Human Behavior

Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak – On Health – BMC Blogs Network

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease.

Tracey Goldstein 1 Dec 2020

Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro / AP Photo / picture alliance

Since Ebola virus first emerged in 1976 (Zaire ebolavirus = EBOV) there have been eight outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, of which the second largest in history was declared in August 2018. By the time the outbreak was declared over in June 2020, the region had experienced 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths.

Goma, DR Congo; Credit: One Health Institute (PREDICT)

Our new study published in One Health Outlook detected antibodies to ebolaviruses in people prior to the outbreak, suggesting exposure may be more common than previously thought, earlier cases may have been missed, and infection may not always lead to disease. Sampling also detected the first antibodies to Bombali ebolavirus in one child, first discovered in bats in West Africa in 2018, providing critical evidence that spillover of this virus from bats to humans has likely occurred. Sampling also revealed that women were significantly more likely to be positive for antibodies than men, a finding consistent with other studies where the activities of women increase their risk of exposure.

So, how can we use this information to increase our understanding of viruses and advance our ability to reduce future outbreaks?

People sampled were patients seeking care for a range of clinical symptoms between May 2017 and April 2018, in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo near Virunga National Park. Samples were collected and tested from 272 people (identified as male or female) ranging in age from 2 to 68 years. None were diagnosed with hemorrhagic fever at the time of treatment or had been previously diagnosed with ebolavirus infection or disease.

Of the 272 patients sampled, 30 were seropositive (antibodies present) for ebolaviruses (EBOV = 29; BOMV = 1).

Location of villages and the Rubare Health Center in Rutshuru Health Zone, North Kivu Province where febrile study participants traveled from and were treated prior to Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Eastern DRC that began in 2018. The outbreak was first observed in the Mabalako Health Zone (yellow) in North Kivu before spreading to other areas (brown). Inset map of the DRC: Location of the 20182020 outbreak (yellow), study location (purple) and other EBOV outbreaks in the DRC to date (orange)

Demographic and behavioral information was also collected to identify risk factors for exposure. Livelihoods mainly consisted of crop production. Limited contact with wild animals (e.g. non-human primates, bats) was reported but contact with rodents and domestic animals (e.g. goats, sheep, dogs) was common.

Although both sexes tested positive for antibodies, as mentioned above, women were significantly more likely to be positive, and children (2-17 yrs) comprised 45% of the positives. This finding is consistent with other infectious disease studies demonstrating women have been shown to have an increased risk for exposure, likely due to their gender roles caring for children, the sick, and for animals. Children are also likely coming into contact with wild animals more frequently through hunting and play behaviors, increasing their risk of exposure.

Can antibody detection help prevent future outbreaks?

Detecting antibodies before or between outbreaks can help understand the geographic exposure to viruses. Spillover is likely more frequent than we realize and recognizing that spillover doesnt always lead to outbreaks is important, reinforcing the need to study and understand viral infection and exposure between outbreak events.

The fact that women and children were more likely to have antibodies suggests that awareness of the human behaviors that increase the risk of exposure is critically important to understanding how and when exposure may occur. When we understand the connections between human behavior and viral exposure we can begin to break those connections and reduce outbreaks.

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Silent Spillover: Ebolavirus antibodies detected in people in DR Congo before the 2018 outbreak - On Health - BMC Blogs Network

Human Behavior

Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations – fox13now.com

SALT LAKE CITY After weeks of pleading from health leaders across not only the state but the country for people to avoid traveling for Thanksgiving and to only see people they live with, the holiday is over and it becomes a wait and see game.

Unless people really took the public health warnings and stayed home and didnt congregate as multiple household units coming together, this has the potential of being a big spreading event, this entire holiday season, Erin Clouse, Strategic Engagement Manager for Health Sciences at the University of Utah Health said.

READ: Utahs high schools are seeing more and bigger COVID-19 outbreaks

In March, Clouse, like many Utahns, began working from home. She began to develop a curiosity of COVID-19 trends, so she started plotting and making graphs.

