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Human Behavior

Human Behavior: The Complete Pocket Guide – iMotions

Introduction to Human Behavior

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

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

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

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

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

Sounds complicated? Lets address them one by one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unconditioned stimulus -> unconditioned response

Seeing food -> salivation

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

unconditioned stimulus + conditioned stimulus -> unconditioned response

seeing food + hearing bell -> salivation

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

conditioned stimulus > response

hearing bell -> salivation

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

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

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

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

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

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

The key concepts of operant conditioning are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Human Behavior: The Complete Pocket Guide - iMotions

Human Behavior

The humble mushroom provides a key to unlocking how humans might better their lives and the planet – The International Examiner

In 2015, U.C. Santa Cruz anthropology professor Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing wrote The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Not her first, nor to-be-sure her last book. To her credit she has also penned, among others: Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (2004) and In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-Of-The-Way Place (1993).

With a B.A. from Yale and M.A./Ph.D from Stanford, Tsings scholarly works have been highly lauded and lavished with numerous awards, including: a Guggenheim Fellowship (2010); the Society for Humanistic Anthropology Victor Turner Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing (2016); the Society for Cultural Anthropology Gregory Bateson Prize (2016) he, a former husband of cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead; the Royal Anthropological Institute Huxley Memorial Medal (2018); and the lollapalooza prize of all a Niels Bohr Professorship at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark.

Before turning up collective noses at this seemingly obscure educational institution and its lofty recognition for Tsings contribution to interdisciplinary work in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and the arts, know this: Aarhus University (the second largest research university in Denmark) also anointed the 68-year-old scholar with the directorship of the universitys AURA (Aurus University Research on the Anthropocene) Project and presented her with an eye-popping sum of FIVE million dollars! Impressed, now? I was.

What in Samantha Hill (an equity opportunity exclamation) is going on here? Mushrooms? MUSHROOMS?!! Aside from their preordained place on steaks and in omelets, I draw a blinking blank with regard to their worth. So, sue me.

Legend has it that after the bombing of Hiroshima during WWII, the first living thing to emerge from the devastated land was a mushroom: the Matsutake (pine) mushroom, which grows in forests across the northern hemisphere. Considered a special delicacy, according to the American Mushroom Institute, Matsutake (rare and highly valued) is the third most expensive edible mushroom in the world, and can command, depending on size and condition, an astronomical $1,000 $2,000 per pound.

A mushroom is the reproductive organ of a fungus. Described by some as the most poorly understood and underappreciated kingdom of life on earth, it is also recognized, by those in-the-know, as indispensable to the health of the planet. What we have come to know as a mushroom is just the portion that appears above the ground in which it grows. But the majority of the fungal organism exists below ground in the form of mycelia white cobweb-like filaments (hyphae) that weave their way through the soil, creating a vast neurological network beneath the earth, interacting with the roots of trees, and forming combined structures of fungus and root called mycorrhiza. Mycorrhizal webs connect not just root and fungus, but also by way of fungal filaments unite trees with surrounding trees, creating immense forest entanglements. This seemingly boundless matrix links many species over enormous distances. So far-reaching is this system, that it forms the largest organism on earth. The Honey fungus mushrooms complex web, for example, is 2.4 miles wide.

Likened to a fungal iceberg, the mushrooms enormous subterranean structure, concealed within the earth, are largely ignored. Attention is given, instead, to its more visual stem, cap and gills, the parts of the mushroom that appear above ground. According to mycologists (mushroom scientists), much can be learned regarding continuing life on earth through judicious attention paid to the secretive undercover life of mushrooms. Unfortunately, more energy is paid on culinary examinations of the upper part of the mushroom, concentrating on how best to devour a fungal dish: roasted, grilled, baked or fried? Tsings probing study seeks to reverse this direction.

Fungal mycelia play a critical role on planet earth. By secreting enzymes into the soil around them, they digest organic material (including rocks), absorbing and releasing nutrients in the process. The discharged nutrients become available for trees and other plants, which are then used to produce more food for themselves and the network. The rampantly migrating web navigates maze-like territory in search of food. Not only does it feed and link trees in forests (root to root), but it also conveys information regarding environmental threats to the woodland trees.

Mycelia also play a critical role in forming soils, recycling organic matter, and keeping plants and animals in good health. Devoid of mushrooms, the earth would be, mycologists claim, a vast, uninhabitable waste heap of dead, undecomposed plants and animals.

Tsings ethnographic account of the Matsutakes complex commodity chain contributes to the field of anthropology in her study of multi-species collaborative interactions using a non-human subject to learn more about the Homo sapien world. In addition, her research relative to the field of ecology addresses the interrelationship of organisms and how their environment is re-shaped by human interference. Tsings monograph delivers a clear message that contrasts the mushrooms interactions within the earth synergetic, reciprocal and nurturing with those of humans on earth mindless destructive acts of pollution, ruination and exploitation.

