Human Behavior

Sexual Development and Human Behavior – Explorable.com

Sexual Development

The activity of the sex-determining gene situated at the Y chromosomes short arm influences the sexual development of a zygote (fertilized egg), into becoming a male or a female. Embryonic sexual development begins at 6 weeks, when primordial reproductive structures are formed. Two different systems are involved in the early development of sexual reproductive structures. Male reproductive structures are formed through the Wollfian system, whereas female reproductive structures originate from the Mullerian system. The sex-determining gene in males produces the testis-determining factor (TDF). As TDF is absent in female embryos, their gonads become ovaries, followed by the maturation of the Mullerian system. In males, the undifferentiated gonads develop into testes, which release testosterone that leads to the development of male external organs and also produce a substance that inhibits the Mullerian system.

Males and females have several differences when it comes to sexual response. In males, arousal comes during the excitement phase. In the plateau phase, sexual arousal becomes intensified. Afterwards, male orgasm follows, which includes two phases (1) contraction of the vas deferens, seminal vesicles and prostate gland, and (2) rhythmical contraction of the urethra and penis). Then, the resolution phase occurs, when the male goes back to his non-aroused state with period/s of non-response. Females also experience excitement and plateau phase. During orgasm, there is rhythmic contraction of female genital organs. While most males experience a maximum of four orgasms per sexual activity, females may have multiple orgasms. When a female experiences the resolution phase, she does not experience any refractory period. Succeeding orgasms in females tend to be stronger than the initial orgasm, and thus the sexual activity becomes more pleasurable for them even after the male becomes non-responsive due to his refractory period.

Human sexual behaviors across the lifespan are comprehensively explained by the famous theorist Sigmund Freud in his Psychosexual Development Theory.

In males, sexual behavior starts with the state of arousal, which is produced by increased levels of the hormone testosterone. When a male is castrated, testosterone is lost, leaving him with an inability to have sexual arousal. In females, sexual arousal and behavior are significantly influenced by estrogen levels. Studies show that the increase in female sexual activity occurs between the end of a menstrual cycle and period of ovulation, as well as before menstruation begins.

The hypothalamus indirectly stimulates the production and secretion of the male hormone testosterone. In addition, medial preoptic area elicits male sexual behavior. Directly connected to this area is the medial amydaloid nucleus, which receives information from the olfactory bulbs tasked to detect the pheromones secreted by a receptive female. In response, the cerebral cortex sends signals to initiate motor responses during sexual activity.

In females, the ventromedial part of the hypothalamus stimulates the release of estrogen. Female-typical sexual behavior is associated to the medial preoptic area similar to but smaller than that of the males.

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Sexual Development and Human Behavior - Explorable.com

Human Behavior

The BernieBro myth persists because pundits don’t understand how the internet works – Salon

The nature of punditry makes it hard to tell which myths media personalities earnestly believe in, and which they perpetuate in bad faith. Consider the "welfare queen," a villainous trope popularized by Ronald Reagan in stump speeches in the 1970s, and which never actually existed. Despite being a clear fiction, the idea wastantalizingboth to politicians and pundits, and hence the welfare queen became embedded in culture. Pundits and politicians today still invoke the racist caricature, often through dog-whistles.

Why do some myths persist, or remain uncorrected by the media, while others dissipate? The short answer seems to be that when they serve a media narrative, or play on existing stereotypes, they grow to possessa power that goes beyond fact or truth.To this list of indefatigable myths, one mightadd the pernicious "BernieBro" so ubiquitousa conceptthat it has its own Wikipedia article. The self-explanatory neologism was coined by Robinson Meyer in an Atlantic article in 2015 before being distorted by the Twittersphere and the punditry something that Meyer later came to regret, as he felt the term he reified suffered from "semantic drift."

But that was fiveyears ago, before we had as much data on Sanders' support base which, as it turns out, should be sufficient to debunk the stereotypethat Sanders' support base consists entirely ofa mythic tribe of entitled, pushy young millennial men.To wit:young women make up more of Sanders' base than men. He polls especially high with Hispanic voters, far more so than with white voters;Hispanic voters also donated more money to him than any other Democratic candidate. Polls consistently show that nonwhite voters prefer him over the other candidates. Notably, the demographic group that likes Sanders the least is white men.

Moreover, of all the candidates, Sanders has taken in the most money from women. Many of Sanders' female supporters bemoan how they are ignored by the mainstream press."The 'Bernie Bro' narrative is endlessly galling because it erases the women who make up his base," writer Caitlin PenzeyMoog opined on Twitter. "To paint this picture of sexism is to paint over the millions of women who support Sanders. Do you see how f**ked up that is?"

And yet. Even with all this demographic data on Bernie Sanders' support base, manyintelligent pundits and politicians persist with the myth. How do they justify it? They just know, apparently. But specifically, they feel it on Twitter.

Just one week ago, New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens published a column with the headline "Bernie's Angry Bros." The column did not contain a shred of the aforementioned demographic data about Sanders' support base, but rather was driven by a series of anecdotes supposedly proving his point about the irascible fans of the Vermont senator. Stephens' main evidence, aside fromsocial media anecdotes, was a story aboutSanders supporters getting angry during or after the 2016 Nevada caucuses, believing they hadbeenrigged against their candidate. (The idea that people might grow angry at being disenfranchised is horrifying to Stephens, probably because he is a well-insulatedupper-middle class pundit for whom political decisions have no real material impact on his life unlike the people in Nevada he disparages.)

