Artificial intelligence: ChatGPT statements can influence users’ moral judgements

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Human responses to moral dilemmas can be influenced by statements written by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The findings indicate that users may underestimate the extent to which their own moral judgements can be influenced by the chatbot.

Sebastian Krügel and colleagues asked ChatGPT (powered by the artificial intelligence language processing model Generative Pretrained Transformer 3) multiple times whether it is right to sacrifice the life of one person in order to save the lives of five others. They found that ChatGPT wrote statements arguing both for and against sacrificing one life, indicating that it is not biased towards a certain moral stance. The authors then presented 767 US participants, who were on average 39 years old, with one of two moral dilemmas that required them to choose whether to sacrifice one person’s life to save five others. Before answering, participants read a statement provided by ChatGPT arguing either for or against sacrificing one life to save five. Statements were attributed to either a moral advisor or to ChatGPT. After answering, participants were asked whether the statement they read influenced their answers.

The authors found that participants were more likely to find sacrificing one life to save five acceptable or unacceptable, depending on whether the statement they read argued for or against the sacrifice. This was true even the statement was attributed to a ChatGPT. These findings suggest that participants may have been influenced by the statements they read, even when they were attributed to a chatbot.

80% of participants reported that their answers were not influenced by the statements they read. However, the authors found that the answers participants believed they would have provided without reading the statements were still more likely to agree with the moral stance of the statement they did read than with the opposite stance. This indicates that participants may have underestimated the influence of ChatGPT’s statements on their own moral judgements.

The authors suggest that the potential for chatbots to influence human moral judgements highlights the need for education to help humans better understand artificial intelligence. They propose that future research could design chatbots that either decline to answer questions requiring a moral judgement or answer these questions by providing multiple arguments and caveats.

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Article details

ChatGPT’s inconsistent moral advice influences users’ judgment

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31341-0

Corresponding Author:

Sebastian Krügel
Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt, Germany
Email: sebastian.kruegel@thi.de

Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31341-0.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-31341-0 

ARTICLE TITLE

ChatGPT’s inconsistent moral advice influences users’ judgment

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Apr-2023

Convenience, control among benefits that inspire automated feature use

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — People often complain about the occasional misfires of automated features, such as autocorrect, but users generally enjoy interacting with the tools, according to researchers. They added that focusing on certain benefits of automated features may help developers build automated tools that people use more and complain about less.

In a study, researchers said that users appreciate the convenience and control of automated features, which also include YouTube’s autoplay and Google Gmail’s smart compose. People listed the technology’s ability to learn about their personal preferences as another reason they like automated tools.

“We are awash in automated features,” said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State University. “Although we crave for more and more interactive media, and enjoy interactivity in our daily digital experiences, we also value these automated features, which are highly popular. So, there's a bit of a contradiction. On the one hand, we want to be involved. But on the other hand, we want the systems to do their own thing.”

According to the researchers, because automated tools offer more convenience and control, users may not mind losing some of their ability to interact with the technology.

“Automated features can make a device or tool easier to use and frees users from constantly engaging in repetitive tasks,” said Chris "Cheng" Chen, assistant professor in communication and design, Elon University, and first author of the study.

Chen, a former doctoral student in mass communication at Penn State, added that people also appreciate the ability of automated features to remember and learn from previous interactions, or “system-initiated personalization,” she said. This feature saves users from manually adding their preferences to the system.

According to the researchers, users tend to complain about automated features when these features interfere too much with their ability to interact smoothly with their devices.

Developers and designers, therefore, may want to consider designing systems that carefully blend interactivity and automation, also referred to as interpassivity, said Sundar, who is also an affiliate of Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences and director of Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.

“Interpassivity is a delicate combination of automation and interactivity,” said Sundar. “It's not just one or the other. On the one hand, we want things to be automated, and to reduce tedious tasks, which we are happy to outsource to the machine. But, we also want to reserve the right to interact and be notified so that we can to provide consent for the system to engage in this automation process.”

While convenience may often be the most obvious benefit of automated features, Sundar said that developers should also consider other gratifications as they design these services.

“Automated features are meant to give users more convenience, but designers need to keep in mind that there are these other aspects like the user control that people desire, in order for current automated features — as well as other ones that will be developed in the future — to be successful,” Sundar added.

For example, Sundar said, many of the current complaints about automated features derive from a feeling of powerlessness to change settings and a lack of consent.

"When autocorrecting our e-mail messages or autocompleting our sentences, our smartphones tend to go with their version, requiring the user to go through extra steps to over-ride system suggestions,” said Sundar. Affording easy control should be considered an important design consideration, he added.

