When marketing manager Eliza returned from holiday, she received an email from her boss asking her to arrive at work early the next day. “I instantly feared the worst,” she explains. “I knew the job wasn’t the best fit. I’d had my probation previously extended; there was an expectation of weekend working and post-work drinking that didn’t suit me. I thought he’d used my time off as an opportunity to fire me.”

However, when Eliza arrived at her boss’s office, she wasn’t immediately let go. Instead, she was informed of a company restructure – her job description was being completely rewritten. Someone else would take over her tasks, and she would be expected to work remotely in a new admin role.

In the weeks that followed, Eliza’s professional life became much quieter. Instead of formulating the London-based events agency’s marketing strategy from the office or attending live shows as part of her remit, her main duties now consisted of simply being available between 0900 and 1800, sending the occasional email and completing the odd routine task from home.

Eliza had effectively been frozen out by her employer. Barely a month later, she quit. “It was humiliating – I was made to feel worthless,” she says. “It was the worst experience of my career: I’d rather have been just fired on the spot and paid off than have to go through that.”

There may not always be a good fit between jobs and the workers hired to do them. In these cases, companies and bosses may decide they want the worker to depart. Some may go through formal channels to show employees the door, but others may do what Eliza’s boss did – behave in such a way that the employee chooses to walk away. Methods may vary; bosses may marginalise workers, make their lives difficult or even set them up to fail. This can take place over weeks, but also months and years. Either way, the objective is the same: to show the worker they don’t have a future with the company and encourage them to leave.

In overt cases, this is known as ‘constructive dismissal’: when an employee is forced to leave because the employer created a hostile work environment. The more subtle phenomenon of nudging employees slowly but surely out of the door has recently been dubbed ‘quiet firing’ (the apparent flipside to ‘quiet quitting’, where employees do their job, but no more). Rather than lay off workers, employers choose to be indirect and avoid conflict. But in doing so, they often unintentionally create even greater harm.

The path of least resistance

For myriad reasons, bosses have long tried to nudge workers they perceive as underperforming or being a bad cultural fit out the door. “This has been happening in workplaces for decades,” says Christopher Kayes, professor of management at the George Washington University School of Business, based in Washington, DC.

The tactic means firms and managers can end up saddled with workers they don’t want, leading to managers engaging in behaviours often seen as passive-aggressive

The reasons for this are complex. If workers behave in ways that violate their contracts, for example, companies can terminate their employment. But if bosses simply dislike workers, or see them as middling or mediocre performers, taking action to remove them is more complicated, often requiring lengthy processes involving performance management programmes and multiple warnings.

“Companies are usually reluctant to let a worker go,” says Kayes. Firing leads to an “immediate sense of sides being created” which, at worst, can land the company in court if the worker contests it, potentially generating negative headlines about the working environment. “It’s often easier to simply let the underperforming employee stay in the job than to go through the process of firing and potential litigation.”

Employers often don’t want to expose themselves to risk or conflict, adds Suzanne Horn, partner in employment law at legal firm Paul Hastings, based in London. “Subtly encouraging someone to leave is seen as the easier option. If the employee eventually resigns, it’s the ‘no-fault approach’: severance doesn’t need to be paid, conflict is avoided and both parties are ultimately happy.”

Managing perceived poor performance, working with the employee to improve their output and turning them into a useful resource for the company would be an alternative way to deal with the problem. However, Kayes says bosses are often ill-equipped to do this, whether through a lack of time or training. “Organisations tend to be bad at preparing leaders to take on the responsibilities they’ll need in the job. So, they often find themselves without the resources they need to be effective and deal with employee underperformance.”

In this situation, with firing seen as a last resort and managers unable – or unwilling – to turn the employee into what they want them to be, they often follow the path of least resistance: quiet firing. “Much of it is ultimately an avoidance behaviour and comes down to procrastination:

managers in most cases are wanting to avoid having difficult conversations,” points out Kayes. “Ironically, they worry that firing a worker will reflect poorly on them, so they quietly fire them instead.”

To push out workers, managers may sometimes set up workers to fail with impossible tasks, or take away their jobs altogether (Credit: Getty Images)

Why it often backfires

By engaging in quiet-firing behaviours, managers are likely to be playing the long game. In theory, it’s low risk and minimal effort; the hope is that by withdrawing support, the worker soon realises they don’t have a future at the company and moves elsewhere.

However, this approach can have collateral damage. The tactic means firms and managers can end up saddled with workers they don’t want, leading to managers engaging in behaviours often seen as passive-aggressive, says Kayes. “You stop offering the employee opportunities to advance; you stop inviting them to certain meetings; you stop providing them important work and feedback.”

There is also the risk of creating an ‘us and them’ mentality, potentially harming workers not targeted for quiet firing. “You have the engaged employees, and then those just quietly left there, sometimes without their knowledge,” says Horn. “It doesn’t create an inclusive or high-performance workplace culture.”

Quiet firing can affect a firm’s reputation, too, even if a worker departs without apparent conflict; employees may well share their experience in an online review. “There’s a greater awareness of employment rights today,” says Horn. “People are now more willing to call out workplace issues, especially following the pandemic.”

An employee subtly nudged out the door isn't without legal recourse, either. “If you were to look at each individual aspect of quiet firing, there’s likely nothing serious enough to prove an employer breach of contract,” says Horn. “However, there’s the last-straw doctrine: one final act by the employer which, when added together with past behaviours, can be asserted as constructive dismissal by the employee.”

More immediate though, is the mental-health cost to the worker deemed to be expendable by the employer – but who is never directly informed. “The psychological toll of quiet firing creates a sense of rejection and of being an outcast from their work group. That can have a huge negative impact on a person’s wellbeing,” says Kayes.

Eliza agrees. “I was made to feel worthless and useless being quietly fired,” she says. Now happily employed elsewhere, she’s realised that her experience “was a reflection of having a terrible boss, rather than me”. But other people who experience quiet firing over the longer term, in more insidious ways, may not see things so clearly.

    I was made to feel worthless and useless being quietly fired – Eliza

“Over time, an employee may figure out something isn’t right if their one-to-one meetings are always cancelled, their manager never makes time to talk about development and performance or they’re always overlooked for promotion,” says Horn. “They face a daily drip feed of their employer trying to make them resign – it’s absolutely gruelling.”

'A self-fulfilling prophecy'

Quiet firing may be the easiest option on the table for bosses – especially in a remote-work world, where excluding employees is even easier – but it’s not a good solution for firms or workers.

“Employers can end up damaging their business’s morale, productivity and culture while risking litigation proceedings anyway,” says Horn. “For employees, there’s a mental-health impact of feeling excluded, frustrated or angry. They can lose their confidence and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: their performance declines even further.”

Fixing it requires better-resourced managers, greater HR support and the acceptance that workplace confrontation is sometimes best. However, the time and cost needed to educate managers on how to better motivate employees and deal with difficult situations means that, realistically, quiet firing may be here to stay. “Training is expensive,” says Kayes. “It takes huge investment and requires leaders to be open to it; an acceptance that they need to ask themselves hard questions.

Human psychology plays its part, too. Ultimately, quiet firing is the avoidance of difficult emotions. “There can be the implication that the manager is being nasty or manipulative when they quietly fire an employee, but there is a person on either side of the table,” says Horn. “And people generally like to avoid hard conversations.”

Eliza is using one name for career-security reasons

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Titled "Circular Claims Fall Flat Again," the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent.

After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West's plastic waste in 2018.

Virgin production—of non-recycled plastic, that is—meanwhile is rapidly rising as the petrochemical industry expands, lowering costs.

"Industry groups and big corporations have been pushing for recycling as a solution," Greenpeace U.S. campaigner Lisa Ramsden told AFP.

"By doing that, they have shirked all responsibility" for ensuring that recycling actually works, she added. She named Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle as prime offenders.

According to Greenpeace U.S.'s survey, only two types of plastic are widely accepted at the nation's 375 material recovery facilities.

The first is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in water and soda bottles; and the second is high density polyethylene (HDPE), seen in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cleaning product containers.

These are numbered "1" and "2" according to a standardized system in which there are seven plastic types.

But being recyclable in theory doesn't mean products are being recycled in practice.

The report found that PET and HDPE products had actual reprocessing rates of 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively—both down slightly from Greenpeace U.S.'s last survey in 2020.

Plastic types "3" through "7"—including children's toys, plastic bags, produce wrappings, yogurt and margarine tubs, coffee cups and to-go food containers—were reprocessed at rates of less than five percent.

Despite often carrying the recycling symbol on their labels, products that use plastic types "3" through "7" fail to meet the Federal Trade Commission classification of recyclable.

A plastic water bottle is seen washed up on the banks of the Anacostia River on March 21, 2019 in Washington, DC.

This is because recycling facilities for these types aren't available to a "substantial majority" of the population, defined as 60 percent, and because the collected products are not being used in the manufacturing or assembly of new items.

According to the report, there were five main reasons why plastic recycling is a "failed concept."

Economically unfeasible

First, plastic waste is generated in vast quantities and is extremely difficult to collect— as becomes clear during what the report called ineffective "volunteer cleanup stunts" funded by nonprofits such as "Keep America Beautiful."

Second, even if it were all collected, mixed plastic waste cannot be recycled together, and it would be "functionally impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of consumer plastic waste produced each year," the report said.

Third, the recycling process itself is environmentally harmful, exposing workers to toxic chemicals and itself generating microplastics.

Fourth, recycled plastic carries toxicity risks through contamination with other plastic types in collection bins, preventing it from becoming food-grade material again.

Fifth and finally, the process of recycling is prohibitively expensive.

"New plastic directly competes with recycled plastic, and it's far cheaper to produce and of higher quality," said the report.

Ramsden called on corporations to support a Global Plastics Treaty, which United Nations members agreed to create in February, and move toward refill and reuse strategies.

"This isn't actually a new concept—it's how the milkman used to be, it's how Coca-Cola used to get its beverages to people. They would drink their beverage, give the glass bottle back, and it would be sanitized and reused," she said.

Some countries are leading the way, including India, which recently banned 19 single-use plastic items. Austria has set reuse targets of 25 percent by 2025 and at least 30 percent by 2030 for beverage packaging, while Portugal has also set the 30 percent by 2030 goal.

Chile is moving to phase out single-use cutlery and mandating refillable bottles.

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This is the reason why Vosshall and Maria Elena De Obaldia, a former postdoc in her lab, set out to investigate the leading theory to explain varying mosquito appeal: individual odor variations connected to skin microbiota. Through a study, they recently demonstrated that fatty acids emanating from the skin may create a potent perfume that mosquitoes can’t resist.

They published their results in the journal Cell on October 18.

“There’s a very, very strong association between having large quantities of these fatty acids on your skin and being a mosquito magnet,” says Vosshall, the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor at The Rockefeller University and Chief Scientific Officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito bites a researcher at The Rockefeller University. Credit: Alex Wild

A tournament no one wants to win

In the three-year study, eight participants were asked to wear nylon stockings over their forearms for six hours a day. This process was repeated on multiple days. Over the next few years, the investigators tested the nylons against each other in all possible pairings through a round-robin style “tournament.” They used a two-choice olfactometer assay that De Obaldia built, consisting of a plexiglass chamber divided into two tubes, each ending in a box that held a stocking. They placed Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes—the primary vector species for Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya—in the main chamber and observed as the insects flew down the tubes towards one nylon or the other.

By far the most alluring target for Aedes aegypti was Subject 33, who was four times more attractive to the mosquitoes than the next most-attractive study participant, and an astounding 100 times more appealing than the least attractive, Subject 19.

The samples in the trials were de-identified, so the experimenters didn’t know which participant had worn which nylon. Still, they would notice that something unusual was afoot in any trial involving Subject 33, because insects would swarm toward that sample. “It would be obvious within a few seconds of starting the assay,” says De Obaldia. “It’s the type of thing that gets me really excited as a scientist. This is something real. This is not splitting hairs. This is a huge effect.”

The participants were sorted into high and low attractors, and then the scientists set out to determine what differentiated them. They used chemical analysis techniques to identify 50 molecular compounds that were elevated in the sebum (a moisturizing barrier on the skin) of the high-attracting participants. From there, they discovered that mosquito magnets produced carboxylic acids at much higher levels than the less-attractive volunteers. These substances are in the sebum and are used by bacteria on our skin to produce our unique human body odor.

To confirm their findings, Vosshall’s team enrolled another 56 people for a validation study. Once again, Subject 33 was the most alluring, and stayed so over time.