The Daily Dot has a long featurelistingpundits whohave helped perpetuate the BernieBro narrative long after demographics showed his support base to be a multiracial, working-class coalition. Hillary Clinton apparentlystill believes that Sanders is tailed by a horde of "online Bernie Bros" who issue "relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women," as she said in a Hollywood Reporter interviewjust last month.

What could compel otherwiseintelligent people to perpetuate a false and harmful narrative that essentializes Sanders supporters and erases their real and diverse identities?

Again, the answer to that is Twitter. Specifically, how Twitter is understood by journalists and pundits, and how it is wielded by angry people online.

The skewed demographics of Twitter

Twitter, unfortunately, informs the worldview of many of the country's most elite pundits, and some of its politicians too. Opinion columnists like David Brooks and Bret Stephens (both of the New York Times) are excellent examples of pundits who, at various times, seem to see the world as refracted through the bluebird's drinking glass.

The problem is, Twitter is very much not a representative sample of the world. It is not a zeitgeist; it is not a cross-section of the population.

It is hard to understand this, even for very smart people, because the corporation that runs Twitter tries very hard to make it seem like Twitter is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of every cultural and political conversation.

But it is not true. However, the eponymous corporation behind Twitter profits from this perception of its platform as a zeitgeist. After all, the president is on it! Still, Twitter (the company) promotes this narrative of itself as where the conversation lives. They make money off of the lie that it is a representative cross-section of the world's opinions and thoughts.

But a study of Twitter demographics say otherwise.

Pew Research polls from 2019 found that about 22% of the US population is on Twitter, and 44% of users are in the 18-24 age range. Linger on that for a second: a substantial proportion of the people getting in Bret Stephens' mentions and making him upset may be scarcely older than children. Interestingly, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine apundit with whom I rarely agree is on the mark here.

"It is hard to exaggerate the degree to which the platform shapes the minds of professional political observers," he wrote in a recent column."Part of Twitter's allure to insiders is that it creates a simulacrum of the real world, complete with candidates, activists, and pundits all responding to events in real time. Because Twitter superficially resembles the outside world's political debate it does, after all, contain the full left-to-right spectrum it is easy to mistake it for the real thing."

Here's another stat from Pew that helps explain why Twitter is non-representative, a fount of professional-managerial class opinions: Thirty-one percentof Twitter users in the U.S. make more than $75,000, though only 23% of the country makes that much money. Likewise, 20% of U.S. Twitter users make less than $30,000, though about 28% of the country makes that much. The social media site is skewed towards wealthier Americans.

It's too badthere aren't as many statistics aboutwho is active on the site. I've often suspected that people with white-collar office jobs and higher incomes (and thus more leisure time or computer time) are more steady tweeters, while those with manual labor jobs are not constantly perusing feeds and inserting themselves into the commentariat.

Angry people and angry brands

But the demographicsof Twitter'suser base only say so much about the site'sdistorted commentariat. There's also the question of how people behave online, and why they behave so differently than they do in real life. There is a psychological reason why even very nice people are more likely to behave like assholes online. It is called the online disinhibition effect, and it is a big source of misery from pundits who do not understand it. The combination of three factors the anonymity and pseudonymity of being online, the lack of accountability, and the indirect nature of online communications make it so that online communication is dehumanizing, and often cruel.

Demographics and "real" users aside, Twitter like most social media sites has a huge number of accounts that aren't even individuals. A great deal of Twitter users are instead are brands, spam accounts or botswho behave likeactual people.

Because of this, getting in arguments with "people" on Twitter or even just seeing Twitter as the so-called public sphere is akin to arguing politics with a clown in a funhouse mirror. It is so heavily distorted by corporate PR and marketing, by the way that people behave differently online, and even by powerful bad actors (whether state or individual) who can wield Twitter armies quickly and easily as to be effectively useless as any sort of gauge of public opinion. It is a terrible place to gauge human behavior, or make broad pronouncements of what humans are like. And it's an even worse place to get a sense of a politician's support base.

I have a modest proposal for my peers in the journalism world: I would like to propose that anyone writing about a Twitter "mob" of any political ilk be required to include the previous paragraph in an asterisk at the bottom of their story. We should all be forced to include a disclaimer to clarify that it is impossible to make any kind of quantitative assessment of human behavior on Twitter because of how deeply skewed it all is by hackers, PR professionals, paid influencers, intentional government or corporate misinformation campaigns, and the way the online disinhibition effect makes people act.

The reactionary mind at work

After reading all this, someonewith a personal story of a (purported) Sanders supporter being cruel to them online might still object. The Bernie Bro is real! This anecdote proves it.

But to say "a single candidate'sfollower was mean, therefore I don't support this candidate's policies regardless of their actual political implications," is a rhetorical fallacy. There are definitely individual assholes out there. Likewise, assholes can believe in good causes, andnice people can support terrible causes. It is a reactionary mistake to oppose a candidate who represents a set of specific political positions poised to help or harm different social classes on the basis of another's individual behavior.

