Imagine an Apple iPhone that smells like an apple or a Blackberry that taste sweet or a Windows Touch-phone that squeezes you in mid-conversation. Scientists in London have made more progress in the now-common smartphone to make the audio-visual communication transcend tool what engineers call “the glass barrier” and create an experience that is more 4-D.
Professor Adrian David Cheok of the University of London said of his technology, “In the real world, we can open up the glass, open the window. We can touch, we can taste, we can smell in the real world.”
How do inanimate smartphones deliver the sensation of senses?
First you will have to open your mouth and say, “Ah!” The human tongue’s surface has molecules, also known as tastebuds, that through chemical ionization send the brain electrical signals of a specific amplitude depending on which type of taste: sour, sweet, salty, and bitter. Scientist have found a way to send these signals — minus the calories — to savor. This process was explained by Professor Cheok.
Professor Adrian David Cheok
“You put these two silver electrodes in your mouth, you put your tongue in between and then it stimulates electrically your tongue and you get a virtual taste perception in your brain.” So far, scientists have reproduced sour, salty, sweet and bitter tastes, it will take further exploration to make all the taste we are accustomed to eat like Bacon.
At the push of a button you are now able to deliver an array of scents to smell. The device and app “Scentee” is an attachment to plug into your smart phone that holds a cartridge of 100 different smells, from fresh fruits, lavender or jasmine, to fresh ground coffee, that can be sprayed when prompted by the other side of the conversation. Professor Cheok relayed, “Basically what happens, we have an app, it connects to the Internet and then this will release scent from your mobile phone.” Think of the added benefit of sending your friend a hint of lemon scent when they say they are having a bad day or the scent of cookies because you know they are not hungry when you are.
Have you even been in a conversation and the other person for a moment stops paying attention or loses focus? Well, as long as you put a ring on them that is connected wirelessly to your smartphone, you can gently squeeze their finger to regain their attention or focus in mid-conversation. “I can be in London and my friend can be in Tokyo, and I can squeeze my finger and then they’ll get a squeeze on their finger through the Internet. It’s a way of touch communication with small mobile devices,” said Professor Cheok.
With the development of smart technology, from phones to homes, the barriers of pan-sensual communication will soon be memories of the past. Professor Cheok hopes the devices developed will soon be added to smartphone and homes to further transcend the current limitations of long distance communication.
Jellyfish are able to detect the direction of ocean currents, according to recent research by a joint team of environmental scientists. The team studied the movements and of free-ranging barrel-jellyfish and found that the animals are “incredibly advanced in their orientation abilities.”
“Most people who have spent time on the coast will have seen jellyfish and probably assume they are simple animals that just drift with ocean currents,” Dr. Graeme Hays, professor at Deakin University’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences and an author of the study, told The Speaker.
Dr. Graeme Hays
“Our work shows this is not necessarily the case, and instead jellyfish can show remarkable abilities to sense currents, change their swimming behaviour accordingly, and hence maintain their position in preferred areas. These abilities contribute to the massive blooms of jellyfish that are widely being reported around the world.”
The team collected data using GPS loggers that were placed both on the jellyfish and on floats on the ocean’s surface. The researchers then created a model of jellyfish behavior that took into account ocean currents.
From the research, the team has formed a clearer picture of the lives of individual and groups of jellyfish.
“We now know that jellyfish are not simply passive drifters, but instead can make complex movements that help maintain massive blooms which have been seen in many places around the world.”
The research will help efforts to manage these blooms, which can involve hundreds to millions of jellyfish for months-long periods and which can be troublesome when they clog fishing nets or sting beachgoers.
Drs. Sylvie Vandenabeele and Sabrina Fossette
How jellyfish are detecting the currents remains unknown, but Hays provided us with an educated guess about what he believes is the most likely answer: that the jellyfish are able to sense the shear of the water.
“Most probably the jellyfish are using the fact that the currents change slightly with depth–current shear. So this means that different parts of the body of the jellyfish are experiencing slightly different currents. It is probably this difference in current flow across their body that the jellyfish can perceive, allowing them to detect the current flow and modify their swimming accordingly.”
Schizophrenia has been known to be associated with a dearth of neural connections in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The onset of the disease, which often takes place in a person’s early 20s, may be associated with something quite different, however. A joint research team analyzed MRI data from a group of individuals who had recently experienced their first psychotic episode and found that excessive communication within the PFC — rather than a lack of signals — seems to produce abnormal internal states in schizophrenics.
