Bangladesh set to move second batch of Rohingya refugees to remote island: Officials

Rohingya refugees are seen aboard a ship as they are moved to Bhasan Char island in Chattogram, Bangladesh, Dec 4, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Mohammad Ponir Hossain)

27 Dec 2020 01:01PM(Updated: 27 Dec 2020 01:10PM)

DHAKA: Bangladesh is set to move a second batch of Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal this month, officials said on Sunday (Dec 27), despite calls by rights groups not to carry out further relocations.

About 1,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a Muslim minority who have fled Myanmar, will be moved to the island in the next few days after Bangladesh relocated more than 1,600 early this month, two officials with the direct knowledge of the matter said.

READ: 'What choice do we have?': Rohingya women face odyssey of misery

"They will be moved to Chittagong first and then to Bhasan Char, depending on the high tide," one of the officials said. The officials declined to be named as the issue had not been made public.

Mohammed Shamsud Douza, the deputy Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees, said the relocation was voluntary. "They will not be sent against their will."

The United Nations has said it has not been allowed to carry out a technical and safety assessment of Bhasan Char, a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, and was not involved in the transfer of refugees there.
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Bangladesh says it is transferring only people who are willing to go and the move will ease chronic overcrowding in camps that are home to more than 1 million Rohingya.

But refugees and humanitarian workers say some of the Rohingya have been coerced into going to the island, which emerged from the sea 20 years ago.
READ: Video chat only hope for divided Rohingya couple

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdul Momen told Reuters earlier this month the United Nations should first assess and verify how conducive the environment in Myanmar's Rakhine state was for repatriating the refugees, before carrying out an assessment of Bhasan Char.

Several attempts to kickstart repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar have failed after refugees said they were too fearful of further violence to return.

Source: Reuters/zl

New studies suggest vaping could cloud your thoughts

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER

Research News

 

Two new studies from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) have uncovered an association between vaping and mental fog. Both adults and kids who vape were more likely to report difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions than their non-vaping, non-smoking peers. It also appeared that kids were more likely to experience mental fog if they started vaping before the age of 14.

While other studies have found an association between vaping and mental impairment in animals, the URMC team is the first to draw this connection in people. Led by Dongmei Li, Ph.D., associate professor in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at URMC, the team mined data from two major national surveys.

"Our studies add to growing evidence that vaping should not be considered a safe alternative to tobacco smoking," said study author Li.

The studies, published in the journals Tobacco Induced Diseases and Plos One, analyzed over 18,000 middle and high school student responses to the National Youth Tobacco Survey and more than 886,000 responses to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System phone survey from U.S. adults. Both surveys ask similar questions about smoking and vaping habits as well as issues with memory, attention and mental function.

Both studies show that people who smoke and vape - regardless of age - are most likely to report struggling with mental function. Behind that group, people who only vape or only smoke reported mental fog at similar rates, which were significantly higher than those reported by people who don't smoke or vape.

The youth study also found that students who reported starting to vape early - between eight and 13 years of age - were more likely to report difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions than those who started vaping at 14 or older.

"With the recent rise in teen vaping, this is very concerning and suggests that we need to intervene even earlier," said Li. "Prevention programs that start in middle or high school might actually be too late."

Adolescence is a critical period for brain development, especially for higher-order mental function, which means tweens and teens may be more susceptible to nicotine-induced brain changes. While e-cigarettes lack many of the dangerous compounds found in tobacco cigarettes, they deliver the same amount or even more nicotine.

While the URMC studies clearly show an association between vaping and mental function, it's not clear which causes which. It is possible that nicotine exposure through vaping causes difficulty with mental function. But it is equally possible that people who report mental fog are simply more likely to smoke or vape - possibly to self-medicate.

Li and her team say that further studies that follow kids and adults over time are needed to parse the cause and effect of vaping and mental fog.

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In addition to Li, authors of the youth study include Catherine Xie, and Zidian Xie, Ph.D. For the adult study, Li was joined by co-authors Zidian Xie, Ph.D., Deborah J. Ossip, Ph.D. Irfan Rahman, Ph.D., and Richard J. O'Connor, Ph.D. Both studies were funded by the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products.

One psychedelic experience may lessen trauma of racial injustice

Lower stress, depression recalled after using drug, study finds

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A single positive experience on a psychedelic drug may help reduce stress, depression and anxiety symptoms in Black, Indigenous and people of color whose encounters with racism have had lasting harm, a new study suggests.