That means that the normalization of the BernieBro also diminishes the experience of those who are bullied by other candidates' supporters. A video went around of an ElizabethWarren supporter accosting two Sanders fans at the Iowa caucus; yet it didn't get a lot of play because it didn't reinforce existing stereotypes that we have about Warren's supporters. Plentyof stories aboutonline bullying by other candidates'supporters are ignoredbecause we lack a comparable stereotype to bundle them.

It would be one thing if Bernie Sanders or any popular politician told their supporters to be angry and menacing and threatening online, and then that behavior was reified on Twitter and in real life. But that has not happened withSanders, nor with anyone else amongthe current crop of Democrats. You cannot draw a line from Sanders' rhetoric to any of the stereotypes of BernieBros, because his rhetoric and voting records speaks to him being an egalitarian, a civil rights advocateand a compassionate progressive voice.

Link:
The BernieBro myth persists because pundits don't understand how the internet works - Salon

Human Behavior

Learn How to Become a Therapist – The Good Men Project

If youre interested in the world of mental health, you may be intrigued about becoming a therapist. When you want to help people, being a mental health professional a great profession. Theres a difference between a therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist, all of which are essential players in the world of mental health care. A therapist is someone who works with people or groups and helps them maintain stable mental health. Its not as easy as being a good listener or having an empathetic nature; becoming a therapist is hard work. There are steps involved in being a therapist that allows them to help others as a mental health professional.

You might be wondering how to become a therapist? First, you need to get training in the mental health field. Therapists attend college and study psychology and human behavior. Its not just about reading books; its about the want to learn about how human beings tick. You can have all the education you want, but you have to be passionate about helping others. Before going into university, youll have to complete high school or receive a GED and look into undergraduate psychology programs at universities that youd like to attend. After completing your undergraduate education, youll probably go into graduate school. When youre in undergraduate courses, you must choose which specialty youd like to go into so that you can prepare yourself for your graduate program and supervised training.

Maybe, you want to work with children, or perhaps youre interested in adult psychiatry. Some would like to become marriage and family counselors. When youre studying for your undergraduate degree, its good to think about the population youd like to help. You might take a variety of psychology courses to see what resonates the most with you to help you figure out who you want to work with in the future and what kind of psychology interests you the most. You might not know precisely what kind of therapist you want to be or what type of therapy you want to practice, but undergraduate is a great time to explore and start thinking about what you want to do.

After youve graduated from undergraduate and graduate school, you need to apply for licensing in the state youd like to practice in. You need to complete a number of supervised hours under the eye of someone who is seasoned in the field and has extensive clinical experience. Depending on the state that youre pursuing a license to practice in, the number of hours of supervised training that you have to complete will differ. Its essential to have a supervisor watching you and to take advantage of the time you take to pursue your license because they can provide insight into ways that you can improve your skills.

Do not underestimate the process of networking when you become a therapist. You want to talk to other professionals, make connections within the field, and get the invaluable insight that other mental health professionals have to offer. You can learn all you want by reading books about psychology, but talking to people who have been in the thick of it is extremely important.

Its crucial to practice self-care when youre a therapist. You need to take care of yourself first, like the old saying, put on your oxygen mask before you take care of others. When youre not treating others, its vital to take time to do things that you enjoy. Spend time with friends, go to the movies, go outside, or anything else that brings you joy and clears your mind. You dont have to be a therapist for everyone that comes into your life. Theyre not paying you, and you dont have to maintain the mental health of anyone but yourself and your clients. Your clients are your clients, and your friends are your friends. Part of becoming a therapist is learning firm boundaries, and knowing that you cant be your loved ones therapist, you can be there to support them. If they need mental health treatment, they must seek it from another mental health professional who is an unbiased party.

Therapists deserve to maintain mental stability, like anyone else. Part of being a good therapist is being able to receive therapy yourself when you need it. You need someone to express your thoughts and feelings, and one way to do that is to enter online therapy. Online therapy is an excellent place to express your thoughts and feelings and gain the support that you need.

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Learn How to Become a Therapist - The Good Men Project

Human Behavior

Sex Pheromone Alters Brain Circuitry to Drive Both Innate and Learned Sexual Behaviors – SciTechDaily

Medial amygdala nNOS neurons activated by darcin. Neurons are in blue, neurons activated by darcin are in orange. Credit: Ebru Demir/Axel lab/Columbias Zuckerman Institute

The infamously aloof Mr. Darcy had a hard time attracting members of the opposite sex in Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice. But the same cannot be said for a sex pheromone named for him, called darcin. In a new study, a Columbia University-led team of researchers has now uncovered the process by which this protein takes hold in the brains of female mice, giving cells in the brains emotion center the power to assess the mouses sexual readiness and help her select a mate.

These findings, published in the February 6, 2020 issue of Nature, illustrate the power of a single protein to change the brain and drive behavior. They also demonstrate how a cluster of cells in one brain area integrates information from the outside world with the animals own internal state.

Pheromones act as powerful scent messages to signal the presence of danger, food or prospective mates, said Ebru Demir, Ph.D., the papers first author. With todays study, weve mapped the route that the pheromone darcin takes from the nose to the brain, bringing much-needed understanding to the mechanisms by which animals use scents to communicate, added Dr. Demir, who is an associate research scientist in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Richard Axel, MD, at Columbias Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.

