How conspiracy theories in the US became more personal, cruel, and mainstream after Sandy Hook

by Amanda J. Crawford, The Conversation

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Conspiracy theories are powerful forces in the U.S. They have damaged public health amid a global pandemic, shaken faith in the democratic process and helped spark a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.

These conspiracy theories are part of a dangerous misinformation crisis that has been building for years in the U.S.

American politics has long had a paranoid streak, and belief in conspiracy theories is nothing new. But as the news cycle reminds us daily, outlandish conspiracy theories born on social media now regularly achieve mainstream acceptance and are echoed by people in power.

As a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut, I have studied the misinformation around the mass shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. I consider it the first major conspiracy theory of the modern social media age, and I believe we can trace our current predicament to the tragedy's aftermath.

Nine years ago, the Sandy Hook shooting demonstrated how fringe ideas could quickly become mainstream on social media and win support from various establishment figures—even when the conspiracy theory targeted grieving families of young students and school staff killed during the massacre.

Those who claimed the tragedy was a hoax showed up in Newtown, Connecticut, and harassed people connected to the shooting. This provided an early example of how misinformation spread on social media could cause real-world harm.

New age of social media and distrust

Social media's role in spreading misinformation has been well documented in recent years. The year of the Sandy Hook shooting, 2012, marked the first year that more than half of all American adults used social media.

It also marked a modern low in public trust of the media. Gallup's annual survey has since showed even lower levels of trust in the media in 2016 and 2021.

These two coinciding trends—which continue to drive misinformation—pushed fringe doubts about Sandy Hook quickly into the U.S. mainstream. Speculation that the shooting was a false flag—an attack made to look as if it were committed by someone else—began to circulate on Twitter and other social media sites almost immediately. Far-right commentator and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and other fringe voices amplified these false claims.

Jones was recently found liable by default in defamation cases filed by Sandy Hook families.

Mistakes in breaking news reports about the shooting, such as conflicting information on the gun used and the identity of the shooter, were spliced together in YouTube videos and compiled on blogs as proof of a conspiracy, as my research shows. Amateur sleuths collaborated in Facebook groups that promoted the shooting as a hoax and lured new users down the rabbit hole.

Soon, a variety of establishment figures, including the 2010 Republican nominee for Connecticut attorney general, Martha Dean, gave credence to doubts about the tragedy.

Six months later, as gun control legislation stalled in Congress, a university poll found 1 in 4 people thought the truth about Sandy Hook was being hidden to advance a political agenda. Many others said they weren't sure. The results were so unbelievable that some media outlets questioned the poll's accuracy.

Today, other conspiracy theories have followed a similar trajectory on social media. The media is awash with stories about the popularity of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy movement, which falsely claims top Democrats are part of a Satan-worshiping pedophile ring. A member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, has also publicly denied Sandy Hook and other mass shootings.

But back in 2012, the spread of outlandish conspiracy theories from social media into the mainstream was a relatively new phenomenon, and an indication of what was to come.

New breed of conspiracies

Sandy Hook also marked a turning point in the nature of conspiracy theories and their targets. Before Sandy Hook, popular American conspiracy theories generally villainized shadowy elites or forces within the government. Many 9/11 "truthers," for example, believed the government was behind the terrorist attacks, but they generally left victims' families alone.

Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists accused family members of those killed, survivors of the shooting, religious leaders, neighbors and first responders of being part of a government plot.

Newtown parents were accused of faking their children's deaths, or their very existence. There were also allegations they were part of a child sex cult.

This change in conspiratorial targets from veiled government and elite figures to everyday people marked a shift in the trajectory of American conspiracy theories.

Since Sandy Hook, survivors of many other high-profile mass shootings and attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the Charlottesville car attack, have had their trauma compounded by denial about their tragedies.

And the perverse idea of a politically connected pedophile ring has become a key tenet in two subsequent conspiracy theories: Pizzagate and QAnon.

The kind of harassment and death threats targeting Sandy Hook families has also become a common fallout of conspiracy theories. In the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, the owners and employees of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor alleged to be part of a pedophile ring that included politicians continue to be targeted by adherents of that conspiracy theory. In 2016, one man drove hundreds of miles to investigate and fired his assault rifle in the restaurant.

