Friday, March 20, 2020

Down The Rabbit Hole: How YouTube Comments Help In Radicalizing Viewers

By JR Ventura 01/30/20

Who Is Count Dankula? YouTuber Convicted Over Offensive Nazi Salute Video

KEY POINTS
Researchers from Switzerland and Brazil universities are pointing to YouTube as the gateway to radicalization

YouTube's "algorithmic recommendations" are guiding viewers to more extreme content
Researchers argued that as host to extremist channels, YouTube is partly responsible for the radical transformation

From fake news to fake comments, the rise of social media and the side effects of YouTube's free-for-all video publishing are acting as gateways to radicalize users into the Dark Side.

In a recent study presented by university researchers in Switzerland and Brazil at the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency in Barcelona, Google's YouTube “algorithmic recommendations” are somewhat guiding viewers to more radical videos. Along the way, median content slowly transforms into those with extreme information that, among others, indulge in racism, anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideologies, said Fox Business.

The researchers based their findings on a ton of YouTube videos, channels and comments and came up with a paper entitled, “Auditing Radicalization Pathways on YouTube.” As part of their study, the team analyzed more than 330,000 videos that were posted on 349 channels plus an outstanding 72 million comments. Here, they classified the videos as Media, Alt-lite, the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) and the Alt-right, according to Tech Crunch.

YouTube policies already ban explicit threats, but now "veiled or implied" threats will be barred as well Photo: AFP / NICOLAS ASFOURI

The outlet further suggested that the paper discovered that users who started as patrons on Alt-lite and IDW channels went down the proverbial rabbit hole and began commenting on extreme far-right videos over the years.

“A significant amount of commenting users systematically migrates from commenting exclusively on milder content to commenting on more extreme content,” the paper said, via Tech Crunch.

After the researchers presented their paper, author Manoel Horta Ribeiro was asked if they solely based their study on pure YouTube content and if the people that they were discussing were already “radicalized” in the first place.

For his part – as well as the researchers – Ribeiro didn't put all the blame on YouTube. However, he made it a point to detail that as host to these channels, the platform is responsible to the transformation.

“We do find evident traces of user radicalization, and I guess the question asks why is YouTube responsible for this? And I guess the answer would be because many of these communities they live on YouTube and they have a lot of their content on YouTube and that's why YouTube is so deeply associated with it,” he said, according to Tech Crunch.

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Ribeiro also said that “it's very hard” to point all radicalization transformation are made by YouTube or some “recommender system,” but their analysis – a solid evidence, at that – exposes the truth that there are people who only visited milder channels in the past have transcended in their ideologies and ventured on a more extreme path.

TRADES UNION CONGRESS TUC
BBC QT: ‘Tell the truth!’ TUC chief raises important point about NHS ventilator shortage

THE TUC Chief has urged the government to be honest with the public about how long it will take for the NHS to be restocked with ventilators and other medical equipment before supplies run low due to the coronavirus epidemic.

By HOLLY FLEET PUBLISHED: Fri, Mar 20, 2020

Fiona Bruce hosted the first-ever Question Time panel without a live audience in Weston Super Mare last night. Junior doctor Jess asked a question in a video call to the panel, made up of Matt Hancock, Andy Burnham, Tom Solomon, Frances O’Grady, and Angela Hartnett.

Jess asked how will the government help to ration ventilators and provide adequate equipment for NHS staff.

She warned that without the necessary means provided the UK could “end up like Italy.”

Jess said: “The situation with the coronavirus is a worrying time for us all, an unprecedented circumstance for the health service

THE TUC Chief has urged the government to be honest with the public about ventilator shortage. (Image: BBC QT)

Fiona Bruce hosted the first-ever Question Time panel without a live audience in Weston Super Mare . (Image: BBC QT)

“Many junior doctors are frightened we will be in the same position as Italy in a few weeks time, “

Before she asked: “How are you going to ration ventilators for patients and equipment for the staff when the NHS becomes overwhelmed for the staff?”

TUC Chief Frances O’Grady admitted that there is a worry over necessary tools in hospital for all staff, not just the nurses and doctors, but cleaning staff who require sanitising products.

She said: “We're not just talking about doctors and nurses, were talking about cleaners and porters and all the other support staff. Without them, our hospitals can’t function.

