Category Archives: Technology

Free broadband: internet access is now a human right, no matter who pays the bills

The UK Labour Party is promising to provide free broadband internet to every British household by 2030 if it wins the 2019 election. To do this, the party would nationalise the broadband infrastructure business of BT and tax internet giants like Google and Facebook. Whatever you think of this plan, it at least reflects that the internet has become not only an essential utility for conducting daily life, but also crucial for exercising our political rights.

In fact, I recently published research that shows why internet access should be considered a human right and a universal entitlement. And for that reason, it ought to be provided free to those who can’t afford it, not just in the UK, but around the world.

Internet access is today necessary for leading a minimally decent life, which doesn’t just mean survival but rather includes political rights that allow us to influence the rules that shape our lives and hold authorities accountable. That is why rights such as free speech, free association, and free information are among the central rights included in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And, crucially, everyone needs to have roughly equal opportunities to exercise their political rights.

Before the internet, most people in democracies had roughly equal opportunities to exercise their political rights. They could vote, write to newspapers or their political representative, attend public meetings and join organisations.

But when some people gained internet access, their opportunities to exercise political rights became much greater compared to those without the internet. They could publish their views online for potentially millions of people to see, join forces with other people without having to physically attend regular meetings, and obtain a wealth of previously inaccessible political information.

Today, a large proportion of our political debates take place online, so in some ways our political rights can only be exercised via the internet. This means internet access is required for people to have roughly equal opportunities to make use of their political freedoms, and why we should recognise internet access as a human right.

As a human right, internet access should be “free” in two ways. First, it should be unmonitored, uncensored, and uninterrupted – as the UN’s General Assembly has demanded in a non-binding resolution in 2016. Second, governments should guarantee a minimally decent infrastructure that is available to all citizens no matter how much money they have. This means funding for internet access should be part of minimum welfare benefits, provided without charge to those who can’t afford to pay for it, just like legal counsel. (This is already the case in Germany.)

A political goal

In developing countries, digital infrastructure reaching everyone might be too expensive to guarantee immediately. But with the required technology becoming cheaper (more people on the planet have access to a web-capable phone than have access to clean water and a toilet), universal access could first be guaranteed via free wifi in public places. Supply can start off in a basic way and grow over time.

Still, expensive infrastructure isn’t the sole obstacle to universal access in developing nations. The spread of the internet could also be increased by promoting gender equality and literacy and digital skills. Developed nations ought to support these efforts by honouring their commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Should everyone in Britain have free broadband in their homes? There are many good reasons to provide the best possible internet access to everyone, such as increasing economic productivity, sharing prosperity more evenly across the country, or promoting opportunities for social engagement and civic participation. And, as such, free broadband for all may be a worthy political goal.

But what is most important is ensuring that everyone has the kind of internet access required for roughly equal opportunities to use their political freedoms. Guaranteed internet access should be considered a human right in our virtual world, whoever ultimately pays the bills.

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Merten Reglitz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/free-broadband-internet-access-is-now-a-human-right-no-matter-who-pays-the-bills-127267

Narcissists: why we need to take better care of them

Narcissists, like sharks, get a bad press. Both are generally seen as menacing, negative forces to be feared and avoided.

But as any biologist will tell you, sharks play a vital role in the marine ecosystem. And it may be that narcissists also have a necessary part to play in human society.

This of course, goes against the widely accepted perception of personality traits – that it is good to be agreeable and outgoing, and bad to be narcissistic.

After all, narcissistic people engage in risky behaviour, hold an unrealistic superior view of themselves, are overconfident, show little empathy for others, and have little shame or guilt. But if narcissism is so socially toxic, why does it persist and why is it said to be on the rise in modern societies?

The answer is that human nature is complex. And while narcissism is often associated with “dark traits” like psychopathy and sadism, it also has aspects which are widely considered to be positive, such as extroversion and confidence.

In saying this, I do not mean to defend or excuse the worst examples of narcissistic behaviour. Instead, I want to highlight the potentially beneficial elements – which could then enable society to harness the positive potential of “dark” personalities while also curtailing their potential for harm.

The best kind of narcissist

There are two main types of narcissism: “grandiose” and “vulnerable”. Vulnerable narcissists are likely to be more defensive and view the behaviour of others as hostile, whereas grandiose narcissists usually have an over inflated sense of importance and a preoccupation with status and power.

The results from our studies show that grandiose narcissism correlates with highly positive components of mental toughness. These include confidence and a focus on achieving goals, which help protect against symptoms of depression and stress.

The association between narcissism and mental toughness may help to explain the variation in symptoms of depression in society. If a person is more mentally tough, they are likely to embrace challenges head on, rather than viewing them as a hurdle.

So while not all dimensions of narcissism are good, certain aspects can lead to positive outcomes. And a little bit of narcissism can be a useful tool when faced with stressful situations, providing that extra bit of mental toughness we need to get through.

It’s a bit like having the ability to run when walking is not enough. The idea is that people need to be flexible. They need to walk when that’s all that is required, but run when that’s what’s necessary. Likewise, the ability to call on a little bit of narcissism when faced with a challenge, socially or professionally, is a useful skill.

