A framework to increase the safety of robots operating in crowded environments

by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

With the help of deep-learning and model-based control, the researchers’ risk-sensitive robot achieves safe and efficient navigation in real-world dynamic environments. Credit: Nishimura et al.

Humans are innately able to adapt their behavior and actions according to the movements of other humans in their surroundings. For instance, human drivers may suddenly stop, slow down, steer or start their car based on the actions of other drivers, pedestrians or cyclists, as they have a sense of which maneuvers are risky in specific scenarios.


However, developing robots and autonomous vehicles that can similarly predict human movements and assess the risk of performing different actions in a given scenario has so far proved highly challenging. This has resulted in a number of accidents, including the tragic death of a pedestrian who was struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle in March 2018.

Researchers at Stanford University and Toyota Research Institute (TRI) have recently developed a framework that could prevent these accidents in the future, increasing the safety of autonomous vehicles and other robotic systems operating in crowded environments. This framework, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, combines two tools, a machine learning algorithm and a technique to achieve risk-sensitive control.

"The main goal of our work is to enable self-driving cars and other robots to operate safely among humans (i.e., human drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.), by being mindful of what these humans intend to do in the future," Haruki Nishimura and Boris Ivanovic, lead authors of the paper, told TechXplore via email.

Nishimura, Ivanovic and their colleagues developed a machine-learning model and trained it to predict the future actions of humans in a robot's surroundings. Using this model, they then created an algorithm that can estimate the risk of collision associated with each of the robot's potential maneuvers at a given time. This algorithm can automatically select the optimal maneuver for the robot, which should minimize the risk of colliding with other humans or cars, while also allowing the robot to move towards completing its mission or goal.

"Existing methods for allowing autonomous cars and other robots to navigate among humans generally suffer from two important oversimplifications," the researchers told TechXplore via email. "Firstly, they make simplistic assumptions about what the humans will do in the future; secondly, they do not consider a trade-off between collision risk and progress for the robot. In contrast, our method uses a rich, stochastic model of human motion that is learned from data of real human motion."

For safe human-robot interactions, robots (e.g., autonomous cars) need to first reason about the possibility of multiple outcomes of an interaction (denoted by the colored shaded arrows), and understand how their actions influence the actions of others (e.g., surrounding pedestrians). Such reasoning then has to be incorporated into the robot’s planning and control modules in order for it to successfully navigate dynamic environments alongside humans. Credit: Nishimura et al.

The stochastic model that the researchers' framework is based on does not offer a single prediction of future human movements, but rather a distribution of predictions. Moreover, the way in which the team used this model differs significantly from the way in which previously developed robot navigation techniques integrated stochastic models.

"We consider the full distribution of possible future human motions," Nishimura and Ivanovic explained. "We then choose our robot's next action to achieve both a low risk of collisions (i.e., the robot collides with none or very few of the many predicted motions of the humans), while still driving the robot in the direction in which it intends to move. This is called risk-sensitive optimal control, and it essentially allows us to determine a robot's next action in real-time. The computation it requires happens in a fraction of a second and is continuously repeated as the robot's moves around in its environment."

To evaluate their framework, Nishimura, Ivanovic and their colleagues carried out both a simulation study and a real-world experiment. In the simulation study, they compared their framework's performance with that of three commonly used collision avoidance algorithms in a task where a robot had to determine the best actions to safely navigate environments containing up to 50 moving humans. In the real-world experiment, on the other hand, they used their framework to guide the actions of a holonomic robot called Ouijabot within an indoor environment that was populated by five moving human subjects.

The results of both of these tests were highly promising, with the researchers' framework calculating optimal trajectories that minimized the risk of the robot colliding with humans in its surroundings. Remarkably, the framework also outperformed all the collision avoidance algorithms it was compared to.

"Our overarching goal is to make autonomous cars and other robots safer for humans," the researchers said. "To ensure the safe operation of robots around humans, we need to teach them to predict human motion from experience and endow them with a sensitivity to risk, so that they avoid risky behaviors that may lead to collisions. This is precisely what our algorithm does."

In the future, this navigation framework could increase the safety of robots and self-driving vehicles, allowing them to predict the actions of humans or vehicles in their surroundings and promptly respond to these actions to prevent collisions. Before it can be implemented on a large scale, however, the framework will need to be trained on large databases containing videos of humans moving in crowded environments similar to the one in which robots will be operating. To simplify this training process, Nishimura, Ivanovic and their colleagues plan to develop a method that allows robots to gather this training data online as they are operating.

