Cell Biology

Casma Therapeutics Appoints Two Experts in Lysosomal Proteostasis Pathways and Functional Genomics to Scientific Advisory Board – BioSpace

Christian and Martin are at the vanguard of their respective fields, known for applying cutting edge technologies to uncover the molecular basis for physio-pathological activity, said Leon Murphy, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Casma Therapeutics. Their expertise will greatly enrich the work of our scientific advisory board as we explore ways to leverage autophagy, the cells natural recycling process, to develop a new class of therapeutics.

Christian Grimm, a Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Medical Faculty, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany, brings world-leading expertise in the study of endo-lysosomal ion channels and their role in human disease. With a focus on electrophysiology, cell and chemical biology, Grimm has developed multiple tools and techniques to understand the role of intracellular ion channels in rare and common disorders. His extensive training from top academic institutes and experience in the pharmaceutical sector has allowed him to develop highly selective small molecule probes that modulate ion channels. He received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, followed by postdoctoral research fellowships at Harvard University and Stanford University, USA (2004-2009).

Casmas focus on developing treatments that leverage the autophagy-lysosomal system is an exciting opportunity to address several important human disorders in a whole new way, Grimm said. I look forward to working with my fellow SAB members to advise Casma on the path forward.

Martin Kampmann, an Associate Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator, has pioneered the development and use of genome-wide editing approaches to study proteostasis networks in health and disease with a major focus on neurodegeneration. Kampmann has received numerous honors for his research, including the Chan Zukerberg Initiative Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award in 2018 and the NIH Directors New Innovator Award in 2015. He earned his Ph.D. in biological sciences from The Rockefeller University.

The autophagy-lysosomal system plays a fundamental role in preserving cellular health and is a very exciting target for neurodegeneration Kampmann said. Casma has the opportunity here to pioneer a new class of medicines based on these insights, and Im excited to be working with their team and their stellar scientific advisers.

Grimm and Kampmann will join founding scientific advisory board members Sascha Martens of the University of Vienna, Austria, and Pietro De Camilli of Yale University, both appointed in March 2019, and Steven Gygi of Harvard Medical School, who was appointed in October 2019.

About Casma Therapeutics

Casma Therapeutics is harnessing the natural cellular process of autophagy to open vast new target areas for drug discovery and development. Casma uses several approaches to intervene at strategic points throughout the autophagy-lysosome system to improve the cellular process of clearing out unwanted proteins, aggregates, organelles and invading pathogens. By boosting autophagy, Casma expects to be able to arrest or reverse the progression of lysosomal storage disorders, muscle disorders, inflammatory disorders and neurodegeneration, among other indications. Casma was launched in 2018 by Third Rock Ventures and is based in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, please visit http://www.casmatx.com.

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Casma Therapeutics Appoints Two Experts in Lysosomal Proteostasis Pathways and Functional Genomics to Scientific Advisory Board - BioSpace

Cell Biology

Oded Rechavi Studies the RNA Nematodes Pass to Their Offspring – The Scientist

Although neurobiologist Oded Rechavi comes from a family of doctors and researchers, it was not his original plan to go into science. It wasnt something that I had thought about, he tells The Scientist. Instead, he went to Paris after high school to train as an artist and exhibited his work in his home country of Israel before enrolling at Tel Aviv University. I still didnt know exactly what Id do, whether Id be an artist or something else, he says.

At university, Rechavi became interested in studying psychology, philosophy, and biologyspecifically, the biology of the brain, which fascinated him. He earned a bachelors degree in neuroscience in 2006 and then went on to do a PhD, also at Tel Aviv. For his graduate work, he pivoted his focus to immune cells and found that when T and B cells connect with each other, they exchange macromolecules such as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that can break down messenger RNA molecules, preventing them from being translated into proteinsa process known as RNA interference, or RNAi (Genes Dev, 23:197179, 2009). Now we know that small RNAs are exchanged in many different organs, he says.

He has a lot of research interests and an infectious enthusiasm for things. . . . The extent of his creativity really knows no bounds.

Oliver Hobert, Columbia University

Rechavi continued to study RNA as a postdoc in Oliver Hoberts lab at Columbia University in New York. It was pretty clear when he came to visit the lab that he was really very specialincredibly thoughtful, creative, and very excited and engaged about the projects that we discussed, Hobert says. One of those projects was investigating siRNAs that C. elegans produces as a defense against viral infection. In 2011, Rechavi and colleagues demonstrated that the worms passed down those siRNAs from parent to offspring (Cell, 147:124856). Theres no virus that infects C. elegans efficiently, Rechavi explains. Only mutants that are defective in RNA [interference] are infected with viruses, and this could be in part because [nematodes] inherit siRNAs.

In 2012, Rechavi moved back to Israel and established his own lab at his alma mater. Inspired by human epidemiological studies, which have suggested that famine is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity in subsequent generations, he wanted to see if changes in siRNAs caused by an environmental stressor could be inherited several generations down the line in nematodes. Sure enough, Rechavis group, in collaboration with Hobert, showed that starving nematodes passed down siRNAs that cause silencing of genes involved with fat regulation and stress resistance (Cell, 158:27787, 2014). We showed that small RNAs leave a mark thats perceived for multiple generations after starvation, Rechavi says. Additional studies from his group showed that inherited siRNAs can also have effects on movement and even decision making in the worms.

Hes got a great model system in C. elegans. . . . It was very impactful, and it shed a new light on these problems, says Michael Levin, a systems biologist at Tufts University who studies planarian flatworms and has written review papers with Rechavi on RNA inheritance. I always thought that his work was particularly creative and rigorous, and I think he has a very unique kind of mind.

Although Rechavi ended up focusing his career on science instead of art, he often looks for ways to combine the two. Hes a research associate in an interdisciplinary group of artists and scientists that focuses on culture, society, and philosophy at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. And hes also using Twitter to organize a February 2020 conference in Tel Aviv informally called The Woodstock of Biology, which will feature a collaborative art exhibition focusing on natural resources.

He has a lot of research interests and an infectious enthusiasm for things, Hobert says. The extent of his creativity really knows no bounds.