Dr. Alan Anticevic
“It is already appreciated by the research community that schizophrenia is likely a ‘dynamic’ neurodevelopmental illness. The reported effects suggest that perhaps following illness onset — which typically occurs in late teens and early 20s — there may be an abnormal elevation in neural activity in certain areas,” Dr. Alan Anticevic, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale and lead author on the paper, told The Speaker.
The PFC is the frontal lobe of the brain, responsible for higher-order thinking, and has been implicated as a major site of functional impairment in schizophrenia and other severe menal illnesses. Specifically, schizophrenia has been linked in numerous studies with deficits in PFC funcional connectivity, structure and activation.
However, PFC functional connectivity during early-course schizophrenia has not yet been characterized.
The joint Yale-Sichuan University team examined the MRI’s of 129 individuals who had recently undergone their first psychotic episode and who had not yet been medicated.
They found evidence of increased PFC connectivity in these patients.
They also tested for hypoconnectivity, and while not finding evidence for this in the PFC, they did detect evidence for hypoconnectivity at the whole-brain level. Generally, the team found, early-course schizophrenia was associated with more severe elevation in PFC connection strength.
“Typically schizophrenia, especially in its more chronic stages, is associated with abnormal reductions in neural activity and connections across the PFC,” Anticevic told us. “The reported effects in part call into question this view by showing that at certain illness stages there seems to be prevailing elevation in PFC connectivity. However, this elevation is likely to be abnormal as it predicted symptoms. This finding may map well onto some emerging theories suggesting that early illness stages may be associated with an abnormal spike in glutamate — a key excitatory neurotransmitter that is present throughout the brain.”
Dr. John Murray
This effect was also captured by a sophisticated mathematical model Anticevic’s group is developing in collaboration with Dr. John Murray at NYU. “This ‘computational psychiatry’ approach helps us to mathematically formalize hypothesized disease mechanisms at the cellular level” Anticevic added. In turn, the team can relate these neurobiologically plausible modeling predictions to their neuroimaging effects.
The team also found that PFC hyperconnectivity normalized for some patients over time, and that this predicted symptom improvement.
Anticevic noted the challenge of attempting to answer the question of what was is happening neurobiologically when PFC hyperactivity is normalized in some individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia in response to treatment, but provided an educated guess.
“We currently don’t have a deep mechanistic understanding of this problem. However, one possibility is that somehow medication is ‘normalizing’ the abnormal elevation in excitation and inhibition balance in local cortical circuits that may be responsible for the hyperactivity. One possible mechanism at the neural system level may involve the interplay of domaine and glutamate between the dorsal striatum and prefrontal cortex, which is the pathway where medication may expert its key effects.”
“We hope to demonstrate that alterations occurring in people who suffer from schizophrenia are likely ‘dynamic,'” concluded Anticevic. “In addition, we hope to demonstrate how the combination of leading neuroimaging approaches and our mathematical models can help us understand these dynamics to develop better therapies for the earliest stages of the illness when intervention is critical.”
A recent study has found that health messages–the kind that are posted on billboards to advise the public or decorate the walls of doctors’ offices–have different effects on two different classes of people. The research found that while experts respond better to negative, loss-framed messages that make sense within the context their strong knowledge of the subject, most people do not. The general public responds better to positive, gain-framed messages that make sense within a big picture-type understanding of health.
It is the difference between “preaching to the choir” and reaching “people who really need to hear it, but who really don’t care that much to think very deeply about it,” Dr. Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the study, said of his findings.
Wansick explained this by referencing the different understandings of health possessed by experts and the general public.
Experts–dieters, dieticians, and people who work in medicine or the medical area–have a strong knowledge-base with which they can process a health message. These people are highly involved in the topic, Wansick explained, and they “piecmeal process” health information (process things in detail. They also feel a duty to maintain the achievements they have already made in health matters, and tend to be risk-averse.
The general public, Wansick said, have less firsthand knowledge of the consequences of their actions, and view healthy behaviors are a choice rather than a duty. They tend to focus on what is gained by a certain behavior rather than what is lost.
Because experts write health messages, the study should give them something new to consider, the researchers expect. Because message designers can now be aware that what makes sense to themselves and their peers will likely have a different effect on the general public, they may be able to correct for their negative-message bias and create more useful positive messages.
