Scientists fromUniversity of Utah Healthsaythat removing the gene encoding Lef1 in mice and zebrafish disrupts the development of nerve cells in the hypothalamus that affect stress and anxiety, causing the animals to exhibit increased anxiety. Their study ("Lef1-Dependent Hypothalamic Neurogenesis Inhibits Anxiety"), which appears in PLOS Biology, suggeststhat Lef1 functions in the hypothalamus to mediate behavior. The team believes this knowledge could prove useful for diagnosing and treating human brain disorders.

"...we demonstrate that the Wnt/-catenin effector Lef1 is required for the differentiation of anxiolytic hypothalamic neurons in zebrafish and mice, although the identity of Lef1-dependent genes and neurons differ between these 2 species. We further show that zebrafish andDrosophilahave common Lef1-dependent gene expression in their respective neuroendocrine organs, consistent with a conserved pathway that has diverged in the mouse," write the investigators.

"Finally, orthologs of Lef1-dependent genes from both zebrafish and mouse show highly correlated hypothalamic expression in marmosets and humans, suggesting co-regulation of 2 parallel anxiolytic pathways in primates. These findings demonstrate that during evolution, a transcription factor can act through multiple mechanisms to generate a common behavioral output, and that Lef1 regulates circuit development that is fundamentally important for mediating anxiety in a wide variety of animal species."

"Anxiety is an essential behavior that is much more complex than we thought," says first author Yuanyuan Xie, Ph.D., who led the research in collaboration with senior authorRichard Dorsky, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy at University of Urah Health. "This work is making us think about how brain structures control behavior in a different way."

Anxiety happens in humans, mice, fish, and flies. It's not always a bad thing. Anxiety in zebrafish causes them to stop moving so they can hide in plain sight from predators. But being anxious at inappropriate times is counterproductive and can be a sign of unnecessary stress, a characterization that holds true not only for fish but also for people, say the researchers.

When Drs. Xie and Dorsky began their investigation, nothing was known about a role for Lef1 in anxiety. Brains of fish missing the gene were relatively normal except there were cells missing from the hypothalamus. "Before we did the experiments we had no idea that the neurons impacted by Lef1 would preferentially impact one type of behavior," says Dr. Dorsky.

Studying the genes that were most perturbed by loss of Lef1 in this brain region revealed that over 20 were involved in mood disorders like depression and anxiety. The scientists then noticed that the fish had telltale signs consistent with these disorders. The animals were reluctant to explore their environment when placed into a new tank, preferred to remain immobile at the bottom. And they grew slowly, another condition often related to elevated stress.

Lef1 appears to mediate anxiety across species, although it uses diverse mechanisms to do so.Mice in which Lef1 had been removed from the hypothalamus showed signs of anxiety, including being smaller and a reluctance to explore. They also had fewer brain cells in the region where Lef1 is normally present. However, the missing cells make pro-melanin-concentrating hormone (Pmch), a brain signal that was not perturbed in zebrafish. By contrast, zebrafish and Drosophila fruit flies lacking their versions of Lef1 are missing cells that make corticotropin-releasing hormone binding protein (Crhbp), and these cells were unaffected in mice.

These results suggested that Lef1 could regulate anxiety through two different nerve cell signals. Support for this scenario was unexpectedly found in humans, where expression of Crhbp and Pmch are extremely closely linked in the hypothalamus, indicating they may actually be present in the same cells and together act downstream of Lef1 to regulate behavior.

"When you think about genes with a conserved function you think everything that gene does must be the same in all animals. But our study shows that that isn't necessarily true," says Dr. Dorsky, who adds that the team's workcould explain how a gene that specifies a particular behavior can adapt to accommodate changes in brain circuitry that happen over evolutionary time. "Our results suggest that during evolution, the brain can innovate different ways to get to the same outcome."

The study reveals information about specific sets of genes and the brain cells they affect as being involved in regulating anxiety. Future work will focus on determining whether these pathways may define a subset of human behavioral and mood disorders.

More:
Eliminating Single Gene from Brain Appears to Increase Anxiety Across Species - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Danielle Di-Masi is an innovative marketing strategist, specializing in digital communications. Standing at the crossroad of technology and human behavior, Danielle is a popular keynote speaker and media commentator, author and university lecturer.