The participants in the retrospective study reported that their trauma-related symptoms linked to racist acts were lowered in the 30 days after an experience with either psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms), LSD or MDMA (Ecstasy).

"Their experience with psychedelic drugs was so powerful that they could recall and report on changes in symptoms from racial trauma that they had experienced in their lives, and they remembered it having a significant reduction in their mental health problems afterward," said Alan Davis, co-lead author of the study and an assistant professor of social work at The Ohio State University.

Overall, the study also showed that the more intensely spiritual and insightful the psychedelic experience was, the more significant the recalled decreases in trauma-related symptoms were.

A growing body of research has suggested psychedelics have a place in therapy, especially when administered in a controlled setting. What previous mental health research has generally lacked, Davis noted, is a focus on people of color and on treatment that could specifically address the trauma of chronic exposure to racism.

Davis partnered with co-lead author Monnica Williams, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa, to conduct the research.

"Currently, there are no empirically supported treatments specifically for racial trauma. This study shows that psychedelics can be an important avenue for healing," Williams said.

The study is published online in the journal Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy.

The researchers recruited participants in the United States and Canada using Qualtrics survey research panels, assembling a sample of 313 people who reported they had taken a dose of a psychedelic drug in the past that they believed contributed to "relief from the challenging effects of racial discrimination." The sample comprised adults who identified as Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous Canadian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.

Once enrolled, participants completed questionnaires collecting information on their past experiences with racial trauma, psychedelic use and mental health symptoms, and were asked to recall a memorable psychedelic experience and its short-term and enduring effects. Those experiences had occurred as recently as a few months before the study and as long ago as at least 10 years earlier.

The discrimination they had encountered included unfair treatment by neighbors, teachers and bosses, false accusations of unethical behavior and physical violence. The most commonly reported issues involved feelings of severe anger about being subjected to a racist act and wanting to "tell someone off" for racist behavior, but saying nothing instead.

Researchers asked participants to recall the severity of symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress linked to exposure to racial injustice in the 30 days before and 30 days after the experience with psychedelic drugs. Considering the probability that being subjected to racism is a lifelong problem rather than a single event, the researchers also assessed symptoms characteristic of people suffering from discrimination-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"Not everybody experiences every form of racial trauma, but certainly people of color are experiencing a lot of these different types of discrimination on a regular basis," said Davis, who also is an adjunct faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. "So in addition to depression and anxiety, we were asking whether participants had symptoms of race-based PTSD."

Participants were also asked to report on the intensity of three common kinds of experiences people have while under the influence of psychedelic drugs: a mystical, insightful or challenging experience. A mystical experience can feel like a spiritual connection to the divine, an insightful experience increases people's awareness and understanding about themselvess, and a challenging experience relates to emotional and physical reactions such as anxiety or difficulty breathing.

All participants recalled their anxiety, depression and stress symptoms after the memorable psychedelic experience were lower than they had been before the drug use. The magnitude of the positive effects of the psychedelics influenced their reduction in symptoms.

"What this analysis showed is that a more intense mystical experience and insightful experience, and a less intense challenging experience, is what was related to mental health benefits," Davis said.

The researchers noted in the paper that the study had limitations because the findings were based on participant recall and the entire sample of recruited research volunteers had reported benefits they associated with their psychedelic experience - meaning it cannot be assumed that psychedelics will help all people of color with racial trauma. Davis and Williams are working on proposals for clinical trials to further investigate the effects of psychedelics on mental health symptoms in specific populations, including Black, Indigenous and people of color.

"This was really the first step in exploring whether people of color are experiencing benefits of psychedelics and, in particular, looking at a relevant feature of their mental health, which is their experience of racial trauma," Davis said. "This study helps to start that conversation with this emerging treatment paradigm."

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This work was funded by the University of Ottawa, the Canada Research Chairs Program and the National Institutes of Health. Additional co-authors included Yitong Xin of Ohio State's College of Social Work; Nathan Sepeda of Johns Hopkins; Pamela Grigas and Sinead Sinnott of the University of Connecticut; and Angela Haeny of Yale School of Medicine.

Neurologists say there is no medical justification for police use of neck restraints

In a perspective piece, they note that some police departments justify these tactics with misleading language.

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Research News

BOSTON - Some police departments in the United States continue to teach officers that neck restraints are a safe method for controlling agitated or aggressive people, but that's a dangerous myth, according to a Viewpoint written by three neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in JAMA Neurology.

The killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died while being arrested in May 2020 after a police officer pressed a knee to his neck for more than eight minutes, helped spark a national conversation about racial injustice in the United States. Floyd's death made headlines, as did that of Eric Garner in 2014 after police placed him in a chokehold. Yet a number of other Americans have died during confrontations with police officers who used neck restraints, says MGH neurologist Altaf Saadi, MD, senior author of the Viewpoint column.

Along with coauthors Jillian M. Berkman, MD, and Joseph A. Rosenthal, MD, PhD, Saadi was disturbed by the use of neck restraints by police departments in the United States. They found that some prohibit chokeholds and other neck restraints, but others teach the techniques for the purpose of subduing allegedly uncooperative people during encounters. Notably, some police agencies advise that carotid restraint--compressing the two large blood vessels on either side of the neck, which is known as a stranglehold--is a safe, nonlethal tactic that temporarily renders a person unconscious by reducing blood flow to the brain.

"As a neurologist, I know that there is never a scenario where stopping the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain is medically appropriate," says Saadi. "What shocked me most was that much of the literature supporting these techniques hides behind medical language, but lacks a real understanding of the pathophysiology of the significant harm they cause to an individual. As neurologists, we are taught that 'time is brain,' because there's such a rapid loss of human nervous tissue when the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain is reduced or stopped."

In their Viewpoint, Saadi and her colleagues describe how carotid compression--which can occur with as few as 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of force, or about the weight of a typical house cat--can result in stroke, seizure and death. They call for the creation of a system for reporting on law enforcement's use of neck restraints, including how often the technique is used and if it results in death or disability.

"It's in the public's best interest to have this data," says Saadi. She believes that increasing awareness about the impact of neck restraints could help curb their use. Ultimately, says Saadi, there is no medical justification for neck restraints in policing.

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Altaf Saadi, MD, is also an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School. Jillian M. Berkman, MD, is a resident physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Joseph A. Rosenthal, MD, PhD, is a resident physician at MGH.

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."

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Groups of bacteria can work together to better protect crops and improve their growth

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Research News

 

IMAGE: SCIENTIST SUSANNA HARRIS IN THE LAB. view more 

CREDIT: NOAM ECKSHTAIN-LEVI, SUSANNA LEIGH HARRIS, REIZO QUILAT ROSCIOS, AND ELIZABETH ANNE SHANK

Certain bacteria, known as plant-growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB), can improve plant health or protect them from pathogens and are used commercially to help crops. To further improve agricultural yields, it is helpful to identify factors that can improve PGPB behavior.

Many PGPB form sticky communities of cells, known as biofilms, that help them adhere to plant roots. A group of scientists in North Carolina and Massachusetts were interested in finding other plant-associated bacteria that could help PGPB better adhere to plant roots, with the hope that increasing the number of PGPB cells attached to roots would increase their beneficial activities.

Using a liquid-growth-based method, they identified multiple bacterial strains that increased the adherence of PGPB to plant roots over time. These results indicate that the physical or chemical interactions between these different bacterial species result in better long-term maintenance of PGPB on roots.

"Our results highlight how bacteria can use each other for their own benefit. These findings could be used to create groups of bacteria that are able to work together to better protect crop plants and improve their growth," said Elizabeth Shank, the senior scientist involved with this research. "The results of this research might also be used to better understand and design microbial treatments that could improve crop yields in agricultural settings."

To conduct this research, Shank and her colleagues performed a high-throughput screen of bacteria originally obtained from the roots of wild-grown plants, ensuring that identified bacteria might naturally come into contact on the roots of plants in native soil environments. They also looked at how other native microbes might alter the behavior of each PGPB strain, emphasizing the importance of understanding how groups of plant-associated microbes affect plants.

This research specifically focused on a PGPB currently used in agricultural treatments so that their findings related to commercial interventions. According to Shank, "One important impact of our work may be further encouraging agricultural biotechnology companies to consider using groups of multiple bacteria (rather than a single isolate) in their search for better and longer-lasting biological treatments to improve crop yield and help increase food production."

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Their research also demonstrates how a reasonably fast and straightforward screen can identify important bacterial interactions and provides a starting point for future work studying the mechanisms of these cell-to-cell relationships. For more information, read "Bacterial Community Members Increase Bacillus subtilis Maintenance on the Roots of Arabidopsis thaliana" in the Phytobiomes Journal. For supplemental information, including a 60-second video, visit: https://susannalharris.com/research/.

