In the wild, chimpanzees are more motivated to cooperate than bonobos

When informing about a threat territorial chimpanzees are more motivated to cooperate than less territorial bonobos

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY

 

IMAGE: CHIMPANZEES ARRIVING LATER AT THE SNAKE WERE BETTER INFORMED AND THEREFORE LESS SURPRISED TO SEE IT IN THIS PLACE THAN BONOBOS ARRIVING LATER. view more 

CREDIT: CÉDRIC GIRARD-BUTTOZ, TAÏ CHIMPANZEE PROJECT

We humans have unique cooperative systems allowing us to cooperate in large numbers. Furthermore, we provide help to others, even outside the family unit. How we developed these cooperative abilities and helping behaviour during our evolutionary past remains highly debated. According to one prominent theory, the interdependence hypothesis, the cognitive skills underlying unique human cooperative abilities evolved when several individuals needed to coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal, for example when hunting large prey or during conflict with other groups. This hypothesis also predicts that humans who rely more on each other to achieve such goals, will be more likely to provide help and support to one another in other situations.

"While we cannot study the behaviour of our human ancestors", explains Roman Wittig, a senior author and head of the Taï Chimpanzee Project, "we can learn how relying on others may influence helping behaviour in our ancestors by studying our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos". Chimpanzees are more territorial than bonobos and in some populations engage more frequently in group hunts. According to the interdependence hypothesis, chimpanzees should thus have evolved a higher tendency to cooperate and help others in the group.

To test this hypothesis, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Harvard University and Liverpool John Moores University, presented 82 chimpanzees and bonobos from five different communities with a model of a Gaboon viper, a deadly snake. During the experiment the apes could cooperate with each other by producing alarm calls to inform conspecifics about the snake. This represents the first experimental study ever conducted in wild bonobos. "This experimental study is a novel and promising approach to probe bonobo's mind," says Gottfried Hohmann, a senior author on the study and head of the LuiKotale bonobo project. Martin Surbeck, co-author on the paper adds: "This study should stimulate several more experimental studies on wild bonobo cooperation, cognition, and communication".

In this study, researchers show that both chimpanzees and bonobos can assess what others know, as they stopped calling when all individuals around had seen the snake. However, chimpanzees warned each other more efficiently: individuals arriving later at the snake were less surprised upon seeing it than late arriving bonobos. This suggests chimpanzees were better informed of the snake's presence than bonobos. Indeed, late arriving chimpanzees were more likely to hear a call before reaching the snake than bonobos in the same circumstance, suggesting that the motivation to help and warn others was higher in chimpanzees.

"Our findings support the theory that the extreme reliance on each other in humans, for instance during war and group hunting, may have promoted the evolution of some forms of help and support to others, even sometimes to complete strangers," says first author Cédric Girard-Buttoz. The authors confirm that chimpanzees may have some awareness of others' knowledge and demonstrate for the first time this ability in wild bonobos.

"How chimpanzees and bonobos apparently keep track of other's knowledge, the specific cognitive skills to do this, are not clear," adds Catherine Crockford, last author of the study, "we face a major challenge to understand which cognitive skills are unique to humans and which are shared with other apes".

Humans navigate with stereo olfaction

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

YOU GOTTA LOVE A SCIENCE ARTICLE THAT BEGINS BY QUOTING GANDALF THE GREY

 

IMAGE: NOSE GUIDES HUMAN NAVIGATION. view more 

CREDIT: YE YUTING

"If in doubt, always follow your nose," said Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings.

Despite Gandalf's advice, humans tend to regard themselves as "microsmatic" - having a poor sense of smell. Human navigation is thought to rely primarily on vision and audition. Specifically, subtle differences between the inputs to the paired eyes and ears are exploited by the brain to construct three-dimensional experiences that guide navigation.

Although humans also have two separate nasal passages that simultaneously sample from nonoverlapping regions in space, it is widely held that inter-nostril differences in odor concentration do not provide directional information in humans unless that odor also stimulates the trigeminal nerve (i.e., elicits hot, cold, spicy, tingling, or electric feelings), in which case it is really the trigeminal system that generates a directional cue.

However, a new study conducted by graduate student WU Yuli and his colleagues at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) argues otherwise.

WU and his colleagues introduced various levels of binaral concentration disparity to a heading judgment paradigm based on optic flow - a unique type of visual stimulus that captures the pattern of apparent motion of surface elements in a visual scene and induces the illusory feeling of self-movement in stationary observers.

