scientificamerican--2020-11-04--A Woman Warned GM about Warming, But Men Didn't Listen

A General Motors scientist who conducted pioneering research on climate change in the 1960s says she faced sexism that made it difficult to do her job .
Ruth Reck 's allegations raise questions about whether GM executives dismissed or downplayed her findings on global warming because of her gender .
Reck joined GM Research Laboratories in Warren , Mich. , in 1965 and soon began studying the effects of car emissions on the climate , E & E News reported as part of a monthslong investigation ( Climatewire , Oct. 26 ) .
As the first female scientist in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which male co-workers evaluated her body rather than her brains .
`` I had a very difficult time working at GM in general .
They told me I was a distraction because I was a shapely woman .
I do n't want to go into detail , but it was really hard .
Really , unbelievably embarrassing , '' Reck recalled in one of several phone interviews with E & E News .
The lab was located inside the GM Technical Center , which had been designed by the noted Finnish-American architect Eero @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entirely of glass .
`` There was glass everywhere .
You could see everyone everywhere , '' Reck said .
`` And the men , I was told I distracted them .
You could just tell that their eyes were on you all the time . ''
In response , GM constructed a makeshift wall around Reck 's workspace so passing colleagues could n't peer inside .
`` They built something so that people could n't see me — some kind of a wall or something — when people walked down the hallway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put me in a position where I would n't be seen by the men . ''
It was inside this cocoon that Reck conducted groundbreaking research on aerosols , or particles that can come from cars and factories .
She found that aerosols caused `` heating of the atmosphere near the poles , '' and her work was published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals , including Science and Atmospheric Environment .
During this time , a male vice president took several women at GM out to lunch .
Reck was the only woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The rest were secretaries .
That experience preceded meetings with three high-level executives at GM — all men — who doubted Reck 's conclusions on global warming .
In response to questions about Reck 's allegations , GM spokesman Jim Cain said the automaker today is committed to diversity and inclusion .
`` As you can imagine , there is no practical way to respond to Ruth Reck 's experiences other than to take her at her word and underscore that what she describes is antithetical to the company 's values today , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is acutely aware of its responsibility and opportunity to use our scale and resources to drive a better , more inclusive future for all , '' he added .
CO and the CEOs Throughout the 1970s , Reck researched the effects of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide .
Her work offered strong evidence that CO heated the planet and could trigger dire consequences on Earth , such as melting ice sheets and sea-level rise .
Despite her expertise , Reck was passed over for the opportunity to lead GM 's task force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distinction went to Joseph `` Joe '' Colucci , an engineer who specialized in automotive fuels and lubricants — and who had not published any papers on climate change in peer-reviewed journals .
Led by Colucci , the task force drafted and released a report on the technologies needed to address global warming .
Reck was never asked to review the document .
`` What really bothered me was ... things were written down and reports published , and I never saw them before they were published , '' she said .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of My Career at General Motors , '' Colucci recounted how the automaker convened the task force to investigate the `` science of global warming . ''
He also described how he was reprimanded for making a sexist comment about the Western States Petroleum Association ( WSPA ) by Betsy Ancker-Johnson , GM 's vice president of environmental activities staff and the first female vice president in the U.S. auto industry .
`` I sent a note to the GM management .
It said , 'We went through the mating dance with WSPA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship . '
The note was easily understood , and received praise from all but one GM Exec .
Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson , VP , Environmental Activities , chastised me for my 'sexist ' comments , '' Colucci wrote .
Despite being excluded from the task force , Reck was asked to present her findings on climate change to three top executives at GM 's corporate headquarters in Detroit : James `` Jimmy '' Johnston , a vice president of government relations ; Roger Bonham Smith , who became chairman and CEO of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bob '' Stempel , who succeeded Smith in 1990 .
The two CEOs reacted with skepticism .
`` I know in my heart of hearts what some of those people at GM were thinking .
And they were questioning climate change .
No doubt about that , '' Reck said .
`` I was not .
And I knew because I was using equations and I was doing the calculations correctly .
And I always found it frustrating when you 'd look at their faces after what you 'd said ... and you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way you 'd hope they would , '' she added .
After learning from Reck that CO emissions from car tailpipes warmed the planet , the CEOs largely declined to alter GM 's business model and lobbying practices in response .
Both Smith and Stempel presided over periods in which the automaker invested in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs while fighting fuel economy regulations that would have made those vehicles cleaner .
At first , Johnston appeared to take a keen interest in Reck 's research , and the two forged an unusual friendship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GM 's involvement in the Global Climate Coalition , a lobbying group that opposed actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during the George H.W .
Bush administration , said Marina von Neumann Whitman , who was GM 's vice president and group executive for public affairs at the time .
Johnston `` felt his major obligation was to 'protect the product plan . '
And he was the one that got General Motors into the Global Climate Coalition , '' said Whitman , who is now a professor at the University of Michigan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Policy .
After leaving GM , Johnston joined the American Enterprise Institute , a conservative think tank whose scholars have said concern about climate change is overblown .
While at AEI , he published a book titled `` Driving America : Your Car , Your Government , Your Choice '' that argued the science was not settled on `` whether the climate is warming and , if so , whether the warming is the result of human activity . ''
It 's unclear whether sexism played a role in the CEOs ' decisions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change .
Sexist attitudes and intentions are difficult to prove , and her conclusions posed an inconvenient truth about their profit-making strategy .
What is clear is that their reactions were part of a broader pattern of women in the auto industry feeling underrepresented and dismissed by their male counterparts — a pattern that persists today .
In 1988 , the Associated Press reported that women constituted less than 2 % of executives in the U.S. auto industry .
`` It 's certainly been a man 's domain for many years , '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for market research and planning at GM , told the AP at the time , noting that women had only started choosing careers in the auto industry in the prior 10 to 15 years .
Almost three decades later , an Automotive News survey of nearly 900 women found that misogyny was pervasive in the U.S. auto industry .
Forty-three percent of respondents said they believed they had been passed over for promotions because of their gender .
More than half — 55 % — reported receiving unwelcome comments on their appearance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ appointment in 2014 as CEO of GM — and the first female CEO of a major automaker — as a breakthrough moment for women in the industry .
But they said it did n't diminish the discrimination they faced on a daily basis .
`` Everything I 've heard from women in the industry is that it is really bad .
It is still not your most woke industry .
And it 's still very common to be the only woman in a room , '' Sharon Silke Carty , who helped conduct @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with E & E News .
`` I think the industry has lost a lot of talented women who opt to go other places because it 's too hard .
And I think women 's voices just have n't been heard the way that male voices have been heard , '' said Carty , who is now editor-in-chief of Car and Driver , an automotive magazine whose pages have oozed with masculine imagery since its creation in 1955 .
Mary Beth Vander Schaaf , a managing editor at Automotive News who also helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the industry has made some strides toward gender equality .
Vander Schaaf noted that Automotive News has conducted a poll every five years of 100 leading women in the North American auto industry .
This year 's results — which are set to be published next month — will reveal that respondents believe the industry has made progress on pay equity .
On a personal note , Vander Schaaf said she felt inspired by Barra 's ascendence to the top of GM .
`` The appointment of Mary Barra as CEO was historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when John Lennon was killed or the Challenger exploded .
I remember where I was when I heard the news .
It was that big a deal , '' she said .
Women have been overlooked in the field of climate science , as well .
Eunice Newton Foote , the first woman in climate science , posited in 1856 that CO affected the Earth 's temperature .
But the Irish physicist John Tyndall widely gets credit for the theory , which he suggested three years later , wrote Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All We Can Save : Truth , Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis . ''
`` We have to wonder if Eunice Newton Foote ever found herself remarking , as so many women have : ' I literally just said that , dude , ' '' Johnson and Wilkinson wrote in the book , which serves as a call to action for women to become leaders in the climate activism movement .
In an interview with E & E News , Wilkinson said many female climate scientists who are active today have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Foote .
Wilkinson — who serves as vice president at Project Drawdown , a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reduce greenhouse gas emissions — pointed to a 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on female scientists who authored U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments .
The study found that while some female authors had a positive experience , others felt they were `` poorly represented and heard '' on the powerful scientific body .
`` This would be frustrating in any field , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is especially enraging and heartbreaking when it is a field that has such a critical role to play in a livable future . ''
Wilkinson said she asks herself `` What if ? ''
in relation to Foote , Reck and other climate scientists whose work could have been used to exert a greater influence on reining in heat-trapping emissions .
`` The 'what ifs ' are gutting , '' she said .
`` What if Foote had had the resources and the platform that John Tyndall had ?
What might she have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been able to influence ?