New research makes strong case for restoring Hong Kong's lost oyster reefs

Seven square meters of a HK oyster reef can filter up to one Olympic swimming pool of water in a single day

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Research News

 

IMAGE: OYSTER REEFS IN HONG KONG view more 

CREDIT: ©KYLE OBERMANN/COURTESY TNC

New research produced jointly by The Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS), Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), published recently in the scientific journal Restoration Ecology, shows the enormous potential of restoring lost oyster reefs, bringing significant environmental benefits.

Benefits of oyster reefs

Hong Kong was once home to thriving shellfish reefs, but due to a combination of factors including over-exploitation, coastal reclamation and pollution, shellfish populations have declined drastically. Restoring oyster reefs along urbanized coastlines can mitigate some of the environmental problems typical of coastal development, such as damage from storm surge and loss of biodiversity.

"Globally, we have lost 85% of shellfish reefs, making it the most endangered marine habitat on earth," said Marine Thomas, Conservation Project Manager, for TNC in Hong Kong. "Most people associate oysters with food, but less well-known is that oysters create reef habitats that support coastal marine life. Only by restoring these lost habitats can we start to bring back some of the associated environmental benefits."

A primary benefit that healthy oyster reefs contribute to coastal environments is their role as natural water purifiers: This new study found that, just 7 m2 of Hong Kong oyster reef can filter up to one Olympic swimming pool of water each day; a single Hong Kong oyster (Crassostrea hongkongensis) can filter up to 30 liters of water per hour at summer temperatures, among the highest filtration rates recorded of any oyster species.

Even more importantly, oyster reefs provide habitat and nursery grounds for many native species that are otherwise lost from our shores. Another recent SWIMS study conducted in partnership with TNC found that these reefs house six times more species than bare muddy shores. The research found over 80 species on intertidal muddy shores in Deep Bay, 95% of which were found in oyster reefs, and almost 60% of which were exclusively found in those reefs.

Oyster reefs restoration

"A previous SWIMS study found that Hong Kong is home to approximately 6,000 marine species and 26% of all marine species in China. This new research adds to that list, as we've identified a small crab previously not seen in Hong Kong. This shows us just how under-studied these ecosystems are," said Dr Bayden D Russell, an Associate Director of SWIMS and Associate Professor in the Research Division for Ecology and Biodiversity, HKU.

Another benefit of restored reefs is increased production of commercially and recreationally valuable fish and crabs.

Further, demonstration of successful restoration in one of Asia's coastal mega-cities can also act as model, providing evidence for the environmental and societal benefits of ecological restoration within the region.

In some parts of the world, oyster reef restoration has only been successful by transplanting juvenile oysters cultivated in hatcheries into the wild. However, this new research demonstrates that natural recruitment of oysters in Hong Kong is high, meaning that restoration could potentially be achieved without the need for hatchery-reared oysters.

"We were excited to find high natural recruitment levels which suggests that oyster reef restoration is possible without hatchery intervention," said Dr Russell. "We think that this recruitment is because traditional oyster farming in the Pearl River Delta has maintained populations of native oysters in the system in spite of the loss of oyster reefs and these farms could potentially act as a source of larvae."

In assessing 10 sites where small remnant shellfish habitats are found in Hong Kong, the study also found that large oysters (beyond 1 year old) are very hard to find in the wild, due to on-going harvesting pressures.

"While we are excited by the biological feasibility of restoration, unfortunately the human aspect remains our biggest challenge to bring these habitats back at scale. Shellfish habitats are still severely under protected in Hong Kong, with very little public awareness of their ecological value. Wild harvesting is a huge problem - as soon as oysters or mussels are big enough to eat, someone will harvest them. We are working with Government on gaining more protection and recognition for these important ecosystems and hope to include them in the next Hong Kong Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (BSAP)," said Ms Thomas.

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Paper reference:

Lau SCY, Thomas M, Hancock B, Russell BD (2020) Restoration potential of Asian oysters on heavily developed coastlines. Restoration Ecology, 28, 1643-1653.
https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13267

Image download:
https://www.scifac.hku.hk/press

Comparing Health Outcomes of Privileged US Citizens With Those of Average Residents of Other Developed Countries

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD1,2; Emily Gudbranson, BA1,3; Jessica Van Parys, PhD4; et alMette Gørtz, PhD5; Jon Helgeland, MSc6; Jonathan Skinner, PhD7,8

Author Affiliations Article Information

JAMA Intern Med. Published online December 28, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.7484


Key Points

Question Are the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties better than the health outcomes of average residents in other developed countries?

