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Friday, February 14, 2020

HEY DOUGH BOY

WWI helmets protect against shock waves just as well as modern designs

iomedical engineers from Duke University have demonstrated that, despite significant advancements in protection from ballistics and blunt impacts, modern military helmets are no better at protecting the brain from shock waves created by nearby blasts than their World War I counterparts. And one model in particular, the French Adrian helmet, actually performed better than modern designs in protecting from overhead blasts.

The research could help improve the blast protection of future helmets through choosing different materials, layering multiple materials of different acoustic impedance, or altering their geometry.

The results appeared online on February 13 in the journal PLOS ONE.

"While we found that all helmets provided a substantial amount of protection against blast, we were surprised to find that the 100-year-old helmets performed just as well as modern ones," said Joost Op 't Eynde, a biomedical engineering PhD student at Duke and first author of the study. "Indeed, some historical helmets performed better in some respects."

Researchers have only recently begun to study the brain damage a shock wave can cause on its own—and for good reason. Helmets were originally designed to protect from penetrating objects like bullets and shrapnel, and blast waves will kill through pulmonary trauma long before they cause even minor brain damage.

With the advent of body armor, however, soldiers' lungs are much more protected from such blasts than they used to be. This has caused the incidence of pulmonary trauma following a blast to drop far below that of brain or spine injuries in modern military conflicts, despite the difference in blast tolerance.

While there have been studies that suggest modern helmets provide a degree of protection from shock waves, no currently deployed helmet has been specifically designed for blast protection. And because soldiers today experiencing shock waves while wearing body armor aren't all that different from soldiers 100 years ago experiencing shock waves while in the trenches, Op 't Eynde decided to see if those old designs offered any lessons to be learned.

"This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to assess the protective capabilities of these historical combat helmets against blasts," said Op 't Eynde.

Working with Cameron "Dale" Bass, associate research professor of biomedical engineering at Duke, Op 't Eynde created a system to test the performance of World War I helmets from the United Kingdom/United States (Brodie), France (Adrian), Germany (Stahlhelm) and a current United States combat variant (Advanced Combat Helmet).

The researchers took turns placing different helmets on a dummy's head outfitted with pressure sensors at various locations. They then placed the head directly underneath a shock tube, which was pressurized with helium until a membrane wall burst, releasing the gas in a shock wave. The helmets were tested with shock waves of varying strength, each corresponding to a different type of German artillery shell exploding from a distance of one to five meters away.

The amount of pressure experienced at the crown of the head was then compared to brain injury risk charts created in previous studies. While all helmets provided a five-to-tenfold reduction in risk for moderate brain bleeding, the risk for someone wearing a circa-1915 French "Adrian" helmet was less than for any of the other helmets tested, including the modern advanced combat helmet.

"The result is intriguing because the French helmet was manufactured using similar materials as its German and British counterparts, and even had a thinner wall," said Op 't Eynde. "The main difference is that the French helmet had a crest on top of its crown. While it was designed to deflect shrapnel, this feature might also be deflecting shock waves."

t also might be that, because the pressure sensor was mounted directly under the crest, the crest provided an additional first layer for reflecting the shock wave. And the French helmet did not show the same advantage in pressure sensors at any other location. For locations such as the ears, performance seemed to be dictated by the width of the helmet's brim and just how much of the head it actually covered.

As for the modern helmet, Op 't Eynde theorizes that its layered structure might be important in its performance. Because a shock wave is reflected every time it encounters a new material with a different acoustic impedance, the layered structure of the modern helmet might contribute to its blast protection.

But no matter which helmet was tested, the results clearly indicated that helmets might play an especially important role in protecting against mild blast-induced brain trauma. According to the researchers, this finding alone shows the importance of continuing this type of research to design helmets that can better absorb shock waves from nearby overhead explosions.

"The difference a simple crest or a wider brim can make in blast protection, shows just how important this line of research could be," said Op 't Eynde, who initially came to Duke on a scholarship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation, which was established with funds from American relief efforts in Belgium during World War I. "With all of the modern materials and manufacturing capabilities we possess today, we should be able to make improvements in helmet design that protects from blast waves better than helmets today or 100 years ago."Material for safer football helmets may reduce head injuries

More information: Joost Op 't Eynde et al. Primary blast wave protection in combat helmet design: A historical comparison between present day and World War I, PLOS ONE (2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228802

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Shell staff say they are ‘deeply concerned’ by shift from green energy in open letter to chief

James Warrington
Wed, 27 September 2023 a

shell energy transition

Shell employees have said they are “deeply concerned” by the oil giant’s shift away from green energy in a blistering open letter to the chief executive.