And the truth is we do n't know . ''
Cain , the GM spokesman , noted that the automaker recently announced it would aspire `` to be the most inclusive company in the world '' following the death of George Floyd , a Black man , in the custody of Minneapolis police officers .
As part of that goal , Barra committed to establishing an Inclusion Advisory Board that would consult with GM 's senior leadership about racism and other forms of discrimination .
After 27 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1992 to become head of the global climate change program at Argonne National Laboratory .
She was the first female senior scientist at Argonne who had n't been recommended by her husband .
Now 88 years old and retired , Reck identifies as a feminist and believes gender equality — in addition to climate change — represents a defining issue of the century .
`` I 'm a feminist , and that changes how I think about things .
There were women who were not feminists and disagreed with me , thinking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more to the scene .
I did not think that , '' Reck said in a follow-up text message to E & E News .
`` I believe God intended us to be how we are , '' she added .
`` There 's no reason we should be criticized for how we are .
I am proud to be female .
The men should be professional enough to act in a grown-up way . ''
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E & E News .
E & E provides daily coverage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ www.eenews.net .

A General Motors scientist who conducted pioneering research on climate change in the 1960s says she faced sexism that made it difficult to do her job.
Ruth Reck's allegations raise questions about whether GM executives dismissed or downplayed her findings on global warming because of her gender.
Reck joined GM Research Laboratories in Warren, Mich., in 1965 and soon began studying the effects of car emissions on the climate, E&E News reported as part of a monthslong investigation (Climatewire, Oct. 26).
As the first female scientist in the lab, she encountered an environment in which male co-workers evaluated her body rather than her brains.
"I had a very difficult time working at GM in general. They told me I was a distraction because I was a shapely woman. I don't want to go into detail, but it was really hard. Really, unbelievably embarrassing," Reck recalled in one of several phone interviews with E&E News.
The lab was located inside the GM Technical Center, which had been designed by the noted Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. Its walls were made almost entirely of glass.
"There was glass everywhere. You could see everyone everywhere," Reck said. "And the men, I was told I distracted them. You could just tell that their eyes were on you all the time."
In response, GM constructed a makeshift wall around Reck's workspace so passing colleagues couldn't peer inside.
"They built something so that people couldn't see me — some kind of a wall or something — when people walked down the hallway," she said. "They put me in a position where I wouldn't be seen by the men."
It was inside this cocoon that Reck conducted groundbreaking research on aerosols, or particles that can come from cars and factories. She found that aerosols caused "heating of the atmosphere near the poles," and her work was published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Science and Atmospheric Environment.
During this time, a male vice president took several women at GM out to lunch. Reck was the only woman in the group with a Ph.D. The rest were secretaries.
That experience preceded meetings with three high-level executives at GM — all men — who doubted Reck's conclusions on global warming.
In response to questions about Reck's allegations, GM spokesman Jim Cain said the automaker today is committed to diversity and inclusion.
"As you can imagine, there is no practical way to respond to Ruth Reck's experiences other than to take her at her word and underscore that what she describes is antithetical to the company's values today," Cain said.
"General Motors is acutely aware of its responsibility and opportunity to use our scale and resources to drive a better, more inclusive future for all," he added.
CO 2 and the CEOs
Throughout the 1970s, Reck researched the effects of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Her work offered strong evidence that CO 2 heated the planet and could trigger dire consequences on Earth, such as melting ice sheets and sea-level rise.
Despite her expertise, Reck was passed over for the opportunity to lead GM's task force on global warming in 1989. That distinction went to Joseph "Joe" Colucci, an engineer who specialized in automotive fuels and lubricants — and who had not published any papers on climate change in peer-reviewed journals.
Led by Colucci, the task force drafted and released a report on the technologies needed to address global warming. Reck was never asked to review the document.
"What really bothered me was ... things were written down and reports published, and I never saw them before they were published," she said.
In a 2017 memoir titled "Special Memories of My Career at General Motors," Colucci recounted how the automaker convened the task force to investigate the "science of global warming."
He also described how he was reprimanded for making a sexist comment about the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) by Betsy Ancker-Johnson, GM's vice president of environmental activities staff and the first female vice president in the U.S. auto industry.
"I sent a note to the GM management. It said, 'We went through the mating dance with WSPA, but were unable to consummate the relationship.' The note was easily understood, and received praise from all but one GM Exec. Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson, VP, Environmental Activities, chastised me for my 'sexist' comments," Colucci wrote.
Despite being excluded from the task force, Reck was asked to present her findings on climate change to three top executives at GM's corporate headquarters in Detroit: James "Jimmy" Johnston, a vice president of government relations; Roger Bonham Smith, who became chairman and CEO of GM in 1981; and Robert "Bob" Stempel, who succeeded Smith in 1990.
The two CEOs reacted with skepticism.
"I know in my heart of hearts what some of those people at GM were thinking. And they were questioning climate change. No doubt about that," Reck said.
"I was not. And I knew because I was using equations and I was doing the calculations correctly. And I always found it frustrating when you'd look at their faces after what you'd said ... and you could see they were not responding the way you'd hope they would," she added.
After learning from Reck that CO 2 emissions from car tailpipes warmed the planet, the CEOs largely declined to alter GM's business model and lobbying practices in response. Both Smith and Stempel presided over periods in which the automaker invested in gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs while fighting fuel economy regulations that would have made those vehicles cleaner.
At first, Johnston appeared to take a keen interest in Reck's research, and the two forged an unusual friendship. But in 1989, he orchestrated GM's involvement in the Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that opposed actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during the George H.W. Bush administration, said Marina von Neumann Whitman, who was GM's vice president and group executive for public affairs at the time.
Johnston "felt his major obligation was to 'protect the product plan.' And he was the one that got General Motors into the Global Climate Coalition," said Whitman, who is now a professor at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
After leaving GM, Johnston joined the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank whose scholars have said concern about climate change is overblown. While at AEI, he published a book titled "Driving America: Your Car, Your Government, Your Choice" that argued the science was not settled on "whether the climate is warming and, if so, whether the warming is the result of human activity."
'Voices just haven't been heard'
It's unclear whether sexism played a role in the CEOs' decisions to doubt Reck's conclusions on climate change. Sexist attitudes and intentions are difficult to prove, and her conclusions posed an inconvenient truth about their profit-making strategy.
What is clear is that their reactions were part of a broader pattern of women in the auto industry feeling underrepresented and dismissed by their male counterparts — a pattern that persists today.
In 1988, the Associated Press reported that women constituted less than 2% of executives in the U.S. auto industry.
"It's certainly been a man's domain for many years," Jeanne Beyer, then the vice president for market research and planning at GM, told the AP at the time, noting that women had only started choosing careers in the auto industry in the prior 10 to 15 years.
Almost three decades later, an Automotive News survey of nearly 900 women found that misogyny was pervasive in the U.S. auto industry. Forty-three percent of respondents said they believed they had been passed over for promotions because of their gender. More than half — 55% — reported receiving unwelcome comments on their appearance.
Many respondents pointed to Mary Barra's appointment in 2014 as CEO of GM — and the first female CEO of a major automaker — as a breakthrough moment for women in the industry. But they said it didn't diminish the discrimination they faced on a daily basis.
"Everything I've heard from women in the industry is that it is really bad. It is still not your most woke industry. And it's still very common to be the only woman in a room," Sharon Silke Carty, who helped conduct the survey, said in an interview with E&E News.
"I think the industry has lost a lot of talented women who opt to go other places because it's too hard. And I think women's voices just haven't been heard the way that male voices have been heard," said Carty, who is now editor-in-chief of Car and Driver, an automotive magazine whose pages have oozed with masculine imagery since its creation in 1955.
Mary Beth Vander Schaaf, a managing editor at Automotive News who also helped administer the survey, said she thinks the industry has made some strides toward gender equality.
Vander Schaaf noted that Automotive News has conducted a poll every five years of 100 leading women in the North American auto industry. This year's results — which are set to be published next month — will reveal that respondents believe the industry has made progress on pay equity.
On a personal note, Vander Schaaf said she felt inspired by Barra's ascendence to the top of GM.
"The appointment of Mary Barra as CEO was historic. For me, it was like when John Lennon was killed or the Challenger exploded. I remember where I was when I heard the news. It was that big a deal," she said.
'Enraging and heartbreaking'
Women have been overlooked in the field of climate science, as well.
Eunice Newton Foote, the first woman in climate science, posited in 1856 that CO 2 affected the Earth's temperature. But the Irish physicist John Tyndall widely gets credit for the theory, which he suggested three years later, wrote Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson in their recent book "All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis."
