Physiology

Researchers identify a common gene variant that drives the efficiency and outcome of dialysis – News-Medical.Net

Every day, the human kidneys clean about 1,500 liters of blood by producing approximately 12 liters of urine. Thereby, the body gets rid of excess water and toxic waste products of the metabolism or also drugs and maintains the balance of water and minerals in the tissues.

While waiting for kidney transplantation, patients with chronic kidney failure must be treated regularly with dialysis that cleanses the body of fluid and deleterious substances. Peritoneal dialysis, which can be done at home with only minimal medical and technical support, is gaining popularity across the world. Today, kidney failure is a growing medical concern, concerning up to 10% of individuals globally.

An international research team led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has now identified a common variant in the AQP1 gene coding for the water channel called Aquaporin-1 that has a significant effect on treatment efficacy and patient survival on dialysis.

The identification of this common genetic factor regulating the expression of Aquaporin-1, which is associated with a higher risk of death and technique failure, provides a big step for precision medicine in dialysis. The gene variant is driving the outcome of peritoneal dialysis and the choice of treatment modalities, which is very important for the care and outcome of patients with kidney failure."

Olivier Devuyst, Study Last Author and Coordinator, Department of Physiology, University of Zurich

The efficiency of dialysis depends on how well it removes excess of water, restores normal body fluid status, and clears waste substances. Peritoneal dialysis is based on osmosis: the introduction of an osmotic solution in the peritoneal cavity drives water transport preferentially through the Aquaporin-1 channels, which constitute the body's plumbing system. Previous studies by Devuyst' group showed that Aquaporin-1 is abundant in endothelial cells lining capillaries of the peritoneum, where it mediates fast osmotic water transport across cell membranes and up to half of the water removal during dialysis, a process named ultrafiltration.

To test which effects gene variants for Aquaporin-1 have on ultrafiltration and outcome in dialyses, the researchers followed 1,851 patients of diverse ethnic origins for several years and analyzed their data. Using a variety of techniques ranging from human genetics to mouse models, modeling and cellular studies, the team was able to show that patients carrying a common variant in the Aquaporin-1 gene have a lower level of this protein in their tissues.

Hence, their basic capacity to move water across cell membranes is decreased. Devuyst adds: "Our research shows that relatively common genetic variants the AQP1 variant is detected in about 30% of the population may affect fundamental processes, but are only exposed in special circumstances like the dialysis here".

Carrying the Aquaporin-1 variant is deleterious in patients treated by peritoneal dialysis, because the lower expression of water channels impairs a full removal of water by the treatment. This situation causes an overload of water and an increased risk of death due to various complications. In fact, peritoneal dialysis patients carrying the variant have a 70% higher risk to die or to be transferred to hemodialysis in hospitals compared to patients not carrying the defective gene. The team consisting of researchers and clinicians from six different countries present a way to circumvent this problem: "It is possible to overcome the genetic defect by using specific osmotic solutions that attract water independently of aquaporins so-called colloid osmotic agents instead of glucose," says Olivier Devuyst.

Source:

Journal reference:

Morelle, J., et al. (2021) AQP1 Promoter Variant, Water Transport, and Outcomes in Peritoneal Dialysis. New England Journal of Medicine. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2034279.

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Researchers identify a common gene variant that drives the efficiency and outcome of dialysis - News-Medical.Net

Physiology

World Space Week was held from 4 to 10 October – India Education Diary

PetrSU scientists are summing up the results of their scientific research in the field of space physiology.Since 2015, the Department of Human and Animal Physiology, Pathophysiology, Histology of the Medical Institute of PetrSU has been conducting research to study the effect of ground-based simulated weightlessness on the body of an elderly person suffering from Parkinsons disease.

This year there were 3 articles in the journal Human Physiology and 2 articles in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, 3 articles are under review or ready for submission.

It should be said that, judging by the statistics of readings and downloads, the interest in these articles is huge, especially in Germany, Belgium, the USA and the PRC. We attribute this to recent flights to suborbital space by two private spaceships Jeff Bazos on Blue Origin and Richard Branson on VVS Unit with a crew of elderly tourists.

As a prospect, we reported in our articles that soon flights of older people into suborbital space will be a reality, but there is little research on the physiology of an elderly person in space, and on a person with neurodegenerative diseases, there are no at all. Our studies have shown that a short-term state of weightlessness, with careful selection of applicants, does not have negative consequences for the cardiovascular system, even for a patient with parkinsonism. In some respects, this flight is even useful. In fact, with our work, we have closed a large gap in space physiology and the rationale for space tourism. The recent arrival on the ISS of a team to shoot the first space movie only confirms this trend.

said medical scientists, professors A.Yu. Meigal and L.I. Gerasimova-Meigal.

