Fossils of largest theropod to date found in Australia

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org JANUARY 16, 2020

Australovenator with prey. Credit: Matt A. White, Phil R. Bell, Alex G. Cook, David G. Barnes, Travis R. Tischler,Brant J. Bassam,David A. Elliott - CC BY 2.5

A team of researchers from the University of New England, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum and Swinburne University of Technology, all in Australia, has identified fossils found near Winton as remains of the largest theropod found to date in Australia. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes the bones they found and its likely species.

In 2017, a farmer in the central-western Queensland town of Winton discovered several fragmented bones on his property. Suspecting they might be dinosaur fossils, he contacted the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Natural History Museum. A team was assembled, and a dig was established. The researchers found 15 more limb and vertebrae fossils.

The fossils closely resembled Australovenator wintonesis—a theropod species that was discovered in Australia in 2006. Theropods are a group of large, bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs—included in the group are both Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. The newly found fossils are bigger than those of the specimen found in 2006, making it difficult to determine if the two specimens are the same species. The fossil size suggests the creature was approximately two meters tall and five to seven meters long. The researchers are not ruling out the possibility that the fossils belong to an undiscovered species. But the larger size indicates that the find represents the largest known carnivore to have lived in Australia.

The newly found fossils include two partial vertebrae, an unspecified number of hands and feet and multiple fragments that have yet to be identified. The hand bones are large and have recurved claws with a horny sheath, reminiscent of birds. Their size and shape suggest the dinosaur used them to grapple prey—strongly indicating that it was a predator. According to the researchers, the creature likely fed on quadrupedal herbivores, though there was the possibility it was also a scavenger.

The newly discovered dinosaur is just the third theropod found in Australia—the only other evidence of them in Australia is shed teeth found at sauropod dig sites. The researchers note that there is still debate regarding whether the theropods living in Australia had feathers.

Huge-clawed predatory dinosaur discovery in Victoria

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More information: Matt A. White et al. New theropod remains and implications for megaraptorid diversity in the Winton Formation (lower Upper Cretaceous), Queensland, Australia, Royal Society Open Science (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191462

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

Male and female firefighters have different problems with protective suits

LIKE SPACE SUITS FOR WOMEN 

by Bill Wellock, Florida State University JANUARY 17, 2020 

Meredith McQuerry, an assistant professor in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship. Her research investigated the different problems male and female firefighters have with flexibility and range of motion in their protective equipment. Credit: Florida State University

When female firefighters put on the protective suits they need for their work, they're often using gear that has been designed for a male body.

Because of that mismatch, the suits don't fit as well as they should, and their mobility is impaired. Firefighters working in gear that restricts their movement must work harder to move around in a stressful and physically demanding environment, which puts them at greater risk of overexertion and heart attacks, the leading cause of on-duty deaths.

New research from Florida State University investigates differences in mobility for male and female firefighters while wearing the gear that is essential for protection from the intense heat of fires. The study is available in the January print edition of the journal Applied Ergonomics.

"There's not enough research to say 100 percent, 'This is what a female turnout suit needs to be,' but we do know women need a suit designed for them," said author Meredith McQuerry, an assistant professor in the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship. "The National Fire Protection Association sees the need. There are female and male sizes, but those are oversimplifications that don't take different anthropometric proportions into account, like the waist-to-hip ratio, the bust or shoulder breadth."

Previous studies have investigated the effects of bulky firefighting gear on the movement of male firefighters, but most research has not considered the measurements and range of motion of female firefighters.

McQuerry's study surveyed 16 career firefighters (10 men and six women) from the Tallahassee Fire Department on the fit and mobility of their firefighting gear. The research measured range of motion in three configurations: with only a base layer, with the "turnout suit" firefighters don for protection at the scene of a fire and with a full "turnout ensemble" that includes a breathing apparatus and helmet. The subjects were measured in a three-dimensional body scanner, then performed a range-of-motion test and recorded how comfortable they were and how easy it was to move.

