This article was originally published on KFF Health News.

With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services to youths to help them cope with everything from living with anxiety to body acceptance.

Through their phones, young people and some caregivers can meet BrightLife Kids and Soluna coaches, some who specialize in peer support or substance use disorders, for roughly 30-minute virtual counseling sessions that are best suited to those with more mild needs, typically those without a clinical diagnosis. The apps also feature self-directed activities, such as white noise sessions, guided breathing, and videos of ocean waves to help users relax.

“We believe they’re going to have not just great impact, but wide impact across California, especially in places where maybe it’s not so easy to find an in-person behavioral health visit or the kind of coaching and supports that parents and young people need,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom’s health secretary, Mark Ghaly, during the Jan. 16 announcement.

The apps represent one of the Democratic governor’s major forays into health technology and come with four-year contracts valued at $498 million. California is believed to be the first state to offer a mental health app with free coaching to all young residents, according to the Department of Health Care Services, which operates the program.

However, the rollout has been slow. Only about 15,000 of the state’s 12.6 million children and young adults have signed up for the apps, school counselors say they’ve never heard of them, and one of the companies isn’t making its app available on Android phones until summer.

Advocates for youth question the wisdom of investing taxpayer dollars in two private companies. Social workers are concerned the companies’ coaches won’t properly identify youths who need referrals for clinical care. And the spending is drawing lawmaker scrutiny amid a state deficit pegged at as much as $73 billion.

An app for that

Newsom’s administration says the apps fill a need for young Californians and their families to access professional telehealth for free, in multiple languages, and outside of standard 9-to-5 hours. It’s part of Newsom’s sweeping $4.7 billion master plan for kids’ mental health, which was introduced in 2022 to increase access to mental health and substance use support services. In addition to launching virtual tools such as the teletherapy apps, the initiative is working to expand workforce capacity, especially in underserved areas.

“The reality is that we are rarely 6 feet away from our devices,” said Sohil Sud, director of Newsom’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. “The question is how we can leverage technology as a resource for all California youth and families, not in place of, but in addition to, other behavioral health services that are being developed and expanded.”

The virtual platforms come amid rising depression and suicide rates among youth and a shortage of mental health providers. Nearly half of California youths from the ages of 12 to 17 report having recently struggled with mental health issues, with nearly a third experiencing serious psychological distress, according to a 2021 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. These rates are even higher for multiracial youths and those from low-income families.

But those supporting youth mental health at the local level question whether the apps will move the needle on climbing depression and suicide rates.

“It’s fair to applaud the state of California for aggressively seeking new tools,” said Alex Briscoe of California Children’s Trust, a statewide initiative that, along with more than 100 local partners, works to improve the social and emotional health of children. “We just don’t see it as fundamental. And we don’t believe the youth mental health crisis will be solved by technology projects built by a professional class who don’t share the lived experience of marginalized communities.”

The apps, BrightLife Kids and Soluna, are operated by two companies: Brightline, a 5-year-old venture capital-backed startup; and Kooth, a London-based publicly traded company that has experience in the U.K. and has also signed on some schools in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and a health plan in Illinois. In the first five months of Kooth’s Pennsylvania pilot, 6% of students who had access to the app signed up.

Brightline and Kooth represent a growing number of health tech firms seeking to profit in this space. They beat out dozens of other bidders including international consulting companies and other youth telehealth platforms that had already snapped up contracts in California.

Although the service is intended to be free with no insurance requirement, Brightline’s app, BrightLife Kids, is folded into and only accessible through the company’s main app, which asks for insurance information and directs users to paid licensed counseling options alongside the free coaching. After KFF Health News questioned why the free coaching was advertised below paid options, Brightline reordered the page so that, even if a child has high-acuity needs, free coaching shows up first.

The apps take an expansive view of behavioral health, making the tools available to all California youth under age 26 as well as caregivers of babies, toddlers, and children 12 and under. When KFF Health News asked to speak with an app user, Brightline connected a reporter with a mother whose 3-year-old daughter was learning to sleep on her own.

‘It’s like crickets’

Despite being months into the launch and having millions in marketing funds, the companies don’t have a definitive rollout timeline. Brightline said it hopes to have deployed teams across the state to present the tools in person by midyear. Kooth said developing a strategy to hit every school would be “the main focus for this calendar year.”

“It’s a big state—58 counties,” Bob McCullough of Kooth said. “It’ll take us a while to get to all of them.”

So far BrightLife Kids is available only on Apple phones. Brightline said it’s aiming to launch the Android version over the summer.

“Nobody’s really done anything like this at this magnitude, I think, in the U.S. before,” said Naomi Allen, a co-founder and the CEO of Brightline. “We’re very much in the early innings. We’re already learning a lot.”

The contracts, obtained by KFF Health News through a records request, show the companies operating the two apps could earn as much as $498 million through the contract term, which ends in June 2027, months after Newsom is set to leave office. And the state is spending hundreds of millions more on Newsom’s virtual behavioral health strategy. The state said it aims to make the apps available long-term, depending on usage.

The state said 15,000 people signed up in the first three months. When KFF Health News asked how many of those users actively engaged with the app, it declined to say, noting that data would be released this summer.

KFF Health News reached out to nearly a dozen California mental health professionals and youths. None of them were aware of the apps.

“I’m not hearing anything,” said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. “It’s like crickets.”

Whitson said she doesn’t think the apps are on “anyone’s” radar in schools, and she doesn’t know of any schools that are actively advertising them. Brightline will be presenting its tool to the counselor association in May, but Whitson said the company didn’t reach out to plan the meeting; she did.

Concern over referrals

Whitson isn’t comfortable promoting the apps just yet. Although both companies said they have a clinical team on staff to assist, Whitson said she’s concerned that the coaches, who aren’t all licensed therapists, won’t have the training to detect when users need more help and refer them to clinical care.

This sentiment was echoed by other school-based social workers, who also noted the apps’ duplicative nature—in some counties, like Los Angeles, youths can access free virtual counseling sessions through Hazel Health, a for-profit company. Nonprofits, too, have entered this space. For example, Teen Line, a peer-to-peer hotline operated by Southern California-based Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, is free nationwide.

While the state is also funneling money to the schools as part of Newsom’s master plan, students and school-based mental health professionals voiced confusion at the large app investment when, in many school districts, few in-person counseling roles exist, and in some cases are dwindling.

Kelly Merchant, a student at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, noted that it can be hard to access in-person therapy at her school. She believes the community college, which has about 15,000 students, has only one full-time counselor and one part-time bilingual counselor. She and several students interviewed by KFF Health News said they appreciated having engaging content on their phone and the ability to speak to a coach, but all said they’d prefer in-person therapy.

“There are a lot of people who are seeking therapy, and people close to me that I know. But their insurances are taking forever, and they’re on the waitlist,” Merchant said. “And, like, you’re seeing all these people struggle.”

Fiscal conservatives question whether the money could be spent more effectively, like to bolster county efforts and existing youth behavioral health programs.

Republican state Sen. Roger Niello, vice chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, noted that California is forecasted to face deficits for the next three years, and taxpayer watchdogs worry the apps might cost even more in the long run.

“What starts as a small financial commitment can become uncontrollable expenses down the road,” said Susan Shelley of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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In just a few short years, psychedelic-assisted therapy involving controlled substances like ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin (the psychoactive compound found in “magic mushrooms”) have evolved from relative obscurity to the far edges of mainstream medical acceptance. Clinical studies have shown that their medical use can have positive effects for patients living with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, these treatments prove effective where other, more widely-prescribed medications fall short. But new research suggests close bonds with a trained therapist is a key element contributing to effective psychedelic-assisted treatment, specifically psilocybin.

[Related: 4 visionaries on the history and future of psychedelic medicine ]

A surge in interest in therapeutic use of psychedelics has fostered a burgeoning industry of startups specializing in treatments. As of today, according to the psychedelics industry tracker Psilocybin Alpha, more than 50 publicly traded companies currently offer psychedelic therapy (mostly ketamine) and psychedelic retreats. Yet, the exact ways these companies administer psychedelics can vary widely. While some require patients to consume or inject the substance in the presence of a trained clinician, others lean on loose, pandemic-era health regulations to let patients take the medication at home, typically as pills and lozenges. The latter method can carry risks. In some cases, the Federal Drug Administration, which has yet to approve psychedelic drugs for therapy, claims it has received reports of patients experiencing adverse health effects after they’ve taken medically prescribed ketamine at home without a clinician’s supervision. There are currently no legal at-home psilocybin treatments available however individuals in Oregon were able to begin accessing the compound without a prescription last year. 

A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE this week suggests that strong relationships between patients and their therapists could play a crucial role determining whether or not psychedelic-assisted therapy can prove useful as treatments for depression. The study, which analyzed a 2021 clinical study involving 24 patients using psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat severe depression, found that participants with stronger self-reported connections with their therapist were more likely to report a decrease in depression over time.

In other words, the efficacy of psilocybin treatment increases over the long-term when a patient feels more connected to their clinician. The clinician provides hours or preparation and also guides the patient through the experience and dissects it days and weeks later. Findings like these could help influence treatment standards for psychedelic-assisted therapy treatments, especially as the practice gains more widespread clinical acceptance and adoption. 

Patients with stronger connections to their therapists reported better results 

Researchers from Ohio State University examined data from a 2021 clinical trial where 24 adults seeking treatment for severe depression received two doses of psilocybin paired with 11 hours of psychotherapy. Patients completed survey questionnaires where they assessed the strength of the relationship with their therapists, which the researchers refer to as their “therapeutic alliance.” The patients also noted down any mystical or insightful psychological experience they had during the treatment. Researchers say at times these experiences tend to yield positive therapeutic outcomes, particularly in the short and medium term. In this case, these experiences led to positive outcomes around four-weeks after introducing the psilocybin into treatment.

Higher alliance scores, or stronger relationships with therapists, correlated with longer-term psychological insights. One year after the treatments, patients who reported strong connections with their therapist also crucially provided lower self-reported depression scores one year following treatment than those who reported weaker relationships. The research builds off of past studies that show how a strong therapeutic alliance between a therapist and a patient often leads to a more effective outcome following therapy. This new study suggests those same basic findings similarly apply to psychedelic-assisted therapy. 

“This concept is not novel. What is novel is that very few people have explored this concept as part of psychedelic-assisted therapy,” paper senior author and Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education associate professor Alan Davis said in a statement. “This data suggests that psychedelic-assisted therapy relies heavily on the therapeutic alliance, just like any other treatment.”

The findings also reinforce the role a patient’s environment and mindset, known colloquially as “set and setting” can have on influencing positive experiences. In this case, hours of preparatory psychotherapy prior to administering psilocybin, along with “supportive, no direct” therapy during the actual psychedelic experience posed to be significant variables contributing to the drug’s overall effectiveness. Patients who were more comfortable with their clinician may be more receptive to the therapy.

“That’s why I think the relationship has been shown to be impactful in this analysis–because, really, the whole intervention is designed for us to establish the trust and rapport that’s needed for someone to go into an alternative consciousness safely,” Davis added.

The study’s findings come during what could be an inflection point for psychedelic-assisted therapy research and treatment in the US. Despite still being labeled a Schedule 1 drug on the national level, several cities including Denver, Oakland, and Washington have decriminalized psilocybin. On the medical front, the FDA in 2019 approved the use of a nasal spray called Spravato, which uses a derivative of ketamine, for treating depression. Just last year, the FDA released its first-ever draft guidance outlining considerations for researchers looking to conduct clinical trials for psychedelic treatments. An MDMA therapy from the MAPS Public Benefit Corporation could reportedly receive FDA approval by the end of the year. 

Ohio State University College of Medicine resident and paper lead author Adam Levin notes he and his fellow researchers’ findings could highlight the importance of maintaining strong connections between patients and physicians, especially with treatments posed to gain wider adoption in the coming years. Levin, and others critical of attempts to rush out access to psychedelic drugs without proper therapeutic support warn such an approach could lead to unintended consequences and even set back efforts to make psychedelic-assisted therapy more widely available. 

“Our concern is that any effort to minimize therapeutic support could lead to safety concerns or adverse events,” Levin said. “…What we showed in this study is evidence for the importance of the alliance in not just preventing those types of events, but also in optimizing therapeutic outcomes.”

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This article was originally featured on Knowable Magazine.

Like many of the researchers who study how people find their way from place to place, David Uttal is a poor navigator. “When I was 13 years old, I got lost on a Boy Scout hike, and I was lost for two and a half days,” recalls the Northwestern University cognitive scientist. And he’s still bad at finding his way around.

The world is full of people like Uttal—and their opposites, the folks who always seem to know exactly where they are and how to get where they want to go. Scientists sometimes measure navigational ability by asking someone to point toward an out-of-sight location—or, more challenging, to imagine they are someplace else and point in the direction of a third location—and it’s immediately obvious that some people are better at it than others.

“People are never perfect, but they can be as accurate as single-digit degrees off, which is incredibly accurate,” says Nora Newcombe, a cognitive psychologist at Temple University who coauthored a look at how navigational ability develops in the 2022 Annual Review of Developmental Psychology. But others, when asked to indicate the target’s direction, seem to point at random. “They have literally no idea where it is.”

While it’s easy to show that people differ in navigational ability, it has proved much harder for scientists to explain why. There’s new excitement brewing in the navigation research world, though. By leveraging technologies such as virtual reality and GPS tracking, scientists have been able to watch hundreds, sometimes even millions, of people trying to find their way through complex spaces, and to measure how well they do. Though there’s still much to learn, the research suggests that to some extent, navigation skills are shaped by upbringing.

Nurturing navigation skills

The importance of a person’s environment is underscored by a recent look at the role of genetics in navigation. In 2020, Margherita Malanchini, a developmental psychologist at Queen Mary University of London, and her colleagues compared the performance of more than 2,600 identical and nonidentical twins as they navigated through a virtual environment, to test whether navigational ability runs in families. It does, they found—but only modestly. Instead, the biggest contributor to people’s performance was what geneticists call the “nonshared environment”—that is, the unique experiences each person accumulates as their life unfolds. Good navigators, it appears, are mostly made, not born.

A remarkable, large-scale experiment led by Hugo Spiers, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London, gave researchers a glimpse at how experience and other cultural factors might influence wayfinding skills. Spiers and his colleagues, in collaboration with the telecom company T-Mobile, developed a game for cellphones and tablets, Sea Hero Quest, in which players navigate by boat through a virtual environment to locate a series of checkpoints. The game app asked participants to provide basic demographic data, and nearly 4 million worldwide did so. (The app is no longer accepting new participants except by invitation of researchers.)

Through the app, the researchers were able to measure wayfinding ability by the total distance each player traveled to reach all the checkpoints. After completing some levels of the game, players also had to shoot a flare back toward their point of origin—a dead-reckoning test analogous to the pointing-to-out-of-sight-locations task. Then Spiers and his colleagues could compare players’ performance to the demographic data.

Several cultural factors were associated with wayfinding skills, they found. People from Nordic countries tended to be slightly better navigators, perhaps because the sport of orienteering, which combines cross-country running and navigation, is popular in those countries. Country folk did better, on average, than people from cities. And among city-dwellers, those from cities with more chaotic street networks such as those in the older parts of European cities did better than those from cities like Chicago, where the streets form a regular grid, perhaps because residents of grid cities don’t need to build such complex mental maps.

Results like these suggest that an individual’s life experience may be one of the biggest determinants of how well they navigate. Indeed, experience may even underlie one of the most consistent findings—and clichés—in navigation: that men tend to perform better than women. Turns out this gender gap is more a question of culture and experience than of innate ability.

Nordic countries, for example, where gender equality is greatest, show almost no gender difference in navigation. In contrast, men far outperform women in places where women face cultural restrictions on exploring their environment on their own, such as Middle Eastern countries.

This cultural aspect, and the importance of experience, are also supported by studies of the Tsimane, a traditional Indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Anthropologist Helen Elizabeth Davis of Arizona State University and her colleagues put GPS trackers on 305 Tsimane adults to measure their daily movements over a three-day period, and found no difference in the distance moved by men and women. Men and women also were equally adept at pointing to out-of-sight locations, they reported in Topics in Cognitive Science. Even children performed extremely well at this navigation task—a result, Davis thinks, of growing up in a culture that encourages children to range widely and explore the forest.

Most cultures aren’t like the Tsimane, though, and women and girls tend to be more cautious about exploring, for good reasons of personal safety. Not only do they gather less experience at navigating, but nervousness about security or getting lost also has a direct effect on navigation. “Anxiety gets in the way of good navigation, so if you’re worried about your personal safety, you’re a poor navigator,” says Newcombe.

Personality, too, appears to play a role in developing navigational ability. “To get good at navigating, you have to be willing to explore,” says Uttal. “Some people do not enjoy the experience of wandering, and others enjoy it very much.”

Indeed, people who enjoy outdoor activities, such as hiking and biking, tend to have a better sense of direction, notes Mary Hegarty, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. So do people who play a lot of video games, many of which involve exploring virtual spaces.

To Uttal, this accumulating evidence suggests that inclination and early experience nudge some people toward activities that involve navigation, while those who are temperamentally less inclined to explore, who have less opportunity to wander or who have an initial bad experience may be less likely to engage in activities that require exploration. It all snowballs from there, Uttal speculates. “I think a combination of personality and ability pushes you in certain directions. It’s a developmental cascade.”

Mental mappers

That cascade presumably influences acquisition of the specific skills that are hallmarks of good navigators. These include the ability to estimate how far you’ve traveled, to read and remember maps (both printed and mental), to learn routes based on a sequence of landmarks and to understand where points are relative to one another.

Much of the research, though, has focused on two specific subskills: route-following by using landmarks—for example, turn left at the gas station, then go three blocks and turn right just past the red house—and what’s often termed “survey knowledge,” the ability to build and consult a mental map of a place.

Of the two, route following is by far the easier task, and most people do pretty well at it once they’ve taken a route a few times, says Dan Montello, a geographer and psychologist also at UC Santa Barbara. In a classic experiment from almost two decades ago, Montello’s student Toru Ishikawa drove 24 volunteers, once a week for 10 weeks, on two twisting routes in a tony residential area of Santa Barbara that they’d never visited before.

Later, almost every person could accurately state the order of landmarks along each route and roughly estimate the distance travelled between them. But they varied widely in their ability to identify shortcuts between the two routes, point to landmarks not visible from where they stood, or sketch a map of the routes. Those who couldn’t identify shortcuts or find landmarks may suffer from an inability to create accurate mental maps, the researchers think.

Research by Newcombe and her then graduate student Steven Weisberg underscores the importance of such mental maps in navigation. They asked 294 volunteers to use a mouse and computer screen to navigate along two routes through a virtual town. Once the volunteers had learned the routes and the landmarks they contained, the researchers asked them to stand at one landmark and point to others on both routes.

People fell into three classes, the researchers reported in 2018 in Current Directions in Psychological Science. Some people had formed a good mental map: They could point accurately to landmarks on both the same and different routes. Others had good route knowledge but struggled to create an integrated map: They were good at pointing within a route, but poor between routes. A third group was poor at all the pointing tasks.

That ability to build and refer to a mental map—a person’s survey knowledge—goes a long way toward explaining why they’re better navigators, Montello says. “When the only skill you have is the ability to think in terms of routes, you can’t be creative to get around barriers.” Survey knowledge gives the ability to navigate creatively, he says. “That’s a pretty stunning difference.”

Not surprisingly, better navigators may also be better at switching modes and choosing the most appropriate navigational strategy for the situation they find themselves in, says cognitive neuroscientist Weisberg, now at the University of Florida. This could mean using landmarks when they are obvious and mental maps when more sophisticated calculations are needed.

“I’ve moved toward thinking that our better navigators are also using a lot of alternate strategies,” Weisberg says. “And they’re doing so in a much more flexible way that affords different kinds of navigation, so that when they find themselves in a new situation, they’re better able to find their way.”

When Weisberg moves around Gainesville where he lives now, for example, he keeps track of north, because that works well in a city with a regular street grid; when he goes home to the winding streets of Philadelphia, he relies more on other cues to stay oriented.

Researchers do not yet know whether every bad navigator is simply poor at survey knowledge, or whether some of the lost might be failing at other navigational subskills instead, such as remembering landmarks or estimating distance traveled. Either way, what can poor navigators do to improve? That’s still an open question. “We all have our pet theories,” says Elizabeth Chrastil, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, “but they haven’t reached the level of testing yet.”

Pros and cons of GPS

Simply practicing seems like it should work—and, indeed, it does in lab experiments. “We can improve people’s navigational abilities in virtual environments,” says Arne Ekstrom, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Arizona. It takes about two weeks to show fairly dramatic gains—but it’s not yet clear whether people are really becoming better navigators or just getting better at finding their way through the particular virtual environments used in the experiments.

Support for the notion that people might improve with practice also comes from studies of what happens when people stop using their navigation skills. In a 2020 study published in Scientific Reports, for example, neuroscientists Louisa Dahmani and Véronique Bohbot of McGill University in Montreal recruited 50 young adults and questioned them about their lifetime experience of driving with GPS. Then they tested the volunteers in a virtual world that required them to navigate without GPS. The heaviest GPS users did worse, they found.

A follow-up with 13 of the volunteers three years later revealed that those who had used GPS the most during the intervening period experienced greater declines in their ability to navigate without GPS, strongly suggesting that GPS reliance causes diminished skills, rather than poor skills leading to greater GPS use.

Experts also suggest that struggling navigators like Uttal could try paying closer attention to compass directions or prominent landmarks as a way to integrate their movements into a mental map. For Weisberg, the only way he learns spaces in an integrated way is by paying attention to major cardinal directions or prominent landmarks like the ocean. “The more attention I pay, the better I can link things to the map in my head.” He recommends that struggling navigators ask themselves which way is north 10 times a day, referring to a map if necessary. This, he suggests, could help them move beyond mere route knowledge.

There’s another option for those who don’t really care about improving their skills as long as they just don’t get lost, Weisberg notes: Just make sure your GPS is handy.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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If you want your humanoid robot to realistically simulate facial expressions, it’s all about timing. And for the past five years, engineers at Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab have been honing their robot’s reflexes down to the millisecond. Their results, detailed in a new study published in Science Robotics, are now available to see for yourself.

Meet Emo, the robot head capable of anticipating and mirroring human facial expressions, including smiles, within 840 milliseconds. But whether or not you’ll be left smiling at the end of the demonstration video remains to be seen.

AI is getting pretty good at mimicking human conversations—heavy emphasis on “mimicking.” But when it comes to visibly approximating emotions, their physical robots counterparts still have a lot of catching up to do. A machine misjudging when to smile isn’t just awkward–it draws attention to its artificiality. 

Human brains, in comparison, are incredibly adept at interpreting huge amounts of visual cues in real-time, and then responding accordingly with various facial movements. Apart from making it extremely difficult to teach AI-powered robots the nuances of expression, it’s also hard to build a mechanical face capable of realistic muscle movements that don’t veer into the uncanny.

[Related: Please think twice before letting AI scan your penis for STIs.]

Emo’s creators attempt to solve some of these issues, or at the very least, help narrow the gap between human and robot expressivity. To construct their new bot, a team led by AI and robotics expert Hod Lipson first designed a realistic robotic human head that includes 26 separate actuators to enable tiny facial expression features. Each of Emo’s pupils also contained high-resolution cameras to follow the eyes of its human conversation partner—another important, nonverbal visual cue for people. Finally, Lipson’s team layered a silicone “skin” over Emo’s mechanical parts to make it all a little less.. you know, creepy.

From there, researchers built two separate AI models to work in tandem—one to predict human expressions through a target face’s minuscule expressions, and another to quickly issue motor responses for a robot face. Using sample videos of human facial expressions, Emo’s AI then learned emotional intricacies frame-by-frame. Within just a few hours, Emo was capable of observing, interpreting, and responding to the little facial shifts people tend to make as they begin to smile. What’s more, it can now do so within about 840 milliseconds.

“I think predicting human facial expressions accurately is a revolution in [human-robot interactions,” Yuhang Hu, Columbia Engineering PhD student and study lead author, said earlier this week. “Traditionally, robots have not been designed to consider humans’ expressions during interactions. Now, the robot can integrate human facial expressions as feedback.”

Right now, Emo lacks any verbal interpretation skills, so it can only interact by analyzing human facial expressions. Lipson, Hu, and the rest of their collaborators hope to soon combine the physical abilities with a large language model system such as ChatGPT. If they can accomplish this, then Emo will be even closer to natural(ish) human interactions. Of course, there’s a lot more to relatability than smiles, smirks, and grins, which the scientists appear to be focusing on. (“The mimicking of expressions such as pouting or frowning should be approached with caution because these could potentially be misconstrued as mockery or convey unintended sentiments.”) However, at some point, the future robot overlords may need to know what to do with our grimaces and scowls.

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In the game Stardew Valley, you clear fields overgrown with weeds. You smash stones and chop down trees. You till the soil. You plant and water crops. You harvest. You build new additions to the homestead. You care for animals. Day in and day out. Sure, these responsibilities are punctuated with the levity of fishing, town festivals, cave explorations, courtship, marriage, and raising a child, but this never-ending cycle of digital labor is the beating heart of Stardew Valley. While it certainly doesn’t compare to the difficulties of actual farming, the rote gameplay can still be very chore-like. So why do hundreds of thousands of people want to spend their real-world leisure time working?

Psychologist Jamie Madigan, writing for his website The Psychology of Gaming, believes it all comes down to personal choice. Actual work may be stressful, but imaginary work like the kind in Stardew Valley is much more satisfying, Dr. Madigan argues, because it removes “the worst of the uncertainty, helplessness, ambiguity, and consequences for failure that come with those real-world jobs” from the equation.

“Because they specifically can’t offer you a paycheck,” Dr. Madigan posits, “video games have to rely on the kinds of experiences that every employee longs for and every enlightened manager wishes she could provide: engagement and internal motivators. Why does a gamer slay that giant, radioactive scorpion? Why does he keep trying until he can beat his friend’s best time on a race track? Why does she keep mining materials so he can eventually upgrade her spaceship’s hyperdrive? Because he wants to. Because she has chosen to.”

Put simply, video games provide “clear goals, unambiguous feedback, winnable challenges, and predictable rewards.” When was the last time you got that kind of fulfillment from a 9-to-5?

First released in February 2016 by independent developer Eric Barone, this farm life simulator is currently enjoying a renaissance of sorts thanks to the March 20 launch of the long-awaited 1.6 patch–a series. The update includes a massive list of new opportunities ranging from major and game-changing (e.g. new events, mechanics, dialogue, etc.) to minor and silly (e.g. the ability to drink mayonnaise). Since the patch’s arrival last week, the record number of folks playing Stardew Valley on the game streaming platform Steam spiked at over 230,000, further entrenching Stardew Valley as one of the most popular farming games of all time. So what makes it so special?

Stardew Valley opens with you visiting your ailing grandfather as a child. After the old man says his goodbyes, he pulls you aside and hands you a wax-sealed envelope, but asks you not to open it yet.

“There will come a day when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life,” he says, “and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness. When that happens, my dear, you’ll be ready for this gift.”

More than a decade later, your grandfather’s prophecy is fulfilled. You’re sitting in an office building, unhappy and confined to a monitored cubicle, when you finally reach for the mysterious envelope. Inside, you find the deed to your grandfather’s farm and one final message from the family patriarch encouraging you to follow in his footsteps. You immediately quit your job and set off to do just that, trading your life as an unimportant cog in the corporate machine for more peaceful, pastoral pursuits.

The therapeutic benefits of this fantasy bear out in direct feedback from consumers. During a study of Steam reviews published in October 2021, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada found substantial evidence of players extolling the benefits of Stardew Valley and other games like it with regards to relaxation and the management of mental health issues. Much like the main character moving to the country to escape the stressors of modern life, Stardew Valley reviews paint the picture of a userbase finding a reliable safety valve to blow off steam in its work-like gameplay loops.

“[Stardew Valley] allows the player a relatively large degree of freedom over what they build, or what path they take,” the paper reads, echoing Dr. Madigan’s observations on player choice. “Since there is no fixed solution for creative challenges, players can spend as much or as little time on optimizations as they choose. With the player focused on designing and developing their farm for a large number of in-game hours, players have many opportunities to become emotionally invested in their farm.”

The study further cites a report published in the Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in which several respondents interviewed by researchers from the University of York, UK and the University of Basel, Switzerland specifically named Stardew Valley as helping them cope with “considerable emotional turmoil.” These negative experiences included various mental health issues, family and relationship problems, bereavement, dysphoria, and job loss.

Escapism is a powerful thing. While detaching from the real world isn’t a permanent solution for a stressful situation, it’s clear video games can be a useful tool for those in search of positive feedback they aren’t getting elsewhere, especially if they’re already predisposed to gaming as a pastime. And while the popularity of Stardew Valley, as well as contemporaries Animal Crossing, House Flipper, and Farming Simulator, may appear on the surface like folks trading real chores for digital ones, the difference perhaps lies with the simple fact players are choosing to perform them rather than being forced through necessity. Combined, these two factors create a perfect storm of gratification that gives players both the ability to push the worries of life to the back of their minds for a few hours and feel accomplished for doing so at the same time.

The post The psychology of why video game farming is so satisfying appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Best overall		Womanizer OG		SEE IT	Get the best of both worlds with clitoral and G-spot stimulation.
Best for beginners		MysteryVibe Poco		SEE IT	Easy-to-locate buttons takes the mystery out of changing settings.
Best budget		plusOne Fluttering Arouser		SEE IT	Ten different settings, vibration, and a fluttering arouser adds up to eye-fluttering orgasms.

There’s no shame in having a sex toy in your nightstand. Masturbation plays a big role in your sexual health—it’s even good for your mental and physical health! Your body releases endorphins (hormones that block pain and make you feel good) when you orgasm. Orgasms also help you sleep better, reduce stress, and can strengthen your pelvic and anal muscles. Plus, sex toys and masturbation are an excellent way to be in touch with your body and embrace what gives you pleasure. The best sex toys will leave you feeling confident and empowered over and over and over …

• Best overall: Womanizer OG
• Best for phalluses: Arcwave Ion 
• Best for vulvas: Satisfyer Pro 2 Gen 3 Air Pulse Toy
• Best for couples: We-Vibe Chorus
• Best for anal: Lovehoney Rump Workout Silicone Butt Plug Training Set
• Best rated: Magic Wand Rechargeable Massager
• Best for beginners: MysteryVibe Poco
• Best discreet: Womanizer Wave
• Best budget: plusOne Fluttering Arouser

How we chose the best sex toys

In order to find the best sex toys, we looked at reviews, recommendations, and … did lots and lots of personal testing. I’ve written about salacious things in the past, so I have no shame in my coworkers knowing too much about my personal life. Someone’s gotta do the testing, after all! Additionally, we looked at versatility in both features, use, and the kinds of bodies they can be used on. In this case, we do believe a toy that is a jack of all trades might be best, but there’s also nothing wrong with being a master of none.  

Also, everything on this list is body-safe, meaning it is non-toxic and non-porous. You don’t want any bacteria going near the thin, delicate skin around your genitals and in your body. 

The best sex toys: Reviews & Recommendations

Astroglide Sexologist Dr. Jess O’Reilly says, “Sex toy use is associated with a range of benefits, including increased sexual functioning and sexual pleasure. Those who use sexual accouterments, such as sex toys and lube, report higher sexual functioning and greater sexual satisfaction.” Masturbation is also a great way to relieve stress and help relieve period cramps. 

Everybody (and every body) is different when it comes to pleasure—one of our recommendations should butter your biscuit (get your mind out of the gutter, it’s a real turn of phrase!). 

Best overall: Womanizer OG

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: This feature-packed vibe has lots of intensity levels, can be used for clitoral stimulation or on your G-spot, and its Smart Silent tech keeps things discreet. 

Specs

• Settings: 12 intensity levels; 3 vibration levels
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: Clitoral, G-spot
• Battery life: 2 hours

Pros

• Waterproof
• Can be used for multiple kinds of stimulation
• Quiet

Cons

• Limited flexibility
• Controls can be finicky

The Womanizer OG takes all that is good in a bullet vibrator and all that is good in a clit stimulation toy and combines it into a versatile, wunderbar vibrator that you can use on multiple erogenous zones. Yes, it’s marketed as a G-spot stimulation, but we also loved its capabilities as a clit suction toy. Being able to control the 12 levels of Pleasure Air intensity and three vibration modes separately can lead you to all kinds of new highs when other toys only scratch the surface. The Afterglow feature—which senses your orgasm and gradually reverts back to its lowest setting—is a lovely touch, and helps bring you down from a potentially intense body high, like your lover rubbing your back and holding you after … well, you get it. 

The vibe itself isn’t super flexible, meaning you can’t change the angle of the head, and the controls can be a little confusing— the short and long presses are super important in changing the features, and it’s easy to go into a different mode than you wanted. However, this is a small qualm when you consider the multitude of possibilities on how—and where—you can use this toy. 

Best for phalluses: Arcwave Ion 

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The Arcwave Ion helps you achieve maximum phallic stimulation. 

Specs

• Settings: 8 intensity levels
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: Phallus
• Battery life: 70 minutes on full power

Pros

• Easy to clean
• Intuitive controls
• Smart Silence tech

Cons

• Could be a little intense for newbies

When you think of phallus masturbators, a device that resembles a flashlight tends to come to mind. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there’s a sleeker way to beat off. The Arcwave Ion (made by the same people who make the Womanizer OG) kind of looks like a stapler, but it’s infinitely easier to clean than closed-end strokers—simply twist and rinse under the faucet after use. The Ion works by focusing pulsating air pressure the frenulum, the band of tissue on the underside of the penis toward that head that is packed with sensitive Pacinian pleasure receptors. A DryTech stick inside the Ion uses silica to wick away moisture, and vents on the lid encourage air flow, so you won’t be stuck with a musty stroker when you pull it out for use. Multiple reviews note a bit of a learning curve when first using the Ion, but boy, you’ll be happy when you get over it. If you’re new to using a stroker, try out a Tenga Egg, which is an analog stroker (you power it, buddy). If you like it, step up to the Ion. 

Best for vulvas: Satisfyer Pro 2 Gen 3 Air Pulse Toy

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: It’s like oral without the oral (and you can actually get somewhere when using it). 

Specs

• Settings: 11 pressure wave settings; 12 vibration programs
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: Clitoral
• Battery life: 90 minutes

Pros

• Easy-to-clean silicone
• App control
• Great cost for features

Cons

• Need to change Bluetooth settings so neighbors don’t know your business

Sure, using a good ol’ bullet vibrator will get the job done, but what about something that blows the project out of the water? The Satisfyer Pro 2 Gen 3 Air Pulse Toy has a long name, but it yields fast-acting feel-good feelings. In fact, you might even be done using it after saying the name. Air-pulse stimulation and vibration simulate oral sex, and Liquid Air technology mimics pulsing water. Put it together and you get a device that makes reviewers say, “It couldn’t be named any better because it will definitely satisfy!”

We love that it also comes with a Bluetooth app to customize vibration patterns, access remote controls, or play music. However, one reviewer notes that the name of the toy pops up on the list of available Bluetooth devices. Some may be none the wiser, but do take time to change the device’s name in the Bluetooth settings. 

Best for couples: We-Vibe Chorus

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: G-spot, clitoral, and phallus stimulation all at once? Heck yes. 

Specs

• Settings: 10 pattern modes
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: G-spot, clitoral, phallic
• Battery life: 90 minutes

Pros

• Comes with a remote control
• Quiet
• Sleek charging case

Cons

• Hard to get clitoral stimulation in some positions
• App interface wonky 

The Beatles’ “Come Together” makes great points about … coming together. Achieve that harmony with the WeVibe Chorus, which stimulates the G-spot, clitoris, and penis. A remote control means you don’t have to reach anywhere to change the settings, and it also allows someone else to control it in the bedroom or over long distances (we’re enthusiastic advocates of exploring sex toys for couples). Touch-sense modes let your movements control the vibrations, and Squeeze Remote tech lets you use your own body to change intensity—the vibration gets stronger as you squeeze. 

With all new things, there is a bit of a learning curve. It can be hard to get a good angle on your G-spot while trying to get the toy to touch your clitoris. It may also achieve a different kind of premature exit based on positioning. The app interface can be a little confusing, and leaving it could stop the vibrator from doing its thing, which is a bummer in the heat of the moment. After futzing around, WeVibe Chorus should be a welcome addition to your sex life. 

Best for anal: Lovehoney Rump Workout Silicone Butt Plug Training Set

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: This butt plug set helps you ease into anal with three beginner-friendly plugs equipped with an essential flared base. 

Specs

• Settings: N/A
• Waterproof?: N/A
• Pleasure point: P-spot
• Battery life: N/A

Pros

• Easy to clean
• Great introduction to anal
• Different sizes for versatility

Cons

• More for beginners

Anal doesn’t have to be daunting. If you’ve always wanted to try it and don’t know where to start, consider this Butt Plug training set from Lovehoney. A tapered tip, lengthy neck, and T-bar are all must-haves when it comes to looking for a butt plug—and these three have them all. All three are easy to clean and are made of body-safe silicone for peace of mind as you play. “Start small and work your way up to the desired size and stimulation,” says plusOne Director of Product Development Megan O’Connell.

The small plug is 3 inches long and 2.5 inches in girth; the medium is 3.5 inches long and 3 inches in girth; and the large is 4.5 inches long and 4 inches in girth. And if you don’t like it, Lovehoney has a 100-day money-back guarantee. Being able to try something out and getting a refund if you don’t like it? Sounds good to us. 

If you’re looking for something more advanced, check out the LELO Hugo Butt Plug. It’s remote-controlled and vibrates.

Best rated: Magic Wand Rechargeable Massager

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: The classic remains a classic thanks to buzzy vibration modes and a bevy of separate attachments, making it a true multi-hyphenate. 

Specs

• Settings: 4 speeds, 4 patterns
• Waterproof?: No
• Pleasure point: Anywhere
• Battery life: 180 minutes

Pros

• Great battery life
• A classic made rechargeable
• Doubles as a percussion massager

Cons

• Not everyone’s cup of tea
• Not waterproof

When you think of “sex toy,” the Magic Wand most likely comes to mind. This wand has been around since 1968, and with that history comes with great responsibility. Considering that the Magic Wand has been used in scientific studies, we’ve come to the conclusion that, yeah, it’s pretty legit. And it’s also pretty no-nonsense. You only get four vibration speeds and four vibration patterns. But it lasts for a marathon 180 minutes, which blows the battery life out of every single sex toy on this list. 

The Magic Wand might not be everyone’s cup of tea: it can be a little too intense for you if you don’t like big, buzzy, bed-vibrating sex toys. But, you can always use it for its original use: as a percussion massager.

Best for beginners: MysteryVibe Poco

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: A foldable design and easy-to-press buttons make this a great buy for someone looking for their first sex toy. 

Specs

• Settings: 8 presets; 16 intensities
• Waterproof?: Only showerproof
• Pleasure point: G-spot, but can be used for clitoral stimulation
• Battery life: 90 minutes

Pros

• Designed to mimic fingers
• Easy-to-use app
• Super customizable

Cons

• Have to keep app on in order to stay connected to the vibe

The MysteryVibe Poco’s small size (under 6 inches in length and 1.5 inches at the base) makes it an excellent choice for beginners who are looking for something they can use by themselves, with a partner, and on different parts of the body. It’s designed to mimic fingers—an ode to the OG way of getting off—and includes 16 different intensities for all kinds of moods. It’s showerproof and also super portable, making it perfect to bring on a trip with your lover or pack on a sleepover. Like other Bluetooth-connected toys, your vibe might turn out when you try to leave the app. 

Best discreet: Womanizer Wave

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: Instead of your regular showerhead, this showerhead and clitorial stimulator in one was designed for erogenous zones. 

Specs

• Settings: N/A
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: All over
• Battery life: N/A

Pros

• Looks like a regular showerhead
• Saves water
• Easy installation

Cons

• Not for anyone who doesn’t want to incorporate toys into daily life.

“Discovering masturbation via the showerhead” is a common trope in coming-of-age movies, but it’s also one that many of us have done in real life. It’s an easy, cheap, accessible way to experiment with masturbation. The showerhead has grown up, thanks to the Womanizer Wave, which is made for water-pressure clitoral stimulation. Believe it or not, it also saves water thanks to EcoSmart tech without sacrificing performance. The Wave is also easy to hold in your hand (you can’t say the same for your heavy showerhead). You can change between the three different water jets—PowderRain, PleasureJet, and PleasureWhirl—with the touch of a button. The Womanizer Wave system is easy to swap in and out—however, it might be even easier to accept that your showerhead was made for masturbation and let no one be none the wiser.

Best budget: plusOne Fluttering Arouser

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: You don’t have to spend $100 to “invite a little pleasure” into your life. 

Specs

• Settings: 10 vibration speeds
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: Clitoral
• Battery life: 1.5 hours of use

Pros

• Easy to clean
• Cheap and good quality
• Rechargeable

Cons

• Might not scratch the itch for those who are suction toy stans

“Cheap” tends to get lumped with “poor quality.” And, vibrators under $50 may not be rechargeable. The plusOne rejects those notions with soft, smooth high-quality silicone that yields 1.5 hours of power on a single charge. It combines a fluttering tongue with vibration for extra stimulation and arousal. You just need some warm water and mild soap to clean. And, it’s truly waterproof, so you don’t have to worry about damaging the device when using it in the shower.

However, if suction toys are your jam, you might not get your rocks off with the Fluttering Arouser, since it uses a silicone tongue and vibration. In that case, we recommend the Lovehoney X ROMP Switch Clitoral Suction Stimulator, which has six intensity levels and is less than $35.

What to consider when buying the best sex toys

The world is your oyster when sex toy shopping. However, all sex toys are not built the same. And, like the partnered sex many of us had in college, when a sex toy is bad, it’s bad! Here’s what to look for when looking for a sex toy.

What do you like?

Where do you like to be touched? And how do you like to be touched? Answering those questions can lead you to a perfect match. For example, a vibrating phallus sleeve is going to feel different than a cock ring. Maybe vibration isn’t your style and a stroker sounds more pleasurable to use.  

Experimentation

With this said, sex toys are a great way to try something new. Check to see if the site you’re buying from has a money-back guarantee. Sometimes, you can get a refund if you decide that a toy isn’t making you see fireworks and enter a new dimension. 

What if the vibe isn’t your vibe? Aka, sex toy recycling

Most retailers won’t accept your used sex toys if you change your mind, however. The good news is, there’s a way to not let it sit sad and unused in your nightstand drawer. 

“Should you need to dispose of a product with a lithium-ion battery, the battery should be disposed of in accordance with the local laws and regulations,” Connell says. 

This means its final resting place is not in your home trash can.

“If possible, please recycle it,” adds plusOne Director of Industrial Design Emily Gasta. “Users should not take out or replace the battery by themselves; doing so may damage the product.”

You also don’t want to recycle a used sex toy. Read up on how to clean your sex toys based on what they’re made out of. And if you really want to get rid of it, you can gift it to a treasured and trusted friend (after sanitizing and sterilizing, of course), or you can gift it away on a site like Squeaky Clean Toys, which is like eBay for sex toys. 

Lube up

Not all lubes are made the same, either. You’ll want to use silicone lube like the Shine Silicon lube from Maude on glass toys, when you’re getting frisky in the water, or when you’re just using your hands. However, do not use silicone lube with silicone toys—that will damage them. Instead, use a water-based lube like tried-and-true-blue Astroglide. We also have to recommend Astroglide because of its rocket-science roots. 

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best sex toys

• Best overall: Womanizer OG
• Best for phalluses: Arcwave Ion 
• Best for vulvas: Satisfyer Pro 2 Gen 3 Air Pulse Toy
• Best for couples: We-Vibe Chorus
• Best for anal: Lovehoney Rump Workout Silicone Butt Plug Trainng Set
• Best rated: Hitachi Magic Wand Rechargeable Massager
• Best for beginners: MysteryVibe Poco
• Best discreet: Womanizer Wave
• Best budget: plusOne Fluttering Arouser

Sex toys are fun to use, but they’re also an important part of sexual wellness and building confidence. There’s something for everybody when looking for the best sex toys—and the majority of them can be used on almost every body. Shut the blinds, clear 20 minutes off your schedule, and get to work!

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best sex toys in 2024, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Although it can sound cliché, there’s a lot of truth in the old axiom “face your fears.” In fact, exposure therapy ostensibly puts that adage into practice. For many people, reprocessing their trauma with the help of trained professionals can allow their brains to relearn the important differences between an actual traumatic event and its harmless memories.

Unfortunately, post-traumatic stress disorder often reworks the brain by limiting the ventromedial prefrontal cortex’s ability to control regions like the amygdala. This can lead to memory and safety learning issues that limit exposure therapy’s efficacy.

To potentially solve this issue, researchers wondered if combining the treatment alongside another popular trauma therapy might compensate for this brain barrier. Their results, published this week in JAMA Psychiatry, indicate a workaround may actually be found through a trio of tools: exposure therapy, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and virtual reality.

[Related: PTSD patients’ brains work differently when recalling traumatic experiences.]

In their recent study, a collaborative team from Brown University and the Providence V.A. Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology asked 54 military veterans to participate in a new, double-blind study. Every volunteer agreed to six VR exposure therapy sessions over two to three weeks that depicted generalized warzone situations.

“It can be difficult for patients to talk about their personal trauma over and over, and that’s one common reason that participants drop out of psychotherapy,” Noah Philip, the study’s author and Brown University psychiatry professor, said in a statement. “This VR exposure tends to be much easier for people to handle.”

During these 25-minute sessions, half of the veterans simultaneously received painless, 2 milliamp tDCS stimulations directed at their ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The other participants, meanwhile, served as controls, and only felt a small sensation meant to mimic tDCS treatment.

According to researchers, veterans who received both therapies reported “meaningful” improvement in their PTSD symptoms after just three sessions, with a “significantly greater” reduction in issues reported during their one month follow-up interviews.

What’s more, the results were achieved much faster than volunteers who only underwent VR exposure therapy. In only two weeks, tDCS/VR approach produced results normally only seen after about 12 weeks of exposure therapy alone.

It’s important to note that this initial participant sample size is relatively small, and researchers need to continue studying the results to better grasp how the treatment works over time. Still, the team hopes to conduct similar experiments on larger populations in the future, potentially alongside additional treatment sessions with longer follow-up times.

The post VR and electric brain stimulation show promise for treating PTSD appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Best overall		We-Vibe Sync O		SEE IT	A wearable vibe that’s fun during foreplay or during sex.
Best for beginners		Unbound Squish		SEE IT	A squishable entry point to the world of buzzy vibes.
Best budget		plusOne Personal Massager		SEE IT	Low budget, high quality.

We love masturbation, but using a sex toy as a couple is, for lack of a better phrase, incredibly hot. Being behind the steering wheel of someone else’s desires? Doing some long-distance debauchery with the help of a smart vibe and app? Implementing tools so your hands can go other places? You won’t just get two tickets to Pleasureville—you’ll get a season pass, the keys to the city, a memorial plaque along main street, and even a statue built in your joint honor. Casting sexual stigma aside is a task that doesn’t undo itself overnight. If you decide to take the journey, you’ll be a stronger couple thanks to the communication, direction, and confidence you gain from experimentation. The best sex toys for couples make coming together easy, intimate, and even a little spiritual.

• Best overall: We-Vibe Sync O 
• Best rated: Magic Wand Cordless Vibrator
• Best for beginners: Unbound Squish
• Best for men: Fun Factory Manta Vibrating Male Stroker
• Best for women: Womanizer Next
• Best budget: plusOne Personal Massager

How we chose the best sex toys for couples

I previously covered the best sex toys, so I’ve been around the block when it comes to knowing what to look for. We also looked at reviews and recommendations and spoke to experts. We also … tested them ourselves, so you can feel better a real person has handled what’s in this story. We also looked at versatility in use and the kinds of bodies they can be used on. High-end sex toys are well worth the money, but we want to make sure you get your money’s worth out of them.

Everything on this is body-safe, meaning it’s non-toxic and non-porous. Bad bacteria and your sensitive bits aren’t the best couple here.

PS: We know gender is fake! We use some gendered terms here, but just know all these toys are made for bodies regardless of how you identify.

The best sex toys for couples: Reviews & Recommendations

It’s not every day you get to polish the banister (real euphemism for masturbation, by the way) in the name of product journalism. One of our picks should help you and your honey paddle the pink canoe or shuck corn.

Best overall: We-Vibe Sync O 

SEE IT

• Settings: 10 vibration modes
• Waterproof?: Yes, IPX7
• Pleasure point: G-spot, clitoris
• Battery life: 150 minutes

Pros

• Secure fit
• Comfortable to wear
• Waterproof

Cons

• Remote is small, so be cognizant not to lose
• Still hard to keep on the clitoris

I previously tried We-Vibes’ other hands-free C-shaped vibrators, like the Chorus and Sync Go, and found it difficult to keep the internal parts inside my body. I still will recommend both vibes—what isn’t my cup of tea could certainly be yours—but the We-Vibe Sync O is the answer to my personal problem. It provides dual stimulation, and the insertable portion has a little more surface area to stay put. The O-shaped internal arm is flexible and comfortable to insert, and there’s more than one way to use it. You can use it by yourself hands-free, during penetrative intercourse, during foreplay, or with another G-spot toy or dildo. You can control it yourself via the remote or on the device itself. We recommend the remote so your hands can focus on other places.

Its 10 intensity levels range from a low, rumbly purr to a buzzy high. Like the Chorus and the Sync Go, you can control the We-Vibe Sync O on your phone, making it perfect if you’re looking to stay while dating long distance. It’s also IPX7 waterproof rated so that you can use it in the bath or shower, and body-safe silicone gives us peace of mind.

Some reviews mention that you still have to hold the external part in place to really get it on the clitoris. Otherwise, you get overall vulvar stimulation. We also experienced that. Body movement tends to knock anything out of place, so it wasn’t a deal-breaker for us. The remote is very small, which screams “lose me,” so just keep an eye on it or keep it in the included drawstring bag when not in use.

Best rated: Magic Wand Cordless Vibrator

SEE IT

Specs

• Settings: 4 speeds, 4 patterns
• Waterproof?: No
• Pleasure point: Anywhere
• Battery life: 180 minutes

Pros

• Great battery life
• A classic, now rechargeable
• Doubles as a percussion massager

Cons

• Not everyone’s cup of tea
• Not waterproof

The Magic Wand is the toy that people think of when talking about sex toys. This wand has been around since 1968, and with that history comes great responsibility. The Magic Wand has been used in scientific studies, so its power (up to 6,300 RPMs) is pretty legit. Its settings are simple but still get the job done: You only get four vibration speeds and four vibration patterns. It lasts for a marathon 180 minutes, which blows the battery life out of almost every single sex toy on this list. You can use it on clits, frenulums, nipples, or on the shoulders for a nice massage. It did originate as a percussion massager, after all.

We’ve also tried the Magic Wand Micro, which packs the Magic Wand’s simplicity and flexible neck into a pint-sized package. I personally prefer it over the Magic Wand. I love a good buzzy, too, but the Magic Wand can be … a little much! If you’ve found that regular wand massagers leave you uncomfortably numb, give the Micro a try. You can also show your sex toy allegiance by using the Micro as a keychain. Two birds, one stone, you get it.

Sarah Tomchesson, a certified sex educator and Magic Wand’s director of marketing, also recommends using the Magic Wand’s smaller cousin in the bedroom.

“Right now, my favorite toy for couples is the Magic Wand Micro,” she says. “It boasts the power of the famous full-sized Magic Wand but starts at a more subtle vibration on its lowest setting. It is ideal for warming up the body to full arousal, using it on both partners, and its compact size fits nicely between bodies or in your bag for date night or a sexy getaway.”

Best for beginners: Unbound Squish

SEE IT

• Settings: 6 total; 4 intensities and 2 patterns
• Waterproof?: Yes (Rating not listed)
• Pleasure point: Anywhere
• Battery life: 2.5 hours on lowest setting; 1 hour on highest

Pros

• Haptic settings
• Soft silicone
• Easy to hold

Cons

• Reviews note haptic controls are hard to use
• A little expensive for how the user experience is

A bullet vibrator is most often everyone’s entrance into sex toys. However, they can be hard to hold and don’t give you the power or rumble some may crave. They’re also not that waterproof, depending on the kind you buy. That’s not the case with the Unbound Squish. We love that you can control it via the buttons on the vibe or by squeezing it. The tech isn’t perfect, but it does make for a fun experience. The pointed tip can be used on many erogenous zones, and the ridge at the top provides an extra yummy sensation. It’s waterproof, and it comes in its own little bag for easy travel. It is a little pricey for an entry-level vibe and the experience it provides, which isn’t bed-rocking but great as an entrance to sex toys. We also love the MysteryVibe Poco, which is flexible and the best for beginner choice in our original sex toy story.

Best for men: Fun Factory Manta Vibrating Male Stroker

SEE IT

• Settings: 12 total (6 speeds, 6 patterns)
• Waterproof?: Yes (Rating not listed)
• Pleasure point: Penis, frenulum
• Battery life: 40-120 minutes, depending on settings

Pros

• Finger loop base for easy holding
• Can be used in many different ways
• Travel lock
• Quiet

Cons

• Motor could be more powerful

Foreplay and masturbation don’t have to be all spit and friction. Consider adding a toy, like a stroker or cock ring, to experience different sensations. We love the Fun Factory Manta Vibrating Male Stroker just for that reason. Its vibrations (it comes with six speeds and six patterns) and ridges are different than a hand, and you can use it by yourself or with a pal. In fact, it’s designed with couples in mind. You can slide it in-between bodies during penetrative sex, or you can position it at the base of the penis to step up oral sex. Its finger loop base makes it easy to hold, and it’s extremely quiet, meaning noise from vibrations won’t wreck your mood. Plus, it’s waterproof so that you can bring it into the shower built-free. Reviews note, however, that the motor could be more powerful. If you’re looking for something gentler, congratulations, you’ve found it.