In April of this year, the Human in Space conference was held, in May the traditional conference of the International Society of Gravitational Physiology (ISGP42), which were dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the first manned flight into space. The members of this organization are professors. The Road to Space conference has just been held.

The last event is worth noting, since this conference is held within the framework of the World Space Week (October 4-10), which this year was dedicated to women in astronautics, as well as within the framework of the Space Science Days held under the auspices of Roscosmos in honor of the launch of the first Earth satellite and the Russian Year of Science and Technology. In general, there are many significant events.

We spoke at all conferences with the scientific results of many years of research, talking about the prospects for education in the field of space medicine. In the future, the department will continue to cooperate with the Center for Aerospace Medicine and Technologies in Moscow on the use of virtual reality methods to assess the reaction rate in zero gravity, the introduction of such new physiological research methods as the assessment of cerebral circulation during immersion, the phenomenon of muscle tone in conditions of model zero gravity, investigation of the reactions of interception of a moving target. We will also continue our educational and educational mission, because it is more interesting to study with space.

A simple example. Physiology textbooks pay very little attention to the fact that all our physiological functions (and their pathophysiological changes) occur under conditions of gravity and are essentially antigravitational. This applies to movement, orientation in space, the usual upright standing and holding the posture, the movement of blood, especially venous blood, the ratio of ventilation and perfusion in the lungs. In general, it makes you be a physicist, biophysicist, mechanic and more and more often look into the textbook of elementary physics.

The project to immerse patients with parkinsonism in a state of ground zero gravity has become a real catalyst for cooperation, in which more and more colleagues from various institutes of PetrSU are involved,

told the scientists of PetrSU L.I. Gerasimova-Meigal and A.Yu. Meigal.

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World Space Week was held from 4 to 10 October - India Education Diary

Human Behavior

Would We Still See Ourselves as ‘Human’ if Other Hominin Species Hadn’t Gone Extinct? – Singularity Hub

In our mythologies, theres often a singular moment when we became human. Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge and gained awareness of good and evil. Prometheus created men from clay and gave them fire. But in the modern origin story, evolution, theres no defining moment of creation. Instead, humans emerged gradually, generation by generation, from earlier species.

As with any other complex adaptationa birds wing, a whales fluke, our own fingersour humanity evolved step by step, over millions of years. Mutations appeared in our DNA, spread through the population, our ancestors slowly became something more like us and, finally, we appeared.

People are animals, but were unlike other animals. We have complex languages that let us articulate and communicate ideas. Were creative: we make art, music, tools. Our imaginations let us think up worlds that once existed, dream up worlds that might yet exist, and reorder the external world according to those thoughts. Our social lives are complex networks of families, friends, and tribes, linked by a sense of responsibility towards each other. We also have awareness of ourselves and our universe: sentience, sapience, consciousness, whatever you call it.

And yet the distinction between ourselves and other animals is, arguably, artificial. Animals are more like humans than we might thinkor like to think. Almost all behavior we once considered unique to ourselves is seen in animals, even if theyre less well developed.

Thats especially true of the great apes. Chimps, for example, have simple gestural and verbal communication. They make crude tools, even weapons, and different groups have different suites of toolsdistinct cultures. Chimps also have complex social lives and cooperate with each other.

As Darwin noted in Descent of Man, almost everything odd about Homo sapiensemotion, cognition, language, tools, societyexists, in some primitive form, in other animals. Were different, but less different than we think.

And in the past, some species were far more like us than other apes: Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Homo erectus, and Neanderthals. Homo sapiens is the only survivor of a once diverse group of humans and human-like apes, the hominins, which includes around 20 known species and probably dozens of unknown species.

The extinction of those other hominins wiped out all the species that were intermediate between ourselves and other apes, creating the impression that some vast, unbridgeable gulf separates us from the rest of life on Earth. But the division would be far less clear if those species still existed. What looks like a bright, sharp dividing line is really an artefact of extinction.

The discovery of these extinct species now blurs that line again and shows how the distance between us and other animals was crossedgradually, over millennia.

Our lineage probably split from the chimpanzees around six million years ago. These first hominins, members of the human line, would barely have seemed human, however. For the first few million years, hominin evolution was slow.

The first big change was walking upright, which let hominins move away from forests into more open grassland and bush. But if they walked like us, nothing else suggests the first hominins were any more human than chimps or gorillas. Ardipithecus, the earliest well-known hominin, had a brain that was slightly smaller than a chimps, and theres no evidence they used tools.

