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, March 02, 2021
Study examines what makes people susceptible to fake health news
Source credibility, how info is presented have little influence; tagging unverified content makes difference
LAWRENCE -- A new study from University of Kansas journalism & mass communication researchers examines what influences people to be susceptible to false information about health and argues big tech companies have a responsibility to help prevent the spread of misleading and dangerous information.
Researchers shared a fake news story with more than 750 participants that claimed a deficiency of vitamin B17 could cause cancer. Researchers then measured if how the article was presented -- including author credentials, writing style and whether the article was labeled as "suspicious" or "unverified" -- affected how participants perceived its credibility and whether they would adhere to the article's recommendations or share it on social media. The findings showed that information presentation did not influence how people perceived it and that only social media efficacy played a role in whether respondents said they would share it.
Hong Tien Vu, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications, and Yvonnes Chen, associate professor of journalism & mass communications at KU, co-wrote the study. They will present their work, funded by a KU General Research Fund grant, at the 2021 International Communication Association Conference.
Vu and Chen shared eight versions of an article verified as false with respondents that claimed a lack of vitamin B17, which does not exist, could be a cause of cancer. In one version, it included a doctor's byline, including a short description of her medical credentials. In another version, the author was described as a mother of two with a background in creative writing who was a lifestyle blogger in another. Some versions followed a journalistic style, while others used more casual language.
"We wanted to test two skills that are often employed in media literacy training programs around the world, author credentials and writing style, as well as flagging," Vu said. "The results suggest relying on audience members to do the work to determine fake news may be a long way to go. When people have to evaluate the credibility of information, it requires mental work. When surfing the web in general, we tend to rely on big tech companies to verify information."
Respondents who showed higher levels of social media efficacy, or were more savvy in using the technology, evaluated information more carefully and reported they would be less likely to share the article. Health orientation, or whether or not respondents were interested in or sought out health information, did not play a role in discerning accuracy of information. It is significant, however, as those highly interested in health information are more likely to share news they find, whether credible or not, the authors said.
Results showed that author credentials and how the story was written did not have significant differences on how people perceived its credibility, whether they would adhere to its recommendations or share it. However, those who saw the article presented with any sort of flagging stating it was not verified information were significantly less likely to find it credible, adhere to recommendations or share it.
While the study took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, its findings are especially relevant, as misinformation and politicized information about the pandemic have proliferated. It shows seemingly innocuous misinformation can be dangerous as well.
"One problem with fake news studies is the topic becomes so politicized," Vu said. "Fake news can be about something that is not politicized or polarizing as well. Talking about vitamin B17 seems to be harmless, but people believed it. People can spend time, money and efforts on trying to find a cure, and that can be very dangerous if you don't follow a doctor's advice and come across false information."
The fact that any sort of flagging information significantly affected readers' perceptions and intentions to share show how important it is for big technology companies such as social media platforms to verify information or label content that has false, unverified or dangerous information, the authors wrote.
"Whenever we see information that has been flagged, we immediately raise our skepticism, even if we don't agree with it. Big tech companies have a very important role to play in ensuring a healthy, clean information environment," Vu said.
Metal whispering: Finding a better way to recover precious metals from electronic waste
IMAGE: NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED BY IOWA STATE ENGINEERS USES HEAT AND OXIDATION TO RECOVER PURE AND PRECIOUS METALS FROM ELECTRONIC WASTE. IT WORKS IN TWO WAYS -- IT CAN BRING THE... view more
CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY OF MARTIN THUO/IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY.
AMES, Iowa - Inspired by nature's work to build spiky structures in caves, engineers at Iowa State University have developed technology capable of recovering pure and precious metals from the alloys in our old phones and other electrical waste.
Using controlled applications of oxygen and relatively low temperatures, the engineers say they can dealloy a metal by slowly moving the most reactive components to the surface where they form stalagmite-like spikes of metal oxides.
That leaves the least-reactive components in a purified, liquid core surrounded by brittle metal-oxide spikes "to create a so-called 'ship-in-a-bottle structure,'" said Martin Thuo, the leader of the research project and an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Iowa State University.