The odorants they used were phenylethyl alcohol and vanillin, which smell like rose and vanilla, respectively, and are known to activate only the olfactory nerve.

Results from stringent psychophysical testing in four experiments involving a total of 180 participants consistently showed that a moderate binaral disparity biases recipients' perceived direction of self-motion toward the higher-concentration side in manners reminiscent of stereo vision (i.e., binocular stereopsis), despite not being able to verbalize which nostril smells a stronger odor.

In addition, the effect depends on the inter-nostril ratio of odor concentrations as opposed to the numeric difference in concentration between the two nostrils.

"Our work presents clear behavioral evidence that humans have a stereo sense of smell that subconsciously guides navigation," said Dr. ZHOU Wen, senior author of the study. "The findings underscore the multisensory nature of heading perception and could provide guidance for the design and development of olfactory virtual-reality systems for humans."

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The study, entitled "Humans navigate with stereo olfaction," was published online on PNAS on June 22.

It was funded by the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commi

Infant' planet discovered by UH astronomers, Maunakea telescope

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA

 

IMAGE: ILLUSTRATION OF AU MIC B ORBITING ITS PARENT STAR, AU MIC. view more 

CREDIT: NASA'S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/CHRIS SMITH (USRA)

Astronomers study stars and planets much younger than the Sun to learn about past events that shaped the Solar System and Earth. Most of these stars are far enough away to make observations challenging, even with the largest telescopes. But now this is changing.

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa astronomers are part of an international team that recently discovered an infant planet around a nearby young star. The discovery was reported Wednesday in the international journal Nature.

The planet is about the size of Neptune, but, unlike Neptune, it is much closer to its star, taking only eight and a half days to complete one orbit. It is named "AU Mic b" after its host star, AU Microscopii, or "AU Mic" for short. The planet was discovered using the NASA TESS planet-finding satellite, as it periodically passed in front of AU Mic, blocking a small fraction of its light. The signal was confirmed by observations with another NASA satellite, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and with the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Maunakea. The observations on Hawai'i Island used a new instrument called iSHELL that can make very precise measurements of the motion of a star like AU Mic. These measurements revealed a slight wobble of the star, as it moves in response to the gravitational pull of the planet. It confirmed that AU Mic b was a planet and not a companion star, which would cause a much larger motion.

Discovery on Maunakea sets foundation

AU Mic and its planet are about 25 million years young, and in their infancy, astronomically speaking. AU Mic is also the second closest young star to Earth. It is so young that dust and debris left over from its formation still orbit around it. The debris collides and breaks into smaller dust particles, which orbit the star in a thin disk. This disk was detected in 2003 with the UH 88-inch telescope on Maunakea. The newly-discovered planet orbits within a cleared-out region inside the disk.

"This is an exciting discovery, especially as the planet is in one of the most well-known young star systems, and the second-closest to Earth. In addition to the debris disk, there is always the possibility of additional planets around this star. AU Mic could be the gift that keeps on giving," said Michael Bottom, an Assistant Astronomer at the UH Institute for Astronomy.

"Planets, like people, change as they mature. For planets this means that their orbits can move and the compositions of their atmospheres can change. Some planets form hot and cool down, and unlike people, they would become smaller over time. But we need observations to test these ideas and planets like AU Mic b are an exceptional opportunity," said Astronomer Eric Gaidos, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at UH Mānoa.

Clues to the origin of Earth-like planets

AU Mic is not only much younger than the Sun, it is considerably smaller, dimmer and redder. It is a "red dwarf," the most numerous type of star in the galaxy. The TESS satellite is also discovering Earth-sized and possibly habitable planets around older red dwarfs, and what astronomers learn from AU Mic and AU Mic b can be applied to understand the history of those planets.

"AU Mic b, and any kindred planets that are discovered in the future, will be intensely studied to understand how planets form and evolve. Fortuitously, this star and its planet are on our cosmic doorstep. We do not have to venture very far to see the show," Gaidos explained. He is a co-author on another five forthcoming scientific publications that have used other telescopes, including several on Maunakea, to learn more about AU Mic and its planet.

AU Mic appears low in the summer skies of Hawai'i but you'll need binoculars to see it. Despite its proximity, the fact that it is a dim red star means it is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye.

