What marsupials can teach us about brain development
IMAGE: A GRAPHIC SHOWING PYRAMIDAL NEURONS IN THE CEREBRAL CORTEX view more
CREDIT: ADOBE JOURNAL
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Experimental study
Animals
Cortical activity emerges in region-specific patterns during early brain development
23-May-2023
Psychology: Unidentified aerial phenomena observations reported by almost one fifth of academic survey respondents
19% of respondents to a survey of academics report that they or someone they know have witnessed unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) — observations of the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or as known natural phenomena — and 37% report some degree of interest in conducting research into UAP. The findings, which are based on a survey of 1,460 US academics, are published in Humanities and Social Science Communications and highlight that many academics consider the evaluation of UAP to be worthy of academic scrutiny.
Marissa Yingling, Charlton Yingling and Bethany Bell surveyed professors, associate professors, and assistant professors from 144 US universities across 14 academic disciplines in 2022. The survey was sent to 39,984 academics and the response rate was 4%. Participants, who were 62% male and 80% white, were asked about their perceptions of, experiences with and opinions of UAP. Of the 14 different disciplines represented, 10% of participants worked in political science, 10% worked in physics, 10% in psychology and 6% in engineering.
19% of participants (276) reported that they or someone they knew had witnessed UAP and a further 9% (128) reported that they or someone they knew may have witnessed UAP. 39% of all participants reported that they did not know what the most likely explanations for UAP were, while 21% attributed them to natural events and 13% to devices of unknown intelligence. Although only 4% of participants reported that they had conducted academic research related to UAP, 36% (524) reported some degree of interest in conducting research in this area. 43% said they would be more likely to conduct academic research into UAP if a reputable scholar in their discipline did so and 55% said they would be more likely to conduct research into UAP if they could secure funding. 37% of participants ranked the importance of further research into UAP as very important or absolutely essential, while 64% considered academia’s involvement in UAP-related research to be very important or absolutely essential.
The findings suggest that many US academics across disciplines consider academia’s involvement in research into UAP to be important and may be cautiously willing to engage with research into UAP, particularly if others they consider to be reputable within their field do so. The authors suggest that open discussions of UAP among academics could enable greater academic involvement in UAP-related research. However, they note that further surveys in larger and more diverse cohorts are needed to investigate attitudes towards UAP more generally among academics in the USA.
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Article details
Faculty Perceptions of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-01746-3
Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends): https://dx.doi.org//10.1057/s41599-023-01746-3.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Faculty Perceptions of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
First Contact: Global team simulates message from extraterrestrial intelligence to Earth
A Sign in Space imagines how Earth might respond to a signal from aliens and invites the public to help decode an ET message.
Business AnnouncementIMAGE: L-R (CLOCKWISE): THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY, GREEN BANK TELESCOPE AND MEDECINA RADIO ASTRONOMICAL STATION view more
CREDIT: ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY: JOE MARFIA GREEN BANK TELESCOPE: JAY YOUNG MEDECINA RADIO ASTRONOMICAL STATION: MEDECINA RADIO ASTRONOMICAL STATION
First Contact: Global team simulates message from extraterrestrial intelligence to Earth
A Sign in Space imagines how Earth might respond to a signal from aliens and invites the public to help decode an ET message.
May 22, 2023, Mountain View, CA – What would happen if we received a message from an extraterrestrial civilization? Daniela de Paulis, an established interdisciplinary artist and licensed radio operator who currently serves as Artist in Residence at the SETI Institute and the Green Bank Observatory, has brought together a team of international experts, including SETI researchers, space scientists, and artists, to stage her latest project, A Sign in Space. This revolutionary presentation of global theater aims to explore the process of decoding and interpreting an extraterrestrial message by engaging the worldwide SETI community, professionals from different fields and the broader public. This process requires global cooperation, bridging a conversation around SETI, space research and society across multiple cultures and areas of expertise.
As part of the project, on May 24, 2023, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) in orbit around Mars will transmit an encoded message to Earth to simulate receiving a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence.
“Throughout history, humanity has searched for meaning in powerful and transformative phenomena,” said Daniela de Paulis, the visionary artist behind the A Sign in Space project. “Receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilization would be a profoundly transformational experience for all humankind. A Sign in Space offers the unprecedented opportunity to tangibly rehearse and prepare for this scenario through global collaboration, fostering an open-ended search for meaning across all cultures and disciplines.”