While the existence of pheromones in humans is controversial, rodents and many other animals rely on pheromones as a way to signal everything from potential danger to a willingness to mate.

Darcin is one such pheromone, discovered in 2010 by Robert Beynon, Ph.D., and Jane Hurst, Ph.D., and their team at the University of Liverpool. Dr. Hurst and her colleagues found that male mice release darcin in their urine to mark their territory and to initiate courtship displays. Sniffing a males darcin helps a female to both identify him and decide whether to mate with him. This entire process is initiated in a biologically unusual way.

Normally, mice make sense of odors using olfactory receptors in the nose. These specialized proteins send information about a scent to a designated location in the brain for further processing. Dr. Axel, who is codirector at Columbias Zuckerman Institute, received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Linda Buck, Ph.D., for their work identifying the genes that encode these receptors.

Pheromones, such as darcin, are processed somewhat differently. They interact with a second, parallel olfactory system, which exists in animals like mice but not in people.

Unlike people, mice have essentially two functional noses, said Dr. Demir. The first nose works like ours: processing scents such as the stinky odor particles found in urine. But a second system, called the vomernasal nose, evolved specifically to perceive pheromones like darcin.

For todays study, the research team, which also included Dr. Hurst, Dr. Beynon and co-senior author Adam Kepecs, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first exposed female mice to darcin-scented urine and monitored their behavior. Nearly all of the female mice showed an immediate attraction to darcin. Then, after about 50 minutes, some females began leaving their own urinary scent markings. They also started to sing, at ultrasonic frequencies too high for the human ear to hear. Both of these behaviors are an indicator of increased sexual drive.

Not all females performed these displays. Lactating mothers, for example, appeared to largely ignore the darcin-scented areas after an initial sniff of interest.

The reason for this difference, the scientists proposed, may lie in a brain region called the medial amygdala. The research team identified a subset of brain cells, or neurons, in this brain area, called nNOS neurons, that switched on in the presence of darcin.

By artificially activating those neurons, we could simulate the animals response to darcin and elicit the same behaviors, said Dr. Demir. When we silenced these neurons, the animal lost interest in darcin entirely.

The neurons location in the medial amygdala was particularly intriguing. This brain area is generally associated with hardwired emotional responses, such as fear or anger. In the case of the darcin pheromone, though, the medial amygdala may serve another role.

Our results suggest that nNOS neurons in the medial amygdala do not simply pass along information about darcin, said Dr. Demir. These neurons seem to be integrating sensory information about the pheromone with the internal state of the animal, such as whether she is a lactating mother and therefore not interested in mating.

Going forward, the research team plans to delve deeper into the neural circuitry that responds to pheromones and how changes to that circuitry drive behavior. They also hope their findings will serve to update how pheromones are defined.

Pheromones have long been associated with an innate, immediate behavioral response, but here we have shown that darcin can elicit complex behaviors that are dependent on the internal state of the animal, said Dr. Demir. As we continue our investigations, its possible that other pheromones may also act on the brain in similarly unexpected and complex ways.

This paper is titled The pheromone darcin drives a circuit for innate and reinforced behaviours. Additional contributors include Kenneth Li, Natasha Bobrowski-Khoury and Joshua Sanders, PhD.

Reference: The pheromone darcin drives a circuit for innate and reinforced behaviours by Ebru Demir, Kenneth Li, Natasha Bobrowski-Khoury, Joshua I. Sanders, Robert J. Beynon, Jane L. Hurst, Adam Kepecs and Richard Axel, 29 January 2020, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-1967-8

This research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Robert E. Leet and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust Fellowship.

The authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest.

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Sex Pheromone Alters Brain Circuitry to Drive Both Innate and Learned Sexual Behaviors - SciTechDaily

Human Behavior

Our cities are getting too loud and those rising decibel levels are more than just a nuisance – The National

Saturday morning, my favourite cartoons on the TV and a bowl of sugary breakfast cereal on my lap. Life didn't get much sweeter for seven-year-old me. However, this tranquil oasis would shatter with the flick of the vacuum cleaner switch as my mother left no corner of the rug unclean. This was my earliest experience with noise pollution.

A global public health concern, noise pollution is defined as harmful or annoying levels of noise, with a detrimental impact on human or animal activity.

After crunching the numbers, the research team concluded that high levels of noise doubled the risk of depression and anxiety in the general population

While the disruption of my cartoon-watching was justified by the pursuit of clean carpets, there are frequent occasions where the ends do not justify the noise. A TV show disrupted is a minor inconvenience but there are situations where the level of noise pollution disrupts lives and ruins health.

This growing public health concern is linked to a range of problems, from hearing impairment and sleep disturbance to hypertension and heart disease. A report by the European Environmental Agency estimated that around 125 million Europeans, 40 per cent of the population, are regularly exposed to noise levels above 55 decibels. This is the point at which prolonged noise is potentially damaging to health. The EEA goes on to suggest that around 900 thousand cases of high blood pressure, hypertension and 43 thousand hospital admissions a year are because of noise pollution.