McQuerry found that for both male and female firefighters turnout equipment significantly reduced mobility, but the men and women reported significant differences with the parts of the suit that gave them problems. Women reported more problems with the upper body areas of their turnout suit during overhead activities and were more likely to say that the suits were too large. Men expressed more dissatisfaction with restrictions in the crotch and pant leg during lower body movements.

Because these restrictions are gender specific, there is a strong need to develop a female-specific turnout gear sizing system in addition to the existing gear designed for men, McQuerry said. Researchers should collect more data, including body measurements and mobility assessments with a larger sample size, so that both men and women fighting fires can be equipped with appropriately sized personal protective clothing, she said.

A recently awarded grant of more than $400,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will help McQuerry continue her research.

"We need more data on female firefighter anthropometrics," she said. "A little bit has been done, but it is very limited. We need to conduct more research to understand what all of the barriers are along the production pipeline, from the design, to the sourcing, all the way to the purchasing within the fire service."

The goals for an improved turnout suit are clear, she said: "Better performance, less exertion, better safety."

Female firefighters more likely to suffer PTSD, contemplate suicide

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More information: Meredith McQuerry. Effect of structural turnout suit fit on female versus male firefighter range of motion, Applied Ergonomics (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2019.102974

Wooden Shigir idol found to be over twice as old as Egyptian pyramids

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org  APRIL 27, 2018 REPORT

Credit: Antiquity (2018). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.48

A team of researchers in Germany has found evidence suggesting that the famous wooden Shirgir Idol is actually 11,500 years old. The team has documented their efforts and findings in a paper published on the Cambridge University Press site Antiquity.

The Shigir Idol was discovered in an ancient peat bog by miners in Russia back in 1890. Early analysis showed that it was made entirely of larch wood and was constructed from several chunks. It remained preserved for thousands of years because of antimicrobial properties found in the peat. The idol was also covered extensively with markings, some of which depicted tiny human faces. To this day, no one knows what most of the markings depict. It was also noted that some of the original pieces of the idol had been lost—it is believed that it originally stood approximately five meters tall. In 1997, a team in Russia used radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of the icon and found it to be approximately 9,500 years old.

Experts have studied the carvings on the idol over the years, and many have suggested they likely represent a form of art, possibly linked with spiritual or religious activities.

Recently, the team in Germany expressed interest it taking a closer look at the idol, which is normally housed in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum, in Russia. Arrangements were made for the idol to be shipped to Germany, where it was studied, along with other original material found in the peat bog. Using accelerator mass spectrometry, the team found the true age of the idol to be approximately 11,500 years old, placing its creation at around the time of the end of the Ice Age. That age also makes it the oldest known wood monumental sculpture ever found and more than twice the age of the Egyptian pyramids. The researchers report that they also found another face carved into the wood, bringing the total to eight. Their findings suggest that researchers looking to better understand very early human behavior perhaps need to widen their search beyond the Fertile Crescent.

Credit: Public Domain

Rejection from 'American Idol' provides insights into perseverance

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More information: Mikhail Zhilin et al. Early art in the Urals: new research on the wooden sculpture from Shigir, Antiquity (2018). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.48

Abstract
The carved wooden object uncovered from the Shigir peat bog in the Sverdlovsk region towards the end of the nineteenth century remains one of the oldest, known examples of monumental anthropomorphic sculpture from anywhere in the world. Recent application of new analytical techniques has led to the discovery of new imagery on its surface, and has pushed the date of the piece back to the earliest Holocene. The results of these recent analyses are placed here in the context of local and extra-local traditions of comparable prehistoric art. This discussion highlights the unique nature of the find and its significance for appreciating the complex symbolic world of Early Holocene hunter-gatherers.

Journal information: Antiquity

Pachacamac Idol of ancient Peru was symbolically painted

by Public Library of Science JANUARY 15, 2020

The wooden statue of the Pachacamac Idol. Credit: Sepúlveda et al, 2020.