The report, “Negative Messages for Experts, Positive Messages for Novices,” was completed by Brian Wansick and Lizzy Pope, and was published by Cornell Food & Brand Lab in Nutrition Reviews.
An accidental discovery made by researchers testing the weight-bearing capacities of a small bird in the Tennessee mountains has shed light on how birds’ senses–notably their ability to hear very low infrasounds characteristic of large storms–allow the animals to avert meteorological catastrophes.
“I think this is just one newly discovered example of the many ways other animals perceive and interact with their environment that are different from how we humans work, Dr. Henry Streby of Beissinger Lab at UC Berkeley, the lead author of the study, told The Speaker.
Birds’ ability to hear weather demonstrated in storm-avoiding relocation
“We tend to assume other animals are hearing, seeing, and smelling things the same way we do, but we know many other animals sense things far outside of the range of our senses. It is difficult to imagine what goes on in a bird’s brain; they hear higher and lower frequency sounds that we do and they see in a much wider light spectrum and a more complicated color space than we do. Our study, and others tracking migratory birds, are starting to show some of the ways birds can use their impressive senses to get around and stay safe from weather and other dangers.”
The team was working in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Tennessee, testing the weight-bearing capacity of a small bird.
“A golden-winged warbler weighs only 9 grams, which is less than the mass of 2 US nickles or one British Pound coin,” Streby described his subject. They wanted to know if the bird could carry geolocators on their backs.
Around 24 hours before a large storm blew into the area, spawning 84 tornadoes and killing at least 25 people, the warblers unexpectedly picked up and moved 1,500 kilometers in five days. The team was able to monitor their movements because of the devices they had saddled some of the birds with.
Streby qualified that he couldn’t say with certainty that the birds flew in large groups.
“Our sample of birds carrying tracking devices was quite small, but we suspect they were not the only ones that left,” Streby said. “Although these movements seem impressive, and they occurred outside of the birds’ normal migration period, they were well within the known capabilities of these birds. The birds in this population regularly make similar long distance movements during their spring and fall migration to and from Colombia.”
However, the timing and character of the birds’ movements led the researchers to conclude that a mass temporary relocation took place when the birds sensed that the massive storm was headed their way.
“People have been studying this species on the breeding grounds for decades, but we only just started tracking their migration during this study,” Streby told us.
“Movements like this have not been reported before, and we did not see anything like this during the previous year with this population or with another population we were tracking that was not in the storm’s path. So, basically, we have an extraordinary large-scale movement away from the breeding grounds and back again, that correlates perfectly with the timing of this enormous and powerful storm. Avoiding the storm is the most likely explanation.”
The warbler, like other birds, are particularly attuned to hearing weather, Streby explained. “We know birds are particularly attuned to these very low infrasounds, and we know that large tornado producing storms create infrasound in the exact same frequency range, but nobody had put the two together until this report.”
Next, the team will undertake a further phase of their research, which is expanding in unpredicted ways–they will be collecting data from hundreds of migrating birds, and the team is looking forward to new unexpected developments.
“In 2015, we will be marking more than 400 birds of this species and a closely related species at 16 sites across their entire breeding range. Our goal is to find out where all of these populations spend the winter and where the important resting and refueling places are along their migration routes. These species are of high conservation concern and we are hoping to better understand the challenges they face during all aspects of their annual cycle. We did not intend to study how these birds respond to extreme weather events, but if they encounter any storms like the one from 2014, or maybe have to fly around a hurricane during migration, or something else completely unexpected, I’m excited to see what they do.
“We shouldn’t assume animals perceive their environment the same way we do,” Streby said. “We are lucky to have all of our experts and technology monitoring the weather and warning us when tornadoes or other dangers are coming our way. It is amazing to discover the different tools wildlife have for knowing what is coming too. It is also important for readers to understand that these birds apparently sensed the storm at a great distance, and there is a logical scientific explanation for how they did it; they did not magically detect the storm long before it existed like many media outlets have suggested.”
The report, “Tornadic Storm Avoidance Behavior in Breeding Songbirds,” was completed by Henry M. Streby, Gunnar R. Kramer, Sean M. Peterson, Justin A. Lehman, David A. Buehler, and David E. Andersen, and was published in the online Current Biology.
Microsoft Devices Group and communications and information technology company Nokia are launching a $29 cell phone that will last one month on a single charge.
