Why seaweed is a natural fit for replacing certain plastics

Five out of eight finalists for a million-dollar sustainability prize floated algae as an alternative for plastic film.

BY SARA KILEY WATSON | PUBLISHED MAR 30, 2022


Making plastic alternatives from plants has a multitude of environmental benefits. Oleksandr Sushko on Unsplash

Plastic film can be a menace to the environment. The super-thin material that makes up baggies and shrink wrap has proven to be one of the trickier plastics to recycle—and often ends up festering in landfills or in the ocean. And when humans go through hundreds of billions of plastic bags each year globally, that can make for a gigantic problem. 

So, it calls for a equally gigantic solution. Just this week American fashion company Tom Ford announced the finalists for its $1.2 million Plastic Innovation Prize. Out of 64 applicants spanning six continents, eight were selected to material test their concepts for plastic alternatives. After a year, three winners will be chosen to share the prize and continue to develop their product, says Dune Ives, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Lonely Whale, which is co-leading the competition.

While the finalists wrapped everything from agricultural waste to peas into their approaches, they had one clear favorite when it came to a plastic substitute: More than half of them used algae in some shape or form in their designs. “Seaweed and kelp are called the lungs of the ocean,” says Ives. “Over the last several years we have seen more farming to help to solve nearshore coastal ecosystem issues, like warming, acidification, and deoxygenation.” Currently, seaweed is used in products like food additives, fertilizers, and supplements—but as abundance grows, so might innovative uses.

[Related: Adding enzymes to bioplastics can make them disappear]

Out of the eight finalists, five make bioplastic or plastic film alternatives out of seaweed, kelp, or another algae. Competitors from the UK included Kelpi, which makes compostable and low-carbon bioplastic packaging, and Notpla, which creates natural-membrane packaging that was used in water pouches for London Marathon runners in 2019. Zerocircle, based in Guragaon, India, turns local seaweed into dissolvable, ocean-safe packaging. Sway, based out of Berkeley, California, also works with seaweed for a home-compostable thin-film plastic alternative. Finally, Marea in Iceland uses local algae to design yet another biofilm alternative that fully degrades in the environment.

The journey from a slimy green plant to plastic-like material can be a stretch for the imagination. But it’s a shockingly simple concept, explains Mike Allen, lead scientist at Blue Microbe, a marine bioscience group based in the UK, and associate professor of single cell genomics at University of Exeter. Plastic manufacturing requires stringing “basic building blocks” of chemistry into different polymers. Those building blocks, Allen says, can come from most anything. In traditional plastics, they’re typically the result of crude oil that’s extracted from the ground, is refined into polymers, and formed into a clear, durable resin.

The same process applies to seaweed, Allen explains. (After all, fossil fuels are just squeezed remains of ancient flora and fauna.) The plant can be whittled down to its carbons and sugars, and then chemically shaped into building blocks. Once the bonds that hold the plant together are broken down, “you get similar biobricks, essentially,” Allen says. Those “biobricks” can then be used to make an entirely new product.

The cool thing about turning seaweed into industrial materials is there are assets in its natural qualities, too. Therefore, reengineering all the way to traditional plastics isn’t always necessary. “The really clever bioplastics, the biodegradable ones, are going less along that scale,” Allen says. “They aren’t breaking down as much, and are retaining some of their properties like hydrophobicity and permeability. Some of them are biologically active. They have sort of antimicrobial things like that, which are very different to traditional plastics.” Retaining some of these characteristics can help plastic alternatives break down faster, maintain edibility, and resist bacteria.


All five algae-based finalists in the competition are designed to decompose and biodegrade. Notpla, for example, breaks down in home compost in about 10 days. Meanwhile, Zerocircle’s founder and director Neha Jain says its alternative can break down in marine environments in a matter of hours, depending on the temperature of the water. Seaweed is also incredibly bountiful, appearing pretty much anywhere there’s a beach (sometimes it’s even labeled as a disastrous environmental nuisance). Not to mention, it grows plentifully without using agricultural lands—and the freshwater, pesticides, and fertilizers that farms depend so much on these days.

[Related: Old fish bones could make the eco-friendly plastic we’ve been waiting for]

“The only space left for growth is really the oceans,” says Allen. “But you’re not going to be growing trees or crops in the ocean, so your option is pretty much seaweed.”

Still, it will take many more steps beyond material testing to scale up seaweed-made bioplastics to bring to market. “​​Plastic-production technologies have gone through more than 70 years of improvement to reach the current output levels,” Zerocircle’s Jain says. “Achieving the same efficiency and production capacity from any alternative will take time and encouragement globally.”

Additionally, Allen emphasizes that swapping out one type of plastic for another won’t make the world any less dependent on disposables. The Plastic Innovation Prize finalists have a chance to address that as well.

“While we don’t wish to see seaweed-based packaging everywhere traditional plastic currently exists, we believe it’s the optimal solution for the many situations where thin-film packaging plays a vital and irreplaceable function,” says Sway co-founder and CEO Julia Marsh.

As the competitors dive into testing their plastic alternatives, they’ll be matched up with major apparel brands like J. Crew, Nike, and Tom Ford to test the products along working supply chains. The products will also be tested for marine animal and environmental safety by the Seattle Aquarium. Which bioplastic will come out on top, be it seaweed or otherwise, will be uncovered in just another year.