"The structure formed when the metal is molten is analogous to filled cave structures such as stalactites or stalagmites," Thuo said. "But instead of water, we are using oxidation to create these structures."
A paper describing the new technology, "Passivation-driven speciation, dealloying and purification," has recently been published by the journal Materials Horizons. (See sidebar for the paper's co-authors.)
University startup funds and part of a U.S. Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research grant supported development of the technology.
Thuo noted this project is the exact opposite of his research group's previous work to develop heat-free solder.
"With heat-free solder, we wanted to put things together," he said. "With this, we want to make things fall apart."
But not just fall apart any which way. Thuo and the engineers in his research group want to control exactly how and where alloy components fall apart, or dealloy.
"It's like being a metal whisperer," he said. "We make things go the way we want."
The engineers offered a more precise description in their paper: "This work demonstrates the controlled behavior of surface oxidation in metals and its potential in design of new particle structures or purification/dealloying. By tuning oxidation via temperature, oxidant partial pressure, time and composition, a balance between reactivity and thermal deformation enables unprecedented morphologies."
Those unprecedented forms and structures could be very useful.
"We need new methods to recover precious metals from e-waste or mixed metal materials," Thuo said. "What we demonstrate here is that the traditional electrochemical or high-temperature methods (above 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit) may not be necessary in metal purification as the metal's reactivity can be used to drive separation."
Thuo said the oxidation technology works well at temperatures of 500 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. ("This is set in an oven and getting metals to separate," he said.)
Besides metal purification and recovery, this new idea could also be applied to metal speciation - the ability to dictate creation and distribution of certain metal components. One use could be production of complex catalysts to drive multi-stage reactions.
Let's say chemists need a tin oxide catalyst followed by a bismuth oxide catalyst. They'll start with an alloy with the bismuth oxide buried beneath the tin oxide. They'll run the reaction with the tin oxide catalyst. Then they'll raise the temperature to the point that the bismuth oxide comes to the surface as spikes. And then they'll run the reaction with the bismuth oxide catalyst.
Thuo credits development of the new technology to working with talented students and two collaborators.
"We built on this big idea very slowly," he said. "And working together, we were able to break into this knowledge gap."
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The collaborators/co-authors
Martin Thuo, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Iowa State University, is the project leader and the paper's corresponding author. Collaborators and co-authors are:
Andrew Martin, an Iowa State graduate with a doctorate in materials science and engineering who's now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Boyce Chang, an Iowa State graduate with a doctorate in materials science and engineering who's now at the University of California Berkeley
Joel Cutinho, an Iowa State graduate with a master's degree in materials science and engineering who now works for Nanolab Technologies
Liyang Shen, an Iowa State doctoral student in chemical and biological engineering
Thomas Ward, an associate professor of aerospace engineering, who contributed work in mass transport
Eric Cochran, a professor of chemical and biological engineering, who contributed work in X-ray diffraction and characterization
Read the paper "Passivation-driven speciation, dealloying and purification," Materials Horizons, published online Jan. 19, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1039/D0MH01832E
Transmission risk of COVID-19 from sewage spills into rivers can now be quickly quantified
Scientists have identified that the COVID-19 virus could be transmitted through faecal contaminated river water.
A team of researchers, including water quality, epidemiology, remote sensing and modelling experts, led by Dr Jamie Shutler at the University of Exeter, have developed a fast and simple way to assess the potential risk of water-borne transmission of the COVID-19 virus, posed by sewage spills into open and closed freshwater networks.
The new study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology - Water, identifies the relative risk of viral transmission by sewerage spills, across 39 different counties.
The study used information on the environment, a population's infection rate, and water usage to calculate the potential potency of viral loads in the event of a sewerage spill.
The research team believe the new study could provide fresh impetus in identifying new ways in which to prevent the spread of the virus amongst communities and the environment.
Dr Jamie Shutler, lead author of the study and at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall said: "it's important to identify and break all viable transmission routes if we want to stop any future outbreaks".
Airborne water droplets have previously been highlighted as the main route for transmission of the virus which causes COVID-19, but we know that other forms of transmission are likely to exist.
