It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
IMAGE: OCTOPUS AT A FISH MARKET IN INDONESIA. view more
CREDIT: PHOTO BY DENG PALOMARES, SEA AROUND US.
Fish market favourites such as orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among the species of fish and invertebrates in rapid decline around the world, according to new research.
In the first study of its kind, researchers at the University of British Columbia, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Western Australia assessed the biomass--the weight of a given population in the water--of more than 1,300 fish and invertebrate populations. They discovered global declines, some severe, of many popularly consumed species.
Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in the "very bad" category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches. This also means that fishers are catching less and less fish and invertebrates over time, even if they fish longer and harder.
"This is the first-ever global study of long-term trends in the population biomass of exploited marine fish and invertebrates for all coastal areas on the planet," said Maria "Deng" Palomares, lead author of the study and manager of the Sea Around Us initiative in UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries."When we looked at how the populations of major species have been doing in the past 60 years, we discovered that, at present, most of their biomasses are well below the level that can produce optimal catches."
To reach their findings, the researchers applied computer-intensive stock assessment methods known as CMSY and BSMY to the comprehensive catch data by marine ecosystem reconstructed by the Sea Around Us for the 1950-2014 period.
The greatest declines in stocks were found in the southern temperate and polar Indian Ocean and the southern polar Atlantic Ocean, where populations shrunk by well over 50 per cent since 1950.
While much of the globe showed declining trends in fish and invertebrates, the analysis found a few exceptions. One of these was the Northern Pacific Ocean where population biomass increased by 800 per cent in its polar and subpolar zones, and by about 150 per cent in its temperate zone.
Despite these pockets of improvement, the overall picture remains a cause for concern, according to co-author Daniel Pauly, principal investigator at Sea Around Us.
"Despite the exceptions, our findings support previous suggestions of systematic and widespread overfishing of the coastal and continental shelf waters in much of the world over the last 60-plus years," said Pauly. "Thus, pathways for improvements in effective fisheries management are needed, and such measures should be driven not only by clearly set total allowable annual catch limits, but also by well-enforced and sizeable no-take marine protected areas to allow stocks to rebuild."
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"Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions, climatic zones and ocean basins" was published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.
OSU researchers part of international effort to save critically endangered seabird
CORVALLIS, Ore. - The global population of the critically endangered Chinese crested tern has more than doubled thanks to a historic, decade-long collaboration among Oregon State University researchers and scientists and conservationists in China, Taiwan and Japan.
The project included OSU's Dan Roby and Don Lyons and was led by Chen Shuihua of the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History. When it began, fewer than 50 of the seabirds remained.
"The species is still far from being safe from extinction, but the population is now well over 100 adults and the future is much brighter than 10 years ago," said Roby, professor emeritus in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Findings were published in Biological Conservation.
First described in 1863, the Chinese crested tern has been a largely mysterious species and is arguably the world's most threatened seabird.
After 21 specimens were collected in 1937 along the coast of Shandong Province, China, it wasn't until 2000 that any other sightings were confirmed: four adults and four chicks within a large colony of greater crested terns in the Matsu Islands, Taiwan.
The discovery was big news in the ornithology world, which had generally considered the Chinese crested tern to be extinct. In the years since, breeding has been confirmed in five locations: three along the Chinese coast, plus an uninhabited island off the southwestern coast of South Korea and the Penghu Islands of Taiwan.
The Chinese crested tern is among the nearly one-third of seabird species threatened with extinction because of entanglement with fishing gear, reduction in food supplies, environmental contaminants, overharvest, and predation and other disturbances by invasive species.
"Most seabirds select nesting habitat largely by social cues, whose absence may delay recovery even when there is suitable habitat," Roby said. "Since the 1970s, new techniques have been developed and implemented to enhance seabird restoration efforts. These techniques are social attraction and chick translocation and have been used in at least 171 different seabird restoration projects conducted in 16 locations in an attempt to restore 64 seabird species."
Social attraction was the strategy for the Chinese crested tern project, the first major conservation effort for seabirds in the People's Republic of China.
"Terns feed their young and provide other parental care for extended periods post-fledging, suggesting that chick translocations would likely not result in fledged young that would survive to recruit into the breeding population," Roby said.
Social attraction involves decoys, recorded bird vocalizations, mirrors, scent and artificial burrows that work in concert to lure adult seabirds to restoration sites with the goal of establishing breeding colonies.
