Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Stunted Growth in Infants Reshapes Brain Function and Cognitive … – Neuroscience News

Summary: Research reveals that infants with stunted growth show cognitive ability disruptions as early as six months.

The study demonstrates that visual working memory in these infants is compromised, leading to higher distractibility and poor cognitive outcomes by age one. This is the first time stunted growth has been linked to functional brain differences in infancy.

The findings underscore the importance of early intervention to counter cognitive disadvantages later on.

Key Facts:

Source: University of East Anglia

Children who are too short for their age can suffer reduced cognitive ability arising from differences in brain function as early as six months of age, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers compared the visual working memory the memory capacity that holds visual cues for processing in children who had stunted growth with those having typical growth.

Published today in the journalNature Human Behaviour, the study found that the visual working memory of infants with poor physical growth was disrupted, making them more easily distracted and setting the stage for poorer cognitive ability one year later.

Stunted growth had previously been linked with poor cognitive outcomes later in life, but this is the first time that this association has been found in infancy. It is also the first time stunted growth has been linked to functional differences in how the brain works in early development.

Led by Prof John Spencer of UEAs School of Psychology, the team of researchers studied more than 200 children in the first ever brain imaging study of its kind.

We expected that poor growth might impact cognition in early development, but it was striking to see this at the level of brain function, said Prof Spencer.

Typically-developing infants in our study showed engagement of a working memory brain network and this brain activity predicted cognitive outcomes one year later. But the stunted infants showed a very different pattern suggesting that they were quite distractable.

This distractability was associated with a brain network typically involved in the allocation of attention to objects or tasks, suppressing distraction, and maintaining items in working memory said Dr Sobana Wijeakumar, first author of the study. Dr. Wijeakumar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham.

The brain activity and cognitive abilities of the infants were assessed at six to nine months, and cognitive ability was followed up one year later. The results showed that infants with so-called stunted growth, often caused by poor nutrition or ill-health, had significantly poorer cognitive abilities at both stages than their typically-developing counterparts.

Interestingly, the children who bucked the trend and did well in their second year of cognitive testing despite having restricted growth were those whose visual memory had been unexpectedly strong at the six to nine months stage.

The discovery suggests that efforts to improve working memory and tackle distractibility in children during their crucial early months may reduce or prevent cognitive disadvantages later in life. This research also highlights the importance of studying brain function in early development.

The research was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University of Nottingham, the Community Empowerment Lab, Durham University, University of Iowa, Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks is published byNature Human Behaviour.

This publication is based on research funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Funding: Further funding came from the US National Institutes of Health and the Leverhulme Trust.

Author: Lisa Horton Source: University of East Anglia Contact: Lisa Horton University of East Anglia Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

Original Research: Closed access. Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks by John Spencer et al. Nature Human Behavior

Abstract

Stunting in infancy is associated with atypical activation of working memory and attention networks

Stunting is associated with poor long-term cognitive, academic and economic outcomes, yet the mechanisms through which stunting impacts cognition in early development remain unknown.

In a first-ever neuroimaging study conducted on infants from rural India, we demonstrate that stunting impacts a critical, early-developing cognitive systemvisual working memory. Stunted infants showed poor visual working memory performance and were easily distractible.

Poor performance was associated with reduced engagement of the left anterior intraparietal sulcus, a region involved in visual working memory maintenance and greater suppression in the right temporoparietal junction, a region involved in attentional shifting.

When assessed one year later, stunted infants had lower problem-solving scores, while infants of normal height with greater left anterior intraparietal sulcus activation showed higher problem-solving scores.

Finally, short-for-age infants with poor physical growth indices but good visual working memory performance showed more positive outcomes suggesting that intervention efforts should focus on improving working memory and reducing distractibility in infancy.

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Stunted Growth in Infants Reshapes Brain Function and Cognitive ... - Neuroscience News

Human Behavior

Social medias role in modeling human behavior, societies – kuwaittimes

By Ghadeer Ghloum

KUWAIT: The extent of the power of social media on societies and individuals, especially after the revolution of smartphones and wide spread of multiple social media platforms, is no secret today. Now, almost every individual can open their own page or channel and broadcast through it whatever they perceive, which holds the possibility of being true or misleading, besides the difficulty of censoring and controlling violent scenes on different social media platforms, which may contribute to subconsciously normalizing inhumanity among individuals.

To dig deeper into this issue, Kuwait Times interviewed Associate Professor of Communication and Culture Studies at Kuwait University Dr Haneen Al-Ghabra, Professor of Mass Communication at Kuwait University Dr Khaled Al-Qahs and Psychologist and Therapist Jumanah Mohammad. Ghabra said the media is an integral factor that affects society just like other parts of society, such as the laws that make up the country, economy, education sector, etc. The influence of any structural institution such as the media will affect individuals values, ethics and behaviors, which means it can affect our thoughts around racism, classism, nationalism and even issues of violence.

For instance, stereotypes about Muslims being terrorists were spread in US media, which led to the Muslim travel ban law in 2017 in the US. This does not stop there, as it seeps into other sectors such as schools. Hence, we cannot deny the medias impact on humans attitudes and behavior.

On his part, Qahs said studies indicate that social media has diverse and multiple effects on the audience receiving the messages and content delivered to them. The process does not end with just sending the message (media content) from the sender to the final receiver. There are various effects on the ideas, values and behaviors of the audience, such as changing attitudes or perspectives, cognitive changes, socialization, collective excitement, emotional arousal, social control, reality construction and reinforcement of the status quo. However, media is not the sole cause of influencing humans. It operates through a network of elements and influences to create impact, such as the time we spend using social media, the nature of what we watch and our life experiences.

