Cell Biology

Chopping Genes and Growing Brains – The LumberJack

Biology professor John Steele guided a cell biology lab his first year at HSU wherein he wanted to teach students that cells need nutrients to survive. After 48 hours, the lab discovered quite the opposite. James Gomez, a current student in the lab, had the opportunity to research more into the groundbreaking discovery.

In science, youre kinda looking for that unexpected stuff, Gomez said. Right after I came in, I was really excited to be a part of that. There was this thing that was happening that we particularly cant fully explain, and Im actually in the lab doing that science.

Steeles experiment for his class involved students starving the cells of nutrients to trigger a state of autophagy, which is when the cell starts to consume itself. Steele meant to emphasize that cells needed nutrients like amino acids and lipids to survive. It was assumed that starving cells of key nutrients eventually killed them.

Steele said the experiment was common, and was usually shut down after six to eight hours. Steele decided to run it for 48 hours instead, since that was the time between lab sections. When his class returned returned to the lab, rather than seeing a bunch of dead cells, they were decidedly more alive. The lab had made a discovery.

Despite the cells being in autophagy in Steeles experiment, they had stopped dividing and took on a strange morphology. Their metabolic rate was highthey were very much not dead.

Now the lab, including Gomez, are deep in research. The lab is introducing pathway inhibitors, or drugs, to block basic cell functions, narrowing down the essential and non-essential. The project is open-ended, as students methodically look at every cellular pathway to determine the needs of cells.

What I love about this project is that it was born here, Steele said. Nobody else that I know of is working on this, outside of HSU. Thats an awesome process to be a part of, where students get hands-on training in phenotypic genetic screening and drug screening, and we get to learn about the basic biology of cells in doing this.

Steele encourages the students in his lab to explore the boundaries of their knowledge. CRISPR, Cas9 and stem cell cultures are unique tools available to these students, and they offer an opportunity to think outside the box and do creative science.

Steeles lab combines bio-technologies using unique stem cell cultures and genome editing techniques. The lab cultures stem cellscells which can grow into any cell typeand chops up DNA using CRISPR, a revolutionary gene-clipping tool, to learn how rare neurodegenerative diseases develop in the brain.

There have been some really cool applications of CRISPR out there. And theyre just because somebody said, I wonder if we could do that? and they did.

Steeles graduate student Kyle Anthoney, on the other hand, is working on making a model of a rare disease called progressive supernucleogical palsy, which looks like a combination of Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases. The disease is a tauopathic disease because a main characteristic of the disease is a buildup of the tau protein, which blocks some necessary cell functions. To understand the finer details of the disease, Anthoney developed a new method for growing neurosphere cell types into what is, effectively, a miniature brain.

Scientifically named 3D neural sphere cultures, these miniature brains offer a platform for researchers to study three types of brain cells at the same time. Anthoneys method allowed him to organically grow neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes, three dominant cell types in the brain, from human stem cells, so they would develop naturally like they would in a growing brain.

Anthoneys research is up for review in a number of scientific publications and his name is on some breakthrough scientific papers. He is contributing to research about progressive supernucleogical palsy and other tauopathic diseases. His research concentrates the tau protein in a miniature brain to simulate the symptoms of progressive supernucleogical palsy, and he is exploring how the protein and disease impact his lab-grown brain cells.

There have been some really cool applications of CRISPR out there, Steele said. And theyre just because somebody said, I wonder if we could do that? and they did.

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Chopping Genes and Growing Brains - The LumberJack

Cell Biology

Sonoma Bio Launches With $40M to Take Cell Therapy Beyond Cancer – Xconomy

XconomySan Francisco

Cell therapies have reached the market as a new treatment option for some cancers. But the scientists of Sonoma Biosciences say this approach also holds promise for autoimmune disorders, and the biotech startup has unveiled $40 million in financing to develop its technology.

The investors in Sonomas Series A round of funding include Lyell Immunopharma, ARCH Venture Partners, Milky Way Ventures, and 8VC.

Cell therapy involves removing a patients immune cells, engineering them, and then infusing them back into the patient to perform their therapeutic tasks. The cancer cell therapies that have been approved by the FDA are made by engineering T cells, the frontline defenders of the immune system.

Sonoma, which splits its operations between South San Francisco and Seattle, is working with a different immune cell called a regulatory T cell (Treg). Whereas T cells target pathogens, Tregs target other immune cells, suppressing excessive immune responses, CEO and co-founder Jeff Bluestone tells Xconomy. Research by Sonomas scientific co-founders uncovered evidence, in studies in mice and humans, that the absence of these cells sparked the development of some autoimmune diseases. Those diseases led to death in about one year without a bone marrow transplant, Bluestone adds.

Sonoma is developing Treg therapies intended to shut down unwanted immune responses. The approach involves harvesting these cells from patients and engineering them with features that make them stable, durable, and targeted specifically to the site of inflammation. Those cells would then be infused into the patient to stop the autoimmune response. Bluestone says its too soon to talk about a lead disease target, but he adds that this approach has potential applications in rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis.

The hope is that a Sonoma cell therapy is a one-time treatment. Bluestone says that because these therapies are cells that multiply, they should survive in the patient on standby until theyre needed again to address an autoimmune response.

Theres another feature that could contribute to the longevity of a Treg treatment. When these cells shut down an autoimmune response, they influence other cells in the vicinity to join in, Bluestone explains. By educating these other cells to take up this immunosuppressive role, Bluestone says the effect of these therapies could be long lasting. But he cautions that the durability of a Treg therapy wont be known until more tests are done in humans.

Bluestones knowledge about Tregs stems from his own research. He and another Sonoma co-founder, Qizhi Tang, studied Tregs at the University of California, San Francisco, for 12 years. Their research included diabetes, organ transplantation, and lupus, among other conditions. That work led to small patient studies testing the technology for safety.

In addition to his UCSF research, Bluestone was the president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Over the course of a career that has bridged academia and industry, Bluestones immunology research has led to the development and commercialization of immunotherapies for organ transplants and cancer. He says he is joining Sonoma now because theres only so far that you can get in an academic lab if you want to impact peoples lives. Cell therapy could be the next major medicine for humans, he adds, and he wants to be involved as part of a company developing these treatments.

The other co-founders are Chief Scientific Officer Fred Ramsdell who, like Bluestone, joined Sonoma from the Parker Institute, and Alexander Rudensky, an immunologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Ramsdell and Rudensky are credited as co-discoverers of the FOXP3 gene that is critical to the development and function of Tregs.

Bluestone says that Sonoma continues the Treg research that he and the other co-founders had done. The company also builds on the successes and failures in cancer cell therapy research. While those therapies can treat blood cancers, its been much harder to use them to treat solid tumors. Bluestone hopes that Lyell, a South San Francisco cell therapy company, can help the company get its therapies into tissues. In addition to being a Sonoma investor, Bluestone says Lyell will be a research partner, providing access to its technology and cell therapy insights.

Sonoma also aims to go beyond autoimmune diseases. Bluestone says the companys approach could potentially address degenerative disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimers disease. In the nearer term, Bluestone says the company will use the funding to better understand Tregs.

The way were approaching this field is not to be in a hurry, in a sense of feeling this pressure or need to get into the clinic with these engineered cells as quickly as possible, he says. We want to spend the time to make sure were working with the best cells possible, that we understand the science and the biology, so that it has the best chance of success.