"We would also like for robots to be able to identify a model that fits the specific behavior of the humans in its immediate environment," Nishimura and Ivanovic said. "It would be very useful, for example, if the robot could categorize an erratic driver or a drunk driver at any given moment, and avoid moving too close to that driver to mitigate the risk of collision. Human drivers do this naturally, but it is devilishly difficult to codify this in an algorithm that a robot can use."

A framework for indoor robot navigation among humans
More information: Risk-sensitive sequential action control with multi-modal human trajectory forecasting for safe crowd-robot interaction. arXiv:2009.05702 [cs.RO]. arxiv.org/abs/2009.05702

© 2020 Science X Network

Using math to study paintings to learn more about the evolution of art history

by Bob Yirka , Tech Xplore

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Korea and one in Estonia has found a way to use math to study paintings to learn more about the evolution of art history in the western world. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they scanned thousands of paintings and then used mathematical algorithms to find commonalities between them over time.


Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder—and so it is also with art. Two people looking at the same painting can walk away with vastly different impressions. But art also serves, the researchers contend, as a barometer for visualizing the emotional tone of a given society. This suggests that the study of art history can serve as a channel of sorts—illuminating societal trends over time. The researchers further note that to date, most studies of art history have been qualitatively based, which has led to interpretive results. To overcome such bias, the researchers with this new effort looked to mathematics to see if it might be useful in uncovering features of paintings that have been overlooked by human scholars.

The work involved digitally scanning 14,912 paintings—all of which (except for two) were painted by Western artists. The data for each of the paintings was then sent through a mathematical algorithm that drew partitions on the digital images based on contrasting colors. The researchers ran the algorithm on each painting multiple times, each time creating more partitions. As an example, the first run of the algorithm might have simply created two partitions on a painting—everything on land, and everything in the sky. The second might have split the land into buildings in one partition and farmland in another.

The researchers then ran other algorithms designed to look for patterns between the paintings. Doing so allowed them to see trends such as painting styles that predominated during certain eras. It also allowed them to see long-term trends, such as the placement of the horizon. The researchers found that over the past several hundred years, painters have been placing it increasingly higher. In the 17th century, the separation between Earth and sky dominated landscapes—those done in more modern times, in sharp contrast, have the horizon very near the top of the canvas.


Explore further

Composing creativity: Children benefit from new painting materials
More information: Byunghwee Lee et al. Dissecting landscape art history with information theory, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020).

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2011927117
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences



© 2020 Science X Network

Making heads or tails out of phospholipid synthesis

by Cynthia Dillon, University of California - San Diego

Luping Liu, from the Devaraj Research Group at UC San Diego, holds a sample of water from a natural alkaline source—Mono Lake, California. Credit: Luping Liu

Most scientists agree that life on Earth began about 4 billion years ago, but they don't agree where—on land or in water. They know that about 2 billion years ago, single-celled organisms evolved into complex plants and animals whose membrane-bound cells had a nucleus and separate compartments, called organelles, with specific functions. This marked an important moment in cellular evolution.


According to an article in Scientific American, some experts say the chemistry of a sea-located, "first life" doesn't add up. With several hypotheses floating around, researchers are racing to replicate the conditions from which life emerged. UC San Diego award-winning Chemical Biologist Neal Devaraj is one of those scientists whose work focuses on understanding how non-living matter assembles to form life, by approaching the problem through the synthesis of artificial cells.

Together with a team of researchers from UC San Diego, UCLA and the University of South Carolina, Devaraj has demonstrated how membrane-formation takes place in water from natural alkaline sources like soda lakes and hydrothermal oceanic vents. Working in the lab and applying both organic and computational chemistry, the researchers were able to form enzyme-free phospholipid membranes in water from natural alkaline sources—Mono Lake in California and the Lost City Hydrothermal Field in the Atlantic Ocean. Their findings are published in Nature Chemistry.

Phospholipids, a class of lipids whose molecule has a "head" containing a phosphate group, and two fatty acid-based "tails," joined by two ester linkages which hold together glycerol and fatty acids, provide barriers in cellular membranes that protect the cell and make barriers for the organelles within it. They also provide pathways for various substances across cellular membranes.

