scientificamerican--2020-10-21--Teaching Anti-Racism to the Next Generation of Doctors

A psychotic Black woman admitted to a psychiatric emergency room is discharged “ to the streets , ” despite being pregnant and disorganized .
Several white health care providers , noting her history of methamphetamine use , joke “ she ’ s always like this ” and claim she is “ at baseline , ” suggesting she is inherently inferior and unworthy of treatment .
They make no effort to contact her family , provide prenatal care or admit her to the hospital , carelessly disregarding the potential harm to her and her unborn child .
When two Black parents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their child , the pediatricians consider reporting them to child protective services for neglect .
The pediatricians themselves neglect to fully explain the complex medical details to the terrified parents .
Only when a consulting psychiatric service recognizes the parents ’ legitimate fears and the absence of appropriate education do the pediatricians refocus on improving medical care , rather than reporting .
In neither case is the providers ’ medical racism challenged , sanctioned or remediated .
As a physician-educator teaching about racism , my primary goal is ensuring the next generation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discrimination , which is common within the American health care system .
Unfortunately , existing medical education pedagogies , such as the social determinants of health and cultural competency , do not challenge the racism perpetuated by a predominantly white health care workforce charged with caring for a racially diverse public they do not represent .
They are increasingly out of sync with the demands for anti-racism following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery , George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the coronavirus ’ s disproportionate killing of Black lives .
Instead , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kendi ’ s scholarship that helps students identify racism ’ s far-reaching grasp on health care so they can challenge it and honor their oath to first do no harm .
Rather than master a competency , I invite them to begin a lifelong journey intended to excavate the racism , anti-Blackness and white supremacy shaping their profession , their country , and themselves .
Learning the legacy of slavery in American medicine is key to this process .
To echo a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial , `` Slavery has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and brutality that runs from 1619 to the present , and that legacy infects medicine as it does all social institutions.
” Ta-Nehisi Coates ’ ethical , legal and economic justification for reparations and Carol Anderson ’ s discussion of the white rage pushing back on Black economic and civic advancement are not typical medical education content .
But because they elucidate slavery ’ s long arc in American history and render parallel arcs in American medicine more visible and less refutable , they are requisite teaching .
My students learn that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pregnant Black woman is “ just like that ” or “ at baseline ” and discharge her to the streets with no plan for shelter , they are advancing the same narrative of Black mental inferiority and physical imperviousness to harm that 19th-century doctors used to justify slavery .
When they report Black families to family services as a form of coercion , in lieu of offering the standard of care by providing education , they are pathologizing their suffering and disregarding their historical mistreatment by the health care system .
Failing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not only negligent .
It upholds the assault on Black women ’ s reproductive health foundational to slavery , maintained through forced-sterilization campaigns lasting into the 1970s , and enduring in their higher risk for maternal mortality today .
Recognizing the legacy of slavery in American medicine enables students to discern contemporary racism .
It simultaneously elucidates why , as a Lancet editorial recently stated , “ Racism is a public health emergency of global concern .
It is the root cause of continued disparities in death and disease between Black and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenging racism ’ s deleterious effects requires first identifying its many forms .
Camara Phyllis Jones ’ classic multilevel framework emphasizes how racism is internalized , operates interpersonally through implicit bias and micro-aggressions , and functions on more macro levels through institutions , policies and ideologies .
Racism ’ s multiple levels can powerfully collide , resulting in dangerous clinical “ care.
” Using this model , students learn why microaggressions , such as ignoring a patient ’ s subjective complaint of shortness of breath , are anything but “ micro ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when they intersect with the health care system ’ s inadequacies .
All this must be understood against a background of white supremacy that has lynched and massacred countless Black Americans .
Accordingly , white doctors ’ silence when white patients hurl racial slurs at their Black colleagues is equally damaging to health .
They also learn how racist policies and ideologies operating outside of health care influence clinical interactions .
The War on Drugs , fabricated in the 1970s to push back on Black advancement from the Civil Rights Movement , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and violence perpetuated , in part , by American psychiatrists .
Doctors , no less immune to these racist ideologies , are equally prone to the disproportionate punishment and policing of Black lives well-documented in school and law enforcement settings .
Common clinical practices , like administering forced intramuscular medication , discharging someone who should be hospitalized , or reporting a family to family services , become coercive when the racism driving them proceeds unchecked .
The ostensible scientific neutrality of clinical decision-making can obfuscate the racism that leads doctors to misdiagnose , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pathologize emotional responses .
However , recognizing slavery ’ s legacy and racism ’ s multiple levels renders such bias more visible , preparing students to engage in anti-racist clinical care .
I ask them to disavow the prevailing medical culture that encourages perfection and , instead , admit to being racist in order to become anti-racist .
Challenging racism ’ s multiple levels and historical arcs is an established anti-racist approach but not a common one in medical education .
My best hope is that in the absence of broader accountability from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of education will not only prevent students from participating in the clinical racism I described earlier .
It will provide shared language for them to collectively speak out and heighten their conscience and consciousness enough so they first do no harm .
Unfortunately , the next generation of doctors is training within a health care system steeped in racism .
They are demanding anti-racist medical education from majority-white faculty unequipped to train them .
The white fragility of academic medicine , which is dominated by white male leadership , may impede meaningful anti-racist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few effective outlets for reporting discrimination and remediating it .
As students become more familiar with anti-racist pedagogy , they are bound to report racism at academic medical centers more frequently .
The process is likely to be contentious .
Following an incident during a lecture on gender-based violence at the University of Washington School of Medicine , for example , a coalition of Black students recently called for the removal of three professors for “ anti-Black , racist ” behavior .
If my recent discussions are any indication , the next generation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ identify the racism that stripped George Floyd of his life and to leverage the weight of their authority to protect rather than harm their patients .
They are simultaneously seeking structural reforms to ensure sustained equality .
The question is : Are the academic medical centers where they train prepared to teach them to do so ?