READ MORE:'It's broken my heart' Fiona Bruce reads plea from OAP

“Many junior doctors are frightened we will be in the same

position as Italy in a few weeks time, “ (Image: BBC QT)

“Were hearing people need masks, soap, equipment to fight this pandemic.” Ms O’Grady added.

Fiona Bruce exclaimed: "They’re telling you they haven’t got enough soap!?”

The TUC chief responded: “We have had that too. This is a team, in the NHS people see themselves as a team, they know they depend on each other, in order to do the job they need to do. So there are real worries. We need to get that sorted fast.”

She then added: “I'm really interested in the ventilators point, it's fantastic if we have got manufacturing companies prepared to switch production, are unions representing manufacturing workers?

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“How are you going to ration ventilators for patients and equipment for the staff when the NHS comes overwhelmed for the staff?” (Image: BBC QT)

The first QT in its history to be held without a live audience. (Image: BBC QT)

“Let’s be straight with people it's not as simple as its sometimes portrayed. switching manufacturing, getting the parts, sometimes from China, it’s not always easy.

“So let’s tell people the truth, we're grow-ups I think we can take it, we want to know how long will this take.

“In the meantime, how do we get that international cooperation, to get the ventilators to where they need to be most and that takes co-operation. Not point-scoring across nations, but helping each other.

Coronavirus Battle Plan (Image: EXPRESS)

“Those private healthcare companies need to pull their weight.”

It comes the New York Times reported that American and European ventilators manufacturers say they can’t keep up with the demand for their products.

“The reality is there is absolutely not enough,” said Andreas Wieland, the chief executive of Hamilton Medical in Switzerland, one of the world’s largest makers of ventilators.

“Those private healthcare companies need to pull their weight.” (Image: BBC QT)

TRENDING

“We see that in Italy, we saw that in China, we see it in France and other countries. We could sell I don’t know how many.” He added.

“Italy wanted to order 4,000, but there’s not a chance, we sent them something like 400.”

IGNAZ Semmelweis is being honoured in today's Google Doodle. But why is the Hungarian physician being mentioned in a hand-washing video?

Ignaz Semmelweis reminds us to wash our hands (Image: GETTY)

By RACHEL RUSSELL PUBLISHED Fri, Mar 20, 2020

Coronavirus: GP demonstrates 'correct' hand washing procedure

The latest Google Doodle video features a 50 second clip of the six different stages of washing your hands. The video is accompanied by a jaunty jazz tune. And Dr Semmelweis appears to give support on the correct method of ensuring germs are no longer lingering on your hands after you scrub them with soap and water.

Why is Google honouring Hungarian physician in hand-washing Doodle?

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the world, it is no wonder people are being advised on how to keep germs at bay.

Thoroughly washing your hands regularly throughout the day has been a key piece of advice from all health professionals on how to protect yourself and others from catching the deadly virus.

People can carry coronavirus without realising, putting elderly people and those with underlying health problems at risk.

That is why it is vital to ensure you do not have any lingering traces of coronavirus on you.

Google Doodle: Ignaz Semmelweis is honoured in the Doodle on March 20 (Image: GETTY)

Dr Ignaz Semmelweis was famously known as the “father of infection control”.

The Hungarian physician was known for being the first person to discover the medical benefits of hand washing.

He demonstrated the importance of clean hands when he was appointed chief resident in the maternity clinic of the Vienna General Hospital on 20 March 1847.

After this, he began requiring all physicians to disinfect their hands with a solution of chlorinated lime.

Google Doodle: Ignaz Semmelweis was famously known as the “father of infection control” (Image: GETTY)

He was appointed after concerns grew over new mothers dying at high rates of an infection.

This was referred to at the time as “childbed fever” in hospital.

After launching an investigation, Semmelweis worked out that the cause was doctors carrying infectious diseases on their hands.

They most likely got this from operating rooms to the new mothers.

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Coronavirus can linger on a person without them realising (Image: EXPRESS)

After his hand disinfection initiative, “mortality rates in the first division dropped from 18.27 to 1.27 percent, and in March and August of 1848 no woman died in childbirth in his division,” according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

However, it wasn't until after Semmelweis’s death that his beliefs were validated by other medical professionals.

This occured through the widespread acceptance of the “germ theory of disease.

And now the Google Doodle is offering more adivce from the World Health Organisation on this issue.

Coronavirus spread can be contained by washing your hands (Image: GETTY)

Boris Johnson is confident the UK will contain the virus in 12 weeks (Image: GETTY)

The WHO recommends people wash their hands for 20 seconds.