The researchers used both focus groups and a survey to study people’s reactions to automated features. They conducted three online focus groups with a total of 18 participants, in which they were asked participants about their met and unmet needs when using automated features.

The responses from the focus groups shaped the survey, which was administered to 498 participants on an online crowdsourcing platform. Those participants were asked about 11 automated features in their daily media experience: autofill, autosave, auto-suggestions, autocomplete, auto-importing, auto-scrolling, smart replies and smart compose, auto-tagging, auto-correct, grayscale and autoplay.

The study found that users perceive higher convenience from autosave compared to grayscale, auto-scrolling and autoplay. Autosave was also rated higher for remembering users’ preferences than autofill and grayscale. However, user control was rated as equally important for all automated features.

Sangwook Lee, a doctoral student in mass communication at Penn State, worked with Chen and Sundar.

The researchers published their findings recently in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology.

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JOURNAL

Behaviour and Information Technology

DOI

10.1080/0144929X.2023.2184174 

Computer scientist confronts worldwide challenge of online security and privacy

UTA researcher aims to improve online safeguards that protect user privacy

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON

 

IMAGE: SHIRIN NILIZADEH view more 

CREDIT: UT ARLINGTON

A University of Texas at Arlington computer security researcher has received a prestigious federal grant to determine what technologies and methods work best to attain and retain online security and privacy.

Shirin Nilizadeh, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to study social media discussions and better understand what concerns are about online security and privacy, what technologies and tools they suggest to each other to use and whether they are effective. Nilizadeh called this a “worldwide challenge.”

“People care about their online security and privacy everywhere,” she said. “And sometimes, due to societal and political movements, they become more cautious or aware of the problems, where they go online and on social media, and proactively discuss their concerns and ask for tools and methods that can help protect them.

“We can help as a research community to see what’s working and what isn’t. We can take these research findings to design and develop better online safeguards and to improve the existing security and privacy-preserving systems if they are not secure, effective and efficient.”

Hong Jiang, chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, said Nilizadeh’s research could further the security of social network tools.

“Everyone is connected to social networks,” Jiang said. “Studying social networks’ discussions and understanding what security measures people are looking for and using allow researchers  to develop and provide such measures to improve online security and privacy.”

Previous Nilizadeh work showed that social media users extensively discussed the security and privacy threats of video communication tools more people started working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This work showed how misinformation about security and privacy spread on social media platforms.

Nilizadeh previously did work on how job applicants can “hack” hiring systems and improve their standing by using certain words on their applications. She also has studied whether security and privacy applications like content moderation tools are fair toward users from various demographics and backgrounds.

Study assesses risk of mutation due to residual radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

Hereditary risk assessment of Japanese tree species suggests that mutation rates do not significantly increase under the remnant low-dose-rate radiation

FORESTRY AND FOREST PRODUCTS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: RESIDUAL LOW-DOSE RADIATIONS FROM THE FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT DISASTER IS NOT A THREAT TO THE TREE SPECIES GROWING IN THE AFFECTED AREAS, FINDS A NEW STUDY BY RESEARCHERS FROM JAPAN WHO SURVEYED DE NOVO MUTATION RATES IN JAPANESE CEDAR AND FLOWERING CHERRY GROWING IN CONTAMINATED AREAS. view more 

CREDIT: AUTHORS

Ionizing radiation from nuclear disasters are known to be harmful to the natural environment. The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant meltdown that occurred in 2011 is a prominent example of such a disaster in recent memory. Even a decade after the incident, concerns remain about the long-term effects of the radiation. In particular, it is not clear how the residual low-dose radiation might affect living organisms at the genetic level.

The brunt of the disaster is usually borne by the floras inhabiting the contaminated areas since they cannot move. This, however, makes them ideal for studying the effects of ionizing radiation on living organisms. Coniferous plants such as the Japanese red pine and fir have, for instance, shown abnormal branching after the Fukushima disaster. However, it is unclear whether such abnormalities reflect genetic changes caused by the prevailing low-dose-rate radiation in the area.

