Researchers have found that Tibetans have increased nitric oxide (NO) levels, which leads to an increase in vasodilation and blood flow. With higher NO levels causing an increase in blood flow, Tibetans have adapted to higher altitude levels.

When people have lived 2,500 meters above sea level, they experience hypoxia or lack of oxygen. In extreme cases of hypoxia people can experience altitude sickness. However, people who have lived at high altitudes for thousands of years have adapted to such extreme conditions. These people have an increased in hemoglobin concentration which compensates for hypoxia. With an increase in hemoglobin, oxygen is able to be transported through the body more efficiently.

The authors believe that previous studies have overlooked anatomical placodes in reptiles because they are difficult to see during development.

Although some scientists think that the similarities in development of hair, feathers, and scales are evidence that they are homologous, others believe that they evolved independently.

They propose that these pathways served a different function in the common ancestor of mammals, reptiles, and birds, and that they were only later co-opted for the development of hair, feathers, and scales.

Several signaling pathways involved in skin development and patterning are conserved across species. Different authors have reached different conclusions about whether these pathways are homologous or whether they evolved independently.

Morphogens (chemicals which direct the development of different structures) interact to form gradients or concentrate in different parts of an organism. This leads to patterns in the placement and arrangement of appendages.

Using a CRISPR RNA (crRNA) that is base-paired to a trans-activating crRNA (tracrRNA) will allow the scientists to direct the Cas9 to a specified area of the DNA and cause a double-strand break at the target location.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system can be used to target and remove specific sequences from DNA. This is done by using a guide RNA that directs the CRISPR/Cas9 system to the correct location in the DNA sequence.

RNAi is triggered by double stranded RNAs, which are processed into small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). siRNAs target complementary RNAs for destruction, which inhibits gene expression and allows for creation of knockouts.

Human and Drosophila RNAi libraries have been made to map out the effectiveness of RNAi and the knockout ability in particular genes. Vector-based short hairpin RNAs are artificial molecules that can be used to selectively target genes. Libraries of these molecules can be used for genetic screens in both short-term and long-term assays.

Although RNAi is a very effective tool, there are sometimes problems with completely turning off specific genes or targeting the correct gene.

Lazear, Govero, Smith, Platt, Fernandez, Miner, Diamond (2016) studied the disease development of zika virus in different types of knockout mice. The knockout mice that had no functioning interferon pathways were the mice that picked up the disease. It was also observed that zik virus was found in the highest viral load in the testes of affected male mice.

Cauchemez and colleagues (2016) found that infection of Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with newborns with microcephaly. The study provides a quantitative estimate of microcephaly risk in newborns of mothers who are infected by Zika. 95 cases per 10,000 infected woman within the first trimester was associated with microcephaly risk.

Chavali, Putz, and Gergely (2014) researched the genetics behind microcephaly.

    Microcephaly can be caused by abnormal development of neurons, recessive mutations, and centrosome abnormality. Microcephaly may be classified as a centrosome disorder. Although centrosomes are recognized to have importance in cellular processes, more evidence needs to be conducted to further understand the significance of microcephaly and disease, specifically diseases that affect brain development. 

Adams Waldorf and McAdams researched the side effects of infections on the fetus during pregnancy.

Depending on the type of pathogen, the fetus may die, acquire organ injury, or obtain abnormal bone growth. Pathogens that disturb fetal development are the pathogens that seem to be the most detrimental to the fetus in utero. Understanding the mechanisms the pathogens use to disrupt development may lead to the development of therapies that can be used to help fetal development and survival

Cugola et al., (2016) found that ZIKV infects fetuses, causes intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and causes signs of microcephaly in mice.

Data demonstrated that the infection of ZIKV into human brain organoids (a miniature organ in vitro) reduced proliferation and disrupted cortical layers. This indicates that ZIKV is able to cross the placenta and cause microcephaly by inducing apoptosis in cortical progenitor cells.

Neonicotinoids (and nicotine) work by [insert info about Ach]

There are two major reasons for the popularity of neonicotinoids. First, neonicotinoids bind more specifically to insect (vs. vertebrate) neuron receptors, which makes them relatively safer than other types of pesticides for birds and mammals. Second, neonicotinoids are water-soluble, which allows the chemicals to be applied to soil and taken up by growing plants instead of sprayed onto them. This prevents chemicals from being blown away by wind and, in theory, means beneficial insects won't be affected because they are not feeding directly on the plant..

In this study from 2009, the results of diversification, when subpopulations with independent genetic modifications emerge, were concluded not to be homogenous in their relation to performance. This concept is further analyzed through this experiment in the speciation and the variation of defense strategies.

• Carolina Jimenez-Pinilla

This statement addresses the variables that must be acknowledged when trying to analyze different plants and their different defense strategies. The "resource limitation across habitats" that the author is referring to is what in the environment can the plant use to defend itself in its habitat from threats such as herbivorous insects.

• Carolina Jimenez-Pinilla

The sources mention, that in a habitat with a low amount of productivity there is a good amount of strong plants/ plants that are "rich in chemical defenses". In a habitat with lower productivity, the plants are thought to do this in order to increase its life span. Therefore, as the productivity and the amount of herbivores changes the strength and and amount of the resources changes.

