Category Archives: Human Behavior

When the Fox Becomes a Friend – New York Times

Photo Paula Cocozza Credit Christian Sinibaldi

HOW TO BE HUMAN By Paula Cocozza 278 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $26.

Paula Cocozzas hypnotic first novel, How to Be Human, features 34-year-old Mary Green and the urban fox that takes up residence in her London garden. Mary, who as a girl wrote letters to herself to stem acute loneliness, welcomes the vulpine caller. The fox is soon leaving tokens for her, the kind a knight pledges before going into battle. She begins to call him a friend. Within weeks, theyve formed a natural intimacy. In this suspenseful tale animal and human behavior begin to meld, even reverse, and whos dangerous and whos endangered is not always clear.

Mary fetishizes her fox with Jamesian granularity: She understood his show of nonchalance was the disguise for an as yet unarticulated intention. The novel is dynamic with contrasts: the fecund and the fallow. The single and the paired. The urban and the wild. His jaws slackened to liberate his tongue, and he licked his lips with her thoughts. In short order, the fox has possessed her. Time is measured by his visits, his winks, his yawns. His poise today was a stillness with caveats: Every hair bristled with his power to surprise. Mary plies his attentions to her psychic wounds, and who can begrudge her that? Who has not wanted to believe that an animal loves her? If, as I do, one likes to dwell on the handsome presence of animals, and on the rustlings of various leaves, grasses and insects, this novel satisfies and delights. But even greater pleasure is to be had from the dark side of Marys enchantments.

The opening pages present a confounding mystery: Who or what has placed a baby on Marys steps? Next door, Michelle and Eric, with their two small children, seem troubled; Mary perceives them as the classic stressed and self-absorbed young family, somewhat perplexing to all but those in the same straits. She even conjectures, persuasively, that they dont really want the baby shes a crafty one, Mary. When she ventures into their domestic midden she begins to seem like a predator, a fox in a henhouse (indeed, eggs of all kinds are a recurring motif); the narrative balance is wonderfully sly and assured throughout. The mystery surrounding the baby deepens and twists. Readers may slowly come to realize they are on thrillingly unstable ground, waiting to see how far afield Mary will go.

And go she does. Where ones uneasiness sets in will be a personal matter. Is it when Mary leaves her own scent in the garden, by way of a strategic squat? Or is it only once shes gone full-on feral? How soon might one wonder if the fox loves her back, or if hes been outfoxing her all along? And Marys ex, Mark, is a disturbing bystander, on the face of it a clingy pest. But is he as bad as all that?

Cocozza cleverly blurs our capacities to judge Marys narrowing world. I wanted to root for this spirited underdog all the way. But is that who she really is? She might be the eloquently rationalizing Humbert Humbert of the neighborhood, or maybe the spooked and high-strung governess in The Turn of the Screw, losing herself in an obsession. Or, in the end, maybe just another fragile soul trying to get by, chasing a dream of happiness: She tried to keep up, but at some perfect point where distance equaled darkness, he began to silver and fade for her, as if his fur were intercut with nights invisible stripes, and it was no longer possible to know for sure if she was seeing him or seeing the night behind him. One thing is sure: Mary bends whats at hand to her needs. What more does it take to be human?

Elizabeth McKenzies most recent novel is The Portable Veblen.

A version of this review appears in print on June 25, 2017, on Page BR13 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Fox and Friend.

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When the Fox Becomes a Friend - New York Times

The Reason for Human Reason – Catholic Culture

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky (bio - articles - email) | Jun 21, 2017

There is no contradiction between faith and reason, faith and science.Both share the same Author.Without contradiction, faith grasps truths that are beyond the reach of science.

There can be no earthly scientific proof of the Resurrection of Jesus, for example, just as there can be no scientific proof of Transubstantiation- the dogma of the Faith that mere bread and wine become the precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ at every Mass. Yet the Church infallibly teach these as dogmas of faith.Should we expect scientists- or any group of scientists- to share the same charism of infallibility?

We rightly tend to trust doctors, despite the many uncertainties in the medical profession.Most of us are living longer today because of science. Science can significantly improve the quality of life; but if abused, science can be used to destroy on a massive scale.Furthermore, scientific stud and the use of sciencewill forever remain prone to error, hitting a home run here and there, striking out on other occasions.

Yet many have more faith in science than in Gods revelation, even when experience suggests caution. In the 1960s, as many will recall, we were told that margarine was far healthier than butter.Now butter is said to be much healthier than margarine.Go figure.Newtons theories of physics were updated and somewhat replaced by Einsteins theory of relativity. Now scientists are calling into question some of the details of Einsteins theories.After all, E=mc2 can only go so far in explaining reality.