"We have to wonder if Eunice Newton Foote ever found herself remarking, as so many women have: 'I literally just said that, dude,'" Johnson and Wilkinson wrote in the book, which serves as a call to action for women to become leaders in the climate activism movement.
In an interview with E&E News, Wilkinson said many female climate scientists who are active today have had experiences similar to the one endured by Foote.
Wilkinson — who serves as vice president at Project Drawdown, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reduce greenhouse gas emissions — pointed to a 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on female scientists who authored U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments.
The study found that while some female authors had a positive experience, others felt they were "poorly represented and heard" on the powerful scientific body.
"This would be frustrating in any field," Wilkinson said. "But it is especially enraging and heartbreaking when it is a field that has such a critical role to play in a livable future."
Wilkinson said she asks herself "What if?" in relation to Foote, Reck and other climate scientists whose work could have been used to exert a greater influence on reining in heat-trapping emissions.
"The 'what ifs' are gutting," she said. "What if Foote had had the resources and the platform that John Tyndall had? What might she have accomplished? What might Ruth Reck have been able to influence? And the truth is we don't know."
Cain, the GM spokesman, noted that the automaker recently announced it would aspire "to be the most inclusive company in the world" following the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in the custody of Minneapolis police officers.
As part of that goal, Barra committed to establishing an Inclusion Advisory Board that would consult with GM's senior leadership about racism and other forms of discrimination.
After 27 years at GM, Reck left the automaker in 1992 to become head of the global climate change program at Argonne National Laboratory. She was the first female senior scientist at Argonne who hadn't been recommended by her husband.
Now 88 years old and retired, Reck identifies as a feminist and believes gender equality — in addition to climate change — represents a defining issue of the century.
"I'm a feminist, and that changes how I think about things. There were women who were not feminists and disagreed with me, thinking men deserved higher pay because they brought more to the scene. I did not think that," Reck said in a follow-up text message to E&E News.
"I believe God intended us to be how we are," she added. "There's no reason we should be criticized for how we are. I am proud to be female. The men should be professional enough to act in a grown-up way."
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--2020-11-04--Conservative and Liberal Brains Might Have Some Real Differences

In 1968 a debate was held between conservative thinker William F. Buckley , Jr. , and liberal writer Gore Vidal .
It was hoped that these two members of opposing intellectual elites would show Americans living through tumultuous times that political disagreements could be civilized .
That idea did not last for long .
Instead Buckley and Vidal descended rapidly into name-calling .
Afterward , they sued each other for defamation .
The story of the 1968 debate opens a well-regarded 2013 book called Predisposed , which introduced the general public to the field of political neuroscience .
The authors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Rice University , argued that if the differences between liberals and conservatives seem profound and even unbridgeable , it is because they are rooted in personality characteristics and biological predispositions .
On the whole , the research shows , conservatives desire security , predictability and authority more than liberals do , and liberals are more comfortable with novelty , nuance and complexity .
If you had put Buckley and Vidal in a magnetic resonance imaging machine and presented them with identical images , you would likely have seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the areas that process social and emotional information .
The volume of gray matter , or neural cell bodies , making up the anterior cingulate cortex , an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts , tends to be larger in liberals .
And the amygdala , which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats , is larger in conservatives .
While these findings are remarkably consistent , they are probabilities , not certainties—meaning there is plenty of individual variability .
The political landscape includes lefties who own guns , right-wingers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There is also an unresolved chicken-and-egg problem : Do brains start out processing the world differently or do they become increasingly different as our politics evolve ?
Furthermore , it is still not entirely clear how useful it is to know that a Republican ’ s brain lights up over X while a Democrat ’ s responds to Y .
So what can the study of neural activity suggest about political behavior ?
The still emerging field of political neuroscience has begun to move beyond describing basic structural and functional brain differences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has the biggest amygdala—to more nuanced investigations of how certain cognitive processes underlie our political thinking and decision-making .
Partisanship does not just affect our vote ; it influences our memory , reasoning and even our perception of truth .
Knowing this will not magically bring us all together , but researchers hope that continuing to understand the way partisanship influences our brain might at least allow us to counter its worst effects : the divisiveness that can tear apart the shared values required to retain a sense of national unity .
Social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sphere can gain substantial insight into the hazards of errant partisanship .
Political neuroscience , however , attempts to deepen these observations by supplying evidence that a belief or bias manifests as a measure of brain volume or activity—demonstrating that an attitude , conviction or misconception is , in fact , genuine .
“ Brain structure and function provide more objective measures than many types of survey responses , ” says political neuroscientist Hannah Nam of Stony Brook University .
“ Participants may be induced to be more honest when they think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their brains.
” That is not to say that political neuroscience can be used as a tool to “ read minds , ” but it can pick up discrepancies between stated positions and underlying cognitive processes .
Brain scans are also unlikely to be used as a biomarker for specific political results because the relationships between the brain and politics is not one-to-one .
Yet “ neurobiological features could be used as a predictor of political outcomes—just not in a deterministic way , ” Nam says .
To study how we process political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ psychologist Ingrid Haas of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her colleagues created hypothetical candidates from both major parties and assigned each candidate a set of policy statements on issues such as school prayer , Medicare and defense spending .
Most statements were what you would expect : Republicans , for instance , usually favor increasing defense spending , and Democrats generally support expanding Medicare .
But some statements were surprising , such as a conservative expressing a pro-choice position or a liberal arguing for invading Iran .
Haas put 58 people with diverse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On each trial , participants were asked whether it was good or bad that a candidate held a position on a particular issue and not whether they personally agreed or disagreed with it .
Framing the task that way allowed the researchers to look at neural processing as a function of whether the information was expected or unexpected—what they termed congruent or incongruent .
They also considered participants ’ own party identification and whether there was a relationship between ideological differences and how the subjects did the task .
Liberals proved more attentive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates .
When they encountered such a position , it took them longer to make a decision about whether it was good or bad .
They were likely to show activation for incongruent information in two brain regions : the insula and anterior cingulate cortex , which “ are involved in helping people form and think about their attitudes , ” Haas says .
How do out-of-the-ordinary positions affect later voting ?
Haas suspects that engaging more with such information might make voters more likely to punish candidates for it later .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a particular form of bias called “ motivated reasoning ” to downplay the incongruity .
Motivated reasoning , in which people work hard to justify their opinions or decisions , even in the face of conflicting evidence , has been a popular topic in political neuroscience because there is a lot of it going around .
While partisanship plays a role , motivated reasoning goes deeper than that .
Just as most of us like to think we are good-hearted human beings , people generally prefer to believe that the society they live @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Even if society isn ’ t perfect , and there are things to be criticized about it , there is a preference to think that you live in a good society , ” Nam says .
When that preference is particularly strong , she adds , “ that can lead to things like simply rationalizing or accepting long-standing inequalities or injustices.
” Psychologists call the cognitive process that lets us do so “ system justification.
” Nam and her colleagues set out to understand which brain areas govern the affective processes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the volume of gray matter in the amygdala is linked to the tendency to perceive the social system as legitimate and desirable .
Their interpretation is that “ this preference to system justify is related to these basic neurobiological predispositions to be alert to potential threats in your environment , ” Nam says .
After the original study , Nam ’ s team followed a subset of the participants for three years and found that their brain structure predicted the likelihood of whether they participated in political protests during that time .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lower likelihood of participating in political protests , ” Nam says .
“ That makes sense in so far as political protest is a behavior that says , ‘ We ’ ve got to change the system.
’ ” Understanding the influence of partisanship on identity , even down to the level of neurons , “ helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy , and even over truth , ” argued psychologists Jay Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira , both then at New York University , in Trends in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we derive our identities from both our individual characteristics , such as being a parent , and our group memberships , such as being a New Yorker or an American .
These affiliations serve multiple social goals : they feed our need to belong and desire for closure and predictability , and they endorse our moral values .
And our brain represents them much as it does other forms of social identity .
Among other things , partisan identity clouds memory .
In a 2013 study , liberals were more likely to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina , and conservatives were more likely to falsely recall seeing Barack Obama shaking hands with the president of Iran .
Partisan identity also shapes our perceptions .
When they were shown a video of a political protest in a 2012 study , liberals and conservatives were more or less likely to favor calling police depending on their interpretation of the protest ’ s goal .
If the objective was liberal ( opposing the military barring openly gay people from service ) , the conservatives were more likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was true when participants thought it was a conservative protest ( opposing an abortion clinic ) .
The more strongly we identify with a party , the more likely we are to double down on our support for it .
That tendency is exacerbated by rampant political misinformation and , too often , identity wins out over accuracy .