I wanted to see for myself, I thought maybe there were some interesting stories that werent being described very well, she said.

Months later, what started as a hobby has turned into something people are using to look at COVID-19 Trends and providing an easy to understand look at the pandemic. The most surprising thing has been to see how much you can predict human behavior, Clouse said.

It was just really interesting to see human behavior really leading to spreading of this disease, over and over again, she said.

After every major holiday since the pandemic, Utah has seen a spike in cases, Clouse said. This will be the first holiday that was mostly celebrated inside which adds another level of concern. It usually takes 10-14 days to see the impact from an event, Clouse said.

It is going to be a wait and see how vigilant was the population over Thanksgiving to stop and slow the spread, she said.

READ: Man arrested after refusing to wear face mask on airplane departing from Utah

People who did travel or meet with people outside of their immediate household should monitor for symptoms and take extra precautions including possibly getting tested or even quarantining if someone believed they were exposed, Dr. Todd Vento, infectious disease physician for Intermountain Healthcare, said.

Youre hearing out of the White House task force from Dr. Burks and others is that they are essentially saying, make an assumption that you were exposed at Thanksgiving if you traveled and you met with individuals outside your home, he said.

Right now, Utah is seeing a slight decrease in the rolling COVID-19 seven-day positivity rate and while hospitals are spread thin, they are managing, Vento said. There is true concern what the Thanksgiving holiday, and the remainder of the holiday season will bring, Vento said.

The next step is are we going to have a surge within a surge because of something like a super spreader event like traveling associated with Thanksgiving. If that were to happen, thats when I think you would see what people are considering a tipping point of having to transition more into crisis standards of care potentially, he said.

It will all depend on how many people contract COVID-19 and how many of them end up in the hospital.

READ: Contracting COVID-19 can lead to PTSD, anxiety, depression

The latest available data shows most people are contracting COVID-19 from informal, casual gatherings, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health said. The current surge in cases already is impacting COVID-19 contract tracing, Jenny Johnson said.

In some areas we are not able to do full contract tracing, which means you could be exposed to COVID-19 and youre never going to get a call from the Health Dept. simply because our staff cannot keep up with the people who test positive, she said.

It could be three weeks before Utahns see the full impact of the Thanksgiving holiday including hospitalizations.

For the latest information on COVID-19 in Utah, CLICK HERE.

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Too early to tell if Utahns followed Thanksgiving health recommendations - fox13now.com

Human Behavior

5 Hot IoT Trends To Watch In 2021 And Beyond – CRN

The coronavirus pandemic took a hit on worldwide IoT spending this year, according to research firm IDC, but double-digit growth is expected to return in the next few years.

Among the drivers for this increased spending which will reach an annual growth rate of 11.3 percent over IDCs 2020-2024 forecast period will be a greater need for connected devices to enable remote operations and artificial intelligence to monitor human behavior.

[Related: The 10 Coolest Industrial IoT Startups Of 2020]

Many of these things have come to the forefront this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but their collective importance is expected to increase in the near future.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove businesses and employees to become more reliant on technology for both professional and personal purposes, Forrester wrote in October for its Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth.

What follows are five hot IoT trends to watch in 2021 and beyond.

With a significant number of employees expected to continue working from home next year, some employers are expected to consolidate their real estate holdings and find ways to save money on space and energy. One way they will do this, according to Forrester, is through IoT applications for smart office initiatives. These initiatives will include smart lighting, energy and environmental monitoring as well as sensor-enabled space utilization and activity monitoring, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way many organizations think about virus spread, so expect to see more IoT technologies in the field that monitors behavior in various ways to enforce health and safety guidelines, according to Gartners Top Strategic Technology Trends For 2021 report. This will include using sensors or RFID tags to ensure employees are washing hands and using computer vision to determine if employees are wearing masks. Gartner refers to this collection and analysis of behavioral data to influence how people behave the Internet of Behavior. But this concept will expand beyond public health concerns to other areas, like commercial vehicles, which organizations are starting to monitor using various sensors. However, Gartner noted, privacy laws will impact the extent to which these new ways of tracking and influencing behavior will be adopted.