Wael Sawan, chief executive of Shell, has set out plans to scale back the company’s investment in renewables in a bid to boost profits.

The strategy could involve the FTSE 100 company selling a stake in or even spinning off its global renewable power business entirely. It recently scrapped the role of global head of renewables.

The open letter, which was posted on Shell’s internal website and seen by Reuters, read: “For a long time, it has been Shell’s ambition to be a leader in the energy transition. It is the reason we work here.

“The recent announcements at and after the capital markets day deeply concern us ... We can only hope the optics of the CMD [Capital Markets Day] announcements are deceiving us and that Shell continues its path as a leader in the energy transition.”

The letter, which was addressed to Mr Sawan and Shell’s executive committee, was signed by Lisette de Heiden and Wouter Drinkwaard, two employees in the company’s low-carbon division.

The public rebuke was viewed more than 80,000 times on Shell’s internal website and prompted a string of responses from other employees.

Responding to the letter, Mr Sawan said: “For an organisation at the crux of the energy transition, there are no easy answers and no shortage of dilemmas or challenges. We might not always agree on the way forward, but I feel good about the role Shell is, and will continue, to play.

“I am proud of how we provide affordable and secure energy to people every day, while we work hard to provide lower-carbon solutions to our customers, as we transition over time to a net-zero emissions business.”

Public rebuke of chief executive Wael Sawan's plans was viewed more than 80,000 times on Shell's internal website - REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

The internal backlash highlights the dilemma facing Shell as it tries to navigate the shift to renewable energy sources while managing investor demands.

Shares in rival BP, whose chief executive announced his shock resignation earlier this month, have underperformed in recent years as it pumps money into renewables amid surging energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Separately on Wednesday, French energy group Total said it will boost fossil fuel production over the next five years in a sharp reversal of its previous policy.

A Shell spokesman denied that the company had changed its strategy, insisting it was still committed to its aim of becoming a net zero emissions business by 2050.

The spokesman added: “We appreciate that our staff are engaged in and have passion for both the energy transition and Shell. That is important and we welcome an open dialogue.

“Shell is playing a meaningful role in addressing the energy transition, and at our recent Capital Markets Day we set out those areas of the energy system of today and tomorrow where we are best placed to invest, compete and win.

“In particular, we have competitive advantages in producing lower-carbon oil, selling LNG [liquified natural gas] that replaces coal, and offering customers low-carbon solutions through EV charging, biofuels and renewable power.”

Wednesday, April 09, 2025

Flex appeal: ‘Trade-off’ between armor and efficiency in sea turtle shells

Study uncovers biomechanics of marine turtles’ shells and how they’re built for survival

Florida Atlantic University

Loggerhead — image:
An adult loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtle, one of the three species explored in the study.
view more
Credit: Florida Atlantic University

When we picture sea turtles in the wild, it’s easy to envision them as armored warriors – their hard, resilient shells serving as near-impenetrable shields against oceanic threats like sharks. These sleek, streamlined shells aren’t just defensive – they’re engineered for speed, efficiency and survival. Designed to minimize drag, they allow sea turtles to glide effortlessly through the water, dive to astonishing depths, and handle the immense pressure shifts as they surface.

A sea turtle’s shell is a complex masterpiece, made up of two parts: the carapace (top) and the plastron (bottom), both covered in scutes – tough keratin plates tightly attached to the bone. The bone forms a unique “sandwich” of dense outer bone and a lightweight, spongy core, combining strength, buoyancy and protection for the turtle’s muscles, nerves and vital organs.

But what is it about these material properties that give marine turtles’ shells such remarkable protection and agility? While much has been studied about the shells of freshwater turtles and land tortoises, marine turtles have received comparatively little attention.

To fill this gap, researchers from Florida Atlantic University dove deep into the biomechanical properties of the carapaces of three common sea turtle species from the North Atlantic: green turtles (Chelonia mydas), loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and Kemp’s ridleys (Lepidochelys kempii). Their findings have revealed surprising new insights into the development of these ocean-dwelling titans.

Using advanced compression tests and statistical models, the team examined the toughness, stiffness and strength of these turtles’ shells across many stages of life – from juveniles to adults.

Their results, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, show that the shell bone complex of marine turtles plays a crucial role in balancing biomechanical trade-offs such as lower stiffness and a high degree of flexibility to protect them against predators and environmental stressors while also optimizing their ability to move efficiently through water. This unique adaptation highlights the complex and dynamic nature of marine turtle morphology, where the shell’s design must accommodate the demands of both survival and efficient locomotion in their aquatic habitats.