“With our ultra-affordable mobile phones and digital services, we see an inspiring opportunity to connect the next billion people to the Internet for the first time,” Jo Harlow, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices Group, said of the device. “The Nokia 215 is perfect for people looking for their first mobile device, or those wanting to upgrade to enjoy affordable digital and social media services, like Facebook and Messenger.”
The Nokia 215 will be the Finnish company’s “most affordable internet-ready” phone, and will be marketed to buyers in developing markets, particularly in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, in Q1 of this year.
The 215 is enabled with 2G wireless technology, carries a VGA camera, and will be available in both single- and double-SIM models. The 215 will also be equipped with a flashlight–an important selling feature for around 20 percent of the world’s population who live in regions with no regular access to electric power.
The battery life of the 215 allow nearly one month of standby power (21 days for the dual-SIM model) or 21 days (20 hours) of talk time. The battery also allows for 45 hours of FM radio playback.
The 215 also comes equipped with access to social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Messenger.
Bacteria divide into two identical progeny cells, right? According to Professor Peter Young and his team at the University of York’s Department of Biology, this is only part of the picture. The team recently studied a community of rhizobia from a clod of earth dug up from the university campus, and found that bacterial cells are in fact unique, despite bearing identical core genomes, and that this is due to individual accessory packages carried by the cells.
We can picture the bacterial genome as having two parts, according to Dr. J. Peter W. Young, professor of Molecular Ecology at the University of York and lead author of the study. While all members of a bacterial species carry a very similar core genome, they also carry an accessory package of genes which are not essential to the cell’s operation, but which allow individuals to cope with the special demands of their environments.
Dr. Peter Young
“The best known accessory package in rhizobia is the set of genes that enable them to form their symbiosis with plants,” Young told The Speaker. “These ‘sym’ genes include ‘nod’ genes that produce signal molecules that induce the plant to make a nodule and let the bacteria in, and ‘nif’ and ‘fix’ genes that encode the nitrogen-fixation process. These genes usually occur as a cluster in the genome, commonly on a plasmid, which is a separate element that can often be transferred easily. We looked at rhizobia from two different wild plant species, a clover and a vetch, that the bacteria need very different nod genes to interact with. Hence, all the strains were either clover specialists or vetch specialists. However, bacteria that were very similar in their core genome could have either of these specialisms, because the sym genes have been transferred from strain to strain.
“Another set of accessory genes gave the bacteria the ability to grow on gamma-hydroxybutyrate. These genes were also scattered across the population, without regard to the host background and independently of the sym genes. We had a few difficulties with this part of the study because this substance has been used as a date-rape drug and is hard to get hold of legally.”
The team dug in the dirt for their research. They took a square meter of earth from the roadside of the University of York campus and isolated a particular bacterium called Rhizobium leguminosarum.
They then established 72 distinct strains of the bacteria they found in that clump–each had different genes that allowed it to grow on different sources of food. But, Young commented, the potential benefits of the work are not limited to an understanding of bacteria as individuals.
“We studied the complete genomes of 72 bacterial strains–that is a lot of information that can be used to address many questions. Besides the ‘bacteria are individual’ and ‘bacteria transfer functional gene modules’ messages, there are other issues that are important, at least to those who work with bacteria. One of my targets is to improve the way we describe new bacterial species. We have no real idea how many bacterial species there are. Many fewer bacteria have been named than insects, but this is unlikely to reflect reality–it is just a slow business to describe new bacteria. We could now describe bacterial species much more clearly using genome sequences, or at least the core genome sequences.
“The problem is that, for historical reasons, taxonomists insist that there must also be phenotypic differences, that is, observable differences in growth, etc. What we have shown is that this is illogical–almost all these phenotypes are due to accessory genes, and these move about so much that it is impossible to define stable species using them.”
New hope for a universal flu vaccine has come out of recent work by a join research team from McMaster University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. The team published a report Wednesday on a new class of broadly-neutralizing antibodies that are expected to increase the potency of our weapons against flu viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies work very well in the context of natural human responses to vaccines or infections,” Dr. Matthew Miller, an assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, told The Speaker. “This means that vaccines in development that are targeting these antibodies have a high chance of success.
Dr. Matthew Miller
“In addition, the types of antibodies present in the lung are especially good at providing ‘universal’ protection against flu, so if we can successfully increase their numbers by vaccination, they are likely to be very potent at protecting against infection.”