Previous studies have shown that COVID-19 viral pathogens can be found in untreated wastewater, in concentrations consistent with population infection rates. While studies are still relatively early in relation to COVID-19, other human coronaviruses are documented to survive in wastewater, with colder water temperature likely to increase viral survival.
Using this knowledge and existing methods, the research team identified how the transmission risk from water contaminated with sewage reduces over time.
This issue is likely to be especially problematic in parts of the world with a large proportion of temporary settlements, such as shanty towns, favellas or refugee camps, which are less likely to have safe sanitisation systems. Or any densely populated region that has high infection rates that also suffers from a sewage spill.
Modifying established pollution analysis methods, the team were able to estimate the viral concentration in rivers after a sewage spill. This meant they could calculate the relative transmission risk posed to humans by contaminated waterways for 39 countries.
These methods, the team argue, provides a fast way to assess the transmission risk associated to sewage spills through the use of easily available population, infection rate and environmental data, allowing evidence based guidance following a spill.
Dr Shutler added: "we hope that water companies or NGOs will use our simple spreadsheet calculator, that is freely available, to estimate the transmission risk after a spill. They can then use this information to advise the public."
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This research was partially funded by the European Union project Aquasense, which is focussing on novel methods to study and monitor water quality.
The research resulted from a collaboration between the University of Exeter in Cornwall, the University of Glasgow, the ?ukasiewicz-Institute of Electron Technology in Poland, and the University of Agriculture in Kraków, Poland.
The anti-inflammatory drug hydroxychloroquine should not be used to prevent infection in people who do not have covid-19, say a WHO Guideline Development Group (GDG) panel of international experts in The BMJ today.
Their strong recommendation is based on high certainty evidence from six randomised controlled trials involving over 6,000 participants with and without known exposure to a person with covid-19 infection.
High certainty evidence showed that hydroxychloroquine had no meaningful effect on death and admission to hospital, while moderate certainty evidence showed that hydroxychloroquine had no meaningful effect on laboratory confirmed covid-19 infection and it probably increases the risk of adverse effects.
As such, the panel considers that this drug is no longer a research priority and that resources should be used to evaluate other more promising drugs to prevent covid-19.
This guideline applies to all individuals who do not have covid-19, regardless of their exposure to a person with covid-19 infection.
The panel judged that almost all people would not consider this drug worthwhile, and also decided that factors such as resources, feasibility, acceptability, and equity for countries and healthcare systems were unlikely to alter the recommendation.
Today's recommendation is the first version of a living guideline for drugs to prevent covid-19, developed by the World Health Organization with the methodological support of MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation. It's aim is to provide trustworthy guidance on the management of covid-19 and help doctors make better decisions with their patients.
Living guidelines are useful in fast moving research areas like covid-19 because they allow researchers to update previously vetted and peer reviewed evidence summaries.
New recommendations for other preventive drugs for covid-19 will be added to this guideline as more evidence becomes available.
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Peer reviewed? Yes Evidence type: Clinical practice guideline Subjects: Drugs to prevent covid-19
AI shows public attitude toward COVID-19 is more 'infectious' than disease itself
The more retweets, the more people believe it--even if it's not true
CHICAGO --- Public attitude toward COVID-19 and its treatments is more "infectious" than the disease itself, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze tweets about the virus. Researchers studied the influence of Twitter on COVID-19 health beliefs as well as the competing influence of scientific evidence versus the speeches of politicians.
The study's key findings:
People's biases are magnified when they read tweets about COVID-19 from other users, and the more times it has been retweeted, the more they tend to believe it and retweet it themselves.
Scientific events, such as scientific publications, and non-scientific events, such as speeches of politicians, equally influence health belief trends on social media.
"In the pandemic, social media has contributed to much of the information and misinformation and bias of the public's attitude toward the disease, treatment and policy," said corresponding study author Yuan Luo, chief Artificial Intelligence officer at the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
"Our study helps people to realize and re-think the personal decisions that they make when facing the pandemic," Luo said. "The study sends an 'alert' to the audience that the information they encounter daily might be right or wrong, and guide them to pick the information endorsed by solid scientific evidence. We also wanted to provide useful insight for scientists or health care providers, so that they can more effectively broadcast their voice to targeted audiences."