Although all three species share a similar structural design, they each display striking differences in how their shells respond to stress. Green turtles, for instance, boast the toughest, stiffest shells, with denser, stronger bones. Meanwhile, loggerheads have more flexible, porous carapaces, a design that is more compliant under pressure. These variations likely reflect each species’ evolutionary response to their unique environments and the threats they face.

Interestingly, the toughness of a turtle’s shell remains constant as it grows within each species.

“We believe this variation is likely a result of their evolution and the environments they inhabit,” said Ivana J. Lezcano, first author and doctoral student in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “The differences in shell stiffness across these species may be connected to their distinct life histories, with each species adapting to unique environmental challenges and predation risks.”

For both green turtles and Kemp’s ridleys, their shells become even stiffer and stronger as they grow larger, offering greater defense – especially as subadults and adults. Kemp’s ridleys, in particular, experience a faster increase in shell stiffness as they grow, possibly because they mature earlier and shift to foraging in riskier coastal waters.

“What’s fascinating is that their shells evolve to provide more protection over time,” said Lezcano. “The stiffness of juvenile green turtle shells may be especially important because their shells lack the protective spines and keels, which young loggerheads and ridleys sport to armor themselves against predators. It’s a dynamic interplay of form and function that ensures these turtles are built for survival.”

Loggerheads, however, didn’t show a significant change in shell stiffness across life stages. This slower development in shell stiffness could explain why they stay in the open ocean for a longer period, avoiding the more dangerous coastal habitats until they are larger and better protected.

Researchers also discovered that marine turtles’ shells respond to compression in a similar way to those of land turtles, which have a similar basic shell structure. The shell’s internal porous layer is key to its strength, allowing it to be both stiff and tough, which helps protect turtles from attacks like biting or clawing.

“The shells of adult sea turtles are surprisingly compliant compared to their land relatives,” said Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D., co-author and a professor of biological sciences, FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. “But here’s the cool part: while their shells become stronger over time, they don’t become completely rigid like the shells of land turtles. This flexibility is key – because it enables them to ‘flex the shell’ under pressure, which is crucial for navigating the harsh and varying conditions of underwater environments.”

This study not only uncovers the fascinating design of sea turtle shells but also reveals how nature has intricately fine-tuned these creatures for survival.

“Our study provides new insights into why sea turtles have thrived over time,” said Marianne Porter, Ph.D., co-author and an associate professor in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences. “Their shells are adapted to their aquatic lifestyle, and stiff enough to defend against predators while being tough enough to absorb shock. This remarkable balance of strength and flexibility has allowed them to survive in the ocean for millions of years – an example of evolution shaping species in an environment.”

- FAU -

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, Florida Atlantic serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the Southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, Florida Atlantic embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. Florida Atlantic is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report, and holds the designation of “R1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production” by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Florida Atlantic shares this status with less than 5% of the nearly 4,000 universities in the United States. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

A CT cross-section of a piece of shell showing the dense outer and porous inner bone.

The shell of a juvenile Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle.

Credit

Florida Atlantic University

Journal

Journal of Experimental Biology

DOI

10.1242/jeb.249959

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Using the axial skeleton as armor: Mechanical behavior of sea turtle carapaces throughout ontogeny

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

“Punch-drunk slugnuts” and the language of violence: Tracing the impact of sports slang on modern perceptions of neurodegenerative disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS

Throughout the twentieth century, being “punch drunk” was a commonly encountered condition—one denoted by an equally pervasive term. Similar turns of phrase, like “slugnutty” and “punchy,” persisted for decades in books, newspapers, and magazines. Even today, “punch-drunk,” “goofy,” and “slaphappy” can be found scattered across different media.

This slang originated among working-class populations in the United States and Britain to mock the diminished mental and physical capacity of an individual who had received too many blows to the head. “Punch-drunk slugnuts” exhibited mental decline, grogginess, irritability, and slurred speech.

In “Punch-Drunk Slugnuts: Violence and the Vernacular History of Disease,” published in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, Stephen T. Casper, professor of history at Clarkson University, illustrates how slurs and insults characteristic of a violent interwar culture served as descriptors of debilitating head trauma, and how this language was incorporated into medicine. Casper examines the role slang terms—many associated with the world of contact sports—played in conceptualizing and treating brain injuries and resulting neurological illnesses. Given widespread observation of head trauma and its effects, colloquialisms allowed the illness to be recognizable. At the same time, they inhibited its conceptualization as a serious disease requiring medical intervention.