Darwins theory of evolution remains for many an enduring infallible dogma of science.Does scientific evidence truly support the theory?Genetic DNA configurations are fragile. Genetic mutations are necessary for significant changes in an organism.But the evidence accumulated by some scientists suggests mutations only result in deformation and death, not cross-species evolution.

Did evolution take place in increments?Are some races more human than others?Nazi Germany claimed to represent the master race because the Nazis placed themselves ahead of the curve in the evolutionary process. On the other hand, is there evidence of a widespread evolutionary leap from one species (monkeys, for example)en masseto the human species? If so, what is the scientific evidence?

Our faith teaches us that God created the world and His creation is good.He created the land and the sky and the animals. And my theory is that God created monkeys and many other creatures for our amusement and affection.Animals in so many ways are designed to be metaphors of human behavior and quite charming to behold: think of the comical behavior of monkeys in a zoo and the play of dolphins in the sea.These are subjective, not scientific observations, I realize.But scientific inquiry will never persuade me that the wildly funny beaks of birds have only a functional or evolutionary purpose.Thats my theory, anywayin search of empirical evidence which I recognize would be impossible to find.

As science authentically studies nature, many more mysteries unfold.The fascinating scientific reports from the Mars Exploration Rover, for instance, raise more questions than they resolve.Ultimately, science is the study of ever-expanding and never-ending mysteries. I think every honest scientist would agree.

There are those who say there is no scientific basis for the dogmas of the Catholic faith beyond the little that is supplied by archaeological digs and historical reporting.From the point of view of the empirical scientific method, this is true.But the fact that the mysteries of our faith are not accessible by science, does not mean faith is false or that it is opposed to science.The smile of a child is wonderful and mysterious, no matter how many brain waves and facial muscles are analyzed by science.The mystery of life with God as its Author will never be entirely grasped by our weak human reason.

But with Gods grace and with the eyes of faith we can delight in Gods revelation and more quickly grasp the meaning of the results of scientific inquiry.The study of science is the study of Gods handiwork.

Through faith in God's revelation, we move beyond the limitations of the physical world and with faith, we insist that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our life.On the authority of Jesus Himself, the Word is made flesh at every Mass and Christ feeds us with His sacred Body and Blood. Scientific analysis cannot prove the Divinity of the consecrated bread and wine any more than a scientific analysis can prove the existence of our immortal souls. To believe, we need a competent authority to tell us.And God cannot deceive.

But notice what these facts of faith do for us.The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1-4). "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (Saint Athanasius)"The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."(Saint Thomas Aquinas)And best of all, This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." (John 6:58)

Human reason and science are not obliterated or contradicted; human reason and science are elevated by faith and Gods grace. In believing and loving God, we are better able to love others.In union with Christ, we become more human in virtue, as intended by God.This is why we rejoice in Holy Communion and testify to our belief in the Real Presence.

Our faith in Jesus and His Real Presence gives us the reason for human reason.

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Jack Ma: A 4-Day Work Week Is Coming Soon – Fortune

Billionaire Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., speaks during the company's inaugural Gateway '17 conference in Detroit, Michigan on June 20, 2017.Jeff Kowalsky Bloomberg via Getty Images

Alibaba founder Jack Ma thinks artificial intelligence will make people's lives a lot easier in the future.

"I think in the next 30 years, people will only work four hours a day and maybe four days a week," Ma said Tuesday during a CNBC interview at the Gateway '17 Conference. "My grandfather worked 16 hours a day in the farmland and [thought he was] very busy. We work eight hours, five days a week and think we are very busy."

The Chinese billionaire also addressed the rise of artificial intelligence , advocating that machines shouldn't be made to replicate human behavior.

"I don't think we should make machines like humans," Ma said. "We should make sure the machine can do things that human beings cannot do."

He ultimately believes humans will prevail over machines, saying, "humans will win."

But he does believe technology could spark major problems, and even war. "The third technology revolution may cause the Third World War," Ma told CNBC.

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Jack Ma: A 4-Day Work Week Is Coming Soon - Fortune

Mountain lions fear humans, UC Santa Cruz study reveals – KSBW The Central Coast

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.

"Fraidy cat" isn't the way most people think of mountain lions, but when it comes to encounters with humans, perhaps they should.

New research into the behavior of these big cats indicates that they don't like encountering humans any more than we like bumping into them on hiking trails.