Editor’s Disclosure: Matt Sechrest—managing partner of North Equity, the lead investor in Popular Science’s parent company, Recurrent Ventures—is an advisor for the Tom Ford Prize. He was not involved in the assigning, writing, or editing of this story.

Sara Kiley Watson  is an Assistant Editor at Popular Science, where she has led sustainability coverage since 2021. She started her tenure at PopSci as an intern in 2017 before joining the team full time as an Editorial Assistant in 2019. Contact the author here.

The Science of Bad Vibes: Can Some Places Really Hold Onto Negative Energy?

Our physical surroundings—plus a few tricks of the human mind—could literally give us the heebie-jeebies.

BY STAV DIMITROPOULOS

MAR 30, 2022

PATRICK CHONDON / EYEEMGETTY IMAGES

Our habitat may not be as neutral as we perceive it to be.
According to one theory, some places hold onto leftover traces of emotions from people who previously lived there.

In another theory, spots like tunnels, sewers, or geological faults wreck Earth’s natural vibration—and maybe even your health.

Visitors to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland report feelings of tightness in their chests, nervousness in their hands, and feelings of depression—it’s almost like the place is haunted by tremendous amounts of bad energy. According to some scientists, there’s a high chance it’s one of many sites containing “negative energy.”

✅ Science helps us understand our world. Let’s demystify new findings together.

That means our habitat may not be as neutral as we perceive it to be, explaining the goosebumps and sick-to-your-stomach feeling you may experience in haunted houses or sites where horrific violence took place. There are three predominant theories for this phenomenon: the presence of emotional residue, or leftover evidence of past emotions that are still lurking around, “geopathic stress” emanating from Earth itself, and the power of our mind’s own expectations.

The Emotional Residue Theory

This is the house in Wentworth Falls where James Gardyne shot his wife Aldona in the chest and then drove away to kill himself, March 25, 1980.
FAIRFAX MEDIA ARCHIVESGETTY IMAGES

Emotions have the potential to “infect” or “brighten” their physical surroundings even after their source has physically moved to a new location, according to the emotional residue phenomenon. Though the theory likely originates from early beliefs in the contagious nature of magic, it has nevertheless become the focal point of several legitimate studies in the field of psychology.

A possible explanation is that the human nervous system is able to pick up on chemical signals the body gives off through sweat and tears. Studies have found, for instance, that men’s libido declines in the presence of women’s tears and that these “chemosignals” persist in the surrounding environment. Some experiments have attempted to describe human responses to them.

A Dutch study published in Psychological Science in 2012, for instance, found that chemosignals previously produced by men who felt fear or disgust “generated an interesting reaction” among women exposed to them. Scientists collected sweat from men while they attended either a fear-inducing or a disgust-inducing movie and exposesd women to it. The “fear sweat” sample produced fearful facial expressions while performing a visual task, while women who were exposed to chemosignals from the “disgust sweat” sample produced disgusted facial expressions during the same task.


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A second study by the same Dutch team, published in Psychological Science in 2015, found that exposure to body odor from people who reported feelings of happiness also produced feelings of happiness in the participants. Researchers recruited 12 men to provide the sweat samples for the study, who again watched a video clip intended to induce a particular emotional state: fear, happiness, and or neutral feelings.

Thirty-six women were exposed to the sweat samples. Facial expression data revealed that women who were exposed to “fear sweat” had greater activity in the medial frontalis muscle, which is responsible for elevating your eyebrows, a common feature in expressions of fear. Women who were exposed to “happy sweat” sported smiles. In its conclusion, the paper mentions a “behavioral synchronization” between the sweat donor and the sweat smeller. In other words, happiness could spread through chemosignals.

“I DEFINITELY BELIEVE THAT THERE IS STILL LOTS TO LEARN ABOUT HOW HUMANS ARE INFLUENCED BY OUR ENVIRONMENTS.”

Responding to emotional cues is common in the animal kingdom, too. “There are multiple studies of non-human animals showing that they respond to environmental cues we are not perceiving (at least not consciously), for example by increasing their levels of stress hormones before storms, or reacting to earthquakes or tidal waves,” Brian Hellmuth, professor of environmental science and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston, tells Popular Mechanics.

This may be an issue of sensitivity, or perhaps these animals have sensory abilities we lack, Hellmuth says. “While I don’t know of any Western science that demonstrates the influence of any ‘energy signature,’ I definitely believe that there is still lots to learn about how humans are influenced by our environments and especially the emotional, physical, and psychological impacts of environmental damage on humans.”

The Geopathic Stress Theory

Grotagja fault in Iceland.
BARTVDDGETTY IMAGES

But maybe the environment doesn’t even need to be damaged to wreak havoc on humans. In 1929, German baron and medical researcher Gustav Freiherr von Pohl conducted a study in the Bavarian town of Vilsbiburg, concluding that certain geological faults (fractures between two pieces of rock) of “Earth-radiated energy” were linked with cancer. All the people who had died of cancer in Vilsbiburg since record-keeping began had slept in beds along these “geopathic” stress lines, leading von Pohl to the unfounded claim that cancer was a disease of location and to the genesis of the term “geopathic stress.”

According to geopathy advocates, Earth emits energies that can cause ill health in humans—the very definition of geopathic stress. Tunnels, sewers, geological faults, pipes, mineral deposits, utility lines, and underground water are all supposedly points where a “certain energy vibration” from Earth gets distorted. Geopathic stress proponents say you should avoid spending too much time in/on/around these distortion points, or you will experience fatigue, headaches, insomnia, and overall very negative feelings. (Some of the most hardcore advocates say that even machinery can break down when placed in geopathic stress zones.)