This will ensure all germs are thoroughly removed and your hands will hopefully be free of disease.

It comes as the number of deaths continue to rise across the world.

The UK death toll has hit more than 144 so far.

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Coronavirus bombshell: Study finds ‘origin of virus that enabled take-off'

CORONAVIRUS is sweeping across Europe, placing the likes of Italy, France, Spain and Germany in lockdown, but a group of scientists think they have a "plausible explanation" for the outbreak.

By CALLUM HOARE PUBLISHED Fri, Mar 20,2020

There have now been a quarter-of-a-million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, as the number of fatalities in Italy has now surpassed China, who introduced strict measures early to curb the effects. Scientists around the world have been working day and night in the hope of finding a vaccine that will be ready before next year. Now, an international study, published in Virological, may help prevent future devastation, by mapping out the likely origin of COVID-19.

The researchers looked at the genome sequencing of the virus, in comparison to other strands of SARS, to understand its mutation.

It reads: “It is improbable that COVID-19 emerged through laboratory manipulation of an existing SARS-related coronavirus.

“The receptor binding of COVID-19 is optimised for humans with an efficient binding solution different to that which would have been predicted.

“Further, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one would expect that one of the several reverse genetic systems available for coronaviruses would have been used.

A study found the likely origin of COVID-19 (Image: GETTY

Italy has the highest death toll (Image: GETTY)

We propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of COVID-19
Scientific paper

“However, this is not the case as the genetic data shows that COVID-19 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.”

The scientists believe that, by looking at previous cases of coronavirus, they can better understand how this new strain mutated.

The paper continues: “Instead, we propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of COVID-19.

“Firstly, natural selection in a non-human animal host prior to animal-human transfer, and secondly, natural selection in humans following animal-human transfer.

“As many of the early cases of COVID-19 were linked to the Huanan seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan, it is possible that an animal source was present at this location.

The epicentre of the virus was in Wuhan (Image: GETTY)

“Given the similarity of COVID-19 to bat SARS-like COVs, it is plausible that bats serve as hosts for COVID-19.”

However, this theory does pose a worry to the researchers, who add there could be a possibility that other viruses could be circulating in animals, including one in particular.

The paper adds: “It is important, however, to note that previous outbreaks of coronaviruses in humans involved direct exposure to animals other than bats, including civets (SARS) and camels (MERS), that carry viruses that are genetically very similar to SARS or MERS, respectively.

“By analogy, viruses closely related to COVID-19 may be circulating in one or more animal species.

“Initial analyses indicate that Malayan pangolins illegally imported into Guangdong province contain a coronavirus that is similar to COVID-19.

The study found a link between animals and COVID-19 (Image: GETTY)

250,000 people have been infected (Image: GETTY)

“However, no pangolin coronavirus has yet been identified that is sufficiently similar to COVID-19 across its entire genome to support direct human infection.

“Further characterisation of coronavirus in pangolins and other animals that may harbour COCID-19-like viruses should be a public health priority.”

The paper goes on to discuss a second theory, that the virus mutated after animal-human contact.

It continues: “It is also possible that a progenitor to COVID-19 jumped from a non-human animal to humans, with the genomic features described above acquired through adaptation during subsequent human-to-human transmission.

“We surmise that once these adaptations were acquired it would enable the outbreak to take-off, producing a sufficiently large and unusual cluster of pneumonia cases to trigger the surveillance system that ultimately detected it.

“A detailed understanding of how an animal virus jumped species boundaries to infect humans so productively will help in the prevention of future animal-human events.

“For example, if COVID-19 pre-adapted in another animal species then we are at risk of future re-emergence events even if the current epidemic is controlled.

“In contrast, if the adaptive process we describe occurred in humans, then even if we have repeated animal-human transfers they are unlikely to take-off unless the same series of mutations occurs.”

Masks, gloves don't stop coronavirus spread: experts

Wearing masks and gloves as a precaution against coronavirus is ineffective, unnecessary for the vast majority of people, and may even spread infections faster, experts said Tuesday.

While near-total lockdowns have been imposed in Italy, Spain and now France, the World Health Organization's advice has remained unchanged since the start of the global outbreak: wash your hands, don't touch your face, and keep your distance.

The WHO says it is advisable to wear a protective mask in public if you suspect you are infected or someone you are caring for is, in which case the advice is to stay home whenever possible.