Emily Makowski is an intern atThe Scientist. Email her atemakowski@the-scientist.com.

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Oded Rechavi Studies the RNA Nematodes Pass to Their Offspring - The Scientist

Cell Biology

Organ-On-A-Chip Market Increasing Demands and Sales 2018 to 2023 – BulletintheNews

The global market fororgan-on-a-chipshould grow from $11.3 billion in 2018 to $60.6 billion by 2023 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.9% from 2018 to 2023.

Report Scope:

The scope of this report is broad and covers various types of products available in the organ-on-a-chip market and potential application sectors in various industries. The organ-on-a-chip market is broken down by product into instruments and consumables. Revenue forecasts from 2018 to 2023 are given for each product, application, cell type and end user, with estimated valued derived from the revenues of manufacturers. Revenue generated from the installation and maintenance of instruments has been excluded from the report.

This report also includes a discussion of the major players in each regional organ-on-a-chip market. Further, it explains the major drivers and regional dynamics of the global market and current trends within the industry.The report concludes with a special focus on the vendor landscape and includes detailed profiles of the major players in the global organ-on-a-chip market.

Get Sample Copy Of The Report:https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/11748

Report Includes:

56 data tables and 49 additional tables An overview of global market for organ-on-a-chip within the industry Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2017 and 2018, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023 Description of potential applications in pharmaceutical and life science research sectors, including preclinical drugs testing, drug screening, personalized medicine, phenotypic screening, lead optimization and disease modelling Information on multi-channel 3-D microfluidic cell culture chip and discussion of their ability to imitate human micro environment in vitro Discussion on how organ on a chip is emerging as a priority testing alternative which is replacing animals in life science research, toxicology testing and drug development studies Knowledge about implementation of 3rs (replacement, refinement and reduction of animals-based research) in the industry Insights into government programs and policies in support of organ on chip and coverage of revised laws involving animal testing Company profiles of the top players in the industry, including Emulate, Hurel Corp., Insphero, Organovo and Synvivo

Summary

An organ-on-a-chip is a type of artificial organ that possesses the capability to simulate activities, mechanics and physiological response similar to that of an organ system. These are multi-channel 3-D microfluidic cell culture chips that are primarily being used in life science and drug development research because of their ability to imitate human microenvironments in vitro. The unique characteristics of organ-on-a-chip are worked out by integrating biology and advanced engineering. Cell biology, microfluidics and microfabrication are core fields paving their way towards development of organ-on-a-chip.

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Organ-on-a-chip is seen as a priority testing alternative replacing animals in life science research, toxicology testing and drug development studies around the globe. The European Union parliament is looking forward to revising laws involving animal testing. Through groups such as the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) and International Council of Animal Protection in OECD Programmes (ICAPO), the parliament is seeking to implement policies circumventing 3R (refinement, reduction, and replacement) practices in biomedical research, according to the National Centre for the Replacement Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research. The Federation ofAmerican Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), the largest coalition of biomedical research in the U.S. has made organ-on-a-chip a priority investment for research and development for next five years. Through organ-on-a-chip, FASEB is looking forward to improved productivity in research.

The global organ-on-a-chip market is projected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of REDACTED during the forecast period of 2018 through 2023. The market value is expected to rise from REDACTED in 2018 to REDACTED by 2023. The heart market in is projected to rise at a CAGR of REDACTED. The global heart-on-a-chip market is expected to rise from REDACTED in 2018 to over REDACTED by 2023.

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Organ-On-A-Chip Market Increasing Demands and Sales 2018 to 2023 - BulletintheNews

Embryology

The science of families: Aberdeen IVF centre is at the forefront of fertility treatment – Press and Journal

If you turn right at the entrance of Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, youll inevitably come across excited visitors and proud parents cradling their new additions.

Balloons gently bob down the corridor along with bunches of flowers, and families make their way home together for the very first time.

Although a baby symbolises hope, however, the path to parenthood is not always straightforward.

Some parents give a quick glance as they pass through the doors, and look left to where their journey may have started.

For, alongside the neonatal unit where babies can receive lifesaving care, there is a department doing remarkable work.

It can be difficult for those who have yet to fall pregnant to see and hear the joy of others in such close proximity.

The lucky few, however, have experienced both sides of the building having originally turned left into Aberdeen Fertility Centre.

The unit has been at the forefront of fertility treatment for more than 30 years, with the first IVF baby born in Aberdeen in 1989.

The university department offers a clinical service to Grampian, the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland.

It is one of only four fertility centres in Scotland funded by the NHS, although patients must meet certain criteria before undergoing treatment.

Alongside investigations, the centre can offer treatment such as IVF, ICSI, egg/sperm/embryo freezing and recipient, IUI, surgical sperm retrieval and surrogacy.

The science behind these processes is mind-boggling and the clinic is also in the process of setting up a national donor bank.

For laboratory manager and embryologist Dr Liz Ferguson, helping people to fall pregnant is all in a days work.

She manages a team of 11, and can usually be found overseeing work in the lab.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, IVF in particular is more popular and successful than ever before.

The reasons for fertility treatment have also gradually changed across the decades, with more same-sex couples, single women and surrogates undergoing treatment.

Liz believes that women are also putting off motherhood in a bid to climb the career ladder, and can find themselves in need of fertility treatment in their late 30s.

Increasingly these days, women want to have their career before a baby, said Liz.

Unexplained infertility is actually very common, and you have to factor in all the delays. So by the time someone has started trying to get pregnant, then, say, they wait another two years before coming to us for tests, age plays a big factor.

Fertility in women can decline quite rapidly after the age of 35.

So we always say the younger, the better because we want patients to have the best possible chance.

Liz and her team can watch life begin underneath the microscope, and work with exceptionally high-tech equipment.

We have an EmbryoScope in the lab it was funded by the Scottish Government, explained Liz. It is a special incubator where we can place the eggs once they have been fertilised.

The incubator provides a stable environment where we can watch the eggs develop, hopefully into embryos.

My job is very rewarding, but it can also be intense.

Say we have retrieved eggs from a patients, but there are only two eggs we can use.

That can be quite an anxious time, when youre injecting the sperm into the egg.