Winning the 2016 Stevie Award for Most Innovative Communications Professional of the Year, Danielle is an expert in how both businesses and professionals perform at their best, creating consistent experiences on and offline.

Danielle spent over 10 years of her corporate career in Investment and Private Banking while studying her MBA. As the world became increasingly digital, Danielle identified a broadening communications gap and turned her focus to researching how we connect and conduct modern business to ensure the digital experience is aligned with an effective customer experience strategy.

Danielle is a regular blogger for the Huffington Post, and in the media her global commentary has appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, Australian Financial Review, ELLE, The Age, Womens Health, Smart Company and since 2011 Danielle has been the resident expert on tech, business and social behaviors for Network Ten.

Originally posted here:
Your Digital Communication: Strategy or Spaghetti - Computerworld India

If it seemed like coastal flooding associated with king tides has been getting particularly worse in recent years, that is because it has, according to a new study by University of Florida scientists.

Essentially, a combination of weather factors and shifting atmospheric pressure pushed water up along the Atlantic coast south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., in what the authors call a sea-level rise hot spot.

King tides already cause regular incursions of seawater into many coastal communities, where continued (sea-level rise) is increasing the frequency of this so-called nuisance flooding, which may be further amplified by short-lived (sea-level rise) hot spots, the authors conclude in journal Geophysical Research Letters. We have demonstrated that (sea-level rise) hot spot anomalies are a recurring feature along the U.S. eastern seaboard related to the combined cumulative effects of (El Nio-Southern Oscillation) and (North Atlantic Oscillation) forcing.

The authors revealed they believe the cause of this sort of sea-level rise was similarly responsible for accelerated sea-level rise detected along the coast running from Massachusetts to North Carolina, something previously attributed to a slowing of a major Atlantic Ocean current.

This distinction is critical to the projection of (sea-level rise) along this heavily populated coastline and defines a new benchmark for ocean dynamic models to capture such a pattern of regional (sea-level rise) variability, the authors noted.

Meanwhile, a major federal climate change report receiving greater attention in recent weeks illustrates more clearly what researchers believe to be the factors driving long-term sea-level rise, along with other results from the effects of human behavior on the planet.

The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, the three warmest years on record for the globe and continued decline in arctic sea ice, according to the Climate Science Special Report, a collaboration of 53 people across 13 agencies. These trends are expected to continue in the future over climate (multidecadal) timescales. Significant advances have also been made in our understanding of extreme weather events and how they relate to increasing global temperatures and associated climate changes.

Since 1980, the cost of extreme events for the United States has exceeded $1.1 trillion, therefore better understanding of the frequency and severity of these events in the context of a changing climate is warranted.

The report is part of the National Climate Assessment, something meant to take place every four years, but the NCA has only published three times in the 27 years since Congress passed the law creating it. And instructions on how to interpret the data into policy implementation will be a little more difficult, as Sunday the Trump administration disbanded the advisory committee tasked with that job.

Further, last week President Donald Trump signed an executive order reversing an Obama administration requirement that construction projects in coastal floodplains that receive federal dollars have to take into account sea-level rise and resulting flooding projections.

As predictions both get clearer and more dire from climate scientists, work is beginning to go into what might happen by the centurys end. Using a sea-level rise estimate of nearly six feet, Mathew Hauer leader of the University of Georgia Institute of Governments Applied Demography Program published a piece in the journal Nature Climate Change in April in which he estimates 13.1 million people in the United States could have to permanently move further inland.

Relationships between environmental stressors and migration are highly complex as press and pulse events trigger migration responses that range from short-distance temporary migration to permanent long-distance migration; some will move and others will not, Hauer wrote. (Sea-level rise) is unique among environmental stressors as the conversion of habitable land to uninhabitable water is expected to lead to widespread human migration without the deployment of costly protective infrastructure.

Excerpt from:
New light cast on sea level, climate threats - Brunswick News

In a forthcoming research paper from Nature Human Behavior, a group of scientists including University Psychology Prof. Brian Nosek propose to change the p-value threshold for statistical significance from 0.05 to 0.005 in order to enhance the reproducibility of data.

According to an article written by UCLA Biostatistics Prof. Frederick Dorey and published in the journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, a p-value is a calculated probability that tests a null hypothesis, a statement that expresses the opposite of the hypothesis being investigated in a scientific experiment.