The research team’s work involves a previously unknown class of antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide range of influenza A viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies bind to a region on the viral entry protein–the hemagglutinin stalk/stem domain–that are intolerant to change/mutation,” Miller told us.
“They were first discovered through the analysis of antibody repertoires isolated from mice–in the laboratory setting–and humans who had been exposed to influenza virus by either vaccination or infection.
“As a result, they are capable of neutralizing a much broader range of viruses than the type of exquisitely-strain specific antibodies that are predominantly elicited by current seasonal flu vaccines.”
The new antibodies have virus-fighting capabilities not possessed by the strain-specific antibodies currently in use.
“While flu is very good at mutating the region of the protein that strain-specific antibodies bind, it does not tolerate changes in the region bound by broadly-neutralizing antibodies. This seems to be because the structure of this region is very important for other viral functions.”
Miller explained how these new antibodies are different from isolated strain-specific antibodies.
“Strain-specific antibodies bind to the “head” domain of the viral hemagglutinin, which mutates readily and differs substantially among strains of flu. These broadly-neutralizing bind to a conserved region in the hemagglutinin stalk domain that is intolerant to mutation.”
The new antibodies hold wide promise, the researchers expect: mutations of the virus would also be protected against by the new vaccines, and flu pandemics could be eliminated.
Miller expects that a universal flu vaccine could become a reality within the next five to seven years.
Predispositions to prejudice can be manipulated, according to new research. By making social minorities appear to hold egalitarian beliefs, researchers demonstrated that those minority individuals would bear less prejudice–both implicit and explicit–from American and Chinese nationals. By manipulating the would-be judges so that they made their appraisals of minority individuals while in a collectivist mind-set, the researchers found this also could reduce prejudicial judgements.
Dr. Jeanine Skorinko
“Our attitudes, both positive and negative, can be shaped by subtle factors in our social environment—things that we may not even be aware of, such as the cultural values we are thinking about at the moment or the message on another person’s t shirt,” Dr. Jeanine Skorinko, Associate Professor of Psychology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Department of Social Science and Policy Studies and lead researcher on the study, told The Speaker.
“By conducting research on these topics, we can start to better understand the effects these different factors have so we can better understand how our attitudes are shaped, how attitudes are transmitted, and how attitudes might change–whether short or long-term. When we learn about the effects these subtle factors have, we can hopefully become more mindful during our interactions with others and when thinking about our attitudes. It is also important to understand cultural similarities and differences as it is so much easier to communicate with others throughout the world, and we still, sadly, have ethnic and cultural discontent and violence.”
Skorinko explained how she and the team set on testing the effects of egalitarian views and collectivist mindsets on the formation of prejudicial judgements.
“This set of studies came about in several ways,” Skorinko told us. “As a group of folks interested in the phenomenon of social tuning, we chatted about cross-cultural differences and wondered how social tuning might work with collectivist mindsets versus the individualist mindsets we had been testing in the lab. Then I had the opportunity to collect some data while in Hong Kong. I was there as a faculty advisor for WPI’s global projects program and I took the initiative to collect some data to start testing this idea we had been thinking about. As for the views, we could have tested egalitarian or prejudiced views, and we opted to start with the more positive approach. This was also inspired by a t-shirt that I found while in Hong Kong.”
The researchers found that Hong Kong Chinese were less prejudiced toward homosexuals when the homosexual was perceived to be egalitarian.
“We manipulated the views based on the t-shirt the experimenter was wearing. We have found in past research that this is a subtle yet effective manipulation of perceived views because we assume people endorse something they are wearing. So, in this study, the experimenter either wore a plain white shirt–expressing no views, or what we call the neutral views condition–or they wore a t shirt that said, ‘People don’t discriminate, they learn it,’ and there were caricatures of individuals of all different ethnic backgrounds.
“I saw this shirt while visiting an NGO in Hong Kong called Hong Kong Unison. Their mission is to help racial and ethnic relations in Hong Kong. So, the shirt came from Hong Kong and from a group trying to improve relations in Hong Kong We made sure that people believed that the message and pictures on the shirt indicated egalitarian views by showing the t-shirt to individuals–in the US and Hong Kong–and asking them to tell us what the t-shirt meant to them. Participants overwhelming reported that it endorsed egalitarian views towards all groups of people.”
Skorinko noted that there was no manipulation of whether the experimenter was homosexual or not. The team merely manipulated whether the experimenter endorsed egalitarian views towards others or not.