A bridge to the other side

Recent research from our lab suggests that narcissism may act as a bridge connecting the “dark” (anti-social) and “light” (pro-social) sides of the human personality. Put simply, individuals can cross that bridge to use their dark traits when facing a challenge, and pro-social characteristics when in a safe environment.

Our work suggests that instead of perceiving human personality as a dichotomy (narcissistic versus agreeable) we should treat it as a constantly changing spectrum.

It is not about promoting grandiosity over healthy self-esteem and modesty. Instead it is about promoting diversity of people and ideas by advocating that dark traits, such as narcissism, should not be seen as either good or bad. They are products of evolution, and expressions of human nature that may be beneficial or harmful depending on the context.

This may help to reduce the marginalisation of individuals that score high on dark traits, and work out how best to cultivate some manifestations of these traits, while discouraging others, for the collective good.

It is too simplistic to say that personality traits like narcissism, which help individual empowerment, are socially toxic. People are trying to adapt, survive and succeed in a social, political and economic environment that promotes the “self-made man or woman”, and if they exhibit antagonistic traits such as narcissism they receive negative attention. Yet grandiose narcissism may be the key to protecting individuals from such needless pressure.

Nor do I think there are individuals who live without narcissism. In common with other psychological traits, it exists on a spectrum, with some individuals scoring higher than others.

Elsewhere in the natural world, a human fear and distrust of sharks has led to widespread attitude of “us” versus “them”. After the movie Jaws was released, according to one conservationist there was a “collective testosterone rush” which led to thousands of anglers targeting and killing sharks off the American coast.

Shark numbers have dropped dramatically (by up to 92%) in the past half century. So just as we are starting to understand the importance of sharks for the marine ecosystem, we have run out of sharks to study.

We should not let narcissists be similarly marginalised just because we don’t understand them. Instead of demonising parts of our personality, we need to celebrate all of its aspects – and work out how best to use them, for our own benefit and the benefit of society.

Kostas Papageorgiou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/narcissists-why-we-need-to-take-better-care-of-them-126528

Is your cat in pain? Its facial expression could hold a clue

They say that eyes are windows to the soul. Indeed, research suggests this might also be true for our four-legged friends. Since the days of our most celebrated natural historian, Charles Darwin, humans have been interested in how animals communicate via their facial expressions, and how different species might express themselves in similar ways.

However, it wasn’t until relatively recently that scientists began to study animal faces systematically, to understand what this might tell us about their specific feelings or intentions. Most of this research has focused on trying to understand how their faces look when in pain, using “grimace scales”.

Grimace scales include a series of images that show how facial expressions change when animals experience no, moderate and severe pain. While mice were the original “guinea pigs” for these studies, similar scales have now been developed for a range of domesticated animals including horses,rabbits, ferrets, piglets, sheep, rats and also cats.

Interestingly, for many of these species, their faces seem to change in a similar manner when in pain. For example, their eyes become squinted, tension appears in their nose, mouth and cheeks, and their ears may look a bit flattened or drawn back.

Interpreting the findings

While these findings help us understand the inner world of animals, we are still a long way off from possessing the so-called King Solomon’s ring – the power to speak to animals.

One of the limitations to our understanding of animals’ expressions is that we have tended to extrapolate from what we already know about human faces, even though animals often have quite different facial musculature and use this in different ways to us.

There is also a potential issue when trying to identify the same expressions in species with very different looking faces; for example, a flat, round-faced Persian cat looks very different to a large-eared, long-nosed Siamese.

Some animals, especially cats, may also hold their cards close to their chests. Cat’s closest ancestors are solitary, territorial and potentially prey for larger mammals, so they are unlikely to want to advertise when they are in pain or generally feeling a bit off. Indeed, pain in cats is notoriously difficult to assess. Many cats might just become a little quiet, go off and hide, or even seemingly carry on as normal. Their expressions are therefore subtle and can be difficult for humans to identify.

Trying to assess pain by studying slight differences in facial expressions can quite literally be a pain-staking operation – it’s not always easy to do in real time and requires training. For these reasons, there has been growing interest in the use of machine learning to automate the process of analysing facial expressions in both humans and other animals.

What’s generally been missing is less human-based, and more species-specific, biologically relevant systems for animals. This was the motivation for the recent development of an approach focusing on cats which lays the foundation for future objective, automatic detection of facial expressions. Applying a technique usually reserved for measuring bones, we annotated almost a thousand pictures of cats’ faces based on the relative position of their underlying facial muscles and knowledge of how their faces change shape as their muscles contract and relax. Differences in their faces before and after routine surgery were then compared to identify expressions associated with pain.

We detected several key features linked to pain:

(i) Ears narrowed and further apart from each other

(ii-iv) Mouth and cheek areas appear smaller and drawn in towards the nose and up towards the eyes

(v) Eyes slightly narrowed or a bit more “squinty”

(vi) Subtle differences in the shape of the cat’s outer ears, with their right ear a little narrower and further down the side of their face

(vii) Nose positioned downwards towards the mouth, away from the eyes, angled a little more to the left side of their face.