"There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being infected and we've said the most important thing everyone can do is wash your hands, keep your hands away from your face, observe very precise hygiene," said WHO's emergencies director Mike Ryan.

The advice is all the more urgent given the WHO's estimate that health workers worldwide will need at least 89 million masks every month to treat COVID-19 cases.

There are already shortages of masks for medical professionals around the world, a problem that could get worse as the pandemic drags on.

But the message about masks hasn't reached everyone.

"I'm surprised to see through the window in my ministry lots of people in the street wearing masks when that doesn't correspond to our recommendations," French health minister Olivier Veran said Monday.

Mariam, 35, told AFP that she was wearing a mask because she has an elderly mother.

"Just in case," said Mariam, who was also sporting latex gloves.

Mariam, who didn't want to give her last name, she said she got her mask from "a friend's mother who works in a hospital".

Contaminated masks

As well as hoovering up stocks sorely needed by medical professionals, experts say masks can give people who wear them a false sense of security.

For example, many people who wear them don't follow the official advice of washing their hands thoroughly first, ensuring it's air tight and not to touch it once it's on.

"People are always readjusting their masks and that has the potential to contaminate them," said France's head of health, Jerome Salomon.

"If someone has come across the virus, it's surely going to be on the mask."

Gloves, similarly, don't greatly heighten protection and could even end up making you sick.

"If people cannot stop touching their face, gloves will not serve a purpose," Amesh Adalja, from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told AFP.

One 2015 study in the American Journal of Infection Control found that people touch their face on average 20 times an hour.

The novel coronavirus is transmitted via skin contact, transferring infected globules of mucus via the ears, eyes or nose.

"Gloves are not a substitute for washing your hands," said Adalja, adding that surgical gloves should only be used in a medical setting.

Plus, said Veran: "If you're wearing gloves you're not washing your hands."

For one Paris resident, Oriane, 32, this is not a problem.

"I wash my gloves," she said, gesturing to her bright blue surgical mitts.

Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

Life expectancy crisis in the USA: The opioid crisis is not the decisive factor

by Max Planck Society

Life expectancy in the USA is no longer rising. This stagnation has long been largely attributed to increasing numbers of drug deaths due to the opioid crisis. But Mikko Myrskylä and colleagues have now shown that deaths due to cardiovascular diseases are in fact having a much larger impact on life expectancy.

Over each decade of the past century, life expectancy in the USA rose by two years. This is no longer the case. Since 2010, life expectancy has not improved. Until now, this fact has mainly been attributed to the rising number of drug deaths due to the opioid crisis.

But Mikko Myrskylä, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, together with Neil Mehta and Leah Abrams from University of Michigan have shown a stall in declining cardiovascular deaths is a more likely explanation for the end of stagnation of life expectancy. They have published their findings in the scientific journal PNAS.

Drug-related deaths have little influence on life expectancy

The remaining life expectancy of 25-year-old Americans would have risen by 1.1 years between 2010 and 2017 if deaths from cardiovascular diseases had declined as much over that period as they did between 2000 and 2009.

By contrast, the rising number of drug-related deaths had a much smaller influence on life expectancy. "If the number of drug-related deaths had remained constant after 2010, male life expectancy would have risen just 0.4 years, or by around five months," Mikko Myrskylä explained. Thus, over the long run, reducing the number of drug-related deaths will not be sufficient to ensure that life expectancy in the USA resumes its upward trajectory.

U.S. life expectancy to reach 85 by 2060

More information: Neil K. Mehta et al, US life expectancy stalls due to cardiovascular disease, not drug deaths, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1920391117

Study reveals that odor alters how memories are processed in the brain

by Kerry Benson, Boston University

New research reveals that scents alter how memories are processed in the brain — Pyramidal cells in the mouse prelimbic cortex (shown in blue) that were active during the formation of a discrete memory (shown in green). These cells have been traditionally thought to be less active upon initial memory formation (or shortly after e.g., one day later) and become more active with the passage of time (when accessed at more remote time points e.g. 21 days later). Credit: Dr. Stephanie Grella (Ramirez Lab)

We've all experienced the strange memory-jogging power of scents. Perhaps the aroma of fresh pine brings you back to your childhood Christmases, or your heart starts to race when you step into a doctor's office and the sharp odor of disinfectant fills your nose. Now, researchers from Boston University's Center for Systems Neuroscience reveal just how much power scents have in triggering the memory of past experiences—and the potential for odor to be used as a tool to treat memory-related mood disorders.