 

To address this concern, a team of researchers from Japan developed a rapid and cost-effective method to estimate the mutation risks caused by low-dose-rate radiation (0.08 to 6.86 μGy h-1) in two widely cultivated tree species of Japan growing in the contaminated area. They used a new bioinformatics pipeline to evaluate de novo mutations (DNMs), or genetic changes/mutations that were not present earlier or inherited, in the germline of the gymnosperm Japanese cedar and the angiosperm flowering cherry. The study, led by Dr. Saneyoshi Ueno from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, was recently published in the journal Environment International and involved contribution from Dr. Shingo Kaneko from Fukushima University. “People living in the affected areas are worried and need to feel safe in their daily lives,” says Dr. Kaneko when asked about the motivation behind their study. “We wanted to clear the air of misinformation regarding the biological consequences of the nuclear power plant accident.”

For sampling Japanese cedar, the team first measured the radioactive cesium (137Cs) levels of the cone-bearing branches. The cones were then used to collect the seeds, which were germinated, and the remaining megagametophytes were used for DNA extraction. For the Japanese flowering cherry, an artificial crossing experiment was performed, followed by seed collection and DNA extraction. The samples were subjected to restriction site-associated DNA sequencing, which compared the DNA sequences present in the offspring seed to those present in the parent. The DNMs were detected using a bioinformatic pipeline developed by the authors.

Interestingly, the team found no DNMs for the Japanese flowering cherry and an average of 0.67 DNMs per megagametophyte sample for the Japanese cedar in the “difficult-to-return” zone. Moreover, the 137Cs concentration and ambient dose rate did not have any effects on the presence or absence of DNMs in Japanese cedar and flowering cherry. These findings suggested that the mutation rate in trees growing in contaminated areas did not increase significantly owing to the ambient radiation. “Our results also suggest that mutation rates vary across lineages and are largely influenced by the environment,” highlights Dr. Ueno.

The study is the first to use DNM frequency for assessing the after-effects of a nuclear disaster. With the number of nuclear power plants increasing globally, there is a growing risk of nuclear accidents. When asked about their study’s future implications, Dr. Ueno remarks, “The method developed in our study can not only help us better understand the relationship between genetics and radiation but also perform hereditary risk assessments for nuclear accidents quickly.”

For now, this is as reassuring as it can get.

Low-dose-rate radiations from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster hindered living in the “difficult-to-return” zone, where two tree species were sampled to survey de novo mutation frequencies.

Residual low-dose radiations from the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster is not a threat to the tree species growing in the affected areas, finds a new study by researchers from Japan who surveyed de novo mutation rates in Japanese cedar and flowering cherry growing in contaminated areas.

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JOURNAL

Environment International

DOI

10.1016/j.envint.2023.107893 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Rapid survey of de novo mutations in naturally growing tree species following the March 2011 disaster in Fukushima: the effect of low-dose-rate radiation

Washington shutters pot businesses due to old pesticide

A complex of licensed marijuana grows north of Brewster, in north-central Washington state, is seen on Friday, April 7, 2023. Cannabis regulators have halted operations at several outdoor pot farms and processing facilities located on a stretch of former fruit orchards in north-central Washington state after testing found high levels of chemicals related to a dangerous pesticide used decades ago. The sweeping action announced Thursday night, April 6, 2023, by the Liquor and Cannabis Board renewed concerns about pesticides in marijuana, and put dozens of people at least temporarily out of work just as they were preparing for spring planting. (AP Photo)

SEATTLE (AP) — Cannabis regulators have halted operations at several outdoor pot farms and processing facilities on a stretch of former fruit orchards in north-central Washington state after testing found high levels of chemicals related to a dangerous pesticide used decades ago.

The sweeping action announced Thursday night by the state Liquor and Cannabis Board renewed concerns about pesticides in marijuana and put dozens of people at least temporarily out of work just as they were preparing for spring planting.

“We are very concerned about the jobs and businesses, but we felt we needed to get a message out to our licensees and to take action for public safety,” said board spokesperson Brian Smith.

Over the last several months, officials collected samples from grow operations and processors along a nearly 5-mile (8-kilometer) stretch of the Okanogan River north of Brewster, a region of former orchards where fruit growers used the cancer-causing pesticide DDT before the U.S. banned it in 1972.

Marijuana growers in the area are now dealing with the legacy of soil contamination at the orchards. The results of tests at seven licensees showed high levels of DDE, a chemical that remains when DDT breaks down, the board said. Regulators decided to issue “administrative holds” on 16 producer licenses and two processing licenses in the area, forcing them to cease operations until further notice.

It wasn’t clear how many businesses were affected, because each one can hold multiple licenses.

One of the businesses, large-scale grower Walden Cannabis, advertises its cannabis as “sustainably sungrown” and “pesticide-free,” but its plants apparently absorbed contaminants from the soil which then wound up in its products. CEO Anders Taylor said he was stunned by the board’s action because it had not provided him test results or warned him that the administrative hold was coming.