While these changes in expression may be obvious in individual cats, at a population level these were quite subtle, probably due to the general variability in the appearance of different cats’ faces. This suggests that in every day, practical situations, such as when at the vet, pain expressions could be easily missed, especially if the vet doesn’t know what the cat’s face usually looks like (their “resting cat face”).

The good news is, though, that owners may be better at detecting these subtle changes, and one day there might even be an app available to help us determine if our cats are likely to be in pain or not. This novel approach could also be developed to assess a range of other expressions and emotions, and in a range of other species. So we might soon actually have something that helps us communicate better with our pets, at the tips of our fingers.

Lauren Finka Works as a specialist consultant for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/is-your-cat-in-pain-its-facial-expression-could-hold-a-clue-125106

Quantum physics: our study suggests objective reality doesn’t exist

Alternative facts are spreading like a virus across society. Now it seems they have even infected science – at least the quantum realm. This may seem counter intuitive. The scientific method is after all founded on the reliable notions of observation, measurement and repeatability. A fact, as established by a measurement, should be objective, such that all observers can agree with it.

But in a paper recently published in Science Advances, we show that, in the micro-world of atoms and particles that is governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, two different observers are entitled to their own facts. In other words, according to our best theory of the building blocks of nature itself, facts can actually be subjective.

Observers are powerful players in the quantum world. According to the theory, particles can be in several places or states at once – this is called a superposition. But oddly, this is only the case when they aren’t observed. The second you observe a quantum system, it picks a specific location or state – breaking the superposition. The fact that nature behaves this way has been proven multiple times in the lab – for example, in the famous double slit experiment (see video below).

In 1961, physicist Eugene Wigner proposed a provocative thought experiment. He questioned what would happen when applying quantum mechanics to an observer that is themselves being observed. Imagine that a friend of Wigner tosses a quantum coin – which is in a superposition of both heads and tails – inside a closed laboratory. Every time the friend tosses the coin, they observe a definite outcome. We can say that Wigner’s friend establishes a fact: the result of the coin toss is definitely head or tail.

Wigner doesn’t have access to this fact from the outside, and according to quantum mechanics, must describe the friend and the coin to be in a superposition of all possible outcomes of the experiment. That’s because they are “entangled” – spookily connected so that if you manipulate one you also manipulate the other. Wigner can now in principle verify this superposition using a so-called “interference experiment” – a type of quantum measurement that allows you to unravel the superposition of an entire system, confirming that two objects are entangled.

When Wigner and the friend compare notes later on, the friend will insist they saw definite outcomes for each coin toss. Wigner, however, will disagree whenever he observed friend and coin in a superposition.

This presents a conundrum. The reality perceived by the friend cannot be reconciled with the reality on the outside. Wigner originally didn’t consider this much of a paradox, he argued it would be absurd to describe a conscious observer as a quantum object. However, he later departed from this view, and according to formal textbooks on quantum mechanics, the description is perfectly valid.

The experiment

The scenario has long remained an interesting thought experiment. But does it reflect reality? Scientifically, there has been little progress on this until very recently, when Časlav Brukner at the University of Vienna showed that, under certain assumptions, Wigner’s idea can be used to formally prove that measurements in quantum mechanics are subjective to observers.

Brukner proposed a way of testing this notion by translating the Wigner’s friend scenario into a framework first established by the physicist John Bell in 1964. Brukner considered two pairs of Wigners and friends, in two separate boxes, conducting measurements on a shared state – inside and outside their respective box. The results can be summed up to ultimately be used to evaluate a so called “Bell inequality”. If this inequality is violated, observers could have alternative facts.

We have now for the first time performed this test experimentally at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on a small-scale quantum computer made up of three pairs of entangled photons. The first photon pair represents the coins, and the other two are used to perform the coin toss – measuring the polarisation of the photons – inside their respective box. Outside the two boxes, two photons remain on each side that can also be measured.

Despite using state-of-the-art quantum technology, it took weeks to collect sufficient data from just six photons to generate enough statistics. But eventually, we succeeded in showing that quantum mechanics might indeed be incompatible with the assumption of objective facts – we violated the inequality!

The theory, however, is based on a few assumptions. These include that the measurement outcomes are not influenced by signals travelling above light speed and that observers are free to choose what measurements to make. That may or may not be the case.

Another important question is whether single photons can be considered to be observers. In Brukner’s theory proposal, observers do not need to be conscious, they must merely be able to establish facts in the form of a measurement outcome. An inanimate detector would therefore be a valid observer. And textbook quantum mechanics gives us no reason to believe that a detector, which can be made as small as a few atoms, should not be described as a quantum object just like a photon. It may also be possible that standard quantum mechanics does not apply at large length scales, but testing that is a separate problem.

This experiment therefore shows that, at least for local models of quantum mechanics, we need to rethink our notion of objectivity. The facts we experience in our macroscopic world appear to remain safe, but a major question arises over how existing interpretations of quantum mechanics can accommodate subjective facts.