Editor’s Note (12/21/21): This article is being showcased in a special collection about equity in health care that was made possible by the support of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The article was published independently and without sponsorship.
A psychotic Black woman admitted to a psychiatric emergency room is discharged “to the streets,” despite being pregnant and disorganized. Several white health care providers, noting her history of methamphetamine use, joke “she’s always like this” and claim she is “at baseline,” suggesting she is inherently inferior and unworthy of treatment. They make no effort to contact her family, provide prenatal care or admit her to the hospital, carelessly disregarding the potential harm to her and her unborn child.
When two Black parents refuse a potentially life-saving organ transplant for their child, the pediatricians consider reporting them to child protective services for neglect. The pediatricians themselves neglect to fully explain the complex medical details to the terrified parents. Only when a consulting psychiatric service recognizes the parents’ legitimate fears and the absence of appropriate education do the pediatricians refocus on improving medical care, rather than reporting.
In neither case is the providers’ medical racism challenged, sanctioned or remediated.
As a physician-educator teaching about racism, my primary goal is ensuring the next generation of doctors never engages in this kind of discrimination, which is common within the American health care system. Unfortunately, existing medical education pedagogies, such as the social determinants of health and cultural competency, do not challenge the racism perpetuated by a predominantly white health care workforce charged with caring for a racially diverse public they do not represent. They are increasingly out of sync with the demands for antiracism following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the coronavirus’s disproportionate killing of Black lives.
Instead, I teach an antiracist approach informed by Ibram Kendi’s scholarship that helps students identify racism’s far-reaching grasp on health care so they can challenge it and honor their oath to first do no harm. Rather than master a competency, I invite them to begin a lifelong journey intended to excavate the racism, anti-Blackness and white supremacy shaping their profession, their country, and themselves.
Learning the legacy of slavery in American medicine is key to this process. To echo a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial, "Slavery has produced a legacy of racism, injustice, and brutality that runs from 1619 to the present, and that legacy infects medicine as it does all social institutions.” Ta-Nehisi Coates’ ethical, legal and economic justification for reparations and Carol Anderson’s discussion of the white rage pushing back on Black economic and civic advancement are not typical medical education content. But because they elucidate slavery’s long arc in American history and render parallel arcs in American medicine more visible and less refutable, they are requisite teaching.
My students learn that when health care providers claim a psychotic pregnant Black woman is “just like that” or “at baseline” and discharge her to the streets with no plan for shelter, they are advancing the same narrative of Black mental inferiority and physical imperviousness to harm that 19th-century doctors used to justify slavery. When they report Black families to family services as a form of coercion, in lieu of offering the standard of care by providing education, they are pathologizing their suffering and disregarding their historical mistreatment by the health care system. Failing to hospitalize a medically acute Black pregnant woman is not only negligent. It upholds the assault on Black women’s reproductive health foundational to slavery, maintained through forced-sterilization campaigns lasting into the 1970s, and enduring in their higher risk for maternal mortality today.
Recognizing the legacy of slavery in American medicine enables students to discern contemporary racism. It simultaneously elucidates why, as a Lancet editorial recently stated, “Racism is a public health emergency of global concern. It is the root cause of continued disparities in death and disease between Black and white people in the USA.”
But challenging racism’s deleterious effects requires first identifying its many forms. Camara Phyllis Jones’ classic multilevel framework emphasizes how racism is internalized, operates interpersonally through implicit bias and micro-aggressions, and functions on more macro levels through institutions, policies and ideologies. Racism’s multiple levels can powerfully collide, resulting in dangerous clinical “care.” Using this model, students learn why microaggressions, such as ignoring a patient’s subjective complaint of shortness of breath, are anything but “micro” and can, in fact, be deadly when they intersect with the health care system’s inadequacies. All this must be understood against a background of white supremacy that has lynched and massacred countless Black Americans. Accordingly, white doctors’ silence when white patients hurl racial slurs at their Black colleagues is equally damaging to health.
They also learn how racist policies and ideologies operating outside of health care influence clinical interactions. The War on Drugs, fabricated in the 1970s to push back on Black advancement from the Civil Rights Movement, was reinforced by an ideology of Black criminality and violence perpetuated, in part, by American psychiatrists. Doctors, no less immune to these racist ideologies, are equally prone to the disproportionate punishment and policing of Black lives well-documented in school and law enforcement settings. Common clinical practices, like administering forced intramuscular medication, discharging someone who should be hospitalized, or reporting a family to family services, become coercive when the racism driving them proceeds unchecked.
The ostensible scientific neutrality of clinical decision-making can obfuscate the racism that leads doctors to misdiagnose, deny treatment, silence subjective complaints and pathologize emotional responses. However, recognizing slavery’s legacy and racism’s multiple levels renders such bias more visible, preparing students to engage in antiracist clinical care. I ask them to disavow the prevailing medical culture that encourages perfection and, instead, admit to being racist in order to become antiracist.
Challenging racism’s multiple levels and historical arcs is an established antiracist approach but not a common one in medical education. My best hope is that in the absence of broader accountability from the health care system, this kind of education will not only prevent students from participating in the clinical racism I described earlier. It will provide shared language for them to collectively speak out and heighten their conscience and consciousness enough so they first do no harm.
Unfortunately, the next generation of doctors is training within a health care system steeped in racism. They are demanding antiracist medical education from majority-white faculty unequipped to train them. The white fragility of academic medicine, which is dominated by white male leadership, may impede meaningful antiracist educational reform. Furthermore, there are few effective outlets for reporting discrimination and remediating it. As students become more familiar with antiracist pedagogy, they are bound to report racism at academic medical centers more frequently. The process is likely to be contentious. Following an incident during a lecture on gender-based violence at the University of Washington School of Medicine, for example, a coalition of Black students recently called for the removal of three professors for “anti-Black, racist” behavior.
If my recent discussions are any indication, the next generation of doctors is primed to name and identify the racism that stripped George Floyd of his life and to leverage the weight of their authority to protect rather than harm their patients. They are simultaneously seeking structural reforms to ensure sustained equality. The question is: Are the academic medical centers where they train prepared to teach them to do so?


scientificamerican--2020-10-21--Hypnosis Experts Cast Doubt on Famous Psychological Experiments

Psychology has taken some hits in recent years—most famously in the form of the “ replication crisis.
” Multiple failures to reproduce high-profile findings prompted a reexamination of methods that can inadvertently generate apparently significant findings that are actually just statistical artifacts .
Now a new challenge has arisen to a series of renowned psychological studies that purported to provide a window into how the brain processes internal representations of our physical “ self.
” The questioning of this research comes from an unlikely quarter : the study of hypnosis .
Long seen as a fringe topic , hypnosis has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sciences today as a measurable , repeatable phenomenon .
Hypnosis is the induction of a seemingly altered state of consciousness in which a person appears to relinquish voluntary control , becoming highly responsive to suggestion .
Findings from hypnosis research show that the practice all boils down to how suggestible people are , which the researchers behind the new investigation call “ trait phenomenological control.
” Their paper suggests this trait may offer an alternative explanation for some key studies that invoke neural mechanisms underlying representation of the self or of the actions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also suggests new ways in which psychologists could improve the rigor and reliability of future studies .
The research began because lead author and hypnosis researcher Peter Lush and psychologist Zoltan Dienes , both at the University of Sussex in England , were intrigued by the knowledge that suggestion alone , without the theatrics associated with hypnosis , is enough to cause many people to act involuntarily , or experience things that are not happening , to some extent .
“ Once we ’ d started thinking of suggestion outside the context of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking of other contexts in which suggestion effects might occur , ” Lush says .
One set of studies that came to mind were those involving embodiment—that is , ways that people perceive the physical self .
These experiments used methods that can be seen as similar to hypnotic suggestions .
Suggestibility is closely related to a concept in psychology called “ demand characteristics ” —the tendency for study participants to figure out what researchers are expecting and respond accordingly .
“ We started wondering whether demand characteristics may be acting as implicit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The team started looking at well-known experiments that involved embodiment to determine whether participants were picking up on , and being influenced by , researchers ’ expectations .
“ The idea was to test it in these embodiment effects—to then draw attention to the possibility that this could be going on all over the place , ” Lush says .
His group reported its results on September 25 in Nature Communications .
The first phenomenon the team set its sights on was “ mirror synesthesia , ” in which people feel pain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somebody else .
These effects have been linked to the mirror neuron system ( brain cells that fire both when we do something and when we see someone else doing it ) , which some researchers argue underlies the development of empathy .
The researchers first took advantage of data collected by colleagues studying mirror synesthesia at the University of Sussex .
They collected suggestibility measures from the same population , matched up the participants and found that the scores predicted the extent to which people experienced mirror touch and mirror pain .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ least in part , explain mirror synesthesia effects .
“ This is not to say these experiences aren ’ t real , ” Lush says , “ only that they may have little to do with mirror neurons or other proposed mechanisms.
” Going further , Lush looked at the rubber-hand illusion , in which participants report feeling a rubber hand is their own when they see it stroked simultaneously with their real ( but hidden ) hand .
This striking effect , first demonstrated more than 20 years ago , toppled the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us ” is immutable , pointing instead to the malleability of our sense of self .
In Lush and his colleagues ’ test of the rubber-hand experiment , each of the 353 participants sat at a table with one arm obscured from view by a partition and a rubber arm positioned in front of them .
A researcher simultaneously stroked both the hidden real hand and the visible rubber one with a brush .
The subjects were then asked questions designed to reveal experiences of bodily “ ownership.
” As with the mirror @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggestibility predicted the extent to which participants experienced the illusion .
“ What ’ s interesting about this is : it highlights the role that hidden demands and expectations can have in shaping people ’ s experiences , ” says Vince Polito of Macquarie University in Australia , who was not involved with the study .
Psychologists have long been aware this can be an issue .
“ Suggestion definitely exists and is a problem in psychological experiments , so I welcome the fact they ’ ve drawn attention to it , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ College London , who was also not involved in the paper .
“ They ’ ve picked the correct challenge here.
” The usual way researchers try to discount suggestion in rubber-hand experiments is to use a control condition in which a participant 's hand is stroked out of synch with the rubber one .
If the subjects do not experience the illusion under these conditions but do when the hands are stroked simultaneously , the effect can not be linked to suggestion , or so the reasoning goes .
Participants are likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , Lush argues .
“ Those control conditions are completely invalid , ” he says , because the different responses could entirely arise from different expectations .
“ But they ’ ve been in use for 20 years.
” Responses in the test condition therefore could be wholly linked to suggestion , meaning the standard interpretations are wrong .
“ The idea that our ownership of our body is that malleable may simply not be true , ” Lush says .
Brain-imaging studies that show relevant brain activity and experiments that measure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says , because suggestion can generate corresponding brain activity and physiological responses .
One way of addressing the problem is to use questions that give as little away as possible about what researchers expect by using what are called implicit measures .
In a rubber hand study , this typically involves asking participants to indicate where the hand physically is—measuring a shift in one ’ s sense of body location known as “ proprioceptive drift.
” But this approach suffers from exactly the same problem , Lush argues , citing a study he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same pattern of responses when shown videos of a rubber hand experiment , regardless of whether they are asked about feelings of ownership and of where their hand is located .
Of course , it is possible suggestion may play a role without being a complete explanation of mirror synesthesia or the rubber-hand illusion .
“ The correlations are significant but modest .
It looks like there ’ s a lot which isn ’ t explained by suggestibility , ” Haggard says , noting that proprioceptive drift —the implicit measure—in particular was not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential upside of the work is that it could help psychologists improve the quality of their measurements .
“ There ’ s been little work on the best questions to ask , ” Haggard says .
“ This gives us one way to answer that.
” The research could improve psychological experiments by helping to determine which measures are prone to suggestibility effects and which are less sensitive , he explains .
A big question now is how broad an issue suggestibility effects are for psychology in general .
“ These expectations can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ noninvasive brain stimulation technologies , for instance , ” says neuroscientist Mirta Fiorio of the University of Verona in Italy , who was not involved with the study .
Participants may experience tangible effects from being told they are undergoing brain stimulation when they are not or reduced effects when the stimulation is actually switched on .
It may all depend on an individual ’ s expectations .
“ Hypnotizability and expectancies relate very much to the placebo effect , ” Fiorio says .
“ We should start asking participants for their beliefs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lush and his team plan to study other embodiment effects with exotic names such as the enfacement and Pinocchio illusions .
But they will start at the bottom by examining effects that are the least likely to be prone to suggestibility , such as simple visual illusions ( the Müller-Lyer illusion , for instance ) .
They will then move up to multisensory effects , such as the sound-induced flash illusion ( in which the number of bangs people hear biases the number of flashes they report seeing ) .
Finally , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as social priming , in which subtle cues are thought to exert unconscious effects on people ’ s behavior—an area that has suffered tremendously from an inability to replicate experiments .