The Pachacamac Idol of ancient Peru was a multicolored and emblematic sacred icon worshipped for almost 700 hundred years before Spanish conquest, according to a study published January 15, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marcela Sepúlveda of the University of Tarapacá, Chile and colleagues.

The Pachacamac Idol is a symbolically carved wooden statue known from the Pachacamac archaeological complex, the principal coastal Inca sanctuary 31 km south of Lima, Peru during the 15th-16th centuries. The idol was reportedly damaged in 1533 during Spanish conquest of the region, and details of its originality and antiquity have been unclear. Also unexplored has been the question of whether the idol was symbolically colored, a common practice in Old World Antiquity.

In this study, Sepúlveda and colleagues obtained a wood sample from the Pachacamac Idol for chemical analysis. Through carbon-dating, they were able to determine that the wood was cut and likely carved approximately 760-876 AD, during the Middle Horizon, suggesting the statue was worshipped for almost 700 years before Spanish conquest. Their analysis also identified chemical traces of three pigments that would have conferred red, yellow, and white coloration to the idol.

This nondestructive analysis not only confirms that the idol was painted, but also that it was polychromatic, displaying at least three colors and perhaps others not detected in this study. The fact that the red pigment used was cinnabar, a material not found in the local region, demonstrates economic and symbolic implications for the coloration of the statue. The authors point out that coloration is a rarely discussed factor in the symbolic, economic, and experiential importance of religious symbols of the pre-Columbian periods, and that more studies on the subject could illuminate unknown details of cultural practices of the Andean past in South America.

The authors add: "Here, polychromy of the so-called Pachacamac Idol is demonstrated, including the presence of cinnabar."

In the last picture, the red arrows mark the presence of red pigments containing mercury. Credit: © Marcela Sepulveda/Rommel Angeles/Museo de sitio Pachacamac

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More information: Sepúlveda M, Pozzi-Escot D, Angeles Falcón R, Bermeo N, Lebon M, Moulhérat C, et al. (2020) Unraveling the polychromy and antiquity of the Pachacamac Idol, Pacific coast, Peru. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0226244. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226244

An evolving understanding of extinction

by Christine Steininger and Bruce Rubidge, Wits University JANUARY 17, 2020

Few things related to science capture the imagination more than the magic of worlds past. This includes the origins of life, dinosaurs, mass extinctions, meteorite impacts, and the evolution of our species. Understanding the evolution of life is central to the way we view ourselves and others and developing this field is thus critical.

Furthermore, South Africa's rich palaeontological, palaeo-anthropological and archaeological record provides a unique competitive advantage to local heritage-related scientists.

Palaeosciences is the only discipline dedicated to understanding the origin and development of past life and its interactions with changing environments. It is the responsibility of these scientists to ensure understanding of the depth of our dependence on Earth as a life support system. Additionally, paleosciences research can provide knowledge of how to manage human interactions with the planet responsibly.

As our knowledge of the Earth expands, we begin to realise far more synergy and mutualistic relationships with the biological world—built up over millions of years—in many of the fundamental processes to secure biodiversity, soils, water, minerals, energy, and other resources.

South Africa rocks

South Africa is poised to become a global leader in an area of geographic advantage.

Because of the country's immense diversity, antiquity, and continuity of geological, palaeontological, and archaeological records, and its rich genetic heritage, South Africa is unique in the world.

Credit: Wits University

The country boasts some of the most significant mineral deposits on Earth and preserves, amongst others, the oldest evidence of life on Earth from over 3,500-million years; the most distant ancestors of dinosaurs from 200-million years ago; and a remarkable record of human origins and achievements over four-million years.

Erasing Earth

The study of past biodiversity has recognised that five global extinction events have occurred in the last 500-million years, where between 65 percent and 95 percent of species went extinct over a relatively short period. South Africa has a record of four of these five extinction events. Many scientists consider that the Earth has now entered a new epoch—the Anthropocene. Like other transitions between geological eras, the marker for this transition is a mass extinction event, although this one—uniquely—is human-induced. And avoidable.