Casper’s analysis draws on various sources containing vernacular terms to describe damage from repetitive brain injuries, including interviews from the Folklore Project by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), literary descriptions, journalistic pieces, court documents, autobiographical accounts, and medical texts.

Medical professionals studying brain injuries and neurodegenerative disease established connections between their observations and slang circulating in the public sphere. Beginning with Harrison Martland’s essay “Punch Drunk” in 1928, subsequent clinical research included slang terms. Use of this vernacular, in turn, led to the classification of neurological disease induced by repetitive head trauma as “chronic traumatic encephalopathy.” However, the colloquialisms’ myriad connotations allowed for ambiguity in diagnosing the disorder and prevented it from achieving medical legitimacy.

Tracing the history of this vernacular economy reveals a culture that stigmatized sufferers and normalized male violence.

Sports presented a venue where brain injuries were visible, but attempts to medicalize trauma symptoms were challenged. Head trauma was a regular occurrence in high-contact sports, like football and boxing, but the everyday nature of injury was used to downplay its severity. Popular conceptualizations of sports at the time, especially boxing, were predicated on the relationship between masculinity, honor, and violence. Athletes were expected to withstand pain, embody stoicism, and inflict violence as a measure of masculinity. Inability to do so was viewed as a deficiency in one’s manhood. “Punchy” individuals who lost their athletic prowess were objects of derision and fell in social standing. Rather than acknowledge that repeated trauma caused deterioration, society employed racist, classist, and eugenic rationales, casting “punch-drunk slugnuts” as inherently inferior, as subpar fighters, and as dull-witted well before their injuries.

Accepting the affliction as a disease and treating these individuals, Casper argues, would have constituted a critique of mainstream culture and placed blame on its violent practices.

While highlighting the history of impact-related neurodegenerative disease and its lexicon, Casper also elaborates on “a disease population experience that fought against its own discovery” and how tendencies to dismiss the effects of recurrent head trauma continue today.

“Having originated from culture, been contested by culture, and remade by culture, the disease’s treatment demanded an impossible unmaking of culture. From its rough linguistic and anthropological origins to the uncovering of its biological specificity, the history of this disease traces our chronology of normal violence as entertainment, reveals its legacies in donated brains, and, above all, foretells tragic futures.”

JOURNAL

Isis

DOI

10.1086/719720

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Punch-Drunk Slugnuts: Violence and the Vernacular History of Disease

Stephen T. Casper discloses that he is retained by plaintiffs as an expert witness in medical history in pending concussion litigation involving American football, hockey, soccer, and rugby. He is a member of the Repercussions Group. He receives honoraria for lectures, as well as book royalties from the University of Manchester Press and Rochester University Press.

Why aren’t brain injuries taken seriously?

WWI helmets protect against shock waves

WHAT THEY CALL CONCUSSION OR SERIOUS BRAIN TRAUMA WAS ONCE KNOWN AS SHELL SHOCK AND LAST CENTURY DURING THE BIG ONE WWI IT WAS AN EXECUTABLE OFFENSE ON THE BATTLEFRONT FOR COWARDICE

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=WWI

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SHELL+SHOCK

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BATTLE+FATIGUE

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Brain Injuries Are Common in Battle. The Military Has No Reliable Test for Them.

Dave Philipps and Thomas Gibbons-Neff

U.S. troops at Ayn al Asad Air Base in western Iraq hunkered down in concrete bunkers last month as Iranian missile strikes rocked the runway, destroying guard towers, hangars and buildings used to fly drones.

© Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Ayn al Asad Air Base in western Iraq after an Iranian missile attack on Jan. 8. The number of service members experiencing symptoms associated with brain injuries has since topped 100.

When the dust settled, President Trump and military officials declared that no one had been killed or wounded during the attack. That would soon change.

A week after the blast, Defense Department officials acknowledged that 11 service members had tested positive for traumatic brain injury, or TBI, and had been evacuated to Kuwait and Germany for more screening. Two weeks after the blast, the Pentagon announced that 34 service members were experiencing symptoms associated with brain injuries, and that an additional seven had been evacuated. By the end of January the number of potential brain injuries had climbed to 50. This week it grew to 109.

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The Defense Department says the numbers are driven by an abundance of caution. It noted that 70 percent of those who tested positive for a TBI had since returned to duty. But experts in the brain injury field said the delayed response and confusion were primarily caused by a problem both the military and civilian world have struggled with for more than a decade: There is no reliable way to determine who has a brain injury and who does not.