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Agricultural fires in central Africa light up in Suomi NPP satellite image

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: FIRES HAVE SPREAD ACROSS THE MAJORITY OF THE LANDSCAPE IN ANGOLA AND THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO IN THIS NOAA/NASA SUOMI NPP SATELLITE IMAGE USING THE VIIRS (VISIBLE INFRARED... view more 

CREDIT: NASA IMAGE COURTESY WORLDVIEW EARTH DATA OPERATED BY THE NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER EARTH SCIENCE DATA AND INFORMATION SYSTEM (EOSDIS) PROJECT. CAPTION BY LYNN JENNER WITH INFORMATION FROM GLOBAL FOREST...

Fires have spread across the majority of the landscape in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in this NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument from June 25, 2020. Fires of this number are not uncommon at this time of year in Africa. During the agricultural season of clearing field and planting new ones, farmers set fire to the remains of old crop fields to rid them of the leftover grasses and scrub. This action also helps return nutrients to the soil to ensure a good crop during the next planting season. This agricultural ritual is one that is at least 12,000 years ago. It is economical for the farmer since large equipment is not needed to clear the fields. In Angola, the Global Forest Watch website (using data from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite) had 61,661 alerts for fires for the past week (June 18 - June 25). In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there are 102,738 VIIRS alerts for fire for that same period.

"Slash and burn" agriculture is practiced most often in regions including parts of Africa, northern South America, and Southeast Asia, where an abundance of grasslands and rainforests are found. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. The smoke released by any type of fire (forest, brush, crop, structure, tires, waste or wood burning) is a mixture of particles and chemicals produced by incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials. All smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter or soot and is hazardous to breathe.

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NASA image courtesy Worldview Earth Data operated by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (EOSDIS) project. Caption by Lynn Jenner with information from Global Forest Watch.

SYSTEMIC RACISM 

Racial disparities in surgery rates for esophageal cancer

Black patients with esophageal cancer are less likely to receive life-saving surgery for early-stage disease than white patients

THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

PHILADELPHIA - Black patients with esophageal cancer are at a higher risk of death compared to white patients. Although many reasons have been suggested for this, few have given physician actionable information. A new study from the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) - Jefferson Health points to a different reason - Black patients were less likely to receive surgery for treatable diseases, which could have contributed to their higher rates of death.

The results were published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery.

"National guidelines suggest that early-stage esophageal cancer should be treated with surgery because data shows that it offers patients the best chances of survival, rather than chemotherapy alone," says senior author Nathaniel Evans, MD, Director of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University, and Chief of Cancer Services, Center City Division at the SKCC. "Our data show that Black patients are not having surgery for early-stage disease, which may contribute to higher rates of death. With this data, we can now begin to educate patients and providers to change practice."

A total of 60,041 patients were included in the analysis that drew from the National Cancer Database, of whom 4,402 were Black and 55,639 were white across over 1,334 hospitals around the country. In order to ensure an unbiased comparison, Black and white patients were matched by demographics, comorbidities, and tumor characteristics in a 1:1 fashion. The final dataset included 5,858 patients.

The analysis led by first author Samantha L. Savitch, a senior medical student and researcher working in the Department of Surgery and others showed that rates of surgery were significantly lower, 25-40% less for Black patients with esophageal cancer in stages I to III. In addition, the researchers noted that the chances of getting surgery decreased as the age of Black patients increased, and also decreased if the patients were receiving radiation therapy. Black patients were more likely to get surgery if they were treated at a hospital that was more than 5 miles from their homes.

The findings also suggested that patients who were diagnosed with a type of esophageal cancer called squamous cell carcinoma, which is more common in Black patients, were less likely to receive surgery. All this despite clear evidence that surgical resection is the best chance for survival in patients with esophageal cancer.

"Although the data doesn't give us a reason for the observations we're seeing, it does show us areas where we can take action," says Dr. Evans. "Even when we control for socioeconomic status, insurance status, location, and comorbid conditions, the disparity still persists, it is quite profound. This highlights the need to educate Black patients and their healthcare providers on the importance of surgery in the treatment esophageal cancer."

"One way we are addressing this is by developing a Multidisciplinary GI Cancer group," says Dr. Evans. "We review esophageal cancer patients and ensure their treatment plans are tailored to the individual patent and follow established guidelines."

"This important study is part of a much larger effort at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center to understand and mitigate cancer disparities," says Karen Knudsen, PhD, EVP of Oncology Services and Enterprise Director of SKCC. "This goal is central to our mission to improve the lives cancer patients and their families, regardless of geography, gender, or demographic. We are thankful to Dr. Evans and the entire research team for raising awareness about this critical national issue."