The current rate of species extinction is estimated to be 10 to 1,000 times higher than the natural, background rate. This is likely to increase as habitat destruction, global change, and other human-induced stresses on the natural environment accelerate.

South Africa is the only country in the world with the necessary fossil resources to undertake a research initiative over such an extensive period. Our fossil archives provide case studies throughout Earth's history to understand how climactic and environmental change affect biodiversity.

Decoding the mechanisms that lead to population extirpation [localised extinction] and ultimately species extinction under climate change is critical for scenario-planning, interpreting, and possibly predicting its impact on biodiversity and to inform policy to conserve South African biodiversity in future.

Mass extinction of land and sea biodiversity 250 million years ago not simultaneous

Beach-combing Neanderthals dove for shells

by University of Colorado at Boulder JANUARY 15, 2020

OUR ANCESTORS WERE BEACH BUMS

General morphology of retouched shell tools, Figs C-L are from the Pigorini Museum. Credit: Villa et al., 2020

Did Neanderthals wear swimsuits? Probably not. But a new study suggests that some of these ancient humans might have spent a lot of time at the beach. They may even have dived into the cool waters of the Mediterranean Sea to gather clam shells.

The findings come from Grotta dei Moscerini, a picturesque cave that sits just 10 feet above a beach in what is today the Latium region of central Italy.

In 1949, archaeologists working at the site dug up some unusual artifacts: dozens of seashells that Neanderthals had picked up, then shaped into sharp tools roughly 90,000 years ago.

Now, a team led by Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Boulder has uncovered new secrets from those decades-old discoveries. In research published today in the journal PLOS ONE, she and her colleagues report that the Neanderthals didn't just collect shells that were lying out on the beach. They may have actually held their breath and went diving for the perfect shells to meet their needs.

Villa, an adjoint curator in the CU Museum of Natural History, said the results show that Neanderthals may have had a much closer connection to the sea than many scientists thought.

"The fact they were exploiting marine resources was something that was known," Villa said. "But until recently, no one really paid much attention to it."

Cave discoveries

When archaeologists first found shell tools in Grotta dei Moscerini, it came as a surprise. While Neanderthals are well-known for crafting spear tips out of stone, few examples exist of them turning shells into tools.

But the find wasn't a fluke. The 1949 excavation of the cave unearthed 171 such tools, all valves from shell belonging to a local species of mollusk called the smooth clam (Callista chione). Villa explained that the ancient humans used stone hammers to chip away at these shells, forming cutting edges that would have stayed thin and sharp for a long time.

"No matter how many times you retouch a clam shell, its cutting edge will remain very thin and sharp," she said.

But did the Neanderthals, like many beachgoers today, simply collect these shells while taking a stroll along the sand?

To find out, Villa and her colleagues took a closer look at those tools. In the process, they found something they weren't expecting. Nearly three-quarters of the Moscerini shell tools had opaque and slightly abraded exteriors, as if they had been sanded down over time. That's what you'd expect to see, Villa said, on shells that had washed up on a sandy beach.

The rest of the shells had a shiny, smooth exterior.

Those shells, which also tended to be a little bit bigger, had to have been plucked directly from the seafloor as live animals.

"It's quite possible that the Neanderthals were collecting shells as far down as 2 to 4 meters," Villa said. "Of course, they did not have scuba equipment."

Researchers also turned up a large number of pumice stones from the cave that Neanderthals had collected and may have used as abrading tools. The stones, Villa and her colleagues determined, washed onto the Moscerini beach from volcanic eruptions that occurred more than 40 miles to the south.

Going for a dip

She's not alone in painting a picture of beach-loving Neanderthals.

In an earlier study, for example, a team led by anthropologist Erik Trinkaus identified bony growths on the ears of a few Neanderthal skeletons. These features, called "swimmer's ear," can be found in people who practice aquatic sports today.

For Villa, the findings are yet more proof that Neanderthals were just as flexible and creative as their human relatives when it came to eking out a living—a strong contrast to their representation in popular culture as a crude cavemen who lived by hunting or scavenging mammoths.