This value is often required to be calculated in publishable research papers that compare quantitative data between two or more experimental groups, Chemistry Asst. Prof. Rebecca Pompano said.

A p-value allows scientists to determine statistical significance the notion that an experimental result is likely attributable to a specific cause rather than mere chance of their results. Smaller p-values suggesting strong evidence against the null hypothesis likely correlate with more precise data, indicating potential reproducibility and thereby credibility of a scientific experiment.

Presently, the accepted p-value for statistical significance rests at 0.05. As such, a p-values less than 0.05 represents statistical significance. This cutoff was arbitrarily determined by British statistician and geneticist Sir Ronald Fisher in the early 1900s.

Sir Ronald Fisher proposed it in one of his articles or books, Statistics Prof. and Chair of Statistics Karen Kafadar said in an email to The Cavalier Daily. As I recall, he tossed it off as If the probability of observing our data under our hypothesis is less than 0.05, we might consider that to be statistically significant. And that 0.05 seems to have stayed with us ever since.

A recent paper by a group of researchers from numerous academic institutions including the University of Southern California, Duke University, University of Amsterdam, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Virginia however, challenges the longstanding p-value of 0.05.

The lack of reproducibility of scientific studies has caused growing concern over the credibility of claims of new discoveries based on statistically significant findings, the paper, released as a preprint article on PsyArXiv last month, said. For fields where the threshold for defining significance for new discoveries is P < 0.05, we propose a change to P < 0.005. This simple step would immediately improve the reproducibility of scientific research in many fields.

This proposal seeks to encourage strength of evidence by calling probability values less than 0.005 significant and those between 0.05 and 0.005 suggestive, Nosek said in an email to The Cavalier Daily.

Current scientific literature varies in reliability between fields and research journals the primary sources of study publications. Commonly, lower-quality journals publish untrustworthy papers, as do some high-end elite journals, in which data presented may be cherry-picked by the investigator to present a case as more scientifically elegant than reality. These circumstances may be caused by a scientists lack of knowledge and proficiency in their field, or driven by an individuals desire for vocational success and economic incentive often furthered by larger numbers of publications, Biology Prof. Paul Adler said.

According to Pompano, the benefits of a stricter significance cutoff could include less false data in scientific literature. A lowered threshold could also reduce p-hacking, Asst. Biology Prof. Alan Bergland said.

In p-hacking, people can use websites or programs to find correlations between variables in their experiments, and this allows them to contort their results to fit their desired narrative, Bergland said. You can plot different variables against each other and come across correlations that are completely nonsense, but related. P-hacking would still be possible even if the threshold was lowered to 0.005, but certainly harder.

While the change in p-value may, by some extent, increase the reproducibility of data, researchers worry it could also inhibit scientific progress. A p-value of 0.005 is difficult to obtain when working with smaller sample sizes, which is often the case in pilot studies, human clinical trials and for ethical reasons when experimenting with live mammalian specimen, Pompano said. Ultimately, according to Adler, lowering the p-value would increase expenses, time needed to conduct experiments and false negatives results that incorrectly demonstrate absence of a particular condition within data.

Additionally, although a p-value can determine statistical significance, it is unable to predict the applicability of experimental data to human life.

It cannot tell you if the model for your data is right, or if your sample is representative of the population, or the probability that your hypothesis is true, Kafadar said. It can only tell you how consistent are your data with your hypothesis, assuming both that the sample is representative of the population and the model you are using is correct. If neither of those assumptions is true, the p-value may be misleading.

Due to such limits of the p-value, Adler and Pompano believe errors in experimental design the setup of a procedure undertaken to test a hypothesis are a more immediate source of defects in scientific validity. Both professors said a p-value change is unnecessary.

Essentially, you cant just look at a p-value and decide if the results are reproducible. You have to look at the question being asked and if the experimental design that was being performed actually allows you to answer that question at all, Pompano said. And then, does the data support the answer that the author has concluded? I think the p-value alone is one small piece of assessing the conclusion of the experiment.

In other fields examining non-binary hypotheses, such as experimental physics, a p-value is rarely utilized and therefore unrelated to reproducibility errors. Rather, systematic uncertainties like varying machinery usage and ill-defined experimental design play larger roles in empirical blunders.