In the next million years, Australopithecus appeared. Australopithecus had a slightly larger brain;larger than a chimps, still smaller than a gorillas. It made slightly more sophisticated tools than chimps, using sharp stones to butcher animals.

Then came Homo habilis. For the first time, hominin brain size exceeded that of other apes. Tools like stone flakes, hammer stones, and choppers became much more complex. After that, around two million years ago, human evolution accelerated, for reasons were yet to understand.

At this point, Homo erectus appeared. Erectus was taller, more like us in stature, and had large brains, several times bigger than a chimps brain and up to two-thirds the size of ours. They made sophisticated tools, such as stone hand axes. This was a major technological advance. Hand axes needed skill and planning to create, and you probably had to be taught how to make one. It may have been a meta-tool used to fashion other tools, such as spears and digging sticks.

Like us, Homo erectus had small teeth. That suggests a shift from plant-based diets to eating more meat, probably from hunting.

Its here that our evolution seems to accelerate. The big-brained Erectus soon gave rise to even larger-brained species. These highly intelligent hominins spread through Africa and Eurasia, evolving into Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo rhodesiensis, and archaic Homo sapiens. Technology became far more advanced; stone-tipped spears and firemaking appeared. Objects with no clear functionality, such as jewelry and art, also showed up over the past half-million years.

Some of these species were startlingly like us in their skeletons, and their DNA.

Homo neanderthalensis, the Neanderthals, had brains approaching ours in size, and evolved even larger brains over time until the last Neanderthals had cranial capacities comparable to a modern humans. They might have thought of themselves, even spoke of themselves, as human.

The Neanderthal archaeological record records uniquely human behavior, suggesting a mind resembling ours. Neanderthals were skilled, versatile hunters, exploiting everything from rabbits to rhinoceroses and woolly mammoths. They made sophisticated tools, such as throwing spears tipped with stone points. They fashioned jewelry from shells, animal teeth, and eagle talons, and made cave art. And Neanderthal ears were, like ours, adapted to hear the subtleties of speech. We know they buried their dead, and probably mourned them.

Theres so much about Neanderthals we dont know, and never will. But if they were so like us in their skeletons and their behavior, its reasonable to guess they may have been like us in other ways that dont leave a recordthat they sang and danced, that they feared spirits and worshipped gods, that they wondered at the stars, told stories, laughed with friends, and loved their children. To the extent Neanderthals were like us, they must have been capable of acts of great kindness and empathy, but also cruelty, violence, and deceit.

Far less is known about other species, like Denisovans, Homo rhodesiensis, and extinct sapiens, but its reasonable to guess from their large brains and human-looking skulls that they were also very much like us.

I admit this sounds speculative, but for one detail. The DNA of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other hominins is found in us. We met them, and we had children together. That says a lot about how human they were.

Its not impossible that Homo sapiens took Neanderthal women captive, or vice versa. But for Neanderthal genes to enter our populations, we had to not only mate but successfully raise children, who grew up to raise children of their own. Thats more likely to happen if these pairings resulted from voluntary intermarriage. Mixing of genes also required their hybrid descendants to become accepted into their groups; to be treated as fully human.

These arguments hold not only for the Neanderthals, Id argue, but for other species we interbred with, including Denisovansand unknown hominins in Africa. Which isnt to say that encounters between our species were without prejudice, or entirely peaceful. We were probably responsible for the extinction of these species. But there must have been times we looked past our differences to find a shared humanity.

Finally, its telling that while we did replace these other hominins, this took time. Extinction of Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other species took hundreds of thousands of years. If Neanderthals and Denisovans were really just stupid, grunting brutes, lacking language or complex thought, its impossible they could have held modern humans off as long as they did.

Why, if they were so like us, did we replace them? Its unclear, which suggests the difference was something that doesnt leave clear marks in fossils or stone tools. Perhaps a spark of creativitya way with words, a knack for tools, social skillsgave us an edge. Whatever the difference was, it was subtle, or it wouldnt have taken us so long to win out.

While we dont know exactly what these differences were, our distinctive skull shape may offer a clue. Neanderthals had elongated crania, with massive brow ridges. Humans have a bulbous skull, shaped like a soccer ball, and lack brow ridges. Curiously, the peculiar smooth, round head of adult Homo sapiens is seen in young Neanderthals,and even baby apes.