"If odor could be used to elicit the rich recollection of a memory—even of a traumatic experience—we could take advantage of that [therapeutically]," says BU neuroscientist Steve Ramirez, a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of psychology and brain sciences and the senior author of a new paper describing his team's findings in Learning and Memory.

Until now, the scent-memory connection has been something of an enigma. In fact, even the mechanisms that underlie memory formation in general have been debated in recent years. The traditional theory—systems consolidation theory—suggests that our memories start out being processed by a small, horseshoe-shaped brain area called the hippocampus, which infuses them with rich details. Over time, especially when we sleep, the set of brain cells that holds onto a particular memory reactivates and reorganizes. The memory then becomes processed by the front of the brain—the prefrontal cortex—instead of the hippocampus, and many of the details become lost in the shuffle.

This theory has its merits. For starters, it would explain why our memories tend to get a bit fuzzy as time passes. It also helps explain why people with hippocampal damage are often unable to form new memories while their ability to keep old, prefrontal cortex-stored memories remains perfectly intact. In contrast, those with prefrontal cortex damage often exhibit the flavor of amnesia we often see in soap operas: an inability to remember the past.

However, critics of the systems consolidation theory maintain that it doesn't tell the whole story. If memories slip out of the hippocampus and become stripped of their details over time, then why do many people retain vivid recollections of an event even years later—particularly people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? And why do scents, which are processed in the hippocampus, sometimes trigger seemingly dormant memories?

To answer these questions, Ramirez and members of his lab created fear memories in mice by giving them a series of harmless but startling electric shocks inside a special container. During the shocks, half of the mice were exposed to the scent of almond extract, while the other half were not exposed to any scent. The next day, the researchers returned the mice to the same container to prompt them to recall their newly formed memories. Once again, the mice in the odor group got a whiff of almond extract during their session, while the no-odor group was not exposed to any scent. But this time, neither group received any new electric shocks. Consistent with the systems consolidation theory, both groups exhibited significant activation of the hippocampus during this early recall session, indicating they remembered receiving the shocks from the day before.

However, during the next recall session 20 days later, the researchers were in for a shock of their own. As expected, in the no-odor group, processing of the fear memory had shifted to the prefrontal cortex—but the odor group still had significant brain activity in the hippocampus.

"[This finding suggests] that we can bias the hippocampus to come back online at a timepoint when we wouldn't expect it to be online anymore because the memory is too old," Ramirez says. "Odor can act as a cue to reinvigorate or reenergize that memory with detail."

Ramirez adds that we still aren't sure about odor's exact role in memory processing. Perhaps odors delay a memory's shift to relying on the prefrontal cortex, thereby preserving the details for longer. If this is the case, an odor needs only to be present during memory formation for a memory to retain its vividness. Alternatively, it's possible that the prefrontal-cortex shift still occurs in an odor-associated memory, but that if the same odor emerges again later on, the hippocampus becomes reactivated and the memory regains the details it had lost.

Regardless of the specifics, Ramirez says that this research provides us with a "blueprint" of memory processing in nonhuman animals, and this information might one day lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of mental health conditions in humans, such as PTSD.

Many psychotherapy- and drug-based treatments for PTSD involve trying to suppress or dampen traumatic memories, but this process can only be carried out effectively when people actively recall the memories first.

"Now that we know that odor can shift memories to become more hippocampus dependent, we could potentially develop strategies that engage or disengage the hippocampus. And then we could integrate some behavioral or drug-based approaches to bring the hippocampus back offline if our goal is to permanently suppress a fear memory," Ramirez says.

In other words, the scents that spark our memories may be more powerful than we realize. Today, they serve as the triggers for our nostalgia and our anxiety—but tomorrow, they could be our treatments.

"We can potentially view memory as its own kind of drug—as an antidepressant or [anxiety reducer]," Ramirez says. "And [odor] could be an experimentally controllable factor that we could deliver to people. It may be a very powerful tool."