“Some subjects were in the study for several years, and we saw that if they were a mosquito magnet, they remained a mosquito magnet,” says De Obaldia. “Many things could have changed about the subject or their behaviors over that time, but this was a very stable property of the person.”

Even knockouts find us

Humans produce mainly two classes of odors that mosquitoes detect with two different sets of odor receptors: Orco and IR receptors. To see if they could engineer mosquitoes unable to spot humans, the researchers created mutants that were missing one or both of the receptors. Orco mutants remained attracted to humans and were able to distinguish between mosquito magnets and low attractors, while IR mutants lost their attraction to humans to a varying degree, but still retained the ability to find us.

These were not the results the scientists were hoping for. “The goal was a mosquito that would lose all attraction to people, or a mosquito that had a weakened attraction to everybody and couldn’t discriminate Subject 19 from Subject 33. That would be tremendous,” Vosshall says, because it could lead to the development of more effective mosquito repellents. “And yet that was not what we saw. It was frustrating.”

These results complement one of Vosshall’s recent studies, also published in Cell, which revealed the redundancy of Aedes aegypti’s exquisitely complex olfactory system. It’s a failsafe that the female mosquito relies on to live and reproduce. Without blood, she can’t do either. That’s why “she has a backup plan and a backup plan and a backup plan and is tuned to these differences in the skin chemistry of the people she goes after,” Vosshall says.

The apparent unbreakability of the mosquito scent tracker makes it difficult to envision a future where we’re not the number-one meal on the menu. But one potential avenue is to manipulate our skin microbiomes. It is possible that slathering the skin of a high-appeal person like Subject 33 with sebum and skin bacteria from the skin of a low-appeal person like Subject 19 could provide a mosquito-masking effect.

“We haven’t done that experiment,” Vosshall notes. “That’s a hard experiment. But if that were to work, then you could imagine that by having a dietary or microbiome intervention where you put bacteria on the skin that are able to somehow change how they interact with the sebum, then you could convert someone like Subject 33 into a Subject 19. But that’s all very speculative.”

She and her colleagues hope this paper will inspire researchers to test other mosquito species, including in the genus Anopheles, which spreads malaria, adds Vosshall: “I think it would be really, really cool to figure out if this is a universal effect.”

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If only we could reduce the world to an equation, many think — preferably one that is solvable (unlike what happened in what happened in Restaurant at the End of the Universe), we would understand life better.

University of Durham philosopher Nancy Cartwright takes issue with that, arguing that the universe is “beautifully dappled, and requires a dappled science to explain it.” She is the author, most recently, of A Philosopher Looks at Science (Cambridge University Press, 2022). And she says,

 If physics is to have total dominion, she must not only help out with chemical bonding, signal transmission in neurons, the flow of petrol in a carburettor, and the like. She must be able in principle to entirely take over the disciplines that usually study these things, to explain and predict the rise in teenage pregnancies, the current level of inflation, the Protestant Reformation, and the fate of migrants crossing the channel. Plus, she must be able to get me off the hook for shouting at my daughter: after all, I was just obeying the laws of physics.

Nancy Cartwright, “Physics can’t deal with reality’s complexity” at IAI. News (October 17, 2022)

Now that she mentions it, pop psychology has featured many theories that tie together disparate phenomena like inflation, the Reformation, and shouting at loved ones. It’s comparatively easy to link very complex events to one another if we are allowed to choose any link we wish. Some might link Hurricane Ian with municipal elections in Vancouver and with high-starch diets in Texas. It takes creativity but many people have plenty of that.

Physics sets itself a harder goal: showing the numbers (serious numbers, not pop stats) and a rigorous theory behind them. That necessarily means leaving out a great deal, assuming that what is omitted is subsumed in the theory. But is it?

The idea of physics as queen of all that happens has powerful implications about just what the world we live in must be like. It must be a world made up entirely of the basic entities of physics—fundamental particles, curved space-time and the like — entities that have only the mathematical features that physics equations describe, features that often have no names of their own other than the names of the mathematical objects that are supposed to represent them, like the “quantum state vector” and the “metric tensor” of general relativity. The world has to be that way since these are the kinds of features that physics can rule.

Nancy Cartwright, “Physics can’t deal with reality’s complexity” at IAI. News (October 17, 2022)

She offers an alternative approach:

Instead of supposing that physics must be queen of all we survey, I recommend we construct our image of what an ultimate science might be like on the basis of what current science is like when it is most successful, from putting people on the moon to devising and carrying out a plan for the complete evacuation of the Royal Marsden Hospital (which took just 28 minutes when called into play by a gigantic fire, 2 January 2008)… This is a world in which irritability, generosity and social exclusion can affect what happens just as gravity and electromagnetic repulsion can.

Nancy Cartwright, “Physics can’t deal with reality’s complexity” at IAI. News (October 17, 2022)

As she says, that’s the world we actually live in, a world of many tiny, intersecting worlds where causes can include anything from fundamental physics to social psychology.

Physics, after all, doesn’t tell us about ethics: whether or not to stand up to the bully, whether we are our neighbors’ keepers, or whether it is worthwhile to gain the whole world at the loss of our souls.

Physics lies at the base of things, yes. But beyond a certain level of complexity, things can’t be reduced to their constituent parts without losing what they intrinsically are. Ice cream is not just its constituents. A birthday party is not just a cake and decorations. Our homes are not just their replacement value. Many complexities are simply irreducible. That’s why really simple philosophies along the lines of “It all comes down to… ” don’t really work out.

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"Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States and increasingly used as an alternative treatment for chronic pain, but there is limited data that shows how it affects patient outcomes after surgery," said Elyad Ekrami, M.D., lead author of the study and clinical research fellow of the Outcomes Research Department at Cleveland Clinic's Anesthesiology Institute. "Our study shows that adults who use cannabis are having more—not less—postoperative pain. Consequently, they have higher opioid consumption after surgery."

Researchers analyzed the records of 34,521 adult patients—1,681 of them cannabis users—who had elective surgeries at Cleveland Clinic from January 2010 to December 2020. The cannabis users had used the drug within 30 days before surgery, while the other patients had never used cannabis. The patients who used cannabis experienced 14% more pain during the first 24 hours after surgery compared to the patients who never used cannabis. Additionally, patients who used cannabis consumed 7% more opioids after surgery, which the authors note was not statistically significant, but is likely clinically relevant.

"The association between cannabis use, pain scores and opioid consumption has been reported before in smaller studies, but they've had conflicting results," Dr. Ekrami added. "Our study has a much larger sample size and does not include patients with chronic pain diagnosis or those who received regional anesthesia, which would have seriously conflicted our results. Furthermore, our study groups were balanced by confounding factors including age, sex, tobacco and other illicit drug use, as well as depression and psychological disorders."

Dr. Ekrami noted that additional research is needed to further define cannabis' effects on surgical outcomes. "Physicians should consider that patients using cannabis may have more pain and require slightly higher doses of opioids after surgery, emphasizing the need to continue exploring a multimodal approach to post-surgical pain control," he said.

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The lawsuit alleges that Google “has relegated millions of RNC emails in masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building.”

Axios explains that last month, Google launched a pilot program to keep campaign emails out of spam. But the RNC has been criticizing the program, arguing it doesn’t help enough with political email filtering. Axios first reported that Google was launching the program in June. It was later approved by the Federal Election Commission and launched last month.

In that article, Axios reported that Google asked the Federal Election Commission if a program that would let campaigns emails bypass spam filters, instead of giving users the option to move them to spam first, would be legal under campaign finance laws. According to Axios, despite hundreds of negative comments submitted to the FEC arguing against it, the FEC approved the program in August. Eligible committees, abiding by security requirements and best practices as outlined by Google, could register to participate.

In the current article, Axios posted a quite from Google spokesperson José Castañeda:

“Gmail’s spam filter reflects users’ actions. We provide training and guidelines to campaigns, we recently launched an FEC-approved pilot for political senders, and we continue to work to maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

According to Axios, the RNC argues in the lawsuit that despite discussing the email issue with Google for more than nine months, it remains unresolved, alleging Google is sending emails to spam on purpose due to political bias. Axios reported that the RNC is not enrolled in Google’s email pilot program meant to alleviate these issues (per a source familiar with the situation.)

The Verge reported that the RNC’s lawsuit was filed in California’s Eastern District Court, and that the RNC accuses Google of “throttling its email messages because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views.”

According to The Verge, to address the RNC’s concerns, Google rolled out a pilot program in September that was supposed to help prevent political emails from getting marked as spam. However, according to The Verge’s Makena Kelly, Republicans haven’t been taking advantage of the program which would have required it to follow security requirements and best practices standards when sending out emails in bulk.

As noted by the lawsuit, the RNC claims Google has continued to send RNC emails “en masse” to users’ spam folders during “pivotal points” for gaining supporters and fundraising for the upcoming midterm elections. It goes on to state that Google’s alleged filtering occurs “at approximately the same time at the end of each month,” and that the end of October is one of the most crucial fundraising periods for Republicans, who have been struggling to meet their fundraising goals in the months leading up to the midterm elections, The Verge reported.

In my opinion, it sounds like the RNC could have avoided having its political emails sent to people’s spam folders simply by choosing to join Google’s program. If they had done that, this entire problem could potentially have been avoided. That said, if you are a person who wants to donate to Republican candidates – you might find those emails in your spam folder.

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People with compromised immune systems face a new winter of discontent as the ever-mutating omicron virus threatens to outrun the preventive monoclonal antibody cocktail that hundreds of thousands of them have relied upon for extra protection against Covid.

Troubling recent reports reveal the emergence of new omicron subvariants that not only evade AstraZeneca’s Evusheld, the antibody drug authorized to prevent Covid infection, but also the sole antibody drug that has retained effectiveness as treatment for Covid, Eli Lilly’s bebtelovimab.

“It scares the hell out of us,” said Minneapolis area resident Mimi Razim-FitzSimons.

Her daughter, Laura, 23, has a rare autoimmune condition that caused her to need a new kidney. Laura is highly immunocompromised by drugs used to prevent transplant rejection. Doctors have cautioned that should Laura get Covid, this could aggravate her autoimmune disease and lead to catastrophic kidney damage.

Evusheld is a long-acting antibody injection given every six months that studies have suggested provides a robust buffer to the immunosuppressed. An Israeli study of this population published July 29 found that Evusheld was associated with half the incidence of coronavirus infection and a 92% lower likelihood of hospitalization or death.

From freedom to facing a lonely life

The dual-antibody cocktail, medical experts lament, has actually been vastly underused in the U.S. An estimated 7 million U.S. adults are immunocompromised. But since Evusheld received its emergency authorization in December, only 582,361 doses have been administered — many of them likely second doses — according the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.

For people like Laura, who allowed her mother to speak on her behalf because she has a speech disability, Evusheld’s added layer of protection has afforded them at least a modicum of freedom.

This year, Laura has emerged for the occasional movie or meal out, as well as much needed trips to the dentist and to see her primary care physician. Having been relegated to attending college online for her art degree, she was even hoping to transfer to an in-person university experience.

“Every bit of that is off the table if we don’t have protection from what’s coming down the pike,” Razim-FitzSimons said.

Laura, she said, faces an interminably lonely life spent almost entirely at home.

For now, immunocompromised people are anxiously watching the pandemic forecast to see if the subvariants that research indicates evade monoclonal antibodies will become predominant.

On Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health’s Covid-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel issued a statement that the prevalence of these subvariants “is currently low or moderate.”

Epidemiologists worry that Evusheld in particular could provide little protection within a month or two. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday that the strains that are apparently resistant to Evusheld or bebtelovimab have been steadily increasing in the U.S.

Laura Razim-FitzSimons has a rare autoimmune condition that puts her at high risk of kidney damage from Covid. The protection she gets from Evusheld has given her enough freedom to see an occasional movie or have a meal out.

Courtesy Mimi Razim-FitzSimons

Alarm has been growing over another subvariant, called XBB. A preprint paper out of Peking University in China posted last month and updated Oct. 4 found that the XBB subvariant evaded both Evusheld and bebtelovimab.

XBB, the World Health Organization reported Wednesday, is apparently “the most antibody-evasive" version of the virus so far and has been reported in 26 countries. About half a percent of U.S. sequences were XBB as of about two weeks ago, although the proportion is approximately doubling weekly, according to GISAID, an international database of influenza and Covid viruses. (XBB isn't yet listed in the CDC's variant tracker.)