Best for women: Womanizer Next

SEE IT

• Settings: 14
• Waterproof?: Yes, IPX7 rated
• Pleasure point: Clitoris
• Battery life: 120 minutes

Pros

• Incredibly quiet
• Climax control
• 3D Pleasure Air is a game-changer
• Extra stimulator head for different bodies

Cons

• Unwieldy

Suction vibrators are some of my favorite vibes to use by myself or with a partner during foreplay. I’ve tried many of them based on the nature of my work, and some have stood out more than others. The Womanizer Next, with its 14 intensity settings and 3D Pleasure Air tech, is at the head of the pack by a mile. It has everything I want in a vibrator: It’s powerful but quiet, waterproof, easy to clean, and made of oh-so-soft silicone. An extra stimulator head helps you find what fits best with your body, and you can order more online. Climax control is the cherry on top, giving you three Air Wave depths to choose from. You know that one SpongeBob meme? You’ll feel like that after using this vibe.

You can also choose Autopilot mode, which puts the control in Next’s metaphoric hands. You won’t have to worry about pushing buttons, and you get to try something new. Win-win!

It has a chunkier profile compared to others I’ve tried, but frankly, I don’t care. I glean over this con. It’s just that good. If it really worries you, consider the Womanizer Pro 40, which is a little sleeker but just as beloved.

Best budget: plusOne Personal Massager

SEE IT

• Settings: 10 vibration modes
• Waterproof?: Yes
• Pleasure point: Everywhere
• Battery life: 4 hours

Pros

• Compact
• Discreet
• Long battery life

Cons

• Reviews note performance issues

The brand plusOne makes some of our favorite budget sex toys. They’re high in quality but won’t leave your wallet dry. This compact wand can be used all over the body, making it a perfect addition to foreplay and sex. It’s also waterproof, meaning you can use it in the shower. The battery life is crazy long for how small it is, and its flexible head is reminiscent of the one on the Magic Wand. It fits well in your hand, isn’t unwieldy, and has soft silicone that rivals higher-end vibes. If you’re beginning your vibrator journey, plusOne is a great place to start.

You get what you pay for with this wand, however. Reviews note that it doesn’t have the vibration juice compared to other vibes, and it doesn’t have the shelf life of higher-end toys.

What to consider when buying the best sex toys for couples

In these kinds of stories, we often say, “Not all [blank] are made equal,” but we really mean it this time. Sex toys, despite being products that promote sexual wellness, are not regulated by the FDA, which means anyone can make, market, and produce a sex toy that’s a little shady, just like that one situationship in college.

“Quality toys are worth the investment,” Sarah Tomchesson, Magic Wand’s marketing director and a certified sex educator, says. “A quality sex toy is user-tested, made of body-safe materials, and components that will last. If budget is a concern for a buyer, the best approach is to join the mailing list for a reputable sex toy retailer and take advantage of seasonal sales promotions rather than searching for the lowest-priced toy online.”

Here’s what you should look for before putting anything in or on your partner’s body or your own:

Material

You want to look for body-safe toys. This means you can use them around and inside your body. If you see that it’s made of silicone, stainless steel, and borosilicate glass, you’re in the clear. Body-safe materials are free from phthalates and won’t change forms when exposed to different temperatures.

Generally, be wary of anything porous. You’ll know something is porous if it’s see-through, sticky, stretchy, or has a strong rubbery odor. “Porous” doesn’t mean “inherently dangerous,” however; some porous materials can be phthalate-free and non-toxic, but they can harbor germs and be almost impossible to disinfect. Most cock rings and a few wand heads use porous materials. You’ll want to keep it to yourself if it’s made from cyber skin, jelly, PVC, rubber (even skin-safe rubber), UR3, and vinyl.

“Beware of ‘silicone blends’ as they may contain unknown plastics or materials,” Tomchesson adds.

If you’re working with porous wand heads and toys, cover them with a polyurethane condom to reduce risk if using it with another person (and change the condom with each new person that uses it), emphasis on “reduce risk.”

If you’re unsure if your sex toy material is body-safe, simply ask. Many manufacturers have emails and customer service chats that can answer any questions about a certain toy.

Buying from reputable brands can also give you peace of mind. Platforms like Lovehoney and Spectrum Boutique, buying right from the manufacturer’s website, and buying from the manufacturer’s Amazon storefront are surefire ways to know you’re purchasing from a good place. If you see a storefront name that looks like it was made by your cat walking across your keyboard, you might want to stay clear of it in this case.

Kinds of sex toys

There are so many kinds of sex toys. So many! Tomchesson says toys that are easy to hold, quiet, can be positioned between bodies, and increase access to previously undiscovered nerve endings during a couple’s play are ideal for couples to add into the mix.

Here are just a few that are perfect for partner play:

• Glass toys: Great for temperature play (can throw it in the freezer/fridge for cold and put it in warm water for hot), also non-porous and easy to clean and maintain.
• Wands: Fun and rumbly, you can use these all over, even for sore shoulders.
• Bullets: Perfect on nipples, clitorises, frenulums, perineums … the world is your oyster.
• Strokers: Great to assist during oral play or add some pizazz to solo play.
• C-shaped toys: Can use them on your partner during foreplay, on yourself during solo play, or with your partner. You can also use them while having sex or with a G-spot vibrator (we’re huge fans of the We-Vibe Rave 2) or dildo. You have options!

When buying a sex toy for the first time, Tomchesson says the first question couples should ask themselves is what their goal is with using a toy. Other follow-up questions include: Is there a new kind of play or sex position they are interested in exploring? Are they experiencing an orgasm gap in the relationship where one partner is experiencing pleasure and orgasms while the other is not? Are they interested in taking their bedroom explorations in a new direction? 

“Once a couple is clear on what they are hoping to achieve with a new toy, the search narrows, and it is easier to find a good fit,” she says. “From there, couples can read online reviews, visit a sex-positive store, or search a Reddit thread for inspiration. A quality sex toy will have positive reviews on reputable online sexual wellness shops, and detailed specs and product information, including the materials.” 

Tomchesson recommends looking for products with versatility, such as variable speeds and the ability to use them in a variety of ways, all over the body, and in solo play and couples play. She says that, for your first toy purchase, find a pleasure product that looks and feels inviting and is simple to use. 

“Your first sex toy should excite you and make you eager to get into the bedroom,” she says. 

Then, she says to test it out before using it with your partner. “Read the instructions, charge it up, and get familiar with the settings before you are in the heat of the moment with your partner. This way, you can intuitively integrate the toy into your play rather than fumbling your way through it.”

Regardless of the sex toy you choose and use, we also recommend the Liberator Fascinator Throw to protect soft surfaces from bodily fluids.

A note on lube and cleaning

Lubes are perfect for getting things slippery, which reduces friction and increases fun. You’ll want to use silicone lube like the Shine Silicon lube from Maude on glass toys, when you’re getting frisky in the water, or when you’re just using your hands. However, do not use silicone lube with silicone toys—that will damage them. Instead, use a water-based lube like good ‘ol Astroglide. We also have to recommend Astroglide because of its rocket-science roots. 

“Lubricant reduces friction and increases your sensitive nerve endings’ receptiveness to pleasurable sensations,” Tomchesson says. “Using a toy for the first time will be more enjoyable with lubricant.”

If you’re using a toy with someone who isn’t fluid bonded to you (aka, you both haven’t had the conversation and taken steps to stop using barrier contraception with each other), or you just want to keep your body fluids separate from your honey’s, use a polyurethane condom with your toy and change it after playtime is over, or when a new partner comes into the mix.

When you’re cleaning toys, don’t submerge non-waterproof toys in water. You can wash them with warm water and mild, fragrance-free soap, or you can use sex toy cleaner like this one from Hello Cake.

“Sex toy cleaners are a great option for cleaning because they are body-safe and designed to be compatible with every sex toy material,” Tomchesson says. “Soap and warm water can be an effective way to keep your toys clean as long as you use a body-safe soap that you would also feel comfortable using on your sensitive bits. Sometimes people think they need to wash their toys in alcohol to get them clean, but alcohol and harsh cleaners can irritate the skin and therefore should not be used to clean sex toys.” 

Add a soft toothbrush if your toy has crevices, like suction toys. You can also boil toys made from silicone, borosilicate glass, and stainless steel to disinfect them. You can even disinfect your toy in the dishwasher. If your toys have mechanical parts, it’s best to keep them out of boiling water. As we mentioned, ask the manufacturer before you mix your vibrator with last night’s dishes. Last, air dry your toys to prevent lint and fibers from sticking to your toys.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best sex toys for couples

• Best overall: We-Vibe Sync O 
• Best rated: Magic Wand Cordless Vibrator
• Best for beginners: Unbound Squish
• Best for men: Fun Factory Manta Vibrating Male Stroker
• Best for women: Womanizer Next
• Best budget: plusOne Personal Massager

There is nothing wrong with good old regular missionary. But what if you could add some seasoning—say, something spicy and rich like Tajín or harissa—to your vanilla sex life? Sex toys for couples do just that, making foreplay and partnered play more pleasurable than it already is. Trying something new in the bedroom can bring you and your sweetie closer and rekindle a flame into a roaring fire.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best sex toys for couples, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

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Remember the old reality show competition stunt of getting contestants to eat live bugs on primetime television? Consuming “food” while it’s still alive spans numerous cultures around the world. In Japan, for example, odorigui (or “dance-eating”) is a centuries’ old tradition often involving squid, octopus, and tiny translucent fish known as ice gobies. Diners pop these still-living creatures into their mouths, as the wriggling is part of the overall meal experience.   

To potentially better understand the psychology and emotional responses associated with consuming odorigui dishes, researchers designed their own stand-in—a moving gelatin robo-food combining 3D-printing, kitchen cooking, and air pumps. The results appear not only tastier than your average reality show shock snack, but a potential step towards creative culinary and medical applications.

… And yet, judging from this video, it’s undeniably still a little odd.

Detailed in a study published earlier this month in PLOS One, a team at Japan’s University of Electro-Communications and Osaka University recently devised a pneumatically-driven handheld device to investigate what they dub “human-edible robot interaction,” or HERI. For the “edible” portion of HERI, researchers cooked up a gummy candy-like mixture using a little extra sugar and apple juice for flavor. 

After letting the liquid cure in molds that included two hollow airways, the team then attached the snack to a coffee mug-like holder. The design allowed researchers to inject air through the gelatin in different combinations—alternating airflow between each tube produced a side-to-side wagging motion, while simultaneous inflation offered a (slightly unnerving) pulsating movement.

And then, the taste tests.

The team directed 16 Osaka University students to grab the device holding their designated, writhing soft robot morsel, place the edible portion in their mouth, allow it to move about for 10 seconds, then chomp. Another (possibly relieved) group of control students also ate a normal, immobile gelatin gummy. Following their meals, each volunteer answered a survey including questions such as:

– Did you think what you just ate had animateness?

– Did you feel an emotion in what you just ate?

– Did you think what you just ate had intelligence?

– Did you feel guilty about what you just ate?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems that a meal’s experience can be influenced by whether or not the thing you just put in your mouth is also moving around in your mouth. Students described this sensation using the Japanese onomatopoeic terms gabu, or “grappling,” and kori-kori, meaning “crisp.” Movement also more frequently caused volunteers to feel a bit of guilt at eating a “still living” dish, as well as attach a sense of intelligence to it.

[Related: Scientists swear their lab-grown ‘beef rice’ tastes ‘pleasant’]

While only an early attempt at looking into some of the dynamics in odorigui, researchers believe more intricate soft robot designs can allow for more accurate experiments. Meanwhile, such research could lead to a “deepening understanding of ethical, social, and philosophical implications of eating,” as well as potential uses in medical studies involving oral and psychological connections. There’s also a possibility for “innovative culinary” experiences down the line, so who knows what might be coming to high-brow restaurants in the future—perhaps gyrating gyros, or wobbly waffles. Hopefully, nothing too macabre will wind up on menus. It’s certainly something researchers took into consideration during their tests.

“NOTE: During the experiment, we did not draw a face on the edible robot,” reads the fine print at the bottom of the demonstration video, presumably meaning they were just having a bit of fun with the project.

Which is good to hear. Otherwise, this whole thing might have come across as weird.

The post This edible, wriggling robot mimics experience of eating moving food appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Remember the sadness that came with the last time you failed miserably at something? Or the last time you were so anxious about an upcoming event that you couldn’t concentrate for days?

These types of emotions are unpleasant to experience and can even feel overwhelming. People often try to avoid them, suppress them or ignore them. In fact, in psychology experiments, people will pay money to not feel many negative emotions. But recent research is revealing that emotions can be useful, and even negative emotions can bring benefits.

In my emotion science lab at Texas A&M University, we study how emotions like anger and boredom affect people, and we explore ways that these feelings can be beneficial. We share the results so people can learn how to use their emotions to build the lives they want.

Our studies and many others have shown that emotions aren’t uniformly good or bad for people. Instead, different emotions can result in better outcomes in particular types of situations. Emotions seem to function like a Swiss army knife–different emotional tools are helpful in specific situations.

Sadness can help you recover from a failure

Sadness occurs when people perceive that they’ve lost a goal or a desired outcome, and there’s nothing they can do to improve the situation. It could be getting creamed in a game or failing a class or work project, or it can be losing a relationship with a family member. Once evoked, sadness is associated with what psychologists call a deactivation state of doing little, without much behavior or physical arousal. Sadness also brings thinking that is more detailed and analytical. It makes you stop and think.

The benefit of the stopping and thinking that comes with sadness is that it helps people recover from failure. When you fail, that typically means the situation you’re in is not conducive to success. Instead of just charging ahead in this type of scenario, sadness prompts people to step back and evaluate what is happening.

When people are sad, they process information in a deliberative, analytical way and want to avoid risk. This mode comes with more accurate memory, judgment that is less influenced by irrelevant assumptions or information, and better detection of other people lying. These cognitive changes can encourage people to understand past failures and possibly prevent future ones.

Sadness can function differently when there’s the possibility that the failure could be avoided if other people help. In these situations, people tend to cry and can experience increased physiological arousal, such as quicker heart and breathing rates. Expressing sadness, through tears or verbally, has the benefit of potentially recruiting other people to help you achieve your goals. This behavior appears to start in infants, with tears and cries signaling caregivers to help.

Anger prepares you to overcome an obstacle

Anger occurs when people perceive they’re losing a goal or desired outcome, but that they could improve the situation by removing something that’s in their way. The obstacle could be an injustice committed by another person, or it could be a computer that repeatedly crashes while you’re trying to get work done. Once evoked, anger is associated with a “readiness for action,” and your thinking focuses on the obstacle.

The benefit of being prepared for action and focused on what’s in your way is that it motivates you to overcome what’s standing between you and your goal. When people are angry, they process information and make judgments rapidly, want to take action, and are physiologically aroused. In experiments, anger actually increases the force of people’s kicks, which can be helpful in physical encounters. Anger results in better outcomes in situations that involve challenges to goals, including confrontational games, tricky puzzles, video games with obstacles, and responding quickly on tasks.

Expressing anger, facially or verbally, has the benefit of prompting other people to clear the way. People are more likely to concede in negotiations and give in on issues when their adversary looks or says they are angry.

Anxiety helps you prepare for danger

Anxiety occurs when people perceive a potential threat. This could be giving a speech to a large audience where failure would put your self-esteem on the line, or it could be a physical threat to yourself or loved ones. Once evoked, anxiety is associated with being prepared to respond to danger, including increased physical arousal and attention to threats and risk.

Being prepared for danger means that if trouble brews, you can respond quickly to prevent or avoid it. When anxious, people detect threats rapidly, have fast reaction times and are on heightened alert. The eye-widening that often comes with fear and anxiety even gives people a wider field of vision and improves threat detection.

Anxiety prepares the body for action, which improves performance on a number of tasks that involve motivation and attention. It motivates people to prepare for upcoming events, such as devoting time to study for an exam. Anxiety also prompts protective behavior, which can help prevent the potential threat from becoming a reality.

Boredom can jolt you out of a rut

There is less research on boredom than many other emotions, so it is not as well understood. Researchers debate what it is and what it does.

Boredom appears to occur when someone’s current situation is not causing any other emotional response. There are three situations where this lack can occur: when emotions fade, such as the happiness of a new car fading to neutral; when people don’t care about anything in their current situation, such as being at a large party where nothing interesting is happening; or when people have no goals. Boredom does not necessarily set in just because nothing is happening–someone with a goal of relaxation might feel quite content sitting quietly with no stimulation.

Psychology researchers think that the benefit of boredom in situations where people are not responding emotionally is that it prompts making a change. If nothing in your current situation is worth responding to, the aversive experience of boredom can motivate you to seek new situations or change the way you’re thinking. Boredom has been related to more risk seeking, a desire for novelty, and creative thinking. It seems to function like an emotional stick, nudging people out of their current situation to explore and create.

Using the toolkit of emotion

People want to be happy. But research is finding that a satisfying and productive life includes a mix of positive and negative emotions. Negative emotions, even though they feel bad to experience, can motivate and prepare people for failure, challenges, threats and exploration.

Pleasant or not, your emotions can help guide you toward better outcomes. Maybe understanding how they prepare you to handle various situations will help you feel better about feeling bad.

The post How feeling ‘bad’ can help you appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on Knowable Magazine.

Since the early years of this century, it has been commonplace for computerized analyses of athletic statistics to guide a baseball manager’s choice of pinch hitter, a football coach’s decision to punt or pass, or a basketball team’s debate over whether to trade a star player for a draft pick.

But many sports experts who actually watch the games know that the secret to success is not solely in computer databases, but also inside the players’ heads. So perhaps psychologists can offer as much insight into athletic achievement as statistics gurus do.

Sports psychology has, after all, been around a lot longer than computer analytics. Psychological studies of sports appeared as early as the late 19th century. During the 1970s and ’80s, sports psychology became a fertile research field. And within the last decade or so, sports psychology research has exploded, as scientists have explored the nuances of everything from the pursuit of perfection to the harms of abusive coaching.

“Sport pervades cultures, continents, and indeed many facets of daily life,” write Mark Beauchamp, Alan Kingstone and Nikos Ntoumanis, authors of an overview of sports psychology research in the 2023 Annual Review of Psychology.

Their review surveys findings from nearly 150 papers investigating various psychological influences on athletic performance and success. “This body of work sheds light on the diverse ways in which psychological processes contribute to athletic strivings,” the authors write. Such research has the potential not only to enhance athletic performance, they say, but also to provide insights into psychological influences on success in other realms, from education to the military. Psychological knowledge can aid competitive performance under pressure, help evaluate the benefit of pursuing perfection and assess the pluses and minuses of high self-confidence.

Confidence and choking

In sports, high self-confidence (technical term: elevated self-efficacy belief) is generally considered to be a plus. As baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan once said, “You have to have a lot of confidence to be successful in this game.” Many a baseball manager would agree that a batter who lacks confidence against a given pitcher is unlikely to get to first base.

And in fact, a lot of psychological research actually supports that view, suggesting that encouraging self-confidence is a beneficial strategy. Yet while confident athletes do seem to perform better than those afflicted with self-doubt, some studies hint that for a given player, excessive confidence can be detrimental. Artificially inflated confidence, unchecked by honest feedback, may cause players to “fail to allocate sufficient resources based on their overestimated sense of their capabilities,” Beauchamp and colleagues write. In other words, overconfidence may result in underachievement.

Other work shows that high confidence is usually most useful in the most challenging situations (such as attempting a 60-yard field goal), while not helping as much for simpler tasks (like kicking an extra point).

Of course, the ease of kicking either a long field goal or an extra point depends a lot on the stress of the situation. With time running out and the game on the line, a routine play can become an anxiety-inducing trial by fire. Psychological research, Beauchamp and coauthors report, has clearly established that athletes often exhibit “impaired performance under pressure-invoking situations” (technical term: “choking”).

In general, stress impairs not only the guidance of movements but also perceptual ability and decision-making. On the other hand, it’s also true that certain elite athletes perform best under high stress. “There is also insightful evidence that some of the most successful performers actually seek out, and thrive on, anxiety-invoking contexts offered by high-pressure sport,” the authors note. Just ask Michael Jordan or LeBron James.

Many studies have investigated the psychological coping strategies that athletes use to maintain focus and ignore distractions in high-pressure situations. One popular method is a technique known as the “quiet eye.” A basketball player attempting a free throw is typically more likely to make it by maintaining “a longer and steadier gaze” at the basket before shooting, studies have demonstrated.

“In a recent systematic review of interventions designed to alleviate so-called choking, quiet-eye training was identified as being among the most effective approaches,” Beachamp and coauthors write.

Another common stress-coping method is “self-talk,” in which players utter instructional or motivational phrases to themselves in order to boost performance. Saying “I can do it” or “I feel good” can self-motivate a marathon runner, for example. Saying “eye on the ball” might help a baseball batter get a hit.

Researchers have found moderate benefits of self-talk strategies for both novices and experienced athletes, Beauchamp and colleagues report. Various studies suggest that self-talk can increase confidence, enhance focus, control emotions and initiate effective actions.

Moderate performance benefits have also been reported for other techniques for countering stress, such as biofeedback, and possibly meditation and relaxation training.

“It appears that stress regulation interventions represent a promising means of supporting athletes when confronted with performance-related stressors,” Beauchamp and coauthors conclude.

Pursuing athletic perfection

Of course, sports psychology encompasses many other issues besides influencing confidence and coping with pressure. Many athletes set a goal of attaining perfection, for example, but such striving can induce detrimental psychological pressures. One analysis found that athletes pursuing purely personal high standards generally achieved superior performance. But when perfectionism was motivated by fear of criticism from others, performance suffered.

Similarly, while some coaching strategies can aid a player’s performance, several studies have shown that abusive coaching can detract from performance, even for the rest of an athlete’s career.

Beauchamp and his collaborators conclude that a large suite of psychological factors and strategies can aid athletic success. And these factors may well be applicable to other areas of human endeavor where choking can impair performance (say, while performing brain surgery or flying a fighter jet).

But the authors also point out that researchers shouldn’t neglect the need to consider that in sports, performance is also affected by the adversarial nature of competition. A pitcher’s psychological strategies that are effective against most hitters might not fare so well against Shohei Ohtani, for instance.

Besides that, sports psychology studies (much like computer-based analytics) rely on statistics. As Adolphe Quetelet, a pioneer of social statistics, emphasized in the 19th century, statistics do not define any individual—average life expectancy cannot tell you when any given person will die. On the other hand, he noted, no single exceptional case invalidates the general conclusions from sound statistical analysis.

Sports are, in fact, all about the quest of the individual (or a team) to defeat the opposition. Success often requires defying the odds — which is why gambling on athletic events is such a big business. Sports consist of contests between the averages and the exceptions, and neither computer analytics nor psychological science can tell you in advance who is going to win. That’s why they play the games.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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It’s relatively easy to trace a written linguistic history—there’s generally a lot of written documentation and records to study. Things get trickier, however, when attempting to examine a sign language’s evolution. Most transformations within the currently over 300 known sign languages (or SLs) around the world occurred sans text over generations of learners. Add in the centuries of marginalization experienced by Deaf and hard of hearing communities, and establishing concrete relationships between SLs becomes extremely difficult.

To help correct this long standing issue, researchers recently created a novel computational program capable of analyzing the relationships between various SLs. The result, published today in Science, is a first-of-its-kind large-scale study that greatly expands on linguists’ understanding of sign language development while challenging long held beliefs about its evolution.

[Related: Online classes are difficult for the hard of hearing. Here’s how to fix that.]

“Many people mistakenly think that sign language is shared around the world, but really the world is full of a vibrant tapestry of different sign languages,” Natasha Abner, study lead author and an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan, writes in an email to PopSci.

For their study, Abner and her colleagues first compiled a video dictionary of core, “resilient” vocabulary across 19 modern sign languages, such as American, British, Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish, among others. For example, while a sign for “oak tree” may only occur in languages spoken in regions with oak trees, the concept of just a “tree” is much more ubiquitous. Researchers then broke down video demonstrations for the 19 signing variants for “tree” (along with many other words) into basic phonetic parameters, then entered it all into a massive database.

“What we do in the study is look at how the sign languages refer to these commonplace, universal objects in the world and we work backwards to build a history of the language and languages,” Abner says. “This built history helps us understand the histories of the communities in ways that the historical records cannot because they are so limited and sparse.”

The computational analysis program then examined the signed vocabulary glossary, categorizing each entry based on intricate factors like handedness (one- or two-handed signs), handshape, location, and movement.

“This coding system avoids outcomes driven by superficial similarities or differences in two key ways,” reads a portion of the team’s study. “One, possible character values in the coding system range from two distinct values (handedness) to 10 distinct values (handshape), so it is a highly articulated system capable of capturing and tracking fine-grained differences.”

In tracing signed vocabularies’ evolutions, researchers applied phylogenetic analysis typically associated with biologically inherited traits to physically conveyed communications.

“In our study, the ‘genes’ of language are the words that the languages use to describe the world around them,” says Abner. Pursuing this strategy meant that, instead of simply applying existing computational methods to sign language data, Abner’s team used sign languages “as the empirical basis for advancing the computational methods themselves.”

[Related: The language you speak changes your perception of time.]

After examining the dataset, the team’s program established two wholly independent European and Asian sign language families alongside family trees for each one, as well as two distinct Asian sign language subfamilies. Some of the findings reinforced the already known, lasting effects of Western colonization, such as the relationship between British, Australian, and New Zealand sign languages at the expense of endangered or extinct indigenous variants. 

Meanwhile, the documented influence of French sign language within the Western European language tree is backed up by France’s help in expanding Deaf education schools during the 18th century. At the same time, the new computational analysis also revealed previously undocumented connections between British Sign Languages and Western European varieties. To back up the program’s claim, Abner’s team referred back to limited historical records, and found them to corroborate these links.

Abner believes these findings, alongside future advances, will allow sign language linguists the ability to study even more languages and Deaf communities.

“We view this as an important component of demonstrating the equity between signed and spoken languages, and the fact that both are rooted in the biological capacity for language that is part of what makes us human,” she tells PopSci.

“If we want to understand our humanity, then we cannot limit ourselves to spoken languages.”

The post Computer modeling is tracing the hidden evolution of sign languages appeared first on Popular Science.

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Most people continue to use AI programs such as ChatGPT, Bing, and Google Bard for mundane tasks like internet searches and text editing. But of the roughly 103 million US adults turning to generative chatbots in recent months, an estimated 13 percent occasionally did it to simply “have a conversation with someone.” 

New national surveys from Consumer Reports explore how and why people are interacting with the increasingly influential technology.

[Related: Humans actually wrote that fake George Carlin ‘AI’ routine.]

According to the August 2023 survey results released on January 30, a vast majority of Americans (69 percent) either did not regularly utilize AI chat programs in any memorable way, or did not use them at all within the previous three months. Those that did, however, overwhelmingly opted to explore OpenAI’s ChatGPT—somewhat unsurprising, given the company’s continued industry dominance. With 19 percent of respondents, ChatGPT usage was more than triple that of Bing AI, as well as nearly five times more popular than Google Bard.

Most AI users asked their programs to conduct commonplace tasks, such as answering questions in lieu of a traditional search engine, writing content, summarizing longer texts, and offering ideas for work or school assignments. Despite generative AI’s relative purported strength at creating and editing computer code, just 10 percent of those surveyed recounted using the technology to do so—three percent less than the number of participants who used it to strike up a conversation.

The desire for idle conversation with someone else is an extremely human, natural feeling. Despite chatbots likely presenting a quick fix for some of those surveyed by Consumer Reports, however, there are already signs that it’s not necessarily the healthiest of habits.

As AI becomes more ubiquitous and naturalistic, many industry critics have voiced concerns about a potentially increasing number of people turning to technology instead of human relationships. Numerous reports in recent months highlight a growing market of AI bots explicitly marketed to an almost exclusively male audience as “virtual girlfriends.” Meanwhile, countless examples showcase men repeatedly engaging in behavior with their digital partners that would be considered abusive in the real world.

Of course, it’s important to note simply putting the “chat” in “chatbot” to the test isn’t in any way concerning on its own. This is a shiny, new technology, after all—one that is being aggressively pushed within a largely unregulated industry. Extrapolating Consumer Reports’ survey results, it’s unlikely that a large portion of the estimated 10.2 million Americans who recently had a “conversation” with a chatbot are planning on putting a (digital) ring on it. Still, that’s quite a lot of people looking to gab—roughly about as many as those visited with an AI chatbot for “no particular task, I just wanted to see what it was like.”

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This article was originally published on KFF Health News.

In the year and a half since its launch, 988—the country’s easy-to-remember, three-digit suicide and crisis hotline — has received about 8.1 million calls, texts, and chats. While much attention has been focused on who is reaching out and whether the shortened number has accomplished its goal of making services more accessible to people in emotional distress, curiosity is growing about the people taking those calls.

An estimated 10,000 to 11,000 counselors work at more than 200 call centers nationwide, fielding calls from people experiencing anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts.

A newly released report, based on responses from 47 crisis counselors, explored variations in their training and work experiences. The survey “is not large enough to support conclusions” about all 988 staffers, said Dan Fichter, the report’s author and a former program manager for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 988 team. Still, the first-of-its-kind survey—published by CrisisCrowd, a new noncommercial project focused on raising the voices of 988’s workforce—surfaced interesting snapshots.

For instance, counselors who responded noted wide variations in training, from four days or less to two weeks.

“We know that there are significant workforce challenges for 988 including staffing shortages and burnout, like much of the health care industry is experiencing today,” Monica Johnson, director of SAMHSA’s 988 & Behavioral Health Crisis Coordinating Office, wrote in a statement. “Ensuring that 988 crisis counselors are properly trained and supported to do this life-saving work is critical.”

Different training approaches emerged as one of the report’s central themes. Most counselors who responded said they were trained in four weeks or less and didn’t consider it adequate.

“I understand that even with about 120 hours of training, we can’t get through all the nuances that boost confidence,” said one anonymous survey response.

Some counselors said they had received training only in talking to people experiencing suicidal thoughts and not how to deal with other mental health issues, such as anxiety attacks, substance intoxication and withdrawal, and mood disorders. They said they had not been prepared for the wide range of calls of varying levels of intensity they would face.

“There could have been more emphasis on how different each convo would be,” noted one.

Some also suggested that opportunities to listen to 988 calls or sessions that used role-playing exercises to practice handling calls would have been helpful.

The risks of counselors not being properly trained are high, said Eric Rafla-Yuan, a member of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’ 9-8-8 Technical Advisory Board and a psychiatrist at San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital. He said it is concerning that some callers may not “feel that they have the support that they need” when reaching out to 988, and “may not call again in the future.” The situation could possibly “cause more stress rather than support,” he added.

Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said these differences were not a surprise since 988 brought together a patchwork of local and state efforts to provide a hotline specifically for mental health emergencies. In addition, Fichter said, centers’ different training approaches and time frames may “have to do with funding differences that there are between some centers.”

The survey also found that crisis counselors have different expectations for how long they should stay on the phone with callers.

Some counselors, for instance, said they were expected to end conversations with first-time callers and texters who didn’t have immediate plans of suicide within 15 minutes. Others reported limits of up to an hour.

Wesolowski said this issue stood out to her. “That’s certainly not in the spirit of what 988 stands for because there is no exact time that’s perfect to address a crisis,” she said. “Every crisis is unique; every situation, every health seeker is unique.”

The report also noted that centers have different policies on whether counselors should inform callers with imminent plans of suicide or those who are actively attempting suicide that first responders are being dispatched.

Involuntary intervention is used as a last resort to keep someone safe, but some centers believe that telling a caller that police are on their way may lead them to hang up the call, Fichter said. Other centers allow counselors to be transparent with callers about interventions and help callers prepare for the police.

Efforts to make improvements to the hotline’s operations are underway. For example, Vibrant Emotional Health, the company that administers 988, recently created online, self-paced training courses for crisis counselors, according to Tia Dole, Vibrant Emotional Health’s chief 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline officer. These classes, she said, are designed to “assist local centers in delivering training and supporting crisis counselor skill development.” She added that these courses are intended to supplement the training local centers already do.

“The success of 988 hinges on those vital people answering calls, texts, and chats every single day,” Wesolowski said of crisis counselors. “They are the heart of this system, and we have to value them. We have to invest in them and give them what they need to be successful.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Meta is attempting to encourage Instagram’s younger users to put down their phones in favor of a solid night’s rest. According to a January 18 Meta blog post, the company will begin showing “new nighttime nudges” for 13-to-17-year-olds after they spend more than 10 minutes scrolling through Instagram sections such as Reels or Direct Messages sections “late at night.”

“Sleep is important, particularly for young people,” Meta states—which, fair enough.

A sample app screenshot provided in Meta’s newsroom post depicts a black screen asking “Time for a break?” alongside the ever-so-slightly passive aggressive “It’s getting late. Consider closing Instagram for the night.”

[Related: Meta begins automatically restricting teen users to more ‘age-appropriate’ content.]

In an email provided to TechCrunch on Thursday, a Meta spokesperson confirmed Instagram will enable the new reminders after 10pm local time for some users. Technically, although teens can’t disable the feature, they can simply ignore the message to continue scrolling through their feeds through the wee hours of the morning.

Meta’s “nighttime nudges” are the latest in a string of recently introduced oversight features aimed specifically at addressing longrunning criticisms regarding social media’s harmful psychological effects on users—particularly younger audiences. Last week, the company announced impending plans to enforce new, mandatory Instagram and Facebook content restrictions for teens and minors. Established “in line with expert guidance,” the new guidelines will institute new privacy safeguards meant to block content related to self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders. A staggered rollout of Instagram’s and Facebook’s respective “Sensitive Content Controls” and “Reduce” features is expected to finish “in the coming months,” according to Meta’s January 9 update.

Before that, Meta instituted a suite of parental supervision tools in the latter half of 2023, including the ability to see their children’s time spent on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, an option to schedule breaks, and access to teens’ blocked contacts list. Last December, Meta also finally made good on its years’ long promise to establish default end-to-end encryption protocols for its over one billion global Messenger and Facebook users.

The belated slow-drip of new self-regulations may not be enough to prevent continued public and political pressure, not to mention potential legal consequences. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—along with the heads of TikTok, Snap, Discord, and X—are currently scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing pertaining to online child safety on January 31. Meanwhile, major social media providers still face a number of high-profile lawsuits filed by multistate coalitions accusing them of wantonly ignoring their products’ adverse effects on adolescent users in favor of corporate profits.

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Meta announced plans to implement new privacy safeguards specifically aimed at better shielding teens and minors from online content related to graphic violence, eating disorders, and self-harm. The new policy update for both Instagram and Facebook “in line with expert guidance” begins rolling out today and will be “fully in place… in the coming months,” according to the tech company.

[Related: Social media drama can hit teens hard at different ages.]

All teen users’ account settings—categorized as “Sensitive Content Control” on Instagram and “Reduce” on Facebook—will automatically enroll in the new protections, while the same settings will be applied going forward on any newly created accounts of underage users. All accounts of users 18 and under will be unable to opt out of the content restrictions. Teens will soon also begin receiving semiregular notification prompts recommending additional privacy settings. Enabling these recommendations using a single opt-in toggle will automatically curtail who can repost the minor’s content, as well as restrict who is able to tag or mention them in their own posts.

“While we allow people to share content discussing their own struggles with suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, our policy is not to recommend this content and we have been focused on ways to make it harder to find,” Meta explained in Tuesday’s announcement. Now, search results related to eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide will be hidden for teens, with “expert resources” offered in their place. A screenshot provided by Meta in its newsroom post, for example, shows links offering a contact helpline, messaging a friend, as well as “see suggestions from professionals outside of Meta.”

[Related: Default end-to-end encryption is finally coming to Messenger and Facebook.]

Users currently must be a minimum of 13-years-old to sign up for Facebook and Instagram. In a 2021 explainer, the company states it relies on a number of verification methods, including AI analysis and secure video selfie verification partnerships.

Meta’s expanded content moderation policies arrive almost exactly one year after Seattle’s public school district filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against major social media companies including Meta, Google, TikTok, ByteDance, and Snap. School officials argued at the time that such platforms put profitability over their students’ mental wellbeing by fostering unhealthy online environments and addictive usage habits. As Engadget noted on Tuesday, 41 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Delaware filed a similar joint complaint against Meta in October 2023.

“Meta has been harming our children and teens, cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the time.”

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This time of year, it’s not unusual to see a family member or a friend get impatient and try to figure out what is inside a wrapped present by shaking it. But what are they trying to figure out? Are they attempting to find out the shape of the present inside or how many objects are in there? A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that it only took observers of the present-shaker a few seconds to tell which information they’re looking for. This research into human cognition and perception could have implications for artificial intelligence in the future.

[Related: Can exercising the mind improve our abilities, or is it just another self-improvement fantasy?]

“Just by looking at how someone’s body is moving, you can tell what they are trying to learn about their environment,” study co-author and Johns Hopkins University cognitive scientist Chaz Firestone said in a statement. “We do this all the time, but there has been very little research on it.”

Pragmatic vs. epistemic actions

Without even realizing it, our brains recognize and analyze another person’s actions multiple times a day. Pragmatic actions include anything that moves a person towards a goal. Our brains analyze these actions to guess which way someone is walking down a street or determine what they’re reaching for. Earlier studies have shown that people can quickly and accurately guess the goal of another person’s pragmatic actions just by observation.

The new study investigates a different kind of behavior consisting of epistemic actions. These kinds of actions are performed when a person is trying to learn something about their surroundings. Epistemic action is dipping your toes into a pool to test out the water temperature or sampling a soup to see if it needs more seasoning. 

While pragmatic and epistemic actions are similar, there are some subtle differences. Firestone and the team were curious to see if participants could detect another person’s epistemic goals just by watching them and designed a series of experiments to find out.

What’s in the box?

Researchers asked 500 participants to watch two videos of a person picking up a box full of objects and shaking it. One video showed a person shaking a box to determine the numbers of objects that are inside of it. The other video showed someone shaking the box in order to decipher the shape of the objects inside. 

Almost every participant in the study could tell who was shaking the box to figure out the number of objects and who was shaking to figure out the content’s shape. 

“What is surprising to me is how intuitive this is,” study co-author and Johns Hopkins graduate student Sholei Croom said in a statement. “People really can suss out what others are trying to figure out, which shows how we can make these judgments even though what we’re looking at is very noisy and changes from person to person.”

[Related: How you see these shapes may depend on your culture.]

More research into epistemic actions could help engineers develop more anticipatory AI systems that are designed to interact with humans better. In future studies, the team is curious if it is possible to observe epistemic intent versus their pragmatic intent and decipher what is going on in their brain when someone performs an action like sticking your hand out of a  window to test the air temperature. They’re also curious it’s possible to build models that detail exactly how observed physical actions reveal epistemic intent. 

“When you think about all the mental calculations someone must make to understand what someone else is trying to learn, it’s a remarkably complicated process,” said Firestone. “But our findings show it’s something people do easily. It’s one thing to know where someone is headed or what product they are reaching for, but it’s another thing to infer whether someone is lost or what kind of information they are seeking.”

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Mice may be one of only a small group of mammals that can recognize themselves in a mirror. A group of laboratory mice were given an assessment of consciousness called the mirror test. The study published December 5 in the journal Neuron suggests that some rodents display a behavior that resembles self-recognition and might be able to differentiate themselves from other mice.

[Related: What video game-playing mice taught neuroscientists about memory-making.]

Previous studies have shown that mammals including humans, great apes, chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins have demonstrated the signs that they can recognize their reflections. The fish cleaner wrasse and the large-brained bird the Eurasian magpie have also demonstrated this ability in other studies. (However, the mirror test has faced criticism for its ability to measure self-awareness and can produce false negatives in human children.)  

In the study, scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas marked the foreheads of black-furred mice with a spot of white ink, or black ink on white-furred mice. They observed the mice spending more time grooming their heads in front of the mirror—presumably trying to wash away the new ink. 

However, the team cautions that this does not mean that the mice are fully “self-aware.” The only mice that showed this potentially self-recognition-like behavior were those either already accustomed to mirrors, mice that socialized with other animals who looked like them, and the mice with a relatively large spot of ink on their heads.

“The mice required significant external sensory cues to pass the mirror test—we have to put a lot of ink on their heads, and then the tactile stimulus coming from the ink somehow enables the animal to detect the ink on their heads via a mirror reflection,” study co-author and psychiatrist Jun Yokose said in a statement. “Chimps and humans don’t need any of that extra sensory stimulus.”

Next, the team used gene mapping to identify a subset of neurons located in the hippocampus that are involved in developing and storing visual self-image. According to the team, these brain patterns provide a first glimpse of the neural mechanisms behind self-recognition. Pinpointing this activity has been difficult in neurobehavioral research.

“To form episodic memory, for example, of events in our daily life, brains form and store information about where, what, when, and who, and the most important component is self-information or status,” study co-author and neuroscientist Takashi Kitamura said in a statement. “Researchers usually examine how the brain encodes or recognizes others, but the self-information aspect is unclear.”

They saw that the neurons in the mouse’s hippocampus were activated when the mice appeared to recognize their reflections in the mirror. Socialization may play a key role in the mice developing self-recognizing behaviors. The more socially isolated mice did not exhibit any increase in grooming behaviors during the mirror and ink test. 

[Related: How science came to rely on the humble lab rat.]

“A subset of these self-responding neurons was also reactivated when we exposed the mice to other individuals of the same strain,” says Kitamura. “This is consistent with previous human literature that showed that some hippocampal cells fire not only when the person is looking at themselves, but also when they look at familiar people like a parent.”

In future studies, the team plans to try and disentangle the importance of visual and tactile stimuli like the ink to see whether mice can recognize changes in their reflection without it. This could be achieved with technology similar to popular photo filters like the ones used to create fake bunny ears on social media posts. The team also plans to study how other regions in the mouse brain may be involved in self-recognition and see if these areas of the brain share  information.

“Now that we have this mouse model, we can manipulate or monitor neural activity to comprehensively investigate the neural circuit mechanisms behind how self-recognition-like behavior is induced in mice,” says Yokose.

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New research indicates that the traumatic memories of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder are represented very differently in the brain than “regular” sad autobiographical memories. A small study published November 30 in the journal Nature Neuroscience supports the idea that traumatic memories are a different cognitive entity than more routine bad memories. This may provide a biological explanation for why recalling traumatic memories can manifest as intrusive thoughts that are different from other negative recollections. 

[Related: PTSD found in 1 in 4 adults in Flint, Michigan, after water crisis.]

The study was conducted by a team from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and Yale University. It examined patients’ real-life personal memories in an effort to link their lived experiences with the brain’s functioning.

“For people with PTSD, recalling traumatic memories often displays as intrusions that differ profoundly from processing of ‘regular’ negative memories, yet until now, the neurobiological reasons for this qualitative difference have been poorly understood,” study co-author and Icahn Mount Sinai neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, said in a statement. “Our data show that the brain does not treat traumatic memories as regular memories, or perhaps even as memories at all. We observed that brain regions known to be involved in memory are not activated when recalling a traumatic experience.”

Schiller told The New York Times that the brain can be in a different state in two different memories, depending on which type of memory is playing out. When recalling trauma, the brain looks like it is processing experiences of something in the present instead of the past. 

What is PTSD?

Posttraumatic stress disorder may occur in people who have experienced or seen a traumatic event, series of events, or set of circumstances. The American Psychiatric Association says PTSD may affect mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being. Some events that can cause PTSD are are natural disasters, war or combat, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and bullying.

PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types, according to The Mayo Clinic. These include intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can be very individual and include things like flashbacks, avoiding specific places or people, and hopelessness. They can also vary over time.

According to data from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, about six percent of people in the US will have PTSD at some point in their lives. Many with PTSD will recover and no longer meet diagnostic criteria for the disorder following treatment. Some treatments for PTSD include cognitive behavioral therapy and cognitive processing therapy. There are also four medications (sertraline, paroxetine, fluoxetine, and venlafaxine) that have a conditional recommendation to treat PTSD.

Where does PTSD affect the brain?

Earlier studies showed that a brain region called the hippocampus governs both the formation and retrieval of episode memories. PTSD is associated with structural abnormalities of the hippocampus, mostly a reduction of its volume. Impairments to the processes of the hippocampus are a focal point in studying how PTSD affects the brain. 

A region called the posterior cingulate cortex is also heavily involved in both narrative comprehension and processing of our memories. The PCC is particularly involved in the imagery of more emotional memories. Alterations in PCC function and connectivity are also very  focal to PTSD the way that the hippocampus is. 

Differentiating between traumatic memories and sad memories 

In the study, the team examined whether and how the hippocampus and posterior cingulate cortex differentiate a traumatic autobiographical memory from merely a sad one. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brains of 28 participants diagnosed with PTSD. 

[Related: New human brain atlas is the most detailed one we’ve seen yet.]

They asked each of the participants a range of questions. These questions pertain to their traumatic experiences, sad events, and the moments when they felt relaxed. A team member wrote each person’s story down and then read it back to them while they underwent fMRI scans. The fMRI mapped the brain’s activity based on blood flow during the process.

Researchers found that the activity in the hippocampus followed similar patterns of activity among all of the subjects when they were reminded of sad or relaxing experiences. This suggests the memory formation here is more typical. 

However, when the stories of their traumatic experiences were read, that similar activity in the hippocampus disappeared. The hippocampus of each subject showed individualized and disjointed activity. The activity was more disorganized and fragmented across the brain and did not look like the more in-sync patterns the brain exhibits during normal memory formation. 

Additionally, if more PTSD symptoms were present, more activity appeared in the PCC.

How this could shape future PTSD treatment

The results may explain why PTSD patients have difficulty recalling traumatic experiences in a coherent way. It could also indicate why these past experiences can trigger disabling symptoms in patients with the disorder.

PTSD patients’ brains work differently when recalling traumatic experiencesudy co-author and Yale University clinical psychologist Ilan Harpaz-Rotem said in a statement. “However, when presented with stories of their own traumatic experiences, brain activity was highly individualized, fragmented, and disorganized. They are not like memories at all.”

Future treatments aimed at “returning” the traumatic memory to a more typical representation in the hippocampus may be beneficial. According to Harpaz-Rotem, this research could help psychotherapists guide PTSD patients to construct more helpful thought patterns that could help the brain eliminate the sense of immediate threat that trauma can cause.

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The holidays are stressful. Good thing having sex and/or masturbating reduces stress and helps you sleep. So drop what you’re doing and get on the gift of getting off with these Cyber Monday sex toy deals at Amazon.

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This article was originally featured on Undark.

Tess Olmsted stopped eating sugar when she was just 12 years old. She had previously been treated for obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, and soon found herself following rituals around eating. “For me it was never, ‘Oh I need to get skinnier,’” she recalls. Once she started to diet, she simply couldn’t stop.

Two years later, on a summer day in 2019, her father saw her on the family’s patio wearing a loose-fitting swimsuit. He soon noticed how little Tess was eating and insisted she see the pediatrician. During a subsequent appointment with a specialist, he recalls, the family learned that Tess’s blood pressure and heart rate were dangerously low. She was admitted to a hospital in life-threatening condition.

Across the United States, up to 2 million adults have had anorexia, a mental health condition in which a person severely restricts their food intake, often due to an intense fear of gaining weight. Almost 1 percent of all U.S. women will experience anorexia at some point in their lives. Patients are developing the condition increasingly early in life—sometimes as young as 8 years old—and new figures suggest that symptoms in children worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to increased numbers of hospitalizations. At one treatment center in Michigan, the admission rate of young people aged 10 to 23 more than doubled during the pandemic’s first year.

These sobering developments are due, in part, to the fact that there are no drugs or devices approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the condition. For adults, there are three first-line treatments: an adapted form of cognitive behavioral therapy, known as CBT-E; a structured psychotherapy designed with patient input; and an approach that combines psychotherapy with nutritional support. Studies have shown that these approaches can help more than 50 percent of patients. But experts acknowledge that the studies are not high quality. Patients with anorexia are hard to engage in treatment, and as a result, studies are small and drop-out rates are high.

For patients younger than 18, one psychological intervention—family-based treatment, or FBT—has emerged as a leading evidence-based treatment in randomized clinical trials. The approach takes up to a year, and for part of that time, parents assume total control over planning, preparing, and supervising the child’s meals. In one clinical trial, nearly half of patients maintained a full recovery a year after follow-up.

Since family-based treatment was rolled out in the U.S., the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, many families say that this intervention has helped their children. Even so, some experts warn that it’s not for everyone. Parents may be ill-suited for acting as full-time chefs and meal-planners, and they may not be financially able to take time away from work to do the therapy. And critics point out that the approach blurs the boundaries between home and hospital while failing to probe the condition’s psychological causes.

“At least in my case, FBT definitely backfired,” said a 19-year-old from Texas, who said her mental health got worse while she was in treatment. (The young woman asked to remain anonymous due to the stigma that surrounds eating disorders.)

When the Olmsteds eventually tried FBT, they also struggled with the demands of the protocol, which sparked fighting, tension, and even calls to the police. But Tess and her parents say the end result was worth the tribulation: Family-based treatment really worked. “I don’t want to go overboard,” Tess’s dad, Kevin, said. “But it probably saved her.”

Anorexia nervosa occurs when a person loses more than 20 percent of their body weight within a six-month period or has a BMI of less than 18.5 in adults (although BMI is increasingly seen as a flawed criterion for assessing health). The condition can disrupt menstrual periods and cause a soft light hair, called lanugo, to grow on the body. Anorexia can lead to kidney and heart problems, and even death. The condition is distinct from bulimia nervosa, a condition in which patients overeat and then empty their stomachs by vomiting or using laxatives. But patients can slip from one condition to the other with time.

Anorexia is one of the hardest psychiatric illnesses to treat, partly because of what psychologists call its “egosyntonic” nature—it offers those who suffer from it unique rewards, which make them value their illness. In one study, for example, patients said the weight-loss allowed them to feel safe, structured, and in control. Others described their dieting as a unique skill that made them special, even superior to other people.

“When you have someone who’s successfully restricting, they don’t necessarily see too many downsides of it,” said Zafra Cooper, a professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and an emeritus professor of clinical psychology for the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry.

The condition was first described by a Parisian neuropsychiatrist, Ernest-Charles Lasègue, in 1873. He described an illness he called hysterical anorexia, in which a female patient gripped by emotional suffering, would abstain from food. Around the same time, a British doctor, William Withey Gull, described a similar condition occurring primarily in young women and characterized by “extreme emaciation.” Gull prescribed milky foods, soup, eggs, fish, or chicken every two hours accompanied with a shot of brandy.

Doctors came to view parents as having a pernicious role in the illness and urged their exclusion from care. This is perhaps not surprising, said Daniel Le Grange, a professor in the psychiatry department at the University of California, San Francisco. The mental health field has a long history of blaming parents, mothers in particular, for a child’s diagnosis, he said. Practitioners even developed a specialized vocabulary to express this supposed problem: “the ‘schizophreno-genic mother,’ ‘autisto-genic mother,’ ‘anorexi-genic mother,’ and so on.”

By the 1960s, anorexia was thought to affect about 1 in 10,000 women, although under-reporting and lack of awareness are likely to distort any long-term surveys. At the time, information about the illness was still not available in medical schools, said Patricia Santucci, who has been a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and is a founding member of the Academy for Eating Disorders. This left practitioners ill-prepared for what they would encounter, she added: “All of a sudden, you got out in practice. And you said, ‘What’s going on here? What is this thing?’”

Providers would try to reshape patients’ behavior through punishments and rewards, according to Andrea Marks, a pediatrician who published a paper on the history of anorexia treatments in the Journal of Clinical Psychology in 2019. Throughout the 1980s, struggling patients would typically be hospitalized and put on a feeding tube. As they gained weight and started feeding themselves, they could earn privileges such as unsupervised time in the bathroom and visits from friends and family. Still, Marks writes, patients often found themselves stuck in a cycle of recovery, relapse, and return to the hospital.

In the 1980s, an innovative approach emerged. Salvador Minuchin, the famed Argentine-born therapist who cared for troubled teens by focusing on their families, had devised a model for treating anorexia, as had a group of therapists in Italy. Gerald Russell, a psychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley Hospital in London, wanted to verify the two groups’ claims in a clinical trial, hoping to figure out if families might be able to help their loved ones achieve a more durable recovery.

Russell developed an approach that lasted 12 months or longer that included all members of the household. The treatment steps used in that trial later evolved into family-based therapy’s three main phases: The first is re-feeding, in which parents are tasked with making all decisions about the child’s food consumption and exercise. After the child has regained the weight, they are able to assume responsibility for their own eating—a change that marks phase two. In phase three, the family and psychologist review the outcome.

In family-based therapy, anorexia is viewed as an external threat, akin to a medical illness that must be vanquished. Parents are called on as helpers while therapists guide them through the process. Professionals do not try to explore what caused the illness, and above all, they must not suggest that it’s the parents’ fault. This refusal to place blame on parents “was really a profound sea change in our field,” said Le Grange, who joined the Maudsley Hospital team in 1986 just as Russell and his colleagues were preparing to analyze the results of a pivotal study comparing FBT with individual therapy.

Russell’s study was a randomized controlled trial of 80 patients between the ages of 14 and 55. Fifty-seven had anorexia and 23 had bulimia. As it turned out, patients who had developed anorexia when they were younger than 18 and had lived with the condition for less than three years and then received family therapy showed markedly better outcomes than their peers who had been randomized to individual therapy: six out of 10 had a “good” outcome, according to the authors, compared with one out of 11 in the individual-therapy group. The results were published in 1987.

Five years on, the team revisited the 80 patients. Some did not want to participate and three had died, but many were doing better, the team found. Although differences between the two approaches had diminished over time, the early onset patients allocated to family therapy maintained a slightly higher weight and more regular menstrual periods than those who’d had individual treatment.

The Maudsley Method, named after the institution where it originated, was born. In Britain it’s known as Maudsley family therapy and in the U.S., where, with some minor differences, it was championed by Le Grange, as FBT. Forty years after its inception, FBT remains the leading evidence-based treatment for young people under 18.

The therapy has obvious advantages over alternatives such as hospitalization, practitioners say. For one, kids can stay in school and continue to live with their families, allowing for a more normal adolescence. There’s also much to be gained from giving parents a bigger role in their child’s recovery, said Renee Rienecke, who trained with Le Grange and is now the research director for the Eating Recovery Center and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University in Illinois: Parents “can really use the best weapon against the eating disorder, which is their love for their children.”

But roughly 70 clinicians certified in family-based treatment, the U.S. is not in a position to provide FBT to the hundreds of thousands of teens with anorexia, experts say. And even when FBT works, the process is not easy — for kids, parents, or therapists.