"The most serious immediate threat to the survival of the species was the illegal harvest of eggs by fishermen," Roby said. "Beyond just taking the eggs, the disturbance associated with fishermen landing on breeding islands to collect eggs or shellfish apparently caused breeding terns to abandon their nesting sites."
The scientists believed that if Chinese crested terns could be attracted to a site with suitable nesting habitat that was continuously monitored and secured against egg harvest and other human disturbances, the species could have a chance to recover from the brink of extinction.
In 2013, a tern restoration project was launched on Tiedun Dao, an uninhabited, densely vegetated, 2.58-hectare island in the Jiushan Islands, home to a former breeding colony of Chinese crested terns that was abandoned in 2007 in the wake of illegal egg harvesting.
"It's near the original breeding island of Jiangjunmao but was not known to have been previously occupied by breeding seabirds," Roby said. "To improve the chances for Chinese crested tern success, we used social attraction techniques to try to establish a new breeding colony of greater crested terns because since their rediscovery, Chinese crested terns had only been found nesting in large colonies of greater crested terns."
In 2015, Yaqueshan, a 1-hectare island in the Wuzhishan Archipelago, was chosen as a second restoration site, where social attraction would be deployed in an attempt to stabilize the breeding colony there.
Three years later, the researchers attracted a total of 77 breeding adult Chinese crested terns to the Tiedun Dao and Yaqueshan colonies - 88.5% of the known number of breeding adults in the global population for that year.
Also in 2018, 25 Chinese crested tern chicks fledged from the Tiedun Dao and Yaqueshan colonies, or 96% of the known number of Chinese crested tern fledglings produced that year.
"Consequently, we now know for the first time in history that the global population of Chinese crested terns exceeds 100," Roby said. "The population increase from under 50 to more than 100 is a cautiously hopeful sign that this species can be brought back from the very edge of extinction. The success of this international project is a testimony to what can be accomplished when scientists from China, the U.S. and Taiwan work together toward a common conservation goal."
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Supporting the project were the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Zhejiang Technological Research Project for Public Welfare, the National Key R&D Program of China, the Biodiversity Investigation, Observation and Assessment Program of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, the Zhejiang Rare and Endangered Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Project, the Endangered Species Monitoring Fund from the State Forestry Administration of China, the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, the China Association for Science and Technology, the Japan Fund for Global Environment, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pacific Seabird Group.
Spinal stimulators repurposed to restore touch in lost limb
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
PITTSBURGH, July 21, 2020 - Imagine tying your shoes or taking a sip of coffee or cracking an egg but without any feeling in your hand. That's life for users of even the most advanced prosthetic arms.
Although it's possible to simulate touch by stimulating the remaining nerves in the stump after an amputation, such a surgery is highly complex and individualized. But according to a new study from the University of Pittsburgh's Rehab Neural Engineering Labs, spinal cord stimulators commonly used to relieve chronic pain could provide a straightforward and universal method for adding sensory feedback to a prosthetic arm.
For this study, published today in eLife, four amputees received spinal stimulators, which, when turned on, create the illusion of sensations in the missing arm.
"What's unique about this work is that we're using devices that are already implanted in 50,000 people a year for pain -- physicians in every major medical center across the country know how to do these surgical procedures -- and we get similar results to highly specialized devices and procedures," said study senior author Lee Fisher, Ph.D., assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The strings of implanted spinal electrodes, which Fisher describes as about the size and shape of "fat spaghetti noodles," run along the spinal cord, where they sit slightly to one side, atop the same nerve roots that would normally transmit sensations from the arm. Since it's a spinal cord implant, even a person with a shoulder-level amputation can use this device.
Fisher's team sent electrical pulses through different spots in the implanted electrodes, one at a time, while participants used a tablet to report what they were feeling and where.
All the participants experienced sensations somewhere on their missing arm or hand, and they indicated the extent of the area affected by drawing on a blank human form. Three participants reported feelings localized to a single finger or part of the palm.
"I was pretty surprised at how small the area of these sensations were that people were reporting," Fisher said. "That's important because we want to generate sensations only where the prosthetic limb is making contact with objects."
When asked to describe not just where but how the stimulation felt, all four participants reported feeling natural sensations, such as touch and pressure, though these feelings often were mixed with decidedly artificial sensations, such as tingling, buzzing or prickling.
Although some degree of electrode migration is inevitable in the first few days after the leads are implanted, Fisher's team found that the electrodes, and the sensations they generated, mostly stayed put across the month-long duration of the experiment. That's important for the ultimate goal of creating a prosthetic arm that provides sensory feedback to the user.
