Science

the-nature-of-consciousness,-and-how-to-enjoy-it-while-you-can

The nature of consciousness, and how to enjoy it while you can

altered, consciousness, Neuroscience, psychedelics, psychology, Science / /

Remaining aware —

In his new book, Christof Koch views consciousness as a theorist and an aficionado.

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A black background with multicolored swirls filling the shape of a human brain.

Unraveling how consciousness arises out of particular configurations of organic matter is a quest that has absorbed scientists and philosophers for ages. Now, with AI systems behaving in strikingly conscious-looking ways, it is more important than ever to get a handle on who and what is capable of experiencing life on a conscious level. As Christof Koch writes in Then I Am Myself the World, “That you are intimately acquainted with the way life feels is a brute fact about the world that cries out for an explanation.” His explanation—bounded by the limits of current research and framed through Koch’s preferred theory of consciousness—is what he eloquently attempts to deliver.

Koch, a physicist, neuroscientist, and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has spent his career hunting for the seat of consciousness, scouring the brain for physical footprints of subjective experience. It turns out that the posterior hot zone, a region in the back of the neocortex, is intricately connected to self-awareness and experiences of sound, sight, and touch. Dense networks of neocortical neurons in this area connect in a looped configuration; output signals feedback into input neurons, allowing the posterior hot zone to influence its own behavior. And herein, Koch claims, lies the key to consciousness.

In the hot zone

According to integrated information theory (IIT)—which Koch strongly favors over a multitude of contending theories of consciousness—the Rosetta Stone of subjective experience is the ability of a system to influence itself: to use its past state to affect its present state and its present state to influence its future state.

Billions of neurons exist in the cerebellum, but they are wired “with nonoverlapping inputs and outputs … in a feed-forward manner,” writes Koch. He argues that a structure designed in this way, with limited influence over its own future, is not likely to produce consciousness. Similarly, the prefrontal cortex might allow us to perform complex calculations and exhibit advanced reasoning skills, but such traits do not equate to a capacity to experience life. It is the “reverberatory, self-sustaining excitatory loops prevalent in the neocortex,” Koch tells us, that set the stage for subjective experience to arise.

This declaration matches the experimental evidence Koch presents in Chapter 6: Injuries to the cerebellum do not eliminate a person’s awareness of themselves in relation to the outside world. Consciousness remains, even in a person who can no longer move their body with ease. Yet injuries to the posterior hot zone within the neocortex significantly change a person’s perception of auditory, visual, and tactile information, altering what they subjectively experience and how they describe these experiences to themselves and others.

Does this mean that artificial computer systems, wired appropriately, can be conscious? Not necessarily, Koch says. This might one day be possible with the advent of new technology, but we are not there yet. He writes. “The high connectivity [in a human brain] is very different from that found in the central processing unit of any digital computer, where one transistor typically connects to a handful of other transistors.” For the foreseeable future, AI systems will remain unconscious despite appearances to the contrary.

Koch’s eloquent overview of IIT and the melodic ease of his neuroscientific explanations are undeniably compelling, even for die-hard physicalists who flinch at terms like “self-influence.” His impeccably written descriptions are peppered with references to philosophers, writers, musicians, and psychologists—Albert Camus, Viktor Frankl, Richard Wagner, and Lewis Carroll all make appearances, adding richness and relatability to the narrative. For example, as an introduction to phenomenology—the way an experience feels or appears—he aptly quotes Eminem: “I can’t tell you what it really is, I can only tell you what it feels like.”

The nature of consciousness, and how to enjoy it while you can Read More »

“outrageously”-priced-weight-loss-drugs-could-bankrupt-us-health-care

“Outrageously” priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care

bernie sanders, GLP-1, health, health care costs, medicaid, medicare, premiums, Science, wegovy, weight loss / /

Collision course —

Prices would need to be dramatically slashed to avoid increasing the national deficit.

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Packaging for Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, is seen in this illustration photo.

Enlarge / Packaging for Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, is seen in this illustration photo.

With the debut of remarkably effective weight-loss drugs, America’s high obesity rate and its uniquely astronomical prescription drug pricing appear to be set on a catastrophic collision course—one that threatens to “bankrupt our entire health care system,” according to a new Senate report that modeled the economic impact of the drugs in different uptake scenarios.

If just half of the adults in the US with obesity start taking a new weight-loss drug, such as Wegovy, the collective cost would total an estimated $411 billion per year, the analysis found. That’s more than the $406 billion Americans spent in 2022 on all prescription drugs combined.

While the bulk of the spending on weight-loss drugs will occur in the commercial market—which could easily lead to spikes in health insurance premiums—taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid programs will also see an extraordinary financial burden. In the scenario that half of adults with obesity go on the drug, the cost to those federal programs would total $166 billion per year, rivaling the programs’ total 2022 drug costs of $175 billion.

In all, by 2031, total US spending on prescription drugs is poised to reach over $1 trillion per year due to weight-loss drugs. Without them, the baseline projected spending on all prescription drugs would be just under $600 billion.