Some people who remain skeptical of the COVID-19 pandemic have harassed front-line health workers . Local election workers across the country have been threatened and accused of being part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election.

The legacy of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook is a legacy of misinformation—the start of a crisis that will likely plague the U.S. for years to come

Why do mass shootings spawn conspiracy theories?

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The fate of Latin American forests in a warming world

by Georgia Institute of Technology

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Latin American forests—one of the world's greatest assets in the fight against climate change—will likely continue to shrink in size and economic clout, but not necessarily in their ability to help fight global warming, according to new research from Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy (SPP).

The study led by environmental economist Alice Favero evaluated different socioeconomic and climate-change scenarios to assess what the timber market and forests will look like in the future. Favero and her colleagues found that in a future with minimal warming, Latin American forests likely will continue to lose ground to agricultural uses. In a more dire climate scenario, forested areas still shrink. Still, the ability of the smaller forests to capture and hold carbon is projected to suffer less as increased atmospheric carbon boosts tree growth.

In both scenarios, Favero's research suggests the Latin American timber industry will lose ground economically over the next 80 years. But the economic losses will be most significant under the more dire climate scenario. This is the result of climate-change effects on other regions, such as Canada, that will increase the productivity of forests in those areas. That competition will suppress demand for Latin American timber, which currently accounts for 15% to 20% of the global supply. In turn, that could potentially drive more deforestation as forests lose economic value relative to other land uses.

"I think the most interesting part about this research for an economist such as myself is that it not only considers the effects of climate change on forests and the timber market in Latin America, it also takes into account the indirect effects of climate on other regions and corresponding implications on the market and management decisions in the region," said Favero, an academic professional who studies the economics of climate change on global timber.

Impact of climate change and timber demand

For their study—the first disaggregated assessment of the effects of climate on Latin American forests—Favero and her colleagues, Ph.D. student W. Parker Hamilton and Professor Brent Sohngen of Ohio State University, turned to the Global Timber Model. The tool includes 250 different land classes, from fast-growing tree plantations to unmanaged forests. It analyzes how land-use, management, and marketplace factors respond to various policy interventions under different climate conditions. Specifically, they also included inputs from a vegetation model that predicts the effects of changes in temperature, precipitation, and greenhouse gases on vegetation growth and surviving conditions.

Finally, their modeling was based on four "shared socioeconomic pathways," or SSPs. These are models of potential climate futures that go beyond forecast carbon emission predictions to examine cultural, political, and economic changes that could serve to accelerate, or put the brakes on, climate change.

While timber prices are expected to rise across most of the scenarios simulated in the study, the increase is not enough to stave off the continued loss of forestland to agricultural and other uses, according to the study. Total forestland is predicted to decline by between 97 million and 160 million hectares, or about 375,000 square miles to 618,000 square miles, through 2100. Those effects are most pronounced in the scenarios with the lowest economic growth and least demand for timber.

However, increased demand for timber in some scenarios would likely result in additional planting on timber plantations, resulting in up to 16 million hectares (about 62,000 square miles) of new managed forests across the region. Combined with the carbon storage gained from more robust tree growth due to climate change, these new managed forests could help offset the potential damages of climate change in terms of tree migration and increase in dieback rate. That is, the amount of carbon sequestered per hectare of forests in Latin America will increase under climate change, according to the research.

"This is an important finding for this region that has a large portion of natural forests that remains one of the planet's most important safeguards against carbon emissions and source of other ecosystem services," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Across the socioeconomic scenarios modeled, natural and unmanaged forests also could decline by 20% relative to current levels without additional forest conservation policies, according to the study.

The changes vary from country to country. For instance, more severe climate change could result in Brazil losing a significant portion of its remaining temperate forests while its tropical forests could grow. But the effects are milder in the rest of South America and Central America. In terms of timber production, the research suggests only Argentina would increase its output under modest and more severe warming models.

Importance of public policy in slowing climate change

The findings are particularly important for public officials, timber companies, and land managers across Latin America, where land management decisions in coming decades could have a tangible impact on global climate.