"Stability of these devices is really critical," Fisher said. "If the electrodes are moving around, that's going to change what a person feels when we stimulate."
The next big challenges are to design spinal stimulators that can be fully implanted rather than connecting to a stimulator outside the body and to demonstrate that the sensory feedback can help to improve the control of a prosthetic hand during functional tasks like tying shoes or holding an egg without accidentally crushing it. Shrinking the size of the contacts -- the parts of the electrode where current comes out -- is another priority. That might allow users to experience even more localized sensations.
"Our goal here wasn't to develop the final device that someone would use permanently," Fisher said. "Mostly we wanted to demonstrate the possibility that something like this could work."
VIDEO: SEVERAL YEARS AGO, BAYNE LOST HER ARM AT THE SHOULDER, BUT SPINAL STIMULATORS ALLOWED HER TO FEEL SENSATIONS IN HER MISSING LIMB CREDIT: UPMC
Everything you ever wanted to know about leech sex but were afraid to ask
SOCIETY OF ENVIRONMENTAL TOXICOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY
IMAGE: GREEN HORSE LEECHES (HAEMOPIS MARMORATA) WERE USED FOR THE GONAD DISSECTIONS. view more
CREDIT: KAREN KIDD
Today, we pull the veil back on the secret sex lives of leeches and how researchers at McMaster University and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are using that information to learn about endocrine disrupting chemicals. Leeches, who gained worldwide popularity when making their film debut in the blockbuster "Stand by Me" in 1986, have actually been around much, much longer. They are found on every continent in freshwater habitats where there is little flow. They are popular bait for fishing, and doctors continue to use them in medical treatments.
We know a lot about leech reproduction. For example, leeches are hermaphroditic, which means they have both male and female sex organs, but that is not all that uncommon for invertebrates. Some families of leeches demonstrate protrandry (they start life as a male and then change into a female), while others self-fertilize, brood eggs and show parental care. Still others cross-fertilize with other leeches, sometimes implanting sperm in one or both of the partners' body walls and sometimes directly introducing sperm into a genital pore with a penis. Their reproductive cycle also varies across families, with some only reproducing one time in their life, and others reproducing multiple times in their lifespan.
We also know a little about the impact of environmental contaminants on leeches. As a matter of fact, leeches have been shown to be highly sensitive to metals in aquatic systems. Leeches can be useful as an environmental quality indicator, as the aquatic ecosystems where leeches are found are often a sink for contaminants. However, even though studies have looked at how some environmental contaminants affect leech populations, very little is known about how they influence leech community composition, species abundance, egg production, growth rates and gonad size. For example, plenty of studies have been conducted at the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, Canada, to study the effects of synthetic estrogen (17α-estradiol [EE2]) on fish, other types of invertebrates, and amphibians. Synthetic estrogens are used in oral contraceptives and enter aquatic system when they are not completely broken down in wastewater treatment plants. The compound EE2 was shown to have profound effects on fathead minnows, collapsing their population, and occasionally affected amphibian hatching success and gonad development. However, little attention was given to the effect of EE2 on leech communities until now.
In their article, published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Karen Kidd, professor at McMaster University and lead author, documents that the EE2 appeared to have little impact on the abundance of leeches, but notes that there was "increased condition in one species and some changes in relative gonad sizes of reproductive organs." This may be because there was an increase in their food supply of other invertebrates, an indirect effect of EE2 linked to reduced fish numbers. For the leech species H. marmorata, the weight of the epididymis (a duct behind the testes) and the sperm sac size decreased, but the length of the testes, prostrate and penis sheath increased in exposed individuals. Likewise, EE2-exposed leeches were associated with growth in ovisac and albumen and vaginal bulb lengths. However, these leeches showed few individual-level and no population- or community-level responses, suggesting that they are much less sensitive to this endocrine disruptor than fish. There had been some thought that leeches may be an ideal study species for assessing contaminant effects - as noted above, they are sensitive to metals and ubiquitous - but, this study suggests that they may be less responsive to endocrine disrupting compounds, such as EE2.
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Women's burden increases in COVID-19 era
FLINDERS UNIVERSITY
Ros Wong, from Flinders University's Climate and Sustainability Policy Research (CASPR) group, was part of a team conducting research across four countries to understand the extent to which COVID-19 restrictions affect women and men differently.