The analysis was put together by the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, chaired by staunch drug-pricing critic Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). And it’s quick to knock down a common argument about the high prices for smash-hit weight-loss drugs. That is, with their high effectiveness, the drugs will improve people’s health in wide-ranging ways, including controlling diabetes, improving cardiovascular health, and potentially more. And, with those improvements, people won’t need as much health care, generally, lowering health care costs across the board.

But, while the drugs do appear to have wide-ranging, life-altering benefits for overall health, the prices of the drugs are still set too high to be entirely offset by any savings in health care use. The HELP committee analysis cited a March Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that found: “at their current prices, [anti-obesity medicines] would cost the federal government more than it would save from reducing other health care spending—which would lead to an overall increase in the deficit over the next 10 years.” Moreover, in April, the head of the CBO said that the drugmakers would have to slash prices of their weight-loss drugs by 90 percent to “get in the ballpark” of not increasing the national deficit.

The HELP committee report offered a relatively simple solution to the problem: Drugmakers should set their US prices to match the relatively low prices they’ve set in other countries. The report focused on Wegovy because it currently accounts for the most US prescriptions in the new class of weight-loss drugs (GLP-1 drugs). Wegovy is made by Denmark-based Novo Nordisk.

In the US, the estimated net price (after rebates) of Wegovy is $809 per month. In Denmark, the price is $186 per month. A study by researchers at Yale estimated that drugs like Wegovy can be profitably manufactured for less than $5 per month.

If Novo Nordisk set its US prices for Wegovy to match the Danish price, spending to treat half of US adults with obesity would drop from $411 billion to $94.5 billion, a roughly $316.5 billion savings.

Without a dramatic price cut, Americans will likely face either losing access to the drugs or shouldering higher overall health care costs, or some of both. The HELP committee report highlighted how this recently played out in North Carolina. In January, the board of trustees for the state employee health plan voted to end all coverage of Wegovy and other GLP-1 drugs due to the cost. Estimates found that if the plan continued to cover the drugs, the state would need to nearly double health insurance premiums to offset the costs.

“Outrageously” priced weight-loss drugs could bankrupt US health care Read More »

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Cats playing with robots proves a winning combo in novel art installation

animal behavior, animals, cat behavior, Cats, robotics, Science, science and art / /

The feline factor —

Cat Royale project explores what it takes to trust a robot to look after beloved pets.

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Cat with the robot arm in the Cat Royale installation

Enlarge / A kitty named Clover prepares to play with a robot arm in the Cat Royale “multi-species” science/art installation .

Blast Theory – Stephen Daly

Cats and robots are a winning combination, as evidenced by all those videos of kitties riding on Roombas. And now we have Cat Royale, a “multispecies” live installation in which three cats regularly “played” with a robot over 12 days, carefully monitored by human operators. Created by computer scientists from the University of Nottingham in collaboration with artists from a group called Blast Theory, the installation debuted at the World Science Festival in Brisbane, Australia, last year and is now a touring exhibit. The accompanying YouTube video series recently won a Webby Award, and a paper outlining the insights gleaned from the experience was similarly voted best paper at the recent Computer-Human Conference (CHI’24).

“At first glance, the project is about designing a robot to enrich the lives of a family of cats by playing with them,” said co-author Steve Benford of the University of Nottingham, who led the research, “Under the surface, however, it explores the question of what it takes to trust a robot to look after our loved ones and potentially ourselves.” While cats might love Roombas, not all animal encounters with robots are positive: Guide dogs for the visually impaired can get confused by delivery robots, for example, while the rise of lawn mowing robots can have a negative impact on hedgehogs, per Benford et al.

Blast Theory and the scientists first held a series of exploratory workshops to ensure the installation and robotic design would take into account the welfare of the cats. “Creating a multispecies system—where cats, robots, and humans are all accounted for—takes more than just designing the robot,” said co-author Eike Schneiders of Nottingham’s Mixed Reality Lab about the primary takeaway from the project. “We had to ensure animal well-being at all times, while simultaneously ensuring that the interactive installation engaged the (human) audiences around the world. This involved consideration of many elements, including the design of the enclosure, the robot, and its underlying systems, the various roles of the humans-in-the-loop, and, of course, the selection of the cats.”

Based on those discussions, the team set about building the installation: a bespoke enclosure that would be inhabited by three cats for six hours a day over 12 days. The lucky cats were named Ghostbuster, Clover, and Pumpkin—a parent and two offspring to ensure the cats were familiar with each other and comfortable sharing the enclosure. The enclosure was tricked out to essentially be a “utopia for cats,” per the authors, with perches, walkways, dens, a scratching post, a water fountain, several feeding stations, a ball run, and litter boxes tucked away in secluded corners.

(l-r) Clover, Pumpkin, and Ghostbuster spent six hours a day for 12 days in the installation.

Enlarge / (l-r) Clover, Pumpkin, and Ghostbuster spent six hours a day for 12 days in the installation.

E. Schneiders et al., 2024

As for the robot, the team chose the Kino Gen3 lite robot arm, and the associated software was trained on over 7,000 videos of cats. A decision engine gave the robot autonomy and proposed activities for specific cats. Then a human operator used an interface control system to instruct the robot to execute the movements. The robotic arm’s two-finger gripper was augmented with custom 3D-printed attachments so that the robot could manipulate various cat toys and accessories.