Some physicists see these new developments as bolstering interpretations that allow more than one outcome to occur for an observation, for example the existence of parallel universes in which each outcome happens. Others see it as compelling evidence for intrinsically observer-dependent theories such as Quantum Bayesianism, in which an agent’s actions and experiences are central concerns of the theory. But yet others take this as a strong pointer that perhaps quantum mechanics will break down above certain complexity scales.

Clearly these are all deeply philosophical questions about the fundamental nature of reality. Whatever the answer, an interesting future awaits.

Alessandro Fedrizzi receives funding from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI).

Proietti, Massimiliano works for Heriot-Watt university.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/quantum-physics-our-study-suggests-objective-reality-doesnt-exist-126805

Shape of the universe: study could force us to rethink everything we know about the cosmos

No matter how elegant your theory is, experimental data will have the last word. Observations of the retrograde motion of the planets were fundamental to the Copernican revolution, in which the sun replaced Earth at the centre of the solar system. And the unusual orbit of Mercury provided a spectacular confirmation of the theory of general relativity. In fact, our entire understanding of the universe is built on observed, unexpected anomalies.

Now our new paper, published in Nature Astronomy, has come to a conclusion that may unleash a crisis in cosmology – if confirmed. We show that the shape of the universe may actually be curved rather than flat, as previously thought – with a probability larger than 99%. In a curved universe, no matter which direction you travel in, you will end up at the starting point – just like on a sphere. Though the universe has four dimensions, including time.

The result was based on recent measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the light left over from the Big Bang, collected by the Planck Satellite. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, mass warps space and time around it. As a result, light rays take an apparent turn around a massive object rather than travelling in a straight line – an effect known as gravitational lensing.

There is much more such lensing in the Planck data than there should be, which means the universe could contain more dark matter – an invisible and unknown substance – than we think. In our study, we showed that a closed universe can provide a physical explanation to this effect, because it is able to host a lot more dark matter than a flat universe. Such a universe is perfectly compatible with general relativity.

Major headache

Not all cosmologists are convinced by a closed universe though – previous studies have suggested the cosmos is indeed flat. And if a spherical universe is a solution to the lensing anomaly, then we have to deal with several significant consequences. First of all, we have to revise a fundamental cornerstone of cosmology – the theory of cosmological inflation. Inflation describes the first instants after the Big Bang, predicting a period of exponential expansion for the primordial universe.

The theory was developed over the past 40 years to explain why distant parts of the universe look the same and have the same temperature, when they are too far apart to ever have been in contact. Inflation solves the problem because it means that far-flung regions of the universe would once have been connected. But the period of rapid expansion that hurled these regions apart is also thought to have also brought the universe to flatness with exquisite precision.

If the universe is closed, standard inflation is in trouble. And that means we lose our standard explanation for why the universe has the structure it has.

Once we assume that the universe is curved, the Planck data is essentially in disagreement with all other datasets. This all boils down to a real crisis for cosmology, as we say in our paper. For these reasons, cosmologists are cautious – and many of them prefer to attribute the results to a statistical fluke that will resolve when new data from future experiments are available.

Could we be wrong?

It is certainly possible that we turn out to be wrong. But there is one main reason, in our opinion, why this anomaly should not be merely discarded. In particle physics, a discovery should reach an accuracy of at least five “sigmas” to be accepted by the community. Here we are slightly above three sigmas, so we are clearly below this acceptance level. But while the standard model of particle physics is based on known and proven physics, the standard cosmological model is based on unknown physics.

At the moment, the physical evidence for the three pillars of cosmology – dark matter, dark energy (which causes the universe to expand at an accelerated rate) and inflation – comes solely from cosmology. Their existence can explain many astrophysical observations.

But they are not expected either in the standard model of particle physics that governs the universe on the smallest scales or in the theory of general relativity that operates on the large scales. Instead, these substances belong to the area of unknown physics. Nobody has ever seen either dark matter, dark energy or inflation – in the laboratory or elsewhere.

So while an anomaly in particle physics can be regarded as a hint that we may need to invent completely new physics, an anomaly in cosmology should be regarded as the only way we have to shed light on completely unknown physics.

Therefore, the most interesting result of our paper is not that the universe appears to be curved rather than flat, but the fact that it may force us to rearrange the pieces of the cosmic puzzle in a completely different way.

Eleonora Di Valentino ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son poste universitaire.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/shape-of-the-universe-study-could-force-us-to-rethink-everything-we-know-about-the-cosmos-126721

How simple policy changes can help us age better and prevent cognitive decline

Many people experience a decline in cognitive function with age, such as a worsening memory and trouble processing information. In most cases, this is perfectly normal. In some cases, however, age-related cognitive decline may affect a person’s ability to carry out complex tasks, such as managing finances or preparing a meal. At times, it may even make it difficult for a person to perform daily tasks, such as dressing and feeding.

Around 18% of the UK’s population is aged 65 and older. By 2030, it’s estimated that one in five UK people will be aged over 65.

But this doesn’t account for the number of people who will experience cognitive decline and dementia as they age. Incidence of dementia sharply rises at the age of 75 – and it is expected that the number of people in the UK living with dementia could triple by 2050. Cognitive function is very important to older people’s well-being. It influences everything they do, including working and socialising, and has a huge social and economic impact on families. Finding ways to prevent cognitive decline is increasingly important.