"Women have had to endure additional burdens associated with both paid and unpaid work, often without consideration or the alleviation of other life responsibilities," says Ms Wong, who has completed her PhD at Flinders University this year.
"Women were also tasked with the ongoing organisation of their homes and families under pandemic conditions."
Ms Wong conducted interviews with women from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia that highlight intersections between COVID-19 and gendered burdens, particularly in frontline work, unpaid care work and community activities.
"Our analysis during the early months of the pandemic indicates that women's burdens are escalating. We estimate that women will endure a worsening of their burdens until the pandemic is well under control, and for a long time after."
Ms Wong is critical that public policy and health efforts have not sufficiently acknowledged issues concerned with the associations between gender and disease outbreaks.
She says the study's results will be fundamental to understanding the broader impact both during the crisis and during societal recovery.
"It is critical that public policy and health efforts are proactive in devising transformative approaches that address women's subordinate position in the context of this disease," she says. "In our analysis, we consistently identified that women's burdens across all spheres were not only heavier, but also more dangerous."
Under COVID 19 restrictions in Sri Lanka, women working in frontline health care roles say they faced discrimination in supermarkets when buying groceries, were threatened with eviction, and refused access on public transport.
In Malaysia, only the male head of the household was allowed to shop. Combined with only one person being allowed in a car, this meant that many women were confined to the house unless employed as a frontline worker. However, after a few weeks, this restriction was relaxed, mainly because men struggled to shop effectively and buy basic necessities required for a family.
News media in Vietnam portrayed COVID-19 restrictions as providing the perfect opportunity for women to relax, enjoy a chance for renewed intimacy and to spoil their men - this despite women having to wait in long queues to purchase food and their increased caring duties.
In Australia, childcare and schools did remain open to aid the many health and essential workers with childcare to continue working. However, this placed an extra burden on women as they negotiated school runs, extra housework and caring duties while still employed in essential work.
"COVID-19 restrictions for many women demonstrated once again that women continue to be disadvantaged during natural disasters, war and global pandemics," says Ms Wong.
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The paper - COVID-19 and Women's Triple Burden: Vignettes from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia, by Helen Jaqueline McLaren, Karen Rosalind Wong, Kieu Nga Nguyen and Komalee Nadeeka Damayanthi Mahamadachchi - has been published in Social Sciences journal (doi.org/10.3390/socsci9050087)
HAPPINESS IS FOR PIGS
Recycling Japanese liquor leftovers as animal feed produces happier pigs and tastier pork
Diet of shochu distillation remnants is economical way to reduce animals' stress, improve meat quality
UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
Tastier pork comes from pigs that eat the barley left over after making the Japanese liquor shochu. A team of professional brewers and academic farmers state that nutrients in the leftover fermented barley may reduce the animals' stress, resulting in better tasting sirloin and fillets.
"Kyushu, in Western Japan is well-known historically for making shochu and for its many pig farms. We hope collaborative research projects like ours can directly benefit the local community and global environment," said Yasuhisa Ano, the first author of the research paper published in Food Chemistry. Ano is affiliated with the Kirin Central Research Institute at Kirin Holdings Co., Ltd.
Currently, the mash of leftovers that remains after distilling out the alcohol is considered industrial waste and is often disposed of in ways that create more climate-changing carbon dioxide. Feeding distillation leftovers to farm animals can improve the animals' quality of life, lower farmers' and brewers' costs, appeal to discerning foodies, and benefit the environment by reducing food waste.
Japanese shochu can be made from barley, potatoes, rice or other starches first decomposed with mold, then fermented with yeast, and finally distilled to an alcohol content usually greater than 20 percent. Incidentally, Japanese sake is a fermented drink always made from rice with an alcohol content typically around 15 percent.
Leftovers lower stress
Researchers at the University of Tokyo fed six pigs a standard diet supplemented with shochu distillation remnants, the dried mixture of barley, mold and yeast left over after distilling out the shochu. Pigs fed shochu remnants from age 3 to 6 months had higher amounts of antibodies called IgA in their saliva, indicating that shochu remnants kept the pigs healthier than the standard diet. Additionally, pigs fed shochu remnants had lower stress levels than pigs fed the normal diet supplemented with fresh barley, as measured by the amount of cortisol, a common stress hormone, in their saliva.
Other studies have linked healthier responses to stress to two protein building blocks called leucine and histidine peptides, which barley shochu contains in abundance.