"People are beginning to understand that Neanderthals didn't just hunt large mammals," Villa said. "They also did things like freshwater fishing and even skin diving."

Other coauthors on the new study included researchers from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the University of Geneva, Roma Tre University, Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Pisa.

Neanderthals used resin 'glue' to craft their stone tools

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More information: Villa P, Soriano S, Pollarolo L, Smriglio C, Gaeta M, D'Orazio M, et al. (2020) Neandertals on the beach: Use of marine resources at Grotta dei Moscerini (Latium, Italy). PLoS ONE 15(1): e0226690. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226690

Journal information: PLoS ONE 

Global warming to increase violent crime in the United States

by University of Colorado at Boulder JANUARY 15, 2020

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

People in the United States could see tens of thousands of extra violent crimes every year—because of climate change alone.

"Depending on how quickly temperatures rise, we could see two to three million more violent crimes between now and the end of the century than there would be in a non-warming world," said Ryan Harp, researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of a new study published today in Environmental Research Letters.

In 2018, Harp and his coauthor, Kris Karnauskas, CIRES Fellow and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at CU Boulder, mined an FBI crime database and NOAA climate data to identify a set of compelling regional connections between warming and crime rates, especially in winter. Warmer winters appeared to be setting the stage for more violent crimes like assault and robbery, likely because less nasty weather created more opportunities for interactions between people.

Now, the team has projected additional future violent crimes in the United States, by combining the mathematical relationships they uncovered in previous work with output from 42 state-of-the-art global climate models. The team accounted for key factors that previous studies have overlooked, including variations in crime rates across seasons and for different regions of the country.

"We are just beginning to scratch the surface on the myriad ways climate change is impacting people, especially through social systems and health," Karnauskas said. "We could see a future where results like this impact planning and resource allocation among health, law enforcement and criminal justice communities."

Violent crime rates rise in warmer winters

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More information: Ryan Harp et al, Global warming to increase violent crime in the United States, Environmental Research Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37

Journal information: Environmental Research Letters 

PLANTS IN THE WORKPLACE
Living yoga for the mind

by Reshma Lakha-Singh, Wits University JANUARY 17, 2020

Plants in the office. Credit: Lauren Mulligan | www.wits.ac.za/curiosity/

Plants in the office are not there just to look pretty. They can lead to increased productivity, as well as improved mental health for workers.

We all know that taking a walk in the garden or going for a run in the park after work can do miracles for getting rid of the stress of a hard day in the office.

Greenery and plants have been recognised to have a calming impact on us. For example, Apple Inc."s four storey circular building in Cupertino, California, nicknamed the "spaceship" is filled with drought-resistant trees and indigenous plants. Microsoft employees at the Redmont Campus in Seattle make use of treehouse boardrooms and Amazon has a look-alike rainforest office space that houses 40 000 plants in downtown Seattle.

By recreating "natural" spaces, these multinational corporations hope to encourage and enable creativity, mindfulness and innovation amongst their employees through a link to nature.

Headspace

"There are obviously many physical benefits to having plants in the workspace, but the reality is that in order to truly feel the real CO2 and O2 transference, you have to have a jungle in your office," says Professor Andrew Thatcher, Chair of Industrial and Organisational Psychology and a specialist in green ergonomics at Wits.

"However, the psychological benefits based on Attention Restoration Theory (ART) hypothesised by University of Michigan Professors Rachel Kaplan and Steven Kaplan, indicate that nature is not only pleasing to the eye but can also help concentration and renew mental energy. It provides an escape from our normal indoor sterile environments."

Interested in the study of the reciprocal relationship benefits between human and nature, Thatcher investigated the psychological benefits of plants in the office after seeing a similar study conducted in the northern hemisphere, in countries with severe winter conditions.

"We wanted to replicate the study in a country with warmer temperatures that enable plants to survive all seasons," says Thatcher.