"We exposed pumas in the Santa Cruz mountains to the sound of human voices to see if they would react with fear and flee, and the results were striking: They were definitely afraid of humans," said Justine Smith.

WATCH: Mountain lion flees from sound of human voice

Smith was the lead author of the paper "Fear of the human 'super predator' reduces feeding time in large carnivores," published Wednesday.

The findings are valuable as human development encroaches on lion habitat and drives up the number of human-puma encounters.

The most recent cougar who wandered into a heavily populated neighborhood in Santa Cruz hid in a tree for hours until it was tranquilized and re-located into the mountains. The cougar appeared to be afraid during the April incident as more and more curious onlookers showed up.

READ MORE: Santa Cruz mountain lion found hiding in tree

Smith and her colleagues devised a novel experiment to gauge puma behavior: Her team placed audio equipment at puma kill sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains; when a puma came to feed, its movements triggered motion-activated technology that broadcast recordings of people talking, and a hidden camera captured the puma's responses.

They broadcast recordings of Pacific tree frog vocalizations as a control.

Human voice recordings were broadcast to mimic the natural volume of human conversation.

"We found that pumas almost always ran from the sound of humans--and almost never ran from the sound of frogs," said Smith, now a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. In 29 experiments involving 17 pumas, the pumas fled in 83 percent of cases as soon as it heard human voices, and only once upon hearing frogs.

READ MORE: Adorable wild mountain lion kittens found

National Park Service

In addition to establishing the fear response, the study reveals changes in puma feeding behavior that could have implications for their well-being in human-dominated landscapesand their impact on prey populations, particularly deer.

"We found that pumas took longer to return to their kills after hearing people, and subsequently reduced their feeding on kills by about half," said Smith. "Those behavioral changes are significant, as our previous work has shown that they cause pumas to increase their kill rates by 36 percent in areas with high human activity."

This is the first study to experimentally link the fear of humans to feeding behavior in large carnivores, said Chris Wilmers, associate professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz and a senior author on the study.

"Fear is the mechanism behind an ecological cascade that goes from humans to pumas to increased puma predation on deer," said Wilmers, a wildlife ecologist who studies the cascading effects large carnivores can have on their prey. "We're seeing that human disturbancebeyond huntingmay alter the ecological role of large carnivores. As we encroach on lion habitat, our presence will likely affect the link between top predators and their prey."

The experiment was part of a long-term study of puma ecology in the Santa Cruz Mountains that began in 2008.

All 17 pumas in this study have housing developments in their home range, and exposure to humans is commonplace. Kill sites were identified with data transmitted from GPS-monitoring collars worn by pumas that have been captured, collared, and released as part of the project.

In addition to Smith and Wilmers, coauthors include Justin Suraci and Ayana Crawford at UC Santa Cruz, and Michael Clinchy, Devin Roberts, and Liana Zanette at Western University in Canada.

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Mountain lions fear humans, UC Santa Cruz study reveals - KSBW The Central Coast

How Far Have You Gone to Curtail Human’s Nefarious Activities? – The Good Men Project (blog)

Humans are the most complicated being on earth. The state (good, bad or worst) of the world today is totally dependent on the activities of humans. Human behavior is dynamic and can be hardly studied for future outcome. This is because there are some factors (social, economic, political and environmental) that can influence a persons behavior at a given period.

This simply explains why humans have different motives per time; some individuals are planning on safeguarding the lives and property in a particular society, while others are planning to execute terrorist act. It also explains how some top leaders are planning to make the world a better place by helping the needy and refugees while others are building nuclear weapon program worth billions of Dollars for the destruction of mankind.

I am narrowing this perspective of human behavior to workplace environment based on personal experience. Apart from capital and machineries, good employees are the most important organizational valuable resources. But, on the contrary, immoral employees are business worst nightmares especially when it is difficult to identify and flush them out of your organization.

It came to a period in my company where profit was declining despite a steady rise in the number of customers and increased sales. One didnt need to tell me that something is wrong somewhere. The workers were productive and showing great zeal to achieving stated goals, but I knew that someone somewhere was exploiting my companys loopholes.

One major thought on my mind then was; problem identification. This is because. without identifying where the problem is, there is no way you can solve it. It was not quite long when I started to spy on iPhone text messages that I uncovered some nefarious activities of my staff.

Firstly, the companys products were overloaded in each truck. More than 10 packs were not accounted for per day. This is simply connivance between the supervisor, security personnel and the customers. Secondly, the companys vehicles were most times used for private purposes; i.e. transporting heavy duty goods to other locations. Thirdly, fifteen liters of fuel was bought per day instead of the stipulated twenty liters.