Left: A fluorescence micrograph of vesicles formed in Lost City vent fluid, stained by Nile red dye. Scale bar, 5 μm. Right: Vesicles formed in Mono Lake water (pH = 10) containing the pH indicator dye HPTS. Scale bar, 10 μm. Credit: Luping Liu

The chemical description of this work is highly technical—"production of an enzyme-free synthesis of natural diacylphospholipids by transacylation in water, enabled by a combination of ion pairing and self-assembly between lysophospholipids and acyl donors." Basically this means—on the biology side of their work—the scientists achieved the first efficient, enzyme-free, watery creation of natural phospholipids, offering science new routes for lipid synthesis in artificial cells. To the field of chemistry, their creative strategy combined ion pairing and self-assembly, providing insights on green or sustainable chemistry.


The research results show that phospholipid membranes generated in alkaline water sources are capable of separating charged molecules for hours. Commenting on the work Devaraj said, "It is tempting to speculate that similar phenomena may have occurred in the early origin of membranes, perhaps as alkaline hydrothermal vent water was diluted in the more acidic water of the Hadean ocean." The Hadean Eon (about 4.6 to 4.0 billion years ago), is when the Earth's seas and atmosphere were developing.

According to Luping Liu, lead author of the published research paper, it was unclear whether natural phospholipid membranes could be formed from simple precursors in water without the advanced enzymatic machinery.

"In general, this work was initiated and motivated by the curiosity for nature, and we solve this challenge by using the principles of molecular interactions inspired by nature," she said.

Liu also said the team's findings present a fundamental progress in synthetic lipid study. "Now, we want to extend the application of this creative synthetic strategy of the combination of ion pairing and self-assembly to synthetic biology."


Explore further

Researchers create synthetic membranes that grow like living cells
More information: Luping Liu et al. Enzyme-free synthesis of natural phospholipids in water, Nature Chemistry (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-020-00559-0
Journal information: Nature Chemistry
Provided by University of California - San Diego

COVID-19 inequality: poorest workers hit by worse outcomes

by University of Oxford

We have not all been in this together. Oxford research shows COVID-19 has seen aggravated economic and mental health inequality. Credit: Shutterstock

We have not all been in this together, according to research from Oxford, which shows the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in aggravated economic and mental health inequality. The study, published by PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), shows lower paid workers have suffered disproportionately more economic hardship and more resulting mental health problems during the current crisis than their higher paid peers.


The paper, 'Economic Hardship and Mental Health Complaints during COVID-19', found that socio-economic inequalities were exacerbated during the lockdown. The most vulnerable members of the labor market were the most affected, with a steep occupational prestige level gradient. Low-prestige workers suffered more income and job loss, because of COVID-19, and they have suffered 'substantial' mental health consequences.

According to Dr. Dirk Witteveen, joint author of the study with Dr. Eva Velthorst of New York's Icahn School of Medicine, "Our analyses indicate the economic burden of the COVID-19 lockdown disproportionately fell on the shoulders of workers in lower prestige-ranked jobs—those with lower-pay and lower-skill. They were confronted with a much greater risk of workload decreases, income loss, and job loss."

The Oxford sociologist continues, "We found that experiencing any of these COVID-19-induced economic hardships is predictive of higher probability of depression complaints and health anxiety. Moreover, this probability appeared to be about twice greater for individuals employed in lower prestige-ranked compared with people in middle- and higher-ranked jobs. 'The striking positive relationship between relative occupational position and expressing feelings of depression and health anxiety was not driven by individuals with a previous mental health diagnosis, or by those who were directly exposed to health risks in their jobs—i.e. essential workers.

"We, therefore, conclude that inequalities in the development of mental health complaints are, to a large extent, rooted in one's occupational position prior to the COVID-19 crash."

Today's study concludes there are several mental health consequences that were not just a result of the virus, 'The COVID-19 pandemic caused immense socioeconomic turmoil in the Spring of 2020, not only because of its imminent health threat but also as a result of necessary lockdowns and government-mandated suspension of much business activity. This means the COVID-19 downturn is not comparable to any recent recessions.'

The researchers stress: "Our findings emphasize the need to take into account structural inequalities in the labor market for understanding disparities in mental health outcomes."