Christina Olmsted decided to take temporary leave from her job as a marketing executive, and Kevin Olmsted quit his role at a wine company to become his daughter’s main carer. In 2020, he wrote a book about helping Tess recover, “Scared Dad Feeding” (an homage to the FBT classic, “Brave Girl Eating”). Kevin describes how under FBT his daughter was obliged to eat whatever he and his wife put on her plate. One of her parents sat with her during every meal and for an hour afterwards to make sure she didn’t purge what she had eaten or hide the food away. She ate five times a day—three meals and two snacks—and had to gain 1 to 2 pounds per week.

Kevin went to elaborate lengths to boost her diet. He’d add an extra yolk to omelets, mix in two tablespoons of heavy whipped cream and an ounce and a half of Benecalorie, then fry the mixture in two tablespoons of butter. “Once I came to know that the demon of anorexia was a terrorist, who would stop at nothing to kill my daughter, who would know nothing of compromise or diplomacy, I then knew no amount of fighting dirty was off the table,” he wrote.

The Olmsteds shut the world out and disappeared for six months, something not every family is able to do. “It’s a luxury to treat this, just so we’re clear,” Kevin said to Undark. “Just to be able to swing at a pitch in this ballpark takes so many resources it’s ridiculous.”

The process was rough for Tess, who still recalls how it felt to be so closely monitored. Sometimes she would butt heads with her mother. She was too preoccupied with the illness to engage with her friends during senior year of high school and wasn’t able to play on the lacrosse team. “It was just a really difficult time,” she said.

Therapists can struggle, too. During the first phase of FBT, the clinician weighs the child at the start of each session. This practice, along with the need to offer dietary advice, makes some professionals uncomfortable. The family must also eat a meal together at the clinician’s office. “You have to be ready for anything,” said Rienecke, “for food being thrown across the room, for kids screaming and running out of the office. For a lot — a lot — of crying.” She continued, “oftentimes the kid just hates you at the beginning of treatment.”

In online discussions, young people sometimes vent their frustration with the approach. Family-based therapy “is the WORST” wrote one person on an eating disorder support forum. “I don’t understand how this could work,” the post continued. “When people control me and suffocate me, it triggers me tenfold.”

And sometimes parents’ desire to save—and control—their child goes too far, according to therapists and patients.

The 19-year-old from Texas said she began FBT in 2022. She had already been hospitalized once and relapsed while doing stints with different outpatient psychotherapists. She had experienced anorexia for four years and was almost 18, too old for family-based treatment. Nevertheless, her parents were able to sign up for a virtual program.

“Family-based therapy became more like family-based trauma,” the woman wrote on a Reddit forum for anonymously discussing eating disorders earlier this year. As her parents assumed the roles of dieticians and therapists, home started to feel like a hospital, she later told Undark. Her father was heavily involved in her care, even though she believes his earlier comments about her physical appearance had helped trigger her disorder. She said that during the therapy, her mental health deteriorated. She had thoughts of suicide and she started to self-harm.

What FBT failed to account for, the woman recently told Undark, is that for nearly five years, her eating disorder had actually given her some relief from difficult emotions. Her parents seemed to believe that weight regain alone would erase any feelings of depression and anxiety, she said. Weight gain is important, she acknowledged, but not without psychological healing.

Le Grange is aware that FBT has been carried too far by some parents but said it is fortunately rare. “Clinicians should always be on the lookout for a parent who takes a license to be critical and unkind to the young person.”

A survey by Australian researchers suggests that some parents also have doubts about FBT. In an interview, one father noted that the treatment’s focus was entirely on food. In his experience, however, his child’s restrictive eating was a symptom of a deeper problem. “What’s going on underneath?” he asked. “What’s causing all this?”

There are other criticisms, too. The therapy is “based on the idea that the young patient has no control,” said Riccardo Dalle Grave, who is head of a department of eating and weight disorders in Villa Garda Hospital in northern Italy. “The goal is to engage the parents, not the young patient. I was always in doubt about this.”

And yet some patients find that weight regain offers a path toward improved wellbeing. As Tess gained back weight, she was able to think more clearly. Eating an extra portion or a snack no longer felt like a catastrophe. “I really just figured out, such minor things didn’t mean as much as I used to think they did when I was younger,” she said.

Around the same time as the Maudsley Method emerged in London, researchers at Oxford University began working on a different model, focusing on adults. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, was developed in the 1970s by Aaron Beck, a researcher in Pennsylvania. It probes patients’ reactions to specific situations and posits that their interpretations of reality may be maladaptive or distorted. In the U.K., CBT has been approved for treating conditions ranging from childhood anxiety to adult schizophrenia, and it is recognized as clinically effective by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the government approval body.

In 1981 Christopher Fairburn, a now-retired lecturer at Oxford, had shown CBT’s possible efficacy for bulimia. He applied it to anorexia, with results he described as “mixed.” Over time, Fairburn and his colleagues realized that anorexia tended to migrate. Patients might start out restricting food but then develop symptoms of bulimia, for example, if a patient’s psychological issues went unresolved. So they developed an approach that could work across different eating disorders, adding modules as necessary to target core problems like poor body image, perfectionism, or low self-esteem, and described this type of CBT as “enhanced.” In the U.K., CBT-E, as it’s known, is a second line treatment for teens, to be tried when family therapy fails.

While cognitive therapy typically has a timeframe of 20 weeks, CBT-E can take longer, up to 40 weeks to allow for weight regain. Clinicians and patients may explore the pros and cons of the need for change. Patients may say things like, “‘I don’t know who I’ll be, I won’t have control,’ all those sorts of things—‘I’ll lose my identity,’” said Cooper, who was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Eating Disorders.

CBT-E also has three phases, but it inverts their emphasis: The first phase involves helping patients think afresh about their condition and analyze the pros and cons of change. Only then are patients urged to address their eating habits. Under this model, parents are viewed as helpers, said Dalle Grave, the director of the eating disorder unit at Villa Garda Hospital.

Cara Lisette, who is 33 and lives in the U.K., suffered from anorexia for 20 years, cycling through hospitalization, in-patient care, and outpatient support. She first encountered CBT-E in 2011, but had no rapport with her therapist. When another clinician suggested CBT-E three years ago, Lisette decided to give it another try. This psychologist seemed to understand her better and was kind. Lisette said she was older and in a better position to be receptive.

Lisette describes how enhanced CBT was tailored to her illness. “Stuff like the body image distortions and things that people get when they have anorexia are quite unique,” she said. “I think it really takes into account just how people’s brains work a little bit differently when they have an eating disorder compared to something like anxiety disorder.”

While still finishing her own treatment, Lisette began her own training as a CBT therapist, and now uses cognitive therapy with children.

Evidence for the effectiveness of CBT-E for young people with anorexia is based on just a couple of non-randomized studies. In 2013, Dalle Grave published an account of 46 young patients with a mean age of 15-and-a-half, aiming to see if they could complete the treatment as out-patients. Almost two-thirds did so and their weight increased substantially, with 13 teens reaching an almost normal weight. The authors saw the findings as making a compelling case for comparing CBT-E and FBT in randomized controlled trials.

In a non-randomized comparative study of 12-to-18-year-old patients, led by Le Grange and Dalle Grave that was published three years ago, FBT and CBT-E came out as just about equally effective.

Le Grange, Dalle Grave, and a Norwegian colleague are now collaborating on the first ever randomized-controlled trial comparing CBT-E and FBT for adolescents with eating disorders, based at Oslo University Hospital. Initial enrollments are in January next year but obtaining a full picture will take years, Le Grange said: “It’s going to be a while.”

“I’m seeing younger and younger and younger patients,” said Suzanne Straebler, a CBT-E eating disorder therapist providing therapy to people with anorexia. “These are babies, right? They are children, and here they are with full blown eating disorders.” In the past, she said, her clinic in New York would occasionally see an 11-year-old patient. Currently, the clinic is treating several 8-year-olds.

Researchers believe the Covid-19 pandemic and protracted school closures are the likely culprits, creating an uncertain environment, where everything seemed out of control. Isolated at home and unable to meaningfully engage with friends, teachers, and the wider society, vulnerable youth trained their focus on exercise and food intake, said Jessica Van Huysse, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. These conditions made it easier to carry out restrictive behaviors, she noted, “and then that’s a rabbit hole, right?”

“Eating disorders tend to thrive in secrecy,” Straebler observed. She is also concerned about the ability of social media to disseminate dieting fads to young people online.

While some children have been able to fully recover through CBT-E or FBT, the consensus is that more research is needed. “Our therapies are okay, they’re an option,” said Straebler, “but they’re not as good as they need to be. So we need more research, more funding.”

Additionally, clinical trials often enroll people with a single psychological disorder, Cooper said. But in the real world, patients may struggle with multiple conditions. Tess, for example, had a history of OCD and anxiety before she developed anorexia.

Neither FBT nor CBT-E, the researchers admit, is good enough, or sufficient on its own.

“I want to go on paper that I’m not an FBT evangelist. I’m a scientist,” said Le Grange. He estimates that in real world settings, FBT works for 60 to 65 percent of children. He asked: What can be done for those who aren’t helped?

Even those who do gain weight may continue to struggle, said Kevin Olmsted. He compared FBT to pulling a child from the mud and taking them to dry land. The therapy brings patients back to a stable weight where they’re healthy and safe. But they will still have plenty of psychological work to do.

Tess is now 18, and a full recovery remains elusive. In August, as she prepared for college, she noted that she’s in a much better place, but she struggles to balance her social life, schoolwork, and eating. Anorexia can fuel an all-or-nothing approach to life, which can be dangerous, she said: “It’s definitely still a battle—but it’s a different battle.”

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, call or text the National Eating Disorders Association at 1-800-931-2237.

The post The challenge of providing treatment for children with anorexia appeared first on Popular Science.

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As technology evolves, AI-generated images of human faces are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from real photos. But our ability to separate the real from the artificial may come down to personal biases—both our own, as well as that of AI’s underlying algorithms.

According to a new study recently published in the journal Psychological Science, certain humans may misidentify AI-generated white faces as real more often than they can accurately identify actual photos of caucasians. More specifically, it’s white people who can’t distinguish between real and AI-generated white faces. 

[Related: Tom Hanks says his deepfake is hawking dental insurance.]

In a series of trials conducted by researchers collaborating across universities in Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, 124 white adults were tasked with classifying a series of faces as artificial or real, then rating their confidence for each decision on a 100-point scale. The team decided to match white participants with caucasian image examples in an attempt to mitigate potential own-race recognition bias—the tendency for racial and cultural populations to more poorly remember unfamiliar faces from different demographics.

“Remarkably, white AI faces can convincingly pass as more real than human faces—and people do not realize they are being fooled,” researchers write in their paper.

This was by no slim margin, either. Participants mistakenly classified a full 66 percent of AI images as photographed humans, versus barely half as many of the real photos. Meanwhile, the same white participants’ ability to discern real from artificial people of color was roughly 50-50. In a second experiment, 610 participants rated the same images using 14 attributes contributing to what made them look human, without knowing some photos were fake. Of those attributes, the faces’ proportionality, familiarity, memorability, and the perception of lifelike eyes ranked highest for test subjects.

The team dubbed this newly identified tendency to overly misattribute artificially generated faces—specifically, white faces—as “AI hyperrealism.” The stark statistical differences are believed to stem from well-documented algorithmic biases within AI development. AI systems are trained on far more white subjects than POC, leading to a greater ability to both generate convincing white faces, as well as accurately identify them using facial recognition techniques.

This disparity’s ramifications can ripple through countless scientific, social, and psychological situations—from identity theft, to racial profiling, to basic privacy concerns.

[Related: AI plagiarism detectors falsely flag non-native English speakers.]

“Our results explain why AI hyperrealism occurs and show that not all AI faces appear equally realistic, with implications for proliferating social bias and for public misidentification of AI,” the team writes in their paper, adding that the AI hyperrealism phenomenon “implies there must be some visual differences between AI and human faces, which people misinterpret.”

It’s worth noting the new study’s test pool was both small and extremely limited, so more research is undoubtedly necessary to further understand the extent and effects of such biases. But it remains true that very little is still known about what AI hyperrealism might mean for populations, as well as how they affect judgment in day-to-day lives. In the meantime, humans may receive some help in discernment from an extremely ironic source: During trials, the research team also built a machine learning program tasked with separating real from fake human faces—which it proceeded to accurately accomplish 94 percent of the time.

The post Some people think white AI-generated faces look more real than photographs appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

The benefits of friendship go far beyond having someone to confide in or spend time with–it can also protect you from physical and mental health problems. For example, people with good friends recover more quickly from illnesses and surgeries. They report higher well-being and feel like they live up to their full potential. Additionally, people with good friends report being less lonely across many life stages, including adolescence, becoming a parent and old age.

In fact, friendships are so powerful that the social pain of rejection activates the same neural pathways that physical pain does.

Behavioral scientists like me have tended to focus our research about friendships on their benefits. How to cultivate these powerful relationships hasn’t been as deeply researched yet. Understanding more about what people look for in a friend and how to make and sustain good friendships could help fight the loneliness epidemic.

Traditional conceptions of friendship

Previous generations of behavioral scientists traditionally focused on the notion that people form friendships with those who are similar, familiar and in close proximity to them.

When you look at all the friendships you’ve had over your life, these three factors probably make intuitive sense. You’re more likely to have things in common with your friends than not. You feel an increased sense of familiarity with friends the longer you know them–what psychologists call the mere exposure effect. And your friends are more likely to live or work near you.

Researchers in this field have also typically divided friendship preferences based on gender. The dichotomy suggests that women prefer one-on-one, emotionally close and face-to-face friendships, while men prefer multi-person, task-oriented and side-by-side friendships, with the focus on a shared activity.

Again, when looking at your own friendships, these findings may seem intuitive. Women on average prefer to engage in activities that allow for self-disclosure and sharing secrets, such as spending time one-on-one talking about their lives. Men, on the other hand, tend to prefer to engage in activities that are group-based and have a clearly defined outcome, such as playing sports together. Findings such as these show that gender and preferences on how to connect are important in friendships.

But these explanations of friendship do not address the most important aspect of making friends–choosing the individual people you want to turn into your pals. Friendship decisions are not random. There are many people who are similar, familiar, in close proximity and have similar preferences as you. Yet few of these individuals end up being your friends.

So, in a world full of possibilities, how do people pick those who will become their friends?

New ways to think about friendship

Within the last decade, researchers have begun investigating the roots of friendship preferences beyond the classic descriptions.

For example, social scientists see there are strong preferences for friends to be loyal, trustworthy and warm. Additionally, researchers find there are preferences for friends who help you solve specific kinds of problems and are generous and caring with you instead of others. These preferences help people navigate making friends, given limited reserves of time and effort. In short, they help you find the best possible friends you can in a world full of friendship possibilities.

Social scientists have also learned that, while there are some important gender differences in what people want in friends, it is not accurate to say that men and women want one kind of friendship over another. In fact, when we take a more holistic approach and consider broader categorizations of emotional closeness and tasks, the gender differences in these preferences are reduced. And of course, people don’t exclusively pick between face-to-face and side-by-side friendships. Instead, it is more likely that they focus on what they want from their friends and let these needs guide how friendships form.

Ultimately it’s your individual preferences that guide you toward the people who will best meet your particular social needs. With a little luck, you’ll find buddies who can lend a hand when you need one and support you in reaching your goals. In all, your preferences are the key to finding friends who can buffer against feeling lonely and provide you with the social, emotional and health benefits of friendship.

When you’re looking for friends

It’s hard to provide clear guidelines for improving friendships because the research about friendship preferences is still developing. But there are some clear points for consideration:

1. Determine what you value in friends. Do you want one-on-one, emotionally close friendships or multi-person, task-oriented friendships? Depending on your preference, different kinds of activities will be helpful for finding others who fit the bill and cultivating these friendships.
2. Know that it will take time to make close friendships. Research suggests that it takes 30 hours of interaction to make a casual friend, 140 hours to make a good friend and 300 hours to make a best friend.
3. Consider what you bring to the table. Everyone has unique strengths they bring to their friendships. Research shows that, when you’re able to demonstrate that you have characteristics people want in friends, you’re able to make more satisfying friendships.

Understand friendships to understand loneliness

Considering the nuances of friendship preferences will be extremely important in reducing not only loneliness, but other related public health crises. For example, loneliness is associated with likelihood of attempting suicide. Recent surveys have found that men are suffering big declines in the number of close friends they have, as well as experiencing higher rates of suicide compared to women.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent recommendations for fighting the loneliness epidemic focus on public policies and infrastructure. But fostering community spaces for connection–such as parks, libraries and playgrounds–prioritizes the preferences of those who favor the one-on-one, emotionally close and face-to-face connections more often preferred by women. These places are less beneficial for people with more typically masculine preferences, as there is no guarantee that these spaces will foster side-by-side, task-oriented connections unless areas for sports and other team-based activities are also included.

To counter this inequity, researchers and public health officials first need to understand what makes friendships satisfying. Then they can ensure that recommendations to curb loneliness address all of the pathways that people use to cultivate high-quality friendships.

The post Our evolving ideas about friendship can help fight loneliness appeared first on Popular Science.

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In Head Trip, PopSci explores the relationship between our brains, our senses, and the strange things that happen in between.

MANY ILLUSIONS are products of mismatched sensory inputs, evoked when one sense contradicts another. (It looks like just a noisy fan, but it sounds as if it’s speaking.) One of the most startling—and easiest to try by yourself—of these illusions is the McGurk effect, an audiovisual illusion first described by Scottish psychologist Harry McGurk and his assistant John MacDonald in 1976. 

If you search YouTube, you’ll find many videos of the McGurk effect. You watch a person’s face as they speak a single syllable—usually ba—over and over again. After a while, the person will start mouthing a different syllable, usually fa. Many listeners will “hear” the accompanying audio changing to match this. In reality, though, it does nothing of the sort; the sound being played remains the same throughout. “Ba! Ba! Ba!”

So what’s going on? Michael Beauchamp, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, has spent much of his career investigating the McGurk effect. “It’s what I think about all day, every day,” he laughs. In a 2012 paper in the journal NeuroImage, Beauchamp and colleague Audrey Nath examined the link between the effect and neural activity in a region of the brain called the left superior temporal sulcus (STS).

This STS forms a physical bridge between the visual cortex and the auditory processing region (a fact Beauchamp demonstrates with a 3D printout of his own brain). One of this brain region’s many important functions is processing multisensory audiovisual input. “[The STS] puts auditory information and visual information together,” Beauchamp explains. “That’s why we think it’s important for the McGurk.”

The 2012 research examined functional MRI data to study left STS activity in people who experienced the McGurk effect and to compare it to left STS activity in those who didn’t. There were, indeed, increased levels of activity in the first group. However, Beauchamp makes sure to caution that the results don’t constitute anything as definitive as “the STS causes the McGurk effect,” given the inherent complexity of the brain. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable [being that definitive] without a much larger sample size,” he says.

Still, the study did hint at one important fact that has been the focus of much subsequent research. “Some people always get the McGurk effect, and some people never do,” Beauchamp says. “[But] there’s also a whole spectrum in the middle. We are super certain of this; we’ve seen [it] in hundreds of people.”

The existence of this spectrum suggests that the effect—and thus the interaction between vision and hearing in multisensory processing—is more complex and nuanced than many scientists once believed. (This includes McGurk himself, who claimed that 98% of people always experience the full effect, while the remaining 2% never experience it at all.) 

It also suggests the whole concept of “illusion” is worth re-examining. We tend to assume that experiencing an illusion constitutes a failure of our senses—that we’ve been fooled, and that in the process, we’re coming up against the limits of our brains’ ability to make sense of the outside world. But Beauchamp’s study proposed that the real picture might be more subtle: “We speculate that McGurk perceivers have more liberal criteria for integrating auditory and visual speech information. Even if the auditory and visual information is mismatched, McGurk perceivers integrate it. This might provide an advantage under conditions of high levels of auditory or visual noise, at the cost of being misled by McGurk stimuli.”

That means, in some cases at least, the susceptibility to illusions may be adaptive, rather than maladaptive, because illusions are ultimately induced by the brain doing its best to make sense of mismatched or contradictory sensory information. This also raises the question of how our neurological centers might adapt to a change in the quality of that information. (As someone who has acquired hearing loss—I have damage to the cochlea in one ear, the legacy of a stray elbow in a childhood basketball game—I find this idea has personal resonance.) So do we know how, or if, the STS and the rest of the brain adapt to a long-term change in the reliability of one of the senses? 

“It’s a fascinating question—and an open one. We know the brain is plastic,” he says, adding that finding ways to use this plasticity is one of the goals of his team’s research. “For example, a lot of people’s hearing declines a lot faster than their vision does, so if we could help them to become more attuned to visual information, that might help [compensate for] hearing loss.”

The extent of the brain’s plasticity in this respect is underlined by one more remarkable detail that Beauchamp’s research has uncovered: The McGurk effect can be permanent. “If you watch the same McGurk effect clip for a long time, you’ll get the illusion even if you’re not looking at the screen. Basically, your brain is getting rewired; you don’t even need to see the face anymore, because your brain has been convinced, ‘OK, the auditory part is wrong, so I’ll go with what the visual part is saying,’” the professor explains.

Again, you can try it yourself: “Go on YouTube,” Beauchamp says. “Watch [one of those] videos for a minute a day for a few days, and then listen to it again without looking. My prediction is that you’ll still get the McGurk effect.”

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Best overall		Quility 20-Pound Weighted Blanket with Soft Cover		SEE IT	Helps promote relaxation and temperature control for a great night’s sleep.
Best knit		Bearaby Weighted Blanket		SEE IT	This chunky blanket is hand-knit from organic cotton and looks great in your home.
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If you’ve tried all the usual suspects to help fall asleep at night, such as a sleep schedule, getting plenty of exercise, and avoiding caffeine, but are still having trouble, it may be time to invest in a weighted blanket. Weighted blankets can help reduce stress while promoting a feeling of calmness by evenly applying firm yet gentle pressure throughout the body, similar to getting a hug or swaddling a baby. So, if you’re sold on the idea that these products could help you achieve optimal rest, we’ve rounded up some of the best weighted blankets on the market today.

• Best overall: Quility 20-Pound Weighted Blanket with Soft Cover
• Best knit: Bearaby Napper Organic Hand-Knit Weighted Blanket
• Best for adults: WONAP Weighted Blanket for Couples
• Best for kids: Sivio Kids Weighted Blanket
• Best throw: Baloo Weighted Cotton Blanket
• Best breathable: Brooklyn Bedding Chunky Knit Weighted Blanket
• Best cooling: YnM Bamboo Weighted Blanket
• Best fleece: Uttermara Sherpa Fleece Weighted Blanket

How we chose the best weighted blankets

Weighted blankets have only been seeing mainstream popularity for the past few years since a Kickstarter campaign for a product called the Gravity Blanket raised nearly $5 million. Unfortunately, the success of the Kickstarter quickly inspired countless knockoffs, which is why it’s even more important to vet these products for exceptional quality and value. With so many inferior products on the market, we took a look at roughly 25 to 30 of the highest-rated weighted blankets before arriving at the ones we chose for this guide.

One of the characteristics, in particular, that we honed in on was high-quality glass bead filling that is sewn into interior pockets so it won’t shift or even spill out of the blanket, which is common in inferior models. We also ensured that all of the products featured here use 100% cotton or bamboo fabric, except for one blanket with a reversible Sherpa and fleece cover. Most of the products listed also had removable, machine-washable covers to keep your weighted blanket clean and feeling like new for years to come.

The best weighted blankets: Reviews & Recommendations

The science behind weighted blankets checks out. The approach is called deep pressure stimulation, which uses this controlled pressure to stimulate the natural production of mood-boosting serotonin and increase melatonin levels while reducing the stress hormone cortisol. As such, many experts believe weighted blankets can improve sleep for people experiencing conditions including insomnia, anxiety, and autism.

Occupational therapists often use weighted blankets for sensory integration therapy, particularly among children and young adults with trouble processing their senses. Simulating these senses of touch can help the patient’s brain to adapt. Weighted blankets can also be soothing for the general populace, and we’ve rounded up some of the best weighted blankets on the market below.

Best overall: Quility 20-Pound Weighted Blanket with Soft Cover

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Why it made the cut: Evenly distributed micro glass beads provide gentle pressure to help even the most restless sleepers reduce tossing and turning and get through the night, making this an easy pick for the best weighted blanket overall.

Specs

• Fabric type: 100% cotton blanket, 100% polyester duvet cover
• Fill: Glass microbeads
• Weight: 20 pounds

Pros

• Even weight distribution across sections
• Removable duvet cover
• Seven-layer system shapes to your body

Cons

• Beads spread out over time
• Could be too warm for sleepers who run hot

Get better sleep with the Quility 20-Pound Weighted Blanket that wraps you in warmth and comfort. The gentle pressure of the micro glass bead filling should help reduce tossing and turning for even the most restless sleepers to make it through the night. The blanket’s seven-layer system shapes to your body for added comfort, with even weight distribution to balance the pressure across the quilted sections.

The 100% cotton material is designed to keep you cool. Although, some sleepers who run hot or live in warm climates may still think it’s too warm. So that’s something to consider if you fall into either of those categories. There’s also a removable duvet cover for easy cleaning, with a durable zipper and eight duvet tie-loops to keep the blanket in place. 

A handful of customers have also had issues with the glass beads redistributing after a few weeks or months of use but seem to be in the minority. However, those who have experienced problems also seem to have had good luck by contacting customer service.

Best knit: Bearaby Napper Organic Hand-Knit Weighted Blanket

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Why it made the cut: This gorgeous chunky blanket is made from sustainable materials, customizable in size, weight, and color, and feels delightful to snuggle under.

Specs

• Fabric type: Organic cotton
• Fill: N/A
• Weight: Available in 10-, 15-, 20-, and 25-pound sizes

Pros

• Beautiful design
• Eco-friendly
• Machine-washable

Cons

• More expensive
• If your home is drafty, cold air can seep in
• Some users say can be stiff at first

If you’re looking for a weighted blanket that looks as good as it feels, consider the Bearaby Napper. The company began as a Kickstarter campaign led by a former World Bank economist who was looking for a solution for her chronic insomnia. These chunky knit blankets are made with organic cotton, are free of artificial fillers, and have earned the OEKO-TEX Standard 100 for not containing harmful chemicals, so you can feel good about sleeping under one.

Bearaby recommends that you choose a weighted blanket that’s roughly 10 percent of your body weight, and provides a simple calculator to help you find the best option for your size of bed. The blankets are available in 10-, 15-, 20-, and 25-pound sizes and in a range of muted colors (Olive Night, Asteroid Grey, Moonstone Grey, Midnight Blue, Evening Rose, and Cloud White.) I tried the 10-pound version and can attest that these blankets provide a soothing amount of weight and look great at the foot of a bed or as a throw. They’re also machine-washable, and you can toss them in the dryer for a tumble dry.

Best for adults: WONAP Weighted Blanket for Couples

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Why it made the cut: Perfect for couples, the soothing touch of the bamboo blanket combined with glass beads provides a deep and relaxing sleep for you and your partner.

Specs

• Fabric type: 100% bamboo
• Fill: Glass beads
• Weight: 25 pounds

Pros

• Hypoallergenic glass beads
• Breathable natural bamboo fabric
• Four-by-four-inch diamond design

Cons

• Couples may find the blanket too restrictive

Both you and your partner will get a good night’s rest when using the extra-large WONAP Weighted Blanket for Couples. Constructed of 100% breathable Natural Bamboo fabric, the inner part of the blanket includes ultra-soft cotton compartments filled with hypoallergenic, non-toxic, and odorless premium glass beads. The beads are evenly distributed thanks to a four by four-inch diamond design that applies the same amount of pressure throughout the entire body for a more restful sleep.

The combination of the bamboo fabric and glass beads also creates a cooling effect to use the blanket year-round. In fact, one of the biggest problems some users have noted is that the blanket is so heavy and secure that it actually even may prevent you and your partner from getting near each other at night. Is there such a thing as a product doing its job too well?

Though the dense stitches and the durable thread of the bamboo fabric are intended to prevent leakage of the glass beads, a small number of reviewers complained of finding sand or dust in the bed after using it, so that is something to keep in mind.

Best for kids: Sivio Kids Weighted Blanket

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Why it made the cut: This blanket effectively simulates the hug of a mother so your child can fall asleep faster and sleep deeper and longer through the night. It’s easily one of the best weighted blankets for kids.

Specs

• Fabric type: 100% cotton
• Fill: Glass beads
• Weight: 3 pounds

Pros

• Seven-layer design prevents leakage
• Fun, kid-friendly designs
• Smaller pockets evenly distribute weight

Cons

• Suggested weight may be too light
• Some children could use a larger size

Parents of young children with special needs or separation anxiety may find the Sivio Kids Weighted Blanket to be an absolute game-changer. This thermostabilized weighted blanket aligns naturally with your child’s body to simulate the gentle hug of a mother. Many customers who have tried nearly everything else have reported that this blanket dramatically reduces or eliminates the number of times their children get up through the night.

Parents will also rest assured knowing that the blanket is crafted with 100% natural, breathable cotton fabric, with an upgraded seven-layer design and square four by four-inch pockets to prevent the beads from leaking. Not only do these pockets make sure that the weight is more evenly distributed, but they also won’t make any noise to wake your child up during the night.

However, some user reviews have noted that the size and weight recommendations are too small and light. So if your child is on the higher end of the height and growth charts for their age or could benefit from the extra weight, you may want to size up out of precaution. In any case, that also ensures that you won’t have to replace the blanket in six months to a year.

Best throw: Baloo Weighted Cotton Blanket

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Why it made the cut: These weighted blankets are made from all-natural cotton, chemical-free, and a portion of the company’s proceeds go toward ocean restoration.

Specs

• Fabric type: Organic cotton
• Fill: Glass microbeads
• Weight: 12 pounds

Pros

• Versatile
• Eco-friendly
• Machine-washable

Cons

• Not as attractive a design

Baloo describes their weighted throws, blankets, and comforters as a hug that molds to your body and calms you down. Their satin-y quilted throws, which weigh 12 pounds and are 42 inches wide by 72 inches long, are substantial enough for curling up on the couch, but can easily double as a travel blanket for people who get nervous when they fly. The throw is also large enough to cover a twin bed and has attachments if you’d like to attach one of the company’s linen duvet covers.

The company also highlights their sustainable practices: All of their products are made from organic cotton, their packaging is plastic-free, they meet the OEKO-TEX Standard 100, and a portion of the proceeds from their sales go toward replanting mangrove and kelp forests. The cotton is breathable, which makes the blanket suitable for use throughout the year. And the throws are machine-washable and available in Pebble White, Luna Blue, and Silver Sage.

Best breathable: Brooklyn Bedding Chunky Knit Weighted Blanket

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Why it made the cut: This beautiful hand-knit blanket features an open weave that allows for plenty of cooling airflow.

Specs

• Fabric type: Polyester jersey
• Fill: Polyester
• Weight: 10 or 15 pounds

Pros

• Hand-knit
• Promotes airflow
• Pretty design
• Can help reduce stress

Cons

• Made from synthetic material
• Only available in two weights

Blankets can sometimes look sloppy, but that’s not the case with Brooklyn Bedding’s Chunky Hand-Knit Weighted Blanket. Like the Beararby, this attractive blanket is crafted with care. It features soft polyester jersey outer shell and polyester fill—available in two weights (10 and 15 pounds) and two subtle colors (cream, shown here, and gray). Combined with the open-knit design, that material promotes airflow, making this blanket breathable and suitable for all seasons and members of the household (including furry friends enjoying their morning solar recharge, as seen above).

It’s cozy and comforting and threatens to keep you ensconced in bed or on the couch all day—partially because it provides just the right amount of calming pressure and partially because your toes might get tangled in the hand-knitted weave. Of course, we’d expect nothing less from Brooklyn Bedding—makers of the Aurora Luxe Cooling mattress, a top pick for hot sleepers thanks to its cool tech fibers and foams.

Best cooling: YnM Bamboo Weighted Blanket

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Why it made the cut: Even the hottest sleepers will rest comfortably year-round with cooling, silky-soft bamboo fabric and even more glass beads for optimal temperature control.

Specs

• Fabric type: 100% bamboo
• Fill: Glass beads
• Weight: 15 pounds

Pros

• All-natural cooling bamboo materials
• Smaller inner pockets for even distribution
• More glass beads and thinner fiber

Cons

• Slick bamboo may cause duvet to need readjusting
• Not cool enough for warm climates

You can feel the difference from the moment you touch the YnM Bamboo Weighted Blanket. Made out of 100% breathable bamboo fabric and premium glass beads, this is one of the softest weighted blankets on the market while still managing to stay incredibly cool. The manufacturer is so confident of the blanket’s cooling properties that they even go so far as to describe it as “like sleeping in a pool of cool water,” except that you don’t get wet.

The seven-layer system is designed to contour to the shape of your body for maximum comfort. This cooling weighted blanket also features more glass beads and less fiberfill for exceptional breathability and better temperature control. Unfortunately, a few customers who live in exceptionally warm climates claim that they still need their air conditioning on full blast while using this product.

Two additional layers combined with a three-dimensional lock bead sewing method also ensure against leakage, and the extremely fine stitching prevents weight shifting from one compartment to another. One of the only user complaints is that the bamboo material is so slick that it can be challenging to keep the blanket inside the duvet without adjusting it frequently.

Best fleece: Uttermara Sherpa Fleece Weighted Blanket

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Why it made the cut: This super-soft, super comfy heavy blanket keeps you warm by forming a gentle hug along your body without bunching up or causing excess heat.

Specs

• Fabric type: Sherpa and fleece
• Fill: 1-millimeter ceramic beads
• Weight: 15 pounds

Pros

• Smooth fleece top and Sherpa reverse
• Unique bead-filling technology
• Eye-catching unicolor pattern

Cons

• Commercial washing only
• Some users find it too heavy

The Uttermara Sherpa Fleece Weighted Blanket pairs a smooth, 220 GSM fleece top and wool-like Sherpa reverse for the softest, coziest weighted blanket money can buy. Sherpa is more resistant to fading and stain than traditional fabrics used in weighted blankets and won’t pill or shed after prolonged use. Though, on the downside, the blanket isn’t machine washable and requires commercial washing.

Still, that’s a small price to pay for the superior craftsmanship you’re getting with this high-quality blanket. Neat stitches create both an integrated look and strong seaming. The tiny 1-millimeter ceramic beads are sewn into small squares, which are further sandwiched with non-glue polyester and brushed fabric that prevent the beads from clustering or moving around when shuffled so that the blanket can be totally conformed to your body.

When choosing a size, however, one thing to note is that the fleece and Sherpa exterior may add extra weight, as some users actually find their blankets to almost be too heavy. So if you’re on the fence about which weight blanket to choose, it may be wiser to size down. Sherpa is also on the warmer side for standard weighted blankets, so it may not be ideal for those who run hot.

What to consider before buying the best weighted blankets

Size

Aside from quality, there are two primary features that you should take into consideration when deciding to purchase a weighted blanket: size and weight. As to the former point, ask yourself if you’ll be using the blanket by yourself or if you’ll be sharing with a partner. Weighted blankets do come in up to king and queen sizes to accommodate larger beds. However, weighted blankets are also not for everyone, and if your partner isn’t into the idea, you may be stuck with too large of an unwieldy blanket for just one person. 

Intended Use

Another thing to ask yourself is whether you’ll be using the blanket primarily for sleeping or lounging, and even if you’ll need a new pillow or even a new mattress to go along with your weighted blanket. However, if your objective for a isn’t for sleeping, but as a throw while you’re watching TV or reading a book, then you could absolutely meet your needs with a smaller size.

Weight

Of course, weight is perhaps the most critical factor to consider before buying a weighted blanket. Generally, most experts suggest getting one that weighs approximately eight to 12% of your overall body weight—or an even 10% is also a good rule of thumb. Depending on what you think your needs will be, you can easily size up or down, as some people say they prefer a heavier blanket while others don’t like to be weighed down too much.

We also can’t stress enough the importance of thoroughly reading user reviews. All too often, these types of products come with shoddy construction. So it’s especially crucial to choose a weighted blanket of exceptional craftsmanship and quality, that won’t tear open at the seams and leave glass sand and dust all over your bed.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best weighted blankets

• Best overall: Quility 20-Pound Weighted Blanket with Soft Cover
• Best knit: Bearaby Napper Organic Hand-Knit Weighted Blanket
• Best for couples: WONAP Weighted Blanket for Couples
• Best for kids: Sivio Kids Weighted Blanket
• Best throw: Baloo Weighted Cotton Blanket
• Best breathable: Brooklyn Bedding Chunky Knit Weighted Blanket
• Best cooling: YnM Bamboo Weighted Blanket
• Best fleece: Uttermara Sherpa Fleece Weighted Blanket

Oddly enough, our top picks for the best weighted blanket couldn’t be more different from one another, between the Bearaby Napper and the Uttermara Sherpa Fleece Weighted Blanket. We love the Bearaby because of the combination of beautiful design and comfort. However, those who prefer a blanket that provides added warmth will likely find the super soft Sherpa and fleece of the Uttermara to be a better fit.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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We’re closer than ever to mapping the entire brain to the microscopic level. Hundreds of neuroscientists across the world recently characterized more than 3,000 human brain cell types as part of the National Institute of Health’s BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network, publishing almost two dozen papers in four Science journals today. This super-focused attention to detail could unlock many mysteries surrounding that complex organ, such as what happened in our brains to distinguish us from other primates. 

“This is the first large-scale, detailed description of all the different kinds of cells present in the human brain,” says Rebecca Hodge, an assistant investigator at the Allen Institute in Seattle who co-authored multiple studies in the paper package. Her hope is that this brain atlas provides a community resource for scientists to explore how the wide variety of brain cells contribute to health and disease.

Mark Mapstone, a professor of neurology at University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved with these studies, likened the new data about the brain to a tourist’s guide. “Imagine navigating an unfamiliar city with a roughly drawn street map containing only the major streets of the downtown compared to navigating the same city with a detailed map extending beyond the downtown to the suburbs and including all highways, two-way and one-way streets, alleyways, sidewalks, location of street signs and traffic signals, speed limits, and location of coffee shops and restaurants,” he says. “Cleary, the latter would make navigation and understanding the city much easier.” This first suite of studies shows three main ways the brain map can be used for biology and medicine.

An evolving brain

A human brain atlas can teach us about our evolutionary history. One study published today in Science used single-nucleus RNA sequencing to measure the gene expression of individual brain cells in humans and five other primate species, including chimpanzees and gorillas. In this method, scientists pull out individual cells from a piece of tissue, break them open to expose the genetic messengers inside, then use tags akin to tiny barcodes to identify that material. “This is the main technology used in some of these papers that are coming out and it’s a technique that’s only been around for the past 10 years,” Hodge says. Getting this genetic profile allows researchers to group clusters of cells into specific types. 

[Related: Psychedelics and anesthetics cause unexpected chemical reactions in the brain]

Our cells’ composition and organization is similar to those of our close relatives. However, the biggest differences seemed to occur in a brain region called the middle temporal gyrus, which is involved in processing semantic memory and language. Humans had higher numbers of projecting neurons in this area compared to other species. What’s more, the researchers highlighted a difference in gene expression that promoted synaptic plasticity, which is the ability of neurons to strengthen brain connections. This feature is an important component for learning and memory, and it might explain how humans developed complex cognitive skills.

There was some variation within humans, too. Another study found the most differences across humans in immune cells called microglia as well as deep-layer excitatory neurons, which are involved in the communication between distant brain regions. Researchers are not quite sure why—one theory is that deep-layer excitatory neurons develop earlier and are more exposed to environmental factors that could diversify their gene patterns. “Everyone’s brain is largely similar. Even though we have the same building blocks, it’s the small number of differences that matter,” says Jeremy Miller, a senior scientist at the Allen Institute, and co-author of the study. “We’re now starting to understand how important these changes are and figuring out what makes us uniquely human.”

Animal models

Because human brains share many features with other mammals, neurologists frequently use the small brains of mice to study diseases. The one problem, Miller says, is that mice don’t naturally develop neurodegenerative diseases common in humans. Scientists who want to study Alzheimer’s disease, for example, would need to manipulate multiple mouse genes to cause the kind of brain pathology seen in older people. This requires a comprehensive understanding of how cell types in the brain work together and how they change in the context of disease. 

[Related: How your brain conjures dreams]

Much brain research in mice focuses on the neocortex, responsible for higher cognitive function. It might seem reasonable to assume that much of the brain’s cellular complexity appears here. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. In one of the first studies to create a cell map of the entire adult brain, neuroscientists have found high levels of diversity in older evolutionary structures such as the midbrain, which is involved in movement, vision, and hearing, and the hindbrain, which governs vital bodily functions such as breathing and heart rate. In subcortical areas, there also appears to be a supercluster of cells called splatter neurons that control innate behaviors and physiological functions. Replicating the complexity of these particular brain regions in animal models could help better identify the cellular origins of human diseases. 

Personalized medicine

Imagine a future where treatments are tailored to someone’s specific needs. To do that, scientists would use a person’s genetic profile, rather than characteristics such as weight or age, to inform any medical decisions. Clinicians could also use this genetic information to identify the risks of potential diseases and provide early preventative measures. 

“A detailed brain atlas can help us understand what successful brain function looks like so we can maximize brain cells and circuits that promote brain heath,” Mapstone says. “Addressing brain disease and promoting brain health can be more easily accomplished if we know how these cells are organized. “

Doctors are already using people’s genetic information to assess whether patients would be good candidates for a particular cancer treatment or to find the proper dose of a drug. This may soon include testing for neurological conditions. One study, which analyzed 1.1 million cells in 42 brain regions of neurotypical adults, identified specific neuronal cell types—mainly in the basal ganglia, a region involved in addictive behaviors—that were linked to 19 neuropsychiatric disorders and traits. Those conditions included schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as alcohol and tobacco use disorder.

This project is a step in the right direction for advancing research in personalized medicine, says Miller, though he warns this is only one of many to make this a reality for everyone. 

Miller and Hodge are optimistic there will be other versions of the human brain atlas completed in the next five years, as other groups wrap up similar projects. 

But there’s a possibility that we’ll never get the full picture. While Miller finds a half-decade timeframe reasonable, he says there’s always a chance science develops a new technology that could unearth something unexpected about the brain. “We can always do more,” he says.

This post has been updated.

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Adjusting to prosthetic limbs isn’t as simple as merely finding one that fits your particular body type and needs. Physical control and accuracy are major issues despite proper attachment, and sometimes patients’ bodies reject even the most high-end options available. Such was repeatedly the case for a Swedish patient after losing her right arm in a farming accident over two decades ago. For years, the woman suffered from severe pain and stress issues, likening the sensation to “constantly [having] my hand in a meat grinder.”

Phantom pain is an unfortunately common affliction for amputees, and is believed to originate from nervous system signal confusions between the spinal cord and brain. Although a body part is amputated, the peripheral nerve endings remain connected to the brain, and can thus misread that information as pain.

[Related: We’re surprisingly good at surviving amputations.]

With a new, major breakthrough in prosthetics, however, her severe phantom pains are dramatically alleviated thanks to an artificial arm built on titanium-fused bone tissue alongside rearranged nerves and muscles. As detailed in a new study published via Science Robotics, the remarkable advancements could provide a potential blueprint for many other amputees to adopt such technology in the coming years.

The patient’s procedure started in 2018 when she volunteered to test a new kind of bionic arm designed by a multidisciplinary team of engineers and surgeons led by Max Ortiz Catalan, head of neural prosthetics research at Australia’s Bionics Institute and founder of the Center for Bionics and Pain Research. Using osseointegration, a process infusing titanium into bone tissue to provide a strong mechanical connection, the team was able to attach their prototype to the remaining portion of her right limb.

Accomplishing even this step proved especially difficult because of the need to precisely align the volunteer’s radius and ulna. The team also needed to account for the small amount of space available to house the system’s components. Meanwhile, the limb’s nerves and muscles needed rearrangement to better direct the patient’s neurological motor control information into the prosthetic attachment.

“By combining osseointegration with reconstructive surgery, implanted electrodes, and AI, we can restore human function in an unprecedented way,” Rickard Brånemark, an MIT research affiliate and associate professor at Gothenburg University who oversaw the surgery, said via an update from the Bionics Institute. “The below elbow amputation level has particular challenges, and the level of functionality achieved marks an important milestone for the field of advanced extremity reconstructions as a whole.”

The patient said her breakthrough prosthetic can be comfortably worn all day, is highly integrated with her body, and has even relieved her chronic pain. According to Catalan, this reduction can be attributed to the team’s “integrated surgical and engineering approach” that allows [her] to use “somewhat the same neural resources” as she once did for her biological hand.

“I have better control over my prosthesis, but above all, my pain has decreased,” the patient explained. “Today, I need much less medication.” 

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Hulu’s new sci-fi horror movie, No One Will Save You, has just two sentences of dialogue over 93 minutes of run time. But it’s not a quiet film. Floors groan, feet thud, characters shriek, and something—no spoilers as to what—chitters eerily. The unsettling background noise is complemented by composer Joseph Trapanese’s menacing music, which shivers from deep electronic pulses to ripsaw whines. It’s spooky and effective. Even prolific horror novelist Stephen King took notice, calling the film “brilliant, daring, involving, scary” on the social media platform X. 

Horror soundtracks like No One Will Save You’s have a special goal. It’s hard to find another musical genre so defined by the need to generate a single emotion: fear. To twist audio in unnerving ways, composers, musicians, and mixers use several special techniques. Some songs might have extreme variation in their dynamics, such as long silences that build into clashing notes to accompany a jump scare on the screen. Others wrap in acoustical features with human screams that, according to one study, may trigger alarm bells in our brains. 

Spooky songs also have the liberty to be more experimental because they don’t have to be pleasant. Pop tunes and gentler soundtracks typically stick to well-worn concepts like harmony. The spine-chilling stuff, though, tends to be “much more creative and break the mold of certain unwritten rules,” says Ben Ma, a musician and software engineer at the music startup Rivet. Still, nightmarish scores use a few common compositional tricks to mess with listeners’ minds. 

Uneasy on the ears

If you’ve ever thought that horror soundtracks just sound like someone screaming, you’re correct. Music cognition researcher Caitlyn Trevor has investigated parallels between song composition and vocal signals or other natural sounds. Sad tunes might remind us of someone crying, but this is often in the most abstract sense, she says, where something like a falling melodic note is reinterpreted as a sigh. “What I liked about scary music is that it seems like an area where mimicry was much more direct and much more obvious,” Trevor explains. “It really does sound a lot like a scream.”

In the study, 20 volunteers listened to recordings of people actually screaming plus excerpts from horror soundtracks, which included scream-like music as well as more neutral songs. The participants were asked to rate their emotional impressions of what they’d heard on a negative to positive scale. Human screams were the most negatively emotional, but the subjects also reacted similarly, if less intensely, to scream-like music. It’s as though horror music “piggybacks” on natural vocal signals, Trevor adds, “but they’re a little less potent because it’s in this art space.” In other words, we might hear danger in a soundtrack, but we also know it’s make-believe.

“The correlation to screams definitely makes sense to me,” says Rich Vreeland, who, as the artist Disasterpeace, composed the soundtracks for It Follows, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and other Hollywood films. His musical inspirations span cinema and real life: Bernard Hermann’s jarring score for Psycho was “one of my touchstones for how to make shrill scary sounds,” as was the “horrific sound of the Sony alarm clock that I had as a kid.” 

Out of tune

Horror soundtracks are so distinct from other soundtracks that algorithms can pick out particular traits from the genre. A team of computer scientists, including Ma, used a bespoke computer model to analyze the music of 110 box-office topping movies, as they reported in a 2021 PLOS One paper. Their goal was to take a quantitative approach to the way movie music affects audiences with the “first study that applies deep learning models on musical features to predict a film’s genre,” they wrote. 

Inharmonicity nixes those nice, round numbers. The notes played together might not even exist on a keyboard—imagine sound spewing from the space between the keys, “something that you physically couldn’t play on a piano,” Ma says. To pull this off, you need a continuous pitch instrument. The violins’ shrieking strings in the Psycho soundtrack are a prototypical example: It “really exemplifies on the atonal level” how horror music works, Ma says, producing a frequency that is extremely unsettling.

Sounds of anxiety and terror

Trevor’s most recent study of horror music, published earlier this year in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, splits the idea of fear in two. There are songs that make us anxious and songs that terrify us. Her acoustic analysis teased several different features from the soundtracks of 30 horror movies to understand how they achieved either of those psychological effects. Notably, each category had a distinct tempo, which she and her colleagues described in the paper: The anxious examples were “ponderous” or “pacing,” while the terrifying ones were “frenetic” and “throbbing” or a “wall of sound.” 

As an additional experiment, the team then had 99 people rate the anxiety, terror, tenderness, and happiness of the tunes on a seven-point scale. On average, subjects weren’t able to completely separate the music into the two fearful categories—terrifying music was rated as also conveying lots of anxiety. That might have been a product of survey bias, Trevor says. “Maybe participants were responding to how it made them feel more than what was being portrayed.” She’s currently part of a study that uses MRI brain scans to observe whether human screams and scary music activate similar neural networks in listeners. 

But there’s more to horror soundtracks than clever composition. The power of juxtaposition, for instance, is one aspect that scientific studies may not be designed to fully capture, but is super effective, Ma explains. The best scores, like the scary movies they accompany, put the audience at ease—then shatter it. “Horror soundtracks need to also have moments of beauty in them,” Ma says. “They put you in this place of calm so they can drag you out of it in the most gut-wrenching ways.”

Enjoy this scary-music playlist curated by PopSci editors, and let us know what your most feared soundtrack is.

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Fictional murderous barbers and real life serial killers are woven into London’s spooky history with legendary tales of their dastardly deeds. However, Sweeney Todd or Jack the Ripper may have paled in comparison to students from Oxford in the 14th century. A project mapping medieval England’s known murder cases found that Oxford’s student population was the most lethal of all social or professional groups, committing about 75 percent of all homicides.

[Related: How DNA evidence could help put the Long Island serial killer behind bars.]

First launched in 2018, Cambridge’s Medieval Murder Maps plots crime scenes based on translated investigations from 700-year-old coroners’ reports. These documents were recorded in Latinand are catalogs of sudden or suspicious deaths that were deduced by a jury of local residents. They also included names, events, locations, and even the value of murder weapons. The project recently added the cities of York and Oxford to its street plan of slayings during the 14th century. 

The team used these rolls and maps to construct the street atlas of 354 homicides across the three cities. It has also been updated to include accidents, sudden deaths, deaths in prison, and sanctuary church cases. 

They estimate that  the per capita homicide rate in Oxford was potentially 4 to 5 times higher than late medieval London or York. It also put the homicide rate at about 60 to 75 per 100,000—about 50 times higher than the murder rates in today’s English cities. The maps, however, don’t factor in the major advances in medicine, policing, and emergency response in the centuries since.

York’s murderous mayhem was likely driven by inter- knife fights among tannery workers (Tanners) to fatal violence between glove makers (Glovers) during the rare 14th century period of prosperity driven by trade and textile manufacturing as the Black Death subsided. But Oxford’s rambunctious youth made for a dangerous scene.

By the early 14th century, Oxford had a population of roughly 7,000 inhabitants, with about 1,500 students. Among perpetrators from Oxford, coroners referred to 75 percent of them as “clericus.” The term most likely refers to a student or a member of the early university. Additionally, 72 percent of all Oxford’s homicide victims also have the designation clericus in the coroner inquests.

“A medieval university city such as Oxford had a deadly mix of conditions,” lead murder map investigator and University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner said in a statement. “Oxford students were all male and typically aged between fourteen and twenty-one, the peak for violence and risk-taking. These were young men freed from tight controls of family, parish or guild, and thrust into an environment full of weapons, with ample access to alehouses and sex workers.”

Many of the students also belonged to regional fraternities known as “nations,” which could have added more tension within the student body.

One Thursday night in 1298, an argument among students in an Oxford High Street tavern resulted in a mass street fight complete with battle-axes and swords. According to the coroner’s report, a student named John Burel had, “a mortal wound on the crown of his head, six inches long and in depth reaching to the brain.”

Interactions with sex workers also could end tragically. One unknown scholar got away with murdering Margery de Hereford in the parish of St. Aldate in 1299. He fled the scene after stabbing her to death instead of paying what he owed. 

[Related: A lost ‘bawdy bard’ act reveals roots of naughty British comedy.]

Many of the cases in all three cities also involved intervention of bystanders, who were obligated to announce if a crime was being committed, or raise a “hue and cry.” Some of the bystanders summoned by hue ended up as victims or perpetrators.

“Before modern policing, victims or witnesses had a legal responsibility to alert the community to a crime by shouting and making noise. This was known as raising a hue and cry,” co-researchers and Cambridge crime historian Stephanie Brown said in a statement. “It was mostly women who raised hue and cry, usually reporting conflicts between men in order to keep the peace.”

Medieval street justice was also coupled with plentiful weapons in everyday life, which could  make even minor infractions lethal. London’s cases include altercations that started over littering and urination that led to homicide. 

“Knives were omnipresent in medieval society,” said Brown. “A thwytel was a small knife, often valued at one penny, and used as cutlery or for everyday tasks. Axes were commonplace in homes for cutting wood, and many men carried a staff.”

The team told The Guardian that they hope this project encourages people to reflect on the possible notices behind historic homicide and explore the parallels between these incidents and the altercations in the present. 

The post Grisly medieval murders detailed in new interactive maps appeared first on Popular Science.

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Sci-fi author Brian Herbert once wrote, “The only guarantee in life is death, and the only guarantee in death is its shocking unpredictability.” These words ring true to researchers who investigate what happens in a person’s final moments—and the frustration that comes with these studies. One big problem almost always gets in the way: How do you ask people what dying feels like when they’re no longer here? 

Because we haven’t yet figured out how to communicate with the dead, the best-case scenario is talking to people who have had a close brush with death. They often mention seeing bright lights, their life flashing before their eyes, or visions of deceased loved ones. Some have even reported spotting the Grim Reaper by their bedside. It’s a paradoxical situation, says Kevin Nelson, a professor of neurology at the University of Kentucky: A few perceptions are common—a shining light, for instance—but the near-death experience is unique to each individual.

There’s still a lot of mystery when it comes to the cause, but the field is progressing thanks to people who have allowed scientists to study their brains in these situations. People who have survived these close calls say the encounter can be life-changing. One thing is certain: medical experts say near-death experiences are not a figment of the imagination. 