Putting round pegs on round hole was my first action. This entails sacking the most unscrupulous staff and redeploying others. Immoral employees are like virus; they have the capacity to negatively affect the good ones. Hence keeping them is like wanting your organizations growth to be stalled.

By redeployment, I selected employees that, with the best of my knowledge and good judgment, can maintain a high sense of integrity in handling organizational resources.

Theorganizations employees monitoring program was intensified. Instead of quarterly performance appraisal program, a more proactive performance management program was introduced. This was geared towards evaluating the daily workers input. Employees monitoring software and spy camera were also installed in the organization to have real time activities of workers.

By laying off the bad eggs which were cogs in the wheels of my organizations progress, there was need to hire. In doing this, I paid adequate attention on past behavior of the applicants. According to study, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, so capturing reliable data on candidates reputation isthebest way of evaluating their integrity. Unless we do so, immoral behaviors will remain the silent killer of individual careers and organizational effectiveness.

In conclusion, humans have good or evil motives. One needs to be extremely careful when dealing with your fellow individuals because you do not know who wants you down and whose gat your back covered. The more effort you put to curtail humans nefarious activities, the safer the world would be for us to dwell.

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Richard Agu is a speaker and freelance writer passionate about entrepreneurship, business start-ups, Self development, sports and health. He co-owns a blog that specializes on dishing out quality skin care tips.

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How Far Have You Gone to Curtail Human's Nefarious Activities? - The Good Men Project (blog)

High-fat diet leads to same intestinal inflammation as a virus – UCLA Newsroom

FINDINGS

A new study by scientists at UCLA found that when mice eat a high-fat diet, the cells in their small intestines respond the same way they do to a viral infection, turning up production of certain immune molecules and causing inflammation throughout the body. The scientists also found that feeding the mice tomatoes containing a protein similar to that in HDL, or good cholesterol, along with the generic cholesterol drug Ezetimibe, reversed the inflammation.

The results could lead to new types of drugs, targeting the intestinal cells, to reduce peoples risk of heart attacks and strokes, or to treat other conditions linked to inflammation, including cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.

Researchers already knew that prolonged obesity can cause inflammation of the liver and fat tissues, and that this inflammation contributes to the development of diabetes and heart disease. Studies have also shown that higher levels of high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, cholesterol, reduces a persons risk of heart disease.

The UCLA research team, led by Alan Fogelman, chair of the department of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA,previously developed genetically engineered tomatoes that contained 6F, a protein resembling the main protein in high-density lipoprotein. In early experiments on 6F, they found that the compound was active in the small intestines of mice, and that it reduced inflammation. But exactly how it did this was unclear.

The scientists fed either a standard chow or a high-fat, high-cholesterol Western diet to mice that were especially prone to developing clogged arteries. They also treated some of the mice with either 6F, in the form of a tomato concentrate containing the protein, Ezetimibe, or both. After two weeks, cells from the small intestines of the mice were collected and blood samples were taken. The researchers measured cholesterol levels as well as the levels of inflammatory and immune molecules in both the intestines and throughout the body.

The findings shed light on the molecular details of how high-fat diets cause inflammation in the body, by making the intestines activate the pathway normally triggered by a virus. This suggests that blocking this immune reaction as 6F and Ezetimibe do may treat inflammatory diseases and decrease peoples risk of heart attack and stroke.

The authors of the study are all faculty and researchers at UCLA, affiliated with the Department of Medicine; Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology; Department of Human Genetics; Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior; and Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology. The first author is Pallavi Mukherjee; Fogelman is the senior author.

The studywas published June 7, 2017, in the Journal of Lipid Research.

The study was funded by the United States Public Health Service (2P01 HL-30568) and the Castera, Laubisch, and Milt Grey funds at UCLA.

Alan Fogelman, Mohamad Navab and Srinivasa Reddy are principals in Bruin Pharma, which is working to commercialize apoA-I mimetics, including the 6F peptide studied in this paper; Fogelman is additionally an officer of the company.

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High-fat diet leads to same intestinal inflammation as a virus - UCLA Newsroom

Mountain Lions Are Terrified of Humansand That’s a Problem – Gizmodo

This puma (not involved in the study) fed on a single deer for five days. New research suggests these feedings can be interrupted by the pumas fear of humans, requiring them to hunt more often. (Image: Jon Nelson/Flickr)

We typically think of large predatory animals like mountain lions as fearless beasts thatll stop at nothing to procure a mealeven if that meal consists of human flesh. New research suggests that this view is wrong, and that big cats dont like to bump into us any more than we like to bump into them. Problem is, this fear of humans is altering the feeding behavior of big carnivores, and that may not be a good thing.