Each cat/robot interaction was evaluated for a “happiness score” based on the cat’s level of engagement, body language, and so forth. Eight cameras monitored the cat and robot activities, and that footage was subsequently remixed and edited into daily YouTube highlight videos and, eventually, an eight-hour film.

Cats playing with robots proves a winning combo in novel art installation Read More »

using-vague-language-about-scientific-facts-misleads-readers

Using vague language about scientific facts misleads readers

beliefs, facts, Human behavior, Science, Science communication / /
Using vague language about scientific facts misleads readers

Anyone can do a simple experiment. Navigate to a search engine that offers suggested completions for what you type, and start typing “scientists believe.” When I did it, I got suggestions about the origin of whales, the evolution of animals, the root cause of narcolepsy, and more. The search results contained a long list of topics, like “How scientists believe the loss of Arctic sea ice will impact US weather patterns” or “Scientists believe Moon is 40 million years older than first thought.”

What do these all have in common? They’re misleading, at least in terms of how most people understand the word “believe.” In all these examples, scientists have become convinced via compelling evidence; these are more than just hunches or emotional compulsions. Given that difference, using “believe” isn’t really an accurate description. Yet all these examples come from searching Google News, and so are likely to come from journalistic outlets that care about accuracy.

Does the difference matter? A recent study suggests that it does. People who were shown headlines that used subjective verbs like “believe” tended to view the issue being described as a matter of opinion—even if that issue was solidly grounded in fact.

Fact vs. opinion

The new work was done by three researchers at Stanford University: Aaron Chueya, Yiwei Luob, and Ellen Markman. “Media consumption is central to how we form, maintain, and spread beliefs in the modern world,” they write. “Moreover, how content is presented may be as important as the content itself.” The presentation they’re interested in involves what they term “epistemic verbs,” or those that convey information about our certainty regarding information. To put that in concrete terms, “’Know’ presents [a statement] as a fact by presup­posing that it is true, ‘believe’ does not,” they argue.

So, while it’s accurate to say, “Scientists know the Earth is warming, and that warming is driven by human activity,” replacing “know” with “believe” presents an inaccurate picture of the state of our knowledge. Yet, as noted above, “scientists believe” is heavily used in the popular press. Chueya, Luob, and Markman decided to see whether this makes a difference.

They were interested in two related questions. One is whether the use of verbs like believe and think influences how readers view whether the concepts they’re associated with are subjective issues rather than objective, factual ones. The second is whether using that phrasing undercuts the readers’ willingness to accept something as a fact.

To answer those questions, the researchers used a subject-recruiting service called Prolific to recruit over 2,700 participants who took part in a number of individual experiments focused on these issues. In each experiment, participants were given a series of headlines and asked about what inferences they drew about the information presented in them.

Using vague language about scientific facts misleads readers Read More »

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Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden

atlas v, blue origin, Commercial space, human spaceflight, launch, rocket report, Science, Space, spaceport Camden, spacex, starliner, starship, united launch alliance, vulcan / /
On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket's next test flight from South Texas.

Enlarge / On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket’s next test flight from South Texas.

Welcome to Edition 6.44 of the Rocket Report! Kathy Lueders, general manager of SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility, says the company expects to receive an FAA launch license for the next Starship test flight shortly after Memorial Day. It looks like this rocket could fly in late May or early June, about two-and-a-half months after the previous Starship test flight. This is an improvement over the previous intervals of seven months and four months between Starship flights.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Blue Origin launch on tap this weekend. Blue Origin plans to launch its first human spaceflight mission in nearly two years on Sunday. This flight will launch six passengers on a flight to suborbital space more than 60 miles (100 km) over West Texas. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space company, has not flown people to space since a New Shepard rocket failure on an uncrewed research flight in September 2022. The company successfully launched New Shepard on another uncrewed suborbital mission in December.

Historic flight … This will be the 25th flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, and the seventh human spaceflight mission on New Shepard. Before Blue Origin’s rocket failure in 2022, the company was reaching a flight cadence of about one launch every two months, on average. The flight rate has diminished since then. Sunday’s flight is important not only because it marks the resumption of launches for Blue Origin’s suborbital human spaceflight business, but also because its six-person crew includes an aviation pioneer. Ed Dwight, 90, almost became the first Black astronaut in 1963. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain, piloted military fighter jets and graduated test pilot school, following a familiar career track as many of the early astronauts. He was on a short list of astronaut candidates the Air Force provided NASA, but the space agency didn’t include him. Dwight will become the oldest person to ever fly in space.

Spaceport Camden is officially no more. With the stroke of a pen, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill that dissolved the Camden County Spaceport Authority, Action News Jax reported. This news follows a referendum in March 2022 where more than 70 percent of voters rejected a plan to buy land for the spaceport on the Georgia coastline between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida. County officials still tried to move forward with the spaceport initiative after the failed referendum, but Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled in February that the county had to abide by the voters’ wishes.