Skorinko elaborated on how differences in prejudice were identified, and pointed out the important finding that mindset was more important than cultural affiliation when it came to prejudice.
“We conducted a meta-analysis across the three studies to see if there were any differences in prejudice that were expressed. We found that those in a collectivist mindset tended to express more prejudice when in the neutral–or plain t-shirt–condition than any other group. The important thing about this finding is it is across all three studies so the participants are both Hong Kongers and Americans, and the important variable is their mindset—collectivist or individualist, and not necessarily their cultural background. This is in line with some past research that shows that collectivists are more sensitive to distinctions between ingroup and outgroup [Erez & Eearley, 1993; Triandis, et al., 1988].”
The two types of mindset looked at were impressed on the participants through the use of individual and collectivist values in story narratives.
“In the first study, we looked at cultural background as an indicator of collectivist mindset. So, we had American (individualist) and Hong Kong (collectivist) participants. In the second study, we ran only American participants. We manipulated the mindset by having participants read a short story about a warrior. This warrior had to make a big decision. The decision was either motivated by personal interests or by family interests.
“Past research has shown the those who read about the decision made by the personal interests are primed to be in a more individualistic mindset; whereas, those who read about the decision made by family interests tend to be in a more collectivist mindset [Oyserman & lee, 2008; Trafimow, et al., 1991]. In the third study, we ran only Hong Kong participants. For this study we did not use the warrior prime instead we used a task that was used successfully in the past with Hong Kong participants [Hong, et al, 2000; Wong & Hong, 2009]. For this study, we manipulated the mindset by showing participants five icons. These icons either represented American culture (American flag, Statue of Liberty) or Chinese culture (Great Wall, Forbidden City). Participants identified each icon and wrote a few sentences about what each icon meant to them. Participants successfully identified the icons–regardless of the culture they depicted.”
The difference, practically, between implicit and explicit prejudice was found to be that some prejudices are expressed and other are not, but, Skorinko pointed out, these two prejudices may not reflect each other–and may not even be desired.
“Practically, explicit attitudes are those that we consciously know and can express; whereas, implicit attitudes are unconscious and ones we cannot express. Our implicit and explicit attitudes may not align–or maybe they will, it depends. So, we may consciously think and say that we are egalitarian, but we may also have some implicit prejudices towards some groups. For instance, I firmly believe that women should be scientists and I am a female scientist–my explicit attitude. But, when I take the gender-career implicit association task [IAT], I find that I have a slight association for women and arts, rather than women and science–my implicit attitude. So, my explicit attitude is, ‘Go women scientists!’ but my implicit attitude may not be as enthusiastic–and yes, this bothers me to no end, especially as a female scientist!”
Skorinko explained how culture can influence views, including prejudicial views, and offered some educated guesses on whether prejudice could be increased through the types of manipulation used in this study to decrease prejudice.
“There are a number of factors that influence how we think about the world around us, including how we think about other groups. From this set of studies we know that both our cultural mindset–or cultural values orientation–and what we think our interaction partner thinks are very important in the expression of egalitarian views. If we are in a mindset to value our social connections and maintain group harmony (a collectivist orientation) than this research suggests that we will be more likely to pay attention to and align our views with the views expressed by our interaction partner. If we are in a mindset that we are unique and are more self-focused (an individualist orientation) than we will be less likely to pay attention and align our views with our interaction partner’s views.
“In this set of studies, we only looked at what happens when our interaction partner expresses egalitarian views. We would need to conduct further research to see what happens when an interaction partner expresses prejudiced views. Based on the social tuning framework, it is possible that if an interaction partner expressed prejudiced beliefs that collectivists might express more prejudice towards that group. But, we need to conduct more research to see what happens!
“I also want to note that individualists are not immune to social tuning. Rather, our original work shows that individualists who have the right motivation will also align their views with their interaction partner. So, if an individualist has the desire to get along with their interaction partner (affiliative motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner (whether the views are egalitarian or prejudiced). Also, if an individual has the desire to gain knowledge (epistemic motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner.
“The bottom line—expressing egalitarian views and kindness towards others especially during social interactions can, at times, help others also express those egalitarian attitudes,” Skorinko concluded. “It is a good first step in making the world a more egalitarian and hopefully tolerant place.”