New sleep method strengthens brain's ability to retain memories

More information: Stephanie L. Grella et al, Odor modulates the temporal dynamics of fear memory consolidation, Learning & Memory (2020). DOI: 10.1101/lm.050690.119

Clinical trial shows HIV drugs ineffective against COVID-19

by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress

coronavirus , COVID-19 — This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 -- also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 -- isolated from a patient in the US. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. The spikes on the outer edge of the virus particles give coronaviruses their name, crown-like. Credit: NIAID-RML

A team of doctors and researchers in China has found that drugs that are effective in treating patients with HIV are ineffective against COVID-19. In their paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the group describes the clinical trial they conducted with patients in Wuhan, China, and what they learned from it. Lindsey Baden and Eric Rubin with Brigham and Women's Hospital, (Rubin is also editor-in-chief of NEJM) have published an editorial in the same journal issue discussing the work by the team in China.

Recently, it was noted in the medical community that the viruses behind COVID-19 and HIV both need an enzyme called protease in order to be infectious. And prior research has found that the protease inhibitors lopinavir and ritonavir are effective in treating HIV patients, which led many to wonder if they might also be effective against SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infections. To find out if that might be the case, the team in Wuhan initiated a clinical trial.

The trial involved assigning 199 patients with advanced cases of COVID-19 to one of two groups—one group received standard care (which included supplemental oxygen), the other standard care plus administration of lopinavir and ritonavir. In the end, 94 of the patients were given the protease inhibitors. Unfortunately, the researchers found no benefit to using the drugs. Those given the drug fared no better than those who were not.

But there were some caveats. First, all of the patients were in advanced stages of the diseases, which made it less likely that any therapy might help them. Second, the trial size was very small. Also, the researchers found that the drugs did shorten the time it took for those patients who survived to see any clinical improvement by one day. Unfortunately, that one-day improvement was only seen in patients who had been given the drugs within 12 days of the onset of symptoms. The upside to the results of the trial, Baden and Rubin note, is that the same drugs still hold the possibility of helping people who receive them sooner after infection. They also note that the bravery exhibited by the team in China has also allowed other teams around the world to use their data in future trials.

Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: Bin Cao et al. A Trial of Lopinavir–Ritonavir in Adults Hospitalized with Severe Covid-19, New England Journal of Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001282

Lindsey R. Baden et al. Covid-19—The Search for Effective Therapy, New England Journal of Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe2005477

Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine

Mysterious ancient sea-worm pegged as new genus after half-century in 'wastebasket'ANOTHER AMAZING FIND IN THE UNIVERSITY STORAGE ROOM

by University of Kansas

New fossil specimen helped University of Kansas graduate

student Anna Whitaker solve a 50-year-old marine-worm

mystery. Credit: Anna Whitaker, et al.

When a partial fossil specimen of a primordial marine worm was unearthed in Utah in 1969, scientists had a tough go identifying it. Usually, such worms are recognized and categorized by the arrangement of little knobs on their plates. But in this case, the worm's plates were oddly smooth, and important bits of the worm were missing altogether.

Discouraged, researchers placed the mystery worm in a "wastebasket" genus called Palaeoscolex, and interest in the lowly critter waned for the next 50 years.

That all changed recently when Paul Jamison, a teacher from Logan, Utah, and private collector, and his student Riley Smith were hunting fossils in the Spence Shale in Utah, a 506-million-year-old geologic unit housing a plethora of exceptionally preserved soft-bodied and biomineralized fossils. (Paleontologists call such a mother lode of fossils a "Lagerstätte.") There, Smith discovered a second, more thoroughly preserved example of the worm.

Eventually, thanks to Jamison's donation, the new fossil specimen arrived at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, where Anna Whitaker, a graduate student in museum studies, researched and analyzed the worm with scanning electron microscopes, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry and optical microscopy.

At last, Whitaker determined the worm represented a new genus of Cambrian sea worm heretofore unknown to science. She's the lead author of a description of the worm just published in the peer-reviewed paleontological journal PalZ.

"Before the new species that we acquired there was only one specimen known from the Spence Shale," she said. "But with our new specimen we discovered it had characteristics that the original specimen didn't have. So, we were able to update that description, and based on these new characteristics—we decided it didn't fit in its old genus. So, we moved it to a new one."

Whitaker and her colleagues—Jamison, James Schiffbauer of the University of Missouri and Julien Kimmig of KU's Biodiversity Institute—named the new genus Utahscolex.

"We think they're closely related to priapulid worms that exist today—you can find them in the oceans, and they are very similar to priapulids based on their mouth parts," Whitaker said. "What's characteristic about these guys is that they have a proboscis that can evert, so it can turn itself inside out and it's covered with spines—that's how it grabs food and sucks it in. So, it behaved very similarly to modern priapulid worms."