The study sample contains 1,012 adults aged 25-64, consisting of individuals who are actively participating in the labor market. The data is representative of active members of the labor force of six European nations that contained varying levels of COVID-19 burdens in terms of mortality and lockdown measures.


Explore further

Depression and anxiety tripled during the height of lockdown, new study shows
More information: Dirk Witteveen et al. Economic hardship and mental health complaints during COVID-19, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2020). 

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009609117
Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Provided by University of Oxford

Sweet potato biodiversity can help increase climate-resilience of small-scale farming

by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)

Global map of the 1,973 cultivars and breeding lines of sweetpotatoes tested as part of the study. a. The yellow dots mark the origin of each of the cultivars studied on the test site (the red star). The blue dots indicate the location of the most heat-stress tolerant varieties. b. Drone maps of the 4,040 test plots on the test site in Piura, Peru. c. Close-up of the delineated plots of sweet-potato cultivars. d. High-resolution thermographic image of the temperatures of the crop canopy under conditions of heat stress (lowest temperatures in blue, highest in red). Credit: Bettina Heider et al., Nature Climate Change

Sweet potato biodiversity can help increase the climate resilience of small-scale farming, according to the findings of a study undertaken by a multi-institutional collaborative of researchers. The findings of this global analysis of the intraspecific diversity of the sweet potato, one of the world's most important food crops, demonstrate the role of this genetic diversity in the productivity and resilience of food and agricultural systems in the face of climate change. The results were published on October 5 in Nature Climate Change.


Climate change poses a threat to the world's subsistence crops. Heat waves, which are likely to intensify according to climate evolution predictions, are generating levels of heat stress that are damaging to agricultural production. Identifying resistant crop varieties is therefore crucial to ensuring people's food security and farmers' resilience. To date, many studies have been conducted on varietal improvement, which involves developing and selecting plants with the required characteristics. Few, however, have examined intraspecific diversity, which is defined as the degree of genetic variety that exists within the same species.

For the present study, the international team focused on the sweet potato—the fifth most produced crop in the world, after corn, wheat, rice and cassava. This tuber is grown for its hardiness and tolerance to climatic shocks, and has great potential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations as part of the Horizon 2030 Agenda. It is grown in areas prone to erosion to protect agricultural land (SDGs 12 and 15); it has a high nutritional value, as well as higher content than most staple foods in vitamins A and C, calcium, iron, dietary fiber, and protein (SDGs 2 and 3); its flexible planting and harvesting schedules mean it is less labor-intensive to grow and thus is particularly adaptable to human migration (SDGs 10 and 16).

Traditional local varieties perform well under heat stress

As part of CGIAR's research program on roots, tubers and bananas (RTB), the researchers assessed the heat-stress tolerance of 1,973 different varieties of sweet potato from the CIP's sweet potato gene bank. The collection of cultivars from 50 countries comprised modern and traditional varieties, as well as breeding lines, developed in vitro and then planted in fields irrigated under controlled conditions on a 2.5 ha test site in the coastal desert region of north Peru. Analysis of the roots and foliage data allowed the reseasrchers to measure the effect of repeated exposure to extreme temperatures—greater than 35 degrees C.

Result: "132 cultivars, of which 65.9% were traditional local varieties, demonstrated good heat tolerance. These are therefore promising candidates for selection as high-yield, heat-tolerant varieties," explains Bettina Heider, a researcher with CIP and lead author of the study.

"This mass screening, carried out on an unprecedented geographical scale (America, Africa, Asia), proved crucial to identifying the heat-stress tolerance characteristics of the sweet potato, for the purpose of a deeper molecular characterization of specific genes," explains Olivier Dangles, an ecologist at IRD and co-author of the study.

"Intraspecific diversity—the result of hundreds of years of co-evolution between farmers and their crops—is proving critical in the face of climate change," he continues. "It emphasizes the role of agrobiodiversity in the resilience of tropical agricultural systems."

Farmers will need help to adapt

"Our results also suggest that the temperature of the canopy and the level of carotenoids could be the appropriate markers for selecting heat-stress tolerant lines," adds Emile Faye, researcher in spatial agroecology at CIRAD. "However, participatory experiments need to be conducted in different contexts, to test the efficacy and economic viability of the varieties identified."