Making worlds, states Tsing, is not limited to humans. The Mushroom at the End of the World is a treatise based on observations of the hidden underground life of the mushroom. From its little known but remarkable pattern of growth and beneficial contributions, to its global culinary commercial star power, the author advances theoretical ideas regarding how the biology and life of mushrooms can be used to revise our current adulation of a long-reigning socioeconomic industrial complex whose pursuit of its own capitalistic profit motives have led to the overall detriment of societal needs and the planet on which we live. Tsing postulates that the humble mushroom provides a key to unlocking how humans might better their lives and the planet by taking note of mushroom behavior and adopting some of its ways.

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing will talk about the history of the matsutake mushroom and her book, The Mushroom at the End of the World when she delivers the Solomon Katz Distinguished Lecture on Feb. 25, 2020 at 7 PM at Kane Hall 220 on the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. Presented by the Simpson Center For The Humanities. For details, go to uwalum.com/golectures or call 206-543-0540.

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The humble mushroom provides a key to unlocking how humans might better their lives and the planet - The International Examiner

Neuroscience

Our brains map the world in a completely subjective fashion – The Big Smoke Australia

Sigmund Freud long theorised that our reality is influenced by our subconscious. With modern technology, neuroscientists have taken it further.

Modern advances have afforded neuroscientists a more comprehensive look inside the brains of humans as they interact with the world, and how our cranium translates into a cohesive map of the world around us. It has also shown us how subjective and malleable that map is, too.

Sigmund Freud, long before the inception of modern neuroscience, theorised that what we deem objective reality is altered by our subconscious.

Fast forward to now, with the invention of powerful imaging techniques, neuroscientists are now able to peer into the perceptions of people, whether it involves watching events in the environment, thinking about reality or making a decision between several possibilities.

Were able to go a lot deeper into understanding this massive machinery under the hood, says neuroscientist David Eagleman. One particularly interesting facet of our objective reality is the way in which we perceive time. People often report that time seems to slow down during a life-threatening situation, a novel event or even when playing sport.

Eagleman decided to put this to the test. By dropping people from a 150-foot tall tower and measuring their perception of time, he found that people dont necessarily see time moving slowly during an event like this. Rather, the brain creates supremely dense memories of the moment. Upon reflection, when one looks back on a shocking event like this, it appears time moved slower than usual at the moment because of the magnitude of information compressed into such a minuscule amount of time.

Neuroscience has drifted off a little bit from the directions that Freud was going in terms of the interpretations of whether your unconscious mind is sending you particular hidden signals and so on, said Eagleman. But the idea that theres this massive amount happening under the hood, that part was correct and so Freud really nailed that. And he lived before the blossoming of modern neuroscience, so he was able to do this just by outside observation and looking at how people acted.

Dr. Robert Lanza also explores the subjective nature of time in his book, Biocentrism. By penetrating to the bottom of matter, scientists have reduced the universe to its most basic logic, and time is simply not a feature of the external spatial world. Lanza believes that, to understand the fabric that binds the universe, we must take into account the role of the observer. By bringing to light how the electrical activity that occurs within the human brain somehow creates ones reality, Eagleman is carrying us one step closer to a biocentric view of reality.

Eaglemans new television series, The Brain, is almost like a tour of the universe that exists within us all. It wrestles simple yet unanswered questions aimed at helping viewers learn more about what it means to be human: What is reality? and Who is in control?

Nowadays, were able to peer noninvasively inside peoples heads as theyre doing tasks, as theyre thinking about things and making decisions, perceiving the world. Were able to go a lot deeper into understanding this massive machinery under the hood.

The show also provides a greater appreciation for the resiliency and adaptability of the brain. Just as time is altered from observer to observer, our brains dont stop developing. Were not fixed, said Eagleman. From cradle to grave, we are works in progress.

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Our brains map the world in a completely subjective fashion - The Big Smoke Australia

Biochemistry

Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry – PLoS Blogs

Cell behaviour, tissue formation/regulation, physiology and disease are all influenced by cellular mechanics and physical forces. The field of mechanobiology has for a long time striven to fully understand how these forces affect biological and cellular processes, as well as developing new analytical techniques. At the same time, the properties of advanced smart materials, such as self-healing, self-reporting and responsive polymers, have been determined by a complex interplay between the thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanics of dynamic bonding strategies. These are tightly connected to the field of mechanochemistry, whichaims to elucidate and harness molecular level design principles and translate these to the bulk material level as emergent properties. At this interface between disciplines lies an emerging and exciting research area that has been strongly facilitated by the collaboration of physicists, chemists, engineers, materials scientists, and biologists.

We had the pleasure of speaking to Kerstin Blank and Matthew Harrington, who have been working on how mechanical forces influence biological systems, molecules and responsive biomaterials, about their views of the field and the recent Multiscale Mechanochemistry and Mechanobiology conference of which PLOS ONE was one of the proud sponsors.

How did you first become interested in this topic?

Kerstin: When I started in this field in 2000, I was mostly impressed by the technical possibilities. I was working with Hermann Gaub, one of the leaders in single-molecule force spectroscopy. I found it fascinating that we could stretch a single biological molecule and observe its response. I did ask myself sometimes if this was just something that physicists like to play with or if one could solve biomedically relevant questions with this approach. Now, almost 20 years later, it has become very evident that a large number of biological systems are regulated by mechanical forces in many different ways.