Psychology has taken some hits in recent years—most famously in the form of the “replication crisis.” Multiple failures to reproduce high-profile findings prompted a reexamination of methods that can inadvertently generate apparently significant findings that are actually just statistical artifacts. Now a new challenge has arisen to a series of renowned psychological studies that purported to provide a window into how the brain processes internal representations of our physical “self.” The questioning of this research comes from an unlikely quarter: the study of hypnosis.
Long seen as a fringe topic, hypnosis has become surprisingly well established in the cognitive sciences today as a measurable, repeatable phenomenon. Hypnosis is the induction of a seemingly altered state of consciousness in which a person appears to relinquish voluntary control, becoming highly responsive to suggestion. Findings from hypnosis research show that the practice all boils down to how suggestible people are, which the researchers behind the new investigation call “trait phenomenological control.” Their paper suggests this trait may offer an alternative explanation for some key studies that invoke neural mechanisms underlying representation of the self or of the actions and experiences of others. The work also suggests new ways in which psychologists could improve the rigor and reliability of future studies.
The research began because lead author and hypnosis researcher Peter Lush and psychologist Zoltan Dienes, both at the University of Sussex in England, were intrigued by the knowledge that suggestion alone, without the theatrics associated with hypnosis, is enough to cause many people to act involuntarily, or experience things that are not happening, to some extent. “Once we’d started thinking of suggestion outside the context of hypnosis, it was natural to start thinking of other contexts in which suggestion effects might occur,” Lush says. One set of studies that came to mind were those involving embodiment—that is, ways that people perceive the physical self. These experiments used methods that can be seen as similar to hypnotic suggestions.
Suggestibility is closely related to a concept in psychology called “demand characteristics”—the tendency for study participants to figure out what researchers are expecting and respond accordingly. “We started wondering whether demand characteristics may be acting as implicit suggestions in experiments,” Lush says. The team started looking at well-known experiments that involved embodiment to determine whether participants were picking up on, and being influenced by, researchers’ expectations. “The idea was to test it in these embodiment effects—to then draw attention to the possibility that this could be going on all over the place,” Lush says. His group reported its results on September 25 in Nature Communications.
The first phenomenon the team set its sights on was “mirror synesthesia,” in which people feel pain or touch when seeing it happen to somebody else. These effects have been linked to the mirror neuron system (brain cells that fire both when we do something and when we see someone else doing it), which some researchers argue underlies the development of empathy.
The researchers first took advantage of data collected by colleagues studying mirror synesthesia at the University of Sussex. They collected suggestibility measures from the same population, matched up the participants and found that the scores predicted the extent to which people experienced mirror touch and mirror pain. The results implied suggestibility may, at least in part, explain mirror synesthesia effects. “This is not to say these experiences aren’t real,” Lush says, “only that they may have little to do with mirror neurons or other proposed mechanisms.”
Going further, Lush looked at the rubber-hand illusion, in which participants report feeling a rubber hand is their own when they see it stroked simultaneously with their real (but hidden) hand. This striking effect, first demonstrated more than 20 years ago, toppled the idea that what we perceive as “us” is immutable, pointing instead to the malleability of our sense of self.
In Lush and his colleagues’ test of the rubber-hand experiment, each of the 353 participants sat at a table with one arm obscured from view by a partition and a rubber arm positioned in front of them. A researcher simultaneously stroked both the hidden real hand and the visible rubber one with a brush. The subjects were then asked questions designed to reveal experiences of bodily “ownership.” As with the mirror synesthesia study, the team found that suggestibility predicted the extent to which participants experienced the illusion. “What’s interesting about this is: it highlights the role that hidden demands and expectations can have in shaping people’s experiences,” says Vince Polito of Macquarie University in Australia, who was not involved with the study.
Psychologists have long been aware this can be an issue. “Suggestion definitely exists and is a problem in psychological experiments, so I welcome the fact they’ve drawn attention to it,” says cognitive neuroscientist Patrick Haggard of University College London, who was also not involved in the paper. “They’ve picked the correct challenge here.” The usual way researchers try to discount suggestion in rubber-hand experiments is to use a control condition in which a participant's hand is stroked out of synch with the rubber one. If the subjects do not experience the illusion under these conditions but do when the hands are stroked simultaneously, the effect cannot be linked to suggestion, or so the reasoning goes. Participants are likely to expect differences between these cases, however, Lush argues. “Those control conditions are completely invalid,” he says, because the different responses could entirely arise from different expectations. “But they’ve been in use for 20 years.” Responses in the test condition therefore could be wholly linked to suggestion, meaning the standard interpretations are wrong. “The idea that our ownership of our body is that malleable may simply not be true,” Lush says.
Brain-imaging studies that show relevant brain activity and experiments that measure skin conductance offer no defense, Lush says, because suggestion can generate corresponding brain activity and physiological responses. One way of addressing the problem is to use questions that give as little away as possible about what researchers expect by using what are called implicit measures. In a rubber hand study, this typically involves asking participants to indicate where the hand physically is—measuring a shift in one’s sense of body location known as “proprioceptive drift.” But this approach suffers from exactly the same problem, Lush argues, citing a study he has run showing that people give the same pattern of responses when shown videos of a rubber hand experiment, regardless of whether they are asked about feelings of ownership and of where their hand is located.
Of course, it is possible suggestion may play a role without being a complete explanation of mirror synesthesia or the rubber-hand illusion. “The correlations are significant but modest. It looks like there’s a lot which isn’t explained by suggestibility,” Haggard says, noting that proprioceptive drift —the implicit measure—in particular was not as strongly related to suggestibility. A potential upside of the work is that it could help psychologists improve the quality of their measurements. “There’s been little work on the best questions to ask,” Haggard says. “This gives us one way to answer that.” The research could improve psychological experiments by helping to determine which measures are prone to suggestibility effects and which are less sensitive, he explains.
A big question now is how broad an issue suggestibility effects are for psychology in general. “These expectations can apply to many contexts—gauging the effects of noninvasive brain stimulation technologies, for instance,” says neuroscientist Mirta Fiorio of the University of Verona in Italy, who was not involved with the study. Participants may experience tangible effects from being told they are undergoing brain stimulation when they are not or reduced effects when the stimulation is actually switched on. It may all depend on an individual’s expectations. “Hypnotizability and expectancies relate very much to the placebo effect,” Fiorio says. “We should start asking participants for their beliefs about what’s going on.”
Lush and his team plan to study other embodiment effects with exotic names such as the enfacement and Pinocchio illusions. But they will start at the bottom by examining effects that are the least likely to be prone to suggestibility, such as simple visual illusions (the Müller-Lyer illusion, for instance). They will then move up to multisensory effects, such as the sound-induced flash illusion (in which the number of bangs people hear biases the number of flashes they report seeing). Finally, the researchers will assess complex behavioral areas such as social priming, in which subtle cues are thought to exert unconscious effects on people’s behavior—an area that has suffered tremendously from an inability to replicate experiments.