Three world-class radio astronomy observatories located across the globe will detect the encoded message. These include the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA), the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO), and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station observatory managed by Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). The specific content of the encoded message, developed by de Paulis and her team, is currently undisclosed, allowing the public to contribute to decoding and interpreting the content.
The ESA ExoMars Orbiter will transmit the encoded message on May 24 at 19:00 UTC / 12:00 pm PDT, with receipt on Earth 16 minutes later. To engage the public, the SETI Institute will host a social media live stream event featuring interviews with key team members, including scientists, engineers, artists and more, joining the live stream from around the world, including control rooms from the ATA, the GBT, and Medicina. Hosted by the SETI Institute’s Dr. Franck Marchis and GBO’s Victoria Catlett, the live stream event will begin at 11:15 am PDT here.
“This experiment is an opportunity for the world to learn how the SETI community, in all its diversity, will work together to receive, process, analyze, and understand the meaning of a potential extraterrestrial signal,” said ATA Project Scientist Dr. Wael Farah. “More than astronomy, communicating with ET will require a breadth of knowledge. With “A Sign in Space,” we hope to make the initial steps towards bringing a community together to meet this challenge.”
Following the transmission, ATA, GBT, and Medicina teams will process the signal and then make it available to the public for decoding.
The SETI Institute will securely store the processed data in collaboration with Breakthrough Listen Open Data Archive and Filecoin, the world’s largest decentralized storage network. This collaborative effort ensures the preservation and accessibility of the processed data, safeguarding its availability for further analysis and decoding endeavors.
“We’re thrilled to partner with SETI on this groundbreaking project,” said Stefaan Verveat, Head of Network Growth at Protocol Labs, the company behind Filecoin. “Our decentralized data storage solutions are ideally suited for the secure and reliable storage of the vast amounts of data generated by this project.”
Anyone working to decode and interpret the message can discuss the process in the A Sign in Space Discord server. Submissions of findings, thoughts, and artistic and scientific inputs may be made through the dedicated submission form on the project’s website: https://asignin.space/decode-the-message/
Following the transmission, the A Sign in Space team will host a series of Zoom-based discussions open to the public around topics that consider the societal implications of detecting a signal from an extraterrestrial civilization. The discussions will take place over 6-8 weeks after the transmission. A list of events with registration links is here.
More information about the project can be found at “A Sign in Space” website: https://asignin.space/.
About the SETI Institute
Founded in 1984, the SETI Institute is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary research and education organization whose mission is to lead humanity’s quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the Universe and to share that knowledge with the world. Its research encompasses the physical and biological sciences and leverages expertise in data analytics, machine learning and advanced signal detection technologies. The SETI Institute is a distinguished research partner for industry, academia and government agencies, including NASA and NSF
About the Green Bank Observatory
The Green Bank Telescope is operated by the Green Bank Observatory, a major facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
About INAF and the Medicina Radio Astronomical Station
The Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, INAF, is the main Italian public research institute dedicated to the study of the Universe. It is present throughout Italy with 16 research facilities and the headquarters in Rome, as well as the Galileo National Telescope in the Canary Islands. Besides optical observatories, INAF manages three radio telescopes in Italy. The Medicina Radio Astronomical Station, located 30 km from Bologna, hosts two radio telescopes: the first Italian radio telescope, the Northern Cross (owned by the University of Bologna) and a 32-m parabolic dish. A second 32-m parabolic antenna, very similar to the Medicina one, is located in Noto (Siracusa, Sicily). More recently, the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) was inaugurated in San Basilio (Cagliari, Sardinia) with a 64-m dish antenna.
About the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space.
ESA is an international organization, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Today, it launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System, and cooperates in the human exploration of space. ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft, and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.
About Filecoin
Filecoin, the world’s largest decentralized storage network, enables users to store, request, and transfer data via a verifiable marketplace. Filecoin’s advanced technology provides a robust foundation to store the world’s most valuable datasets. An alternative to costly cloud storage, the Filecoin network offers efficiently priced and geographically decentralized storage, minimizing financial barriers and allowing users to take advantage of its unmatched network capabilities. Filecoin is completely open source, enabling people from all over the world to participate. For more information about Filecoin, please visit https://filecoin.io/
Modular builds may help construction industry weather a perfect storm
Rising material prices, labour shortages, interest rate hikes and rainy weather have created a perfect storm for the construction industry in the past 12 months, sending many builders to the wall.