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The good news is that no serious scientific research has explicitly linked fault lines with cancer, bad vibrations since the German aristocrat’s days. However, because there are so many environmental factors that affect our bodies, it’s impossible to isolate the direct effects Earth has on us, according to Jorge Sanjurjo-Sánchez, an associate professor at the University Institute in Geology Isidro Parga Pondal and the University of A Coruña in Spain.

And if Earth’s radiation or vibration does have direct health effects on us, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Sanjurjo-Sánchez explains, because Earth could nurture us much like a real mother. “Low doses of gamma radiation from the ground, a form of radiation more powerful than X-rays, might even be beneficial,” he tells Popular Mechanics, citing the elevated lifespans in places like the Greek island of Ikaria, where this phenomenon occurs. Apparently, places do have their own powers.

The Power of Expectation

Still, our own associations and expectations could be even more powerful than emotional residue or geopathic stress.

If we expect something to feel a certain way—say, happy or sad—that can strongly influence our perceptions; such is the power of expectations. If you have positive or negative associations when it comes to certain landscape features, for instance, this could have an impact on how you feel and function beneath your ability to understand it.

“Studies in which participants predicted the mood of a character based on the emotions of a person who previously lived in their apartment, or chose a room based on a sign on a door, reinforce an old point in psychology, which is that we quickly and automatically form associations, and those can influence attitudes and behavior,” John Coley, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, tells Popular Mechanics.

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“Research from my lab shows that people who grow up in urban environments tend to associate themselves with features of the built environment, whereas those who grow up in rural environments tend to associate themselves with features of the natural environment,” Coley says. Moving from the city to the countryside or vice versa could therefore cause stress.

“If I grow up in the country and then move to New York, outwardly I might love the hustle and bustle and the constant buzz of energy, but deep down, the sense that this isn’t me, even if I’m not aware of it, might take a toll,” he says. So the abandoned house across the street may not actually be haunted, even if it makes your chest tight when you near it; perhaps you simply are from a neighborhood where there are few blighted or neglected properties.

Putting It All Together

Over 60 million people have visited Auschwitz by now. The place is hailed as the “epitome of dark tourism,” a hotly criticized type of travel that involves visiting places historically connected to death, tragedy, and the macabre. There’s even an entire Netflix series called “Dark Tourist” that takes viewers to places like the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and a lake in Kazakhstan formed from a nuclear blast.
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Whether you’re visiting a place like the National September 11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan or a former concentration camp, immersing ourselves in tragedy can give us significant time to reflect on past history—and our own humanity. So next time you get the heebie-jeebies in a place, know that there’s at least a possibility that the place is charged with emotion ... but don’t lose sight of the power of your own mind to concoct those bad vibes.

STAV DIMITROPOULOS science writing has appeared online or in print for the BBC, Discover, Scientific American, Nature, Science, Runner’s World, The Daily Beast and others.

Scientists identify neurons in the brain that drive competition and social behavior within groups

Date: March 16, 2022

Source: Massachusetts General Hospital

Summary: In mice, social ranking in a group was linked to the results of competition, and certain neurons in the brain stored this social ranking information to inform decisions. Manipulating the activity of these neurons could increase or decrease an animal's competitive effort and therefore control their ability to successfully compete against others.

New research in mice has identified neurons in the brain that influence competitive interactions between individuals and that play a critical role in shaping the social behavior of groups. Published in Nature by a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the findings will be useful not only for scientists interested in human interactions but also for those who study neurocognitive conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia that are characterized by altered social behavior.


"Social interactions in humans and animals occur most commonly in large groups, and these group interactions play a prominent role in sociology, ecology, psychology, economics and political science," says lead author S. William Li, an MD/PhD student at MGH. "What processes in the brain drive the complex dynamic behavior of social groups remains poorly understood, in part because most neuroscience research thus far has focused on the behaviors of pairs of individuals interacting alone. Here, we were able to study the behavior of groups by developing a paradigm in which large cohorts of mice were wirelessly tracked across thousands of unique competitive group interactions."

Li and his colleagues found that the animals' social ranking in the group was closely linked to the results of competition, and by examining recordings from neurons in the brains of mice in real time, the team discovered that neurons in the anterior cingulate region of the brain store this social ranking information to inform upcoming decisions.

"Collectively, these neurons held remarkably detailed representations of the group's behavior and their dynamics as the animals competed together for food, in addition to information about the resources available and the outcome of their past interactions," explains senior author Ziv M. Williams, MD, a neurosurgical oncologist at MGH. "Together, these neurons could even predict the animal's own future success well before competition onset, meaning that they likely drove the animals' competitive behavior based on whom they interacted with."

Manipulating the activity of these neurons, on the other hand, could artificially increase or decrease an animal's competitive effort and therefore control their ability to successfully compete against others. "In other words, we could tune up and down the animal's competitive drive and do so selectively without affecting other aspects of their behavior such as simple speed or motivation," says Williams.

The findings indicate that competitive success is not simply a product of an animal's physical fitness or strength, but rather, is strongly influenced by signals in the brain that affect competitive drive. "These unique neurons are able to integrate information about the individual's environment, social group settings, and reward resources to calculate how to best behave under specific conditions," says Li.