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Article reference: Samantha L. Savitch, Tyler R. Grenda, Walter Scott, Scott W. Cowan, James Posey III, Edith P. Mitchell, Steven J. Cohen, Charles J. Yeo, Nathaniel R. Evans, "Racial Disparities in Rates of Surgery for Esophageal Cancer: a Study from the National Cancer Database," Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, DOI: 10.1007/s11605-020-04653-z, 2020.

Early-onset colorectal cancer study in young adult men reveals 'hotspots' of death in US

HUNTSMAN CANCER INSTITUTE

 CITY, UT - Over the last three decades, colorectal cancer survival in the United States has improved significantly. But in young people--particularly men diagnosed with colorectal cancer before age 50--incidence and mortality due to colorectal cancer are on the rise. Even among patients with early-stage colorectal cancer, racial disparities have grown more pronounced, with survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis poorer among African Americans compared with whites.

Charles R. Rogers, PhD, MPH, MS, Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) cancer researcher and assistant professor of public health at the University of Utah (U of U), is working to better understand these factors in young people with colorectal cancer in order to help improve outcomes

IMAGE: THIS IS A MAP OF COLORECTAL CANCER HOTSPOTS IN THE UNITED STATES. view more 

CREDIT: ROGERS ET AL. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CANCER RESEARCH

and reduce related disparities from this preventable disease. A study led by Rogers and his colleagues, published in the American Journal of Cancer Research, found many of these new diagnoses are occurring in counties in the lower Mississippi Delta, west-central Appalachia, and eastern Virginia/North Carolina. These "hotspot" areas--where colorectal cancer is on the rise and actually killing young men at high rates--revealed several trends about who these men are and how their cancer progresses. The researchers found that young adult non-Hispanic Black men living in these areas are part of a group in which there is an alarming trend of increasing rates of early-onset colorectal cancer, and that these men are more likely to die of the disease as compared to other racial groups.

Rogers and his colleagues developed an analysis of counties with a high rate of early-onset colorectal cancer using data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the years 1999 to 2017. They then linked this to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program data from the National Cancer Institute for men aged 15 to 49. This revealed 232 hotspot counties for early-onset colorectal cancer in the U.S. The majority of these counties are in the south.

The team then studied a variety of factors of the diagnoses in these hotspot counties. These included age, race, tumor stage and grade, treatment approach, and marital status. In the hotspot counties, they identified that death rates in non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic men with early-onset colorectal cancer outpaced other racial groups studied. In addition, Rogers's team examined many other health and social factors, such as smoking. The team observed that although roughly 14% of all U.S. adults are current smokers, 24% of the adult population residing in hotspot counties reported currently smoking and having smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. "After identifying these geographic disparities, the focus of our study was to better understand the role of individual and county-level characteristics in explaining regional variations in early-onset colorectal cancer survival among these men," Rogers explained.

Rogers said, "If young men are not already doing so, adults younger than 50 should have conversations with health care providers about early detection screening for colorectal cancer. This is especially the case if they have any symptoms of colorectal cancer, a family history of the disease, or if they live in the 'hotspot' counties we have identified for early-onset colorectal cancer."

Rogers plans to identify early-onset colorectal cancer hotspots in Utah, where his lab is located. The lab studies the health and well-being of underrepresented men through community engagement, research, and education.

Rogers' team is also working to develop a community-based intervention to increase awareness while reducing incidence and death due to early-onset colorectal cancer in Utah and areas of the country where rates are on the rise.

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This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute including P30 CA01420114, K01 CA234319, T32CA190194, and T32HG008962, and by Huntsman Cancer Foundation. The study acknowledges support from key collaborator Justin X. Moore, PhD, of Augusta University in Georgia.

Full study and author list available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32509399/

Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah is the official cancer center of Utah. The cancer campus includes a state-of-the-art cancer specialty hospital as well as two buildings dedicated to cancer research. HCI treats patients with all forms of cancer and is recognized among the best cancer hospitals in the country by U.S. News and World Report. As the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Mountain West, HCI serves the largest geographic region in the country, drawing patients from Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. More genes for inherited cancers have been discovered at HCI than at any other cancer center in the world, including genes responsible for hereditary breast, ovarian, colon, head, and neck cancers, along with melanoma. HCI manages the Utah Population Database, the largest genetic database in the world, with information on more than 11 million people linked to genealogies, health records, and vital statistics. HCI was founded by Jon M. and Karen Huntsman.