Intraspecific diversity offers more options to farmers, therefore, for managing climate risks and increasing the resilience of their farming systems. The study authors recommend that this knowledge be shared with farmers, so that they adopt high-yield varieties that also offer higher nutritional value.


Explore further

Farmer knowledge is key to finding more resilient crops in climate crisis
More information: Bettina Heider et al. Intraspecific diversity as a reservoir for heat-stress tolerance in sweet potato, Nature Climate Change (2020). 

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-020-00924-4
Journal information: Nature Climate Change
Provided by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)

The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals

by ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals in the past three decades. As more complex coral structure is lost, so too are the habitats for fish. Credit: Andreas Dietzel.

A new study of the Great Barrier Reef shows populations of its small, medium and large corals have all declined in the past three decades.


Lead author Dr. Andy Dietzel, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoralCoE), says while there are numerous studies over centuries on the changes in the structure of populations of humans—or, in the natural world, trees—there still isn't the equivalent information on the changes in coral populations.

"We measured changes in colony sizes because population studies are important for understanding demography and the corals' capacity to breed," Dr. Dietzel said.

He and his co-authors assessed coral communities and their colony size along the length of the Great Barrier Reef between 1995 and 2017. Their results show a depletion of coral populations.

"We found the number of small, medium and large corals on the Great Barrier Reef has declined by more than 50 percent since the 1990s," said co-author Professor Terry Hughes, also from CoralCoE.

"The decline occurred in both shallow and deeper water, and across virtually all species—but especially in branching and table-shaped corals. These were the worst affected by record-breaking temperatures that triggered mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017," Prof Hughes said.

The branching and table-shaped corals provide the structures important for reef inhabitants such as fish. The loss of these corals means a loss of habitat, which in turn diminishes fish abundance and the productivity of coral reef fisheries.

Dr. Dietzel says one of the major implications of coral size is its effect on survival and breeding.

"A vibrant coral population has millions of small, baby corals, as well as many large ones— the big mamas who produce most of the larvae," he said.

"Our results show the ability of the Great Barrier Reef to recover—its resilience—is compromised compared to the past, because there are fewer babies, and fewer large breeding adults."

The authors of the study say better data on the demographic trends of corals is urgently needed.

"If we want to understand how coral populations are changing and whether or not they can recover between disturbances, we need more detailed demographic data: on recruitment, on reproduction and on colony size structure," Dr. Dietzel said.

"We used to think the Great Barrier Reef is protected by its sheer size—but our results show that even the world's largest and relatively well-protected reef system is increasingly compromised and in decline," Prof Hughes said.

Climate change is driving an increase in the frequency of reef disturbances such as marine heatwaves. The study records steeper deteriorations of coral colonies in the Northern and Central Great Barrier Reef after the mass coral bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. And the southern part of the reef was also exposed to record-breaking temperatures in early 2020.

"There is no time to lose—we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions ASAP," the authors conclude.


Explore further Great Barrier Reef suffers worst-ever coral bleaching: scientists

Scientists shed new light on viruses' role in coral bleaching

by Oregon State University

Pocillopora corals from Mo'orea. Credit: Andrew Thurber, OSU

Scientists at Oregon State University have shown that viral infection is involved in coral bleaching—the breakdown of the symbiotic relationship between corals and the algae they rely on for energy.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the research is important because understanding the factors behind coral health is crucial to efforts to save the Earth's embattled reefs—between 2014 and 2017 alone, more than 75% experienced bleaching-level heat stress, and 30% suffered mortality-level stress.

The planet's largest and most significant structures of biological origin, coral reefs are found in less than 1% of the ocean but are home to nearly one-quarter of all known marine species. Reefs also help regulate the sea's carbon dioxide levels and are a vital hunting ground that scientists use in the search for new medicines.

Since their first appearance 425 million years ago, corals have branched into more than 1,500 species. A complex composition of dinoflagellates—including the algae symbiont—fungi, bacteria, archaea and viruses make up the coral microbiome, and shifts in microbiome composition are connected to changes in coral health.

The algae the corals need can be stressed by warming oceans to the point of dysbiosis—a collapse of the host-symbiont partnership.

To better understand how viruses contribute to making corals healthy or unhealthy, Oregon State Ph.D. candidate Adriana Messyasz and microbiology researcher Rebecca Vega Thurber of the OSU College of Science led a project that compared the viral metagenomes of coral colony pairs during a minor 2016 bleaching event in Mo'orea, French Polynesia.