If we understand what is at work cognitively , we might be able to intervene and try to ease some of the negative effects of partisanship .
The tension between accuracy and identity probably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cortex , which computes the value of goals and beliefs and is strongly connected to memory , executive function and attention .
If identity helps determine the value of different beliefs , it can also distort them , Van Bavel says .
Appreciating that political affiliation fulfills an evolutionary need to belong suggests we should create alternative means of belonging—depoliticizing the novel coronavirus by calling on us to come together as Americans , for instance .
And incentivizing the need to be accurate could increase the importance accorded that goal : paying money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for incorrect ones have been shown to be effective .
It will be nearly impossible to lessen the partisan influences before the November 3 election because the volume of political information will only increase , reminding us of our political identities daily .
But here is some good news : a large 2020 study at Harvard University found that participants consistently overestimated the level of out-group negativity toward their in-group .
In other words , the other side may not dislike us quite so much as we think .
Inaccurate information heightened the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ news ) correcting inaccurate information significantly reduced it .
“ The biology and neuroscience of politics might be useful in terms of what is effective at getting through to people , ” Van Bavel says .
“ Maybe the way to interact with someone who disagrees with me politically is not to try to persuade them on the deep issue , because I might never get there .
It ’ s more to try to understand where they ’ re coming from and shatter their stereotypes .
”

In 1968 a debate was held between conservative thinker William F. Buckley, Jr., and liberal writer Gore Vidal. It was hoped that these two members of opposing intellectual elites would show Americans living through tumultuous times that political disagreements could be civilized. That idea did not last for long. Instead Buckley and Vidal descended rapidly into name-calling. Afterward, they sued each other for defamation.
The story of the 1968 debate opens a well-regarded 2013 book called Predisposed, which introduced the general public to the field of political neuroscience. The authors, a trio of political scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Rice University, argued that if the differences between liberals and conservatives seem profound and even unbridgeable, it is because they are rooted in personality characteristics and biological predispositions.
On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity. If you had put Buckley and Vidal in a magnetic resonance imaging machine and presented them with identical images, you would likely have seen differences in their brain, especially in the areas that process social and emotional information. The volume of gray matter, or neural cell bodies, making up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts, tends to be larger in liberals. And the amygdala, which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats, is larger in conservatives.
While these findings are remarkably consistent, they are probabilities, not certainties—meaning there is plenty of individual variability. The political landscape includes lefties who own guns, right-wingers who drive Priuses and everything in between. There is also an unresolved chicken-and-egg problem: Do brains start out processing the world differently or do they become increasingly different as our politics evolve? Furthermore, it is still not entirely clear how useful it is to know that a Republican’s brain lights up over X while a Democrat’s responds to Y.
So what can the study of neural activity suggest about political behavior? The still emerging field of political neuroscience has begun to move beyond describing basic structural and functional brain differences between people of different ideological persuasions—gauging who has the biggest amygdala—to more nuanced investigations of how certain cognitive processes underlie our political thinking and decision-making. Partisanship does not just affect our vote; it influences our memory, reasoning and even our perception of truth. Knowing this will not magically bring us all together, but researchers hope that continuing to understand the way partisanship influences our brain might at least allow us to counter its worst effects: the divisiveness that can tear apart the shared values required to retain a sense of national unity.
Social scientists who observe behaviors in the political sphere can gain substantial insight into the hazards of errant partisanship. Political neuroscience, however, attempts to deepen these observations by supplying evidence that a belief or bias manifests as a measure of brain volume or activity—demonstrating that an attitude, conviction or misconception is, in fact, genuine. “Brain structure and function provide more objective measures than many types of survey responses,” says political neuroscientist Hannah Nam of Stony Brook University. “Participants may be induced to be more honest when they think that scientists have a ‘window’ into their brains.” That is not to say that political neuroscience can be used as a tool to “read minds,” but it can pick up discrepancies between stated positions and underlying cognitive processes.
Brain scans are also unlikely to be used as a biomarker for specific political results because the relationships between the brain and politics is not one-to-one. Yet “neurobiological features could be used as a predictor of political outcomes—just not in a deterministic way,” Nam says.
To study how we process political information in a 2017 paper, political psychologist Ingrid Haas of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her colleagues created hypothetical candidates from both major parties and assigned each candidate a set of policy statements on issues such as school prayer, Medicare and defense spending. Most statements were what you would expect: Republicans, for instance, usually favor increasing defense spending, and Democrats generally support expanding Medicare. But some statements were surprising, such as a conservative expressing a pro-choice position or a liberal arguing for invading Iran.
Haas put 58 people with diverse political views in a brain scanner. On each trial, participants were asked whether it was good or bad that a candidate held a position on a particular issue and not whether they personally agreed or disagreed with it. Framing the task that way allowed the researchers to look at neural processing as a function of whether the information was expected or unexpected—what they termed congruent or incongruent. They also considered participants’ own party identification and whether there was a relationship between ideological differences and how the subjects did the task.
Liberals proved more attentive to incongruent information, especially for Democratic candidates. When they encountered such a position, it took them longer to make a decision about whether it was good or bad. They were likely to show activation for incongruent information in two brain regions: the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, which “are involved in helping people form and think about their attitudes,” Haas says. How do out-of-the-ordinary positions affect later voting? Haas suspects that engaging more with such information might make voters more likely to punish candidates for it later. But she acknowledges that they may instead exercise a particular form of bias called “motivated reasoning” to downplay the incongruity.
Motivated reasoning, in which people work hard to justify their opinions or decisions, even in the face of conflicting evidence, has been a popular topic in political neuroscience because there is a lot of it going around. While partisanship plays a role, motivated reasoning goes deeper than that. Just as most of us like to think we are good-hearted human beings, people generally prefer to believe that the society they live in is desirable, fair and legitimate. “Even if society isn’t perfect, and there are things to be criticized about it, there is a preference to think that you live in a good society,” Nam says. When that preference is particularly strong, she adds, “that can lead to things like simply rationalizing or accepting long-standing inequalities or injustices.” Psychologists call the cognitive process that lets us do so “system justification.”
Nam and her colleagues set out to understand which brain areas govern the affective processes that underlie system justification. They found that the volume of gray matter in the amygdala is linked to the tendency to perceive the social system as legitimate and desirable. Their interpretation is that “this preference to system justify is related to these basic neurobiological predispositions to be alert to potential threats in your environment,” Nam says.
After the original study, Nam’s team followed a subset of the participants for three years and found that their brain structure predicted the likelihood of whether they participated in political protests during that time. “Larger amygdala volume is associated with a lower likelihood of participating in political protests,” Nam says. “That makes sense in so far as political protest is a behavior that says, ‘We’ve got to change the system.’”
Understanding the influence of partisanship on identity, even down to the level of neurons, “helps to explain why people place party loyalty over policy, and even over truth,” argued psychologists Jay Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira, both then at New York University, in Trends in Cognitive Sciences in 2018. In short, we derive our identities from both our individual characteristics, such as being a parent, and our group memberships, such as being a New Yorker or an American. These affiliations serve multiple social goals: they feed our need to belong and desire for closure and predictability, and they endorse our moral values. And our brain represents them much as it does other forms of social identity.
Among other things, partisan identity clouds memory. In a 2013 study, liberals were more likely to misremember George W. Bush remaining on vacation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and conservatives were more likely to falsely recall seeing Barack Obama shaking hands with the president of Iran. Partisan identity also shapes our perceptions. When they were shown a video of a political protest in a 2012 study, liberals and conservatives were more or less likely to favor calling police depending on their interpretation of the protest’s goal. If the objective was liberal (opposing the military barring openly gay people from service), the conservatives were more likely to want the cops. The opposite was true when participants thought it was a conservative protest (opposing an abortion clinic). The more strongly we identify with a party, the more likely we are to double down on our support for it. That tendency is exacerbated by rampant political misinformation and, too often, identity wins out over accuracy.
If we understand what is at work cognitively, we might be able to intervene and try to ease some of the negative effects of partisanship. The tension between accuracy and identity probably involves a brain region called the orbitofrontal cortex, which computes the value of goals and beliefs and is strongly connected to memory, executive function and attention. If identity helps determine the value of different beliefs, it can also distort them, Van Bavel says. Appreciating that political affiliation fulfills an evolutionary need to belong suggests we should create alternative means of belonging—depoliticizing the novel coronavirus by calling on us to come together as Americans, for instance. And incentivizing the need to be accurate could increase the importance accorded that goal: paying money for accurate responses or holding people accountable for incorrect ones have been shown to be effective.
