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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2024 at 7:07am

What if you just put a robot in the driver's seat instead of automating the car?

A team of roboticists  has taken a new approach to autonomous driving—instead of automating the entire car, simply put a robot in the driver's seat. The group built a robot capable of driving a car and tested it on a real-world track. They also published a paper describing their efforts on the arXiv preprint server.

Virtually all efforts to build a self-driving car have focused on making the car itself autonomous—humans sit in the passenger seat or in the back. These efforts involve adding a host of sensors in addition to processing power. They have also been met with mixed results.

In this new effort, the research team wondered if it might not be easier and cheaper simply to build a robot that can be taught how to drive a car and put it in the driver's seat of a normal vehicle. To find out if that might be possible, they built such a robot and tested it on a track at the University of Tokyo's Kashiwa Campus.

The robot is named Musashi and it was designed to operate in much the same way as a human car driver. To that end, the researchers created what they describe as a "musculoskeletal humanoid"—a robot with two arms and two legs, with feet and hands, a torso, neck and head.

They also gave it movable eyes, each equipped with a high-resolution camera. The jointed arms have hands with five digits, and the feet have "grippiness" to ensure precise control of the gas pedal and brake. The robot has a computer, of course, with software for training and to serve as the brains of the robot when driving. After building their robot, the research team put it in a small electric car and then sent it off for some test driving. In addition to simply driving around, the robot was tested on its ability to recognize and respond to objects in its path, including humans.

The team reports that initial testing was "encouraging", though they acknowledge that Musashi is a long way from being ready to drive on a public road.

Kento Kawaharazuka et al, Toward Autonomous Driving by Musculoskeletal Humanoids: A Study of Developed Hardware and Learning-Based Software, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2406.05573

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2024 at 6:54am

Across four experiments requiring participants to make trade-offs between reward, uncertainty and effort, patients with acute limbic encephalitis demonstrated blunted sensitivity to reward and effort whenever uncertainty was considered, despite demonstrating intact uncertainty sensitivity.

By contrast, the valuation of these two attributes (reward and effort) was intact on uncertainty-free tasks. Reduced sensitivity to changes in reward under uncertainty correlated with the severity of hippocampal damage.

They found that patients diagnosed with ALE were sensitive to uncertainty, yet they were less sensitive to information related to changes in reward values and effort. Their study gathered evidence suggesting that the hippocampus has a context-sensitive role in value-based decision-making, which is specifically relevant under conditions of uncertainty and influences how they evaluate the rewards and efforts linked with different options.

The researchers' new observations are a further step towards better understanding the hippocampus and its contribution to decision making in instances where outcomes are uncertain.

Bahaaeddin Attaallah et al, The role of the human hippocampus in decision-making under uncertainty, Nature Human Behaviour (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01855-2.

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 15, 2024 at 6:52am

How the human hippocampus contributes to value-based decision-making under uncertainty

Value-based decision-making is the process through which humans choose between options associated with different costs or efforts, as well as rewards. These choices include, for instance, selecting different products at the grocery stores or making substantial lifestyle changes to accomplish a specific goal.

Past studies on animals have found that the hippocampus, a key brain region associated with learning and memory, could play a role in the processing and evaluation of rewards, which is thought to also occur during value-based decision-making. In addition, research on humans has linked the hippocampus to memory, associative learning and imagination, which could also be connected to value-based decision-making.

Researchers  have recently been investigating the role of this brain region in the valuation and selection of different options. In one study involving individuals with cognitive impairments, they found that the hippocampus could support the active gathering of information that precedes value-based decisions in situations where outcomes are uncertain.

Their latest paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour, built on these findings to further explore how the hippocampus contributes to human decision-making under uncertainty. In this new work, they specifically examined how individuals with a neurological condition affecting the hippocampus decided between different options associated with varying rewards.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 12:16pm

Third Form of Life Makes Energy in 'Remarkable' Ways, Scientists Discover
As the world turns to green hydrogen and other renewable energy sources, scientists have discovered that archaea – the third form of life after bacteria and eukaryotes – have been making energy using hydrogen gas and 'ultraminimal' enzymes for billions of years.
Specifically, the international team of researchers discovered that at least nine phyla of archaea, a domain of single-celled organisms lacking internal membrane-bound structures, produce hydrogen gas using enzymes thought to only exist in the other two forms of life.

Archaea, they realized, not only have the smallest hydrogen-using enzymes compared to bacteria and eukaryotes, but their enzymes for consuming and producing hydrogen are also the most complex characterized so far.
Small and mighty, these enzymes have seemingly allowed archaea to survive and thrive in some of Earth's most hostile environments where little to no oxygen is found.
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00573-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424005737%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 11:45am

Dietary Supplement Found to Reduce Aggression by Up to 28%

Keep calm and try omega-3. The fatty acids, available as dietary supplements via fish oil capsules and thought to help with mental and physical well-being, could also cut down on aggression, according to a new study. These findings haven't come out of nowhere: omega-3 has previously been linked to preventing schizophrenia, while aggression and antisocial behavior are thought in part to stem from a lack of nutrition. What we eat can influence our brain's chemistry.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania built on earlier, smaller studies of omega-3 supplementation effects on aggression. Their meta-analysis looked at 29 randomized controlled trials across 3,918 participants in total.