Other treatments, vaccines as protection

The NIH panel continues to recommend Evusheld. It also still recommends bebtelovimab for nonhospitalized people at risk of severe Covid but only if Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral pills or Gilead Sciences’ intravenous drug remdesivir are not options. The NIH scientists further assert that the pair of antivirals, as well as Merck’s molnupiravir, will remain active against the monoclonal antibody–resistant subvariants.

Each of these three antivirals, however, has major drawbacks as a safety net for immunocompromised people.

Paxlovid can interact dangerously with other medications that many immunocompromised people rely upon, especially organ transplant recipients. The oral medication molnupiravir provides only modest protection against Covid. Remdesivir requires three consecutive days of an up to two-hour intravenous infusion, a difficult and inconvenient procedure for many patients.

For Steven Weitzen, 63, who has a transplanted heart, taking Paxlovid could require safety monitoring by his transplant center in Manhattan. Such a visit typically requires a three- to four-hour round-trip drive from his home in Randolph, New Jersey.

“It’s not doable,” Weitzen said.

Dr. Jonathan Li, a virologist at Harvard Medical School, said that questions also remain about whether the standard five-day course of Paxlovid is reliably long enough to fully clear the infection, particularly among immunocompromised people.

The patient advocacy group TRAIPAG (for those who are transplant and immune compromised), led by Janet Handal, has urged the federal government to increase the number of health care centers offering remdesivir on an outpatient basis and to prod insurers into covering the drug without prior authorization.

Vaccines are still expected to provide moderate overall protection for the immunocompromised population. On Thursday, the CDC published results from a study finding that Covid vaccines given during the omicron wave lowered the hospitalization risk in this population by 32% to 67%, depending on the dominant subvariants at the time, the number of vaccine doses received (two to four) and the amount of time since the last shot.

The CDC recommends that immunocompromised people receive the bivalent coronavirus booster.

Otherwise, immunocompromised individuals and their health care providers are looking to the Covid treatment and prevention pipeline, which includes experimental antibodies from various companies. However, they are likely many months to more than a year away from being authorized for use.

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, said that the modest uptake of Evusheld was a concern on this front, as is Congress’ resistance to more Covid funding.

“If fewer people are prescribed Evusheld,” she said, “there’s less incentive for drug companies to start developing newer therapeutics. Unless the federal government incentivizes production of the next drugs, we could be in a place where we don’t have anything to fill the gap for the drugs we’re losing.”

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In today’s motivational literature, failure is often viewed as something to be celebrated. Disappointments are an essential stepping stone to success; a turning point in our life story that will ultimately end in triumph. Rather than falling into despair, we are encouraged to “fail forward”.

If only it were so simple. In the past decade, a wealth of psychological research has shown that most people struggle to handle failure constructively. Instead, we find ways to devalue the task at which we failed, meaning that we may be less motivated to persevere and reach our goal. This phenomenon is known as the “sour-grape effect”. Alternatively, we may simply fail to notice our errors and blithely continue as if nothing has happened, something that prevents us from learning a better strategy to improve our performance in the future.

Inspirational speakers are fond of quoting the words of the novelist Samuel Beckett: “Fail again. Fail better”. But the truth is that most of us fail again and fail the same.

Recent research shows there are ways to avoid these traps. These solutions are often counterintuitive: one of the best ways of learning from your mistakes, for example, is to offer advice to another person who may be encountering similar challenges. By helping others avoid failure, it turns out, you can also enhance your own prospects of success.

The ‘sour-grape effect’

Let’s first examine the sour-grape effect, discovered by Hallgeir Sjåstad, a professor of psychology and leadership at the Norwegian School of Economics, and colleagues.

He says he was intrigued by people’s tendency to abandon their dreams prematurely. “The research was an attempt to understand why we sometimes give up too early, even though we could have succeeded if we had been a bit more patient and willing to give it a second try,” he says.

In his first experiment, Sjåstad asked participants to take a practice trial of a test said to measure the precision of their intuition. They were asked to estimate how much 20 apples would weigh, for example – and they were told that a guess falling within 10% of the real answer would be considered a sign of strong intuition. High performance on several questions, they were told, correlated strongly to “positive outcomes in life, such as extraordinary achievements in work and a well-functioning social life” – a message that was designed to increase their desire to succeed.

After answering a couple of practice questions, the participants were given sham feedback – either very positive or very negative. They were then asked to predict how difficult it would be to perform well in the real test, and how happy they would feel if they scored 100%.

Sjåstad hypothesised that the people who were given negative feedback about their practice answers would underestimate the importance of their future performance for their emotional state. And this was exactly what happened. The people who felt they’d failed on the practice run predicted that a perfect score would do little to increase their immediate happiness. Crucially, this did not turn out to be true; when they took a second test and were told they received top marks, the good news really did make them happy. They had been completely wrong in assuming that the result would not make them proud.

Sjåstad says this is self-protective. “Most of us want to think of ourselves as competent and capable people, so when external feedback suggests otherwise, it poses a serious threat to that self-image,” he says. “The easiest way out is to deny or explain away the external signal, so we can reduce the inconsistency and preserve a positive sense of self. I think we do this all time, even without noticing.” (It’s worth noting that after each of these experiments, Sjåstad debriefed his participants, so they did not leave with a false impression of their intuitive abilities.)

The 'sour-grape effect' means we find ways to devalue the task at which we failed, meaning we may be less motivated to persevere and reach goals

(Credit: Getty Images)

In a subsequent experiment, Sjåstad explored how failure in the practice questions influenced participants’ other judgements of the test results’ importance to their lives. Once again, he saw clear signs of sour grapes: after participants had received the negative feedback, they were much less likely to say that the test results reflected “who [they] were, as a person”, or believe that their intuitive intelligence would determine their future success in life.

He has also tested the sour-grape effect in real life, among students at a Norwegian university. He found that simply reminding students of a currently low grade-point average led the students to significantly devalue the predicted benefits of graduating with an A average.

Sjåstad suspects that the sour-grape effect could influence motivation in many areas of life. If you have one bad interview for your dream job, you might decide you don’t really want to work in that field after all, and so you stop applying for similar positions. The same goes if you fail to impress at a sports trial, or if a publisher rejects the first submission of your manuscript.

“It might be tempting to explain away our shortcomings and blame someone or something else, trying to convince ourselves that our ‘Plan C’ was actually our ‘Plan A’ all along,” he says.

Sjåstad isn’t claiming that we should persevere in all our goals all the time; it can be healthy to put ambitions in perspective and change course if the process is no longer making us happy. But the sour-grape effect may lead us to come to this decision prematurely, he says, rather than seeing whether we might learn and improve.

The ‘ostrich effect’

Devaluing the source of your disappointment is just one way your mind may avoid coping constructively with failure; another coping mechanism is to hide your head in the sand, shifting your attention away from the upsetting situation so that you don’t have to process it.

Researchers have long known that we often turn a blind eye to incoming bad news. Economists, for instance, have found that investors are less likely to check their financial status when their fortunes are falling rather than rising.

This phenomenon has been called the “ostrich effect”, and it may be an example of a far wider tendency to overlook negative information, according to a series of recent studies by Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, an assistant professor of management and organisations at Northwestern University, US, and Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioural science and marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The satisfaction of helping another person provides a personal ego boost, so that people feel more confident to confront their own failures

Much of their research has centred around an experimental set-up called the “Facing Failure game”, in which participants were presented with a series of either-or questions. They were presented with pairs of symbols resembling hieroglyphs, for example, and asked to guess which one represented an animal, for example.

After giving their answers, they were told whether they were right or wrong. Since there were only two choices, either form of feedback – positive or negative – should have helped them to learn the correct answer, so that they could perform better on a subsequent test. And there was a small financial incentive to do so: they would receive $1.50 for each symbol that they remembered in the next round.

Most people successfully remembered their correct answers. Quite astonishingly, however, they failed to learn from mistaken answers, and performed no better than chance on these items. “People often didn’t learn anything,” says Fishbach.

To investigate the reasons for this phenomenon, the researchers asked a further group of participants to view someone else’s answers to a round of the Facing Failure game. In these cases, the “observers” seemed perfectly able to infer the correct responses from the other player’s wrong answers and to remember them later. “This suggests that the task is not so hard, cognitively,” says Fishbach. Instead, it seems to be the hurt feelings of being wrong themselves that acted as the barrier to learning for the people actually playing the game. Rather than confronting the mistake, participants who had got the answer wrong let their attention slip away, without encoding the correct answer in their memory.

Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach have now rolled out the Facing Failure game in many different contexts, including to groups of telemarketers, who were given the chance to learn useful information about their profession. In each case, the participants were perfectly capable of remembering their successes, but learnt almost nothing from their mistakes.

Fishbach has a light-hearted tone when she discusses these results, but she believes that they represent a serious challenge for our personal growth. “I laugh because I’ve been doing this research for a while, but it is quite depressing,” she admits.

The 'ostrich effect' coping mechanism is hiding your head in the sand, shifting attention away from the upsetting situation so you don’t have to process it

(Credit: Getty Images)

Failing constructively

Fortunately, Fishbach’s research with Eskreis-Winkler suggests that there are some strategies to overcome the emotional barriers to confronting failure.

The first is a process called ‘self-distancing’, in which you adopt a third-person perspective. Instead of asking “Why did I fail?” I might ask “Why did David fail?”, for example. Multiple studies by psychologist Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan show that self-distancing helps to soften our negative emotional reactions, allowing us to view upsetting events more objectively. In this case, it should mean that the failure feels less threatening to the ego, so that we can better analyse the reasons for the disappointment – without having sour grapes or defensively hiding our heads in the sand.

A second strategy involves offering advice to others who may be in the same position as you, which Eskreis-Winkler and Fishbach tested with Angela Duckworth, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. They found that the satisfaction of helping another person provides a personal ego boost, so that people feel more confident to confront their own failures. “It forces people to engage with their experience and what they have learned,” says Fishbach.

People who were struggling with weight loss, for example, wrote out tips based on their own failures for other people trying to stick to a diet. Afterwards, they felt more motivated to continue pursuing their own weight goal. Middle-school students, meanwhile, were asked to describe ways to overcome a lack of academic motivation to another, younger student; over the next four weeks, they overcame their own procrastination and completed significantly more homework, compared to students who had instead received a letter giving advice.

Sjåstad points out that failures are an inevitable part of life. “If you never fail, you’re probably aiming too low,” he says. And by learning to confront the disappointment and learn from their lessons, you may find the road to success a little easier to navigate.

David Robson is a science writer and author of The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life, published by Canongate (UK) and Henry Holt (USA) in early 2022. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.

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The map in question was created by Hipparchus, and it was recently discovered in a medieval parchment that researchers found in the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Scholars have been searching for Hipparchus’ catalog for centuries, a report on Nature.com notes, and it’s the world’s oldest known complete star map.

Nine of the 146 leaves, or folios, that the researchers discovered contained astronomical material. And, based on radiocarbon dating, it would have all been transcribed in the fifth or sixth century. The folios also include the star-origin myths by Eratosthenes, parts of a famous poem written in the third century BC called Phaenomena, and star coordinates, which could make it the world’s oldest complete star map.

Scientists found what may have been the first star map ever hidden within ancient manuscripts like this one. Image source: Stephen Butler / Adobe

The map is believed to have been written by Hipparchus because the coordinates correspond with a time when Hipparchus would have been working, around 129 BC. However, it’s impossible to say for sure as the world’s oldest complete star map isn’t exactly signed by its author.

Instead, the researchers can only make educated guesses based on what they’ve discovered so far.

And they have discovered quite a bit. The group published their findings in the Journal for the History of Astronomy on October 18. In the paper, they go over the exact details of the star map that they discovered, as well as why they believe it is the world’s oldest complete star map.

The discovery of the world’s oldest complete star map beneath other text is also a reminder of how scientists used technology to discover ancient amazonian structures in the rainforest. Even more ancient parchment has been used to reveal the possible locations of a lost city, too, which is why these ancient texts are so important to preserving our history.

What is even more intriguing about this discovery, though, is that the codex found is actually a palimpsest, meaning that the original writings were scraped from their parchment to make way for other texts to be written on top of them. So, the researchers didn’t notice the star map until they dug deeper using multispectral imaging.

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Olivier Lombard stands next to the Hopium Machina.