A study published led by by scientists from UC Santa Cruz and Western University in London, Ontario and published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that mountain lions in the Santa Cruz mountains, sometimes known as pumas or cougars, are spooked by the sound of human voices. These fearful encounters are causing the carnivores to flee their kill sites. Afterwards, some pumasalbeit very slowly and cautiouslywill return to their fallen prey, resulting in a 50 percent reduction in their feeding time on average. To make up for these lost meals, the pumas have to kill more deer, which often requires them to encroach upon human settings. In other words, fear of humans is altering puma behavior, and subsequently, their role in the ecosystem.

Big carnivores are scary, both to humans and the animals they prey upon. But as a new study

Were increasingly learning that large carnivores like pumas and wolves are critical to the health and stability of ecosystems. Last year, similar work by the same team of researchers confirmed a long-held notion that carnivores perform an important role in ecosystems by inducing fear in their prey. The presence of large predatory animals, the study showed, generates a landscape of fear that alters the feeding behavior of prey animals, which subsequently influences their impacts on other species down the food chain.

What this new study shows is that large carnivores like pumas can experience an almost identical situation, living within a landscape of fear generated by human activity that in turn affects the large carnivores relationship with its preyin this case, deer, said study co-author Justin Suraci in an interview with Gizmodo.

To assess a potential fear response in large carnivores, the researchers placed audio equipment at puma kill sites in the Santa Cruz mountains. Whenever a puma came to feed, its movements triggered a device that broadcast recordings of people having conversations at natural volumes. The researchers used recordings of Pacific tree frog vocalizations as a control.

A hidden camera captured images of the animals responses, revealing that pumas almost always run away from human voices, but practically never from the sounds of frogs. Across 20 experiments involving 17 pumas, 83 percent of pumas fled when exposed to human voices, and only one puma ran away when hearing frogs (wow, that must be one nervous puma).

Revealingly, pumas took longer to return to their kills after hearing human voices, reducing their feeding on these kills by half. Previous work from these scientists revealed higher kill rates of deer in more urbanized settings, and this finding is finally offering a plausible explanation as to why. Unable to eat the entire carcass in peace, the pumas are forced to kill more deer, which ironically often leads them into contact with more humans. More dead deer may seem trivial, perhaps even potentially beneficial, but the change in hunting habits could be altering the ecosystem in unexpected ways. There are often downstream effects to considerbut future work will have to suss this out.

To our knowledge this is the first direct experimental test of whether large carnivores respond fearfully to human presence, and whether this response has measurable ecological consequences, write the researchers in their study.

That mountain lions fear humans may come as a surprise to some, but theres good reason for this behavior.

For many large carnivore populations (including the pumas in our study area), humans are a primary source of mortality, and this is nothing new, said Suraci. People have been persecuting big, scary predators for thousands of years because of perceived threats to human life and livelihoods (e.g., shared prey such as big game or livestock), and pumas have been almost completely wiped out across much of North America over the past couple of centuries. Indeed several states offered bounties to kill pumas well into the 1960s. So there is plenty of cause for pumas to fear humans.

As to how pumas learn this behavior, Suraci says thats a much trickier question. All of the pumas in their study had some form of human habitation or development within their home range, and were likely to have experienced interactionssome of them potentially negativewith people. Suraci says it may also be the case that puma kittens, who spend up to a year with their mom, learn appropriate human avoidance behavior from her.

But in short, we really dont know exactly how they develop their fear of humans, he said. That they do behave fearfully towards humans, however, may be beneficial for both pumas and people, as pumas may actively try to avoid interactions with humans, reducing the likelihood of human-wildlife conflict.

It may seem counterintuitive and even dangerous to maintain populations of large carnivorous animals, but Suraci says theyre important for maintaining balanced ecosystems, preventing outbreaks of smaller predators (e.g. raccoons and coyotes) and large herbivores (e.g., deer) that act as pests to humans and can devastate biodiversity when unchecked.

What our study shows is that just having the large carnivores present may not be sufficient to allow them to fulfill this important role, if the fear of humans is changing the way they interact with their prey, he said. We need to consider how our own activities affect not just species abundance but also behavior if we want to maintain healthy ecosystems.

[Proceedings of the Royal Society B]

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Mountain Lions Are Terrified of Humansand That's a Problem - Gizmodo

Apes Have Social Traditions Just Like Humans, Chimp Behavior Shows – International Business Times

Chimpanzees want to fit in with the popular kids, just like humans do researchers say chimps will change their behavior to match what others are doing.