Findings In this comparative effectiveness study of 6 health outcomes, White US citizens in the 1% and 5% highest-income counties obtained better health outcomes than average US citizens but had worse outcomes for infant and maternal mortality, colon cancer, childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia, and acute myocardial infarction compared with average citizens of other developed countries.

Meaning For 6 health outcomes, the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties are better than those of average US citizens but are not consistently better than those of average residents in many other developed countries, suggesting that in the US, even if everyone achieved the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties, health indicators would still lag behind those in many other countries.
Abstract

Importance The average health outcomes in the US are not as good as the average health outcomes in other developed countries. However, whether high-income US citizens have better health outcomes than average individuals in other developed countries is unknown.

Objective To assess whether the health outcomes of White US citizens living in the 1% and 5% richest counties (hereafter referred to as privileged White US citizens) are better than the health outcomes of average residents in other developed countries.

Design, Setting, and Participants This comparative effectiveness study, conducted from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2015, identified White US citizens living in the 1% (n = 32) and 5% (n = 157) highest-income counties in the US and measured the following 6 health outcomes associated with health care interventions: infant and maternal mortality, colon and breast cancer, childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia, and acute myocardial infarction. The study used Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data, CONCORD-3 cancer data, and Medicare data to compare their outcomes with all residents in 12 other developed countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. Statistical analysis took place from July 25, 2017, to August 29, 2020.

Main Outcomes and Measures Infant mortality; maternal mortality; 5-year survival of patients with colon cancer, breast cancer, or childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia; and 30-day age-standardized case fatality after acute myocardial infarction.

Results The infant mortality rate among White US citizens in the 5% highest-income counties was 4.01 per 1000, and the maternal mortality rate among White US citizens in the 5% highest-income counties was 10.85 per 100 000, both higher than the mean rates for any of the 12 comparison countries. (The infant mortality rate for the top 1% counties was 3.54 per 1000, and the maternal mortality rate was 10.05 per 100 000.) The 5-year survival rate for White US citizens in the 5% highest-income counties was 67.2% (95% CI, 66.7%-67.7%) for colon cancer, higher than that of average US citizens (64.9% [95% CI, 64.7%-65.1%]) and average citizens in 6 countries, comparable with that of average citizens in 4 countries, and lower than that of average citizens for 2 countries. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer among White US women in the 5% highest-income US counties was 92.0% (95% CI, 91.6%-92.4%), higher than in all 12 comparison countries. The 5-year survival rate for White children with acute lymphocytic leukemia in the 5% highest-income US counties was 92.6% (95% CI, 90.7%-94.2%), exceeding the mean survival rate for only 1 country and comparable with the mean survival rates in 11 countries. The adjusted 30-day acute myocardial infarction case-fatality rate for White US citizens in the 5% highest-income US counties was 8% below the rate for all US citizens and was 5% below the rate for all US citizens in the 1% highest-income US counties; these estimates were similar to the median outcome of other high-income countries.

Conclusions and Relevance This study suggests that privileged White US citizens have better health outcomes than average US citizens for 6 health outcomes but often fare worse than the mean measure of health outcomes of 12 other developed countries. These findings imply that even if all US citizens experienced the same health outcomes enjoyed by privileged White US citizens, US health indicators would still lag behind those in many other countries.

Comparing Health Outcomes of Privileged US Citizens With Those of Average Residents of Other Developed Countries | Cardiology | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA Network

The brain network driving changes in consciousness

Activity of brain network linked to changes in connectedness for both sleep and anesthesia

SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE

Research News

 NEWS RELEASE 28-DEC-2020

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IMAGE: DIFFERENCES IN BRAIN ACTIVITY BETWEEN CONNECTED AND DISCONNECTED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIED WITH POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET) IMAGING. ACTIVITY OF THE THALAMUS, ANTERIOR (ACC) AND POSTERIOR CINGULATE CORTICES (PCC), AND... view more 

CREDIT: SCHEININ ET AL., JNEUROSCI 2020

The loss and return of consciousness is linked to the same network of brain regions for both sleep and anesthesia, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

The biological basis of consciousness has confounded scientists for centuries. Our experimental techniques falter, as the effects of sleep and anesthetic drugs alter brain activity beyond changes in consciousness. In addition, behavior does not always reveal someone's state of consciousness. An unresponsive person might still be aware of their surroundings (connected), or unaware but still experiencing their internal world (disconnected).