The report, “Reducing Prejudice Across Cultures via Social Tuning,” was completed by Jeanine L. M. Skorinko, Janetta Lun, Stacey Sinclair, Satia A. Marotta, Jimmy Calanchini, and Melissa H. Paris, and was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Aging and longevity varies across the Earth’s species, and some scientists are seeking for an ability to improve health in humans by learning from the genes of other animals. The bowhead whale gene was recently mapped by UK researchers who believe various genetic “tricks” that allow the whale to live up to 200 years can be learned and potentially “performed” by human genes.
“I study aging and longevity to ultimately develop interventions that preserve health and combat disease by manipulating the aging process,” Dr. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes of the University of Liverpool and author of the study, told The Speaker.
Dr. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes
“Thus for several years I’ve been interested in the bowhead whale as the longest lived mammal. I think that having the genome sequence of the bowhead whale will allow researchers to study basic molecular processes and identify maintenance mechanisms that help preserve life, avoid entropy, and repair molecular damage. This is a different approach in biomedical research. Most research on human diseases is usually based on animal models that develop the disease under study at a higher incidence and rate than normal. The use of disease-resistant organisms to identify genes, mechanisms and processes that protect against–rather than cause–disease is an unexplored paradigm.”
Aging, Magalhaes points out, has a profound effect on human society as well as medicine, but is one of the major puzzles of biology. In his ongoing work at the Integrative Genomics of Aging Group, Magalhaes is seeking greater understanding of the mechanisms of aging–cellular, molecular and genetic–and he believes the field in which his research takes place holds more potential to improve health than any other biomedical field.
In the latest work, the Liverpool University team investigated the bowhead whale gene in order to find, as Magalhaes phrases it, genetic “tricks” that provide for longer and healthier life.
“In particular, we discovered changes in bowhead genes known to be related to cell cycle, DNA repair, cancer, and aging that suggest alterations that may be biologically-relevant. So my own view is that this points toward improved DNA repair and cell cycle regulation mechanisms to prevent DNA damage accumulation during the lifescourse which in turn promotes longevity and resistance to age-related diseases. But a lot more work is still necessary to prove this.”
Las Vegas is buzzing. After a week of tech advances at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show, CES2015, drones have taken the lead in seducing not only an avid public, but also companies with serious interest in new appliances in a wide range of production sectors. This year the organization has designated a specific area for drones, due to the increase of developers who have found drone niches in diverse areas, from sporting events to agriculture to rescue missions.
The tech giant Intel has announced a set of improvements and startups designed to increase software performance and portable solutions for unmanned aircrafts. “The increase of new experiences in personal computers, smart and connected devices, and the revolution of visible technology is redefining the relationship between consumers and technology itself,” said Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich.
Some improvements have enabled drones to perceive depth; others will allow the device to build 3D images of its surroundings.
One of the most highlighted devices was the winner of the Intel Challenge “Make it Wearable” from 2014, a flying camera which can be attached to the wrist as a bracelet and deployed instantly to take pictures from the heights. One new feature is attracting extreme sports athletes: a wearable tracking device and “follow me” technology, allowing the drone to follow and record the user.
Among the drone innovators at CES, the startup EHang left the audience in awe when they presented their Ghost drone, which can be controlled via smartphone.
There is plenty of space for innovation and commercial opportunities for those eager to provide unique perspectives in unsuspected fields such as real state, journalism and filmmaking.
Andrew Amato, editor-in-chief of Dronelife, who was present at CES, expressed clearly his belief that drones would be present in daily life from now on. “People have been saying the drones are coming. But I think the fact that we have an unmanned systems area dedicated to them now means they’re not coming. They’re here”.
Some of the new features take advantage of 4K resolution cameras and image stabilizers, which sharpens action footage more than ever. All this combined with air visibility still worries federal regulators. In particular, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is concerned about drones flying near commercial aircraft and therefore drone users require approval before flying.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association(CEA) , global revenue for drones will reach $130 million in 2015, twice last year’s value. Patrick Moorhead, the main tech analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, estimated that there were twice as many drones as compared to previous events. He explained that the fascination with flying objects is due to our historical difficulty to control them, which makes drones awesome.
Military drones, tiny drones, selfie-taking drones, and drones that fly themselves were “arguably the most hyped products at CES,” said Ben Wood from CCS Insight. According to the interview at BBC, the trade group expects drones to be a billion-dollar market in a few years.
The future of drones shines with optimism, and will rocket even more once regulations catch up with tech advances. Once restrictions are lifted, only the sky will be the limit.