A study in the journal Current Biology points to a specific type of behavior in these apes called the grooming handclasp. Its exactly what it sounds like: Two animals engaged in the social interaction of grooming will clasp one anothers hands. But the exact form this rare chimp handshake varies among groups, with some gripping each others palms and the others gripping wrists depending on what group they were in. Scientists studying the behavior in Zambia saidits a group-level cultural tradition in chimpanzees rather than one passed down from mothers to their young.

Read: What Monkey Brains and Social Behavior Tell Us About Human Minds

Grooming itself is a social behavior that does more than clean the chimps: It is also a bonding experience, a way to relax and an action that defers to the hierarchy of the chimp community. And only some groups of these apes perform the handclasp. The University of St. Andrews explained that because it varies among groups as opposed to chimpanzee families, this indicates that, like humans, chimpanzees have the capacity and motivation to learn from each other and fine tune their learned behavior such that it matches with the group norm.

A behavior passed down through a family line does not explain why chimps within one group will clasp hands in one way and chimps in another will clasp in another.

Some chimpanzees clasp hands while grooming, a behavior they acquire in groups rather than learn from their families. The behaviors origin shows chimps can form and adhere to cultures just like humans. Photo: University of St. Andrews

It is hard to imagine how any genetic or environmental influences could have shaped the group-specific preferences that we observed, lead author Edwin van Leeuwen said in the statement. Within the group chimpanzees converged on one particular variant of clasping. This indicates a certain willingness to match each others styles.

The study offers a glimpse into the minds of chimps, specifically whether they can form a culture and cultural traditions, which is a controversial topic. The university said becausechimpanzees can form a social tradition like a grooming handclasp behavior outside of their family unit,they are more closely mimicking human culture than previously thought.

Read: Jungle Falls Silent After Howler Monkey Disease Epidemic

Although chimpanzees are different from humans in many ways, they are similar in others. For one, the genetic differences between the species are miniscule: Humans and chimps share almost 99 percent of their DNA. Chimpanzees can use tools to get a job done, and its possible that they can live as long as humans in the wild recent research has shown if disease, food shortages, predators or other hazards dont get in the way, a chimpanzee can live almost 33 years. Thats right within the range of life expectancy for those who have similar lifestyles to apes, the human hunter-gatherers still left in the world. Those people live27 to 37 years.

Understanding the relationship between humans and chimpanzees isnt just a point of interest. It can also help scientists understand how humans evolved and, in the case of life expectancy, how different conditions changed mortality rates.

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Apes Have Social Traditions Just Like Humans, Chimp Behavior Shows - International Business Times

Would Rachel Brand Stand Up to Trump? – Newsweek

This article first appeared on the Just Security site.

Last week, amid speculation that Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may be forced to recuse himself from the expanding Russia investigation unless he gets fired first attention focused on the next in line: Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand.

Brand, it should be noted, has had a more obviously partisan career than Rosenstein, and the burning question seems to be whether she has the gumption or the will to stand up to the President if he tries to derail the investigation, for example by trying to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. (This is not to say Trump has the authority to fire Mueller Marty Lederman argues that he doesnt.)

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Does Brand have what it takes? Jack Goldsmith and Ben Wittes, both of whom know her well, affirm that she does and describe her as intelligent, fair, independent, and tough-minded.

My own answer to the question Who is Rachel Brand? is: it doesnt much matter. Its simply a mistake to focus on individual personality to predict how someone will act. Social psychologists have a long-standing name for this mistake: they call it the fundamental attribution error. Thats the error of explaining human behavior by individual character and personality traits.

The situation in which we find ourselves matters crucially, often invisibly, and to a far greater degree than common sense would suggest. This is a lesson we might apply not only to Brand, but also to Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and other souls in this administration.

Rachel Brand, Associate Attorney General, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington March 7, 2017. Aaron P. Bernstein/reuters

A bit of background:

In a classic 1972 experiment, a person coming out of a phone booth sees a woman spill her folder full of papers on the shopping mall floor a few feet away. (She is part of the experimental team, and she spills them on purpose.)

Will subjects help her pick up the papers?

Among one group of subjects, the answer was overwhelmingly yes: fourteen people helped and only two did not. In a second group, it was overwhelmingly no. Only one subject helped; the other 24 walked away.

What explains the difference? Something amazingly small: Those in the first group had found a dime in the telephones coin return, which apparently put them in a benevolent mood.

