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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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.

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

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.

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Anthropomorphized Animals Fail to Teach Altruism - Pacific Standard

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

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

Technical and scientific advances in the past 10 years have made it easier to forecast big storms and warn of potentially dangerous weather, but meteorologists say it could be decades before they can accurately predict freak events like the flash floods of August 2007 that killed eight people in southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

In terms of overall forecasting, we do pretty well in terms of knowing when theres a threat of heavy rain, said Bill Graul, meteorologist for WKBT in La Crosse. The problem I think is always going to be, especially in our lifetime, in pinpointing where that train of storms is going to set up. Thats always going to be a problem.

Forecasters point to two technological advances at the National Weather Service dual polarization radar and new satellites that provide a much clearer picture of whats happening in the skies.

Installed in 2012, dual-pol radar uses both horizontal and vertical waves that better estimate the size and shape of particles in the air, which can help meteorologists distinguish between hail and fat raindrops, and thus know when and where heavy rains are falling. The GOES-16 satellite, launched earlier this year, delivers higher resolution images that make it easier to see systems forming.

Were able to see more meteorological features in a faster time frame than weve ever been able to see before, said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the national Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, which issues guidance to the Weather Services 122 forecast offices, such as the one in La Crosse.

Pereira said scientists are now learning how to plug that satellite data into the computer models used in forecasting.

National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Schmidt said the biggest improvement for his organization is training. Each forecast station has a scientific operations officer, or SOO.

He keeps us on our toes with training, trying to keep us on the cutting edge of how to utilize this evolving science, Schmidt said. We never stop learning. We just try to keep evolving with the science.

Still, meteorologists say while they have a good idea whats going to happen seven to 10 days out, predicting exactly when and where storms systems will form and train as they did in 2007 is a different matter.

When youre talking about a high-impact event across a narrow, localized area, were not going to be able to accurately predict that very far in advance. Were still on the time scale of probably hours when it comes to something of that magnitude and locality, Pereira said. There are so many aspects of the atmosphere that were trying to model and predict. Its such a complicated system.

The problem is compounded by the Driftless regions topography, where runoff from a 6-inch rainfall can turn dry runs into raging rivers in just minutes.

After the Mississippi River flood of 2001, La Crosse County Emergency Manager Keith Butler took pictures to show people what to expect the next time the river reaches 4.4 feet above flood stage. But theres nothing to prepare people for when creeks take out bridges or hillsides liquify.

WXOW meteorologist Dan Breeden said he expects forecasting to get better as meteorologists refine computer modeling of the new data, but progress has been slower than he expected when he started his career 35 years ago.

Were better at it incrementally, but there hasnt been anything over the last 10 years to say aha, weve got this, Breeden said.

Graul notes that advances in communication and social media have also played a role in improving public safety.

On the night of the 2007 storm, Graul said, it was hard for him to get information about what was happening on the ground. Now with ubiquitous cell phone cameras and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, hes bombarded with crowd-sourced information any time theres a storm.

The information flow these days is probably 10 times what it was, he said. That would have been a huge help 10 years ago.

And that communication goes both ways: with a new WKBT mobile weather app, Graul can draw a box around a particular valley, neighborhood or even a block and instantly alert users in that area to potential hazards.

But warnings only go so far, Breeden said, if forecasters cant convince people to heed them.

Im not sure thats improved a lot, he said. People are people when they want to get home they drive through water.

See the original post here:
Despite advances, freak storms, human behavior challenge weather ... - La Crosse Tribune

The following is an edited excerpt of "A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life" by Hunter Lovins, which is currently undergoing a Kickstarter campaign to aid the author in self-publishing the book.

Imagine:

The day dawns fine and clear. You stretch your 87-year-old bones in your bed, luxuriating in the tropical sun pouring in through the super-insulated windows in your PassivHaus co-housing unit in Indonesia. Initially designed for northern climates, the concept of super-efficient buildings has transplanted well to hot climates, with some modifications (PDF), and keeps residents comfortable year-round with only solar energy from the roofs to power it.

Small, but suited to your needs, your unit is part of a larger community committed to working together. This has allowed you to stay in your own home as you age, eating communally with your neighbors when you wish, but fixing your own meals in the trim kitchen when you want privacy.

You were alive in 2015 when a group of applied mathematicians released the Human And Nature DYnamical Study (HANDY) study that warns, "Cases of severe civilizational disruption due to precipitous collapse often lasting centuries have been quite common." Its subtitle: "Is Industrial Civilization Headed for Irreversible Collapse," crisply sets forth the thesis.

Using a NASA funded climate model, it explored the history of prior collapses to understand long-term human behavior. It did not set out to make short-term predictions, but the warning is stark: Under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world today ... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.