Public domain image by Flickr user NIH Image Gallery

Frank Vinluan is an Xconomy editor based in Research Triangle Park. You can reach him at fvinluan [[at]] xconomy.com.

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Sonoma Bio Launches With $40M to Take Cell Therapy Beyond Cancer - Xconomy

Cell Biology

ID Literature and the Great Evolutionary Firewall – Discovery Institute

Peer-reviewed literature is supposed to be the gold standard in any given scientific field, though it both lets through junk science at times, and at others, excludes solid science, whether for ideological or other reasons. The gatekeepers are only human, prone to bias or wish fulfillment. The humans who police the gatekeepers are also prone to hallucinate. See a couple of posts on that subject from earlier this week, here and here.

These provisos having been stated, there is of course value in this literature. Thats why Evolution News spends so much time analyzing it. We havent talked about this in a while, but the body of peer-reviewed articles supporting intelligent design is impressive. You can find an extensive discussion of it here. Remember, this is just the literature supportive of ID. Criticism is valuable and significant too. Weve got a file of a hundred mainstream scientific papers that cite Michael Behe and his ID work. Yes, many are negative, but many are positive too.

In any case, as recent email inquiries have made clear, this body of published writing calls for some additional commentary.

First, do all of these articles use the term intelligent design explicitly? No. But dont let anyone tell you that that somehow disqualifies the articles in our bibliography as directly supporting ID. All of these papers are by ID sympathizers (at least one author, in each case) and they all make ID arguments or explicitly support ID. Some of them do use the term intelligent design but some use terms like teleological or goal-directed rather than explicitly saying intelligent design. The intended meaning is the same. Also, many of the articles provide explicit support for core ID concepts like complex and specified information, irreducible complexity, prescriptive information, and the like, even if they dont call it intelligent design.

Second, its true that not every journal is respected equally. But the fact that ID proponents are publishing legitimate ID-oriented ideas in journals at all is what counts. Journals like Cell, Nature, Science, and many other high-level publications are never going to publish an article not in this corner of the multiverse that is pro-ID or positively cites Michael Behe or Stephen Meyer or William Dembski, no matter how strong the evidence and no matter how good the article is. Those in the ID community are well aware that you can sometimes publish modest critiques of certain evolutionary ideas, but the moment that you suggest that intelligent design might be involved or that you speak favorably of an ID proponents work, the great evolutionary firewall goes up and it blocks the paper. Many ID-friendly scientists who have tried to publish have had such experiences. Biologist Jonathan Wells recalls an exchange with a journal editor:

In 2003 I submitted an article on an aspect of cell biology to a very prominent biology journal in the U.K. My article did not mention ID or cite ID authors, but it presented a hypothesis based on an ID perspective. The article successfully passed peer review after I responded to some questions by the reviewers, and the editor wrote to me that he was ready to publish it. But then he asked me whether I was the Jonathan Wells of intelligent design fame. When I answered in the affirmative he sent the article out for one last review, which was a contemptuous hatchet job from start to finish. With that in hand the editor rejected my article.

Even having been cited positively by ID advocates can harm a papers chances. Thats why Evolution News hesitates to discuss preprint articles like those at bioRxiv. An article there, that has not yet been peer-reviewed or published formally, can be rendered ritually impure if Darwinists see that ID proponents have praised it. The perversity and unfairness of this situation hardly needs underlining.

Third, remember the phenomenon in social media that is called subtweeting. This refers to criticizing people without naming them, often compared with talking about them covertly behind their back. From the Urban Diction: Indirectlytweetingsomething about someone without mentioning their name. Eventhoughtheir name is not mentioned, it isclearwho the person tweeting is referring to. It often happens that science journals subtweet about ID arguments, those of Meyer or Behe or Dembski, without having the courage, frankly, to name them. As an example, the many desperate attempts to offer theories explaining the Cambrian explosion, the geologically sudden eruption of animal phyla into the fossil record, evidently have Stephen Meyers book, Darwins Doubt, on their mind.

The point is this: If youre going to engage people on the topic of ID publications, dont let them force two false assumptions on you:

And these observations apply not only to intelligent design but to other terms that tend to start arguments. Cast your mind back to the famous Dover trial. The ACLU and anti-ID plaintiffs cited a paper, Long et al., 2003, which they told Judge John Jones showed how new genetic information could evolve. The problem? The paper did not contain the phrase new genetic information. It didnt even contain the term genetic information! Judge Jones cited the paper anyway to claim that the plaintiffs had demonstrated that evolution could produce new genetic information.

But that was OK. In fact, this is not a criticism of what they did because the paper certainly was relevant to discussing the origin of new genetic information, and the fact that the paper did not contain the term genetic information did not prevent it from bearing on the subject, which it did.

That having been said, in reality, the paper by Long and his colleagues is not very successful in showing how new information arises, although it is certainly relevant from an evolutionary perspective. If you would like to see some critiques of the paper, please read Chapter 11 of Darwins Doubt.We see again that word searches often say very little about the implications of a paper for evolution or ID. Whats needed, always, is honest, critical analysis, as we try to provide here.

Photo credit:Andrew Martin viaPixabay.

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ID Literature and the Great Evolutionary Firewall - Discovery Institute

Cell Biology

Postdoctoral Research Associate – Department of Biosciences job with DURHAM UNIVERSITY | 195812 – Times Higher Education (THE)

The Role

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on a project entitled

"Skin model engineering by harnessing the biomechanical forces exerted on skin cell nuclei".

As a collaboration between Drs Akis Karakesisoglou and Martin Goldberg, Department of Biosciences, Durham University and Steven Hyde, Oxford University we have designed new methodology to generate high quality in vitroskin models. The methodology works through using genetic engineering tools that re-program the biomechanical properties of skin cells.

We have gained funds from the Northern Accelerator (a research commercialisation collaboration between four North East Universities) to further develop the in vitro skin model and to commercialise the underlying technology.

The role of the post holder is to research and implement solutions in the fields of skin tissue engineering, skin tissue/cell biology and microscopy. The project will involve the creation and development of skin equivalent cell culture models using novel methods, then testing and analysing their structural and functional properties. The postholder will be helped by Drs Karakesisoglou, Goldberg and Hyde to find solutions and the candidate will need experience in the above fields to implement the solutions.

The post requires good skills in reporting research progress verbally, and in writing.

This post is fixed term for 9 months which is the extent of the currently available funding.

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Postdoctoral Research Associate - Department of Biosciences job with DURHAM UNIVERSITY | 195812 - Times Higher Education (THE)

Human Behavior

Human Behavior: The Complete Pocket Guide – iMotions

Introduction to Human Behavior

Academic and commercial researchers alike are aiming towards a deeper understanding of how humans act, make decisions, plan, and memorize. Advances in wearable sensor technology along with procedures for multi-modal data acquisition and analysis have lately been enabling researchers all across the globe to tap into previously unknown secrets of the human brain and mind.

Still, as emphasized by Makeig and colleagues (2009), the most pivotal challenge lies in the systematic observation and interpretation of how distributed brain processes support our natural, active, and flexibly changing behavior and cognition.

We all are active agents, continuously engaged in attempting to fulfill bodily needs and mental desires within complex and ever-changing surroundings, while interacting with our environment. Brain structures have evolved that support cognitive processes targeted towards the optimization of outcomes for any of our body-based behaviors.