For more information check out: Tropical Blackwater Rivers, Animals, and Mast Fruiting by the Dipterocarpaceae

Angela Mujica

The statement reinforces the hypothesis due to the fact that there has been peer reviewed data that can be compared to the research that has been conducted.- Alejandro

Shark conservation regulations entail the prohibition of shark fin trade actions such as the removal cutting of shark fins or the pursuit of hunting sharks for any other purpose. -Sindy

Site fidelity is the idea that an organism is primed for a certain place or spatial area and that this place is a reoccurring habitat to which that organism returns to or permanently lives in. This section of the passage states that increased levels of site fidelity correlate to increased levels of shark abundance in these areas despite the fact that risks pursue the movement of the sharks between the site to which fidelity is displayed. -Sindy

In Asia, shark fins are a delicacy and showcase ones wealth. The Asian shark fin trade accounts for the biggest percentage of shark deaths. -Emily

First proposed in the 1960s, the molecular clock hypothesis has become universally used in evolutionary biology, especially genetics. The hypothesis states that DNA evolves at a rate that is directly proportional with time, which allows scientists to determine direct relationships and differences between organisms (Ho, S. 2008). Learn More at https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-molecular-clock-and-estimating-species-divergence-41971 -Eri-Ray

Cas9 nickase creates a break in one strand of the double-stranded helix. These nicks are repaired with a very high fidelity.

Using Cas9 with off-set sgRNA simultaneously nicks both strands, and may lead to a reduction of off-target modifications.

Lentiviral vectors are commonly used for gene insertion because of their stability. It is easy to control the number of vectors, and once integrated into the gene the inserted DNA segment is likely to stay there.

Scientists previously discovered that Aβ levels vary in a daily cycle, and that Aβ levels in the interstitial fluid rise as humans and mice spend more time awake.

This surprising finding could add to our understanding of diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and insomnia.

However, this result says nothing about the mechanism — that is, increased Aβ during wakefulness could be owing to increased production, decreased degradation, reduced clearance, or processes like synaptic function that are related to both sleep and Aβ.

The current article addresses this ambiguity directly.

The lymphatic system does not extend to the brain. The brain has it's own system for clearing waste.

In the rest of the body, the lymphatic system "cleans" up waste and moves it to the liver where it is destroyed.

Years of scientific research has already discovered this about sleep.

The idea in place here is the observation of evolution in herbivorous in correlation to the environment and all its factors.

The study provides proof of evolution in herbivorous in respect to the environment by analyzing adaptive radiation. It includes the third trophic level, omnivores and carnivorous that eat these herbivorous. This is an important factor that is part of the ecological niche of these herbivorous. It includes the third trophic level, omnivores and carnivorous that eat these herbivorous. This is an important factor that is part of the ecological niche of these herbivorous.

To further understand adaptive radiation watch [(https://www.brightstorm.com/science/biology/evolution/adaptive-raditaion/)

-Luisa Bermeo

A nursery area is a location in which a large subset of the species is populated. For example, a swamp is a nursery area for many types of mosquitoes. The idea that reef sharks do not have a "geographically discrete nursery area" simply means that one can spot a population of reef sharks rather easily in this habitat. -Sindy

Acoustic monitoring is the use of hydrophones (much like a microphone or recorder) to detect the presence of marine animals via sound waves produced by the noises they make. In this case, it was noted that several marine animals continued to inhabit marine reserves for year round periods thus reducing their exposure to fisheries and their potential dangers. -Sindy

Braver, Thoemmes, and Rosenthal (28) argue that judging the success of a replication only by whether it shows a significant effect (in the current study, at the 0.05 threshold) would be inappropriate.

They argue that replication success depends a lot on the statistical power and therefore on the sample size used in the replication study. The replication study must have sufficiently many subjects so that it is probable enough that the effect in question, should it really exist in the population, can be found in this sample. If a replication study had low power, for example because the size of the original effect was overestimated and the replication sample size was consequently too small, this makes it less likely that the replication attempt will be successful and show a result that is statistically significant at the 0.05 threshold.

For each individual replication study, the replication success therefore depends on the sample size. If you assess several replication attempts individually, the replication success rate could therefore be distorted to underestimate how reproducible an effect really is.

To circumvent this problem, the authors suggest using a different technique than counting if individual replications were significant at the 0.05 threshold. They analysis is called “continuously cumulating meta-analysis”. The data of several replication attempts are combined, so that conclusions on whether the data of all the replication attempts supports the effect of interest.

After a new replication attempt is conducted, its data is added to the pool of data from previous replication attempts. This data is then taken together, and on the combined data, a test is run to estimate the effect of interest.

Prinz and colleagues (11) comment on their experience as employees of a pharmaceutical company, which relies on preclinical research to decide whether to invest into the exploration and development of new drugs. Because companies find many preclinical research findings unreliable, they now often conduct their own research to reproduce the original findings before they decide to move on and invest large sums of money into the actual drug development.

Only in about 20% to 25% of the cases did the company scientists report finding results of the reproduction that were in line with the originally reported findings.

Begley and Ellis (10) are cancer researchers, who propose ways for research methods, publication practices and incentives for researchers to change so that research would yield more reliable results, such as more effective drugs and treatments. They argue that often new drugs and treatments enter clinical trials, which test their effectiveness to treat cancer in humans, before they reach sufficient standards in preclinical testing, leading to non-reproducible findings. To achieve more reliable preclinical results, they argue that more focus should be placed on reproducing promising findings in the preclinical phase.

Braver, Thoemmes, and Rosenthal (28) argue that judging the success of a replication only by whether it shows a significant effect (in the current study, at the 0.05 threshold) would be inappropriate. They argue that replication success depends a lot on the statistical power and therefore on the sample size used in the replication study. The replication study must have sufficientl subjects so that it is probable enough that the effect in question, should it really exist in the population, can be found in this sample. If a replication study had low power, for example because the size of the original effect was overestimated and the replication sample size was consequently too small, this makes it less likely that the replication attempt will be successful and show a result that is statistically significant at the 0.05 threshold. For each individual replication study, the replication success therefore depends on the sample size. If you assess several replication attempts individually, the replication success rate could therefore be distorted to underestimate how reproducible an effect really is.