Matt: My educational background was primarily in biology and biochemistry, but I became fascinated with the capacity of certain biological materials to exhibit self-healing responses in the absence of living cells. I reasoned that this must arise from specific chemical and physical design principles in the material building blocks themselves, and I became obsessed with figuring out how this works. This led me to the self-healing materials community, which was largely populated with chemists and materials engineers, but not so many biologists. When I began to see that many of the same principles at play in synthetic self-healing materials were present in nature, and that in some cases nature was going well beyond the state of the art in synthetic self-healing materials, I realized the enormous potential at the interface of mechanobiology and mechanochemistry. I havent looked back since.

Which areas are you most excited about?

Kerstin: I find it very intriguing how cells utilize mechanical information from their environment and then feed it into intracellular biochemical signalling cascades. Understanding these mechanosensing and mechanotransduction processes requires knowledge of the cellular players and their interactions. But to develop the complete picture, we also need to investigate how cells interact with their extracellular environment. This also involves understanding the microscopic and macroscopic mechanical properties of the extracellular environment. I am highly excited about the development of molecular force sensors that convert mechanical force into a fluorescent signal. This allows for the localized detection of cell traction forces and, in the future, will also enable us to visualize force propagation inside materials that mimic the natural extracellular matrix.

Matt: I am currently most excited about understanding how and why nature uses different transient interactions to control the fabrication and viscoelastic mechanical responses of biopolymeric materials and the potential this has for the development of sustainable advanced polymers of the future. Recent discoveries in the field clearly show that in contrast to traditional polymers, living organisms commonly use specific supramolecular interactions based on dynamic bonds (e.g. hydrogen bonding, metal coordination or pi-cation interactions) to guide the self-assembly and mechanical properties of protein-based materials. The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of these labile bonds enable a certain dynamicity and responsiveness in these building blocks that provides potential inspiration for environmentally friendly materials processing and active/tuneable material properties. These concepts are already being adapted in a number of exciting bio-inspired polymers.

What progress has the field made in the last years?

Kerstin: It is now well-established that cells are able to sense and respond to the elastic and viscoelastic properties of the material they grow in. We have also learned a lot about how the mechanical signal is converted into biochemical signalling on the intracellular side. This is a direct result of many new technological developments, including the molecular force sensors described above. It is further a result of the increasing development of extracellular matrix mimics with well-defined and tuneable mechanical properties and microstructures.

Matt: Due to recent technological advances it is becoming possible to link specific aspects of mechanical material responses directly to structural features at multiple length scales. The better we understand these structure-property relationships, the better we can optimize the material response. This provides an intimate feedback loop that has enabled major breakthroughs in the fields of active matter, including self-healing and self-reporting polymers.

What is the real-world impact?

Kerstin: It is widely accepted that mechanical information plays a key role in stem cell differentiation. It has further been shown that mutated cells, e.g. in cancer or cardiovascular diseases, have different mechanical properties and show alterations in processing mechanical information. Understanding the origin of these changes and being able to interfere with them will have direct impact in disease diagnostics and treatment. Engineering materials with molecularly controlled structures and mechanical properties will further enable the community to direct stem cell differentiation in a more defined manner for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Matt: Aside from biomedical impacts, the insights gained from understanding the structure-function relationships defining the mechanical response of molecules are also extremely relevant for the development and sustainable fabrication of next generation advanced polymers. Given the global threat of petroleum-based plastics processing and disposal, this is an extremely important aspect of the research in this field.

What are the challenges and future developments of the field?

Kerstin: At this moment, we usually try to relate the macroscopic material properties (measured in the lab) with the microscopic environment that cells sense. In my view, we are missing a key piece of information. We need to understand how the macroscopic properties of a material emerge from its molecular composition, topography and hierarchical structure. In combination, all these parameters determine the mechanical properties of a material and, more importantly, what the cells see. In fact, this is not only key for the development of new extracellular matrix mimics. The same questions need to be answered for understanding how nature assembles a wide range of structural and functional materials with outstanding properties, such as spider silk, cellulose composites and nacre. Here, I see a great potential for future collaboration between disciplines.

Matt: There are enormous challenges on the bio-inspiration side of the field involved with transferring design principles extracted from biological materials into synthetic systems. Biology is inherently complex, so there is a common tendency to distil the extracted concept to a single functional group or concept, while often there are collective effects that are lost by this more reductionist approach. On the biological side, a key challenge is ascertaining which are the relevant design principles. On the bio-inspired side, there are challenges in finding appropriate synthetic analogues to mimic the chemical and structural complexity of the natural system. Overcoming this barrier requires cross-disciplinary communication and feedback and is an extremely exciting and active area in our field.

Why and when did you decide to organize a conference on this topic?

Kerstin & Matt: While both working at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, we quickly realized that the cell biophysics, biomaterials, mechanochemistry and soft matter communities are all interested in very similar questions while using similar methods and theoretical models; however, we had the impression that they hardly interact with each other. We thought of ways to change this and organizing a conference was clearly one way to do it. The first conference with the topic Multiscale Mechanochemistry and Mechanobiology: from molecular mechanisms to smart materials took place in Berlin in 2017. When bringing this idea forward in our respective communities, we immediately realized that we hit a nerve. Now that the conference has taken place for the second time in Montreal in 2019, we really got the feeling that we are starting to create a community around this topic. There will be another follow up conference from August 23-25, 2021 in Berlin (@mcb2021Berlin).