The UTokyo research team performed additional tests in mice to study the effect of barley shochu distillation remnants on stress. Mice that ate the distillation remnants just once directly before a stressful event returned to normal behavior faster than other mice. The mice who ate the shochu remnants also had normal levels of dopamine in their brains after the stressful event, indicating a better response to stress.
Diet of leftovers makes tastier pork
Researchers suspected that the lower stress and better health throughout the pigs' lives created higher quality meat, but they asked flavor experts from Kirin for a blind taste test.
According to the experts' palates, both sirloin and fillet cuts of pork from the shochu remnant-fed pigs were higher quality than meat from pigs that ate the standard diet: better umami, tenderness, juiciness and flavor.
"We saw no difference in the pigs' weight gain between the two diets and the pigs were slaughtered at the standard six months of age, meaning any difference in the quality of meat was not because of a difference in quantity of fat," said Associate Professor Junyou Li from the University of Tokyo, a co-author of the research publication.
That higher quality taste was likely due to chemical differences in the meat. Fat from the higher-quality meat melted at lower temperatures, which creates the delicious melt-in-your-mouth texture. That fat was also made up of a higher percentage of oleic acid, an unsaturated fatty acid linked by other studies to improved levels of "healthy" LDL cholesterol.
"We hope that identifying these benefits for the animals and creating a premium tasting product for consumers will increase farmers' motivation to try a new diet for their pigs," said Professor Masayoshi Kuwahara, director of the University of Tokyo Animal Resource Science Center and last author of the research publication.
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Research Article
Yasuhisa Ano, Jun You Li, Takahiro Jomoto, Daiji Kurihara, Ryohei Nishimura, Hiroyuki Nakayama, Masayoshi Kuwahara. 15 July 2020. Distillation remnants of shochu, a traditional Japanese liquor, improve pork meat quality by reducing stress.
Associate Professor Junyou Li
Animal Resource Science Center, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3145 Ago, Kasama, Ibaraki 319-0206, JAPAN
E-mail: ajunyou@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
In their view, the principle of utility tells us to maximize the balance of pleasure over pain—in short, to maximize happiness. ... Thomas Carlyle had called Bentham's utilitarianism “a philosophy fit for swine,” contending that it encouraged people to live like pigs, pursuing pleasure by any means possible.
Mill's main response to the accusation thatutilitarianismis "Pig Philosophy" is to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures. He writes: “…some kinds of ...
Men who learned to control their anger were less violent towards their partners
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The last few months have been particularly difficult for people living in a violent relationship.
But a few glimmers of hope are finally emerging from the coronavirus nightmare.
"For a lot of people, the shutdown has been an extreme situation with a lot of stress. Those of us who work with people on anger management have felt really concerned about what might be going on within the four walls of their homes," says Merete Berg Nesset.
For many years Nesset has worked on treating angry people who beat, yell and threaten. Now she is on the flip side, working on a doctorate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology on the same topic.
COVID-19 has taken a toll. People have lost their jobs. No one is quite sure what will happen with the economy. Many people are feeling uncertain about the future.
"We know that financial difficulties, unemployment and psychological challenges are linked to aggression and violence. The level of stress clearly increases further when parents also become responsible for teaching their children at home. Situations that are already difficult have escalated for a lot of people who have conflicts from before or a prior mental health problem, because there are fewer opportunities to get away," says Nesset.
But there is hope.
Nesset has just published a study showing that treatment can work very well. What she did was to divide 125 men who applied for help with anger management into two groups.
One group received cognitive-behavioural group therapy using what is called the Brøset model.
The other group participated in a stress management course based on mindfulness. Partners in both groups participated through several surveys conducted before, during and after treatment.
The results following treatment were equally good for both groups:
Prior to treatment, 60 per cent of the men had committed sexual violence against their relationship partners. That is, they demanded sex or threatened sex with a partner. Almost no one reported such violent episodes after treatment.
Prior to treatment, 85 per cent of the men reported physical violence. A large percentage had committed violence that resulted in harm to their partner. After treatment, this percentage dropped to ten per cent.
Prior to treatment, 87 per cent of participants reported psychological or emotional violence, such as threats and derogatory comments. This number declined by 25 per cent but was not as dramatic a drop as for the other types of violence. Nesset says it takes a long time to experience feeling safe.
"There was a high level of both sexual and physical violence before treatment began. It was more than we'd imagined beforehand. When we checked what the partners experienced, we got a slightly different picture of what was actually going on. We know that a lot of angry men hit their partners, but we were surprised that so many committed sexual assaults. At this point the agreement between the husband and partner was low - that is, the partner reported more cases than the man did," says Nesset.