In the paper, the researchers include a call for forest management policies that will help Latin American forests retain their position as an important element in the fight against climate change.

Similar to how "market and institutional factors have contributed to second-growth forests in plantations, and more enforcement of property rights and community forest management have reduced the negative effects of deforestation on carbon stock, forward-looking forest management decisions, and conservation policies to preserve carbon in forests could mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in the future," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Tropical forests regrow surprisingly fast

More information: Alice Favero et al, Climate change and timber in Latin America: Will the forestry sector flourish under climate change?, Forest Policy and Economics (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102657

Provided by Georgia Institute of Technology 

 

Controlled burning of natural environments could help offset our carbon emissions

by University of Cambridge

Prescribed burn of oak savannah. Credit: Adam Pellegrini

Planting trees and suppressing wildfires do not necessarily maximize the carbon storage of natural ecosystems. A new study has found that prescribed burning can actually lock in or increase carbon in the soils of temperate forests, savannahs and grasslands

The finding points to a new method of manipulating the world's natural capacity for carbon capture and storage, which can also help to maintain natural ecosystem processes. The results are published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"Using controlled burns in forests to mitigate future wildfire severity is a relatively well-known process. But we've found that in ecosystems including temperate forests, savannahs and grasslands, fire can stabilize or even increase soil carbon," said Dr. Adam Pellegrini in the University of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences, first author of the report.

He added: "Most of the fires in natural ecosystems around the globe are controlled burns, so we should see this as an opportunity. Humans are manipulating a process, so we may as well figure out how to manipulate it to maximize carbon storage in the soil."

Fire burns plant matter and organic layers within the soil, and in severe wildfires this leads to erosion and leaching of carbon. It can take years or even decades for lost soil carbon to re-accumulate. But the researchers say that fires can also cause other transformations within soils that can offset these immediate carbon losses, and may stabilize ecosystem carbon.

Landscape after a prescribed burn. Credit: Adam Pellegrini

Fire stabilizes carbon within the soil in several ways. It creates charcoal, which is very resistant to decomposition, and forms 'aggregates' – physical clumps of soil that can protect carbon-rich organic matter at the center. Fire can also increase the amount of carbon bound tightly to minerals in the soil.

"Ecosystems can store huge amounts of carbon when the frequency and intensity of fires is just right. It's all about the balance of carbon going into soils from dead plant biomass, and carbon going out of soils from decomposition, erosion, and leaching," said Pellegrini.

When fires are too frequent or intense—as is often the case in densely planted forests—they burn all the dead plant material that would otherwise decompose and release carbon into the soil. High-intensity fires can also destabilize the soil, breaking off carbon-based organic matter from minerals and killing soil bacteria and fungi.

Prescribed burn of grassland. Credit: Adam Pellegrini

Without fire, soil carbon is recycled—organic matter from plants is consumed by microbes and released as carbon dioxide or methane. But infrequent, cooler fires can increase the retention of soil carbon through the formation of charcoal and soil aggregates that protect from decomposition.

The scientists say that ecosystems can also be managed to increase the amount of carbon stored in their soils. Much of the carbon in grasslands is stored below-ground, in the roots of the plants. Controlled burning, which helps encourage grass growth, can increase root biomass and therefore increase the amount of carbon stored.

Prescribed burn on savannah. Credit: Adam Pellegrini

"In considering how ecosystems should be managed to capture and store carbon from the atmosphere, fire is often seen as a bad thing. We hope this new study will show that when managed properly, fire can also be good—both for maintaining biodiversity and for carbon storage," said Pellegrini.

Fire gradient visible after prescribed burn on peatland. Credit: Adam Pellegrini

The study focused on carbon stored in topsoils, defined as those less than 30cm deep. More carbon is stored in the world's soil than in the global vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Natural fires occur in most ecosystems worldwide, making fire an important process in global carbon cycling.Soils in old-growth treetops can store more carbon than soils under our feet

More information: Adam Pellegrini, Fire effects on the persistence of soil organic matter and long-term carbon storage, Nature Geoscience (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00867-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00867-1

Journal information: Nature Geoscience 

Provided by University of Cambridge 

Board members feel their role is to support CEOs or fire them

by J. Merritt Melancon, University of Georgia

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

In the last two decades, federal regulations have tried to build more corporate oversight into the roles of corporate boards of directors. There's just one problem: It's not a job board members want.