It described collapses due to: population decline; economic deterioration; intellectual regression and the disappearance of literacy (like in the Roman collapse); serious collapse of political authority and socioeconomic progress (repeated Chinese collapses); disappearance of up to 90 percent of the population (Mayan collapse); and some so complete that the forest swallowed any trace until archaeologists rediscovered what has clearly been a complex society (many Asian collapses).

These collapses, the study argued, were neither inevitable nor natural; they were human-caused.

These collapses, the study argued, were neither inevitable nor natural; they were human-caused. They inflicted massive misery, often for centuries following them. The study identified two underlying causes of collapse throughout human history:

These features, the study concluded, have played "a central role in the process of the collapse" in all cases over "the last five thousand years."

The study elicited reams of criticism, most posted on ideological websites. Critics objected that the studys use of mathematical models made collapse seem unavoidable. To be fair, the HANDY authors stated, in terms, that collapse is not inevitable.

But its analysis led you to change your life. And today, in 2050, it feels very distant.

Children play outside in the central spaces, safe from cars, which, as in the early car-free city of Vauban, Germany (PDF), are banned from this and many neighborhoods. A few residents still own electric cars, although they pay handsomely for the privilege, and wonder why they do, as their vehicles reside in garages where the carshare program used to live. Now almost no one drives herself: driverless cars deliver last mile services and regional transit works spectacularly well.

Today the air is clean. When you moved here, 34 years ago, 10,000 people died each year of acute air pollution across Indonesia.The killing smoke spread across Southeast Asia from forests burned to clear land for palm oil plantations. Since Unilever and other major users of the oil shifted in 2020 entirely to algae oil, the palm oil market collapsed, except for a vibrant smallholder palm industry.

Their trees are integrated into sustainable forestry initiatives that support rural communities. Tied closely to the eco-tourism industry, this has enabled Indonesia to ensure that the once endangered orangutans and tigers have plenty of forest home in which to flourish, adding to visitor appeal. Indonesia once exported almost half of the world's palm oil (PDF). Unilever (PDF) and governments like Norway funded the creation of a domestic algae oil industry that now employs twice the number of people who once worked on palm plantations.

Today the air is clean. When you moved here, 34 years ago, 10,000 people died each year of acute air pollution across Indonesia.

A world away from your snug co-housing unit in Indonesia, New York City is settling into autumn. Arjana, a young African graduate student, steps off the electric trolley that now runs down the middle of Broadway. A few blocks north of Wall Street, an urban farm runs the length of Manhattan, and what were once concrete canyons now echo with birdsong.

It is part of a program begun back in 2016 called Growing Roots, which has created urban farms across Manhattan and now dozens of other major cities. Like your neighborhood in Jakarta, Manhattan is car-free, with space once taken up by vehicles freed for housing and local food-production.

Arjana stops to chat with the previously incarcerated young woman who is just ending her day weeding the kale patch, suggesting that they should try growing cassava.

They both laugh as Arjana hurries off to her evening classes at the Bard MBA in Sustainable Management. Sent to study social entrepreneurship and sustainable development, she is only the latest of thousands of students funded by the German Marshall Plan with Africa to study at innovative programs that teach them how to regenerate their continent so that the refugees who once fled to Europe now have a flourishing life at home.

Its working. With stronger, locally based economies growing across the continent, the temptation for young men to hire themselves out to terrorists has declined. Renewable energy now powers Africa, and because it creates ten times the number of jobs per dollar invested than central fossil-fueled power plants, it has become the job creation engine for the continent.

Unilever and governments like Norway funded the creation of a domestic algae oil industry.

Now the whole world runs entirely on renewable energy, as Stanford professor Tony Seba predicted back in 2014 that it would. In the years following, hundreds of companies, from Google and Apple to Ikea and Unilever, led the conversion to 100 percent renewable power. They realized that failing to act on climate change exposed them to increased risks from physical disruption to financial loss.

Countries like Scotland, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dubai, Germany and Saudi Arabia followed suit. Cities joined the race. It simply was better business to shift from fossil fuels that were threatening the climate and implement the cheaper, job-creating renewable technologies.

Coupled with regenerative agriculture pioneered by the Africa Centre for Holistic Management at Dimbangombe, we are running climate change backwards. Regenerative development has not only enabled Africans to produce sufficient food for all its citizens, it is ending hunger in every country. The practice of holistic grazing actually takes carbon from the air and returns it to the soil, where it is needed as the building block of life. Coupled with the success of renewable energy, over the last 30 years, the world is beginning to cool, and the climate becomes more stable. Soon, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have returned to preindustrial levels.

But you sigh deeply, thinking about just how close it was. We turned from collapse only at the last moment.

The rest is here:
To avoid collapse, humanity needs a new narrative - GreenBiz