According to Physics Prof. Blaine Norum, reproducibility errors often encountered in physics are due to differing equipment types and apparatus setup from lab to lab.

The question is not a statistical question, but a question of systematic uncertainties that is, machinery or experimental design which are not addressed by a p-value, Norum said. How equipment is set up, how one configures it to get measurements varies between people, leading to reproducibility errors from lab to lab. A p-value is a statistically derived quantity, and it doesnt address those issues.

Researchers have expressed that inconsistencies within published scientific data stem from flaws within the career structures of science, more specifically defined as an unstable job market and the immensely difficult nature of discovery, rather than statistical analyses.

In the structure of science, at least American science, a lot of the research is done by graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, so the only way for a faculty member to be successful and keep getting papers and grants is to have lots of people working for them theres a selective advantage to that, Adler said. But that only fuels the oversupply of scientists, meaning you have too many people chasing too few grant awards and people publishing less reliable data just for the sake of publishing a paper. And these problems are much more serious than the p-value.

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Researchers propose p-value change from 0.05 to 0.005 - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Over the past several months, psychologist and Australian media personality Toby Green has been preparing to launch her new website, blog and podcasts. Toby Green The 60SecondShrink is providing her signature brand of Karate Chop Therapy to the Internet.

When I came home from Australia, I decided to be semi-retired. I still have the occasional client, but I really wanted to do something that reached a larger audience. Ms. Green said in our recent conversation, I decided to use my 40 years of experience regarding relationships in Australia and translate these experiences to an American audience. Who knows? Maybe Ill even get another book out of it.

Toby is the author of several books written for the Australian market, and is working with her agent, Linda Langton, of Langtons International Agency to develop another book geared towards American relationship needs. Meanwhile, she has been recording a series of weekly podcasts that will appear on her YOUTube , Facebook and Vimeo Channels, as well as her own website.

I want to reach a large audience. People today need answers, but they arent always able to get to a full time therapist. With my blogs, and podcasts, I can answer some questions and steer them in the right direction. Its by no means a comprehensive answer, but it opens the door for dialog.

Why Call it Karate Chop therapy?

Because its quick, in-and-out, direct and to the point. Ms. Green explained. Sometimes you need fast guidance to issues and Karate Chop Therapy provides that!

What types of topics do you cover?

Human behavior, Im on it. It has always been my greatest area of interest

Who is your target audience?

Anyone asking why or how I can make my interactions better, - husband ,wife, boyfriends, girlfriends, bosses employees, in-laws, parents and even neighbors.

Will you answer questions on your site and in the podcasts?

Yes, I hope readers and listeners will submit their questions through subscribing to YouTube and leaving a comment, or via the contact form on my website, http://60secondshrink.com/ . I may not be able to answer each question individually, however, they may form the basis of a new podcast or blog entry. Ms. Green replied, I supplement each podcast topic with a more extensive blog entry.

You have a FB presence as well, Are you going to be open to questions there, and how can people reach you with their queries?

Private message me on the page. I may not be able to get back to you personally, but check the podcasts and blogs for answers.

What types of psychology theories do you espouse the most? Who are your influences?

ACT or Accountability and Commitment Therapy. This therapy is little known in the US but quite popular in Australia. I feel that its a good fit for Americans too. I am studying Mindfulness and will use it as well in the podcasts and blogs. ACT and Mindfulness together can help you maintain contact in the present moment rather than drifting off.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps individuals live and behave in ways consistent with personal values while developing psychological flexibility. ACT works to address the tendency of some to view individuals who seek therapy as damaged or flawed and aims to help people realize the fullness and vitality of life. This fullness includes a wide spectrum of human experience, including the pain inevitably accompanying some situations. Mindfulness can be described as maintaining contact with the present moment rather than drifting off into automatic pilot. Mindfulness allows an individual to connect with the observing self, the part that is aware of but separate from the thinking self. Mindfulness techniques often help people increase awareness of each of the five senses as well as of their thoughts and emotions. ACT does not attempt to directly change or stop unwanted thoughts or feelings but instead encourages people to develop a new and compassionate relationship with those experiences.

Why did you decide on doing podcasts in addition to writing blog entries and answering questions?