What are the most interesting and representative papers published in PLOS ONE in this field?

Kerstin: The paper Monodisperse measurement of the biotin-streptavidin interaction strength in a well-defined pulling geometry, published by Sedlak et al., is a highly interesting contribution to the field of single-molecule force spectroscopy, which was also presented at the conference. This work highlights the methodological developments in single-molecule force spectroscopy since its very early days. The authors from the Gaub labhave re-measured the well-known streptavidin-biotin interaction, now with a very high level of control over the molecular setup. It clearly shows how far the field has come and also that protein engineering, bioconjugation chemistry, instrumentation development and data analysis all need to go hand in hand to obtain clear and unambiguous experimental results. Clearly, considering a defined molecular setup is not only crucial for this kind of measurement but also for the development of biomimetic materials with controlled mechanical properties.

Sedlak SM, Bauer MS, Kluger C, Schendel LC, Milles LF, Pippig DA, et al. (2017) Monodisperse measurement of the biotin-streptavidin interaction strength in a well-defined pulling geometry. PLoS ONE 12(12): e0188722,https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188722

Matt: Accurately detecting and measuring the mechanical forces at play inside living cells is one of the key challenges in the field of mechanobiology, given the small size and dynamic nature of the intracellular environment. However, this information is extremely important for understanding the role of mechanics in regulating cellular functions such as growth, differentiation and proliferation, as well as disease states. In the Nuclei deformation reveals pressure distributions in 3D cell clusters paper from the Ehrlicher group, the authors address this challenge by using fluorescently labelled proteins in the cell nucleus coupled with confocal microscopy to measure compressive pressures within cells and cell clusters. Using this methodology, they explored the effect of cell number and shape of multicellular clusters on the internal compressive pressure within cells, providing potentially important insights for cellular signalling and function. These studies have potential applications in both in vitro and in vivo models, and provide a relatively simple methodology for acquiring intracellular mechanical data.

Khavari A, Ehrlicher AJ (2019) Nuclei deformation reveals pressure distributions in 3D cell clusters. PLoS ONE 14(9): e0221753,https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221753

Other PLOS ONE representative papers:

Kerstin Blank studied Biotechnology at the University of Applied Sciences in Jena and obtained her PhDin Biophysics under the supervision of Prof Hermann Gaub at Ludwig-Maximilians Universitt in Munich. After two postdocs at the Universit de Strasbourg and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, she became an Assistant Professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen in 2009. In 2014, she moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces where she holds the position of a Max Planck Research Group Leader. Her research interests combine biochemistry and single molecule biophysics with the goal of developing molecular force sensors for biological and materials science applications.

Matthew J. Harrington is Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry and assistant professor in Chemistry at McGill University since 2017. He received his PhD in the lab of J. Herbert Waite from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Afterwards, he was a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow and then research group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in the Department of Biomaterials. His research interests are focused on understanding biochemical structure-function relationships and fabrication processes of biopolymeric materials and translating extracted design principles for production of sustainable, advanced materials.

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Physical forces at the interface with biology and chemistry - PLoS Blogs

Cell Biology

Chemists Discovered the Structure of a Key Influenza Protein Breakthrough Could Lead to Flu Treatment – SciTechDaily

This digitally-colorized transmission electron microscopic image depicts the ultrastructural details of an influenza virus particle. Credit: CDC, Frederick Murphy

A team of MIT chemists has discovered the structure of a key influenza protein, a finding that could help researchers design drugs that block the protein and prevent the virus from spreading.

The protein, known as BM2, is a proton channel that controls acidity within the virus, helping it to release its genetic material inside infected cells.

If you can block this proton channel, you have a way to inhibit influenza infection, says Mei Hong, an MIT professor of chemistry and senior author of the study. Having the atomic-resolution structure for this protein is exactly what medicinal chemists and pharmaceutical scientists need to start designing small molecules that can block it.

MIT graduate student Venkata Mandala is the lead author of the paper, which was published on February 3, 2020, in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Other authors include graduate students Alexander Loftis and Alexander Shcherbakov and associate professor of chemistry Bradley Pentelute.

There are three classes of influenza virus A, B, and C and each of them produces a different version of the M2 protein. M2 is an ion channel that carries protons through the viruss outer membrane, known as the lipid envelope. These protons usually flow into the virus, making the interior more acidic. This acidity helps the virus to merge its lipid envelope with the membrane of a cellular compartment called an endosome, allowing it to release its DNA into the infected cell.

Until now, most structural studies of the M2 protein have focused on the version of M2 found in influenza A, which is usually the most common form, especially earlier in the flu season. In this study, the researchers focused on the version of M2 found in influenza B viruses, which usually dominate in March and April. However, in contrast to previous patterns of seasonal flu infections, this winter, influenza B has been unusually dominant, accounting for 67 percent of all flu cases reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control since last September.