scientificamerican--2020-10-22--Dinosaur Asteroid Hit Worst Case Place

Dinosaur Asteroid Hit Worst Case Place

We all know the story : 66 million years ago , a giant asteroid crashed into Earth , killing off three-quarters of all species , including most of the dinosaurs .
Researchers suspect that the impact caused the extinction by kicking up a cloud of dust and tiny droplets called aerosols that plunged the planet into something like a nuclear winter .
“ These components in the atmosphere drove global cooling and darkness that would have stopped photosynthesis from occurring , ultimately shutting down the food chain.
” But scientists have also found lots of soot in the geologic layers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And the soot may have been part of the killing mechanism too—depending on where it came from .
Some of the soot probably came from wildfires that erupted around the planet following the impact .
But most of these particles would have lingered in the lower atmosphere for only a few weeks , and wouldn ’ t have had much of an effect on global climate .
But scientists hypothesize that soot may also have come from the very rocks that the asteroid pulverized when it struck .
If those rocks contained significant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of marine organisms—it would have burned up on impact , sending soot shooting up into the stratosphere .
In that case , soot would have spread around the globe in a matter of hours and stayed there for years .
And it would have radically altered Earth ’ s climate .
So Lyons and her team set out to identify the source of the soot .
They looked at chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons , or PAHs , which are another byproduct of combustion .
“ You can find PAHs in meat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can find them from the exhaust of a car .
You can also find them in smoke and debris from the wildfires today out west.
” PAHs are made up of fused rings of carbon atoms—think of chicken wire .
To determine the origin of the soot , the researchers looked at the structure and chemistry of the PAHs buried along with it .
Specifically , the researchers looked for groups of atoms that stick off the rings like spikes .
PAHs generated from burning wood don ’ t have many spikes , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have been in the target rocks—have more .
Lyons and her team found that most of the PAHs deposited after the impact were spiky , which suggests that soot from the rocks hit by the asteroid played a major role in the mass extinction .
“ There was more dust and more sulfate aerosols than soot , but soot is a stronger blocker of sunlight than either of those two .
So a small amount of soot can drive large reductions in sunlight.
” The findings are in the Proceedings of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ L. Lyons et al , Organic matter from the Chicxulub crater exacerbated the K–Pg impact winter ] The results suggest that the devastation of this very sooty asteroid impact may be due in part to a fluke of geography : the space rock smashed into the Gulf of Mexico , where the sediments were rich in organic matter .
They still are—the region produces large amounts of oil today .
“ Where it had occurred was likely one of the reasons that it led to a major mass extinction .
It was kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfect asteroid impact , I guess you could call it .
”

Full Transcript
We all know the story: 66 million years ago, a giant asteroid crashed into Earth, killing off three quarters of all species, including most of the dinosaurs. Researchers suspect that the impact caused the extinction by kicking up a cloud of dust and tiny droplets called aerosols that plunged the planet into something like a nuclear winter.
“These components in the atmosphere drove global cooling and darkness that would have stopped photosynthesis from occurring, ultimately shutting down the food chain.”
Shelby Lyons, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Penn State University.
But scientists have also found lots of soot in the geologic layers deposited immediately after the asteroid impact. And the soot may have been part of the killing mechanism too—depending on where it came from.
Some of the soot probably came from wildfires that erupted around the planet following the impact. But most of these particles would have lingered in the lower atmosphere for only a few weeks and wouldn’t have had much of an effect on global climate.
But scientists hypothesize that soot may also have come from the very rocks that the asteroid pulverized when it struck. If those rocks contained significant amounts of organic matter—such as the remains of marine organisms—it would have burned up on impact, sending soot shooting up into the stratosphere. In that case, soot would have spread around the globe in a matter of hours and stayed there for years. And it would have radically altered Earth’s climate.
So Lyons and her team set out to identify the source of the soot. They looked at chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are another by-product of combustion.
“You can find PAHs in meat or veggies that you grill. You can find them from the exhaust of a car. You can also find them in smoke and debris from the wildfires today out west.”
PAHs are made up of fused rings of carbon atoms—think of chicken wire. To determine the origin of the soot, the researchers looked at the structure and chemistry of the PAHs buried along with it. Specifically, the researchers looked for groups of atoms that stick off the rings like spikes. PAHs generated from burning wood don’t have many spikes, but PAHs from burning fossil carbon—like what would have been in the target rocks—have more.
Lyons and her team found that most of the PAHs deposited after the impact were spiky, which suggests that soot from the rocks hit by the asteroid played a major role in the mass extinction.
“There was more dust and more sulfate aerosols than soot, but soot is a stronger blocker of sunlight than either of those two. So a small amount of soot can drive large reductions in sunlight.”
The findings are in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Shelby L. Lyons et al., Organic matter from the Chicxulub crater exacerbated the K–Pg impact winter]
The results suggest that the devastation of this very sooty asteroid impact may be due in part to a fluke of geography: the space rock smashed into the Gulf of Mexico, where the sediments were rich in organic matter. They still are: the region produces large amounts of oil today.
“Where it had occurred was likely one of the reasons that it led to a major mass extinction. It was kind of the perfect storm, or the perfect asteroid impact, I guess you could call it.”
—Julia Rosen
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]


scientificamerican--2020-10-21--The World Needs to Ramp Up Solutions for Greener Cooling

Air conditioning and other cooling systems are widely recognized as integral to protecting people from the sometimes deadly impacts of extreme heat , which are intensifying in step with climate change .
Yet according to a study , published yesterday in Nature Sustainability , there remains a “ global blind spot ” when it comes to handling the already exorbitant demand for cooling and indoor air conditioning , which alone is projected to triple by 2050 .
That ’ s a stark reality , the report warns , given that many cooling systems are carbon-intensive—and contribute to global warming themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-being and health , from the food we eat to the storage of medicine to how comfortable and productive we are at home , school or the office , ” said report co-author Radhika Khosla , a principal investigator at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Cooling .
So if societies do not soon begin implementing sustainable cooling solutions , Khosla added in a statement , they risk “ locking the world into a deadly feedback loop , where demand for cooling energy drives further greenhouse gas emissions and results in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ examined thousands of peer-reviewed papers related to the United Nations ’ Sustainable Development Goals and concluded that greener cooling systems could help achieve all 17 goals—which include curbing global hunger , reducing gender inequality and improving human health writ large .
That ’ s possible , the report said , because extreme heat dramatically affects everything from food production to water quality to students ’ ability to learn and focus during school .
Despite evidence that demonstrates the connection between efficient cooling systems and improved social and environmental outcomes , however , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in demand and the potential benefits of sustainable cooling ” remain largely neglected in contemporary sustainability debates .
That has major implications , they emphasized , for sustainable development around the world .
To close that gap , the study said technological developments , innovative business models , intentional infrastructure and regulation could be used to make cooling more accessible—and climate friendly .
Cities and towns , for instance , could embed “ passive and energy-efficient ” cooling mechanisms in urban infrastructure to lessen the impact of extreme heat both indoors and outdoors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reduce the prominence of “ urban heat islands ” by planting additional trees , developing new parks and building green roofs—all of which naturally cool urban spaces .
Those strategies would be especially useful , the report said , given that “ projections of the world ’ s population living in towns and cities are set to reach 66 % by 2050 , ” making urban areas the “ epicentre of cooling demand.
” The authors also suggest that air-conditioning companies adopt a “ cooling as a service ” business model , intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hot , low-income regions .
Rather than charging for the system itself , the companies would profit by retaining ownership of it and charging customers to operate the system and maintain a comfortable thermal environment .
This would drive down , or even eliminate , what can be prohibitive upfront costs for cash-strapped households .
In the context of a world “ positioned at the brink of unprecedented cooling demand , ” the report says , these interventions are among the many that offer “ a way forward while being acutely aware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use cooling as a lens to look to the sustainability of our future.
” Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net .