While today, Utah is not a place you'd look for marine life, the case was different 506 million years ago, when creatures preserved in the Spence Shale were fossilized.

"The Spence Shale was a shelf system, and it's really interesting because it preserves a lot of environments—nearshore to even deeper offshore, which is kind of unusual for a Lagerstätte, and especially during the Cambrian. These animals were living in kind of a muddy substrate. This worm was a carnivore, so it was preying on other critters. But there would have been whole diversity of animals—sponges, and trilobites scuttling along. We have very large, for the time, bivalve arthropods that would be predators. The Spence has a very large diversity of arthropods. It would have looked completely alien to us today."

Whitaker hopes to complete her master's degree this spring, then to attend the University of Toronto to earn her doctorate. The description of Utahscolex is Whitaker's first academic publication, but she hopes it won't be her last. She said the opportunity to perform such research is a chief reason for attending KU.

"I came for the museum studies program," she said. "It's one of the best in the country, and the program's flexibility has allowed me to focus on natural history collections, which is what I hopefully will have a career in, and also gain work experience in the collections and do research—so it's kind of everything I was looking for in the program."

While ancient sea worms could strike many as a meaninglessly obscure subject for such intense interest and research, Whitaker said filling in gaps in the fossil record leads to a broader understanding of evolutionary processes and offers more granular details about the tree of life.

"I know some people might say, 'Why should we care about these?'" she said. "But the taxonomy of naming all these species is really an old practice that started in the 1700s. It underpins all the science that we do today. Looking at biodiversity through time, we have to know the species diversity; we have to know as correctly as we can how many species there were and how they were related to each other. This supports our understanding of—as we move into bigger and bigger, broader picture—how we can interpret this fossil record correctly, or as best we can."

Explore further

Scientists describe 'enigmatic' species that lived in Utah some 500 million years ago
More information: Anna F. Whitaker et al, Re-description of the Spence Shale palaeoscolecids in light of new morphological features with comments on palaeoscolecid taxonomy and taphonomy, PalZ (2020). DOI: 10.1007/s12542-020-00516-9

The life and death of one of America's most mysterious trees

by Daniel Stolte, University of Arizona

A majestic ponderosa pine, standing tall in what is widely thought to have been the "center of the world" for the Ancestral Puebloan people, may have more mundane origins than previously believed, according to research led by tree-ring experts at the University of Arizona.

A study published in the journal American Antiquity provides new data that calls into question the long-held view of the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito as the sole living tree in an otherwise treeless landscape, around which a regional metropolis in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon was built.

Combining various lines of evidence, the study is the first to apply a technique called dendroprovenance to a sample of the plaza tree that uses tree-ring growth patterns to trace the tree's origin. The data revealed that the tree did not grow where it was found, and is therefore unlikely to have played a role as significant as various authors have ascribed to it ever since it was discovered in 1924.

According to the study's first author, Christopher Guiterman, who is an assistant research scientist at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, "the tree goes back all the way to the birth of tree-ring science – a supposedly living tree growing in 'downtown Chaco' during the height of its occupancy – which would make it the only tree of its kind that we know of in southwestern archaeology."

The largest of the buildings known as great houses in Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito is considered widely as the center of the Chaco world, which spanned the four corners region all the way to the edge of the Colorado Plateau. Pueblo Bonito's significance has been likened to Stonehenge in Great Britain and Machu Picchu in Peru. According to the National Park Service, the cultural thriving of the Chacoan people began in the mid 800s and lasted more than 300 years.

During that time, the occupants constructed massive stone buildings, or great houses, consisting of multiple stories that accommodated hundreds of rooms. By 1050, Chaco had become the ceremonial, administrative and economic center of the San Juan Basin and is thought to have served as a major hub connecting trading routes. Pueblo descendants consider Chaco a special gathering place where people shared ceremonies, traditions and knowledge.

During a 1924 dig at Pueblo Bonito, archeologists of the National Geographic Society excavated a 20-foot long pine log in the west courtyard of the monumental great house. The discovery itself was a sensation, Guiterman said.

"The likelihood of finding such a tree after lying undisturbed for 800-plus years seems unbelievable, but we know that is what happened because tree rings don't lie," he said.

The tree was reportedly found just beneath the present-day soil surface, lying on the last utilized pavement. Its "great, snag-like roots precluded the possibility of it ever having been moved," according to the description of expedition leader Neil Judd of the Smithsonian Institution.