$12 million for what?… The government of Camden County, with a population of about 55,000 people spent $12 million on the Spaceport Camden concept over the course of a decade. The goal of the spaceport authority was to lure small launch companies to the region, but no major launches ever took place from Camden County. State Rep. Steven Sainz, who sponsored the bill eliminating the spaceport authority, said in a statement that the legislation “reflects the community’s choice and opens a path for future collaborations in economic initiatives that are more aligned with local needs.” (submitted by zapman987)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Polaris Spaceplanes moves on to bigger things. German startup Polaris Spaceplanes says it is progressing with construction of its MIRA II and MIRA III spaceplane prototypes after MIRA, a subscale test vehicle, was damaged earlier this year, European Spaceflight reports. The MIRA demonstration vehicle crash-landed on a test flight in February. The incident occurred on takeoff at an airfield in Germany before the vehicle could ignite its linear aerospace engine in flight. The remote-controlled MIRA prototype measured about 4.25 meters long. Polaris announced on April 30 that will not repair MIRA and will instead move forward with the construction of a pair of larger vehicles.

Nearly 16 months without a launch … The MIRA II and MIRA III vehicles will be 5 meters long and will be powered by Polaris’s AS-1 aerospike engines, along with jet engines to power the craft before and after in-flight tests of the rocket engine. Aerospike engines are rocket engines that are designed to operate efficiently at all altitudes. The MIRA test vehicles are precursors to AURORA, a multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transporter Polaris says will be capable of delivering up to 1,000 kilograms of payload to low-Earth orbit. (submitted by Jay500001 and Tfargo04)

Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden Read More »

ultra-spicy-one-chip-challenge-chip-contributed-to-teen’s-death,-report-says

Ultra-spicy One Chip Challenge chip contributed to teen’s death, report says

capsaicin, Carolina Reaper pepper, death, died, health, heart defect, Naga Viper Pepper, One Chip Challenge, Paqui, Science, teen / /

Tragic —

The high dose of capsaicin paired with a heart defect appear to have contributed.

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Ultra-spicy One Chip Challenge chip contributed to teen’s death, report says

An autopsy report of a Massachusetts teen who tragically died hours after eating an ultra-spicy tortilla chip suggested that his death was due to the high dose of spice in the chip and a congenital heart defect, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

Harris Wolobah, a previously healthy 14-year-old from Worcester, died September 1, 2023 hours after eating the chip—a 2023 Paqui One Chip Challenge chip—which were sold individually, wrapped in tin foil, and seasoned with two of hottest peppers in the world, the Naga Viper pepper and the Carolina Reaper pepper. Paqui sold the chip with a challenge in which eaters were dared to consume the chip, wait as long as possible before eating or drinking anything, and post the aftermath on social media, where the challenge went viral.

Harris’ mother, Lois Wolobah, immediately suspected the chip was involved in his untimely death. At the time, she reportedly said she picked him up from school after getting a call from the nurse. He was clutching his stomach and, about two hours later, lost consciousness and was rushed to the hospital, where he died. She reported that he had no known medical conditions at the time.

According to the autopsy report, Harris died of cardiopulmonary arrest “in the setting of recent ingestion of food substance with high capsaicin concentration,” the AP reported. Capsaicin is the compound in peppers that gives them their heat.

The report also noted that Harris had an enlarged heart and a congenital anomaly called “myocardial bridging.” This is a common and generally benign condition in which one or more of the arteries delivering blood to the heart go through the heart’s muscle instead of lying on its surface, according to Stanford Medicine. In Harris’ case, the condition involved his left anterior descending coronary artery. An analysis on the American Academy of Cardiology’s website noted that myocardial bridging is “clinically silent” in the majority of cases.

Dr. James Udelson, chief of cardiology at Tufts Medical Center, confirmed to the AP that the chip could have played a role in the teen’s death. “It is possible that with significant stimulation of the heart, the muscle beyond the bridge suddenly had abnormal blood flow (‘ischemia’) and could have been a cause of a severe arrhythmia,” Udelson told the AP in an email. “There have been reports of acute toxicity with capsaicin causing ischemia of the heart muscle.”

A second expert, Dr. Syed Haider, a cardiologist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, added to the AP that the large doses of capsaicin can increase how the heart squeezes, putting extra pressure on the artery.

Even if Harris’ heart defect made him more vulnerable to the effects of the chip, other case studies have found dangerous and life-threatening effects of high doses of capsaicin in people without heart anomalies. Ultra-hot peppers have also been linked to conditions in which arteries in the brain constrict, causing thunderclap headaches and neurological symptoms.

Paqui, a subsidiary of Hershey, pulled the chip from the market shortly after Harris’ death.

Ultra-spicy One Chip Challenge chip contributed to teen’s death, report says Read More »

europe-is-uncertain-whether-its-ambitious-mercury-probe-can-reach-the-planet

Europe is uncertain whether its ambitious Mercury probe can reach the planet

Science, Space / /

Hear me bepi, hold together —

“We are working hard on resolving these uncertainties.”

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An artist's rendering of the BepiColombo mission, a joint ESA/JAXA project, which will take two spacecraft to the harsh environment of Mercury.

An artist’s rendering of the BepiColombo mission, a joint ESA/JAXA project, which will take two spacecraft to the harsh environment of Mercury.