In addition to providing insights into group behavior and competition in different sociologic or economic situations and other settings, identifying the neurons that control these characteristics may help scientists design experiments to better understand scenarios in which the brain is wired differently. "Many conditions manifest in aberrant social behavior that spans many dimensions, including one's ability to understand social norms and to display actions that may fit the dynamical structure of social groups," says Williams. "Developing an understanding of group behavior and competition holds relevance to these neurocognitive disorders, but until now, how this happens in the brain has largely remained unexplored."

Additional co-authors include Omer Zeliger, Leah Strahs, Raymundo Báez-Mendoza, Lance M. Johnson, and Adian McDonald Wojciechowski.

Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the Autism Science Foundation, an MGH-ECOR Fund for Medical Discovery Fellowship, and a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

Journal Reference:
S. William Li, Omer Zeliger, Leah Strahs, Raymundo Báez-Mendoza, Lance M. Johnson, Aidan McDonald Wojciechowski, Ziv M. Williams. Frontal neurons driving competitive behaviour and ecology of social groups. Nature, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04000-5

Office buildings with infrequent water use may have poor water quality

Study suggests buildings with 'green' plumbing should test drinking water for safety

Date: March 9, 2022

Source: PLOS

Low-consumption office buildings with infrequent water use could have chemical and microbiological safety issues, according to a study published in PLOS Water by Andrew Whelton at Purdue University, Indiana, United States, and colleagues. The research could have implications for office buildings used less frequently during pandemic lockdowns, and suggests that regular water testing in commercial buildings may be needed.

Many office buildings have decreased occupancy during weekends and holidays -- and recently, during pandemic lockdowns -- increasing water stagnation in plumbing. Green buildings are designed to reduce water consumption using efficient fixtures and alternative water supplies. However, due to the combination of lower building water use and low occupancy periods, the safety of water from green buildings is unknown. To better understand chemical and microbiological quality in a green commercial office building plumbing after weekend stagnation, researchers sampled water from a ten-year-old, three story, LEED-certified office building in Indiana between January and February 2020. Samples from all water sources in the building were tested for pH, metals, ions, as well as bacterial strains of Legionella.

Researchers found that copper and lead levels increased over the weekend, and that Legionella counts were highest at a fixture which had no use recorded during sampling. Additionally, the concentration of the disinfectant chlorine decreased over the weekend. The study had several limitations as it relied on self-reported data for measurements of fixture use and may have misreported usage frequency at some locations. Future studies are needed to further analyze how water-saving appliances may impact water quality.

According to the authors, "To prepare plumbing to code, water chemical and microbiological testing is not required or recommended. The green office building studied had many features that are increasingly common in new buildings, including low-flow faucets, automatic faucets, and alternative piping systems for major water uses like toilet flushing and irrigation. These design elements can change water temperature profiles and significantly reduce the amount of water used compared to traditional office buildings, raising concerns for water quality degradation."

The authors add: "The first people in the office on a Monday morning may, in fact, be using contaminated drinking water. To better understand if the water we are using is safe, much more water testing at the faucet must be conducted. Plumbing design standards and codes must also be revised."


Journal Reference:
Elizabeth Montagnino, Caitlin R. Proctor, Kyungyeon Ra, Christian Ley, Yoorae Noh, Katie Vigil, Tiong Gim Aw, Sruthi Dasika, Andrew J. Whelton. Over the weekend: Water stagnation and contaminant exceedances in a green office building. PLOS Water, 2022; 1 (3): e0000006 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000006

Heat stress for cattle may cost billions by century's end, study finds

Date: March 10, 2022

Source: Cornell University

Climate change poses a potentially devastating economic threat to low-income cattle farmers in poor countries due to increasing heat stress on the animals. Globally, by the end of this century those producers may face financial loss between $15 and $40 billion annually.

Farmers in tropical regions -- including large parts of South America, Asia and Africa -- are likely to suffer significantly, particularly when compared with producers in the world's wealthier temperate zones, according to a study by an international team of scientists and economists published in the Lancet Planetary Health.

The researchers, including Mario Herrero, professor of sustainable food systems at Cornell University, and lead author Philip Thornton, of the International Livestock Research Institute and CGIAR; published "Impacts of Heat Stress on Global Cattle Production During the 21st Century."

Escalating demand for livestock products in low- and middle-income countries, along with steadily increasing global average temperatures, is an uncomfortable mix, the researchers said. If livestock are to adapt to new thermal environments and increase their productivity, infrastructural investments or adjustments -- such as switching to more heat-tolerant cattle breeds, and improving shade, ventilation and cooling systems -- will be required.

In the paper's high greenhouse-gas emission scenario, cattle production losses from heat stress are estimated to be $39.94 billion annually, or 9.8% of the value of production of meat and milk from cattle in 2005 -- the scientists' baseline year. The low-emission scenario projects production losses at $14.9 billion annually, or 3.7% of the 2005 value.

By the end of the century, dairy and beef production in the United States is projected to decline by 6.8%, while India -- a major dairy production country -- is projected to lose more than 45% of its dairy farming due to heat stress increases.

"Resource-poor farmers in low-income countries depend heavily on their livestock for their livelihoods," Thornton said. "The adaptation needs are even higher in these countries, and those farmers are the ones where the hit is even more severe."

With climate change, farming and sustainability, Herrero suggested there is a need to create equitable adaptation practices "by design and to think intentionally on reaching the vulnerable sectors of global society," he said. "We cannot just hope that the poor will not be affected."