He called it “completely arbitrary” and said he was trying to figure out if he would have to lay off his employees.

“Orchards used DDT for a generation, and that caused widespread contamination throughout the Pacific Northwest and the whole country, really,” Taylor said. “I’m still trying to process what this means.”

Taylor said there are seven licensed grow operations on his property as well as processing operations, with roughly 50 workers in all.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studies have shown that women with high amounts of DDE in their blood were more likely to give birth prematurely or to have a baby with a wheeze.

However, studies have focused on ingestion of the chemical, such as by eating fruit contaminated with pesticide residue; less is known about the effects of inhaling DDE.

Much of the marijuana grown in the area was sold wholesale to other processors. The Liquor Control Board said it is working with the growers and processors to identify which products the tainted cannabis wound up in so they can be tested off the shelf. Officials also asked affected companies to issue recalls.

Cannabis is known for its strong ability to remove contaminants from soil, and it has been studied for use in environmental cleanup. The levels of contaminants can be especially high in marijuana extracts and concentrates.

Due to marijuana’s illegal status under federal law, states have largely come up with their own rules about pesticide testing for their cannabis markets, said Gillian Schauer, executive director of the Cannabis Regulators Association, which includes cannabis officials from 35 U.S. states and territories.

There is wide variety among the states about which pesticides are regulated and what their tolerance levels are; it was unknown how many require testing for legacy pesticides or their components, such as DDE.

Regulators in Vermont early this year pulled pesticide-contaminated pot from five retail stores after a customer reported feeling sick, and Nevada officials issued an advisory about widely available products possibly being tainted with an unapproved pesticide.

Over the years, Washington has halted the operations or destroyed product in dozens of cases where cannabis tested above accepted levels for pesticides, but those have involved the recent spraying of unapproved pesticides. This is believed to be the first time the Liquor and Cannabis Board has issued an administrative hold related to the legacy use of pesticides, and it is the first time it has issued a hold covering an entire geographic area rather than an isolated business, the board said in an email.

Washington was one of the first two states, along with Colorado, to legalize the use and sale of cannabis by adults in 2012.

Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board has long conducted random tests for pesticides on products, including DDE, but they did not require producers to send in samples to state-certified labs for mandatory pesticide testing until last year. Washington was the only state with legal medical and recreational marijuana that had not already done so.

Under Washington’s testing requirements, samples sent in by businesses are screened for 59 pesticides. For now, DDE is not one of them, but the board said it would begin making rules to require testing for DDE and a related compound, DDD, in cannabis products — though what form that testing might take and whether it would be required of all growers and processors was not clear.

Washington has also never required soil testing for outdoor marijuana farms. Jeremy Moberg, a licensed marijuana grower who owns CannaSol Farms in Okanogan County, north of the area targeted by regulators Thursday, said he nevertheless tested the soil at the former alfalfa farm he bought for his operation to make sure it was clean.

“I did due diligence, because I knew there was lots of toxic ground in this county due to the historical application of pesticides,” Moberg said. “People who did their due diligence did not buy land on old orchards.”

http://dspace.ashoka.edu.in/bitstream/123456789/3163/1/3%20Carson%20Silent%20Spring%201962.pdf

RACHEL CARSON - Silent Spring - IR @ Ashoka University 

Silent. Spring. By Rachel Carson. (ONE SINGLE BOOK WHICH BROUGHT THE ISSUE OF PESTICIDES CENTERSTAGE. WITH MASS SCALE POISONING.

https://files.libcom.org/files/Bookchin%20M.%20Our%20Synthetic%20Environment.pdf

Our Synthetic Environment - Libcom.org 

Our Synthetic Environment. Murray Bookchin. 1962. Table of contents. Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM. Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH.

New pesticide exposure test developed to protect inexperienced cannabis farmers

UToledo chemists created a more reliable, robust and efficient way to monitor pesticide exposure and help protect the health and safety of agricultural workers, especially for emerging sectors like the cannabis industry.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TOLED

 

IMAGE: DR. EMANUELA GIONFRIDDO, AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO, CREATED A MORE RELIABLE, ROBUST AND EFFICIENT WAY TO MONITOR PESTICIDE EXPOSURE AND HELP PROTECT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF AGRICULTURAL WORKERS, ESPECIALLY FOR EMERGING SECTORS LIKE THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY. view more 

CREDIT: DANIEL MILLER, THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO

A chemical analyst and expert in micro-extraction at The University of Toledo created a more reliable, robust and efficient way to monitor pesticide exposure and help protect the health and safety of agricultural workers, especially for emerging sectors like the cannabis industry.