Location data became more relevant than ever this year due to the coronavirus pandemic prompting many retailers and other kinds of organizations shifting to things like curbside pickup and remote check-in. Forrester expects this to become the norm next year as location data becomes core in delivering convenient customer and employee experiences. This means there will be greater need for technology vendors and partners who can help these businesses use location data in addition to a third-party source for collecting location data that consumers can trust, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

Manufacturers, distributors, utilities and pharmaceutical companies have had to connect industrial assets this year to enable remote operations and that will lead to even greater investments in IoT in 2021 to meet growing demand from customers, according to Forrester. This approach is allowing companies to increasingly rely on remote experts to repair systems so that downtime is minimal and expensive travel is avoided. More companies, particularly field service firms and industrial OEMs, will increasingly use this approach, making connected machines more ubiquitous than ever before, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping many people at home in 2020, there will be a greater need moving forward to use connected health care solutions to manage illnesses and monitor health. Forrester expects this will drive a surge in adoption of wearables and sensors to help patients keep track of things like chronic conditions and cancer. There will also be greater interest in digital health devices among consumers due to convivence and more affordable prices, according to Forresters Predictions 2021: Technology Diversity Drives IoT Growth report.

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Human Behavior

Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities – The Lund Report

Local human services perform a critical role in strengthening the foundation of our communities. Yet despite their vital contributions, for more than four decades they have been largely ignored, denigrated and defunded.

The divided nation we see around us is due in no small part to the inadequate maintenance of and increasingly hostile attitude toward the human service agencies and programs at our core. In allowing our society's foundation to crumble, we have left most Americans living on a playing field progressively tilted toward poverty. Many in what used to be the middle-class fight the escalating gravitational pull as they fall closer and closer to the bottom. Lacking opportunity and a place to make a stand, they have little freedom to resist.

We have acted as though systemic problems can automatically fix themselves; that the imaginary invisible hand will magically make everything better. Despite all evidence of their failure, the haves continue to champion simplistic answers to complex problems that only continue to widen the chasm and leave the have-nots behind with hard truths and limited hope. The very words we use to describe our situation no longer have shared meaning, and the more we try to communicate in either relatively wrong vocabulary, the further apart we grow literally and figuratively.

The reality these facts describe is more concerning when you consider this list represents how our country was doing in late 2019, prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Human behavior in response to the virus has only clarified the depth of our underlying dysfunction; the cracks in our foundation are multidimensional, huge and filled with years of anger and frustration.

Failures of this scale and magnitude arise from system behavior. We will not repair the fissures and restore strength to our communities by blaming the poor for their reality and leaving them to their fate. Poverty limits everyones potential rich or poor. Instead of wasting our time arguing the isms capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, individualism and other outmoded theoretical ideologies, we should instead focus on the immutable rules of nature.

All people and every community are biological systems, and every pattern of being within biology exists in the social systems emerging from them. We desperately need to recognize the limited applicability of ideas from our 18th century icons and concentrate our efforts on developing a solid 21st century understanding of systems, especially biological systems. Alignment with nature's rules and processes will put the wind at our back, pointing us toward a better, more sustainable future.

A human community is a biological system that should grow opportunity for people, in the same way that soil is a biological system that grows fertility, supporting life on earth. And biology is bottom-up, not top-down: the survival of larger organisms depends on the survival of smaller. This system is not designed but rather grows and adapts through self-organization.

In many ways, it is the opposite of industrialization. Industrial engineering produces systems designed to operate under predetermined conditions. Rigid assumptions and narrow focus make such systems fragile when unexpected events or situations arise.

Conversely, biological systems use a highly flexible paradigm and quickly develop adaptive responses to novel conditions. They are robust because they contain many complex components that continuously co-evolve. These components participate in a dense network of interdependency constrained by a common goal: survival.

Our goal, then, should be to transform the human service system into a similar natural system constrained to desired outcomes. The work of James. M. Whitacre explaining the dynamics of biological systems published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling can point to a better, more productive organization of human services. This is something none of us can do alone, but all of us can do together.