The A and B versions of M2 vary significantly in their amino acid sequences, so Hong and her colleagues set out to study what structural differences these proteins might have, and how those differences influence their functions. One key difference is that the BM2 channel can allow protons to flow in either direction, whereas the AM2 channel only allows protons to flow into the viral envelope.

To investigate the structure of BM2, the researchers embedded it into a lipid bilayer, similar to a cell membrane, and then used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyze the structure with atomic-scale resolution. Very few ion channels have been studied at such high resolution because of the difficulty of studying proteins embedded within membranes. However, Hong has previously developed several NMR techniques that allow her to obtain accurate structural information from membrane-embedded proteins, including their orientation and the distances between atoms of the protein.

The M2 channel is made of four helices that run parallel to each other through the membrane, and Hong found that the alignment of these helices changes slightly depending on the pH of the environment outside the viral envelope. When the pH is high, the helices are tilted by about 14 degrees, and the channel is closed. When the pH goes down, the helices increase their tilt to about 20 degrees, opening up like a pair of scissors. This scissoring motion creates more space between the helices and allows more water to get into the channel.

Previous studies have found that as water flows into the M2 channel, the amino acid histidine grabs protons from the water in the top half of the channel and passes them to water molecules in the lower half of the channel, which then deliver the excess protons into the virion.

Unlike the AM2 channel, the BM2 channel has an extra histidine at the virion-facing end of the channel, which the MIT team believes to explain why protons can flow in either direction through the channel. More study is needed to determine what kind of advantage this may provide for influenza B viruses, the researchers say.

Now that chemists know the structure of both the open and closed states of the BM2 channel at atomic resolution, they can try to come up with ways to block it. There is precedent for this type of drug development: Amantadine and rimantadine, both used to treat influenza A, work by wedging themselves into the AM2 channel pore and cutting off the flow of protons. However, these drugs do not affect the BM2 channel.

Hongs research group is now investigating another one of BM2s functions, which is generating curvature in lipid membranes in order to allow progeny viruses to be released from cells. Preliminary studies suggest that a portion of the protein that sticks out from the membrane forms a structure called a beta sheet that plays a role in inducing the membrane to curve inward.

Reference: Atomic structures of closed and open influenza B M2 proton channel reveal the conduction mechanism by Venkata S. Mandala, Alexander R. Loftis, Alexander A. Shcherbakov, Bradley L. Pentelute and Mei Hong, 3 February 2020, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.DOI: 10.1038/s41594-019-0371-2

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

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Chemists Discovered the Structure of a Key Influenza Protein Breakthrough Could Lead to Flu Treatment - SciTechDaily

Cell Biology

Unveiling the structure of the influenza virus – News-Medical.net

The flu season is coming, and the frigid temperatures make it worse. The influenza B virus is the causative agent of the common flu, but over the past years, it has become more potent in causing disease. Now, a team of MIT scientists has found and unveiled the structure of the virus, particularly the key influenza protein, in the hopes to develop new drugs to combat influenza.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the overall hospitalizations related to influenza this season increased to 29.7 percent per 100,000, which is similar to what happened over the past seasons. Further, a total of 68 children had died due to influenza this season, with 14 deaths occurring during the 2019-2020 season. Overall, pneumonia and influenza mortality have been low while CDC estimates that for this season, there had been 19 million flu illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations, and 10,000 deaths from flu.

This digitally-colorized transmission electron microscopic image depicts the ultrastructural details of an influenza virus particle. Image: CDC, Frederick Murphy

Known as BM2, the protein is a proton channel that regulates the acidity in the virus to aid in releasing its genetic material in infected cells.

The researchers believe that blocking the proton channel can help combat infection and block the effects of the virus. Knowing the structure of the protein, particularly its atomic-resolution structure, can help doctors, medicinal chemists, and pharmaceutical scientists to develop compounds and drugs to block its function.

Published in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the study sheds light on the structure of the influenza B protein to help in the development of compounds to block its effect on the infected cell.

The three types of influenza virus influenza A, B, and C, produce a different kind of the M2 protein, which is an ion channel carrying protons through the outer membrane of the virus, known as the lipid envelope. The proteins go inside the virus and will create the internal environment more acidic. If the interior of the virus becomes acidic, it helps the virus release its DNA into the infected cell.

The M2 proteins are very interesting focuses for scientists, in the hopes of finding a cure for flu or treatment modalities to prevent further deaths. There had been many studies about the structure of the M2 protein, but most focused on the type A of the virus.

In the study, however, the team focused on the influenza B M2 protein, which usually dominates the March to April flu season, which accounts for about 67 percent of all flu cases reported by the CDC since September 2019.

The researchers aimed to study what structural differences in the proteins of A and B influenza viruses have. They found that one key difference between the two is that the BM2 channel allows the protons to flow in either direction, while the AM2 only allows the protons to flow into the envelope of the virus.

To land to their findings, the researchers studied BM2s structure by embedding it into a lipid bilayer, which is akin to a cell membrane. They used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to investigate the structure with atomic-scale resolution.

They discovered that the M2 channel is made of four helices, wherein the alignment chances depending on how acidic or alkaline the environment outside the viral envelope is. If the pH is high, the helices begin to tilt by approximately 14 degrees, and if it decreases, the tilt increases to about 20 degrees. With the motion of the helices, mimicking a pair of scissors, it allows water to enter the channel.