Across all the trials, a modest but noticeable short-term effect was found, translating to up to a 28 percent reduction in aggression across multiple different variables (including age, gender, medical diagnosis, and length and dosage of treatment).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135917892400...
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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 10:44am

Discovery of antimicrobial peptides in the global microbiome with machine learning
800,000 possible new antibiotics
Researchers used a machine learning approach to survey tens of thousands of genomes found in soils, oceans and the human gut, and in microbial databases. They identified over 800,000 potential antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) — small molecules used by organisms to fight off microbial infections — most of which had not been seen before. As a proof of concept, researchers took 100 of these peptides and tested them against 11 pathogens in the lab. Of these, 63 peptides could halt the growth of at least one pathogen and a smaller number could fight off infections in mice. The 800,000 AMPs are now housed in an open-access resource for antibiotic discovery.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00522-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424005221%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

• Machine learning predicts nearly 1 million new antibiotics in the global microbiome
• •
  Out of 100 tested peptides, 79 were active in vitro; 63 of these targeted pathogens
• •
  Some peptides may originate from longer sequences through genomic fragmentation
• •
  The AMPSphere is an open-access resource to accelerate antibiotic discovery

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 9:41am

Most people with chronic pain don't consider psychotherapy at all. They're thinking along the lines of medications, injections, sometimes surgery or bodily treatments like physical therapy.
Psychotherapy is an evidence-based treatment for chronic pain. What this study adds is that the type of psychotherapy matters.
EAET has one primary intervention: experiencing, expressing and releasing emotions.
Developed in the 2010s, the therapy aims to show patients that the brain's perception of pain is strongly influenced by stress-related emotions. Patients are asked to focus on a stressful interaction, from anything as mundane as being cut off by a driver to severe traumas .
The purpose is to have patients experience these emotions both in mind and in body. The patients then work to confront these emotions, express their reactions and ultimately to let go.
If there is a hurt or stressor people have a series of normal, natural emotional reactions. There might be anger, guilt and sadness. Because these feelings are painful, people often avoid them, but EAET helps people face difficult feelings with honesty and self-compassion. In therapy, they can release anger, pain and guilt that they've been carrying and are left with self-compassion in the end.

Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Chronic Pain in Older Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.15842. jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman … tworkopen.2024.15842

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 9:37am

Confronting trauma alleviates chronic pain among older veterans, study shows

Our soap operas and movies say as some  people cannot bear pain from trauma, it is better to hide things from them.

However, science has a different view on this. A new study found chronic pain among older adults could be significantly reduced through a newly developed psychotherapy that works by confronting past trauma and stress-related emotions that can exacerbate pain symptoms.

Published in JAMA Network Open on June 13, the study compared the newer therapy, known as emotional awareness and expression therapy, or EAET, to traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, in treating chronic pain as well as mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among older veterans.

The study found that 63% of veterans who underwent EAET reported at least a 30% reduction in pain—a clinically significant reduction—after treatment compared to only 17% of veterans who underwent cognitive behavioral therapy.

Pain reduction was sustained among 41% of EAET participants six months after treatment compared to 14% of CBT patients. Additionally, EAET patients reported greater benefits for addressing anxiety, depression, PTSD and life satisfaction.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 8:51am

Scientists analyzed the video footage and compared how wildlife responded to various recreation noises as well as nature sounds and periods without any broadcasted noise. Key findings from the study:

• Increased fleeing and vigilance: Wildlife were 3.1 to 4.7 times more likely to flee and exhibited vigilance behaviors for 2.2 to 3.0 times longer when exposed to recreation noise compared to natural sounds or no noise.
• Reduced wildlife presence: The local relative abundance of wildlife was observed to be 1.5 times lower in the week following the deployment of recreation noise.
• Impact of group size and activity type: Larger groups, particularly vocal hikers and mountain bikers, caused the highest probability of wildlife flight, with 6 to 8 times greater likelihood.
• Species sensitivity: Elk and black bears were the most sensitive to recreation noise, fleeing from the recreationist sounds most consistently, while large carnivores were the least affected.

Outdoor recreation activities like hiking, mountain biking, and motorized vehicle use are steadily increasing, both in numbers of people recreating and number of days spent participating in these activities.

Noise from recreation can carry far beyond a trail system, so understanding how noise alone can affect wildlife is important for management.

Experimental recreationist noise alters behavior and space use of wildlife, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.05.030. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(24)00673-0

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 14, 2024 at 8:50am

New study shows outdoor recreation noise affects wildlife behaviour and habitat use

We may go to the woods seeking peace and quiet, but are we taking our noise with us? A study published in the journal, Current Biology, led by scientists from the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station indicates that the answer is yes—and that this noise can trigger a fear response, as if escaping from predators.

This new science calls into question whether otherwise high-quality habitat truly provides refugia for wildlife when recreationists are present and underscores the challenges land managers face in balancing outdoor recreational opportunities with wildlife conservation.

This new study is the first to quantify responses to human-produced recreation noise based on recreation type, group size, group vocalizations, and wildlife species. Information like this can help managers balance recreation opportunities with wildlife management, which is critical as outdoor recreation continues to grow in popularity.

The study was conducted in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming. Researchers used a novel experimental setup to isolate and investigate the effects of recreation noise on several mammal species.

Scientists placed wildlife cameras and speakers on wildlife trails throughout the study areas. Animals that entered study areas triggered speakers to broadcast different types of noise, and nearby cameras captured video of the animals' behavioral responses to the sounds.

The broadcasted noises were associated with different types of recreation such as hiking, mountain biking, and off highway vehicle use, as well as different-sized groups, and both with and without human voices. This setup allowed the researchers to observe both the immediate responses in animal behavior to recreation noise and changes in wildlife presence at the study areas.

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