To circumvent this problem, the authors suggest using a different technique than counting if individual replications were significant at the 0.05 threshold. Their analysis is called “continuously accumulatingmeta-analysis.” The data of several replication attempts are combined, so that conclusions on whether the data of all the replication attempts supports the effect of interest.[[this sentence doesn't make sense to me]] After a new replication attempt is conducted, its data is added to the pool of data from previous replication attempts. This data is then taken together, and on the combined data, a test is run to estimate the effect of interest.

Ioannidis conducted computer simulations to show that for most studies, it is more likely for a finding to be a false positive than a true identification of an effect.

Among the factors that make it more likely for research findings to be false are small sample size or the underlying effect, and when designs, definitions, and analyses are more flexible rather than rigorously objective.

In many ecological systems, there can be more than one "stable, final state" for a community, depending on the history of the community. In a more extreme example, a single, barren part of the ocean floor could end up either a coral-dominated or algae-dominated system depending on a variety of factors including fishing pressure and the first organisms to colonize it.

Rare disturbances like hurricanes could create patches of coral reef that are dominated by different species.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/10-0378.1/full

Some species of damselfish cultivate and defend lawns of algae—which serve as a source of food—on dead coral. Damselfish are known for being fiercely territorial and will fight off other species that enter their home territory.

MEGA which stands for: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis is a software in which the user can create DNA sequence alignments, look at phylogenetic histories, and conduct molecular evolutionary analysis (tamura et al. 2013). The MEGA can estimate the divergences of the phylogenetic tree as well as building a phylogenetic tree with time as a scale. -Elder Learn more at: MEGA6: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis Version 6.0

The maximum frequency at which a fish can oscillate its tail is limited by the twitch contraction time of the white lateral muscle. The maximum swimming speed is then predictable if the distance moved forwards on completion of each oscillation (the stride) is known. -Mikaela

An increase from the standard amount of fish in the area for reproduction purposes was believed to have an insignificant role in providing a reef shark's energy needs. Originally, sharks feeding on the greater amount of fish was thought of as an infrequent addition. -ASR

Describes the initial observation leading to the purpose of the study. --CGG

Many corals sexually reproduce by releasing large numbers of eggs and sperm into the water at once. This requires synchronized timing between multiple colonies and may only happen once a year. Some other corals retain the egg in the parent colony where it is fertilized and then later released.

Corals can also form colonies by asexual reproduction—coral fragments that break off of a parent colony can survive and grow into a new colony. New colonies are also sometimes formed by budding off of existing colonies.

Corals compete for space and light with each other as well as other organisms such as algae. Algae have the ability to grow much faster than coral and can quickly overgrow and shade coral if given the chance. Reef herbivores such as the sea urchin Diadema antillarum play an important role in keeping algae at bay, maintaining coral reefs.

Various studies describe the aftermath of tropical cyclones on coral reefs. Effects of storms seem to vary depending on the structure, form, and composition of the affected reef.

None of the studies cited had intimate knowledge of the impacted reefs immediately before the disturbance.

Making robust ecological conclusions about the effects on an ecosystem of a natural event, such as a hurricane, requires thorough knowledge of that ecosystem both before and after the event.

Because Jamaican coral reefs were well-studied before, during, and after Hurricane Allen, this study is different from previous studies of the effects of hurricanes on coral reef organisms.

Disturbances in the environment, such as storms and fires, can affect the state of an ecological community.

For example, traditional ecological knowledge dictates that when disturbances are frequent or intense, all species in the affected area may become locally extinct. But when disturbances are rare, the community may become dominated by only the most competitive species.

Counterintuitively, an intermediate level of disturbance may maintain the highest level of biodiversity.

type in annotation

Local adaptation increases species survival in the local environment but can reduce survival in foreign environments. Unfortunately, if the climate in the local environment rapidly changes then local adaptations may no longer be beneficial.

The threat of rapidly changing environments to species has been reviewed in these papers. Jump and Penuelas discuss that as climates rapidly change migration may no longer be a solution for species survival. Therefore, the ability of species to adapt to the changes is even more important.

The worrying consequences of rapidly changing environments have stimulated research such as this paper to better understand adaptation.

Ehrenreich and Purugganan reviewed research on the molecular basis of plant adaptation in 2006 and concluded that not enough is known. For instance it is not well understood how many genes are responsible per adaptation. Neither is it understood whether certain types of mutations are more likely to be responsible for adaptation.

Eckert et al., used a genome wide data set of small variations in Pinus taeda (loblolly pine) to identify changes in the genome that were correlated with variations in the climate. By doing this they identified a set of genes that may have been necessary in local adaptation of the loblolly pine.

Local adaptation has been clear in Arabidopsis plants growing in salty soil by the coast. Alleles of the sodium transporter, HKT1, that enhance salt tolerance have been found to be much more common in populations living by the coast.

This paper is in the same issue of Science and describes a different way to visualize translation in the cell using fluorescent markers.

It might be difficult to recreate this mouse model in humans because previous research has shown that removing the gene that encodes tau in humans leads to serious learning impairments.

This work was covered by AlzForum, a leading advocacy group for Alzheimer’s research and patients.

Read more at AlzForum:

http://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/app-mice-losing-tau-solves-their-memory-problems

During the course of Alzheimer’s disease, excess stimulation can occur in neurons, causing problems in the brain (including seizures).

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/813029

Previous research has shown that fragments of abnormal tau are toxic and may also play a role in how toxic amyloid-β is to neurons. In fact, neurons lacking tau seem immune to damage by amyloid-β.

This may be the reason why, in this study, the researchers found that the reduction of tau had improved memory, even though amyloid-β or plaque levels remained unchanged.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15930385

Phosphorylation adds a phosphate group to a molecule. When proteins (like enzymes) are phophorylated, their function and activity changes.