N.B. this post is an excerpt from our Human BehaviorGuide. You can download your free copy below and get even more insights into human behavior.

In scientific research, human behavior is a complex interplay of three components: actions, cognition, and emotions.

Sounds complicated? Lets address them one by one.

An action denotes everything that can be observed, either with bare eyes or measured by physiological sensors. Think of an action as an initiation or transition from one state to another at a movie set, the director shouts action for the next scene to be filmed.

Behavioral actions can take place on various time scales, ranging from muscular activation to sweat gland activity, food consumption, or sleep.

Cognitions describe thoughts and mental images you carry with you, and they can be both verbal and nonverbal. I have to remember to buy groceries, or Id be curious to know what she thinks of me, can be considered verbal cognitions. In contrast, imagining how your house will look like after remodeling could be considered a nonverbal cognition.

Cognitions comprise skills and knowledge knowing how to use tools in a meaningful manner (without hurting yourself), sing karaoke songs or being able to memorize the color of Marty McFlys jacket in Back to the Future (its red).

Commonly, an emotion is any relatively brief conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity, and a feeling that is not characterized as resulting from either reasoning or knowledge. This usually exists on a scale, from positive (pleasurable) to negative (unpleasant).

Other aspects of physiology that are indicative of emotional processing such as increased heart rate or respiration rate caused by increased arousal are usually hidden to the eye. Similar to cognitions, emotions cannot be observed directly. They can only be inferred indirectly by tracking facial electromyographic activity (fEMG),analyzing facial expressions, monitoring arousal using ECG, galvanic skin response (GSR), respiration sensors, or self-reported measures, for example.

Actions, cognitions and emotions do not run independently of each other their proper interaction enables you to perceive the world around you, listen to your inner wishes and respond appropriately to people in your surroundings. However, it is hard to tell what exactly is cause and effect turning your head (action) and seeing a familiar face might cause a sudden burst of joy (emotion) accompanied by an internal realization (cognition):

action = emotion (joy) + cognition (hey, theres Peter!)

In other cases, the sequence of cause and effect might be reversed: Because youre sad (emotion) and ruminating on relationship issues (cognition), you decide to go for a walk to clear your head (action).

emotion (sadness) + cognition (I should go for a walk) = action

Humans are active consumers of sensory impressionsYou actively move your body to achieve cognitive goals and desires, or to get into positive (or out of negative) emotional states. In other words: While cognition and emotion cannot be observed directly, they certainly drive the execution of observable action. For example, through moving your body to achieve cognitive goals and desires, or to get into positive (or out of negative) emotional states.

Cognitions are specific to time and situationsNew information that you experience is adapted, merged and integrated into your existing cognitive mindset. This allows you to flexibly adapt to and predict how events in the current environment may be influenced by your actions. Whenever you decide to carry out an action, you accomplish the decision in a timely, environment- and situation-appropriate manner. Put differently: Your cognitive system has to manage the dynamic interplay of flexibility and stability.

The former is important as you have to couple responses dynamically to stimuli, dependent on intentions and instructions. This allows you to respond to one and the same stimulus in near-unlimited ways. Stability, by contrast, is crucial for maintaining lasting stimulus-response relationships, allowing you to respond consistently to similar stimuli.

Imagination and abstract cognition are body-basedEven abstract cognitions (devoid of direct physical interaction with the environment) are body-based. Imagining limb movements triggers the same brain areas involved when actually executing the movements. When you rehearse material in working memory, the same brain structures used for speech perception and production are activated (Wilson, 2001).

When we talk about behavior, we need to consider how it is acquired. Learning denotes any acquisition process of new skills and knowledge, preferences, attitudes and evaluations, social rules and normative considerations.

You surely have heard of the nature nurture debate in the past, there has been quite some fighting about whether behavior was solely driven by genetic predispositions (nature) or environmental factors (nurture).

Today, its no longer a question of either/or. There simply is too much evidence for the impact of nature and nurture alike behavior is considered to be established by the interplay of both factors.

Current theoretical frameworks also emphasize the active role of of the agent in acquiring new skills and knowledge. You are able to develop and change yourself through ongoing skill acquisition throughout life, which can have an impact on a neurological level. Think of it as assigning neuroscientific processes to the phrase practice makes perfect.

Classical conditioning refers to a learning procedure in which stimulus-response pairings are learned seeing tasty food typically triggers salivation (yummy!), for example. While food serves as unconditioned stimulus, salivation is the unconditioned response.

Unconditioned stimulus -> unconditioned response

Seeing food -> salivation

If encountering food is consistently accompanied by a (previously) neutral stimulus such as ringing a bell, a new stimulus-response pairing is learned.

unconditioned stimulus + conditioned stimulus -> unconditioned response

seeing food + hearing bell -> salivation

The bell becomes a conditioned stimulus and is potent enough to trigger salivation even in absence of the actual food.

conditioned stimulus > response

hearing bell -> salivation

Described as generalization, this learning process was first studied by Ivan Pavlov and team (1927) through experiments with dogs, which is why classical conditioning is also referred to as Pavlovian conditioning.

Today, classical conditioning is one of the most widely understood basic learning processes.

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, denotes a type of learning in which the strength of a behavior is modified by the consequences (reward or punishment), signaled via the preceding stimuli.

In both operant and classical conditioning behavior is controlled by environmental stimuli however, they differ in nature. In operant conditioning, behavior is controlled by stimuli which are present when a behavior is rewarded or punished.

Operant conditioning was coined by B.F. Skinner. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested to only take external, observable causes of human behavior into consideration.

According to Skinner, actions that are followed by desirable outcomes are more likely to be repeated while those followed by undesirable outcomes are less likely to be repeated. In this regard, operant conditioning relies on a fairly simple premise: Behavior that is followed by reinforcement will be strengthened and is more likely to occur again in the future.

The key concepts of operant conditioning are:

These learning theories give guidance for knowing how we gather information about the world. The way in which we learn is both emotionally and physiologically appraised. This will have consequences for how we act, and carry out behaviors in the future what we attend to, and how it makes us feel.

While behavior is acquired through learning, whether the acting individual decides to execute an action or withhold a certain behavior is dependent on the associated incentives, benefits and risks (if Peter was penalized for doing this, I certainly wont do it!).

But which are the factors driving our decisions? Theories such as social learning theory provide a base set of features, but one of the most influential psychological theoriesaboutdecision-makingactually has its origins in an economics journal.

In 1979, Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky published a paper proposing a theoretical framework called the Prospect Theory. This laid the foundations for Kahnemans later thoughts and studies on human behavior, that was summarized in his bestselling bookThinking, Fast and Slow.

Kahnemans theories were also concerned with how people process information. He proposed that there are two systems which determine how we make decisions: System 1 which is fast but relatively inaccurate, and system 2 which is slow but more accurate.

The theory suggests that our everyday decisions are carried out in one of these two ways, from buying our morning coffee, to making career choices. We will use different approaches depending on the circumstances.

Human behavior and decision-making are heavily affected by emotions even in subtle ways that we may not always recognize. After making an emotionally-fueled decision, we tend to continue to use the imperfect reasoning behind it, and a mild incidental emotion in decision-making can live longer than the emotional experience itself as pointed out by Andrade & Ariely (2009).