Dhananjay Khadilkar

 

PARIS—A 500 hp (373 kW) car with a 621-mile (1000-km) range reaching a maximum speed of 143 mph (230 km/h); the world’s first car partially powered by removable tanks… The stylish and innovative Hopium Machina and NAMX SUV, both hydrogen powered vehicles developed by startups, were among the chief attractions at this year’s Paris Auto Show.

 

Considering that Hopium was founded by a former Le Mans 24 hours winner, it isn’t a surprise that Machina is performance-focused. Olivier Lombard, who won in the LMP2 category in 2011 at Le Mans, also had a stint as a development driver of H24’s hydrogen-powered prototype that is set to run in future Le Mans races. “As a racing driver, for many years, I developed a race car with hydrogen technology. That is why I went for a performance car that also had range and took between three to four minutes to refuel,” Lombard, who is also the CEO of Hopium, told Ars Technica.

 

Lombard elaborated on the inspiration behind Machina. “When you are a race car driver, you have a close proximity with your car. You need to understand the car and feel its every move. We have the same closeness with Machina, whether it’s the car’s behavior on the road or the interactions inside like tactiles with haptic feedback,” he said.

 

According to Remi Voisin, a senior engineer at Hopium, what also made Machina stand out was its state-of-the-art fuel cell technology. “Ours is the most powerful fuel cell (200 kW peak power) ever produced which can deliver exclusive performance in terms of range, power and energy availability,” Voisin said.

 

Voisin added that they are aiming to start production of Machina by the end of 2025 or beginning of 2026.

A tank and six pods

For the Paris-based NAMX (New automotive and mobility exploration), the motivation behind designing a SUV with removable tanks was to find a new solution for hydrogen mobility. “Our CapXstore system costs much less than the price of building a hydrogen fuel station, '' Thomas de Lussac, co-founder and head of design, told Ars Technica.

 

The high end NAMX ‘HUV’ (Hydrogen Utility Vehicle) will generate 550 hp (410 kW) and have a maximum speed of 155 mph (250 km/h) with a maximum range of 497 miles (800 km). Of that total, 311 miles (500 km) will be provided by the main fixed tank, while the car will be able to run for an additional 186 miles (300 km) thanks to removable "CapX" capsules filled with hydrogen. “The NAMX HUV will have six such capsules, each with a 31 mile (50 km) range,” de Lussac said.

 

NAMX has gone for a more on-trend SUV. In this case it's an HUV, since its powered by hydrogen.

 

The HUV was designed by Pininfarina.

 

These are the HUV's removable CapX hydrogen capsules. You can see the third-from-rightmost capsule is sticking out, ready to be changed.

 

He added that these CapX capsules can be exchanged at the CapXstores that the company plans to install by the beginning of 2026. “Our objective is to create a network of CapXstores where these capsules will be available. We plan to put a CapXstore every 45 km,” he said. He added that the capsules can be filled at hydrogen stations. However, NAMX won't be producing its own hydrogen but will rather purchase it from existing commercial suppliers.

 

De Lussac said their aim was to extend the concept beyond cars to all kinds of mobility as well as for boats and machine works.

 

The other hydrogen-powered vehicles on display included a Citroen light commercial van with an 8.8-lb (4 kg) tank capacity, a range of 249 miles (400 km) and refueling time of three minutes. “The van uses a hybrid system of hydrogen and battery power. The battery, which provides a range of 50 km, is charged by the fuel cell,” Thierry Pinot of Stellantis told Ars Technica.

 

According to Pinot, the hydrogen hybrid system allows the van to have the same payload capacity as that of its internal combustion engine counterpart.

 

Finally, the Paris auto show also featured a concept car with striking design called Alpenglow. Developed by the French sports car manufacturer Alpine—essentially Renault's sporting division—it's a futuristic single-seater powered by a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine.

 

Alpine says the Alpenglow "embodies the brand's revival, in terms of design and technology" and that it "sets the tone as a source of inspiration for all future Alpine models." That said, it is not destined for production and while Alpine has plans for lightweight electric sportscars developed together with Lotus, it would be surprising to see an Alpine with a hydrogen internal combustion engine go on sale any time soon, given the very low power and efficiency that such engines generate.

 

Hydrogen-powered startups shine at the Paris Auto Show

A medical team surrounded Maria Mazurkevich’s hospital bed, all eyes on her as she did … nothing. Mazurkevich was 30 years old and had been admitted to New York–Presbyterian Hospital at Columbia University on a blisteringly hot July day in New York City. A few days earlier, at home, she had suddenly fallen unconscious. She had suffered a ruptured blood vessel in her brain, and the bleeding area was putting tremendous pressure on critical brain regions. The team of nurses and physicians at the hospital’s neurological intensive care unit was looking for any sign that Mazurkevich could hear them. She was on a mechanical ventilator to help her breathe, and her vital signs were stable. But she showed no signs of consciousness.

Mazurkevich’s parents, also at her bed, asked, “Can we talk to our daughter? Does she hear us?” She didn’t appear to be aware of anything. One of us (Claassen) was on her medical team, and when he asked Mazurkevich to open her eyes, hold up two fingers or wiggle her toes, she remained motionless. Her eyes did not follow visual cues. Yet her loved ones still thought she was “in there.”

She was. The medical team gave her an EEG—placing sensors on her head to monitor her brain’s electrical activity—while they asked her to “keep opening and closing your right hand.” Then they asked her to “stop opening and closing your right hand.” Even though her hands themselves didn’t move, her brain’s activity patterns differed between the two commands. These brain reactions clearly indicated that she was aware of the requests and that those requests were different. And after about a week, her body began to follow her brain. Slowly, with minuscule responses, Mazurkevich started to wake up. Within a year she recovered fully without major limitations to her physical or cognitive abilities. She is now working as a pharmacist.

Mazurkevich had “covert consciousness,” a state in which the brain reacts to the outside world with some comprehension, although the body does not respond. As many as 15 to 20 percent of patients who appear to be in a coma or other unresponsive state show these inner signs of awareness when evaluated with advanced brain-imaging methods or sophisticated monitoring of electrical activity. Many of these techniques have only recently been refined. These methods are altering our understanding of coma and other disorders of consciousness. Moreover, people whose covert consciousness is detected early have a greater chance of a full conscious and functional recovery, indicated by our studies at Columbia University. These discoveries, which would have startled most neurologists and neuroscientists a few decades ago, highlight the importance of recognizing this hidden conscious state and developing ways to communicate with people who are in it.

The standard definition of a comatose patient is someone who is unconscious, is unable to be awakened, and has no signs of awareness or the ability to interact with the environment. Patients in a coma caused by severe brain injury may look indistinguishable from someone in a deep sleep, except that most comatose patients cannot breathe on their own and need support from a ventilator, with a tube inserted into their airway.

Some people think comas are easy to recover from or—conversely—a living death. Both are mistakes. Popular depictions in movies and elsewhere may be partly responsible for this. Uma Thurman as the Bride in Kill Bill: Volume 1 awakens abruptly from a prolonged comatose state, appears well nourished despite not having any feeding tubes and regains full physical strength within hours. The reality is far more challenging, with frequent medical complications, physical deterioration and a long road of small steps forward with many steps backward. Patients who survive coma after severe brain injury typically require feeding tubes for nutrition, tracheostomies that allow them to breathe through a tube in the neck and weeks to months of rehabilitation. Recovery is variable and unpredictable, even in those who, like Mazurkevich, ultimately return to independence. Overly pessimistic views of coma patients are also inaccurate because people may assume that all such patients are destined to die without emerging from their coma or live with severe disability. Recovery of consciousness, communication and functional independence is quite possible in some patients, even after a prolonged time.

Views about coma and consciousness have changed in the medical profession over time. In the 1960s neurologists and neurosurgeons noted that some comatose patients opened their eyes but showed no interaction with the environment. Many of these people remained in this state until death, leading some clinicians to believe that consciousness, once lost in this way, was impossible to recover.

Yet in the 1990s reports of patients in a “permanent” vegetative state who returned to consciousness began to surface in the medical literature. In a vegetative state, unlike coma, people’s eyes may open and shut, but they still do not react in any deliberate manner. The reports of recovery from this condition pushed the fields of neurocritical care and rehabilitation medicine to develop more fine-tuned classifications such as the minimally conscious state. It is characterized by nonverbal responses, as when patients track objects with their eyes or intermittently follow commands. A patient’s prognosis, physicians learned, was related to these states. For instance, someone who moved from a vegetative to a minimally conscious state had a greater chance of further recovery.

Detecting and predicting recovery of consciousness early on, in the intensive care unit, is often a matter of life or death. Families typically make decisions about continuing or stopping life-sustaining therapy within 10 to 14 days of the injury—the time when surgical procedures become necessary to support longer-term breathing and feeding. And a diagnosis of covert consciousness could affect clinical decisions about goals of care, pain management, bedside behavior of clinicians and family members, and management of depression and anxiety.

So what does covert consciousness look like to clinicians and to the patient’s family? One can get some idea through the lens of locked-in syndrome, in which people may have normal or near-normal cognition but are unable to control most motor movements. Locked-in patients illustrate the limitations of judging awareness, thinking abilities, and emotions purely based on motor function. The term “locked in” was coined in 1966 by neurologists Fred Plum and Jerome Posner in their monograph The Diagnosis of Stupor and Coma. They refer to the description of M. Noirtier De Villefort as “a corpse with living eyes” in Alexandre Dumas’s classic The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–1846). In clinical practice, locked-in patients do not move their extremities, but many can reliably move their eyes up and down in response to verbal commands. Some can blink or show other subtle facial movements.

The experience of living in a locked-in state was poignantly illustrated by Jean-Dominique Bauby, an editor at Elle magazine who, in 1995, suffered a stroke that blocked signals traveling from the motor cortex in his brain to his spinal cord and limbs. Without the ability to speak or move his extremities, he began to communicate with his speech therapist using eye movements and wrote a memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1997). This book captured the fear, frustration and hope that individuals with locked-in syndrome may experience. Remarkably, some people in a locked-in state report a meaningful quality of life.

With covert consciousness, the lack of outward movement is complete, even more so than with locked-in patients. But this does not mean the absence of inner life. In 2006 neuroscientist Adrian M. Owen, now at Western University in Ontario, and his colleagues examined a young woman who had experienced a severe traumatic brain injury and was believed to be in a vegetative state. The health-care team assessed her with a type of imaging scan called functional MRI, which traces blood flow through the brain to reveal active areas. During this scan the clinicians asked her to imagine playing tennis and to imagine walking through the rooms of her house. To the surprise of Owen and his colleagues, the woman showed activation within her brain comparable to that seen in healthy volunteers. What’s more, the brain-activation patterns for the tennis task were distinct from the patterns in the walking task, indicating that she could deliberately change her brain activity.

Covert consciousness was subsequently identified in patients around the world, with varying types of brain injuries. In 2017 it was detected in seemingly unaware patients who had just been admitted to the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital with severe brain injuries, indicating that the covert phenomenon can occur in people who had very recently been hurt,, not only after patients have been “out” for weeks.

To diagnose the covert state, clinicians use different behavioral tasks, such as asking the patient to open and close their hands or imagine swimming while recording their brain reactions with an EEG or functional MRI. These responses have been reproduced by multiple research groups worldwide despite differences in methodology. Patients with covert consciousness can deliberately alter their brain patterns when told to move parts of their bodies or to envision an activity. But outwardly, in terms of body movements, they show no signs of following any prompt.

This state of being in which cognitive function exceeds motor expression is still poorly understood, and both the EEG and functional MRI techniques have limitations. The methods may not detect intentional brain activity in some patients who later regain consciousness. Both techniques may also be confounded by sedative medications, which are required for safety or comfort in most critically ill patients. Furthermore, functional MRI requires a specialized imaging room, and moving unstable patients from the intensive care unit to the MRI scanner may put them at risk. Yet another problem is that the MRI provides only a snapshot of a patient’s level of consciousness during a short period because it cannot easily be repeated. An EEG can be done frequently at the patient’s bedside—capturing snapshots at different times—but the method has its own shortcomings. Its readings can be altered by electrical noise created by other machines in intensive care rooms, which can cause the test to reflect artifacts instead of reality.

Both methods need improvements, but the evidence for their usefulness is strong enough for them to be endorsed for the diagnosis of covert consciousness in clinical guidelines in the U.S. (2018) and Europe (2020). The early detection of covert consciousness, soon after a patient’s injury, predicts behavioral recovery of consciousness, long-term functional recovery and the speed of that recovery, as shown by the research that our group published in 2019 (and confirmed more recently, in 2022). Building on the momentum of these studies, scientists came together in 2019 to launch the Curing Coma Campaign, an international collaboration led by the Neurocritical Care Society to direct medical resources and public attention to the condition, with the goal of developing new therapies that promote recovery of consciousness.