Abnormal tau that is more phosphorylated than normal is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

In mice, tau is phosphorylated similarly to tau in humans, which makes comparisons feasible and simple.

Previous research has shown that damaging an area of the brain (the entorhinal cortex) that sits next to the hippocampus can make an animal hyperactive.

Damage to the entorhinal cortex is common in Alzheimer’s disease. Using the same methodology as in previous studies, the authors therefore tested their mice for increased hyperactivity to see whether there was any evidence of damage to this brain area.

Although the sequence of molecular events that causes Alzheimer's disease was and still is unclear, it is generally believed that, as a first step, amyloid-β proteins build up into plaques; then, abnormal tau proteins kill neurons and build up into tangles.

Targeting plaques as a treatment therefore made sense, because, if successful, it would affect the disease earlier in the process of neural destruction.

When this paper was published in 2007, virtually all experimental treatments for Alzheimer’s disease targeted the amyloid-β proteins, either to stop their production, to help the brain get rid of them better, or to stop them from building up into plaques.

The plaques formed from built-up amyloid-β were easy to see in tissue samples from Alzheimer’s patients and it seemed like an obvious target.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a known risk factor for cognitive decline, dementia, and neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's) later in life.

However, the diagnosis of CTE in teenagers and young adults is important because they do not have some of the indicators of Alzheimer's disease. This suggests a different disease mechanism.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, most species have not experienced range declines in the southern parts of their ranges.

Confirms 1:25-1:47: "In 1998, Mickey Mouse was about enter the public domain. To stop that from happening, Disney and other companies lobbied Congress to extend the term of copyright by decades, just so they could retain ownership of him and other characters."

Sort of confirms 0:10-0:14 - "Back in the 20s, our copyright system worked the way it was supposed to. An artist who created a new work could claim the exclusive right to it for 56 years." The claims are off by 50 years.

Confirms 2:00-2:13 - "Because of these laws, nothing has entered the public domain in years. In fact, nothing went into the public domain until 2019."

Confirms 1:25-1:47: "In 1998, Mickey Mouse was about enter the public domain. To stop that from happening, Disney and other companies lobbied Congress to extend the term of copyright by decades, just so they could retain ownership of him and other characters."

C-fibers are a subgroup of touch receptors that respond to gentle pleasant touch.

Scientists have previously used fMRI brain scans to determine which parts of the human brain showed increased activity during tickling.

Many Labs replication projects are studies in which multiple labs attempt to replicate the same effect. In this example, 36 teams of researchers from different countries attempted to replicate the same 13 effects, with more than 6000 participants.

The data revealed that 10 effects could consistently be replicated, while one effect showed only weak support for replication and two effects could not be replicated successfully.

Prahler and Wagenmakers (13) argue that doubts about the reproducibility of findings in psychology became increasingly critical after events such as the fraud case of Stapel in 2011, where fabricated and manipulated data resulted in numerous retractions of journal articles, or the debate around findings published by Bem in 2011, where claims that people had an ability to forsee the future were shown not to be replicable.

The suspicion that researchers engaged in "questionable research practices"(QRPs) turned out to be more justified than the field had expected.

Nosek and Lakens (7) argue in this editorial that registered reports are a partial solution to the problem of few incentives for researchers to conduct replications. A registered report is an article format, where a proposal for replication is peer-reviewed before data is collected, and the pre-registered report of the replication will be published no matter what the data shows.

Schmidt (8) argues that, although replication is critical for scientific progress, little systematic thought had been applied to how to go about replications.

He suggests to differentiate direct replication (the repetition of an experimental procedure) and conceptual replication (the repeated test of a hypothesis or result using different methods).

Moreover, he summarizes five main functions that replications serve: to control for sampling error, artifacts or fraud, to extend results to a larger or different populations and to check the assumptions earlier experiments made.

Schmidt concludes that, although a scientific necessity, replications can be practically difficult to conduct, in particular because this type of work is not always easy to publish or highly regarded. Instead, he recommends that studies which include novel research questions could also include elements of replication of previous findings.

There are a number of scientists who argue for reproducibility from the perspective of philosophy of science, arguing that scientific theory and explanation require reproducibility to enable scientific progress.

Hurricanes hit the southern coast of Jamaica more often than the northern coast, and scientists have previously thought that this may be the reason for the observed differences in coral communities.

Differences include larger areas of dead coral and lower population densities of corals in certain reef zones on the southern coast.

Using in situ hybridization (labeling nucleic acids with probes) on sections of dengue-2 infected mosquito cells, Grief showed that in dengue-2 infected mosquito cells, the smooth membrane structures contained both viral RNA and virus particles.

This suggests that the smooth membrane structures are important sites for the concentration of viral RNA and possibly for formation of the viral envelope.

Tang et al. obtained human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) from stem cells. They used a particular ZIKV strain that successfully infected hNPCs, and found that the infected cells released ZIKV particles.

The growth of hNPCs was stunted, and an analysis of DNA content suggested that this attenuation might have been due to a disturbance in the cell cycle.

Zika virus has also been detected in microcephalic fetuses.

The Brazilian strain of the virus has been traced to an Asian strain.

In several case studies of pregnant women diagnosed with fetal microcephaly, the women suffered from symptoms of infection with Zika virus.

After miscarrying, ZIKAV RNA and antigens were detected in the placental tissues and the amniotic fluid of the microcephalic fetuses. The sequencing analysis of the virus genotype revealed a genotype of Asian origin.

Read more case studies that made headlines:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3451984/Zika-cross-placenta-infect-unborn-babies-Traces-virus-amniotic-fluid-surrounding-two-fetuses-diagnosed-microcephaly.html

The cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the brain) shows the most severe reduction in microcephaly. This might be explained by reduced division in the cells that neurons come from, resulting in fewer neurons. This, in turn, leads to a smaller cerebral cortex.