Those in the second group found no dime, and they stepped around the spilled papers and went their not-so-merry way. A trivial and nearly invisible manipulation of the situation led to a dramatic change in outcomes.

According to the situationist school of psychology, this experiment (along with many others, including the famous Milgram obedience experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment) shows that we deceive ourselves when we think character is the crucial determinant of how we behave.

In the Stanford experiment, one subject who described himself as a non-violent person and pacifist transformed into a brutal prison guard in a matter of days. Which was he, a self-deceiving brute in pacifists clothes, or a sensitive soul who forgot himself?

Neither one, according to the situationists. Look to the situation, not to the person. He was a prison guard, and as he explained in his diary (reproduced in a write up of the psychology experiment), This new prisoner, 416, refuses to eat. That is a violation of Rule Two and we are not going to have any of that kind of shit. I decide to force feed him. I let the food slide down his face. I dont believe it is me doing it.

For the situationists, there is nothing unbelievable about it, because the me who does it is not a constant.

This seems wildly counterintuitive, because we always think about peoples character, their virtues and vices. Isnt there a difference between a brave person and a coward?

Not necessarily, according to philosopher John Doris. In a pioneering 2002 book, Doris writes:

Its not crazy to think that someone could be courageous in physical but not moral extremity, or be moderate with food but not sex, or be honest with spouses but not with taxes. With a bit of effort, we can imagine someone showing physical courage on the battlefield, but cowering in the face of storms, heights, or wild animals. Things can get still trickier: Someone might exhibit battlefield courage in the face of rifle fire but not in the face of artillery fire. (Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, p. 62.)

Doriss point: there is no such thing as courage across the board. Courage, like every other character trait, can be entirely situation-specific. If that seems contrary to everyday experience, its because most of us, most of the time, live in the same situation from one day to the next: we see the same family and friends today that we saw yesterday and will see tomorrow; we live in the same locale for months or years at a time, and if were employed we work at the same job.

Of course, not even the most radical situationists think individual personality is irrelevant to the choices we make. Talk about the fundamental attribution error does not deny free will or individual differences, or assert that only situations matter, one hundred percent.

Rather, the error lies in vastly overestimating character and ignoring the hidden power of the situation which we do all the time, not least when we play the blame game in criminal sentencing. (I heartily recommend the powerful podcast The Personality Myth, especially its second episode.)

My wife sometimes teaches college philosophy in a prison, where many of her students committed crimes of violence. In the classroom setting, she finds them no different from other college students, and she feels no less safe in their company.

For years, psychologists debated which variable matters more, person or situation; some tried to quantify it. Like many academic debates, this one was technically intricate and personally acrimonious in the words of psychologist John Kihlstrom, it ended up looking more like a fight in an elementary schoolyard.

Over the years, psychologists began to look beyond the sharp either/or, and instead study the way that person and situation influence each other. (In the jargon, this is person/situation interactionism.)

To take a simple example: people behave differently toward a baby depending on whether theyre told the baby is a girl or a boy. The person (the baby) transforms the situation he or she is in (in this case, the way people treat the baby). And vice-versa: how people treat girls and boys as they grow up affects the person they become.

On this line of thought, whenever you enter a room full of people, you become part of the situation of the other people in the room. You change how the others behave; they become part of your situation, and influence how you behave. Thats interactionism. The theory has been around for decades, since the pioneering work of psychologist Kurt Lewin and sociologist Erving Goffman.

Enough of the theory. What it means for the Russia investigation is straightforward: its a mistake to ask who Rachel Brand is, because there is no is. To think otherwise is the fundamental attribution error.

When she decided to join the Trump administration and the Jeff Sessions Justice Department, Brand radically changed her situation. Specifically, she overcame whatever qualms she may have felt about Trump, qualms shared by many conservatives. (After the election, I posted on why those qualms are justified.)

Eyes wide open, she joined an administration that puts a premium on personal loyalty to a narcissistic president who takes everything personally. She placed herself in an environment where the abnormal is the new normal.

Its hard to believe she did it with the intention of slowing down the presidents hectic velocity her background is, as Eric Levitz writes, a bit more partisan and decidedly more right-wing than Rosensteins. Precisely if she is a person who takes her commitments seriously, signing on to the Trump team is a loyalty commitment that, day in and day out, will challenge her commitment to the rule of law. Neither past behavior nor perceived character can predict how she will manage that challenge. If the psychologists are right, she cannot predict it herself.