ESA

This week the European Space Agency posted a slightly ominous note regarding its BepiColombo spacecraft, which consists of two orbiters bound for Mercury.

The online news release cited a “glitch” with the spacecraft that is impairing its ability to generate thrust. The problem was first noted on April 26, when the spacecraft’s primary propulsion system was scheduled to undertake an orbital maneuver. Not enough electrical power was delivered to the solar-electric propulsion system at the time.

According to the space agency, a team involving its own engineers and those of its industrial partners began working on the issue. By May 7 they had made some progress, restoring the spacecraft’s thrust to about 90 percent of its original level. But this is not full thrust, and the root cause of the problem is still poorly understood.

This is an ambitious mission, with an estimated cost of $2 billion. Undertaken jointly with the Japanese space agency, JAXA, BepiColombo launched on an Ariane 5 rocket in October 2018. So there is a lot riding on these thrusters. The critical question is, at this power level, can BepiColombo still perform its primary task of reaching orbit around Mercury?

The answer to this question is not so clear.

A three-part spacecraft

The spacecraft consists of three components. The “transfer module” is where the current problems are occurring. It was built by the European Space Agency and is intended to power the other two components of the spacecraft until October 2025. It is essential for positioning the spacecraft for entry into orbit around Mercury. The other two elements of the mission are a European orbiter, MPO, and a Japanese orbiter, Mio. After their planned arrival in orbit around Mercury in December 2025, the two orbiters will separate and make at least one year’s worth of observations, including the characterization of the small planet’s magnetic field.

The news release is ambiguous about the fate of BepiColombo if full power cannot be restored to its propulsion system.

Ars reached out to the European Space Agency and asked whether BepiColombo can still reach orbit around Mercury in this state. The response, a statement from Elsa Montagnon, the head of mission operations at the space agency, is not entirely clear.

“Thanks for your legitimate questions on the current uncertainty,” Montagnon said. “We are working hard on resolving these uncertainties.”

Gotta have that delta-V

What is clear, she said, is that the current thrust level can support the next critical milestone, BepiColombo’s fourth Mercury swing-by, which is due to occur on September 5 of this year. This is the first of three swing-bys scheduled to happen in rapid succession from September to January that will slow the spacecraft down relative to Mercury.

“This swing-by sequence provides a braking delta-V of 2.4 km/s and provides a change of velocity vector direction with respect to the Sun as required for the trajectory end game in 2025,” Montagnon said.

At present, a team of experts is working on the implications of reduced thrusters for the other two parts of this swing-by sequence and other propulsion needs in 2025.

This transfer module is scheduled to be jettisoned from the rest of the stack in October 2025, and after that the remaining Mercury approach and orbit insertion maneuvers will be carried out with the chemical propulsion subsystem of the European MPO spacecraft.

Europe is uncertain whether its ambitious Mercury probe can reach the planet Read More »

it-could-soon-be-illegal-to-publicly-wear-a-mask-for-health-reasons-in-nc

It could soon be illegal to publicly wear a mask for health reasons in NC

cancer, health, house bill, immunocompromised, Infectious disease, masks, North Carolina, pandemic, public health, Science / /

Freedumb —

Senators skeptical of legal trouble for harmless masking after moving to make it illegal.

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It could soon be illegal to publicly wear a mask for health reasons in NC

The North Carolina State Senate on Wednesday voted 30–15, along party lines, in favor of a Republican bill that would make it illegal for people in the state to wear a mask in public for health reasons. The bill is now moving to the House, where it could potentially see changes.

The proposed ban on health-based masking is part of a larger bill otherwise aimed at increasing penalties for people wearing masks to conceal their identity while committing a crime or impeding traffic. The bill was largely spurred by recent protests on university and college campuses across the country, including North Carolina-based schools, against the war in Gaza. In recent months, there have been demonstrations in Raleigh and Durham that have blocked roadways, as well as clashes on the nearby campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Some demonstrators were seen wearing masks in those events.

But the bill, House Bill 237, goes a step further by making it illegal to wear a mask in public for health and safety reasons, either to protect the wearer, those around them, or both. Specifically, the bill repeals a 2020 legal exemption enacted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed for public health-based masking for the first time in decades.

Prior to 2020, laws dating back to 1953 largely prohibited public masking. The prohibition was part of a crackdown on “secret societies” at the time, or more specifically, an attempt to curtail the activities of the Ku Klux Clan in the state. Exemptions only existed for things like holiday costumes, theater productions, gas masks, and members of public parades or ceremonies that had obtained permits.

On Wednesday, North Carolina residents with compromised immune systems spoke—while masked—during a public comment section. Simone Hetherington told lawmakers that masking was the only way to protect herself in public from illness and feared passage of the bill would prevent her from doing so, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

But, according to The News & Observer, Republicans were dismissive of that possibility, arguing that in the decades prior to the pandemic, when public masking was largely illegal, they couldn’t recall anyone being prosecuted for wearing a mask for health reasons.