An example of mood manipulation affecting decision making was completed by researchers who wanted to know how a willingness to help could be affected by positive feelings.

To study their question, they placed a Quarter (25ct) clearly visible in a phone booth (yes, these things actually existed!) and waited for passers-by to find the coin. An actor working on behalf of the psychologist stepped in, asking to take an urgent phone call. Study participants who actually found the coin were significantly happier, allowing the confederate to take the call, while those who didnt find the coin were unaffected, and more likely to say no (Isen & Levin, 1972).

Research on human behavior addresses how and why people behave the way they do. However, as you have seen in the previous sections, human behavior is quite complex as it is influenced, modulated and shaped by multiple factors which are often unrecognized by the individual: Overt or covert, logical or illogical, voluntary or involuntary.

Conscious vs. unconscious behaviorConsciousness is a state of awareness for internal thoughts and feelings as well for proper perception for and uptake of information from your surroundings.

A huge amount of our behaviors are guided by unconscious processes. Just like an iceberg, there is a great amount of hidden information, and only some of it is visible with the naked eye.

Overt vs. covert behaviorOvert behavior describes any aspects of behavior that can be observed, for example body movements or (inter-)actions. Also, physiological processes such as blushing, facial expressions or pupil dilation might be subtle, but can still be obeserved. Covert processes are thoughts (cognition), feelings (emotion) or responses which are not easily seen. Subtle changes in bodily processes, for instance, are hidden to the observers eye.

In this case, bio- or physiological sensors are used to aid the observation with quantitative measures as they uncover processes that are covert in the first place. Along this definition, EEG, MEG, fMRI and fNIRS all monitor physiological processes reflecting covert behavior.

Rational vs. irrational behaviorRational behavior might be considered any action, emotion or cognition which is pertaining to, influenced or guided by reason. In contrast, irrational behavior describes actions that are not objectively logical.

Patients suffering from phobias often report an awareness for their thoughts and fears being irrational (I know that the spider cant harm me) albeit they still cannot resist the urge to behave in a certain way.

Voluntary vs. involuntary behaviorVoluntary actions are self-determined and driven by your desires and decisions. By contrast, involuntary actions describe any action made without intent or carried out despite an attempt to prevent it.In cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, for example, patients are exposed to problematic scenarios, also referred to as flooding, such as spiders, social exhibition or a transatlantic plane ride.

Many of our behaviors appear to be voluntary, rational, overt, and conscious yet they only represent the tip of the iceberg for normal human behavior. The majority of our actions are involuntary, potentially irrational, and are guided by our subconscious. The way to access this other side of behavior is to examine the covert behaviors that occur as a result.

In order to describe and interpret human behavior, academic and commercial researchers have developed intricate techniques allowing for the collection of data indicative of personality traits, cognitive-affective states and problem solving strategies.

In experimental setups, specific hypotheses about stimulus-response relationships can be clarified. Generally, research techniques employed by scientists can be classified into qualitative and quantitative procedures.

Qualitative studiesgather non-numerical insights, for example by analyzing diary entries, using open questionnaires, unstructured interviews or observations. Qualitative field / usability studies, for example, aim towards understanding how respondents see the world and why they react in a specific way rather than counting responses and analyzing the data statistically.

Quantitative studies characterize statistical, mathematical or computational techniques using numbers to describe and classify human behavior. Examples for quantitative techniques include structured surveys, tests as well as observations with dedicated coding schemes. Also, physiological measurements from EEG, EMG, ECG, GSR and other sensors produce quantitative output, allowing researchers to translate behavioral observations into discrete numbers and statistical outputs.

Behavioral observation is one of the oldest tools for psychological research on human behavior. Researchers either visit people in their natural surroundings (field study) or invite individuals or groups to the laboratory.

Observations in the field have several benefits. Participants are typically more relaxed and less self-conscious when observed at home, at school or at the workplace. Everything is familiar to them, permitting relatively unfiltered observation of behavior which is embedded into the natural surroundings of the individual or group of interest.

However, theres always the risk of distraction shouting neighbors or phones ringing. Field observations are an ideal starting point of any behavioral research study. Just sitting and watching people offers tremendous amounts of insights if youre able to focus on a specific question or aspect of behavior.

Observation in the laboratory, by contrast, allows much more experimental control. You can exclude any unwanted aspects and completely ban smart phones, control the room layout and make sure to have everything prepared for optimal recording conditions (correct lighting conditions, ensuring a quiet environment, and so on).

You can create near-realistic laboratory environments building a typical family living room, office space or creative zone, for example, to make respondents feel at ease and facilitating more natural behavior.

Surveys and questionnaires are an excellent tool to capture self-reported behaviors and skills, mental or emotional states or personality profiles of your respondents. However, questionnaires are always just momentary snapshots and capture only certain aspects of a persons behavior, thoughts and emotions.

Surveys and questionnaires typically measure what Kahneman would describe as system 2 processes thoughts that are carried out slowly and deliberately. System 1 processes thoughts that are fast and automatic can be measured by other methods that detect quick physiological changes.

In market research, focus groups typically consist of a small number of respondents (about 415) brought together with a moderator to focus on beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea or packaging. Focus groups are qualitative tools as their goal is to discuss in the group instead of coming to individual conclusions.

What are the benefits of a product, what are the drawbacks, where could it be optimized, who are ideal target populations? All of these questions can be addressed in a focus group.

While surveys and focus groups can be instrumental in understanding our conscious thoughts and emotions, there is more to human behavior than meets the eye. The subconscious mind determines how our behavior is ultimately carried out, and only a small fraction of that is accessible from traditional methodologies using surveys and focus groups.

As some researchers have claimed, up to 90% of our actions are guided by the subconscious. While the other 10% is important, it is clear that there is much to gain by probing further than what is tested by traditional methods.

Modern approaches aim to explore the hidden and uncharted territory of the subconscious, by measuring reliable outputs that provide deeper information about what someone is really thinking.

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Human Behavior: The Complete Pocket Guide - iMotions

Human Behavior

Science Hasn’t Refuted Free Will – Boston Review

Image: 9DreamStudio

A growing chorus says that science has shown free will to be an illusion. But it actually has offered arguments in its favor.

When we walk into a coffee shop, we think it is up to us whether to have an espresso, cappuccino, or strawberry-toffee-flavored latte with soymilk. Similarly, when we think about more serious matterswhich job to apply for, whether to get married, or whether to sacrifice our self-interest to do the morally right thingwe tend to think those choices are up to us, too. Of course, what we do is constrained by our environments, means, and habits. We are susceptible to subconscious influences and nudges, as psychologists and marketing experts know too well. But there still seems some room for choice. When I had my coffee this morning, I could have had a tea instead. This, in a nutshell, is the idea of free will: people have the capacity to choose and control their own actions.

An increasing number of popular science writers and some scientists are telling us that free will is an illusion.

Yet an increasing number of popular science writers and some scientists are telling us that free will is an illusion. The author Sam Harris and the biologist Jerry Coyne are just two prominent examples. When asked by Edge What scientific idea is ready for retirement? Coyne, for instance, volunteered free will, writing, Our thoughts and actions are the outputs of a computer made of meatour braina computer that must obey the laws of physics. Recently this line of thinking has even made it into popular writings by scholars in the humanities, as well. In his latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018), the historian Yuval Noah Harari speculates that in the age of big data, free will will likely be exposed as a mythand that this, in turn, has significant ramifications, among them that liberalism might lose its practical advantages.