Dr. Michael Rohwer is executive director of Curandi and a member of The Lund Report's board of directors. You can reach him at [emailprotected].

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Opinion: We Need Human Services That Serve Communities - The Lund Report

Human Behavior

State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge – Alton Telegraph

This is the time to be extra careful

Scott Cousins, scousins@thetelegraph.com

CHICAGO While an uptick in new cases and positivity rates may be a reflection of increased testing, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Tuesday state officials continue to take a close look at the numbers to see if it is an indication of the post-Thanksgiving coronavirus surge that has been predicted.

One thing Im certain of is this virus is circulating widely in every county in Illinois, Pritzker said.

Statewide the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 5,835 people in Illinois hospitalized with COVID, 1,195 in the ICU, and 721 on ventilators.

Locally, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, which looks at COVID-19 and related issues in both Illinois and Missouri, said hospital admissions and other critical numbers were up.

It was announced Tuesday that hospitals in four major healthcare systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Lukes Hospital) are at 82 percent capacity, and ICUs are at 90 percent of staffed capacity.

Pritzker noted that new cases, hospitalizations and deaths announced today are the result of actions taken a week or more ago, and they will start to see whether or not the expected surge begins in a day or two.

We know we arent going to see the bulk of the impact from Thanksgiving just yet, he said.

He also noted that past experience has taught us decisions about whether to get tested are different around holidays, with many being tested prior to Thanksgiving, followed by a drop off.

Todays uptick in the positivity rate could be fluctuations in testing, he said, saying that is one of the reasons they need time to study the data.

He cautioned that many who traveled or met with others for the holiday could be infected but asymptomatic.

You may feel fine right now, but you may be passing COVID-19 to others, Pritzker said, saying those who traveled or celebrated outside of their immediate family should be tested 5-7 days after potential exposure if they are asymptomatic.

This is the time to be extra careful, he said, citing the predictions of a new surge. These next few weeks are a time to stay home as much as possible. Its the safest thing you can do for the people you love, and the healthcare workers who will be there when you need them.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said the increases are the result of human behavior, including failure to wear masks, practice social distancing and washing hands.

She added those who are not complying with the current Tier 3 mandates are not helping the situation.

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State awaits Thanksgiving COVID surge - Alton Telegraph

Human Behavior

Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security – Brookings Institution

Executive summaryReducing uncertainty in all aspects of life is undoubtedly an action that all individuals, societies, and governments seek to achieve. In the national security policy space, such forewarning takes on even greater importance owing to the high stakes and lives on the line. It is no surprise, then, that forecasting is a longstanding tradition, both within the intelligence community and the Department of Defense. More recently, the Department of State also started to seek its own oracle through the establishment of the Center for Analytics, the first enterprise-level data and analytics hub that will utilize big data and subsequent data analytic tools to evaluate and refine foreign policy.

This paper focuses not on those predictive analytics systems that attempt to predict naturally occurring phenomenon. Rather, it draws attention to a potentially troublesome area where AI systems attempt to predict social phenomenon and behavior, particularly in the national security space. This is where caution must be advised for the policy crowd. This paper discusses human behavior in complex, dynamic, and highly uncertain systems. Using AI to predict ever more complex social phenomena, and then using those predictions as grounds for recommendations to senior leaders in national security, will become increasingly risky if we do not take stock of how these systems are built and the knowledge that they produce. Senior leaders and decisionmakers may place too much reliance on these estimations without understanding their limitations.

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Uncomfortable ground truths: Predictive analytics and national security - Brookings Institution

Human Behavior

Now Is the Time for Climate Action – Open Society Foundations

As someone who has been working on climate policy for 20 years, I am often asked to speak to student and youth groups. This is one of my favorite parts of my job, and it has been a joy to watch in recent years as young peoples interest in and knowledge about the climate crisis has increased.

Despite the overall increased public awareness, however, a gap clearly exists between what weknowabout the climate crisis and what were willing todo about it. Indeed, as a new report from d|part makes clear, outright denial of the climate crisis is rarebut people remain confused about how much of the problem can be attributed to human behavior.