Of all these factors, weather is the one that most people would cite as being beyond human control. However, a new study out of the UK and Australia suggests this may not be the case.
Engineers from Aston University, Birmingham, and the University of South Australia (UniSA) have calculated the potential cost savings for builders using modular production techniques where much of the construction happens offsite in controlled conditions.
Buildings are produced in modules in a factory, using the same materials and building codes, but completed in about half the time, with less waste and no building delays due to poor weather.
The researchers produced a cost model that estimated the impact of weather by season on each building activity, including portions of the build (such as bathroom pods) up to the entire structure.
The savings come in at approximately AUD$40,000 (£21,000) on a build worth $6.4 million (£3.4m). This 0.6% saving may initially seem minor but takes on significant meaning in the current climate where average construction profit margins are just 4.2%.
The findings are published in the International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development.
Co-author of the paper Dr Ki Pyung Kim, a senior lecturer in STEM at UniSA, says weather is often identified as one of the top causes for delays and subsequent cost increases in the building industry, affecting 45% of projects worldwide.
“By removing many of the onsite activities and replacing them with modules built offsite, builders can minimise construction delays caused by weather, thereby keeping the costs from blowing out,” Dr Kim says.
Incessant rain in Australia’s eastern states throughout 2022 led to construction costs ballooning, according to the Property Council of Australia, exposing builders to unbudgeted increases and heavy losses.
However, rainfall is the not the only key weather pressure for the construction industry.
Global warming is expected to push temperatures up worldwide, including in Australia, making working conditions more difficult on construction sites, the study authors point out.
“There are many pressures on the construction industry right now, including lack of skilled labour, reductions in profit margins, lack of sustainable materials and low productivity. The financial implications of weather are rarely considered except in extreme cases as the client normally bears the cost,” Dr Kim says.
While modular construction techniques have several benefits – including faster builds and a more controlled working environment which protects high-quality materials from the weather – there are some drawbacks: a limited supply chain and lack of flexibility in both design and supply. The upfront costs of modular components are also expensive, but this needs to be weighed up against losses incurred by weather holdups.
“The global housing sector is dominated by traditional construction methods, but the industry is approaching a crisis point – particularly in relation to a skills shortage – that may force a change to modular and other offsite techniques,” Dr Kim says.
“The Federal Government has set a target of delivering one million affordable homes over five years from 2024. To ensure this target is met, Infrastructure Australia has mandated modular construction for 80% of social housing projects by 2030.”
Construction costs are typically between 43 and 46% of overall costs, which is why much of the existing research focuses on this area.
“When working in a factory environment there is a more protected and controlled atmosphere, and this will improve worker welfare, productivity and reduce health and safety costs, with fewer loss of workdays due to ill health and accident.”
Dr Kim says that the potential cost saving will vary, depending on where the project is built, when the project is started and how long the build is.
International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development
Data/statistical analysis
Not applicable
The effect on cost when utilising modular construction techniques-The impact of weather on labour productivity
Viewers actually 'binge-watch' TV with a lot of self-control
New UC San Diego research reveals people schedule their binge watching, preferring to consecutively watch some programing over others and will pay with money or time to binge shows
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE: STUDY COAUTHOR UMA KARMARKAR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MARKETING AND INNOVATION AT UC SAN DIEGO’S RADY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND SCHOOL OF GLOBAL POLICY AND STRATEGY. view more
CREDIT: UC SAN DIEGO
If viewers sometimes feel guilty about binge-watching television programing, they really shouldn’t. Though its name implies impulsive behavior, binge-watching TV is a common activity planned out by viewers, suggests new research from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy.
The study, in collaboration with the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and Fox School of Business at Temple University, reveals that viewers prefer to binge-watch certain types of programming over others. They’re also more likely to pay to watch shows consecutively and/or wait to be able to consume more than one episode at a time.
“We find that the notion of a show being so interesting that it just sucks people in and they can’t pull away is not the whole story,” said study coauthor Uma Karmarkar, assistant professor of marketing and innovation at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy. “Binge-watching can have a negative connotation, like binge eating or binge drinking. It is generally seen as impulsive, maybe problematic, but certainly very indulgent. However, media consumption is more complex. Binge-watching is not always about a failure of self-control; it can also be a thoughtful preference and planned behavior.”