Air conditioning and other cooling systems are widely recognized as integral to protecting people from the sometimes deadly impacts of extreme heat, which are intensifying in step with climate change.
Yet according to a study, published yesterday in Nature Sustainability, there remains a “global blind spot” when it comes to handling the already exorbitant demand for cooling and indoor air conditioning, which alone is projected to triple by 2050. That’s a stark reality, the report warns, given that many cooling systems are carbon-intensive—and contribute to global warming themselves.
“Cooling is essential to human well-being and health, from the food we eat to the storage of medicine to how comfortable and productive we are at home, school or the office,” said report co-author Radhika Khosla, a principal investigator at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Cooling.
So if societies do not soon begin implementing sustainable cooling solutions, Khosla added in a statement, they risk “locking the world into a deadly feedback loop, where demand for cooling energy drives further greenhouse gas emissions and results in even more global warming.”
The researchers examined thousands of peer-reviewed papers related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and concluded that greener cooling systems could help achieve all 17 goals—which include curbing global hunger, reducing gender inequality and improving human health writ large. That’s possible, the report said, because extreme heat dramatically affects everything from food production to water quality to students’ ability to learn and focus during school.
Despite evidence that demonstrates the connection between efficient cooling systems and improved social and environmental outcomes, however, the authors argue that the “unprecedented rise in demand and the potential benefits of sustainable cooling” remain largely neglected in contemporary sustainability debates. That has major implications, they emphasized, for sustainable development around the world.
To close that gap, the study said technological developments, innovative business models, intentional infrastructure and regulation could be used to make cooling more accessible—and climate friendly.
Cities and towns, for instance, could embed “passive and energy-efficient” cooling mechanisms in urban infrastructure to lessen the impact of extreme heat both indoors and outdoors. That could entail projects intended to reduce the prominence of “urban heat islands” by planting additional trees, developing new parks and building green roofs—all of which naturally cool urban spaces.
Those strategies would be especially useful, the report said, given that “projections of the world’s population living in towns and cities are set to reach 66% by 2050,” making urban areas the “epicentre of cooling demand.”
The authors also suggest that air-conditioning companies adopt a “cooling as a service” business model, intended to making sustainable cooling more affordable—especially in hot, low-income regions. Rather than charging for the system itself, the companies would profit by retaining ownership of it and charging customers to operate the system and maintain a comfortable thermal environment. This would drive down, or even eliminate, what can be prohibitive upfront costs for cash-strapped households.
In the context of a world “positioned at the brink of unprecedented cooling demand,” the report says, these interventions are among the many that offer “a way forward while being acutely aware of the extraordinary opportunity the current moment provides to use cooling as a lens to look to the sustainability of our future.”
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.


scientificamerican--2020-10-21--Racism and Sexism in Science Haven't Disappeared

Tempers are running hot in science ( as they are in the U.S. at large ) as the field embarks on a long-overdue conversation about its treatment of women and people of color .
In June , for example , thousands of researchers and academics across the globe—as well as the preeminent journals Science and Nature—stopped work for a day to protest racism in their ranks .
The American Physical Society endorsed the effort to “ shut down STEM , ” declaring its commitment to “ eradicating systemic racism and discrimination ” in science .
Physics exemplifies the problem .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the college-age population in the U.S. , commensurate with their numbers in the overall population , but in physics they receive 3 to 4 percent of undergraduate degrees and less than 3 percent of Ph.D.s , and as of 2012 they composed only 2 percent of faculty .
No doubt there are many reasons for this underrepresentation , but one troubling factor is the refusal of some scientists to acknowledge that a problem could even exist .
Science , they argue , is inherently rational and self-correcting .
Would that were true .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ well-documented cases of misogyny , prejudice and bias .
For centuries biologists promoted false theories of female inferiority , and scientific institutions typically barred women 's participation .
Historian of science and MacArthur fellow Margaret Rossiter has documented how , in the mid-19th century , female scientists created their own scientific societies to compensate for their male colleagues ' refusal to acknowledge their work .
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne filled an entire volume with the stories of women who should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for work that they did in collaboration with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had stolen by them .
( Rosalind Franklin is a well-documented example of the latter : her photographs of the crystal structure of DNA were shared without her permission by one of the men who then won the Nobel Prize for elucidating the double-helix structure . )
Racial bias has been at least as pernicious as gender bias ; it was scientists , after all , who codified the concept of race as a biological category that was not simply descriptive but also hierarchical .
Good scientists are open to competing ideas ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they listen to opposing views .
But scientists are also humans , and cognitive science shows that humans are prone to bias , misperception , motivated reasoning and other intellectual pitfalls .
Because reasoning is slow and difficult , we rely on heuristics—intellectual shortcuts that often work but sometimes fail spectacularly .
( Believing that men are , in general , better than women in math is one tiring example . )
It is not credible to claim that scientists are somehow immune to the biases that afflict everyone else .
Fortunately , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ depend on the objectivity of individual scientists .
Rather it depends on strategies for identifying , acknowledging and correcting bias and error .
As I point out in my 2019 book , Why Trust Science , scientific knowledge begins as claims advanced by individual scientists , teams or laboratories that are then closely scrutinized by others , who may bring forward additional proof to sustain them—or to modify or reject them .
What emerges as a scientific fact or established theory is rarely if ever the same as the starting claim ; it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and argumentation .
Science is a collective effort , and it works best when scientific communities are diverse .
The reason is simple : heterogeneous communities are more likely than homogeneous ones to be able to identify blind spots and correct them .
Science does not correct itself ; scientists correct one another through critical interrogation .
And that means being willing to interrogate not just claims about the external world but claims about our own practices and processes as well .
Science has an admirable record of producing reliable knowledge about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when it comes to acknowledging its own weaknesses .
And we can not correct those weaknesses if we insist the system will magically correct itself .
It is not ideological to acknowledge and confront bias in science ; it is ideological to insist science can not be biased despite empirical validation to the contrary .
Given that our failings of inclusion have been known for a long time , it is high time we finally fix them .

Tempers are running hot in science (as they are in the U.S. at large) as the field embarks on a long-overdue conversation about its treatment of women and people of color. In June 2020, for example, thousands of researchers and academics across the globe—as well as the preeminent journals Science and Nature—stopped work for a day to protest racism in their ranks. The American Physical Society endorsed the effort to “shut down STEM,” declaring its commitment to “eradicating systemic racism and discrimination” in science.
Physics exemplifies the problem. Black people make up about 14 percent of the college-age population in the U.S., commensurate with their numbers in the overall population, but in physics they receive 3 to 4 percent of undergraduate degrees and less than 3 percent of Ph.D.s, and as of 2012 they composed only 2 percent of faculty. No doubt there are many reasons for this underrepresentation, but one troubling factor is the refusal of some scientists to acknowledge that a problem could even exist. Science, they argue, is inherently rational and self-correcting.
Would that were true. The history of science is rife with well-documented cases of misogyny, prejudice and bias. For centuries biologists promoted false theories of female inferiority, and scientific institutions typically barred women’s participation. Historian of science and MacArthur fellow Margaret Rossiter has documented how, in the mid-19th century, female scientists created their own scientific societies to compensate for their male colleagues’ refusal to acknowledge their work. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne filled an entire volume with the stories of women who should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for work that they did in collaboration with male colleagues—or, worse, that they had stolen by them. (Rosalind Franklin is a well-documented example of the latter: her photographs of the crystal structure of DNA were shared without her permission by one of the men who then won the Nobel Prize for elucidating the double-helix structure.) Racial bias has been at least as pernicious as gender bias; it was scientists, after all, who codified the concept of race as a biological category that was not simply descriptive but also hierarchical.
Good scientists are open to competing ideas; they attend to challenging data, and they listen to opposing views. But scientists are also humans, and cognitive science shows that humans are prone to bias, misperception, motivated reasoning and other intellectual pitfalls. Because reasoning is slow and difficult, we rely on heuristics—intellectual shortcuts that often work but sometimes fail spectacularly. (Believing that men are, in general, better than women in math is one tiring example.) It is not credible to claim that scientists are somehow immune to the biases that afflict everyone else.
Fortunately, the objectivity of scientific knowledge does not depend on the objectivity of individual scientists. Rather it depends on strategies for identifying, acknowledging and correcting bias and error. As I point out in my 2019 book, Why Trust Science, scientific knowledge begins as claims advanced by individual scientists, teams or laboratories that are then closely scrutinized by others, who may bring forward additional proof to sustain them—or to modify or reject them. What emerges as a scientific fact or established theory is rarely if ever the same as the starting claim; it has been adjusted in light of evidence and argumentation. Science is a collective effort, and it works best when scientific communities are diverse. The reason is simple: heterogeneous communities are more likely than homogeneous ones to be able to identify blind spots and correct them. Science does not correct itself; scientists correct one another through critical interrogation. And that means being willing to interrogate not just claims about the external world but claims about our own practices and processes as well.
Science has an admirable record of producing reliable knowledge about the natural and social world, but not when it comes to acknowledging its own weaknesses. And we cannot correct those weaknesses if we insist the system will magically correct itself. It is not ideological to acknowledge and confront bias in science; it is ideological to insist science cannot be biased despite empirical validation to the contrary. Given that our failings of inclusion have been known for a long time, it is high time we finally fix them.


scientificamerican--2020-10-21--Human Challenge Trials Will Deliberately Infect Dozens in the UK