We’re often told that the solution to cognitive decline lies in new medicines or therapies that can reduce symptoms, or by following a healthy lifestyle.

But recent research by our team found that social and emotional well-being – meaning our feelings of being connected to family and the community, and our subjective experience of positive or negative emotions – may be just as important as therapy and lifestyle for maintaining good cognitive function in older age. Numerous studies from around the world have found that social connectedness and loneliness influence older people’s cognitive function, including their memory.

Loneliness affects approximately 9% of people over 65 in the UK. It’s a complex emotional state where people perceive their social interactions and individual relationships to be inadequate.

One major study on ageing – which collects data from more than 18,000 UK over-50s about physical and mental health, well-being, finances and attitudes towards ageing – found that isolation and loneliness were associated with poorer memory, especially among those with lower levels of education. In addition, loneliness in older age was associated with a steeper decline in cognitive function. This included worse memory and verbal fluency.

Cognitive decline and loneliness

Although these findings are staggering, they also show us how difficult it is to establish if loneliness causes cognitive decline, or if cognitive decline causes loneliness. One way to find out is by looking at whether interventions to reduce loneliness also inadvertently affect older people’s cognitive health too.

We addressed this question in a series of studies looking at the impact that free bus travel had on over-60s. When the UK government gave free bus travel to people over 60 in 2006, it was thought that the measure may reduce loneliness and increase social engagement as it enables older people to remain connected to their social environments.

We found that free bus travel significantly increased public transportation use but, in addition, it led to improvements in cognitive function – particularly, improved memory.

In another study, we found that increased public transportation use also reduced depression and feelings of loneliness. It increased participation in volunteering activities and contact with older people’s adult children and friends. These findings show how a simple policy has had unintended positive consequences. It led to significant improvements in older people’s cognitive function and mental health – potentially by influencing social well-being.

This isn’t the first time we’ve found how social policy changes can help protecting older people against cognitive decline. For example, we examined the impact of a French law that increased the minimum legal school leaving age by 2 years in 1959, from 14 to 16 years of age.

This law effectively increased the years of schooling for French adults presently reaching old age. We found that even decades after leaving school, a longer period in education helped older adults maintain cognitive function – particularly memory – and postponed cognitive decline.

Even policies that affect the whole economy have been found to be an important factor in health and memory. We found that older people exposed to an economic recession in the years leading up to their retirement experience faster cognitive decline in their post-retirement years. This suggests that policies that protect older people from the impact of economic decline might help them to maintain good cognitive function in older age.

Long-term care policies that enable older people to maintain independence and continue to socialise may also be important. “Ageing in place”, an approach that emphasises the importance of supporting older people to continue living in their home and community, has led many governments to offer care for older people with limitations in their own home.

Our research suggests that only a small fraction of older Europeans that have difficulty performing daily activities (such as dressing, walking or washing) are actually eligible to receive home care through the government.

But we also found that an increase in the amount of care that people receive at home through government-sponsored programmes, paradoxically, increases the amount of assistance they receive from friends and family. This suggests that a long-term policy that expands access to home care may help older people maintain social ties, mental well-being, and cognitive function well into older age.

While prospects such as new drugs that protect against cognitive ageing are exciting, research shows that many simple policy changes can also promote social and emotional well-being – which may be just as important for maintaining brain function in later life. Even in the face of declining physical ability, programmes that provide long-term care at home may be critical for maintaining cognitive function and leading a meaningful life at older age.

Mauricio Avendano (mauricio.avendano_pabon@kcl.ac.uk) receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the European Commission Horizon2020 Programme.

Ludovico Carrino is research fellow at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King's College London. He receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme. He is affiliated with the Department of Economics at the Ca' Foscari University of Venezia.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/how-simple-policy-changes-can-help-us-age-better-and-prevent-cognitive-decline-126314

Ice Age footprints of mammoths and prehistoric humans revealed for the first time using radar

The mammoth lumbers through our imaginations when we think about the world during the most recent Ice Age. They’re just one of many giant creatures that our ancestors lived alongside and which became extinct when the climate changed. The giant ground sloth – a large herbivore which was endemic to the Americas – is another.

We can study these extinct animals from their bones – but also from the preserved footprints they left in mud. But these footprints are often hard to find – and while they can tell us about the presence of an animal, they don’t always tell us much about the animal itself, like how it walked, for instance. The giant ground sloth was unusual in that it walked on the outside of its feet.

To help us, we turned to a new method which geologists and archaeologists use to image the hidden subsurface. Ground penetrating radar was first used during the Vietnam War to reveal bunkers below ground. Today, engineers use it to spot cracks in railway tracks and girders. It works by sending signals into the ground which bounce back to reveal subsurface structures. It can be used for imaging big stuff, including buried walls in ancient ruins, but in our new study, we used it to find buried animal tracks from the Ice Age.

Our research team has been working for several years at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico in the US where one of the largest collection of vertebrate animal tracks from the Ice Age can be found. These tracks are preserved on a dried lake bed called Alkali Flat. Because they’re so difficult to make out, they’re locally referred to as “ghost tracks”.