The paper that is forthcoming in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied finds that people tend to plan to binge shows they perceive to be more sequential and connected—those that have an overarching narrative. These include media like “Bridgerton,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Stranger Things” and others, which are consumed consecutively, as compared to series with episodes perceived as independent of one another. Such examples include “Law and Order: SVU” or reality competition shows, like “Chopped.”
However, the authors do find that no matter how bingeable a show is, viewers are much less likely to plan to watch multiple episodes if the streaming service or channel features commercials.
In addition, the findings suggest that genre alone isn’t a good predictor of a desire to binge. The authors find that documentary series—if they have a consecutive story line—can be just as bingeable as fictional series, illustrating a consistent model that extends into the field of “edutainment” programming.
Programming descriptions can influence what people plan to binge
This research also demonstrates that how shows are described and marketed to consumers can impact what they plan to binge and not binge.
“We find increased plans to binge can be triggered by merely framing content as more sequential vs. independent, which suggest that media companies can strategically emphasize content structure to influence consumer decisions and media viewing styles,” said study first author, Joy Lu, assistant professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.
The findings can be valuable to entertainment companies because they can be instrumental in helping them with market research, Karmarkar added.
“Viewing platforms could launch consumer surveys to get a sense for how likely a viewer would be to plan their schedule around binging a certain show,” she said. “This is important because streaming media companies don’t necessarily only want you to binge-watch on their platform. If you log back in at different times, you might see different ads, you may build loyalty to brand, and perhaps you keep your subscription longer. It could be beneficial for companies to want some of their content to be more bingeable and other content to be more spread out.”
Robust findings also have important implications for online education consumption
The paper included multiple studies involving hundreds of participants that replicated results and also revealed new findings. The paper’s first experiment showed that people can and do actually plan their binging. The authors surveyed people online, asking them to think about how they would plan to watch a show they wanted to stream. Participants were asked to then create a calendar over the next six days, which let the authors see whether they would stack episodes together or spread them out. Most people created “clumpy” viewing plans, involving binging multiple episodes at a time. But they didn’t stack all the episodes on one day, offering a different view of binging than the one predicted by a lack of self-control.
Another study gave participants a list of the top 100 television streaming series and asked half of them to classify the shows as more or less “bingeable” and the other half to classify the shows as independent vs. sequential. Not surprisingly, combining this data found that shows rated as highly bingeable were also rated as more sequential.
But the differences in plans to binge independent and sequential media were also replicated in how people approach streaming media in the form of online education courses. A separate experiment revealed that people are more likely to plan to binge a Coursera class if it is perceived to be more sequential. Taking this one step further, the authors analyzed real-world data from the Coursera platform and found that these plans to binge-learn accurately predicted viewing behavior in enrolled students.
The findings also resolve an apparent conflict with previous literature that finds that people often prefer to savor good experiences by delaying them and deriving additional pleasure from anticipation or spreading them out over time. The authors suggest that the prior work on this issue mostly involved independent experiences, such as going out to eat or going on vacations, which their theory also predicts would be “less bingeable.”
For a copy of the full “Planning-to-Binge: Time Allocation for Future Media Consumption” paper, please email Christine Clark at ceclark@ucsd.edu.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied
Experimental study
People
Planning-to-Binge: Time Allocation for Future Media Consumption
Resources from The On Our Sleeves® Movement For Children’s Mental Health can help parents and caregivers talk to kids about body image and positivity
Reports and ProceedingsCOLUMBUS, Ohio (May 23, 2023) — With children more plugged in to social media than ever before, a wave of new image editing apps and filters along with trends related to appearance have parents concerned about damage to body image. According to a new national survey conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health, 69% of parents of children younger than 18 think social media image editing apps and filters have a negative influence on their child(ren)’s body image. In addition, 65% of parents agree that social media trends related to appearance — like diet or exercise — have a negative influence on their child(ren)’s body image.
On Our Sleeves encourages parents and caregivers to check in regularly and have conversations with their children about the importance of body positivity. Open and honest dialogue can be critical to understanding how a child feels about their body, which can be exacerbated by external factors like media consumption. Dr. Erin McTiernan, an On Our Sleeves contributor and pediatric psychologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said it’s important to talk to kids about food and their bodies, and suggests asking questions to build self-esteem such as, “What are some things you like about yourself?”. When your child starts to join social media platforms, she said it’s important to pay attention to the content they're consuming and how it's impacting them.
“A child’s feelings about their body can affect their mental health,” said McTiernan. “We know that social media can affect everything from purchasing choices to perception of beauty, and unfortunately children are the most vulnerable to unrealistic body image expectations set by these platforms. Children on social media can be exposed to thousands of messages every day about how to look, what to do, and who to be.”
Conversations about body image can be challenging, even for confident parents. That’s why On Our Sleeves offers parents resources with information and helpful tips about body image and food, as well as a variety of conversation starters that can help open and maintain a dialogue with children. These resources can help reframe conversations about food and bodies in a way that eases communication and lessens damage. For instance, experts suggest instead of labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” take a more neutral stance and encourage adding foods from a variety of food groups to create balanced, nourishing meals. ”
Tips for parents include:
The balance between allowing children to explore social media while avoiding potentially dangerous aspects, such as harmful “trends” or messages, can be difficult. Through On Our Sleeves, parents can work to build trusting relationships that allow their children to reap the benefits of social media while minimizing the risk of negative outcomes.
Visit OnOurSleeves.org for resources to help start conversations around safe social media use and support positive body image in kids.
Survey Method:
This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of On Our Sleeves from March 30-April 3, 2023, among 2,035 U.S. adults ages 18+, among whom 711 are parents of kids younger than 18. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within +/- 2.8 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Molly Devaney at molly@mediasourcetv.com.
To ensure that our survey questions are well-designed, we sought the expertise of clinical psychologists from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the largest provider of pediatric mental health services in the nation. They also reviewed the final results. This involvement of a clinical psychologist adds credibility to the survey.
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About The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health
Children don’t wear their thoughts on their sleeves. With 1 in 5 children living with a significant mental health concern and half of all lifetime mental health concerns starting by age 14, we need to give them a voice. The On Our Sleeves Movement For Children’s Mental Health, created by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, one of the United States’ largest network of pediatric behavioral health treatment providers and researchers, is on a mission to give expert-created resources to all U.S. communities so everyone can understand and promote mental health for children. On Our Sleeves’ vision is to build a world where mental health is a part of the upbringing of every single child. Nearly 1,000 mental health professionals and researchers at Nationwide Children’s, in partnership with other trusted experts, provide their real-world knowledge and expertise to power On Our Sleeves.
Since the inception of On Our Sleeves in 2018, more than 6 million people in every state across the United States have interacted with the movement’s free pediatric mental health education resources at OnOurSleeves.org.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Bribery is among the most recognizable forms of corruption, and new research is shedding light on personality traits that could deter this behavior. Guilt-prone people are less likely to accept bribes, particularly when the act would cause obvious harm to other people.
The research, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, contributes to a growing body of literature on individual differences in corrupt behaviors.
“Our results have important implications for current world events, particularly in the realm of politics and governance where corruption and bribery are major concerns,” says author Prof. Xiaolin Zhou, of East China Normal University. “More specifically, our results highlight the importance of assessing candidates’ guilt proneness in personnel selection, especially when electing a leader for a group.”
Researchers conducted two online experiments with 2,082 college students, combining economic games with personality measures. The first study demonstrated that being guilt-prone was negatively associated with accepting bribes, while the second revealed a connection between people’s concerns for others and their willingness to take a bribe. The research also highlights the potential of utilizing computational modeling to study moral decision-making and the underlying psychological mechanisms that shape ethical behavior.
Dr. Zhou notes that the study is correlational rather than causal, meaning that researchers cannot definitively conclude that making someone more guilt-prone will reduce their likelihood of engaging in corrupt behavior. He also notes that the research focuses on being guilt-prone as a single personality trait and does not account for other moral-related personality traits that could influence bribery.
“It would be intriguing to investigate alternative psychological mechanisms – such as responsibility, obedience, or conformity - beyond the concern for others’ suffering, that may underlie the relationship between guilt proneness and bribery,” Dr. Zhou explains.
In the meantime, the researchers would like to see the insights from this study leveraged to deter corrupt behavior.
“We hope that our findings can inform policies and interventions aimed at preventing corruption and promoting ethical behaviors in various domains, such as business and government,” says the first author Dr. Yang Hu.