Neurologists are trying to develop a test that can identify which patients are likely to be in a state of covert consciousness and thus should undergo advanced EEG and functional MRI assessments. Laboratories around the world are working to develop such screening methods, but progress has been slow because the structural and functional mechanisms that underlie covert consciousness are uncertain, so clinicians do not know exactly what to look for. Recent studies suggest that brain injuries disconnecting the thalamus—a region that relays movement signals and sensory information between the body and brain—from the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for higher-level cognitive functioning, may be responsible for the condition. Yet it is likely that not a single type of lesion but rather various combinations of lesions in several locations could cause motor dysfunction while allowing covert consciousness. Further complicating clinical efforts to detect covert consciousness is that patients with severe brain injuries often have fluctuating levels of consciousness. Such swings mean that a single assessment could miss important signs; perhaps patients need to be tested multiple times.

Building on recent discoveries about the presence of covert consciousness, investigators are trying to reconnect and communicate with these patients using brain-computer interfaces. These devices typically record the brain’s electrical activity while asking the patient to move the cursor of a mouse on a computer screen. The computer “learns” to identify the physiological signals that correlate with the patient’s attempts to move the cursor, left, right, up or down. Once training is completed, those brain patterns allow the patient to take control over the cursor. Patients can use it to select letters and spell out words.

Brain-computer interfaces would be ideal to provide covertly conscious patients a communication channel with the outer world. But tremendous challenges must be overcome, particularly for acutely brain-injured patients. The capacity for sustained attention in these patients may be compromised, and prolonged training is often not feasible. Moreover, the hectic, noisy intensive care environment is not ideal for these purposes. For example, even though Mazurkevich had covert consciousness that was associated with a very good recovery, she was unable to activate a brain-computer interface to communicate with the health-care team or her family.

Communication might be possible using functional MRI, too. A few years ago Martin Monti, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, used the method to investigate the presence of covert consciousness in a group of behaviorally unresponsive patients. He wanted to see if he could train them to reliably answer “yes” or “no” to questions by using different functional MRI activation patterns. This required enormous technological coordination as the imaging data needed to be analyzed in real time. As Owen did in 2006, Monti asked patients to imagine playing tennis or imagine walking through their apartment. The difference was that he wasn’t simply looking for brain activation; he wanted to see if they understood questions well enough to answer them. He told them to think about tennis if the answer to a given question was “yes” and think about walking through their home if the answer was “no.” Monti identified one patient in the group who reliably communicated with him using this strategy, creating one pattern of brain activity for yes answers and another pattern for no answers. Although there are questions about whether this approach can be scaled up for wider use, his study suggested that communication with patients in a state of covert consciousness is possible.

To further improve communication, reliable tools to identify patients with covert consciousness need to be at the bedside. A number of groups are investigating advanced EEG technology because this can more easily be integrated into the clinical routine of an intensive care unit. And with brain-computer interfaces, the accuracy of the algorithm that decodes the patient’s attempts to control the computer might be enhanced by using additional biological signals, such as heart rate, along with brain activity.

Beyond the urgent matter of caring for critically ill patients, diagnosis and exploration of covert consciousness have the potential to teach us about the human mind. In covert consciousness, the very foundation of our experience as humans, our consciousness, is dissociated from our behavior. What is the inner mental life of the covertly conscious patient? Detecting covert consciousness fundamentally affects our conceptualization of an individual’s personhood and autonomy. Brain-computer interfaces have not yet allowed in-depth conversations, and to date patients with covert consciousness who recovered the ability to communicate and were interviewed later did not remember the experience of being covertly conscious. Mazurkevich, for instance, does not recall any aspect of her time in the intensive care unit when she appeared to be comatose. So the experience is still largely a mystery.

There is no mystery, however, about the ethical imperative that physicians now have to search for consciousness in patients who appear unresponsive, using all available technologies and resources. Increasing access to these technologies and resources is a fundamental goal, and challenge, for the medical community, spearheaded by the Curing Coma Campaign. With those tools, we can look forward to a future in which all covertly conscious people are given a way to speak for themselves.

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Everyone procrastinates at some point in their lives. Whether it relates to paying a bill, making a doctor’s appointment, completing a school project, or meeting a work deadline, it is sometimes easier to put off important tasks we may not fully enjoy and would rather accomplish some other time.

While for most people the act of procrastination may only happen every so often, for others it becomes a constant occurrence. An estimated 20% of adults in the United States are chronic procrastinators, even though research shows that high levels of procrastination in the workplace can have negative effects on employment duration and income.

And studies suggest that 75% of college students are habitual procrastinators, leading to issues including stress, anxiety, and sleeping problems.

Why do more people procrastinate than others? Is procrastination a mental health condition? And does procrastinating offer any positives or is it just a negative habit we need to kick?

Medical News Today spoke to a variety of experts to answer these questions and more about the delay tactic we are all familiar with.

What happens in the brain?

According to Sharon Greene, LCSW, who specializes in treating anxiety and depression for children, adolescents, and adults at Providence Saint John’s Child & Family Development Center in Santa Monica, CA, procrastination results from a struggle between a person’s limbic system and prefrontal cortex of the brain.

“Your limbic system is an older part of the brain that is automatic and seeks out pleasure and/ or avoids things that cause distress,” she explained to Medical News Today. “Your prefrontal cortex is a newer part of the brain that helps with planning, decision-making, and long-term goals. We all suffer at times from procrastination due to these fighting structures in our brains.”

Dr. Bill Hudenko, a licensed psychologist, researcher, and professor who holds a joint appointment as a faculty member at Dartmouth’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, and global head of mental health at digital care platform, K Health, cited a study showing that people who often procrastinate have a larger amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for emotions, particularly negative ones.

“The authors also found that procrastinators have a less functional connection with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex — a part of the brain that assimilates information and is implicated in decision-making,” he continued. “While intriguing, this study highlights that procrastination is not so cut-and-dry and does not occur in just one region of the brain.”

A study by researchers from the Paris Brain Institute published in September 2022 found evidence suggesting the anterior cingulate cortex is where the decision to procrastinate is made. They also developed an algorithm to predict a person’s tendency to procrastinate or not.

Anxiety and procrastination

And Dr. Alex Wills, a board-certified psychiatrist and author of Give a F*ck, Actually, said other issues a person may be facing can impact how procrastination affects the brain.

“In the case of anxiety disorders, a person may become paralyzed with much activity in the amygdala — fear, despair, perfectionism, or ‘paralysis by analysis’,” he detailed. “With depression, processing information may become too slow when patients feel helpless or indecisive.”

“[And] in the case of ADHD, there may be a neurological lack of cognitive focus due to a lack of dopamine sent to the prefrontal cortex in which the person may subjectively simply become innocently unaware of a looming deadline — until it’s too late,” Dr. Wills added.

Is procrastination a mental health issue?

Dr. Hudenko said procrastination itself is not a mental health condition. However, it can be problematic behavior if it becomes routine and causes distress.

“If someone is procrastinating due to an anxiety disorder, that anxiety can lead to other negative outcomes,” he explained. “Treating the underlying anxiety that affects procrastination could help someone who is avoiding necessary tasks and may also improve other aspects of their life.”

And Dr. Wills stated procrastination is often thought of as a symptom commonly found in various disorders:

“Under the anxiety spectrum, it is often found in OCPD [obsessive-compulsive personality disorder], OCD, hoarding, or PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] due to fears related to past trauma. In ADHD, which I consider more of a neurological or ‘wiring’ condition, procrastination may be a result of an inability to prioritize, stay on task, or stay focused.”

“Procrastination may also be an indicator of addictive tendencies — the high of ‘saving the day’ from calamity by finishing an important task just before the deadline,” Dr. Wills continued. “Whether someone does it all the time or not may be an indicator of one of these underlying mental health conditions.”

Are there any benefits to procrastination?

Generally speaking, most people consider procrastination a negative habit. However, are there any positives to it?

Dr. Hudenko said there are many cases when procrastination can be beneficial, even when the person does not intend for it to be.

“Everyone can relate to procrastinating on a task because it is low impact or low value, which shows good judgment about time management and task prioritization,” he explained.

 “Procrastination can also help people prioritize engaging in aspects of their life that bring joy. Perhaps it’s ultimately better for your mental health if you go play that game of tennis instead of getting that project done on your list. Furthermore, you might come back to that project with more energy and new insights because you stepped away to do something else!”

    – Dr. Bill Hudenko

“Lastly, some people work better under pressure and perform best when they have a strict deadline, even if they didn’t intend to wait until the last minute,” Dr. Hudenko added.

And Dr. Wills said viewing procrastination as a “negative” or a “symptom” of other mental health diagnoses may be shortsighted.

“In my book, Give a F*ck, Actually, I celebrate the so-called ‘negative’ emotions and ask how these emotions may be trying to help,” he said. “We can ask, ‘What is procrastination teaching me about my emotional reality?'”

How to stop procrastinating

For those who wish to stop procrastinating, Greene suggested “rolling the tape” when thet notice themselves starting to.

“Basically visually imagining in your mind what it will feel like doing the task last minute including the stress, exhaustion, and the possibility of not completing it in time or handing in a subpar product,” she explained. “For some people, this negative visualization can be enough to help them start the task.”

Also, Green said giving oneself a reward after completing each step can be helpful.

“Some people also benefit from enlisting others to hold them accountable to complete each small step,” she added.

Setting deadlines can be a helpful tool against procrastination when set correctly. A study from November 2021 conducted by Dr. Stephen Knowles, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Otago in New Zealand and his team found people were more likely to complete a task with a 1-week deadline or no deadline compared to being given a 1-month deadline.

“Previous research shows that for tasks that benefit you — e.g. redeeming a voucher for a restaurant — that the longer the deadline, the lower the response rate — meaning no deadline leads to the lowest response,” Dr. Knowles told MNT.

“Our research focused on a task that benefited others — e.g. completing a survey or making a charitable donation. We suspect that in our context giving people a deadline of a month gave them permission to take their time, whereas having no deadline made it seem more urgent,” he added.

Based on his findings, Dr. Knowles suggested people who tend to procrastinate should set shorter deadlines rather than longer ones.

“If you are setting a deadline for someone else, you should either keep it short or not mention a deadline at all,” he said.

And Dr. Hudenko said if the root of the procrastination is because an activity may take too much time, try the “chunking” method:

 “Try to split things up into manageable chunks and do them over time. For example, instead of cleaning your whole house, which can feel overwhelming, just commit to cleaning the sink today and the floors tomorrow. Oftentimes when you get started on a subtask, it also makes it much easier to complete the whole thing because you prove to yourself that the task you put off isn’t really as bad as you made it out to be in your head.”

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Millions of people are now suffering from long COVID, which presents with a staggering array of possible symptoms that can linger for months, or even years. To provide more answers to this frustratingly relentless condition, researchers have tested an association between mental stresses and long COVID.

These stressors include depression, anxiety, and types of distress usually overlooked, including loneliness, perceived stress, and specific worry about COVID.

Surprisingly, these stressors were a stronger predictor of long COVID than physical comorbidities, including a history of hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, and cancer.

Ironically, hearing of these connections can add to anxiety. Still, they are an essential and timely reminder that we must prioritize our mental health even amid an ongoing global pandemic. And while the reasons behind these stressors are very different, they can all challenge our bodies in similar ways.

"There's a long history of people not taking these [mental health] conditions as seriously as they might take physical health conditions that might be easier to measure or easier to see," Harvard University neuroepidemiologist Andrea Roberts told StatNews.

"For long COVID, obviously, then, it becomes very important to look at psychological health, and it raises more broadly the question of the importance of identifying and treating mental health issues."

The team is emphatic that this in no way means long COVID symptoms are all in our head – listing several reasons why the chronic condition is not psychosomatic.

Roberts, Harvard medical doctor Siwen Wang, and their colleagues based their analysis on 54,960 participants of large ongoing nurses' health studies. Of those, the researchers collected data from 3,193 nurses who ended up having COVID. The volunteers filled out baseline, then follow-up questionnaires over 19 months starting from April 2020.

The researchers found long COVID was between 30-50 percent more likely for those who had symptoms of any of the considered stressors.