Technological development is key to bringing equity and social justice to poor farmers throughout the world. "Sustainability is not only about the environment and protecting biodiversity, but the human component is fundamental to sustainability," Herrero said. "We need to deal with climate change, leaving no one behind. That's the only truth."

Herrero is a fellow in the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

Journal Reference:
Philip Thornton, Gerald Nelson, Dianne Mayberry, Mario Herrero. Impacts of heat stress on global cattle production during the 21st century: a modelling study. The Lancet Planetary Health, 2022; 6 (3): e192 DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00002-X

People underestimate others' desire for constructive feedback

Just do it, research suggests

Date: March 24, 2022

Source: American Psychological Association

People consistently underestimate others' desire for constructive feedback and therefore don't provide it, even when it could improve another person's performance on a task, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

"People often have opportunities to provide others with constructive feedback that could be immediately helpful, whether that's letting someone know of a typo in their presentation before a client presentation, or telling a job candidate about a stained shirt before an interview," said lead author Nicole Abi-Esber, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Business School. "Overall, our research found that people consistently underestimate others' desire for feedback, which can have harmful results for would-be feedback recipients."

Constructive feedback is instrumental for aiding learning and performance, and research has shown that people commonly report wanting this type of feedback, according to the researchers. However, despite wanting constructive feedback themselves, people often avoid giving it to others. In a pilot study conducted by the researchers, only 2.6% of participants informed a tester of a visible smudge on his or her face (e.g., chocolate, lipstick or red marker) during a survey.

The research was published in APA's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Previous research suggests that people avoid giving feedback for fear of negative outcomes, such as the other person's becoming embarrassed or upset. Abi-Esber and her colleagues theorized there might be another reason people withhold feedback: They simply do not fully recognize the potential of their input to improve others' outcomes, leading them to underestimate others' desire for such feedback.

To test their theory, the researchers conducted a series of five experiments involving 1,984 participants to measure how much people underestimate others' desire for constructive feedback. In one, participants were presented with 10 hypothetical awkward social situations at work, where they could either give or receive constructive feedback. In another experiment, participants were asked to recall a situation where they could either have given or received constructive feedback. In the final experiment, participants were paired, with one practicing a speech for a competition and the other assigned to listen and provide feedback.

Across all five experiments, people in a position to give feedback consistently underestimated potential receivers' desire for it. The more consequential the feedback (e.g., telling someone they need to improve their presentation skills), the more likely participants were to underestimate the other's need for feedback and the less likely they were to offer it. The gap was smaller in more everyday, less consequential scenarios, such as when the other person had food on their face or a rip in their pants.

The researchers were surprised to find that the simple intervention of perspective taking could increase the likelihood someone would recognize the need for and provide feedback. Simply asking people to quickly reflect, "If you were this person, would you want feedback?" helped participants recognize the value of feedback to the other person and helped close the giver-receiver gap.

"Even if you feel hesitant to give feedback, we recommend that you give it," said Abi-Esber. "Take a second and imagine you're in the other person's shoes and ask yourself if you would want feedback if you were them. Most likely you would, and this realization can help empower you to give them feedback."

"Feedback is key to personal growth and improvement, and it can fix problems that are otherwise costly to the recipient," said co-author Francesca Gino, PhD, also of Harvard Business School. "The next time you hear someone mispronounce a word, see a stain on their shirt or notice a typo on their slide, we urge you to point it out to them -- they probably want feedback more than you think."

Journal Reference:
Nicole Abi-Esber, Jennifer Abel, Francesca Gino, Juliana Schroeder. Just Letting You Know: Underestimating Others Desire for Constructive Feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, March 24, 2022 DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000393

Scientists find that the impact of social media on wellbeing varies across adolescence

Date: March 28, 2022

Source: University of Cambridge

Summary: Girls and boys might be more vulnerable to the negative effects of social media use at different times during their adolescence, say an international team of scientists. The researchers show that, in UK data, girls experience a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11-13 years old and boys when they are 14-15 years old. Increased social media use again predicts lower life satisfaction at age 19 years. At other times the link was not statistically significant.

In a study published today in Nature Communications, the researchers show that, in UK data, girls experience a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11-13 years old and boys when they are 14-15 years old. Increased social media use again predicts lower life satisfaction at age 19 years. At other times the link was not statistically significant.

In just over a decade, social media has fundamentally changed how we spend our time, share information about ourselves, and talk to others. This has led to widespread concern about its potential negative impact, both on individuals and on the wider society. Yet, even after years of research, there is still considerable uncertainty about how social media use relates to wellbeing.

A team of scientists including psychologists, neuroscientists and modellers analysed two UK datasets comprising some 84,000 individuals between the ages of 10 and 80 years old. These included longitudinal data -- that is, data that tracks individuals over a period of time -- on 17,400 young people aged 10-21 years old. The researchers are from the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour.

The team looked for a connection between estimated social media use and reported life satisfaction and found key periods of adolescence where social media use was associated with a decrease in life satisfaction 12 months later. In the opposite direction, the researchers also found that teens who have lower than average life satisfaction use more social media one year later.

In girls, social media use between the ages of 11 and 13 years was associated with a decrease in life satisfaction one year later, whereas in boys this occurred between the ages of 14 and 15 years. The differences suggest that sensitivity to social media use might be linked to developmental changes, possibly changes in the structure of the brain, or to puberty, which occurs later in boys than in girls. This requires further research.