Top military leaders have for years called traumatic brain injury one of the signature wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; at the height of the Iraq war in 2008, they started pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research on detection and treatment. But the military still has no objective tool for diagnosing brain injury in the field. Instead, medical personnel continue to use a paper questionnaire that relies on answers from patients — patients who may have reasons to hide or exaggerate symptoms, or who may be too shaken to answer questions accurately.

The military has long struggled with how to address so-called invisible war wounds, including traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite big investments in research that have yielded advances in the laboratory, troops on the ground are still being assessed with the same blunt tools that have been in use for generations.

The problem is not unique to the military. Civilian doctors struggle to accurately assess brain injuries, and still rely on a process that grades the severity of a head injury in part by asking patients a series of questions: Did they black out? Do they have memory problems or dizziness? Are they experiencing irritability or difficulty concentrating?

“It’s bad, bad, bad. You would never diagnose a heart attack or even a broken bone that way,” said Dr. Jeff Bazarian a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “And yet we are doing it for an injury to the most complex organ in the body. Here’s how crazy it gets: You are relying on people to report what happened. But the part of the brain most often affected by a traumatic brain injury is memory. We get a lot of false positives and false negatives.”

Without a good diagnosis, he said, doctors often don’t know whether a patient has a minor concussion that might require a day’s rest, or a life-threatening brain bleed, let alone potential long-term effects like depression and personality disorder.

At Ayn al Asad, personnel used the same paper questionnaires that field medics used in remote infantry platoons in 2010. Aaron Hepps, who was a Navy corpsman in a Marines infantry company in Afghanistan at that time, said it did not work well then for lesser cases, and the injuries of many Marines may have been missed. During and after his deployment, he counted brain injuries in roughly 350 Marines — about a third of the battalion.

After the January missile attack, Maj. Robert Hales, one of the top medical providers at the air base, said that the initial tests were “a good start,” but that it took numerous screenings and awareness among the troops to realize that repeated exposure to blast waves during the hourlong missile strikes had affected dozens.

Traumatic brain injuries are among the most common injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in part because armor to protect from bullet and shrapnel wounds has gotten better, but they offer little protection from the shock waves of explosions. More than 350,000 brain injuries have been reported in the military since 2001.

The concrete bunkers scattered around bases like Ain al Assad protect from flying shrapnel and debris, but the small quarters can amplify shock waves and lead to head trauma.

The blasts on Jan. 8, one military official said, were hundreds of times more powerful than the rocket and mortar attacks regularly aimed at U.S. bases, causing at least one concrete wall to collapse atop a bunker with people inside.

Capt. Geoff Hansen was in a Humvee at Ayn al Asad when the first missile hit, blowing open a door. Then a second missile hit.

“That kind of blew me back in,” he said. “Blew debris in my face so I went and sat back down a little confused.”

A tangle of factors make diagnosing head injuries in the military particularly tricky, experts say. Some troops try to hide symptoms so they can stay on duty, or avoid being perceived as weak. Others may play up or even invent symptoms that can make them eligible for the Purple Heart medal or valuable veteran’s education and medical benefits.

And sometimes commanders suspect troops with legitimate injuries of malingering and force them to return to duty. Pentagon officials said privately this week that some of the injuries from the Jan. 8 incident had probably been exaggerated. Mr. Trump seemed to dismiss the injuries at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland, last month. “I heard they had headaches,” he said. “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries I have seen.”

In the early years of the war in Iraq, troops with concussions were often given little medical treatment and were not eligible for the Purple Heart. It was only after clearly wounded troops began complaining of poor treatment that Congress got involved and military leaders began pressing for better diagnostic technology.

Damir Janigro, who directed cerebrovascular research at the Cleveland Clinic for more than a decade, said relying on the questionnaire makes accurate diagnosing extremely difficult.

“You have the problem of the cheaters, and the problem of the ones who don’t want to be counted,” he said. “But you have a third problem, which is that even if people are being completely honest, you still don’t know who is really injured.”

In civilian emergency rooms, the uncertainty leads doctors to approve unnecessary CT scans, which can detect bleeding and other damage to the brain, but are expensive and expose patients to radiation. At the same time doctors miss other patients who may need care. In a war zone, bad calls can endanger lives, as troops are either needlessly airlifted or kept in the field when they cannot think straight.

Mr. Janigro is at work on a possible solution. He and his team have developed a test that uses proteins found in a patient’s saliva to diagnose brain injuries. Other groups are developing a blood test.