"Participants who experienced high levels of two or more types of distress [had] nearly 50 percent greater risk of post- COVID-19 conditions than those who did not experience a high level of distress," Wang and team write in their paper.

More than 40 percent of those who developed long COVID had no previous mental health conditions. The study's results remained similar when they excluded participants reporting psychiatric, cognitive, and neurological symptoms.

"We were surprised by how strongly psychological distress before a COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk of long COVID," says Wang.

"Distress was more strongly associated with developing long COVID than physical health risk factors such as obesity, asthma, and hypertension."

Most other long COVID symptoms, like coughing, are not symptoms associated with mental illness. What's more, while physical activity is well established as protective against mental illness relapses, half of those with long COVID experienced relapses when trying to exercise; physical and mental health stressors that could exacerbate long COVID need to be considered in tandem.

Psychological stress has been linked to inflammation through the release of inflammatory cytokine proteins, which have also been implicated in long COVID. Studies suggest stress also suppresses our immune system.

Although the study is large, most participants were of a similar demographic – mostly white women with an average age of around 50. Also, the researchers have still just established an association and not a clear link that this combination causes long COVID.

It may be something that's common to these types of distress, rather than the mental health conditions themselves, that is playing a role in long COVID.

However, this isn't the first study to suggest the association between distress and long COVID. A UK study involving multiple sclerosis patients found that almost 30 percent experienced prolonged COVID symptoms for at least 4 weeks, and another 12 percent experienced them for at least 12 weeks.

Wang and the team also highlight how other researchers found similar links between mental illness and long-term symptoms after Lyme disease or CFS/ME.

More work is needed to understand the whole picture, but investigating such potential leads could help researchers determine what exactly is going on with this chronic condition that more and more people are facing every day.

"These results also reinforce the need to increase public awareness of the importance of mental health and to get mental health care for people who need it, including increasing the supply of mental health clinicians and improving access to care," concludes Roberts.

This research was published in JAMA Psychiatry.

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The past several years have seen a lot of unexpected turbulence in the global energy market. Lockdowns during the early pandemic response caused energy use to plunge in 2020, but carbon emissions soared as the economy rebounded in 2021. Early 2022, however, saw Russia invade Ukraine and attempt to use its energy exports as leverage over European countries, leading to worries about a resurgence in coal use and a corresponding surge in emissions.

 

As 2022 draws to a close, however, there are many indications that things aren't going to be all that bad. Coal use has risen, but not as much as feared, and the booming renewables market has largely offset its impact on emissions. Meanwhile, Europe has made rapid adjustments to its energy supplies and appears to be in a position to handle this winter's likely energy demands.

Europe has gotten ready

In many parts of Europe, energy use peaks in the winter with the onset of cold weather. A lot of the heating demand, along with some demand for electricity, is met by burning natural gas, and Russia is a major supplier for the continent. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European sanctions initiated a series of threats and then curtailments in Russia's delivery of natural gas, ultimately ending with the apparent sabotage of one of the most significant natural gas pipelines.

 

All indications are that Europe will face the winter without any significant imports of Russian natural gas. This led to a massive spike in natural gas prices and ensuing rises in consumer energy prices even during the summer when demand is low. Countries in Northern Europe started planning for emergency conservation measures, and a major surge in coal use was expected.

 

But things are no longer looking as bleak as they did earlier in the year. Germany, which is well into its planned phase out of nuclear power, ordered its last operational plants to remain open through at least the spring, cutting the amount of electricity that needs to be generated using natural gas.

 

High prices in Europe also spurred natural gas producers to liquify the fuel and ship it to the continent—to such a large extent that there is now a significant backlog of ships waiting to offload their liquid cargo at European ports. As a result of this and various conservation measures, the continent's natural gas storage facilities are now at roughly 90 percent of their capacity.

 

That supply, coupled with policy decisions like planned price caps, has led to a plunge in the price of natural gas in Europe, large enough to wipe out the spike in prices that had occurred earlier in the year. All of which is suggesting that, as long as reasonable conservation measures are taken and Europe avoids any extended cold snaps, it should make it through the winter without a major crisis.

Renewables are changing the game

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has done a preliminary analysis of 2022 data in order to project where the full year's energy use and emissions will end up. And things are looking better than might be expected. After 2021 saw a 2 billion tonne rise in CO2 emissions, the IEA estimates that 2022 will likely see them go up by less than one percent, or roughly 300 million tonnes. A major factor behind the increase is an additional 200 million tonnes of emissions from coal burning.

 

But, the IEA argues, that could have been much worse. A lot of it came from the increased coal use in Europe, which is expected to be temporary, as EU countries will need to reverse it in order to meet their climate goals. And the IEA says that a large growth in renewables meant that a lot of the growth in global energy use is emissions free. The IEA estimates that solar and wind production in 2022 will grow by 700 terawatt hours, the largest increase ever recorded. That was enough to avoid 600 million tonnes of carbon emissions—put differently, the growth in renewables avoided more than twice the actual growth in emissions.

 

The IEA also indicates that transportation is playing a major role in carbon emissions. 2022 is likely to see air travel return to 80 percent of where it was pre-pandemic, and very little of the fuel used for this is renewable. But the update also cites the rapid growth of electric vehicles as a significant factor in the relatively sedate growth in carbon emissions (although it does not put numbers on their influence).

 

Overall, the trends look good here. Given their price advantages, the installation of wind and solar is likely to continue growing, leading to additional records for amount of energy provided. Should the recent growth in coal use prove temporary as expected, then that growth will likely include the displacement of carbon-emitting sources. If so, then we can expect to return to the pattern seen in the middle of the previous decade, where GDP growth was largely disconnected from changes in carbon emissions.

 

The critical question will be whether we can get to the point where we can have consistent GDP growth while emissions drop from year to year. So far, drops in emissions have been too rare to say much about what would enable that.

 

The world’s energy situation is not as terrible as you might expect

Myth, busted: Formation of Namibia’s fairy circles isn’t due to termites

Using food to alleviate your mood? The time of meals may have an impact on mood, including levels of depression and anxiety, according to recent research. In a study that simulated night work, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, examined the effects of eating during the day and at night as opposed to solely during the day.

Researchers discovered that among individuals in the daytime and nighttime eating groups, anxiety- and depressive-like mood levels rose by 16% and 26%, respectively. This increase was not seen in the group of participants who only ate during the day, indicating that meal timing may affect mood vulnerability. The findings were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“Our findings provide evidence for the timing of food intake as a novel strategy to potentially minimize mood vulnerability in individuals experiencing circadian misalignment, such as people engaged in shift work, experiencing jet lag, or suffering from circadian rhythm disorders,” said co-corresponding author Frank A. J. L. Scheer, Ph.D., Director of the Medical Chronobiology Program in the Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders. “Future studies in shift workers and clinical populations are required to firmly establish if changes in meal timing can prevent their increased mood vulnerability. Until then, our study brings a new ‘player’ to the table: the timing of food intake matters for our mood.”

In industrial societies, shift workers make up to 20% of the labor force and are directly responsible for various hospital services, manufacturing jobs, and other essential services. Shift workers commonly encounter a discrepancy between their brain’s internal clock and routine activities like eating and fasting cycles. They also face a 25 to 40% greater risk of developing anxiety and depression.

“Shift workers — as well as individuals experiencing circadian disruption, including jet lag — may benefit from our meal timing intervention,” said co-corresponding author Sarah L. Chellappa, MD, Ph.D., who completed work on this project while at Brigham. Chellappa is now in the Department of Nuclear Medicine, at the University of Cologne, Germany. “Our findings open the door for a novel sleep/circadian behavioral strategy that might also benefit individuals experiencing mental health disorders.

Our study adds to a growing body of evidence finding that strategies that optimize sleep and circadian rhythms may help promote mental health.”

To conduct the study, Scheer, Chellappa, and colleagues enrolled 19 participants (12 men and 7 women) for a randomized controlled study. Participants underwent a Forced Desynchrony protocol in dim light for four 28-hour “days,” such that by the fourth “day” their behavioral cycles were inverted by 12 hours, simulating night work and causing circadian misalignment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two meal timing groups: the Daytime and Nighttime Meal Control Group, which had meals according to a 28-hour cycle (resulting in eating both during the night and day, which is typical among night workers), and the Daytime-Only Meal Intervention Group, which had meals on a 24-hour cycle (resulting in eating only during the day).

The team assessed depression- and anxiety-like mood levels every hour.

The team found that meal timing significantly affected the participants’ mood levels. During the simulated night shift (day 4), those in the Daytime and Nighttime Meal Control Group had increased depression-like mood levels and anxiety-like mood levels, compared to baseline (day 1). In contrast, there were no changes in mood in the Daytime Meal Intervention Group during the simulated night shift. Participants with a greater degree of circadian misalignment experienced more depression- and anxiety-like moods.

“Meal timing is emerging as an important aspect of nutrition that may influence physical health,” said Chellappa. “But the causal role of the timing of food intake on mental health remains to be tested. Future studies are required to establish if changes in meal timing can help individuals experiencing depressive and anxiety/anxiety-related disorders.”

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Unusual as it may sound to most people, it's an idea that persists even today. And like most things of this nature, it has taken on a life of its own online. But is there any evidence urine therapy works?

To cut to the chase, no. Urine is waste and should be left excreted from the body.

Early origins

Before modern medicine, various cultures had innovative ways to manage health. The early Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Aztecs and Romans reportedly used urine as a treatment for various ailments, such as to heal battle wounds or whiten teeth.

There was some logic to these practices. For example, without access to clean water, urine might be used to wash a wound. Or in the absence of a gas mask, a urine-soaked rag could be used to filter out nasties during a chlorine gas attack.

Historically, these uses were only justified in contexts where no medical alternative was available. Nonetheless, some continue to recommend using urine for various ailments today.

With our current health and treatment options, there is no reason to engage with any form of urine treatment. And there is no scientific evidence drinking urine or engaging in any other urine therapy has benefits.

In all modern contexts, there are more hygienic and effective solutions than urine therapy—regardless of what ailment or problem is being addressed.

If you're seeking a therapeutic benefit from one of the compounds found in urine, it's best to get this over a pharmacist's counter and not from a cup in the loo!

What is in urine?

Urine is excreted from the kidneys as they filter blood, keeping what the body needs and removing the waste as urine, which is stored in the bladder until we pee.

Urine is 95% water. The remaining ingredients include urea (2%) and creatinine (0.1%)—a breakdown product from muscle and protein metabolism—alongside trace elements of various salts and proteins.

Urea is a safe organic compound, which occurs naturally when proteins are metabolised. Urea-based formulations can be found in skin and nail softening lotions, acting as an effective moisturiser and helping to improve the skin's barrier function.

However, although urea is present in urine, its concentration is simply too low to offer any therapeutic benefit.

Apart from urea and creatinine, more than 3,000 different compounds have been found in urine. This means, as we learn more about the urinary system, future screening for a wide variety of health issues, including cancers, might be obtained through a simple urine test.

Might urine therapies be harmful?

In some cases public interest in urine therapies has been so strong, governments have had to ban proposed urine-based "health drinks".

The fact is excreted urine can be quite harmful. There are only a few ways the body can remove waste from its system, and this is done primarily through urine, faeces and sweat.

This means urine might contain environmental toxins and other nasties your body has worked hard to remove. Some medications are also excreted in urine, so drinking it can accumulate toxic levels of these drugs. In some cases urine can also have pathogenic bacteria that, if ingested, can cause serious diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, an upset stomach and infections.

And no, urinating on the site is not recommended for jellyfish stings. This has the potential to cause even more pain by aggravating the stingers and inducing them to release more venom.

Even drinking urine in a survival situation isn't as helpful as it's often touted to be. Although it may make some sense to return fluid to your system, at the same time reintroducing excreted salts will be unhelpful for hydration.

Also, as dehydration sets in you won't be making much urine anyway, so drinking urine in a survival situation is unlikely to be a viable option.

Is urine 'sterile'?

In most cases only very low levels of bacteria are excreted in urine. But the idea urine might be sterile is simply a myth. The word sterile means "completely clean and free from dirt and bacteria".

Our body is full of resident bacterial colonies that maintain our health and assist with general daily functions. This means most of our body is not sterile, and the bladder is no exception.

A high level of bacteria is usually associated with urinary tract infections. Nonetheless, there's an ever-growing body of research identifying all kinds of healthy bacteria living in our bladder, which can be excreted in the urine of healthy people.