In both females and males, social media use at the age of 19 years was again associated with a decrease in life satisfaction a year later. At this age, say the researchers, it is possible that social changes -- such as leaving home or starting work -- may make us particularly vulnerable. Again, this requires further research.

At other times, the link between social media use and life satisfaction one year later was not statistically significant. Decreases in life satisfaction also predicted increases in social media use one year later; however this does not change across age and or differ between the sexes.

Dr Amy Orben a group leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, who led the study, said: "The link between social media use and mental wellbeing is clearly very complex. Changes within our bodies, such as brain development and puberty, and in our social circumstances appear to make us vulnerable at particular times of our lives."

Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at Cambridge and a co-author of the study, said: "It's not possible to pinpoint the precise processes that underlie this vulnerability. Adolescence is a time of cognitive, biological and social change, all of which are intertwined, making it difficult to disentangle one factor from another. For example, it is not yet clear what might be due to developmental changes in hormones or the brain and what might be down to how an individual interacts with their peers."

Dr Orben added: "With our findings, rather than debating whether or not the link exists, we can now focus on the periods of our adolescence where we now know we might be most at risk and use this as a springboard to explore some of the really interesting questions."

Further complicating the relationship is the fact -- previously reported and confirmed by today's findings -- that not only can social media use negatively impact wellbeing, but that the reverse is also true and lower life satisfaction can drive increased social media use.

The researchers are keen to point out that, while their findings show at a population level that there is a link between social media use and poorer wellbeing, it is not yet possible to predict which individuals are most at risk.

Professor Rogier Kievit, Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, said: "Our statistical modelling examines averages. This means not every young person is going to experience a negative impact on their wellbeing from social media use. For some, it will often have a positive impact. Some might use social media to connect with friends, or cope with a certain problem or because they don't have anyone to talk to about a particular problem or how they feel -- for these individuals, social media can provide valuable support."

Professor Andrew Przybylski, Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford said: "To pinpoint which individuals might be influenced by social media, more research is needed that combines objective behavioural data with biological and cognitive measurements of development. We therefore call on social media companies and other online platforms to do more to share their data with independent scientists, and, if they are unwilling, for governments to show they are serious about tackling online harms by introducing legislation to compel these companies to be more open."

The research was supported by Emmanuel College, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Huo Family Foundation, Wellcome, the Jacobs Foundation, the Wellspring Foundation, the Radboud UMC and the Medical Research Council.

Journal Reference:
Amy Orben, Andrew K. Przybylski, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Rogier A. Kievit. Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media. Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29296-3

Arts activities may improve self-control and reduce antisocial behavior among teenagers

Date: March 22, 2022

Source: University College London

Summary: Teenagers who take part in arts and cultural activities, such as dance, drama, reading and going to concerts, are less likely to engage in antisocial and criminalized behavior up to two years later, according to a new study. Researchers looked at data from more than 25,000 teenagers in the United States who had filled out questionnaires over several years.

Teenagers who take part in arts and cultural activities, such as dance, drama, reading and going to concerts, are less likely to engage in antisocial and criminalised behaviour up to two years later, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) and University of Florida researchers.

For the peer-reviewed study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (JOYO), researchers looked at data from more than 25,000 teenagers in the United States who had filled out questionnaires over several years.

They measured the teenagers' overall engagement with arts activities based on a wide range of factors, from involvement in school clubs, orchestras, choirs, and arts classes outside school, to whether they had visited museums or been to concerts, or read on their own.

They found that the more of these activities the teenagers were involved in, the less likely they were to report being engaged in antisocial behaviour -- ranging from misbehaving at school, to getting into fights, to criminalised behaviour such as stealing and selling drugs -- both at the time of the first survey and when they were asked again about antisocial behaviour one and two years later.

The team also found that teenagers and young people who were more engaged in the arts were likely to have better self-control scores and view antisocial behaviour negatively. These outcomes have previously been found to make young people less likely to engage in antisocial and criminalised behaviours.

The research was carried out as part of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab.

Senior author Dr Daisy Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: "Past research has shown that getting involved in the arts can have a big impact on teenagers' mental health and wellbeing.

"Our study adds to evidence about the wide-ranging benefits that arts and culture can have for young people, demonstrating a positive link between the arts and a lower prevalence of antisocial behaviour.

"Notably these findings remained, even when taking into account factors such as children's age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, their parents' educational background, where they lived, and their previous patterns of antisocial behaviours."

Lead author Dr Jess Bone (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: "Our definition of arts and cultural engagement was very broad. It included dancing and acting in school clubs, reading, going to cinemas, museums, concerts, and music classes, as well as other hobbies that teenagers took part in regularly.

"Finding ways to reduce antisocial behaviour among teenagers is important because these behaviours may become established and continue into adulthood, affecting someone's whole life.

"Our findings demonstrate the importance of making arts and cultural activities available for all young people, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has limited access to and funding for these resources."

Researchers looked at data from two US-based longitudinal studies, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, whose participants were nationally representative. The research team analysed questionnaires filled in by teenagers and their parents between 1988 and 2002. The average age of participants at the start of these studies was 14 to 15 years.

In one of the cohorts, about half of adolescents reported engaging in antisocial and criminalised behaviours in the last 12 months. The average number of times participants engaged in these behaviours over the year was 1.6.

Although the researchers found that arts engagement was linked to fewer positive perceptions of antisocial behaviour and better self-control scores, they could not conclude that these factors were causally responsible for the association between arts engagement and antisocial behaviour as the study was observational.