Not only were we able to identify and map large tracks made by big animals such as mammoths and giant ground sloths, but to our surprise, we could also see those of the human hunters that stalked those animals. Imaging footprints of Ice Age giants, and their hunters, without excavating the tracks has huge advantages for their conservation.

Much of Alkali Flat is also used by the White Sands Missile Range, where the American space programme began and the first nuclear bomb was detonated. In places, missile debris litters the ground. Being able to map where most of the tracks are will help prevent them from being erased.

We also noticed something interesting beneath the mammoth tracks in the radar data. Below the base of the footprint, we consistently saw something resembling a hook in the radar image. This was completely unexpected. We weren’t sure what this was at first, but suspected that it might be due to the sediment below being compressed by the footprint. If so, this could provide crucial information about the way the animal walked. If this was indeed a pressure record, then it would likely match the pressure record from a close relative, like an elephant.

Foot pressure data for elephants, by the way, are rare – you can imagine how hard it is to get them into the lab and walking on delicate scientific instruments. Thanks to colleagues from the Royal Veterinary College in London and Monash University, we got our hands on some of this data. The pressure record for elephants turned out to be similar to the hook-like structures revealed in the radar data beneath the mammoth tracks. This led us to conclude that the radar was not only picking out the shape of the footprint, but also giving us much more data on the pressure exerted by the foot on the ground as the mammoth walked.

For scientists studying the way extinct animals walk, this was very exciting. It’s the equivalent of getting an extinct animal to come into the lab and walk on a force plate. Best of all, the radar imaging allows us to study how these ancient creatures walked without having to disturb the footprint itself.

We think we’ll be able to use the same technique at other sites to image the pressure pattern beneath a dinosaur’s foot, just as if we’d managed to bring a living specimen into the lab. We should also be able to use this technology to map human footprints at other sites, especially where digging could be disruptive. There are famous sites, such as Laetoli in Tanzania, where footprints of the oldest human ancestors can be found. We’re not quite there yet, but given the right circumstances, we think it’s possible.

Matthew Robert Bennett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/ice-age-footprints-of-mammoths-and-prehistoric-humans-revealed-for-the-first-time-using-radar-126696

The mysterious ‘Tully Monster’ fossil just got more mysterious

Every now and again, scientists discover fossils that are so bizarre they defy classification, their body plans unlike any other living animals or plants. Tullimonstrum (also known as the Tully Monster), a 300m-year-old fossil discovered in the Mazon Creek fossil beds in Illinois, US, is one such creature.

At first glance, Tully looks superficially slug-like. But where you would expect its mouth to be, the creature has a long thin appendage ending in what looks like a pair of grasping claws. Then there are its eyes, which protrude outward from its body on stalks.

Tully is so strange that scientists have even been unable to agree on whether it is a vertebrate (with a backbone, like mammals, birds, reptiles and fish) or an invertebrate (without a backbone, like insects, crustaceans, octopuses and all other animals). In 2016, a group of scientists claimed to have solved the mystery of Tully, providing the strongest evidence yet that it was a vertebrate. But my colleagues and I have conducted a new study that calls this conclusion into question, meaning this monster is as mysterious as ever.

The Tully Monster was originally discovered in the 1950s by a fossil collector named Francis Tully. Ever since its discovery scientists have puzzled over which group of modern animals Tully belongs to. The enigma of Tully’s true evolutionary relationships has added to its popularity, ultimately leading it to become the state fossil of Illinois.

There have been many attempts to classify the Tully Monster. The majority of these studies have focused on the appearance of some of its more prominent features. These include a linear feature in the fossil interpreted as evidence of a gut, the light and dark banding of the fossil and the peculiar grasping claws of its mouth. The body plan of the Tully Monster is so unusual in it’s entirety that it will greatly expand the diversity of of whatever group it ultimately belongs to, changing the way we think about that group of animals.

The 2016 research argued the animal should be grouped with vertebrates because its eyes contain pigment granules called melanosomes, which are arranged by shape and size in the same way as those in vertebrate eyes. But our research shows that the eyes of some invertebrates such as octopus and squid also contain melanosomes partitioned by shape and size in a similar way to Tully’s eyes, and that these an also be preserved in fossils.

Particle accelerator research

To do this, we used a type of particle accelerator called a synchrotron radiation lightsource located at Stanford University in California. This allowed us to explore the chemical makeup of samples from fossils and from animals living today. The synchrotron bombards specimens with intense bursts of radiation to “excite” the elements within them. When excited, each element releases X-rays with a specific signature. By detecting the emitted X-ray signatures, we can tell what elements were excited and ultimately what the specimen we’re interested in is made of.

First we found that melanosomes from the eyes of modern vertebrates have a higher ratio of zinc to copper than the modern invertebrates we studied. To our surprise, we then found the same pattern could be seen in fossilised vertebrates and invertebrates found at Mazon Creek.

We then analysed the chemistry of Tully’s eyes and the ratio of zinc to copper was more similar to that of invertebrates than vertebrates. This suggests the animal may not have been a vertebrate, contradicting previous efforts to classify it.