He placed groups of participants in three rooms. The first room had plants, room two had pictures of plants, and the third room was bare. All participants were given tasks to complete. The results indicated that performance was best in the room with plants, thereafter the room with pictures of plants and the worst result was the sterile environment.

"Another case study done internationally placed office workers into three groups. One group did yoga in a closed room, another walked the city, whilst the third walked around in a park. The park had the best restoration effect and the yoga studio had the worst. The point was not doing yoga, but getting out into nature," says Thatcher.

He adds that in our constructed environments our attentional capacity becomes shortened the longer we spend in those environments.

"The type of work we do is highly cognitive and very stressful. Our escapes are talking to others but very often we talk about work. We don't get an opportunity to recoup our attentional resources, therefore you need a way of topping up those attentional resources. Plants enable us to do this," says Thatcher.

"Many of us spend so much time interacting with technology, cooped up in closed offices. Our jobs require us to solve problems, multi-task and pay attention to detail. Our daily lives are filled with ambient noises such as alarms, ringing phones, television and sirens—the list goes on. So, plant up your office space, it may just be the yoga that your mind needs."


JANUARY 3, 2020
Plants can improve your work life

by American Society for Horticultural Science
An air plant used in the study on office stress reduction. Credit: Masahiro Toyoda

A study out of the University of Hyogo in Awaji, Japan, details the stress-reducing benefits to office workers that even a small plant situated within easy viewing can impart.


Masahiro Toyoda, Yuko Yokota, Marni Barnes, and Midori Kaneko explored the practical use of indoor plants to boost mental health among employees typically removed from exposure to healthy green environments.

Their findings are illustrated in their article "Potential of a Small Indoor Plant on the Desk for Reducing Office Workers' Stress" published in the open access journal HortTechnology, by the American Society for Horticultural Science.

In modern society, stress reduction in the workplace is a pressing issue. While it has been commonly assumed that plant life is soothing to those required to regularly face stressful or mundane situations, this study scientifically verifies the degree of psychological and physiological impact induced by indoor plants. Rather than conducting experiments in a laboratory setting, the researchers calculated stress reduction on employees in real office settings.

Toyoda adds, "At present, not so many people fully understand and utilize the benefit of stress recovery brought by plants in the workplace. To ameliorate such situations, we decided it essential to verify and provide scientific evidence for the stress restorative effect by nearby plants in a real office setting."

Toyoda and his team investigated changes in psychological and physiological stress before and after placing a plant on the workers' desks. Sixty-three office workers in Japan were the participants of this study. The participants were directed to take a 3-minute rest while sitting at their desks when they felt fatigue.
Kokedama was a plant chosen by some participants in the study. Credit: Masahiro Toyoda

There were two phases of the study: a control period without plants and an intervention period when the participants were able to see and care for a small plant. The researchers measured psychological stress in the participants using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The ratio of the participants whose pulse rate lowered significantly after a 3-minute rest with interaction with their desk plant proved definitive.

The objective of this study was to verify the stress-reducing effect of gazing intentionally at a plant in a real office setting when a worker felt fatigue during office hours. Each plant used in the study was chosen and cared for by the worker. Both passive and active involvement with plants in the workplace were considered for their contribution to mitigation of stress and fatigue.


Participants were provided routine visual access to plants by having their choice of plant situated conveniently on their desks (a passive involvement with plants). They also had the opportunity to care for their plant (an active involvement with plants). Furthermore, the researchers considered that intentionally gazing at the plant was, though not involving physical movement, an active interaction with plants that office workers could do quickly and easily at their desks.

Participants were offered a choice of six different types of plants to keep on their desks: air plants, bonsai plants, san pedro cactus, foliage plants, kokedama, or echeveria. Each participant chose one of the six types of small indoor plants and placed it near the PC monitor on their desk.

The calming effects calculated during the study showed that anxiety decreased significantly from pre- to post-intervention. The results did not skew when looking at the data within the various age groups of the workers or with different plant selections. The researchers suggest that placing small plants within close sight contributed to psychological stress reduction across the board.