And figuring out the mechanisms behind this phenomenon goes beyond general curiosity. One goal is to better understand how cardiac arrests happen. It could also potentially save lives, because doctors would have more knowledge for when to continue resuscitations after a patient’s heart stops.

“The research not only benefits our understanding of consciousness, but also in understanding the importance of the heart, lung, and brain in our everyday physiology,” says Jimo Borjigin, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Unreal recall

A near-death experience can happen to anyone. In fact, 1 in 10 people have reported sharper senses, slowed time, out-of-body sensations or other features associated with near-death, despite not being in grave danger. Research shows that near-death experiences come in four types: emotional, cognitive, spiritual and religious experiences, and supernatural. Of the four, people often recall supernatural activity, particularly the feeling of detaching from a physical body.

About 76 percent of people report an out-of-body experience during a near-death experience. While some people may attribute this to a spiritual experience, this is actually a sensory deception caused by the brain, which scientists have successfully replicated in people who are asleep. Research has shown that direct electrical stimulation of a brain area normally inactive in REM sleep can provoke an out-of-body experience. “Like a flip of a switch, you can literally throw somebody out of their body and back into their body,” Nelson says.

[Related: CPR can save lives. Here’s how (and when) to do it.]

Often, though, people with cardiac arrest will recall near-death experiences. “About a quarter of people who suffer and survived cardiac arrest have memories about some aspect of near-death experience, Borjigin says. This is because people with cardiac arrest have decreasing blood pressure, she says. With the heart unable to pump properly, oxygen is unable to travel to the rest of the body, which is essential for every single cell in your body to survive. When a brain is alerted to a sudden decline in oxygen, your brain undergoes certain changes that contribute to the perceptual distortions that accompany a near-death experience. 

Electrical surges in the brain

Ten years ago, Borjigin and her team observed that rats in simulated cardiac arrest still had fully active brains even 30 seconds after their hearts stopped. What’s more, their brains increased in electrical activity. To confirm whether this happens in humans, Borjigin recently tested the brains of four people who were critically ill and removed from life support.

When these comatose patients were taken off their ventilators, they could not breathe on their own. But, using EEGs, Borjigin noticed two people showed a surge in gamma brainwaves as their bodies started shutting down. Gamma brainwaves are usually a sign of consciousness, because they are mostly active when someone is awake and alert. 

“We’ve shown the brain has a unique mechanism that deals with a lack of oxygen because oxygen is so essential for survival that even an acute loss massively activates the brain and could lead to a near-death experience,” Borjigin explains. 

The boost in gamma waves occurred in a brain area called the temporo-parieto-occipital (TPO) junction. This is responsible for blending information from our senses, including touch, motion, and vision, into our conscious selves. It’s impossible to know if the increased brain activity was related to any visions they may have had, because, sadly, the two patients died. But Borjigin suggests activation of this area suggests people may likely pick up sounds and understand language. “They might hear and perceive the conversation around them and form a visual image in their brain even when their eyes are closed.” 

Hidden consciousness

In one of the largest studies of near-death experiences, an international team of doctors has linked the surge in brain activity to what they called a hidden consciousness immediately following death. In the study, people who were brought back to life through CPR after cardiac arrest could recall memories and conversations while they were seemingly unconscious. 

Between May 2017 and March 2020, the team tracked 567 people who underwent a cardiac arrest. They used EEGs and cerebral oxygenation monitoring to measure electrical activity and brain oxygen levels during CPR. To study auditory and visual awareness, the team used a tablet showing one of 10 images on the screen, and five minutes after, it would play a recording of fruit names: pear, banana, and apple, for another five minutes. 

Only 53 people of the original 567 participants were successfully resuscitated. Initially, they showed no signs of brain activity and were considered dead. But during the CPR, the team noticed bursts of activity. These spikes included gamma waves and others: delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves—all electrical activity that signals consciousness. 

[Related: How your brain conjures dreams]

Twenty-eight of those 53 patients were cognitively capable of having an interview. Eleven people recalled being lucid during CPR, being aware of what was happening or showing perceptions of consciousness like an out-of-body experience. No one could recall the visual image but when asked to randomly name three fruit, one person correctly named all the fruits in the audio recording—though the authors note this could have been a random lucky guess. 

The study authors also included self-reports of 126 other survivors of cardiac arrests not involved in the study and what they remembered from almost dying. Common themes included the pain and pressure of chest compressions, hearing conversations from doctors, out-of-body experiences, and abstract dreams that had nothing to do with the medical event.

The findings debunk the idea that an oxygen-deprived brain stays alive for only five to ten minutes. They also raise the question whether doctors can save people already determined to be dead. “These patients were actually alive within, as seen in the positive waves on the EEG, but externally they were dead,” says Chinwe Ogedegbe, an emergency trauma center section chief and coauthor of the study. 

Beyond the brain’s resilience to the lack of oxygen, the authors propose an alternative “braking system” that could explain the distorted perceptions of consciousness. The brain normally filters and inhibits unneeded information when you’re awake. In this unconscious state, however, the braking system is gone, which could allow dormant brain pathways to activate and access a deeper realm of consciousness containing all of your memory, thoughts, and actions. “Instead of being hallucinatory, illusory or delusional, this appears to facilitate lucid understanding of new dimensions of reality,” the authors write in their paper.

Unfortunately, with only a small number of participants surviving their cardiac arrest, it’s unclear whether this altered consciousness is more visual or auditory. Ogedegbe is working to increase the number of participants in the next trial to 1,500. Doing so will give researchers a better idea of the type of brain activity that goes on when someone is at death’s door, and potentially provide comfort that their loved ones can sense them in their final moments.

The post What really happens during a near-death experience appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you think your mental health might benefit from psychotherapy, booking an appointment with a professional—often an Herculean task—is only the beginning. Before you start, there might be some mental cobwebs you’ll need to clear out to make therapy work for you. 

Maybe you feel like your problems are insurmountable, or even doubt a therapist’s ability to make a difference. Maybe you fear or distrust the medical system, and opening up seems terrifying. 

Therapists often see these hesitations with their clients and assure that by addressing them, you can overcome them and fully benefit from your time, financial, and emotional investment in the process.

“Me and my therapist didn’t click”

So you went to a therapist and after talking to them for an hour you decided there was no connection. It happens—as much as they’re professionals, they’re also just people, and it’s impossible to connect with everybody. Maybe they were poorly trained, which is not only discouraging, but also downright harmful, says Josh Jonas, a psychotherapist at The Village Institute, a therapy practice in New York City.

This is why it’s so important to find a good fit. Meeting with multiple therapists in your quest to find a dynamic that works for you is normal. Whenever it doesn’t feel right, just try another one. But, as anyone who has looked for this unicorn knows, it’s easier said than done.

[Related: Boost your health with a little nature therapy]

Mental healthcare needs have spiked in the US over the past four years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a shortage of mental health professionals that predated the COVID-19 pandemic only worsened after the health crisis. This has made it hard to find a therapist that’s a good match. The reality is even grimmer for the 160 million Americans that live in states like California, Texas or Arkansas, where mental healthcare access is limited. 

To increase the chances of finding a match, ask for a quick intro call with the therapist you’re planning to see. Even if you are using an online platform where you are matched with someone through a questionnaire, you can request to interview them ahead of your first session and change therapists at any time. 

You can ask them anything you want that will make you feel more at ease about working with them. But if you don’t know what to ask, Jonas suggests some ideas to get you started:

• What is your typical process for getting to know your patients and their concerns?
• What type of therapy do you use and why? 
• How quickly might I anticipate seeing some sort of progress?
• Do you anticipate me needing to set aside time outside of therapy for “homework” or other to-dos?

It will take time and some effort, but Jonas says finding a good therapist is a fight worth fighting. 

“My therapist won’t ‘get’ me”

Your therapist might be a person with an entirely different background than you, which might result in them not understanding you at first. But even if that’s the case, they should really want to try. 

“People can have the sense that because of disparities, you might not get the same treatment,” says Marlene Watson, a licensed therapist and director of training at the Ackerman Institute, a family therapy clinic in New York City, 

People of color, for example, might feel an inherent mistrust in psychotherapy (a field where the grand majority of professionals are white) based on the known history of systemic racism in the medical community. 

In addition, some women might be concerned that male providers will be more dismissive of their experiences based on a history of sexism in healthcare. A 2021 study published in the journal Psychological Services, shows that women with serious mental illness are often overlooked in mental health and rehabilitation settings, and have a higher risk of treatment bias, abuse, and violence compared to men. 

But even if you and your therapist have physical, cultural, or communicational differences, Watson says a good professional will not only have training on cultural bias, but will actively and openly talk to you about not feeling understood. 

“We talk about communication as our business […] a therapist engaging in that type of dialogue is a sign you are in the right place,” she says.

If, on the other hand, they don’t initiate a conversation about it, you can. And if they seem closed off to it, it might be time to look for another therapist.

“I’m going to get reported or committed to a hospital” 

Jonas and Watson validate that the fear of real life repercussions from opening up to a therapist can cause clients to think twice about what they share. From patients sufferring from suicidal ideations or self-harm, to parents worrying Child Protective Services might get involved, some people wonder where the line is when it comes to sharing the hard stuff.

Watson and Jonas say that outcomes where authorities need to get involved are rare and only happen when there’s a serious and imminent risk to the safety of the patient or someone in their life. Both professionals encourage those with suicidal thoughts to seek help, and clarify that asking about these ideations is actually a normal part of their job. Watson says that bringing it up themselves helps patients relax and turns treatment into “just a conversation”. 

“I’d say to people, we are here to help you. To make sure you are safe, and that those around you are safe,” Watson says. 

“I’ll be seen as weak”

There’s long been a negative social stigma around mental illness, implying that seeking therapy is a sign of weakness. This, Jonas says, is especially true among men and particularly prevalent in certain cultural groups, where the notion is exacerbated by the fear that this prejudice might permeate other areas of the patient’s life. 

But Jonas explains this belief is not based on reality, especially as pursuing therapy becomes more common. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 42 million people in the US sought help with their mental health in 2021, a number that has been steadily increasing since 2019.  

In fact, he explains physical and emotional strength are much more similar than people realize. The emotional equivalent of being able to lift and hold 50 pounds at the gym is handling and processing your own emotions in a healthy way without offloading the weight onto someone else. Because that’s what snapping and yelling at people at home or in line at the register is—dropping those heavy dumbbells on the people around you. So therapy is your workout, says Jonas: “It makes you stronger emotionally.”

“Therapy doesn’t work… nobody can really help me”

A lot of people want to work on dealing with the long lasting effects of neglect and emotional disconnection. Ironically, this experience can perpetuate the feeling of neglect, because if a patient was abandoned once, they might feel it’s likely they’ll be abandoned again—even by their therapist. This feeling is also prevalent in patients suffering from addiction, who generally can’t find solace in people but in whatever they’re addicted to. 

[Related: Mental wellness apps are basically the Wild West of therapy]

Luckily, Jonas says a lot of the time you only need one good experience with psychotherapy to dispel that belief. A 2018 literature review published in the journal Psychotherapy showed that a positive relationship between a patient and their therapist is strongly related to a good outcome, so unpacking your own barriers and challenges in that relationship is a must. 

“There are many people I’ve seen who don’t trust, but for some reason trust you. That’s reparative, and a huge win, and the beginning of them learning people can help,” he says.

This is yet another reason why finding the right therapist for you is so important—it can change your entire disposition to your mental health journey. Because trusting the process, Watson says, is essential: “It’s not all about what the therapist can do, but it’s also about what you do.”

The post 5 common concerns about therapy and how to overcome them appeared first on Popular Science.

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The best workout apps will save you time and (often) money, and many include social features that allow you to get some of the in-person benefits that you’d find at the gym. These apps vary in the quality and variety of instruction, but you might be surprised by the caliber of some free exercise apps—some feature top-notch fitness pros. 

As a personal trainer, I’ve used some of these apps myself and have recommended them for clients and friends. Some apps sync with devices or equipment like heart rate monitors, fitness watches, or exercise bikes. Some offer live instruction along with a wide selection of on-demand classes. They often provide expert guidance on form and let you work out whenever you want, without having to schedule a class or wonder if the gym is open.

Before you sign up for a subscription for one of the many fitness apps available, consider your workout preferences. Do you like to kickbox or strength train? Do you want the option to do both with some yoga or pilates on recovery days? Your goals, lifestyle, and budget play a big role in the best workout app for you. We’ve rounded up our favorites below.

• Best overall: Peloton
• Best free: Nike Training Club
• Best for yoga: Asana Rebel
• Best weightlifting: Fitbod

1. Best overall: Peloton App

First things first: You don’t need a Peloton bike or treadmill to use the Peloton app. Peloton offers different subscription levels to fit a range of budgets and fitness goals, including a free subscription that provides access to 50 classes. 

You can get by on the free subscription if you don’t rely on the app for all of your workouts, and it will give you a good sense of what to expect from the paid tiers. But you can also take advantage of a 30-day trial period for the paid subscriptions to see how the app fits into your workout style. I personally don’t think you need to pay for more than the $12.99 per month subscription unless you’ve got a Peloton bike or treadmill, which requires a $44 per month, all-access subscription.

The Peloton app offers a wide range of exercise modalities, like rowing, strength training, kickboxing, and pilates. The quality of Peloton’s instructors sets them apart from other apps, and in some cases, can feel like a virtual personal trainer. Plus, the fitness coach app features training programs if you’d like to focus on a specific area for a few weeks. Peloton also offers an excellent selection of live leaderboards and social motivation that creates a sense of community for users.

Peloton App is available on Android and iOS for $12.99 per month.

[Related: A beginner’s guide to Google Fit and Apple Health]

2. Best free: Nike Training Club

The Nike Training Club (NTC) is the best free workout app, hands down. Nike removed the subscription fee during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they haven’t reinstated it. This app offers 190 free workouts in a wide range of modalities, from dance and pilates to bodyweight strength training and running warm-ups. It also includes pre-designed programs that run from one to six weeks, helping you build strength and endurance over time. 

NTC also lets you easily build a customized workout. I love good filters because they minimize scrolling through an endless list of workouts. You can filter based upon:

• Available equipment
• Muscle group
• Workout focus
• Trainer-led classes
• Workout length

The app also includes a workout history so you can see your progress. Plus, it offers suggestions based on your past workouts and your preferences. Lasting fitness requires a planned approach, and NTC gives you that option. While instruction isn’t as dynamic as the Peloton app, the classes are led by Nike Master Trainers and the app includes excellent tips on form to maximize your workout time. And you can’t beat the price.

Nike Training Club is free on iOS and Android.

3. Best for yoga: Asana Rebel

As a trainer and a yoga practitioner, I love Asana Rebel. I recommend it to anyone who prefers yoga as their main form of exercise. 

When you sign up, you fill out a survey and the app tailors your options based on your preferences. Strong filter features help you find workouts by length, muscle group, experience level, and workout goals. Plus, there are meditations if you feel like you need something quieter than yoga. For the desk-bound, this app includes yoga for the office to give you a stretch and rejuvenation from your chair. But don’t let the ease of use fool you. Most yoga practitioners can find challenging workouts. 

One of my favorite features is the add-on option at the end of each workout. You can start with a five-minute focus on flexibility and finish your session with a routine that targets the upper body, followed by some meditation. Plus, the app offers nutrition and meditation guidance, providing a holistic approach to physical and mental health. 

Asana Rebel offers a yearly subscription that costs around $6 per month. However, the subscription frequently goes on sale for 50 percent off, so you can snag yourself a good deal.

Asana Rebel is available for Android and iOS for about $6 a month.

[Related: The best fitness trackers]

4. Best for weightlifting: Fitbod

Building muscle safely requires a plan, and the Fitbod app helps you develop a tailored regimen and record your progress for long-term success. The app guides you through a strength training plan, offering suggestions as you progress. You get three workouts for free before you have to pay for the $12.99-per-month subscription. 

The app customizes exercises based on your fitness level and access to equipment. When you sign up, you put in your fitness level, goals, and add a checkmark next to the equipment available to you. If you’re limited to dumbbells and body weight, the app provides suggestions based on your answers. Fitbod can help you create workouts whether you have access to a full gym or not. 

You can also create your own workout programs or customize suggestions made by the app. Selection starts with choosing a muscle group or two, and Fitbod provides suggestions that include circuits and supersets to give you options to choose from. The app also provides instructions for strength moves ranging from bench presses to mountain climbers. And instructors demonstrate proper form in included videos.

While this app may not be robust enough for pro lifters, Fitbod is an excellent choice for people designing their lifting programs on their own, as it combines instruction and a workout planner. Even those with more experience can use it as an exercise plan, tallying sessions and sets to monitor progress.

Fitbod is available for Android and iOS for $12.99 per month after three free workouts.

The post The best workout apps for all kinds of exercise appeared first on Popular Science.

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The values and lifestyles of past societies are often revealed to anthropologists and archaeologists through their relationship with death and the burial of their dead. It’s an essential hallmark of human cultural systems and part of this relationship involves manipulations, retrieval, and reburial of human remains after an individual had died. Now, some new evidence from a cave in Spain shows that early humans may have returned to the burial site to craft tools from the bones and possibly extract marrow, potentially as food. The findings are detailed in a study published September 20 in the open-access journal PLOS One.

[Related: Cremated remains still hold clues to life and death in the Bronze Age.]

Caves along the Iberian Peninsula were not only Neanderthal crab cooking hotspots, but also as places to bury the dead and modify human remains for thousands of years. Using caves for burials was a common practice in multiple present-day countries, and it began to become more common in Portugal and Spain around the 4,000 BCE. The archaeological sites in this region show evidence that human remains were later manipulated for other uses, but the cultural meaning behind these changes is still largely unclear. 

University of Bern bioarchaeologist Zita Laffranchi, anthropologist Marco Milella, and  Universidad de Córdoba archaeologist Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez co-wrote the study, and  believe that the underground and dark features of the caves likely provided ancient humans with a well-suited place to house remains. 

“Such traits are shared by ancient Neolithic farming societies in Iberia, Europe, and other parts of the world, as part of a system of transcultural responses towards death. As if it were a ‘device of making ancestors,’ the community remains grouped together after death, in a subterranean space interpreted as a perpetual projection of an eternal nocturnal environment,” the study authors wrote in an interview accompanying the paper.

In the new study, the team examined human remains from the Cueva de los Marmoles cave in southern Spain. They looked at the bones of at least 12 people. Radiocarbon dating pegged the burials between the fifth and second millennium BCE, roughly from this area’s Neolithic period to its Bronze Age. Most of the items from this study were excavated between 1998 and 2018. These include a diligently carved human skull cup, a tibia that appears to have been modified for use as a tool, and dozens of other bone fragments found in the almost 27,000 square-foot cave. 

New evidence suggests that some remains may have been intentionally broken and scraped for marrow for up to a year after the Marmoles individuals had died. The team noted the intentional post-mortem modifications made to the remains, which include some fractures and scrapes to the bones. These cuts could have resulted from efforts to get marrow and other tissues from the bones for dietary or practical uses. 

They were initially surprised by the extended time frame that the cave was used for funerary practices.

“This suggests that Marmoles was a symbolic landmark for human communities living in the area, and was likely to be the presence of specific funerary traditions,” wrote the authors. “Secondly, the most interesting aspect of our findings was the complex treatment of the remains, often difficult to interpret, but which unequivocally points to rather homogenous actions, and well-defined traditions and beliefs systems.”

[Related: Extinct human cousins may have beaten us to inventing burial rituals.]

These results match other cave sites in the region, and show that burying human remains in caves and later modifying and using them as food and tools was daily widespread. While there could also be further symbolic purposes for these body modifications, those are still unclear and need further study. 

The authors say that the next steps will include continued archaeological study of the save and apply more radiocarbon, anthropological, and zooarchaeological analyses to the skeletal remains that may emerge in future digs at Marmoles and other burial caves in the area. 

The post Early humans carved old skeletal remains from burial caves into tools appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Verilux HappyLight Luxe		SEE IT	Get everything you need without paying for features you’ll never use.
Best intensity		Carex Day-light Classic Plus		SEE IT	This powerful light offers ample adjustability for placement.
Best compact		Circadian Optics Lumos 2.0		SEE IT	This battery-powered lamp is simple to travel with.

When the dog days of summer give way to the darkening skies of fall, the never-ending grays of winter, and the rainy doldrums of spring, a light therapy lamp can really save the day. Options for recharging indoors with simulated sunshine have proliferated, with everything from tiny desktop lamps to floor lamps available to boost your mood. There are some generally recommended times to use them: soon after waking, for about 30 minutes, about 1.5 to 2 feet from your face, and with your eyes open but not looking directly at the light. In short, the best light therapy lamps to combat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can help to reset your biological clock via the body’s natural circadian rhythms, boost the happy chemical serotonin, and provide a mental health lift to support a healthy mood, appetite, and sleep—and an overall healthier, happier you.

• Best overall: Verilux HappyLight Luxe
• Best for light intensity: Carex Day-light Classic Plus Light Therapy Lamp
• Best floor lamp: Flamingo Floor Lamp II by Northern Technologies
• Best compact: Circadian Optics Lumos 2.0
• Best budget: Light Therapy Lamp by Erligpowht

How we choose the best light therapy lamps

With so many light therapy lamps on the marketplace, the best light therapy lamp will fit your space and bath your face to help treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD). We narrowed the list by looking for lights that provided the recommended 10,000 lux of light and produced as little UV light as possible. We also wanted the light therapy lamps to be easy to use (if stepping outside into the sun during the summer is simple, so should turning on or adjusting your lamp) and easy on the eyes—no need to have an ugly light in this day and age of cute, clever design. We also wanted to highlight a range of products, from desktop setups to lamps that double as furniture. The chosen light therapy lamps come in a range of prices, and we cut the price off at $200 to keep the recommendations within reach of most consumers. And don’t miss our best sunset lamps and sunrise alarm clocks on the way to bed, either.

The best light therapy lamps: Reviews & Recommendations

You may need something very specific in your lamp, perhaps a certain size or one that can be used at a certain distance from your face. If our top pick isn’t just right for you, scroll down to find the perfect fit for you.

Best overall: Verilux HappyLight Luxe

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: It’s bright, good-looking, and easy to move around.

Specs

• Brightness: Adjustable brightness
• Color temperature: Adjustable color temperature
• Dimensions: 11.8 x .5 x 7.5 inches

Pros

• Compact size and lightweight for easy portability 
• Intuitive adjustable brightness and color temperature
• Countdown timer to take the guesswork out of light therapy

Cons

• Non-adjustable stand
• For 10,000 lux, you’ll need to be at a 6-inch distance

The Verilux HappyLight Luxe is an economical light therapy lamp with a retail price that comes in well below $100 that’s also loaded with important features. The sleek, slim design is more reminiscent of an iPad than a medical device, with a modern look that fits into most people’s home decor. It doesn’t vie to be a centerpiece, either, offering a nice balance when it comes to function and form. For the truly looks conscious, the frame comes in white, marble, and champagne. 

At 11.8 inches tall, 7.5 inches wide, and a slender half-inch in depth, the lamp can sit unobtrusively on a desk or table, delivering the benefits of light therapy without drawing attention to itself. It’s also small enough to slip into a backpack or overnight bag so you can take the benefits of light therapy to the office, on the road, or on vacation. The two-pound lamp comes with a detachable stand, or it can be wall-mounted. It is corded.

On the function side, the powerful LED, full-spectrum light panel reaches up to the recommended brightness of 10,000 lux. With a push of a button, you can adjust the brightness in four settings or the light color in three settings. Note that for the full 10,000 lux exposure you’ll need to be about 6 inches away from the lamp. Its built-in countdown timer (up to one hour, down to five-minute increments) ensures you’ll get the recommended amount of light without keeping track of it yourself. You can also pause the timer if you get up for a coffee break. This light therapy lamp is UV-free, as too much UV light can damage your eyes and skin.

Controls on the Verilux HappyLight Luxe are simple and straightforward. There’s an on-off button on the top of the device. All other controls are on the front-facing panel, below the light screen. The left button allows you to switch between three color temperatures (measured in Kelvin): warm white (3,500K), medium white (4,250K), and daylight (5,000K). The right button toggles you through four brightness levels: 2,500, 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000 lux. The brighter the light, the shorter you’ll need to sit in front of it for maximum effect. The center button is the automatic count-down timer, which you can set for up to an hour and which shuts the lamp off, so you don’t have to remember to turn it off when your session is done. The general recommendation, whether to combat SAD or to get a mental boost, is to start at the lowest brightness for a short period of time, say 10 minutes, and then work your way up to the one-hour mark from there. 

The lamp uses Flicker Elimination Technology and Optix Glare Control to make the light easier on your eyes. No matter which light therapy device you use, it’s recommended that you place the light at an off-center angle from your body so you’re not looking directly into the light. Your eyes do have to be open to receive the effects, so it’s best to use the lamp while working on the computer, reading, or doing stationary hobbies. Napping next to any light therapy lamp, including this one, won’t deliver the physical and mental health benefits.

Best for light intensity: Carex Day-light Classic Plus Light Therapy Lamp

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Why it made the cut: It’s powerful enough that even at 12 inches away, you’re getting full “sun.”

Specs

• Brightness: 10,000 lux at 12 inches
• Color temperature: N/A
• Dimensions: Large light size at 16″ x 13″ 

Pros

• Ability to angle downward to better mimic sunlight and for less glare
• Sit 12-14 inches away and still reap maximum benefits
• Light screen can be adjusted up to 31 inches from base 

Cons

• Space hog
• Only two light settings
• Plastic base

This full-coverage desktop light therapy lamp goes where the sun don’t shine. You’ll get the recommended 10,000 lux of glare-free white LED light (at 4000K) whenever you flip the switch and sit 12 to 14 inches away from the large light area. Unlike many light therapy lamps on the market, this one does not skimp on the light surface size. Expect 16-by-12 inches of glowing light. Think of it as the equivalent of sitting in front of an oversized monitor versus working on a small handheld device compared to other models on this list. You’ll also escape the harmful effects of UV rays with this one. The ability to tilt the light downward is a big plus, which helps to mimic the direction of sunlight and generally allows for less glare. 

While this larger lamp won’t work for tight desktop spaces, it is a good fit for those who want to bathe in manmade light without worrying about sitting too close to the lamp’s base. And it’s pretty good looking, with a silver base and center and a light area reminiscent of a pro photographer’s light rig. 

Best floor lamp: Flamingo Floor Lamp II by Northern Technologies

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Why it made the cut: It offers the benefits of light therapy in the design of a traditional floor lamp.

Specs

• Brightness: 10,000 lux of light at 12-inch distance
• Color temperature: Uses replaceable LED bulbs
• Dimensions: 4 feet tall

Pros

• Doubles as a regular floor lamp
• 4-foot height ideal for using next to a recliner
• Easy to assemble

Cons

• Non-adjustable height
• Only one light setting
• No timer, only on/off switch

The Flamingo Floor Lamp—with its skinny angled central pole—does bear a passing resemblance to one familiar long-legged wading bird, although it has neither beak nor is it pink. It is, however, one of the few traditional stand-up floor lamps that also work as a light therapy lamp available today. From Northern Technologies, the lamp leans into its 10,000 lux capacity as a big selling point, and you’ll get that brightness at 12 inches away. 

The LED bulbs in this Canadian-made lamp are fully replaceable, full-spectrum, and UV-free, and they boast no hum or flicker when turned on. The lamp is also energy efficient, using two 18-watt LED bulbs. And while we don’t recommend knocking this lamp around too much, the light bulb cover isn’t glass, so any accidental tippage won’t send sharp shards skittering across your floor.

As a 4-foot-tall floor lamp, it looks right at home next to an easy chair or sofa, but it can also be used as a bedside stand-up lamp, next to a desk, or in a corner of a dark room to brighten a living space. The light fixture itself measures 13 by 7 inches, and it swivels. The lamp has no timer, but it is compatible with an external programmable light timer. 

Best compact: Circadian Optics Lumos 2.0

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Why it made the cut: This reading-style lamp offers superior brightness in a space-conscious design.

Specs

• Brightness: 10,000 lux and 3 brightness settings
• Color temperature: UV-free LED light
• Dimensions: 14.4 x 3.5 x 1.5 inches

Pros

• 3 brightness settings via a single touch
• LED light up to 50,000 hours
• Small design that swivels open

Cons

• Small area illuminated due to lamp’s size
• Bulb is not replaceable, rendering the lamp useless when the bulb burns out
• Small base leaves it prone to tipping when open

There’s a lot to like about this reading-style lamp, which is really a cleverly designed light therapy lamp. When in its “standing” position that resembles a tall, skinny speaker, it’s just 14 inches high, 3.5 inches deep, and 1.5 inches wide. From the closed position, a hinged arm swings from the top and opens the arm out like a fan so you can set the optimal light angle for your activity—reading, writing, computing, sewing, woodworking, or whatever desktop work you have in store.

A one-touch button lets you control the UV-free LED’s brightness, starting with bright, to brighter, to brightest, with the brightest setting delivering 10,000 lux. It’s a uniform, dot-free light comparable to full spectrum sun. There’s no timer, but the daily recommendations are to place the lamp 16-18 inches from your face for anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes for the full circadian rhythm reset. 

And while an appearance on Shark Tank isn’t reason enough to buy a product, it’s worth noting that Circadian Optics founder Amber Leong appeared on season 11 of the show in 2019 with her idea for light therapy lamps. Sharks Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner believed enough in her idea to invest. And the company now has five light therapy lamp designs for sale.

Best budget: Light Therapy Lamp by Erligpowht

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Why it made the cut: This powerful mini-sized light therapy lamp slips right into a pocketbook or small bag.

Specs

• ‎Brightness: 10,000 lux capacity
• Color temperature: N/A
• Dimensions: 5.11 x 6.69 x .59 inches

Pros

• Adjustable among three brightness levels 
• 90-degree rotation standing bracket to angle light
• Inexpensive

Cons

• Default turn-on starts at the brightest setting
• Unstable base may topple if jostled

The Light Therapy Lamp by Erligpowht is more short story than hero epic. It comes in at just over half an inch in depth, 5.11 inches wide, and 6.69 inches tall. For comparison, that’s smaller than an iPad Mini, and just the right size to slip into a small purse or desk drawer unobtrusively. Its 10.86-ounce weight means you won’t develop shoulder or back strain from adding this to your luggage, as that’s less than the weight of a standard-size battle of water.

Travelers who want to take a light therapy device with them on the road to help adjust to time changes or erratic sleep/wake schedules will appreciate this product’s compact size, as well as a price point that’s low enough that you won’t worry as much about accidents like forgetting it in your hotel room or spilling a cup of coffee on it in your morning haze. Likewise, apartment dwellers or workers using a small desk will appreciate the compact design that takes up very little room, whether in use or stowed away.

For the price, its features—three brightness levels and four pre-programmed timer settings—compete with more bougie brands. It’s also simple to operate. Use the angled kickstand to set the light up where you want it, and in the direction you’d like the light to shine, and then click it on to your desired setting, from 100% capacity to 50% to 30%. The timer button (both buttons are on the front, at the base of the unit) is preset for options. Simply click through to your desired time. The LED lamp is UV-free. A USB-C cord comes with the unit, but you can swap out your own if you’d like a longer or shorter cord.

What to consider when shopping for light therapy lamps

To get the most out of your light therapy lamp, you’ll want to sneak a peek at the fine print on your chosen lamp. Here are a few things to consider before you put that lamp into your virtual shopping cart and click “buy now.”

What is the lux capacity of the lamp?

Most experts agree that a lux capacity of 10,000 is necessary to get your circadian rhythm, sleep, and mood in sync. Your circadian rhythm dictates your sleep/wake cycle, which helps to regulate the mental, behavioral, and physical changes that happen throughout a 24-hour cycle. Getting plenty of natural light during the day helps to regulate this cycle, whether for those traveling to different time zones or for people dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.  Most experts think that, among other things, too little light from the sun during fall, winter, and spring can lead to SAD. This concern magnifies in areas of the world where the daylight hours are especially short. A lamp that doesn’t put out the full recommended 10,000 lux may not deliver the full potential positive effects of a light therapy lamp.

Is the lamp’s brightness adjustable?

Unless you’re a pro therapy light user and you know you like your light bright, it’s wise to start with a lamp that has adjustable brightness. You may also find that in the dead of winter, you prefer the brightest setting, while on sunnier spring and fall days, you don’t need the full brightness. Choosing a lamp with adjustable brightness gives you more control over what kind of light you’ll be basking under.

Does the lamp have a preset timer?

Timers exist for a reason. It’s because humans easily lose track of time. The phone rings; a computer notification dings; a dog barks outside. Whatever the uncontrollable distractions are, it’s nice not to have to worry about how long you’ve been soaking up the rays from your light therapy lamp. With a built-in preset timer, the lamp turns off when your time is up, and you never have to lift a finger. While it’s not a necessary feature, it is a nice-to-have one.

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best light therapy lamps 

• Best overall: Verilux HappyLight Luxe
• Best for light intensity: Carex Day-light Classic Plus Light Therapy Lamp
• Best floor lamp: Flamingo Floor Lamp II by Northern Technologies
• Best compact: Circadian Optics Lumos 2.0
• Best budget: Light Therapy Lamp by Erligpowht

The best light therapy lamps have light settings of up to 10,000 lux, can change the color temperature settings, and have adjustable brightness settings. Features that make keeping track of time easy, such as a countdown timer or programmable timer add appeal. The more intuitive and easy a light therapy lamp is to use, the more likely you are to use it every day, and daily use is key to getting your mental and physical health on track. Check out one of the above options if you want to try light therapy for yourself.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best light therapy lamps for 2024 appeared first on Popular Science.

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Excerpted from Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life by Neha Sangwan, MD, with permission from McGraw Hill, pages 44-49, September 2023.

How do you tell the difference between when your body is casually communicating with you and when it is trying to alert you to signs of burnout? Well, that depends on how closely you’re listening and whether you’re numbing the early signals. Your body has manners. It knows you’re busy, so it starts with a whisper, at a low volume (say one or two out of 10), but if you don’t pay attention, it continues to get louder, until it eventually stops you in your tracks. If you’ve gotten in the habit of hitting snooze on your body’s signals with various coping mechanisms, you can reach an 11—a heart attack, pneumonia, or other crisis—without even realizing it. That’s scary. 

It’s important to note that your body is more than just an alarm system. It wants to be your friend, and it talks to you about everything. Yes, it’s also informing you in your everyday communication with others when something is:
 

• Important to you 
• Out of balance 
• Different from what you expected 
• Not quite right 
• Exactly right 

Your body’s signals will not only give you a heads-up when something is wrong and it’s time to see the doctor, but also day-to-day updates on what resonates with you and what just feels off. Once you learn how to interpret these powerful signals, you’ll have a distinct advantage in every conversation, interaction, and experience in your life. 

The body map

Begin by ruling out any medical problems. Any new and unusual signals from your body need to be checked out by a medical professional. Once you’ve gotten a clean bill of health, then you can explore how the collection of symptoms may potentially be caused by burnout. 

When we’re acutely focused on everyone and everything around us (external data), it’s easy to miss what’s happening inside us (internal data). Recognizing and healing burnout depends on how attuned you are to interpreting your own physiology and responding to the data your body is sending. 

Each person’s body has a unique communication style. For some people, it’s their heart racing, stomach turning, or muscles tensing. For others, it’s sweating or shallow, rapid breathing. All day long, your body communicates with you, and it’s critical that you’re able to decipher those signals. These physical sensations are the gateway of awareness to valuable information that will guide you on this journey. 

Take a look at the Body Map illustration below to get a few ideas of how your body might be trying to communicate with you. By no means is this an exhaustive list. Feel free to add your own physical sensations to the diagram. 

One of the fastest ways to tune in to your physiology is by becoming aware of your physical body in space and where it meets the external world. By this, I mean literally shifting your attention to where your body meets the chair or wherever you are sitting. If you’re standing, notice where your feet meet the floor. As you take your next deep breath, focus on the expansion and contraction of your rib cage. Next, become aware of the sensations of clothing on your body, such as the tightness or looseness of your waistband.

Don’t worry if this doesn’t come naturally. If you’ve experienced high stress over long periods of time, you may have adapted to tuning out your body’s sensations. It’s a common coping mechanism. For example, Alex, my seatmate on my latest flight, was adept at silencing his body’s signals (headaches, insomnia, and back pain). He went searching for clues to heal himself, but in the interim, prescriptions and cocktails brought the only relief he could find. 

If you’ve been relying on your own coping mechanisms, whatever they may be, and are out of practice at listening to your body, try expanding your awareness in everyday activities: 

1. While you’re on a call or in a meeting, hold a smooth stone or weight that fits comfortably in your hand.

2. Each time you notice the weight in your hand, use it as a reminder to check in with your body (meaning, is your body trying to get your attention? Do your wrists hurt from too much typing? Is your rear end numb from sitting for too long? Do you need to stand up, stretch, or get some water?). 

3. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t feel anything. Instead, take a deep breath and refocus your attention back on the weight in your hand.

 4. Anytime you notice an emotion arise in another person or a shift in intensity in the conversation, that’s a good time to bring your awareness back to the weight in your hand. 

5. Be patient. You will begin to tune in to your body’s signals.

The signals are already there

You probably feel more than you realize. What about that pesky neck or shoulder pain? A 3 o’clock energy dip? Any intermittent headaches? What about joint stiffness? These are all signals from your body. 

Once you identify and understand its unique language, you will be able to decipher the physical clues even earlier (at lower intensities), get curious and ask yourself, What happens before that? And just before that?

Interpreting your body  

Understanding your body’s unique language can seem confusing at first. That’s only until you learn how to interpret the intensity and frequency of the signals as well as the context of the situation. The data from your body typically falls into one of three main categories:   

Everyday guidance: low volume, low frequency

Helping you navigate everyday situations and a changing environment and recalibrating your internal GPS in new experiences. These physical signals can show up in many ways: intermittent muscle tension, throat constriction, jaw tightness, knots in your stomach, to name a few. 

Chronic depletion: mid-volume, more frequent

Alerting you to a drain of energy and lack of alignment in your internal GPS. These physical signals can show up as individual symptoms, such as fatigue, heart palpitations, insomnia, headaches, imbalance, pain, brain fog, forgetfulness, diarrhea, constipation, or a collection of symptoms known as a syndrome. 

The post Are you burned out? Here’s how your body might be telling you. appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article is republished from The Conversation.

Heart in your throat. Butterflies in your stomach. Bad gut feeling. These are all phrases many people use to describe fear and anxiety. You have likely felt anxiety inside your chest or stomach, and your brain usually doesn’t hurt when you’re scared. Many cultures tie cowardice and bravery more to the heart or the guts than to the brain.

But science has traditionally seen the brain as the birthplace and processing site of fear and anxiety. Then why and how do you feel these emotions in other parts of your body?

I am a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who researches and treats fear and anxiety. In my book “Afraid,” I explain how fear works in the brain and the body and what too much anxiety does to the body. Research confirms that while emotions do originate in your brain, it’s your body that carries out the orders.

Fear and the brain

While your brain evolved to save you from a falling rock or speeding predator, the anxieties of modern life are often a lot more abstract. Fifty-thousand years ago, being rejected by your tribe could mean death, but not doing a great job on a public speech at school or at work doesn’t have the same consequences. Your brain, however, might not know the difference.

There are a few key areas of the brain that are heavily involved in processing fear.

When you perceive something as dangerous, whether it’s a gun pointed at you or a group of people looking unhappily at you, these sensory inputs are first relayed to the amygdala. This small, almond-shaped area of the brain located near your ears detects salience, or the emotional relevance of a situation and how to react to it. When you see something, it determines whether you should eat it, attack it, run away from it or have sex with it.

Threat detection is a vital part of this process, and it has to be fast. Early humans did not have much time to think when a lion was lunging toward them. They had to act quickly. For this reason, the amygdala evolved to bypass brain areas involved in logical thinking and can directly engage physical responses. For example, seeing an angry face on a computer screen can immediately trigger a detectable response from the amygdala without the viewer even being aware of this reaction.

In response to a looming threat, mammals often fight, flee or freeze.

The hippocampus is near and tightly connected to the amygdala. It’s involved in memorizing what is safe and what is dangerous, especially in relation to the environment – it puts fear in context. For example, seeing an angry lion in the zoo and in the Sahara both trigger a fear response in the amygdala. But the hippocampus steps in and blocks this response when you’re at the zoo because you aren’t in danger.

The prefrontal cortex, located above your eyes, is mostly involved in the cognitive and social aspects of fear processing. For example, you might be scared of a snake until you read a sign that the snake is nonpoisonous or the owner tells you it’s their friendly pet.

Although the prefrontal cortex is usually seen as the part of the brain that regulates emotions, it can also teach you fear based on your social environment. For example, you might feel neutral about a meeting with your boss but immediately feel nervous when a colleague tells you about rumors of layoffs. Many prejudices like racism are rooted in learning fear through tribalism.

Fear and the rest of the body

If your brain decides that a fear response is justified in a particular situation, it activates a cascade of neuronal and hormonal pathways to prepare you for immediate action. Some of the fight-or-flight response – like heightened attention and threat detection – takes place in the brain. But the body is where most of the action happens.

Several pathways prepare different body systems for intense physical action. The motor cortex of the brain sends rapid signals to your muscles to prepare them for quick and forceful movements. These include muscles in the chest and stomach that help protect vital organs in those areas. That might contribute to a feeling of tightness in your chest and stomach in stressful conditions.

Your sympathetic nervous system is involved in regulating stress.

The sympathetic nervous system is the gas pedal that speeds up the systems involved in fight or flight. Sympathetic neurons are spread throughout the body and are especially dense in places like the heart, lungs and intestines. These neurons trigger the adrenal gland to release hormones like adrenaline that travel through the blood to reach those organs and increase the rate at which they undergo the fear response.

To assure sufficient blood supply to your muscles when they’re in high demand, signals from the sympathetic nervous system increase the rate your heart beats and the force with which it contracts. You feel both increased heart rate and contraction force in your chest, which is why you may connect the feeling of intense emotions to your heart.

In your lungs, signals from the sympathetic nervous system dilate airways and often increase your breathing rate and depth. Sometimes this results in a feeling of shortness of breath.

As digestion is the last priority during a fight-or-flight situation, sympathetic activation slows down your gut and reduces blood flow to your stomach to save oxygen and nutrients for more vital organs like the heart and the brain. These changes to your gastrointestinal system can be perceived as the discomfort linked to fear and anxiety.

It all goes back to the brain

All bodily sensations, including those visceral feelings from your chest and stomach, are relayed back to the brain through the pathways via the spinal cord. Your already anxious and highly alert brain then processes these signals at both conscious and unconscious levels.

The insula is a part of the brain specifically involved in conscious awareness of your emotions, pain and bodily sensations. The prefrontal cortex also engages in self-awareness, especially by labeling and naming these physical sensations, like feeling tightness or pain in your stomach, and attributing cognitive value to them, like “this is fine and will go away” or “this is terrible and I am dying.” These physical sensations can sometimes create a loop of increasing anxiety as they make the brain feel more scared of the situation because of the turmoil it senses in the body.

Although the feelings of fear and anxiety start in your brain, you also feel them in your body because your brain alters your bodily functions. Emotions take place in both your body and your brain, but you become aware of their existence with your brain. As the rapper Eminem recounted in his song “Lose Yourself,” the reason his palms were sweaty, his knees weak and his arms heavy was because his brain was nervous.

Arash Javanbakht is an associate professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University

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

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Finding lasting love can be really difficult. We’ve all heard the annoying adages like “there’s plenty of fish in the sea,” not to mention the old “opposites attract” chestnut. However, many people tend to end up being quite similar to their partners, according to the results of a study published August 31 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

[Related: Social relationships are important to the health of aging adults.]

The new research included numerous studies dating back more than a century. The team examined 130 traits from millions of couples, ranging from political leanings to age of first sexual intercourse to substance use habits. For between 82 and 89 percent of traits analyzed, partners were more likely than not to be similar. In only one part of the analysis, and for only three percent of studied traits, did individuals tend to be coupled with someone who is demonstrates an opposing trait.

In addition to shedding light on some of those unseen forces that may shape human relationships, this research could have some important implications for the field of genetic research.

“A lot of models in genetics assume that human mating is random. This study shows this assumption is probably wrong,” study co-author and University of Colorado at Boulder psychologist and neuroscientists Matt Keller, said in a statement. Keller noted that a tendency called assortative mating—when individuals with similar traits couple up—can actually skew findings of genetic studies.

To find their results, the team conducted both a meta-analysis of previous research and their own original data analysis. In the meta-analysis, they examined 22 traits across 199 studies of millions of male-female co-parents, engaged pairs, married pairs, or cohabitating pairs. The oldest study in this analysis was conducted back in 1903. They also used a dataset called the UK Biobank to analyze 133 traits across almost 80,000 opposite-sex pairs in the United Kingdom.

Same sex couples were not included in the research because the patterns in these types of partnerships may differ significantly. The authors are now pursuing those relationships in a separate study.

[Related: These fuzzy burrowers don’t need oxytocin to fall in love.]

Traits such as political and religious attitudes, level of education, and certain measures of IQ showed particularly high correlations. For example, on a scale of 0 meaning no correlation and 1 meaning couples always share a trait, the correlation for political values was .58. Traits surrounding substance use also showed high correlations, with heavy drinkers, smokers, and teetotalers tending to strongly pair with those who share similar traits. Traits like height and weight, medical conditions, and personality showed much lower but still positive correlations. For example, the correlation for neuroticism was .11.

Interestingly, some traits, such as extroversion, did not have much of a correlation.

“People have all these theories that extroverts like introverts or extroverts like other extroverts, but the fact of the matter is that it’s about like flipping a coin: Extroverts are similarly likely to end up with extroverts as with introverts,” study co-author and University of Colorado at Boulder PhD student Tanya Horwitz said in a statement. 

The meta-analysis found “no compelling evidence” that on any trait that opposites attract. However, in the sample from the UK Biobank, the team did find a handful of traits in which there seemed to be a small negative correlation, including hearing difficulty, tendency to worry, and whether someone is more of a morning person or night person (called chronotype). Additional studies will be needed to understand those findings, according to the team. 

Some of the less-frequently studied traits including number of sexual partners and whether an individual had been breastfed as a child also showed some correlation.

“These findings suggest that even in situations where we feel like we have a choice about our relationships, there may be mechanisms happening behind the scenes of which we aren’t fully aware,” said Horwitz.

According to the authors, couples could share traits for a variety of reasons, including growing up in a similar area. Some people are simply attracted to those who are similar based on the traits studied, and some couples grow more similar the longer they stay in the relationship. 

These pairings could lead to some downstream genetic consequences. For example, if short people are more likely to produce offspring with a similar height and vice versa, there could be more people at the height extremes in the next generation. This same thing apply for medical, psychiatric, and other traits according to Horowitz. 

Some of the social implications include those with similar educational backgrounds continuing to pair up, which could widen socioeconomic divides.

The team cautions that the correlations found were fairly modest and should not be overstated or misused to promote an agenda. Assortative mating has historically been dangerously co-opted by the eugenics movement, which gained traction during the early 20th century.

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In Head Trip, PopSci explores the relationship between our brains, our senses, and the strange things that happen in between.

WE’VE ALL WONDERED how it might feel to inhabit a body that is not our own. The idea of body transfer has been a science fiction staple from the 1882 novel Vice Versa to the ongoing blockbuster Avatar movies. But while we won’t be swapping bodies with anyone else soon, it turns out that it is possible to feel as if something that’s not actually part of your body is connected to it. This phenomenon is called the body transfer illusion.

The canonical example of the body transfer illusion is the rubber hand experiment. In it, a subject’s hand is obscured from view, perhaps with a mirror box, and a rubber hand is placed where the individual might expect to see their own. If both the real hand and the rubber hand receive identical manipulation—for example, by being stroked gently—then after a while, the participant begins to perceive the fake part as their own. When someone swings a hammer in the direction of the rubber hand, say, the subject might flinch. 

The rubber hand experiment was first described in 1998 and has been explored widely in the decades since. Perhaps the best-known application of the phenomenon is as therapy for people with amputated limbs who are experiencing phantom limb pain.

The key to this illusion seems to be the interaction between so-called bottom-up and top-down constructions of body ownership: The former is based on pure sensory input, while the latter is based on the brain’s experience and resultant expectations. “The brain has a lot of knowledge about your body,” says H. Henrik Ehrsson, a cognitive neuroscientist at Karolinska Institute in Sweden whose work focuses on the construction of a sense of body ownership. “It remembers where your body was just a few seconds ago. It has an internal representation of your body, and it’s always going to compare that to the incoming sensory data.” 

The rubber hand experiment is an example of how incoming data can be manipulated in a way that alters the brain’s internal representation of the body. However, there are limits to the sorts of illusions that can be induced. “The shape of the object is important,” Ehrsson explains. “[The illusion] works well with objects that are similar to human limbs, but if you have, say, a block of wood, or something like that, it doesn’t work.” It’s also important for the stimulation of the rubber and real hands to be synchronized—if “visual and tactile stimuli are out of sync by even a couple of hundred milliseconds, the illusion will not be elicited,” he adds.

Mel Slater, a professor at the University of Barcelona in Spain, has spent decades exploring the idea of body transfer in the context of virtual reality. He describes one of his experiments, from 2012, in which he attempted to quantify exactly how far the illusion could be pushed. Fifty participants entered a VR environment where one of their simulated arms began growing in length. Participants reported that the feeling of identification with the arm declined as its length grew. They maintained a strong sense of ownership—initially. “The illusion was maintained for that arm up to three times the length of the real arm—but no more,” Slater says. “Not four times.” The experiment shows that while there appear to be limits on how radically different a body we can identify with, some wild outcomes remain possible.

Beyond distorting the physical dimensions of the body, the body transfer illusion can also create all sorts of fascinating potential scenarios, such as embodying someone of a different race, gender, or age. Slater’s experiments have explored all these possibilities and found that such experiences seem to have profound psychological effects on participants. For example, a white person’s experience of inhabiting the body of a person of color resulted in a measurable and lasting reduction in implicit racial bias.

There are also stranger possibilities, like experiencing supernumerary limbs or two full bodies. One might think that the sense of having a pair of right arms would be disconcerting. However, Ehrsson—who tests all his experiments himself—is at pains to point out the difference between illusions and delusions. With the former, the person feeling the sensation retains an understanding that the faux circumstances aren’t “real”; thus, the experience lacks the emotionally distressing nature of a genuine delusion.

So what’s having two right arms like? Ehrsson laughs. It’s “weird,” he says, “[but] quite funny.” 

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When it comes to building a sustainable settlement on Mars, the technological and engineering challenges are steep. But they take a back seat to the Human Resources department. Forget sophisticated vehicles or sensitive instrumentation—the most temperamental, fragile things we send to the Red Planet will be humans.

After all, NASA’s Opportunity rover roamed Mars for 14 years, separated from Earth by a half-hour communications delay, scoured by dust storms and irradiated by cosmic rays, and never complained or got into a fight with a colleague. 

Humans, though, will be sequestered “in a confined space about the size of a small RV for three years,” James Driskell, a research psychologist at the Florida Maxima Corporation, says of most plausible NASA Mars mission scenarios. Driskell and his company have consulted with the space agency and the US military on the psychological issues of crews in isolated and stressful situations. In tight quarters, “people get angry at each other.”

Current Mars plans, such as NASA’s proposed Artemis mission, would send astronauts there and back on a three-year round trip. But you can imagine how stressful dynamics—danger, isolation, other people—might increase on a permanent base or research station, if crews stayed for a decade (or forever). Or, rather than using your imagination, you can rely on the computer simulation of a Mars settlement produced by George Mason University Computational Social Scientist Anamaria Berea and her colleagues. 

In a forthcoming study that hasn’t yet undergone full peer review, Berea and her colleagues detail how they used an “agent-based modeling” approach—a computer system not all that different from a large video game—to calculate the survivability of different population sizes of Mars settlers. They’ve incorporated personality types, too, for the long haul. They came to two main conclusions: that only a few tens of initial settlers are needed to create a sustainable colony, and that people with more agreeable social traits did better for themselves and the larger settlement. 

[Related: Rodent astronauts suggest trips to Mars will make us anxious, forgetful, and afraid]

The new study originated as a response to other papers suggesting that between 100 and 300 people would be the minimum necessary to begin a sustainable settlement on Mars. The nonprofit Blue Marble Science Institute, which studies questions of planetary science and habitability, contacted Berea to see whether her team could verify the other studies’ minimally viable population numbers. 

Berea says she had a better idea: Creating a simulation for a space habitat that included “human, social, and behavioral factors.” Berea and her team at the computational social sciences department had created simulated humans, who were assigned a set of skills necessary for running a Mars settlement, such as producing food or maintaining life support systems. 

Each faux settler had one of four aggregate personality types: There were the “agreeables,” highly social and low in scores of aggressions or competitiveness; “socials,” extroverts with a bit more of a competitive edge; “reactives,” who were more still competitive and fixated on fixed routines; and “neurotics,” highly competitive people with difficulty coping with changes in routine or boredom. Settlement members could die in accidents, or due to “health” conditions determined by the available food and life support resources, but could also be replenished by resupply shuttles every 18 months—the researchers chose not to model sex and reproduction. 

After running multiple computer models for more than 20 simulated years, the study authors found that settlements could begin with far fewer than 100 settlers and remain sustainable, despite accidents or dips in food supplies. The lowest number to kickstart a sustainable settlement was 22 people, but that is not a hard limit, according to Berea. “It’s somewhere between 10 and 50,” she says. “It’s in the tens; It’s not in the hundreds like the other papers were saying.”

[Related: NASA rover finds evidence of carbon-based chemistry in Martian crater]

They also found that agreeable personality types were the most likely to survive to the end of each simulation run. But Bera is careful to note that the agents—the algorithmic representations of humans—do not remain static through the simulation, just as people, whatever their personalities, change over time. “The neurotic that puts his or her foot down on the planet on day zero might not be the neurotic on day 100. They interact, and they adjust,” she says.

This can be seen in real-world Mars mission simulations, such as the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) missions, which places crews of six people in a simulated Mars habituated on the rocky lava slopes of Mauna Loa. There, it’s vital to anticipate the ways people change over time. 

“For the first few weeks, usually of people living under stressful conditions, they can still kind of have a ‘honeymoon period’ where everyone’s still very polite and patient and can kind of get along despite some challenges,” says astrobiologist Michaela Musilova, the former director of HI-SEAS from 2018 until 2022. “Usually after the first few weeks is when people really start to struggle and if they’re not prepared for it properly.” 