Ms. Green smiled, In order to reach anyone and everyone. To counter crappy psychobabble. Bad therapy isnt neutral, its bad. Its my cause to get good therapy out there and to negate the bad.

Toby Green is the 60SecondShrink. Come and see her podcasts on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and read her insights at http://60secondshrink.com. Youll be thrilled you did.

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Don't Let An Eclipse Sabotage Your Relationships! Ask Toby Green, The 60SecondShrink for Answers. - HuffPost

Centuries ago, celestial events such as eclipses evoked deep superstition.

And they still do for some people,as a Christian radio host claimed that Mondays total eclipse of the sun may be a message from God.

Bryan Fischer, host of a Christian radio show called Focal Point, posted on Facebook that the Bible states the sun and moon serve as signs.

Then, he attempted to interpret those signs like a fortune teller.

This is a metaphor, or a sign, of the work of the Prince of Darkness in obscuring the light of Gods truth, he wrote, adding, Satan, and those who unwittingly serve as his accomplices by resisting the public acknowledgement of God and seeking to repress the expression of Christian faith in our land, are bringing on us a dark night of the national soul.

Fischer,whose radio show claims to bethe home of muscular Christianity, called on his followers to fight the darkness that we may return this nation to an unapologetic acknowledgement and embrace of the God of the Founders and his transcendent standard for human behavior as enshrined in the Ten Commandments.

He included a disclaimer that he did not, in fact, receive a revelation from God related to the eclipse but his post was instead an effort to ponder this sign in the heavens and speculate as to its possible spiritual implications.

Fischers attempt to paint a normal celestial event as some kind of message from God drew laughs from critics online, including the Church of Satan:

However, Fischer is not the only evangelical to interpret the eclipse as a possible warning from a deity.

Earlier this month, Anne Graham Lotz leader of AnGeL Ministries in North Carolina and daughter of famed evangelist Billy Graham also warned the eclipse could be a signal of darker things.

The celebratory nature regarding the eclipse brings to my mind the Babylonian King Belshazzar who threw a drunken feast the night the Medes and Persians crept under the city gate. While Belshazzar and his friends partied, they were oblivious to the impending danger. Belshazzar wound up dead the next day, and the Babylonian empire was destroyed.

Lotz said she doesnt view the eclipse as celebratory as a result.

While no one can know for sure if judgment is coming on America, it does seem that God is signaling us about something, she wrote.Time will tell what that something is.

Christian Post columnist Rev. Mark H. Creech wrote that he was inclined to agree with Lotz.

Is it a sign from the heavens calling upon our nation to turn from its sins and to Christ or suffer the consequences? I dont really know, he wrote.What I do know, however, is that we would be wise to treat it as though this very well may be the case.

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Christian Radio Host Bryan Fischer: Eclipse Is A Sign Of The Work Of Satan - HuffPost

Louise Stanger is a speaker, educator, licensed clinician, social worker, certified daring way facilitator and interventionist who uses an invitational intervention approach to work with complicated mental health, substance abuse, chronic pain and process addiction clients.

Weve all heard the expression view the world as a glass half-full, rather than half-empty. This is one of the most favorite and common phrases to describe a positive outlook. The study of psychology, research and findings, however, over the years has portrayed a glass half empty. In fact, Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, maintained that behavioral health was built on the disease model, with a focus on uncovering what was wrong with the person. As a result, he posed the following question:

What happens when we look at human behavior with a positive spin?

Thats exactly what Seligman did. As such, his research on human psychology flipped the script and began to take a closer look at healthy states such as happiness, strength of character and optimism.

In short, one can take a look at their personality, hobbies, traits, skills, character, etc. from a strength-based perspective. Clinicians, interventionists, and social workers like myself look for goodness to help the clients develop and implement in their daily lives - behaviors that foster personal growth, healthy relationships and meaningful engagement.

Lets begin with strengths. Since anyone can brainstorm an endless list of those qualities we draw power from, we decided to highlight the Positive Psychology Program, a website dedicated to providing education and resources for positive psychology. Researchers assembled human behavioral data and collapsed the data into the following six categories:

If you answered yes to some or many of these questions, you may identify with that particular strength of character. The truth is we probably draw from all of them. The key is to sow the seeds of positivity, nurture and grow the strengths you see in yourself for achieving healthier relationships - with your mother, father, sister, brother, grandparent, husband, wife, etc. These attributes will also equip you with the ability to start a business, ask for a promotion, negotiate with your boss, land the big account, or treat yourself to something special. Finally, youll see your life grow toward the sunlight because you put in the hard work.