Raleigh-based news outlet WRAL quoted Sen. Sydney Batch, a Democrat from Wake, who criticized the bill along with fellow Democratic colleagues. Batch, a cancer survivor, spoke of how her husband and children wore masks to protect her while she underwent cancer treatments that weakened her immune system. “This bill criminalizes their behavior and mine,” she said. “We talk a lot about freedoms in this chamber. I hear it all the time. I should have the freedom—my children and my husband should have the freedom—to wear masks in order to protect and save my life, without fear of being arrested and charged.”

It could soon be illegal to publicly wear a mask for health reasons in NC Read More »

how-do-you-pronounce-“hockey”?-us-players-say-it-with-“fake-canadian”-accent.

How do you pronounce “hockey”? US players say it with “fake Canadian” accent.

acoustics, Hockey, hockey culture, Linguistics, Science, slang, sociolinguistics, sports / /

Seriously, what’s that aboot, eh? —

They don’t want to sound Canadian, but like a hockey player—a “linguistic persona.”

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hockey player in yellow jersey front and center, surrounded by players in red jerseys, all on the ice

University of Rochester linguist Andrew Bray started out studying the evolution of the trademark sports jargon used in hockey for his master’s thesis. For instance, a hockey arena is a “barn,” while the puck is a “biscuit.” When he would tell people about the project, however, they kept asking if he was trying to determine why American hockey players sound like “fake Canadians.” Intrigued, Bray decided to shift his research focus to find out if hockey players did indeed have distinctively Canadian speech patterns and, if so, why this might be the case.

He discovered that US hockey players borrow certain aspects of the Canadian English accent, particularly when it comes to hockey jargon. But they don’t follow the typical rules of pronunciation. In short, “American hockey players are not trying to shift their speech to sound more Canadian,” Bray said during a press briefing. “They’re trying to sound more like a hockey player. That’s why it’s most evident in hockey-specific terms.”

It’s a concept known as a “linguistic persona,” a means of communicating how one identifies—in this case, as a hockey player— through speech. Bray gave a talk about his research today at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Ottawa, Canada, held in conjunction with the Canadian Acoustical Association.

Bray first had to figure out how to design a study to examine this question. “What does it even mean to sound like a ‘fake’ Canadian?” he said. The stereotypical Canadian speech patterns are well-known: pronouncing “out” as “oot,” for example, or “about” as “aboot,” not to mention adding a questioning “eh?” at the end of sentences. According to Bray, there are three common linguistic variables typical of Canadian English.

One is called the lower back merger shift, which involves lowering the tongue to pronounce the vowels in words like “bit” (ih), “bet” (eh), and “bat” (ah). The second is called Canadian raising, in which the body of the tongue is raised to pronounce the vowels in words like “tight” and “doubt.” Finally, there are the vowels in words like “bait” and “boat.” Canadians pronounce these vowels with only one configuration of the tongue, known as a monophthongal pronunciation. (If the tongue moves to a secondary configuration, that would be a diphthongal pronunciation.)

Bray thought the American players might be exhibiting some Canadian English variables in their speech but to different degrees, such that their pronunciations sounded just a wee bit off—i.e., “fake.” He opted to focus on the monophthongal component since he thought those pronunciations were likely to be the most prevalent in “fake Canadian” speech among US hockey players.

Bray used to play hockey for the University of Georgia Ice Dawgs, shown here in 2016.

Enlarge / Bray used to play hockey for the University of Georgia Ice Dawgs, shown here in 2016.

University of Georgia Ice Dawgs

Next, Bray had to build his own “corpus of hockey player speech” focused on American-born hockey players. That required extensive interviews with players. Professional National League Hockey (NHL) players might not have the time to participate, so he focused on the American Hockey League (AHL) and East Coast Hockey League (ECHL), narrowing his pool to four teams: the Charlotte Checkers, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, the Rochester Americans, and the South Carolina Stingrays.

Bray played hockey for the University of Georgia Ice Dawgs, which helped him quickly establish a rapport with his subjects over their shared interest and get them talking at length about their hockey career trajectories. Among other benefits, it helped him avoid the dreaded “observer’s paradox,” in which asking someone to talk about their speech makes them self-conscious and subtly changes how they would normally talk. He collected data from 20 such interviews, conducted between 2017 and 2019, each lasting about 30 minutes.

He then turned those interviews into a database of “formants”—resonant frequencies that amplify some groups of harmonics above others in speech. Bray’s ASA presentation focused on two common vowel formants. The first formant (F1) roughly corresponds to tongue height, while the second (F2) corresponds to how far forward or retracted the tongue is during pronunciation.

In the case of “bait”-like vowel sounds, Bray found some evidence among his US hockey players of a monophthongal pronunciation (minimal tongue movement), as one would expect in Canadian English and perhaps parts of the upper Midwest, but which would not otherwise be present in American English dialects. “Boat”-like vowel sounds seemed more “pseudo-monophthongal” in nature. But when these were compared with benchmark expectations for Canadian English F1 and F2 formants, US hockey players came close but fell just a bit short of the mark. Nor are their pronunciations in line with standard American English dialects.

“This might be why they sound ‘fake,'” said Bray. “I’m arguing that this is the construction of a linguistic variant uniquely linked to hockey. It’s influenced by Canadian English, but it’s not entirely Canadian.” And the way the US players in his dataset pronounced “hockey” seems to be “an entirely novel pronunciation of a word linked to this community.” Bray suspects this influence will be relevant to his initial research on hockey slang, expecting to find that “hockey slang terms are pronounced differently than you’d expect for the other non-hockey related terms.”