Nationwide EMS calls have dropped 26% since the start of the pandemic

UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO

 

IMAGE: THIS GRAPHIC REPRESENTS OVER 37 MILLION EMS CALLS (ACTIVATIONS) ACROSS THE US. THE NUMBER OF STATES SUBMITTING TO THE NATIONAL EMS REPOSITORY INCREASED OVER THE STUDY PERIOD (2017 - 32... view more 

CREDIT: ©2020 SOCIETY FOR ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Since early March and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., 911 calls for emergency medical services have dropped by 26.1 % compared to the past two years, a new study led by a University at Buffalo researcher has found.

But the study also found that EMS-attended deaths have doubled, indicating that when EMS calls were made, they often involved a far more serious emergency.

"The public health implications of these findings are alarming," said E. Brooke Lerner, PhD, first author on the paper and professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Emergency Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.

PHOTO: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2020/06/035.html

"When people are making fewer 911 calls but those calls are about far more severe emergencies, it means that people with urgent conditions are likely not getting the emergency care they need in a timely way," she said. "The result is increased morbidity and mortality resulting from conditions not directly related to exposure to SARS-CoV2."

This finding covered the six-week period that began on March 2, and this trend persisted through the end of May.

Delaying care

"The doubling of deaths and cardiac arrests during this relatively short period of time, from March through May, demonstrates that people who need emergency health care may be delaying care such that their lives are actually in jeopardy," said Lerner.

Lerner pointed to two possible causes: fear of contracting the virus at health care facilities and the impulse to not burden health care facilities with non-COVID-19 issues.

"This may mean that future consideration needs to be given to how we message the risks associated with seeking medical care during a pandemic," said Lerner. "At the same time that we are stressing how to stay safe from COVID-19, it may also be necessary to stress how important it is to continue to seek care for serious conditions unrelated to the novel coronavirus." Lerner added that the findings echo those of studies in other countries, such as Italy, where there was an increase in heart attack fatalities during the height of the pandemic there.

A persistent trend

"The fact that this trend persists even as the pandemic in some areas has started to lessen in severity shows that the fear of accessing health care has continued," Lerner said.

One positive, unsurprising finding was that the rate of 911 calls related to injuries declined for the obvious reason that during times when regions were shutdown, there were fewer opportunities for driving and recreation-related injuries.

The study also revealed significant issues related to the financial viability of EMS in this type of environment.

"The financial strain on EMS agencies will have long-term ramifications for maintaining this important safety net for our communities, especially those agencies whose revenue is based solely on patient transports," said Lerner.

The study consisted of a comparative, retrospective analysis of standardized patient care records that are submitted by more than 10,000 EMS agencies across 47 states and territories nearly in real-time. Those data are submitted to the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) database, which stores EMS data nationwide.

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The study was published online June 17 in Academic Emergency Medicine. Co-authors are Craig D. Newgard, MD, of Oregon Health and Science University, and N. Clay Mann, MD, of the University of Utah School of Medicine.

The work was supported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Emergency Medical Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

How conspiracy theories emerge -- and how their storylines fall apart

UCLA research uses artificial intelligence to analyze differences between a true story and a completely fabricated one

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

 

A new study by UCLA professors offers a new way to understand how unfounded conspiracy theories emerge online. The research, which combines sophisticated artificial intelligence and a deep knowledge of how folklore is structured, explains how unrelated facts and false information can connect into a narrative framework that would quickly fall apart if some of those elements are taken out of the mix.

The authors, from the UCLA College and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, illustrated the difference in the storytelling elements of a debunked conspiracy theory and those that emerged when journalists covered an actual event in the news media. Their approach could help shed light on how and why other conspiracy theories, including those around COVID-19, spread -- even in the absence of facts.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed the spread of news about the 2013 "Bridgegate" scandal in New Jersey -- an actual conspiracy -- and the spread of misinformation about the 2016 "Pizzagate" myth, the completely fabricated conspiracy theory that a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant was the center of a child sex-trafficking ring that involved prominent Democratic Party officials, including Hillary Clinton.

The researchers used machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to analyze the information that spread online about the Pizzagate story. The AI automatically can tease out all of the people, places, things and organizations in a story spreading online -- whether the story is true or fabricated -- and identify how they are related to each other.

Finding the puzzle pieces

In either case -- whether for a conspiracy theory or an actual news story -- the narrative framework is established by the relationships among all of the elements of the storyline. And, it turns out, conspiracy theories tend to form around certain elements that act as the adhesive holding the facts and characters together.

"Finding narratives hidden in social media forums is like solving a huge jigsaw puzzle, with the added complication of noise, where many of the pieces are just irrelevant," said Vwani Roychowdhury, a UCLA professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in machine learning, and a lead author of the paper.