Keeping your strengths in mind, another essential ingredient to nurture a positive outlook is your own well-being. Well-being is like happiness, a feeling of contentment and peace about oneself. Its the emotional response that the world is okay, that the future is bright or your own creation, and theres room for possibility.

Building well-being is not easy. This demands attention, detail, perseverance, routine, and daily practice. In collaboration with Pyramid Healthcare, a program that adapted Seligmans work to create a framework for clients to harness positivity, the following are our ideas on how you practice well-being each day:

As with finding happiness, our thoughts and ideas and the ways in which we view the world helps shape our physical and emotional health. Optimists think about misfortune the opposite way. They tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback or a challenge, that its causes are just confined to this one case, says Seligman.

That being said, it is inevitable that we will at times experience negative feelings. That is part of being human. Here are ways we have discovered to build resiliency.

Positivity begins with unleashing your strengths, using them to foster healthy well-being, working these behavioral practices in daily living, and constructing a defense against negative emotions. Remember that positive and negative emotions, good days and bad, ups and downs are the lifeblood of being human. You have a choice each morning to seize the day. What positive emotion will you pick?

To learn more about Louise Stanger and her interventions and other resources, visit her website.

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Climbing to Positivity - HuffPost

Care Bears.

(Image: ABC)

In this time of increased hate and intolerance, many parents are no doubt eager to teach their children to become generous, caring human beings. So they share with them stories about altruistic behavior, usually featuring talking animals or other fantastic creatures.

Newly published research reports such tales, however adorable, are surprisingly ineffective.

"Contrary to the common belief, realistic stories, not anthropomorphic ones, are better for promoting young children's pro-social behavior," reports a research team led by Patricia Ganea of the University of Toronto.

She notes that, in this first-of-its-kind study, four to six-year-olds "were more likely to act on the moral of a story when it featured human behavior."

Turns out those tykes are more literal than we realized.

The study, published in the journal Developmental Science, featured 96 children, who began by "choosing 10 stickers to take home for agreeing to participate." They were also told that another child of their own gender was not chosen and thus would not get any stickers. If they wished, they could share some of theirs by placing them in an envelope.

They were then randomly assigned to read one of three books. One-third read Little Raccoon Learns to Share by Mary Packard, which uses anthropomorphic animals to express the idea that "sharing makes you feel good." Another third read an identical story, except the illustrations of the animal characters were replaced with images of humans. The final third read a book about seeds that did not address the concept of sharing.

After answering questions about their view of the characters, they chose another 10 stickers as a thank-you gift, and were again given the opportunity to donate one or more to another child.

"After hearing the story containing real human characters, young children became more generous," the researchers report. "In contrast, after hearing the same story but with anthropomorphized animals, children became more selfish."

The researchersNicole Larsen, Kang Lee, and Ganeaare quick to note that generosity also declined in the group that read about seeds. In both cases, this seems to reflect a reluctance to give a second time. The animal-centric story didn't induce selfishness, but it didn't block it either.

Further analysis revealed that "children who could relate these characters to humans and human behaviors were able to act according to the moral of the story." But perhaps surprisingly, "children overall attributed animal characteristics to anthropomorphized characters far more often than they attributed human characteristics to the same characters."

So the fanciful creatures caught their attention, but they didn't truly relate to them, and thus didn't emulate their behavior. That may change if parents who read the story to or with the child point out the parallels; future research will explore that possibility.

For now, however, these results have a clear moral: "For children at a very young age, fantastical stories may not be as effective for teaching real-world knowledge, or real-life social behaviors, as realistic ones."

They're cute and all, but it's unlikely the Care Bearscreate much caring.

More:
Anthropomorphized Animals Fail to Teach Altruism - Pacific Standard

Dear Dr. Tim,

Every time I go out to pick raspberries I come home with chiggers. They itch like the blazes and especially so in very sensitive places. What are chiggers and why am I plagued by them?