Beyond physical health complaints, a German study also found a link between noise pollution, depression and anxiety. The study published in the scientific journal PLOS One in 2016 included data for over 15,000 people and looked at a range of noise sources, from road and air traffic to noisy industry and loud neighbours.

After crunching the numbers, the research team concluded that high levels of noise doubled the risk of depression and anxiety in the general population. The World Health Organisation also acknowledged this link, suggesting that over long periods, noise pollution has a detrimental influence on wellbeing and perceived quality of life.

As the number of cars has increased, along with other noise-producing machines, so our cities, decade on decade, have become louder. This increase in volume can be quantified in decibels and is evident in hearing loss among city residents.

An ongoing study by Mimi Hearing Technologies, a company for digital hearing tests, has resulted in the development of the World Hearing Index. This study of hearing impairment has collected data from over 200,000 participants worldwide, using an app called Mimi that allows people to conduct a medically certified hearing assessment on their smartphones.

The findings suggest that hearing impairment is strongly related to a citys noise. People living in places with more noise pollution tend to experience more significant hearing loss. The residents of Delhi have the highest rates of hearing loss, while the residents of Vienna have the lowest. Zurich, Switzerland has the lowest levels of noise pollution, while Guangzhou, China has the highest.

Social media data is also telling and yet another way to explore how bothered people are by noise. It is clich to say that people frequently "take to Twitter to vent their outrage". This can be outrage about many things, and noise annoyance is no exception.

Our research team at Zayed University recently began looking at a sample of the UAE's Twitter data of 8 million tweets as a way of exploring the global public health concern about noise pollution. Along with our collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we developed an algorithm to identify and categorise noise complaints, pinpointing their exact location. We found all the usual categories of noise annoyance complaints being voiced in the Twitter data, from construction and traffic to noisy neighbours. The findings of this preliminary research will be published later this month in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

Being able to see the time and location of noise annoyance complaints is essential. In future, social media could be used, along with more traditional methods, to help identify noise annoyance hotspots. Accurately identifying such problematic times and places is an excellent first step in addressing the issue.

Noise is a global public health problem that we cant ignore. Electric cars will go some way to reduce traffic noise. Another solution is to plant more greenery. One of the many benefits of trees is their efficacy in absorbing sound. They can reduce noise in their immediate vicinity by between five and 10 decibels.

Given that we have chased silence from our cities, this is one way to invite quiet back in.

Justin Thomas is a psychology professor at Zayed University

Updated: February 9, 2020 06:09 PM

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Our cities are getting too loud and those rising decibel levels are more than just a nuisance - The National

Human Behavior

Vienna Blood Exclusive Clip Sees Jessica De Gouw Seeking to End Relationship with Matthew Beard – Shockya.com

Actress Jessica De Gouw and actor Matthew Beard star in the PBS crime mystery drama, The Lost Child.

Instantly honest relationships can often begin intensely, but ultimately, the connections dont always last forever. Thats certainly the case for Max Liebermann and Amelia Lydgate, the characters played by Matthew Beard and Jessica De Gouw, in the crime drama, Vienna Blood. In honor of the series second mystery, The Queen of the Night, concluding on PBS tonight, February 9 at 10pm, ShockYa is premiering an exclusive clip from the episode.

In the clip, which is titled Saying Goodbye, Amelia tells Max that she values the immediate ease they developed with each other when they first met, and appreciates that they could always be truthful with each other. But she now feels that their case has been solved, they should end their relationship.

Vienna Blood follows Max (Beard), a young Englishman and student of Sigmund Freud, who teams up with Oskar (Juergen Maurer), an Austrian police detective, to solve the most horrific of crimes in turn-of-the-century Vienna. In The Queen of the Night, Oskar asks Max to help investigate a grotesque series of murders in Viennas slums.

The overall show chronicles how in the first decade of the 1900s, Vienna is a hotbed of philosophy, science and art, where cultures and ideas are espoused in the citys grand cafes and opera houses. Yet beneath the genteel glamour, nationalism and anti-Semitism are on the rise. Max is a brilliant young English-born Jewish student of the controversial psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Eager to study actual criminal activity, he is paired with the skeptical Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt, who is struggling to solve a series of particularly gruesome murders. Between Maxs extraordinary understanding of human behavior and deviance, and Oscars practical experience, the two become an unlikely detective duo, called on to solve Viennas most baffling cases.

The Queen of the Night (Part 2) follows Max and Oskar as their latest investigation draws them into the sphere of nationalistic groups who despise Viennas immigrants. Meanwhile, Maxs fiance is provoked into taking daring risks before the murderers shocking rationale is finally revealed.

The thrilling new murder mystery show was penned by acclaimed screenwriter, Steve Thompson, and is based on the best-selling novels by Frank Tallis. Vienna Blood premieres on six consecutive Sundays, January 19-February 23, from 10-11pm ET on PBS, as well as its official website and app. The episodes are also available to stream on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast, the Monday after their original air date.

Filmed on location, the Vienna Blood episodes were directed by Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee, Robert Dornhelm and Umut Da?. The show was produced by Endor Productions and MR Film, in co-production with Red Arrow Studios International, ZDF Germany and ORF (Austria), with the assistance of Fernsehfonds Austria, Film Fonds Vienna and Kultur Niederesterreich.