These articles show that receiving a grant for postdoctoral research leads to an increase in productivity.

In these articles, the authors found out that there was no link between higher ratings from the peer-review committee and the number of citations the article eventually got.

In this article, the authors showed that getting a research grant partially depends on chance. They reviewed the same proposals with different committees, who each gave different results.

The aim of the peer-review committees is to ensure research is high-quality and to encourage innovation. However, it has been shown that peer review committees can be undermined by various factors.

A common hypothesis for the way blast waves cause traumatic brain injury is that the pressure from the blast compresses the thorax (chest region) and part of the circulatory system. It is thought that this creates vascular pressure, which forces blood into the brain and increases intracranial pressure. This is known as the "water hammer effect."

The majority of previous studies did not allow free movement of the head during blast exposure in shock tubes. Because of this, these studies showed minimal or no brain injury from blast exposure, contributing to the long-held belief that blast exposure is not linked to brain injury.

By allowing free movement of the head, the authors obtained results that proved otherwise, i.e., blast exposure can cause brain injury and have long-term neurological consequences.

The unique neuropathological lesion of CTE is an irregular accumulation of NFTs and glial tangles around the small blood vessels deep in the sulci (grooves) of the cortex.

Repetitive concussive injury means that the athlete had multiple reported concussions. Recent research suggests that repeated impacts to the head (but not necessarily concussions) are related to an increased risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases including CTE.

Thus, the number of head impacts, regardless of how many resulted in concussion, is a more accurate measure of risk of long-term neurological consequences, including CTE.

Between 2001 and 2016 in the United States, Republican concern about climate change decreased, while Democrats' concern increased. In 2001 there was a 29% gap between the two parties' concern; this gap increased to 44% by 2016.

Biophilic design of buildings includes facilitating actual contact with nature (for instance, access to natural light), using natural materials (such as wood), and representing nature through artwork. Like nature itself, biophilic design tends to be complex and dynamic, imitating elements such as water and vegetation. It provides natural patterns that humans have evolved to prefer, such as "prospect and refuge" or the ability to see others without being seen.

Biophilic designs tend to support human health and well-being, productivity, and our sense of connection to nature.

It may take a lifetime, or longer, to develop Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), but it is possible to quite quickly reconnect oneself with surrounding natural systems. All that is required is time spent outside with some amount of intentional observation and appreciation for the nonhuman world.

Creating efficient systems is a critical goal of companies as it creates a larger margin of profit. Through this lens, an organizational leader might conclude that sustainability is about using resources like petroleum more efficiently. Though using less petroleum is better than the status quo, the efficiency mindset does not guide us to ask questions like "Is there a way to avoid using petroleum altogether?" This outside-of-the-box thinking facilitates the radical changes we need to make to our systems.

Social pressure, whether real or perceived, keeps people from acting or speaking up even if they believe that something is terribly wrong. Social pressure can result from the rules—both written policies and unwritten norms—we develop as groups and pressure to conform to them.

Diverging from group rules means potential rejection from the group. This means that people who act must be willing to experience the strong negative emotions associated with potential rejection (e.g., fear, embarrassment).

Van Velsor and Quinn identify three tasks of organizational leaders: communicate vision, or the direction the organization should go; align all of the different organizational activities toward the vision; and build member commitment to the vision.

When a leader's vision includes sustainability, then it expands decision-making to include future generations and whole systems. Further, when leaders understand how drastically organizations have to change, and how complex and interdependent systems really are, they are likely to support innovations and new, untested ideas.

Two examples of impacts created by business organizations:

Industries ranging from construction to dry cleaning create significant amounts of toxic waste.

In 2014, the United States Envrionmental Protection Agency estimated that the industrial sector of the economy contributes about 29% of greenhouse gasses. This means that the direct (e.g., chemical reactions during production) and indirect (e.g., using electricity, transporting goods) emissions linked to making the material goods that we use every day are the largest contributor to our carbon footprint.

Organizational culture consists of the values, norms, stories, and symbols that help people understand "how things work around here" in any given organization.

The fact that norms and values are linked to pro-environmental employee behavior is not surprising. What is surprising is that so little research is being done to replicate these findings to create a more robust literature on employee pro-environmental behavior.

Inoue and Alfaro-Barrantes summarize 17 research articles in their review. Note: This is not very many articles for such an important topic. Ten of the articles focused on the impact of social norms. Fewer articles addressed values, organizations' work policies, and leadership. Yet, the findings for these cultural attributes do indicate that they affect employee pro-environmental behaviors.

Very little research has been done specifically about the motivation to take political action about climate change. However, the few studies that have find results that are consistent with general motivation theories.

Specifically, people have to believe the outcome is important—in this case, a climate that supports human life.

The problem also has to seem solvable. If something can be done to improve the situation—in this case, if reducing greenhouse gasses will reduce climate change and its impacts—then people will be more likely to expend effort to do it.

Much of a person's identity, or sense of who she or he is, consists of their social connections (e.g., sibling) and roles (e.g., student). If a particular behavior threatens someone's identity as a member of a particular group, then she or he is likely to avoid it.

For instance, if someone identifies with a group of friends that likes to keep up with fashion and regularly shops together to buy the latest styles, it may be hard to speak out publicly about or lead efforts to reduce material consumption.

This statement has two important pieces. First, it refers to the dominant worldview, which is the way most people in developed nations think about how the world works: The world has plenty of resources, we as individuals can use resources as we please, and science and technology can fix things if we mess them up.

