likely an undercount because of the testing shortage. Moreover, many people with mild or moderate symptoms dont go to the doctor so their cases arent counted. But even if 1 million North Carolinians have had the disease in some form, thats still only 10% of the state population. That means 90% of North Carolinians would be vulnerable.

We need to understand the background rate of immunity, Woods said. Without the benefit of herd immunity which occurs when large numbers of people have become immune to the disease and provide indirect protection for people who havent yet had it we would expect periodic outbreaks of disease but we would have public health tools to contain it.

While the federal government, especially the CDC, which has been nearly invisible throughout the crisis, needs to provide funding and technical support, the burden of containment will likely fall to the states and county health departments.

It will be costly and it will take a lot of people to execute these plans, Denny said. The local health departments are very important to identify who are most at risk like low-income people, who typically see more health problems and then work out a plan. Its going to take time.

This story has been corrected to show that 7,000 people in North Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus.

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Duke health experts call for patience, testing, improved federal coordination in pandemic battle - ncpolicywatch.com