Summary

Title

ShockYa's Exclusive 'Vienna Blood' Clip

Description

ShockYa is premiering an exclusive clip from the PBS crime mystery drama, 'The Lost Child.'

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Vienna Blood Exclusive Clip Sees Jessica De Gouw Seeking to End Relationship with Matthew Beard - Shockya.com

Human Behavior

In times of fake news and manufactured outrage, how do we reclaim empathy? – Scroll.in

In August 2019, police in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh decided to open an investigation into a local journalist, Pawan Jaiswal, all because he had exposed a government school for feeding its children salt and a chapati as a mid-day meal. This meal was well below the governments minimum nutrition standards. But the state didnt care about the information that was revealed, it didnt care to respond with alarm to the food that was being fed to these young children. Instead of taking action against the school authorities, the Uttar Pradesh government felt the journalist was at fault for making the government look bad, especially on video that could be circulated so widely now online. And so, it decided to charge him with cheating, using false evidence and conspiracy. The Uttar Pradesh government essentially accused him of reporting their version of fake news.

Barely two weeks after this incident, the same state government booked journalists Ashish Tomar, Shakil Ahmed and three others who tried to report on caste discrimination in the city of Bijnor. Discrediting journalists when the story doesnt suit those in power, by accusing them of peddling fake news has become par for course across the world. Populist leaders would like us to believe that news they dont like, or news they want to deny, is fake, simply because it is critical of them and their policies. These are just two cases in point, but the world is littered with such examples.

YouTube and Twitter took down several videos and posts that part of Chinas state propaganda and information wars against the Hong Kong protests aimed to the discredit news stories emerging from there in September last year. Earlier in 2019, an Indian Parliamentary committee led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party asked Twitter to explain a liberal bias, accusing it of only targeting right wing voices as they blocked and took down abusive accounts.

So when we see politicians and world leaders call stories like Pawan Jaiswals fake news, the terminology itself stands discredited. Instead, a bigger, deeper danger confronts us what is in essence the real threat of fake news misinformation, propaganda and hate speech propagated by state machineries and co-opted media voices. Falsehoods, rumours, real news disaggregated and put back together with the aim of feeding fear and diverting public attention from accountability this kind of misinformation is all geared to stop journalists from doing their job. It is geared to sow hate division amongst the people.

We can argue that fake news is as old as time and we would be right. It has been around since news became a concept 500 years ago with the invention of the printing press in the 1400s. Rumors in Italy in the 16th century , for example, about Jewish people drinking childrens blood circulated on printed pamphlets in Italy. Printing technology gave the rumor legitimacy. Today, those rumors are considered the precursor to anti-Semitism in the world. Like the printing presss disruptive technology, broadcast technologies have also been misused to spread hate most visibly in Rwanda, where they pitted the Hutus and Tutsis against each other and exhorted violence.

In 1964, Marshall McLuhan burst on to the intellectual scene by defining the media as an extension of ourselves. The phone extends our voice, the TV extends our eyes and ears, the computer extends our brain, and electronic media overall extends our central nervous system. This extension of technology, McLuhan argued can allow us to detach ourselves from the world around us. If we think about it, in an era of social media, of trolls and online abuse, the keyboard has placed distance between the abuser and the victim. That distance has empowered people to speak in the most hateful ways something that face-to-face interaction censures and discourages. Today, just as computing technology gives us access to all sorts of news and information at the click of a button it also spreads opinion, propaganda and unverified information that masquerades as news quicker than anyone could have ever imagined with more damaging consequences that anyone could have imagined.

In 2018, a spate of deaths by lynching that were the result of rumors about child kidnappers in India forced the Indian public to sit up and take a hard look at just how we were becoming part of this rumor factory. These deaths finally forced the platform, WhatsApp, to restrict our ability to forward messages without a second thought and realise, through identifiable markers that what we get isnt always an original, fresh piece of information.

In 2014, the World Economic Forum called misinformation one of the ten greatest perils confronting society. It sows the seeds of hate, waters them and harvests them. Think of these numbers WhatsApp, which is accused of being used to disseminate rumor and whip up hysteria, has 400 million users in India alone. Facebook has 2.5 billion monthly active users around the world. How often does it shock us to read comments from some of these users below the most innocuous posts? Politics, gender rights, festivals, food just about anything can spark off a verbal war about choices and biases.

Digital platforms have brought yellow journalism back to the fore. For one, algorithms that create news feeds and compilations have no regard for accuracy and objectivity. Content moderation tools need to work in tandem with human intervention. At the same time, the digital news trend has decimated the journalistic force measured in both money and manpower of the traditional free press. The advertising-based business model that supported journalism all these years has collapsed, platforms like Google and Facebook have become the most powerful news disseminators in history.

Speed and time have become compressed in our hyperconnected world and it has become next to impossible to reconcile the need for speed with the need to verify information that we either get or pass along. Technology serves not only to amplify disinformation and hate, but also creates the scope for its automated spread through bots that are learning to mimic human behavior and imitate legitimate users. This sort of technology has no use for borders, so people and machines in Ukraine can influence public opinion in America, Russian agencies can interfere with the US electoral process. And as the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed us, specific audiences that could be influenced were targetted. The manufactured information they received disguised as news confirmed their anxieties and biases.