We also found that Tully’s eyes contain different type of copper to that found in vertebrate eyes. But the copper also wasn’t identical to that in the invertebrates we studied. So while our work adds weight to the idea that Tully is not a vertebrate, it doesn’t clearly identify it as an invertebrate either.

Where do we go from here? A broader analysis of the chemistry of melanosomes and other pigments in the eyes of a wider range of invertebrates would be a good next step. This may help to further narrow down the group of animals to which Tully belongs.

Ultimately the riddle of what kind of creature the Tully Monster is continues. But our research demonstrates how studying fossils at the chemical and molecular levels can play an important part in figuring out the identity of this and other enigmatic creature.

Chris Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/the-mysterious-tully-monster-fossil-just-got-more-mysterious-126531

How to see stars and tackle light pollution in your own backyard

The dark skies of the great outdoors help people to see the wonders of space, either with the naked eye or using telescopes. That’s why observatories are usually placed in high altitudes or remote locations, where there’s often outstanding natural beauty and little light pollution.

A report commissioned by the UK government recommended that every school child should be given the opportunity to spend a night under the stars in such places.

In my research I’ve noticed the awe and wonder that young people feel while watching the stars in dark sky sites such as the stone circle at Callanish in Scotland. The stones here are made from Lewisian Gneiss – the oldest rock in Britain – formed three billion years ago and erected by people more than 5,000 years ago. Here, the immensity of time and our universe can be felt in every fibre of the body.

Exploring the night sky in a national park could be a transformative experience for both young and old. They might see the dust lanes of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time, stretching across the night sky. Learning that this band is made from millions of stars, each not too different to our sun, gives us a new appreciation of the universe and our place within it.

Perhaps they might spot the closest galaxy to ours – Andromeda, 2.5m light years away – and marvel at how the light they’re seeing set off just before our species walked the Earth.

The sky at home

But protecting dark sky sites in national parks is only half the story. It’s a shame that light pollution means these wonderful experiences are only possible far from home. Connecting everyone with the wonders of the universe should be taken up where people live.

In the UK the Dark Sky Discovery partnership – a network of astronomy and environmental groups – has developed dark sky discovery sites that offer safe and accessible stargazing in towns and cities. Urban parks are often perfect for this if the lighting can be reduced and shielded.

Outside of these sites, there are many things that stargazers can do to see more of the night sky close to home, like picking somewhere away from direct street light or switching off outdoor security lights. Turning off all the lights in the house can make a big difference to how much of the night sky is visible from outside.

The brightest objects in the solar system, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and the moon, are still visible in cities. But these simple steps to limit light pollution near your home can make it possible to see more stars and even some of the brightest constellations. It’s possible to spot and track these objects from night to night and understand the pattern of their movements.

Noticing how the moon seemingly changes shape and colour while rising, setting and moving through the surrounding stars from night to night is a memorable experience. The regular crazes around super moons suggest that people have sadly forgotten the nightly pleasure of tracking the moon.

It’s still nearly always possible to find the Plough on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. The two stars at its back – opposite the handle and known as the pointer stars – can also help people locate the pole star, which gives the direction of north. But, it’s interesting to remember that this is only a coincidence. Over thousands of years the Earth’s axis tumbles and points to many different stars that become, in each of their era, the new pole star.

You can even tell the time using the position of the pointer stars in the Plough, as if the whole constellation were a giant clock with the pole star at the centre.

Spotting Orion is also simple enough when looking for his belt – three bright stars in a line. Looking below the belt reveals three much fainter stars forming the sword. The object at the middle of this is not a star, but the Orion Nebula – a cosmic nursery of new stars.

Local action on light pollution – by people in their homes or local councils dimming and reducing non-essential lighting in parks – might seem small in scale, but the results can be impressive.

While dark sky sites remind us of how beautiful the night sky is, bringing that opportunity back to where most people live could broaden the appeal of stargazing to those who’ve never tried it before. School trips to these places are still a wonderful idea, but allowing children and their families to experience the majesty of space in their own neighbourhood could connect them to the stars for life.

Daniel Brown received funding from both STFC as well as IoP to develop and embed light pollution education as well as develop Dark Sky Discovery Sites in the Peak District National Park, UK.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/how-to-see-stars-and-tackle-light-pollution-in-your-own-backyard-125005

Millions of malnourished children in West and Central Africa have been overlooked by UN estimates – new data

Four years ago the United Nations (UN) members states created a list of international development targets, known as the Sustainable Development Goals. These included 17 urgent calls for action aimed at improving the lives of people around the world. Tackling poverty and food insecurity were placed at the top of the list.

One region where hunger and poverty continue to blight the lives of millions, affecting the survival and development of children in particular, is in West and Central Africa.

For the UN to develop effective policies for reducing persistent poverty and hunger, they first needed a clear picture of the scale of the crisis, – including how many children are still affected by malnutrition. Our project explored whether the measures used in UN reports provide an accurate picture of the full scale of malnutrition, and progress made, in West and Central Africa.

Our results suggest that the numbers currently used to estimate malnutrition underplay the true extent of the problem. We believe current indicators underestimate the overall extent of malnutrition among young children in the region by at least 6m children.