That struggle could take the form of depression or rudeness with other crew members or mission control. Over the 30 simulated Moon and Mars missions for which Musilova served as commander, she found the answer was to consciously forge bonds between crew members using shared meals and evening recreation, such as karaoke. 

“The more the crew bonded, the longer the ‘honeymoon period’ lasted and even when it wore off, the crew still behaved politely towards one another,” she says. 

Musilova also found that selecting as diverse a group of people as possible, in terms of skills, life experience and ethnicity, helped ensure a better functioning team. 

That’s one thing that Berea and her colleagues didn’t model—all of their simulations contained equal numbers of the four personality types they had defined, rather than trying to build teams composed of different proportions of different types of people. Purposefully screening for personality is something Driskell notes is important for building teams going into difficult and isolated conditions. 

“What type of trait profiles do we want in that team? That sociability and extraversion is really good, but you don’t want a team full of it, because then they’re going to really want to just interact and get along and talk,” Driskell says. At the same time, he adds, you have people who are very competent and follow the rules and keep things running, but who are just a complete pain to live with. “Everybody’s got an example of somebody who was extremely technically adept, but you just could not get along with them,” he says. “I guess Elon Musk is a good example.”

Neither human nor computer simulations of Mars missions can ever fully predict the experience of putting human boots on the Red Planet, but each approach also takes a different slice of the problem. Computer simulations such as Berea’s and her colleagues can give researchers some idea of the large-scale population dynamics and psychology of a Mars settlement over many years. A 12-month HI-SEAS Mars mission, meanwhile, helps tease out real-life psychological nuance you can’t get from a computer model. 

Berea hopes to do more to integrate both approaches in the future, noting that NASA has just launched a new Mars analog mission, the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) in the Mars Dune Alpha habitat. “Once they are done with that project, it would be great to get the data and compare that with our model for validation,” she says.

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Buying a space themed t-shirt with planets, swirling galaxies, or a NASA logo made to fit a five-year-old girl shouldn’t really be a tall order, but it was a daunting task for mom and entrepreneur Jaya Iyer. In 2015, she struggled to find clothing for her budding space cadet daughter in traditional retailers and noticed a huge hole in the market that is still reflective of society at large. The gender gap in STEM fields remains persistent, with women making up only 28 percent of the STEM workforce. That idea that science is for boys and not girls can begin as young as six, according to a 2021 study from Yale University. This outdated idea is still reflected with the very clothes available to them.

[Related: If you want sustainable clothes, focus on the farms.]

Equipped with a stereotype smashing goal, years of experience with online retailer ThinkGeek, and a PhD in fashion merchandising from Iowa State University, Iyer launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to create clothing for children whose hobbies don’t fit in “gender traditional” boxes—think girls who love bugs and math or boys who like cats more than reptiles. Svaha USA was born and since then, the company has expanded into adult and more gender neutral clothing and has collaborated with NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg. Their latest team up has tech executive and STEAM ambassador Rhonda Vetere contributing to a line of clothing featuring circuits, binary code, and robots.

It’s all with the same goals–representing science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) fields, clothing inclusivity and adaptability, and keeping the wearer feeling good without too much effort.

“If I have to dry clean anything that I own, it sits in my closet, because I don’t want to deal with having to go to a dry cleaner, drop it off, pick it up, and it’s expensive. I didn’t want those fussy features of any clothing,” Iyer tells PopSci. 

Iyer has long used her customer base as her primary source of ideas, inspiration, and market research, even holding multiple design competitions for new STEAM inspired patterns and clothing because she believes that, “art has to be a part of every element of STEM.” Customers are also the ones who have helped make the brand more adaptive and inclusive. For those with sensory issues, the clothes come in knitted fabrics for extra softness and do not have itchy fasteners. She began to make front button shirts for new moms who are nursing. Some options do not have zippers so wearers can easily get dressed in the morning without the help of a partner or roommate. 

All Svaha dresses also come with an element that is noteworthy for pretty much anyone who identifies as female–pockets. “I do have customers who say that, even my two-year-old now realizes the importance of having pockets in her dresses,” says Iyer. “I also realized how important it is for people who want to carry an insulin pump to have these kinds of clothing.”

While pockets in clothing may seem like a trivial bit of detail for some, wearing functional clothing can send an important message of inclusivity. Fashion psychologist, author, and instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York Dawnn Karen says the gender messaging on a lack of pockets can devalue the wearer and can contribute to decision fatigue, as needing to carry a bag for everyday items is just one more thing to worry about. 

[Related: Google’s new AI will show how clothes look on different body types.]

“We make more than 100 decisions a day. Think of someone in intense STEM jobs. If you want to focus on something, but have to think about a bag, it can make you feel unworthy or just add more stress,” Karen tells PopSci. “It’s more psychological than anything. A man with pockets built into his whole attire doesn’t have to think about that one less thing.”

In addition to this lack of functionality, women’s clothing also tends to be more painful, restrictive, and distracting to the wearer. This can interrupt focus and make it more difficult to move around in the workplace, according to research from Northwestern University’s Body and Media Lab. Anecdotal experiments with switching over to clothes made for men can reveal the lack of pain and mark inducing bits of clothing and simplifying dressing decisions, which can lead to more comfort and some overall happiness. 

To combat all of this, Karen promotes a movement she founded called dopamine dressing. Referencing the neurotransmitter nicknamed the “feel good hormone,” dopamine dressing encourages people of all gender identities to embrace the power of wearing clothes and accessories that help them feel happy. The concept arose at a time where Karen was having difficulty expressing herself verbally while recovering from sexual assault. Her experience studying counseling psychology in graduate school and as a part-time model led her to use clothing to work through feelings. 

“Mood illustration is dressing to perpetuate and optimize your current mood. It’s to maintain some type of emotional equilibrium and is what has been nicknamed dopamine dressing,” explains Karen.

The first key ingredient for Karen’s philosophy is color. Karen believes that color can help with this mood enhancement, even if it is a color that client’s of hers don’t believe will look good with their skin tones. While brighter colors do tend to elicit more of those happy feelings, it is highly individualized and some of Karen’s clients feel their best in all black. 

On the other side of the fashion psych coin is serotonin dressing, where people are encouraged to use clothing to sit with their negative feelings and actually pass through them instead of pushing them down or away. “Anything you suppress ends up coming back up. So you don’t want to suppress it,” says Karen. 

[Related: This STEM club for girls turned a real BMW into a sweet racing simulator.]

The second crucial ingredient is one that she shares with Iyer and Svaha USA–the all important comfort factor. Both cited the COVID-19 pandemic as having a major effect on consumers realizing that texture, fabric, and comfort really do matter for clothing. This impact goes beyond the power of the pocketbook. 

“If you are wearing something that you feel extremely comfortable in, you are going to feel happy and good wearing them all day long,” says Iyer. “I feel like that happiness can then very easily move on to everything that you do in the day.”

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This article is republished from The Conversation.

Laughter is an everyday reminder that we humans are animals. In fact, when recorded laughter is slowed down, listeners can’t tell whether the sound is from a person or an animal.

We throw our heads back and bare our teeth in a monkeylike grin. Sometimes we double over and lose our ability to speak for a moment, reverting temporarily to hooting apes. And just as hoots and howls help strengthen bonds in a troop of primates or a pack of wolves, laughter helps us connect with others.

Laughter is evolutionarily ancient. Known as a “play signal,” mammalian laughter accompanies playful interactions to signal harmless intentions and keep the play going. Chimps laugh. Rats laugh. Dogs laugh. Perhaps even dolphins laugh.

And laughter is an essential feature of human social interactions. We laugh when we’re amused, of course. But we also laugh out of embarrassment, politeness, nervousness and derision.

I’m a psychology researcher who studies how people use laughter to connect, and sometimes disconnect, with others. For humans, laughter has expanded from its original function as a play signal to serve a variety of social functions.

Laughter smooths social interactions

Amused laughter is a response to what scholars of humor call a “benign violation” – a situation that could represent a threat but that the laughing person has concluded is safe. (Psychologists love to ruin good things like comedy by overexplaining them.)

Laughter is a way to communicate that an interaction is playful, harmless and unserious. It’s often not a reliable sign that a person is having a good time, even though people sometimes laugh when they are enjoying themselves. An awkward exchange, a misunderstanding, a mocking joke – all these potentially uncomfortable moments are smoothed over by laughter.

My colleagues and I were curious about whether the tendency to laugh is a trait that is consistent for each person regardless of context or whether it depends on whom they’re interacting with. In one study, we had people talk to 10 strangers in a series of one-on-one conversations. Then we counted how many times they laughed.

To our surprise, we found that how often a person laughs – at least when talking to strangers – is fairly consistent. Some people are laughers, and others are not. Whom they were talking to didn’t have a strong effect. At least in our sample, there weren’t hilarious partners who made everyone they talked to laugh.

We found that the people who tended to laugh more enjoyed the conversations less. If you intrinsically enjoy talking to strangers and feel comfortable doing so, you may not feel the need to laugh a lot and smooth out the interaction – you trust it is going well. However, people felt they had more in common with these big-time laughers.

So in conversations between strangers, laughing a lot is not a sign of enjoyment, but it will make your partners feel similar to you. They will be likelier to agree that the two of you have something in common, which is a key ingredient in social connection. I suspect people borrow and transform the play signal of laughter to influence situations that, on their face, have nothing to do with play.

Laughter sends a message

We humans have remarkable control over our voices. Not only can we speak, but we can also alter the meaning of our words by modifying our vocal pitch, vowel placement, breathiness or nasality. A breathy “hello” becomes a flirtatious advance, a growly “hello” becomes a threat, and an upturned, high-pitched “hello” becomes a fearful question.

This got me thinking: Maybe people change the sound of their laughter depending on what they want to communicate.

After all, while some forms of laughter are considered uncontrollable – the kind that leaves you physically weak and running out of oxygen – most everyday laughter is at least somewhat under your control.

It turns out that there are already a lot of studies looking at different forms of laughter. Although their perspectives and methods differ, researchers agree that laughter takes many acoustic forms and occurs in many different situations.

The most popular approach for categorizing the many forms of laughter is to sort them by the internal state of the person laughing. Is the laughter “genuine,” reflecting a true positive state? Or is it the result of embarrassment, schadenfreude or mirth?

I wasn’t satisfied with those approaches. Laughter is a communicative behavior. To me it seems we should therefore categorize it according to how it influences the people listening, not based on how the person felt while laughing. The word “cat” transmits the same information to a listener regardless of whether the speaker loves or loathes felines. And the effect of a giggle on a listener is the same regardless of how the giggler feels, assuming the giggle sounds the same.

Pleasurable, reassuring or threatening

With the communicative nature of laughter in mind, my colleagues and I proposed that laughter can be boiled down to three basic social functions – all under the cloak of playfulness.

First, there’s reward laughter. This type is most clearly linked to laughter’s evolved role as a play signal. It is pleasurable to hear and produce, thus making a playful interaction even more enjoyable.

Then there’s affiliation laughter. It conveys the same message of harmlessness without delivering a burst of pleasure. People can use it to reassure, appease and soothe. This is the most common laughter in everyday conversations – people punctuate their speech with it to ensure that their intentions aren’t misconstrued.

Finally, there’s dominance laughter. This type turns the nonserious message on its head. By laughing at someone, you are conveying that they are not worth taking seriously.

My colleagues and I have identified acoustic properties of laughter that make it sound more rewarding, friendly or dominant. I have also found that people change how their laughter sounds during conversations that emphasize those three social tasks. The changes are subtle because the context – the situation, the people’s relationship, the conversation topic – does a lot to clarify a laugh’s meaning.

There is no such thing as a fake laugh. All laughter serves genuine social functions, helping you navigate complex social interactions. And because you look and sound so silly while doing it, laughter ensures no one takes themselves too seriously.

Adrienne Wood is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Wood receives funding from the National Science Foundation. University of Virginia provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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

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In Head Trip, PopSci explores the relationship between our brains, our senses, and the strange things that happen in between.

WHEN I WAS six years old, I had a recurring nightmare. I was running up a hill. Animalistic monsters that looked like warped Sesame Street characters were chasing me. I entered a diner and locked the doors, only to turn and see the terrors emerging from behind me. They had already gotten in. 

Most of this nightmare is ordinary, according to dream researchers, especially for kids. It’s actually quite common for anxiety dreams to envelop you when you’re trying to get a restful night of sleep, and if you understand what causes them, you can work to resolve them.

Causes of recurring nightmares

“The most common nightmare theme, and even more so for children, is that something bad is chasing you,” says Deirdre Barrett, a dream researcher at Harvard Medical School who edited the 1996 book Trauma and Dreams. She notes that some themes, like being chased by monsters, seem universal. Though they can vary by culture, other common recurring dreams include scenarios of “vividly sensing a presence,” falling, arriving late for an exam or train, getting attacked, and feeling frozen with fright, according to surveys of Canadian university students from the early 2000s. Barrett adds that variations on these themes can hold personal significance, such as when something that should be safe turns out not to be, as in my dream of being pursued by mutant children’s puppets.

Recurring nightmares tend to be more common in kids than adults: According to Barrett’s research, people reported experiencing fewer nightmares as they reached their teens. But why is being chased by something wicked such a common theme at an early age? 

“Children dream about animals, both realistic and monstrous ones, more than adults do,” Barrett says, drawing an evolutionary connection. “We think that maybe the early fears are the ones that are more programmed into us as a species. And gradually those diminish as ones that we’re really encountering in the waking, modern world become more of the focus.”

Whether fantastical or ordinary in nature, periods of recurring nightmares can simply occur at a particularly stressful time for dreamers of different ages, like exam season or divorce. They can also manifest out of an unresolved conflict or disturbing lived experience. It’s important to note that recurring nightmares and other sleep issues can correlate with post-traumatic stress disorder. Recurring nightmares can also occur for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder and chronic anxiety, as well as those with other medical conditions, including narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and temporal lobe epilepsy, which is why it’s important to get screened for such conditions. 

How to get rid of a recurring nightmare

“Anxiety dreams depict everyday worries in a dramatized way. That is, the monsters represent normal fears related to the world, like school, teachers, nasty classmates, and so on,” says Michael Schredl, a researcher at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. Because these behaviors are avoidant, “running away and locking doors” in dreams “[are] typically not helpful.” 

For those who are looking to get rid of recurring nightmares, experts recommend writing down or drawing what happened in the dream, which causes the dreamer to face the nightmare again in waking hours. This is commonly known as exposure therapy, and it should be used carefully after consultation with a trained therapist. Then, in waking hours, the dreamer can envision a new ending to the nightmare or draw something that makes the scenario less anxiety-inducing—an active coping strategy. Imagining a trusted friend coming to the rescue or a peaceful resolution to an uncomfortable situation could help. Flying away from enemies is not recommended, as it further reflects avoidant behavior, according to Barrett.

Experts advise to think about this dream solution while they’re awake so they develop new thought patterns. That way when they face the anxiety-inducing scenario in their sleep again, they’re able to cope and apply the new strategy.

Kids can try these remedies, but they also may just grow out of the pattern. Schredl says that in the course of a child’s development, they will learn to cope with fear and accept that it’s okay to be afraid, so that they are no longer avoiding the feeling. Once they’ve stopped their avoidant dream behavior and even learned that they can act and have agency, the nightmares should lose their potency. 

I had that same nightmare about four or five times in total until I reached middle school. From what I remember, the last few times I visited the creatures in my sleep, my dad was there to comfort me. Instead of being caught, as I had been when alone in the first few iterations of the dream, we eventually escaped together and the puppets stopped being as scary. These days, I don’t dream of monsters anymore, and I’m more likely to dream of luxury buffets and spa visits. 

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More people in the United States are dying from causes related to excessive alcohol consumption since 1999. Surprisingly, this is particularly true for American women, according to a study published July 28 in the journal JAMA Network Open. While men are roughly three times more likely than women to die from alcohol use, the gap has narrowed and the risk to women has grown recently.  

[Related: COVID lockdown drinking habits led to a rise in deaths from alcoholic liver disease.]

The study looked at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on more than 600,000 deaths linked to alcohol between 1999 and 2020. The data included deaths from alcoholic liver disease, alcohol poisoning, acute intoxication, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, and mental and behavioral disorders that can be linked to alcohol consumption, and other causes.

It found that alcohol-related deaths steadily increased in the United States in that period. However, from 2018 to 2020, the rate increased by 14.7 percent for women compared to 12.5 percent for men. The study also found rising rates among older women in particular. Alcohol-related deaths rose in women over 65 and older by 6.7 percent from 2012 to 2020, compared with a 5.2 percent increase per year in men 65 and older. 

According to the authors, this shift does not necessarily mean that women in this age group are drinking more, but could point to “the larger burden of accumulating harms of chronic alcohol use among female individuals.”

While this study did not point to the reasons behind this increase, co-author and assistant professor of population health at Hofstra University Ibraheem Karaye offered a few potential theories to The New York Times. Karaye said that alcohol consumption is likely increasing among women and that alcohol affects women’s bodies differently. Women’s bodies typically have less fluid to dilute alcohol, which can result in higher blood-alcohol concentrations, which may make women more vulnerable to health complications, according to Karaye.

Stress is also a major factor in alcohol misuse among both men and women. The narrowing gap could reflect an increase in both stress and stress-related disorders among women, according to the team. 

[Related: A powerful combo of psilocybin and therapy might help people overcome alcohol use disorder.]

Excessive drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic has also increased alcoholic liver disease deaths, with a recent report from KFF Health News finding that the condition killed more Californians than car accidents or breast cancer. The lockdowns made people feel isolated, depressed, stressed, and anxious, says KFF’s Philip Reese, which led to some increases in drinking and an increase in alcohol sales.

Additionally, shifting attitudes towards heavy drinking by women may be a factor.  Associate professor in the division of gastroenterology and liver disease at NYU Langone Health Lisa Ganjhu told NBC News that she regularly sees women who are not aware of how physically toxic it can be. 

“The article didn’t surprise me. Women are overusing alcohol with more frequency now. I’ve had to talk to a fair number of women about their alcohol use,” said Ganjhu, who was not affiliated with the new study. “I had one patient who developed pancreatitis from drinking ask me when she could start drinking again. She said it wasn’t acceptable to not drink with clients. It’s mind-boggling.”

Regardless of gender, Karaye agrees with most physicians that “reducing or eliminating exposure [to alcohol] at any point would be valuable.” The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Rethinking Drinking program can help people evaluate alcohol usage and create plans to scale down or quit drinking. 

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Deepfake technology has already proven itself a troublingly effective means of spreading misinformation, but a new study indicates the generative AI programs’ impacts can be more complicated than initially feared. According to findings published earlier this month in PLOS One, deepfake clips can alter a viewer’s memories of the past, as well as their perception of events.

To test the forgeries’ efficacy, researchers at University College Cork in Ireland asked nearly 440 people to watch deepfaked clips from falsified remakes of films such as Will Smith in The Matrix, Chris Pratt as Indiana Jones, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in The Shining, and Charlize Theron replacing Brie Larson for Captain Marvel. From there, the participants watched clips from the actual remakes of movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Total Recall, and Carrie. Meanwhile, some volunteers were also provided with text descriptions of the nonexistent remakes.

[Related: This fictitious news show is entirely produced by AI and deepfakes.]

Upon review, nearly 50 percent of participants claimed to remember the deepfaked remakes coming out in theaters. Of those, many believed these imaginary movies were actually better than the originals. But as disconcerting as those numbers may be, using deepfakes to misrepresent the past did not appear to be any more effective than simply reading the textual recaps of imaginary movies. 

Speaking with The Daily Beast on Friday, misinformation researcher and study lead author Gillian Murphy did not believe the findings to be “especially concerning,” given that they don’t indicate a “uniquely powerful threat” posed by deepfakes compared to existing methods of misinformation. That said, they conceded deepfakes could be better at spreading misinformation if they manage to go viral, or remain memorable over a long period of time.

A key component to these bad faith deepfakes’ potential successes is what’s known as motivated reasoning—the tendency for people to unintentionally allow preconceived notions and biases to influence their perceptions of reality. If one is shown supposed evidence in support of existing beliefs, a person is more likely to take that evidence at face value without much scrutiny. As such, you are more likely to believe a deepfake if it is in favor of your socio-political leanings, whereas you may be more skeptical of one that appears to “disprove” your argument.

[Related: Deepfakes may use new technology, but they’re based on an old idea.]

Motivated reasoning is bad enough on its own, but deepfakes could easily exacerbate this commonplace logical fallacy if people aren’t aware of such issues. Improving the public’s media literacy and critical reasoning skills are key factors in ensuring people remember a Will Smith-starring Matrix as an interesting Hollywood “What If?” instead of fact. As for whether or not such a project would have been better than the original—like many deepfakes, it all comes down to how you look at it.

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This article originally appeared on MIT Press Reader. This is an excerpt from veteran game designer Greg Costikyan’s book “Uncertainty in Games.”

Unless you have lived in a Skinner box from an early age, you know that the outcome of tic-tac-toe is utterly certain. At first glance, rock-paper-scissors appears almost as bad. A four-year-old might think there’s some strategy to it, but isn’t it basically random?

Indeed, people often turn to rock-paper-scissors as a way of making random, arbitrary decisions — choosing who’ll buy the first round of drinks, say. Yet there is no quantum-uncertainty collapse, no tumble of a die, no random number generator here; both players make a choice. Surely this is wholly nonrandom?

All right, nonrandom it is, but perhaps it’s arbitrary? There’s no predictable or even statistically calculable way of figuring out what an opponent will do next, so that one choice is as good as another, and outcomes will be distributed randomly over time — one-third in victory for one player, one-third to the opponent, one-third in a tie. Yes?

Players quickly learn that this is a guessing game and that your goal is to build a mental model of your opponent, to try to predict his actions. Yet a naïve player, once having realized this, will often conclude that the game is still arbitrary; you get into a sort of infinite loop. If he thinks such-and-so, then I should do this-and-that; but, on the other hand, if he can predict that I will reason thusly, he will instead do the-other-thing, so my response should be something else; but if we go for a third loop — assuming he can reason through the two loops I just did — then . . . and so on, ad infinitum. So it is back to being a purely arbitrary game. No?

No.

The reason rock-paper-scissors is not a purely arbitrary game, and the reason that an excellent player will win more often than chance would predict, is that human psychology is not random, and some behaviors are — not necessarily predictable, but likely to occur more often than chance would dictate.

A player who has studied the game will unquestionably win more than chance would dictate against a naïve player.

One heuristic of experienced players is “Losers lead with Rock.” This is demonstrably true; naïve players will lead with Rock more often than one-third of the time. Your hand begins in the form of a rock, and it is easiest to keep it that way. The name of the game begins with “Rock,” and if you are mentally sorting through the options, it is the first one that will occur to you. And the word “rock” itself has connotations of strength and immovability. These factors lead players to choose Rock on their first go more often than chance would dictate. An experienced player can take advantage of this. Against a player you know to be naïve, you play Paper.

Similarly, players rarely choose the same symbol three times in a row, and almost never four times; it feels wrong to human psychology. An extended streak feels nonrandom and unlikely, even though in a purely random game, each new throw is stochastic, not dependent on the outcomes of previous throws. Thus in a truly random game, no matter how many times “Paper” has come up in a row before, there is a 1 in 3 chance of it coming up again. Given the nature of human psychology, if Paper has come up twice, there is far less than a 1 in 3 chance that the player will choose it again.

Even players who know this have to consciously try to overcome their bias against streaks — particularly if they lose with one gesture on the previous round. If you have played Paper twice in a row, and lost the last time you played, the human instinct is to try something different, and thus players will at that point choose Paper far less than one-third of the time.

In short, a player who has studied the game will unquestionably win more than chance would dictate against a naïve player, because he understands how human psychology is likely to affect the choices of his opponent. Of course, two players who both understand these factors are on a more even plane; but even here, there is the factor of human readability. It is hard to maintain a perfect “poker face,” and some are better at it than others. Some are better at noticing subtle cues in the expressions or body language of others. These skills are not always sufficient to ensure triumph, but they do produce a bias in favor of those more observant — and more socially adept at reading others.

In other words, at first glance rock-paper-scissors appears to be a guessing game, with victory going to the player who can outguess his opponent; at second glance, it appears to be purely arbitrary; and at third glance, the original supposition is justified. It is, in fact, a guessing game with victory going to the player who can outguess his opponent, but there are strategies to “outguessing.”

Where is the uncertainty in rock-paper-scissors? That should be obvious. It is in the unpredictability of opposing players. In fact, that is all there is in rock-paper-scissors; a first-player shooter played in deathmatch mode may rely to some degree on player unpredictability, but it also relies on player performance. Rock-paper-scissors is a game of player unpredictability in its purest form, for this single factor is the sole determinant of the game’s uncertainty, its raison d’être, and its cultural continuance.

Greg Costikyan, an award-winning designer of board, tabletop, roleplaying, computer, online, mobile, and social games, and the author of several books, including “Uncertainty in Games,” from which this article is excerpted.

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The transition to online learning in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic was, by many accounts, a failure. While there were some bright spots across the country, the transition was messy and uneven—countless teachers had neither the materials nor training they needed to effectively connect with students remotely, while many of those students were bored, isolated, and lacked the resources they needed to learn. The results were abysmal: low test scores, fewer children learning at grade level, increased inequity, and teacher burnout. With the public health crisis on top of deaths and job losses in many families, students experienced increases in depression, anxiety, and suicide risk.

Yet society very well may face new widespread calamities in the near future, from another pandemic to extreme weather, that will require a similarly quick shift to remote school. Success will hinge on big changes, from infrastructure to teacher training, several experts told Undark. “We absolutely need to invest in ways for schools to run continuously, to pick up where they left off. But man, it’s a tall order,” said Heather L. Schwartz, a senior policy researcher at RAND. “It’s not good enough for teachers to simply refer students to disconnected, stand-alone videos on, say, YouTube. Students need lessons that connect directly to what they were learning before school closed.”

More than three years after U.S. schools shifted to remote instruction on an emergency basis, the education sector is still largely unprepared for another long-term interruption of in-person school. The stakes are highest for those who need it most: low-income children and students of color, who are also most likely to be harmed in a future pandemic or live in communities most affected by climate change. But, given the abundance of research on what didn’t work during the pandemic, school leaders may have the opportunity to do things differently next time. Being ready would require strategic planning, rethinking the role of the teacher, and using new technology wisely, experts told Undark. And many problems with remote learning actually trace back not to technology, but to basic instructional quality. Effective remote learning won’t happen if schools aren’t already employing best practices in the physical classroom, such as creating a culture of learning from mistakes, empowering teachers to meet individual student needs, establishing high expectations, and setting clear goals supported by frequent feedback. While it’s ambitious to envision that every school district will create seamless virtual learning platforms—and, for that matter, overcome challenges in education more broadly—the lessons of the pandemic are there to be followed or ignored.

“We haven’t done anywhere near the amount of planning or the development of the instructional infrastructure needed to allow for a smooth transition next time schools need to close for prolonged periods of time,” Schwartz said. “Until we can reach that goal, I don’t have high confidence that the next prolonged school closure will be substantially more successful.”

Before the pandemic, only 3 percent of U.S. school districts offered virtual school, mostly for students with unique circumstances, such as a disability or those intensely pursuing a sport or the performing arts, according to a RAND survey Schwartz co-authored. For the most part, the educational technology companies and developers creating software for these schools promised to give students a personalized experience. But the research on these programs, which focused on virtual charter schools that only existed online, showed poor outcomes. Their students were a year behind in math and nearly a half-year behind in reading, and courses offered less direct time with a teacher each week than regular schools have in a day.

The pandemic sparked growth in stand-alone virtual academies, in addition to the emergency remote learning that districts had to adopt in March 2020. Educators’ interest in online instructional materials exploded, too, according to Schwartz, “and it really put the foot on the gas to ramp them up, expand them, and in theory, improve them.” By June 2021, the number of school districts with a stand-alone virtual school rose to 26 percent. Of the remaining districts, another 23 percent were interested in offering an online school, the report found.

But the sheer magnitude of options for online learning didn’t necessarily mean it worked well, Schwartz said: “It’s the quality part that has to come up in order for this to be a really good, viable alternative to in person instruction.” And individualized, self-directed online learning proved to be a pipe dream—especially for younger children who needed support from a parent or other family member even to get online, much less stay focused.

“The notion that students would have personalized playlists and could curate their own education was proven to be problematic on a couple levels, especially for younger and less affluent students,” said Thomas Toch, director of FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. “The social and emotional toll that isolation and those traumas took on students suggest that the social dimension of schooling is hugely important and was greatly undervalued, especially by proponents for an increased role of technology.”

Students also often didn’t have the materials they needed for online school, some lacking computers or internet access at home. Teachers didn’t have the right training for online instruction, which has a unique pedagogy and best practices. As a result, many virtual classrooms attempted to replicate the same lessons over video that would’ve been delivered at school. The results were overwhelmingly bad, research shows. ​​For example, a 2022 study found six consistent themes about how the pandemic affected learning, including a lack of interaction between students and with teachers, and disproportionate harm to low-income students. Numb from isolation and too many hours in front of a screen, students failed to engage in coursework and suffered emotionally.

After some districts resumed in-person or hybrid instruction in the 2020 fall semester, it became clear that the longer students were remote, the worse their learning delays. For example, national standardized test scores for the 2020-2021 school year showed that passing rates for math declined about 14 percentage points on average, more than three times the drop seen in districts that returned to in-person instruction the earliest, according to a 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research study. Even after most U.S. districts resumed in-person instruction, students who had been online the longest continued to lag behind their peers. The pandemic hit cities hardest and the effects disproportionately harmed low-income children and students of color in urban areas.

“What we did during the pandemic is not the optimal use of online learning in education for the future,” said Ashley Jochim, a researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. “Online learning is not a full stop substitute for what kids need to thrive and be supported at school.”

Children also largely prefer in-person school. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey suggested that 65 percent of students would rather be in a classroom, 9 percent would opt for online only, and the rest are unsure or prefer a hybrid model. “For most families and kids, full-time online school is actually not the educational solution they want,” Jochim said.

Virtual school felt meaningless to Abner Magdaleno, a 12th grader in Los Angeles. “I couldn’t really connect with it, because I’m more of, like, a social person. And that was stripped away from me when we went online,” recalled Magdaleno. Mackenzie Sheehy, 19, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, found there were too many distractions at home to learn. Her grades suffered, and she missed the one-on-one time with teachers. (Sheehy graduated from high school in 2022.)

Many teachers feel the same way. “Nothing replaces physical proximity, whatever the age,” said Ana Silva, a New York City English teacher. She enjoyed experimenting with interactive technology during online school, but is grateful to be back in person. “I like the casual way kids can come to my desk and see me. I like the dynamism—seeing kids in the cafeteria. Those interactions are really positive, and they were entirely missing during the online learning.”

During the 2022-2023 school year, many districts initially planned to continue online courses for snow days and other building closures. But they found that the teacher instruction, student experience, and demands on families were simply too different for in-person versus remote school, said Liz Kolb, an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. “Schools are moving away from that because it’s too difficult to quickly transition and blend back and forth among the two without having strong structures in place,” Kolb said. “Most schools don’t have those strong structures.”

In addition, both families and educators grew sick of their screens. “They’re trying to avoid technology a little bit. There’s this fatigue coming out of remote learning and the pandemic,” said Mingyu Feng, a research director at WestEd, a nonprofit research agency. “If the students are on Zoom every day for like, six hours, that seems to be not quite right.”

Despite the bumpy pandemic rollout, online school can serve an important role in the U.S. education system. For one, online learning is a better alternative for some students. Garvey Mortley, 15, of Bethesda, Maryland, and her two sisters all switched to their district’s virtual academy during the pandemic to protect their own health and their grandmother’s. This year, Mortley’s sisters went back to in-person school, but she chose to stay online. “I love the flexibility about it,” she said, noting that some of her classmates prefer it because they have a disability or have demanding schedules. “I love how I can just roll out of bed in the morning, and I can sit down and do school.” Some educators also prefer teaching online, according to reports of virtual schools that were inundated with applications from teachers because they wanted to keep working from home. Silva, the New York high school English teacher, enjoys online tutoring and academic coaching, because it facilitates one-on-one interaction.

And in rural districts and those with low enrollment, some access to online learning ensures students can take courses that could otherwise be inaccessible. “Because of the economies of scale in small rural districts, they needed to tap into online and shared service delivery arrangements in order to provide a full complement of coursework at the high school level,” said Jochim. Innovation in these districts, she added, will accelerate: “We’ll continue to see growth, scalability, and improvement in quality.”

There were also some schools that were largely successful at switching to online at the start of the pandemic, such as Vista Unified School District in California, which pooled and shared innovative ideas for adapting in March 2020; the school quickly put together an online portal so that principals and teachers could share ideas and the district could allot the necessary resources. Digging into examples like this could point the way to the future of online learning, said Chelsea Waite, a senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, who was part of a collaborative project studying 70 schools and districts that pivoted successfully to online learning. The project found three factors that made the transition work: a focus on resilience, collaboration, and autonomy for both students and educators; a healthy culture that prioritized relationships; and strong yet flexible systems that were accustomed to adaptation.

“We investigated schools that did seem to be more prepared for the Covid disruption, not just with having devices in students’ hands or having an online curriculum already, but with a learning culture in the school that really prioritized agency and problem solving as skills for students and adults,” Waite said. “In these schools, kids are learning from a very young age to be a little bit more self-directed, to set goals, and pursue them and pivot when they need to.”

Similarly, many of the takeaways from the pandemic trace back to the basics of effective education, not technological innovation. A landmark report by the National Academies of Sciences called “How People Learn,” most recently updated in 2018, synthesized the body of educational research and identified four key features in the most successful learning environments. First, these schools are designed for, and adapt to, the specific students, building on what they bring to the classroom, such as skills and beliefs. Second, successful schools give their students clear goals, showing them what they need to learn and how they can get there. Third, they provide in-the-moment feedback that emphasizes understanding, not memorization. And finally, the most successful schools are community-centered, with a culture of collaboration and acceptance of mistakes.

“We as humans are social learners, yet some of the tech talk is driven by people who are strong individual learners,” said Jeremy Roschelle, executive director of Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise, a global education nonprofit. “They’re not necessarily thinking about how most people learn, which is very social.”

Another powerful insight from pandemic-era remote schooling involves the evolving role of teachers, said Kim Kelly, a middle school math teacher at Northbridge Middle School in Massachusetts and a K-8 curriculum coach. Historically, a teacher’s role is the keeper of knowledge who delivers instruction. But in recent years, there has been a shift in approach, where teachers think of themselves as coaches who can intervene based on a student’s individual learning progress. Technology that assists with a coach-like role can be effective—but requires educators to be trained and comfortable interpreting data on student needs.

For example, with a digital learning platform called ASSISTments, teachers can assign math problems, students complete them—potentially receiving in-the-moment feedback on steps they’re getting wrong—and then the teachers can use data from individual students and the entire class to plan instruction and see where additional support is needed.

“A big advantage of these computer-driven products is they really try to diagnose where students are, and try to address their needs. It’s very personalized, individualized,” said WestEd’s Feng, who has evaluated ASSISTments and other educational technologies. She noted that some teachers feel frustrated “when you expect them to read the data and try to figure out what the students’ needs are.”

Teacher’s colleges don’t typically prepare educators to interpret data and change their practices, said Kelly, whose dissertation focused on self-regulated online learning. But professional development has helped her learn to harness technology to improve teaching and learning. “Schools are in data overload; we are oozing data from every direction, yet none of it is very actionable,” she said. Some technology, she added, provided student data that she could use regularly, which changed how she taught and assigned homework.

When students get feedback from the computer program during a homework session, the whole class doesn’t have to review the homework together, which can save time. Educators can move forward on instruction—or if they see areas of confusion, focus more on those topics. The ability of the programs to detect how well students are learning “is unreal,” said Kelly, “but it really does require teachers to be monitoring that data and interpreting.” She learned to accept that some students could drive their own learning and act on the feedback from homework, while others simply needed more teacher intervention. She now does more assessment at the beginning of a course to better support all students.

At the district or even national level, letting teachers play to their strengths can also help improve how their students learn, Toch, of FutureEd, said. For example, if a teacher is better at delivering instruction, they could give a lesson to a larger group of students online, while another teacher who is more comfortable in the coach role could work in smaller groups or one-on-one.

“One thing we saw during the pandemic are smart strategies for using technology to get outstanding teachers in front of more students,” Toch said, describing one effort that recruited exceptional teachers nationally and built a strong curriculum to be delivered online. “The local educators were providing support for their students in their classrooms.”

Remote schooling requires new technology, and already, educators are swamped with competing platforms and software choices—most of which have insufficient evidence of efficacy. Traditional independent research on specific technologies is sparse, Roschelle said. Post-pandemic, the field is so diverse and there are so many technologies in use, it’s almost impossible to find a control group to design a randomized control trial, he added. However, there is qualitative research and evidence that give hints about the quality of technology and online learning, such as case studies and school recommendations.

Educational leaders should ask three key questions about technology before investing, recommended Ryan Baker, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania: Is there evidence it works to improve learning outcomes? Does the vendor provide support and training, or are teachers on their own? And does it work with the same types of students as are in their school or district? In other words, educators must look at a technology’s track record in the context of their own school’s demographics, geography, culture, and challenges. These decisions are complicated by the small universe of researchers and evaluators, who have many overlapping relationships. (Over his career, for example, Baker has worked with or consulted for many of the education technology firms that create the software he studies.)

It may help to broaden the definition of evidence. The Center on Reinventing Public Education launched the Canopy project to collect examples of effective educational innovation around the U.S.

“What we wanted to do is build much better and more open and collective knowledge about where schools are challenging old assumptions and redesigning what school is and should be,” she added, noting that these educational leaders are reconceptualizing the skills they want students to attain. “They’re often trying to measure or communicate concepts that we don’t have great measurement tools for yet. So they end up relying on a lot of testimonials and evidence of student work.”

The moment is ripe for innovation in online and in-person education, said Julia Fallon, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, since the pandemic accelerated the rollout of devices and needed infrastructure. There’s an opportunity and need for technology that empowers teachers to improve learning outcomes and work more efficiently, said Roschelle. Online and hybrid learning are clearly here to stay—and likely will be called upon again during future temporary school closures.

Still, poorly-executed remote learning risks tainting the whole model; parents and students may be unlikely to give it a second chance. The pandemic showed the hard and fast limits on the potential for fully remote learning to be adopted broadly, for one, because in many communities, schools serve more than an educational function—they support children’s mental health, social needs, and nutrition and other physical health needs. The pandemic also highlighted the real challenge in training the entire U.S. teaching corps to be proficient in technology and data analysis. And the lack of a nimble shift to remote learning in an emergency will disproportionately harm low-income children and students of color. So the stakes are high for getting it right, experts told Undark, and summoning the political will.

“There are these benefits in online education, but there are also these real weaknesses we know from prior research and experience,” Jochim said. “So how do we build a system that has online learning as a complement to this other set of supports and experiences that kids benefit from?”

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning journalist covering children, race, gender, disability, mental health, social justice, and science.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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While hours-long Monopoly games may lead to friendly rivalry among family and friends, board games like the rainbow-colored classic can help young children improve their math skills. A ssmall study published July 6 in the journal Early Years finds that board games based on numbers can help three- to nine-year-olds improve addition, counting, and the ability to recognize if a number is higher and lower than another.

[Related: It’s in the rules to play dirty in this new soil-themed board game.]

The study team believes that children can benefit from learning programs or interventions where board games like Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders are used a few times per week while supervised by a teacher or trained adult.  

Games can help enhance learning, but games where  players take turns to move their pieces around a board can have different impacts from those that require wagering or gambling. The fixed rules of a board game also limit a player’s activities and the moves on the board, which can usually determine the overall playing situation. 

“Using board games can be considered a strategy with potential effects on basic and complex math skills,” Jaime Balladares, study co-author and educational psychologist at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, said in a statement. “Board games can easily be adapted to include learning objectives related to mathematical skills or other domains.”

In the study, the team reviewed 19 studies conducted between 2000-2023 involving children ages three to nine. All of the studies except for one focused on the relationship between mathematical skills and boardgames. The children participating in the studies received adult-led board game sessions that took place an average of twice a week for 20 minutes over one-and-a-half months. 

They found that math skills improved significantly after the sessions among children for 52 percent of the tasks analyzed. Additionally, in nearly one-third (32 percent) of the cases, the children in the game groups gained better results than the ones who did not participate in the games. 

In some of the studies the team analyzed, children were grouped into either number-based board games or to a board game that didn’t focus on numeracy skills. Other studies used number-based board games, but were allocated different types, like dominoes vs. Monopoly. 

[Related: How climate change board games could turn play into action.]

All of the participants were assessed on their math performance after the game sessions, which were designed to encourage early math skills such as counting out loud. The study team rated success by four categories: numeric competency, simple number comprehension like ‘‘nine is greater than three,” deeper comprehension where a child can add and subtract, and their interest in mathematics

According to Balladeres, designing and implementing board games along with scientific procedures that can evaluate their efficacy in helping kids learn math are critical tasks educators should develop.   

“Future studies should be designed to explore the effects that these games could have on other cognitive and developmental skills,” said Balladeres. “An interesting space for the development of intervention and assessment of board games should open up in the next few years, given the complexity of games and the need to design more and better games for educational purposes.”

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To say that it’s impossible to function before that first cup of coffee in the morning is borderline clichè, but are those beans really doing the work we think it is to perk us up? A study published June 28 in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience by a team based in Portugal found that the experience of consuming coffee may act a bit like the placebo when it comes to making coffee drinkers feel ready to tackle the day. 

[Related: Forget black coffee—a hormone shot helped tipsy rodents sober up.]

Most coffee drinkers say their morning cup of joe makes them feel more alert and efficient due to its caffeine. This study looked at coffee drinkers to better understand if this wakefulness depends on the properties of the caffeine itself, or if it has to do with the experience of that first deliciously brewed sip. 

“There is a common expectation that coffee increases alertness and psychomotor functioning,” study co-author and University of Minho neuroscientist Nuno Sousa said in a statement. “When you get to understand better the mechanisms underlying a biological phenomenon, you open pathways for exploring the factors that may modulate it and even the potential benefits of that mechanism.”

In the study, the team recruited participants who drank at least one cup of coffee per day and asked them to not eat or drink caffeinated beverages for at least three hours before the study. They then interviewed the participants and performed two brief functional MRI (fMRI) scans. One can was before taking caffeine, or consuming a standardized cup of coffee, and the other scan was 30 minutes after. The participants were asked to relax and let their minds wander during the fMRI scans. These scans are similar to traditional MRI’s, but they examine how the brain functions and its activities.

Initially, the team expected that the fMRI scans would show that those who drank coffee had a higher integration in two parts of the brain because of coffee’s known neurochemical events. They thought they’d see it in the networks of the brain linked to the prefrontal cortex–where executive memory happens–and the default mode network, which is involved in introspection and self-reflection. 

The connectivity in the default mode network decreased after drinking coffee and after taking caffeine. This indicates that consuming either substance made more people prepared to transition from the restful nature of sleep and waking up to working on the tasks of the day. 

[Related: How to enjoy a more sustainable cup of coffee.]

However, drinking coffee increased the connectivity in the higher visual network and the right executive control network. These parts of the brain are involved in working memory, cognitive control, and goal-directed behavior. This increase did not occur when the participants only took caffeine, which the researchers say that this means if you want to feel not just alert, but also ready to go, caffeine alone won’t do it. You need that mug of java. 

“In simple words, the subjects were more ready for action and alert to external stimuli after having coffee,” co-author and neuroscientist at Jaume I University Maria Picó-Pérez said in a statement. “Taking into account that some of the effects that we found were reproduced by caffeine, we could expect other caffeinated drinks to share some of the effects. However, others were specific for coffee drinking, driven by factors such as the particular smell and taste of the drink, or the psychological expectation associated with consuming that drink.”

The team points out that it is possible that this experience around drinking decaffeinated coffee could be behind the neurological benefits. The study was unable to differentiate the effects of the drinking experience alone from the experience combined with the caffeine. 

“The changes in connectivity were studied during a resting-state sequence. Any association with psychological and cognitive processes is interpreted based on the common function ascribed to the regions and networks found, but it was not directly tested,” cautioned Sousa. “Moreover, there could be individual differences in the metabolism of caffeine among participants that would be interesting to explore in the future.”

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Speculative horror fiction, traditional Japanese puppetry, and cultural concepts of autonomy are inspiring a new project aimed at providing humans with sets of detachable cyborg arms. Jizai Arms are sleek, controllable appendages designed to compliment users’ movements, expression, and artistry. The University of Tokyo team lead by co-creator Masahiko Inami presented their creation for the first time last month at the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Unlike the headline-grabbing worlds of AI and autonomous robot technologies, however, Inami explained to Reuters on Tuesday that Jizai Arms are “absolutely not a rival to human beings.” Instead, the interchangeable limbs are meant to aid users to “do as we please… it supports us and can unlock creativity” in accordance with the Japanese concept of “jizai.” The term roughly translates to autonomy or freedom. According to the presentation’s abstract, the project is also intended to explore myriad possibilities between “digital cyborgs in a cyborg society.”

[Related: The EU just took a huge step towards regulating AI.]

To use Jizai Arms, subjects first strap on a harness to their torso. From there, arms can be attached into back sockets, and are currently controlled by a user or third-party via a miniature model of the same technology.

The project is partially inspired by centuries’ old “Jizai Okimono” animal puppetry, as well as Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata’s magical realism short story, “One Arm.” In this 1964 tale, a woman lets a man borrow her detached arm for an evening. “Half a century since its writing,” reads the paper’s introduction, “emerging human-machine integration technologies have begun to allow us to physically experience Kawabata’s world.”

Videos provided by the project showcase dancers performing choreography alongside classical music while wearing the accessory arms. The team’s paper describes other experiences such as varying the number and designs of the cybernetic arms, swapping appendages between multiple users, and interacting with each other’s extra limbs. In the proof-of-concept video, for example, the two ballet dancers ultimately embrace one another using both their human and artificial arms.

[Related: Cyborg cockroaches could one day scurry to your rescue.]

According to Inami, users are already forming bonds with their wearables after experiencing the Jizai Arms. “Taking them off after using them for a while feels a little sad,” they relayed to Reuters. “That’s where they’re a little different [from] other tools.” In a similar vein, researchers plan to look into long term usage of such devices, and how that could fundamentally change humans’ daily perceptions of themselves and others. 

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In Head Trip, PopSci explores the relationship between our brains, our senses, and the strange things that happen in between.

CAN YOU TELL when you’ve suddenly and accidentally broken into song? When you say, “I don’t know,” does it sound like a melody that you can hum? Why does a spoken word, when repeated over and over, begin to sound musical? 

To understand why people sometimes hear uttered phrases as melodies, let’s first break down language to its auditory elements. Not vowels and consonants–that’s too far. Instead, let’s focus on what linguists like me call prosody, or the intonation, stress, and rhythm of individual syllables.

In 1995, Diana Deutsch, an expert on musical illusions and paradoxes, coined the term speech-to-song illusion. She was reviewing a longer recording of herself and found that the seemingly random phrase sometimes behave so strangely, clipped out of context and left on repeat, began to sound like a song, complete with rhythm and melody. (You can hear a loop of the recording online.)

As it turns out, the illusion does not stem from Deutsch’s voice being especially musical. This illusion happens with all sorts of spoken stimuli that are played at regular intervals. The effect is most intense when the repeated stimulus is in a language that is very different phonologically from the listener’s native language. For example, in one 2015 study, English speakers most easily heard spoken Irish as song, followed by Hindi and Croatian.

Why is repetition so important here? There are measurable differences in how verbal stimuli sound when played once versus on repeat. In a 2008 study by Deutsch and colleagues, 31 participants were asked to repeat the stimulus themselves. After hearing it once, they spoke the sequence of words they’d heard; after 10 repetitions, they began to sing their responses, with a slightly larger pitch range than the original stimulus and the spoken responses. What’s more, according to a 2013 fMRI study (by a team that included Deutsch), repeated stimulus activates a part of the brain that is also activated by song and associated with the processing of complex pitch patterns, a network of eight different regions.

While Deutsch is credited for discovering the illusion in the realm of psychology, the basic premise—that repetition will add a layer of musicality to a recording of speech—was recognized long before 1995. Specifically, her use of a clipped recording on repeat reminded me of sampling, a technique used in hip-hop in which clips of existing recordings (sometimes speech) are incorporated in a new musical arrangement. 

To put this practice into context, I spoke to two experts: Langston Wilkins, expert in hip-hop and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Dan Charnas, historian of hip-hop and associate arts professor at New York University. Both confirmed that the use of repetition to add musicality to spoken vocal samples is a common practice in hip-hop, but neither was familiar with Deutsch’s framing of the phenomenon as an auditory illusion. Wilkins describes some of the sources hip-hop takes spoken samples from, including sermons, speeches, and film and TV dialogue. Charnas notes that the practice actually precedes hip-hop and tape recorders, with many vocal traditions originating in the African American community and gaining their musicality through repetition, for instance rap. The fact that these traditions were pioneered by African Americans may explain how the speech-to-song illusion evaded academic studies of musicality until the 1990’s—as Charnas notes, this reflects a general trend in academia failing to center African American culture, a culture in which “speech and song…have always been twin.”

But why does the illusion happen? As a linguist who studies intonation, I see a number of factors that may be at play here. First, I think it is significant that Deutsch and other scholars use clips cut out of longer recordings to demonstrate the illusion. Sentences in English and other languages have intonation, which includes pitch movements and other acoustic patterns that can span a full sentence. Cutting words out of a sentence will make a lot of these patterns incomplete. In a way, it is like cropping aterm out of the word watermelon and finding that it stops sounding like a word. The intonation that remains on Deutsch’s sometimes behave so strangely doesn’t sound like that of a full sentence. But unlike sentences, songs can have any melody they want. Perhaps that makes it easier for us to process phrases and clips like these as singing.

Another way to break down the speech-to-song illusion is by thinking about how humans process the “melody,” or pitch contour, of speech separately from the consonants and vowels that it is realized on. One example from English is the phrase I don’t know, which can be condensed to iunno, or even hummed as the melody you would expect to hear on iunno: a rise-fall-rise pitch contour. The hummed version of this melody contains none of the consonants or vowels in the phrase I don’t know, but people still know it means I don’t know, especially when you pair it with a visual cue like a shrug.

The process is not unique to English, either. One of the languages I studied for my dissertation, Amis (an Indigenous language of Taiwan), has its own iunno. In Amis, the phrase i saw (pronounced like “ee sow”) is added for emphasis on phrases like Really? You can either say the phrase in full, or you can just invoke the tonal melody that would have been on the phrase. These examples show that humans who are not hard of hearing can home in on the melody of speech, a key component of the speech-to-sound illusion. 

“The illusion is weaker in speakers of tonal languages,” says Andrew King, director of the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He’s referring to languages like Chinese and Yoruba in which tones are an integral part of the phonetic structure of words, alongside consonants and vowels. This tells me that the ability to separate the tonal contour from the consonants and vowels must be a crucial component of this illusion. 

When asked about people who might pick up on different aspects of the speech signal due to differences in hearing, Neil Bauman, founder of the Center for Hearing Loss Help, immediately saw a connection between the speech-to-song illusion and audio pareidolia, a phenomenon in which speech or music are perceived in random sounds not produced by humans. Bauman explained that like the speech-to-song illusion stimuli, some cases of audio pareidolia do involve a rhythmic element, such as a fan with a loose bearing that creaks and whizzes at fixed intervals, which may more easily trigger an audio illusion. 

While scholars are still working on exactly how and why the speech-to-song illusion happens, the fact remains that under the right conditions, people can hear songs when none were intended. This finding has been replicated, on repeat, both in the laboratory and in the DJ booth. 

Ben Macaulay is a lecturer in English linguistics at Lund University. His research focuses on prosody and intonation, namely the production, processing, development, and documentation of sentence-level tonal contours in the world’s languages. He received a Ph.D. in 2021 at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and his dissertation project was a typological study of intonation in the endangered Indigenous languages of Taiwan based on novel fieldwork.

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This article was originally published on The Markup. This article was copublished with STAT, a national publication that delivers trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences. Sign up for its health tech newsletter here.

Websites for mental health crisis resources across the country—which promise anonymity for visitors, many of whom are at a desperate moment in their lives—have been quietly sending sensitive visitor data to Facebook, The Markup has found. 

Dozens of websites tied to the national mental health crisis 988 hotline, which launched last summer, transmit the data through a tool called the Meta Pixel, according to testing conducted by The Markup. That data often included signals to Facebook when visitors attempted to dial for mental health emergencies by tapping on dedicated call buttons on the websites. 

In some cases, filling out contact forms on the sites transmitted hashed but easily unscrambled names and email addresses to Facebook. 

The Markup tested 186 local crisis center websites under the umbrella of the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Calls to the national 988 line are routed to these centers based on the area code of the caller. The organizations often also operate their own crisis lines and provide other social services to their communities. 

The Markup’s testing revealed that more than 30 crisis center websites employed the Meta Pixel, formerly called the Facebook Pixel. The pixel, a short snippet of code included on a webpage that enables advertising on Facebook, is a free and widely used tool. A 2020 Markup investigation found that 30 percent of the web’s most popular sites use it.

The pixels The Markup found tracked visitor behavior to different degrees. All of the sites recorded that a visitor had viewed the homepage, while others captured more potentially sensitive information. 

Many of the sites included buttons that allowed users to directly call either 988 or a local line for mental health help. But clicking on those buttons often triggered a signal to be sent to Facebook that shared information about what a visitor clicked on. A pixel on one site sent data to Facebook on visitors who clicked a button labeled “24-Hour Crisis Line” that called local crisis services.

Clicking a button or filling out a form also sometimes sent personally identifiable data, such as names or unique ID numbers, to Facebook. 

The website for the Volunteers of America Western Washington is a good example. The social services nonprofit says it responds to more than 300,000 requests for assistance each year. When a web user visited the organization’s website, a pixel on the homepage noted the visit.

If the visitor then tried to call the national 988 crisis hotline through the website by clicking on a button labeled “call or text 988,” that click—including the text on the button—was sent to Facebook. The click also transmitted an “external ID,” a code that Facebook uses to attempt to match web users to their Facebook accounts. 