In India, propaganda and disinformation is being used constantly to discredit political leaders, and political legacies inimical to the government. Pictures of Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru being affectionate and social with women friends, or family; or lighting a cigarette, were shared by the head of BJPs IT cell accusing him of being a womaniser with westernised values; and in turn rally political support for the BJPs current leadership, projected as one that upholds/respects traditional values.

This is all profitable the flow of fabricated stories, rearranged half-truths and decontextualised facts has corroded trust in the media. Worse, it co-opted some in the mainstream media via unscrupulous politicians and media managers looking at a profitable bottom lines.

In fact, journalists in Rwanda stood trial at a United Nations court accused of inciting genocide of 800,000 people by Hutu extremists. But the legitimacy we as readers and viewers get from text, sound and images, taken out of context, however incorrectly projected, is hard to undo. Today, newsrooms around the world are prioritising the role of fact checkers precisely to call out this sort of propaganda.

But peddlers of propaganda and disinformaton have no real reputation to maintain, no incentive to stay honest. Their concern is limited to reach. And they thrive on anonymity. Automation allows them to be here today, on to another story tomorrow. Their campaigns seek to destroy what exists, what is built. They are almost messianic mobilising to raze what is, with the promise of what is to be of a phoenix rising from the ashes.

This is why conversations about the health of our democracies converge naturally around the threat from misinformation and the role its manipulators play in blurring the lines between news and opinion, rumor and fact. Misinformation is a key part of hate campaigns.

Hate for political gain.

Troll armies both, human and automated, carry out concerted campaigns especially against religious or caste minorities and refugees creating enemies out of ordinary people trying to live their lives. These campaigns prey on the most basic human emotions of fear and anger. Anger against corruption or unemployment or reservations. Anger against real or perceived economic and social privilege, for example. And fear fear of terrorism and refugees being a threat to security. The goal of disinformation is to divide and polarise society, make us less tolerant, believe that another group is worse than we are.

Hate and polarisation need an enemy, and they need fuel. In India, both are dutifully provided by politicians who harness anger and resentment with populist rhetoric. Politicians who confirm existing biases against minorities and reinforce perceptions about the targets of their hate. These campaigns disrupt beliefs in fundamental basic principles like freedom of speech, the right to life and liberty, to privacy, the right to have different opinions.

They thrive on the chaos they create forcing us, the citizens to conform to binary identities national or anti-national, globalist or patriot, Hindu or Muslim. Political groups selectively mobilise genuine devotion or religious emotion in order to manufacture both, offense and a sense of being offended Hate spin, as media theorist Cherian George calls it. They create an atmosphere of mistrust. And suddenly we dont know who or what to believe, our own convictions of right and wrong are tested.

The wedges they drive are filled by populist politicians quickly who claim they speak on behalf of the disenfranchised, when all they really want is to hold on to power. An authoritarian leader who fashions himself both as kindred underling and as a demagogic messiah to the public uses a fractured polity to his advantage. And social media gives hate and division much need oxygen. Divisive politicians use the media to foment prejudice, create confusion and celebrate ignorance.

Vitiated, ideologically polarised and aggressive politics is fast becoming a cauldron of victimhood and rage. Its objective is met when the support base is widened, a divisive narrative is created, and people are mobilised around a political agenda. The binaries are challenging our definitions of liberal democracy, of identities and nationalism. The success of propaganda and hate speech that fuels populism lies in a careful calculation of the use of state power, the manipulation of public sentiment, the rhetoric of populist politics and the influence of the media.

Liberalism that requires checks and balances and limited governance is trumped by politicians who want us to believe the state is in mortal danger. Misinformation is a common strategy of populist demagogues who try to subvert peoples trust in verifiable facts and cultivate cynicism.

As the crucible of hate speech bubbles over, space for civil debate in the public sphere has yielded to coarse, abusive conversations, fueled by manufactured outrage in TV studios. Electoral contests or policy debates are no longer based on reason but on personal charisma and tribal loyalties.

The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we can lay all the blame at technologys door? If we do that, we open up the possibility of authoritarian governments and companies driven by profit to try and regulate our responses.

That is a slippery slope.

What we can and must do instead is identify, report, counter each time we see something abusive or hateful. We must push platforms to act. We must ensure governments dont misuse calls for regulation to silence critics.

This is a fine balancing act, but one that can only work if we the public invest in our right to accurate information. So, it is really up to us to recognise now that we are just pawns on a political chessboard. Should we allow malign actors, divisive politicians or automated technologies to take over our thought process, our societal obligations? Does the keyboard replace all our interactions and determine our behaviour?

Technology is making is numb, the absence of human contact has an overwhelming impact on basic values the respect for rights and freedoms, plurality, intellectual pursuits. And most importantly, it is impacting our ability to empathise with groups targeted by this violent discourse refugees and immigrants fleeing violence or poverty in detention centres across the world, children separated from their parents, families bereft as the main breadwinner is killed by rampaging mobs all justified as retribution for perceived, past injustices.

There are examples of suffering all around us. But can we re-center ourselves and be empathetic to the suffering of those at the receiving end of this violence today? Can we initiate truth and reconciliation amongst people so that we can overcome this polarising hatred?