It will be nearly impossible to lessen the partisan influences before the November 3 election because the volume of political information will only increase, reminding us of our political identities daily. But here is some good news: a large 2020 study at Harvard University found that participants consistently overestimated the level of out-group negativity toward their in-group. In other words, the other side may not dislike us quite so much as we think. Inaccurate information heightened the negative bias, and (more good news) correcting inaccurate information significantly reduced it.
“The biology and neuroscience of politics might be useful in terms of what is effective at getting through to people,” Van Bavel says. “Maybe the way to interact with someone who disagrees with me politically is not to try to persuade them on the deep issue, because I might never get there. It’s more to try to understand where they’re coming from and shatter their stereotypes.”


scientificamerican--2020-11-04--How the Election Could Affect Health Care and Drug Policy

With the winner of the presidency and party control of the Senate still unclear the morning after Election Day , the future of the nation ’ s health system remains uncertain .
At stake is whether the federal government will play a stronger role in financing and setting the ground rules for health care coverage or cede more authority to states and the private sector .
Should President Donald Trump win and Republicans retain control of the Senate , Trump still may not be able to make sweeping changes through legislation as long as the House is still controlled by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up by the Senate GOP — the ability to continue to stack the federal courts with conservative jurists who are likely to uphold Trump ’ s expansive use of executive power could effectively remake the government ’ s relationship with the health care system even without signed legislation .
The president has also pledged to continue hisefforts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act , and if the Supreme Court overturns the sweeping law as part of a challenge it will hear next week , the Republicans ’ promise to protect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put to the test .
In a second term , the administration would also likely push to continue torevamp Medicaidwith its efforts to institute work requirements for adult enrollees and provide more flexibility for states to change the contours of the program .
If former Vice President Joe Biden wins and Democrats gain a Senate majority , it would represent the first time the party has controlled the White House and both houses of Congress since 2010 — the year the ACA was passed .
A top priority will be dealing with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden made that a keystone of his campaign , promising to implement policies based on advice from medical and scientific advisers and provide more directives and aid to the states .
But also high on his agenda will beaddressing parts of the ACAthat haven ’ t worked as well as its authors hoped .
He pledged to add a government-run “ public option , ” which would be an alternative to private insurance plans on the marketplaces , and to lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 60 .
While Democrats will continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ makeup of the Senate is still to be determined .
And even if the Democrats win the Senate , they are not expected to come away with a majority that would allow them to pass legislation without support from at least some GOP senators , unless they change the Senate ’ s rules .
That could lower expectations of what the Democrats can accomplish — andmay lead to some tensionsamong members .
But who controls Washington , D.C. , is only part of the election ’ s impact on health policy .
Several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both directly and indirectly in many states .
Here are a few : In Colorado , a measure that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy — except to save the life of the pregnant person — failed , according to The Associated Press .
Colorado is one of seven states that don ’ t prohibit abortions at some point in pregnancy .
It is also home to one of the few clinics in the nation that perform abortions in the third trimester , often for severe medical complications .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so residents of other states would have been affected if the Colorado amendment passed .
In Louisiana , however , voters easily approved an amendment to the state constitution to say that nothing in the document protects the right to , or requires the funding of , abortion .
That would make it easier for the state to outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court overturnsRoe v. Wade , which makes state abortion bans unconstitutional .
The fate of the Medicaid program , for people with low incomes , was not on the ballot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approved expansions of the program inMissouriandOklahomaearlier this year . )
But the program will be affected not only by who controls the presidency and Congress , but also by who controls the legislatures in states that have not expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act.North Carolinais a key swing state where a change in majority in the legislature could turn the expansion tide .
In six states , voters were deciding the legality of marijuana in one form or another .
Montana , Arizona and New Jersey were deciding whether to join @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the drug .
Mississippi and Nebraska voters were choosing whether to legalize medical marijuana , and South Dakota was the first state to vote on legalizing both recreational and medical pot in the same election .
Magic mushrooms were on two ballots .
A measure in Oregon to allow the use of psilocybin-producing mushrooms for medicinal purposes passed , and a District of Columbia proposal to decriminalize the hallucinogenic fungi was leading .
Also approved was a separate ballot question in Oregon to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mandate establishing addiction recovery centers , using some tax proceeds from marijuana sales to establish those centers .
As usual , voters in California faced a lengthy list of health-related ballot measures .
For the second time in two years , the state ’ s profitable kidney dialysis industry was challenged at the ballot box .
Aunion-sponsored initiativewould have required dialysis companies to employ a doctor at every clinic and submit infection reports to the state .
But the industry spent $ 105 million against the measure .
It failed , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to decide , again , whether tofund stem cell researchthrough the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine via Proposition 14 .
Voters first approved funding for the agency in 2004 , and since then , billions have been spent with few cures to show for it .
The measure was winning in early returns .
California has been at the forefront of the fight over the so-called gig economy , and this year ’ s ballot included aproposal pushed by ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyftthat would let them continue to treat drivers as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Proposition 22 , the companies would not have to provide direct health benefits to drivers but would have to give those who qualify a stipend they could use toward a premium for health insurance purchased through the state ’ s individual marketplace , Covered California .
The measure was approved .
Finally , voters in the Golden State were asked whether toimpose higher property taxeson commercial property owners with land and property holdings valued at $ 3 million or more , which could help provide new revenue earmarked for economically struggling cities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as K-12 schools and community colleges .
Community clinics , California nurses and Planned Parenthood jumped into the thorny political battle over Proposition 15 — taking on powerful business groups — eyeing revenue to help rebuild California ’ s underfunded public health system .
The measure was too close to call in early returns .
Democrats in California , who control all statewide elected offices and hold a supermajority in the legislature , had been positioning for a Biden win , and some were already penning ambitious health care legislation for next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , they plan to crack down on hospital consolidation and end surprise emergency room bills , and some were quietly discussing liberal initiatives such as pursuing a single-payer health care system and expanding Medicaid to cover more unauthorized immigrants .
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News on November 4 2020 .
Read the original story here .

With the winner of the presidency and party control of the Senate still unclear the morning after Election Day, the future of the nation’s health system remains uncertain. At stake is whether the federal government will play a stronger role in financing and setting the ground rules for health care coverage or cede more authority to states and the private sector.
Should President Donald Trump win and Republicans retain control of the Senate, Trump still may not be able to make sweeping changes through legislation as long as the House is still controlled by Democrats. But — thanks to rules set up by the Senate GOP — the ability to continue to stack the federal courts with conservative jurists who are likely to uphold Trump’s expansive use of executive power could effectively remake the government’s relationship with the health care system even without signed legislation.
The president has also pledged to continue hisefforts to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and if the Supreme Court overturns the sweeping law as part of a challenge it will hear next week, the Republicans’ promise to protect people with preexisting medical conditions will be put to the test. In a second term, the administration would also likely push to continue torevamp Medicaidwith its efforts to institute work requirements for adult enrollees and provide more flexibility for states to change the contours of the program.
If former Vice President Joe Biden wins and Democrats gain a Senate majority, it would represent the first time the party has controlled the White House and both houses of Congress since 2010 — the year the ACA was passed. A top priority will be dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout. Biden made that a keystone of his campaign, promising to implement policies based on advice from medical and scientific advisers and provide more directives and aid to the states.
But also high on his agenda will beaddressing parts of the ACAthat haven’t worked as well as its authors hoped. He pledged to add a government-run “public option,” which would be an alternative to private insurance plans on the marketplaces, and to lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 60.
While Democrats will continue to control the House, the final makeup of the Senate is still to be determined. And even if the Democrats win the Senate, they are not expected to come away with a majority that would allow them to pass legislation without support from at least some GOP senators, unless they change the Senate’s rules. That could lower expectations of what the Democrats can accomplish — andmay lead to some tensionsamong members.
But who controls Washington, D.C., is only part of the election’s impact on health policy. Several key health issues are on the ballot both directly and indirectly in many states. Here are a few:
Abortion
In Colorado, a measure that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy — except to save the life of the pregnant person — failed, according to The Associated Press. Colorado is one of seven states that don’t prohibit abortions at some point in pregnancy. It is also home to one of the few clinics in the nation that perform abortions in the third trimester, often for severe medical complications. The clinic drawspatients from around the nation, so residents of other states would have been affected if the Colorado amendment passed.
In Louisiana, however, voters easily approved an amendment to the state constitution to say that nothing in the document protects the right to, or requires the funding of, abortion. That would make it easier for the state to outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court overturnsRoe v. Wade, which makes state abortion bans unconstitutional.