According to the skeptics, human actions arent the result of conscious choices but are caused by physical processes in the brain and body over which people have no control. Human beings are just complex physical machines, determined by the laws of nature and prior physical conditions as much as steam engines and the solar system are so determined. The idea of free will, the skeptics say, is a holdover from a nave worldview that has been refuted by science, just as ghosts and spirits have been refuted. You have as little control over whether to continue to read this article as you have over the date of the next total solar eclipse visible from New York. (It is due to take place on May 1, 2079.)

Such free-will skepticism may not yet be embraced by the general public. Nor is it new; the philosophical debate about whether free will is compatible with determinism stretches back centuries, and the modern scientific debate has been roiling at least since the famous neuroscience experiments on the alleged neural causes of voluntary actions conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s. Still, this skepticism makes trouble for some deeply held views about ourselves. The idea of free will is central to the way we understand ourselves as autonomous agents and to our practices of holding one another responsible.

Lawyers, for example, are well aware of that, and the questions that neuroscience raises for the law have become a growing area of study in legal scholarship. How, for instance, could we blame and punish people for something they did not do out of their own free will? When an avalanche harms someone, it would not occur to us to blame the avalanche: unlike you and me (at least as most people see it), it is not a moral agent capable of responsibility. When a person harms another, we hold that person responsible. If the skeptics are right, this is a mistake. In both the human case and the avalanche, the skeptics say, the harm results from physical processes inside a heap of atoms and molecules.

The idea of free will, the skeptics say, is a holdover from a nave worldview that has been refuted by sciencejust as ghosts and spirits have been refuted.

Some free-will skepticsincluding Harris and Coyne but also the philosophers Derk Pereboom and Gregg Carusowelcome these implications. They point out that, as a society, we are far too obsessed with responsibility, punishment, and retribution. Many of the worlds criminal justice systems are inhumane as well as counterproductive. The skeptics have a point here, but one can support criminal justice reform while holding on to ones belief in free will. Human dignity and restorative justice should be reasons enough to focus more on rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders and on tackling the social background conditions of crime. Giving up on the idea of free will, by contrast, would have other unsettling implications, independently of anything to do with blame and punishment. For example, how could we sincerely deliberate about important choices if we didnt take ourselves to be free in making those choices? The philosopher Immanuel Kant already understood this problem when he noted that we must view ourselves as free when we engage in practical reasoning.

It is important to ask, then, whether free will can be defended against the skeptical voices, or whether, instead, its defenders are clinging to a superstition. I think that science has not refuted free will, after all. In fact, it actually offers arguments in its defense.

Contemporary free-will skepticismat least of the kind that appeals to scienceis part and parcel of a reductionistic worldview, according to which everything is reducible to physical processes. If we look at the world from the perspective of fundamental physics alone, then we will see only particles, fields, and forces, but no human agency, choice, and free will. Human beings, like everything else, will look like subsystems of a large impersonal physical universe. Of course, skeptics say that this is, in fact, what science implies. To suggest that human beings are anything beyond physical systems would be to revert to seventeenth-century metaphysics, the sort of mind-body dualism endorsed by Ren Descartes from which modern science has moved on.

Science has not refuted free will, after all. In fact, it actually offers arguments in its defense.

But it is a mistake to equate science with reductionism. Science does not force us to think of humans as nothing more than heaps of interacting particles. To the contrary, in the sciences of human behaviorfrom anthropology and psychology to economics and sociologyit is standard practice to think of people as intentional agents with a capacity for making choices and responding intelligently to their environments. Scholars in these fields explain human actions by depicting people as choice-making agents with beliefs and desires, goals and plans, on the basis of which they decide which actions to pursue. Different academic fields spell out the details in different wayswith different levels of emphasis on, for instance, the relationship between individual and structural factors influencing human actionsbut the general supposition of intentional agency is nonetheless present in all of them. This explanatory practice does not assume anything supernatural. It just reflects the fact that agency, intentionality, and choice are essential postulates if we wish to make sense of human behavior. So, the first point to note is that science would have a hard time explaining human behavior if it didnt view people as choice-making agents.

To illustrate, think about how we answer familiar questions about humans. Why does someone who has made an appointment normally show up? Why does a taxi driver take you to your specified destination? Why do consumers respond to price changes? Why do people support the political movements they do? In each case, the picture of humans as choice-making agents helps us to give the answer. The behaviors in question are readily intelligible if we think of people as having agency, intentionality, and choice. They are faced with different options, look at these options from their perspective, and select one of the options in a goal-directed and more or less intelligible manner, even if the resulting choices are not always fully rational. If we thought of people as mere physical machines, we would miss the intentional, goal-directed nature of their actions and get overwhelmed with physical details. We wouldnt see the forest for the trees. It would be like trying to explain investors market transactions, voters electoral choices, or peoples cultural activities from the perspective of particle physics. Physics and even physiology are not the right approaches for explaining human behavior in its full rangeholistically,we might say. At most, they can give us some insights into the mechanisms by which agency is generated in physical organisms. This is not to belittle those insights. Human agency and choice are among the most remarkable phenomena the physical world has produced, and as scientists and philosophers will acknowledge, there is much more to be explained. But this does not justify a reductionistic approach according to which the phenomena themselves are overlooked and get to be discounted.

Science does not force us to think of humans as nothing more than heaps of interacting particles.

Now, once we think of human beings in this nonreductionistic way, we are actually presupposing some form of free will, though liberated from supernatural undertones. That there is such a presupposition in our explanations of human behavior is seldom acknowledged, perhaps because free will is such a controversial concept and the practitioners of the relevant sciences may be reluctant to get drawn into metaphysical debates unless strictly necessary. However, free will, soberly speaking, can be defined as the capacity for intentional agency, choice among alternative possibilities, and control over the resulting choices. This capacityit should be clearis presupposed when scientists depict people as choice-making agents, whether in anthropology, psychology, economics, or sociology.

The skeptics will object that all this is at best a useful fiction, at worst a harmful one. At any rate, they will say, the free-will presupposition is not literally true. But consider how scientists settle questions about what is and is not real.

Why do scientists accept gravity and electromagnetism as real, but not ghosts and spirits? The answer is that science must refer to gravity and electromagnetism to explain physical phenomena, and these properties are indispensable ingredients of a coherent theory of the world, while postulating ghosts and spirits is not only useless but also prone to introducing all sorts of incoherencies. Generally, to figure out whether some entity or property is real, scientists ask two questions: first, is postulating the entity or property necessary for explaining the world, and second, is it coherent with the rest of our scientific worldview? If the answer to both questions is yes, then the entity or property meets the reality check, and scientists feel ready to include it in their inventory of the world, at least provisionally.

If the human and social sciences must postulate intentional agency and choice to explain human behavior, then those properties pass the first part of the scientific reality test: they are explanatorily indispensable.

This test, a version of Occams Razor, can be applied not just to physics. It also supports the reality of higher-level entities and properties such as ecosystems, institutions, and poverty. These, too, must be accepted as real if we wish to explain our world, and they are ingredients of a coherent scientific worldview, even if fundamental physics does not speak about them. When we think about free will through the lens of this test, we get a new perspective. If the human and social sciences must postulate intentional agency and choice to explain human behavior, then those properties pass the first part of the scientific reality test: they are explanatorily indispensable.