Young , healthy people will be intentionally exposed to the virus responsible for COVID-19 in a first-of-its kind ‘ human challenge trial ’ , the UK government and a company that runs such studies announced on 20 October .
The experiment , set to begin in January in a London hospital if it receives final regulatory and ethical approval , aims to accelerate the development of vaccines that could end the pandemic .
Human challenge trials have a history of providing insight into diseases such as malaria and influenza .
The UK trial will try to identify a suitable dose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used in future vaccine trials .
But the prospect of deliberately infecting people—even those at low risk of severe disease—with SARS-CoV-2 , a deadly pathogen that has few proven treatments , is uncharted medical and bioethical territory .
Proponents of COVID-19 challenge trials have argued that they can be run safely and ethically , and that their potential to quickly identify effective vaccines outweighs the low risks to participants .
But others have raised questions about the safety and value of these studies , pointing out that large-scale efficacy trials involving tens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results on several COVID-19 vaccines soon .
“ Deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly .
However , such studies are enormously informative about a disease , ” said Peter Openshaw , an immunologist at Imperial College London and investigator on the study , in a press statement .
“ It is really vital that we move as fast as possible towards getting effective vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19 , and challenge studies have the potential to accelerate and de-risk the development of novel drugs and vaccines.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ be led by a Dublin-based commercial clinical-research organization called Open Orphan and its subsidiary hVIVO , which runs challenge trials on respiratory pathogens .
It will take place in the high-level isolation unit of the Royal Free Hospital in north London , says Open Orphan executive chair Cathal Friel .
The UK government ’ s COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce has agreed to pay the company up to £10 million ( US $ 13 million ) to conduct the trial , with the possibility of contracting Open Orphan to run several more to test various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Regulatory Agency ( MHRA ) , which regulates clinical trials in the United Kingdom , and an ethical review committee , still need to approve the initial trial and its design , and that of future studies .
The initial trial will involve an estimated 30–50 participants , says Andrew Catchpole , a virologist and the chief scientific officer at Open Orphan who is leading the work .
It is open only to healthy adults aged 18–30 .
The precise design of the study has not been finalized .
But it is likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ receive a very low dose of a SARS-CoV-2 ‘ challenge strain ’ derived from a currently circulating virus and grown under stringent conditions .
If none or few of the participants become infected , the researchers will seek permission from an independent safety monitoring board to expose participants to higher doses .
This process will be repeated until researchers identify a dose that infects most of those exposed , says Catchpole .
Once an appropriate dose is identified , Open Orphan could be asked to run a series of challenge trials testing several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these trials , including which vaccines will be included , has not been determined .
He envisions that some trial participants will receive a placebo injection instead of a vaccine , but he also says that head-to-head trials comparing two or more vaccines could be run .
Other vaccine studies that the company runs typically enrol 40–50 volunteers for each trial arm , he says .
Catchpole says that his team will take every precaution against participants in the initial trial developing severe disease .
Volunteers will be treated with an antiviral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nasal swab gives a positive result for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material .
In addition to age and health , participants will be screened for risk factors that have been associated with severe COVID-19 .
Selecting participants at the lowest risk is the most important safety step in running a challenge trial , says Matt Memoli , an infectious-disease physician and virologist at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID ) in Bethesda , Maryland .
“ Once you ’ ve given that virus to the person , anything ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ You can ’ t control it , you can only react to it.
” If Open Orphan moves on to vaccine trials , it will aim to recruit around 500 participants altogether , but Friel says the company will need to screen many times more people to identify suitable volunteers .
An ethical review board will determine how to compensate participants .
Open Orphan typically pays volunteers around £4,000 for their time , says Catchpole .
There is a concern that people will participate for the money without appreciating the risks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rutgers University in New Brunswick , New Jersey , who has argued that COVID-19 challenge trials can be run safely and ethically .
But a well-designed online course , for instance , could ensure that participants understand the risks , he says .
Ensuring that participants understand the limitations of challenge trials will also be important , says Seema Shah , a bioethicist at Lurie Children ’ s Hospital and Northwestern University in Chicago , Illinois .
With phase III trials of numerous COVID-19 vaccines in the works , she thinks it unlikely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the first vaccines .
Instead , their payoff could lie in helping to test later-generation vaccines or laying the groundwork for fresh insights into the disease .
In this context , says Shah , “ It becomes a little bit harder to justify them , and we need to take a close look at risks.
” Meagan Deming , a vaccine scientist and virologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore , sees challenge trials as more appropriate for studying basic aspects of SARS-CoV-2 infection—such as the potential for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronaviruses influences susceptibility to COVID-19—than for vetting vaccines .
Because such trials are likely to involve only young , healthy people , they might not reveal much about how vaccines could protect those most at risk of severe disease , such as older people and those with conditions such as diabetes , Deming says .
“ There ’ s a reason we don ’ t have a lot of vaccines approved by challenge models , because they don ’ t apply to everyone and you want a vaccine to protect almost everyone , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might not offer clear evidence of whether vaccines work in older people , because of their low participation in those trials , says Peter Smith , an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has been involved in challenge trials .
Researchers will probably need to determine vaccines ’ likely effectiveness in older people , on the basis of how their immune systems respond to COVID-19 vaccines before exposure to the virus .
And compared with field trials , challenge studies are better at identifying the types of immune @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely to work or not , adds Memoli .
The United Kingdom isn ’ t the only country investigating COVID-19 challenge trials .
Belgium ’ s government has committed €20 million ( US $ 23.6 million ) for facilities to host challenge trials , potentially involving COVID-19 .
NIAID is funding the development of two SARS-CoV-2 challenge strains by a lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins , and a team led by Memoli is also laying the groundwork for such trials .
In a statement , NIAID said it was awaiting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decisions on COVID-19 challenge trials .
Proponents of the trials argue that the consequences of delaying them should be taken into account , alongside the risks of going forward .
For instance , Eyal and economists Pedro Rosa Dias and Ara Darzi at Imperial College London have calculated that speeding up the development of COVID-19 vaccines by one month would avert the loss of 720,000 years of life and prevent 40 million years in poverty , mostly in lower-income countries .
But Deming thinks that challenge trials should wait until their value is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mitigated , for instance by deploying more potent therapies .
“ We don ’ t yet know enough about this disease to say for this person : you will not die , ” she says .
“ We ’ ve learned so much in the past nine months .
In a year , we will be able to do this safely.
” This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on October 20 2020 .