They found that the BM2, unlike the AM2, has an extra histidine at the virion-facing end of the channel. The scientists believe that this explains why the protons can flow in both directions through the channel.

These results indicate that asymmetric proton conduction requires a backbone hinge motion, whereas bidirectional conduction is achieved by a symmetric scissor motion. The proton-selective histidine and gating tryptophan in the open BM2 reorient on the microsecond timescale, similar to AM2, indicating that side-chain dynamics are the essential driver of proton shuttling, the researchers concluded.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study has revealed the structure of BM2 in its open and closed state, paving the way for finding a compound to finally block it.

Source:

Journal reference:

Mandala, V.S., Loftis, A.R., Shcherbakov, A.A. et al. Atomic structures of closed and open influenza B M2 proton channel reveal the conduction mechanism. Nat Struct Mol Biol (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-019-0371-2

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Unveiling the structure of the influenza virus - News-Medical.net

Physiology

The Planet We Think Were Living on No Longer Exists: 3 Profound Ways the Art World Can Address the Climate Crisis – artnet News

While the art worlds habit of jetting from one art fair or biennial to the next becomes increasingly untenable as the climate crisis looms, a group of art industry leaders headed to the Swiss mountaintops last weekend to discuss how the field can reduce its complicity in environmental collapse.

The irony of traveling to a remote alpine village to discuss the climate at the fourth annual Verbier Art Summit was not lost on some of its speakers. Across two days of programming, Resource Hungry: Our Cultured Landscape showcased presentations by artists including Joan Jonas as well as organizations like Julies Bicycle, but it was finally on the last afternoon that Stefan Kaeg of art group Rimini Protokoll voiced what everyone had been thinking the whole time: Could the knowledge shared in Verbier have happened in a different form, without any of us being there?However noble the cause, one wonders if luxurious symposia like Verbier are even close to sustainable.

While the art world drags its heels on structural overhauls, this years organizerJessica Morgan, director of Dia Art Foundation nevertheless pulled together a fascinating crop of creatives to tackle formidable questions around the industrys ecological impact.

Here are three of the weekends biggest takeaways.

Artist Andrea Bowers said it plainly on Saturday afternoon: The earth is not out there, we are part of it.

Indeed, as we sat glassed-in on the third floor of the resplendent W Hotel, with the occasional paraglider-on-skis floating by, this could be easy to forget. Many speakers referenced the need to break down the divide between the museums, galleries, art fair halls, and the real, exterior world. Offering a Global Warming 101 reminder, French architect Philippe Rahm, who works in the fields of physiology and meteorology, stressed that 42 percent of CO2 emitted today is from the cooling, heating, and general operation of buildings.

So, how can a climate-controlled storage space, gallery, or museum reduce its energy consumption, or is that besides the point? Rahm said we need to look beyond updates to wall insulation and instead completely redesign space in line with what he calls climactic architecturea method that utilizes a buildings own convection, radiation, and conduction capabilities to optimize renewable resources. Architecture, said Rahm, is no longer [based on the idea of] form following function or function following form. Its function for the form that follows climate.

Djamila Ribeiro, Joan Jonas, El Ultimo Grito, and Jessica Morgan at Verbier Art Summer. Alpimages

Renowned professors of design practice Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feocollectively known as El ltimo Gritotook the question raised by Rahm to a more speculative level: What would it mean if museums were free from fixed spaces altogether? While humans continuously create permanent structures, many of these places deteriorate or get demolished relatively soon after. Meanwhile, structures initially built with ephemeral intentions (take the Eiffel Tower, for example, which was supposed to be a temporary installation for the Worlds Fair) survive for centuries.

With this, Hurtado and Feos question seemed to push back against the status quo of the art worlds usual haunts, underscoring that the museums and galleries that we have become so familiar with need to be fundamentally reconsidered. While spacious, pristinely white, and climate-controlled venues may feel like theyre here to stay, art historian Dorothea von Hantelmann pointed to exhibition spaces of the 18th-century which were extremely crowded, with walls crammed with art from the floor to the ceiling. We need to strive against the white cube, said von Hantelmann. We need to bring things that weve been separating back together.

One of the most significant changes professors Hurtado and Feo said they witnessed in their students over the past decade was the shift away from individualistic thinking towards collaboration. Its a shift seen beyond the confines of art and architecture schools, of course, as todays youth bring forth new ideas and fight collectively for their future, most notably through the Fridays for Future movement.

Artists Joan Jonas and Andrea Bowers echoed this hope in young activists. Jonas explained that children have become subjects in her work about the future and the environment (theyre the ones who are going to inherit it, she added, simply). With similar motivations, Bowerss new video My Name Means Future, which is currently on view at New Yorks Andrew Kreps Gallery, spotlights Tokata Iron Eyes, a 16-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and her involvement with the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. But what was missing in both presentations was a consideration of the changing role youth plays in viewership; both artists were mute on whether they even considered the importance of young people seeing their work.

Andrea Bowers,My Name Means Future (2020). Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York.