Both tests work on a similar principle. When the brain is hit by a blast wave or a blow to the head, brain cells are stretched and damaged. Those cells then dispose of the damaged parts, which are composed of distinctive proteins. Abnormal levels of those proteins are dumped into the bloodstream, where for several hours they can be detected in both the blood and saliva. Both tests, and another test being developed that measures electrical activity in the brain, were funded in part by federal grants, and have shown strong results in clinical trials. Researchers say they could be approved for use by the F.D.A. in the next few years.

The saliva test being developed by Mr. Janigro will look a bit like an over-the-counter pregnancy test. Patients with suspected brain injuries would put sensors in their mouths, and within minutes get a message that says that their brain protein levels are normal, or that they should see a doctor.

But the new generation of testing tools may fall short, said Dr. Gerald Grant, a professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and a former Air Force lieutenant colonel who frequently treated head injuries while deployed to Iraq in 2005.

Even sophisticated devices had trouble picking up injuries from roadside bombs, he said.

“You’d get kids coming in with blast injuries,” he said, “and they clearly had symptoms, but the CT scans would be negative.”

He was part of an earlier effort to find a definitive blood test, which he said in an interview was “the holy grail.” But progress was slow. The grail was never found, he said, and the tests currently being developed are helpful for triaging cases, but too vague to be revolutionary.

“Battlefield injuries are complex,” he said. “We still haven’t found the magic biomarker.”

Why aren’t brain injuries taken seriously?

WWI helmets protect against shock waves

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

Effective therapies needed to halt rise in eco-anxiety, says psychology professor

Taylor & Francis Group

More must be done to address the growth in anxiety related to climate change, says a leading psychologist, before it becomes the next mental health crisis.

In his book Understanding Climate Anxiety, Geoff Beattie documents how climate anxiety is on the rise, especially amongst young people. Yet support is limited and sufferers face stigma because of the polarised debate around whether the climate crisis even exists, he says.

Understanding Climate Anxiety offers psychological tips and guidance on how to handle climate anxiety, especially important in the current political landscape which has seen a shift away from green targets.

“Climate anxiety is growing. It can be overwhelming and induce a form of psychological ‘eco‑paralysis’, impacting on both sleep and daily activities,” writes Professor Beattie from Edge Hill University.

Strategies outlined in the book include processing thoughts, feelings and fears about climate change by writing them down. He points out that research has demonstrated that mental well-being can be improved in people who are asked to write personal narratives over several days about their difficult emotional experiences.

“Reducing climate anxiety, and helping people deal more effectively with their negative emotions regarding climate change, is a pressing issue for us all. We need people to overcome their feelings of helplessness through this disinhibition of thoughts and feelings, and understand that positive action and change is possible,” Professor Beattie adds. The book is timely especially given that 2024 was the hottest year on record, and research suggests that one in five young people are afraid to bring children into a warming world.

However, climate change deniers reject the clear consensus amongst scientists that climate change is happening.

Understanding Climate Anxiety reviews the scientific evidence on climate change and discusses anxiety and other emotions triggered by this. It explains why it’s becoming so prevalent, and how it differs from other types of anxiety.

The book describes climate anxiety as a new type of anxiety shaped by the modern world and ‘the high carbon economies and industries that have flourished since the industrial revolution’.

Climate anxiety is caused by fear of environmental doom but experts disagree on how the condition should be measured and defined. Professor Beattie says this chronic form of psychological distress does not fit neatly with other clinically recognised forms of anxiety.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5), the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States and internationally, does not currently include climate anxiety and no specific support exists in national health services.

Professor Beattie points out that others forms of new trauma like ‘shell shock’ arising from the prolonged trench warfare of the First World War, were also slow to be clinically recognised. These days we refer to shell shock as ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’.

The broadcaster and academic says the scepticism and hostility targeted at people with climate change anxiety is similar in some respects to that shown towards traumatised troops in WWI: “Extraordinary now, when we look back,” he says.

He points out that climate change denial is a major factor for climate anxiety being dismissed as a hysterical reaction with many high-profile global figures dismissing the climate crisis as fiction.

A high-profile figure who has talked openly about the climate crisis and her own severe climate anxiety is activist Greta Thunberg.

This led to her ‘our house is on fire’ speech to the World Economic Forum in 2019. Professor Beattie says millions disregarded her message because it instilled too much fear without simultaneously telling them what they could do to change things. He writes: “Greta Thunberg was trying to remove all doubt with her simple message, with no ambiguity and no window dressing. But the problem is that too much fear in any message without addressing the issues of self-efficacy is also not an effective way of gaining compliance.”