In one of the first broad surveys of corporate board members since 1989, researchers found that board members saw their job as hiring the best CEO for their firms and then supplying that person with advice and support.

"Directors want the firm to be well run, but they don't want to run it," said Scott Graffin, professor of management and Synovus Chair in Servant Leadership at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.

Graffin and his co-authors published their insights on the role of the modern board member in their paper Corporate directors' implicit theories of the roles and duties of boards, which appears in the September Issue of Strategic Management Journal.

Analyzing reforms meant to prevent another Enron scandal

Graffin worked with Texas A&M management professors Steven Boivie and Michael Withers and qualitative management research expert professor Kevin Corley of Arizona State University on the study. The team interviewed 50 corporate board members about what their service on boards was like, why they served and what they thought about their responsibilities to shareholders, the firms' employees and the general public.

In total, they analyzed 1,000 pages of transcripts.

"We looked at what they said and then looked for common themes," Graffin said. "You're using words like data, finding common themes and then aggregating what the interviews have in common."

Graffin's team thought this type of descriptive study was needed because of the changing business landscape. The 2002 passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act changed the makeup and responsibility of corporate boards, requiring a majority of members to be independent—meaning they are not company employees or contractors. The act also required board members to form an audit committee responsible for verifying the company's financial statements.

These reforms were meant to prevent accounting scandals like the one that brought down the Enron Corporation in 2001. Boards have become larger and more independent, but Graffin's team wanted to see if board members felt they had a regulatory role.

The overwhelming majority of them said they did not.

Board members don't have time to fill the oversight role

Nominally, the board should be offering approval or disapproval of the CEOs' major initiatives and guarding against a CEO who puts his or her self-interest ahead of the firm. In actuality, board members don't feel they have the time, information or background to judge the CEOs' decisions on a case-by-case basis, Graffin said.

"Let's say I spent a week preparing for the meeting, and the CEO has spent the whole year working on a plan and preparing to present a plan," Graffin said. "And now I'm supposed to detect malfeasance. I'm supposed to figure out if a CEO is making decisions that are not the best decisions for the firm.

"How could I possibly know that? … It's just hard to imagine that could possibly be true. How could a board member know what's better for the firm than someone whose job it is full time to manage that firm?"

That's not to say that board members don't take their jobs seriously or that they don't prepare. Most spend about a week preparing for a board meeting. Members who do not prepare are replaced.

"They're engaged; they prepare," Graffin said. "They read all of the plans, and they talk to the CEOs regularly. They want the firm to succeed, and they feel like they're helping the firm to succeed the best way they can—with advice and support."

Board members hire a CEO because they believe in him or her as a manager, Graffin said. They don't want to second guess them. So, they support their decisions and put all their trust in the CEO until that trust starts to falter. As soon as it wavers, they fire the CEO.

"They're not cheerleaders," he said. "They have no compunction about firing a CEO. … However, they implicitly trust the CEO to make the right decision until they don't."

This mantra of support and advice was shared by new board members and board members with more than a century of experience.

"There was a lot of variance in who we talked to, and very little variance in what they said," he said.

The takeaway is that shareholders and the public need to be more realistic about what board monitoring can accomplish, Graffin said. It's not and can't be a panacea for corporate misbehavior. Other entities—regulatory agencies, activist shareholders and the financial press—still need to be part of the monitoring matrixDirector retention does not necessarily facilitate post-acquisition firm performance: study

More information: Steven Boivie et al, Corporate directors' implicit theories of the roles and duties of boards, Strategic Management Journal (2021). DOI: 10.1002/smj.3320

Grandmothers feel their grandkids’ emotions when looking at photos of them

DECEMBER 4, 2021
by Study Finds

ATLANTA — Grandmothers feel the same emotions their grandkids are feeling when they look at pictures of them, according to a recent study. Scientists reveal that if a grandchild is smiling in an image, grannies feel their joy. But if the youngster is crying, they share their pain and distress.