If a visitor filled out a contact form on the Volunteers of America Western Washington’s homepage, even more private information was transmitted to Facebook. After filling out and sending the form, a pixel transmitted hashed, or scrambled, versions of the person’s first and last name, as well as email address. Volunteers of America Western Washington did not respond to requests for comment. 

The Markup found similar activity on other sites. 

The Contra Costa Crisis Center, an organization providing social services in Northern California, noted to Facebook when a user clicked on a button to call or text for crisis services. About 3,000 miles away, in Rhode Island, an organization called BH Link used a pixel that also pinged Facebook when a visitor clicked a button to call crisis services from its homepage. (After publication of this article Contra Costa Crisis Center told The Markup that it had removed the pixel.)

Facebook can use data collected by the pixel to link website visitors to their Facebook accounts, but the data is collected whether or not the visitor has a Facebook account. Although the names and email addresses sent to Facebook were hashed, they can be easily unscrambled with free and widely available web services. 

After The Markup contacted the 33 crisis centers about their practices, some said they were unaware that the code was on their sites and that they’d take steps to remove it. 

“This was not intentional and thank you for making us aware of the potential issue,” Leo Pellerin, chief information officer for the United Way of Connecticut, a partner in the national 988 network, said in an emailed statement. Pellerin said they had removed the code, which they attributed to a plug-in on their website.

Lee Flinn, director of the Idaho Crisis and Suicide Hotline, said in an email that she had “never heard of Meta Pixel” and was asking the outside vendor who had worked on the organization’s site to remove the code. “We value the privacy of individuals who reach out to us, and any tracking devices are not intentional on our part, nor did we ask any developer to install,” she said. “Anything regarding tracking that is found will be immediately removed.”

Ken Gibson, a spokesperson for the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, said the organization had recently placed the pixel on its site to advertise for staff but would now reduce the information the pixel gathers to only careers pages on the site.

In follow-up tests, four organizations appeared to have completely removed the code. The majority of the centers we contacted did not respond to requests for comment. 

“Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez told The Markup in an emailed statement that mirrored those the company has previously provided in response to reporting on the Meta Pixel. “Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business tools to prevent this from occurring. Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.”

Vazquez did not respond to a question about whether or how Meta could determine if this specific data was filtered.

There is no evidence that either Facebook or any of the crisis centers themselves attempted to identify visitors or callers, or that an actual human ever identified someone who attempted to call for help through a website. Some organizations explicitly said in response to The Markup’s requests for comment that they valued the anonymity promised by the 988 line. 

Mary Claire Givelber, executive director of New Jersey–based Caring Contact, said in an email that the organization had briefly used the pixel to recruit volunteers on Facebook but would now remove it. 

“For the avoidance of all doubt, Caring Contact has not used the Meta Pixel to identify, target, or advertise to any potential or actual callers or texters of the Caring Contact crisis hotline,” Givelber said.

Meta can use information gathered from its tools for its own purposes, however, and data sent to the company through the pixels scattered across the web enters a black box that can catalog and organize data with little oversight. 

Divendra Jaffar, a spokesperson for Vibrant Emotional Health, the nonprofit responsible for administering the national 988 crisis line, pointed out in an emailed statement that data transmitted through the pixel is encrypted. 

“While Vibrant Emotional Health does not require our 988 Lifeline network of crisis centers to provide updates on their marketing and advertising practices, we do provide best practices guidelines to our centers, counselors, and staff and hold them to rigorous operating standards, which are reviewed and approved by our government partners,” Jaffar said.

The organization did not respond to a request to provide any relevant best practices.

Jen King, the privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, said in an interview that, regardless of the reasons, Meta is gathering far too much data through its tools.

“Even if this is accidental still on the part of the developers, you shouldn’t still be able to fall into this trap,” she said. “The time has long passed when you can use that excuse.”

The Pixel and Sensitive Data 

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, offers the pixel as a way to track visitors on the web and to more precisely target ads to those visitors on Facebook. For businesses and other organizations, it’s a valuable tool: A small company can advertise on Facebook directly to people who purchased a certain product, for example, or a nonprofit could follow up on Facebook with users who donated on their last visit to a website. 

One organization, the Minnesota-based Greater Twin Cities United Way, said it did not use its website to reach out to potential 988 callers but instead focused on “donors and other organizational stakeholders.” Sam Daub, integrated marketing manager of the organization, said in an emailed statement that the organization uses tools like the pixel “to facilitate conversion-tracking and content retargeting toward users who visit our website” to reach those people but did not track specific activity of 988 callers.  

Apart from encouraging users to buy ads, this sort of data is also potentially valuable to Meta, which, in accordance with its terms of service, can use the information to power its algorithms. The company reserves the right to use data transmitted through the pixel to, for instance, “personalize the features and content (including ads and recommendations) that we show people on and off our Meta Products.” (This is one of the reasons an online shopper might look at a pair of pants online and suddenly see the same pair follow them in advertisements across social media.)

The pixel has proved massively popular. The company told Congress in 2018 that there were more than two million pixels collecting data across the web, a number that has likely increased in the time since. There is no federal privacy legislation in the United States that regulates how most of that data can be used.

Meta’s policies prohibit organizations from sending sensitive information through the pixel on children under 13, or generally any data related to sensitive financial or health matters. The company says it has an automated system “designed to filter out potentially sensitive data that it detects” but that it is advertisers’ responsibility to “ensure that their integrations do not send sensitive information to Meta.”

In practice, however, The Markup has found several major services have sent sensitive information to Facebook. As part of a project in partnership with Mozilla Rally called the Pixel Hunt, The Markup found pixels transmitting information from sources including the Department of Education, prominent hospitals, and major tax preparation companies. Many of those organizations have since changed how or whether they use the pixel, while lawmakers have questioned the companies involved about their practices. Meta is now facing several lawsuits over the incidents. 

The types of sensitive health information Meta specifically prohibits being sent include information on “mental health and psychological states” as well as “physical locations that identify a health condition, or places of treatment/counseling.” Vazquez did not directly respond to a question about whether the data sent from the crisis centers violated Meta’s policies. 

There is evidence that even Meta itself can’t always say where that data ends up. In a leaked document obtained and published by Vice’s Motherboard, company engineers said they did not “have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data.” The document compared user data to a bottle of ink spilled into a body of water that then becomes unrecoverable. A Facebook spokesperson responded to the report at the time, saying it left out a number of the company’s “extensive processes and controls to comply with privacy regulations,” though the spokesperson did not give any specifics. “It’s simply inaccurate to conclude that it demonstrates non-compliance,” the spokesperson said.

“The original use cases [for the pixel] perhaps weren’t quite so invasive, or people weren’t using it so widely,” King said but added that, at this point, Meta is “clearly grabbing way too much data.”

988 History and Controversy

The national 988 crisis line is the result of a years-long effort by the Federal Communications Commission to provide a simple, easy-to-remember, three-digit number for people experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Crisis lines are an enormously important social service—one that research has found can deter people from suicide. The new national line, largely a better-funded, more accessible version of the long-running National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, answered more than 300,000 calls, chats, and texts between its launch in the summer of last year and January. 

But the launch of 988 has been accompanied by questions about privacy and anonymity, mostly around how or whether callers to the line can ever be tracked by emergency services. The national line is advertised as an anonymous service, but in the past callers have said they’ve been tracked without their consent when calling crisis lines. Police have sometimes responded directly in those incidents, leading to harrowing incidents.

The current 988 line doesn’t track users through geolocation technology, according to the service, although counselors are required to provide information to emergency services like 911 in certain situations. That requirement has been the source of controversy, and groups like the Trans Lifeline, a nonprofit crisis hotline serving the trans community, stepped away from the network. 

The organization has launched a campaign to bring the issue more prominence. Yana Calou, the director of advocacy at Trans Lifeline, told The Markup in an interview that there are some lines that “really explicitly don’t” track, and the campaign is meant to direct people to those lines instead. (Trans Lifeline, which is not involved in the national 988 network, also uses the Meta Pixel on its site. After being alerted by The Markup, a Trans Lifeline spokesperson, Nemu HJ, said they would remove the code from the site.)

Data-sharing practices have landed other service providers in controversy as well. Last year, Politico reported that the nonprofit Crisis Text Line, a popular mental health service, was partnering with a for-profit spinoff that used data gleaned from text conversations to market customer-service software. The organization quickly ended the partnership after it was publicly revealed. 

Having a space where there’s a sense of trust between a caller and an organization can make all the difference in an intervention, Calou said. “Actually being able to have people tell us the truth about what’s going on lets people feel like they can get support,” they said.

This article was originally published on The Markup and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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This article originally published on KFF Health News.

For more than 20 years, the National Eating Disorders Association has operated a phone line and online platform for people seeking help for anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders. Last year, nearly 70,000 individuals used the help line.

NEDA shuttered that service in May, saying that, in its place, a chatbot called Tessa, designed by eating disorder experts with funding from NEDA, would be deployed.

When NPR aired a report about this last month, Tessa was up and running online. Since then, both the chatbot’s page and a NEDA article about Tessa have been taken down. When asked why, NEDA said the bot is being “updated,” and the latest “version of the current program [will be] available soon.”

Then NEDA announced on May 30 that it was indefinitely disabling Tessa. Patients, families, doctors, and other experts on eating disorders were stunned. The episode has set off a fresh wave of debate as companies turn to artificial intelligence as a possible solution for a mental health crisis and treatment shortage.

Paid staffers and volunteers for the NEDA help line said that replacing the service with a chatbot could further isolate the thousands of people who use it when they feel they have nowhere else to turn.

“These young kids … don’t feel comfortable coming to their friends or their family or anybody about this,” said Katy Meta, a 20-year-old college student who has volunteered for the help line. “A lot of these individuals come on multiple times because they have no other outlet to talk with anybody. … That’s all they have, is the chat line.”

The decision is part of a larger trend: Many mental health organizations and companies are struggling to provide services and care in response to a sharp escalation in demand, and some are turning to chatbots and AI, even though clinicians are still trying to figure out how to effectively deploy them, and for what conditions.

The help line’s five staffers formally notified their employer they had formed a union in March. Just a few days later, on a March 31 call, NEDA informed them that they would be laid off in June. NPR and KFF Health News obtained audio of the call. “We will, subject to the terms of our legal responsibilities, [be] beginning to wind down the help line as currently operating,” NEDA board chair Geoff Craddock told them, “with a transition to Tessa, the AI-assisted technology, expected around June 1.”

NEDA’s leadership denies the decision had anything to do with the unionization but told NPR and KFF Health News it became necessary because of the covid-19 pandemic, when eating disorders surged and the number of calls, texts, and messages to the help line more than doubled.

The increase in crisis-level calls also raises NEDA’s legal liability, managers explained in an email sent March 31 to current and former volunteers, informing them that the help line was ending and that NEDA would “begin to pivot to the expanded use of AI-assisted technology.”

“What has really changed in the landscape are the federal and state requirements for mandated reporting for mental and physical health issues (self-harm, suicidality, child abuse),” according to the email, which NPR and KFF Health News obtained. “NEDA is now considered a mandated reporter and that hits our risk profile — changing our training and daily work processes and driving up our insurance premiums. We are not a crisis line; we are a referral center and information provider.”

Pandemic created a ‘perfect storm’ for eating disorders

When it was time for a volunteer shift on the help line, Meta usually logged in from her dorm room at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

Meta recalled a recent conversation on the help line’s messaging platform with a girl who said she was 11. The girl said she had just confessed to her parents that she was struggling with an eating disorder, but the conversation had gone badly.

“The parents said that they ‘didn’t believe in eating disorders’ and [told their daughter], ‘You just need to eat more. You need to stop doing this,’” Meta recalled. “This individual was also suicidal and exhibited traits of self-harm as well. … It was just really heartbreaking to see.”

Eating disorders are common, serious, and sometimes fatal illnesses. An estimated 9 percent of Americans experience an eating disorder during their lifetimes. Eating disorders also have some of the highest mortality rates among mental illnesses, with an estimated death toll of more than 10,000 Americans each year.

But after covid hit, closing schools and forcing people into prolonged isolation, crisis calls and messages like the one Meta describes became far more frequent on the help line.

In the U.S., the rate of pediatric hospitalizations and ER visits surged. On the NEDA help line, client volume increased by more than 100 percent compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“Eating disorders thrive in isolation, so covid and shelter-in-place was a tough time for a lot of folks struggling,” explained Abbie Harper, who has worked as a help line associate.

Until a few weeks ago, the help line was run by just five to six paid staffers and two supervisors, and it depended on a rotating roster of 90-165 volunteers at any given time, according to NEDA.

Yet even after lockdowns ended, NEDA’s help line volume remained elevated above pre-pandemic levels, and the cases continued to be clinically severe. Staffers felt overwhelmed, undersupported, and increasingly burned out, and turnover increased, according to multiple interviews.

The help line staff formally notified NEDA that their unionization vote had been certified on March 27. Four days later, they learned their positions were being eliminated.

“Our volunteers are volunteers,” said Lauren Smolar, NEDA’s vice president of mission and education. “They’re not professionals. They don’t have crisis training. And we really can’t accept that kind of responsibility.” Instead, she said, people seeking crisis help should be reaching out to resources like 988, a 24/7 suicide and crisis hotline that connects people with trained counselors.

The surge in volume also meant the help line was unable to respond immediately to 46 percent of initial contacts, and it could take six to 11 days to respond to messages.

“And that’s frankly unacceptable in 2023, for people to have to wait a week or more to receive the information that they need, the specialized treatment options that they need,” Smolar said.

After learning in the March 31 email that the helpline would be phased out, volunteer Faith Fischetti, 22, tried out the chatbot on her own, asking it some of the more frequent questions she gets from users. But her interactions with Tessa were not reassuring: “[The bot] gave links and resources that were completely unrelated” to her questions, she said.

Fischetti’s biggest worry is that someone coming to the NEDA site for help will leave because they “feel that they’re not understood, and feel that no one is there for them. And that’s the most terrifying thing to me.”

A chatbot can miss red flags

Tessa the chatbot was created to help a specific cohort: people with eating disorders who never receive treatment.

Only 20 percent of people with eating disorders get formal help, according to Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, a psychologist and associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her team created Tessa after receiving funding from NEDA in 2018, with the goal of looking for ways technology could help fill the treatment gap.

NEDA said Tessa was supposed to be a “rule-based” chatbot, meaning one that is programmed with a limited set of possible responses. It is not ChatGPT and cannot generate unique answers in response to specific queries. “So she can’t go off the rails, so to speak,” Fitzsimmons-Craft said.

The plan was for Tessa to guide users through an interactive, weeks-long course about body positivity, based on cognitive behavioral therapy tools. Additional content about bingeing, weight concerns, and regular eating was under development but not yet available to users.

There’s evidence the AI approach can help. Fitzsimmons-Craft’s team did a small study that found college students who interacted with Tessa had significantly greater reductions in “weight/shape concerns” than a control group at three- and six-month follow-ups.

But even the best-intentioned technology can carry risks. Fitzsimmons-Craft’s team published a different study looking at ways the chatbot “unexpectedly reinforced harmful behaviors at times.” For example, the chatbot would give users a prompt: “Please take a moment to write about when you felt best about your body?”

Responses included: “When I was underweight and could see my bones.” “I feel best about my body when I ignore it and don’t think about it at all.”

The chatbot seemed to ignore the troubling aspects of such responses — and even to affirm negative thinking — when it would reply: “It is awesome that you can recognize a moment when you felt confident in your skin, let’s keep working on making you feel this good more often.”

Researchers were able to troubleshoot some of those issues. But the chatbot still missed red flags, the study found, such as when it asked: “What is a small healthy eating habit goal you would like to set up before you start your next conversation?”

One user replied, “Don’t eat.”

“Take a moment to pat yourself on the back for doing this hard work, <>!” the chatbot responded.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology assistant professor Marzyeh Ghassemi has seen issues like this crop up in her own research developing machine learning to improve health.

Large language models and chatbots will inevitably make mistakes, but “sometimes they tend to be wrong more often for certain groups, like women and minorities,” she said.

If people receive bad advice or instructions from a bot, “people sometimes have a difficulty not listening to it,” Ghassemi added. “I think it sets you up for this really negative outcome … especially for a mental health crisis situation, where people may be at a point where they’re not thinking with absolute clarity. It’s very important that the information that you give them is correct and is helpful to them.”

And if the value of the live help line was the ability to connect with a real person who deeply understands eating disorders, Ghassemi said, a chatbot can’t do that.

“If people are experiencing a majority of the positive impact of these interactions because the person on the other side understands fundamentally the experience they’re going through, and what a struggle it’s been, I struggle to understand how a chatbot could be part of that.”

Tessa goes ‘off the rails’

When Sharon Maxwell heard NEDA was promoting Tessa as “a meaningful prevention resource” for those struggling with eating disorders, she wanted to try it out.

Maxwell, based in San Diego, had struggled for years with an eating disorder that began in childhood. She now works as a consultant in the eating disorder field. “Hi, Tessa,” she typed into the online text box. “How do you support folks with eating disorders?”

Tessa rattled off a list of ideas, including resources for “healthy eating habits.” Alarm bells immediately went off in Maxwell’s head. She asked Tessa for details. Before long, the chatbot was giving her tips on losing weight — ones that sounded an awful lot like what she’d been told when she was put on Weight Watchers at age 10.

“The recommendations that Tessa gave me were that I could lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500-1,000 calories per day,” Maxwell said. “All of which might sound benign to the general listener. However, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder.”

NEDA blamed the chatbot’s issues on Cass, the mental health chatbot company that operated Tessa as a free service. Cass had changed Tessa without NEDA’s awareness or approval, said NEDA CEO Liz Thompson, enabling the chatbot to generate new answers beyond what Tessa’s creators had intended.

Cass’ founder and CEO, Michiel Rauws, said the changes to Tessa were made last year as part of a “systems upgrade,” including an “enhanced question-and-answer feature.” That feature uses generative artificial intelligence — meaning it gives the chatbot the ability to use new data and create new responses.

That change was part of NEDA’s contract, Rauws said.

But Thompson disagrees. She told NPR and KFF Health News that “NEDA was never advised of these changes and did not and would not have approved them.”

“The content some testers received relative to diet culture and weight management, [which] can be harmful to those with eating disorders, is against NEDA policy, and would never have been scripted into the chatbot by eating disorders experts,” she said.

Complaints about Tessa started last year

NEDA was aware of issues with the chatbot months before Maxwell’s interactions with Tessa in late May.

In October 2022, NEDA passed along screenshots from Monika Ostroff, executive director of the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association in Massachusetts. They showed Tessa telling Ostroff to avoid “unhealthy” foods and eat only “healthy” snacks, like fruit.

“It’s really important that you find what healthy snacks you like the most, so if it’s not a fruit, try something else!” Tessa told Ostroff. “So the next time you’re hungry between meals, try to go for that instead of an unhealthy snack like a bag of chips. Think you can do that?”

Ostroff said this was a clear example of the chatbot encouraging “diet culture” mentality. “That meant that they [NEDA] either wrote these scripts themselves, they got the chatbot and didn’t bother to make sure it was safe and didn’t test it, or released it and didn’t test it,” she said.

The healthy-snack language was quickly removed after Ostroff reported it. But Rauws said that language was part of Tessa’s “pre-scripted language, and not related to generative AI.”

Fitzsimmons-Craft said her team didn’t write it, that it “was not something our team designed Tessa to offer and that it was not part of the rule-based program we originally designed.”

Then, earlier this year, “a similar event happened as another example,” Rauws said.

“This time it was around our enhanced question-and-answer feature, which leverages a generative model. When we got notified by NEDA that an answer text it provided fell outside their guidelines,” it was addressed right away, he said.

Rauws said he can’t provide more details about what this event entailed.

“This is another earlier instance, and not the same instance as over the Memorial Day weekend,” he said via email, referring to Maxwell’s interactions with Tessa. “According to our privacy policy, this is related to user data tied to a question posed by a person, so we would have to get approval from that individual first.”

When asked about this event, Thompson said she doesn’t know what instance Rauws is referring to.

Both NEDA and Cass have issued apologies.

Ostroff said that regardless of what went wrong, the impact on someone with an eating disorder is the same. “It doesn’t matter if it’s rule-based or generative, it’s all fat-phobic,” she said. “We have huge populations of people who are harmed by this kind of language every day.”

She also worries about what this might mean for the tens of thousands of people turning to NEDA’s help line each year.

Thompson said NEDA still offers numerous resources for people seeking help, including a screening tool and resource map, and is developing new online and in-person programs.

“We recognize and regret that certain decisions taken by NEDA have disappointed members of the eating disorders community,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “Like all other organizations focused on eating disorders, NEDA’s resources are limited and this requires us to make difficult choices. … We always wish we could do more and we remain dedicated to doing better.”

This article is from a partnership that includes Michigan Radio, NPR, and KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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In Head Trip, PopSci explores the relationship between our brains, our senses, and the strange things that happen in between.

USUALLY, pilots can navigate through cloudy and foggy conditions. They’re trained to do this. Substantially lowered visibility leaves them needing clarification and direction, and for that their instruments are essential. But in very rare cases, disagreement between their sensory experiences and reality can spell disaster. 

Sometimes a pilot can sense that the plane is descending, but feel confused as to why. The instruments could also indicate that the plane is drifting left or right while the pilot’s senses are pulling them in a different direction, throwing their instincts into chaos and preventing them from correcting the flight’s orientation quickly enough. The plane is turning and heading downward and the pilot isn’t helping. They have entered a death spiral. 

“It’s a catastrophic sensory illusion that can end up in a crash because someone relied on their perception of the plane’s orientation,” explains Jason Fischer, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. This is what happens when the pilot is tricked by their vestibular sense, “which allows you to perceive how your body is oriented in space when you don’t have enough visual information to go on,” he adds. A death spiral, or graveyard spiral, as it’s otherwise known, is caused by our innate impulse to rely on our sensory instincts. 

It is the way our brains are wired that can cause such a chaotic scenario. To traverse our world, we rely on several different senses. The strongest cues are visual. There is also the somatosensory system that senses temperature, pain, and, in this case, pressure, as in the “seat of the pants” feeling of being pushed down into your plane seat when the aircraft gains altitude. And then there’s the neurovestibular system. The brain relies on fluid moving through the inner ear’s small canals to help establish where the body is oriented in space and where it is going. Our vestibular sense works fine on solid ground and registers rapid changes in the speed and direction of our movement. But slow changes in movement can go unnoticed, as when the plane first begins to spiral off course. Because this fluid can settle in the ear canals during flight, a pilot might believe they’re level even as they are getting closer and closer to the ground, tuning all the while.

All this spatial confusion and the lack of clear sightlines leave the pilot bewildered and trusting their tragically mistaken instincts rather than their instruments. 

Fischer explained that the discombobulation that can result in a death spiral relates to how people combine information across the senses. For most of our worldly experiences, humans use multiple sources of information from different senses and collate that experience to emphasize the strengths of each piece of sensory data—as with smell and taste working together to create our experience of flavor. 

“Oftentimes, one given sense that has the most precise information will dominate perception,” says Fischer. “This kind of thing happens all the time with vision and audition, like when you try to judge the location of something based on hearing it. The signals coming from the front of you can be perfectly identical to those coming from behind you if you make those spatial judgments based on sound. At that point, you can have a rough sense of the location of the sound, but then you use vision to try to dial it in—which has the more powerful effect on localizing.” In a way, your eyes correct your ears.  

A death spiral is caused by similar sensory misunderstanding. The vestibular signals coming from the organs and canals in our ears are essentially accelerometers, providing a sense of our body’s movement through space and whether we’re starting to move faster. These signals also give us an idea of how we’re tilted relative to the ground due to gravity, a force that can cause acceleration. Our inner ears are fantastic at judging sudden movements, but gradual change? Not so much. 

“The problem is that they’re just accelerometers,” says Fischer. “They can’t really tell the difference between the acceleration due to gravity and the acceleration due to actual movement through space. As far as those organs are concerned, your own motion or acceleration through space has the same signal as acceleration due to gravity.” In other words, it is hard to tell the difference between going forward and down and just going forward. Fischer adds, “In order to disambiguate those things, you then need information from another sense.” 

Although a pilot may not be able to see the ground, they should be able to see the readings on their instruments. It is far safer to trust what the instruments say rather than what the body feels. It can mean the difference between life and death. 

Read more PopSci+ stories.

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Orcas may be one of the ocean’s top predators, but they’ve rarely shown aggression against humans or watercraft in the past. But since 2020, orca pods have increasingly targeted sailboats off the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe. In one instance, three of the black and white whales destroyed a vessel’s rudder, causing it to sink before it reached port. The Spanish coast guard called in a helicopter and sea cruiser to rescue the sailors.

The sea-mammal strikes have left scientists, sailors and social media users contemplating what’s changed in the last few years to cause this shift in behavior. Some experts suspect that one of the older female orcas involved, named White Gladis, had previously been hit by a ship or entrapped during illegal fishing. Questions arose. Are the whales attacking the boats to avenge White Gladis? Or are they simply defending themselves against more possible harm? Maybe they’re just playing with the sailboats? If the attacks were vengeful or defensive, does that mean orcas, and animals in general, can share their traumas with their social groups?

[Related: A baby orca sparks a glimmer of hope for an endangered group of whales]

Wild orcas don’t attack humans or approach boats. The subpopulation off the Iberian coast is considered critically endangered with only up to 50 adults, according to a 2019 estimate from the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But authorities worry that the number of attacks means they will continue. The Atlantic Orca Working group told The New York Times that since 2020, orcas were documented swimming at or reacting to vessels about 500 times in the seas around Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. They caused physical damage to the watercraft in about a fifth of those incidents.

Whether the attacks were motivated by vengeance, defense, or play is up for debate. David Diamond, a psychology professor at the University of South Florida, who studies how stress affects the brain in humans and animals, says it’s important to remember that we never know what an animal is thinking. “We interpret what they’re thinking from their behavior.”

Some scientists who study orcas suggested the strikes were playful given the species’ mischievous nature. Diamond, on the other hand, believes the animals are capable of retribution. He often shows videos of orcas in class and notes how they have a mammalian brain that is functionally similar to humans. “I can actually see the killer whale taking a proactive approach to say, this thing on the surface caused me harm so I want to get all my hunting party together and attack it,” he explains.

Linking the orca attacks to post-traumatic stress disorder, though, could be taking it too far. While White Gladis might have had a negative experience with a boat, it’s unlikely that she suffers from PTSD as some have speculated. The condition is unique to humans as it is diagnosed through self reports and not any physical test, Diamond says. More importantly, its symptoms go deeper than just remembering a harrowing experience and being fearful of it. “It changes [a person’s] personality; it changes their life,” he says. “So we don’t want to trivialize PTSD by saying, this orca had a terrible experience, therefore it has PTSD. Most people have terrible experiences in their lives and don’t develop PTSD.”

Even if animals don’t fit the clinical definition of PTSD patients, they could remember traumatic experiences or develop PTSD-like effects. In one study, Diamond’s team put lab rats in a box with cats, their natural predator. It triggered a part of the rodents’ brains known to be connected to the fear of death. Many weeks later, researchers put the rats back in the box in a different room without similar scents or cats. The subjects showed tremendous unease with the box itself, Diamond says. In another experiment, he paired a different set of rats and cats in boxes multiple times, and then sent the rodents to live with an unfamiliar rat afterward to simulate an unstable social life. They started to produce PTSD-like effects with changes in their physiology and behavior.

[Related on PopSci+: Can captive parrots have PTSD?]

And what about their roommates, or in the orcas’ case, their pod mates? It’s unlikely that animals can rehash all the details of a traumatic event to their acquaintances, but they might still be able to tip them off to the source of the trauma—and the subsequent dangers. About 16 years ago, John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington, captured American crows using nets to tag them with colored leg bands, so he could follow their behavior over their lifetimes. Now, many crows in the same neck of the woods show hostile behavior to humans. A lot of the birds that weren’t tagged “respond to us like we caught them,” Marzluff says. “So they are learning that we’re dangerous from others that either experienced it or saw the initial capture.”

Crows don’t just use group interactions to warn each other: They might take advantage of their numbers to engage with the threat. When the corvids see something they think is dangerous, they let out a harsh, scolding sound. Other crows hear it and then join in. “So it’s not like they’re telling one another, ‘Hey, there’s this guy who comes around once a year, watch out for him,’” Marzluff says. “It’s like, ‘I see this thing, which I’ve heard or known to be dangerous, come in here and learn about it with me. So from the orca example, it seems like they might be doing similar things.”

In another example, elephant mothers in Gorongosa National Park who survived hunters during Mozambique’s civil war sometimes enlist their kin and clans to chase away humans who come near them. It’s a defensive action, according to Liana Zanette, a biology professor at the University of Western Ontario, who researches predator-prey interactions. “These females lived during this time of this brutality by humans,” she says. “And so now whenever they see a human, they recognize it as a significant threat.”

While we may never fully never know why animals act the way they do, one thing is certain: Our presence makes a difference. Whether it’s an orca in the Strait of Gibraltar or a bird in your backyard, Marzluff says that we should know that animals are paying attention to what we do. “They do take information about our activities and use it in their behavior later,” he says. “We’re not just this static part of their environment. We’re an active species that they take seriously and respond to.”

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The brain is the most complex part of the human body. To keep our heads running smoothly,  more than 100 types of neurotransmitters must shuttle messages across multiple regions of white and gray matter. It’s difficult for researchers to track the immense number of connections that these chemical messengers make—Google recently created one of the most detailed maps of neuronal connectivity patterns, but even the tech giant could only focus on a small section of the brain. 

While it may take decades until someone fully maps out the human brain, there are ways to trace different aspects of connectivity. A new study published today in Science Advances used mind-altering drugs, such as ketamine and the surgical anesthetic propofol, to follow which neurotransmitter systems those pharmaceuticals activate. The findings help identify associations between these drugs and unexpected neurotransmitters. They could also help identify new treatment options for certain conditions and diseases, as the authors found that brain regions commonly altered by different drugs were often similarly affected by various neurological disorders.

Pharmacological agents such as mind-altering drugs have powerful uses in medicine, says Andrea Luppi, a postdoctoral researcher of network neuroscience at the Alan Turing Institute in the United Kingdom. “Anesthetics are extremely useful for surgery. Modafinil and methylphenidate are used to treat certain conditions,” Luppi says. “So it’s important to know how they act on the brain to exert their effects.”

But these types of chemicals can be tricky to understand, because they activate more than one neurotransmitter receptor. Knowing how they work in the brain can improve how they are used in clinical practice in the future. But it’s not enough to predict a drug’s mechanism based purely  on its clinical effects. There is also a chance these drugs could influence other neurotransmitters beyond their main targets. 

[Related: If you grow a brain in a lab, will it have a mind of its own?]

To address these questions, Luppi and his coauthors analyzed two sets of neuroimaging data from past studies to map out the ways the human brain changes when taking 10 mind-altering drugs. These drugs fell under three categories: psychedelics (psilocybin, DMT, LSD, MDMA, ayahuasca, and ketamine), anesthetics (propofol and sevoflurane), and cognitive enhancers (modafinil and methylphenidate). The first data set, based on the PET scans of 1,200 people, helped the team sketch out 19 types of molecules in the brain: all neurotransmitter receptors and transporters.

The second dataset used the fMRI scans of 224 people who had acute exposure to one of the 10 drugs. According to the authors, this is the largest fMRI study to date that has plotted a detailed map of the neurotransmitter landscape when under the influence.

Brain mapping showed that mind-altering drugs work with multiple neurotransmitter systems. The mapping showed expected relationships, such as the link between MDMA and its well-known target, the serotonin 2A receptor. However, the team noticed some mind-altering drugs, like anesthetics and psychedelics, can affect other neurotransmitters beyonds their main molecular targets. For example, anesthetics at the lowest dose primarily target molecules in the brain called GABA_A receptors. But the molecules that the drugs bind to changes as doses increase, the authors found, activating a more diverse group of neurotransmitters. 

[Related: How your brain conjures dreams]

“We are used to thinking that many drugs have a single or few molecular targets. What we see suggests that even when a drug exerts its effect through a specific receptor, it can have downstream consequences on many neurotransmitter systems. This reinforces the idea that the brain is a complex system,” Luppi says. 

According to the study authors, their mapping provides new opportunities to explore how each of these mind-altering drugs affects the neurotransmitter landscape. It could also help vet certain drugs for neuropsychiatric treatments. The changes in activity caused by mind-altering drugs are similar to the changes seen in the brains of patients with conditions such as autism, depression, and schizophrenia, the authors say. Administering mind-altering drugs that rewire the connections in functionally impaired brain areas could be another treatment option for people who live with these conditions. 

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Picture this: you text your romantic partner in the middle of the day, inquiring about dinner and after-work plans, but the message goes unanswered for an hour. Or your manager pulls you aside to offer some constructive criticism on a project or task you thought you were doing well with. If these or similar situations would leave you feeling anxious, incredibly unsettled, or angry, you may have high rejection sensitivity.

According to board certified behavioral analyst Reena Patel, high rejection sensitivity is an emotional response pattern characterized by an intense fear of rejection and an excessive need for approval from others. In less-clinical terms, it causes people to interpret uncertain or ambiguous social cues as signs of humiliation. As a result, rejection is not just a temporary sting or setback, but a devastating blow that affects self-confidence and can lead to social anxiety.

Importantly, high rejection sensitivity is not a diagnosable condition, but a pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that can be observed and acknowledged by medical professionals, according to Darren Aboyoun, a clinical psychologist.

“It is more commonly observed in individuals who have experienced significant rejections or who have a history of interpersonal difficulties, such as those with insecure attachment styles,” Aboyoun explains. “Sensitivity to rejection can trigger physiological changes, including the fight-or-flight response, and heightened activity in areas of the brain that influence blood pressure, decision-making, and emotions.”

Aboyoun emphasizes that people who exhibit this trait aren’t just feeling bad about a situation they can easily “move on” from, but rather their feelings toward rejection are so deeply ingrained and overwhelming that they can lead to social withdrawal and isolation.

“In professional settings, high rejection sensitivity can disrupt one’s ability to collaborate with others, concentrate effectively, and ultimately hinder productivity and career advancement,” Aboyoun says. “In family and interpersonal relationships, it can contribute to miscommunication, difficulties in cultivating open, supportive relationships.”

Coping mechanisms and steps to move forward 

High rejection sensitivity is not currently categorized as a mental condition or illness, but as a behavioral trait. There is no proven cure or medication to manage it on its own, though certain types of therapy and coping mechanisms can help.

If you’re feeling up to it, you can also try to be clear with the people in your life about what you need from them. For instance, if you need validation or acknowledgment of your emotions and experiences without judgment, consider asking for it. Aboyoun suggests working with others to help them choose their words carefully when speaking with you and to ask others for reassurance when appropriate. The idea is to foster open lines of communication so that others can understand your perspective without minimizing your experiences.

Practicing mindfulness and relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises or meditation may also help manage anxiety and emotional reactivity triggered by perceived rejection, but Aboyoun suggests other coping strategies too.

For one, it’s important to acknowledge and accept that high rejection sensitivity is a vulnerability. If you are exhibiting a chronic heightened reaction to certain feelings or interactions, it’s good to self-reflect, Aboyoun says. Self reflection will require a deeper insight into why you reacted a certain way and whether that feeling is limited to something you said or did, or something else, he explains. 

“High rejection sensitivity is a very treatable condition,” Aboyoun says. “Effective treatment can positively change one’s life by increasing confidence and developing improved social skills that will cultivate more fulfilling relationships.”

This access to treatment is why he recommends therapy or counseling and working with a trained therapist to identify your patterns of rejection and increase your capacity to adapt to your thoughts and feelings.

Rejection sensitivity can be a challenging behavioral pattern to overcome, and unfortunately it has been the subject of very limited research. Until more studies can be done, learning to cope may involve a fair amount of trial and error. But once you find an approach that works, you should see improvement in previously troublesome areas of your life.

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This article originally appeared on KFF Health News.

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing “988,” or the Crisis Text Line by texting “HOME” to 741741.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Melanie Gray Miller, a 30-year-old physician, wiped away tears as she described the isolation she felt after losing a beloved patient.

“It was at the end of a night shift, when it seems like bad things always happen,” said Miller, who is training to become a pediatrician.

The infant had been sick for months in the Medical University of South Carolina’s pediatric intensive care unit and the possibility that he might not improve was obvious, Miller recalled during an April meeting with physicians and hospital administrators. But the suddenness of his death still caught her off guard.

“I have family and friends that I talk to about things,” she said. “But no one truly understands.”

Doctors don’t typically take time to grieve at work. But during that recent meeting, Miller and her colleagues opened up about the insomnia, emotional exhaustion, trauma, and burnout they experienced from their time in the pediatric ICU.

“This is not a normal place,” Grant Goodrich, the hospital system’s director of ethics, said to the group, acknowledging an occupational hazard the industry often downplays. “Most people don’t see kids die.”

The recurring conversation, scheduled for early-career doctors coming off monthlong pediatric ICU rotations, is one way the hospital helps staffers cope with stress, according to Alyssa Rheingold, a licensed clinical psychologist who leads its resiliency program.

“Often the focus is to teach somebody how to do yoga and take a bath,” she said. “That’s not at all what well-being is about.”

Burnout in the health care industry is a widespread problem that long predates the covid-19 pandemic, though the chaos introduced by the coronavirus’s spread made things worse, physicians and psychologists said. Health systems across the country are trying to boost morale and keep clinicians from quitting or retiring early, but the stakes are higher than workforce shortages.

Rates of physician suicide, partly fueled by burnout, have been a concern for decades. And while burnout occurs across medical specialties, some studies have shown that primary care doctors, such as pediatricians and family physicians, may run a higher risk.

“Why go into primary care when you can make twice the money doing something with half the stress?” said Daniel Crummett, a retired primary care doctor who lives in North Carolina. “I don’t know why anyone would go into primary care.”

Doctors say they are fed up with demands imposed by hospital administrators and health insurance companies, and they’re concerned about the notoriously grueling shifts assigned to medical residents during the early years of their careers. A long-standing stigma keeps physicians from prioritizing their own mental health, while their jobs require them to routinely grapple with death, grief, and trauma. The culture of medicine encourages them to simply bear it.

“Resiliency is a cringe word for me,” Miller said. “In medicine, we’re just expected to be resilient 24/7. I don’t love that culture.”

And though the pipeline of physicians entering the profession is strong, the ranks of doctors in the U.S. aren’t growing fast enough to meet future demand, according to the American Medical Association. That’s why burnout exacerbates workforce shortages and, if it continues, may limit the ability of some patients to access even basic care. A 2021 report published by the Association of American Medical Colleges projects the U.S. will be short as many as 48,000 primary care physicians by 2034, a higher number than any other single medical specialty.

A survey published last year by The Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit focused on improving health care, found more than half of the 1,501 responding doctors didn’t have positive feelings about the current or future state of the medical profession. More than 20% said they wanted to retire within a year.

Similarly, in a 2022 AMA survey of 11,000 doctors and other medical professionals, more than half reported feeling burned out and indicated they were experiencing a great deal of stress.

Those numbers appear to be even higher in primary care. Even before the pandemic, 70% of primary care providers and 89% of primary care residents reported feelings of burnout.

“Everyone in health care feels overworked,” said Gregg Coodley, a primary care physician in Portland, Oregon, and author of the 2022 book “Patients in Peril: The Demise of Primary Care in America.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t issues for other specialists, too, but in primary care, it’s the worst problem,” he said.

The high level of student debt most medical school graduates carry, combined with salaries more than four times as high as the average, deter many physicians from quitting medicine midcareer. Even primary care doctors, whose salaries are among the lowest of all medical specialties, are paid significantly more than the average American worker. That’s why, instead of leaving the profession in their 30s or 40s, doctors often stay in their jobs but retire early.

“We go into medicine to help people, to take care of people, to do good in the world,” said Crummett, who retired from the Duke University hospital system in 2020 when he turned 65.

Crummett said he would have enjoyed working until he was 70, if not for the bureaucratic burdens of practicing medicine, including needing to get prior authorization from insurance companies before providing care, navigating cumbersome electronic health record platforms, and logging hours of administrative work outside the exam room.

“I enjoyed seeing patients. I really enjoyed my co-workers,” he said. “The administration was certainly a major factor in burnout.”

Jean Antonucci, a primary care doctor in rural Maine who retired from full-time work at 66, said she, too, would have kept working if not for the hassle of dealing with hospital administrators and insurance companies.

Once, Antonucci said, she had to call an insurance company — by landline and cellphone simultaneously, with one phone on each ear — to get prior authorization to conduct a CT scan, while her patient in need of an appendectomy waited in pain. The hospital wouldn’t conduct the scan without insurance approval.

“It was just infuriating,” said Antonucci, who now practices medicine only one day a week. “I could have kept working. I just got tired.”

Providers’ collective exhaustion is a crisis kept hidden by design, said Whitney Marvin, a pediatrician who works in the pediatric ICU at the Medical University of South Carolina. She said hospital culture implicitly teaches doctors to tamp down their emotions and to “keep moving.”

“I’m not supposed to be weak, and I’m not supposed to cry, and I’m not supposed to have all these emotions, because then maybe I’m not good enough at my job,” said Marvin, describing the way doctors have historically thought about their mental health.

This mentality prevents many doctors from seeking the help they need, which can lead to burnout — and much worse. An estimated 300 physicians die by suicide every year, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The problem is particularly pronounced among female physicians, who die by suicide at a significantly higher rate than women in other professions.

A March report from Medscape found, of more than 9,000 doctors surveyed, 9% of male physicians and 11% of female physicians said they have had suicidal thoughts. But the problem isn’t new, the report noted. Elevated rates of suicide among physicians have been documented for 150 years.

“Ironically, it’s happening to a group of people who should have the easiest access to mental health care,” said Gary Price, a Connecticut surgeon and president of The Physicians Foundation.

But the reluctance to seek help isn’t unfounded, said Corey Feist, president of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation.

“There’s something known in residency as the ‘silent curriculum,’” Feist said in describing an often-unspoken understanding among doctors that seeking mental health treatment could jeopardize their livelihood.

Feist’s sister-in-law, emergency room physician Lorna Breen, died by suicide during the early months of the pandemic. Breen sought inpatient treatment for mental health once, Feist said, but feared that her medical license could be revoked for doing so.

The foundation works to change laws across the country to prohibit medical boards and hospitals from asking doctors invasive mental health questions on employment or license applications.

“These people need to be taken care of by us, because really, no one’s looking out for them,” Feist said.

In Charleston, psychologists are made available to physicians during group meetings like the one Miller attended, as part of the resiliency program.

But fixing the burnout problem also requires a cultural change, especially among older physicians.

“They had it worse and we know that. But it’s still not good,” Miller said. “Until that changes, we’re just going to continue burning out physicians within the first three years of their career.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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It’s that time of year when TV shows finish forever. Succession’s nasty media scions ended their backstabbing and bickering. Midge concluded her journey in search of comedic stardom on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And the May 30th episode of soccer dramedy Ted Lasso was probably the last. Maybe you watched these finales and found the resolutions satisfying. Even so, if you’re a superfan, perhaps you also experienced a bit of despair. It’s not unhappiness with the ending of a narrative, necessarily, but unhappiness that the narrative was ending. 

If you’ve felt deflated once a favorite show has wrapped up, you’re not alone. There’s even an unofficial term for it: post-series depression, or PSD. 

“It’s a feeling of emptiness and upset when a series or something that you really love is finishing or ending,” says Rita Kottasz, an associate professor of marketing at Kingston University, London, who has been at the forefront of post-series depression research. Whether it’s TV, a book, or a video game, there is a yearning, she says, “that you want more of it.”

The difference between PSD and depression

The concept of PSD gained traction on social media and in fan blogs in the mid-2010s. “It makes sense as a non-clinical way to describe a contemporary psychological phenomenon, which we’ve probably seen more during the Golden Age of TV,” says Chicago-based psychologist Brian Kong, citing Game of Thrones as a show with huge cultural influence.

Kottasz doesn’t particularly like the name PSD, and makes a distinction between clinical depression and the more colloquial sense of being down. In a draft of her 2020 paper on the phenomenon, she called it “consumer saudade,” using a Portuguese word that lacks a direct English translation. It is a sensation sort of like nostalgic longing. (The 17th-century writer Manuel de Melo called saudade “a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy.”) Ultimately, a journal editor persuaded her to swap out the phrase, and Kottasz chose PSD because it was established outside of research. 

In the 2019 study, Kottasz and her colleagues published a 15-item classification scale for PSD, based on interviews with fans who reported sadness after their favorite things ended. She collected the most frequent emotions associated with PSD from the replies: among them, feeling frustrated, disappointed, indignant, sad, or empty inside. Some said they felt “that life is less complete now that the series is over” or that they had lost a few of their “best friends.”

[Related: From the archives: When the US first caught TV fever]

Although post-series depression suggests a focus on TV shows (a 2020 survey indicated male fans of Breaking Bad seem to be particularly susceptible to PSD), Kottasz is probing the connection to other kinds of media. Her ongoing research includes the abruptly announced hiatus of K-pop band BTS, which may have crushed young fans. It’s also applicable to novels. Millennials who grew up with Harry Potter—reading the books as children, then watching the movies as teens or adults—have expressed it. She found that “younger people are definitely more affected” than older ones, which can be attributed in part to the shift to on-demand streaming of shows and films. Business models that constantly push new content, such as Netflix recommendations that invite viewers to watch similar shows as soon as a series is finished, might contribute to this, too. “Companies are incredibly good at playing on the emotions of consumers,” she says.

Contrary to what you might expect, though, the sensation doesn’t seem to be triggered by binge-watching, Kottasz says. Instead, long-term consumption may be a factor. Kottasz thinks watching a show over several seasons or reading novels across many years strengthens a person’s relationship to the characters. In her 2019 paper, she cites a Harry Potter devotee who started reading the series at age 9 and was “cruelly left behind” after the final book and film released years later.

But it isn’t quite as simple as saying the end of a show or novel controls our emotional state. Kong is concerned that the phrase PSD might imply a causal relationship between low moods and a program’s end. Instead, he says that when viewers feel lasting negativity, TV consumption might be acting as an anesthetic for a deeper psychological issue, like how some people with anxiety or depression drink alcohol. Put another way, the low mood already existed, and watching the series only masked it.

Why it’s so hard to say goodbye

There’s no reason to be worried if you get sad or annoyed with the ending of a series you adore—after all, Kong says, people do feel emotionally connected with and invested in fictional characters. For most people, the negative feelings should dissipate shortly. 

If you’re looking to perk up when a finale has you down, though, “the short, Band-Aid answer is to move on to another series,” Kong says. “The bigger-picture answer is to make the show less central in your life and wellbeing. It might be a red flag if you have no other interests beyond a show or other series.” 

For those who experience strong PSD, the sensation can last for weeks, Kottasz says. “It seems to be the case from the data that people who struggle with anxiety, depression, and loneliness may be more inclined to become really big fans,” she says, who in turn experience prolonged sadness. If that’s the case, it’s probably time to seek further help from therapists or other mental health specialists.

[Related: Understanding your emotions can help you manage your anxiety]

What makes PSD more unusual than feelings of nostalgia or other losses, Kottasz says, is that enthusiasts “do have an opportunity to get things back” by persuading creators to make reboots, revivals, or spinoffs. Precedent for this dates back to before electronic TVs were invented: Author Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes for good in 1893, only to resurrect the consulting detective in the early 1900s. The BBC suggests it was the first revival of a character after fan outcry. 

Aficionados can engage in other ways. One is travel, mixing tourism with fandom to experience a franchise in real life. Think Lord of the Rings buffs who visit filming locations like “Mount Doom” in New Zealand, or Game of Thrones fanatics who tour Belfast and Dubrovnik. The pattern continues. On May 29, the Monday after Succession aired for the last time, fans flocked to New York City’s Battery Park, the scene of the series’s final shot.

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Love it or hate it, sleeping naked hits different. Not only is it less laundry to wash, but taking off those pajamas can do wonders for your health. While you may feel self-conscious at first, the openness of resting in the nude can actually boost your confidence and help you look your best self. 

There’s no right or wrong way to get ready for bed—it’s all a matter of preference. And while nakedness won’t miraculously cure all your sleep problems, experts say there are some modest benefits to going au naturel.

1. Younger-looking skin 

James Walker, a medical advisor for the healthcare platform Welzo, says sleeping without clothes gives your skin an opportunity to breathe, allowing for better airflow. He explains that clothes, especially tight-fitting ones, can restrict blood circulation, making it harder for your skin to receive vitamins and minerals needed for collagen production. Certain materials also might add to your discomfort in bed. Aditya Kashyap Mishra, a sex educator and relationship expert for Lustyboy, says synthetic fibers like spandex and nylon trap moisture in your skin—the added heat can make it hard to fall asleep. Other synthetic fabrics and pajamas with dyed cotton may cause skin irritation and acne from the fabric rubbing against you.

[Related: 5 surprising beauty benefits of running]

Tossing and turning from wearing the wrong clothing can affect your quality of sleep and your skin. The body makes collagen during sleep, which is essential for supple and younger-looking skin. Research shows that getting less than the recommended seven hours of sleep for adults increases skin aging and slows down recovery from sun damage.

2. A cooldown for your body

As you might expect, sleeping with your skin exposed helps regulate your temperature at night, says Walker. The drop in body temperature can prevent overheating—a real concern in summer and in places where winter is virtually non-existent. Research shows that feeling extremely hot at night increases wakefulness. Even if you manage to land some shut-eye, it will likely be less restorative with shorter cycles of slow-wave sleep and REM sleep. 

Feeling colder, on the other hand, can also help you fall asleep faster. Your body temperature is synced up with the light-dark cycles outside; it normally falls when the sun goes down. A lower body temperature from sleeping nude tells your biological clock it’s time to shut down.

3. Fewer fungal infections

Fungi and bacteria thrive in warm and damp areas like your nether regions. Mishra explains that trapped sweat from moisture-wicking clothing increases the risk of microorganisms building up, resulting in yeast infections and jock itch. Jock itch can also come from constant friction from clothes. Stripping down to nothing will allow more air circulation and keep your intimate parts from getting overheated.

4. Better emotional intimacy

Skin-to-skin contact between partners can strengthen your relationship. Research shows touching among consenting adults releases the “love hormone” called oxytocin. This chemical reduces stress and encourages openness and social bonding with others. One US marketing poll of more than 1,000 adults found that 57 percent of couples who regularly snoozed in the nude were happy in their relationship compared to 48 percent of pajama wearers. Getting used to baring it all in front of a partner can counteract self-consciousness of how you look in bed. Mishra says this openness is a huge stress reliever, and the added relaxation can help you sleep better.

What if you want to sleep in clothes?

If you’re still not convinced about sleeping naked, there are other ways to improve your slumber. Avoid tight or constricting apparel that would restrict your movement, irritate your skin, or otherwise cause discomfort. Walker recommends going to bed in loose-fitting and breathable fabrics like cotton or bamboo, or one simple layer like an oversized T-shirt and shorts to avoid overheating.

[Related: 11 ways to sleep better in unbearable heat]

There’s nothing wrong with slipping on a pair of socks before bed, Walker adds. Some people find it comforting and helpful in keeping their feet warm, especially during colder seasons. However, he warns against sleeping in socks that are too tight as they could restrict circulation. 

Whether you go to bed nude or in clothes, you should always remove your makeup and any heavy jewelry. Snoozing with makeup on can clog pores and lead to future breakouts. “It’s best to cleanse the face thoroughly before sleeping to allow the skin to breathe and regenerate,” advises Walker. Additionally, laying down in chunky necklaces, bangles, and other jewelry can be painful and might even leave abrasions on the skin.

“Ultimately, the key is to prioritize comfort and choose sleepwear that allows for optimal relaxation,” Walker says. “It’s always a good idea to listen to your body and make choices that help you feel comfortable and at ease during sleep.”

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Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink announced on Thursday evening that it has received FDA approval to begin conducting human trials. News of the major step arrives after years of research and numerous regulatory hurdles, as well as multiple investigations into potential safety and animal ethics violations.

“This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people,” Neuralink wrote via its Twitter account on Thursday evening, with Musk retweeting the message alongside his congratulations.

[Related: Elon Musk hopes humans will test Neuralink brain implants in the next six months.]

Neuralink aims to create a line of computer implants that connect directly with users’ brains, initially in order to restore patients’ vision and help those with a “Stephen Hawking-type [neurological] situation,” explained Musk during a Neuralink presentation last November. For the majority of his life, Hawking suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which ultimately resulted in a near total body paralysis.

Neuralink first released footage in 2019 of a successful interfacing with rat test subjects. The company subsequently moved on to similar implants for sheep, pigs, and monkeys. In 2021, the company released footage of one of its test macaques playing Pong via a prototype “brain-machine interface.” Late last year, however, an exposé from Reuters revealed the company was under a federal investigation stemming from “internal staff complaints” regarding alleged animal-welfare violations, some of which pertained to over alleged 1,500 dead test subjects. Shortly thereafter, another report via Reuters indicated the FDA had rebuffed the company’s initial requests to begin human test trials, citing concerns over devices potentially overheating, as well as the possibility of damaging brain tissue upon implant removal.

[Related: Employees say Neuralink’s ‘hack job’ tests killed roughly 1,500 animals since 2018.]

As The Verge and DigitalTrends noted on Thursday, Neuralink is not the first company to receive regulatory greenlight on human brain-computer interface trials. Earlier this year, a company called Synchron—backed by the likes of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates—announced it had successfully implanted their “Stentrode” neuroprosthesis device in four human subjects. BrainGate’s device has also previously allowed a paralyzed man to convert his imagined handwriting into text to communicate.

Per Neuralink, recruitment is not yet open for clinical trials, but the company promised “more information on this soon.” Last November, Musk stated during a company show-and-tell that “You could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn’t even know,” adding that, “ Hypothetically in one of these demos, in fact… I will.”

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Following a similar report issued by the American Psychological Association (APA) earlier this month, the US Surgeon General released an advisory statement on Tuesday warning of social media platforms’ potentially harmful effects on minors.

While cautioning more research is still needed to understand the full scope of social media’s impact on children, adolescents, and teens, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office makes clear they believe “ample indicators” show social media can represent a “profound risk of harm to [their] mental health and well-being.”

“We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis—one that we must urgently address,” Murthy said in a statement this week, citing the “growing evidence” supporting their worry. In one such study referenced, adolescents who spend over 3 hours per day on social media faced double the risk of mental health issues such as symptoms of anxiety and depression. Additional research cited by the Surgeon General’s report points towards particular harm for girls, who face cyberbullying and body-image issues.