Thanks, Itchy

Dear Itchy,

Americans should not have to tolerate rude behavior, especially from something as small as a chigger! And yet, that is just what we are exposed to every summer from May through September throughout the country. Chiggers are adolescent mites, so tiny that they are seldom seen. Several can actually fit on the period at the end of this sentence.

Most self-respecting mites feed on plants. It is only the teenage mites that bite people. Apparently, once they mature to adulthood, they grow out of their immature and obnoxious behavior of biting people, and live the rest of their lives feeding peacefully on plants.

Gangs of juvenile chiggers all have the following M.O. (modus operandi). They hang out on the tips of tall grasses, shrubs and weeds and wait to drop off onto any larger animal that happens to brush by. Usually these animals are birds, amphibians or small mammals but the mites are just as happy with the odd human that passes by. When chigger mites fall onto shoes or pant legs, they begin climbing in search of tender, moist skin to bite. They seem to concentrate in areas where clothing fits tightly against the body, such as around the ankles, groin, waist or armpits. This is exactly the rude behavior that I am talking about. A bite on an arm or back of the neck can be scratched in public. But public scratching of the groin, armpits or under the bra strap is an entirely different matter. It is socially unacceptable, politically incorrect and may even be illegal in some countries.

But, scratch you must. Once chiggers bite, there is no alternative. Chiggers do not burrow into the skin but rather pierce skin cells with their mouthparts and inject their special chigger saliva. This saliva contains enzymes that break down cell walls and causes the skin cells to liquefy. Meanwhile, human immune systems quickly react to this foreign enzyme resulting in, not only infuriatingly and intense itching, but also in the formation of a hard, red wall at the location of the bite. Chiggers capitalize on this body reaction by using the round wall, called a stylostome, as a straw to suck up their meals of dissolved body tissues, and then they promptly drop off. They are gone. They seem to never think twice about the trouble they have caused others. Meanwhile, the itching intensifies over the next 20 to 30 hours even though the mite is no longer present. Depending on the persons individual sensitivity and body reaction, itching may continue for days or even weeks.

So, what can be done? And probably most important, how does one stop chigger bites from itching?

Well, aside from amputation, physicians can sometimes prescribe an antiseptic/hydrocortisone ointment. This may help ease the itch and reduce chances of secondary infections caused by the itching and scratching, but it is not a perfect answer.

The best solution is prevention. Avoid getting into chiggers in the first place. Stay away from tall grasses and shrubs where chiggers are known to live. Chiggers love to live in brambles, as most people who pick black raspberries know or quickly learn. They also inhabit taller grasses close to the ponds and streams where bank fishermen stand. (Both raspberry pickers and fishermen can easily be spotted due to their obsessive scratching).

If you must go in those areas, tuck your pant legs into your socks and apply insect repellant containing DEET to the shoe and ankle area. This will stop many of the mites from gaining access to the skin and beginning their climb to areas where clothing fits tightly. (Theoretically, avoiding tight-fitting clothes or even going naked might help. If nothing else, it will certainly confuse the little biters not to mention friends and neighbors.)

I have found that if you know or suspect that you have been in chigger-infested habitats, take a hot, soapy shower as soon as possible. The mites are so small that it may take them several hours to crawl from shoes to where they want to bite, so you have plenty of time to wash them away. This is an effective prevention. Change your clothes and put the clothes you were wearing into the washer and dryer.

These methods are for the prevention of bites, but since you have already been bitten, happy itching.

Tim Gibb is a professor of entomology at Purdue University. He can be reached at gibb@purdue.edu

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SPINELESS WONDERS: Happy itching when chiggers feast on human flesh - pharostribune.com

In The Evolution of Beauty, Yale ornithologist Richard Prum elaborates on Darwins theory of the effect of sexual selection on evolution. Beyond survival of the fittest, the sexes have asymmetric interests. Males, with their cheap sperm, seek to sire as many offspring as possible. Females with their expensive eggs and limited lifetime reproductive opportunity, seek to pick the best mates. Males compete with one another for control of females. Females seek to avoid male control and to choose their mates freely. In many species, male competition results in bigger, stronger, and more weaponized males, as in huge sea lion males with long tusks. Prum focuses on female choice.