Instead, Professor Beattie says people need to feel strong and empowered that they have ‘agency’ to change the future of the Earth in a positive way through their individual, societal and political actions. There is hope, but change begins with us.”

DOI

10.4324/9781032631882

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

South Africa court suspends Shell seismic survey plan
AFP

A South African court on Tuesday blocked Shell from using seismic waves to explore for oil and gas in the Indian Ocean, in a victory for environmentalists worried about the impact on whales and other species.

© RODGER BOSCH The ruling is a temporary victory for green groups who said seismic exploration would harm whales, seals and other fragile species

Backing a suit filed by conservationists, the High Court in the Eastern Cape town of Makhanda ruled that Shell was "hereby interdicted from undertaking seismic survey operations."

The fossil fuel giant had announced plans to start exploration over more than 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 square miles) of ocean off South Africa's Wild Coast region.

The Wild Coast is a 300-kilometre (185-mile) stretch of natural beauty, dotted with marine and nature reserves.

The area of interest lies 20 kilometres (12 miles) off the coast, in waters 700 to 3,000 meters deep (2,300 to 10,000 feet).

Shell's scheme entails using seismic shockwaves which bounce off the sea bed, and whose signature can point to potentially energy-bearing sites.

"Many sea creatures will be affected, from whales, dolphins, seals, penguins to tiny plankton that will be blasted," said Janet Solomon, of the environmental group Oceans Not Oil in the runup to the hearing.

Exploration had been scheduled to start on December 1 and last up to five months.

A Shell spokesperson said Tuesday: "We respect the court's decision and have paused the survey while we review the judgement.

- 'Huge victory' -

"Surveys of this nature have been conducted for over 50 years with more than 15 years of extensive peer-reviewed scientific research."

The campaigners were jubilant at the ruling, but stressed that the relief was only temporary.

"It's a huge victory," said Katherine Robinson of the NGO Natural Justice.

"But the struggle is not over -- this decision is just the interdict. We understand that the proceedings will continue."

A petition against the project had gathered nearly 85,000 signatures.

Campaigners said the scheme would entail "one extremely loud shock wave every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for five months at a time."

Shell argued that it took "great care to prevent or minimise" the impact on wildlife, and promised that the work would strictly follow the guidelines of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, a UK government adviser on nature conservation.

On Tuesday, it also stressed what it described as the benefits for South Africa if oil and gas were found.

"South Africa is highly reliant on energy imports for many of its energy needs," the company's spokesperson said.

"If viable resources were to be found offshore, this could significantly contribute to the country’s energy security and the government’s economic development programmes."

South Africa's energy ministry had backed the scheme, and lashed those who opposed it as thwarting investment in the country's development.

The High Court's ruling comes after a lower court rejected the conservationists' suit in early December.

Several fishermen and local groups were also part of the petition.

cld-ger/ri/lc

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Trauma psychology transformed: Professor Philip Hyland reshapes global understanding of PTSD diagnosis

Leading trauma researcher's groundbreaking Complex PTSD work revolutionizes World Health Organization diagnostic criteria

Genomic Press

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Philip Hyland, PhD, Maynooth University, Ireland
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Credit: Philip Hyland, PhD, Maynooth University, Ireland

DUBLIN, IRELAND, 5 August 2025 -- In a revealing Genomic Press Interview published today in Brain Medicine, Professor Philip Hyland describes his extraordinary journey from personal struggles with anxiety to becoming one of the world's foremost authorities on posttraumatic stress disorders. The interview illuminates how his groundbreaking research on Complex PTSD fundamentally changed World Health Organization diagnostic criteria, directly impacting how clinicians worldwide assess and treat trauma survivors.

From Personal Crisis to Scientific Revolution

Professor Hyland's path to scientific prominence began unexpectedly during what he describes as a "tough time personally" in his late teens and early twenties. Despite experiencing none of the typical risk factors for mental health problems, he found himself profoundly anxious, depressed, and unhappy. This personal crisis became the catalyst for a career that would reshape global understanding of trauma psychology.

"I was lucky enough to want to figure out what was wrong with me, to understand why I had become so unhappy," Professor Hyland reveals in the interview. This drive for understanding led him to psychology, where he discovered that science could be applied to understanding how people think and feel. His fascination with the human mind, combined with his admission that "you did not have to be brilliant at maths to be a psychologist," steered him away from his childhood interests in physics and astronomy toward a field where he would make unprecedented contributions.