The backdrop for the study was to check whether treating mood disorders using the Brøset model has an effect. In a lot of studies, the control group receives a placebo, or no treatment.
"Unfortunately, about 25 per cent of all killings in Norway are partner killings. Because domestic violence is a public health problem with major health consequences for those exposed to the violence, we found it unethical not to offer treatment. So what we studied was the effectiveness of two types of treatment. Both worked," says Nesset.
One treatment involved eight group sessions in a type of mindfulness training called MBSR, which stands for mindfulness-based stress management. The course was led by psychologist Nina Flor Thunold who at that time worked at St. Olavs Hospital, Østmarka division, in a district east of Trondheim.
The course was not designed specifically for anger management but for illness in general, and the content was defined in advance - regardless of why any individual was in the course.
The second treatment involved 15 sessions of cognitive-behavioural group therapy. The program was developed at St. Olavs Hospital and is called the Brøset model. The therapy has different stages, with the first phase being to stop the violence. According to Nesset, you can do that without understanding why you become violent.
After this phase you explore patterns of violence and map the situations that trigger violence for you, what thoughts and feelings arise and what actions repeat themselves.
"Some people who are violent are offended easily. During treatment, participants find out what makes them feel offended, what thoughts and feelings they should pay particular attention to, and we create action plans for how the they can handle negative emotions without using violence. A lot of the treatment is about understanding yourself," says Nesset.
She says the decline in violence was greater than she had anticipated.
"I didn't expect the decline to be so big. It's really promising that the treatment works," says Nesset.
To clarify: In the past, smaller studies have been conducted of people who were on a waiting list for treatment and comparing them with people already receiving treatment. Those who received treatment experienced a greater reduction in violence than those on the waiting list.
Treatment that uses the Brøset model is offered throughout Norway. Each year, about 400 men get help to become a better version of themselves. Those who need help will receive individual support until a group course is available.
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Reference: Nesset MB, Lara-Cabrera ML, Bjørngaard JH, Whittington R, Palmstierna T. Cognitive behavioural group therapy versus mindfulness-based stress reduction group therapy for intimate partner violence: a randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry. 2020;20(1):178. Published 2020 Apr 19. doi:10.1186/s12888-020-02582-4
How to get good at disagreeing
NOT MY PROBLEM I AM AN ENTJ A MASTER OF THE ART
NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
You may recognize yourself. You're part of a group where everyone seems to agree more or less all the time. You may disagree, but you'd rather not speak up, and the others aren't voicing any disagreement either.
These meetings are dominated by a few individuals, or maybe just one person. Everyone else nods and smiles at the chairperson, at least until you talk to them one-on-one. Then it turns out that you weren't the only one who had unspoken objections.
"Basically, voicing disagreement is difficult. People in groups often have a tendency or desire to align with others, either certain group members or someone who is clearly the leader. Sometimes this tendency becomes so strong that people are afraid to stand out," says Frode Heldal, an associate professor of technology management at NTNU Business School.
But maybe you don't think you need to speak up? This is how things your group operates, you say, and it's working - sort of.
"It's working" can be destructive
"We have to have respect for things that work, but sometimes that by itself can be destructive" for how a group works together, says Heldal. "It can be just fine as long as the reality remains stable. But it doesn't always do that," he says.
The need for uncomfortable and challenging questions also varies depending on the task. If you play football, the need is different than if you are coming up with a strategic plan, Heldal says.
Occasionally, ambiguity and misunderstandings can cause small disagreements to balloon and feel large and unmanageable. In these corona times with so many digital encounters, picking up on body language and disagreements becomes even more challenging than usual. Voicing concerns or disagreement early is especially important in these situations.
Different jobs also have different cultures. In some places, expressing disagreement is seen as completely natural and necessary for good results. In other places, disagreement can be perceived as disrespectful and perhaps even unfair to a colleague, manager or the company.
For your group to find the best solutions, especially when the reality is changing, it can be crucial to have a culture where you feel empowered to speak up when you disagree.
"For your group to find the best solutions, especially when the reality is changing, it can be crucial that you have a culture where you feel empowered to speak up when you disagree."
Things work - until you meet the unexpected
Heldal is part of the Innovative Teams project at NTNU and recently had an article published in the Team Performance Management journal. He and his colleagues investigated the collaboration between Norwegian and Korean workers. The researchers found that the employees worked fine together on a daily basis, even though they did not understand each other.