The study was published recently in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
How can scientists counter inaccurate information from politicians?
"Politicians may talk inaccurately about a certain treatment's effectiveness or say that COVID-19 is no big deal; it's just like the flu," said Luo said, also chief AI officer at Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. "These comments have as strong effect as real scientific evidence and drive people's beliefs. This is what we are concerned about."
By understanding how the public's attitudes are affected, scientists can take actions to make sure scientific fact and evidence have a loud enough voice.
"As a scientist, you need to be aware that you need to get the science out to people. If you don't put energy into this, your efforts can be easily offset by those who talk irresponsibly," Luo said. "Going forward, we may want to pay more attention to a public information campaign to educate people about the vaccine in order to maximize the inoculation impact."
How are people's attitudes toward COVID-19 influenced by tweets?
"As a lay person, you should become aware of what you retweet and do a fact check first," Luo said. "And be aware anything you see on Twitter is shaping your attitude. You need to become aware of this before you let others' tweets and opinions shape yours and you become part of that megaphone."
"A lot of people aren't aware of how much their beliefs are impacted by tweets, and don't bother to fact check what they read and retweet. When the information is biased, they ignore or did not notice it. It's like a viral marketing effect. It's just about catching eyeballs on a trending topic, but it affects everyone on social media."
How is this study novel?
The study is novel because it integrates machine learning algorithms and classic epidemiology models to retrospectively investigate the contents on social media and its effects, Luo said.
The study also allows other researchers to "look under the hood" to understand how this AI algorithm works.
Machine learning and deep learning algorithms are usually opaque, blackbox mechanisms. But in this study, investigators paid special attention to improve the model's interpretability.
"We identified the fluctuating trends of public attitudes from the tweets, then aligned the important scientific and non-scientific events that are associated with these trends," Luo said. "As a result, we are offering insights people can take action on."
How many tweets did the AI analyze?
Luo's team, led by the study's first author Hanyin Wang, a Ph.D. student in the Driskill Graduate Program, retrospectively collected COVID-19-related tweets using the Twitter API. In total, they retrieved 92,687,660 tweets corresponding to 8,967,986 users from January 6 to June 21, 2020. To train the AI model, they randomly selected 5,000 of the tweets for annotation. Each tweet was doubly reviewed to decide if it met any of the four core constructs of the health belief model, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived barriers.
Next step: using AI to analyze how social media affects attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines
Luo's team is currently integrating machine learning and deep learning in the study of how social media can affect the general public's attitude toward COVID-19 vaccines. The goal is to identify specific public concerns and inform targeted vaccination campaigns to maximize inoculation impact. They are also looking at using social media data as a way to detect gender or race disparities in and out of the pandemic.
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Other Northwestern authors include Yikuan Li, Meghan Hutch and Andrew Naidech.
The study was funded in part by grant R01LM013337 from the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.
Scientists describe 'hidden biodiversity crisis' as variation within species is lost
Many of the benefits people receive from nature depend on diversity within species, but this intraspecific variation is poorly understood and declining rapidly
IMAGE: NATURE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A SOURCE OF ARTISTIC INSPIRATION AND MATERIALS, AND VARIATION, BOTH ACROSS SPECIES AND WITHIN SPECIES, AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTOR TO ART AND CULTURE. THIS PAINTING ILLUSTRATES INTRASPECIFIC... view more
CREDIT: SIMONE DES ROCHES
The rapid loss of variation within species is a hidden biodiversity crisis, according to the authors of a new study looking at how this variation supports essential ecological functions and the benefits nature provides for people.
Published March 1 in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the study highlights the need to better understand and conserve variation within species in order to safeguard nature's contributions to people.
"Biodiversity means more than the number of species, and when we focus on species-level extinctions we are missing part of the story," said corresponding author Eric Palkovacs, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. "Intraspecific variation is a neglected aspect of biodiversity, but it has value for people, and we need to start recognizing that and protecting this form of biodiversity."