Peeing in the shower is also a no-no, as urine can cause infections if it comes in contact with cuts or wounds on your legs. This practice can even make disorders such as overactive bladder or incontinence worse, by causing our brains to associate running water with the "need to pee".

This particularly impacts females as their pelvic area anatomy just isn't designed to pee standing up.

While standing, the muscles may struggle to contract and relax properly, or even slow the stream of urine. This means the bladder may not be completely emptied and increases the chance of infections.

The bottom line is there are no scientifically supported benefits for urine therapies. If you need a particular treatment, you should talk to your doctor rather than turning to a urine-based prospect.

If you accidentally drink urine, call your local poisons information centre for advice.

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Instead, Americans can purchase hearing aids by going online or with a single trip to the nearest pharmacy or big-box store. These aids are only for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. For these consumers, over-the-counter hearing aids clearly offer an appealing alternative.

As an otologist/neurotologist—that's someone who specializes in the diseases of the ear—I like to say that while vision binds us to the world, hearing binds us to each other. In my practice, I see firsthand how patients with hearing loss often withdraw socially and become isolated. They don't want to put themselves in situations where they may mishear or seem disengaged, disinterested or unintelligent. This may be why studies show hearing loss is associated with depression and cognitive impairment.

So it seems the over-the-counter hearing aids would be a great solution for patients with hearing loss, right? Less hassle and less cost—in many cases, thousands of dollars less—and more people than ever getting the help they need. But it's not that simple. Occurring just two months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's final ruling on the matter, over-the-counter sales of hearing aids come with caveats and even some risks.

Prior to the availability of over-the-counter devices, only 30% of those over age 70 with hearing loss used hearing aids.

How hearing loss happens

Hearing specialists divide hearing loss into two main categories: conductive and sensorineural hearing loss. Conductive loss is caused by any number of things, including ear wax obstruction, a perforation in the ear drum or fluid in the middle ear. Children are more likely than adults to have conductive hearing loss, and most of the time, many of these problems are relatively easy to correct.

But sensorineural hearing loss is caused by a problem occurring in the inner ear, auditory nerve and brain. Most commonly, there is a loss of the tiny cochlear hair cells that convert sounds into an electrical signal. The brain interprets that signal as a bird singing or a child laughing. Hair cell injury is generally permanent and irreversible; those cells do not regenerate in humans, or for that matter, in any mammal.

Whether conductive or sensorineural, hearing aids have proved to be a tremendous boon for patients with hearing loss. One national survey found that in 2019, 7.1% of adults aged 45 and over used a hearing aid.

Over-the-counter hearing aids are not for everyone who has hearing loss.

Problems with over-the-counter hearing aids

Before over-the-counter hearing aids became available, patients needed a formal hearing test and assessment. This is critical because not all hearing loss is the same; hearing specialists—both otolaryngologists and audiologists—are trained to decipher the type of hearing loss that a patient is experiencing. From that, they make recommendations on hearing treatment. If a patient needs a hearing aid, a health care professional will fit them with one.

But purchasing an over-the-counter hearing aid requires none of those things—not an ear exam, not a hearing test and not a fitting session.

There are many reasons why this shortcut approach, while certainly less expensive and offering easier access, may not be ideal for someone experiencing hearing loss.

First, patients may have a chronic infection or condition that requires medical or surgical management, rather than a hearing aid. Second, some patients may be a candidate for surgical correction of their hearing loss. Third, patients with hearing loss in one ear or a large difference in hearing between the two ears may have a benign growth on the hearing and balance nerve. This often requires surgery or radiation treatment.

Again, a hearing aid would not help with this condition.

Additionally, for those who would benefit from an over-the-counter product, not every hearing aid fits every ear—one size most certainly does not fit all. And one more caveat: Over-the-counter hearing aids are not recommended for people under 18.

Finally, some patients may have too much hearing loss for these devices to provide any benefit. Instead, many patients with more advanced hearing loss have the option of a cochlear implant, which is essentially a wire with an electrode array surgically placed into the cochlea, the bony "house" of the hair cells situated deep in the skull. The electrodes stimulate the auditory nerve directly, bypassing the damaged hair cells. For these patients, cochlear implants offer an exceptional opportunity to hear again. As the technology improves, more people will become candidates for this medical miracle.

About 80% of adults aged 55 to 74 who would benefit from a hearing aid do not use them. The new over-the-counter hearing aids hold great promise for the right patients. But buyer beware: They are not panaceas. Not all customers will be satisfied with over-the-counter hearing aids—and a visit to the doctor or audiologist is still critical.

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Erin Bartholomew, from University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to assess the role of mindfulness and meditation in treating psoriasis symptoms, severity, and quality of life.

Based on six identified randomized controlled trials with a pooled 356 patients with psoriasis, the researchers found that five demonstrated improvement in the self-administered Psoriasis Area and Severity Index after eight or 12 weeks of guided meditation. Mental health benefits were seen among psoriasis patients following guided meditation in one randomized controlled trial and one nonrandomized trial.

"Overall, these results suggest the possibility that meditation can be used as a tool to improve both psoriasis severity and patient quality of life in the short term," the authors write.

Two authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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The amount of unburned gas that leaks from appliances and infrastructure in the course of 1 year is comparable to the annual benzene emissions from 58,800 light-duty gasoline vehicles, reported Eric D. Lebel, PhD, of PSE Healthy Energy in Oakland, and colleagues in Environmental Science & Technology.

"Stoves leak small amounts of gas all the time, even when they are off. While these leaks are often too small to smell, they can still impact air quality and increase human health risks in our homes," said Lebel in a press release. "We found that just having a gas stove can create benzene concentrations in the kitchen comparable to secondhand smoke."

This report follows a previous study in which the same research team measured methane emissions from stoves in 53 California homes and found that they emitted 0.8-1.3% of the gas they use as unburned methane, not only when in use, but when off, and when flames are ignited and extinguished.

Another recent investigation led by Drew Michanowicz, DrPH, also of PSE Healthy Energy, who co-authored the current study, analyzed unburned natural gas samples from 69 unique kitchen stoves and building pipelines across Greater Boston and found that they contained varying levels of volatile organic chemicals known to be toxic, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and hexane.

The relationship between natural gas and indoor air pollution is of particular concern in California. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 88% of all California households had natural gas services in 2020, a saturation level that is the second highest in in the U.S. Furthermore, 70% of California homes have stoves that use natural gas.

"Natural gas leaks are a source of hazardous air pollutants that have largely been overlooked," Michanowicz said in the press release. "Policies that phase out gas appliances are not only good for our climate, our study shows that these policies also provide important public health benefits by improving indoor and outdoor air quality."

For this study, Lebel and his team collected 185 unburned natural gas samples from 159 unique residential natural gas stoves across seven different geographical locations in California. They found that of the non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) assessed, 12 carried a hazardous air pollutant designation. Six of the NMVOCs were detected in more than 98% of the natural gas samples, including benzene, which has been associated with an increased risk of blood disorders, such as leukemia, the authors noted.

Concentrations of pollutants varied throughout the state, with the highest levels found in Los Angeles County. The North San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, in particular, contained very high benzene concentrations, including the maximum benzene concentration observed in the study -- 66 parts per million by volume, which is approximately 66 times greater than the highest benzene level recorded in end-use natural gas in Massachusetts.

These high levels "warrant further study to better understand factors contributing to these high concentrations," Lebel and colleagues wrote, suggesting that the trace gas variability observed in the study "indicates that California's natural gas supply chain is complex and likely reflects the multiple hydrocarbon sources both from in-state production and imports in addition to the variability of the efficacy of natural gas processing systems that support end-use consumption."

They also noted that their estimates of indoor concentrations of benzene could underestimate the true indoor concentrations of the chemical, as their calculations focused solely on the contribution of benzene from gas leakage from gas stoves when they were off, and not during combustion or incomplete combustion, or other gas appliances, gas pipes in the residence, or other non-natural gas benzene sources.

Due to these health concerns, California regulators are working on getting homes to transition from gas appliances to electric alternatives, Lebel and team said.

Last month, California regulators approved a first-in-the nation plan to phase out the sale of natural gas furnaces and water heaters by 2030 -- a move designed to transition millions of homes to electric alternatives, such as heat pumps. The California Public Utilities Commission has also voted to eliminate subsidies that incentivize builders to install gas lines to new buildings.

These initiatives follow efforts by individual California municipalities to curb natural gas use. For example, in August, San Diego approved a climate action plan that calls for banning natural gas in new construction while electrifying nearly all existing buildings over the next 12 years.

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In a major milestone for Iran’s scientific community, astronomers announced today in Tehran that the Iranian National Observatory (INO) has seen “first light”: The world-class, 3.4-meter optical telescope, whose future appeared cloudy just last year, is operational and has acquired its debut images.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment for so long,” says INO Project Director Habib Khosroshahi, an astronomer at the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM) in Tehran.

First light for the $25 million observatory “comes at a turbulent time,” Khosroshahi acknowledges. Iran has been roiled by protests since last month’s death in police custody of a young woman who’d been arrested for not wearing her hijab properly. “We’re anxious about how our announcement will be interpreted,” Khosroshahi says. “But we want to emphasize that INO is for all the people of Iran. We couldn’t keep this news to ourselves anymore.”  

INO’s scientific odyssey began 2 decades ago—and faced long odds. “When they started this project, it was just a dream. No one in Iran had attempted anything on this scale before,” says Gerry Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and chair of INO’s international advisory board.

Last year, some former INO personnel voiced concerns about whether changes to INO’s design might compromise its performance. “Those doubts have been put to rest,” says optical engineer Lorenzo Zago, a consultant and advisory board member. INO opened its dome for sky calibration on 27 September and the next night imaged Arp 282, a pair of galaxies some 319 million light-years from Earth. The image’s resolution—0.8 arc seconds—and that of a second image taken a few days ago, 0.65 arc seconds, are close to the limit set by the atmospheric conditions at INO’s site, 3600-meter Mount Gargash in central Iran. “That resolution’s spectacular. Much better than expected,” Gilmore says.

“The science run, which hopefully starts next summer, will show the quality of the design and construction,” says Reza Mansouri, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Sharif University of Technology who led the project until 2016 and who last year expressed worries about the telescope’s future.

Engineers still need to complete tasks such as integrating software, fine-tuning the active optics, and installing the first science instrument, a high-quality imaging camera. Initial science goals include probing galaxy formation evolution and stellar evolution, and hunting for exoplanets.

The Iranian observatory and two others in the region—a 4-meter infrared telescope in Turkey nearing completion and a 3.6-meter optical telescope in India—fill a geographic gap in a global network that keys in on fleeting phenomena such as gamma ray bursts to try to pinpoint their locations and unravel their physics. “You need a chain of telescopes all around the world to follow up,” Gilmore says.

In building INO, astronomers in Iran had to surmount hurdles that few colleagues elsewhere face: sanctions that curtail high-tech imports, and visa restrictions limiting their travel abroad. The Iranian team purchased the glass mirror blanks from a German firm. INO engineers then had to figure out how to construct nearly everything else on their own. “What surprises me is that the know-how came so fast,” Zago says. “They’ve been working like hell!”

“At every stage they increased the project’s ambition and complexity,” Gilmore says. For example, he says, when so-called active control systems—sensors, actuators, and software that position a primary mirror—first became available for larger telescopes about a decade ago, INO engineers incorporated those into the design. What’s “truly astonishing,” Zago says, is a precision vacuum chamber that INO engineers and an Iranian company fashioned to coat the blanks with aluminum, transforming the polished glass into telescope mirrors. When the United Kingdom in the 2000s set out to build an aluminizing system for its Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, Gilmore says, “it took us forever to get right.”

Khosroshahi hopes to forge partnerships with international teams that might install state-of-the-art instrumentation in INO’s four instrument slots. “The door is open from our side,” he says, though sanctions and politics could stymie some potential collaborations. In the meantime, Iran’s burgeoning astronomy community—just a couple of dozen strong at the project’s outset but several hundred scientists and students today, Khosroshahi says—is looking forward to some serious stargazing. “We fought with disappointment, darkness, and also with words that could discourage us,” says IPM’s Maryam Torki. “But in the end, we witnessed this glorious birth.”

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You’re alluding to an unkind stereotype of older people, but does it have any truth to it? In personality terms, the evidence shows that, on average, the older we get, the more closed-minded we tend to become. We are less willing to see alternative perspectives or explore new experiences.