People can assume that if 10 eggs are retrieved, that means all 10 embryos will fertilise. That isnt actually the case though, as each embryo is given a score as to how viable it is.

We can also freeze embryos theyre kept in liquid nitrogen in storage tanks.

We only implant one embryo at a time, to minimise the risk of multiple pregnancies.

The team will be told two weeks after an embryo transfer as to whether a patient has fallen pregnant, but there are still many hurdles to overcome.

People are referred to us for a variety of reasons, said Liz.

We have male infertility, such as testicular damage where the patient might need surgery to retrieve the sperm.

Then theres endometriosis, which can make it difficult for the embryo to implant.

Its amazing that were able to help patients in the first place.

So when a patient comes back and sees us with their baby, theres no feeling quite like it.

I think some patients can find it quite hard to come to the fertility centre via the maternity entrance. Especially if you dont get the news you wanted, and then you see someone with a newborn baby.

We do have a side entrance, but well be completely separate from the maternity ward in the new hospital.

I feel very lucky to have this job, especially when you come across people who may have been trying to conceive for years, adds Liz.

IVF isnt a quick process, but when you finally have a baby at the end of it, thats what were all hoping for.

Thats what we work towards.

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The science of families: Aberdeen IVF centre is at the forefront of fertility treatment - Press and Journal

Human Behavior

What the ‘economics of violence’ tells us about Soleimani’s death | TheHill – The Hill

After Irans missile attacks on two Iraqi bases andnew sanctionsfrom President TrumpDonald John TrumpUS troops knew about attack on al-Asad airbase, were able to take shelter: report Democrats expand ground game to woo Latinos in Nevada Trump tweets message of support to Iranian protesters: 'Your courage is inspiring' MORE this week following Qassem Soleimanis death, the chorus is asking: What happens next with Iran?

The Quds Force that Soleimani led engages in unconventional warfare and intelligence collection. This means they engage in terrorism and insurgency operations outside of Irans borders.

Last weekend, the Iranian government announced that it wouldno longer abideby the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal unless the U.S. lifted sanctions. Under Iranian influence, the acting prime minister of Iraq sought to expel all5,000 U.S. troopsfrom the country. U.S. political leaders seemat oddsover how to respond.

The what happens next? refrain makes sense: Predicting human behavior in complex political environments poses a great challenge. Terrorism experts, historians, Iranian military and political experts, and Middle East scholars have issued forecasts ranging fromWorld War III to little more than ritual denunciations of the U.S.

But while individual responses aggregated up to government actions are only weakly predictable, the conditions that incentivize and constrain those responses are observable and instructive. As we saw with the deaths of al Qaeda founderOsama bin Laden, jihadist and terrorist leaderAbu Musab al-Zarqawi and ISIS leaderAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the death of a single individual, however powerful and justice-inducing, does not necessarily extinguish the complex movement behind that individual leader.

Wars in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have been about leaders of organizations competing for scarce opportunities for power and exploiting forms of identity to find leverage. We make a mistake by assigning identity labels to them. Instead, we must consider that behind every act of violence are individuals making decisions in conditions of scarcity. Violence is an economic problem not in the sense that all violent actors seek monetary gain (although some do), but in the sense that organized violence results from markets in which individuals pursue self-interests while facing constraints.

Employing the "economics of violence" perspective in asking what comes next with Iran in the aftermath of Gen. Soleimanis death, we must think in market terms. Specifically, we must employ market analysis and ask three questions:

Essentially, Soleimani was the CEO of the firm that is the Quds Force a firm that routinely engages in violence and coercion, and targets Americans and our allies. The U.S. airstrike removed the CEO; what is the impact on the firm of removing the CEO?

In most cases, even the best executives can be replaced. Sometimes, however, the leader possesses such vision and charisma that the firm suffers from the loss of the leader. The legendary Steve Jobs was replaced successfully by Tim Cook; Indra Nooyi resigned fromPepsiCo,and her successor is leading the company with a reformed vision for the future; Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left their company in 2018 but company revenue more thandoubledin 2019.

In the same vein, the death of bin Laden was not the death of al Qaeda and, while it is too soon to say definitively, we can expect that the death of al-Baghdadi did not spell the end of ISIS. We cannot expect that killing Soleimani will destroy Iran's Quds Force. At a minimum, the act killed a person who did bad things, and it provides some sense of justice to those affected. To understand the more strategic impact, we must look at the market.

Military victory can no longer be defined as the moment when one enemy is either killed or signs a peace treaty, because when one entrepreneur or firm exits a market, others predictably emerge. If the United States or another friendly government or institution cannot step into the void, should the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) weaken, then we would be foolish to expect a change in the IRGC posture. With the strengthening of U.S. sanctions on Iran, however, the Iranian economy has suffered, likely weakening the IRGC.

A weaker IRGC could provide space for the people of Iran to organize civil institutions and gain power vis--vis oppressive ruling Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Does true victory mean defeating the Quds Force, or promoting a balance of political power in Iran? Removing the Quds Force's CEO cannot bring about this outcome but may contribute to such a success if conducted as part of a strategic plan.

Successful violent groups can act with agility. The successful firm adapts as market dynamics change. This means fighting like an entrepreneur. Instead of fighting only with military forces, the U.S. must compete in multiple ways. Such an approach includes attacking sources of funding and access to markets, continuing to pressure managerial capabilities and undermining IRGC abilities to recruit and retain talent.

By using these three questions, we can better understand the nature of human violence. Whatever actions Iran takes as a result of Soleimanis death, we know that the "economics of violence" perspective provides the clearest framework for understanding what happens next with Iran.

Gary M.Shiffman, Ph.D., is founder and CEO ofGiant Oakand the author ofThe Economics of Violence: How Behavioral Science Can Transform our View of Crime, Insurgency, and Terrorism(Cambridge University Press, March 2020). He teaches economic science and national security at Georgetown University.

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What the 'economics of violence' tells us about Soleimani's death | TheHill - The Hill

Human Behavior

Predictively Relevant: The Power Of Harnessing Data To Drive Better Consumer Experiences 01/13/2020 – MediaPost Communications

As we arrive at a new version of the roaring twenties, this data geek has a lot on her mind: privacy, CCPA, and the death of the cookie. Meanwhile,the average consumer is concerned with things like how do I get what I want and when I want it, for less?