Scheinin et al. sought networks associated with human consciousness by measuring the brain activity of adult males with PET as they fell asleep and went under anesthesia. The research team woke participants mid-experiment to interview them and confirm their state of connectedness. Changes in connectedness corresponded to the activity of a network comprised of regions deep inside the brain: the thalamus, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, and angular gyri. These regions exhibited less blood flow when a participant lost connectedness and more blood flow when they regained it. The pattern held true for both sleep and anesthesia, indicating the changes corresponded to connectedness rather than the effects of sleep or drugs, and that the network may be imperative for human consciousness.

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Manuscript title: Foundations of Human Consciousness: Imaging the Twilight Zone

About JNeurosci

JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.

About The Society for Neuroscience

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide.

Big bumblebees learn locations of best

flowers

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

IMAGE: A BUMBLEBEE ON A FLOWER. view more 

CREDIT: NATALIE HEMPEL DE IBARRA

Big bumblebees take time to learn the locations of the best flowers, new research shows.

Meanwhile smaller bumblebees - which have a shorter flight range and less carrying capacity - don't pay special attention to flowers with the richest nectar.

University of Exeter scientists examined the "learning flights" which most bees perform after leaving flowers.

Honeybees are known to perform such flights - and the study shows bumblebees do the same, repeatedly looking back to memorise a flower's location.

"It might not be widely known that pollinating insects learn and develop individual flower preferences, but in fact bumblebees are selective," said Natalie Hempel de Ibarra, Associate Professor at Exeter's Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour.

"On leaving a flower, they can actively decide how much effort to put into remembering its location.

"The surprising finding of our study is that a bee's size determines this decision making and the learning behaviour."

In the study, captive bees visited artificial flowers containing sucrose (sugar) solution of varying concentrations.

The larger the bee, the more its learning behaviour varied depending on the richness of the sucrose solution.

Smaller bees invested the same amount of effort in learning the locations of the artificial flowers, regardless of whether sucrose concentration was high or low.

"The differences we found reflect the different roles of bees in their colonies," said Professor Hempel de Ibarra.

"Large bumblebees can carry larger loads and explore further from the nest than smaller ones.

"Small ones with a smaller flight range and carrying capacity cannot afford to be as selective, so they accept a wider range of flowers.

"These small bees tend to be involved more with tasks inside the nest - only going out to forage if food supplies in the colony are running low."

The study was conducted in collaboration with scientists from the University of Sussex.

The bees were observed in greenhouses at the University of Exeter's award-winning Streatham Campus, and Professor Hempel de Ibarra thanked the university's Grounds and Gardens team for their continued support.

The study was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

The paper, published in the journal Current Biology, is entitled: "Small and large bumblebees invest differently when learning about flowers."

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My great-grandfather denounced Stalin. Here's how to survive the next autocrat.

© Provided by NBC News

Soon-to-be ex-President Donald Trump has proven that even the United States, which has long touted its “city upon a hill” universal appeal, is not immune to authoritarianism. In recent memory, there have been other threats to U.S. democracy, yet none so dangerous as Trump’s Twitter tyranny.

When we think about surviving autocracies, we often focus on fighting the autocrats and their agents. But one way to combat tyrants is by limiting their power over people through reading. Books make it harder for despots to capture our “hearts and minds.” Appealing to our intellect and imagination, stories are a great weapon against a slogan or a soundbite. When common sense is in short supply, reading helps us deal with chaos and uncertainty. There is a feeling of control when morals and justice are restored, a reflective narrative becoming a road map of how to be or not to be.

For almost a century, the United States' leadership in world affairs made it an indisputable “first,” a superpower opposing undemocratic forces elsewhere. It has not been always benevolent, but by and large it has been beneficial to the globe.

VIDEO Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Trump isn't a madman. He's been following the authoritarian playbook since day one

Trump has pushed another “America First” to justify his self-serving nationalism — tearing up trade deals and stepping back from global institutions. This slogan, once associated with opponents of the U.S. entering World War II, now illustrates how even this nation can suffer from dictatorial urges, a scenario already imagined in the 1935 fine piece of literature "It Can’t Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis. And reading Philip Roth’s "The Plot Against America," we recognize the outgoing White House occupant — almost a caricature textbook despot — as the present-day version of Roth’s “America First Party” fictional president Charles Lindbergh.

The United States of America is a far cry from the traditional Hitler- or Stalin-type authoritarianism, characterized by complete state domination over people’s lives. But it is no longer the America of everyone’s dream that won the Cold War — the laissez-faire land of individual freedoms, enhanced efficiency, advanced technology and alluring popular culture.