Bray suspects this happens via some sort of “lexical diffusion.” At the junior league level (around 14 to 20 years of age), US players might not have these distinctive speech patterns, but their pronunciations may gradually shift over time the longer they play and pick up hockey slang terms. The more strongly they self-identify as hockey players, the more they will sound like “fake Canadians.”

How do you pronounce “hockey”? US players say it with “fake Canadian” accent. Read More »

mixup-of-drinking-and-irrigation-water-sparks-dangerous-outbreak-in-children

Mixup of drinking and irrigation water sparks dangerous outbreak in children

CDC, children, E. coli, hemolytic uremic syndrome, irrigation water, outbreak, Science, Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7, Utah / /

fearsome faucets —

Of 13 children sickened, 7 hospitalized and 2 had life-threatening complications.

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A child cools off under a water sprinkler.

Enlarge / A child cools off under a water sprinkler.

In 1989, a city in Utah upgraded its drinking water system, putting in a whole new system and repurposing the old one to supply cheap untreated water for irrigating lawns and putting out fires. That meant that the treated water suitable for drinking flowed from new spigots, while untreated water gushed from the old ones. Decades went by with no apparent confusion; residents seemed clear on the two different water sources. But, according to an investigation report published recently by state and county health officials, that local knowledge got diluted as new residents moved into the area. And last summer, the confusion over the conduits led to an outbreak of life-threatening illnesses among children.

In July and August of 2023, state and local health officials identified 13 children infected with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7. The children ranged in age from 1 to 15, with a median age of 4. Children are generally at high risk of severe infections with this pathogen, along with older people and those with compromised immune systems. Of the 13 infected children, seven were hospitalized and two developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a life-threatening complication that can lead to kidney failure.

Preliminary genetic analyses of STEC O157:H7 from two of the children suggested that the children’s infections were linked to a common source. So, health officials quickly developed a questionnaire to narrow down the potential source. It soon became clear that the irrigation water—aka untreated, pressurized, municipal irrigation water (UPMIW)—was a commonality among the children. Twelve of 13 infected children reported exposure to it in some form: Two said they drank it; five played with UPMIW hoses; three used the water for inflatable water toys; two used it for a water table; and one ran through sprinklers. None reported eating fruits or vegetables from home (noncommercial) gardens irrigated with the UPMIW.

The report on the investigation, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, did not name the city in Utah. But press releases from a county health department identified the affected city as Lehi, about 30 minutes south of Salt Lake City.

Further genetic testing of STEC O157:H7 isolates linked all of the children’s infections together, as well as to water from five of nine UPMIW exposure sites and samples from the reservoir where the irrigation water is sourced. Microbial source tracking indicated that the contamination could have come from the feces of birds or ruminants.

The county health department and the city put out press releases and informational mailers. They warned residents about the risks of UPMIW, telling them not to drink it or let children play in it. “Do not use irrigation water for bounce houses, pools, slip-n-slides, or any other recreational activities. It is common for children to swallow or get water in their mouths while playing.”

The notices also said that the CDC recommended against watering lawns with the water, though the county advised residents to merely “use caution” when allowing children to play on grass irrigated with UPMIW. “Keep an eye on them,” the advisers warned, and try to prevent them from putting their hands or anything from the lawn in their mouths. “E. coli is hardy and can stick.”

This is not the first time that irrigation water has been linked to outbreaks. In 2010 and 2015, two other Utah cities reported campylobacteriosis outbreaks linked to cross-connections between UPMIW and drinking water lines.

The researchers say such outbreaks can be avoided by efforts to prevent contamination in irrigation water, such as treating water, cleaning reservoirs, and covering them. And, of course, clearly labeling irrigation water and keeping residents informed about its dangers are key to preventing infections.

Mixup of drinking and irrigation water sparks dangerous outbreak in children Read More »

daily-telescope:-i-spy,-with-my-little-eye,-the-iss

Daily Telescope: I spy, with my little eye, the ISS

daily telescope, Science, Space / /

living long and prospering —

What is black and white and constantly in flight?

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The International Space Station as seen from 69 km away.

Enlarge / The International Space Station as seen from 69 km away.

HEO on X

Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’re going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Good morning. It’s May 16, and today’s image comes from an on-demand satellite imagery company named HEO. Only this image is not of the Earth, but rather the International Space Station.

According to the company, which is headquartered in Australia, one of its cameras imaged the space station at a distance of 69.06 km away, over the Indian Ocean. HEO flies its sensors as hosted payloads on satellites in Earth orbit. However, HEO’s focus is not on Earth; it’s on other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit to assess their status and identify anomalous behavior.

As for the space station, it remains in good health after a quarter of a century of operations. NASA is currently working with its international partners to extend the station’s operations through 2030. After that, the space agency would like to retire the vehicle and transition to commercially operated space stations.

Source: HEO on X.

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope? Reach out and say hello.