In other words, for the average consumer, issues like privacy andtrust, although important, may be secondary concerns. In my experience working across brands and categories, Ive seen consumers willing to trade access and information to their data as long asthe value proposition aligns with helping them live more convenient, fulfilled, and less expensive lives.

This year at CES we witnessed the continued unveiling of devicesand services that in exchange for entre to consumers lives and data provide greater value than ever before. Some of these devices can track our movement, expression, and even thoughts.These new and updated products include:

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Is this scary?

Not too long ago, location tracking wasperceived to be intrusive. However, it has now become second nature to pull up Google Maps and Waze to get to where you need or to provide your location data to your weather app for a more preciseforecast.

In todays world, everything can be a data source. There is an opportunity to learn more than ever before about human behavior, signals, triggers andneeds because every movement, wince, wink, smile or action can be tracked. Analysis of these signals will enable us to deliver more relevant and useful experiences that consumers not only want butalso need.And, if you overlay those data sources with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), which is called predictive analytics, then we can have analysis at a pace that consumersneed as technology continues to advance.

Predictive analytics enable brands to understand consumers at the individual level to deliver more relevant messages, and asan industry, we need to shift from delivering messages that we think our consumers want to hear, when they want to hear it and where to providing fulfilling experiences and true value.For example, pre-allergy season, I would love to have meds delivered to me ahead of the wheezy onslaught based on the signals I have emitted. The age of anticipatory homes means that we need to focusnot on how consumers should use products and services but why those products and services are important and add value.

So that brings us back to trust. It issomething that takes time to build but if the value exchange is right and people get the products and services that feel intuitive they will understand why they need them.

Trust from the consumer is critical. It may arrive on horseback but it will leave in a Tesla!

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Predictively Relevant: The Power Of Harnessing Data To Drive Better Consumer Experiences 01/13/2020 - MediaPost Communications

Human Behavior

How to boost recycling: Reward consumers with discounts, deals and social connections – Red, Green, and Blue

You finish that last sip of morning coffee and stare at the empty paper cup in your hand. Should it go into the recycling bin, compost, or be landfilled or incinerated?You are not alone. Most Americans are confused about recycling, and the crisis driven by Chinas decision to stop accepting most foreign scrap material is worsening the problem. At this point its hard to be sure that items put in the recycling bin are recycled.

By Magali (Maggie) Delmas, University of California, Los AngelesThe Conversation

Research shows that more often than not, Americans give up trying to sort their recyclables. Or they engage in wishful recycling, tossing nonrecyclables into the bin. Even so, most waste never gets that far. People feel intimidated by the task.

The average American generates about 4.5 pounds of waste each day. Only 1.5 pounds of it is recycled or composted. This means that over an average lifetime of 78.7 years, one American would send 67,000 pounds of waste to landfills. Thats more than twice the weight of a cruise ship anchor.

Although many communities and advocates have adopted regulations and action plans centered on moving toward a circular economy, major barriers still make it hard for individuals to reduce, reuse and recycle. Existing policies have been developed based on insights from engineering and economics, and give little consideration of how human behavior at the individual level fits into the system.

My colleagues and I use behavior science to foster goals ranging from energy conservation to community solidarity. In a recent paper, economist Marieke Huysentruyt, Ph.D. candidate Emma Barnosky and I uncovered promising solutions to the recycling crisis driven by personal benefits and social connections.

Why is getting Americans to recycle more so challenging? First, many of them dont understand waste problems and recycling strategies. Few are aware of the environmental problems waste causes, and most have a hard time connecting individual actions to those problems.

Most people dont know where their waste goes, whether it includes recyclables or what can be made from them. They may know what day to put out curbside trash and recycling, but are unsure which materials the companies accept. In a 2019 survey of 2,000 Americans, 53% erroneously believed greasy pizza boxes could be recycled, and 68% thought the same for used plastic utensils.

Another 39% of respondents cited inconvenience and poor access to recycling facilities as major barriers. California pays a 5- to 10-cent redemption fee for each beverage container, but the facilities often are inconvenient to reach. For example, the closest to my home in Los Angeles is eight miles away, which can involve driving for an hour or more. Thats not worth it for the few cans my family produces.

Most U.S. consumers are opposed to pollution, of course, but research shows that they seldom view themselves as significant contributors. As taxpayers, they hold local governments responsible for recycling. Many are not sure what happens next, or whether their actions make a difference.

What can be done to address these barriers? Better messaging, such as emphasizing how waste can be transformed into new objects, can make a difference.

But as I argue in my 2018 book, The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market With the Planet, information alone cant drive sustainable behavior. People must feel motivated, and the best motivations bundle environmental benefits with personal benefits, such as economic rewards, increased status or social connections.

In a 2014 survey, 41% of respondents said that money or rewards were the most effective way to get them to recycle. Take-back systems, such as deposits on cans and bottles, have proven effective in some contexts. Such systems need to be more convenient, however.

Returning bottles directly to stores is one possibility, but novel strategies are being deployed across the country. Pay-as-you-throw policies charge customers based on how much solid waste they discard, thus incentivizing waste reduction, reuse and more sustainable purchasing behavior. Recyclebank, a New York company, rewards people for recycling with discounts and deals from local and national businesses.

Social status also motivates people. The zero-waste lifestyle has become a sensation on social media, driving the rise of Instagram influencers such as Bea Johnson, Lauren Singer and Kathryn Kellogg, who are competing to leave behind the smallest quantity of waste. Visibility of conservation behavior matters, and could be a powerful component in pay-as-you-throw schemes.

Its also nice to have support. Mutual help organizations, or community-led groups, trigger behavioral change through social connections and face-to-face interactions. They have the potential to transfer empowering information and sustain long-term commitment.

One famous example is Alcoholics Anonymous, which relies on member expertise instead of instructions from health care specialists. Similarly, Weight Watchers focuses on open communication, group celebration of weight loss progress and supportive relationships among members.