Challenging Clinical Orthodoxy

Perhaps most controversially, Professor Hyland champions what many in his field consider heretical: prioritizing self-report measures over clinician judgments when assessing psychological symptoms. "I have an idea that most people in my field think is crazy," he states, "which is that if you want to know what a person is experiencing, it is better to rely on a self-report from that person than on a clinician's judgement of what that person is experiencing."

This revolutionary stance challenges decades of clinical tradition and has positioned Professor Hyland at the forefront of developing innovative measurement tools. His International Trauma Questionnaire, now used globally, exemplifies this patient-centered approach to psychological assessment. The tool's widespread adoption demonstrates how challenging conventional wisdom can lead to practical improvements in clinical practice.

Expanding Boundaries of Grief Research

Professor Hyland's recent expansion into grief research showcases his commitment to addressing overlooked aspects of human suffering. His latest work validates that people can develop prolonged grief disorder following the death of a pet, despite current diagnostic manuals not recognizing this possibility. "That irritated me, so I had to do some work on it," he explains, demonstrating his characteristic drive to challenge limitations in current psychological understanding.

This willingness to explore unconventional territories extends to his co-leadership of Ireland's first major sexual violence prevalence study since 2002, addressing critical societal issues through rigorous scientific methodology. Such work illustrates how Professor Hyland combines scientific excellence with social responsibility, using research to illuminate pressing public health concerns.

The Science of Serendipity

Throughout the interview, Professor Hyland attributes much of his success to "extraordinary good luck," describing his career trajectory as "winning the lottery over and over and over again." From his fortuitous pairing with supervisor Professor Mark Shevlin, whom he calls "the most intelligent and nicest person I have ever met," to his current position at Maynooth University, he emphasizes the role of chance encounters and supportive colleagues.

Yet this modesty belies the systematic excellence of his work. With 19,898 citations across more than 340 publications and recognition including the 2023 Early Career Achievement Award at Maynooth University, Professor Hyland's impact stems from rigorous methodology and innovative thinking rather than mere fortune. His role as Deputy Statistical Editor for the Journal of Traumatic Stress and Chair of the International Trauma Consortium further demonstrates his field's recognition of his expertise.

Pursuit of Truth Above All

When asked about his goals, Professor Hyland's response reflects his fundamental commitment to scientific integrity: "I never think about that. I do the work that interests me and that is important. I do it and I write it up. I never expect my work to have any impact, or even to be read by anyone." This dedication to truth over recognition aligns with his concerns about the influence of identity politics and social activism on science.

"I am concerned about the influence of identity politics and social activism on science," he states. "It is so important that people trust science (with a healthy degree of scepticism, of course) and trust the process of science that gives us the best understanding we have of the way the world is." His commitment to maintaining scientific objectivity while addressing deeply personal human experiences like trauma and grief exemplifies the balance required in psychological research.

Looking forward, Professor Hyland continues developing theoretical models of Complex PTSD while pioneering new measurement approaches that could transform how psychological symptoms are assessed globally. His work serves as a blueprint for how personal experience, combined with rigorous scientific methodology, can lead to discoveries that improve countless lives. This approach exemplifies the type of transformative scientific discourse found across Genomic Press's portfolio of open-access journals (https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/).

Dr. Philip Hyland's Genomic Press interview is part of a larger series called Innovators & Ideas that highlights the people behind today's most influential scientific breakthroughs. Each interview in the series offers a blend of cutting-edge research and personal reflections, providing readers with a comprehensive view of the scientists shaping the future. By combining a focus on professional achievements with personal insights, this interview style invites a richer narrative that both engages and educates readers. This format provides an ideal starting point for profiles that explore the scientist's impact on the field, while also touching on broader human themes. More information on the research leaders and rising stars featured in our Innovators & Ideas -- Genomic Press Interview series can be found in our publications website: https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/.

The Genomic Press Interview in Brain Medicine titled "Philip Hyland: Human responses to extreme stress and trauma," is freely available via Open Access on 5 August 2025 in Brain Medicine at the following hyperlink: https://doi.org/10.61373/bm025k.0095.

About Brain Medicine: Brain Medicine (ISSN: 2997-2639, online and 2997-2647, print) is a peer-reviewed medical research journal published by Genomic Press, New York. Brain Medicine is a new home for the cross-disciplinary pathway from innovation in fundamental neuroscience to translational initiatives in brain medicine. The journal's scope includes the underlying science, causes, outcomes, treatments, and societal impact of brain disorders, across all clinical disciplines and their interface.

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Our full website is at: https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/