Similarly, juvenilized skulls of wild animals are found in domesticated ones, like domestic dogs: an adult dog skull resembles the skull of a wolf pup. These similarities arent just superficial. Dogs are behaviorally like young wolves, less aggressive and more playful.

My suspicion, mostly a hunch, is that Homo sapiens edge might not necessarily be raw intelligence, but differences in attitude. Like dogs, we may retain juvenile behaviors, things like playfulness, openness to meeting new people, lower aggression, more creativity and curiosity. This in turn might have helped us make our societies larger, more complex, collaborative, open, and innovative, which then outcompeted theirs.

Until now, Ive dodged an important question, arguably the most important one. Its all well and good to discuss how our humanity evolved, but what even is humanity? How can we study and recognize it without defining it?

People tend to assume that theres something that makes us fundamentally different from other animals. Most people, for example, would tend to think that its okay to sell, cook, or eat a cow, but not to do the same to the butcher. This would be, well, inhuman. As a society, we tolerate displaying chimps and gorillas in cages but would be uncomfortable doing this to each other. Similarly, we can go to a shop and buy a puppy or a kitten, but not a baby.

The rules are different for us and them. Even die-hard animal-rights activists advocate animal rights for animals, not human rights. No one is proposing giving apes the right to vote or stand for office. We inherently see ourselves as occupying a different moral and spiritual plane. We might bury our dead pet, but we wouldnt expect the dogs ghost to haunt us, or to find the cat waiting in heaven.

And yet, its hard to find evidence for this kind of fundamental difference.

The word humanity implies taking care of and having compassion for each other, but thats arguably a mammalian quality, not a human one. A mother cat cares for her kittens, and a dog loves his master, perhaps more than any human does. Killer whales and elephants form lifelong family bonds. Orcas grieve for their dead calves, and elephants have been seen visiting the remains of their dead companions. Emotional lives and relationships arent unique to us.

Perhaps its awareness that sets us apart. But dogs and cats certainly seem aware of us they recognize us as individuals, as we recognize them. They understand us well enough to know how to get us to give them food, or let them out the door, or even when weve had a bad day and need company. If thats not awareness, what is?

We might point to our large brains as setting us apart, but does that make us human? Bottlenose dolphins have somewhat larger brains than we do. Elephant brains are three times the size of ours; orcas, four times; and sperm whales, five times. Brain size also varies in humans. Albert Einstein had a relatively small brainsmaller than the average Neanderthal, Denisovan, or Homo rhodesiensis was he less human? Something other than brain size must make us humanor maybe theres more going on in the minds of other animals, including extinct hominins, than we think.

We could define humanity in terms of higher cognitive abilities like art, math, music, or language. This creates a curious problem because humans vary in how well we do all these things. Im less mathematically inclined than Steven Hawking, less literary than Jane Austen, less inventive than Steve Jobs, less musical than Taylor Swift, less articulate than Martin Luther King. In these respects, am I less human than they are?

If we cant even define it, how can we really say where it starts and where it ends, or that were unique? Why do we insist on treating other species as inherently inferior if were not exactly sure what makes us, us?

Neither are we necessarily the logical endpoint of human evolution. We were one of many hominin species, and yes, we won out. But its possible to imagine another evolutionary course, a different sequence of mutations and historical events leading to Neanderthal archaeologists studying our strange, bubble-like skulls, wondering just how human we were.

The nature of evolution means that living things dont fit into neat categories. Species gradually change from one into another, and every individual in a species is slightly different; that makes evolutionary change possible. But that makes defining humanity hard.

Were both unlike other animals due to natural selection, but like them because of shared ancestry; the same, yet different. And we humans are both like and unlike each other; united by common ancestry with other Homo sapiens, different due to evolution and the unique combination of genes we inherit from our families or even other species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Its hard to classify living things in strict categories, because evolution constantly changes things, creating diverse species and diversity within species.

And what diversity it is.

True, in some ways, our species isnt that diverse. Homo sapiens shows less genetic diversity than your average bacterial strain; our bodies show less variation in shape than sponges, or roses, or oak trees.

But in our behavior, humanity is wildly diverse. We are hunters, farmers, mathematicians, soldiers, explorers, carpenters, criminals, artists. There are so many different ways of being human, so many different aspects to the human condition, and each of us has to define and discover what it means to be human. It is, ironically, this inability to define humanity that is one of our most human characteristics.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: hairymuseummatt viaWikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)

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Would We Still See Ourselves as 'Human' if Other Hominin Species Hadn't Gone Extinct? - Singularity Hub

Human Behavior

Would You Trust Teslas FSD Beta After Watching This Video? – CarScoops

Teslas driver assistance systems are currently under the scrutiny by federal authorities, but video footage of its full-self driving package in operation shows just how close it is to replicating real human behavior.