French startup Yoyo, founded in 2017, is applying this strategy to recycling. Yoyo connects participants with coaches, who can be individuals or businesses, to help them sort recyclables into orange bags. Coaches train and encourage sorters, who earn points and rewards such as movie tickets for collecting and storing full Yoyo bags.

The process also confers status, giving sorters positive social visibility for work that is ordinarily considered thankless. And because rewards tend to be local, Yoyos infrastructure has the potential to improve members community connections, strengthening the perceived and actual social power of the group.

This system offers a convenient, social, incentive-based approach. In two years the community has grown to 450 coaches and 14,500 sorters and collected almost 4.3 million plastic bottles.

Such novel behavior-based programs alone cannot solve back-end aspects of the global waste crisis, such as recycling capacity and fluctuating scrap material prices. But our research has shown that by leveraging technology and human behavior, behavioral science can encourage people to recycle much more effectively than simplistic campaigns or slogans.

[ Insight, in your inbox each day. You can get it with The Conversations email newsletter. ]

(Magali (Maggie) Delmas, Professor of Management Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Top photo CC by Walter Parenteau on Flickr)

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How to boost recycling: Reward consumers with discounts, deals and social connections - Red, Green, and Blue

Human Behavior

Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight – The Conversation AU

In the first week of 2020, hashtag #ArsonEmergency became the focal point of a new online narrative surrounding the bushfire crisis.

The message: the cause is arson, not climate change.

Police and bushfire services (and some journalists) have contradicted this claim.

We studied about 300 Twitter accounts driving the #ArsonEmergency hashtag to identify inauthentic behaviour. We found many accounts using #ArsonEmergency were behaving suspiciously, compared to those using #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia.

Accounts peddling #ArsonEmergency carried out activity similar to what weve witnessed in past disinformation campaigns, such as the coordinated behaviour of Russian trolls during the 2016 US presidential election.

The most effective disinformation campaigns use bot and troll accounts to infiltrate genuine political discussion, and shift it towards a different master narrative.

Bots and trolls have been a thorn in the side of fruitful political debate since Twitters early days. They mimic genuine opinions, akin to what a concerned citizen might display, with a goal of persuading others and gaining attention.

Bots are usually automated (acting without constant human oversight) and perform simple functions, such as retweeting or repeatedly pushing one type of content.

Troll accounts are controlled by humans. They try to stir controversy, hinder healthy debate and simulate fake grassroots movements. They aim to persuade, deceive and cause conflict.

Weve observed both troll and bot accounts spouting disinformation regarding the bushfires on Twitter. We were able to distinguish these accounts as being inauthentic for two reasons.

First, we used sophisticated software tools including tweetbotornot, Botometer, and Bot Sentinel.

There are various definitions for the word bot or troll. Bot Sentinel says:

Propaganda bots are pieces of code that utilize Twitter API to automatically follow, tweet, or retweet other accounts bolstering a political agenda. Propaganda bots are designed to be polarizing and often promote content intended to be deceptive Trollbot is a classification we created to describe human controlled accounts who exhibit troll-like behavior.

Some of these accounts frequently retweet known propaganda and fake news accounts, and they engage in repetitive bot-like activity. Other trollbot accounts target and harass specific Twitter accounts as part of a coordinated harassment campaign. Ideology, political affiliation, religious beliefs, and geographic location are not factors when determining the classification of a Twitter account.

These machine learning tools compared the behaviour of known bots and trolls with the accounts tweeting the hashtags #ArsonEmergency, #AustraliaFire, and #BushfireAustralia. From this, they provided a score for each account suggesting how likely it was to be a bot or troll account.

We also manually analysed the Twitter activity of suspicious accounts and the characteristics of their profiles, to validate the origins of #ArsonEmergency, as well as the potential motivations of the accounts spreading the hashtag.

Unfortunately, we dont know who is behind these accounts, as we can only access trace data such as tweet text and basic account information.

This graph shows how many times #ArsonEmergency was tweeted between December 31 last year and January 8 this year:

Previous bot and troll campaigns have been thought to be the work of foreign interference, such as Russian trolls, or PR firms hired to distract and manipulate voters.

The New York Times has also reported on perceptions that media magnate Rupert Murdoch is influencing Australias bushfire debate.

Read more: Weather bureau says hottest, driest year on record led to extreme bushfire season

In late November, some Twitter accounts began using #ArsonEmergency to counter evidence that climate change is linked to the severity of the bushfire crisis.

Below is one of the earliest examples of an attempt to replace #ClimateEmergency with #ArsonEmergency. The accounts tried to get #ArsonEmergency trending to drown out dialogue acknowledging the link between climate change and bushfires.

The hashtag was only tweeted a few times in 2019, but gained traction this year in a sustained effort by about 300 accounts.

A much larger portion of bot and troll-like accounts pushed #ArsonEmergency, than they did #AustraliaFire and #BushfireAustralia.

The narrative was then adopted by genuine accounts who furthered its spread.

On multiple occasions, we noticed suspicious accounts countering expert opinions while using the #ArsonEmergency hashtag.

Since media coverage has shone light on the disinformation campaign, #ArsonEmergency has gained even more prominence, but in a different light.

Some journalists are acknowledging the role of disinformation bushfire crisis and countering narrative the Australia has an arson emergency. However, the campaign does indicate Australia has a climate denial problem.

Whats clear to me is that Australia has been propelled into the global disinformation battlefield.

Read more: Watching our politicians fumble through the bushfire crisis, I'm overwhelmed by dj vu

Its difficult to debunk disinformation, as it often contains a grain of truth. In many cases, it leverages peoples previously held beliefs and biases.

Humans are particularly vulnerable to disinformation in times of emergency, or when addressing contentious issues like climate change.

Online users, especially journalists, need to stay on their toes.

The accounts we come across on social media may not represent genuine citizens and their concerns. A trending hashtag may be trying to mislead the public.

Right now, its more important than ever for us to prioritise factual news from reliable sources and identify and combat disinformation. The Earths future could depend on it.