Medicaid
The fate of the Medicaid program, for people with low incomes, was not on the ballot directly anywhere this election. (Voters approved expansions of the program inMissouriandOklahomaearlier this year.) But the program will be affected not only by who controls the presidency and Congress, but also by who controls the legislatures in states that have not expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act.North Carolinais a key swing state where a change in majority in the legislature could turn the expansion tide.
Drug Policy
In six states, voters were deciding the legality of marijuana in one form or another. Montana, Arizona and New Jersey were deciding whether to join the 11 states that allow recreational use of the drug. Mississippi and Nebraska voters were choosing whether to legalize medical marijuana, and South Dakota was the first state to vote on legalizing both recreational and medical pot in the same election.
Magic mushrooms were on two ballots. A measure in Oregon to allow the use of psilocybin-producing mushrooms for medicinal purposes passed, and a District of Columbia proposal to decriminalize the hallucinogenic fungi was leading.
Also approved was a separate ballot question in Oregon to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, and mandate establishing addiction recovery centers, using some tax proceeds from marijuana sales to establish those centers.
California
As usual, voters in California faced a lengthy list of health-related ballot measures.
For the second time in two years, the state’s profitable kidney dialysis industry was challenged at the ballot box. Aunion-sponsored initiativewould have required dialysis companies to employ a doctor at every clinic and submit infection reports to the state. But the industry spent $105 million against the measure. It failed, according to AP.
Voters were also asked to decide, again, whether tofund stem cell researchthrough the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine via Proposition 14. Voters first approved funding for the agency in 2004, and since then, billions have been spent with few cures to show for it. The measure was winning in early returns.
California has been at the forefront of the fight over the so-called gig economy, and this year’s ballot included aproposal pushed by ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyftthat would let them continue to treat drivers as independent contractors instead of employees. Under Proposition 22, the companies would not have to provide direct health benefits to drivers but would have to give those who qualify a stipend they could use toward a premium for health insurance purchased through the state’s individual marketplace, Covered California. The measure was approved.
Finally, voters in the Golden State were asked whether toimpose higher property taxeson commercial property owners with land and property holdings valued at $3 million or more, which could help provide new revenue earmarked for economically struggling cities and counties hit hard by COVID-19, as well as K-12 schools and community colleges. Community clinics, California nurses and Planned Parenthood jumped into the thorny political battle over Proposition 15 — taking on powerful business groups — eyeing revenue to help rebuild California’s underfunded public health system. The measure was too close to call in early returns.
Democrats in California, who control all statewide elected offices and hold a supermajority in the legislature, had been positioning for a Biden win, and some were already penning ambitious health care legislation for next year. Should Biden win, they said, they plan to crack down on hospital consolidation and end surprise emergency room bills, and some were quietly discussing liberal initiatives such as pursuing a single-payer health care system and expanding Medicaid to cover more unauthorized immigrants.
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News on November 4 2020. Read the original story here.


scientificamerican--2020-11-04--'Magnetic Star' Radio Waves Could Solve the Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts

Editor ’ s Note ( 11/4/20 ) : This story is being republished to correspond with the peer-reviewed publication of the research it discusses .
In recent weeks , astronomers have been monitoring strange , high-energy emissions from the corpse of a long-dead star some 30,000 light-years away .
Within the emissions , they found something surprising : a powerful blast of radio waves that lasted mere milliseconds .
The blast was , in fact , the brightest outburst ever seen from this star or any of its kind—immensely magnetic neutron stars known as magnetars .
The eruption of radio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ galaxy , is remarkably similar to fast radio burst ( FRBs ) —fleeting , intensely bright radio flashes launched by as yet unidentified objects that , until now , had only been observed coming from other galaxies .
Although it may raise just as many questions as it answers , this latest observation could solve at least one riddle surrounding the cosmic origin of FRBs .
“ Without overusing the word ‘ breakthrough , ’ this is really a breakthrough , ” says Jason Hessels of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t quite get you all the way there , but it gets you such a huge step of the way ” toward cracking the case of FRBs .
At least two radio observatories spotted the recent radio burst in late April .
Teams traced the radio waves back to a highly magnetic neutron star—the remnant of a star that was maybe 40 or 50 times as massive as the sun—called SGR 1935+2154 .
Located deep in the disk of the Milky Way , the dense , dead celestial body had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a week or so , as a rare class of objects called soft gamma-ray repeaters are known to do .
It is the first time anyone has seen a blaze of radio waves alongside such a barrage of gamma rays .
And because of the radio burst ’ s tremendous brightness and short duration , some astronomers now think it is a great local model for FRBs that come from billions of light-years away .
Even so , making that tenuous link more definitive requires a sober assessment of how this source is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Emily Petroff of the University of Amsterdam .
“ As always with FRBs , you have to make sure that you don ’ t miss the forest for the trees .
We can get really hung up on one source being typical .
But we ’ ve already seen so many times—again and again over the past five years—that ’ s not always true.
” FRBs have been among the universe ’ s most stubborn mysteries for more than a decade .
Traveling at the speed of light , these radio blasts typically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for billions of years , suggesting that whatever celestial engine is heaving them into space must be extremely powerful .
All the bursts observed so far have come from distant galaxies .
Over the years , astronomers have amassed dozens of hypothetical origins for the phenomenon .
Among them are evaporating black holes , explosively dying stars , massive colliding objects and—perhaps less seriously—the technobabble transmissions of smart , talkative aliens .
As the observations have piled up , the hypotheses have improved .
Astronomers saw some bursts that repeated , proving that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ single FRB would not cause its self-destruction .
Teams started catching bursts in real time , pointing multiple telescopes to stare at spots on the sky where one originated .
It was not long before several of them had been traced back to their host galaxy .
But even though astronomers had gathered data on hundreds of bursts by early 2020 , their origins remained fundamentally clouded .
“ Every time we find a new one , it ’ s different , ” Petroff says .
“ I wish every time we found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we learned from all the other ones , but it ’ s never like that !
There ’ s so much variety ; it keeps us on our toes.
” Astronomers first spotted the new burst using the FRB-hunting CHIME ( Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment ) radio telescope , an instrument in southwestern Canada that resembles four skateboarding half-pipes strung together .
Since fully opening its eyes in late 2018 , CHIME has spotted hundreds of FRBs .
This one appeared at the periphery of the telescope ’ s vision in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was still easily seen .
“ It ’ s an extremely bright radio emission coming from a magnetar , ” says the University of Toronto ’ s Paul Scholz , who reported the burst for the CHIME team on the real-time astronomical observations site Astronomer ’ s Telegram .
“ Is this the link between magnetars and FRBs ?
It might be.
” After seeing that notification , astronomers based at the California Institute of Technology performed an early scan of their own data from the time period when the burst went off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California and Utah as part of the STARE2 ( Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 ) project , the Caltech team ’ s observations are specifically designed to detect fast radio bursts coming from within the Milky Way .
Unlike CHIME , STARE2 caught the event head-on , allowing the researchers to quickly calculate the burst ’ s brightness .
According to their estimates , if it had occurred at the distance of the nearest known extragalactic FRB—or roughly 500 million light-years away—it would still have been easily detectable from Earth .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our own , Andromeda , is just 2.5 million light-years away .
And the Virgo group of galaxies , the nearest cluster to our own , is about 53 million light-years away . )
To Caltech ’ s Shrinivas Kulkarni , the burst ’ s brightness and milliseconds-long duration make it a conclusive link with FRBs .
Based on these observations , “ a plausible origin for fast radio bursts is active magnetars in other galaxies , ” says Kulkarni , who is principal investigator of the STARE2 project .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ magnetar ] will have [ an even brighter ] burst.
” A third observation , made by a team using the European Space Agency ’ s orbiting INTEGRAL ( International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory ) observatory , pinned the radio burst on the magnetar by linking it with a simultaneous blast of x-rays from the same object .
And China ’ s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope ( FAST ) has since detected another radio burst from SGR 1935+2154 that also points to the magnetar as the source of these outbursts .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ salary on that localization , ” Kulkarni says .
For several years , multiple lines of evidence have coalesced to flag magnetars as FRB culprits .
These neutron stars spin extremely rapidly and possess immense magnetic fields—a combination that can create enormous eruptions of radiation .
And scientists have observed some FRBs that have strong and “ twisted ” polarization : this arrangement suggests they originated in the vicinity of , or passed through , an intensely magnetic environment , such as those that surround these stellar corpses .
But the full picture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The counterargument for a long time was : ‘ Yeah , but we ’ ve never seen magnetars in our own galaxy do anything even as close as bright , ’ ” Hessels says .
“ ’ So how logical is it that magnetars in other galaxies do this ?
’ ” Now , with this new finding in hand , astronomers are taking a closer look at the connection between FRBs and magnetars .