What about the second partcoherence with the rest of our scientific worldview? Here, the skeptics will object that if the fundamental laws of physics are deterministiclike the mechanisms of a precise clockworkthen there is no hope of rendering the notion of choice-making coherent. At any point in time, there will be only one possible future sequence of events, given the physical past. Traditionally, physical theoriesfrom Isaac Newtons classical mechanics to Albert Einsteins theories of relativityhave tended to represent the world this way.

Furthermore, even though indeterminism and randomness seemed to enter physics with the emergence of quantum mechanics (at least on the well-known Copenhagen interpretation), it is still an open question whether future, more advanced theories will retain this indeterminism. Einstein was famously unconvinced by the idea of indeterministic physical laws when he said, God does not play dice. Given that determinism has not been conclusively ruled out by science, therefore, we cant count on quantum mechanics to defend free willnot to mention that quantum indeterminacies would probably be a farfetched source of free will anyway. Indeed, hard determinist skeptics insist that we never have any real choices. When you appeared to make a choice about whether to read this essay, only one option was genuinely available (reading it, as you are doing right now); the other option never existed.

These are subtle issues, but deterministic physical laws arguably do not preclude forks in the road within human agency. An agents future choices can be open at a psychological level even if the underlying physics is deterministic. Though this may sound counterintuitive, the distinction between determinism and indeterminism cannot be drawn independently of the level of description at which we are looking at the world. A system can behave deterministically at one levelsay, the microphysical oneand indeterministically at anothersay, the level associated with some special science: chemistry, biology, meteorology, and so on.

Deterministic physical laws arguably do not preclude forks in the road within human agency. An agents future choices can be open at a psychological level even if the underlying physics is deterministic.

Physicists themselves recognize this point in the field of statistical mechanics, which describes how indeterministic macro phenomena can result from deterministic micro processes. The weather, for instance, is a macro system that behaves indeterministically even though the atmosphere consists of a large number of individual molecules that each movearound according to deterministic laws of motion. At a macro level, then, the Earths atmosphere can be thought of as indeterministic, despite being deterministic at a micro level. As the philosopher of physics Jeremy Butterfield puts it, a systemsmicro- and macro-dynamics need not mesh. And, I would argue, such emergent indeterminism is not just apparent. It is best interpreted not as epistemicdue to incomplete information about the worldbut as ontic: a feature of what the world is like. So, to cut a long story short, the sciences give us the resources to show that forks in the road in human decision-making can co-exist with determinism in physics. Of course, the openness of human choices is not just a phenomenon of statistical mechanics; it comes from option availability as described by our best explanatory theories of human decision-making.

For the time being, then, the hypothesis of free will is corroborated by the sciences of human behaviour. Free will, for the purposes of the human and social sciences, boils down to agency, intentionality, and choice, which are well-supported and indeed explanatorily indispensable ideas. Denying free will would be warranted only if these ideas werent needed for explaining human behavior or if they were somehow incoherent, which they arent.

To be sure, future science might vindicate a reductionistic approach and explain human behavior without representing people as choice-making agents. But science doesnt seem to be heading that way. So far, psychology, broadly speaking, has resisted reduction and has been augmented but not replaced by neuroscience. Just as we wouldnt deny the reality of ecosystems, institutions, and poverty merely because fundamental physics doesnt refer to them, so there is no reason to deny the reality of agency, choice, and free will either. The skeptics mistake is to assume a reductionistic picture of humans that is neither mandated by science, nor adequate for understanding human behavior.

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Science Hasn't Refuted Free Will - Boston Review

Human Behavior

Robert Kirby: Where are the grown-ups in Washington? – Salt Lake Tribune

I forced myself to watch the State of the Union address and the final days of the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Post-traumatic stress doesnt even begin to cover the result.

There is a bit of hope. I used to be the most immature person I know. Today, I am far more mature than most of Congress.

Granted, this is nothing to brag about, because so is the average high school detention class, a car full of circus clowns and perhaps even the participants in a soccer riot.

Trump emerged as the gloating victor, Nancy Pelosi as the thwarted kindergartner. Not only was I embarrassed to be an American, but for a while there I also wished that I belonged to a different species.

Thats government. When people dont get what they want for Christmas, out come the tantrums.

I appreciate that we all are entitled to our own political opinions. But as someone more interested in human behavior than politics, I tend to travel both sides of the road. Behavior says a lot more than ideals.

For example, when it comes to politics, Im more of a Rep. Ben McAdams guy than a Sen. Mitt Romney guy. But guts are guts and should be noted.

As near as I can tell, the most mature person in the mess was Romney. It takes a lot of strength to defy your associates over your conscience.

I dont have much of a conscience. But people I know and respect who do have told me that it took a lot of courage for Romney to do what he did in casting a guilty vote against the president.

On Thursday, Trump acknowledged that he has done things wrong in his life, but and heres the kicker never intentionally. Meaning any wrongdoing he ever committed was entirely by accident.

Ha! If this is true and its not hes the only person in the world who has ever caused a single problem simply by not paying attention. That alone should disqualify him for the job of president.

Unlike Trump, Ive done a lot of things wrong almost all of them on purpose, including some of which Im still rather proud.

But Im not the president of the United States, any of its lesser leaders, a well-respected religious figure, a beacon of hope to the downtrodden or much of a good neighbor. Hell, I cant even drive well. Very little should be expected of me.

I couldnt make it all the way through Trumps self-congratulatory speech Thursday. Had there been even a hint of look what we got away with in the blathering to friends and supporters, I might have stuck with it.

On the other hand, I didnt bother to watch any of House Speaker Pelosis wrapup of how things came off the rails. After her grade-school stunt following Trumps State of the Union address, she should stick to paper shredding instead of government.

Then again, shes entitled to express her opinion. I wouldnt blame anyone for tearing up this column. Just make sure its real paper and not your computer monitor.

Maybe Pelosi should take a note from the president and claim that tearing up his speech was entirely unintentional.

Its not her fault that her hands went off by accident.

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Robert Kirby: Where are the grown-ups in Washington? - Salt Lake Tribune

Human Behavior

Scientists are racing to model the next moves of a coronavirus that’s still hard to predict – Science Magazine

This model shows the most probable routes that the novel coronavirus will take tospread from the international airport in Beijing to airports around the world. Bubble size represents relative risk at each airport.

By Jon CohenFeb. 7, 2020 , 6:15 PM

Beyond China itself, Thailand is the country that most likely will have people who arrive at one of its airports with an infection by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that has sickened more than 30,000 people. So says the latest update of a global risk assessment model created by a team of researchers from the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Robert Koch Institute that relies on air travel data.

Next on the teams list is JapanOsakas international airport, interestingly, is more at risk than Tokyoswhich is followed by South Korea, Hong Kong, and then the United States. Russia likely has more infected people flying in than India, Germany (mainly the Frankfurt and Munich airports) is the most vulnerable country in Western Europe, and Ethiopia is the only sub-Saharan African country to break into the top 30 of virus-threated countries.