To place the crisis of climate change on the shoulders of one generation and await a solution is clearly not the answer; Catherine Bottrill from Julies Bicycle, a London-based charity that supports creative industries transformations towards sustainability, stressed the need to support young people who are going to bring about solutions, while operating at all ages and levels laterally, collaborating across organizational boundaries and typical hierarchies.

The calls to decolonize the art world might not immediately conjure a connection to climate change. However, Brazilian philosopher Djamila Ribeiro emphasized that, more than listening to the voices of indigenous cultures, we need to begin to act upon their novel ways of thinking and apply them to the ways we treat the natural world. In order to hear those voices that are so often drowned out, current power structures need to be dismantled, he argued.Other speakers, including Bottrill of Julies Bicycle, concurred: Hierarchies have to be disrupted. This was a major talking point, as architect and urban designer Adrian Lahoud pushed for a similar upheaval, adding that the planet we think were living on no longer exists.

One of the most effective ways to fight climate change will be to redefine our values. Lahoud shared a movingstory behind a paintingon view in the current edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, which he curated. A group of 40 Aboriginal artists painted an 8-by-10-meter canvas, collectively depicting the story of their cultural history; they then submitted the piece to the Australian government as proof of their rights over nearly 30,000 square miles of land. Amazingly, the Australian government accepted this painting as evidence of ownership and, in 2007, granted them the rights over the disputed territory.

Alternative modes of existence embody different ways of being in the world, outside of the xenophobic, extractive, capitalist modes of relating that currently dominate the world, that lead us to exhaustion, and soon to extinction, according to Lahoud. And, at least in some cases, art can be a welcome bridge to these new ways of thinking.

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The Planet We Think Were Living on No Longer Exists: 3 Profound Ways the Art World Can Address the Climate Crisis - artnet News

Genetics

Scottish wildcat, bee and pearl at risk of ‘severe genetic problems’ – HeraldScotland

SCIENTISTS have developed a world-first method to help understand and conserve genetic diversity in some of Scotlands most iconic wild flora and fauna.

The golden eagle, Scottish wildcat and red squirrel are among 25 species assessed in a new report published by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), which also includes plantlife such as heather, the Scottish bluebell and the Scots pine.

Conserving the genetic diversity the differences among individuals due to variation in their DNA of plants, animals and wild species is among the targets developed by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to encourage countries around the world to work together to reduce the rate of loss of nature.

But while there are strategies in place to assess and report on genetic diversity in agriculture, horticulture and forestry, there is a gap when it comes to wild species.

Researchers identified a list of target species of particular importance for Scotland and developed a genetic scorecard for each, assessing their genetic diversity and any associated risks.

The species were chosen for their conservation or cultural value, importance for food and medicines or because they provide crucial ecosystem services such as carbon storage.

Four of the 26 assessed species Scottish wildcat, ash, great yellow bumblebee and freshwater pearl mussel were classed as being at risk of severe genetic problems as a result of factors including non-native species, disease, habitat loss and pollution.

However, eight species were classed as being at moderate genetic risk and 14 were classed as being at negligible risk.

Conservation action is underway to address these threats, for example through the Saving Wildcats project and Biodiversity Challenge Fund cash recently announced to enhance key freshwater pearl mussel populations across Scotland.

The new method for assessing genetic diversity will help further target long-term conservation strategies and address the international target.

The report is a result of collaboration from 43 experts from 18 organisations, and follows the formal recognition last year of SNHs Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve as the UKs first area designated for genetic conservation, reflecting the importance of its ancient Caledonian pine forest.

Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: Our natural environment is central to our national identity, thanks in no small part to the many unique, varied and iconic wild species that are native to Scotland.

A pivotal part of conserving some of our most at-risk biodiversity is to build a full picture of the pressures and issues that our wild species are facing including the state of their genetic diversity.

Work around conserving genetic diversity is an area where Scotland is genuinely ground-breaking. In Beinn Eighe, we were the first nation in the UK to have a site recognised for genetic conservation.

That is why this report, which provides us with new and powerful insight into the state of the genetic diversity amongst wild species is so important, and I look forward to it playing an important role driving further progress to safeguard Scotlands biodiversity.

David OBrien, SNH Biodiversity Evidence and Reporting Manager, said: Often when we talk about biodiversity the focus is on species and ecosystems, but genetic diversity is also essential for nature to be resilient in the face of pressures such as climate change, and its great that Scotland is leading the way in this field.

For the first time, this report sets out a clear scorecard method for assessing the genetic diversity of wild species and applies this to some of our most important plants, animals and birds.

Not only does it fill a major gap in addressing the international target for genetic biodiversity conservation but importantly it can be expanded to cover many more species, and adapted for use in any country in the world.

Professor Pete Hollingsworth, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), said: Genetic diversity is the raw material that allows species to evolve and adapt to a changing environment and thus conserving genetic diversity is an important way of helping nature to help itself.

Genetic diversity is key to species adapting to changing climates, to new diseases or other pressures they may face. At a time of increasing pressures and threats, maintaining genetic diversity maximises options and opportunities for species to persist and survive.

Dr Rob Ogden, Head of Conservation Genetics at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the scorecard report, added: The scorecard is designed as an affordable, practical tool that allows every country to assess its wildlife genetic diversity; what we measure in Scotland can now be compared around the world.