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Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight - The Conversation AU

Neuroscience

The Amalgamation of Data Science and Neuroscience – Analytics Insight

Discreetly, stealthily, another kind of neuroscientist is coming to fruition. From inside the myriadpositions of scholars have risen teams of neuroscientists that do science with information on neural activity, on the inadequate splutterings of many neurons. Not the production of techniques for analyzing data, however, all do that as well. Not the gathering of that information, for that, requires another, considerable, range of abilities. In any case, neuroscientists utilizing the full extent of modern computational strategies on that data to respond to scientific inquiries regarding the mind, neural data science has developed.

The why is equivalent to all areas of science that have spat out a data science: the amount of information is escaping hand. For the science of recording heaps of neurons, this information storm has a scientific reason, of sorts. Cerebrums work by passing messages between neurons. The majority of those messages appear as minor beats of electricity: spikes, we call them. So to numerous, it appears to be logical that if we need to see how brains work (and when they dont work) we have to catch every one of the messages being passed between every one of the neurons. Whats more, that implies recording whatever number of spikes from as many neurons as could reasonably be expected.

The key neuroscience idea driving the weakness of minds is normal statistics. It would seem animal brains have advanced to work in natural habitats, and they likewise adapt best in those equivalent situations. For instance, a couple of decades ago, it was indicated that the data processing properties of the mammalian visual system should have developed to work best in the forest-and-bush-heavy environment of nature, and in certainty, neurons do work that way.

At the end of the day, our eyes expect natural-looking fine detail all over the place. The common world is filigree. That is the thing that the visual system processes and learns from. Saying that nature looks like nature is presently quantifiable and has become a significant idea for seeing how brains work. For instance, lab creatures that experience childhood in confines, which are flat, exhausting and lit by flickering lights, have awful vision compared with ones that live outside. Neuroscientists definitely realize that hours daily of fake, diverting, unnatural input is awful for animal minds as a rule; for what reason would it not be valid for human brains?

Neuroscience and statistics, machine learning and data science all mix together, it is not considered to be totally unmistakable things. For individuals in neuroscience who need to learn more data science, it is suggested to get a book on statistical machine learning to get acquainted with some of the fundamental models that are used. For analysts who need to become familiar with neuroscience, it is important to get through some recent papers on explicit subjects that may be of interest, for example, calcium imaging or examination of numerous neuron datasets.

Then again, electronic innovation is always addictive, intrusive and productive, presently devouring half of our waking hours and social lives, pretty much. The issue isnt that innovation is fundamentally terrible. It isnt, yet that the particular sorts of advancements we find most dazzling are awful, in light of the fact that we discover them captivating.

Our informational appetites developed in the bush, where intriguing things and dopamine are elusive. Presently, we have speedy hits all over. Any sort of creature will, in general, get addicted when mouth-watering things once uncommon in nature, cocaine-switches for rats, laser spots for cats, treadmills for mice, become all of a sudden normal. For extremely bizarre stimuli, in any event, existing at all violates natures statistical agreement.

The significance is three-fold:1) any innovation that impacts our sensory interactions influences our minds from various perspectives;2) the vast majority of the harm is oblivious; and3) our reaction to harm for the most part looks for significantly a greater amount of the damage-causing media.

The data are famously noisy, and moreover, tend to go through numerous phases of preprocessing before the analysts even get the opportunity to see them. This implies an effectively indirect measure experience unsure amounts of data manipulation before analysis. That is a huge challenge that huge numbers of us have been thinking about for quite a long time. With respect to noise, there are numerous sources, some originating from the technology and some from the subjects.

To make it much increasingly complex, the subject-driven noise can be identified with the trial stimuli of interest. For instance, in fMRI investigations of eye motions, the subject may be enticed to somewhat move their whole head while glancing in the area of a stimuli, which taints the information. So also, in EEG there is some proof that the measured signal can be perplexed with facial appearances. Both of these would have implications on the utilization of imaging for neuromarketing and other popular applications.

Besides, the data are huge; not colossal in the size of numerous cutting edge applications, however, surely large enough to cause challenges of storage and analysis. At long lost, obviously, the way that we are not ready to get immediate measurements of brain movement and enactment, and perhaps will always be unable to do as such, is the biggest measurement challenge we face. Its difficult to make strong determinations when the measured data are fairly remote from the source signal, noisy and exceptionally processed.

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The Amalgamation of Data Science and Neuroscience - Analytics Insight

Neuroscience

New neuroscience reveals 5 secrets that will make you emotionally intelligent – Ladders

How are you feeling?

These days it seems like there are only two answers: Fine and Busy.

After all, if youdidsay everything thats on your mind, youd get strange looks from that barista for the rest of your life. And its no better at work, where the room for legitimate emotion can be measured in microns.

Were perpetually squashing feelings and playing roles everywhere. Its only 2 minutes into a rant that you realize youre angry.

Only after you unclench the muscles in your shoulders do you notice youve been on edge for hours.

As recently as the 1980s even manypsychologistsfelt emotions were things that just got in the way. Cognitive noise.

Stuff you had to ignore, get over and stop whining about. Yeah, back in the 1980s BFE (Before Feelings Era) there wasnt a concept of Emotional Intelligence.

That didnt exist until 1990 PFE (Post Feelings Era) when Salovey and Mayer published their landmark paper on the subject.

Cliffs Notes version: we all have feelings, they affect the majority of what we do in life, theyre not going away and they actually provide useful information if we pay attention to them.

They defined EI as:the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.

And subsequent studies showed the multitude of benefits high EI provides.

FromPermission to Feel:

Among adolescents, higher emotional intelligence is associated with less depression and anxiety and may be a protective factor against suicidal behaviorThere is also data suggesting that emotional intelligence is related to higher SAT scores, greater creativity, and better grades among high school and college studentsThe benefits dont go away once we reach adulthood. Individuals who score higher on emotional intelligence tests tend to report better relationships with friends, parents, and romantic partnersResearch has also linked emotional intelligence to important health and workplace outcomes, including less anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout and greater performance and leadership ability.

But 30 years out from that first paper on EI and, if anything, weve gottenworseat it.