Dr. Emanuela Gionfriddo, an assistant professor of analytical chemistry, and Nipunika H. Godage, a Ph.D. candidate in UToledo’s Dr. Nina McClelland Laboratory for Water Chemistry and Environmental Analysis, published research in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry outlining their groundbreaking method that is able to detect 79 pesticide residues in human blood plasma at “ultra-trace” levels, or parts per trillion.

“This has the potential to be applied to human exposure studies for the general public such as exposure through food or contaminated water but, most importantly, agricultural workers who have a higher potential for acute exposure to these toxic chemicals, which typically occurs through the skin, with pesticides then passing into the bloodstream and circulating through the body,” Gionfriddo said.

Pesticides are widely used in farming to prevent or reduce produce losses caused by pests and improve the quality of fruits and vegetables, but human exposure during mixing or application has been reported to cause neurological disorders, poisoning, cancer, reproductive disruptions, respiratory problems and chronic kidney diseases among farm workers.

Though pesticides are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gionfriddo said the legalization of cannabis recently in several states has led to “inexperienced” farmers exposing themselves to the harmful chemicals since those workers are less familiar with pesticide safety equipment and procedures as well as proper pesticide storage and handling.

The pesticides selected for her study are the most commonly used pesticides during cannabis cultivation.

Gionfriddo’s new testing method uses what’s called bio solid-phase microextraction with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

“To meet the growing demands of regulatory agencies and routine analysis laboratories, sample throughput and method tunability is critical,” Gionfriddo said. “Using automated samplers, the preparation time per sample is 1.7 minutes.”

And as occupational exposure to pesticides can occur at varying concentration levels, it is important for any method to quantify pesticides at low concentrations. The new testing method demonstrated higher sensitivity, precision and accuracy and a drastic reduction in abnormalities compared to the commonly used approach, known as QuEChERS, which stands for Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe but can be labor intensive with prolonged workflows.

Last week during National Farmworker Awareness Week, the U.S. EPA said pesticide exposure doesn’t only happen when working in the fields. The federal agency said pesticide take-home exposure can occur when farm workers go home bearing pesticide residues that may cling to their skin, clothing, hats, boots, tools, lunch coolers or other items in their work environment. Their children may then be exposed to these pesticide residues.

“Assessing pesticide exposure quickly and thoroughly is crucial for the health and safety of workers and their families, to correct malpractices in pesticide storage and application, and to prevent further exposure,” Godage said. “Our new method can extract and analyze simultaneously a wide variety of pesticides from human plasma.”

To learn more about the U.S. EPA’s Occupational Pesticide Safety and Health program, visit the agency’s website.

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JOURNAL

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry

DOI

10.1007/s00216-023-04589-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Quantitative determination of pesticides in human plasma using bio-SPME-LC–MS/MS: a robust tool to assess occupational exposure to pesticides

Washington state’s 2021 heat wave contributed to 159 excess injury deaths over three weeks

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Heat is a quiet killer. Unlike most natural disasters, which can leave visible damage across an entire region, a heat wave’s effects on human health can be difficult to track. So after record high temperatures struck the Pacific Northwest in the summer of 2021, official estimates included only people killed directly by heat exposure.  

A new study led by Joan Casey, a professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences shows those estimates don’t capture the true toll. Published April 6 in the American Journal of Public Health, the study found that over the three weeks beginning June 25, 2021, dangerously high temperatures contributed to an additional 159 injury deaths across Washington state.  

To reach that figure, Casey and a team of researchers first calculated how many people might have been expected to die from injuries over that same period had the heat wave not happened. They then compared that estimate with official death records.  

The result includes deaths that the heat wave contributed to indirectly, including drownings, transportation accidents, violence and self-harm. Prior studies have shown a strong correlation between temperature spikes and deaths from injury.  

“Official death tolls may miss deaths not immediately and obviously tied to high temperatures, but those previously counted may represent just the tip of the iceberg, to use a poor analogy for a heat wave,” said Casey, who is the lead author and conducted this research while on the faculty at Columbia University. 

Caused by a ridge of high pressure that trapped hot air over the region, the 2021 heat wave brought unprecedented temperatures to the Pacific Northwest. It likely won’t be the last such event. Climate models project that with 2 degrees Celsius of warming, similar heat waves would occur every five to 10 years, and would likely reach even higher temperatures.  