In our surveys, significant minorities of respondents in the United States and several European countriesranging from 17 percent to as much as 44 percentstill said, incorrectly, that climate change is equally caused by human society and natural processes. Just as concerning, significant minorities also said that scientists were divided among themselves on the issue, even though the truth, as theConsensus Projecthas shown, is anything but.

Of course, the prevalence of climate misinformation is not new. But what our research shows is that this confusion about causes ultimately harms the chances of enacting good climate policy. Soft skepticism can quickly turn into rigid opposition. With time running out, its clear that more work needs to be done to improve the publics understanding of the climate issue, on the one hand, and to confront and weaken the power of disinformation, on the other.

To be sure, disinformation is a symptom of our time, and its effects are not limited to the politics of climate science. Rallying public opinion behind action is always difficultand its exponentially more so when populist political movements spread conspiracy theories and falsehoods. The good news, though, is that our research also found that, despite these hurdles, respondentsexpectedtheir governments to address the issue of climate change. Across all nine countries polled, clear majorities (from 58 percent in the United Kingdom to 57 percent in the United States) agreed that climate change requires a collective response.

This is crucial momentnot only for the future of climate justice, but for the future of the world. And as we can see through narrative-shifting developments like2018s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changereport, theParis Agreement, and the European Commissions 2019European Green Dealproposal, the political space for climate action is growing. The challenge of our time, then, is translating the publics demand for action into policy that works for peopleandthe planet.

D|parts report shows that this wont be easy, and that misinformation remains a serious threat to climate justice. At the same time, though, the report also underlines that there is already sufficient public will behind government-backed action. Rather than waiting until 100 percent of the public embraces reform, policymakers and advocates alike should seize this moment and push for strong climate action. The time to act is now.

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Now Is the Time for Climate Action - Open Society Foundations

Human Behavior

Will robots ever be in charge? Not if we raise them well – Innovation Origins

According to the Israeli historian-futurologist Yuval Noah Harari, humans are becoming more and more robotic and robots are increasingly gaining human traits. Over the past few months, Innovation Origins has been looking around the Dutch robotics nursery at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and wrote about it in this series. Today, the last installment.

A 3D printer that builds your home exactly the way you want it. All parts are movable so that the house can literally be adjusted to your liking. An extra-large living room or balcony, that can be arranged right away. A robot brings you a cup of coffee even before you realize that you feel like one. And if you need care at a later stage of your life, the robot will always be by your side. Are you already able to envisage this in your future?

It is obvious, robots are going to change our lives. Nowadays, you can develop a robot for every application in every field. For this series, scientists spent hours talking about the technology, potential fields of application, and the ethical aspects of (self-steering) robots. All these robots and related research have one thing in common: Robots have to respond to the behavior of people and, moreover, behave more and more like human beings themselves.

The technology that is behind it all? Artificial intelligence. This is the basis for all robots, the brain, you might say. A great intangible thing that will overtake humanity if we are not careful enough. Because, just how human can robots become? How clever will they become? And how will they learn to deal with emotions?

There is so much that can be done and yet at the same time, not so much either. The soccer robots from Tech United are getting better every year. But they still have a long way to go if they want to beat the human world champions. Robots do not have any insight that enables them to predict what will happen in a few seconds. Something that is extremely important in soccer. This is difficult to pinpoint in an algorithm.

Predictive capability is also important in the development of autonomous cars. As humans, we often see, for example, when a cyclist is going to turn even before they signal that with a hand gesture. But what do we base that on? It is difficult to establish rules for this that an algorithm can use. The robots have to learn from a wealth of data about the choices people make in these kinds of situations. That takes time. For now, therefore, AI cannot match a human driver by a long shot.

But there are also tasks that robots can perform much better than humans. Order picking, for example. But even this type of robot is not yet ready for the world of humans. A robot cannot feel the difference between materials. This means that it does not know how to handle certain materials. When people pack a box of items, they know exactly which materials they can press down a bit more so that they can close the box. A robot does not have that insight. Such skills are needed to really be able to function as, for example, a fully-fledged employee in a factory.