Young, healthy people will be intentionally exposed to the virus responsible for COVID-19 in a first-of-its kind ‘human challenge trial’, the UK government and a company that runs such studies announced on 20 October. The experiment, set to begin in January in a London hospital if it receives final regulatory and ethical approval, aims to accelerate the development of vaccines that could end the pandemic.
Human challenge trials have a history of providing insight into diseases such as malaria and influenza. The UK trial will try to identify a suitable dose of the virus SARS-CoV-2 that could be used in future vaccine trials. But the prospect of deliberately infecting people—even those at low risk of severe disease—with SARS-CoV-2, a deadly pathogen that has few proven treatments, is uncharted medical and bioethical territory.
Proponents of COVID-19 challenge trials have argued that they can be run safely and ethically, and that their potential to quickly identify effective vaccines outweighs the low risks to participants. But others have raised questions about the safety and value of these studies, pointing out that large-scale efficacy trials involving tens of thousands of people are expected to deliver results on several COVID-19 vaccines soon.
“Deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly. However, such studies are enormously informative about a disease,” said Peter Openshaw, an immunologist at Imperial College London and investigator on the study, in a press statement. “It is really vital that we move as fast as possible towards getting effective vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19, and challenge studies have the potential to accelerate and de-risk the development of novel drugs and vaccines.”
Dose testing
The planned COVID-19 challenge study will be led by a Dublin-based commercial clinical-research organization called Open Orphan and its subsidiary hVIVO, which runs challenge trials on respiratory pathogens. It will take place in the high-level isolation unit of the Royal Free Hospital in north London, says Open Orphan executive chair Cathal Friel.
The UK government’s COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce has agreed to pay the company up to £10 million (US$13 million) to conduct the trial, with the possibility of contracting Open Orphan to run several more to test various vaccines. The UK Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates clinical trials in the United Kingdom, and an ethical review committee, still need to approve the initial trial and its design, and that of future studies.
The initial trial will involve an estimated 30–50 participants, says Andrew Catchpole, a virologist and the chief scientific officer at Open Orphan who is leading the work. It is open only to healthy adults aged 18–30.
The precise design of the study has not been finalized. But it is likely that a small number of participants will receive a very low dose of a SARS-CoV-2 ‘challenge strain’ derived from a currently circulating virus and grown under stringent conditions. If none or few of the participants become infected, the researchers will seek permission from an independent safety monitoring board to expose participants to higher doses. This process will be repeated until researchers identify a dose that infects most of those exposed, says Catchpole.
Once an appropriate dose is identified, Open Orphan could be asked to run a series of challenge trials testing several vaccines. Catchpole says that the design of these trials, including which vaccines will be included, has not been determined. He envisions that some trial participants will receive a placebo injection instead of a vaccine, but he also says that head-to-head trials comparing two or more vaccines could be run. Other vaccine studies that the company runs typically enrol 40–50 volunteers for each trial arm, he says.
Catchpole says that his team will take every precaution against participants in the initial trial developing severe disease. Volunteers will be treated with an antiviral drug, such as remdesivir, once a nasal swab gives a positive result for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. In addition to age and health, participants will be screened for risk factors that have been associated with severe COVID-19.
Selecting participants at the lowest risk is the most important safety step in running a challenge trial, says Matt Memoli, an infectious-disease physician and virologist at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland. “Once you’ve given that virus to the person, anything’s possible,” he says. “You can’t control it, you can only react to it.”
If Open Orphan moves on to vaccine trials, it will aim to recruit around 500 participants altogether, but Friel says the company will need to screen many times more people to identify suitable volunteers. An ethical review board will determine how to compensate participants. Open Orphan typically pays volunteers around £4,000 for their time, says Catchpole.
Ethical issues
There is a concern that people will participate for the money without appreciating the risks, says Nir Eyal, a bioethicist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, who has argued that COVID-19 challenge trials can be run safely and ethically. But a well-designed online course, for instance, could ensure that participants understand the risks, he says.
Ensuring that participants understand the limitations of challenge trials will also be important, says Seema Shah, a bioethicist at Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. With phase III trials of numerous COVID-19 vaccines in the works, she thinks it unlikely that challenge trials will speed the development of the first vaccines. Instead, their payoff could lie in helping to test later-generation vaccines or laying the groundwork for fresh insights into the disease. In this context, says Shah, “It becomes a little bit harder to justify them, and we need to take a close look at risks.”
Meagan Deming, a vaccine scientist and virologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, sees challenge trials as more appropriate for studying basic aspects of SARS-CoV-2 infection—such as the potential for reinfection or how previous exposure to cold-causing coronaviruses influences susceptibility to COVID-19—than for vetting vaccines. Because such trials are likely to involve only young, healthy people, they might not reveal much about how vaccines could protect those most at risk of severe disease, such as older people and those with conditions such as diabetes, Deming says. “There’s a reason we don’t have a lot of vaccines approved by challenge models, because they don’t apply to everyone and you want a vaccine to protect almost everyone,” she says.
Phase III trials might not offer clear evidence of whether vaccines work in older people, because of their low participation in those trials, says Peter Smith, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has been involved in challenge trials. Researchers will probably need to determine vaccines’ likely effectiveness in older people, on the basis of how their immune systems respond to COVID-19 vaccines before exposure to the virus. And compared with field trials, challenge studies are better at identifying the types of immune response that predict whether a vaccine is likely to work or not, adds Memoli.
Other trials
The United Kingdom isn’t the only country investigating COVID-19 challenge trials. Belgium’s government has committed €20 million (US$23.6 million) for facilities to host challenge trials, potentially involving COVID-19. NIAID is funding the development of two SARS-CoV-2 challenge strains by a lab at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and a team led by Memoli is also laying the groundwork for such trials. In a statement, NIAID said it was awaiting data from phase III studies before making decisions on COVID-19 challenge trials.
Proponents of the trials argue that the consequences of delaying them should be taken into account, alongside the risks of going forward. For instance, Eyal and economists Pedro Rosa Dias and Ara Darzi at Imperial College London have calculated that speeding up the development of COVID-19 vaccines by one month would avert the loss of 720,000 years of life and prevent 40 million years in poverty, mostly in lower-income countries.
But Deming thinks that challenge trials should wait until their value is clearer and the risks can be better mitigated, for instance by deploying more potent therapies. “We don’t yet know enough about this disease to say for this person: you will not die,” she says. “We’ve learned so much in the past nine months. In a year, we will be able to do this safely.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on October 20 2020.


scientificamerican--2020-10-21--NASA's OSIRIS-REx Successfully Touches Asteroid Bennu

For the first time ever , a NASA probe has performed a sample-snagging operation on an asteroid in deep space .
The agency ’ s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spiraled down to the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu this afternoon ( Oct. 20 ) to grab material that mission team members hope harbors clues about the solar system ’ s early days and the rise of life on Earth .
“ We did it !
” OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta , of the University of Arizona , said during a webcast that provided updates about today ’ s maneuver .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ asteroid , and it ’ s up to Bennu now to see how the event went.
” The goal was to collect at least 60 grams ( 2.1 ounces ) of dirt and gravel from Bennu ’ s rubbly surface .
It could take up to 10 days to determine if OSIRIS-REx achieved this aim , mission team members have said .
And it ’ s not a disaster if the asteroid haul turns out to be a little light ; the probe can go back down for two more tries if need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NASA demonstrates how an incredible team from across the country came together and persevered through incredible challenges to expand the boundaries of knowledge , ” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement after the touchdown .
“ Our industry , academic , and international partners have made it possible to hold a piece of the most ancient solar system in our hands.
” Lauretta and his fellow OSIRIS-REx scientists and engineers watched over today ’ s asteroid sample-snatching attempt from a mission operations center at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton , Colorado @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for NASA . )
And while the mood was certainly jubilant , the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was clear .
For example , everyone wore facemasks and maintained appropriate social distancing for much of the event .
While there were some hugs after news of OSIRIS-REx ’ s asteroid touchdown , they were few in NASA ’ s live webcast , with hand sanitizer clearly on hand after such celebrations .
“ This is one of those moments where we ’ re all aware of COVID-19 , ” NASA astronomer Michelle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said in the webcast just after touchdown .
“ Because I want the hugs and the high fives and everything , but we ’ re all going to keep each other safe.
” The $ 800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched in September 2016 and arrived at the 1,640-foot-wide ( 500 meters ) Bennu in December 2018 .
The probe has been taking the asteroid ’ s measure ever since , mapping its surface in incredible detail to prepare for today ’ s maneuver .
That work has revealed a world far more rugged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House-sized boulders stud Bennu ’ s surface , limiting the available options for a safe sample grab .
The team eventually homed in on a small crater called Nightingale as its top choice , because the site sports relatively fresh and fine-grained material that hasn ’ t been exposed to the harsh deep-space environment for long .
But Nightingale is surrounded by hazards , including a big outcrop the mission team nicknamed “ Mount Doom.
” There are obstacles within the crater as well , so the spacecraft targeted a relatively flat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m ) wide—quite an ambitious goal , considering that OSIRIS-REx is the size of a 15-passenger van and the original mission plan envisioned a touchdown zone 165 feet ( 50 m ) wide .
“ So , for some perspective : The next time you park your car in front of your house or in front of a coffee shop and walk inside , think about the challenge of navigating OSIRIS-REx into one of these spots from 200 million miles away , ” Mike Moreau , OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Maryland , said during a news conference last month .
It currently takes more than 18 minutes for commands to travel from Earth to OSIRIS-REx , so Moreau and his colleagues can not control the probe in real time .
The craft therefore performed today ’ s operation autonomously .
Shortly before 2 p.m. EDT ( 1600 GMT ) today , OSIRIS-REx fired its thrusters to get out of orbit around Bennu and head down toward the surface .
At 6:12 p.m. EDT ( 2212 GMT ) , the probe “ kissed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with its sample-collecting mechanism , which is affixed to the end of OSIRIS-REx ’ s 11-foot-long ( 3.4 m ) robotic arm .
During the brief touchdown , the spacecraft blasted Bennu ’ s surface with nitrogen gas .
This stirred up dirt and rock that could then be collected by the arm ’ s sampling head , which mission team members have likened to an older car ’ s air filter .
We should expect OSIRIS-REx ’ s first images of the operation to start coming down to Earth tomorrow morning ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
The OSIRIS-REx team will spend the next week or so assessing how much asteroid material was collected .
The probe ’ s handlers have expressed confidence that this first attempt will succeed ; OSIRIS-REx ’ s sampler was designed to snag at least 150 grams ( 5.3 ounces ) and could theoretically get up to 4 kilograms ( 8.8 lbs . )
of material if everything went perfectly .
But if OSIRIS-REx is deemed to have come up short on collected material today , another attempt could be made , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as soon as January 2021 .
A third try would be possible , too , if needed ; the probe carries three bottles of surface-disturbing nitrogen gas .
Those are contingency plans , however .
If things went according to plan today , OSIRIS-REx remains on course to depart Bennu in March 2021 .
The collected samples are scheduled to land here on Earth , encased in a special return capsule , in September 2023 .
Scientists will then study the material in labs around the world , scrutinizing the stuff in far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other single probe , could do on its own in deep space .
Asteroids are building blocks left over from the planet-formation epoch , so such analyses could reveal key insights about our solar system ’ s very early days , NASA officials have said .
“ This was an incredible feat—and today we ’ ve advanced both science and engineering and our prospects for future missions to study these mysterious ancient storytellers of the solar system , ” said Thomas Zurbuchen , NASA ’ s associate administrator for science missions , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of primordial rock that has witnessed our solar system ’ s entire history may now be ready to come home for generations of scientific discovery , and we can ’ t wait to see what comes next.
” In addition , Bennu is rich in hydrated minerals and carbon-containing organic compounds .
Asteroids like it may have helped Earth become habitable long ago , seeding our planet with the ingredients needed for life as we know it .
“ And also , having the samples back here on Earth allows us to preserve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allows for future explorers to analyze the samples using techniques and instruments that haven ’ t been invented , and to ask questions that we don ’ t even know to ask yet , ” Lori Glaze , director of NASA ’ s Planetary Science Division , said during today ’ s webcast .
Getting these samples down to Earth is OSIRIS-REx ’ s top priority .
But the mission also has other goals , as indicated by its full name— “ Origins , Spectral Interpretation , Resource Identification , Security , Regolith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ probe has made while orbiting Bennu should help scientists better understand how asteroids move through space , NASA officials have said .
This information could improve trajectory projections for potentially hazardous asteroids , a category that includes Bennu .
( There ’ s a 1-in-2,700 chance that Bennu will hit Earth during a close approach in the late 2100s , researchers say . )
OSIRIS-REx ’ s sample won ’ t be the first pristine asteroid material brought down to Earth by a space mission .
Japan ’ s Hayabusa probe returned some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2010 , and its successor , Hayabusa2 , recently grabbed pieces of the carbon-rich rock Ryugu .
The material from Ryugu is scheduled to land on Earth this December .
The OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 teams have been working together for the past few years , and that collaboration will continue after the missions ’ samples touch down on Earth , NASA officials have stressed .
Copyright 2020 Space.com , a Future company .
All rights reserved .
This material may not be published , broadcast , rewritten or redistributed .