"It's important to recognize that these are only the stubs of roots, not the entire root system," said co-author Jeffrey Dean, UArizona professor emeritus of anthropology. "Lacking the root system, combined with the fact that the log was lying flat on top of the latest plaza surface, means that the plaza tree did not grow in the Pueblo Bonito Plaza."

Dendrochronological analyses initiated in 1928 by Andrew Ellicott Douglass, the founder of the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, confirmed that the tree lived between 732 and 981, and likely longer, since its outermost wood had eroded away over time.

Guiterman said he had been vexed by the tree's origin story for a long time. Was it the lone remnant of a pine forest growing in Chaco Canyon, the only tree that didn't get cut down for some unknown reason? Or had it been lying there undisturbed all along, even during the peak of the Chacoan culture?

"You don't just find a 1,000-year-old piece of wood on the ground like that," said Guiterman, whose earlier research in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment revealed that the 25,000 trees used to build Pueblo Bonito did not grow nearby, but were transported from distant mountain ranges.

To find out where the plaza tree had come from, Guiterman and his co-authors assembled three lines of evidence, "not unlike building a legal case," as he put it. They scrutinized documentary records, including unpublished correspondence and reports from the early archeological expeditions, strontium isotope signatures from pine trees living in the Chaco Canyon area today and tree-ring patterns that allow scientists to pinpoint the source of the wood in question.

While winter precipitation patterns are fairly uniform across Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, the summer rainstorms known as monsoons are much more local, Guiterman explained, and the resulting variation in tree-ring patterns allows researchers to match a wood sample to the area where it grew.

"We have this incredible database from 100-plus years of tree-ring science," said Guiterman, who has dated hundreds of trees. "Trees from the San Juan Mountains, the Jemez Mountains or the Chuska Mountains – they all have their own kind of flavor, their own peculiar signature."

Based on the combined analyses of the available evidence, Guiterman and his co-authors conclude that the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito did not grow in Pueblo Bonito or Chaco Canyon. Instead, it most likely was hauled in from the Chuska Mountain range 50 miles west of Chaco Canyon, probably along with many other ponderosa pine beams used in construction. The tree lived in the Chuska Mountains for more than 250 years.

"We will never know exactly when it died because its outer sapwood rings were lost to decay," the authors wrote, "but we estimate that it was living until the early 1100s. Following its death, by either natural causes or cutting, it was transported to Pueblo Bonito in the 12th century, where it was either abandoned or employed for some purpose (possibly as a standing pole). It could have toppled or been left standing to eventually collapse onto the plaza. Finally, it was buried by windblown sand over the centuries."

Yet, even knowing the likely birthplace of Pueblo Bonito's Plaza Tree, the mystery of its purpose remains, Guiterman said.

"Why did the ancient Chacoans carry this tree there, and how?" he said. "We don't see any drag marks, so they must have treated these heavy beams with great care. How they did that is up for debate."

Various roles for the plaza tree of Pueblo Bonito have been brought forth. For example, it could have been used as a ceremonial pole or as a gnomon—the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. Or perhaps it was simply leftover lumber or cast aside as firewood.

According to Barbara Mills, a Regents Professor in the UArizona School of Anthropology who was not involved in the study, it is unlikely a conclusive answer will ever be found.

"Nobody knows what the tree was used for, and unless there were any further clues waiting to be uncovered, such as traces of pollen left behind on the log, we have no way of knowing," Mills said.

Pine trees are known to play roles in present-day Puebloan life. During the San Geronimo Festival held in Taos, New Mexico, for example, pine trees are brought in and used for ceremonial pole climbing or to hang bags with offerings.

"It is not uncommon to bring a pine tree into the plaza during ceremonies, and certain kinds of dancers or kachinas hold boughs of pine in their hands during their dances," Mills said, "but we don't know how far back those practices go. We rely on descendant oral tradition as much as we can, but we have to be careful to not over-extend our interpretations and use as many lines of evidence as we can."

The paper, "Convergence of Evidence Supports a Chuska Mountains origin for the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon," is co-authored by Christopher Baisan and Thomas Swetnam at the UArizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research; Jay Quade in the UArizona Department of Geosciences; and Nathan English at Central Queensland University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.Unexpected wood source for Chaco Canyon great houses

More information: Christopher H. Guiterman et al. Convergence of Evidence Supports a Chuska Mountains Origin for the Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, American Antiquity (2020). DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2020.6

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