Also known as environmental genomics, metagenomics refers to studying genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples, in this case samples taken from a coral reef.

For this study, scientists collected bleached and non-bleached pairs of corals to determine if the mixes of viruses on them were similar or different. The bleached and non-bleached corals shared nearly identical environmental conditions.

"After analyzing the viral metagenomes of each pair, we found that bleached corals had a higher abundance of eukaryotic viral sequences, and non-bleached corals had a higher abundance of bacteriophage sequences," Messyasz said. "This gave us the first quantitative evidence of a shift in viral assemblages between coral bleaching states."

Bacteriophage viruses infect and replicate within bacteria. Eukaryotic viruses infect non-bacterial organisms like animals.

In addition to having a greater presence of eukaryotic viruses in general, bleached corals displayed an abundance of what are called giant viruses. Known scientifically as nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses, or NCLDV, they are complex, double-stranded DNA viruses that can be parasitic to organisms ranging from the single-celled to large animals, including humans.

"Giant viruses have been implicated in coral bleaching," Messyasz said. "We were able to generate the first draft genome of a giant virus that might be a factor in bleaching."

The researchers used an electron microscope to identify multiple viral particle types, all reminiscent of medium- to large-sized NCLDV, she said.

"Based on what we saw under the microscope and our taxonomic annotations of viral metagenome sequences, we think the draft genome represents a novel, phylogenetically distinct member of the NCLDVs," Messyasz said. "Its closest sequenced relative is a marine flagellate-associated virus."

The new NCLDV is also present in apparently healthy corals but in far less abundance, suggesting it plays a role in the onset of bleaching and/or its severity, she added.


Explore further  A factor limiting recovery from bleaching in corals
More information: Adriana Messyasz et al, Coral Bleaching Phenotypes Associated With Differential Abundances of Nucleocytoplasmic Large DNA Viruses, Frontiers in Marine Science (2020). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2020.555474
Provided by Oregon State University

Study: Health systems, govt responses linked to virus tolls

by Frank Jordans

A man wearing a face mask walks past an entrance to Belfast City Hospital, Northern Ireland, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. Northern Ireland introducing the tightest COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, closing schools for two weeks and pubs and restaurants for a month. "This is not the time for trite political points," First Minister Arlene Foster told lawmakers at the regional assembly in Belfast. "This is the time for solutions." 

(Brian Lawless/PA via AP)

Scientists say a comparison of 21 developed countries during the start of the coronavirus pandemic shows that those with early lockdowns and well-prepared national health systems avoided large numbers of additional deaths due to the outbreak.

In a study published Wednesday by the journal Nature Medicine, researchers used the number of weekly deaths in 19 European countries, New Zealand and Australia over the past decade to estimate how many people would have died from mid-February to May 2020 had the pandemic not happened.

The authors, led by Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London, then compared the predicted number of deaths to the actual reported figure during that period to determine how many likely occurred due to the pandemic. Such models of 'excess mortality' are commonly used by public health officials to better understand disease outbreaks and the effectiveness of counter-measures.

The study found there were about 206,000 excess deaths across the 21 countries during the period, a figure that conforms to independent estimates. In Spain, the number of deaths was 38% higher than would have been expected without the pandemic, while in England and Wales it was 37% higher.

Italy, Scotland and Belgium also had significant excess deaths, while in some countries there was no marked change or even—as in the case of Bulgaria—a decrease.

While the authors note that there are differences in the compositions of populations, such as age and the prevalence of pre-existing conditions that contribute to mortality rates, government efforts to suppress transmission of the virus and the ability of national health systems to cope with the pandemic also played a role.

People wear mouth and nose protection as they walk through the city center in Stuttgart, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. (Sebastian Gollnow/dpa via AP)

Amitava Banerjee, a professor of clinical data science at University College London who wasn't involved in the study, said it was well designed and had used standardized methods.

He noted that the comparison between death rates in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, where the age of the population and the rates of pre-existing conditions such as obesity are similar, supports the argument that other factors contributed to the differing mortality figures.

"Even if vaccines and better treatments for severe (COVID-19) infection are developed, the way to minimise excess deaths is to reduce the infection rate through population level measures," said Banerjee.