In recent years, researchers have made great strides in developing artificial intelligence tools that can analyze batches of text and identify the pieces to those puzzles. As the AI learns to identify patterns, identities and interactions that are embedded in words and phrases, the narratives begin to make "sense." Drawing from the massive amount of data available on social media, and because of improving technology, the systems are increasingly able to teach themselves to "read" narratives, almost as if they were human.

The visual representations of those story frameworks showed the researchers how false conspiracy theory narratives are held together by threads that connect multiple characters, places and things. But they found that if even one of those threads is cut, the other elements often can't form a coherent story without it.

"One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory narrative framework is that it is easily 'disconnected,'" said Timothy Tangherlini, one of the paper's lead authors, a professor in the UCLA Scandinavian section whose scholarship focuses on folklore, legend and popular culture. "If you take out one of the characters or story elements of a conspiracy theory, the connections between the other elements of the story fall apart."

Which elements stick?

In contrast, he said, the stories around actual conspiracies -- because they're true -- tend to stand up even if any given element of the story is removed from the framework. Consider Bridgegate, for example, in which New Jersey officials closed several lanes of the George Washington Bridge for politically motivated reasons. Even if any number of threads were removed from the news coverage of the scandal, the story would have held together: All of the characters involved had multiple points of connection by way of their roles in New Jersey politics.

"They are all within the same domain, in this case New Jersey politics, which will continue to exist irrespective of the deletions," Tangherlini said. "Those connections don't require the same 'glue' that a conspiracy theory does."

Tangherlini calls himself a "computational folklorist." Over the past several years, he has collaborated regularly with Roychowdhury to better understand the spread of information around hot-button issues like the anti-vaccination movement.

To analyze Pizzagate, in which the conspiracy theory arose from a creative interpretation of hacked emails released in 2016 by Wikileaks, the researchers analyzed nearly 18,000 posts from April 2016 through February 2018 from discussion boards on the websites Reddit and Voat.

"When we looked at the layers and structure of the narrative about Pizzagate, we found that if you take out Wikileaks as one of the elements in the story, the rest of the connections don't hold up," Tangherlini said. "In this conspiracy, the Wikileaks email dump and how theorists creatively interpreted the content of what was in the emails are the only glue holding the conspiracy together."

The data generated by the AI analysis enabled the researchers to produce a graphic representation of narratives, with layers for major subplots of each story, and lines connecting the key people, places and institutions within and among those layers.

Quick build versus slow burn

Another difference that emerged between real and false narratives concerned the time they take to build. Narrative structures around conspiracy theories tend to build and become stable quickly, while narrative frameworks around actual conspiracies can take years to emerge, Tangherlini said. For example, the narrative framework of Pizzagate stabilized within a month after the Wikileaks dump, and it stayed relatively consistent over the next three years.

"The fact that additional information related to an actual conspiracy emerged over a prolonged period of time (here five and half years) might be one of the telltale signs of distinguishing a conspiracy from a conspiracy theory," the authors wrote in the study.

Tangherlini said it's becoming increasingly important to understand how conspiracy theories abound, in part because stories like Pizzagate have inspired some to take actions that endanger other people.

"The threat narratives found in conspiracy theories can imply or present strategies that encourage people to take real-world action," he said. "Edgar Welch went to that Washington pizzeria with a gun looking for supposed caves hiding victims of sex trafficking."

The UCLA researchers have also written another paper examining the narrative frameworks surrounding conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. In that study, which has been published on an open-source forum, they track how the conspiracy theories are being layered on to previously circulated conspiracy theories such as those about the perceived danger of vaccines, and, in other cases how the pandemic has given rise to completely new ones, like the idea that 5G cellular networks spread the coronavirus.

"We're using the same pipeline on COVID-19 discussions as we did for Pizzagate," Tangherlini said. "In Pizzagate, the targets were more limited, and the conspiracy theory stabilized rapidly. With COVID-19, there are many competing conspiracy theories, and we are tracing the alignment of multiple, smaller conspiracy theories into larger ones. But the underlying theory is identical for all conspiracy theories."