“ I wouldn ’ t say that this seals the deal and is the missing link or something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ step closer to finding a link between things in our own galaxy and what ’ s causing FRBs , ” Petroff says .
Astronomers note that although this burst is brighter than anything yet seen coming from a magnetar , it is still less powerful than most observed FRBs by several orders of magnitude .
It is not surprising that researchers might have caught a fainter burst first .
Such bursts are likely to be more numerous than exceedingly bright ones , just as weaker earthquakes occur more frequently than bigger ones .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ bursts as well .
Some magnetars produce flares so gargantuan that they alter Earth ’ s ionosphere across vast interstellar distances , although such superpowered flares are incredibly infrequent .
“ I would love to know , ” Hessels says , “ if we were to catch one of those giant flares , would we see an even brighter burst that ’ s easily comparable to an FRB ?
” Another lingering question is whether FRBs can come from different sources .
Most of those observed to date have been single events , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are now known to come repeatedly from their mysterious sources .
The nearest repeating FRB , located roughly half a billion light-years away and known as R3 , erupts every 16 days .
Scientists suspect R3 ’ s periodic activity is linked to some other object locked in its gravitational embrace .
But the magnetar SGR 1935+2154 does not appear to have any such orbital companions .
“ I hope there isn ’ t just one type of FRB , ” Hessels says .
“ I hope that by scratching deeper , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

Editor’s Note (11/4/20): This story is being republished to correspond with the peer-reviewed publication of the research it discusses.
In recent weeks, astronomers have been monitoring strange, high-energy emissions from the corpse of a long-dead star some 30,000 light-years away. Within the emissions, they found something surprising: a powerful blast of radio waves that lasted mere milliseconds. The blast was, in fact, the brightest outburst ever seen from this star or any of its kind—immensely magnetic neutron stars known as magnetars.
The eruption of radio waves, though originating in our own galaxy, is remarkably similar to fast radio burst (FRBs)—fleeting, intensely bright radio flashes launched by as yet unidentified objects that, until now, had only been observed coming from other galaxies. Although it may raise just as many questions as it answers, this latest observation could solve at least one riddle surrounding the cosmic origin of FRBs.
“Without overusing the word ‘breakthrough,’ this is really a breakthrough,” says Jason Hessels of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and the University of Amsterdam. “It doesn’t quite get you all the way there, but it gets you such a huge step of the way” toward cracking the case of FRBs.
At least two radio observatories spotted the recent radio burst in late April. Teams traced the radio waves back to a highly magnetic neutron star—the remnant of a star that was maybe 40 or 50 times as massive as the sun—called SGR 1935+2154. Located deep in the disk of the Milky Way, the dense, dead celestial body had been slinging high-energy radiation into the cosmos for a week or so, as a rare class of objects called soft gamma-ray repeaters are known to do.
It is the first time anyone has seen a blaze of radio waves alongside such a barrage of gamma rays. And because of the radio burst’s tremendous brightness and short duration, some astronomers now think it is a great local model for FRBs that come from billions of light-years away.
Even so, making that tenuous link more definitive requires a sober assessment of how this source is different from previously observed FRBs, says Emily Petroff of the University of Amsterdam. “As always with FRBs, you have to make sure that you don’t miss the forest for the trees. We can get really hung up on one source being typical. But we’ve already seen so many times—again and again over the past five years—that’s not always true.”
In Search of Explanations
FRBs have been among the universe’s most stubborn mysteries for more than a decade. Traveling at the speed of light, these radio blasts typically wash over Earth after traversing the cosmos for billions of years, suggesting that whatever celestial engine is heaving them into space must be extremely powerful. All the bursts observed so far have come from distant galaxies. Over the years, astronomers have amassed dozens of hypothetical origins for the phenomenon. Among them are evaporating black holes, explosively dying stars, massive colliding objects and—perhaps less seriously—the technobabble transmissions of smart, talkative aliens.
As the observations have piled up, the hypotheses have improved. Astronomers saw some bursts that repeated, proving that whatever their source was, producing a single FRB would not cause its self-destruction. Teams started catching bursts in real time, pointing multiple telescopes to stare at spots on the sky where one originated. It was not long before several of them had been traced back to their host galaxy. But even though astronomers had gathered data on hundreds of bursts by early 2020, their origins remained fundamentally clouded.
“Every time we find a new one, it’s different,” Petroff says. “I wish every time we found a new one, it confirmed everything we learned from all the other ones, but it’s never like that! There’s so much variety; it keeps us on our toes.”
Surprise Local Detection
Astronomers first spotted the new burst using the FRB-hunting CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) radio telescope, an instrument in southwestern Canada that resembles four skateboarding half-pipes strung together. Since fully opening its eyes in late 2018, CHIME has spotted hundreds of FRBs. This one appeared at the periphery of the telescope’s vision in the sky but was so powerful that it was still easily seen.
“It’s an extremely bright radio emission coming from a magnetar,” says the University of Toronto’s Paul Scholz, who reported the burst for the CHIME team on the real-time astronomical observations site Astronomer’s Telegram. “Is this the link between magnetars and FRBs? It might be.”
After seeing that notification, astronomers based at the California Institute of Technology performed an early scan of their own data from the time period when the burst went off. Gathered by three radio antennas in California and Utah as part of the STARE2 (Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2) project, the Caltech team’s observations are specifically designed to detect fast radio bursts coming from within the Milky Way.
Unlike CHIME, STARE2 caught the event head-on, allowing the researchers to quickly calculate the burst’s brightness. According to their estimates, if it had occurred at the distance of the nearest known extragalactic FRB—or roughly 500 million light-years away—it would still have been easily detectable from Earth. (For comparison, the nearest galaxy to our own, Andromeda, is just 2.5 million light-years away. And the Virgo group of galaxies, the nearest cluster to our own, is about 53 million light-years away.) To Caltech’s Shrinivas Kulkarni, the burst’s brightness and milliseconds-long duration make it a conclusive link with FRBs.
Based on these observations, “a plausible origin for fast radio bursts is active magnetars in other galaxies,” says Kulkarni, who is principal investigator of the STARE2 project. “If we wait long enough, maybe this [magnetar] will have [an even brighter] burst.”
A third observation, made by a team using the European Space Agency’s orbiting INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) observatory, pinned the radio burst on the magnetar by linking it with a simultaneous blast of x-rays from the same object. And China’s Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) has since detected another radio burst from SGR 1935+2154 that also points to the magnetar as the source of these outbursts. “I would bet a year’s salary on that localization,” Kulkarni says.
Magnetar Outbursts
For several years, multiple lines of evidence have coalesced to flag magnetars as FRB culprits. These neutron stars spin extremely rapidly and possess immense magnetic fields—a combination that can create enormous eruptions of radiation. And scientists have observed some FRBs that have strong and “twisted” polarization: this arrangement suggests they originated in the vicinity of, or passed through, an intensely magnetic environment, such as those that surround these stellar corpses.
But the full picture had yet to reveal itself. “The counterargument for a long time was: ‘Yeah, but we’ve never seen magnetars in our own galaxy do anything even as close as bright, ’” Hessels says. “’So how logical is it that magnetars in other galaxies do this?’”
Now, with this new finding in hand, astronomers are taking a closer look at the connection between FRBs and magnetars. “I wouldn’t say that this seals the deal and is the missing link or something like that. It gets us one step closer to finding a link between things in our own galaxy and what’s causing FRBs,” Petroff says.
Astronomers note that although this burst is brighter than anything yet seen coming from a magnetar, it is still less powerful than most observed FRBs by several orders of magnitude. It is not surprising that researchers might have caught a fainter burst first. Such bursts are likely to be more numerous than exceedingly bright ones, just as weaker earthquakes occur more frequently than bigger ones. Stronger stellar flares might produce stronger radio bursts as well. Some magnetars produce flares so gargantuan that they alter Earth’s ionosphere across vast interstellar distances, although such superpowered flares are incredibly infrequent. “I would love to know,” Hessels says, “if we were to catch one of those giant flares, would we see an even brighter burst that’s easily comparable to an FRB?”
Another lingering question is whether FRBs can come from different sources. Most of those observed to date have been single events, but more than a dozen of them are now known to come repeatedly from their mysterious sources. The nearest repeating FRB, located roughly half a billion light-years away and known as R3, erupts every 16 days. Scientists suspect R3’s periodic activity is linked to some other object locked in its gravitational embrace. But the magnetar SGR 1935+2154 does not appear to have any such orbital companions.
“I hope there isn’t just one type of FRB,” Hessels says. “I hope that by scratching deeper, we discover multiple things at the same time.”