These include lockdowns, protecting high risk groups,and establishing effective "test, trace and isolate" systems, he said.

Germany, which like the United States was not among the 21 countries examined in the study, has seen fewer deaths so far in 2020 than in some recent years, according to the head of the country's disease control agency.

While the reasons for this are complex and may take time to fully understand, a decline in hospital infections and the absence of any reported measles cases in Germany since March indicate that social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing play a role.

"The measures that were introduced because of COVID have further effects, and they're positive, that much is clear" Lothar Wieler, who heads the Robert Koch Institute, told reporters in Berlin.


Explore further

Coronavirus 'excess deaths': Why England and Wales have been hardest hit in Europe
More information: Vasilis Kontis et al. Magnitude, demographics and dynamics of the effect of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in 21 industrialized countries, Nature Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-1112-0
Journal information: Nature Medicine
© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Popularity of COVID-19 conspiracies and links to vaccine 'hesitancy' revealed by international study

by University of Cambridge

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A new study of beliefs and attitudes toward COVID-19 in five different countries—UK, US, Ireland, Mexico and Spain—has identified how much traction some prominent conspiracy theories have within these populations.

The research reveals "key predictors" for susceptibility to fake pandemic news, and finds that a small increase in the perceived reliability of conspiracies equates to a larger drop in the intention to get vaccinated.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge gathered data from national samples in each country, and asked participants to rate the reliability of several statements, including six popular myths about COVID-19.

While a large majority of people in all five nations judged the misinformation to be unreliable, researchers found that certain conspiracy theories have taken root in significant portions of the population.

The conspiracy deemed most valid across the board was the claim that COVID-19 was engineered in a Wuhan laboratory. Between 22-23% of respondents in the UK and United States rated this assertion as "reliable". In Ireland this rose to 26%, while in Mexico and Spain it jumped to 33% and 37% respectively.

This was followed by the idea that the pandemic is "part of a plot to enforce global vaccination", with 22% of the Mexican population rating this as reliable, along with 18% in Ireland, Spain and the US, and 13% in the UK.

The notorious 5G conspiracy—that some telecommunication towers are worsening COVID-19 symptoms—holds sway over smaller but still significant segments: 16% in Mexico, 16% in Spain, 12% in Ireland, and 8% in both the UK and US. The study is published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"Certain misinformation claims are consistently seen as reliable by substantial sections of the public. We find a clear link between believing coronavirus conspiracies and hesitancy around any future vaccine," said Dr. Sander van der Linden, co-author and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab.

"As well as flagging false claims, governments and technology companies should explore ways to increase digital media literacy in the population. Otherwise, developing a working vaccine might not be enough."

Earlier this week, the Social Decision-Making Lab launched a project with the UK Cabinet Office: Go Viral!, a short online game that helps "inoculate" players against fake news by lifting the lid on common misinformation techniques.

For the new study, the team—including Cambridge's Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication—looked at correlations between certain beliefs and demographic categories and the perceived reliability of misinformation.

Scoring highly on a series of numeracy tasks given as part of the study, as well as declaring high levels of trust in scientists, are "significantly and consistently" associated with low levels of susceptibility to false information across all nations.

"Numeracy skills are the most significant predictor of resistance to misinformation that we found," said Dr. Jon Roozenbeek, lead author and Postdoctoral Fellow in Cambridge's Department of Psychology.

"We all now deal with a deluge of statistics and R number interpretations. The fostering of numerical skills for sifting through online information could well be vital for curbing the 'infodemic' and promoting good public health behaviour."

Moreover, and despite 'boomer' memes, the team found that being older is actually linked to lower susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation in all nations except Mexico (where the opposite is true).

Identifying as more right-wing or politically conservative is associated with higher likelihood of believing COVID-19 conspiracies and falsehoods in Ireland, Mexico and Spain—but less so in the UK or US.

Trusting that politicians can effectively tackle the crisis predicts higher likelihood of buying into conspiracies in Mexico, Spain and the US, but not in the UK and Ireland. Exposure to information about the virus on social media is linked to misinformation susceptibility in Ireland, the UK and US.

Researchers asked participants about their attitude to a future coronavirus vaccine. They were also asked to rate the reliability of conspiratorial COVID-19 claims on a scale of one to seven.