Second, this statement refers to how difficult it is for people to say and do things that are different from what everyone else thinks and does. Recall that it was evolutionarily more adaptive to stick with the group than to venture out on one's own. Therefore, even when we learn that resources are limited and that technology often has unintended consequences for the planet, it is very hard to for us to speak up and challenge what other people are saying and doing.

Governments are not likely to take action on climate change unless citizens create public pressure to do so. Yet, public action about climate change has been relatively rare. Even when people know a lot about climate change and value a future free of negative consequences of a changing climate, they do not take public action. This inaction is often due to a belief that public actions won't make a difference.

Many systems we rely on are inefficient or lead to consumptive behavior. For instance, most roads in the United States are designed exclusively for cars. To change road design so that it prioritizes buses, trains, bikes, and pedestrians requires that people show up and speak out at public hearings, city council meetings, and even demonstrations and protests that draw attention to issues.

Most of the psychological research on pro-environmental behavior focuses on personal-sphere behaviors such as recycling, composting, and whether you choose to take a bus or bike rather than drive a car to run errands. These are important individual choices, however, it means that individuals are constantly fighting against systems that make it easier to waste.

Instead, individuals must work with groups, businesses, and governments to change the systems themselves to make it easy to recycle, compost, and bike to run errands. More research needs to be conducted to understand the difference between motivation to change personal-sphere and public-sphere behaviors.

Chevron and ExxonMobil, both United States–based companies, led the pack; each was responsible for over 3% of the global emissions between 1751–2010. The author of the study concluded that the largest emitters should take the lead in responding to climate change, including paying the costs for the poorest nations to adapt to the impacts.

Quite a variety of tools can be employed to increase sustainable behavior. These include: education about the problem; prompts to help people remember; feedback about the effect of behavior changes; incentives to motivate people; creating social norms; and obtaining public commitments.

Which tools will prove most useful depends on how high or low the relative barriers and benefits are.

With a handful of exceptions (including this grid developed by Paul Wesley Schultz) there are few resources to help nonpsychologists decide which intervention matches their needs.

For instance, whether an activity such as taking public transit is considered challenging depends on if cost, comfort, and time are perceived as barriers or benefits. Two individuals with different thoughts—“I’ve already invested in a car and the bus ride takes too much time” versus “A bus pass is cheaper than owning a car and I gain time to read on the bus”—will respond differently to attempted interventions. Incentives such as a discounted bus pass and free wifi may entice people in the first case, whereas prompts may help people break old habits and build new ones in the second case.

It is a myth that the human brain has unlimited capacity. Though our brains are amazing and powerful, they are also specialized and limited.

The world around us is filled with vast amounts of ever-changing data: colors, scents, movements, sizes, speeds—even the most powerful computer would have trouble keeping track of it all. The brain solves the problem of information overload by being very selective in how it allocates its mental resources. One channel of the brain, called "slow thinking" by Kahneman, is conscious and careful. The other channel, called "fast thinking," is very quick, efficient, and easy, but outside of conscious awareness and control. The fast channel gave early humans many advantages for survival because it responds so quickly and moves away from danger.

Political party has emerged as one of the most important determinants of worldview. All human beings have a tendency to seek out and prefer information that agrees with their worldview. Research shows that this contributes to the continuing partisan divide on climate change.

Carmichael, Brulle and Huxster found tentative support for the idea that the media functions like an echo chamber, reinforcing already-existing beliefs. When people listen to something about climate change that they disagree with, it doesn't seem to change their minds. But if they hear something about climate change that aligns with what they already think, their beliefs become strengthened.

One study investigated littering in a parking garage. Flyers were placed on the car windshields, and researchers observed whether participants threw their flyer on the ground. One group of participants was observed when the garage floor was already littered with flyers; a second group encountered a clean floor when they returned to their car. Overall, people littered more in an already littered garage, especially if they saw someone else litter.

However, when the garage floor was clean, seeing someone else litter resulted in the least amount of littering—presumably because the litterer's behavior was more obviously wrong in a clean environment.

Human ancestors lived in small groups and had few protections against risks such as predators and starvation. Working with group members who each contributed unique skills and knowledge made it possible to fight off aggressors and develop more reliable access to food. Being rejected by a group meant being on one's own, which substantially decreased chances of survival. The most successful ancestral humans learned strategies to help maintain group membership.

"System Justification Theory" is related to the "Just World Hypothesis" and helps explain why people avoid change. According to the theory, many people want to see our current social, economic, and political system as being fair and just. These systems provide our way of life; they are familiar and provide a sense of stability, certainty, and a measure of safety. Unfortunately, the way of life provided by the status quo also encourages a great deal of waste and environmental destruction. We unconsciously recognize this conflict, and so may be motivated to deny environmental problems because it is uncomfortable to face the idea that things need to change

In the 1940s, psychologist Abraham Maslow suggested that people are motivated to do things that will fulfill a variety of human needs. The most basic needs are physiological, such as the need to eat and sleep. We also have a need to feel safe, be loved, to feel competent, and to become our best selves (e.g., a good parent, a kind neighbor).

Though contemporary psychologists don't use Maslow's specific theory anymore, the idea that we engage in activities that fulfill basic needs is still a solid principle used to predict human motivation.

Extensive research has identified why we are drawn to some activities and avoid others. We tend to demonstrate persistence, or "intrinsic motivation," when a task fulfills three needs: autonomy, which is the freedom to make choices; relatedness, which is a sense of being socially connected and accepted by others; and competence, which is the need to accomplish an action with grace and to achieve the desired outcome.

When the situation gives us freedom to engage in pro-environmental behaviors of our own choosing—behaviors that take advantage of our specific skills and abilities and provide a platform for engaging with others—we are likely to maintain long-term, intrinsic motivation.