Female choice, given free rein, can lead to arbitrary standards of beauty and behavior in a species. Among neotropical manakins, females do all the work of raising chicks while males contribute only sperm. Males dance, sing, and flash their colors on communal display grounds known as leks; the females arrive, watch, pick a male for a quickie, and leave. The females favor only a few of the males; the rest may never get to mate. Blue manakins have even evolved a cooperative dance among a group of five or six males; females choose between groups of dancers, mating with the alpha male.

Prum moves from birds to humans. Humans, he points out, are far more cooperative than our African ape relatives, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. Men and women dont differ as dramatically in size as male and female apes. Unlike apes, humans tend to monogamy, he says, because females need help raising the kids. Prum also cites surveys showing that women do not prefer big, square-jawed macho males; rather, they go for men with moderate physiques and gentle behavior. Prum goes on from here to many interesting observations on possible effects of female choice, such as why do men, unlike apes, have long, dangling penises?

Yet in offering a generalized account of human behavior, Prum misses a human society that supports the female choice theory especially well. That society is the Hadza, as described in Nicholas Blurton-Jones new book: Demography and Evolutionary Ecology of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers (2016).

The Hadza are an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe living in northern Tanzania near Lake Eyasi. Traces of their culture in the area date back at least 130,000 years. The area is too dry for agriculture and the tsetse fly makes it unsuitable for livestock. But theres an abundance of seeds, nuts, berries, honey, and especially, underground tubers. The Hadza live in small groups, moving every few weeks depending on seasonal availability of foods. While all other group-living animals, including apes, consist of close kin, Hadza groups are quite fluid, with unrelated individuals continually coming and going. Like all hunter-gatherers, the Hadza are extremely egalitarian and cooperative.

Hadza men spend their days hunting with poison arrows. But they dont hunt the small game they learned to capture as boys. Rather, they hunt for big game, like baboons, antelope, zebra, or buffalowhich they very rarely catch. Some men never catch anything. But when a man does nail a big animal, the meat is equally shared among the whole group, gaining him prestige. One anthropologist has called this a show-off strategy.

Hadza women do almost all the work, including caring for children and gathering and preparing food. They get little contribution from their husbandsmaybe an occasional piece of honeycomb or a small bird, which the men expect their wives to prepare. In compensation, however, its the women who chose their husbands (often for only a few years). What sort of men do Hadza women prefer? Successful huntersnot good providers!

When the men are not hunting, they sit around in the mens place chatting, smoking, eating tubers prepared by their wives, and fiddling with their bows and arrows. Theres almost no violence among the men. Disputes are resolved by long discussions, or at the worst, one of the men will leave and join another group. If you look at pictures of Hadza, both sexes are small, thin and wiryno great differences in size or appearance. Both sexes go for bead necklaces.

Like the blue manakins, the Hadza seem to fit Prums model of extreme female choice. The women dont depend on their husbands for much besides sperm. Theyre free to choose the show-off hunters, who sire more children, but may actually contribute less to their childrens nutrition. Judging by the peacefulness of the men, female choice seems to have tamed male-male competition.

While all hunter-gatherer societies are highly egalitarian, not all allow as much freedom to women. In the Amazon rain forest, Ache men supply some 80% of the food by hunting. These men may ritually sacrifice children over womens objections, and engage in lethal quarrels. Hadza women seem to derive their independence from the terrain, where it takes no more than a sharp digging stick and knife, a leather sling and water gourd, plus long hours working in the hot sun, for women to fully provision themselves and their childrenand grandchildren. Another unrelated African hunter-gatherer society, the !Kung, lead a very similar life.

The latest evidence from Africa shows hominids manufactured flint tools as long as 3.3 million years ago. Once there were stone knives, female hominids must have used slings to carry themalong with food and infants. A Hadza life style could date back millions of years. Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, in Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (2009), attributes human cooperativeness to womens shared mothering of childrena trait quite absent in apes. She draws examples from the Hadza. Blaffer Hrdys female cooperativeness together with Prums female preference for cooperative males might explain the evolution of the most cooperative species on earth: humans.

In Aristophanes comedy, Lysistrata (411 BCE), Lysistrata persuades all the women of Athens and Sparta to withhold sex until their men agree to end the long-running Peloponnesian war. Was Aristophanes onto something?

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Part II Beauty, Cooperation, and the Hadza Hunter-Gatherers - HuffPost