For the first time ever, a NASA probe has performed a sample-snagging operation on an asteroid in deep space.
The agency’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spiraled down to the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu this afternoon (Oct. 20) to grab material that mission team members hope harbors clues about the solar system’s early days and the rise of life on Earth.
“We did it!” OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona, said during a webcast that provided updates about today’s maneuver. “We tagged the surface of the asteroid, and it’s up to Bennu now to see how the event went.”
The goal was to collect at least 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of dirt and gravel from Bennu’s rubbly surface. It could take up to 10 days to determine if OSIRIS-REx achieved this aim, mission team members have said. And it’s not a disaster if the asteroid haul turns out to be a little light; the probe can go back down for two more tries if need be.
“This amazing first for NASA demonstrates how an incredible team from across the country came together and persevered through incredible challenges to expand the boundaries of knowledge,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement after the touchdown. “Our industry, academic, and international partners have made it possible to hold a piece of the most ancient solar system in our hands.”
Lauretta and his fellow OSIRIS-REx scientists and engineers watched over today’s asteroid sample-snatching attempt from a mission operations center at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. (Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft for NASA.) And while the mood was certainly jubilant, the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was clear.
For example, everyone wore facemasks and maintained appropriate social distancing for much of the event. While there were some hugs after news of OSIRIS-REx’s asteroid touchdown, they were few in NASA’s live webcast, with hand sanitizer clearly on hand after such celebrations.
“This is one of those moments where we’re all aware of COVID-19,” NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller of the Goddard Space Flight Center said in the webcast just after touchdown. “Because I want the hugs and the high fives and everything, but we’re all going to keep each other safe.”
The $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched in September 2016 and arrived at the 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) Bennu in December 2018. The probe has been taking the asteroid’s measure ever since, mapping its surface in incredible detail to prepare for today’s maneuver.
That work has revealed a world far more rugged than the mission team had expected. House-sized boulders stud Bennu’s surface, limiting the available options for a safe sample grab. The team eventually homed in on a small crater called Nightingale as its top choice, because the site sports relatively fresh and fine-grained material that hasn’t been exposed to the harsh deep-space environment for long.
But Nightingale is surrounded by hazards, including a big outcrop the mission team nicknamed “Mount Doom.” There are obstacles within the crater as well, so the spacecraft targeted a relatively flat, boulder-free area just 26 feet (8 m) wide—quite an ambitious goal, considering that OSIRIS-REx is the size of a 15-passenger van and the original mission plan envisioned a touchdown zone 165 feet (50 m) wide.
“So, for some perspective: The next time you park your car in front of your house or in front of a coffee shop and walk inside, think about the challenge of navigating OSIRIS-REx into one of these spots from 200 million miles away,” Mike Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said during a news conference last month.
It currently takes more than 18 minutes for commands to travel from Earth to OSIRIS-REx, so Moreau and his colleagues cannot control the probe in real time. The craft therefore performed today’s operation autonomously.
Shortly before 2 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) today, OSIRIS-REx fired its thrusters to get out of orbit around Bennu and head down toward the surface. At 6:12 p.m. EDT (2212 GMT), the probe “kissed” the asteroid for about 10 seconds with its sample-collecting mechanism, which is affixed to the end of OSIRIS-REx’s 11-foot-long (3.4 m) robotic arm.
During the brief touchdown, the spacecraft blasted Bennu’s surface with nitrogen gas. This stirred up dirt and rock that could then be collected by the arm’s sampling head, which mission team members have likened to an older car’s air filter.
We should expect OSIRIS-REx’s first images of the operation to start coming down to Earth tomorrow morning (Oct. 21), mission team members said.
The OSIRIS-REx team will spend the next week or so assessing how much asteroid material was collected. The probe’s handlers have expressed confidence that this first attempt will succeed; OSIRIS-REx’s sampler was designed to snag at least 150 grams (5.3 ounces) and could theoretically get up to 4 kilograms (8.8 lbs.) of material if everything went perfectly.
But if OSIRIS-REx is deemed to have come up short on collected material today, another attempt could be made, at a backup site known as Osprey, as soon as January 2021. A third try would be possible, too, if needed; the probe carries three bottles of surface-disturbing nitrogen gas.
Those are contingency plans, however. If things went according to plan today, OSIRIS-REx remains on course to depart Bennu in March 2021. The collected samples are scheduled to land here on Earth, encased in a special return capsule, in September 2023.
Scientists will then study the material in labs around the world, scrutinizing the stuff in far more detail than OSIRIS-REx, or any other single probe, could do on its own in deep space. Asteroids are building blocks left over from the planet-formation epoch, so such analyses could reveal key insights about our solar system’s very early days, NASA officials have said.
“This was an incredible feat—and today we’ve advanced both science and engineering and our prospects for future missions to study these mysterious ancient storytellers of the solar system,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science missions, in the NASA statement. “A piece of primordial rock that has witnessed our solar system’s entire history may now be ready to come home for generations of scientific discovery, and we can’t wait to see what comes next.”
In addition, Bennu is rich in hydrated minerals and carbon-containing organic compounds. Asteroids like it may have helped Earth become habitable long ago, seeding our planet with the ingredients needed for life as we know it.
“And also, having the samples back here on Earth allows us to preserve them for future generations to come and allows for future explorers to analyze the samples using techniques and instruments that haven’t been invented, and to ask questions that we don’t even know to ask yet,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said during today’s webcast.
Getting these samples down to Earth is OSIRIS-REx’s top priority. But the mission also has other goals, as indicated by its full name—“Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer.”
For example, observations the probe has made while orbiting Bennu should help scientists better understand how asteroids move through space, NASA officials have said. This information could improve trajectory projections for potentially hazardous asteroids, a category that includes Bennu. (There’s a 1-in-2,700 chance that Bennu will hit Earth during a close approach in the late 2100s, researchers say.)
OSIRIS-REx’s sample won’t be the first pristine asteroid material brought down to Earth by a space mission. Japan’s Hayabusa probe returned some grains of the stony asteroid Itokawa in 2010, and its successor, Hayabusa2, recently grabbed pieces of the carbon-rich rock Ryugu. The material from Ryugu is scheduled to land on Earth this December.
The OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2 teams have been working together for the past few years, and that collaboration will continue after the missions’ samples touch down on Earth, NASA officials have stressed.
Copyright 2020 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.