The groundbreaking study is the first to examine the brain function of grandmothers. The part of the brain associated with emotional empathy “lights up” when they look at images of their grandkids, anthropologists at Emory University found.

Fifty healthy, “high-functioning” grandmothers who took part in the study answered questions about their experiences in grandparenthood. Questions included how much time they spend with their grandkids, what they do with them, and how much love they feel towards them. They also underwent MRI scans as they viewed pictures of their grandchild, a child they had never met, the same-sex parent of their grandchild, and an unknown adult.

The scans showed the grandmothers had more brain activity in areas associated with empathy and movement when they looked at their own grandchildren, compared with when they looked at the other images. Grandmothers showed more emotional empathy and motivation when they looked at their grandkids than fathers did when they looked at their children in an earlier study. Those who showed more cognitive empathy were more likely to want to be more involved in caring for their grandchild.

“What really jumps out in the data is the activation in areas of the brain associated with emotional empathy. That suggests that grandmothers are geared toward feeling what their grandchildren are feeling when they interact with them. If their grandchild is smiling, they’re feeling the child’s joy. And if their grandchild is crying, they’re feeling the child’s pain and distress,” explains study lead author James Rilling, a professor in Emory’s Department of Anthropology and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, in a statement. “Young children have likely evolved traits to be able to manipulate not just the maternal brain, but the grand maternal brain. An adult child doesn’t have the same cute ‘factor,’ so they may not elicit the same emotional response.”

More research needed in the study of grandmothers’ brains

Researchers have rarely studied older people’s brains beyond the realms of aging and dementia research, and grandmothers’ interactions with their grandkids had not been studied before. Scientists believe women live long past menopause because it helps their children and grandchildren.

A study of the Hadza people in Tanzania found foraging by grandmothers helps their grandchildren grow up more healthily. Another study of traditional communities showed the presence of grandmothers cut their daughters’ interbirth intervals and helped their daughters have more children. In more modern societies, evidence is growing that grandmothers help their grandchildren, making the little ones brainier, more sociable, and healthier.

“Evidence is emerging in neuroscience for a global, parental caregiving system in the brain. We wanted to see how grandmothers might fit into that pattern,” says Rilling. “We often assume that fathers are the most important caregivers next to mothers, but that’s not always true. In some cases, grandmothers are the primary helper. ​​Our results add to the evidence that there does seem to be a global parenting caregiving system in the brain, and that grandmothers’ responses to their grandchildren map onto it.”

Rilling adds that the research was fun and gave him a better sense of the rewards and challenges of being a grandma. The main difficulty many grandmothers face is trying not to interfere when they disagree with the parents about how the grandkids should be raised and what values should be installed into them.

“Many of them also said how nice it is to not be under as much time and financial pressure as they were when raising their children. They get to enjoy the experience of being a grandmother much more than they did being parents,” says Rilling.

The findings open the door to many more questions. Rilling notes he now wants to study grandfathers’ brains and look into how grandparents’ brains may differ across cultures.

“We’re highlighting the brain functions of grandmothers that may play an important role in our social lives and development. It’s an important aspect of the human experience that has been largely left out of the field of neuroscience,” says co-author Minwoo Lee, a PhD candidate in Emory’s Department of Anthropology.

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

South West News Service writer Gwyn Wright contributed to this report.

Egyptian mummy mystery: Body inside much older than museum’s ancient sarcophagus

Fig 4. 3D-rendered CT images of mummified individual (NMR.27.3) showing the carapace and broken sections (stitched image). A. Anterior. B. Lateral left-hand side. C. Posterior. D. Lateral right-hand side. (Courtesy Chau Chak Wing Museum and Macquarie Medical Imaging).

DECEMBER 12, 2021
by Study Finds

SYDNEY — British philanthropist Sir Charles Nicholson bought a mummified body, lidded coffin, and mummy board as a set during a trip to Egypt in the 1850s, before donating it to the University of Sydney in Australia in 1860. The coffin’s inscription identifies the owner as a titled woman named Meruah, and the iconography dates the sarcophagus to around 1000 BC. However, new analysis using state of the art technology reveals that although the body is that of a female aged 26 to 35 years old, it is actually much older than the coffin.