And we have not even mentioned service robots in healthcare yet. A robot can perform tasks such as lifting someone out of bed, bringing food, or helping them to the bathroom, although interacting with people is still very complicated. How hard do you have to grab someone when you are helping them to go to the toilet? A person needs to feel safe and of course, you should not drop them either, but grasping them too hard is painful. The robot itself has no skin, has no idea what it feels like, and thus has difficulty assessing this kind of thing. Moreover, this varies from person to person. There are several service robots under development at the moment. It is often the case that these can only perform a few specific tasks. As such, the full range of tasks of a nurse is (still) far too complex.

Robots need to understand their environment in order to truly become part of society. They have to recognize situations and be able to respond to them accordingly. Scientists are attempting to put the social behavior of human beings into a robot. But this is tricky. After all, robots work on the basis of facts and connections. But human feelings cannot be grasped that way. How close do you stand to someone when you are having a conversation with them? How do you know that someone has heard you when you say something? And how do you identify feelings someone else might have? All things that we use feelings and emotions in order to work out. Which is quite hard to explain to a computer.

An algorithm can learn from mistakes. But then it needs to know what is right and what is wrong. Except that so many things in society are not so black and white. Every situation is slightly different, which is what makes it all so complicated. You could compare it to a childs learning process. From the first weeks of their lives, children learn more and more about the world around them. They discover basic principles such as gravity by doing things. Social skills also develop over time. Robots are undergoing that same kind of development too. The university is not just a nursery, it is also a preschool for robots.

The fact that robots are still in preschool feels reassuring for now: It means that people are still not replaceable. We are creative, have empathy and emotions. Robots do not have any of those qualities. Not yet, at least. Because, how sensitive could a robot actually become? What if they develop emotions as well? Will we be able to distinguish people from robots in the future? These are questions that remain unanswered. The future will teach us.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is still a tremendous treasure trove of technological developments, new applications, and special innovations lying beneath the surface. We will discover them in time. In the interim, scientists are continually developing existing robots. What if the robots start puberty soon? The researchers are preparing themselves for real issues to do with their upbringing. After all, humankind is in charge of robots and their development. At least for the time being. Will robots ever take over the world? Maybe in the future, but right now, humans and robots are empowering each other.

Read all articles in this series here.

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Will robots ever be in charge? Not if we raise them well - Innovation Origins

Human Behavior

These Medicinal Plants Have Evolved an Ingenious Way to Hide From Their Predators: Us – ScienceAlert

On the wide open slopes of China's Hengduan Mountains, there are perks to being a wallflower. After thousands of years of human harvesting, a rare alpine flower - prized in Chinese medicine - is trying its hardest not to stand out.

In the alpine meadows where humans pluck theFritillaria delavayi plant the most, scientists have noticed the perennial herb blends in better with the rocky background.

Avoiding the limelight in a drab environment is no easy feat when your leaves and bulbs are normally a bright green, so some populations of F. delavayihave turned more of a brown or grey to better match their surroundings.

Many plants are capable of such camouflage, usually as an attempt to hide from hungry hunters, but up here, the only real predators are us.

"Like other camouflaged plants we have studied, we thought the evolution of camouflage of this fritillary had been driven by herbivores, but we didn't find such animals," explains botanist Yang Niu from the Kunming Institute of Botany.

"Then we realised humans could be the reason."

Normal green plants with low harvest pressure (A and B) and camouflaged individuals with high harvest pressure (C and D). (Niu et al., Current Biology, 2020)

Speaking to locals in the area, researchers estimated how each accessible population of alpine herb had been harvested over the past five years.

Using a model for human vision, researchers found significant colour diversity among herb populations - especially those that existed in areas with high levels of human harvesting.

This suggests human behavior is somehow shaping the evolution of these famous herbs, which are the most commonly used treatment in China for coughs and phlegm.