There is such a problem as too much of a good thing, and perhaps America's triumph has led to its defeat. Back in 1953, Ray Bradbury warned about such an outcome in “Fahrenheit 451”: Efficiency was reduced to simplification, technology replaced reality with a digital screen and an occasional amusement devolved into a constant quest for entertainment in a country that has become addicted to and mediated by reality television.

As early as 380 BC, Plato explained that though democracy is seen as providing protection against absolute power, you can have both: “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” And in 1835, describing “Democracy in America,” Alexis de Tocqueville observed the country's potential weakness: the tyranny not of a dictator but of a majority that falls for easy answers and seeks excitement and undemanding catchphrases framed as ultimate truths. The “omnipotent” power of the crowd — the uncritical jumping on a bandwagon of other people’s assertions — in America can constrain “freedom of mind,” he wrote, hampering debate and making enemy of opposing opinions.
This is part of a special series looking at how we survived 2020 — and how we can keep surviving in 2021. Read more here.

Now, the crowd-pleasing president has become a vehicle of the extreme entertainment and outrageous claims that de Tocqueville feared could demoralize American democracy. Trump’s tweeting not only caters to simplistic solutions, but also oppresses from the top, just like actual tyrants in traditionally despotic states. His unprecedented efforts to overturn the presidential election are now almost indistinguishable from other fellow autocrats, following the dictatorial scripts of Russia, Turkey or Venezuela.

The United States still has what those others do not: a legal system that is mostly independent from the authority of the executive and legislative branches. With elections now officially certified for President-elect Joe Biden, democracy has prevailed, so far. But each of America’s undemocratic cycles brings it closer to conventional authoritarianism.

In the 1970s, the efforts of Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon to undermine opponents by spying on them resulted in his impeachment trial and resignation. Yet Dick “the Dicktator” Cheney, the real mastermind behind the George W. Bush administration’s unjustified wars and policy of torture, has become one of the patriarchs of the Republican party. And now Trump, another almost-impeached president, is able to assault democratic elections with the support of almost half of the country.

What if democracy cannot withstand the pressure next time? Trump may or may not be done with politics, but the people who emulate and support him aren’t done with America.

So how can we make sure another Trump doesn’t rise to power? You probably can’t. Russia has tried many times. In 1956, my great-grandfather Nikita Khrushchev denounced Joseph Stalin, an ultimate dictator responsible for millions imprisoned and killed in the Soviet Gulag labor camps. Mikhail Gorbachev continued on with those denunciations during his 1980s perestroika (restructuring). Today, however, the shadow of Stalinism looms large over the strong-armed autocracy of Vladimir Putin.

And here’s where reading comes in. Trump spreading his freewheeling fictions takes full advantage of this culture of willful ignorance. This may sound banal, but reading confronts simple-mindedness.

Knowledge can help prevent taking at face value easily digestible and cliché-affirming soundbites. After all, the end of global communism was arguably brought on less by the Kremlin’s bad politics and more by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s powerful “The Gulag Archipelago,” his eyewitness account of the horrors of Stalin’s rule.

In the United States, politics has become a product less dependent on policy than on PR and performance. Yet, politicians should not be defined by our desire to have a beer with them, but rather by knowledge, professionalism and public service, qualities sorely missing in the last four years of American life. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser described in their very timely biography of James Baker III, a secretary of state in the waning years of the Cold War, this kind of leader as a deliberative doer rather than a silly showman. Baker’s expert handling of foreign affairs helped smooth disagreements between George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev, which hastened the fall of Soviet-era communism. This example certainly merits our attention.

Books don’t only make us wiser, generously allowing us to absorb the experience of others. They also tell us there are limits to despotism — a populist message of self-aggrandizement is not forever. When the message doesn’t correspond to reality long enough, change can prevail.

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THINKing about how we survived one of the worst years ever — and what happens next

My mother's death isn't something I survived. It's something I'm still living though.

Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush reflects on her Black Lives Matter roots and why she ran for Congress

The Missouri native never saw herself as an activist. Then, Michael Brown died.

ByBrad Billington andAnthony Rivas
28 December 2020,



Rep.-elect Cori Bush on progress of racial justice in 2020, where we need to go
“It's all over the place that black lives matter. It's a fad,” Bush said. “But what we need to do is no...

Representative-elect Cori Bush did not envision herself as an activist -- let alone the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress -- when she took to the streets in 2014 to protest the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Brown, a Black 18-year-old, was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9, 2014. The incident sparked nationwide protests and marked a national recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement.