Dr. Karin Sowada, of Macquarie University in Australia, and her colleagues describe their discovery of a rare painted mud shell enclosing the mummy — called a “carapace” — in Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. Although the mummified individual underwent a CT scan in 1999, Dr. Sowada and her team rescanned the body using updated technology. Visualization of the dentition and skeleton determined that the mummified remains were of a woman who lived to be about 26 to 35 years old.


“The mud shell encasing the body of a mummified woman within the textile wrappings is a new addition to our understanding of ancient Egyptian mummification,” Dr. Sowada explains in a statement.

Researchers say there was no signs of external genitalia on the body, and its reproductive organs were likely removed during the mummification process. Instead, they used the individual’s hip bones, jaw and cranium to confirm she was female. Analysis of the linen wrappings covering the body show she lived in the late New Kingdom, around 1200 BC to 1113 BC.

Mummified individual and coffin in the Nicholson Collection of the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney. A. Mummified individual, encased in a modern sleeve for conservation, NMR.27.3. B. Coffin lid, NMR.27.1. (Published under a CC BY license, with permission from the Chau Chak Wing Museum, original copyright 2019).


So how could it be the that body could be older than the actual sarcophagus? Researchers believe that 19th century dealers who were selling the ancient Egyptian coffin placed an unrelated body inside so that it appeared to be a complete set.

“The new scans also revealed the extent and nature of the mud carapace, showing the mud shell fully sheaths the body and is layered within the linen wrappings. Images of the inmost layers indicate the body was damaged relatively shortly after initial mummification, and the mud carapace and additional wrappings were applied to reunify and restore the body,” explains Dr. Sowada.


In addition to its practical restorative purpose, the researchers suggest the mud carapace gave those who cared for the deceased the chance to emulate elite funerary practices of the time. This included coating the body in an expensive imported resin shell using cheaper, locally available materials.

Since this mud carapace treatment has not been previously documented, the team noted that it isn’t possible to determine how frequent the treatment may have been for non-elite mummies in the late New Kingdom of ancient Egypt. They suggest that further radiological studies on other non-royal mummies may reveal more about the practice.

These findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

SWNS writer Stephen Beech contributed to this report.

Over half of adults admit they have conversations with inanimate objects, plants, and pets

DECEMBER 22, 2021
LONDON — Many people act a bit “differently” within the privacy of their own home, but a new survey finds most adults are actually having full-on conversations with items that can’t talk back! The poll of 2,000 adults in the United Kingdom finds over half routinely “chat” with inanimate objects at home. Another 60 percent say they’ll often have “entirely two-way” conversations with their pets.

Commissioned by TheJoyOfPlants.co.uk and conducted by OnePoll, the survey also finds 44 percent of adults frequently talk with their house plants. Within that group, four in 10 usually ask their plant if it’s thirsty.

A bit more understandably, over a quarter have lashed out verbally at an object or appliance for failing to do its job. For example, people often scold their TV or coffee maker for failing to turn on. Conversely, sometimes household items perform their functions a bit too well. Twenty-four percent admit they’ve yelled at an alarm clock to shut up. Meanwhile, close to 20 percent have pleaded with their car to keep going while low on fuel and over 10 percent have verbally thanked an ATM for dispensing their cash.

Most respondents have been caught mid-conversation by another human being. As many as six in 10 have been exposed while talking to an object and over half of those situations (60%) ended in laughter.
Plants love hearing a soothing voice

These chats are quite frequent as well. About six in 10 adults talk with their plants on a weekly basis. Another eight percent talk to their plants every day! Close to 40 percent believe these pep talks help their plants grow, while 37 percent report feeling happier themselves after speaking with some shrubs.

As far as specific comments, “you need a drink”, “you’re getting big”, and “you’re not looking your best” are the most common things people say to plants. Nearly three in five (57%) believe they speak to their plants with a “loving tone” and close to one in five have even played music for their plants. Classical, R&B, and electronic are the most common musical genres played for plants.