Nonetheless, in considering mechanisms through which the arts could reduce antisocial behaviour, the researchers cited previous studies showing improvements from arts engagement including increased empathy, more prosocial behaviour, reduced boredom and improved self-esteem, as well as better emotion regulation.

The research was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Pabst Steinmetz Foundation, and Arts Council England.

Journal Reference:
Jessica K. Bone, Feifei Bu, Meg E. Fluharty, Elise Paul, Jill K. Sonke, Daisy Fancourt. Arts and Cultural Engagement, Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors, and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s10964-022-01591-8

Citizen divers aid understanding of fish in the Salish sea

More than half of fish species in region documented by volunteer divers, including a new species

Date: March 24, 2022

Source: University of California - Davis

Summary: Citizen scientists are increasingly playing crucial roles in understanding fish populations, according to a new study. Over the past 20 years, volunteers have helped monitor more than half of the total fish species known to occur in the Salish Sea.

Hundreds of fish species live in the Salish Sea, and many face a number of threats. Monitoring the health of these fish populations is crucial. But with nearly 5,000 miles of coastline and more than 400 islands, it's no small task.

Historically, monitoring fish populations has included fishery catch data, active trawl surveys, underwater video, satellite imagery, hydroacoustics and more. But citizen scientists are increasingly playing crucial roles, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, revealed that in just over two decades, volunteers with Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF)'s Volunteer Fish Survey Project helped monitor more than half of the total fish species known to occur in the Salish Sea.

The study found that the project's surveyors also expanded the known range of multiple species within the ecosystem and documented the presence of a fish species not previously known to occur in the Salish Sea -- the striped kelpfish (Gibbonsia metzi). This brings the total number of fish species known to use the Salish Sea to 261.

The research was led by SeaDoc Society, a program of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. SeaDoc has partnered with REEF for almost two decades to help train volunteer divers in the Pacific Northwest.

Citizen scientists survey Salish Sea

REEF is a marine conservation organization with a worldwide network of recreational divers and snorkelers who provide data to better understand status, trends, and distribution patterns of marine fishes and selected invertebrates and algae in oceans around the world. REEF citizen scientists have been surveying the Salish Sea since 1998. The region encompasses Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the waters off of Vancouver, British Columbia.

The study was also informed by a list of species published by fisheries biologists Theodore Pietsch and James Orr.

"I had so much fun exploring the REEF database and published compilation of Salish Sea fishes," said lead author Elizabeth Ashley, a UC Davis research assistant with SeaDoc Society. "This study highlights that the incredible biodiversity of the Salish Sea merits the use of a diverse set of tools, wielded by both professional and citizen scientists, to fully understand and protect these fishes."

Ashley and her co-authors compared data from 13,000 REEF surveys collected from about 800 sites in the Salish Sea over 21 years (1998-2019). Volunteers observed 138 of 261 recognized fish species in the Salish Sea and expanded the range of 18 species, meaning they were spotted in an area where they previously had not been documented to exist.

Not all fish species have an equal chance of being spotted by a scuba diver. Some might live hundreds of feet deep, expertly hide themselves, or only rarely venture into the Salish Sea. The authors took this into account and categorized each fish based on its potential for encounter by a diver.

REEF divers sighted 85% of fish species that lend themselves to visual observation. For these fishes, experienced citizen scientists can expand what scientists know about range, life history, population status, size, age, behavior, and more.

Citizen science monitoring is only minimally invasive since it relies purely on human observation. Trained divers can document what they see and enter it into the free international database housed at www.REEF.org.

"It's exciting to see that the expertise within our community of citizen scientists has expanded what is known about fish assemblages of the Salish Sea and yielded a new discovery," said co-author Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF's co-executive director. "Beyond providing much-needed data that can be used by researchers and management agencies, participating in citizen science programs like REEF's Volunteer Fish Survey Project creates an authentic connection to nature and empowers participants to make a difference."

Related Multimedia:
Citizen scientist observing a painted greenling in the Salish Sea, and a sailfin sculpin fish

Journal Reference:
Elizabeth A. Ashley, Christy V. Pattengill-Semmens, James W. Orr, Janna D. Nichols, Joseph K. Gaydos. Documenting fishes in an inland sea with citizen scientist diver surveys: using taxonomic expertise to inform the observation potential of fish species. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 2022; 194 (3) DOI: 10.1007/s10661-022-09857-1

Win-wins in environmental management hard to find

JUST LIKE IN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Date: March 24, 2022

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

Summary: When a booming marine fishery can increase its shrimp catch while also reducing unintentional bycatch of turtles --t hat's an example of what environmental scientists and managers call a 'win-win.' Models often predict this ideal outcome is achievable, yet stakeholders rarely see it manifest in the real world.


When a booming marine fishery can increase its shrimp catch while also reducing unintentional bycatch of turtles -- that's an example of what environmental scientists and managers call a "win-win." Models often predict this ideal outcome is achievable, yet stakeholders rarely see it manifest in the real world. Now, a Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)-led study incorporates the complexity of the real world into models, explaining the discrepancy, validating the concerns of stakeholders and providing more realistic expectations for the future of environmental management.

"If a scientist's model predicts a fishery will catch a certain amount of fish with little bycatch, or predicts a farm will harvest a certain amount of corn while cutting back on harmful fertilizer -- but fishermen and farmers on the ground report the opposite, that leads to frustration on both sides," said Margaret Hegwood, a University of Colorado Boulder graduate student in Environmental Studies working in CIRES and lead author on the new study out today in Nature Sustainability.