Daily Telescope: I spy, with my little eye, the ISS Read More »

raw-milk-fans-plan-to-drink-up-as-experts-warn-of-high-levels-of-h5n1-virus

Raw-milk fans plan to drink up as experts warn of high levels of H5N1 virus

avian influenza, bird flu, CDC, cows, fda, H5N1, health, mammary glands, milk, raw milk, Science / /

facepalm —

Raw milk fans called warnings “fear mongering,” despite 52% fatality rate in humans.

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A glass of fresh raw milk in the hand of a farmer.

Enlarge / A glass of fresh raw milk in the hand of a farmer.

To drink raw milk at any time is to flirt with dangerous germs. But, amid an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in US dairy cows, the risks have ratcheted up considerably. Health experts have stepped up warnings against drinking raw milk during the outbreak, the scope of which is still unknown.

Yet, raw milk enthusiasts are undaunted by the heightened risk. The California-based Raw Milk Institute called the warnings “clearly fearmongering.” The institute’s founder, Mark McAfee, told the Los Angeles Times this weekend that his customers are, in fact, specifically requesting raw milk from H5N1-infected cows. According to McAfee, his customers believe, without evidence, that directly drinking high levels of the avian influenza virus will give them immunity to the deadly pathogen.

Expert Michael Payne told the LA Times that the idea amounts to “playing Russian roulette with your health.” Payne, a researcher and dairy outreach coordinator at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis, added, “Deliberately trying to infect yourself with a known pathogen flies in the face of all medical knowledge and common sense.”

Much remains unknown about the biology of avian influenza in cattle. Until March 25, when the US Department of Agriculture confirmed the virus in a dairy herd in Texas, cattle were generally considered virtually resistant to H5N1. But since then, the USDA has tallied 42 herds in nine states that have contracted the virus. Epidemiological data so far suggests that there has been cow-to-cow transmission following a single spillover event and that the 42 outbreak herds are connected by the movement of cattle between farms.

The limited data on the cows so far suggests that the animals largely develop mild illness from the infection and recover in a few weeks. Their mammary glands are the primary target of the virus. A preprint published earlier this month found that cows’ udders are rife with the molecular receptors that bird flu viruses latch onto to spark an infection. Moreover, the glands contain multiple types receptors, including ones targeted by human flu viruses as well as those targeted by bird flu viruses. Thus, dairy cows could potentially act as a mixing vessel for the different types of flu viruses to reassemble into new, outbreak-sparking variants.

With the virus apparently having a field day in cows’ udders, researchers have found raw milk to be brimming with high levels of H5N1 viral particles—and those particles appear readily capable of spilling over to other mammals. In a case study last month, researchers reported that a group of about two dozen farm cats developed severe illness after drinking milk from H5N1-infected cows. Some developed severe neurological symptoms. More than half the cats died in a matter of days.

Deadly virus

Data on flu receptors in the two animals may explain the difference between cows and cats. While the cow’s mammary gland had loads of multiple types of flu receptors, those receptors were less common in other parts of the cow, including the respiratory tract and brain. This may explain why they tend to have a mild infection. Cats, on the other hand, appear to have receptors more widely distributed, with infected cats showing viral invasion of the lungs, hearts, eyes, and brains.

Raw milk devotees—who claim without evidence that drinking raw milk provides health benefits over drinking pasteurized milk—dismiss the risk of exposure to H5N1. They confidently argue—also without evidence—that the human digestive system will destroy the virus. And they highlight that there is no documented evidence of a human ever becoming infected with H5N1 from drinking tainted milk.

The latter point on the lack of evidence of milkborne H5N1 transmission is true. However, the current outbreak is the first known spillover of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) to dairy cow mammary glands. As such, it presents the first known opportunity for such milk-based transmission to occur.

Before pasteurization became routine for commercial milk production, raw milk was a common source of infections, serving up a cornucopia of germs. According to the FDA, in 1938, milkborne outbreaks accounted for 25 percent of all foodborne disease outbreaks. In more recent times, milk has been linked to less than 1 percent of such outbreaks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that areas where raw milk was sold legally between 1998 and 2018 had 3.2 times more outbreaks than areas where the sale of raw milk was illegal.

In a Q&A document, the Food and Drug Administration notes that it does “not know at this time if HPAI A (H5N1) viruses can be transmitted through consumption of unpasteurized (raw) milk and products (such as cheese) made from raw milk from infected cows.” However, the agency goes on, because of that lack of data and the potential for infection, the FDA recommends halting all sales of raw milk and raw milk products from H5N1 infected or exposed cattle. In general, the agency recommends against consuming raw milk.

Globally, as of March 28, there have been 888 cases of H5N1 reported in humans in 23 countries. Of those 888 cases, 463 were fatal. That represents a 52 percent fatality rate; however, it’s possible that there are asymptomatic or undiagnosed cases that could alter that rate. In the US, only one human so far is known to have been infected with H5N1 in connection with the dairy cow outbreak—a farm worker who developed pink eye. The man had no respiratory symptoms and recovered. He did not consent to further follow-up, and researchers did not get consent to test the man’s household contacts to see if they, too, were infected.

Raw-milk fans plan to drink up as experts warn of high levels of H5N1 virus Read More »