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FASHION, FEATHERS AND ANIMAL RIGHTS
THE MATTINGLEY PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE FIGHT FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS

By Philip McCouat

In this article, we highlight an extraordinary set of photographs, taken in Australia over 100 years ago, which played a significant role in international efforts to achieve legislative protection of wild birds. The photographs surfaced at the height of a vigorous campaign, on both sides of the Atlantic, which had been prompted by the phenomenal growth in the “plumage trade” – the use of bird feathers and other body parts in women’s hats and clothing.
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While this fashion mainly blossomed in the closing years of the 19th century, its roots go back thousands of years, to the general attitudes held about animal protection in the Western world. So it is there that our story must start.

GENERAL ATTITUDES TO ANIMALS IN THE WEST


Humans have long had complex and often inconsistent attitudes to the welfare of other animals (and even each other). In Western society, significant concerns about animal welfare have generally been slow to develop. According to traditional Christian beliefs, particularly in the Old Testament, it was at least recognised that appropriate care for domesticated or breeding animals could be justified as being in the commercial interests of their owners [1]. However, the overriding consideration was that humans had been given dominion “over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”[2]. These “lower order” animals were generally considered to lack rationality (or sometimes even sentience) and basically existed for the convenience, exploitation and pleasure of humans.

While universally accepting this hierarchical model, later Christian writers presented mixed views about its practical implications. In his City of God, 4th century scholar St Augustine interpreted the Biblical incident of the Gadarene swine – in which Jesus sent devils into a herd of pigs, forcing them drown themselves in the sea – as showing that “there are no common rights between us and the beasts and trees”; and that “Christ himself shows that to refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of plants is the height of superstition”. Similarly, the 13C philosopher Thomas Aquinas stated that cruelty to animals was not wrong in itself, and that it should only be condemned if it encouraged cruelty to humans [3]. On the other hand, St Francis of Assisi famously argued that animals were worthy of human kindness because of their status as fellow creatures of God.

By the 18th century, various notables were calling for a more compassionate approach [4], with individual preachers, moralists and philosophers urging that greater attention be paid to animals’ concerns. They were joined by writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Barbauld (see our article Science becomes Art), Byron, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth and Robert Burns.
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The satirist Hogarth also criticised the continuing abuses with his Four Stages of Cruelty, suggesting that cruelty to animals, such as in cock throwing, was the first stage in the development of violent criminals.​





Fig 1: Hogarth. The Four Stages of Cruelty: Stage 1, physical abuse of animals (1751)


Within the larger population, however, such calls received only limited acceptance, and generally uncaring attitudes to animals continued into the 19th century [5]. While the British Parliament passed an 1822 Bill to “prevent the cruel treatment of cattle” – with a sharp eye on their commercial value -- other Bills to prevent bullbaiting or cruelty to horses, asses or oxen met with little success. Later efforts to outlaw dogfights and bullbaiting also failed, prompting the formation of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1824) [6]. Most of these animal tortures were finally outlawed by the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 but this did not apply to wild animals. Birds, which for many centuries had been hunted for food or “sport”, were still quite literally in the firing line.

FEATHERED HATS AND THE PLUMAGE TRADE

The unprotected position of wild birds assumed special significance in the light of an extraordinary development in the latter part of the 19th century. This was the creation of the creation of a fashion industry, not limited to the upper classes, but across a wider spectrum of society. One notable aspect of this was the extensive use of bird feathers in ladies’ fashions, particularly their hats. In fact, not just feathers, but also wings, heads and even entire bodies of birds became extremely popular [7]. Hats crowned by the feathers of the great crested grebe [see our article on Carpaccio], or gowns with several dead robins sewn onto the skirt were considered very chic.

The use of feathers as a fashion accessory was of course not new –ostentatiously plumed hats had been worn by the fashionable wealthy back in the 18th century (Fig 2), and they had become a symbol of exotic beauty. However, what developed in the late 19th century, in cities such as Paris (the manufacturing centre), London (the biggest market) and New York, was an explosive growth in this fashion, crossing class and geographical boundaries, on a scale which today seems almost inconceivable. This change was driven by a wide range of factors – the economic boom resulting from the Industrial Revolution, the growth of department stores, the proliferation of ready-to-wear garments, catalogue-based mail order, the birth of fashion weeklies, and the rise of fashion houses and personalities.

READ ON http://www.artinsociety.com/feathers-fashion-and-animal-rights.html

Small-business owners could face jail time as DOJ launches investigation into coronavirus loan program

Published: May 2, 2020 By Chris Matthews
A59ssistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski leads the criminal probe

AFP/GETTY IMAGES


The Justice Department has opened an investigation into companies that applied for emergency loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, and businesses that provided misleading information could face jail sentences, experts say.

The new government program aims to help small businesses hurt by the coronavirus crisis.