Trying a new activity may threaten our sense of competence, if it is extremely difficult and requires us to step outside of our comfort zone. Because of the unique and complicated challenges associated with solving climate change and other complex environmental problems, it is imperative that people have opportunities to learn and practice new tasks and activities in order to develop competence.

Direct dialogue with others can increase our sense of connection—and thus responsibility to—others. And though you may not automatically think about it, communicating can happen with other species when we pause to listen to the song of the birds, the wind rustling the leaves of a tree, or the skittle of squirrels along the fenceline.

Garett Hardin's description of The Tragedy of the Commons focused on a group of farmers sharing a common grazing area. If the farmers care about each other's well-being, they're less likely to exploit the resource and thus harm their friends and neighbors.

Similarly, if humans felt more connected to each other, to other species, to people in other parts of the world, and to future generations, we might be less likely to keep acting from self-interest, and consider our responsibility to others' well-being.

In 1968, ecologist Garrett Hardin described The Tragedy of the Commons: A group of farmers graze their cows on a limited piece of common land. Each farmer will try to graze as many cows as possible, to maximize personal dairy and meat production. However, too many cows results in overgrazing, destroying the resource for the whole community—including each self-interested farmer.

Solving this "commons dilemma" requires cooperation between the farmers, and a sense of personal responsibility to the group's future.

Most people are aware that burning fossil fuels for virtually all of our daily conveniences (driving our cars, heating and air-conditioning our homes, and using our computers) is causing climate change. We're also aware that this will likely cause serious problems. But those problems seem far off; we tell ourselves, "It's not going to affect me—or at least, it won't any time soon." Consequently, these long-term problems don't motivate us to give up the more immediate pleasures and conveniences we enjoy.

Our ancestors mostly had to worry about being eaten by a larger animal or invading tribes looking to take over one's land. Such clear and present dangers could mostly be dealt with by fleeing (running away) or fighting—perhaps you've heard of the "fight or flight" response to stress.

When threats don't activate the alarm bells associated with visible, tangible, and personal threats, we have a harder time mobilizing a response.

Our evolutionary heritage has caused human beings to put self-interest above the collective good. Van Vugt, Griskevicius, and Schulz say that this tendency to prioritize personal interest is part of a set of "stone age biases" in the human mind.

Under certain circumstances, human beings are able to overcome this bias and work together to preserve a resource for the common good. For large-scale, global problems like climate change or loss of biodiversity, it is much more difficult to get many individuals to cooperate and coordinate for problem-solving and resource conservation that benefits the collective.

A review by Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern summarizes adaptive tools that can be (and are being) employed for effective governance of global resources like oceans, clean freshwater, and the climate.

Many people will not change behavior until they experience a personal crisis, commonly known as "hitting bottom"—and even then, change is very difficult. Even smokers diagnosed with cancers and other serious diseases find it difficult to quit (see http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/23/10201507-many-keep-smoking-after-cancer-diagnosis?lite )

A review of prior work leads to a new way to frame research questions in Dickinson (2009). Within this proposed framework, the author points out that many people manage their anxiety about climate change by consuming; this could include going shopping, eating junk food, or gaming (i.e., using technology as a distraction). Though these activities may make us feel better in the short term, such actions don't help our situation—in fact, they make things worse.

These behaviors burn a lot of fossil fuel. Researchers put together a list of the most effective changes a household can make to reduce their fossil fuel consumption. Topping the list of high–fossil fuel consuming behaviors was driving solo and space heating in the home.

To read about the most effective changes a household can make, see the article in Environment Magazine: http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/September-October%202008/gardner-stern-full.html

A group of researchers at the Yale Center for Climate Communication found that 45% of Americans are "alarmed" or "concerned" about climate change; these are the individuals most likely to join actions such as contacting elected officials on the issue.

About a third of the survey respondents were in the middle of the scale, "cautious" or "disengaged;" these people haven't thought much about the issue or don't see it as having personal relevance.

The remaining 21% were labelled "doubtful" and "dismissive," as they are skeptical and tend to oppose acting on climate change.

Particularly in the United States and other industrialized countries, people tend to overconsume and waste resources. For example, although less than 5% of the world's population lives in the United States, its citizens use more than 20% of the world's oil supply. Scientists have developed the "ecological footprint" to measure the rate at which people use resources compared to how rapidly nature can replenish the resources.

You can calculate your "ecological footprint" at www.footprintnetwork.org

By some estimates, people in industrialized nations spend as much as 90% of their time indoors. This is also true for children, who tend to spend much more of their time using electronics than doing outdoor activities. In earlier times, people had to be outside and interacting with natural systems in order to meet their daily needs.

These daily interactions with nature and ecosystems gave human beings a much deeper knowledge of them. Today, it is possible in industrialized nations to meet all needs without ever stepping a foot outdoors; food comes from the grocery store, water comes from the tap, and energy comes from the flick of a switch. It is difficult to truly understand how nature works, and how it provides for human needs, if one never interacts with it.

A substantial amount of recent research has examined how people react after being exposed to nature. Exposure ranges from seeing pictures of nature, the presence of plants and fresh air, to walking in nature. In some experimental projects participants are randomly assigned to walk along an urban path or a nature path. Results tend to show positive benefits such as being better able to pay attention or stress reduction.

Valuable nature experiences are those that help people understand that nature is integral to their lives. This helps people understand nature as something near and important rather than something far away that we might want to save if we have time and money.

Experiencing nature with others such as friends and family, can be valuable for building shared values for it, and for strengthening social bonds.

Having a deep understanding of nature, and feeling a connection to it, leads to a sense of responsibility toward the natural world. We humans protect the things we know and care about.