So, how seriously should this model, and the dozens of other computer simulations of the outbreak, be taken? Scientists studying the 2019-nCoV outbreak are getting plenty of data to groundtruth and tweak their models. As of yesterday, for example, the most confirmed cases outside of mainland China were in Japan (45), Singapore (28), Thailand (25), Hong Kong (24), and South Korea (23). That could be considered a partial success for the Berlin model, but it also reflects that this is a dynamic outbreak that upends assumptions at a blinding speed; for example, the airport in Wuhan, China, the outbreaks epicenter, was closed on 23 January, which radically altered airline exportation of the virus, and today there are 61 confirmed cases on a cruise ship off the coast of Japan.

This is not so much a tool for making quantitative predictions, says Dirk Brockmann, a physicist at Humboldt who leads the modeling team. Public health officials and policymakers have to develop an intuition because this virus is something unknown. Models can help you develop an intuition.

A flurry of models of the 2019-nCoV outbreak have been shared on websites, preprint servers, and in peer-reviewed journals, and many attempt to do far more than just sharpen hunches about where infected air travelers are going to land. If they have robust enough data, models can forecast the rate at which an outbreak will grow and help predict the impact of various interventions. When you start to include disease dynamics and population information, theres more information than just intuition, says Alessandro Vespignani, an infectious disease modeler at Northeastern University.

The centerpiece of many outbreak/infectious disease/pathogen models is the basic reproduction number, or Ro (pronounced R zero or R naught). Its essentially how many people each infected person can infect if the transmission of the virus is not hampered by quarantines, face masks, or other factors. Modelers also look at the incubation time, which is how long it takes for the virus to cause symptoms. The serial interval factors in the time between a person developing symptoms and a contact becoming ill. In this young outbreak, unknowns riddle every model. The current estimate for 2019-nCoVs incubation time has been hard to pin down with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggesting theres a range of 2 to 14 days. There are many things that should be carefully weighted at this point, and thats why the modeling has difficulties, Vespignani says.

One of the first models to come outby a group at Imperial College London on its website on 17 Januarylooked at confirmed infections outside China to infer the number of infections that likely had occurred in Wuhan. At the time the group released that model, Wuhan had only reported that 41 illnesses were caused by the virus, and the model estimated that by 12 January, the infection had actually sickened 1723 people in the city. Those estimates, which were startling at the time, seem quaint now: As of 5 February, there were 27,619 confirmed cases, and a modeling study by the University of Hong Kongs Joseph Wu and colleagues that was published online by The Lancet on31 January estimated that Wuhan alone had 75,815 cases by 25 January.

Many of the early calculationsincluding the initial airport analysis done by Brockmanns teamlost all meaning after Wuhan shut down public transportation. That was just over 2 weeks ago, which seems like 2 years ago now, Vespignani says.

One of the most vexing mysteries at the moment that can undermine modeling is whether people with 2019-nCoV who do not have symptoms can transmit an infection. Its possible that there are infected people who never become ill but still transmit. There also may be infected people who transmit before they develop symptoms. Most of the fate of the epidemic is in this element, Vespignani says.

The viral diagnostic tests being used to confirm cases now typically are only done on people seeking care because they are ill. One way to find asymptomatic or presymptomatic cases is to examine peoples blood for signs of an immune response to 2019-nCoV. To know the full extent of spread youd like to collect blood samples from contacts of infected people and do the same 2 weeks later and see if theyve developed antibodies to the virus, says Marion Koopmans, whose team at Erasmus Medical Center is racing to develop an antibody test for 2019-nCoV. That gives you a better estimate of spread without symptoms.

Models may also become sharper as researchers have a finer understanding of the epidemiology of infected cases, which means details about their location, health, age, and gender. Those data can help modelers make more reliable assumptions about factors like incubation time. To that end, computational epidemiologist Moritz Kraemer at the University of Oxford has spearheaded an unusual effort to compile a line list of confirmed cases by sifting through government reports, the medical literature, reliable media accounts, and social media. Line lists contain incredibly useful information that are not visible in aggregated case counts, Kraemer says. Unfortunately, line list data are rarely available during outbreaks and until now only routinely collected by governments that do not share them openly.

This line list, which has more than 15,000 cases on it now, documents everything thats public about infected individuals. His group has already used the data in a study that assesses the capacity of countries in Africa to detect and respond to cases; two of the five most vulnerable countries on the continent, Ethiopia and Nigeria, have what they call variable capacity to respond to the outbreak. A modeling study by a different group used the data to assess transmission dynamics, concluding that once a place has three cases, there is more than a 50% chance the virus can become established in the population.

On top of needing better data, models also suffer from how their forecasts are interpreted by journalists or the public. Robin Thompson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Oxford who has modeled the outbreak, contends many news stories have garbled descriptions of Ro, the basic reproduction number, and exaggerated the risk of spread. Its being misused in this outbreak, Thompson says.

Most estimates for 2019-nCoV calculate that Ro is between two and threethat an infected person will infect two or three others. But this is just an average. Some infected people, by chance, wont transmit the virus to anyone else. The real question from a population standpoint is what is the probability with an Ro of, say, 2.2, that there will be sustained transmission of the virus? With this new virus, Thompson calculates theres a 54.5% chance of sustained spread starting from a single infected person if nothing, for example a vaccine, prevents transmission.

Ro does not change during an outbreak: A virus has a certain, fixed contagiousness factormeasles, for example, more easily spreads between people than influenza. But even in the absence of a vaccine, human behavior and the environment itself can alter the likelihood of spread. Hospitals isolate infected people or they choose to stay home. A further decrease also often occurs as an outbreak matures and many people become immune because of previous exposure, reducing the number of susceptible hosts. Hand washing, wearing protective garb, and social distancing can also reduce transmission rates. A climactic shift, like winter becoming spring, may affect the ability of a respiratory virus to transmit through the air.

In the lingo of modelers, what matters most is not the unchanging basic reproduction number of Ro, but what they somewhat unimaginatively refer to as the reproduction number, or R, that factors in these other variables. R is constantly in flux. Heres an example of R, expressed as a percentage: Thompson calculates that if 50% of infected symptomatic people are isolated and 20% are asymptomatic, then the risk of sustained transmission is 24.2%.

The take home message from this R analysis is that countries other than China still have a good chance of containing 2019-nCoV. Early on in an outbreak, you can take advantage of the fact that theres this probability of the thing fading out, Thompson says. And if you can isolate the few infected people you have very quickly, then the probability of this fading out is much higher.

Ultimately, models are a science-based attempt to inform public health policy. Take travel restrictions. Wu says he doubts that restricting travel from Wuhan will have any impact on spread within China at this point. He points to calculations by an international team of scientists that the Wuhan travel restrictions, which those researchers described as the largest quarantine in human history, delayed spread to other cities in China by just 2.91 days. Keeping Wuhan locked down now would not make a difference for [epidemiological] curves for other cities in China now, Wu says. Now, social distancing there is essential.

Hong Kong, which has 24 confirmed cases to date, waited until today to close its own borders to people from mainland China. The public had asked the government to reduce the flow from the mainland, and the government had different reasons for not wanting to do that, Wu says. Public health is a priority, but the economy is also a major concern. If it cuts people flow, it can also cut the supply chain of necessary products to Hong Kong.

So the balance between public health and politics factor in to 2019-nCoVs spreadwhich means a refined understanding of Ro and R, incubation time, the serial interval, and other variables can only sharpen a models predictive powers to a point. As most every honest modeling paper cautions, There are limits to this analysis.