You might even say its a little too human-like after watching this video from AI DRIVR. The Tesla-driving YouTuber has been testing out the FSD Beta software for several months on his Model S and produced a number of videos that show the technology attempting to tackle different real-world traffic scenarios. And the latest video shows just how much more confident FSD has become in its latest 10.2 incarnation.

First, in its recent form it seems much better at predicting the behavior of other vehicles, rather than simply seeing their initial movement something thats always been one of the biggest issue with basic adaptive cruise control systems. We see a mail truck go to make a three-point turn in the road, and instead of trying to fit through the gap that appears when the truck makes the first part of its maneuver, the Tesla waits for the truck to back up and drive away.

But in other situations its assertiveness is genuinely surprising. It creeps forward at intersections on the Berkley, CA, route, and begins to move into the road before the other cars have fully cleared, just as a human driver might. At one junction it even cheekily cuts in front of a Prius, again, like a human might if they were late for work, and is rewarded by a blast of horn from the irate Toyota driver.

Related: Elon Musk Says Teslas Beta Testers Are Ignoring Their NDAs

The Model Seven treats stop signs like humans often do, not quite coming to a halt as it goes to make a right turn, but simply checking the road is clear before moving out. The maneuver is safe, but an officious cop could still pull you over.And when it needs to move wide to give cyclists room it crosses the central lines, moving deep into the oncoming lane, unperturbed by an approaching car. Which a human might do, too, but is a rather ill-advised move.

Tesla has received criticism from some tech experts for relying solely on camera-based systems rather than highly detailed maps and lidar, a technology Elon Musk has described as a stupid, expensive and unnecessary. Instead, it hopes to improve its cars self-driving capabilities by developing a neural network, drawing on the behavior and experiences of Tesla drivers.

Although Musk conceded that Teslas FSD Beta was actually not that great back in August, on this evidence, FSD does a mostly great job of tackling some tricky traffic situations on Berkleys narrow, twisty streets. But it doesnt get everything right, occasionally veering between lanes (fortunately on a quiet bit of road) when it gets confused. And there were a couple of occasions when the driver had to intervene.

Tesla warns drivers participating in the FSD Beta test to keep hold of the wheel at all times, and AI DRIVR claims he does, but you can imagine many other drivers leaving the car to its own devices.So, having seen this footage, would you let a FSD Tesla drive you home?

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Would You Trust Teslas FSD Beta After Watching This Video? - CarScoops

Human Behavior

Dogs may not return their owners’ good deeds – Vet Candy

Domestic dogs show many adaptations to living closely with humans, but they do not seem to reciprocate food-giving according to a study.

The researchers trained 37 domestic dogs to operate a food dispenser by pressing a button, before separating the button and dispenser in separate enclosures. In the first stage, dogs were paired with two unfamiliar humans one at a time. One human partner was helpful - pressing their button to dispense food in the dog's enclosure - and one was unhelpful. The researchers also reversed the set-up, with a button in the dog's enclosure that operated a food dispenser in the human's enclosure. They found no significant differences in the dogs' tendency to press the button for helpful or unhelpful human partners, and the human's behavior in the first stage did not affect the dog's behavior towards them in free interaction sessions after the trials.

Previous studies have demonstrated that dogs are capable of directing helpful behaviors towards other dogs that have helped them previously - a behavior known as reciprocal altruism - and research suggests dogs are also able to distinguish between cooperative and uncooperative humans. However, the present study failed to find evidence that dogs can combine these capabilities to reciprocate help from humans. This finding may reflect a lack of ability or inclination among dogs to reciprocate, or the experimental design may not have detected it. For example, the authors suggest that the dogs may not have understood the experiment because humans are typically the food-giver in the relationship, not the receiver, or because the dogs failed to recognize the connection between the human's helpful behavior and the reward.

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Dogs may not return their owners' good deeds - Vet Candy

Human Behavior

There Is No Such Thing as a Fossil Mind – Discovery Institute

Photo: Tree of Life, a cave painting from Borneo, Indonesia, by Lhfage at English Wikipedia [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

This month,The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith:Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos(Harvest House 2021) appeared. The basic theme of the handbook, as described by editorsWilliam Dembski, Casey Luskin,andJoseph Holden,is how Science and Christianity are often presented as opposites, when in fact the order of the universe and the complexity of life powerfully testify to intelligent design.