“Whenever there’s a trillion dollars out on the street that quickly, the fraudsters are going to come out of the woodwork in an attempt to get access to that money,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski told Bloomberg News Thursday.

As head of the department’s criminal division, Benczkowski could oversee prosecution of small-business owners or other executives who have certified documents submitted to the Small Business Administration. Prosecutors have contacted 15 of the 20 largest loan processors and the SBA as part of the investigation.


Small-business owners who have applied for or received PPP funds should “definitely take it as cause for concern,” Derek Adams, a former Justice Department trial attorney, told MarketWatch.

The PPP was established by Congress in its $2.2 trillion CARES Act to protect small-business owners and their employees from the economic impact of efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19. It allows businesses with fewer than 500 employees to apply for forgivable loans that cover two months of payroll and other expenses, if “the uncertainty of economic conditions as of the date of the application makes necessary the loan request to support the ongoing operations of the recipient,” according to the CARES Act.


But last week the government issued further guidance saying that applicants must exhaust other avenues of liquidity that would enable them to support ongoing operations. “This suggests a more robust analysis than what a lot of folks initially anticipated,” said Adams. “Businesses should do a fresh analysis to understand if they can support this certification before May 7,” a government-set deadline for paying back loans.

More than 20 public companies like IDT Corp. IDT, -4.80% and Hallmark Financial Services Inc. HALL, -4.40% so far have said they were returning the PPP loans.

Read more: Treasury gives big public companies until May 7 to return loans meant for small businesses

And see:These public companies are returning emergency loans meant for small businesses


Companies that are found to have misled the government about the necessity of the loans could face penalties ranging from a loss of loan forgiveness to jail time. “When you’re making a certification in connection with receiving this loan, you face criminal liability” under statues that proscribe lying to government as well as mail fraud and wire fraud, Adams said.

Neil Barofsky, the former special investigator general for the 2008 financial-crisis bank bailouts told MarketWatch that the announcement was “an important first step” in the process of overseeing the nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus stimulus that Washington has delivered to date, but “it won’t be nearly enough given the opportunities for fraud in the program.” Barofsky has called on Congress and the White House to stand up further oversight mechanisms quickly, to head off fraud as these programs get off the ground.

He also said that given limited prosecutorial resources, the government should not focus on cases where businesses may have overstated the need for the funds or their lack of access to other financing, but on “outright cases of fraud around false payroll numbers,” and other financial data.

The Trump administration, however, appears eager to dissuade big businesses from taking funds, given the widespread demand for these loans that is set to exhaust the $670 billion allocated to the program.

Mark Cuban endorses Joe Biden on Fox News because ‘he actually wants to run a country’Published: June 24, 2020 at 5:19 p.m. ET
By
Nicole Lyn Pesce

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The billionaire tells Sean Hannity that President Trump wants to ‘run a campaign’ rather than provide leadership


Mark Cuban has expressed support for Joe Biden in the November presidential election.


‘Donald Trump doesn’t want to run a country. He wants to run a campaign. Joe Biden actually wants to run a country.’

That was billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban explaining why he’s voting for Joe Biden over President Trump in November.

The “Shark Tank” host with a net worth of $4.3 billion, according to Forbes, backed the presumptive Democratic nominee while speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday night. As Hannity pressed him on whether Biden “has the strength, the stamina, the mental acuity, the alertness to be taking on what is the toughest job in the world, being the president of the United States,” Cuban responded, “One hundred percent. Absolutely.”

Cuban listed the Affordable Care Act as former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Biden’s “biggest accomplishment,” adding that “it’s unfortunate the [Trump administration is] trying to dismantle it.”

The Trump administration is pushing for a total repeal of the ACA, and is backing a lawsuit against it that’s set to go before the Supreme Court this fall. The latest suit argues that the “individual mandate” that Americans buy health insurance is unconstitutional.

Cuban also praised Biden’s support for entrepreneurs like himself. “The one event in the White House that Joe Biden put on and spoke about his support for entrepreneurship is one more event than he [Trump] has ever done for entrepreneurs in the White House or anywhere else,” he said.

Cuban backed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election but has also served Trump in an advisory role on his “Opening Our Country” economic council in April.

Read more:‘It’s going to be brutal,’ billionaire Mark Cuban says of economy’s recovery from coronavirus, and ‘there’s no way to sugarcoat it’

Watch the interview below, via a tweet from former Trump ally and aide Anthony Scaramucci, who endorses Cuban’s comment with the word “Bingo”: