Before developing the atomic bomb, 

J. Robert Oppenheimer’s early work revolutionized the field of quantum chemistry – and his theory is still used today

The Conversation
August 4, 2023, 

US nuclear physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos atomic laboratory, testifying before the Special Senate Committee on Atomic Energy. - Keystone/Getty Images North America/TNS

The release of the film “Oppenheimer,” in July 2023, has renewed interest in the enigmatic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life. While Oppenheimer will always be recognized as the father of the atomic bomb, his early contributions to quantum mechanics form the bedrock of modern quantum chemistry. His work still informs how scientists think about the structure of molecules today.

Early on in the film, preeminent scientific figures of the time, including Nobel laureates Werner Heisenberg and Ernest Lawrence, compliment the young Oppenheimer on his groundbreaking work on molecules. As a physical chemist, Oppenheimer’s work on molecular quantum mechanics plays a major role in both my teaching and my research.
The Born-Oppenheimer approximation

In 1927, Oppenheimer published a paper called “On the Quantum Theory of Molecules” with his research adviser Max Born. This paper outlined what is commonly referred to as the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. While the name credits both Oppenheimer and his adviser, most historians recognize that the theory is mostly Oppenheimer’s work.


J. Robert Oppenheimer, on the right, in 1947, speaking to mathematician Oswald Veblen at the Princeton Institute for Advance Study. AP/Anonymous

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation offers a way to simplify the complex problem of describing molecules at the atomic level.

Imagine you want to calculate the optimum molecular structure, chemical bonding patterns and physical properties of a molecule using quantum mechanics. You would start by defining the position and motion of all the atomic nuclei and electrons and calculating the important charge attractions and repulsions occurring between these particles in the molecule.

Calculating the properties of molecules gets even more complicated at the quantum level, where particles have wavelike properties and scientists can’t pinpoint their exact position. Instead, particles like electrons must be described by a wave function. A wave function describes the electron’s probability of being in a certain region of space. Determining this wave function and the corresponding energies of the molecule is what is known as solving the molecular Schrödinger equation.



Solving the Schrödinger equation lets scientists calculate the properties of a molecule.

Unfortunately, this equation cannot be solved exactly for even the simplest possible molecule, H₂⁺, which consists of three particles: two hydrogen nuclei (or protons) and one electron.

Oppenheimer’s approach provided a means to obtain an approximate solution. He observed that atomic nuclei are significantly heavier than electrons, with a single proton being nearly 2,000 times more massive than an electron. This means nuclei move much slower than electrons, so scientists can think of them as stationary objects while solving the Schrödinger equation solely for the electrons.

This method reduces the complexity of the calculation and enables scientists to determine the molecule’s wave function with relative ease.

This approximation may seem like a minor adjustment, but the Born-Oppenheimer approximation goes far beyond just simplifying quantum mechanics calculations on molecules. It actually shapes how chemists view molecules and chemical reactions.

When scientists visualize molecules, we usually think of them as a set of fixed nuclei with shared electrons that move between nuclei. In chemistry class, students typically build “ball-and-stick” models consisting of rigid nuclei (balls) sharing electrons through a bonding framework (sticks). These models are a direct consequence of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.




The ball-and-stick model shows nuclei represented by spheres – or balls – with shared electron bonds represented by sticks. This image shows the structure of a benzene molecule. Aaron Harrison

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation also influenced how scientists think about chemical reactions. During a chemical reaction, atomic nuclei are not stationary; they rearrange and move. Electron interactions guide the nuclei’s movements by forming an energy surface, which the nuclei can move on throughout the reaction. In this way, electrons drive the molecule’s progression through a chemical reaction. Oppenheimer demonstrated that the way electrons behave is the essence of chemistry as a science.




Molecules can change structure during a chemical reaction. 

Chem540grp1f08/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Computational quantum chemistry

In the century since the publication of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, scientists have vastly improved their ability to calculate the chemical structure and reactivity of molecules.

This field, known as computational quantum chemistry, has grown exponentially with the widespread availability of faster, more powerful high-end computational resources. Currently, chemists use computational quantum chemistry for various applications ranging from discovering novel pharmaceuticals to designing better photovoltaics before ever trying to produce them in the lab. At the core of much of this field of research is the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.

Despite its many uses, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation isn’t perfect. For example, the approximation often breaks down in light-driven chemical reactions, such as in the chemical reaction that allows animals to see light. Chemists are investigating workarounds for these cases. Nevertheless, the application of quantum chemistry made possible by the Born-Oppenheimer approximation will continue to expand and improve.

In the future, a new era of quantum computers could make computational quantum chemistry even more robust by performing faster computations on increasingly large molecular systems.

Aaron W. Harrison, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Austin College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Is this the protein plant of the future? New study finds ‘sweetness gene’ that makes lupins tastier

The Conversation
August 5, 2023, 

Lupin Beans (Shutterstock)

If you walk into a bar in Italy, you might be served a dish of salty, nutritious snacks: lupin beans, a legume that has been eaten around the Mediterranean and in parts of the Middle East and Africa for thousands of years.

Lupins are very high in protein and fibre, low in carbs, have a low glycaemic index, and they’re easy to grow in a variety of climates. However, some varieties also contain high levels of unpleasantly bitter alkaloids.

In new research, an international team of researchers has for the first time identified the “sweetness gene” responsible for low alkaloid levels. This discovery may make it easier to reliably produce more palatable plants.
The search for sweetness

Around 100 years ago, plant breeders in Germany found natural mutations that produced “sweet lupins” with far lower levels of bitter alkaloids. They produced sweet varieties of white lupin (Lupinus albus), narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius, the main type grown in Australia), and the less common yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus).

Over the past 50 years or so, lupins have become more common as food for farm animals. Sweet lupins are good for this, as they don’t require extensive washing to be usable. They are also increasingly eaten by humans – and we are very sensitive to bitterness.

To find the genetic basis for “sweet” lupins, we used a few approaches.

A genetic search

Our colleagues in Denmark studied the biochemistry of the different alkaloids in both bitter and sweet varieties. By looking at the changes in the composition of the alkaloids, we could get an idea of the genes involved.

My own work was on the genetics end. We analysed 227 varieties of white lupin and tested their alkaloid levels.

Then, with colleagues in France, we looked at markers across the lupin genome and tried to associate high and low alkaloid levels with the genetics.


New research has found the ‘sweetness gene’ in white lupins.

Shutterstock

We had clues about where we thought the gene would be, in a certain region of a few dozen genes. There was one we thought looked the most promising, so we designed a lot of DNA markers to work out what sequence varied in that gene.

Eventually we found a very strong link between a change in alkaloid levels and a variation of a single sequence in our gene.

The final test was to find out whether a variation in this gene would also produce sweetness in other types of lupin. In some other plants we would be able to use genetic modification tools to do this, but for various reasons this is difficult in lupins.

Instead, we went to a company called Traitomic who screened a huge number of seeds of narrow-leafed lupin until they found one which naturally had exactly the mutation we were looking for. And when we tested that plant, it had low alkaloids – confirming we really had found the “sweetness gene”.

A reliable marker

In practice, growing sweet white lupin can be a bit tricky. There are several different strains that have different low alkaloid genes, and if these strains cross-pollinate, the result can be bitter lupin plants once again.

The research gives a reliable genetic marker for plant breeders to know what strains they are dealing with. This means it will be much easier to consistently grow sweet white lupin.

At the moment most of what is grown in Australia is narrow-leafed lupin, in part because the industry had a hard time keeping the white lupin sweet (and in part because white lupin was plagued by a fungal disease called lupin anthracnose). So perhaps in future we’ll see white lupin make a comeback.

Our vision is more cultivation of the high-protein, hardy lupins for consumption by humans.

Matthew Nelson, Plant Geneticist, CSIRO 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Public interest vs. private homes: Climate change and erosion fuel disputes along Lake Michigan’s shoreline

A revetment installed to protect the pavilion at the Portage Lakefront at Indiana Dunes National Park, July 7, 2023. 

- Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Steve Coombs’ lakefront home used to quake when waves crashed along Ogden Dunes’ receding shoreline.

“At one point, my wife said, ‘Should we just move out? Should we just go to a hotel?’ I mean, it’s very unnerving,” he recalled.

But fleeing the “biggest asset that we own” wasn’t an option for Coombs, who said he enjoyed 60 yards of sand between his home and the lake when he bought it a decade ago.

“There are some people who say, ‘Well, you folks built houses where they shouldn’t have been built,’ but that’s not the case,” Coombs said. “Years ago, there was all kinds of shoreline and sand here. In Ogden Dunes, we have houses over 100 years old.”

Today, an international port impedes sand flow to Ogden Dunes’ shore. That, combined with recent near-record high water levels, intense storms and dwindling ice coverage, has caused severe erosion.

Without stretches of sand to separate their homes from the lake, residents in the Indiana town of 1,200 are seeking to build revetments, or stone retaining walls that break the waves. However, environmentalists oppose these structures, citing the long-term consequences they will have on Lake Michigan’s shoreline.

It’s a battle that involves multiple projects, state and federal officials, a national park, and the expanded application of a legal principle rooted in 16th century British common law.

To craft their argument, environmentalists are leaning on the public trust doctrine, which has historically been used to protect navigation and commerce. It requires governments to preserve certain natural resources such as the Lake Michigan shore for public benefit and is likely to become a common legal tool in disputes along the Great Lakes as climate change worsens erosion and courts roll back environmental regulations.
Landowners versus public interest

The revetments Ogden Dunes wants to build would stop the water from reaching residents’ doorsteps in most cases. But, they would also harden the shoreline, hindering the natural wax and wane of beaches, and interrupt the flow of sand to neighboring beaches.

In June, Save the Dunes, an environmental organization committed to conserving Indiana’s famous sand dunes, cited the public trust doctrine in an administrative appeal against Ogden Dunes’ latest revetment project. It accuses the Indiana Department of Natural Resources of prioritizing the interests of a small group of private property owners over those of the public.

The revetment will encroach on public beach access, destroy lakefront habitats and cause erosion in the Indiana Dunes National Park, according to the organization. It is asking for the Natural Resources Commission, an autonomous DNR oversight board, to rescind the permit.

“You have the interests of a few beachfront landowners versus that broader public interest. And in our view, the public interest must prevail here, not only as a matter of law, but for future generations and for the sake of Lake Michigan,” said Kim Ferraro, senior attorney at the Conservation Law Center, which is representing Save the Dunes.

Indiana’s public trust doctrine gives the government ownership of the land below Lake Michigan’s ordinary high-water mark — the point where vegetation is no longer able to survive if regularly wet.

In a statement, the DNR said it approved the permit because, “nearly all of this project is located landward of the ordinary high-water mark, which means that most of it is beyond the state’s public trust area and jurisdiction.”

Save the Dunes disputes this assessment.

“We really want to make sure that the public understands and knows what their rights are when it comes to accessing the beach and how private interests can chip away at that. That’s why we need to stand up sometimes and say, ‘No, this is the line. Yeah, this line,’” said Betsy Maher, Save the Dunes’ executive director.

Regardless of where a revetment is built, the doctrine requires the DNR to assess the impact any project will have on public trust land.

“Every Indiana citizen has a stake in this. (The public trust doctrine) is not a private property right in that you can’t divide it up. It’s not divisible. It is a collective right,” said Robert Fischman, a professor of law and public and environmental affairs at Indiana University at Bloomington.

While each state’s public trust doctrine varies, use of the legal principle along the shoreline has not been exclusive to Indiana. In Illinois, for example, a billionaire private equity executive is currently at odds with Winnetka residents who say his plans to build breakwater structures would cut off the lakefront access endowed to them by the Illinois’ doctrine.

The public trust doctrine is based in property law so it is more durable than the variety of environmental regulations across the country that can be subject to political whims. As recently appointed justices and government officials have taken anti-regulatory stances, the doctrine has become more important for environmentalists, said Fischman.

“We — environmental lawyers — are looking at common law doctrines like nuisance and trespass, negligence and the public trust, to fill in the gaps where environmental regulations are failing,” echoed Ferraro.
Impeding the flow of sand

Coombs got lucky. During near record-high water levels in 2020, the town organized to build a revetment in front of 32 homes, including his. It was an emergency measure funded by $5.5 million in homeowner contributions, of which he paid $210,000.

“The house no longer shakes … and as a family, we feel a sense of relief and safety,” Coombs said.

Now, more lakefront residents in Ogden Dunes want to armor the shoreline in front of their homes. The plans being challenged by Save the Dunes would permit a 2,970-foot long, 10-foot wide revetment in front of 34 more houses.

While such a revetment is a relatively low-cost, effective protective measure in the absence of ample sand, it is not a long-term, holistic solution, according to Cary Troy, an associate professor of civil engineering and principal investigator at the Great Lakes Coastal Processes Lab at Purdue University.

“If you’re not prepared for high water periods, it’s really the only measure that you have in the short-term that can keep property safe from the erosion of the lake. But they do have these long-term effects that you can’t undo once you put them in place,” he said.

Lake Michigan’s current moves sand in a conveyor belt fashion along the coastline. The biggest waves come from the north. Since the Indiana shoreline angles down from east to west, the large waves from the north carry sand the same direction. However, revetments restrict wave action, impeding this natural flow of sand.

Indiana Dunes National Park is to Ogden Dunes’ west, so armoring the town’s shoreline with revetments will likely starve the park’s beaches of sand, enabling waves to eat away at the dunes over time.

Ironically, Ogden Dunes has been experiencing similar sand blockage since 1966 when the Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor was built to its east. The port’s 5,830 feet of breakwater structures jet into the lake and catch sand before it can continue its westward journey to Ogden Dunes.

“All we’re trying to do is protect ourselves from the wrong that has been perpetuated for decades now,” Coombs said.

Save the Dunes advocates say they understand Ogden Dunes is suffering the consequences of the international harbor’s infrastructure, but shoreline hardening needs to stop somewhere, especially before it threatens the Indiana Dunes National Park.

“We’re really sympathetic to the challenges (Ogden Dunes is) facing,” Maher said. “But we’re also concerned about the national parkland that will be directly impacted.”

Ultimately, “it’s hard to paint Ogden Dunes as a villain here. I think Ogden Dunes is both a victim as well as a potential victimizer,” said Fischman, the Indiana law professor.
Sustainable but slow

While revetments might not be the most environmentally sound solution, Ogden Dunes Town Council President Scott Kingan said the potential fallout from inaction can’t be dismissed.

“If protective measures are not taken, homes, septic systems, roads, power lines, public water systems, and other debris will eventually be consumed by the lake and may cause an environmental disaster with far-reaching consequences,” he wrote in a statement responding to the appeal.

Save the Dunes agrees that something must be done but, instead of revetments, advocates for beach nourishment, the process of manually adding sand to the beach.

“(Beach nourishment) is the best solution,” Maher said. “If we bring the sand in, the sand will accumulate.”

This was also the erosion control measure recommended in a 2014 environmental impact statement conducted by the National Park Service and is routinely used to maintain Miami’s iconic South Beach.

The catch: Beach nourishment is a slow process, and residents whose homes are being threatened do not feel that they have the time to pursue it, especially with the recent high water levels.

While the damage to the lakefront was extensive during 2019 and 2020, it would have been much worse if the lake hadn’t receded to record-low water levels in 2013 that significantly expanded the beaches.

“This should be sort of a near-miss or a cautionary tale for the shoreline because there’s no guarantee that when we have the next high water period, we’re going to have a nice long period of low water where the beaches can grow to buffer that high-water erosion,” Troy said.

The lake rose 6 feet between 2013 and the summer of 2020, when it reached near-record highs. Lake levels have always fluctuated, but climate change is contributing to more pronounced variations over shorter periods of time, according to researchers.

Water levels are currently closer to the lake’s long-term average, but the next rise could be right around the corner.

“We’re in sort of a luxury period where we actually have the time to develop some longer-term, more holistic measures to alleviate the erosion. Now would be the time to engage coastal engineers and consultants to develop that menu of options for the shoreline,” he continued.

But beach nourishment year-over-year is significantly more expensive than a one-time revetment installation, and Ogden Dunes’ proposed revetment would be built entirely from homeowner contributions.

“(The town) certainly does not have the resources or means to fix a problem that it did not create, which would entail replacing nearly 10,000,000 cubic yards of sand that has been blocked by the (Burns Harbor) structures since they were first built in 1966 or the estimated 194,000 cubic yards per year needed on an ongoing basis,” said Kingan, citing a 2012 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers analysis.

Beach nourishment is a large project that Ogden Dunes has been interested in for decades. More than 20% of households contribute to Restore the Shore, a charitable fund run by the municipal government with eventual goals of financing beach nourishment. But, the town will need state and federal support to pursue the time-intensive, costly project in the foreseeable future.

The prospect of material government support seems unlikely, however. Despite the Army Corps devising plans for beach nourishment along the Ogden Dunes shoreline in 1984 and a formal National Park Service recommendation for the remediation process in 2014, there has been no coordinated effort to assist the town.

This year, another Army Corps study to explore long-term solutions for erosion along Lake Michigan’s shoreline was approved.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Ports of Indiana said port stakeholders support the study and moving toward a federally funded long-term solution.

“Sand migration in this area has negative impacts on the federal shipping channel and regional industry as well as the recreational beaches on the national park and private residences,” the statement said.

But Ogden Dunes residents remain cynical.

“Politicians just love to pass the buck and say, ‘Hey, look at this agreement, the state’s responsible.’ Then, the state’s like ‘Wow, you know, you can read that two different ways, the Army Corps is responsible.’ And, really we’re caught in between big governmental forces,” Coombs said.

Through its appeal of Ogden Dunes’ latest revetment permit, Save the Dunes aims to urge the state and federal governments to think about the Indiana shoreline holistically and support erosion measures that protect the lakefront for all, not just a few.

“We’re calling out DNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service to find a solution that gets the beach nourishment that the town needs,” said Ferraro. “Those big businesses, the big industries over there (in Burns Harbor) also need to be part of finding a solution here because they’re creating that problem for the town,” said Ferraro.

While Save the Dunes’ appeal is under review by the DNR’s oversight committee, a small town with limited resources remains at odds with the long-term health of Indiana’s iconic sand dunes and the rights of all Hoosiers to enjoy the lakefront.

A breakwater protects the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor that diverts sand from the Ogden Dunes lakefront, shown July 27, 2023. - E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Activist Steve Coombs on his deck overlooking Lake Michigan and a revetment in Ogden Dunes, Indiana, on July 7, 2023. 

- Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Revetment installed to protect homes along Lake Michigan in Ogden Dunes, Indiana, on July 27, 2023.

 - E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

2023/08/06
© Chicago Tribune

Did plastic straw bans work? Yes, but not in the way you’d think.

Harvin Bhathal, Grist
August 5, 2023,

A selection of colourful plastic straws on October 26, 2018, in Cardiff, United Kingdom. The government has set out a plan to ban the distribution and sale of plastic straws. In England, it is estimated that 4.7 billion plastic straws are used each year. Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

This story was originally published by Grist and co-published with Popular Science. 

It was the face that launched a thousand plastic straw bans.

The video begins with a close up of the turtle’s head, its dark green, pebbled skin out of place against the stark-white boat deck. Robinson’s hands approach, moving the pliers toward the turtle’s nostril. The tool clamps down on the edge of something — A barnacle? A worm? — barely visible within the dark tunnel. The creature squirms and dribbles blood as the pulling begins. A long, thin object begins to emerge, inch by excruciating inch.

It was August 10, 2015, and marine conservation biologist Christine Figgener was collecting data for her Ph.D. a few miles off the coast of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. She and a colleague, Nathan Robinson, were researching olive ridley sea turtles when they noticed a male had something encrusted in its nose. The pair decided to try to extract the object. Robinson flipped open his Swiss army knife’s pliers and Figgener grabbed her phone and began to film.

“We had no idea what we were frigging looking at,” Figgener said in a newer, annotated version of the video. It wasn’t until one of the researchers cut off a piece of the object that they realized what it was: a four-inch piece of plastic straw.

“We couldn’t believe that such a mundane object that we really use on a daily basis … that we found it in the turtle’s nose,” she said — “that a tiny object caused so much suffering.”
A volunteer holds plastic straws picked during the World Clean-Up day activity in Kendari, Indonesia. Andry Denisah / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT


When Figgener uploaded the turtle straw video to her YouTube account eight years ago, it went viral. For a few years, plastic straws were the trendy rallying cry for sustainability. In many ways, the campaign was a success story — one that elevated our awareness of single-use plastics to the point where it resulted in actual policy change. But upon reflection, not all the solutions that spun out of the anti-straw movement actually held water. In recent years, many environmental pundits have focused on the movement’s shortcomings.

To many environmentalists fighting plastic pollution, anti-straw advocacy now feels passé — out of touch with the broader need to address all forms of single-use plastic. But the movement’s rise and fall still holds lessons for the activists of today.

From soda bottles to yogurt containers, there is a lot of plastic pollution out there. So how did we end up so obsessed with straws?


The anti-plastic straw movement didn’t actually originate with Figgener’s turtle video. Back in 2011, a 9-year-old named Milo Cress found it odd that the restaurants he would go to with his mom in Burlington, Vermont, would automatically serve drinks with a straw, whether or not their customer wanted one. He approached the owner of Leunig’s Bistro and Café in Burlington, and eventually, Leunig’s became one of the first establishments in the country to ask customers whether they wanted a straw or not.

Milo Cress, founder of the Be Straw Free campaign, photographed in Niwot, Colorado on August 7, 2012. 

Mark Leffingwell / MediaNews Group / Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Eventually, Cress and his mom made some calls to straw manufacturers and estimated that 500 million straws are used and discarded by people in the U.S. every day. The environmental advocacy group Eco-Cycle published Cress’s findings, which in the years since have been cited by nearly every major news media outlet that has covered the plastic straw beat, including CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. (The credibility of that figure has since been questioned, with market research firms determining the figure to be between 170 million and 390 million a day.)


But the turtle video added just the right amount of injury to plastic insult. Figgener’s viral footage helped stir single-use plastic outrage into a frenzy. Celebrities called on their followers to #stopsucking, a social media campaign that aimed to “turn the plastic straw into environment enemy number one.”

Thousands of restaurants joined the pledge and the idea took off, reaching the rare environmental threshold of actual policy change. In 2018, Seattle became the first big city in the United States to ban plastic straws. It was followed shortly by other major municipalities in California, New Jersey, Florida, and other states. That same year, companies including Starbucks and American Airlines jumped on the anti-straw bandwagon, the former announcing it would launch a new “sippy” lid for its cold beverages starting in 2020, allegedly diverting more than 1 billion straws per year.

A flat, plastic lid that does not need a straw is shown on a cup of Starbucks iced tea on July 9, 2018 in Sausalito, California. 

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

But for all its success in getting people riled up about plastic pollution, much of that outrage seemed limited to, well, straws, which only make up a small part of the single-use problem. National Geographic calculated that of the 8 million tons of plastic deposited into the world’s oceans each year, only 0.025 percent is comprised of plastic straws.

Some anti-plastic advocates began denouncing the straw bans as “slacktivism,” a type of activism characterized by a lack of commitment or effort. They said the bans gave people an overblown sense that they were making a difference in combating the plastics crisis. For example, anti-straw pledges didn’t seem as concerned with other types of plastic waste or the fossil fuels associated with every part of their life cycle. Even the anti-straw Starbucks sippy lids were actually made from polypropylene, a type of plastic that has a 3 percent recycling rate in the U.S. (The company claimed it was still an improvement, as the new lids could potentially be recycled. Plastic straws are too lightweight and thin to make it through the mechanical recycling sorting process.)

The anti-plastic straw movement also started getting pushback from disability advocates, who pointed out that some people need flexible straws to be able to drink liquids. Paper straws get soggy and fall apart more quickly, reusable straws made of metal are not easy to bend, and silicone straws are difficult to clean.

For the average consumer, functionality is often more important than sustainability, said Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant. “Our brains favor habits because they conserve energy. So if we are going against the current — a BYO straw for example — it’s hard for most people to do so unless highly motivated.”

San Francisco’s Boba Guys tests alternatives to plastic straws made of metal, bamboo, and reusable plastic ahead of a 2018 vote that would ban plastic straws in the city. 

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

For restaurants that chose to continue to provide disposable straws, there were options beyond paper or plastic. Straws made with natural materials such as sugarcane and wheat are 100 percent biodegradable, but are inflexible and cost more to manufacture. As a result, many businesses looked to straws made from bioplastics — allegedly compostable plastics made from corn, sugarcane, agave, and other nonpetroleum sources. But according to Brandon Leeds, co-founder of SOFi Paper Products, bioplastics require specific disposal and processing methods, many of which aren’t always followed or clearly outlined, in order for them to decompose effectively.

“Many businesses desire to adopt sustainable practices, and when they encounter these plastic-like alternatives, they may mistakenly believe that they can be environmentally conscious without truly moving away from the plastic aesthetic,” Leeds said. “The absence of stricter governmental regulations allows companies to take advantage of greenwashing tactics, making it difficult to differentiate genuinely sustainable options from those that are not.”

Buying into greenwashing, a term that refers to environmental “solutions” whose appeal is based on appearing environmentally friendly rather than actually being so, “can be an unconscious psychological defense in individuals to shield them from the fear and overwhelming [feeling] of climate change,” Davenport said. “There can be an unexamined story of ‘I’m doing my part’ because it is more soothing than feeling out of control with the harmful and terrifying trajectory we are on with climate change.”

A plastic straw and lid is among the trash washed up on a beach in Santa Monica, California. 

Citizen of the Planet / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Plastic straw bans are alive and well today, with new proposals still cropping up at the state and city levels. But eliminating plastic straws is no longer the go-to goal of the anti-plastic movement. Part of that is the result of the existing bans’ success: For many consumers, the absence of plastic straws has become normal, even mundane. Now, anti-plastic advocates hope to harness in new ways the outrage they once inspired.

According to Jackie Nuñez, the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s advocacy and engagement manager and the founder of The Last Plastic Straw, the anti-plastic straw movement helped advance awareness and understanding of other single-use products. California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon, and Vermont have all placed some form of ban on plastic bags. The U.S. Interior Department stated that single-use plastic products will be phased out of national parks and around 480 million acres of federal land by 2032. In 2022, the Canadian federal government implemented a single-use plastics ban that included bags, cutlery, food service ware, and stir sticks.

It’s not really the item, it’s the material that’s the problem, Nuñez said. “All plastic is pollution by design.”

Some activists have attempted to call attention to the scourge of single-use plastics by staging ‘plastic attacks,’ in which protesters head to the grocery store and proceed to remove the plastic wrapping from the food in their carts and return the waste to the store.

Shoppers leave excess packaging at the entrance to a Brussels supermarket as part of a “plastic attack” designed to to emphasize the over-usage of plastic in supermarkets. NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / AFP via Getty Images

Since they began in 2018, the strategy has gone global. Plastic attacks have been reported in places including in Hong Kong, South Korea, Canada, Peru, and the United States. Some of the biggest demonstrations have drawn hundreds of participants.

The anti-plastic straw movement “triggered a lightbulb moment for a lot of people,” Nuñez said. “It ended up becoming a thing I call a gateway issue.”

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

Neuroimaging study provides insight into misinformation sharing among politically devoted conservatives



New research suggests that the spread of misinformation among politically devoted conservatives is influenced by identity-driven motives and may be resistant to fact-checks. These individuals tend to prioritize sharing information that aligns with their group identity, regardless of its accuracy. The new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, utilized behavioral tasks and neuroimaging to understand the underlying processes involved.

Social media has become a major source of news for many adults, but malicious agents are using such platforms to spread misinformation to larger audiences faster than ever before. Online misinformation can have serious real-world consequences, such as fueling political polarization, threatening democracy, and reducing vaccination intentions. Thus, the researchers wanted to understand the psychological processes behind the sharing of misinformation and explore potential interventions to counteract its spread.

“In the past, I had been working on extremism and ‘will to fight’ among supporters of Salafi-jihadist groups. Even though I found those groups very interesting to study, there was a cross-cultural barrier that made it hard for me to have intuitions about where they came from and what motivated them,” said study author Clara Pretus, an assistant professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and principal investigator of the Social Brain Lab.

“Thus, I decided to leverage my knowledge of extremism to study far-right supporters. This is a group that I am more familiar with given that we share the same national and cultural context. Therefore, it’s easier for me to generate hypotheses about what their motives are and predict how they will respond to a given experimental condition. Far-right parties are also on the rise across Europe, which makes the question of what drives people to support these parties more pressing in the current political context.”

Pretus and her colleagues conducted a series of three experiments to investigate how political devotion, specifically in terms of sacred values and identity fusion, influences the spread of misinformation among conservative partisans.

In Experiment 1, the researchers recruited Spanish far-right voters and center-right voters through an online panel. They asked participants to rate the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to conservative sacred values (immigration, nationalism, and family values) and nonsacred values (roads and infrastructure, foreign affairs, and waste management). The posts were designed to look like real tweets and included critiques of the current liberal government. Participants were divided into three groups, each exposed to a different fact-check in an experimental block: the Twitter fact-check, an accuracy-based fact-check, or a media literacy-based fact-check.

The Twitter fact-check was designed to mimic the fact-checking labels that Twitter applies to certain tweets that contain disputed or misleading information. The label read, “This claim about… is disputed.” The accuracy-based fact-check involved a straightforward question about the truthfulness of the social media posts. The media literacy-based fact-check aimed to stimulate participants’ critical thinking about the techniques used to attract attention in social media posts.

The researchers assessed the participants’ value sacredness and identity fusion with their respective political parties. They also measured participants’ analytical thinking styles, scientific curiosity, intellectual humility, and media literacy.

The researchers found that far-right voters were more likely to share misinformation than center-right voters, especially when the misinformation was relevant to their sacred values. Identity fusion with a political party also predicted a higher likelihood of sharing misinformation, regardless of whether the content was related to sacred or nonsacred issues. However, popular interventions like fact-checks and accuracy nudges did not significantly reduce the likelihood of sharing misinformation among either far-right or center-right voters in Spain.

In Experiment 2, the researchers sought to replicate the effects of sacred values and identity fusion on sharing misinformation, this time among Republicans in the United States. They recruited participants who had voted for Republican Donald J. Trump in the previous two presidential elections. Similar to Experiment 1, the participants rated the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to sacred and nonsacred values. They were exposed to the Twitter fact-check in an experimental block, and half of the participants did not see any fact-checks (control group). The researchers also measured value sacredness, identity fusion with the Republican party, and identity fusion with Trump specifically.

The researchers found that Republicans fused with Trump were more likely to share misinformation than other Republicans, particularly when the misinformation was related to sacred values. Identity fusion with the Republican party also predicted a higher likelihood of sharing misinformation, regardless of the values involved.

The Twitter fact-check had a small but significant effect in reducing the likelihood of sharing misinformation among Republicans, but it did not have an effect on Republicans fused with Trump. These participants showed resistance to interventions against misinformation, even when the misinformation was perceived as implausible by other Republicans.

“One of the main accounts of why people share misinformation is that they don’t pay attention to information accuracy,” Pretus told PsyPost. “In this set of experiments, we find that this isn’t the case for conservatives and far-right supporters, who are responsible for sharing most misinformation on the internet. Specifically, we find that conservatives and far-right supporters in Spain, as well as Republicans in the United States, are more likely to share political messages that appeal to core partisan values (e.g., immigration) and are resistant to different fact-checking strategies. This means that misinformation sharing is driven by partisan motives among these populations and it’s therefore hard to counteract using available interventions against misinformation such as accuracy nudges.”

In Experiment 3, the researchers aimed to understand the neural activity and functional connectivity underlying the spread of misinformation related to sacred values among far-right partisans using social media. They recruited 36 far-right partisans who supported the party “Vox” and were 18 years or older. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing a task where they had to rate the likelihood of sharing social media posts related to sacred and nonsacred values.

During the fMRI task, participants were shown social media posts (simplified versions of those used in previous experiments) and were asked to indicate how likely they would be to share each post. The posts were related to either sacred values (e.g., immigration) or nonsacred values. Some of the posts also included fact-checks, specifically the Twitter fact-check used in previous experiments.

The findings revealed that when participants were exposed to misinformation relevant to sacred values, certain brain regions were more active compared to when they were exposed to misinformation related to nonsacred values. These brain regions included the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral inferior frontal cortex, and precuneus. These areas are associated with theory of mind (understanding others’ mental states) and social norm compliance, which may play a role in how people evaluate and respond to in-group messages that appeal to sacred values.

“When it comes to sharing messages on core partisan values, we also find widespread neural activity in brain regions that help people guess others’ mental states and respond in line with group norms,” Pretus told PsyPost. “This suggests that sharing misinformation on core partisan values has an important social signaling function, that allows group members to show others that they belong. Therefore, it’s critical for group members to be socially accurate in their sharing behavior so that they are in tune with the group.”

Moreover, a functional connectivity analysis showed stronger communication between brain networks involved in cognitive control and social cognition when participants engaged with misinformation related to sacred values.

“I was surprised at the widespread brain activation we found among far-right supporters when exposed to political messages on core partisan values compared to other partisan values,” Pretus explained. “When comparing such closely related experimental conditions in a functional neuroimaging study, such as messages on core partisan values vs. other partisan values, the resulting brain activity is often very localized and minor.

“Here, we find very strong and widespread activation across neural networks that help people manage social relationships. This suggests that decisions involving core partisan values fulfill a very important socializing function, which could have an adaptive value in the primitive environments where our brains evolved.”

However, Pretus noted that “one of the main limitations is that we did not have a control group in the neuroimaging study. Therefore, we don’t know if the brain response to sharing messages on partisan core values is unique to far-right supporters or we could maybe also find it among far-left supporters, or even just among any type of partisans dealing with partisan core values.”

The study, “The Role of Political Devotion in Sharing Partisan Misinformation and Resistance to Fact-Checking“, was authored by Clara Pretus, Camila Servin-Barthet, Elizabeth A. Harris, William J. Brady, Oscar Vilarroya, and Jay J. Van Bavel.

2023/07/30
© PsyPost

GEMOLOGY/GEOLOGY

We’ve discovered how diamonds make their way to the surface and it may tell us where to find them

The Conversation
August 1, 2023

Diamond (Shutterstock)

“A diamond is forever.” That iconic slogan, coined for a highly successful advertising campaign in the 1940s, sold the gemstones as a symbol of eternal commitment and unity.

But our new research, carried out by researchers in a variety of countries and published in Nature, suggests that diamonds may be a sign of break up too – of Earth’s tectonic plates, that is. It may even provide clues to where is best to go looking for them.

Diamonds, being the hardest naturally-occurring stones, require intense pressures and temperatures to form. These conditions are only achieved deep within the Earth. So how do they get from deep within the Earth, up to the surface?

Diamonds are carried up in molten rocks, or magmas, called kimberlites. Until now, we didn’t know what process caused kimberlites to suddenly shoot through the Earth’s crust having spent millions, or even billions, of years stowed away under the continents.

Supercontinent cycles

Most geologists agree that the explosive eruptions that unleash diamonds happen in sync with the supercontinent cycle: a recurring pattern of landmass formation and fragmentation that has defined billions of years of Earth’s history.

However, the exact mechanisms underlying this relationship are debated. Two main theories have emerged.

One proposes that kimberlite magmas exploit the “wounds” created when the Earth’s crust is stretched or when the slabs of solid rock covering the Earth – known as tectonic plates – split up. The other theory involves mantle plumes, colossal upwellings of molten rock from the core-mantle boundary, located about 2,900km beneath the Earth’s surface.



A representation of the internal structure of the Earth. USGS

Both ideas, however, are not without their problems. Firstly, the main part of the tectonic plate, known as the lithosphere, is incredibly strong and stable. This makes it difficult for fractures to penetrate, enabling magmas to flush through.

In addition, many kimberlites don’t display the chemical “flavors” we’d expect to find in rocks derived from mantle plumes.

In contrast, kimberlite formation is thought to involve exceedingly low degrees of mantle rock melting, often less than 1%. So, another mechanism is needed. Our study offers a possible resolution to this longstanding conundrum.

We deployed statistical analysis, including machine learning – an application of artificial intelligence (AI) – to forensically examine the link between continental breakup and kimberlite volcanism. The results of our global study showed the eruptions of most kimberlite volcanoes occurred 20 to 30 million years after the tectonic breakup of Earth’s continents.

Furthermore, our regional study targeting the three continents where most kimberlites are found – Africa, South America and North America – supported this finding. It also added a major clue: kimberlite eruptions tend to gradually migrate from the continental edges to the interiors over time at a rate that is uniform across the continents.

This begs the question: what geological process could explain these patterns? To address this question, we employed multiple computer models to capture the complex behavior of continents as they experience stretching, alongside the convective movements within the underlying mantle.

Domino effect

We propose that a domino effect can explain how breakup of the continents eventually leads to formation of kimberlite magma. During rifting, a small region of the continental root – areas of thick rock located under some continents – is disrupted and sinks into the underlying mantle.

Here, we get sinking of colder material and upwelling of hot mantle, causing a process called edge-driven convection. Our models show that this convection triggers a chain of similar flow patterns that migrate beneath the nearby continent.


Our models show that while sweeping along the continental root, these disruptive flows remove a substantial amount of rock, tens of kilometers thick, from the base of the continental plate.

Various other results from our computer models then advance to show that this process can bring together the necessary ingredients in the right amounts to trigger just enough melting to generate gas-rich kimberlites. Once formed, and with great buoyancy provided by carbon dioxide and water, the magma can rise rapidly to the surface carrying its precious cargo.


It hasn’t been clear how the molten rock carrying diamonds got to the surface from deep within the Earth. 

N. Deligne / USGS

Finding new diamond deposits

This model doesn’t contradict the spatial association between kimberlites and mantle plumes. On the contrary, the breakup of tectonic plates may or may not result from the warming, thinning and weakening of the plate caused by plumes.

However, our research clearly shows that the spatial, time-based and chemical patterns observed in most kimberlite-rich regions can’t be adequately explained solely by the presence of plumes.

The processes triggering the eruptions that bring diamonds to the surface appear to be highly systematic. They start on the edges of continents and migrate towards the interior at a relatively uniform rate.

This information could be used to identify the possible locations and timings of past volcanic eruptions tied to this process, offering insights that could enable the discovery of diamond deposits and other rare elements needed for the green energy transition.


If we are to look for new deposits, it’s worth bearing in mind that there are currently efforts by campaign groups to try to eliminate from world markets those diamonds that are used to fund wars (conflict diamonds) or those coming from mines with poor conditions for workers.

Diamonds may or may not be forever, but our work shows that new ones have been repeatedly created over long periods in the history of our planet.

Thomas Gernon, Associate Professor in Earth Science, University of Southampton


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cannabis-based medicines show promising results in treating generalized anxiety disorder



Cannabis-based medicinal products might help to improve symptom severity, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life in those with anxiety, according to new research published in the journal Psychopharmacology. The findings highlight the need for further research, including randomized controlled trials, to investigate the effectiveness of these products.

Anxiety disorders are widespread mental health conditions affecting a significant number of individuals worldwide. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a common form of anxiety, characterized by persistent worry and accompanied by physical and mental symptoms. GAD can have a negative impact on the quality of life and is associated with increased suicidality and completed suicide.

The current first-line pharmacological treatments for GAD in the UK include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other medications. However, a substantial percentage of individuals do not respond to these treatments, and SSRIs can take several weeks to be effective and may have significant side effects. Thus, there is a need for new treatment options, especially for individuals who do not benefit from current pharmaceutical options.

The researchers explored the potential of the endocannabinoid system as a target for pharmacological intervention. Cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in cannabis, has shown anxiolytic effects in pre-clinical and clinical studies, while another cannabis compound, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), has been associated with acute increases in anxiety. The interaction between CBD and THC is complex, and their exact ratio and pharmacological effects are not fully understood.

To study the effects of cannabis-based medicinal products in treating GAD, the researchers utilized data from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. The registry, managed by Sapphire Medical Clinics, records patient data from individuals prescribed cannabis-based medicinal products. The study involved analyzing data from a larger cohort of patients treated with cannabis-based medicinal products for GAD, allowing for better analysis of longer-term outcomes.

“Since medical cannabis first became available in the UK for specialist doctors to prescribe to eligible patients in 2018, it has been clear to us that it is important to grow the evidence base on the efficacy and safety of these products,” explained study author Simon Erridge, the head of research at Sapphire Medical Clinics.

“Due to the limitations on researching the medicinal properties of cannabis, there has been a paucity of high-quality clinical data to inform the decisions of guideline bodies and clinicians. As such most medical cannabis products are unlicensed in the UK and can only be considered as an option for patients who have failed to benefit from licensed medical options.”

“By setting up the UK Medical Cannabis Registry, which this paper uses data from, we hope to achieve three things,” Erridge said. “Firstly, to have a robust pharmacovigilance system to capture the adverse events associated with medical cannabis therapy, to evaluate its safety.”

“Secondly, we hope to provide evidence of real-world evidence of its effects on people with chronic health conditions, including anxiety, to inform current clinical practice. Finally, through using this data in the right way we can help inform future randomised controlled trials to accelerate clinical translation.”

The researchers analyzed data from 302 patients, including demographic information, product details (type of product, dosage), patient-reported outcome measures, adverse events, and other medications used by the patients. The primary focus was on changes in anxiety symptoms, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life outcomes, which were assessed using standardized questionnaires.

Results from the study showed that patients treated with cannabis-based medicinal products experienced significant improvements in anxiety, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life at 1, 3, and 6 months after prescription. Around 50% of patients experienced a clinically significant reduction in anxiety symptoms. Adverse events were reported in about 13% of patients, with no severe or life-threatening side effects.

“The key findings from this paper were that in patients with generalized anxiety disorder prescribed medical cannabis we saw significant changes in anxiety, health-related quality of life, and sleep quality,” Erridge told PsyPost. “These changes were seen as early as one month and up to 6 months follow up.”

“These findings support the data we have shown through previous studies, but the finding that stands out to us is that 43.6% of participants at 6 months reported a clinically significant improvement in their generalized anxiety symptoms. As mentioned, in the UK, to be prescribed medical cannabis you must have previously found no benefit from licensed therapies, such as selective serotonin receptor inhibitors or tricyclic antidepressants. Whilst medical cannabis is not a panacea and will not work for all individuals, to observe that number of individuals reporting changes in their anxiety was fascinating.”

However, the sample in this study may not be entirely representative of the general population with GAD due to certain characteristics of the participants. For example, a majority of the participants were males, and a significant proportion had prior or current experience with non-medical cannabis use before enrolling in the registry. These characteristics may introduce some bias and limit the generalizability of the findings to the broader GAD population.

“Whilst real-world evidence such as this has many benefits, it is important to always understand that whilst we can see signals of change in the patients who take part, randomized controlled trials will still be required to determine the exact effects of medical cannabis on generalized anxiety disorder,” Erridge said. “However, through conducting this type of research, we hope it can help inform those randomized controlled trials going forward.”

Although the study has limitations, including potential bias and lack of a placebo-controlled group, it provides valuable real-world data on the potential benefits and safety of cannabis-based medicinal products in treating GAD. The findings suggest the need for further research, including randomized controlled trials, to establish the efficacy and safety of cannabis-based medicinal products in managing anxiety disorders.

The study, “Clinical outcome data of anxiety patients treated with cannabis-based medicinal products in the United Kingdom: a cohort study from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry“, was authored by Raphael Rifkin-Zybutz, Simon Erridge, Carl Holvey, Ross Coomber, Jessica Gaffney, Will Lawn, Daniela Barros, Urmila Bhoskar, Gracia Mwimba, Kavita Praveen, Chris Symeon, Simmi Sachdeva-Mohan, James J. Rucker, and Mikael H. Sodergren.

2023/08/02

© PsyPost

Dance together, bond together: New study sheds light on the evolutionary function of dance



Engaging in physical activities with others, such as dancing together, significantly increases the sense of bonding with the group but it does not necessarily lead to more generosity or altruism towards strangers within that group, according to new research. The study’s results, which appear in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, challenge previous assumptions about the role of cooperation in the evolution of sociality and highlight the importance of considering distinct cognitive processes in social interactions.

The motivation behind this study was to investigate how synchronized movement, such as dancing in particular, relates to social bonding and cooperation within human communities. Synchronized movement involves individuals moving together in a coordinated manner, like dancers moving in unison or a group exercising in sync. This phenomenon is quite common in human interactions, from traditional cultural rituals and celebrations to modern-day dancing.

The researchers were curious to understand how this synchronized movement influences the way people feel connected to each other and how it might affect their willingness to cooperate and work together as a group. They wanted to explore whether engaging in synchronized activities might create a sense of togetherness and lead to increased cooperation within the community.

“I first became interested in dance (and music more generally) because of the role it seemed to play in creating social cohesion in small scale ethnographic societies,” said study author Robin Dunbar, an emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford and author of “Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships.”

“Many researchers assumed that societies evolved to enable cooperative ventures, but this had led directly to a difficulty in showing that cooperation alone was sufficient for sociality to evolve — too often it leads to various forms of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the advantages of exploiting a cooperator’s altruism undermine the act of cooperation.”

“It seemed to me that we had collectively misunderstood the problem of cooperation. Societies do not evolve to facilitate cooperation; instead, cooperation emerges as a freebee once you have created a bonded society. Dance might be one of the mechanisms used to create a bonded society.”

To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted experimental studies using dance and compared it with unsynchronized gym circuit training as a baseline condition. They organized the dance sessions and gym sessions as regular public activities, allowing participants to attend without being aware of the study’s true purpose.

A total of 167 participants were recruited. The participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 67 years, with an average age of 27.51 years. The participants were asked to complete questionnaires about their mood and bonding with the group. The researchers also measured their willingness to be generous toward a stranger using a “dictator game.”

The dictator game is a simple economic game often used in social science research to assess altruism and generosity. It is designed to explore how individuals make choices about distributing resources when they have the power to decide on behalf of others. In the current study, each participant received £5 in coins. They were given the power to decide how much of this money they wanted to keep for themselves and how much they wanted to give away to another person in the study.

The researchers found that when people spent time together doing a physical activity (whether dancing or exercising), it significantly increased their sense of bonding or feeling connected to each other. However, this increased bonding did not necessarily lead to more generosity in giving away money to others or in trusting them.

“Like many of the other behaviors we use in our social interactions, dancing together is one of the mechanisms we use to create the bonded relationships (friendships) that underpin our cohesive social groups,” Dunbar told PsyPost. “They do not, however, necessarily encourage us to behave altruistically towards strangers. What it does is allow us to build a relationship of trust that facilitates altruism.”

The results suggest that there might be distinct cognitive processes involved in forming close social bonds with others compared to being altruistic or cooperative with them. While bonding with others might be influenced by emotional and non-deliberative factors, being generous or cooperative might involve more conscious thought and consideration of costs and benefits.

“We were surprised by the results of this study, because we were in fact expecting to show that dancing together made people immediately more altruistic towards strangers — that this was indeed the function of all these kinds of social activities,” Dunbar explained. “Because we were unable to explain what appeared to be negative results, we set the study aside, thinking we must have designed the experiment badly.”

“But later we got identical results in a study of laughter (laughing together in a group bonds you together, but doesnt make you behave more generously towards a stranger). It took us around 10 years and a lot of other work on sociality to realize that, in fact, we had not designed the study badly at all; rather we had misconstrued the nature of sociality.”

The study suggest that altruism, cooperation, and other forms of prosocial behavior might not be the initial cause of creating bonded relationships and groups, but rather, they could be the outcome or result of such connections.

Instead of individuals cooperating first and then forming close relationships, it appears that the process works in the opposite direction: bonding and creating strong social ties might be the catalyst for altruistic and cooperative behaviors. When people feel a sense of belonging and connection with others, they are more likely to act in ways that benefit the group as a whole, even without explicit negotiations or conscious deliberation.

But the researchers said that it would be valuable to conduct the same study again but with a longitudinal design. Tracking the same group of participants over an extended period would allow them to better examine whether they became more likely to act altruistically towards each other once a strong bond has been established via repeated interactions.

“It is always good to replicate studies to show that an effect holds under many different conditions,” Dunbar told PsyPost. “Unfortunately, journal editors tend not to like replication studies because they are always hoping for the study that produces a theory-changing finding — the golden goose egg of science. Unfortunately, in science, publishing studies that claim to have ‘novel’ or ‘world-changing’ findings is invariably less useful than publishing replications, since very few studies that claim to have dramatically novel results actually turn out to do so: too often, they turn out to be based on unrecognized confounds or crass statistical naivety.”

“It is an object lesson that, in social and behavioral sciences, our attempts to make predictions are too often underdetermined by the weakness of our theories,” the researcher added. “Our predictions are too often more a case of virtue signalling in an attempt to appear scientific. Real science is about understanding the world, and in these cases is often better done by what philosophers of science refer to as ‘postdiction’ rather than prediction. Like most of the null hypotheses in our statistical tests, our predictions are too often naive and theoretically trivial.

“A second object lesson is that data trump theory in science: as the great founding father of the philosophy of science, Karl Popper, reminded us, when we get experimental results that seem to contradict our theory, it isn’t always because the theory is wrong — more often than not it is because we have designed a bad experiment because we have overlooked a confounding variable or misunderstood the complexity of the real world,” Dunbar added.

The study, “The Evolutionary Role of Dance: Group Bonding But Not Prosocial Altruism“, was authored by Bronwyn Tarr and Robin I. M. Dunbar.

2023/08/03
© PsyPost

How swarming animals can help humans and AI make better decisions

The Conversation
August 3, 2023, 

Starling murmurations form as daylight fades over their roosting sites. 

Shutterstock / Albert Beukhof

The word swarm often carries negative connotations – think biblical plagues of locusts or high streets full of last-minute shoppers during the Christmas rush. However, swarming is essential for the survival of many animal collectives. And now research into swarming has the potential to change things for humans too.

Bees swarm to make their search for new colonies more effective. Flocks of starlings use dazzling murmurations to evade and confuse predators. These are just two examples from nature but swarming can be seen in almost every corner of the animal kingdom.

Research from mathematicians, biologists and social scientists is helping us understand swarming and harness its power. It’s already being used for crowd control, traffic management and to understand the spread of infectious diseases. More recently, it’s starting to shape how we use data for healthcare, operate drones in military conflicts and has been used to beat near-insurmountable betting odds in sporting events.

A swarm is a system that is greater than the sum of its parts. Just as many neurons form a brain capable of thought, memory and emotion, groups of animals can act in unison to form a “super brain”, displaying highly complex behavior not seen in individual animals.

Artificial life expert Craig Reynolds revolutionized the study of swarming in 1986 with the publication of the Boids model computer simulation. The Boids model breaks down swarming into a simple set of rules.

The Boids (bird-oids) in the simulation, like avatars or characters in a video game, are instructed to move in the same direction as their neighbors, move towards the average position of their neighbors, and avoid collisions with other boids.

Boids simulations are strikingly accurate when compared with real swarms.

The Boids model suggests that swarming does not need leaders to coordinate behavior – like pedestrians in a town centre rather than a guided museum tour. The complex behavior we see in swarms arises from interactions between individuals following the same simple rules in parallel. In the language of physics, this phenomenon is known as emergence.

The hive mind

In 2016, US technology company Unanimous AI used the power of swarm intelligence to win the Kentucky Derby “superfecta” bet, successfully predicting the first, second, third and fourth-placed riders in the famous US horse race.

Industry experts and conventional machine learning algorithms made swathes of incorrect predictions. However, amateur racing enthusiasts recruited by Unanimous AI pooled their knowledge to beat the 541/1 odds.


Hopeful punters bet millions of dollars on the Kentucky Derby each year. 

Shutterstock / Cheryl Ann Quigley

The volunteers’ success lay in the way in which their predictions were generated. Instead of voting on riders and aggregating their choices, the volunteers used Unanimous AI’s swarm intelligence platform to participate in a real-time digital tug of war, inspired by swarms of birds and bees.

All volunteers simultaneously pulled a dial towards their respective choices. This allowed people to change their preferences in response to the actions of others (for example, a person may have switched to pulling towards their second choice, B, rather than their first choice, C, if they saw A and B were the clear favorites).

Responding to one another in real time allowed Unanimous AI’s volunteers to collectively outperform highly-informed individuals.

What’s more, had the most frequent individual picks of the volunteers determined the ordering, only the 2016 winner and bookies’ favorite, Nyquist, would have been placed correctly.

Health concerns

Similar swarming technologies are also of increasing interest in the healthcare sector, where talk of an AI revolution is prompting increasing concerns around patient privacy.

As the reliance on data-driven techniques in healthcare increases, so too does the demand for extensive patient datasets. One way to meet these demands is to pool information between institutions and in some cases, countries.


However, the transfer of patient data is often subject to stringent data protection regulations. A solution to this problem is to use only in-house data, though this often comes at the expense of diagnostic accuracy.

An alternative lies in swarming. Researchers believe swarm intelligence can preserve diagnostic accuracy without the need for raw data exchange between institutions.

Preliminary studies have shown decentralizing data storage into a network of interacting nodes can give institutions the benefit of shared wisdom. This means there isn’t a central hub coordinating the flow of information, and institutions can’t access the private patient data of each other.

Centralized machine learning uses data uploaded to a shared hub where machine learning takes place using all available data. In decentralized systems, each institution separately stores its data in its own node. The machine learning happens locally at each node (using only in-house data), but the results of machine learning are shared between the network, to the benefit of all nodes. This process ensures that raw patient data is not exchanged between institutions, preserving patient privacy.



Swarms of drones may soon populate the battlefield. 

Shutterstock / Andy Dean Photography

Swarms and warfare

Drone technology is increasingly used in front-line combat, in recent times most notably by Ukrainian forces in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, as it stands, conventional drone technology requires one-to-one supervision.

Current defense research aims to facilitate communication between drones, allowing one controller to operate swarms of drones. The development of such technology promises to vastly improve the scalability, reconnaissance and striking capabilities of combat drones by allowing for continuous information relay within groups of drones.

As research delves deeper into swarming, we find a world where collective action creates complexity, adaptability, and efficiency. As technology evolves, the role of swarm intelligence is set to grow, intertwining our world with the fascinating dynamics of swarms.

Samuel Johnson, DPhil Candidate in Mathematical Biology, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

ECOCIDE
Polish operator PERN says leak detected in Druzhba oil pipeline to Europe

File photo of firefighters working in the field near the Druzhba pipeline where an oil leak was detected, near the village of Zurawice, Poland, on October 12, 2022. (Reuters)

Reuters, Warsaw
Published: 06 August ,2023

Polish pipeline operator PERN detected a leak on Saturday even-ing in one line of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Rus-sia to Europe, and halted oil pumping through the line, it said.

The leak was detected near Chodecz, central Poland, on one of the two lines of the western section of the Druzhba through which crude oil reaches Germany, PERN said.

For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

PERN said the second line of was operating without any changes and there was no health threat to local residents, adding the com-pany was investigating the cause of the incident.

It did not say what the impact on supply would be or when the line was expected to be fixed.

“Other elements of PERN’s infrastructure, including (Druzhba’s) Pomeranian section, which is used to pump crude oil arriving in tankers to Poland and then further to Germany, are operating in standard mode,” the company said.

Firefighters and PERN emergency services are at the scene of the incident, securing the area, the company said.