Importantly, however, another way that our personalities tend to mature in old age is that our neuroticism decreases and our agreeability increases. That is, older people tend to be calmer, warmer, friendlier and more trusting than they were when they were younger – which is hardly consistent with the stereotype of an ageing curmudgeon. In fact, a Swiss study of people over 80 years old noted their remarkable composure and nonchalance toward old age – a trait the researchers called ‘senior coolness’.

Another perspective comes from the Danish-American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, whose eight-stage theory of life development described the final stage – from roughly 65 years old and upwards – as a psychological battle between integrity and despair.

If older people view their lives with disappointment and regret, he said, then despair will win, thus fuelling bitterness. In contrast, older people who recognise they did the best they could and see their lives with acceptance and a sense of meaning, then they avoid bitterness and get to enjoy feelings of wisdom instead.

Maybe that’s the ‘coolness’ the Swiss researchers observed!

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Britain’s Defense Ministry has acknowledged that China had recruited as many as 30 former Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter pilots to train their Chinese counterparts using Chinese planes, paying them as much as US$270,000 per year, according to a New York Times report citing anonymous sources.

While none of the retired pilots have flown the F-35, the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) most advanced warplane, they have flown advanced aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Jaguar and Tornado, the report said.

China has also attempted to recruit pilots trained on the highly-classified F-35, but its recruitment efforts have apparently not succeeded, Sky News reported this week.

The New York Times report notes that China recruited former British pilots through a private flying test company based in South Africa. The same report also notes that other allied nations’ fighter pilots have received similar offers from China.  

Apart from British pilots, China has reportedly made similar offers to Australian pilots, as reported by 9News this week. In response, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles has ordered the Australian Ministry of Defense (MOD) to investigate such reports and provide clear guidance on how to deal with the matter.

The former fighter pilots, some in their late 50s, can pass on decades of experience to China’s new pilots, which is in line with China’s efforts to improve its fighter pilot training program and modernize its air force to match Western standards.

These skills could be pivotal in a Taiwan conflict, where Taipei’s US-trained and equipped air force will be the self-governing island’s first line of defense against a Chinese blockade or invasion. China’s Western-trained fighter pilots could use the same techniques against the US and its allies if and when they attempt to come to Taiwan’s aid.

A F-35 pilot straps in for a flight at Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: USAF

The UK is taking the threat seriously enough to issue a rare intelligence alert warning its former fighter pilots against working for the Chinese military, the BBC reported this week.

Currently, the UK government has no laws or policies on the books to stop its former fighter pilots from accepting contracts to work with the Chinese military. That could soon change with reports the UK plans to introduce new laws that criminalize ex-military personnel from taking contracts to train members of specific militaries, likely to include China.

UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans James Heappey said that the British government plans to introduce a “two-strike rule” to warn former RAF pilots against dealing with China before they face potential prosecution, The Guardian reported this week.

“We’ve approached the people involved and have been clear to them that it’s our expectation they would not continue to be part of that organization. We are going to put into law that once people have been given that warning it will become an offense to go forward and continue with that training,” said Heappey, according to the report.

China has denied the covert recruitment efforts, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Weibin saying he was unaware of such practices, The Washington Post reported this week.

In a Forbes article this week, Paul Kennard notes that although these former British fighter pilots may not be knowledgeable about the most up-to-date weapons systems, they still think in the same way as NATO pilots now on active duty.

Specifically, Kennard said that the ex-pilots will still approach mission planning like their active-duty counterparts, including through the so-called Composite Air Operation (COMAO) framework where small numbers of high-value air assets can be effective over multiple individual sub-missions with some used in diversionary tactics.

Such complex missions require intensive training and regular practice, which China seeks to glean from the former British fighter pilots.

Kennan also notes that China’s efforts to recruit retired British and other allied fighter pilots are part of a “normalize deviance” strategy to gain information on top-tier Western platforms, such as the F-35, including regarding the aircraft’s strengths and weaknesses.

He writes that China has sought to convince active-duty British and allied military personnel that taking a contract from China is no different than taking one from Saudi Arabia, widely seen as allied with the US and West. Poor economic and career prospects after military service are clear motivators for former military pilots to take China’s rich offers, Kennan says.

 UK fighter pilot Tim Laurence in a “selfie” action shot. Image: Pinterest / Crown

Kennan notes that Covid-19 has drastically slashed international travel, causing many former military pilots who flew commercial planes to suddenly lose their jobs. Moreover, he notes, older pilots are considered uneconomical to train on new aircraft, resulting in bleak prospects in the commercial aviation industry.

From China’s perspective, former British and allied fighter pilots provide the human element lacking in China’s current fighter training program.

Asia Times previously reported that China has recently accelerated its fighter pilot training program to fly fourth-generation fighters from four to six years down to three. However, China’s fighter training scenarios are highly scripted and tied to ground control, making them less responsive and adaptable to rapidly-changing combat conditions.

Although China has given its pilots the responsibility to make their flight plans and complete autonomy over their sorties, it will take time and expertise to reform the rigid practices institutionalized in its air force.

Former UK fighter pilots with specialized knowledge could thus provide the human unpredictability that China’s current fighter pilot training programs lack.

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The results of the study, which was conducted by the University of Chicago (UChicago), McMaster University, and the Institut Pasteur, were published on October 19 in the journal Nature.

Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis), the global pandemic of the bubonic plague wiped out 30% to 60% of people in cities across North Africa, Europe, and Asia, with massive repercussions for the human race — and, apparently, our genome.

“This was a very direct way to evaluate the impact that a single pathogen had on human evolution,” said co-senior author on the study, Luis Barreiro, PhD, Professor of Genetic Medicine at UChicago. “People have speculated for a long time that the Black Death might be a strong cause of selection, but it’s hard to demonstrate that when looking at modern populations, because humans had to face many other selective pressures between then and now. The only way to address the question is to narrow the time window we’re looking at.”

New research from the University of Chicago, McMaster University, and the Institut Pasteur has found evidence that one of the darkest periods in recorded human history placed a significant selective pressure on the human population, changing the frequency of certain immune-related genetic variants and affecting our susceptibility to disease today. Credit: UChicago Medicine

In the study, the scientists took advantage of recent advances in sequencing technology to examine ancient DNA samples from the bones of over 200 individuals from London and Denmark who died before, during, and after the Black Death plague swept through the region in the late 1340s. Using targeted sequencing for a set of 300 immune-related genes, they identified four genes that, depending on the variant, either protected against or increased susceptibility to Y. pestis.

“This is, to my knowledge, the first demonstration that indeed, the Black Death was an important selective pressure to the evolution of the human immune system,” said Barreiro.

A member of the Barreiro lab works in the tissue culture hood. Credit: UChicago Medicine

 

The research team zeroed in on one gene with a particularly strong association to susceptibility: ERAP2. Individuals who possessed two copies of one specific genetic variant, dubbed rs2549794, were able to produce full-length copies of the ERAP2 transcript, therefore producing more of the functional protein, compared to another variant that led to a truncated and non-functional version of the transcript. Functional ERAP2 plays a role in helping the immune system recognize the presence of an infection.

“When a macrophage encounters a bacterium, it chops it into pieces for them to be presented to other immune cells signaling that there’s an infection,” said Barreiro. “Having the functional version of the gene appears to create an advantage, likely by enhancing the ability of our immune system to sense the invading pathogen. By our estimate, possessing two copies of the rs2549794 variant would have made a person about 40% more likely to survive the Black Death than those who had two copies of the non-functional variant.”

Luis Barreiro, PhD, co-senior author on the study. Credit: UChicago Medicine

 

The team even went so far as to test how the rs2549794 variant affected the ability of living human cells to help fight the plague, determining that macrophages expressing two copies of the variant were more efficient at neutralizing Y. pestis compared to those without it.

“Examining the effects of the ERAP2 variants in vitro allows us to functionally test how the different variants affect the behavior of immune cells from modern humans when challenged with living Yersinia pestis,” said Javier Pizarro-Cerda, PhD, head of the Yersinia Research Unit and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Plague at Institut Pasteur. “The results support the ancient DNA evidence that rs2549794 is protective against the plague.”

Tauras Vilgalys, PhD, analyzing sequencing data obtained from ancient DNA. Credit: UChicago Medicine

 

The team further concluded that the selection for rs2549794 is part of the balancing act evolution places upon our genome; while ERAP2 is protective against the Black Death, in modern populations, the same variant is associated with an increased susceptibility to autoimmune diseases, including acting as a known risk factor for Crohn’s disease.

“Diseases and epidemics like the Black Death leave impacts on our genomes, like archeology projects to detect,” said Hendrik Poinar, PhD, Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University and co-senior author on the study. “This is a first look at how pandemics can modify our genomes but go undetected in modern populations. These genes are under balancing selection — what provided tremendous protection during hundreds of years of plague epidemics has turned out to be autoimmune-related now. A hyperactive immune system may have been great in the past but in the environment today it might not be as helpful.”

Members of the Barreiro Lab conduct cell culture experiments. Credit: UChicago Medicine

 

Future research will scale the project to examine the entire genome, not just a selected set of immune-related genes; and the team hopes to explore genetic variants that affect susceptibility to bacteria in modern humans and compare them to these ancient DNA samples to determine if those variants were also a result of natural selection.

“There is a lot of talk about how pathogens have shaped human evolution, so being able to formally demonstrate which pathways and genes have been targeted really helps us understand what allowed humans to adapt and exist today,” said Barreiro. “This tells us about the mechanisms that allowed us to survive throughout history and why we’re still here today.”

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The majority of parents have been frustrated by their babies’ excessive crying and refusal to sleep. According to recent research, holding them for five minutes and walking with them is the most effective method for calming them down. This evidence-based soothing method is detailed in a paper recently published in Current Biology.

“Many parents suffer from babies’ nighttime crying,” says corresponding author Kumi Kuroda of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan. “That’s such a big issue, especially for inexperienced parents, that can lead to parental stress and even to infant maltreatment in a small number of cases,” she says.

What action soothes crying infants the best? Scientists now have an answer. Credit: Current Biology/Ohmura et al.

 

Kuroda and her colleagues have been researching the transport response, an innate reflex exhibited in many altricial mammals, including mice, dogs, monkeys, and humans, whose offspring are immature and unable to care for themselves. They discovered that when these animals pick up their newborns and begin walking, their young’s bodies become docile and their heart rates decrease. The goal of Kuroda’s team was to compare the effects of the transport response—the relaxed response while being carried—with those of other situations, such as motionless maternal holding or rocking. They also wanted to determine whether the effects persist with longer carrying in human infants.

The researchers examined the reactions of 21 newborns while they were in four different situations: being carried by their walking mothers, being held by their sitting mothers, resting still in a crib, or sleeping in a rocking cot. The research team discovered that after 30 seconds of the mother walking with the baby, the crying newborns’ heart rates decreased and they stopped crying. When the babies were put in a rocking cot, a similar soothing effect occurred, but not when the mother held the baby while seated or laid the baby in a still crib.

This suggests that holding a baby alone might be insufficient in soothing crying infants, contradicting the traditional assumption that maternal holding reduces infant distress. At the same time, movement has calming effects, likely activating a baby’s transport response. The effect was more evident when the holding and walking motions continued for five minutes. All crying babies in the study stopped crying, and nearly half of them fell asleep.

But when the mothers tried to put their sleepy babies to bed, more than one-third of the participants became alert again within 20 seconds. The team found that all babies produced physiological responses, including changes in heart rate, that can wake them up the second their bodies detach from their mothers. However, if the infants were asleep for a longer period before being laid down, they were less likely to awaken during the process, the team found.

“Even as a mother of four, I was very surprised to see the result. I thought baby awoke during a laydown is related to how they’re put on the bed, such as their posture, or the gentleness of the movement,” Kuroda says. “But our experiment did not support these general assumptions.” While the experiment involved only mothers, Kuroda expects the effects are likely to be similar in any caregiver.

Based on their findings, the team proposes a method for soothing and promoting sleep in crying infants. They recommend that parents hold crying infants and walk with them for five minutes, followed by sitting and holding infants for another five to eight minutes before putting them to bed. The protocol, unlike other popular sleep training approaches such as letting infants cry until they fall asleep themselves, aims to provide an immediate solution for infant crying. Whether it can improve infant sleep in the long term requires further research, Kuroda says.

“For many, we intuitively parent and listen to other people’s advice on parenting without testing the methods with rigorous science. But we need science to understand a baby’s behaviors because they’re much more complex and diverse than we thought,” Kuroda says.

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