scientificamerican--2020-11-04--How Weight Bias May Affect Dogs and Their Owners

Last year a cat named Cinder-Block from Bellingham , Wash. , broke the Internet when a video of her weight-loss routine appeared all over social media .
In the clip , Cinder-Block paws at the edge of an underwater treadmill , getting accustomed to the moving belt one foot at a time .
The compelling video and its adorable star became an instant sensation .
But consider , for a moment , the underlying beliefs about weight that led so many viewers to laugh at a cat with obesity who would not exercise .
Would this video have gone viral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make fun of weight ?
How would viewers react if Cinder-Block ’ s owners also had obesity ?
Would people make assumptions about the owners ’ health habits or criticize them for failing to take care of their pet ?
Studies have shown that individuals with obesity face negative judgment , derision and blame because of their weight .
Yet few scientists have investigated whether this prejudice extends to other animals , including pets .
In a recent study , my colleagues and I decided to examine this question in the case of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subtle differences in their feelings toward dogs with obesity , compared with lean dogs , independent of their owners ’ weight .
In addition , owners with obesity were viewed as causing their pet ’ s obesity while leaner owners were not , indicating that weight bias may affect veterinary science as well .
Individuals with obesity are often seen as lazy , incompetent and undisciplined .
This weight bias—defined as negative attitudes toward people with a higher body weight—is both pervasive and pernicious .
Weight-based teasing , bullying and discrimination take a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health of those targeted .
In health care settings , negative judgment , blame and disrespect toward patients with obesity can impair the quality of care provided and prevent patients from seeking out health services , undermining their overall well-being as a result .
Like human obesity trends , rates of obesity in dogs have risen in recent years .
No previous research , however , had investigated how veterinarians perceive dogs with obesity or their owners—or how those veterinarians ’ treatment plans might change based on the animal ’ s or human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this open question , my colleagues and I conducted two experimental studies online with more than 200 practicing veterinarians and more than 100 veterinary students .
In our experiments , all participants were randomly assigned to view one of four images of dog-owner pairs with varying body weights .
In one image , a dog and two owners ( one male and one female ) were all lean .
In another , the dog and owners had obesity .
The last two images featured a dog and owners with mixed body weights ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had obesity , or vice versa ) .
After viewing one of these images , participants reported their emotional responses to the dog and owners pictured and their best guess as to the causes of the pet ’ s weight .
The subjects also read fictional clinical vignettes—one indicating that the dog presented with respiratory problems , for example—and were asked to provide their diagnostic and treatment recommendations based on the image and description .
Finally , the participants reported the terms that they use to describe excess weight in dogs and indicated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obesity was a disease .
When we compared responses across images , the results showed that the veterinarians ’ feelings toward the dog and its owners depended entirely on the weight of the animal , not that of the humans .
Compared with the lean dogs , the dogs with obesity prompted more feelings of frustration , blame and disgust toward both them and their owners , regardless of the owners ’ weight .
Veterinarians did factor the owners ’ weight into their assessment when evaluating the causes of a pet ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dog and its owners had obesity , veterinarians tended to view the animal ’ s weight as less biologically-based but instead related to the humans ’ own health behaviors .
Lean owners , on the other hand , received more “ credit ” for a lean dog ’ s weight and were not seen as causing a dog ’ s obesity .
Despite these signs of weight bias , the average ratings for some of the negative emotions were generally low across the board ( e.g .
2.5 or less on a seven-point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the veterinarians and students expressed feelings of respect toward all dogs and owners .
Additionally , more than 75 percent of the veterinarians and students considered obesity to be a disease in dogs , which suggests that they take the condition seriously .
In the end , the veterinarians suggested most of the same diagnostic and treatment recommendations regardless of dog or owner weight , although the dogs with obesity were given more weight-loss recommendations , to which participants expressed pessimism that the owners would comply .
Common terms used to describe excess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ fat , ” which are typically perceived as stigmatizing when applied to humans .
More than one in four veterinarians also reported using objectifying terms to describe dogs with a higher weight , such as calling them a “ coffee table ” or “ ottoman.
” This research is by no means conclusive .
Directly observing these clinical interactions , rather than studying them online , could help provide more information about the possible effects of weight bias in veterinary care , particularly for dogs and owners with a higher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ canine companions , it ’ s worth reflecting on your own snap judgments about weight and how your words and actions may impact the people ( and pets ) around you .

Last year a cat named Cinder-Block from Bellingham, Wash., broke the Internet when a video of her weight-loss routine appeared all over social media. In the clip, Cinder-Block paws at the edge of an underwater treadmill, getting accustomed to the moving belt one foot at a time. The compelling video and its adorable star became an instant sensation. But consider, for a moment, the underlying beliefs about weight that led so many viewers to laugh at a cat with obesity who would not exercise. Would this video have gone viral if it were not socially acceptable to make fun of weight? How would viewers react if Cinder-Block’s owners also had obesity? Would people make assumptions about the owners’ health habits or criticize them for failing to take care of their pet?
Studies have shown that individuals with obesity face negative judgment, derision and blame because of their weight. Yet few scientists have investigated whether this prejudice extends to other animals, including pets. In a recent study, my colleagues and I decided to examine this question in the case of dogs. We found that veterinarians reported subtle differences in their feelings toward dogs with obesity, compared with lean dogs, independent of their owners’ weight. In addition, owners with obesity were viewed as causing their pet’s obesity while leaner owners were not, indicating that weight bias may affect veterinary science as well.
Individuals with obesity are often seen as lazy, incompetent and undisciplined. This weight bias—defined as negative attitudes toward people with a higher body weight—is both pervasive and pernicious. Weight-based teasing, bullying and discrimination take a serious toll on the mental and physical health of those targeted. In health care settings, negative judgment, blame and disrespect toward patients with obesity can impair the quality of care provided and prevent patients from seeking out health services, undermining their overall well-being as a result.
Like human obesity trends, rates of obesity in dogs have risen in recent years. No previous research, however, had investigated how veterinarians perceive dogs with obesity or their owners—or how those veterinarians’ treatment plans might change based on the animal’s or human’s body weight. To address this open question, my colleagues and I conducted two experimental studies online with more than 200 practicing veterinarians and more than 100 veterinary students.
In our experiments, all participants were randomly assigned to view one of four images of dog-owner pairs with varying body weights. In one image, a dog and two owners (one male and one female) were all lean. In another, the dog and owners had obesity. The last two images featured a dog and owners with mixed body weights (the animal was lean while the humans had obesity, or vice versa). After viewing one of these images, participants reported their emotional responses to the dog and owners pictured and their best guess as to the causes of the pet’s weight. The subjects also read fictional clinical vignettes—one indicating that the dog presented with respiratory problems, for example—and were asked to provide their diagnostic and treatment recommendations based on the image and description. Finally, the participants reported the terms that they use to describe excess weight in dogs and indicated whether or not they believed that dog obesity was a disease.
When we compared responses across images, the results showed that the veterinarians’ feelings toward the dog and its owners depended entirely on the weight of the animal, not that of the humans. Compared with the lean dogs, the dogs with obesity prompted more feelings of frustration, blame and disgust toward both them and their owners, regardless of the owners’ weight.
Veterinarians did factor the owners’ weight into their assessment when evaluating the causes of a pet’s weight, however. When both the dog and its owners had obesity, veterinarians tended to view the animal’s weight as less biologically-based but instead related to the humans’ own health behaviors. Lean owners, on the other hand, received more “credit” for a lean dog’s weight and were not seen as causing a dog’s obesity.
Despite these signs of weight bias, the average ratings for some of the negative emotions were generally low across the board (e.g. 2.5 or less on a seven-point scale for disgust), and both the veterinarians and students expressed feelings of respect toward all dogs and owners. Additionally, more than 75 percent of the veterinarians and students considered obesity to be a disease in dogs, which suggests that they take the condition seriously.
In the end, the veterinarians suggested most of the same diagnostic and treatment recommendations regardless of dog or owner weight, although the dogs with obesity were given more weight-loss recommendations, to which participants expressed pessimism that the owners would comply. Common terms used to describe excess weight in dogs included “morbidly obese” and “fat,” which are typically perceived as stigmatizing when applied to humans. More than one in four veterinarians also reported using objectifying terms to describe dogs with a higher weight, such as calling them a “coffee table” or “ottoman.”
This research is by no means conclusive. Directly observing these clinical interactions, rather than studying them online, could help provide more information about the possible effects of weight bias in veterinary care, particularly for dogs and owners with a higher weight. For those with or without canine companions, it’s worth reflecting on your own snap judgments about weight and how your words and actions may impact the people (and pets) around you.