F. delavayi plants sport a set of leaves that vary in colour from grey to brown, but it's only after their fifth year of life that they begin to produce annual bulbs of similar shades. Over 3,500 individual bulbs are needed to make just a kilogram of medicine.

This slow and minimal growth is part of what makes the rare herb so cherished, but it's also what makes it vulnerable to overharvesting.

Changing colour is probably one of the only defences this plant has got against increased harvesting from humans. And so, it seems, the more we want it, the harder it is to find.

To further test the plant's camouflage on real human vision, researchers set up a computer experiment in which participants were asked to locate various colours of the herb in 14 slides of its natural environment.

As expected, the more-camouflaged and less green plants were harder to locate as quickly.

"It's remarkable to see how humans can have such a direct and dramatic impact on the colouration of wild organisms, not just on their survival but on their evolution itself," says botanist and ecologist Martin Stevens from the University of Exeter.

"It's possible that humans have driven evolution of defensive strategies in other plant species, but surprisingly little research has examined this."

The rare snow lotus is one of the few examples we have. Historically collected by humans, studies have shown this coveted plant has grown significantly smaller in the past hundred years.

There's even a theory that humans unconsciously drove the evolution of weeds from a pest to something more similar to wheat as plants tried to avoid being torn out of the ground.

That's a fascinating idea, and further research on harvested wild plants like F. delavayi might help us better understand what aspects of plant biology humans are truly capable of influencing.

The study was published in Current Biology.

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These Medicinal Plants Have Evolved an Ingenious Way to Hide From Their Predators: Us - ScienceAlert

Human Behavior

‘The more who die, the less we care’: Why we’re growing numb to COVID-19 – Oregon Daily Emerald

University of Oregon psychology professor Paul Slovic has spent much of his time during the COVID-19 pandemic writing articles, talking to journalists and thinking about why the coronavirus is so out of control.

To explain why case counts are surging and the virus is growing so rapidly, Slovic has drawn on previous psychological research that he thinks is relevant to the pandemic.

Slovic said there are a few concepts in particular including reinforcement theory and psychic numbing that can help everyone understand why, while the virus is getting worse, it seems the community is becoming less worried.

Fast and slow thinking

Slovic said that given the curve of coronavirus cases since March, its clear the growth is exponential. This means it is growing more rapidly over time. This type of growth happens when one person gets infected, then infects a couple others, who in turn each infect more than one person and so on.

The human mind doesnt deal with exponential growth very well, Slovic said.

Behind this, he said, is psychological research that shows humans think in two ways: fast and slow. Fast thinking relies on intuition and gut feelings, while slow thinking is based on analysis, data and science.

We rely on fast thinking because usually it works for us, Slovic said. Its easy, it feels right and most of the time, it works for us. Except when it doesnt. And when things are happening exponentially, it doesnt work for us.

Exponential coronavirus data can also teach us about climate change, Slovic said. The overwhelming surge of sea level rise will also come sooner than expected and the early exponential curve has been hard for the human brain to process.

If one isnt trained to think exponentially or rely on slow thinking, they underestimate data. Slovic said the overwhelming surge that follows the initial, steadier exponential growth comes sooner than expected.

This is why we need to rely on scientists and experts those who are trained to think slowly when they face data to make decisions regarding the coronavirus, Slovic said.

Listen to the experts, he said. Not the politicians.

Risk judgement

Another reason people misjudge the risks of the coronavirus and allow it to get out of hand is because its an invisible threat. Unless people see the virus right in front of them if they or a loved one gets sick they dont really think COVID-19 is there.

Were better at judging risk when we can see the evidence of it directly, Slovic said.

Because people cant see the virus itself, they are less likely to be careful about it and more likely to underestimate the risk of it, he said.

Reinforcement theory

Another factor that makes the virus hard to control is that everyone has to rely on behavior to curb the spread, Slovic said. Unfortunately, this means communities have to stop doing things they like and start doing things they dont.

When the pandemic first hit the United States in the spring, most people followed guidelines and took them seriously, Slovic said. Because of pressure to open the economy which resulted in relaxing restrictions people started to relax and stop following guidelines as closely.