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Scientists are racing to model the next moves of a coronavirus that's still hard to predict - Science Magazine

Human Behavior

Fueled by ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Majority in US Believe Climate Crisis Most Crucial Issue Facing Society: Poll – Common Dreams

New polling results published Thursday revealed that a majority of U.S. adults believe climate change is the most important issue facing society, have made an effort to reduce their contribution to the global crisis, and are willing to vote for a candidate based on their position on the topic.

Among those aged 1834, 47% indicated that "the stress they feel about climate change affects their daily lives."

The American Psychological Association (APA) surveyconducted in December 2019 by the Harris Pollcomes on the heels of Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses for this year's presidential race, where entrance polling showed that the climate crisis was the second-most important issue to caucusgoers, behind healthcare.

According to the online APA poll, 56% of respondents said climate change is the most important issue, 60% have changed a behavior to cut their contributionsuch as reducing waste, using renewable energy, and altering transportation or diet choicesand 62% are willing to vote for a political candidate based on their climate position.

The survey showed that people were most motivated to change their behavior based on a desire to preserve the planet for future generations (52%) and after hearing news reports about the climate crisis and its impacts like more devastating extreme weather (43%). APA also found that respondents, particularly those aged 1834, are stressed about how the planetary emergency impacts their lives.

More than two-thirds of all adults surveyed (68%) said that they have at least a little "eco-anxiety," which Oxford Dictionaries defines as "extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change." Among those aged 1834, 47% indicated that "the stress they feel about climate change affects their daily lives."

In a statement announcing the poll results, APA chief executive officer Arthur C. Evans Jr. said that "the health, economic, political, and environmental implications of climate change affect all of us. The tolls on our mental health are far reaching."

"As climate change is created largely by human behavior," Evans added, "psychologists are continuing to study ways in which we can encourage people to make behavioral changesboth large and smallso that collectively we can help our planet."

The number of young American adults stressed about the climate crisis, as captured in the APA's new survey, could have an impact on upcoming political contests in the United Sates, including the Democratic presidential primary race and the general election in November.

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The nation is still waiting on the final outcome of the Iowa caucuses due to a debacle with collecting and reporting the results. However, the data released so far from 97% of precinctswhich are "riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws," according to a New York Times analysisshow Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading the popular vote while effectively tied with former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg when it comes to state delegates.

Entrance polling from Iowa reported by the Washington Post showed that 21% of caucusgoers said climate change was the "most important issue" in the vote. That compared with 42% who said healthcare, 18% who said income inequality, and 13% who said foreign policy. That polling also showed 37% of participants were first-time caucusgoers and the youth voter share rose a third from 2016.

Responding to those results in a statement Tuesday, the youth-led Sunrise Movementwhich endorsed Sanders last monthsaid that "we don't yet know everything that happened last nightbut we do know this: there is a broad, widespread mandate for the Green New Deal, and Iowans turned out in force last night to make sure presidential candidates don't forget it."

"We're particularly proud of the historic levels of turnout among young people who caucused last night, many of whom were brought into the movement by our efforts to engage them in college classes and high school gyms across the state," Sunrise said. "The level of youth turnout and concern about climate change in the Iowa entrance polls is incredible It's a major mark of success for our Iowa team's work these past six months. They got 7,000 young people to pledge to vote for the Green New Deal, organized hundreds of volunteers, and canvassed thousands of people across the state."

Now, all eyes are on New Hampshire, which will hold the nation's second nominating contest on Feb. 11. The Sunrise Movement took to Twitter Thursday to share a report from The New Republic entitled "The Youth Climate Movement Comes to New Hampshire."

As The New Republic reported Wednesday:

Many of the volunteers and organizers spoke of the difficulty balancing urgency and sustainability in building a youth movement. Climate anxiety can be either a motivating or paralyzing factor. "Sometimes you're thinking ahead about the future, and then you're like, Oh, but is that even going to exist then?" said Esther, 16, from New Jersey. "Like, fuck, New York City is going to be underwater in 50 years, according to these reports."

Though it takes a personal toll, a sense of urgency may be needed to address the climate crisis, the report noted. "The only time that we have seen substantial change in society," Dana Fisher, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies the environment and American protest movements, said, "is when there is this extreme sense of risk that either comes from a true disaster or a sense that a disaster is looming."

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Fueled by 'Eco-Anxiety,' Majority in US Believe Climate Crisis Most Crucial Issue Facing Society: Poll - Common Dreams

Human Behavior

Girija Kaimal and art positivity – Drexel University The Triangle Online

While there has long since been a presumed connection between creating art and happiness, Drexel professor Girija Kaimals research proves it.

Drexel Universitys Girija Kaimals extensive research in art therapy was featured in National Public Radios Life Kit newsletter and podcast last month.

Life Kit, which focuses on health, money, parenting and life skills, published two back-to-back articles featuring Kaimals research. Making Art Is Good for Your Health. Heres How To Start A Habit gave readers six ways to make creativity a healthy life-long habit, while Feeling Artsy? Heres How Making Art Helps Your Brain focused on the science behind what happens to your body when you make art and why it is so therapeutic.

Kaimal is an associate professor at Drexel University and is listed as an expert in research in the Creative Arts Therapy Department, but she did not originally go to school for therapy, she said. She was torn between getting an undergraduate degree in design or psychology, unaware that art therapy was even an option. It combined the interests she was struggling to choose between.

I ended up choosing design, but part of me was very eager to do psychology. I was always curious about human behavior and very curious about why people do what they do. Im still fascinated by it everyday, Kaimal said.

Kaimal completed her Masters in Art Therapy from Drexel in 2001 and her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University. She practiced art therapy and worked with youth, HIV patients and in hospitals before returning to Drexel in 2013, researching and teaching for the program she graduated from.

Kaimal considers herself an artist to this day, working mostly with natural media like tree bark, leaves and clay reimagining and repurposing her materials. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in design, she finally discovered art therapy.

Although this is not the first time that Kaimals work has been featured in the media, she was particularly excited about the responses the Life Kit focus solicited. People reached out to her to let her know that the articles had helped or in some way empowered them.

When asked about how she felt seeing her work published, Kaimal was ecstatic. That made me very happy, its sort of why we do this, its to empower people to get out there and do their thing. I didnt know art therapy was a thing, but when I discovered it, it made a lot of sense to me so when I discovered art therapy, I felt like it was a perfect combination of my interest in art and connecting it to psychology.

As Kaimal told NPR, art can reduce stress and improve your mood, and it benefits those who are willing to try. Someone who is eager to learn more about themselves and wants to share their experience but doesnt always have the words for it, art therapy is really perfect for that, because sometimes we can express ourselves in ways we dont always have words for, Someone struggling with communication.

As Kaimal mentioned in the NPR article, you dont need to be incredibly skilled to consider yourself an artist. She has worked with clients who possess a broad range of artistic skillsets.

Someone who comes in with a perception that theyre not skilled they are the ones I find surprise themselves. Other times there are people who come in and they might not be so happy with the final product because they set a higher bar for themselves and I try to remind them about what the project means, what they got out of it, not as much about the outcome, Kaimal stated.

In both cases, Kaimal said that she finds that most people leave with a sense of relief in having the ability to express themselves in a nonjudgmental way. While she is not aware of any current art therapy services for Drexel students, she thinks that it would be a great addition to the school.

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Girija Kaimal and art positivity - Drexel University The Triangle Online