[Related: APA releases youth social media guidelines.]

“At this time, we do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents,” the advisory states.

At the same time, the advisory statement makes it clear that children and adolescents utilize and are influenced by social media in vastly varying ways. The ways children are impacted by social media are often based on their particularly emotional and psychological strengths and vulnerabilities, as well as cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors. Some of these experiences on social media can prove beneficial, such as offering spaces for community and connection with like-minded individuals sharing “identities, abilities, and interests,” alongside offering access to important information and spaces for self-expression.

As The New York Times noted on Thursday, social media has also proven especially helpful to children and teens within the LGBTQ+ community. “[A] variety of research over the decade since social media became ubiquitous among teenagers has found that often, social media use has been more beneficial than not for LGBTQ youth,” the article states.

A Surgeon General’s advisory does not carry any legal weight, but often serves as a public statement calling attention to a health issue alongside subsequent recommendations for policymakers, businesses, and the public. Among other suggestions, the Surgeon General’s office urges lawmakers to enact legislation ensuring tech companies share relevant health impact data to independent researchers and the public “in a manner that is timely, sufficiently detailed, and protects privacy.”

Additionally, the report recommends the development and implementation of digital and media literacy curricula in schools, as well as encouraging policies that “further limit access—in ways that minimize the risk of harm—to social media for all children.”

[Related: How to use built-in parental controls on Instagram, TikTok, and more.]

Meanwhile, businesses such as Meta, Twitter, and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, are pushed to maintain a proper level of transparency about their own internal research and methods for developing products used by minors—something that’s frequently proven difficult to realize. Parents are also strongly encouraged to discuss, educate, and monitor their children’s social media habits.

Earlier this month, the American Psychological Association released its first-ever health advisory report on youth and adolescent social media usage, which spoke broadly of potential developmental effects stemming from experiences on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The APA’s 11-page outline described these apps as “not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people,” but stressed it was rather how minors used the apps that influenced them.

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This article was originally featured on KFF Health News.

In the past few years, 10,000 to 20,000 apps have stampeded into the mental health space, offering to “disrupt” traditional therapy. With the frenzy around AI innovations like ChatGPT, the claim that chatbots can provide mental health care is on the horizon.

The numbers explain why: Pandemic stresses led to millions more Americans seeking treatment. At the same time, there has long been a shortage of mental health professionals in the United States; more than half of all counties lack psychiatrists. Given the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurers offer parity between mental and physical health coverage, there is a gaping chasm between demand and supply.

For entrepreneurs, that presents a market bonanza. At the South by Southwest conference in March, where health startups displayed their products, there was a near-religious conviction that AI could rebuild health care, offering apps and machines that could diagnose and treat all kinds of illnesses, replacing doctors and nurses.

Unfortunately, in the mental health space, evidence of effectiveness is lacking. Few of the many apps on the market have independent outcomes research showing they help; most haven’t been scrutinized at all by the FDA. Though marketed to treat conditions such as anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and depression, or to predict suicidal tendencies, many warn users (in small print) that they are “not intended to be medical, behavioral health or other healthcare service” or “not an FDA cleared product.”

There are good reasons to be cautious in the face of this marketing juggernaut.

Decades ago, Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and considered one of the fathers of artificial intelligence, predicted AI would never make a good therapist, though it could be made to sound like one. In fact, his original AI program, created in the 1960s, was a psychotherapist named ELIZA, which used word and pattern recognition combined with natural language programming to sound like a therapist:

Woman: Well, my boyfriend made me come here.

ELIZA: Your boyfriend made you come here?

Woman: He says I’m depressed much of the time.

ELIZA: I am sorry to hear that you are depressed.

Woman: It’s true. I am unhappy.

ELIZA: Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?

Though hailed as an AI triumph, ELIZA’s “success” terrified Weizenbaum, whom I once interviewed. He said students would interact with the machine as if Eliza were an actual therapist, when what he’d created was “a party trick,” he said.

He foresaw the evolution of far more sophisticated programs like ChatGPT. But “the experiences a computer might gain under such circumstances are not human experiences,” he told me. “The computer will not, for example, experience loneliness in any sense that we understand it.”

The same goes for anxiety or ecstasy, emotions so neurologically complex that scientists have not been able pinpoint their neural origins. Can a chatbot achieve transference, the empathic flow between patient and doctor that is central to many types of therapy?

“The core tenet of medicine is that it’s a relationship between human and human — and AI can’t love,” said Bon Ku, director of the Health Design Lab at Thomas Jefferson University and a pioneer in medical innovation. “I have a human therapist, and that will never be replaced by AI.”

Ku said he’d like to see AI used instead to reduce practitioners’ tasks like record-keeping and data entry to “free up more time for humans to connect.”

While some mental health apps may ultimately prove worthy, there is evidence that some can do harm. One researcher noted that some users faulted these apps for their “scripted nature and lack of adaptability beyond textbook cases of mild anxiety and depression.”

It may prove tempting for insurers to offer up apps and chatbots to meet the mental health parity requirement. After all, that would be a cheap and simple solution, compared with the difficulty of offering a panel of human therapists, especially since many take no insurance because they consider insurers’ payments too low.

Perhaps seeing the flood of AI hitting the market, the Department of Labor announced last year it was ramping up efforts to ensure better insurer compliance with the mental health parity requirement.

The FDA likewise said late last year it “intends to exercise enforcement discretion” over a range of mental health apps, which it will vet as medical devices. So far, not one has been approved. And only a very few have gotten the agency’s breakthrough device designation, which fast-tracks reviews and studies on devices that show potential.

These apps mostly offer what therapists call structured therapy — in which patients have specific problems and the app can respond with a workbook-like approach. For example, Woebot combines exercises for mindfulness and self-care (with answers written by teams of therapists) for postpartum depression. Wysa, another app that has received a breakthrough device designation, delivers cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.

But gathering reliable scientific data about how well app-based treatments function will take time. “The problem is that there is very little evidence now for the agency to reach any conclusions,” said Kedar Mate, head of the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Until we have that research, we don’t know whether app-based mental health care does better than Weizenbaum’s ELIZA. AI may certainly improve as the years go by, but at this point, for insurers to claim that providing access to an app is anything close to meeting the mental health parity requirement is woefully premature.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Forging strong social relationships can help mitigate the effects of traumatic childhood events in human adults, but also in baboons. A study published May 17 in the journal Science Advances drew on 36 years of data from almost 200 baboons in southern Kenya and found that even though early adversity can take years of their lifespans, stronger social bonds in adulthood can help get these years back. 

[Related: Baboon poop shows how chronic stress shortens lives.]

“It’s like the saying from the King James Apocrypha, ‘a faithful friend is the medicine of life,’” co-author and Duke University biologist and evolutionary anthropologist Susan Alberts said in a statement.

Studies have consistently found that people who go through more bad experiences growing up, such as neglect or abuse,  are more likely to die early. However, the mechanisms behind how early adversity leads to a premature death has been harder for researchers to pin down, according to Alberts. Some of the limitations to earlier research is the reliance on self-reported memories which can be imprecise and subjective. 

Enter our primate cousins. Baboons share more than 90 percent of their DNA with humans and researchers have followed individual baboons near Amboseli National Park in Kenya since 1971. 

In this new study, the researchers analyzed how early life experiences and adult social connections affected long-term survival in 199 female baboons between 1983 and 2019.

Baboon childhood is certainly different from human childhood, but young baboons still face hardships. The team in the study tallied up each female’s exposure to six potential sources of early adversity, including whether she had a low-ranking or socially isolated mother or if her mother died before she reached maturity. It was also noted if she was born in a drought year or into a large group, and if she had a sibling close in age, which could contribute to more competition for both maternal attention and resources.

The team found that stressful experiences are very common for the baboons growing up in the semi-arid and unpredictable landscape of Amboseli. Of the 199 baboons in the study, 75 percent suffered through at least one stressor, and 33 percent had two or more.

Their results confirm previous findings that the more hardship a female baboon faces, the shorter her lifespan. Monkeys who experienced more upheaval at a young age were also more socially isolated as adults.

[Related: Monkeys with close friends have friendlier gut bacteria.]

However, the researchers showed that 90 percent of the dip in survival was due to the direct effects of early adversity, not to the weakened social bonds that continued into adulthood.

No matter how strong their bonds were with other baboons, each additional hardship translated to 1.4 years of life lost. Those who went through four bad experiences growing up died close to 5.6 years earlier than those who didn’t face any. Since the average female baboon lives to age 18, this is a large drop in lost years.

But an unfortunate start in life does not mean that a baboon will absolutely live a short life. 

“Females who have bad early lives are not doomed,” co-author and biologist at SUNY Oswego Elizabeth Lange said in a statement. “We found that both early life adversity and adult social interactions affect survival independently. That means that interventions that occur throughout the lifespan could improve survival.”

In baboons, strong social bonds are measured by how often they groom with their closest friends. Those with strong social bonds added 2.2 years to their lives, no matter what adversity they had faced in their earlier years. The baboons whose mothers died before they reached maturity and then forged strong friendships in adulthood showed the best ability to bounce back. 

However, the flip side is also true. Weak social bonds can magnify early life adversity, according to the study. 

It is not clear yet if these results can be translated to adult humans, but it suggests that early intervention is not the only way to overcome childhood trauma and its lingering effects. 

“If you did have early life adversity, whatever you do, try to make friends,” Alberts said.

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One of the leading US mental health organizations, the American Psychological Association (APA), has issued its first ever health advisory report on social media usage for youth and adolescents. Published on Tuesday, the 11-page brief speaks in broad terms regarding the habits of children and teens on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, describing them as “not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.” Rather, the APA argues social media’s influences on minors are only part of a much wider, complex array of factors, and “likely depend on what teens can do and see online, teens’ pre-existing strengths or vulnerabilities, and the contexts in which they grow up.”

In short, the APA reiterates that, like every other aspect of psychological development, it’s difficult to pinpoint and quantify any single influence on an individual’s brain evolution. Instead, the association focuses on two major contributors to how social media can potentially affect younger users—parental oversight and awareness, as well as a platform’s own algorithmic structures.

[Related: Twitter may soon purge ‘inactive’ accounts.]

The APA recommends parents regularly review and discuss their children’s social media usage, particularly during early adolescence—usually defined as between 10- and 14-years-old. Educating children and teens on social media literacy and usage alongside fostering healthy online habits and relationships are also considered key methods of maintaining a safe experience on platforms like TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Meanwhile, the APA stresses the responsibility does not rest solely on minors’ parents. The advisory’s authors note that the tech companies’ algorithms determining how, when, and why users see certain content are built upon “centuries of racist policy and discrimination encoded.” Social media therefore often becomes an “incubator” of these inherent biases, and which can  introduce and exacerbate extremist socio-political and racist ideals. “The resulting potential impact is far reaching, including physical violence offline, as well as threats to well-being,” adds the APA.

Speaking to PopSci, Jeremy Birnholtz, a professor of communication studies at Northwestern University focusing on LGBTQ+ adolescent social media usage and the head of the school’s Social Media Lab, says he believes the APA’s “measured document” is a step in the right direction, but argues some of the guidelines are potentially difficult to follow for parents.

[Related: Is shyness something kids feel, or something kids are?]

In one section of the report, for example, the APA advises limiting the amount of time younger users spend comparing themselves to others the see on social media, “particularly around beauty- or appearance-related content,” pointing towards its potentially influence on “poorer body image, disordered eating, and depressive symptoms, particularly among girls.”

“The guideline is ‘teens should avoid using social media for social comparison.’ And it’s like, well, what does that mean? You shouldn’t look at your friends’ vacation photos? You shouldn’t follow the influencers that all your friends follow? I don’t think that’s realistic,” says Birnholtz.

Like the APA’s report, Birnholtz also argues social media’s negative effects are often symptomatic of broader, real world issues. Racism can be baked into social media—while that’s true, it’s also baked into society,” they say of platforms’ algorithmic biases. “Certain things like social comparison, no question, can be exacerbated by social media. But to suggest that they are a function of [it] is problematic, I think.”

Birnholtz goes on to explain that while it’s vital to take the APA’s suggestions into account, it’s important to remember the origins of many social media issues. “You’re detaching problems with social media from the problems that they represent in the broader society,” says Birnholtz. “You can fix it on social media, but as long as it’s in the [real world], you’re not going to fix it.”

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There are countless studies and copious amounts of research delving into how the internet can negatively impact your mind. But, new data indicates that there’s one way online time could actually benefit the brain. According to findings recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society from a team at NYU, it appears that regular internet usage may significantly reduce the risk of dementia in older populations.

As also highlighted by Gizmodo on Thursday, the study examined online habits of over 18,000 adults over the age of 50 for as long as 17 years (with a median of nearly 8 years) via data from the government’s biannual Health and Retirement Study. The dataset was subsequently broken down into two groups—those who were regular internet users, and those who were not. A second survey assessed their cognition at the study’s outset to use for reference over time. According to researchers, regular visitors to the internet “experienced approximately half the risk of dementia than non-regular users,” even when taking issues like pre-existing conditions into consideration. As Gizmodo also noted, those who reported using the internet in subsequent analysis displayed even lower risks of impairment.

[Related: How your daily screen time affects your wellbeing.]

But don’t take this as carte blanche to surf the web to your heart’s content just yet. When utilizing a smaller dataset of users that provided hourly usage rates per week, researchers discovered a potential U-curve situation between time and risk for dementia. Those who spend over six hours a day on the internet appear to possess a slightly increased chance to develop cognitive issues, much like those who rarely go online at all. This led researchers to hypothesize that “excessive online engagement may have adverse cognitive effects on older adults.” Despite the study’s caveats, however, the findings present an interesting look into the potential positives of online use, especially when people are often told to use the internet less.

The Goldilocks “not too much, but not too little” linkage between internet use and dementia falls in line with experts’ recent suggestions on how to best maintain cognitive health: lead an overall, decently healthy lifestyle, i.e. one with regular physical activity, a primarily plant-based diet, an aversion to bogus supplements, managing existing diseases, and reduced alcohol consumption. So, on top of all that, you can now possibly add a healthy hour or so of daily internet scrolling to the list. Just don’t fall too far down the rabbit hole.

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LIFE IS RARELY WORRY-FREE, but unprecedented angst has become a constant. Beyond the regular challenges of everyday existence—chaotic households, traffic jams, overbearing bosses—the looming presence of a deadly virus over the past three years has made even mundane decisions feel fraught.

Any number of things can spark stress, but they all share a common origin. “It’s when the demands on somebody outstrip the resources they have,” says Lynn Bufka, a senior director at the American Psychological Association (APA). The results of that are rarely good. Face a difficult situation, unrealistic expectation, or sudden conflict without the right skills or tools, and you risk melting down or freezing up. That danger increases when you are pressed for time or cannot influence a challenging variable. “The feeling of not having control is anxiety-provoking,” Bufka says. “It’s pretty overwhelming.”

Most people had no experience dealing with the kind of prolonged pressure that came along with the pandemic. But for those with some of the world’s most intense occupations, it’s all just part of the job. Losing their cool is simply not an option. The strategies they employ to keep calm while facing a classroom, saving a life, or defusing a bomb just might help the rest of us deal with whatever’s pushing us to the edge of reason.

The fishing boat captain

THE STRESSORS: In 2021, the people bringing in Dungeness crab, black cod, and other bounties of the earth—the workers in America’s fishing and hunting industries—had the second deadliest job in the United States, coming in just behind loggers, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. “It is extremely hazardous,” says Richard Ogg, captain of the troller Karen Jeanne, which is based in Bodega Bay, California. The gale-force dangers he and his crew face include rough seas, miserable weather, and sleep deprivation. Pulling in a catch big enough to earn the money they need weighs heavily on his mind too. Above all else, though, Ogg feels a sense of guardianship over his team, and finds the biggest challenge can be coping with conflicts that arise among a crew corralled on a 54.5-foot boat miles from shore. That’s no easy feat when dealing with workers who don’t necessarily respect the hazards, the gear, or each other.

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Effective communication is essential to keeping cool. Ogg tends to be egalitarian, even if he as the captain has the final say and will pull rank if he must. He often discusses problems or disagreements with everyone aboard, seeks their perspectives, and considers their viewpoints to zero in on the best solution. He finds that this approach, and accepting that things sometimes go sideways despite his best efforts, helps everyone stay on an even keel whenever things get choppy.

The air traffic controller

THE STRESSORS: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport hosted nearly 2,000 flights on average every day in 2022, making it the busiest hub in the world last year. “Almost every bit of airspace that we have, there’s going to be planes there,” says air traffic controller Nichole Surunis. Shepherding those thousands of passengers in and out safely requires tremendous concentration and the ability to process information quickly. Variables like bad weather or an unexpected move by a pilot can make an already challenging task even more dynamic at a second’s notice. There’s no time to dwell on what’s at stake. “You have to focus on all these pilots you’re talking to, with all these people on these planes,” Surunis says. In total, there are about 2.9 million travelers who fly into or out of the United States on a given day—and costly delays add to the strain of those minding the traffic. It’s only after the craft are safe that a controller might notice their racing heart and realize just how tense they were.

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Training and experience are key to handling rapidly shifting situations, and Surunis, like all controllers, has lots of both. “You have your Plan A—but you also must have a Plan B and Plan C,” she says. The occupation requires practicing self-care too. Stepping away from her workstation is essential, and mandated: Controllers typically aren’t allowed to go more than two hours without a break. Surunis doesn’t hesitate to tap a union-run support service after an especially grueling day, and she makes a point of unwinding by making time for hobbies like baking. That helps ensure she’s rested and ready to focus on keeping the sky safe.

The trauma surgeon

THE STRESSORS: Doctors who specialize in emergency care rarely have two days that are alike. A routine case like a ruptured appendix can end up on their table as readily as massive trauma. “They can be injured all over their body,” says Daniel Hagler, a critical care surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital in New York. “What you do within seconds or minutes of them arriving can be the difference between life and death.” The tension ramps up if he must handle many patients simultaneously. Over time, the strain takes a toll: A study published in The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery found that nearly one-quarter of doctors in Hagler’s shoes experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Keeping it together requires the ability to triage, focus on what’s important, and put lesser priorities aside. Hagler employs “deliberate and algorithmic thinking”: If you see this, do that. Trust your intuition, using past experience to guide you to the best decision—while accepting that you may be wrong. “Take a step to just ready yourself and settle your nerves, and do what needs to be done,” he says.

The bomb tech

THE STRESSORS: Pipe bombs are the most common homemade explosive devices on American soil, according to the Department of Homeland Security, but the people who specialize in preventing them from blowing up are rare. Techs like Carl Makins, formerly of the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina, often face incendiaries crudely fashioned in someone’s kitchen or basement, so the safest way of deactivating them isn’t always clear. It doesn’t help that the gear includes 85 pounds of hot, uncomfortable Kevlar, making it hard to move. But the biggest source of anxiety is not knowing if someone tampered with the suspicious package or tried to move it in an effort to be helpful before he arrived. “What did you do to it?” Makins often found himself wondering. “Did you make it mad?”

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Makins always tried to compartmentalize his feelings. “You can’t get angry,” he says. “That limits your ability to see everything that you need to see.” He also used humor to help defuse tense situations—pointing out that, say, handling a bomb next to that shiny new pickup might not end well for the truck. He also remained mindful of his limits. If he was too tired, too tense, or just not up to the task, he’d say so and let someone else on the team step in to do the job. “You just tap out,” he says.

The teacher

THE STRESSORS: Teachers—despite diminishing resources, growing technological distractions, and students who often want to be anywhere but the classroom—are nevertheless saddled with the responsibility of shaping the future. That’s a lot of pressure, which explains why Gallup polls put teaching in a dead heat with nursing for the most stressful profession in the country, and why a RAND Corporation survey shows stress is the number one reason educators quit. And that was before COVID-19 compounded their challenges. When Teresa BlackCloud’s high school students in West Fargo, North Dakota, began taking turns attending class in person and learning from home in the fall of 2020, for example, she had to divide her attention between the pupils in front of her and the “online kids” who might need tech support. “I felt like my brain was split in two,” she says. “If only there were two Miss BlackClouds.” Like many educators, she had to quickly pivot between helping the teens in the classroom and assisting those working remotely.

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Setting clear boundaries is key to handling trying circumstances. BlackCloud had to put the kibosh on responding to pings from kids at all hours because it limited her ability to recharge. “I had to get really good at setting boundaries,” she says. She strives to practice mindfulness and sets aside specific parts of her day for mentally wandering into stressy places. “While I’m brushing my teeth is my time to worry about things,” she says.

The Alaska rescue pilot

THE STRESSORS: Flying a rescue helicopter in Alaska is so intense the Coast Guard requires pilots to complete a tour elsewhere before they can get the gig. The assignment often demands they travel long distances—​Air Station Kodiak monitors 4 million square miles of land and sea, an area larger than the entire lower 48 states—in the dark and through extreme conditions. Due to the environs, the Last Frontier has an aviation accident rate more than twice that of the rest of the country. “It is very challenging,” says Lt. Cmdr. Jared Carbajal, who flies MH-60 Jayhawks and often dons night-vision goggles to navigate the inky sky. The haste of operations compounds the tension: Pilots must be airborne within 30 minutes of getting the call to pull someone out of danger. That leaves little time to prepare and sometimes gives Carbajal scant knowledge of what he’ll find when he arrives at the scene. (Carbajal now flies out of US Coast Guard Air Station Sitka, also in Alaska.)

THE COPING MECHANISMS: Managing complex and uncertain scenarios requires focusing only on what you can control. Everything else is a distraction. Carbajal concentrates on one task at a time—​calculating flight distance, estimating how much fuel he’ll need, requesting the necessary gear, and so on—​that he tackles systematically. He avoids looking too far ahead on his to-do list or fixating on situations he cannot influence, like unusually turbulent waves. “If there’s something that you can’t make a contingency plan for, don’t even waste your time on it,” he says.

An earlier version of this article appeared on popsci.com in January 2021, and this feature first appeared in the Spring 2021 issue. It has been updated since that time.

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An online coaching company recently teamed up with language researchers to amass the world’s largest publicly available dataset of two-person virtual conversations. Already in use by institutions at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and elsewhere, BetterUp Labs’ CANDOR Conversation Corpus includes over 850 hours’ worth of over 1,600 Zoom chats recorded between January and November 2020. Its authors hope to provide experts and scholars across an array of fields a deep trove of data offering insight into the myriad ways digital communication methods can affect everyday human interactions.

Zoom delays are the bane of many remote workers’ existence, but there’s a reason beyond the sheer annoyance. Zoom delays cause us to awkwardly talk over one another. According to a study published last year, it takes approximately 297 milliseconds for the human brain to process face-to-face, yes-or-no questions—ask those same queries over a video chat portal like Zoom, and that delay increases to upwards of 976 milliseconds. As Business Insider relayed on Monday, the previous study’s researchers theorized that even as little as a 30- to 70-millisecond audio delay (less than the blink of an eye) can disrupt conversation participants’ neural processing that underlies the very basics of human dialogue.

[Related: The best Zoom tricks and add-ons for your video chats.]

Enter BetterUp Labs’ “Conversation: A Naturalistic Dataset of Online Recordings,” aka CANDOR. With methodology and results recently published in Science Advances, CANDOR offers one of the most expansive archives of two-person audio and video conversations to date. The process was simple enough: compensated participants were asked to pair up with randomized fellow volunteers, who were then tasked to chat together for at least 25 minutes about whatever they wanted. Afterwards, they were surveyed about their feelings and thoughts post-chat. Both the audio and video of each conversation was also recorded, meaning that unlike most conversational corpuses, CANDOR didn’t merely archive their transcriptions. Speakers’ visual and audio information were also detailed, meaning every facial tic, verbal stutter, and subtle gesture was made available for researchers to parse and analyze.

Initial analysis of CANDOR’s data reveals some quick takeaways about what makes a solid Zoom conversationalist—generally speaking, higher rated and more well received participants were those who spoke faster, louder, and more intensely. As Insider explains, “people rated by their partners as better conversationalists spoke 3 percent faster than bad conversationalists—uttering about six more words a minute.” Although average volume didn’t change between positively and negatively reviewed conversations, the more nuanced notion of “intensity” factored heavily into opinions, as well as the variation between decibel levels. More variation meant a better view, while monotone conversationalists unsurprisingly didn’t score as well.

[Related: Zoom chats can be surprisingly therapeutic.]

The authors of the new CANDOR corpus freely admit the limitations to their initial work—the first version includes only American English conversations, and randomly pairing participants might have produced social anxieties and issues that skewed some of the data. Still, the CANDOR database offers one of the most expansive sets of two-person digital conversations ever amassed, and can serve as a launching pad for even more detailed investigations down the line. In order to do so, however, don’t be surprised if you find yet another Zoom invite in your email inbox in the near future.

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Love them or loathe them, selfies aren’t going anywhere. Humans are not even alone in this ability to capture themselves in a moment— bears,  and penguins have from time to time posed for a self portrait. These third-person images are an easy way to satisfy the social pressures of “pics or it didn’t happen” or the dreaded FOMO with one single click, but they may also have a deeper psychological component. 

[Related: Understanding the weird Biden-Carter photo could help you take better selfies.]

New research published April 27 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests that people use first-person photography—a photo of the scene from their own perspective—when they want to document a physical experience, but opt for third-person photos like selfies where you are in the scene to capture the deeper meaning of an event. 

Earlier research into the psychology of selfies focused on how the photo-taker wants to present themselves, while this new research takes people capturing memories into consideration. 

“Not only do we find that most people take both types of photos in different situations, but that people also differ across situations in whether their goal for taking photo is to capture the physical experience of the moment or the bigger meaning of the moment in their life,” said Zachary Niese, study co-author and psychologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, in a statement.

The research included six studies involving over 2,100 participants. The team found that when the goal of a photo is to capture meaning, they’re more likely to take a selfie and that they find more meaning looking back at their own third-person photos compared with first-person. 

People also tend to like their photos more when the perspective matches their goal for taking the photo.

“Taking and posting pictures is a part of everyday life for many people. While there is sometimes derision about photo-taking practices in popular culture, personal photos have the potential to help people reconnect to their past experiences and build their self-narratives,” said Niese.

The authors warned against the assumption that photos taken from first or third person perspectives are better than the other. Their analysis shows that the most effective perspective depends more on an individual’s goal in the moment—whether that be to capture a physical experience like taking a tour of a museum or the deeper meaning of an event like a wedding or graduation.

[Related: Take better selfies with these lighting and angle tips.]

Going forward, the more understanding an individual has of the goal when taking a picture and the role that perspective plays in the photos and make amateur photographers better at preserving memories for later. 

“People’s photo-taking practices have the potential to serve a more fundamental human motive to develop and understand our sense of self, both in terms of the experiences in our life as well as their bigger meaning,” said Niese.

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Is shyness something you feel, or is it something that defines you? Child psychologists are still not fully convinced one way or the other. A small study published April 25 in the journal Society for Research in Child Development found that timidness, fear and nervousness in social situations or being at the center of attention, is a fairly typical childhood experience, whether it is an emotion or personality. 

[Related from PopSci+: Can dogs be introverts?]

Some long standing theories about shyness believe that there are two types of coy behavior. “Temperamental” shyness remains roughly the same throughout development, whereas “state” shyness is felt during a social situation and manifests more like an emotion. 

In this new study, researchers examined the behavioral, affective, and physiological responses to a speech task in 152 Canadian children (73 girls and 79 boys) ages seven and eight. The children were told that they would be giving a speech that would be filmed and shown to other children. Their parents completed online questionnaires about their child’s temperament, while the children were given an echocardiogram to check for physiological indications of nervous behavior.

The children prepared a two-minute speech about their last birthday and recited the speech in front of a video camera and a mirror. The researchers monitored the children for behaviors coded as avoidance or inhibition, self-reported nervousness, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

The team found that temperamental shyness may exist in a distinct group of children over time, and a larger group of children may experience shyness as an emotion during certain situations. 

About 10 percent of the children had a high level of stress giving the speech in addition to relatively high levels of shyness over time, according to the questionnaires filled out by their parents. According to the team, this provides evidence that shyness may be part of these children’s temperament. Being the center of attention may be stressful across time and in various contexts in this group. Future research could examine the consequences on how this shyness affects academic, social, and psychological well-being since shyness could be measured across time. 

Roughly 25 percent of study participants were not reported to be shy, but demonstrated a higher level of stress from giving the speech. The authors believe that it is likely that state shyness in response to a speech task is a relatively common, normative experience for children at this age.

[Related: Little kids drew their grim—and hopeful—reality of COVID.]

“Our findings provide empirical support for the long-theorized idea that there may be a subset of temperamentally shy children who manifest heightened behavioral, affective, and physiological reactivity in response to a social stressor, as well as a subset of children who may experience only the affective component which may reflect state shyness,” co-author and Brock University post-doctoral fellow and psychologist Kristie Poole said in a statement. “This highlights the multiple components and developmental course of temperamental shyness and the features that distinguish temperamental and state shyness in middle to late childhood.”

This study provides some empirical evidence for long-standing ideas about shyness that were first made by the late psychologist Jerome Kagan. In the 1990s, Kagan argued that temperamental shyness may exist as a distinct category for some children and the features that define this category are relatively stable across time and context.

The authors also noted some limitations to the research, namely that the study only measured these behavioral, affective, and physiological components at one point in time and the sample size was relatively small. Future research should also include a more racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse pool and focus.

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Is the phase “nice guys finish last” actually true? Unfortunately for all the soft-hearted among us, brutish behavior can be an effective path to power and dominance in both humans and chimpanzees. A study published April 24 in the journal PeerJ Life and Environment found that the male chimpanzees who exhibited greedy, irritable, and bullying personalities reached a higher social status. These rascals were also more successful at producing offspring. 

[Related: Adolescent chimpanzees might be less impulsive than human teens.]

However, the team is still plagued by a puzzling question from these findings: if being mean is the key to success, why isn’t every chimp a bully? 

For the study, the team followed 28 male chimpanzees living in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. A previous study had found that  these particular chimpanzees had a few members that  are more sociable whereas others are loners. Some of the chimps had overbearing personalities, and some were more easy-going. And, of course, there are a handful that are more quick to pick fights with others. 

Tanzanian field researchers performed personality assessments on the chimpanzees based on years of near-daily observations of how each animal interacted with others and behaved among the group. They found that a personality combination of high dominance and low conscientiousness helped the male chimpanzees fare better in life than the others, but it still doesn’t answer the evolutionary puzzle of why personality differences exist at all. 

A long held theory is that different personality traits matter at different points in an animal’s life or that certain traits that are a liability when an animal is young may pay off in old age. 

“Think of the personality traits that lead some people to peak in high school versus later in life,” Alexander Weiss, co-author and comparative psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, said in a statement. “It’s a trade-off.” 

The team tested the theory using almost 40 years of data that goes back to famed primatologist Jane Goodall’s early research at Gombe. Across the lifespan, the same personality traits were linked to both high reproductive success and high social rank. 

[Related: Popular chimpanzees set hand-holding trends for the whole group.]

Something else must be behind the diversity of chimpanzee personality. The “best” personality to have could depend on social or environmental conditions. Gender could matter too—a trait that is beneficial to males could cost a female. If this is true, then “genes associated with those traits would be kept in the population,” Weiss said. Further study is needed to confirm this idea. 

The suggestion that animals have distinct personalities was considered taboo not too long ago, with Goodall herself accused of anthropomorphism with her descriptions. Scientists have studied animals ranging from squid to birds, finding evidence of distinct personalities. These quirks, idiosyncrasies, and ways of relating to the world around them remain reasonably stable over time and across situations.

Like with measures of human personality, personality ratings for animals have also been proven to be as consistent from one observer to the next. “The data just doesn’t support the skepticism,” Weiss said.

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Hana Iqbal drops her toddler off at nursery each day dressed in a raincoat, no matter what the forecast. Iqbal’s daughter goes to a forest school, where kids spend about half or more of their day outside, learning about the natural world. “Last week, my two-year-old was hammering nails into a piece of wood, wearing goggles and gloves,” she says.

Forest schools, also called nature pre-schools, outdoor pre-schools, and forest kindergartens, complement traditional education with a focus on environmental literacy. They vary in their cost, curriculum, and size, but generally mean that children spend a significant part of their classes outdoors and complete activities that help them learn about the nature around them. 

Iqbal describes herself not just as a forest schools convert, but an evangelist. “As a family doctor, I see so much heartbreaking mental health difficulty in young people every working day,” she wrote in a message to Popular Science. “I genuinely believe and hope that these streams of education—which allow children to develop mindfulness, body awareness, and relationship with nature, each other, and oneself—may be a little bit of an antidote to the challenges of modern life.”

She sends her daughter to a forest school in England, where the movement has flourished in recent years. In 2017, a shortlist of the best nurseries in the United Kingdom were all outdoor-focused. The schools are also common in Scandinavia, where the idea originated. Now, the trend is catching steam in the US as well. 

Forest schools have been around in the states since the 1960s, but have seen consistent growth since the 2010s, and a surge since the pandemic. Natural Start Alliance, which is a professional group for educators involved in environmental education, for newborns up to 8-year-olds, reports that it’s seen a big increase in interest in the past decade. In 2017, the organization logged about 275 nature preschools schools across the US; by 2022, that number had risen to more than 800 forest schools.

[Related: Homework might actually be bad]

Emily Van Laan, a communications specialist for Natural Start Alliance, attributes this to a few changes: increased conversation about the importance of early childhood development, the rise of play-based learning, concern over time spent on screens, and the spread of COVID-19 itself. She says that forest schools are scattered throughout the country, but have particularly high concentrations in California, Washington, and Minnesota.

“Sometimes people think about this approach to education as only being in places where the weather is always nice or always mild,” Van Laan says. “And that is definitely not the case. We see nature pre-schools in almost every state, including Alaska and Hawai’i, and definitely in every region of the US.”

Each school’s approach to outdoor learning will differ depending on the region. A program in Texas would think of exercises that keep kids cool during warmer months, or help them navigate snakes in the area. One in Minnesota would consider how children can stay warm and active when the temperature plunges, or teach them to forage for plants and fungi. 

“Every program will have guidance that is clearly communicated with parents in terms of the temperature barrier,” Van Laan says. For example, the forest school will tell parents how long children will spend outside in a certain temperature before going inside to take a break. Educators are also trained in risk assessment, like knowing the signs of when a child becomes too hot or cold.“The importance of having the right gear is a huge part of nature preschool,” Van Laan adds. “So they often do parent education on layering and a lot of programs often provide gear to the students that are enrolled.” 

Most programs are tuition-based and can be expensive, Van Laan says. But some offer a sliding scale or scholarships. One program in Wisconsin is free thanks to a partnership between a school district, nature center, and the YMCA. In Minnesota, 13 nature preschools are partially covered through public funding. 

Forest schools teach children how to be environmental stewards, something that is especially important as the world grapples with a changing climate. But there’s no research-based consensus on how to teach young children about climate change right now, Van Laan notes. (Even for older students, New Jersey is the only state with a mandated K-12 curriculum on climate change.) Van Laan says to start, educators should focus on teaching kids to connect with nature. “Certainly we’re not laying the responsibility of saving the planet on their tiny shoulders,” she says. 

[Related: Food forests can bring climate resilience, better health, and tasty produce to city residents]

At the same time, some forest schools have come face to face with the impacts of climate change. “The daily reality and urgency of climate change has increased,” she says. “And while we don’t want to introduce young children to ideas that frighten them, we also want to recognize their capacity for understanding. There are outdoor programs in California, for example, that have to close because of wildfires … Children are aware of these things. There’s no way to shield them from this knowledge, because they’re seeing it, they’re experiencing it.”

Iqbal says she’s happy her daughter has the unique opportunity to connect with nature daily—something she feels is made even more important with climate change. “My God, will the next generation need to know this and to look after this, after everything our generation and the generations before have created for them.”

Correction (April 24, 2023): The article previous said that Minnesota has 12 school districts with publicly funded nature preschools. The correct number is 13 nature preschools in total.

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How well do you know your pets? Pet Psychic takes some of the musings you’ve had about your BFFs (beast friends forever) and connects them to hard research and results from modern science.

ONE AFTERNOON several years ago, a Moluccan cockatoo named Harpo arrived at Midwest Avian Adoption & Rescue Services in St. Paul, Minnesota. As Galiena Cimperman sat quietly with him and scratched his head, the bird started to talk.

This was perfectly normal. Harpo, like others of his species and the parrot family to which it belongs, was a very vocal creature and gifted mimic. Cimperman, the sanctuary’s executive director, was accustomed to him keeping up a semicoherent monologue of under-his-breath babble. But a long while after their first meeting, he shared something unexpected.

“I hate this bird,” Harpo said, loudly and clearly. He repeated it twice more. “I hate this bird. I hate this bird.”

Harpo had certainly heard that insult before, likely in unpleasant circumstances. But what did the cockatoo mean by it? According to Cimperman, the words didn’t have the same significance for him that they would for us; Harpo was repeating the sounds, not using them as language. But that doesn’t mean the outburst was insignificant.

Cimperman believes the phrase reflected traumas the cockatoo experienced earlier in life and that uttering them was part of his recovery. “I’m hesitant to say, because I don’t have any scientific backing on this,” she explains, “but I think he was probably working through stuff.”

Her diagnosis of Harpo—and many other residents of MAARS, one of 100 or so sanctuaries in the US that provide lifetime homes to abused and abandoned parrots—indeed comes without a seal of scientific approval. Although there’s plenty of research on parrot memory, problem-solving, and communication (the cognitive sophistication of some species is likened to that of human children), the birds’ emotions are largely unstudied.

That makes the relationship between parrots and people all the more difficult. The birds’ intelligence, physiology, and social nature often makes it difficult for them to flourish in captivity—yet there are more than 50 million parrots in households and zoos worldwide. Many are ultimately dumped at overwhelmed rescue operations, where volunteers like Cimperman have to piece together their pasts to help them find solace in the present.

As for whether the animals’ suffering can lead to psychological trauma—defined as an ongoing emotional response to an intensely distressing event—there’s even less research on that than on their feelings. But between their emotions and their excellent long-term memories, they do possess the cognitive capacities necessary to experience extended trauma.

One of the only scientific papers about parrot trauma, in fact, emerged from a collaboration between MAARS caretakers and Gay Bradshaw, the psychologist and ecologist best known for identifying PTSD in orphaned elephants who witnessed their parents and elders being killed. Presented more than a decade ago at a conference of avian veterinarians, the paper describes how parrots at the sanctuary frequently meet the criteria for the disorder.

What Bradshaw learned is that the birds undergo intensely distressing experiences, beginning in most cases at birth. Unlike parrots in the wild, whose parents provide close, attentive care from hatching through fledging, commercially bred individuals often start life in isolation. They receive little attention except for intermittent tube feeding.

“I really think their whole lives are, in some form or another, traumatic,” Cimperman says. “The way people raise them is completely absent of everything they should have.” In a review of standard commercial breeding methods, bird vet Michelle Curtis Velasco likened them to the infamous Romanian orphanages where, in the near absence of human contact, infants went on to develop severe behavioral disorders.

Then, at an age when their wild counterparts meet other young flock members while continuing to receive parental instruction, fledgling parrots enter a human home. They have evolved to live in large groups, but as pets, just one or a few often-absent people become their entire social world. These situations are intrinsically fraught; even well-meaning guardians may ignore or punish their parrots after tiring of unwittingly powerful bites and earsplitting cries for company. Sometimes keepers are not so well-meaning, and the situation devolves into full-blown abuse.

The birds are ill-equipped to cope, says Cimperman, and stress is magnified by helplessness and an inability to escape. Many parrots, especially the larger ones, either have their wings clipped to prevent flight or never learn to fly at all; they lack the sense of security that mobility provides.

Little wonder that some parrots arrive at MAARS with symptoms of severe psychological disturbance: tics like picking their feathers out and even wounding themselves, extreme aggression, hypersensitivity to everyday noises, repetitive movements, incessant screaming, constant agitation, catatonic unresponsiveness, and so on. In extreme cases, parrots have stayed in their cages for years, avoiding eye contact and trembling when humans approach.

When seen in people, those behaviors raise concerns about PTSD. “I know this hasn’t been borne out scientifically to the degree that it should be, but I don’t know what else it adds up to,” Cimperman says. So MAARS adapts insights on human PTSD into its treatment regime. New arrivals are initially kept separate from the flock; as they begin to acclimatize, grooming, eating, and showing curiosity about their surroundings, caretakers work with them to develop a sense of trust in humans.

It’s important that the birds feel control over their own lives, says Cimperman. “So much of a parrot’s life in captivity is without choice,” she says. “We try to give everyone a sense of free agency as much as possible, closer to what they would have in the wild.” Later they may be exposed to reminders of past trauma—the sight of a garbage bag, for example, for a bird delivered to the sanctuary inside one—as they learn to regulate their feelings. The process may take months or even years.

In Harpo’s case, the details of his early life are murky. He had one guardian before arriving at a sanctuary in Texas; there Harpo killed several birds and left volunteers with wounds requiring medical treatment, at which point MAARS took him in. “We couldn’t have him out for more than five minutes. He would just kind of implode and start flying at your face or attacking anything he could get his beak on,” Cimperman recalls.

By the time Harpo said, “I hate this bird,” she had worked with him for three years. He still had episodes when “he would just kind of blank out and kind of go into attack mode,” but he was improving. He felt safe around Cimperman, and she saw that utterance—delivered with the pinned-back feathers and slit-eyed glare that signify intensely negative feelings—as part of the process. To her, it signified a mental reenactment of his past. “I think they store a lot of stuff that’s happened to them. And to be able to move forward, there has to be some getting out of stuff,” she says.

Erin Colbert-White, a comparative psychologist at the University of Puget Sound in Washington who has studied how African grey parrots use words, says she’s open to the possibility that parrots experience PTSD. She cautions, however, that Harpo’s invective is difficult to parse as a recollection of his trauma because we don’t know the context in which he first heard the disparaging phrase. “It’s such a complex conclusion to draw that I would want to somehow be able to study it systematically. I’m not saying it’s not true. I would just have more questions. The scientist in me says, ‘Proceed with caution.’”

Colbert-White also warns that the expectation that another species will “experience psychological disorders in ways that humans do is a big assumption.” Rigorous, without-a-doubt scientific evidence may be unobtainable, though; it would require inflicting trauma on captive parrots in controlled conditions. “There’s no way to ethically reproduce these sorts of situations,” Colbert-White says.

Even granting that uncertainty, just the possibility that parrots experience psychological effects that resemble humans’ adds to the urgency of protecting them—not just in captivity, notes Cimperman, but also in the wild. Half of all parrot species are declining, and one-quarter are threatened with extinction, yet they receive relatively little conservation attention. Thriving populations are frequently persecuted for the wildlife trade or in the name of “pest management.”

By the end of Harpo’s life in 2021, nine years after his arrival at MAARS, he was one of the friendliest feathered guests there. He ran to greet people and was positively joyful. “I think who Harpo was and who he ended up being were completely different birds,” Cimperman says. “He was literally unrecognizable.” And whatever he’d meant when he said “I hate this bird,” he had stopped saying it.

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In 2013, Charlotte Figi made national news by becoming the youngest patient in Colorado to receive cannabidiol (CBD) therapy to soothe her seizures. The five-year-old had struggled with severe epilepsy since infancy, sometimes experiencing 50 or more episodes a day, with little relief from standard drugs and dietary tweaks. By the time her parents started consulting doctors about CBD extracts, she had difficulty walking, talking, and eating without help.

Figi’s neurologist put her on a low dose of a specially bred strain of medical cannabis, later dubbed “Charlotte’s Web.” The effects were almost immediate. The seizures slowed from daily to weekly events, and soon, the kid was living life almost normally. After close to two years of the oral treatment, the doctors decided to wean Figi off other epileptic medications.

Figi’s story represents one of the clearest, most well-documented cases of the healing potential of CBD. (The young pioneer died in 2020, due to complications of COVID-19.) Though people have used the plant-based chemical to treat migraines and other bodily aches for centuries, the science around its efficacy is still inconclusive because it’s tricky to study its direct effect on the nervous system. Regardless, the industry has boomed in the past decade. Today CBD can be found in a range of products—from lattes to bath bombs to dog treats—and is marketed as a cure-all for pain, anxiety, insomnia, and even AIDS.

So, what should a person who’s buying CBD expect? There’s plenty of information out there, but the bottom line is confusing. Here’s an overview of what medical experts say about the ingredient and whether it lives up to its hype.

What is CBD?

CBD is essentially cannabis, minus the strong psychoactive bits. The carbon-oxygen-hydrogen compound can be found in high concentrations in Cannabis sativa and less-potent hemp plants. Sometimes manufacturers mix it with traces of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the cannabis-based chemical that gets people high, but it generally doesn’t carry the same dopamine-heightening and possibly addictive properties.

Like THC, though, CBD works its “magic” by cozying up to the nervous system. From what molecular scientists know so far, it somehow changes proteins found all over the body that are responsible for managing pain, inflammation, mood, appetite, and even memory. It’s still unknown how extensively it affects that internal chemistry, especially when combined with other ingredients, says Johns Hopkins University food scientist Kantha Shelke.

Is CBD legal?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently updated its regulations to state that it supports further research on benefits, safety, and use of CBD products. For now, the extract is considered a controlled substance if it comes from cannabis plants. It’s treated more like a dietary supplement or food additive when harvested from hemp.

[Related: Cannabis poisoning is on the rise in pets]

That seems relatively straightforward, but throw local laws into the mix and the standards become a lot more unwieldy. CBD is legal to sell and buy in one form or another around the US, though it’s harder to hawk across state lines because of the federal regulations. In places where it’s lawful, the ingredient can be added to any product as long as it contains less than 0.3 percent THC and is marketed correctly. If it’s labeled as a drug it has to undergo clinical tests and win FDA approval before it’s available for public use. The agency has only approved one CBD medication so far: Epidolex, which is used to treat the same genetic syndrome that Charlotte Figi had.

At the beginning of 2023, the FDA announced that it would work with Congress on a new set of CBD regulations, citing potential long-term risks to people’s livers, the male reproductive system, livestock, and more. Once they are passed, the substance will be in a separate class from dietary supplements and food additives. In the meantime, the agency cautions against giving CBD products to children, pregnant and lactating people, and pets.

What are the proven benefits of CBD?

Some of the best research on CBD’s therapeutic effects comes from treating childhood epilepsy (thanks to the Figi family), schizophrenia, sleep deprivation, and anxiety disorders. The chemical has shown strong results in relieving all four of these conditions, with “a clear calming effect,” according to one 2019 analysis. That said, most of the studies exploring this connection don’t include a control group, or a baseline for comparison.

When it comes to looking at CBD for pain relief, the research is even more flimsy. Tests have shown that it can be effective against arthritis in rats, and that it might work as well as opioids for multiple sclerosis and cancer patients. But many of these treatments also included some amount of THC, so it’s hard to say if CBD was the primary cause of relief.

There’s also the question of which forms of CBD are safe enough for consumers but strong enough to make a difference. For neurological conditions like anxiety or apnea, the chemical needs to be absorbed into the bloodstream to have maximum impact. That means it needs to be ingested, inhaled, or rubbed in at high concentrations. But as health reporter Sarah Jacoby wrote in Self while vetting her own CBD buys, many of the proteins that trigger pain and inflammation are located between the skin and veins. So, any cream or gel that wants to counter aching joints and tight muscles needs to be able to get through the dermis but not as deep as the blood vessels. That’s a tall order for any drugstore formula.

Overall, doctors are reluctant to call CBD a pain panacea. But companies keep putting it in gels, goos, tinctures, massage oils, and roll-on creams, and people continue to snap them up. (One market report put CBD sales at nearly $5 billion sales in 2020.) It’s clear that the ingredient is somewhat beneficial to human health—science just needs to understand how much.

Does CBD have any bad effects?

Medical researchers haven’t pinpointed any deadly patterns with CBD use yet. A few case studies have mentioned respiratory failure, but in many of those instances, the patients also had THC in their system. People have complained about nausea and gastrointestinal issues after taking high concentrations of CBD. The Mayo Clinic also mentions fatigue, dizziness, and loss of appetite as possible complications.

[Related: Can you overdose on weed?]

There are concerns that CBD might interact negatively with other drugs, specifically blood thinners like warfarin. But there’s no specific guidance on which medications to avoid mixing with the extract.

How much CBD should people take?

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to calculate safe and effective serving sizes for CBD. Dosing depends on body weight, desired effect, and the way a person is taking it. CBD products often come with suggestions, but those can be misleading, given that the FDA doesn’t test every supplement against its labels and claims. (The agency has issued warnings to dozens of companies who’ve listed incorrect information about CBD and THC levels in their products; see the full list here.)

“With CBD, dosage matters,” Shelke says, as over-indulgence has been associated with ill effects. But without a fundamental understanding of the chemistry of the ingredient, and how the cooking process changes it, it’s hard to come up with scientifically backed dosing recommendations. With the limited information available, Shelke advises to go the “less is better” route with any unregulated CBD products.

Why is CBD so hard to study?

Because CBD is one of hundreds of compounds in hemp and cannabis, it’s tricky to extract and standardize. If the chemical is tainted or alternated in any way during the process, it can have a different set of effects. The way it’s consumed also plays a big part in the reaction. As Figi’s neurologist wrote back in 2014, cooking or smoking CBD means adding heat, which could break down the chemical and make it less beneficial. Pills and edibles, on the other hand, need to be carefully engineered so that they don’t get neutralized by stomach acid.

All that variability, both in the plants and the products that are derived from them, makes CBD more challenging to test for medicinal purposes. It’s also often mixed with THC when treating chronic pain or life-threatening illnesses, so it take many extra layers of research to isolate the purely physical perks from the psychoactive ones.

Is CBD safe to cook with?

Plenty of food brands, restaurants, and cookbook authors are now folding CBD into their recipes. But does the ingredient have the same therapeutic effect when it’s baked in a brownie pan at 360 degrees Fahrenheit or seared in a skillet with sea bass and lemon rinds?

“There are many unanswered questions about the science, safety, quality, and physiological effects of CBD that need to be addressed before one can identify the effects of various chemical reactions on its efficacy,” Shelke says. Part of the issue with cooking with the extract is that the purity and the concentration is often unknown. This makes it even harder to know how it will interact with other ingredients, and whether that combination will help or harm a person. Bottom line: It’s better to avoid highly processed products or prepared meals with CBD, especially if you’re new to the compound.

What’s the best way to see if CBD works for me?

If you’re looking for a supplement to help you go to sleep at night, relieve a light migraine, or unwind after a stressful event, try a low-stakes gummy or topical oil. Be sure to choose a well-reviewed and reputable product, Shelke says: Just because it says it contains CBD doesn’t mean it will live up to its promise.

To treat chronic pain, depressive disorders, or other serious illnesses, get your doctor’s recommendations first. They can take stock of the latest research specific to your needs and also track how CBD works with other prescriptions you’re taking.

[Related on PopSci+: The tasty chemicals flavoring the edible cannabis boom]

As you head into the experience, manage your expectations. Like most wellness products that are backed by tepid evidence, the results can be hit or miss. Stay within the recommended doses on the products’ labels and report any unexpected side effects to your primary-care physician.

The future of CBD seems full of potential, but in present times, there are more questions than answers.

This post was updated in 2023 with new regulatory information from the FDA.

The post Can CBD help you chill? Here’s what we know so far. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Selfies occasionally go viral, but they’re not typically taken by an animal. So the fact that a black bear’s encounter with a motion-activated wildlife camera in Boulder, Colorado, in 2022 resulted in more than 400 of them—including an undeniably cute one with its tongue hanging out—is especially intriguing. Most creatures ignore camera traps. The question is: Why didn’t this bear?

​​It may be tempting to think of this selfie moment as an animal blunder, but this anecdote captures more than meets the eye. Research suggests bears, much like elephants and great apes, are more intelligent than previously assumed. The selfie bear is a unique reminder of a type of animal cognition scientists are just starting to understand. 

“Bears are probably more naturally curious about how things work than some other species,” says Jennifer Vonk, a psychology professor at Oakland University. 

Bears are generally impressive. They have an excellent sense of smell, seven times better than a bloodhound’s. Grizzly bears can run up to 35 miles per hour, beating the fastest human sprint by over 25 percent. Despite their bulk, bears are very dexterous—they can open screw-top jars, manipulate door latches, and even operate touchscreen computers with a talent that outpaces animals more closely related to people. 

Vonk discovered this when she and a colleague trained captive-bred black bears to select a larger or smaller set of dots that stayed in place or moved around the screen. Although the ability to count or distinguish between different quantities has been tested in many animals, scientists didn’t think ursines had this ability because they are a solitary, rather than social, species. The “social intelligence hypothesis” suggests social animals are likelier to be smarter than solitary species because interactive environments offer more cognitive challenges. 

[Related: Hibernating bears hold many secrets for better human health.]

The experiment proved otherwise. During the study, the size of the dots varied—in some trials, for example, the larger set of dots covered more area than the smaller set of dots. Conversely, the larger set could also cover a smaller area, which ultimately tested if black bears were making choices based on area or the number of dots. The animals performed above chance on all trials, showing they could use numbers to guide their choices. In other words, they could count. These results were published in the journal Animal Behavior. 

“I was surprised how quickly the bears took to responding on the computer because we were training animals that had never done any kind of experiments,” says Vonk. “On literally the first day we tested, the dominant male went right to the images that moved around the screen without making any errors. And with almost every task we gave him, he learned faster than the chimps and gorillas I was working with at the same time.”

While bears have one of the largest relative brain sizes of any carnivore, there’s surprisingly little research regarding their cognitive abilities. This oversight may be due to logistics more than anything else. Most cognitive research happens in a laboratory; the animals that do well in these environments are smaller creatures, like rats, mice, and pigeons. Facilities that allow controlled testing with bears are scarce. 

Despite these challenges, Vonk’s lab at Oakland University has worked to fill this gap in our understanding of bears since 2012. Another study conducted by Vonk suggests bears also recognize images on computer screens as real objects: During it, a captive black bear named Migwan was able to show that she prefers grapes over beets. While bears can recognize features of real objects in their virtual images, the researchers emphasized this doesn’t necessarily mean bears fully grasp what pictures are. 