"I didn't set out to become an activist. That wasn't even a thing back then," Bush, a former nurse and pastor who lived six minutes away from where Brown died, told ABC News' "The Year: 2020." "I was watching my community in rage. I was watching my community just look a way and feel a way that I was unfamiliar with."

Six years later, Bush unseated longtime incumbent William Lacy Clay Jr. in the Democratic primaries to represent Missouri's 1st Congressional District, which includes Ferguson. She will be sworn in Jan. 3.


ABC News
Democratic Representative-elect Cori Bush of Missouri reflects on her activist beginnings in the w...

During an interview with ABC News, Bush reflected on how the Black Lives Matter movement has grown and why she decided to run for Congress.

In 2014, she said, the protesters weren't seeking to build a movement, but rather, get justice.

"We met out there in a situation of trauma, and we were just out there seeking justice," she said. "We weren't seeking a name. We weren't seeking to build a movement. We weren't seeking likes on social media. We were out there to get justice for Michael Brown Jr. and his family, and then not only that, [but also] to see how we could stop what's happening in this country as it relates to policing and Black bodies."

Wilson resigned from the Ferguson Police Department in November 2014, the same month a grand jury chose not to indict him for Brown's death. In March 2015, the U.S. Justice Department also declined to prosecute him, citing evidence and witnesses supporting Wilson's claims that Brown attacked him.

Bush lamented the number of Black people who've died at the hands of police since Brown was killed, including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd this year. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the impact of their deaths on the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Seeing that video of that police officer, Derek Chauvin, with his knee on the neck of George Floyd out there on the ground in public, in front of all those people with other officers around and that man begging for his life, and his life still taken from him in that moment," she said, "that shook the world, and rightfully so."

Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images, FILE
In this June 12, 2020, file photo, Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Cori Bush leads pr...

With corporations endorsing Black Lives Matter in advertisements and the words being printed on clothing, however, Bush said the movement is "all over the place," as if it were just a "fad."

"But what we need to do now is not allow it to be a fad," she said. "We need it to be fact because when it's fact, we get to live."

Black Lives Matter today is different than it was in 2014, because unlike previous years, people from diverse backgrounds seem to have committed to a sustained movement, Bush said.

"What we saw this time here in 2020, we saw young folks out. The number of young folks that were out on the street from every walk of life, every color, every background, every religious belief, or no belief at all. All of us were out there together and fierce -- fighting," she said. "That's what we needed to see, and hopefully the world woke up. We'll see."

MORE: 5th anniversary of black teen Michael Brown's death in Ferguson returns focus to police shooting

Protesting is just one tool for people to create the change they want to see, Bush said, pointing out that electing people who will create that change into office is another.

"We were giving up our time and our energy and our hearts out there, but what we were missing was people who were in positions of power who were listening to us, who were writing bills and who were taking what we were saying and using that to inform legislation," she said


Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images, FILE
In this Aug. 3, 2020, file photo, Missouri Democratic congressional candidate Cori Bush speaks to...

Bush was one of at least 115 women of color to run for Congress this year.

But it wasn't an easy road. Bush ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2016 and the House in 2018 before her victory this year. She claims she was sexually assaulted three weeks after her loss in the 2016 primaries, and she has spoken about it onTwitter and in Elle magazine. Nevertheless, she said, she still decided to run for office.

"I was violently sexually assaulted and went through a really, really, really tough spot," she said. Four months after that, someone asked me to run for Congress for the House seat, and all I could think about was like, 'Why would I do this? I'm still trying to heal from what I went through. I can't do this.'"

MORE: Cori Bush makes history as 1st Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress

But she said that when she thought about what she'd endured, as well as the potential danger her children faced every day, she decided to run.

"I've been abused by the police. I've gone through so many things. I've been harassed. I've been heavily surveilled. ... And now, to take that voice and that experience and walk that into Congress, that's where that other change is going to come from," she said. "That's how we turn it from being a fad into being actual change in our communities."

Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images, FILE
Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush speaks during her election-night watch party on Nov. 3, 2020, 

Now that she's headed to the halls of Congress, Bush said her goal is to "make sure that Black lives are saved" by fighting for the resources needed to change policing, health care, wages, housing and the environment for the better.

"I don't care if people don't like it. I don't care if they call me names," she said. "This one right here is going to bring some change that people who look like me can actually feel."

 Khennedi Meeks is sharing her story after resisting coming forward for months to tell the world, beyond family and friends or the occasional stranger who asked, that she was the woman on one knee in an epic Black Lives Matter protest photo. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/