An earlier study led by first author Simone Des Roches, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz now at the University of Washington, showed that the loss of variation within species can have serious ecological consequences. This got Des Roches and Palkovacs thinking about the broader implications of their findings for the values and services nature provides to people, from forest materials and clean water to commercial fisheries and medicines derived from natural products.
For the new study, they surveyed the scientific literature for studies showing how intraspecific variation supports ecosystem services and other aspects of nature's contributions to people. They found well documented connections across a wide variety of species, including fish and commercial fisheries, insects and crop pollination, woody plants and forestry products, many different crops and their wild ancestors, and more.
"There is a whole suite of documented cases, including several examples of what happens when we lose intraspecific variation," Palkovacs said. "One of the best examples is commercial fisheries, where diverse fish stocks help to stabilize the overall population."
Subpopulations of salmon, for example, are locally adapted to the conditions of different watersheds, allowing the overall population to remain stable even as environmental fluctuations cause declines in some subpopulations and increases in others. These "portfolio effects" in salmon are undermined by dams, which block subpopulations from critical spawning habitat, and by hatchery production, which can reduce genetic variation. The loss of intraspecific variation in salmon can lead to boom-bust population cycles that are detrimental to the long-term value of the fishery.
Des Roches noted that people have long depended on variation within domesticated and agriculturally important species. "Our coevolutionary history with hundreds of domesticated species is characterized by our continued selection for unusual and beneficial variants within species," she said. "We've often taken this too far and have thus lost critical genetic diversity in domesticated species. We depend on outbreeding with more genetically variable wild type or ancestral populations (when they exist) to restore this diversity."
Plants with medicinal value provide other well documented examples of the value of intraspecific variation, Palkovacs said. "Different varieties of the same plant species may have different compounds with different medicinal properties, such as different antimalarial drugs that depend on the genetic diversity of the plants they are derived from."
The authors emphasized the importance of collaborating with local and indigenous groups who have deep knowledge of the relationships between intraspecific variation and the natural products and services they use. "We need to take advantage of the local knowledge systems to inform our understanding of these connections," Palkovacs said.
He noted that Western science has focused overwhelmingly on species-level extinctions, and only the most well-studied groups of organisms have been characterized from the standpoint of intraspecific variation. Of all the species evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), for example, only about 1 percent have been evaluated below the species level, and many of those show precipitous declines in diversity.
"There is strong evidence that the loss of intraspecific variation may be a very widespread problem, but we don't even know what is being lost," Palkovacs said.
There are practical steps that can be taken now, he said, to better document this variation, preserve biodiversity, and protect its contributions to the wellbeing of people. New genomic tools, for example, are available to quickly and systematically characterize the variation within species. This intraspecific variation can be directly incorporated into biodiversity assessments, such as those done by the IUCN and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Addressing this aspect of biodiversity should be a major goal of global conservation efforts, the authors said. "The available evidence strongly suggests that the benefits of studying and conserving intraspecific variation will far outweigh the costs," Palkovacs said.
He noted that variation within species is the raw material of adaptive evolution. In a rapidly changing world, this variation is critically important to enable species to adapt to the conditions of an unpredictable future.
CAPTION
Intraspecific variation in foundation species such as mangroves (above), corals, and kelp forests serves to maintain ecosystem resilience in the face of a rapidly changing climate.
CREDIT
Photo by Simone Des Roches
In addition to Palkovacs and Des Roches, the coauthors of the paper include environmental economist Linwood Pendleton, senior vice president for science at the Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution, and Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. This work was supported by the University of California and NOAA.
Behavior of wild capuchin monkeys can be identified by marks left on their tools
Scientists who study capuchin monkeys on a nature reserve in Brazil found that stone tools are used for digging, seed pounding, and stone-on-stone percussion. The monkeys can serve as a model to help understand how humans evolved to use tools
.FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO
IMAGE: STONE TOOLS ARE USED FOR DIGGING, SEED POUNDING, AND STONE-ON-STONE PERCUSSION. THE MONKEYS CAN SERVE AS A MODEL TO HELP UNDERSTAND HOW HUMANS EVOLVED TO USE TOOLS view more
CREDIT: TIAGO FALÓTICO/EACH-USP
A group of researchers including Tiago Falótico, a Brazilian primatologist at the University of São Paulo's School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (EACH-USP), archeologists at Spain's Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) and University College London in the UK, and an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, have published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports describing an analysis of stone tools used by bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) that inhabit Serra da Capivara National Park in Piauí State, Brazil. It is the first systematic study to characterize the tools used by capuchin monkeys living in the wild.
The animals use the tools for digging, seed pounding, nut cracking, and stone-on-stone percussion. The ultimate aim of the study was to find out whether these different activities created use-wear marks that pointed to the purpose for which the tools were used.
"Archeologists in the field analyze the tools found in a dig and the use-wear marks they bear," Falótico said. "In our case, we had both the tools used by these monkeys and the chance to observe their behavior, to see how they used the tools. This is the first comparative analysis of the different tools used by wild capuchin monkeys for different purposes. We concluded that the tools displayed different patterns of use and wear in accordance with the activities involved and that these use-wear marks served to identify the activities performed by each type of tool and by the individuals that used the tools."
The animals concerned inhabit the Caatinga, Brazil's semi-arid shrubland and thorn forest biome. To crack open encapsulated seeds or fruits, such as locust fruit or jatoba (Hymenaea courbaril) and cashew nut (Anacardium occidentale), they pound them with a stone on another that serves as an anvil. They also use stones to dig or scrape the soil in search of tubers, roots, and spiders.
"They also hammerstones with other stones. The purpose of this stone-on-stone percussion, in the case of the groups we studied in Serra da Capivara, is to crush quartzite cobbles so that they can lick the powder and smear it on their bodies," Falótico said. "We've only ever observed this behavior by the animals inhabiting the study site. We have a few theories to explain it, such as the use of quartz to combat parasites by eating the dust, or ectoparasites such as lice by rubbing themselves with it. We have yet to test these hypotheses. The behavior isn't seen all the time but it's commonplace in the population concerned."
The capuchin monkeys found in the Caatinga and the Cerrado, Brazil's savanna biome, are more terrestrial than those in the Amazon or Atlantic Rainforest. "The latter don't use stone tools. They're arboreal and rarely seen on the ground. These tools are used on the ground," Falótico said. As an evolutionary environment, he added, Serra da Capivara is very similar to that of the first hominins.
According to reputable sources, the term hominin is now defined as the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species, and all our immediate ancestors (including members of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Ardipithecus).
As these ancestors evolved, they too began spending more time on the ground and using stone tools. "Capuchin monkeys can serve as a model to help us understand which factors led to the use of tools by the first hominins," Falótico explained.
Individuals may use the same tool in more than one activity, but this is unusual. "It also depends on the environment. In Serra da Capivara, there are lots of rocks and stones, so they can easily switch between tools," he said. "In places with less stone available, they may use the same tool for different purposes. We have sightings of monkeys using a stone to dig and then pound a tuber they've found by digging."
The capuchin monkeys of Serra da Capivara also use twigs, sticks, and other kinds of wood as tools. "In this case, the tools may be used off the ground, and they modify the shape and size by removing leaves and branches, for example. They may understand the physical properties of these tools," he said. "We expected to observe this behavior in other less terrestrial populations, but it appears not to be the case. We have reports that it occurs occasionally but not habitually, as in Serra da Capivara." The monkeys may also use different tools in the same activity. "They may use a stone to enlarge a rock crevice and then use a twig to probe the hole for food, for example," he said.
As a rule, males handle objects more than females, but skill does not vary by sex. "Males and females are good at manipulation once they've become adult and acquired the skill," he said.
Primate tool library
Primate archeology, Falótico explained, is a relatively new field. Among non-human primates, only chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys, and long-tailed or crab-eating macaques use tools. "We now know that when capuchin monkeys bang stones together, they create flakes that closely resemble those made by the first humans," Falótico said. "The same goes for the simpler percussive tools - stones used for hammering and pounding - which can be confused with tools used by humans for the same purposes. In short, we provide more data for archeologists, who often come across these remains."
Creating a primate tool library is one of the aims of the Young Investigator project. "If the tools are described, it will be easier for archeologists and anthropologists to know at a later stage which groups used them and for what purpose," he said.
In this study specifically, the sample comprised 29 tools: 16 were used solely for pounding, 12 for digging, and one for stone-to-stone percussion. The technological analysis was based on a classification into active elements (hammers) and passive elements (anvils). The scientists set out to establish use-wear patterns, and to this end analyzed attributes such as general tool metrics, raw material, and surface traces such as fractures, impact points, battered areas formed by superimposed impacts, and percussive mark location.
The digging tools had fewer conspicuous use-wear marks on their surfaces when analyzed microscopically. Tools used to crush quartz most frequently had perceptible use-wear traces. Soft fruit and cashew nut processing tools displayed a wider spatial distribution of pounding marks than digging tools, although they also displayed a low degree of physical modification.
According to Falótico, tools differed more in terms of size than in terms of use-wear marks, especially those used for stone-to-stone percussion, which were much larger and heavier than the rest. "Digging stones are typically smaller," he said. "Pounding stones vary according to the chosen object. The monkeys prefer larger stones to crack open a hard object."
The researchers looked for traces of pollen among the residues found on the tools, in order to discover which plant species the monkeys preferred. "We identified starch grains and other non-pollen palynomorphs, such as fungal spores, algae and other organic elements found alongside pollen in palynology, the subdiscipline of botany in which pollen grains are examined and identified," Falótico said. "We experienced some difficulty for lack of a reference library to identify the origin of the pollens and starches occurring in this part of the Caatinga."
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About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
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The first operations for which our ancestors gradually learned to adapt their hands during the many thousands of years of transition from ape to man could have been only very simple ones. ... Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.
Neanderthal and early modern human stone tool culture co-existed for over 100,000 years
Research from the University of Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation has discovered that one of the earliest stone tool cultures, known as the Acheulean, likely persisted for tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought.
The Acheulean was estimated to have died out around 200,000 years ago but the new findings suggest it may have persisted for much longer, creating over 100,000 years of overlap with more advanced technologies produced by Neanderthals and early modern humans.
The research team, led by Dr Alastair Key (Kent) alongside Dr David Roberts (Kent) and Dr Ivan Jaric (Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences), made the discovery whilst studying stone tool records from different regions across the world. Using statistical techniques new to archaeological science, the archaeologists and conservation experts were able to reconstruct the end of the Acheulean period and re-map the archaeological record.
Previously, a more rapid shift between the earlier Acheulean stone tool designs often associated with Homo heidelbergensis - the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals - and more advanced 'Levallois' technologies created by early modern humans and Neanderthals, was assumed. However, the study has shed new light on the transition between these two technologies, suggesting substantial overlap between the two.
Acheulean stone tool technologies are the longest-lived cultural tradition practiced by early humans. Originating in East Africa 1.75 million years ago, handaxes and cleavers - the stone tool types which characterise the period - went on to be used across Africa, Europe and Asia by several different species of early human. Prior to this discovery, it was widely assumed that the Acheulean period ended between 300-150,000 year ago. However, the record was lacking in specific dates, and the timing of its demise has been heavily debated. The Kent and Czech team discovered that the tradition likely ended at different times around the world, varying from as early as 170,000 years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa through to as late as 57,000 years ago in Asia.
To understand when the Acheulean ended, the team collected information on different archaeological sites from around the world to find the latest known stone tool assemblages. A statistical technique known as optimal linear estimation - commonly used in conservation studies to estimate species extinctions - was used to predict how much longer the stone tool tradition continued after the most recent known sites. In effect, the technique was able to model the portion of the archaeological record yet to be discovered.
Dr Alastair Key, a Palaeolithic Archaeologist and the lead author of the study, said: 'The earliest archaeological record will always be an incomplete picture of early human behaviour, so we know that the youngest known Acheulean sites are unlikely to actually represent the final instances of these technologies being produced. By allowing us to reconstruct these missing portions of the archaeological record, this technique not only gives us a more accurate understanding of when the tradition ended, but it gives us an indication of where we can expect to find new archaeological discoveries in the future.'
Dr Roberts added: 'This technique was originally developed by myself and a colleague to date extinctions, as the last sighting of a species is unlikely to be the date when it actually became extinct. It is exciting to see it applied in a new context.'
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Their research paper 'Modelling the end of the Acheulean at global and continental levels suggests widespread persistence into the Middle Palaeolithic' is published by Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00735-8
The first operations for which our ancestors gradually learned to adapt their hands during the many thousands of years of transition from ape to man could have been only very simple ones. ... Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.
A lot of us recycle our old textiles, but few of us know that they are very difficult to re-use, and often end up in landfills anyway. Now, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a method that converts cotton into sugar, that in turn can be turned into spandex, nylon or ethanol.
Every year, an estimated 25 million tonnes of cotton textiles are discarded around the world. In total, 100 million tonnes of textiles are thrown out. In Sweden, most of the material goes straight into an incinerator and becomes district heating. In other places, it is even worse, as clothes usually end up in landfills.
"Considering that cotton is a renewable resource, this is not particularly energy-efficient", says Edvin Ruuth, researcher in chemical engineering at Lund University.
"Some fabrics still have such strong fibres that they can be re-used. This is done today and could be done even more in future. But a lot of the fabric that is discarded has fibres that are too short for re-use, and sooner or later all cotton fibres become too short for the process known as fibre regeneration."
At the Department of Chemical Engineering in Lund where Edvin Ruuth works, there is a great deal of accumulated knowledge about using micro-organisms and enzymes, among other things, to transform the "tougher" carbohydrates in biomass into simpler molecules. This means that everything from biological waste and black liquor to straw and wood chips can become bioethanol, biogas and chemicals.
Now the researchers have also succeeded in breaking down the plant fibre in cotton - the cellulose - into smaller components. However, no micro-organisms or enzymes are involved this time; instead, the process involves soaking the fabrics in sulphuric acid. The result is a clear, dark, amber-coloured sugar solution.
"The secret is to find the right combination of temperature and sulphuric acid concentration", explains Ruuth, who fine-tuned the 'recipe' together with doctoral student Miguel Sanchis-Sebastiá and professor Ola Wallberg.
Glucose is a very flexible molecule and has many potential uses, according to Ruuth.
"Our plan is to produce chemicals which in turn can become various types of textiles, including spandex and nylon. An alternative use could be to produce ethanol."
From a normal sheet, they extract five litres of sugar solution, with each litre containing the equivalent of 33 sugar cubes. However, you couldn't turn the liquid into a soft drink as it also contains corrosive sulphuric acid.
One of the challenges is to overcome the complex structure of cotton cellulose.
"What makes cotton unique is that its cellulose has a high crystallinity. This makes it difficult to break down the chemicals and reuse their components. In addition, there are a lot of surface treatment substances, dyes and other pollutants which must be removed. And structurally, a terrycloth towel and an old pair of jeans are very different", says Ruuth.
"Thus it is a very delicate process to find the right concentration of acid, the right number of treatment stages and temperature."
The concept of hydrolizing pure cotton is nothing new per se, explains Ruuth; it was discovered in the 1800s. The difficulty has been to make the process effective, economically viable and attractive.
"Many people who tried ended up not utilising much of the cotton, while others did better but at an unsustainable cost and environmental impact", says Ruuth.
When he started making glucose out of fabrics a year ago, the return was a paltry three to four per cent. Now he and his colleagues have reached as much as 90 per cent.
Once the recipe formulation is complete, it will be both relatively simple and cheap to use.
However, for the process to become a reality, the logistics must work. There is currently no established way of managing and sorting various textiles that are not sent to ordinary clothing donation points.
Fortunately, a recycling centre unlike any other in the world is currently under construction in Malmö, where clothing is sorted automatically using a sensor. Some clothing will be donated, rags can be used in industry and textiles with sufficiently coarse fibres can become new fabrics. The rest will go to district heating.
Hopefully, the proportion of fabrics going to district heating will be significantly smaller once the technology from Lund is in place.