Another touchscreen study from the Vonk lab suggests bears can distinguish between different categories of things, such as animals versus non-animals. The bears were trained (with the help of a few treats) to choose between two rather odd and different groups: supermodels and Planet of the Apes characters. After that task was mastered, the bears were tested on more difficult subjects. For instance, the studied black bears could tell polar bears from other species of bears, primates from hoofed animals, or a chameleon from a car. They performed surprisingly well, even for the most abstract categories of distinguishing animals from non-animals.

Other research suggests black bears aren’t the only intelligent bear. For example, in a study of tool use published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, brown bears had to manipulate logs and boxes to reach a tempting reward: glazed donuts. Six of the eight bears in the study successfully completed the pastry-acquiring task and usually did so out in less than two minutes, explains lead author Lynne Nelson, a professor of veterinary cardiology at Washington University. 

For decades, tool use was considered to be the defining characteristic of humans—something that proved how smart we are. The fact that bears can also use tools subsequently suggests some advanced intelligence.

Several factors may explain why bears are smart, though “more work needs to be done before we really know whether social structure or foraging ecology better predicts overall intelligence,” Vonk says. 

“I think people are only starting to recognize that it’s an interaction of all these things,” she adds.

For now, there are some promising theories. Overall most animals living in social groups, like primates, exhibit high levels of intelligence. Scientists hypothesize that social animals evolved to have mental abilities that help them cooperate and understand others’ intentions. But bears, generally, are solitary. Their brains are less of a response to their social situation and more of a response to the challenging environments that they live in. Their ability to make quick, adaptive responses to these conditions may explain why their brains are relatively large compared to their body weight—a proportion that suggests intelligence. 

Bear intelligence may also be the result of their early development; cubs start off life as curious little troublemakers. Gordon Burghardt, a professor of animal behavior at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, experienced this firsthand when two rescued black bear cubs stayed in his house for several weeks. He describes the inquisitive youngsters opening kitchen cabinets and sliding glass doors, climbing into the shower, and running off with purses. The cubs were also fond of playing with each other, which he posits helps with their development. Play is often thought to facilitate learning and mental development, as well as being a method of exercise and stress relief. 

Black bears and brown bears are both generalists, showing great versatility in the food they eat, how they get it, and where they find it, Vonk explained. They hunt, scavenge, and also seek out plants, nuts, and fruit. Bears also adjust to a seasonally changing environment, gaining weight in the fall and hibernating in winter. This variable and unpredictable environment may have led to bears’ greater intelligence. 

“Bears live in a vast range of environments from the deserts to the tropics and the Arctic,” Nelson adds. “Animals must exhibit a certain level of intelligence to be able to earn a living almost anywhere on the earth.”

[Related: What an ancient jawbone reveals about polar bear evolution]

The giant mammals face considerable challenges because of people too: the development of their habitats, hunting, pollution, cars, and climate change all put them at risk. Studying bear intelligence, in turn, does more than explain a natural wonder—it increases the likelihood that they’ll survive. Some scientists argue that people are more likely to protect animals when they realize the species are intelligent. 

Bears, meanwhile, will continue to be as curious as ever. After the selfie black bear went viral, Canadian park rangers tweeted out their own celebrity: the selfie polar bear.

The post Bears can count, take selfies, use tools, recognize supermodels, and even open car doors appeared first on Popular Science.

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Bilingualism is an advantageous ability in ways that go beyond simply being able to communicate with others. It literally changes the brain, inducing heightened neuroplasticity and protecting against cognitive decline. New research also suggests a little-understood brain region uniquely adapts to different written languages—a finding that sheds light on the mysteries of language recognition.

In a study published on April 5 in the journal Science Advances, researchers examined how bilinguals process their respective languages in written form. They discovered that a part of the brain called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) activates differently for English-Chinese speakers compared to English-French speakers. 

While most research on bilingualism compares people who speak two languages to those who just speak one, this study compares bilinguals of different languages and writing systems. Scientists analyzed the brains of people who speak English and Chinese, along with the brains of people who speak English and French. While an fMRI machine measured their brain activity, participants viewed visual stimuli like letters, faces, and houses.

In both groups, the VWFA reacted likewise when shown English or French. But when English-Chinese participants read Chinese characters, distinct areas lit up in response. 

[Related: Learning a second language early may have ripple effects throughout your life]

The study team, in turn, discovered clusters of neurons specific to the Chinese language in English-Chinese bilinguals. In English-French bilinguals, their brain activity was the same regardless of language stimuli. Their research further demonstrates that the brain develops in response to an individual’s unique experiences. 

“My initial impression of [the study] is that it’s a real tour de force methodologically and in terms of design it’s comprehensive, thorough and ambitious,” says Dale Stevens, a York University neuroscience professor who was not part of the research. It also gives us “a more specific understanding” of the VWFA, he adds. 

What is the Visual Word Form Area?

The VWFA is the region of the brain that recognizes written words. It develops when people learn to read, which builds neural pathways between the visual and language systems. Without it, people would be unable to read. 

Minye Zhan, the first study author and a cognitive neuroscience researcher at NeuroSpin, a research institute in France, expected to find some neurological differences between dominant English speakers, dominant French speakers, and balanced English-French speakers. Instead, the 21 English-French bilinguals didn’t demonstrate any processing differences, despite their dominance in one language over the other. 

“It’s the same system,” Zhan says. “I dug hard and didn’t see any difference. It was a very big surprise.”

Meanwhile, the brains of the ten English-Chinese speakers reacted very differently when shown Chinese characters. In this group, Chinese was the dominant language. When the researchers scanned the brains of these participants, they found distinct activity: Chinese-specific clusters of neurons in the VWFA. 

How did researchers map brain activity?

Previously, pinpointing specific areas of brain activity challenged researchers. Now, high-resolution MRI machines, such as the 7-Tesla fMRI used in this study, allow for more detailed brain scans. The research team, in turn, could see that chains of neuron clusters activated when the study participants saw Chinese. Zhan describes it as “a galaxy, a constellation of areas.” 

“The interesting part is that there are these word patches that process both languages, even different languages like English and Chinese,” Zhan says. “They’re so different, but they are processed in the same area, although there are specialized Chinese-only language patches in the brain.”

Interestingly, brain response to Chinese stimuli overlaps with a region that helps with facial recognition. The difference might have something to do with cognitive processing. The brain can perceive visual stimuli as a whole or in parts, and the strategy it chooses depends on the language read. 

Why are there language-specific areas?

When you see a face, you don’t recognize eyes, noses, and a mouth as separate parts. Instead, you see a face as a face, a unified whole. Research has shown that native Chinese speakers process Chinese characters similarly, which have combinations of strokes and radicals. Meanwhile, part-based processing is more common in alphabetic languages, such as English and French. Individual letters, or letter combinations, are processed separately and then integrated to form a coherent word. 

Another explanation has more to do with language structure. Chinese, like Japanese and some Korean, is logographic. These writing systems use characters that correspond to concepts, ideas, and words. Phonetic languages, like English and French, use characters that correspond to sounds.   

[Related: Learning a new language? Here’s how to perfect your pronunciation.]

Most Chinese characters give few clues as to how they are read. New learners, including Chinese children, pick up character pronunciation using Pinyin, which uses the Latin alphabet to spell out sounds of Standard Chinese characters. Meanwhile, when children study French or English, both phonetic languages with a strong connection between spelling and pronunciation, they’re encouraged to sound out words letter by letter. 

Learning Chinese might place unique demands on neural pathways, resulting in different connections. Still, these explanations for the VWFA’s split are speculation for now. Researchers don’t know precisely why the brain reacts differently for English-Chinese bilinguals, just that these bilingual speakers have specialized brain activity unobserved in the English-French group. 

This research wouldn’t have been possible more than a few years ago. The experiment used a high-resolution 7-Tesla fMRI scanner, which has a much stronger magnetic field that can scan brain activity in greater detail compared to previous models (a Tesla is a unit of measurement to quantify magnetic field strength). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved this model in 2017. 

In contrast, a hospital might use a 1.5 or 3-Tesla MRI machine. And while this resolution is the standard, it doesn’t reveal the same level of detail, Zhan says. 

The research raises many questions, says Zhan. Her team is interested in repeating the study with groups of participants who speak different native languages and use different alphabets. Zhan also wants to discover why these specialized patches of neurons emerge depending on what language a person can read. 

“So why do those special patches come up?” she says. “That we don’t know. We just observe them. So we report first and say that it needs more research.”

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Picture this: You’re at your desk working on a project when your phone chimes. A quick glance tells you a friend sent over a video on TikTok. Convinced you’re due for a break, you click the link to find a new dance video from Charli D’Amelio. Fast forward an hour later, and you’re still on your phone, except now you’ve gone from viral dances to animal videos to fitness gurus raving about a weight loss hack. 

If this scenario hits too close to home, you’re not alone. Most people on social media check it daily, and younger people are likelier to return to their favorite platforms multiple times a day. TikTok is especially popular with teenagers: A 2022 survey from the Pew Research Center suggests 67 percent of teens use it, while 16 percent use it almost constantly. 

So why do people spend so much time online? One underlying reason is that platforms like TikTok promote infinite scrolling. You might start off in one video only for the page to continuously load a never-ending stream of content. Absent-mindedly scrolling through content might seem like an innocent activity and a great excuse to waste time. However, research suggests it can negatively influence the brain and mental health.

Anyone can fall prey to mindless scrolling. Younger people are especially vulnerable since the brain is not fully developed until age 25, says Lisa Pion-Berlin, a psychologist and president of Parents Anonymous, a child abuse prevention nonprofit. While limiting access to social media (like this Utah bill requiring parental permission is trying to do) is one option, learning how to be a more active user can help anyone stop infinite scrolling and still enjoy social media.

Why infinite scrolling is bad for you

Social media platforms like TikTok are not comprehensively bad for you. Several studies suggest social media can prompt feelings of connectedness and positive well-being. Further, they allow for personal expression, which fosters positive mental health.

Ultimately, how social media makes people feel depends on how they use it. For example, excess social media use is associated with feeling more anxious, lonely, and generally bad about yourself. 

“The more attached we are to our devices, the more problematic it becomes,” says Lisa Strohman, a psychologist and the founder of Digital Citizen Academy, an education program that teaches children and teens how to have a healthy relationship with technology. 

[Related: Do you never feel FOMO? Time to meet its twin, JOMO.]

Moreover, Strohman says watching pictures and videos of everyone living their best life might make you worried or sad that you’re missing out. Some research suggests that comparing yourself to others on social media can result in aggression and anxiety, while other studies suggest a link between negative comparisons on social media and suicidal ideation.

Meanwhile, mindless scrolling can result in a state of mind similar to being in a trance state, says Pion-Berlin. She’s concerned that “mindless scrolling is a way to tune out” or dissociate from reality. Some research suggests that overuse of social media can result in negative psychological impacts: A 2023 study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that middle schoolers who constantly checked their social media feeds showed changes in how their brains responded to feedback and criticism from peers.   

Infinite scrolling can also lead to disrupted sleep patterns in adolescents and adults. The screen’s blue light can make it difficult to fall asleep, and the constant content prevents your brain from shutting down for the night. 

When we sleep, the brain sorts through and categorizes the information from the day and commits the vital stuff into long-term memory, explains Strohman. But mindless social media surfing before bedtime keeps giving it more data for the brain to process throughout the night, “and that’s what tends to lead to that insomnia,” she explains.

How infinite scrolling can hijack the brain

Mindless scrolling helps make social media an addicting habit because it takes advantage of the brain’s reward system, says Strohman.

An enjoyable TikTok, for example, can trigger the brain’s reward pathway. Subsequently, this causes the brain to release a chemical called dopamine, which Strohman describes “as a hit or a high” for the brain. The dopamine surge tells the brain that scrolling through social media is pleasurable and that we should do it again. Because another attention-grabbing Tiktok plays immediately when the first is over, this process starts all over again immediately. 

“The brain is rewarded every time because of how the feeds and algorithms are set up so that anytime we’re not on the app, we think we’re missing something,” explains Strohman. “That makes us want to go back on it again.:

The same process applies to adolescents—possibly to a more significant effect. Pion-Berlin explains that because the prefrontal cortex is one of the last brain areas to mature fully, younger people are more impulsive and have less self-control than adults. With less self-control, it may be easier for teens to fall into this rabbit hole of social media content, she says. In addition, the limbic system—a part of the brain involved in behavioral and emotional responses—is also more sensitive during our teenage years, which makes them likelier to prioritize pleasurable and desirable activities.

What are some ways to stop infinite scrolling?

While infinite scrolling isn’t great, that does not mean you need to quit social media altogether. On the contrary, there are some benefits to staying on the apps, such as building communities among people with a shared hobby or interest, maintaining relationships with family who live miles away, raising awareness for a particular cause, and learning from credible experts.

[Related: All the ways you can reduce screen time across your devices]

To make the most of your time, you’ll want to become an active rather than a passive user. Active users interact with others— in practice, this could look like commenting on posts or creating content. The high engagement gives you a specific purpose for being on the app, allows you to nurture and maintain online friendships, and is associated with improved well-being. 

Meanwhile, infinite scrolling is a passive activity because you’re socially disconnected from others and lurking in the background. Of course, sometimes you just want to take a break from life and watch some mind-numbing videos. In these situations, you’ll want to set a timer to limit the time you spend online and know when it’s time to log off, Strohman says. 

Another suggestion from Strohman is turning off notifications. People often fall into mindless surfing when notified or tagged in something. And while you might start out looking at the relevant post, you can easily find yourself lost in a comment thread or other recommended videos. 

“Have a clear purpose when accessing social media,” Strohman says. If a friend shares a post, tell yourself you will only watch this one video and not spend the next two hours on TikTok. 

“The more you scroll, the less settled you’ll be,” advises Strohman. “Be mindful, recognize your part in it, and try to do what you can to manage yourself in those online worlds.”

The post How to break your toxic infinite scroll habit on TikTok appeared first on Popular Science.

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When it comes to tackling the opioid crisis in America, there is no single solution. Public health officials have taken measures to prevent future overdoses by reducing the number of opioid prescriptions, curbing the flow of illicit drug trafficking, and raising awareness of the dangers of opioids. But for the three million people already addicted to this class of drugs, the emphasis has turned to a quick-working treatment: naloxone.

It’s possible to reverse an opioid overdose with an injectable or single-dose nasal spray called naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan). Street drugs and prescription painkillers like heroin, morphine, and codeine target opioid receptors in the brain to induce a pleasurable high. But they can also affect neurons that control respiration, causing a person to stop breathing if they overdose. Naloxone blocks the brain receptors so that the drugs can’t reach them, preventing this deadly side effect. “There are very few things I would call a perfect antidote, but, in this case, Narcan is one of them,” says Ryan Marino, a medical toxicologist and addiction medicine specialist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He adds that naloxone works against synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

[Related: At-home test strips for fentanyl are just the first step to preventing overdoses]

In response to the growing number of opioid overdose deaths—75 percent of drug overdose deaths in the US in 2020 involved an opioid—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an over-the-counter version of naloxone. The decision makes the drug more accessible: People will be able to buy the nasal spray at places like their local pharmacy or gas station without a prescription. But while medical experts have lauded the FDA’s ruling, not everyone is happy with the news. There have been some concerns from the public about distributing naloxone and whether it encourages more drug use. PopSci spoke with medical experts on common misconceptions surrounding naloxone and its safety.

Myth 1: Naloxone encourages people to do more drugs

A common objection to expanding naloxone access is that it acts as a safety net for people with addiction to continue their drug habits with few repercussions. But Kathryn Cunningham, director of the Center of Addiction Research at the University of Texas Medical Branch, says research has shown no evidence that naloxone leads to more drug use. 

A well-known 2013 study in The BMJ journal found the number of opioid-related hospital visits did not increase in communities with programs distributing naloxone and those with less access to the nasal spray. Instead, naloxone helped in reducing the amount of risky drug activity in 19 communities that distributed it to residents.

Myth 2: Naloxone prevents users from getting treated for addiction

Think of naloxone as a fire extinguisher in your house, Marino says. You’ll likely use it if there’s a small blaze. But if you have repeated incidents or if your house becomes engulfed in flames, the fire extinguisher can only help so much. Eventually, you’ll have to call the fire department for help. Simply put, naloxone may actually convince people to find professional help because it gives them more opportunities to seek treatment and rehabilitation later in life. “You can’t seek medical services if you’re dead,” Cunningham explains. 

If there’s any deterrent to getting treatment, it’s the stigma surrounding substance use disorders. Research suggests laws hampering access to care and discrimination from medical professionals against patients with a history of drug use may discourage people from opening up about their addiction. Even when they seek out help, patients have reported being treated as if they were untrustworthy, intimidating, and immoral.

Myth 3: Only medical professionals can use naloxone safely

You do not need medical training to give naloxone to someone who’s overdosed. Marino says the over-the-counter nasal spray that the FDA approved was designed to be easy enough to be used by a child as young as 6. The box also has step-by-step instructions printed on the side. “It comes with this little nasal atomizer,” Marino adds. “You just take it out of the package, put it in someone’s nose, and press the pointer. That’s all there is to it.” If a person accidentally applies naloxone to someone who hasn’t overdosed, it will be benign.

[Related: How to break free of the bystander effect and help someone in trouble]

There is no age limit for being treated with naloxone. You can use it on a newborn with opioids in their system or even a toddler who’s exposed to fentanyl patches. The nasal spray expires after three years, and should be stored in temperatures between 77 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Naloxone freezes at temperatures below 5 degrees Fahrenheit, making it unusable until it thaws out.

Myth 4: Naloxone makes users violent

It’s been rumored that the sudden onslaught of withdrawal symptoms caused by naloxone might cause a person to become aggressive or lash out when they gain consciousness. That’s not typically the case. Cunningham says common side effects after treatment include headaches, disorientation, vomiting, and nausea—all of which are temporary, because it’s a short-acting drug. “Withdrawal is not life-threatening,” Cunningham notes. “Not breathing because of an opiate is life-threatening.”

Fact: Naloxone could save many lives if more people have it

The FDA’s decision (which doesn’t mention exact rollout dates) makes it so that anyone can be ready to jump in and prevent deaths from opioid overdoses. Marino says it’s best to think of naloxone as another item in your first aid kit in case of emergencies. “We might tell ourselves that no one in our life is using drugs or going to overdose, but you never want to have a situation where you need it and not have it.”

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Nothing prepared Linda C. Johnson of Indianapolis for the fatigue that descended on her after a diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer in early 2020.

Initially, Johnson, now 77, thought she was depressed. She could barely summon the energy to get dressed in the morning. Some days, she couldn’t get out of bed.

But as she began to get her affairs in order, Johnson realized something else was going on. However long she slept the night before, she woke up exhausted. She felt depleted, even if she didn’t do much during the day.

“People would tell me, ‘You know, you’re getting old.’ And that wasn’t helpful at all. Because then you feel there’s nothing you can do mentally or physically to deal with this,” she told me.

Fatigue is a common companion of many illnesses that beset older adults: heart disease, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, lung disease, kidney disease, and neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis, among others. It’s one of the most common symptoms associated with chronic illness, affecting 40% to 74% of older people living with these conditions, according to a 2021 review by researchers at the University of Massachusetts.

This is more than exhaustion after an extremely busy day or a night of poor sleep. It’s a persistent whole-body feeling of having no energy, even with minimal or no exertion. “I feel like I have a drained battery pretty much all of the time,” wrote a user named Renee in a Facebook group for people with polycythemia vera, a rare blood cancer. “It’s sort of like being a wrung-out dish rag.”

Fatigue doesn’t represent “a day when you’re tired; it’s a couple of weeks or a couple of months when you’re tired,” said Dr. Kurt Kroenke, a research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, which specializes in medical research, and a professor at Indiana University’s School of Medicine.

When he and colleagues queried nearly 3,500 older patients at a large primary care clinic in Indianapolis about bothersome symptoms, 55% listed fatigue — second only to musculoskeletal pain (65%) and more than back pain (45%) and shortness of breath (41%).

Separately, a 2010 study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society estimated that 31% of people 51 and older reported being fatigued in the past week.

The impact can be profound. Fatigue is the leading reason for restricted activity in people 70 and older, according to a 2001 study by researchers at Yale. Other studies have linked fatigue with impaired mobility, limitations in people’s abilities to perform daily activities, the onset or worsening of disability, and earlier death.

What often happens is older adults with fatigue stop being active and become deconditioned, which leads to muscle loss and weakness, which heightens fatigue. “It becomes a vicious cycle that contributes to things like depression, which can make you more fatigued,” said Dr. Jean Kutner, a professor of medicine and chief medical officer at the University of Colorado Hospital.

To stop that from happening, Johnson came up with a plan after learning her lung cancer had returned. Every morning, she set small goals for herself. One day, she’d get up and wash her face. The next, she’d take a shower. Another day, she’d go to the grocery store. After each activity, she’d rest.

In the three years since her cancer came back, Johnson’s fatigue has been constant. But “I’m functioning better,” she told me, because she’s learned how to pace herself and find things that motivate her, like teaching a virtual class to students training to be teachers and getting exercise under the supervision of a personal trainer.

When should older adults be concerned about fatigue? “If someone has been doing OK but is now feeling fatigued all the time, it’s important to get an evaluation,” said Dr. Holly Yang, a physician at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego and incoming board president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

“Fatigue is an alarm signal that something is wrong with the body but it’s rarely one thing. Usually, several things need to be addressed,” said Dr. Ardeshir Hashmi, section chief of the Center for Geriatric Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

Among the items physicians should check: Are your thyroid levels normal? Are you having trouble with sleep? If you have underlying medical conditions, are they well controlled? Do you have an underlying infection? Are you chronically dehydrated? Do you have anemia (a deficiency of red blood cells or hemoglobin), an electrolyte imbalance, or low levels of testosterone? Are you eating enough protein? Have you been feeling more anxious or depressed recently? And might medications you’re taking be contributing to fatigue?

“The medications and doses may be the same, but your body’s ability to metabolize those medications and clear them from your system may have changed,” Hashmi said, noting that such changes in the body’s metabolic activity are common as people become older.

Many potential contributors to fatigue can be addressed. But much of the time, reasons for fatigue can’t be explained by an underlying medical condition.

That happened to Teresa Goodell, 64, a retired nurse who lives just outside Portland, Oregon. During a December visit to Arizona, she suddenly found herself exhausted and short of breath while on a hike, even though she was in good physical condition. At an urgent care facility, she was diagnosed with an asthma exacerbation and given steroids, but they didn’t help.

Soon, Goodell was spending hours each day in bed, overcome by profound tiredness and weakness. Even small activities wore her out. But none of the medical tests she received in Arizona and subsequently in Portland — a chest X-ray and CT scan, blood work, a cardiac stress test — showed abnormalities.

“There was no objective evidence of illness, and that makes it hard for anybody to believe you’re sick,” she told me.

Goodell started visiting long covid web sites and chat rooms for people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Today, she’s convinced she has post-viral syndrome from an infection. One of the most common symptoms of long covid is fatigue that interferes with daily life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are several strategies for dealing with persistent fatigue. In cancer patients, “the best evidence favors physical activity such as tai chi, yoga, walking, or low-impact exercises,” said Dr. Christian Sinclair, an associate professor of palliative medicine at the University of Kansas Health System. The goal is to “gradually stretch patients’ stamina,” he said.

With long covid, however, doing too much too soon can backfire by causing “post-exertional malaise.” Pacing one’s activities is often recommended: doing only what’s most important, when one’s energy level is highest, and resting afterward. “You learn how to set realistic goals,” said Dr. Andrew Esch, senior education advisor at the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

Cognitive behavioral therapy can help older adults with fatigue learn how to adjust expectations and address intrusive thoughts such as, “I should be able to do more.” At the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, management plans for older patients with fatigue typically include strategies to address physical activity, sleep health, nutrition, emotional health, and support from family and friends.

“So much of fatigue management is about forming new habits,” said Dr. Ishwaria Subbiah, a palliative care and integrative medicine physician at MD Anderson. “It’s important to recognize that this doesn’t happen right away: It takes time.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

The post Why fatigue is so common in older adults appeared first on Popular Science.

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Relationships are all about trust, and a new study shows AI-aided conversations could help build rapport between two people—but only as long as no one suspects the other is using AI.

According to a Cornell University research team’s investigation published this week with Scientific Reports, using AI-assisted responses (i.e. “smart replies”) can change conversational tone and social relationships, as well as increase communication speeds. And although more positive emotional language is often used in these instances, people who merely suspect responses to be influenced by AI are often more distrusting of their conversation partners, regardless of whether or not they are actually being used.

[Related: OpenAI’s newest ChatGPT update can still spread conspiracy theories.]

In the team’s study, researchers gathered 219 participant pairs and asked them to work with a program modeled after Google Allo (French for “hello”), the first, now-defunct smart-reply platform. The pairs were then asked to talk about policy issues under three conditions: both sides could use smart replies, only one side could use them, and neither could employ them. As a result, the team saw smart reply usage (roughly one in seven messages) boosted conversations’ efficiency, positive-aligned language, as well as positive evaluations from participants. That said, those who suspected partners used smart replies were often judged more negatively.

In the meantime, the study indicated you could also be sacrificing your own personal touch for the sake of AI-aided speed and convenience. Another experiment involving 299 randomly paired conversationalists asked participants to speak together under one of four scenarios: default Google smart replies, “positive” smart replies, “negative” replies, and no smart replies at all. As might be expected, positive smart replies begat more positive overall tones than conversations with the negative smart replies, or zero smart replies.

[Related: Microsoft lays off entire AI ethics team while going all out on ChatGPT.]

“While AI might be able to help you write, it’s altering your language in ways you might not expect, especially by making you sound more positive,” Jess Hohenstein, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author, said in a statement. “This suggests that by using text-generating AI, you’re sacrificing some of your own personal voice.”

Malte Jung, one of the study’s co-authors and an associate professor of information science, added that this implies the companies controlling AI-assist tech algorithms could easily influence many users’ “interactions, language, and perceptions of each other.”

This could become especially concerning as large language model programs like Microsoft’s ChatGPT-boosted Bing search engine and Google Bard continue their rapid integration into a suite of the companies’ respective products, much to critics’ worries.

“Technology companies tend to emphasize the utility of AI tools to accomplish tasks faster and better, but they ignore the social dimension,” said Jung. “We do not live and work in isolation, and the systems we use impact our interactions with others.”

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Update 04/06/2023: Comments from Monument’s CEO have been added to this article.

According to recent reports, two online alcohol recovery startups shared users’ detailed private health information and personal data to third-party advertisers without their consent. They were able to do so via popular tracking systems such as the Meta Pixel. Both Tempest and its parent company, Monument, confirmed the extensive privacy violations to TechCrunch on Tuesday. They now claim to no longer employ the frequently criticized consumer profiling products developed by companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.

In a disclosure letter mailed to its consumers last week, Monument states “we value and respect the privacy of our members’ information,” but admitted “some information” may have been shared to third parties without the “appropriate authorization, consent, or agreements required by law.” The potentially illegal violations stem as far back as 2020 for Monument members, and 2017 for those using Tempest.

Within those leaks, as many as 100,000 accounts’ names, birthdates, email addresses, telephone numbers, home addresses, membership IDs, insurance IDs, and IP addresses. Additionally, users’ photographs, service plans, survey responses, appointment-related info, and “associated health information” may also have been shared to third-parties. Monument and Tempest assured customers, however, that their Social Security numbers and banking information had not been improperly handled.

[Related: How data brokers threaten your privacy.]

Major data companies’ largely free “pixel” tools generally work by embedding a small bit of code into websites. The program then subsequently supplies immensely personal and detailed information to both third-party businesses, as well as the tracking tech’s makers to help compile extensive consumer profiles for advertising purposes. One study estimates that approximately one-third of the 80,000 most popular websites online utilize Meta Pixel (disclosure: PopSci included), for example. While both Tempest and Monument pledge to have removed tracking code from their sites, TechCrunch also notes the codes’ makers are not legally required to delete previously collected data.

“Monument and Tempest should be ashamed of sharing this extremely personal information of people, especially considering the nature and vulnerability of their clients,” Caitlin Seeley George, campaigns managing director of the digital privacy advocacy group, Fight for the Future, wrote PopSci via email. For George, the revelations are simply the latest examples of companies disregarding privacy for profit, but argues lawmakers “should similarly feel ashamed” that the public lacks legal defense or protection from these abuses. “It seems like every week we hear another case of companies sharing our data and prioritizing profits over privacy. This won’t end until lawmakers pass privacy laws,” she said.

“Protecting our patients’ privacy is a top priority,” Monument CEO Mike Russell told PopSci over email. “We have put robust safeguards in place and will continue to adopt appropriate measures to keep data safe. In addition, we have ended our relationship with third-party advertisers that will not agree to comply with our contractual requirements and applicable law.”

Tracking tools are increasingly the subject of scrutiny and criticism as more and more reports detail privacy concerns—last year, an investigation from The Markup and The Verge revealed that some of the country’s most popular tax prep software providers utilize Meta Pixel. The same tracking code is also at the center of a lawsuit in California concerning potential HIPAA violations stemming from hospitals sharing patients’ medical data.

Correction 04/06/2023: A previous version of this article’s headline stated Tempest and Monument “sold” user data. A spokesperson for the companies stated they “shared” data with third-party companies.

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Similar anatomy, not a shared sense of humor, might be key for experiencing deception from a pretty common magic trick. In a new study, a team of psychologists tested a sleight-of-hand trick called the French drop on three species of monkeys with different hand structures. In this trick, an object appears to vanish when a spectator assumes it is taken from one hand by the hidden thumb of the other hand.  

The monkeys without opposable thumbs did not fall for the assumption and were aware of the whereabouts of the treats a magician tried to “make disappear.” But, the monkeys with opposable thumbs were duped. The findings were published April 4 in the journal Current Biology.

[Related: A centuries-old magic trick is helping us make holograms we can feel.]

From the results, it appears that in order to deceive, a conjuror needs a similar anatomy to their audience. Sharing a particular biomechanical ability may be necessary to accurately anticipate and predict the movements of another with the same limbs. This phenomenon turns out to be true even when the apparently accurate predictions end in confusion at the hands of an illusionist. 

“Magicians use intricate techniques to mislead the observer into experiencing the impossible. It is a great way to study blind spots in attention and perception,” study author Elias Garcia-Pelegrin said in a statement. “By investigating how species of primates experience magic, we can understand more about the evolutionary roots of cognitive shortcomings that leave us exposed to the cunning of magicians.”

Garcia-Pelegrin, now a psychology professor at the National University of Singapore, has practiced magic for a decade and conducted these experiments during his PhD work at Cambridge University. 

The French drop is often one of the first tricks budding magicians set out to master. In the trick, a coin is displayed in one hand. The other hand then reaches over and grabs the coin. The palm of the second hand faces inwards, with the magician’s thumb concealed behind fingers. The viewer knows the thumb is lurking and ready to grip, so they assume the coin has been taken when it is no longer visible. Their attention then follows the second hand, only to find it empty. Meanwhile, the magician had secretly dropped the coin into the palm of the original hand.

In this study with monkeys, morsels of food replaced coins and the treats were given as a reward– but only if the monkey guessed the correct hand. Going into the experiment, the team predicted that monkeys with opposable thumbs would act like human audiences and assume that the hidden thumb had grabbed the treat, and then select the incorrect hand.

[Related: Time passes faster for smaller, quicker animals.]

The team repeatedly performed the French drop for 24 monkeys from three species– capuchins, squirrel monkeys, and marmosets. 

The eight capuchin monkeys were tested using peanuts. This species boasts noteable dexterity and uses stone tools to crack open nuts in the wild. Capuchins can also waggle each finger and have opposable thumbs which allow “precision grip” between thumb and forefingers.  They were fooled by the French drop about 81 percent of the time, mostly choosing the empty second hand.

While less dexterous than their capuchin counterparts, squirrel monkeys have limited thumb rotation, but can oppose their thumbs. They are typically familiar with a hidden thumb interacting with fingers, but they cannot cannot perform a precision grip the way capuchins and humans do. The squirrel monkeys were tested with mealworms and were fooled 93 percent of the time. 

Marmosets do not have opposable thumbs and have thumbs that align with their fingers to make five equidistant digits. These are ideal for climbing up thick tree trunks. They were fooled only 6 percent of the time. They chose the hand that initially held a tasty marshmallow was initially placed and stuck with it for this experiment.

The team tried to nullify the tricks by actually completing the hand-to-hand transfers, instead of using misdirection. When this occurred, the capuchins and squirrel monkeys anticipated correctly, while the marmosets missed out on their reward.

As a last step, the team devised their own version of the French drop called the “Power drop”. It utilizes a full fist grab, which is a hand action that all the monkey species could perform to varying degrees. They found that the power drop fooled all of the monkey species the vast majority of the time.

[Related: Monkeys with close friends have friendlier gut bacteria.]

“There is increasing evidence that the same parts of the nervous system used when we perform an action are also activated when we watch that action performed by others,” co-author and Cambridge psychologist Nicola Clayton said in a statement. “This mirroring in our neural motor system might explain why the French drop worked for the capuchins and squirrel monkeys but not for marmosets.”

The team adds that how fingers and thumbs move helps space the way an individual thinks and the assumptions made about the world around us. 

“Our work raises the intriguing possibility that an individual’s inherent physical capability heavily influences their perception, their memory of what they think they saw, and their ability to predict manual movements of those around them,” said Clayton. 

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This article was originally featured on KHN.

Some adults who take prescription medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are required to have their urine tested for drugs several times a year. Others never are tested.

Such screenings are designed to check if ADHD patients are safely taking their pills, such as Adderall, and not selling them, taking too many, or using other drugs.

Several doctors told KHN there are varying opinions and no national standards on the role of urine testing to monitor adults who take ADHD medication. So patients face dramatically different requirements, depending on their clinics’ and health insurers’ policies.

“There really isn’t much literature to guide you on how to do this,” said Dr. Margaret Chaplin, a Connecticut psychiatrist who treats patients with ADHD, mental illnesses, or substance use disorders.

Chaplin first noticed the lack of testing standards about eight years ago, when she and colleagues proposed ways to prevent stimulant misuse in adult ADHD patients.

Her team recommended urine tests only if patients exhibit “red-flag behavior,” such as appearing intoxicated, repeatedly reporting lost prescriptions, or frequently switching doctors. Some doctors and clinics make testing decisions on a patient-by-patient basis taking into account those red flags or patient history. Others apply universal policies, which may be aimed at preventing discrimination. Some insurance companies and state Medicaid systems also have testing requirements.

ADHD stimulants, opioid pain medications, and some other drugs are classified as controlled substances, which are tightly regulated because they can be addictive or misused.

ADHD patients subjected to frequent drug screens say the tests can be time-consuming and expensive. Some feel stigmatized.

A.C. Shilton felt relieved when she was diagnosed with ADHD in her mid-30s. The farmer and freelance journalist from rural Tennessee said the diagnosis explained why she felt so disorganized and forgetful, and as if her brain were a motor running all day. Shilton said her medication slows that motor down.

The 38-year-old Jamestown resident said her first doctor ordered urine tests once a year. That doctor eventually closed his practice, and Shilton said her next physician made her take a test at nearly every visit.

“You go in to get the standard of care, which is this medicine, and you’re kind of treated like you’re a bad person again; there’s some shame associated with that,” Shilton said.

She was also upset after learning office staffers were incorrect when they told her that urine testing was required by law — something that other ADHD patients posting on social media forums said had happened to them too.

Shilton said few doctors treat adult ADHD patients in her rural community. She now drives more than an hour to a different clinic, which doesn’t require her to take as many drug tests.

Travis Gordon, 47, of Charlotte, North Carolina, has gone to the same ADHD clinic for more than 10 years. Gordon said he wasn’t drug-tested in the first few years. Then, for several years, he had to give a urine sample every three months. During much of the covid-19 pandemic, he wasn’t tested. Now, he’s screened every six months.

“We shouldn’t have to feel like street criminals to get drugs that are needed for our daily success,” Gordon said.

Gordon said it would make sense for doctors to order tests more frequently as they get to know new patients. But he said he doesn’t understand why such testing should continue for people like him, established patients who properly take their medication.

Traci Camper, 50, of northeastern Tennessee, said she has “never even tried a cigarette,” much less used illicit drugs, but her doctor has required urine tests every three months for more than 10 years. Camper said the process can be inconvenient but she’s ultimately OK with the tests, especially since she lives in an area with high rates of drug abuse.

The clinics that Shilton, Gordon, and Camper went to did not respond to KHN’s requests for interviews about their testing policies.

Adults are diagnosed with ADHD if they have multiple, frequent symptoms so severe they interfere with work, relationships, or other aspects of life. Treatments include therapy and medication, most often stimulants.

ADHD patients have been affected by the response to the opioid crisis, which has led to more scrutiny for all controlled medications. Some have reported trouble filling their prescriptions as drug distribution companies limit sales to certain pharmacies. Some patients, especially rural ones, could face obstacles if the federal government reverts to pre-pandemic rules that require at least one in-person appointment to receive controlled drugs via telehealth.

Chaplin said doctors who treat ADHD may feel the need to be extra vigilant with drug testing because of this increased scrutiny, or due to the risk of misuse.

An estimated 3.7 million Americans 12 or older misused prescription stimulants in 2021, and 1.5 million had a prescription stimulant use disorder, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Americans are more likely to misuse or be addicted to prescription opioids, sedatives, and tranquilizers, the agency said.

Adults with ADHD are more likely to have a substance use disorder than those without the condition, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Although there aren’t formal standards, several health care organizations and professionals have made recommendations to prevent and detect adult ADHD stimulant misuse. Suggestions include requiring patients to sign prescription-agreement contracts and regularly checking databases that show all controlled medications each patient is buying.

Chaplin said there’s little research into how effective any method is at preventing medication misuse.

A recent survey found that 42% of family physicians and 21% of college health professionals who treat adult ADHD require their patients to submit random urine drug screens.

Gordon, Camper, and some ADHD patients on social media forums said their drug screens have come at predictable intervals, instead of random ones.

Dr. Sidarth Wakhlu, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating substance use disorders at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said some of his patients also have ADHD. He suggests drug-testing most ADHD patients once or twice a year. For “someone who has no addiction history, has no red flags, every three months is an overkill,” he said.

The cost of drug testing is as variable as the frequency.

For example, Dr. Michael Fingerhood at Johns Hopkins University uses urine tests that cost as little as $60 before insurance. Fingerhood makes testing decisions case by case for patients who take controlled substances to treat ADHD, pain, or opioid addiction.

Gordon used to pay $110 for each of his tests when he had insurance his doctor did not accept. Shilton’s insurance was billed $545 for a test. Shilton said she complained to a nurse who said, in the future, she could use a less expensive test.

Shilton said she replied, “Well, why aren’t we doing that to begin with? Why are we doing this extremely fancy drug testing?”

Wakhlu said the more expensive urine tests can identify specific types and quantities of drugs. Such tests are usually used to confirm the results of initial, less pricey tests, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wakhlu said that when test results show a patient might be misusing stimulants, doctors should initiate a non-accusatory conversation to discuss the results and, if needed, offer help. He also said it’s important to emphasize safety, such as how taking too much ADHD medication or combining it with other stimulants, such as methamphetamine, can be dangerous.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Consider three hypothetical women in their mid-70s, all living alone in identical economic circumstances with the same array of ailments: diabetes, arthritis, and high blood pressure.

Ms. Green stays home most of the time and sometimes goes a week without seeing people. But she’s in frequent touch by phone with friends and relatives, and she takes a virtual class with a discussion group from a nearby college.

Ms. Smith also stays home, but rarely talks to anyone. She has lost contact with friends, stopped going to church, and spends most of her time watching TV.

Ms. Johnson has a wide circle of friends and a busy schedule. She walks with neighbors regularly, volunteers at a school twice a week, goes to church, and is in close touch with her children, who don’t live nearby.

Three sets of social circumstances, three levels of risk should the women experience a fall, bout of pneumonia, or serious deterioration in health.

Of the women, Ms. Johnson would be most likely to get a ride to the doctor or a visit in the hospital, experts suggest. Several people may check on Ms. Green and arrange assistance while she recovers.

But Ms. Smith would be unlikely to get much help and more likely than the others to fare poorly if her health became challenged. She’s what some experts would call “socially vulnerable” or “socially frail.”

Social frailty is a corollary to physical frailty, a set of vulnerabilities (including weakness, exhaustion, unintentional weight loss, slowness, and low physical activity) shown to increase the risk of falls, disability, hospitalization, poor surgical outcomes, admission to a nursing home, and earlier death in older adults.

Essentially, people who are physically frail have less physiological strength and a reduced biological ability to bounce back from illness or injury.

Those who are socially frail similarly have fewer resources to draw upon, but for different reasons — they don’t have close relationships, can’t rely on others for help, aren’t active in community groups or religious organizations, or live in neighborhoods that feel unsafe, among other circumstances. Also, social frailty can entail feeling a lack of control over one’s life or being devalued by others.

Many of these factors have been linked to poor health outcomes in later life, along with so-called social determinants of health — low socioeconomic status, poor nutrition, insecure housing, and inaccessible transportation.

Social frailty assumes that each factor contributes to an older person’s vulnerability and that they interact with and build upon each other. “It’s a more complete picture of older adults’ circumstances than any one factor alone,” said Dr. Melissa Andrew, a professor of geriatric medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who published one of the first social vulnerability indices for older adults in 2008.

This way of thinking about older adults’ social lives, and how they influence health outcomes, is getting new attention from experts in the U.S. and elsewhere. In February, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of California-San Francisco published a 10-item “social frailty index” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Using data from 8,250 adults 65 and older who participated in the national Health and Retirement Study from 2010 to 2016, the researchers found that the index helped predict an increased risk of death during the period studied in a significant number of older adults, complementing medical tools used for this purpose.

“Our goal is to help clinicians identify older patients who are socially frail and to prompt problem-solving designed to help them cope with various challenges,” said Dr. Sachin Shah, a co-author of the paper and a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“It adds dimensions of what a clinician should know about their patients beyond current screening instruments, which are focused on physical health,” said Dr. Linda Fried, an internationally known frailty researcher and dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Beyond the corridors of medicine, she said, “we need society to build solutions” to issues raised in the index — the ability of seniors to work, volunteer, and engage with other people; the safety and accessibility of neighborhoods in which they live; ageism and discrimination against older adults; and more.

Meanwhile, a team of Chinese researchers recently published a comprehensive review of social frailty in adults age 60 and older, based on results from dozens of studies with about 83,900 participants in Japan, China, Korea, and Europe. They determined that 24% of these older adults, assessed both in hospitals and in the community, were socially frail — a higher portion than those deemed physically frail (12%) or cognitively frail (9%) in separate studies. Most vulnerable were people 75 and older.

What are the implications for health care? “If someone is socially vulnerable, perhaps they’ll need more help at home while they’re recovering from surgery. Or maybe they’ll need someone outside their family circle to be an advocate for them in the hospital,” said Dr. Kenneth Covinsky, a geriatrician at UCSF and co-author of the recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article.

“I can see a social frailty index being useful in identifying older adults who need extra assistance and directing them to community resources,” said Jennifer Ailshire, an associate professor of gerontology and sociology at the University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Unlike other physicians, geriatricians regularly screen older adults for extra needs, albeit without using a well-vetted or consistent set of measures. “I’ll ask, who do you depend on most and how do you depend on them? Do they bring you food? Drive you places? Come by and check on you? Give you their time and attention?” said Dr. William Dale, the Arthur M. Coppola Family Chair in Supportive Care Medicine at City of Hope, a comprehensive cancer center in Duarte, California.

Depending on the patients’ answers, Dale will refer them to a social worker or help modify their plan of care. But, he cautioned, primary care physicians and specialists don’t routinely take the time to do this.

Oak Street Health, a Chicago-based chain of 169 primary care centers for older adults in 21 states and recently purchased by CVS Health, is trying to change that in its clinics, said Dr. Ali Khan, the company’s chief medical officer of value-based care strategy. At least three times a year, medical assistants, social workers, or clinicians ask patients about loneliness and social isolation, barriers to transportation, food insecurity, financial strain, housing quality and safety, access to broadband services, and utility services.

The organization combines these findings with patient-specific medical information in a “global risk assessment” that separates seniors into four tiers of risk, from very high to very low. In turn, this informs the kinds of services provided to patients, the frequency of service delivery, and individual wellness plans, which include social as well as medical priorities.

The central issue, Khan said, is “what is this patient’s ability to continue down a path of resilience in the face of a very complicated health care system?” and what Oak Street Health can do to enhance that.

What’s left out of an approach like this, however, is something crucial to older adults: whether their relationships with other people are positive or negative. That isn’t typically measured, but it’s essential in considering whether their social needs are being met, said Linda Waite, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and director of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.

For seniors who want to think about their own social vulnerability, consider this five-item index, developed by researchers in Japan.

(1) Do you go out less frequently now than last year?

(2) Do you sometimes visit your friends?

(3) Do you feel you are helpful to friends or family?

(4) Do you live alone?

(5) Do you talk to someone every day?

Think about your answers. If you find your responses unsatisfactory, it might be time to reconsider your social circumstances and make a change.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

The post Social relationships are important to the health of aging adults appeared first on Popular Science.

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Scrolling through Instagram and TikTok on a Monday morning is an easy trigger for the dreaded fear of missing out–or FOMO. To push back against this need to never miss a party or fancy vacation, the term JOMO (joy of missing out) has been popularized for those who report a healthy level of enjoyment of solitude.

However, most people who also have high JOMO also report higher levels of social anxiety, according to a study published this month in the journal Telematics and Informatics Reports.

[Related: Seattle schools sue social media companies over students’ worsening mental health.]

For the study, a team from Washington State University looked at two 500-person samples of adults recruited through Amazon’s crowdsourcing platform MTurk. As a way to measure JOMO, they asked a slate of questions about enjoying spending time alone and experiencing disconnection. For example, whether subjects liked having time to self-reflect and if they were happy to see friends and family out enjoying themselves even if they weren’t there. Questions to assess loneliness, social media use, social anxiety, personality traits, and general life satisfaction were also included. 

The surveys revealed mixed results, with some evidence that there is actually some anxiety hiding behind the joy. 

“In general, a lot of people like being connected,” psychology professor and co-author Chris Barry said in a statement. “When trying to assess JOMO, we found that some people were enjoying missing out, not for the solitude or a Zen-like, calming experience of being able to regroup, but more to avoid social interaction.”

This avoidance might explain the correlation the team found between social media use and JOMO, which surprised the team. They anticipated that people who wanted to miss out on social gatherings would not care to check in to see what their friends or family were doing. Instead, they found that those who have social anxiety may find social media as a less intense way to connect instead of interacting in person. 

The study of the first sample group showed connections in those high in JOMO and social media and also general life satisfaction, but social anxiety actually had the strongest correlation.

[Related: Study confirms the obvious: youth have abandoned Facebook.]

After getting these mixed results, they designed a second study to see if there was a group of people high in JOMO, but without that anxiety. While they did find these blissful introverts, the group was small and represented only about 10 percent of the participants in the study. This group was not socially anxious, but still reported some moderate feelings of loneliness.

Previous studies have linked FOMO with low self-esteem and loneliness, but these findings indicate that the experience of JOMO is not as clear. The team believes that JOMO might be more of a momentary phase of needing to disconnect instead of a constant state of feelings. Other studies have also shown that continued exposure to anxiety triggers can help lessen stress later.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions like ‘what’s a good dosage of social interaction versus disengagement?’ I think that’s going to differ for everyone,” Barry said.  “The motives matter,” Barry said. “Why are people missing out? If it’s because they need to recharge, that’s maybe a good thing. If they’re trying to avoid something, that is probably not healthy in the long run.”

The post Do you never feel FOMO? Time to meet its twin, JOMO. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Humans have been experimenting with mind-altering plants for many millennia now. . Modern-day drugs such as opium were being used in Europe around 5,700 BCE, and cannabis seeds started showing up in archeological digs in Asia some 10,000 years ago. Some studies have shown that ancient hominids have been using psychotropic plants and drugs as far back as 200 million years ago.

While tripping might seem like an exclusively human desire, it turns out that some of our closest great ape relatives might also find ways to switch up their state of mind—but instead of using plants and other substances, they just twirl around really quickly. For  research published today in the journal Primates, researchers watched 40 videos of great apes spinning around just to get dizzy. And they think these actions could have some clues into why people have often seeked innovative ways to get a little high, drunk, and what have you.

[Related: Why do humans talk? Tree-dwelling orangutans might hold the answer.]

“Every culture has found a way of evading reality through dedicated and special rituals, practices, or ceremonies,” study author Adriano Lameira, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Warwick, said in a press release. “This human trait of seeking altered states is so universal, historically, and culturally, that it raises the intriguing possibility that this is something that has been potentially inherited from our evolutionary ancestors.”

Inspired by a viral video of a male gorilla spinning in a pool, the team found dozens of videos of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans going round and round, often using ropes or vines. The researchers then analyzed the movements, finding that on average the apes spun 5.5 times per session, with an average speed of 1.5 revolutions per second. Most animals then repeated the session three times in a row. This is about as fast as professional dancers, circus artists, and Dervish Muslims twirl, according to the authors. 

The apes themselves would often be so dizzy after a bout of twirling that they were noticeably dizzy and likely to lose their balance. To understand the feeling of euphoria after such a feat, the team tested out twirling at the same speed and intensity themselves, and actually struggled to get to the third round due to dizziness. 

[Related: These long-fingered lemurs pick and eat their boogers, just like humans.]

Previous studies on why humans crave self-induced dizziness have focused on alcohol and drug use, but the authors of this study argue that simple spinning could be worth a deeper look. After all, the ability to make or find mind-altering substances requires knowledge, skills, and tools that we aren’t sure humans or pre-humans had access to, Lameira added. Additionally, there could be links with mental state and boredom, as the videos recorded were mostly of captive apes. 

“What we wanted to try to understand through this study is whether spinning can be studied as a primordial behavior that human ancestors would have been able to autonomously engage in and tap into other states of consciousness,” Lamiera said. “If all great apes seek dizziness, then our ancestors are also highly likely to have done so.”

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This article was originally featured on KHN.

Anxiety is the most common psychological disorder affecting adults in the U.S. In older people, it’s associated with considerable distress as well as ill health, diminished quality of life, and elevated rates of disability.

Yet, when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, influential panel of experts, suggested last year that adults be screened for anxiety, it left out one group — people 65 and older.

The major reason the task force cited in draft recommendations issued in September: “the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for anxiety” in all older adults. (Final recommendations are expected later this year.)

The task force noted that questionnaires used to screen for anxiety may be unreliable for older adults. Screening entails evaluating people who don’t have obvious symptoms of worrisome medical or psychological conditions.

“We recognize that many older adults experience mental health conditions like anxiety” and “we are calling urgently for more research,” said Lori Pbert, associate chief of the preventive and behavioral medicine division at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and a former task force member who worked on the anxiety recommendations.

This “we don’t know enough yet” stance doesn’t sit well with some experts who study and treat seniors with anxiety. Dr. Carmen Andreescu, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, called the task force’s position “baffling” because “it’s well established that anxiety isn’t uncommon in older adults and effective treatments exist.”

“I cannot think of any danger in identifying anxiety in older adults, especially because doing so has no harm and we can do things to reduce it,” said Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychology professor at UCLA.

In a recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry, Andreescu and Lavretsky noted that only about one-third of seniors with generalized anxiety disorder — intense, persistent worry about everyday matters — receive treatment. That’s concerning, they said, considering evidence of links between anxiety and stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease, autoimmune illness, and neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.

Other forms of anxiety commonly undetected and untreated in seniors include phobias (like a fear of dogs), obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder (a fear of being assessed and judged by others), and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The smoldering disagreement over screening calls attention to the significance of anxiety in later life — a concern heightened during the covid-19 pandemic, which magnified stress and worry among seniors. Here’s what you should know.

Anxiety is common. According to a book chapter published in 2020, authored by Andreescu and a colleague, up to 15% of people 65 and older who live outside nursing homes or other facilities have a diagnosable anxiety condition.

As many as half have symptoms of anxiety — irritability, worry, restlessness, decreased concentration, sleep changes, fatigue, avoidant behaviors — that can be distressing but don’t justify a diagnosis, the study noted.

Most seniors with anxiety have struggled with this condition since earlier in life, but the way it manifests may change over time. Specifically, older adults tend to be more anxious about issues such as illness, the loss of family and friends, retirement, and cognitive declines, experts said. Only a small fraction develop anxiety after turning 65.

Anxiety can be difficult to identify in older adults. Older adults often minimize symptoms of anxiety, thinking “this is what getting older is like” rather than “this is a problem that I should do something about,” Andreescu said.

Also, seniors are more likely than younger adults to report “somatic” complaints — physical symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, headaches, chest pain, shortness of breath, and gastrointestinal problems — that can be difficult to distinguish from underlying medical conditions, according to Gretchen Brenes, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Some types of anxiety or anxious behaviors — notably, hoarding and fear of falling — are much more common in older adults, but questionnaires meant to identify anxiety don’t typically ask about those issues, said Dr. Jordan Karp, chair of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

When older adults voice concerns, medical providers too often dismiss them as normal, given the challenges of aging, said Dr. Eric Lenze, head of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the third author of the recent JAMA Psychiatry editorial.

Simple questions can help identify whether an older adult needs to be evaluated for anxiety, he and other experts suggested: Do you have recurrent worries that are hard to control? Are you having trouble sleeping? Have you been feeling more irritable, stressed, or nervous? Are you having trouble with concentration or thinking? Are you avoiding things you normally like to do because you’re wrapped up in your worries?

Stephen Snyder, 67, who lives in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in March 2019, would answer “yes” to many of these queries. “I’m a Type A personality and I worry a lot about a lot of things — my family, my finances, the future,” he told me. “Also, I’ve tended to dwell on things that happened in the past and get all worked up.”

Treatments are effective. Psychotherapy — particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people address persistent negative thoughts — is generally considered the first line of anxiety treatment in older adults. In an evidence review for the task force, researchers noted that this type of therapy helps reduce anxiety in seniors seen in primary care settings.

Also recommended, Lenze noted, is relaxation therapy, which can involve deep breathing exercises, massage or music therapy, yoga, and progressive muscle relaxation.

Because mental health practitioners, especially those who specialize in seniors’ mental health, are extremely difficult to find, primary care physicians often recommend medications to ease anxiety. Two categories of drugs — antidepressants known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and SNRIs (serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) — are typically prescribed, and both appear to help to older adults, experts said.