The report has been endorsed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and submitted to The Convention on Biological Diversity ahead of the Kunming summit, which will see 196 countries meet in China to adopt a new global framework to safeguard nature and its contributions to human wellbeing. The meeting aims to set the course for biodiversity conservation for the next ten years and the decades to come.

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Scottish wildcat, bee and pearl at risk of 'severe genetic problems' - HeraldScotland

Genetics

Israel Prize awarded to Hebrew University Professor Dani Zamir for his agricultural research – Haaretz

The Israel Prize for agricultural research and environmental science is being awarded to Prof. Dani Zamir, the Education Ministry announced Sunday. Zamir is professor emeritus in genetics at the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at Hebrew University.

Zamirs fields of research deal with improving plants and developing innovative tools for genetic cultivation. For example, he developed a group of cultured tomatoes that contain a DNA string from species of wild tomatoes that make them resistant to dryness, salt and various diseases.

Twenty years ago he founded the company AB Seeds, which together with the universitys Yissum technology transfer company developed one of the leading species of tomatoes grown in California. Ten years ago, he and his student, Yaniv Semel, set up a company that applies computational methods to genetic cultivation. Zamir has won numerous research grants, including a particularly prestigious grant from the European Research Council

The prize committee called Zamir a leader in his field who is internationally recognized and involved in international cooperative ventures. He has contributed and continues to contribute to Israeli and global agriculture.

For 35 years, Zamir taught the basic genetics course in the agriculture department, along with advanced courses. Hebrew University noted that all the students in the agriculture department, from 1982 to today (except the years he was on sabbatical) studied genetics with Prof. Zamir.

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Israel Prize awarded to Hebrew University Professor Dani Zamir for his agricultural research - Haaretz

Anatomy

‘The Irishman’ | Anatomy of a Scene – The New York Times

Im Martin Scorsese. And I made the movie, The Irishman. It is an honor for me to be here tonight to present this award to my dear friend, Mr. Frank Sheeran. Were talking about a sequence that takes place in the Latin Casino. You have this wonderful reception for Frank Sheeran, who, really, its a highlight of his life. All the representatives of the power structure of that part of the country are there to celebrate him, supposedly. And it really is obviously its for the union, its for Hoffa, and its to support Hoffa over Tony Provenzano. And its to show his support for Jimmy, and Jimmys support for Frank. [APPLAUSE] The highlight of my life. Thank you very very, very much. And this man, James Riddle Hoffa, is the guy that gets the job done. Underlying all that, you have the darker elements, which are the men who are in real control of the situation. Any case, from the deepest part of my heart, I thank you all. Because I dont really deserve all this. But I have bursitis, and I dont deserve that, either. The structure of the scene is all about the looks. The dialogue doesnt matter until you have this extraordinary moment, I think, between Russell and Frank, where Russell gives Frank this special ring that only three people have. And so for me, the playing of the scene had to be weaving all the sense of a celebration, so to speak, or family gathering, weaving all that around these beats, all strung together by the music: Jerry Vale. (SINGING) Please It has a very melodramatic tragedy to it. You know, a sweetness and a sadness at the same time. (SINGING) Say you and your Spanish eyes Its like you go to an event, and there are factions. There are factions. And one faction may be polite, but theyre not going to be smiling too much. But theyre there. During that time, certain things are said. Looks are given, which are harder than words. But the main looks Anna Paquin. A whole sequence revolves around Annas Peggy, that is picking up of the subtext of whats going on. There is trouble happening. There are problems. And she knows I mean, particularly even Anna Paquin said, when she did the dancing shot, and she looks over, and shes says, I never saw looks like that from people. She said it chilled her as a person. Only three people in the world have one of these, and only one of them is Irish. I have one, Angelo has one, and now you have one. So really its about the balancing and the editing of the frames, which encompass medium shots hardly any close-ups. Usually medium to medium close-up, like right below the shoulders up. That entails seeing a little more of the body language rather than giant close-ups. The reason for that is the atmosphere and the environment around them has to be present in the frame, because that affects them. And there you see them in that environment and that atmosphere. If its too close, I think you objectify it in a way. You push the audience away. But one of the hardest things to do was to get them in the frame in the wide shot, looking down, as Jerry Vale is singing in the background. Theyre like the gods overlooking this world that they created in a way. Theres one shot from their point of view, with a long lens of Jimmy walking around and suddenly saying hello to Angelo Russo, played by Harvey Keitel. The reason is a personal reason. And that was that Harvey Keitel and Al Pacino were never in the same frame together in any movie. Things have gotten that with our friend again. And some people are having serious problems with him. And its at a point where youre going to have to talk to him and tell him its what it is. Once I settled on the size of the frame and the size of the people in the frame, I know that, then, it was really myself and my editor, Thelma, in the editing room, playing with the dialogue and playing with the looks and the pauses the pauses and the silences. These are the higher-ups. Well, hes a higher-up, too. I mean, theres no one Not like this. You know that. Oh, come on, Frank. If they can whack a president, they can whack a president of the union. You know it, and I know it.

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'The Irishman' | Anatomy of a Scene - The New York Times