"We used math to show real-world complexity makes win-wins harder to achieve -- allowing scientists and stakeholders to compromise and aim for more achievable, realistic goals about environmental impact, food production, biodiversity, economic yield, etc," added Hegwood, also a USDA Food Technology and Food Security Fellow. "When you add more variables, like another species, another stakeholder, an extra regulation, the probability of the win-win starts to go down," said Hegwood.

The team also analyzed 280 previous tradeoff models and created algorithms to show how the severity of these tradeoffs might change as more variables were added. The work allows modelers to better understand what managers deal with, and allows managers to better understand the models.

"At its core, it's a study about how to bridge a communication divide," said coauthor Ryan Langendorf, a CIRES and CU Boulder Environmental Studies postdoctoral researcher. "There's this idea that there is a right and wrong, but scientists and stakeholders just think about the problem in different ways. We hope our work allows them to find common ground, so people can work together more productively."

"It's less about finding a better win-win and more about communicating what the win actually looks like," added Langendorf. That could involve adjusting goals to be more realistic: "Instead of asking, 'is it the ideal outcome for only a single objective?' we need to shift our thinking to ask, 'are we better than where we started?'" said Hegwood.

"Better" might mean sacrificing a little fish catch but reducing bycatch by a lot, which is what happened, for example, in an Australian shrimp fishery when it started adding turtle excluder devices to its trawl nets to protect sea turtles in 2001. Or "better" could mean reducing political or regulatory barriers to reaching win-wins. "If a win-win means a community needs certain resources they can't afford, they will never reach an ideal outcome. By identifying these barriers and minimizing them with proactive policies or technological advancements, you make the win-win more attainable," Hegwood said.

"Managers have always seemed to have an intuition that win-wins are harder to find in the real world than they are in models, because the real world is more complicated than models are," said Mattew Burgess, CIRES Fellow, assistant professor of Environmental Studies and Economics at CU Boulder and corresponding author on the study. "Our study shows, in a precise mathematical way, why the manager's intuition is right. By doing this, we hope that we have given modelers and managers a way to understand each other in a common language."



Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Colorado at Boulder. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:
Margaret Hegwood, Ryan E. Langendorf, Matthew G. Burgess. Why win–wins are rare in complex environmental management. Nature Sustainability, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-00866-z

Indian forest loss 'worse than feared' due to climate change

Forest loss from temperature and rainfall alterations adding to deforestation issue

Date: March 24, 2022

Source: University of Reading

Summary: A national-scale study of the relationship between forest loss and rainfall and temperature trends in India reveals climate change may have contributed to huge declines during last two decades, countering official reports that suggest small losses, and adding to existing concerns over deforestation.

Forest loss in India could become an even bigger problem than anticipated in the coming years, with new research revealing climate change has caused significant recent losses.

The first ever national-scale study of the relationship between forest loss and rainfall and temperature trends in India, led by the University of Reading, revealed they may have contributed to large declines since the turn of the century, exacerbating already worrying deforestation largely driven by agricultural expansion in the country.

The new research is in contrast to official reports that show relatively small decreases in forest coverage in recent years. It warns the rapid changes to the climate observed in some regions will necessitate targeted preservation action and funding to reduce the risk to biodiversity in India.

Alice Haughan, a PhD researcher at the University of Reading and lead author of the study, said: "India has seen dramatic forest loss in recent decades, with land use changes to accommodate crops, livestock and a growing population cited as causes. While the contribution of land use change to forest loss has been studied extensively, little attention has been given to the role of climate change in recent decreases.

"The rapid changes to the climate we identified suggests India's forest loss in the coming decades could be far worse than feared, as deforestation is only one part of the problem. The high levels of reduction seen are also concerning for biodiversity, as India relies on connected forests for wildlife preservation."

The new study, published in Global Change Biology, looked at forest loss between 2001 and 2018 -- a period where little data exists.

The authors calculated the velocity of changes to India's climate for the first time, a relatively new technique used to quantify climate change and reveal the rate at which it is impacting a country.

It also analysed variability in climate change impacts across different regions and seasons, revealing that the impact of climate change on forest loss varied greatly between different locations and seasons.

Far greater forest losses were seen where and when the climate was changing most rapidly. Decreases in rainfall were seen to have the strongest effect on increasing forest loss, with temperature decreases in some regions also having a negative impact.

Haughan said: "Our study of Indian tropical and subtropical regions shows that rainfall rather than temperature comes into play as the biggest factor in forest loss, in contrast to trends found in many temperate studies."

The authors argue that, because research has until now largely focused on annual changes to India's climate, this has masked more dramatic changes to temperature and rainfall within seasons, such as the monsoon seasons.

India is in the top 10 countries in the world for forest coverage, with tropical and subtropical forests covering more than a fifth of the country.

India is also one of the most biodiverse countries, containing 8% of the world's biodiversity and four recognised biodiversity hotspots. An estimated 47,000 plant species and 89,000 animal species can be found in the country, with more than 10% of each thought to be on the list of threatened species. Around 5,500 plant species are thought to be endemic to India.

Journal Reference:
Alice E. Haughan, Nathalie Pettorelli, Simon G. Potts, Deepa Senapathi. Determining the role of climate change in India’s past forest loss. Global Change Biology, 2022; DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16161