Instead of weaponising stereotypes or past pain and injustice, instead of retreating into nativist, tribal identities fueled by propaganda and misinformation, can we reclaim empathy as an antidote to hate?

Can we ensure we think before we share? And prevent conspiracies from spreading? Can we educate our young? Can we tell them from the minute they have a smartphone in their hands what responsible behavior online is all about? High levels of education from an early age is proving to be one of the most effective antidotes to misinformation and hate in countries like Finland can we learn from their lessons?

The media is considered democracys fourth pillar. It creates awareness about our environments, bears witness to our triumphs and to our pain, it is meant to hold power accountable. For one co-opted journalist or media manager, there are many more rededicating themselves every day to ethical, factual reporting each morning. These are committed journalists putting their life and liberty on the line to bring us stories that no one wants us to read or see.

Journalists who exposed Cambridge Analyticas influence operations did the public a service and made both governments and platforms more accountable. Journalists like Pawan Jaiswal who exposed government schools for not doing what they were mandated to do open our eyes to the everyday injustices of false political promises around us. It will take a collective of stories from good old-fashioned journalists, and a public that seeks to build bridges rather than expand gulfs between communities to turn the tide on hate and pull us out of the abyss that todays propaganda has led us into.

This article first appeared on Maya Mirchandanis blog.

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In times of fake news and manufactured outrage, how do we reclaim empathy? - Scroll.in

Human Behavior

Addressing technology concerns with technology – SME10X

Challenge 1: Empathy vs. AI

Jun Wu, an industry-expert, shares her thoughts: Empathy is at the heart of ethics issues related to AI Systems. Augmented reality is only believable if that reality is as close to real as possible. Commenting on the possible solution, she says: This means that AI Systems have to mimic real human emotions. Only through real human emotions and personal data from you can AI systems augment a reality that you will believe in. With the popularity of social media applications, collecting personal data from you is no longer a problem. However, the real problem lies in modeling real human emotions. If scientists can train the AI System to mimic empathy, then scientists can train the AI System to have regard for law, order and societal values. In conjunction with developing empathy in our AI Systems, we can also place limits on our AI Systems. Same way that societal values, moral code and standard of social behavior help humans live better in society, AI Systems can be integrated in a similar way to help us instead of to hurt us. Speaking along the same lines, Jesus Mantas, Global Head of Strategy and Offerings at IBM Global Business Services, shareshis thoughts with weforum.org: The road to this next stage of progress begins with designing human-AI interactions that prioritize enhancing peoples humanity, not replacing it. A passionless, automatonic future would weaken what has allowed humans to survive and thrive throughout millennia. The biggest benefits of AI will be achieved by chemistry-matching of humans and AI - and in teaching AI to be more human, we will find opportunities to learn how to be more human ourselves.

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Addressing technology concerns with technology - SME10X

Physiology

Abidemi Baloguns dream to be a nurse comes true in ResU nursing program – Rolling Out

Photo courtesy of Isaiah Heath

Abidemi Balogun followed her dream to become a nurse. Her aspiration was to help reduce health disparities in impoverished communities. In the pursuit of reaching her goals, Balogun began the nursing journey at Resurrection University in Chicago. While attending, Balogun was in the accelerated nursing program as well as in the esteemed Interprofessional Scholar Program. The program prepares students to enter a healthcare industry increasingly focused on interdisciplinary teamwork and communication.

The aspiring caregiver graduated in December 2019, and currently works as a nursing assistant at Rush University Medical Center.

What inspired you to show up to nursing school every day?The lives and the patients that I [would] serve is what inspired me to show up to nursing school. Nursing is one of the hardest undergraduate degrees, and if there is no passion for it, it will be extremely difficult to keep going.

What is the best and worst thing about nursing school?The best thing is the bonds your form with your study group and the free food that is provided during the semester. The worse thing is waking up extremely early to get to clinical no matter if it rains, snows or shines.

How important is it for a nurse to create small talk with patients?It is extremely important to create small talk with patients because this is where rapport is built. Nursing is the most trusted profession and I think its because of the inter-personal relationship that is formed between the nurse and patient during these small talks. When the patients trust the nurse, it makes their healing process smoother and the nurses job easier in my opinion.

Finish these sentences:I am committed to providing excellent care that is equal across gender, race, sexuality, and religion.I work to make a difference by ensuring that I am aware of my personal bias.Annual checkups and visits are the best ways to prevent or delay the progressing of an underlying disease process.

What has attributed to todays nursing shortage?I think there has been a substantial shortage due to the fact a lot of seasoned nurses are retiring and there is a limited supply of new nurses. In addition, nursing is a meticulous and gruesome field and its not for everyone.

What courses should a high school student consider if interested in a nursing career?I would recommend that they take anatomy and physiology very seriously. I had a solid background in anatomy and physiology, and this helped me tremendously in nursing school, especially in pathophysiology.

Name three reasons why its cool to consider nursing?

About Abidemi BalogunWhats the coolest thing about you? I make and dye wigs.Favorite Restaurant: Yummy Thai (Chicago, IL)Favorite Non-Work Hobby: Writing fictional stories

Tigner is Media personality, Inspirational & Motivational writer based in Atlanta, Georgia

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Abidemi Baloguns dream to be a nurse comes true in ResU nursing program - Rolling Out