Heldal summarized some of their findings in a Norwegian article inSPGR Innovative Teams:
"As a rule, the teams collaborated just fine, except when they had to detect and manage things that went wrong or were unexpected. Because the teams had not learned to understand each other - basically to discuss and reflect together - these situations mushroomed and were more time consuming and costly than they needed to be. Their collaborative techniques, which normally facilitated things working smoothly, actually masked the fact that they were not really that coordinated after all,"the article states.
Of course, it is quite possible for a group to function together just by everyone working independently and implicitly adapting the work to each other. Constantly disagreeing is not helpful, and long discussions can often be perceived as hampering progress. But when something unexpected happens, alternative understandings are often needed.
"This means that as a group people need to be able to challenge internal agreements. Often this is more about personal relationships in the group than the issue itself. Groups that are used to disagreeing openly generally handle changes better than groups that focus on agreement," Heldal says.
Practise challenging each other
It is possible to practise and improve your ability to disagree. The basis for this skill is being able to challenge others and to be challenged.
Professor Endre Sjøvold at NTNU's Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management calls this approach "constructive confrontation."
"In this context, this training concept may be a little unfamiliar. But the underlying reflections have to do with practising a skill," says Heldal:
Set aside a set time for exercise.
Be disciplined in the carrying out the training.
Set goals.
Exercise a little and often rather than a lot and seldom.
Put the training into practice. You become good at what you do. This means that every time you don't bother to speak up when you disagree, you're getting better at letting things go.
"What we're really practising for when we challenge each other is to become better at accepting and recognizing divergent views," says Heldal.
"What we're really training for when we challenge each other is to become better at accepting and recognizing divergent views."
Ten training tips
First, you have to agree on the time and place to practise disagreeing. This can be before or after meetings you already have scheduled. Heldal has compiled a list for how to practise the skill.
"A list like this is a bit suffocating - it's long and extensive. But here's the trick to picking out a few training points, maybe down to one per workout: work on it a lot until it sticks," says Heldal.
Below are the ten training points. (For more details, see the fact box at the end of the article.)
Ask for the behaviour you want more of, not less of, from others.
When you get criticized - listen and don't defend yourself. Show that you are grateful.
Make decisions and acknowledge others' decisions.
Appoint a person who challenges the decisions made (devil's advocate). Take turns being in this role.
Challenge routines and habits.
Dare to challenge the expert.
Ask why. Request explanations.
Practise arguing for the views of others.
Be honest and clear. Don't package messages. But be constructive.
"Step on toes."
Where you start depends on the team's task and the current dynamic of the group.
Wait a minute - "Step on toes"?
"That last point, 'Step on toes', could be tough for some people and sounds a bit backwards for good teamwork," says Heldal.
The background is that many teams have a lot going on, especially about this point - people on the team are basically afraid to step on each other's toes. The result is that teams work at reduced power then.
"The most common argument against practising these tips is that people don't have time. But you don't usually need much time. Half an hour a week will help you and your team move forward, often in connection with your day-to-day work," says Heldal.
Remember that the ultimate goal is for you to become better at working together and finding the best solutions.
Training tips in detail
Ask for the behaviour you want more of, not less of, from others. Practise: Challenge the person next to you for behaviour you want more of.
When you get criticized - listen and don't defend yourself. Show that you are grateful. Practise: Receive feedback, including unpleasant feedback, with a thank you.
Make decisions and acknowledge others people's decisions. Practise: Take turns being in the leader role. For example, let the person who normally speaks least lead a meeting.
Appoint a person who challenges decisions (devil's advocate). Practise: Dedicate roles to play devil's advocate. Take turns in this role. The main task is to challenge decisions and come up with alternative views. The group is obliged to take these seriously.
Challenge routines and habits. Practise: Try something new, like changing the meeting room you always sit in. Bring in outsiders. Practise working on increasing curiosity, not uncertainty.
Dare to challenge the expert. Practise: Avoid expert roles, where one person owns certain areas of knowledge - even if the team consists of experts. Everyone should be able to challenge. Practise daring to challenge the expert. Experts can practise letting themselves and their knowledge be challenged by those who are not experts.
Ask why, ask for an explanation. Practise: Work on doing this so that it is perceived as constructive.
Practise arguing for the views of others. Practise: Change roles and positions.
Be honest and clear. Don't sugarcoat messages. But be constructive. Practise: Be concrete and straightforward about your own views, avoid packaging them.