Moreover, Ghabra spoke about the relationship between exposure to inhuman actions through media and humans behavior, as she said that the problem with the ethics and responsibility of reporting does not only fall upon the media it is much deeper than that. It is the ideologies that circulate; for example, if we look at the promotion of violence against women, it is not necessarily that the media and popular culture are promoting it. It is the ideology of patriarchy that taught individuals, both women and men, that men are superior to women, and this can also seep into our education, our upbringing (family), certain interpretations of religion and so forth.

Hence, people that write and produce the news, films, music, TV shows and so forth have already internalized this sort of thinking unknowingly, and this is reflected in different forms of media and popular culture. Qahs added that many researchers in the field of media and its relationship with society have been concerned with the phenomenon of increasing violence in media content. Some studies suggest that the spread of violence in societies is due to the audiences exposure to content that contain verbal and physical violence. These studies have yielded several findings about violence, such as the fact that the audience (especially children and teenagers) learn violence through observation and watching, especially in TV series and movies.

Qahs also clarified that people do not automatically apply the aggressive behavior they observe but internalize it to moments of anger and stress. The repetition of viewing leads to desensitization towards violence and aggressive behavior, resulting in a lack of concern and tolerance towards violent behavior in the media, making people more inclined to tolerate violence in all its forms. Therefore, it is necessary to educate society about the dangers of the spread of violence, and the need to monitor media content, particularly the depiction of intense violence in news bulletins, TV series and movies.

Ultimately, Mohammad explained how individuals can protect themselves from adopting and normalizing wrongful behavior, as she said individuals should avoid excessive consumption of content that goes against human values and ethics, in order to prevent the burying of condemnation and the development of acceptance towards such content or actions. On the other hand, they should strengthen their thinking and good behavior through reading or engaging in dialogues with experts in the field, in order to close any intellectual gaps that social media influences may exploit, as the consequences can be significant.

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Social medias role in modeling human behavior, societies - kuwaittimes

Human Behavior

The gift of reformation – Living Lutheran

Toward the end of his life, church reformer and educator Martin Luther (1483-1546) looked back on an important moment in his faith development. As a young university professor, he was studying Pauls Letter to the Romans when he came to a new understanding. Previously he believed the righteousness of God was a standard by which God measures human behavior. As he wrestled with Romans, Luther began to see the righteousness of God as a gift that God gives us.

This insight transformed the way Luther read the Scriptures. He described the wisdom of God as how God makes us wise, the strength of God as how God makes us strong and so on.

Several years after this breakthrough, Luther wrote an introduction to a collection of sermons (A Brief Instruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels) to help preachers communicate the life-giving encounter with Gods gracious action that he had experienced. Luther was critical of those who looked to Jesus primarily as an example to be followed. This, he thought, turned Jesus into a new Moses. Instead, Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize [Jesus] as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own. We should read the Scriptures, he wrote, as a book of divine promises in which God promises, offers, and gives us all [Gods] possessions and benefits in Christ.

This is a powerful message. This is good news.

Luther didnt intend to start a new church. He wanted to reform the Christian church to place this Gospel good news at its center. In addition to good preaching, education was key to this work of reformation.

Luther wrote catechisms to encourage the teaching and learning of the faith. We might think of the Small Catechism, which many lifelong Lutherans remember from confirmation class, and the Large Catechism, written for pastors and teachers, as the 16th-century equivalent of a student workbook and an instructors manual.

The constant refrain in the Small Catechism is the question What does this mean? Its important for us to recognize that this was a real question for Luther. More than a formula for memorization, he intended the questions and answers in the Small Catechism as a way for Christians to understand the gifts of Gods grace that are at the heart of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles Creed, the Lords Prayer, and the sacraments of baptism and communion.

Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize Jesus as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own.

These gifts were personal for Luther. The gifts of Gods grace are intended to be received! By us! Writing about communion, he said the most important words are given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Explaining the meaning of the Apostles Creed, he doesnt describe the work of the Triune God as abstract but emphasizes that the Creator of all has created us, the Savior has redeemed us and the Spirit makes us holy.

These gifts are personal but not private, as we see when Luther wrote that the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and makes me holy together with the whole Christian church on earth.

In order for Christians to read the Scriptures for themselves, Luther and the other reformers insisted on the importance of a basic education for allboys and girls, regardless of the social or economic status of their families.

The University of Wittenberg, where Luther and his colleague Phillip Melanchthon taught, quickly became the largest school in Germany. Even William Shakespeare knew of its reputation since his character Hamlet returns to Denmark from his studies at Wittenberg.

Students came to Wittenberg from throughout Europe and returned to their home countries to promote education and to share the Reformation insight of grace as Gods gift to us in Jesus Christ. The Reformation was definitely a team effort!

The Castle Church in Wittenberg is a monument to this effort. Statues of Luther, Melanchthon and other German reformers are placed around the nave. In 1983, for the 500th anniversary of Luthers birth, a dozen stained-glass windows were installed in the church featuring the work of students who had spread the Reformation to their countriesJan aski of Poland, Leonhard Stckel and Matthias Dvai Biro of Hungary, and Johannes Honter of Transylvania (now Romania), among others.

Luther insisted that we should accept and recognize Jesus as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own.

Lutherans of German or Scandinavian descent, like many in the ELCA, may not be familiar with the spread of Lutheranism into Eastern Europeyet spread it did, already in Luthers lifetime. A Lutheran witness continued in Eastern Europe even under four decades of Communist repression following World War II.

This September, hundreds of Lutherans from around the globe are gathering in Krakow, Poland, for the 13th Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Founded in 1947, the LWF is a communion of 149 member churches in 99 countries, representing over 77 million Christians in the Lutheran tradition. How the Reformation has spread! Of the 10 largest church bodies in the LWF, three are in Africa (Ethiopia, Tanzania and Madagascar) and two are in Asia (India and Indonesia). The ELCA, with nearly 3.3 million members, is part of a much larger global family!