On average, an increase by one-seventh in someone's perceived reliability of misinformation is associated with a drop of almost a quarter—23% - in the likelihood they will agree to get vaccinated.

Similarly, a one-point increase on the conspiracy reliability scale is linked, on average, to a 28% decrease in the odds of someone recommending vaccination to vulnerable friends and family.

Conversely, on average, a one-seventh increase in trust in scientists is associated with a 73% increase in the likelihood of getting vaccinated and a 79% increase in the odds of recommending vaccination to others.

The researchers controlled for many other factors—from age to politics—when modelling levels of "vaccine hesitancy", and found the results to be consistent across all countries except Spain.


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More information: Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world, Royal Society Open Science (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.201199
Journal information: Royal Society Open Science
Provided by University of Cambridge

Political leaders' views on COVID-19 risk are highly infectious in a polarized nation

by Wanyun Shao, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

When President Donald Trump announced he was leaving the hospital after being treated for COVID-19, he sent his supporters a message: "Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life," he tweeted. A few hours later at the White House, he pulled off his mask in dramatic fashion for the cameras and stuffed it in his pocket.

That message on Oct. 5 and his subsequent words and actions—including telling supporters at a Florida campaign rally on Oct. 12, "if you want to get out there, get out there," and that he and wanted to kiss everyone in the tightly packed audience—flew in the face of health professionals' warnings.

Over 215,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., and the country faces a high risk of a surge in cases this fall. Wearing face masks and social distancing can help stop the virus's spread.

Coming from a political leader, Trump's words and behaviors downplaying the risks are potent. My research as a professor who studies risk perception shows that in a highly polarized environment, political leaders' rhetoric can play a significant role in shaping risk perceptions among their loyal followers.

If the leader deems the risk to be small, his or her supporters will be more likely to share that view. If the leader does not strictly follow rules on wearing masks and social distancing, the supporters are more than likely to follow suit.

This pattern has been confirmed in recent months by evidence that U.S. counties with more Trump voters see fewer people social distancing. It also echoes what I and other researchers have found with the politicization of climate change.

Echoes of climate change

Climate change is another area where politics can influence the perception of risk and how to respond to it. Two decades of social science research has tracked the politicization of the issue.

While most Democrats and liberals recognize the human role in climate change and the harms it is causing, many Republicans and conservatives say they are not so sure. The conservative movement, alongside the oil industry, helped to make climate change into a politically contentious issue.

The U.S. has seen a rise in extreme weather events in recent years, and more Americans have experienced the impact of climate change firsthand. Some observers believe this increase in personal experiences can move the needle in American public opinion.

But the strong countervailing force from Trump tends to offset those effects. The more Republicans and conservatives approve of the president, the lower their perceptions of climate change risk are as the president continues to deny the evidence.

Filling a void with conspiracy theories

A parallel seems to dominate the public conversation around COVID-19 today.

Although great amounts of scientific effort have been dedicated to understanding various aspects of COVID-19, a lot remains unknown as this pandemic continues to evolve.

The virus causing COVID-19 is new and widely believed to have started in bats and jumped to humans. With the early lack of knowledge, however, various conspiracy theories were disseminated, and belief in these conspiracies still hinders mask-wearing and other behaviors that can prevent the spread of the disease.

Personal experiences, which the public often relies on to form judgments about risks, were largely absent at this initial stage of the pandemic. Confronted with such uncertainties, the public had to turn to authorities for information and assurance.

Republican and Democratic leaders sent drastically different messages from the beginning, and loyal partisans fell in line.

Surveys consistently show conspicuous gaps between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans perceive lower risks of COVID-19 than Democrats and say they engage in social distancing behaviors to a lesser extent than Democrats.

Moreover, conservatives who have more confidence in the current national political leadership are even less likely to perceive threats of COVID-19 than conservatives who have less confidence. In other words, the politicization process can even be amplified within one political camp.

Hope for shrinking the power of misinformation

The success of slowing the spread of COVID-19 hinges largely on people taking precautions, particularly wearing face masks and social distancing, until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available.

One study on attitudes toward climate change offers some hope. It found that a large number of Republicans and conservatives actually hold more unstable views about climate change over time. This instability may mean they could be more open to listening to the evidence and changing their minds.

If this is also the case with COVID-19, strategic science communications and community engagement activities may be able to make a difference and stop the rising death toll.


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