FromPermission to Feel:

According to the 2019 World Happiness Report, negative feelings, including worry, sadness, and anger, have been rising around the world, up by 27 percent from 2010 to 2018 According to a Stanford University study, more than 120,000 deaths annually may be attributable to workplace stress, which accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costsour research at Yale revealed that high school students, teachers, and business professionals experience negative emotions up to 70 percent of the time they are in school or at work.

Alright, no more ignoring the valuable info and benefits feelings can provide. We gotta tear this one down to the studs and get to the science. Because if we can harness the power of emotions both good and bad were gonna live much better lives. You feelin me?

So who knows this stuff? Marc Brackett is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. His book isPermission to Feeland it has a simple system we can use to build real Emotional Intelligence skills.

Lets get to it

Feelings can make us smarter and sharpen real world skills.But we often hit the snooze button every time the feelings alarm goes off.We take good emotions for granted and try to ignore or eliminate the bad, never really paying attention to what they mean or how we can leverage them. And then we wonder why our performance is so inconsistent, happiness is elusive and our relationships are unsatisfying.

Feelings (even negative ones) direct our attention and focus our thinking, often in helpful ways.

FromPermission to Feel:

Pessimism can make it easier for us to anticipate things that could go wrong and then take the proper actions to prevent them. Guilt acts as a moral compass. Anxiety keeps us trying to improve things that a more generous mood might be willing to accept. Even anger is a great motivatorunlike resignation, it drives us to act and perhaps to fix what made us angry in the first place

Feelings have an enormous impact on our decision making but we rarely realize it.

FromPermission to Feel:

In an experiment we conducted at Yale, teachers were divided into two groups. One was told to remember and write about positive classroom experiences, and the other was assigned to recall a negative memory. Then all were asked to grade the same middle school essay. The positive-mood group marked the essay a full grade higher than the negative-mood group. When we asked the teachers if they believed their moods affected how they evaluated the papers, 87 percent said no.

Your emotions have a major impact on your health.

FromPermission to Feel:

Negative emotions have been associated with hypertension, increased heart rate, constriction of peripheral blood vessels, unhealthy blood lipids, and decreased immune system function In one study, laughter caused by watching a comedy film increased the flow of beta-endorphins, which enhance our mood, and stimulated growth hormones, which repair our cells.

And do I even need to mention the effect feelings have on your social life? No? Thank you.

Im not saying youre gonna study Emotional Intelligence and develop super mutant mind powers that will bring you unrelenting waves of orgiastic happiness. Thats for infomercials.But if you improve your EI skills even a tad, youll have a better idea of how youre feeling, what youre emotionally missing, and what you need to be thriving in life. Youll be able to ask those you love to help you getexactlywhat you need when things get challenging.

(To learn more about how you can lead a successful life, check out my bestselling bookhere.)

Marc lays out a 5-step process. Remember the acronym RULER:Recognize, Understand, Label, Express and Regulate.First up

Weve all had days where the world is awful and only later do we realize its just a crappy mood and Earth has not undergone major changes overnight. Its like the scene in the war movie where the person doesnt realize theyve been shot until they look down and see the blood.

You need to check in with yourself.You cant address bad emotions or increase good ones if you dont take the time to recognize your emotional state.

FromPermission to Feel:

We need to pauseto physically stop whatever were doing, check in with the state of our minds and bodies, and ask ourselves: At this exact moment, what is my emotional state? Am I feeling up or down? Pleasant or unpleasant? Would I like to approach the world or steer clear? Next, lets check for physical clues. Am I energized or depleted? Is my heart racing, am I clenching my fists, is there a knot in my stomach, or am I feeling balanced, cool, and at ease?

Make it a habit. Tie it to something you already do, even if its only a couple times a day.

This isnt a test. Theres no right or wrong answer. You want to be anemotion scientisthere. Examine, dont judge. Getting angry about feeling angry is rarely helpful.

(To learn the two-word morning ritual that will make you happy all day, clickhere.)

Youre recognizing. Awesome. Now youve got something to work with. Next step?

Its all about the word why. Why are you feeling this way? Dont ask it in a rhetorical, judgmental way. Be a sincere and curious emotion scientist.

Whythisfeeling? Why now? Whats causing it? What happened before it? What events, associations or memories could have triggered this feeling?

You may not have a big epiphany but this is the first step on the path to self-understanding. Just one little data point but, with time, youll start to see connections and patterns. Youll start to make more accurate emotional predictions. Youll be able to prepare effectively: to avoid, to cope or ask for help.

Its deceptively simple but keep doing this and youre on the path toemotional self-authorship.

(To learn how to deal with passive-aggressive people, clickhere.)

Done playing detective? Good. Now were gonna zero in and really start building those EI skills

Neuroscience studies by Matthew Lieberman at UCLA have shown the incredible power of labeling to help us control and dampen powerful emotions. When we put feelings into words we get our thinky brain (prefrontal cortex) on the case and put the brakes on our wet yourself in fear and punch people brain (amygdala). Gotta name it to tame it.

FromPermission to Feel:

participants who were identified as having extreme fear of spidersarachnophobiawere placed in a room with a caged spider. Some subjects used emotion words to describe their feelings in that situation, while others used emotion-neutral words to simply state the facts. The result? Members of the first group were able to take more steps closer to the cage than the other participants. Additionally, greater use of words such as anxiety and fear during exposure to the spider was associated with reductions in those emotions.

Ironic as it might seem, saying the word anxiety reduces anxiety.And if we take the time to broaden our emotional vocabulary to think about the different things we feel and give them distinct names we can better regulate our emotions and get the most out of them. We need to take those big emotional buckets like happy and make them more granular: are youhappyorjoyousorecstatic?

FromPermission to Feel:

participants who were deemed granular were better able to differentiate their emotional experiences. Subjects who were low in granularitycalled clumperswere less skilled at differentiating emotions (e.g., angry, worried, frustrated). When the two groups were compared, she reported, granular individuals were less likely to freak out or abuse alcohol when under stress and more likely to find positive meaning in negative experiences. They also were better at emotion regulationmoderating their responses in order to achieve desired outcomes. The clumpers, on the other hand, scored worse on those counts, tending to be physically and psychologically ill at a higher rate than the granular crowd.

Imagine if the only diagnosis a doctor could give was sick or not-sick.No cancer or flu or multiple sclerosis, just sick. How useful would that be?Ah, Ive found the problem: youre sick.Thats what most of us are like with our feelings. Butif you understand on a fine-grained level what youre feeling, then with time you can discover the best way to address it, dampen it or amplify it.

Maybe you feel stressed. More granularly, is itanxietyabout an uncertain future? Orfearof what you assume will happen? Orpressurebecause of too many responsibilities?This level of understanding allows you to solve the problem. Now the doctor can say contact dermatitis instead of just sick.

Once you start regularly playing emotion scientist you can realize that when youresadyou need to distract yourself, when youremelancholyyou need to see friends, and when youreunfulfilledyou need to attack some personal goals.

All this wordplay may sound crazy but its not. Other cultures have whole emotions youve never delineated and therefore never experienced.

FromPermission to Feel:

Iktsuarpok is the Inuit word that describes the anticipation you feel when youre so impatient for a guests arrival at your home that you keep going outside to check Kvell is the Yiddish word that describes the feeling of overwhelming love and pride you get when you see what your child can do In Mandarin, there were more than one hundred different shame-related terms

Dont accept emotions off the rack; custom-tailor them. Break out the thesaurus next time youre feeling something and start playing wine connoisseur. Is this a bold, supple distress with an aftertaste of hopelessness? Or perhaps an unbalanced and stinging longing with a regret finish? Direct your descriptive powers toward your inner life, not toward fermented grape juice.

With time, youll developA Field Guide to Yourself. And then you can share these insights with others. How much easier would it be to help loved ones understand what you need if your self-knowledge was this rich and detailed?Im lucky enough to have people around me who can distinguish between Ericspeeved, better change the subject or Ericsangry, better talk this out or Erics gonequantum dumpster fireagain, evacuate a three-mile radius and call the National Guard.

And its not all about negative emotions either. If you understand the difference betweenpleasantandjoyfulyou can learn what it takes to get yourself to that next rung and what it takes to extend it.

(To learn the 4 harsh truths that will make you a better person, clickhere.)

Okay, its time to deal with the scary stuff

No, Im not telling you to run around venting. Dont go allemotion grenadeat work or at home saying the blogger-man gave you permission to act on every impulse. No, the blogger-man most certainly did not.

But nor do you want to suppress all those feelings. Surface-acting takes its toll. Its correlated with burnout, lower job satisfaction,and even increased anxiety and depression.

Jamie Pennebakeris a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin and hes done work showing that bottling stuff up makes you sick. On the flip side,converting emotions into words improves health. When people talk about their problems or write them down, research shows a drop in doctor visits, lower blood pressure, less absenteeism, higher grades and a long-term improvement in mood.

So we should just open up and express our emotions, right?Ah, if only it were that easy

Heres the part where Imsupposedto say its okay to express emotions everywhere at any time and nobody will think youre crazy or weak And I willnotbe saying that. Were afraid of expressing our emotions to others fordamn good reasons.Some people will say youre weak. Some will say youre crazy.

You gotta be choosy about where, when and with whom you open up. This is why psychologists talk about display rules. Those arethe unwritten but widely agreed-upon guidelines for how, where, when, and in whose presence we may express our feelings.You need to test the waters and build your personal display rules. Take your time and slowly discover your safe people and safe zones.

When you open up and are vulnerable with someone, its about as intimate as youll ever be. Thats how real relationships are forged.

(To learn more about how to make friends as an adult, clickhere.)

Last one. How do we regulate difficult emotions, in the moment, when they suddenly hit us?

We all have methods for regulating our emotions. Babies suck their thumbs.(No, Im not recommending that during work meetings.) Which strategies do experts recommend?

1) Positive Self-Talk

Yeah, youve heard this one before. Heres the new twist, courtesy of neuroscience:always do positive self-talk in the third person.

FromPermission to Feel:

In one experiment, subjects were shown neutral and disturbing images or asked to recall negative moments from their own lives. By monitoring their emotional brain activity, the researchers found that the subjects distress decreased rapidlywithin one secondwhen they performed self-talk in the third person compared with the first person.

Saying, Eric, everything is going to be fine tricks your brain. Its like a friend reassuring you. Youre being empathetic with yourself.

2) Reframing

Deliberately choose to see things in a way that generates fewer negative emotions and assumes others have good intentions.

FromPermission to Feel:

Students who were asked to think of pretest anxiety as being beneficial performed better on exams than a control group. In another experiment, reframing anxiety as excitement was found to improve negotiating and public-speaking skills.

When someone yells at you dont assume they hate you; assume theyre having a bad day. Believing that will make you feel better, youll respond compassionately instead of harshly, and even if it isnt true it will certainly make the situation better rather than worse.

3) The Pause

When you feel a negative emotion rising, pause. Dont do anything. Take a deep breath.Pausing helps you refrain from making a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion.Then ask yourself one question:

What would my Best Self do next?

Take another deep breath. And then be your best you.

(To learn an FBI behavior experts tips for getting people to like you, clickhere.)

Okay, weve covered a lot. Time to round it all up and learn the fun thing that can put all of the above on Easy mode

Heres how to increase emotional intelligence.Remember RULER:

So how do you make RULER easier? By taking care of yourself. Getting enough sleep. Exercising. Seeing friends.

FromPermission to Feel:

Spend time with family and friends, pursue passions and pastimes, get in touch with your spiritual side, immerse yourself in nature, read a good book, watch a funny movie. We build up cognitive reserves that way, which will help us when emotional turmoil inevitably strikes.

When youre fully charged, its easier to follow the steps above. But when youre not getting enough rest or not having any fun, youre gonna have a very short fuse.

Get to know yourself. Become the author of your emotional life. And share your findings with those you love

And so I ask you again:How are you feeling?

Fine or busy wont cut it with me.Im hoping more for:

Flamboyantly serene with crisp silky notes of optimism and a hint of buttery enthusiasm.

Read more from the original source:
New neuroscience reveals 5 secrets that will make you emotionally intelligent - Ladders