In my earlier essay on serving in the Trump administration, I warned that

Once you are inside, your frame of reference changes. You see that many of the people youre working with are decent and likable. You tell yourself that decent people like these wouldnt do anything indecent. And above all, you reassure yourself of your own decency because you can contrast yourself with the real radicals, the true believers. Theyre right down the hall.

It doesnt matter if you are what moralists of my generation like to call a person of integrity a person whose principles harmonize with her conduct. Years ago, in the wake of the Enron-era corporate scandals, the law school and business school worlds endured a predictable outbreak of academic conferences on integrity.

Churlishly, I pointed out that you can harmonize your principles and your conduct by changing your principles just as easily as by changing your conduct. That too is one of the basic teachings of social psychology: we often reduce cognitive dissonance between our principles and our conduct the easy way, by unconsciously modifying our principles so they rationalize our conduct.

Of course it is comforting to know that a public official is an admirable person and not an opportunist or a scoundrel. But blind faith that persons of character will rescue us is faith in an illusion. Look to the situation, not to the person.

David Luban is Professor in Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University.

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Would Rachel Brand Stand Up to Trump? - Newsweek

Cannes: Leo Burnett Gets Creative With Data – AdExchanger

Leo Burnett, one of the most iconic advertising agencies in the game, is evolving the way it thinks about creative.

I've been focused on infusing technology, data and analytics to make creative more relevant, personalized and effective, said Andrew Swinand, CEO at Leo Burnett.

For Swinand, who spent time on the media side as president at Starcom Mediavest Group, data can develop the creative brief to reflect individual consumer intent and open the pathways for personalized creative.

When the creative brief is for one 30-second spot, thats what you get, he said. When its [based on]six segments andthe nuances that create relevance, its a different starting point.

But at Leo Burnett, the extent to which data is incorporated into creativity depends on changing clients mindsets and training employees to execute on this new mandate.

AdExchanger caught up with Swinand in Cannes.

AdExchanger: Whats the biggest challenge as the CEO of a creative agency today?

To be successful today, we need to have a base understanding of technology and data, but we still need to deliver our core promise of using creativity to change human behavior.

All of the data and technology in the world is worthless unlesssomeone feels, sees and engages in creative that changes their behavior. A lot of people are overly enamored with data and technology.

How is the creative brief changing?

Its both integrated and collaborative with media. [Were] starting with the sources of behavior and intelligence that allow us to connect with consumers.

Weve added a metric of prosperity to all of our briefs. How does content add value to [consumers] lives, grow [our clients] business and increase sales? That has to be a collaboration between creative and media agencies.

How do you measuresomething subjectivelike creative?

I challenge that its subjective. The idea that creative is unmeasurable is a false construct.

How so?

Theres a thousand ways now to measure consumer response. I can measure how many people engage in creative. I can bring in Nielsen data and dynamic logic.

Publicis won the media business in the UK for P&G. They built a technology that incorporates Neustar data and Artis Optimizer (a Starcom product) to [measure] creative response rate [with] Nielsen data from stores.

The technology exists. We just need to change client and agency behavior to keep up with it.

Are your clients holding you back from realizing data-driven creative?

Its a bell-shaped curve. Were doing alot of work with Allstate, who is really smart on this. Other clients are further behind. The closer you are to ecommerce, the higher the propensity and experience with digital.

How do you train your employees onprogrammaticand data?

We hold digital and programmatic days. Were one of Googles priority agencies; we have Google employees in the building. Weve done similar things with Facebook and Adobe. The onus is on us to train them.

Who should own programmatic creative: creative or media agencies?

Its a partnership. So much of the technology has been on the media side. But if you serve the same ads to six segments, its worthless. Youreusing a more expensive way to buy run-of-site.

Vendors have the ability to say, These people are drastically different from these people. Then media agencies buy [segments of] women from New York City versus women from Chicago, which are different, and we serve the same ad to them. Whats the point?

Is personalized creative at the individual level possible yet?

The capability exists. Its just not the factory thats been built. How do we change behavior and approaches? It starts with the creative brief.

Do increasingly shorter ad formats constrain creativity?

The starting point isnt How do I make a good ad? Its Whats the right tool for the job?

If you have a simple idea that communicates the client's benefit, why do I need the extra 24 seconds? Embrace the six seconds and do it efficiently. If I have a complex business problem, maybe six seconds isnt the right format.

Has sound-off, feed-based video killed creativity?

It makes you approach the problem from a different perspective. The creative challenge becomes How do I have something thats so compelling that people turn the sound on?

Its like out of home (OOH). Its just a different format for an old problem.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Cannes: Leo Burnett Gets Creative With Data - AdExchanger