"Step on toes". Practise: Challenge others in areas that may seem personal. Work on not taking things personally. The boundary is when suggestions do not contribute constructively to solving or performing the team's task. Speak up immediately if something seems unreasonable, and avoid bringing up old annoyances.
'Lost' world's rediscovery is step towards finding habitable planets
The rediscovery of a lost planet could pave the way for the detection of a world within the habitable 'Goldilocks zone' in a distant solar system
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Discovery of cooler planet brings astronomers closer to finding more worlds in the habitable 'Goldilocks zone' Found thanks to new method pioneered by University of Warwick team designed to spot planets orbiting further out from their star NGTS-11b is among hundreds of 'lost' worlds that can now be rediscovered with the NGTS telescopes using this novel technique The rediscovery of a lost planet could pave the way for the detection of a world within the habitable 'Goldilocks zone' in a distant solar system. The planet, the size and mass of Saturn with an orbit of thirty-five days, is among hundreds of 'lost' worlds that University of Warwick astronomers are pioneering a new method to track down and characterise in the hope of finding cooler planets like those in our solar system, and even potentially habitable planets. Reported inAstrophysical Journal Letters, the planet named NGTS-11b orbits a star 620 light years away and is located five times closer to its sun than Earth is to our own. The planet was originally found in a search for planets in 2018 by the Warwick-led team using data from NASA's TESS telescope. This uses the transit method to spot planets, scanning for the telltale dip in light from the star that indicates that an object has passed between the telescope and the star. However, TESS only scans most sections of the sky for 27 days. This means many of the longer period planets only transit once in the TESS data. And without a second observation the planet is effectively lost. The University of Warwick led team followed up one of these 'lost' planets using the telescopes at the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) in Chile and observed the star for seventy-nine nights, eventually catching the planet transiting for a second time nearly a year after the first detected transit. Dr Samuel Gill from the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick said: "By chasing that second transit down we've found a longer period planet. It's the first of hopefully many such finds pushing to longer periods. "These discoveries are rare but important, since they allow us to find longer period planets than other astronomers are finding. Longer period planets are cooler, more like the planets in our own Solar System. "NGTS-11b has a temperature of only 160°C - cooler than Mercury and Venus. Although this is still too hot to support life as we know it, it is closer to the Goldilocks zone than many previously discovered planets which typically have temperatures above 1000°C." The Goldilocks zone refers to a range of orbits that would allow a planet or moon to support liquid water: too close to its star and it will be too hot, but too far away and it will be too cold. Co-author Dr Daniel Bayliss from the University of Warwick said: "This planet is out at a thirty-five days orbit, which is a much longer period than we usually find them. It is exciting to see the Goldilocks zone within our sights." Co-author Professor Pete Wheatley from the University of Warwick said: "The original transit appeared just once in the TESS data, and it was our team's painstaking detective work that allowed us to find it again a year later with NGTS. "NGTS has twelve state-of-the-art telescopes, which means that we can monitor multiple stars for months on end, searching for lost planets. The dip in light from the transit is only 1% deep and occurs only once every 35 days, putting it out of reach of other telescopes. " Dr Gill adds: "There are hundreds of single transits detected by TESS that we will be monitoring using this method. This will allow us to discover cooler exoplanets of all sizes, including planets more like those in our own Solar System. Some of these will be small rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone that are cool enough to host liquid water oceans and potentially extraterrestrial life." ###
'NGTS-11 b / TOI-1847 b: A transiting warm Saturn recovered from a TESS single-transit event' will be published inAstrophysical Journal Letters, DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab9eb9 The research, including the operation of NGTS, received funding and support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation. The involvement of Dr David Armstrong from the University of Warwick in the research was supported by STFC, through an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship. Notes to editors: For interviews or a copy of the paper contact: Peter Thorley Media Relations Manager (Warwick Medical School and Department of Physics) | Press & Media Relations | University of Warwick Email:peter.thorley@warwick.ac.uk Mob: +44 (0) 7824 540863 The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)is part of UK Research and Innovation - the UK body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. For more information visit UK Research and Innovation. STFC funds and supports research in particle and nuclear physics, astronomy, gravitational research and astrophysics, and space science and also operates a network of five national laboratories, including the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the Daresbury Laboratory, as well as supporting UK research at a number of international research facilities including CERN, FERMILAB, the ESO telescopes in Chile and many more. Visithttps://stfc.ukri.org/for more information. @STFC_Matters