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Experimental study
People
Are Guilt-Prone Power-Holders Less Corrupt? Evidence From Two Online Experiments
22-May-2023
UK
Investigation reveals “shocking” epidemic of sexual assault in the NHS
NHS trusts are failing to protect staff and patients Medical colleges and unions urge government to launch independent inquiry
Peer-Reviewed PublicationA joint investigation published today by The BMJ and The Guardian finds that NHS trusts recorded more than 35,000 cases of rape, sexual assault, harassment, stalking, and abusive remarks, between 2017 and 2022. The findings, which show that NHS trusts are failing to protect staff and patients, have led to calls for an independent inquiry.
The data, based on responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from 212 NHS trusts and 37 police forces in England, show that a total of 35,606 sexual safety incidents were recorded on NHS premises over this five year period.
At least 20% of incidents involved rape, sexual assault, or kissing or touching that a person did not consent to, although not all trusts provided a breakdown of the type of incidents recorded. The other cases included sexual harassment, stalking, and abusive or degrading remarks.
The data also show that patients are the main perpetrators of abuse in hospitals. Most incidents (58%) involved patients abusing staff, with patients abusing other patients the next most common type of incident (20%).
Police recorded nearly 12,000 alleged sexual crimes on NHS premises in the same time period. These include 180 cases of rape of children under 16, with four children under 16 being gang raped.
Yet the investigation found that fewer than one in 10 trusts has a dedicated policy to deal with sexual assault and harassment, and are no longer obliged to report abuse of staff to a central database.
Latifa Patel, BMA workforce and equalities lead, says she assumes that trusts without dedicated sexual safety policies are “sitting on huge numbers of unreported incidents,” which she describes as “a truly disturbing implication.”
The data show that 193 of the 212 trusts reported 10 or fewer staff-on-staff incidents between 2017 and 2022, but doctors describe this as “implausible” given their numbers of employees, and say that staff are reluctant to report sexual assault.
Simon Fleming, an orthopaedic registrar and author of Sexual Assault in Surgery: a Painful Truth, said: “I know hundreds of female doctors who’ve been assaulted, thousands who’ve been harassed, and a decent number who’ve been raped within the NHS.”
And although more than 4,000 NHS staff were accused of rape, sexual assault, harassment, stalking, or abusive remarks towards other staff or patients in 2017-22, the investigation found that only 576 have faced disciplinary action.
What’s more, when complaints are made against colleagues, women claim that NHS trusts show a “reluctance to suspend perpetrators due to overall staff shortages,” says Deeba Syed, senior legal officer for Rights of Women, a helpline that provides support for women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed at work.
The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Liberal Democrats, the Hospital Doctors Union, the GMB union, the Society of Radiologists and the British Dietetic Association have all called for an independent inquiry into the epidemic of sexual assault in the NHS in light of the findings.
Fleur Curtis, 43, was sexually assaulted on three occasions by a junior doctor in 2016 and 2017 when she was working as a physician associate at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. She told The BMJ that the trust’s poor handling of her complaint had a massive impact on her mental health, forcing her to quit her job in 2020.
So what can trusts do?
Trusts need to be guided by NHS-wide policies on how to deal with allegations, including when to suspend staff and when to report individuals to the police, and should act swiftly to deal with complaints, say Tamzin Cuming and Carrie Newlands, from the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery.
Others agree that action is needed fast. “Employers must ensure that victims are supported and feel empowered to report sexual harm and resolve to take appropriate action,” adds Patel. “It is heartbreaking to see the extent to which the NHS has failed to provide this safety to patients and healthcare staff.”
Health secretary Steve Barclay said that the government has doubled the maximum sentence for those who are convicted of assaulting health workers and is working closely with NHS England to prevent and reduce violence against staff.
In a linked opinion article, Simon Fleming says it is everyone’s responsibility to hold sexual predators in the NHS accountable or risk becoming complicit bystanders. “Criminal behaviour should be dealt with seriously, regardless of who has committed the crime,” he argues. “Failure to challenge, individually or organisationally, these attitudes is akin to accepting them as ‘just how things are.’”
In another opinion article, Rosalind Searle at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, says failures to record, investigate, and act on cases of sexual harassment and abuse in healthcare have enabled perpetrators. She outlines three sanctioning mechanisms—self, social, and legal sanctions—that are needed to reduce these violations in workplaces and society.