I wrote one of the chapters, What Is Evolutionary Psychology? It concerns the effort to understand human psychology by appealing to a prehuman evolutionarypast. As such, it explains a large variety of human behaviors as the unconscious enactment of a Darwinian survival scenario among not-quite humans that is wired into modules in our brains.

Thus, the reasons we do things are not at all what we suppose:

Evolution explains, for example,why we shop: Gatherers sifted the useful from things that offered them no sustenance, warmth or comfort with a skill that would eventually lead to comfortable shopping malls and credit cards.Or gossip:Back in the day, if you didnt care to find out what was going on, you were more likely to die and less likely to pass on your incurious genes. Oh, and anger over trivial matters was oncekey to our survival.

As the examples above illustrate, EP does not explain puzzling human behavior so much as it offers Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest explanations for conventional behavior, whichsupplant traditional ones.

For example, why we are sexually jealous (not fear of abandonment, but sperm competition); why we dont stick to our goals (evolution gave us a kludge brain); why we developed music (to spot the savannah with little Pavarottis); why art exists (to recapture that lost savannah); why many womendont know whenthey are ovulating (if they knew, theyd never have kids); why some people rape, kill, and sleep around (our Stone Age ancestors passed on their genes via these traits), and why big banks sometimesget away with fraud(we havent evolved so as to understand what is happening).

EP alsoaccounts for dreams(they increase reproductive fitness),false memories(there might be a tiger in that tall grass ),menopause(men pursuing younger women),monogamy(control of females or else infanticide prevention),premenstrual syndrome (breaks up infertile relationships),romantic love(a hardwired drive to reproduce), rumination onhurt feelings(our brains evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences but slowly from the good ones),smiling(earlier, a cringe reaction), andwonder at the universe (explained by how early man lived).

In the chapter, I offer many more examples of the current effort to explain aspects of life or human behavior in a narrow, Darwinian way. These explanations satisfy a need felt by many for a scientific account of their behavior. But often, the science behind evo psych is nothing more than the fact that the persons offering the explanation have degrees in one or another field of psychology and a knack for coming up with an idea that is easy to market in popular media. The output has earned considerable skepticism.

Of course, we are free to accept these ad hoc evo psych explanations if we wish. Like astrology and palm reading, they make good conversation pieces. But the claim that they are science does not strengthen them and should not give them more credibility.

American philosopherSubrena E. Smithrecently launcheda sharp attackon evo psych. She points out that neuroscience has never identified the brain modules or systems that would enable evo psych to make sense.

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institutes Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

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There Is No Such Thing as a Fossil Mind - Discovery Institute

Human Behavior

We humans love our garbage – from the moon and back – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Pete Tannen| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

The Egyptians left pyramids. The Romans left roads and aqueducts. The Aztecs left temples.

And what are we, who describe ourselves as the most intelligent life on the planet, leaving?

Garbage. And lots of it. Just take a look at our moon.

Even though just 12 people have ever walked on its surface, they left behind more than 200 tons of trash including threemoon buggies, four armrests, lots of empty food bags, backpacks, blankets, packing material and even twogolf balls hit by astronaut Alan Shephard (he used a 6-iron).

Then theres our space garbage.

Sure, its exciting to send astronauts and millionaire tourists and satellites into space, but the amount of trash we leave up there is appalling more than 250,000 pieces of orbital debris are now circling our planet!

This junk includes over 3,000 totally dead or outdated satellites, thousands of old rocket fragments, hundreds of assorted nuts and bolts, tools accidentally dropped by astronauts, gloves accidentally dropped by astronauts, something scientists described as an empty trash bag object . . .etc.

In fact, its gotten so crowded up there that pieces of space junk are now rocketing around the planet, randomly smashing into other pieces of junk and some of them travel at more than15,000 miles per hour and can cause serious damage to anything they hit.

Even the International Space Station has to constantly shift its course to avoid getting hit by stray pieces of old satellites or other garbage.

And what are we doing about all this? So far, nothing.Except possibly providing material for some Ph.D candidate of the future, whose doctoral thesis could well be titled Humans: the Airheads of the Galaxy."

Unless youre a garbologist,we can all agree that its way past time to clean up this mess.

(Note: In case this is a new concept for you, a garbologist is one who studies culture and human behavior through the analysis of what is thrown away as garbage.)

Some garbologists believe the monuments, buildings, statues and art that cultures leave behind are just self-aggrandizing advertisements.Garbage, on the other hand, is a kind of tattletalethat sets the record straight.

Just thought you should know.

A resident of Sarasota, Pete Tannen is an award-winning humor writer,newspaper columnist andTV show writer. He is also arenowned Senior Influencer."

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We humans love our garbage - from the moon and back - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Human Behavior

Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo: Reinventing how we work and live with "hybrid everything" – TechRepublic

Besides on-site and remote, there is a "3rd Way" to work/live leveraging tech, regulatory changes and everything hybrid, Gartner analyst says at IT Symposium/Xpo.

Image: GettyImages/MStudioImages

The pandemic has pushed us to refine how people work and live and interact with their organizations and a new approach to consider is the "3rd Way," said Hung LeHong, distinguished vice president analyst at Gartner, during a session Tuesday at IT Symposium/Xpo.

Starbucks has coined a similar term, "the 3rd place," to reference the amount of work being done in cafes and coffee shops, and this was well before the pandemic, LeHong said. The 3rd Way embraces the concept of hybrid everything, but it is not just about places to work, he noted.

SEE: The future of work: Tools and strategies for the digital workplace (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

"At no other time in history have we had this much opportunity to reinvent and make it stick. The pandemic has given it to us on a plate," LeHong said.

People are used to seeing what technology can do, and this is a big window of opportunity to make changes stick, he stressed.

Hybrid everything includes all three ways of working: onsite, remote and the 3rd Way. The latter leverages technology and takes advantage of regulatory changes, and all approaches require human-centricity, which has been a big theme of the Gartner conference.

5G is one technology that is providing better connectivity with low latency. As the use of it becomes more predominant, it will start enabling workers to do more in a 3rd Way, he said. This applies to anything with low latency requirements.

As an example of how the 3rd Way is changing how people shop, LeHong cited Amazon Go-physical stores where people can shop, then fire up their Amazon app and walk out without having to go to a cash register or get a receipt. Amazon is using video, deep learning and artificial intelligence to enable this. The concept is beyond the pilot stage and Amazon now has some 20+ stores.

He envisioned the 3rd Way being used by airlines to enable people to walk on and check in for a flight on a plane. "We do so on trains so why can't we do so on a plane for a short flight?" he said.

LeHong also discussed using drones to spray pesticides on a plant that has a disease. This is one example of how regulations are changing to allow for that, he said.

Image: Gartner

Another example of a 3rd Way is the development of video games for digital therapeutics. A medical professional would not be prescribing medicationthey would be prescribing an app, that happens to be a game. This could help kids with ADD and influence positive behaviors, he said.

"Now doors are starting to open, and we're seeing prescribe-able, digital therapeutics."

He advised executives to take a human-centric approach to discover their 3rd way. "We have to apply that landscape to make 3rd Way work. My belief is the pandemic did not change we as humans."

People have a need to be socialor a need to be alone. That hasn't changed. What has is our acceptance for technology to provide innovative 3rd ways to fulfill those needsthings we already had that are built into human behavior, LeHong said.

As an example, he cited watching TV with others, something that was done before the pandemic, then done together remotely during the lockdown. Then people watched asynchronously. Now there is the ability to do a group watch so that people can watch something simultaneously. When someone presses pause, it pauses for everyone, he said.

"It is human nature; human behavior to actually do that, and technology has satisfied that," by increasing and boosting the experience significantly.

SEE: Electronic communication policy (TechRepublic Premium)

In the public sector, people have traditionally gone to a government-funded service center to apply for public help, as another example. Then government portals were created. But a 3rd Way is to proactively reach out to those who need services/help from the government and show them what's available, LeHong said.

Other 3rd Way societal examples he discussed included people taking selfies wearing digital clothing that is offered for sale by certain fashion lines and is good for the environment, he said.

"It's our need as humans to be recognized and show off and be the only one who has this article of digital clothing," LeHong said. "That's human nature. Digital can satisfy some of that without filling landfills with clothing."

But he advised people to look at applying all these principles.

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Human Behavior

Michigan’s COVID-19 cases are rising while they fall elsewhere; here’s why that could be – WXYZ

(WXYZ) Despite falling COVID-19 cases across the country, Michigan is bucking the national trend. Cases remain high.

In fact, new daily COVID-19 cases in the state remain nearly twice as high as much larger states like Florida and California.

So why is Michigan different? Infectious disease experts say there are no easy answers.

The state has been through multiple surges of COVID-19. The latest is fueled by the delta variant, and as we move into the colder months, Michigan remains one of just five states that have yet to stop rising cases.

According to Dr. Matthew Sims of Beaumont Health, it is not unusual for Michigan COVID-19 cases to ebb and flow out of step with the rest of the nation. He said that's just one of the ways the delta surge is unique. Past surges have been shorter and sharper.

"Prior times, we would get this tremendous number of cases over a short period of time, and then it would fall immediately," he said.

But during the delta surge, cases have been climbing slowly and steadily since the end of June. The peak hasn't been as pronounced with this surge. It's likely just as large.

"Because it sort of spread out over more time, that's probably more cases overall involved. The reasons for these aren't 100% clear," he said.

Sims said one of the reasons states in the south, including Florida and Texas, saw peaks during summer may be the intense heat driving people inside just as the delta variant hit. Michiganders were spending more time outdoors.

Another factor in Michigan is the return to school. Last week, Michigan reported 100 new outbreaks. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said K-12 outbreaks are outpacing all other settings.

Sims said pediatric cases are a key driver of the surge and point to districts without mask mandates.

"The data is absolutely clear that in the school districts without mask mandates, there are higher cases of COVID-19," he said.

Now, we're entering the cold months with family gatherings and holiday celebrations.

Michigan's COVID-19 positivity rate, case rate, percent of inpatient hospital beds with COVID-19 patients and the death rate are all up.

"Do you expect this slow, steady surge to continue into and through the holidays, maybe into 2022?" I asked.

"It may. And that's frustrating and scary," Sims said.

The challenge in getting to the bottom of the surge in Michigan is that a lot of factors are driven by human behavior.

It's the same delta variant in Michigan as it is everywhere else.

Health experts say masking, vaccinations and staying home when you are sick will be critical in stopping the surge as we move into the cold weather season.

Additional Coronavirus information and resources:

View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.

See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.

Visit our The Rebound Detroit, a place where we are working to help people impacted financially from the coronavirus. We have all the information on everything available to help you through this crisis and how to access it.

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Michigan's COVID-19 cases are rising while they fall elsewhere; here's why that could be - WXYZ

Human Behavior

Study to assess impact of passing boats on dolphin’s behavior and stress levels – DVM 360

The results may help strengthen conservation efforts to protect dolphins and other regional marine mammal species.

The Morris Animal Foundation has funded researchers at the MareCet Research Organization in Malaysia to launch a study examining the effects of underwater noise on the behavior and stress levels of 2 locally endangered dolphin speciesthe Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and the Irrawaddy dolphin. This research aims to accelerate conservation strategies for protecting dolphins and other regional marine mammal species.

According to an organizational release, dolphins rely significantly on sounds using whistles, squeaks, and echolocation (eg, clicks) to navigate, communicate and forage. The MareCet team suspects human activities including boat traffic from tourism, sea transportation and fishing, increase underwater noise to dangerous levels for dolphins.

We want to understand if this noise pollution is impacting their vocalizations, making it harder to hear each other or forcing them to use more energy to whistle louder than the passing boats, said Saliza Bono, PhD, MS, the studys principal investigator, in the release. We believe it could be potentially dangerous, making it difficult for them to hunt for food or even separating individuals from their pods.

Throughout the next year, the team will analyze acoustic responses of both Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins and Irrawaddy dolphins in 2 sites in Northwest Peninsular Malaysia. Using a hydrophonean underwater audio recording deviceinvestigators will trace the dolphins sounds in relation to nearby boats.

The researchers will analyze the dolphins whistle rates, frequency levels and duration before a boat approaches them, while it passes and after it leaves. This data will be used to assess metabolic costs (stress levels) of the animals.

According to the release, whistles utilize a significant amount of a dolphins energy; therefore, if they are forced to whistle louder, longer or more frequently, it could cause them to expend energy needed to look for food. If a dolphin whistles less frequently during these periods, it may miss a critical opportunity to vocalize or signal danger to their pod.

This project could close a crucial knowledge gap and inform new conservation measures that might be needed to help these dolphins thrive, said Janet Patterson-Kane, BVSc, PhD, chief scientific officer at Morris Animal Foundation.

As with so many other species, its important to understand how our human activities are impacting them so we can adjust our behaviors to improve both their welfare and ensure their very survival, she added.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies Irrawaddy dolphins as endangered and Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins as vulnerable. These species inhabit tropical, coastal, shallow waters of Southeast Asia and due to their proximity to the land are threatened by pollution, habitat loss and entanglement in fishing nets.

Reference

Are dolphins harmed by noise from passing boats? New study will assess impact on behavior. News release. Morris Animal Foundation. October 20, 2021. Accessed October 20, 2021. [email].

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Study to assess impact of passing boats on dolphin's behavior and stress levels - DVM 360