As we in the ELCA challenge ourselves to engage new, younger and diverse members, lets remember that this is not new behavior for Lutherans. From the beginning, Lutherans have reached out beyond themselves, bearing witness to the life-giving good news of Gods gift in Jesus Christ. May our Reformation heritage be the gift that keeps on giving!

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Human Behavior

After pandemic, birds are surprisingly becoming less fearful of humans – Study Finds

LOS ANGELES When the COVID-19 pandemic forced UCLA to switch to remote instruction, the campus became quieter and less populated. Still, it wasnt deserted by all inhabitants. A group of approximately 300 dark-eyed juncos, birds that have made the university grounds their home for about two decades, continued to thrive. Now, a recent study finds birds may be changing their opinion of humans thanks to all that time apart.

Seeing a unique research opportunity, UCLA scientists, who had previously been studying these birds fear and aggression levels in urban settings, embarked on an experiment. They sought to understand: with reduced human interaction for a year, would the juncos become more apprehensive when the campus buzzed back to life?

Their findings went against their initial assumptions. Once campus life returned to normal, the birds acted drastically less fearful of humans, according to the study.

To gauge this fear response, the team measured the distance a person could approach the bird before it flew off. Pre-pandemic data from 2018 and 2019 showed that juncos would typically fly off when someone approached within about 65 inches. By 2022, when campus activity largely resumed, this distance dropped to just 39 inches.

What makes this observation intriguing is that the birds, whether born during the pandemic or before it, showed no significant difference in behavior. This was determined using identification bands on the juncos legs.

The dark-eyed juncos are especially interesting subjects because they primarily feed and nest on the ground, which results in frequent human encounters. Earlier research indicated that the campus birds were already more at ease with humans than their counterparts in less urbanized areas.

Study author Eleanor Diamant, former UCLA doctoral student and current postdoctoral scholar at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, highlighted that the current findings dont align with the predominant biological theories about how wild birds adapt to urban environments. Neither the habituation theory which posits birds become less fearful through frequent human interaction nor the idea that urban birds are inherently less scared, seem to fit the juncos observed behavior during the campus closure and reopening.

If less fearful birds had chosen to live on campus in the first place, we would have expected their fear response to be essentially unchanged. If they were habituated, we would have thought theyd become more fearful during the closure and then less fearful after, or not shift their behavior at all, Diamant says in a university release. But these birds didnt shift fear response with humans absent and they shifted toward much less fearful after humans came back.

Pamela Yeh, a UCLA professor, and the studys senior author, proposed two explanations. Either the birds fear continues to decrease with each new event or, after diminishing, it resets to a standard level.

The effects of humans on wild animals are really complex and what we expect isnt always what we get, notes Yeh. So our research shows both the complexity of the juncos response to humans and of their response to other changes.

A striking element of the study is the reflection on the broader challenges faced by North American birds. It is estimated that the continent has nearly three billion fewer adult birds than in 1970, with the dark-eyed junco population dropping by about 175 million. This decline has largely been attributed to human disruptions in their natural habitats.

The research not only underscores the multifaceted reactions animals exhibit toward human behavior but also emphasizes the potential of such unforeseen global events to illuminate these complexities.

For me, the takeaway is that theres so much complex animal behavior that we dont know about, even though they are our neighbors in cities, concludes Diamant. There are these surprising reactions animals have to collective human behavior. We might not know what they are because we cant test for them, but only these kinds of massive and unexpected events like the pandemic bring them into focus.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.

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After pandemic, birds are surprisingly becoming less fearful of humans - Study Finds

Human Behavior

Nick Treglia: The trouble with fairness and the search for truth – 1819 News

Overnight, it seems Americas grasp on reality just disappeared. We read headlines daily, wondering what on earth is happening, as things that would normally be met with scorn, or at least concern, are celebrated and promoted at the highest levels of our culture and government.

There is no better illustration of this than the dumpster fire that is childrens education, where common sense was traded for insanity, ranging from pornographic childrens books in libraries to teachers secretly transitioning students. Perhaps the worst of this mess is the childrens drag queen story hour, which sounds like a sting operation.

This degenerate behavior is tolerated and even celebrated with no thought given as to why a grown man has the urge to read to children in a wig and fake breasts. Let me tell you, we didnt have any of this grooming crap until NBC canceled To Catch a Predator.

Why are we not allowed to ask why someone wants to behave this way? Why must we pretend this is normal human behavior? Call me old-fashioned, but the list of things needed for school story hour consists of:

A non-pornographic book

An hour

It is absolutely insane that we allow these nuts into our schools. These are the kinds of people who, 30 years ago, lurked outside school in the free candy van. Now were letting the fox in the henhouse.

Those who oppose this kind of behavior are attacked as bigots, extremists, or white supremacists. Such baseless arguments appeal solely to emotion, and it is embarrassing that we allow these claims to prevail and this insanity to continue.

But the insanity is by design. As George Orwells famous 1984 line reads: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. By demanding that you consciously ignore your revulsion and doubts, those with an agenda change the meaning of words through conditioning. If you are told that modern art is beautiful enough times, you will begin to believe it.

I believe such things as truth, beauty, and appropriate childrens literature exist, and I also believe man instinctively recognizes those things. But when your truth doesnt line up with The Truth, and you can just change what The Truth is by transforming the language through an appeal to fairness a potent tactic in this nation especially then we are being deceived.

We worry too much about being accepting, inoffensive, and fair in todays culture, having little regard for what is actually right. There are right and wrong ways to do just about anything, so it follows that the same is true of living a human life. Mankind has understood this and sought the right way to live for thousands of years; go read Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics for an excellent example.

But somewhere along the way, we lost the plot as our relationship with good, evil, and the truth got more nuanced. Movements cropped up promoting radical acceptance of all lifestyles, no matter how disordered. What was billed as an effort to make society fairer and more accepting turned into a licentious fiasco with no end in sight. I guess what they say is true: if you give a mouse a cookie, hell transition your kids.

It is time for capital-T Truth to reassert itself in our society and discourse. We should vigorously promote what is good and right while treating what is vile with contempt.

Nick Treglia is a student at Samford Universitys Cumberland School of Law.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to[emailprotected].

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Human Behavior

Science has an answer for why people still wave on Zoom – Press Herald

It happens at the end of most virtual meetings: One person waves goodbye, and colleagues follow suit. Why we still do this, nearly four years after remote work went mainstream, is one of the mysteries of the modern workplace.

To some experts in human behavior and communication, the so-called Zoom wave emerged due to our need to recreate the social connections that the pandemic ruptured. For others, its a simple way to signal the meeting is over before digitally departing. Some wave just to be polite, others enjoy it. Whatever the reason, its as much a remote-work ritual as wearing sweatpants with a business-friendly top (known as the Zoom mullet).

I am a big fan of the wave, said Erica Keswin, a workplace strategist and author. People like to know when something begins and ends. Those beginnings and endings are what I call prime rituals real estate, and rituals give us a sense of belonging and connection.

Shes not alone. A survey this month by the professional network Fishbowl found that 55% of workers wave. Thats down from the 57% who said they did so last year in a survey by Zoom and the 3 out of 4 who said so in 2021. That gradual decline, as the pandemic receded and millions of workers returned to offices, doesnt surprise Susan Wagner Cook, associate professor at the University of Iowas Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the schools Communication, Cognition and Learning Lab.

As peoples need for connection declines, they are less likely to wave, said Cook, who has spent years studying why and how humans use hand gestures from the friendly wave to the unfriendly middle finger to communicate and connect.

Cook and other experts dont foresee the wave going away completely, though. One big reason is something called motor resonance when a person waves, its almost automatic to wave back. Multiple social-psychology studies show that were more likely to be empathetic and cooperative toward people that weve synchronized movements with, and empathy and teamwork were things many organizations struggled to instill during the stressful days of COVID-19 lockdowns.

In a video call, last impressions are as important as first impressions, and waving sends a signal that others can feel safe in our presence, said Darren Murph, a hybrid-work adviser who now handles strategic communications at automaker Ford.

The dynamics of virtual versus in-person meetings also play a role in the wave, according to Jesper Aagaard, an associate professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at Denmarks Aarhus University. After a face-to-face meeting, theres a so-called interstitial period, where people linger and chat as they walk out together. But video calls end abruptly, so we need to say our farewells all at once. This, in turn, lends an exaggerated and cartoonish quality to the Zoom wave, Aagaard said.

Its the awkwardness of the wave that puts some people off, but by not waving, workers risk being seen as rude.

It bothers me when I wave and people dont wave back, says Molly Beck, founder, and CEO of enterprise communications software maker WorkPerfectly. I would compare it to when you hold the door for someone and they dont say thank you.

In other words, Cook said, the cultural cost of being perceived as impolite outweighs this momentary feeling of, Am I a weirdo?'

Some workers are conditional wavers. Cali Williams Yost, a flexible work strategist, says she waves when Zooming with new contacts, almost as a nice to meet you gesture. But if its the same group every week, rarely does anyone wave, including me.

For others, its the type of wave that matters. I recommend the fast wave, as if another car was letting you go first at a busy intersection, not the type of slow wave if you were on a parade float, Beck said. And while shes waving with one hand, Beck leaves the call with the other.

Its a little embarrassing, aggressively corny, and serves no purpose other than sincerely acknowledging the other people in the call, journalist Justin Pot wrote in a 2021 blog post about Zoom waves on the website of Zapier, a fully remote maker of business software whose staff often deploy the Zoom wave. But thats why its great. No one should feel bad for doing it.

Not everyone agrees, but workers likely wont be saying farewell to the Zoom wave anytime soon.

Humans adapt to media, and some of the habits which have evolved to manage the strangeness of videoconferencing have endured, said Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford Universitys Virtual Human Interaction Lab, who has studied another remote-work phenomenon: Zoom fatigue, the exhaustion suffered from videoconferencing all day. The long wave may be with us for some time.

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Human Behavior

Orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors. Are they getting smarter? – Livescience.com

In March 2019, researchers off the coast of southwestern Australia witnessed a gruesome scene: a dozen orcas ganging up on one of the biggest creatures on Earth to kill it. The orcas devoured huge chunks of flesh from the flanks of an adult blue whale, which died an hour later. This was the first-ever documented case of orca-on-blue-whale predation, but it wouldn't be the last.

In recent months, orcas (Orcinus orca) have also been spotted abducting baby pilot whales and tearing open sharks to feast on their livers. And off the coast of Spain and Portugal, a small population of orcas has begun ramming and sinking boats.

All of these incidents show just how clever these apex predators are.

"These are animals with an incredibly complex and highly evolved brain," Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington and the nonprofit Wild Orca, told Live Science. "They've got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and emotion that are significantly more developed than even in the human brain."

But the scale and novelty of recent attacks have raised a question: Are orcas getting smarter? And if so, what's driving this shift?

They've got parts of their brain that are associated with memory and emotion that are significantly more developed than even in the human brain.

It's not likely that orcas' brains are changing on an anatomical level, said Josh McInnes, a marine ecologist who studies orcas at the University of British Columbia. "Behavioral change can influence anatomical change in an animal or a population" but only over thousands of years of evolution, McInnes told Live Science.

Related: Scientists investigate mysterious case of orca that swallowed 7 sea otters whole

But orcas are fast learners, which means they can and do teach each other some terrifying tricks, and thus become "smarter" as a group. Still, some of these seemingly new tricks may in fact be age-old behaviors that humans are only documenting now. And just like in humans, some of these learned behaviors become trends, ebbing and flowing in social waves.

Frequent interactions with humans through boat traffic and fishing activities may also drive orcas to learn new behaviors. And the more their environment shifts, the faster orcas must respond and rely on social learning to persist.

There's no question that orcas learn from each other. Many of the skills these animals teach and share relate to their role as highly evolved apex predators.

Scientists described orcas killing and eating blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) for the first time in a study published last year. In the months and years that followed the first attack in March 2019, orcas preyed on a blue whale calf and juvenile in two additional incidents, pushing the young blue whales below the surface to suffocate them.

This newly documented hunting behavior is an example of social learning, with strategies being shared and passed on from adult orcas to their young, Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute, told Live Science in an email. "Anything the adults learn will be passed along" from the dominant female in a pod to her offspring, he said.

Taking down a blue whale "requires cooperation and coordination," Pitman said. Orcas may have learned and refined the skills needed to tackle such enormous prey in response to the recovery of whale populations from whaling. This know-how was then passed on, until the orcas became highly skilled at hunting even the largest animal on Earth, Pitman said.

Some of the gory behaviors researchers have observed recently may actually be long-standing habits.

For instance, during the blue whale attacks, observers noted that the orcas inserted their heads inside live whales' mouths to feed on their tongues. But this is probably not a new behavior just a case of humans finally seeing it up close.

"Killer whales are like humans in that they have their 'preferred cuts of meat,'" Pitman said. "When preying on large whales, they almost always take the tongue first, and sometimes that is all they will feed on."

Tongue is not the only delicacy orcas seek out. Off the coast of South Africa, two males nicknamed Port and Starboard have, for several years, been killing sharks to extract their livers.

Killer whales are like humans in that they have their 'preferred cuts of meat.'

Although the behavior surprised researchers at first, it's unlikely that orcas picked up liver-eating recently due to social learning, Michael Weiss, a behavioral ecologist and research director at the Center for Whale Research in Washington state, told Live Science.

Related: Orcas attacked a great white shark to gorge on its liver in Australia, shredded carcass suggests

That's because, this year, scientists also captured footage of orcas slurping down the liver of a whale shark off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. The likelihood that Port and Starboard transferred their know-how across thousands of miles of ocean is vanishingly small, meaning liver-eating is probably a widespread and established behavior.

"Because there are more cameras and more boats, we're starting to see these behaviors that we hadn't seen before," Weiss said.

Orcas master and share more than hunting secrets. Several populations worldwide have learned to poach fish caught for human consumption from the longlines used in commercial fisheries and have passed on this information.

In the southern Indian Ocean, around the Crozet Islands, two orca populations have increasingly scavenged off longlines since fishing in the region expanded in the 1990s. By 2018, the entire population of orcas in these waters had taught one another to feast on longline buffets, with whole groups that previously foraged on seals and penguins developing a taste for human-caught toothfish.

Sometimes, orcas' ability to quickly learn new behaviors can have fatal consequences. In Alaska, orcas recently started dining on groundfish caught by bottom trawlers, but many end up entangled and dead in fishing gear.

"This behavior may be being shared between individuals, and that's maybe why we're seeing an increase in some of these mortality events," McInnes said.

Orcas' impressive cognitive abilities also extend to playtime.

Giles and her colleagues study an endangered population of salmon-eating orcas off the North Pacific coast. Called the Southern Resident population, these killer whales don't eat mammals. But over the past 60 years, they have developed a unique game in which they seek out young porpoises, with the umbilical cords sometimes still attached, and play with them to death.

Related: 'An enormous mass of flesh armed with teeth': How orcas gained their 'killer' reputation

There are 78 recorded incidents of these orcas tossing porpoises to one another like a ball but not a single documented case of them eating the small mammals, Giles said. "In some cases, you'll see teeth marks where the [killer] whale was clearly gently holding the animal, but the animal was trying to swim away, so it's scraping the skin."

The researchers think these games could be a lesson for young orcas on how to hunt salmon, which are roughly the same size as baby porpoises. "Sometimes they'll let the porpoise swim off, pause, and then go after it," Giles said.

Humans may indirectly be driving orcas to become smarter, by changing ocean conditions, McInnes said. Orca raids on longline and trawl fisheries show, for example, that they innovate and learn new tricks in response to human presence in the sea.

Human-caused climate change may also force orcas to rely more heavily on one another for learning.

In Antarctica, for instance, a population of orcas typically preys on Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) by washing them off ice floes. But as the ice melts, they are adapting their hunting techniques to catch leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) and crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga) two species that don't rely on ice floes as much and are "a little bit more feisty," requiring orcas to develop new skills, McInnes said.

While human behaviors can catalyze new learning in orcas, in some cases we have also damaged the bonds that underpin social learning. Overfishing of salmon off the coast of Washington, for example, has dissolved the social glue that keeps orca populations together.

"Their social bonds get weaker because you can't be in a big partying killer-whale group if you're all hungry and trying to search for food," Weiss said. As orca groups splinter and shrink, so does the chance to learn from one another and adapt to their rapidly changing ecosystem, Weiss said.

And while orcas probably don't know that humans are to blame for changes in their ocean habitat, they are "acutely aware that humans are there," McInnes said.

Luckily for us, he added, orcas don't seem interested in training their deadly skills on us.

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Orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors. Are they getting smarter? - Livescience.com

Human Behavior

Augmenting the Regulatory Worker: Are We Making Them Better or … – BioSpace

In the precipice of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), discussions surrounding how humans use AI tools are becoming more and more frequent in the industry. In addition to AIs existing challenges surrounding discrimination and data accuracy, GenAI presents a new problem: hallucinations. These hallucinations create realistic-seeming content not based in reality. Because GenAI is only as good as the data it is trained on, high-quality data and human oversight are imperativeto avoid passing off false information as fact. With as many as 77% of biotech and pharmaceutical companies stating that they were monitoring the latest technologies for use in regulatory processes (Why Biotech and Pharma Companies Are Embracing Regulatory Technology Outsourcing), conquering these challenges becomes especially important for successfully augmenting regulatory workers.

Michelle Gyzen, senior director, regulatory affairs and drug development solutions at IQVIA, stated, There are major concerns coming up in client and internal discussions focused on are we making regulatory workers better or worse by augmenting them especially now that the industry is facing adopting GenAI. She further explained that while there has been an enormous amount of data collection and regulatory standardization completed, the industry can still do a great deal more.

The solution is not a plug-and-play module for the industry. Classification models need to be rewritten and data schemas evaluated for accuracy, but most importantly data scrubbing to ensure clean is of utmost importance because the data cannot be trusted otherwise. Addressing these challenges is the first step to the successful use of GenAI. Given how fast AI is evolving and being adopted, addressing the clean data challenges is imperative simply because we still dont know the full scope of capabilities in terms of what AI, and especially advanced AI, can do, Gyzen said.

Because AI learns from historical data, which is unfortunately often discriminatory and biased, there is an inherent unconscious bias lurking in AI. The industry is grappling not only with initial bias, but bias creeping into what was once clean data.

Since GenAI is in its early stages, Gyzen recommends a phased approach to implementation. Gyzen is working internally and externally to ensure data accuracy, interoperability, connecting with various regulatory information management (RIM) systems, and integrating regulatory intelligence with current AI tools. All of these steps must be completed before venturing into GenAI. In her opinion, stringent processes such as this are the only way forward for the industry, especially for regulatory processes. As we evolve with AI, we need multiple layers of validation for regulatory intelligence data in place. This can come in the form of using an automation program to understand the data first and provide summary synopses. But here is the key element: having true human oversight viewing that data not only from a global regulatory perspective, but from a local regulatory intelligence perspective as well. Gyzen echoed the sentiments of other thought leaders present at the 2023 BiotechX USA when she notes, while we are close, the technology is not there yet to take the training wheels off.

Another factor to keep in mind during AI adoption is the human, in this case regulatory workers. Leading with technology for AI adoption is fundamentally flawed. The idea that companies are going to be able to put technology in place and everyone is going change their processes and the way they work is not realistic, so technology needs to be built for humans and the way humans work, Gyzen said. This understanding of regulatory processes and human behavior is what companies need to keep in mind to outline what can be augmented and build processes that enable rather than hinder regulatory professionals.

With half of the industry outsourcing (54%) and the other half building in-house (46%), the industry is clearly split on the best approach for AI technology (Why Biotech and Pharma Companies Are Embracing Regulatory Technology Outsourcing). Although many larger biotechs and pharmaceutical companies have the resources to build their own in-house, they are not necessarily looking to do so. In a live panelist discussion with representatives from Amgen and Allogene Therapeutics at BioTechX USA, it was stated that they are not necessarily looking for in-house production, they just want something that is cost-effective and works. Gyzen agrees, With larger organizations, theres opportunity to partner because they dont necessarily have access, to nor the understanding of, what the entire industry is working on. This is the key value that vendors and outsourcing partners bring: just having a greater understanding of the pulse of the industry. Gyzen finds that smaller organizations benefit from this knowledge as well, but the real value is access to larger data pools and safeguards to protect customer information and data.

At present companies are looking for full integration. This is something that Gyzen routinely comes across in her role. A big part of my role here is interoperability in developing regulatory systems and what that means from a services standpoint. Because IQVIA is partly a services organization, we have multiple customers with multiple types of infrastructure. What Im looking at is ensuring the ability to integrate not only cross-functionally and across multiple systems, but cross-organizationally. As technology evolves, Gyzen highlighted that she focuses on integrating with client systems to create a seamless flow of data through multiple enterprises and organizations across the globe. This is a very challenging task because closed-box systems create a technological bubble.

For companies to successfully evolve as AI moves to GenAI, clean data needs to flow into the appropriate systems. Currently, challenges surrounding not only clean, accurate data, but data access can hinder biotech and pharma companies. As Gyzen states, We live now in a world where the market is so very segmented and so very fragmented that you know we have to come up with a solution if were going to move forward.

The insights team analyzes and comments on industry trends and creates thought leadership content for BioSpace and clients. The head of insights, Lori Ellis, can be contacted vialori.ellis@biospace.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.

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Augmenting the Regulatory Worker: Are We Making Them Better or ... - BioSpace

Human Behavior

What "The Creator", a film about the future, tells us about the present – InCyber

The plot revolves around a war between the West, represented by just the United States, and Asia. The cause of this deadly conflict? A radical difference in how Artificial Intelligence is perceived. That is the films pitch in a nutshell.

This difference exists today, although it is unlikely to lead to a major conflict. In the West, robots are often seen in science-fiction novels and films as dangerous. Just look at sagas like Terminator and The Matrix. Frank Herberts Dune novels are also suspicious of Artificial Intelligence. This is reflected in an event that takes place before the main story line, the Butlerian Jihad, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, which prohibits the manufacture of thinking machines.

This Western apprehension of AI can be compared to a founding principle of Western philosophy: otherness, where the I is different from you, from us. The monotheistic religions were built on this principle, and Yahwehs I am that I am statement to Moses can be compared with Descartes Cogito ergo sum: Yahweh tells Moses that he is one and the other (alter in Latin) of his future prophet.

Later, Ancient Greece contributed by building a philosophy that asserted the unicity of the self and its difference from others. Platos Allegory of the Cave is a good example: one must be individual and unique to see the benefit of the thought experiment that examines our experience of reality.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, both geographically and conceptually, the Asian world sees artificial intelligence in a different light. For example, in Japan, Shintoism offers an alternative to the Western idea of the individual. In the distribution of kami, a philosophical and spiritual notion of the presence of vital forces in nature, no distinction is made between the living and the inanimate. Thus, an inert object can be just as much a receptacle for kami as a living being, human or otherwise.

The animated inanimate has therefore always been very well regarded in Japan and, more broadly, in Asia. Eastern science fiction reflects this affinity: just think of Astro, the friendly, childlike robot, or Ghost In The Shell and its motley crew of hybrids and cyborgs. In The Creator, Buddhism is omnipresent. In any case, this is the spirit in which Japan is developing machines intended to assist its aging population.

Our current AIs, which are just algorithms, can be considered the first milestones on the path to a potential thinking artificial intelligence that is aware of its own self and the environment and humans that it might encounter. This is what is covered by the idea of strong or general-purpose artificial intelligence.

This AI would resemble intelligence as found in the animal world. This artificial otherness, emerging from the void of its programmings determinism, could then say to humanity: Computo ergo sum! At this stage, humanity will need to question these systems to find out what kind of thinking they are capable of. The challenge lies in distinguishing between an algorithmic imitation of human behavior and genuine consciousness.

Once this occurs, we may well end up as powerless witnesses to the emergence of a superintelligence, the ultimate stage in the development of AIs. An omniscient system which, in time, may see the humanity that gave birth to it as nothing more than a kind of white noise, a biological nuisance. One day, it may well wonder,shouldnt we just get rid of it?.

Science fiction has given us several illustrations of the various states of AI that lie on this spectrum. Smart but unconscious robots can be found in Alex Proyass movie, I, Robot. It is also the initial state of the software with which the protagonist of Spike Jonzes Her falls in love.

On the other end of the spectrum, we find the Skynet of the Terminator series or VIKI in I, Robot. Beyond these systems dictatorial excesses, it is worth describing them as a-personal and ubiquitous, i.e., they tend towards a universal consciousness freed from any notion of body or person, with all the extensions of the global IT network at its disposal. These two criteria contrast with what makes a human, that personalized and localized neurotic social animal.

This is where The Creators originality and value lies: it describes a future world in which, in Asia, humans frequent a whole range of artificial intelligences, from the simplest, locked in their programming, to the most complex, capable of thought and with unique personalities housed within artificial bodies. In this film, none of the AIs lean towards the sort of superintelligence that causes panic in the West. All the AIs in it are like people: they protect and defend that which is important to them and, most importantly, they feel fear and even experience death.

In this way, the Asian front pitted against the Western forces takes the form of a hybrid, or rather blended, army, made up of individuals of both biological and artificial origin. Here, everyone is fighting not only for their survival, but for their community, for respect and the right to be different. Thus, The Creator becomes an ode to tolerance. All these considerations may seem remote to us all. However, they could prove relevant to our present.

Today, the law and common understanding recognize just two categories of persons: humans and legal entities. But if we humans were one day confronted with thinking machines, wouldnt we have to change the law to incorporate a new form of personhood: artificial beings? As long as these were personalized and localized, they should enjoy the protections of the law just as natural persons and legal entities do. At the same time, this new type of person would be assigned yet-to-be-defined responsibilities.

In The Creator, a distinction is made between standby and shutdown, just as there is a difference between a loss of consciousness (sleep, anesthesia, coma) and death. This existential flaw appears as a guarantee of trust. It places the artificial person on the same level as a natural person, with a beginning, actions taken, and an end.

After these thoughts, which point to astonishing futures, what can we say about The Creator when, for the United States, it turns into yet another film trying to atone for the trauma of the Vietnam War? This conflict was one of the first to be considered asymmetric. It saw a well-structured, overequipped traditional army facing an enemy with a changing organization, some of whose decisions could be made autonomously at the local level. The enemy also knew how to take advantage of the terrain, leading the Americans to massively use the infamous Agent Orange, a powerful and dangerous defoliant supposed to prevent Viet Cong soldiers from hiding under tree cover.

Surprisingly, the movie incorporates a number of scenes of asymmetrical combats that oppose Asian soldiers leading defense and guerilla operations against overarmed forces acting under the star-spangled banner. Even more troubling, the New Asian Republics in which AIs are considered as people are located in a Far East where Vietnam is located.

This strange plot allows the British director of The Creator to repeat the pattern of one of his biggest successes, Rogue One, a Star Wars Story: a rebellion that stands up against an autocratic central power and brings it down, even partially.

From this perspective, The Creator is an ode to a society structured around direct democracy, with no central, vertical power. Anarchy? The exact opposite of the future United States as described in the movie and which, however, remains dogged by the demons that seem to rise from the past. Although The Creator begins in 2065, the plot primarily takes place in 2070. On the other hand, the Vietnam War, which lasted 20 years, saw massive American involvement from 1965 to 1973.

As the film sees it, one thing is certain: all throughout, anti-AI westerners are looking to get their hands on an ultimate weapon that Asia and the AIs could use against them. Ultimately, the film reveals an entirely different weapon, one even more powerful than imagined. That weapon is the empathy that humans can develop towards thinking machines. And therein, perhaps, lies the films true breakthrough.

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What "The Creator", a film about the future, tells us about the present - InCyber

Human Behavior

WashU Expert: Some parasites turn hosts into ‘zombies’ – The … – Washington University in St. Louis

From haunted houses to video games, movies and trick-or-treaters, zombies are everywhere this time of year. But zombies arent real or are they?

While the flesh-eating undead portrayed on television are just fiction, there are clear examples of parasites that have evolved to manipulate their hosts, often in ways that affect host behavior to favor parasite survival and spread, said Theresa Gildner, an assistant professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Some even live inside the brains of their host eek!

One way parasites manipulate their host is through influencing the release of neurotransmitters the chemical messengers of the nervous system like dopamine, epinephrine, serotonin and other chemicals that directly impact mood and behavior, Gildner said.

Given how common parasites are in the world and how well they have evolved to manipulate us usually without the host knowing they are being influenced theres a chance many of us are already zombies, Gildner said.

Below, Gildner answers questions about parasitic infections including those that try to hijack the brains of their host and explains why its unlikely you will need that zombie apocalypse survival plan. Read on if you dare.

What are parasitic infections?

A parasite is typically defined as any organism that relies on a host for its essential nutrients, without any benefit to the host, and is therefore considered harmful. There are several types of parasites, including single-celled protozoas that cause Taxoplasmosis and malaria; helminths, parasitic worms like hookworm or tapeworms; and ectoparasites, parasitic species that live outside the human body, like ticks, fleas and lice.

Parasitic infections are extremely common globally, both for humans and animals. If you have a pet, youve probably given them flea or deworming medications to prevent parasite infections. But human parasitic disease is also still widespread, especially in low-resource communities that lack the resources and infrastructure to effectively prevent and treat infection.

With the exception of select parasitic diseases, like malaria, most are not lethal. However, these conditions often impair physical and cognitive function and result in suboptimal growth and development patterns. Overall, parasitic disease contributes to the perpetuation of structural health inequities, especially among marginalized communities where lack of access to key health determinants medical care, functional sanitation systems and adequate nutrition both increase parasite exposure and compound the negative impacts of infection.

Effective preventative measures usually linked with effective sanitation infrastructure as well as medical tests and treatments do exist for many parasite species, but not everyone has access to these resources, including in the United States. So, even though we have the tools to control parasitic disease in many cases, we are still nowhere near close to eradicating most.

Could parasitic infections cause a zombie apocalypse?

Host-manipulating parasites are real, but it seems unlikely that parasites will cause a zombie apocalypse on the scale of those on The Last of Us or The Walking Dead for a few reasons. First, in order to spread easily from person to person, the parasite would need to be specific and well adapted to human hosts. In reality, many parasites have relatively long, complex life cycles that involve spending part of their development in the environment and/or in another species besides humans to successfully mature and reproduce.

Second, for the scenarios depicted in these shows, the parasite would have to incapacitate or kill its host quickly following infection, but this is an ineffective strategy for most parasites since they need time to mature and reproduce in the human host. If the parasite infection was this fast and severe, the infected human might die before coming into contact with other potential hosts, preventing future transmission to new human hosts.

Third, along these same lines, an infection this serious would almost certainly be readily apparent to uninfected people, leading to disease prevention measures such as quarantine that decrease the risk of future spread. Many human parasites therefore seem to impact the human host in more subtle ways, so were typically able to go about our daily lives and unknowingly spread the parasite to other people over a longer period of time.

But examples of zombie-like behavior in animals do occur, right?

There are many examples of parasites that hijack the minds of infected animals and insects to achieve a very specific aim. One well-known mind-altering pathogen is rabies, which impacts mammals like dogs, raccoons and sometimes humans, making them more aggressive. Rabid animals are more likely to bite other animals and people, which allows transmission through the saliva. The virus has also been shown to make the host afraid of water, leading them to avoid consuming water, which might dilute viral load in saliva and reduce disease spread.

Another example is the trematodeDicrocoelium dendriticum, a type of parasitic worm. This parasite ultimately wants to get to a grazing animal so it can complete its life cycle and reproduce, but it must go through an intermediate host the ant to do this. The parasite affects the brains of ants, causing them to climb to the top of a blade of grass at night instead of returning to the ant colony. This behavior increases the likelihood that a grazing animal accidentally consumes the infected ant during the night while it is grazing.

Theres also the Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, a parasitic wasp that infects spiders. Female wasps will first paralyze the spider and then lay an egg in its abdomen. The egg hatches and larva feeds on the spiders blood while the spider is still alive. The spider will behave normally for several days, but then the wasp larva injects a chemical into the spider that causes it to build a unique type of web and sit motionless in the middle. Then, the larva kills the spider host with poison, eats the spider and builds a cocoon in the middle of the web for protection until the adult wasp emerges and the cycle continues.

The Toxoplasma gondii parasite typically spreads between rodents and cats, although the CDC estimates that more than 40 million people are infected with Toxoplasmosis in the U.S. Generally, rodents become infected after consuming contaminated food or water. Once in the rodent intermediate host, the parasite continues to mature and forms cysts in the rodents tissue. Cats become infected after consuming infected rodent tissue. Mature parasites live inside cats. Infected cats also shed the parasite in their feces, where it continues to mature and become ineffective.

The interesting part of the Toxoplasma life cycle is that some of the parasite cysts form in the rodents brain, potentially concentrated in the part of the brain that regulates fear, some researchers believe. This directly affects rodent behavior, making them less fearful of cats. Some evidence suggests they might even be attracted to the smell of cat urine, rather than fearful, increasing their risk of encountering a cat and being consumed. This is ultimately the best outcome for the parasite: for the intermediate rodent host to be consumed so the parasite can get into a cat and complete its life cycle.

Well, this is terrifying!

The good news is that we have evolved with these parasitic species for a very long time, and our immune systems are generally effective at keeping infections in check. We also have many effective medical treatments available to help treat infection and many people in the world today have access to important resources such as clean water and food, sanitation systems and well-constructed houses that help shield them from serious infections.

However, parasites still infect millions of people around the world, so we still have a lot of work to do to make sure all people have access to the resources and infrastructure needed to prevent continual infection and related poor long-term health outcomes.

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WashU Expert: Some parasites turn hosts into 'zombies' - The ... - Washington University in St. Louis