The BMJ will be hosting a webinar on this topic on June 8. Register in advance here: https://bmj.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LDW5KZ0eTLqdE5kDaNoZZA
The BMJ
Data/statistical analysis
People
Investigation: Medical colleges and unions call for inquiry over “shocking” levels of sexual assault in the NHS
23-May-2023
Earlier snowpack melt in the West could bring summer water scarcity
Snow is melting earlier, and more rain is falling instead of snow in the mountain ranges of the Western U.S. and Canada, leading to a leaner snowpack that could impact agriculture, wildfire risk and municipal water supplies come summer, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, the study documents more than 60 years of change in snowpack water storage across Western North America. It found that from 1950 to 2013, snowpack water storage has significantly declined in more than 25% of the Mountain West, in part because more snow is melting during winter and spring, eroding this seasonal boundary.
“On average and in every mountainous region that we looked at, snow melt is occurring closer in time to when it fell,” said Kate Hale, lead author of the study and a 2022 geography graduate. “The timing of water availability is shifting toward earlier in the springtime, with less snow melt and water availability later in the summertime, suggesting that there will be water scarcity later in the year.”
Timing is everything
The Western U.S. and Canada depend on snow for most of their water. The Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevadas and other mountain ranges have long served as, essentially, water towers for the region: They store snow throughout the winter, which then melts and becomes available as water in spring and summer, when demand is greatest.
Every year on April 1, state and regional water managers use a metric known as snow water equivalent (SWE)—how much water will be produced when an amount of snow melts—to predict and plan for water resources that year, said Hale, now a postdoctoral researcher at University of Vermont.
But that April 1 snapshot is exactly that: one moment in time. It doesn’t reveal if that snow slowly accumulated over the past six months, if it all fell in one giant heap on March 31, or if it was already melting.
“From a hydrologic perspective, the only thing that's unique about snow is that it delays the timing of water input to watersheds. And just looking at a snapshot of snow water equivalent doesn't give you a sense as to how long that snow water equivalent has been on the ground,” said Noah Molotch, associate professor of geography and fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at CU Boulder.
So Hale used two publicly available data sources to develop a new measurement known as Snow Storage Index (SSI) that incorporates the timing and amount of snowfall, as well as snowmelt, before and after April 1. In contrast to the singular moment in time captured by SWE, Hale’s SSI shows a metaphorical video: incorporating into one number, the time between when rain or snow falls on a landscape in the winter season and when it becomes available to that area as surface water.
“The snow storage index allows us to look at snow water storage, not just in the context of how much is there at any given time, but the duration of that storage on the ground,” said Molotch.
This allowed the researchers to analyze how well each mountainous region of the West has acted as a water tower over the past 60 years and discover that their performance has been declining across the board.
Managing water now and for the future
A “high” SSI—a number as close to 1.0 as possible—was found in places where snowfall is very seasonal. In the Cascades, for example, snow accumulates in the fall and winter season, and is stored up to six months before melting somewhat continuously in the spring and summer. Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, however, the SSI is lower—somewhere between 0 and 0.5—which means that snow both accumulates and melts throughout the colder half of the year.
But because the Rockies and the Front Range are already used to this alternating pattern of snowfall and snowmelt during winter and spring seasons, as a region it may adjust easier to similar patterns of decreased snowpack water storage associated with global warming. The mountain regions near the West Coast that are highly reliant on snowpack meltwater in the spring and summer, however, may be in for a painful adjustment when that water melts earlier in the year—and is simply no longer available come late summer.
The researchers hope that this new measurement can serve as a tool for scientists and water resource managers to make better predictions and, when necessary, plan ahead for less.
Half a century ago, an era of dam building in the Western United States allowed the region to flourish in terms of access to water for cities and for agriculture, said Molotch. But as these “water towers” melt away, so too may the reservoirs they filled.
“The snowpack is eroding and disappearing before our eyes. That's going to present challenges in terms of managing the infrastructure that's allowed the Western United States to flourish over the last 100 years,” said Molotch.
Additional authors on this publication include: Keith Jennings, Lynker, Boulder, Colorado; Keith Musselman, Department of Geography and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), CU Boulder; and Ben Livneh, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, CU Boulder.
Nature
Data/statistical analysis
Not applicable
Recent decreases in snow water storage in western North America
22-May-2023