“The data for this goes as far back as Charles Darwin in the 1700s who recognized vibrations encourage plants to grow. You don’t even have to talk directly to plants – as long as you’re having conversations near them, they’re going to be enjoying those vibrations and it will benefit them,” says Michael Perry, a houseplant expert working with TheJoyOfPlants, in a statement.

“When it comes to vocal tones, many feel low, bass-heavy voices are best but in fact, plants respond most strongly to voices in the 115-250hz range. For reference, men’s voices are around 85-155hz, while women’s are normally 165-255hz – much better for the plant’s range.”

Warning over long-term increase in inequality caused by the pandemic

by University of Bristol

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers today issued a stark warning on the post-pandemic outlook for living standards in the UK following an extensive review of over 200 reports examining the impact of the pandemic.

Although the macro-economic forecasts for the UK are comparatively positive, at a household level the situation is more mixed.

The financial pressure on some families caused by the pandemic is likely to be exacerbated by this Winter's 'cost of living crisis,' as the cost of fuel, energy and other essentials continue to rise, and this is likely to lead to a longer-term increase in inequality and poverty in the UK.

Today, abrdn Financial Fairness Trust publishes a review of evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on household finances. The report assessed the overall financial impact of the pandemic on UK households and impacts by age, sex, race and disability.

Researchers from the University of Bristol's Personal Finance Research Centre found that when looked at together there were relatively small changes to household income and decreases in spending and debt following the economic shock of the pandemic. However, these combined figures obscured large variations in experience, including in relation to saving and spending.

The team found consistent evidence that those on higher incomes were generally protected from income loss, whilst those on lower incomes suffered a significant drop in living standards. This fall was "remarkably consistent" across the groups who experienced the worst repercussions of the pandemic—including people in insecure work and young adults, disabled people and some ethnic minorities.

The review found that the labor market effects of the pandemic have been less pronounced than was first forecast and the Government job support schemes were broadly successful. However, those most severely impacted were those who were already in a precarious position before the pandemic.

Another area where inequality increased, and indications are that it will continue to do so, was ability to meet the cost of living. There is consistent evidence that the financial strain created by the pandemic caused significant numbers of individuals and families to fall behind with payments on bills. In terms of outgoings, while the better-off benefitted from 'forced saving' during lockdowns, people on lower incomes faced higher costs and these increased outgoings did lead to families cutting back on essentials.

Looking ahead, researchers predict certain groups are likely to be hardest hit by the increase in inequality. They find the impacts of the pandemic may fall disproportionately disabled people and ethnic minority groups. Researchers recommend policy should focus on supporting those at risk.

Mubin Haq, CEO of abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, said: "Many have found themselves in a better financial position than they were at the beginning of the pandemic, their income was protected by the Government and their opportunities for spending were reduced, forcing them to save. However, others have seen their finances take a real hit, mostly those who were in a precarious financial position before the pandemic.

"For those groups, savings have been used up, they are behind on bills and they are now seeing prices rise. They are having to make difficult choices as to whether to heat their homes or to eat. If more is not done to support these groups we are going to see the inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic only continuing to increase, leading to a more divided country."

Professor Sharon Collard, chair in personal finance at the University of Bristol, said: "If you only look at the aggregate situation of household finances in the UK you miss the big variations in households' experiences and situations. The evidence review highlights the need to look beyond the big picture to understand what's happening and where policies and support should be targeted."

Explore furtherResearch shows families with children have been hit hardest financially by COVID-19 pandemic

by University of Bristol 

How workers become seduced by the cult of 'optimal busyness'

by Joonas Rokka, Ioana Lupu, The Conversation

Optimal busyness can quickly become excessive busyness. Credit: Shutterstock

The consultant was on her way to a demanding client meeting when she realized she had had a miscarriage. But she did not interrupt her day. Instead, she went on to complete the meeting at her client's offices.

The woman, who works at an elite professional service firm in London, was one of the professionals we interviewed as part of our recent study of the work life of highly educated professionals.

When we began our study in 2014, we set out to investigate how workers in demanding jobs managed their work-life balance. But soon after we started the interviews, we realized we needed to revise our focus, because it became clear that our interviewees were not seeking to balance their work and private life.