Toyoda and his team suggest for business owners that small indoor plants could be economical and helpful in efforts improve office conditions for employees. In addition, for growers of indoor plants and business owners of retail plant companies, the field of mental health for office workers could open up a new avenue of a promising market.


Explore furtherHormone keys plant growth or stress tolerance, but not both
More information: Masahiro Toyoda et al, Potential of a Small Indoor Plant on the Desk for Reducing Office Workers' Stress, HortTechnology (2019). DOI: 10.21273/HORTTECH04427-19
Journal information: HortTechnology

Vital Signs: The end of the checkout signals a dire future for those without the right skills

by ​ Richard Holden, The Conversation JANUARY 17, 2020

Shops checkouts are predicted to disappear this decade. Customers will be able to take what they want and walk out, with payment done automatically. Credit: www.shutterstock.com

There has already been a fair number of jobs lost to automation over recent decades—from factory workers to bank tellers.

In the coming decade we might see radically larger numbers of jobs lost to automation, thanks to advances in machine learning and other technologies.

Two areas are transport and retail.

In transport, tech company TuSimple has for months been testing autonomous trucks for UPS (the world's largest delivery company). The trucks, hauling freight between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, still have a human behind the wheel for safety, but it's only a matter of time before they become redundant.,

In supermarkets, meanwhile, the shift from checkout operators to self-service will be soon be followed by eliminating the checkout system—and attendants—entirely.

This week a senior executive with Australian supermarket giant Coles said the clocking was ticking on checkouts: "I have no doubt in the next 10 years, customers will be able to take the product off the shelf, put it in their basket, walk out and have it all paid for."

Given the concentration of the Australian grocery industry—with Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA having about 80% market share – this could happen in a lot of outlets in a short space of time.

The technology for this already exists. Amazon has been trialling its "no-checkout" Amazon Go technology at more than 20 Amazon-owned convenience stores in major US cities. Customers can walk into an Amazon Go store, "swipe in" with the app on their phone, pick up what they want and then simply walk out.

How it works exactly only Amazon knows, but it seems to involve sensors that identify what you've picked and artificial intelligence calculating what you're likely to pick up based on previous purchases. Those who have used it say it works remarkably well.

In time the spread of such technology could wipe out more than 150,000 cashier jobs remaining in Australia.

And that's just one sector of the economy.

Is this time different?

The argument against worrying about automation is that it's always easier to identify the jobs likely to be lost than the new ones that will emerge.

There's some truth to this. Who knew in 1995, for example, that "social media manager" would be a job 20 years later?

It's also true the invention of the printing press and the mechanical plow destroyed jobs. But they also created more, as have many other innovations over the past 200 years.

But there are two reasons to be concerned—reasons I explore in a forthcoming book with co-author Rosalind Dixon.

The first is that this time really looks to be different in terms of scale. It has been estimated up to 14% of jobs in OECD countries are highly subject to automation, and a further 32% could face significant changes to how they are carried out.

The second is the jobs created by automation might not be suited to the people who lose their jobs. The cashier replaced by an automated checkout is unlikely to be qualified to work on the artificial intelligence technology that created it.

This has been true in the past to a degree, but a factory laborer who lost their job could at least move into the services sector. They were not be paid as well—a very real issue—but at least they could find another job without significant reskilling.

This time around there is reason to believe the skills of those who prosper from automation are going to be very different to those who lose.

The distributional implications of this are large and important.

The proper response

When a new technology increases the size of the overall economic pie, it is better to embrace it and try to take care of those who lose out.

That involves, if they have trouble finding a new job, doing more than ensuring they have an income.

As former US vice-president Joe Biden has recalled his father telling him: "You know, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about dignity, it's about respect. It's about your place in the community."

That means the proper response to automation has to be serious retraining to give people the skills to get a new job.

If that is not enough, it may mean the government providing jobs.

This kind of jobs guarantee is being talked about by mainstream economists and centrist politicians for the first time since the 1930s, when it formed a key part of the US government's New Deal response to the Great Depression through the Works Progress Administration.