A recent report by economist Jim O’Neill is shining the light onto the economic implications of the global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR occurs when bacteria that are exposed to different types of antibiotics become resistant to them, or multidrug resistant. In layman’s terms they turn into superbugs.
O’Neill’s report looks at the effect of AMR on labour force morbidity and mortality, and its effect on global economic output. It estimates that if resistance is left unchecked, global AMR deaths will rise from a current 700,000 deaths per year (of which some 50,000 deaths per year occur in the UK and the US alone) to ten million deaths per year by 2050, with global GDP likely to shrink by 2-3.5 per cent, equivalent to some $100 trillion losses between 2014 and 2050.
Poor availability of data around bacterial infections however means that the findings give only a broad brush picture of the global impact of AMR, and a rather conservative one at that. Instead of all seven pathogens identified from the World Health Organisation for which drug resistance is a problem, the authors were only able to look at three: Klebsiella pneumonia, which is linked to pneumonia and respiratory tract diseases; E-coli, linked to gastrointestinal infections; and Staphylococcus aureus, which can be linked to a number of diseases, including pneumonia.
So what are the causes of AMR? AMR develops because bacteria adapt in order to survive: as they are exposed to antibiotics, they begin to develop a resistance to them and to share their resistance genes with one another.
While the discovery of penicillin in the late 1920s, and its later developments, revolutionised western medicine and public health care, reducing disease and infections’ incidence within humans and animals, and increasing our longevity, the flip side of the coin was that as bacteria got increasingly exposed to antibiotics – which suddenly made previously high-risk high-mortality surgical procedures safe – they also started to develop their own coping strategy against them.
According to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, in 2001 more antibiotics were used in the US on healthy animals than on sick people. That is, roughly 70 per cent of total US antimicrobials use was for nontherapeutic purposes in livestock. It is not just the overuse of antibiotics in animal husbandry which is bad, but also the fact that antibiotics of importance to humans are often administered.
In the US regulation has yet failed to ban use of antibiotic substances that are important for human medicine, such as penicillin, and indeed some 13.5m pounds of substances prohibited in the EU are used each year for nontherapeutic purposes in livestock in the US.
Indeed in Denmark, since 2000 it is prohibited to administer antibiotics as growth enhancers to healthy animals. And the veterinary use of antibiotics that are used in human medicine is also banned. Strict monitoring requires that Danish farmers report every time they administer antibiotics, by logging their use onto a centrally held database which checks how much of their allowance they have administered. If they go over it, they get fined. Such measures have seen the decline in use of antimicrobial agents in Denmark to 60 per cent of what it was in the 1990s.
That the problem of AMR stems from an overuse of antibiotics in farming is well documented. And with antibiotic resistance within bacteria in animals having spread onto human pathogens, we could soon face serious threats to our ability to conduct many routine surgical procedures, such as hip replacements and caesarean sections, as well as in our fight against major diseases, such as malaria, TB, HIV, pneumonia and cancer. As fewer and fewer options become available for treating infections, stories like this one will become more common.
Added to the issue of antibiotics in farming is that of an over-sanitised private sphere in which we are surrounded by antibacterial agents in soaps, mouthwash and cleaning products, promising to kill all unwanted germs (with quite a lot of the wanted ones as collateral), so that we could even eat off a kitchen floor if we felt the urge.
Not only are claims made about such products often misleading and highly contested, but evidence shows that indiscriminate use of antibacterials at home – such as those containing Triclosan, an antibacterial agent used in many cleaning products can be dangerous to our health, and as they find their way through our drains and into our water systems, they can also pollute our environment. And controversial research indicates that such antibacterial containing products can compound AMR.
So what can be done to reduce AMR? Reducing non therapeutic use of antibiotics in farming, as well as an outright ban on those which are used in human medicine would be a good step to take. Avoiding unnecessary exposure to antibacterial agents at home would not only help towards fighting AMR but also help reduce their negative effects on human health and the environment. Ultimately, the availability of new types of antibiotics would make it hard on bacteria to build up resistance, indeed an important reason why AMR is a problem is that new types of antibiotics have been hard to come by over the last few decades.
Yet on a very positive note, just today researchers from Northeastern University in Boston, US have revealed the discovery of a new antibiotic called teixobactin. Their research shows that none of the bacteria they exposed to teixobactin developed resistance. While the drug could still be some years from being available, and further research beckons, scientists agree that it does seem like a very hopeful step in the right direction.