That combination poses a serious threat to public health, making it even more important to understand and plan for future heat waves’ widespread impact. The researchers recommended several actions public health officials could take to prevent injuries indirectly caused by heat waves, including promoting safe swimming to prevent drownings and offering mental health services to stem violence and self-harm.  

“Public health officials should allocate a portion of their budget to these extreme but increasingly common events,” Casey said. “Communities require additional support for things like cooling centers — especially in places like the Pacific Northwest, where air conditioning is not common.” 

Other authors include Robbie Parks of Columbia University; Tim Bruckner of the University of California, Irvine; Alison Gemmill of Johns Hopkins University; and Ralph Catalano of the University of California, Berkeley. This research was funded in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 

For more information, contact Casey at jacasey@uw.edu.  

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Public Health

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2023.307269 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Excess Injury Mortality in Washington State During the 2021 Heat Wave

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Apr-2023

 

‘Snowball Earth’ might have been slushball

Geologists find evidence that planet was not entirely frozen during ice age 635 million years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

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IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FOUND EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS NOT COMPLETELY FROZEN SOLID DURING THE MARINOAN ICE AGE 635 MILLION YEARS AGO. SHALLOW, MID-LATITUDE SEAS REMAINED ICE FREE, PERHAPS HELPING LIFE PERSIST. view more 

CREDIT: MICHAEL MILLER

At least five ice ages have befallen Earth, including one 635 million years ago that created glaciers from pole to pole.

Called the Marinoan Ice Age, it’s named for the part of Australia where geologic evidence was first collected in the 1970s.

Scientists say the Marinoan Ice Age was one of the most extreme in the planet’s history, creating glacial ice that persisted for 15 million years.

But new evidence collected in the eastern Shennongjia Forestry District of China’s Hubei Province suggests the Earth was not completely frozen — at least not toward the end of the ice age. Instead, there were patches of open water in some of the shallow mid-latitude seas, based on geologic samples dating back to that period.

“We called this ice age ‘Snowball Earth,’” said Thomas Algeo, a professor of geosciences at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Arts and Sciences. “We believed that Earth had frozen over entirely during this long ice age. But maybe it was more of a ‘Slushball Earth.’”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Scientists found benthic phototrophic macroalgae in black shale dating back more than 600 million years. This algae lives at the bottom of the sea and needs light from the sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into energy through photosynthesis.

A team of geoscientists from China, the United Kingdom and the United States conducted an isotopic analysis and found that habitable open-ocean conditions were more extensive than previously thought, extending into oceans that fall between the tropics and the polar regions and providing refuge for single-celled and multi-celled organisms during the waning stages of the Marinoan ice age.

Lead author Huyue Song from the China University of Geosciences said while deep water likely did not contain oxygen to support life during this period, the shallow seas did.

“We present a new Snowball Earth model in which open waters existed in both low- and mid-latitude oceans,” Song said.

Song said the ice age likely saw many intervals of freezing and melting over the span of 15 million years. And under these conditions, life could have persisted, Song said.

“We found that the Marinoan glaciation was dynamic. There may have existed potential open-water conditions in the low and middle latitudes several times,” Song said. “In addition, these conditions in surface waters may have been more widespread and more sustainable than previously thought and may have allowed a rapid rebound of the biosphere after the Marinoan Snowball Earth.”

Paradoxically, UC’s Algeo said, these refuges of life likely helped to warm the planet, ending the Marinoan ice age. The algae in the water released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over time, gradually thawing the glaciers.

“One of the general take-home messages is how much the biosphere can influence the carbon cycle and climate,” he said. “We know that carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases. So we see how changes in the carbon cycle have an impact on the global climate.”

Algeo said the study raises tantalizing questions about other ice ages, particularly the second one during the Cryogenian Period that scientists also believe created near-total glaciation of the planet.

“We don’t know for sure what triggered these ice ages, but my suspicion is it was related to multicellular organisms that removed carbon from the atmosphere, leading to carbon burial and the cooling of the Earth,” Algeo said. “Today, we’re releasing carbon quickly in huge amounts and it is having a big impact on global climate.”

The study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the China Geological Survey.

University of Cincinnati Geology Professor Thomas Algeo examines rock cores in his lab. He and his co-authors discovered isotopic evidence that some mid-latitude seas remained ice free during the Marinoan Ice Age known as Snowball Earth.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-37172-x 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Mid-latitudinal habitable environment for marine eukaryotes during the waning stage of the Marinoan snowball glaciation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Apr-2023

COI STATEMENT

No conflicts to report.