If the automation of the 2020s turns out to be a "robocalypse" of self-driving cars, automated baristas and AI-driven professional services, it might indeed be needed.

Be prepared

As US baseball great Yogi Bera said: "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future." But we've seen enough evidence of an automation revolution driven by machine learning and big data to know we need to be prepared.

That means thinking now about a range of policies to provide people with work but not give up on the power of markets.

Why bosses should let employees surf the web at work

by Stephanie Andel, The Conversation JANUARY 17, 2020

Cyberloafing may not be a waste of time after all. Credit: GaudiLab/Shutterstock.com

If you're like most workers, you don't spend 100% of your time at the office doing what you're supposed to be doing.

In fact, on average, U.S. workers spend about 10% of their work day surfing the internet, emailing friends or shopping online. This so-called cyberloafing costs employers up to US$85 billion a year.

But it turns out, these behaviors may not be a sign a worker is lazy or just wasting time. New research I conducted with several colleagues suggests cyberloafing can help workers cope with an exceptionally stressful work environment.

Cyberloafing and stress

Existing research on cyberloafing, a term first coined in 2002 by researchers from the National University of Singapore, typically assumes that this behavior is problematic and counterproductive.

Therefore, the majority of cyberloafing research focuses on ways to deter employees from engaging in this behavior through interventions such as internet monitoring and computer use policies.

However, more recent research has found that using the internet at work for personal purposes may also have some positive outcomes. For instance, social media use at work has been linked to higher levels of employee engagement and job satisfaction.

And other studies indicate that cyberloafing may provide a way for employees to manage workplace stress. For instance, empirical research suggest that employees surf the web as a response to boredom and unclear instructions.

Impact on employee stress

But is cyberloafing actually effective at reducing employee stress levels?

That's the question Stacey Kessler, Shani Pindek, Gary Kleinman, Paul Spector and I wanted to answer in our new study. Our hypothesis was that cyberloafing may serve as a mini break during the workday, giving employees an opportunity to recover from stressful work situations.

To test this, we recruited 258 university students who also worked at least 20 hours per week to complete an online survey about their experiences on the job. Specifically, we asked them to rank how much time they spent doing a variety of cyberloafing behaviors such as checking non-work email and shopping, ranking them from "never" to "constantly." We also asked participants to rank job satisfaction, their desire to quit and how often they've experienced mistreatment at work, such as being bullied, threatened or yelled at.

As you might expect, we found that participants who reported more workplace mistreatment had lower levels of job satisfaction and were more likely to want to leave their companies.

More interestingly, we found that cyberloafing effectively buffered this connection. That is, mistreated workers who spent more time surfing the web and checking emails reported higher job satisfaction and were less likely to want to quit than similar participants who didn't cyberloaf as much.

This suggests that cyberloafing acts as a sort of relief valve for workers, helping them recover from stressful experiences.

Overall, about 65% of participants reported spending at least some time at work cyberloafing, in mostly moderate amounts, with the most common form being the use of personal email.

While we did not directly assess how cyberloafing affects worker performance, we believe that by relieving stress this buffering effect may ultimately help employees be more productive. This fits with other recent research that suggests taking short breaks throughout the work day is indirectly associated with higher levels of daily job performance.

That isn't to say that cyberloafing is always good. Too much time spent on non-work activities likely causes performance to suffer.

Cut 'em some slack

All in all, managers should cut workers a bit of slack when it comes to cyberloafing.

Our results do not mean, however, that they should simply let employees cyberloaf instead of directly addressing workplace problems like bullying. If managers only focus on cyberloafing, they would be addressing a symptom rather than the root of the problem.

And of course, there are other reasons workers cyberloaf. For instance, some individuals do it to "get back" at their organizations for a perceived slight or simply because they see coworkers cyberloaf. Future research needs to be done to better understand the factors that motivate employees to cyberloaf.

But maybe, just maybe, a little bit of shopping or surfing at work could make you more productive in the long run.