Even now, when we have a tremendous amount of cases, he said, people are tired of doing the things theyre supposed to do.

The reason people are tired of practicing COVID-19-safe behaviors is because they dont feel the benefit from them, Slovic said. In fact, they feel like theyre being punished.

Slovic said people can understand these behaviors through reinforcement theory a concept that students might have come across in an introductory psychology class.

Reinforcement schedules are rules that state the relationship between a behavior and its consequences. With COVID-19, the reinforcement schedules are the opposite of what they need to be to keep people doing the right thing, Slovic said. People dont feel the immediate consequences when they do whats wrong, and they feel punished for doing whats right.

You dont see who youve been protected from or who youve been protecting. You dont see the benefit, he said. But you feel the cost that youre constrained and you cant do the things you want to do.

Slovic said those kinds of reinforcement schedules dont keep people motivated to keep doing the right thing and continue following COVID-19 guidelines.

So thats why you see people who are really good people and are concerned about COVID in general. They relax their guard, Slovic said. And thats inevitable.

This backwards reinforcement schedule means that the only way to get people to do the right thing during the pandemic is to enforce regulations and shut things down.

Psychic numbing and feelings of inefficacy

Another psychological concept that explains why the virus is out of control is called psychic numbing. When people are exposed to countless data and statistics, they become numb to the information, Slovic said.

Especially as numbers increase, he said, they become just that numbers. They dont carry emotion and they dont impact people as much.

A related concept is the feeling of inefficacy. Even if individuals are concerned about something, they feel as if they cant do anything about it.

As Slovic put it: Why make yourself miserable worrying about these horrible things if you feel you cant do anything about it?

An example of this occurred in a study regarding donating to children in need, Slovic said. Participants were shown two commercials: one of a single child they could donate to, and one of that same child next to statistics of millions of other children who needed aid.

Participants who saw the commercial with the statistics were almost 50% less likely to donate, even though the inclusion of the data was meant to get more donations.

This happened, Slovic said, because with the added millions of children, it felt like the problem was too big and a single donation wouldnt help.

People feel this sense of inefficacy often false inefficacy because their feelings mislead them.

David Markowitz is a professor at UOs School of Journalism and Communication. Markowitz and Slovic have collaborated on projects including exploring why people dehumanize immigrants in the United States.

Markowitz said he thinks psychic numbing is the most relevant concept on display during the pandemic.

As the number of cases and deaths surge, Markowitz said, our feeling system becomes numb and cannot respond compassionately.

Markowitz and Slovic agree that hearing stories about COVID-19 directly affecting people instead of just seeing numbers and data can make people care more about it.

The arithmetic of compassion

Slovic uses this term the arithmetic of compassion to explain why people care less when they should care more. Their feelings can only do arithmetic up to the number one, he said.

The arithmetic of compassion, Slovic said, is a mistake. In reality, people should care more about problems that are bigger. Everyone should work harder to stop them, he said, but they actually do less.

The more who die, Slovic said, the less we care.

Slovic said efficacy is a powerful motivator for peoples actions, and this also explains human behavior during the pandemic. Feelings of inefficacy can arise when people see others ignoring coronavirus guidelines or when they cant help but be exposed to others at their jobs, for example.

If we dont think our actions make a difference and theyre not pleasant to do, he said, we won't do them.

In addition to working for the university, Slovic is the founder and president of Decision Research, an institute that investigates human judgment, decision-making and risk, according to its website.

Along with others from the institute and faculty from various universities including UO, Slovic has been working on a project titled the Arithmetic of Compassion.

Slovic said the project goes from the basic science of things like psychic numbing and inefficacy and shows how those concepts play out in the world around us. The goal of the project is to make people aware of this mistaken arithmetic and other psychological factors that affect their behavior.

Maybe, Slovic said, the project can help people overcome the barriers and get the arithmetic right.

Originally posted here:
'The more who die, the less we care': Why we're growing numb to COVID-19 - Oregon Daily Emerald