Assessment challenges

Our analysis used data on young children under five years old collected by USAID’s Demographic and Health Survey and UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. We looked at data from the 18 countries in the West and Central Africa.

The project produced the first estimates of the extent and number of children in the region experiencing any form of anthropometric failure – meaning their physical development was stunted due to poor nutrition. Children with anthropometric failure are either too short or too light for their age, or too light for their height. These forms of malnutrition are known as stunting, underweight and wasting, respectively.

Children can experience each form of malnutrition, either on its own or in combination. Children experiencing two or more of these forms were classified as having multiple malnutrition. Our project was the first to produce detailed estimates of multiple malnutrition for countries in the region, and the region as a whole.

One reason why conventional estimates of child malnutrition understate the extent of the problem is because of the indicators used. The Millennium Development Goals assessed progress until 2015 using data on the number and proportion of children who were underweight.

The Sustainable Development Goals are tracking progress until 2030. They’re looking at the number and proportion of children who experience stunting (their height was lower than expected for their age), and wasting (their weight for their height is less than expected). Stunting reflects chronic, longer-term malnutrition, while wasting is an indicator of more recent, acute malnutrition. Tracking progress over time using different indicators can be confusing – especially when they tell quite different stories of extent and trends.

Our study used a measure of overall malnutrition called the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF). This identifies children who experience any form of malnutrition – whether it’s stunting, wasting, being underweight, or any combination of these.

The CIAF provides more accurate estimates of what proportion of a nation’s young children suffer from malnutrition because it can identify children suffering with any form of malnutrition. Other indicators, like those used in UN reports, do not do this.

For example, the Millennium Development Goals only used being underweight as a indicator of malnutrition. This means it missed stunted children who might not be underweight. Children who experience wasting but aren’t stunted (and vice versa) might also not be underweight. This means they’re also overlooked.

Similarly, the Sustainable Development Goals currently report the percentage of stunted children and wasted children separately. This means that we still lack estimates of the number of children who experience either stunting, wasting or who are underweight, or a combination of these measures. The CIAF overcomes this problem.

Monitoring children who suffer from multiple malnutrition is also important as different forms of malnutrition have different mortality risks. While the CIAF shows the true extent of overall undernutrition, the indicator of multiple malnutrition shows how many children experience multiple anthropometric failures, who are at greatest risk of an early death.

The scale of multiple malnutrition

Our study shows that estimates of child malnutrition vary considerably depending on the indicator used. At the regional level in 2010, there were around 15.5m underweight children (23%). Around 26.4m children experienced stunting (38%), and 8.2m children experienced wasting (12%). However, when we used the CIAF, we found nearly half (48%) of the region’s children under five (about 32.8m) were affected.

This shows that conventional estimates of malnutrition for the region effectively overlooked millions of malnourished children. As such, current UN estimates don’t fully reflect the extent of the problem in the region.

Though other studies have looked at multiple malnutrition, they may also be underestimating the extent of the problem. Many focus specifically on stunting and wasting, so they may neglect valuable information provided by underweight data.

These studies on multiple malnutrition have also only counted children experiencing both stunting and wasting, who are at greatest risk of poor health and death. Using a joint measure of stunting and wasting, we estimate that in 2010, around one in 25 children in West and Central Africa (4%, or 2.5m) were affected, suggesting that multiple malnutrition is relatively rare.

However, previous studies have also demonstrated that children who experience stunting and who are underweight, or who experience wasting and who are underweight, also have a greater risk of illness and early death compared to children who experience only a single failure. Our work provides evidence to support this.

By excluding data on underweight children from estimates (as the Sustainable Development Goals are doing), many vulnerable children will continue being overlooked. Using the CIAF to measure multiple malnutrition, we estimate that around one in five (22%, 9.2m) children under five in the region were affected by multiple malnutrition in 2010. We believe the extent of multiple malnutrition in children is more common than realised, which is something policy makers should be made aware of.

Our study also shows how the situation changed during the first decade of the new millennium. Using data for countries with multiple surveys, we show that between 2000 and 2010 progress in reducing child malnutrition in West and Central Africa wasn’t enough to outrun rapid population growth. By 2010 there were an additional 2.5m malnourished children in the region compared to five years previously. Prevalence rates also hadn’t fallen significantly.

Of the additional 2.5m malnourished children, more than half lived in rural areas. However, large urban population increases meant that urban areas contributed around a million children to the higher regional figures.

Policy makers need reliable data to develop antipoverty policies. Generating new information about the extent and pattern of malnutrition in some of the world’s poorest countries might spur governments and international agencies into action, providing the resources needed to make lasting change in some of the poorest countries on the planet.

Marco Pomati receives has received funding from UNICEF, ESRC, the British Council and EUROSTAT to research child poverty and/or child malnutrition.

Shailen Nandy has received funding from UNICEF and the UK ESRC for research on child poverty and malnutrition in developing countries.

Source: The Conversation: Technology http://theconversation.com/millions-of-malnourished-children-in-west-and-central-africa-have-been-overlooked-by-un-estimates-new-data-125767