Instead, we found these workers were driven by a compulsion to be busy at all times, which meant they were also willing to sacrifice their family lives in important ways.

As one of our participants told us: "You become a little bit of a junkie for a deadline and work. It's quite hard to switch off."

While a common narrative in research and the media is that people want to slow down their lifestyles these days, our findings reveal a strikingly different story.

The desire to work fewer hours among our interviewees was uncommon. Instead they were in pursuit of something else: "optimal busyness."

The quest for optimal busyness

We interviewed 81 people who work in some of the biggest consulting and law firms in London. Half of the workers were women, half were men, and nearly all of them had at least one child. All of the professionals we interviewed suffered from time famine—constantly having too little time to do what they had to do.

To deal with this problem, they were drawn toward a compelling state of busyness, one in which they felt in control of their time. We call this "optimal busyness"—an attractive, accelerated temporal experience that is difficult to achieve and maintain.

Overall, we identified three different kinds of experiences of busyness: optimal busyness, excessive busyness, and quiet time. Optimal busyness is an elating and enjoyable temporal flow in which the workers felt at their best and most productive. This buzzing feeling gave them adrenaline and positive energy, which was exciting. When they were in this state, they felt nothing could stop them, and that they could, for example, save a company from going bankrupt.

Such an attraction toward busyness can be understood as a kind of status symbol or badge of honor, a phenomenon that has been described in previous research.

But we found that this drive went far deeper than mere social signaling. The desired buzzing feeling was itself inherently addictive. One participant told us: "I love the intensity of it, usually. I get a buzz out of it, that's why I do the job that I do. I like it."

We observed the pleasurable and positive state of optimal busyness often tipped over and became excessive. In such instances, professionals' feelings of being in control of their time vanished. This is where busyness became overwhelming and sometimes depressing.

When the energizing buzz of optimal busyness continued for too long without break, it became unbearable. Connection with family was often the first casualty. One participant went on a work trip and despite promises to call her family in the evening failed to do so—for the entire week.

We observed a similar pattern in the case of quiet time—that is, when the busy work period was suddenly interrupted by downtime, or typically, a holiday period. Quiet time was experienced as something undesirable and meaningless. It also caused boredom and even depression. The thought of a slower pace at work was a source of concern. One told us:

"When I don't have deadlines I get bored. I'm much less productive because I like working on adrenaline."

As well as interviewing busy knowledge workers, we also spoke to some of their partners. One partner said:

"My wife is terrible. If she wakes up to go to toilet in the middle of the night, she checks her emails—even at 3 AM."

The conditions for optimal busyness

On one hand, workplaces produce the conditions that drive the quest for optimal busyness. We identified a number of mechanisms that did this, including unrealistic deadlines, performance metrics, time sheets, and the working culture itself—companies and peers expected everyone to be available to work at all times via their smartphones.

The firms we studied are elite institutions that hire the best university students with the highest grades. New recruits wanted to survive the impossible pressure because they knew it was the only way to get a promotion or to become an associate in the company. Busy working culture soon absorbed them and normalized unnatural working hours.

On the other hand, we found individuals themselves were also creating the conditions for optimal busyness. Some boosted their capacity to work with coffee, drugs, or physical exercise. Others went as far as isolating themselves in a hotel room so they could work without interruptions.

A common strategy was for workers to think: "This is only a short period and once I am through I will relax." For most, the relaxation never happened.

A culture of overwork

For decades, scholars have observed the persistence of long working hours, overwork, and time famine. These problems are ingrained in many professional work contexts, not only in consulting, audit or law firms.

Academia is another striking example: studies consistently show that researchers' poor mental well-being is linked to increased performance expectations, competitive ethos, and meticulous metrics that produce non-stop busyness.

Our research offers a new way of understanding this phenomenon. The quest for optimal busyness is a vicious cycle. However, until recently there has been limited research that would uncover our everyday experiences of time and how they can take a hold of us.

The individuals we studied, albeit in an arguably extreme context, were often unaware what was happening to them. Perhaps it is time for us all to reflect on how and why we are so addicted to feeling busy.

Lack of leisure: Is busyness the new status symbol?

Provided by The Conversation