Human beings have a huge capacity for empathy, and our efforts to protect nature often arise from feelings of empathy toward the animals that inhabit natural spaces. Zoos provide an important opportunity for people to learn about and feel a connection to wild animals.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is developed over long periods of time and passed along from generation to generation through oral teachings, demonstrations, stories, and rituals. People in indigenous cultures attend carefully to current weather, land, and water conditions and compare them to what is known about the long history of the local environment.

TEK tends to be based on qualitative observations and attention to complexity and change, instead of quantitative measurements and experimentation.

TEK has been related to effective environmental management strategies (e.g., controlling deforestation and maintaining biodiversity of ecosystems) and is increasingly being used to inform how environmental policy is developed.

Each generation of humans thinks that the natural environment they experience as children is normal. Over time, however, humans have degraded our environment so that what is now perceived as normal is not as rich and healthy as it used to be. This is called "environmental generational amnesia."

For instance, children who live in polluted cities may understand the problem of pollution in general, yet don't think their own air or water was polluted since they don't have any other experience for comparison.

If people are aware of the power of social influence, they are better able to resist its negative influence. It can take a great deal of courage to resist social pressure; the first step in achieving that courage is to be able to identify situations where social influence, such as conformity, the bystander effect, or obedience, could lead to unethical or immoral consequences.

Leaders draw power from being an expert, being liked, and being able to dole out rewards and punishments. The more power a person holds, the more able they are to "get away" with behavior that falls outside the norm. Therefore, leaders are better positioned to speak up about changing how an organization does things.

Learn more at National Public Radio's TED Radio Hour: http://www.npr.org/2017/04/07/522857511/adam-galinksy-what-drives-us-to-speak-up

One of the most consistent themes in research and theory about motivation is that we're more motivated to act when behavior is consistent with group norms and we think others will approve. So, what does it take to override this strong motivator?

Philip Zimbardo has spent his whole career studying people who are willing to strike out against what everyone else is doing. He has yet to discover an easy answer.

However, he has developed training programs to help people, especially kids, practice doing good things even when it is not what everyone else is doing. The point is to build a "thick skin" and not be afraid of rejection.

This observation was made in a 1967 Science article written by Lynn White, Jr. He specifically criticized Christianity for placing humans above ecosystems and encouraging environmental destruction.

Once people become familiar with the organization's values that define "how we do things around here," many everyday behaviors become automatic.

When people do not have to fight against cultural norms, they can freely share ideas without fear of rejection or losing others' respect.

When policies reflect "green" or sustainable values, then individuals do not have to decide between following the rules and following what they believe.

Psychologists have been studying motivation for many decades. The theories they develop can be very helpful for diagnosing why people are not motivated in some situations, but are motivated in others.

Common characteristics of motivation theories are:

1. Valued outcomes. People have to desire the outcomes that are at stake.
2. Self-efficacy. People have to believe they are able to accomplish the behavior at hand.
3. Connection between actions and outcomes. People need to believe that the work they do will actually lead to the desired outcome.

Most work on this topic is correlational, meaning we can't make conclusions about which variable is the cause and which is the effect. Geiger and Swim's research is some of the first experimental evidence that manipulating peoples' notions about the opinion of others changes their willingness to speak up about a controversial but important issue.

Psychologists call this "pluralistic ignorance." Research has found this same pattern of misunderstanding when it comes to many different kinds of opinions and attitudes. For instance, it occurs when people are asked about drinking on college campuses and about racial segregation. Although the vast majority reject excessive drinking and segregation, individuals underestimate how many others share those beliefs.

Social approval is a key feature to most theories about human motivation. Prior research shows that people keep from speaking up because they don't want to be disliked. Other studies have found that self-silencing is explained by the desire not to lose people's respect.

One study experimentally compared these two explanations, discovering that people seem to self-silence because they do not want to appear incompetent and lose the respect of others. Thus, in situations when others are likely to agree with us, this risk is reduced.

New work attempts to synthesize ideas from a variety of social sciences including political science, psychology, and sociology, that converge on why people participate in collective action to make political change. Each social science has its own theories, assumptions, terminology, and methods for collecting data.

Four themes have been identified from these diverse disciplines that predict getting politically involved:

1. individuals' identities, especially their group affiliations
2. agency, or the belief that oneself or one's group will be able to make a difference through their activism
3. anger
4. values, and the desire to protect those values

These themes now need to be scientifically tested.

Individuals can make a difference by adjusting their lifestyles and their household behaviors; however, the impact of these changes tends to be small because they are limited to the options available through the systems around us. These systems, such as the way we grow food, the way we produce energy and goods, and our transportation system, tightly constrain and shape individual actions.

The five-step process of Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM):

1. Identify and select environmentally high-impact behaviors to promote.
2. Identify the perceived benefits of, and barriers to, action.
3. Design interventions that effectively decrease barriers to the target behavior and/or increase the benefits of it.
4. Try out the intervention on a small group first.
5. Launch the program within the broader target community and evaluate its effectiveness.

Climate change is no longer a distant, abstract threat. Scientists have clear and growing evidence that the earth is warming, and that it is caused by human behavior such as the burning of fossil fuels. Individuals all over the planet are also noticing the effects of climate change in the form of extreme storms and rainfall, floods, sea level rise, drought, heatwaves, and warmer winter temperatures.

Climate change is not only causing strange weather. Scientists have recorded alterations in different organisms that they trace to climate change. For example, some plants are budding and flowering earlier in the spring, and some animals have changed in average size.

Explore more of this accumulated evidence in Science: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/aaf7671.full

A survey conducted in 2015 found that, in the United States, 68% of Democrats but only 20% of Republicans agreed that climate change "is a very serious problem."

A similar pattern was found in Germany, Australia, and Canada. In each of these countries, members of left-of-center parties were more likely to agree that "climate change will harm me personally" than members of right-of-center (or conservative) parties.

Researchers looked at the differences between groups of climate change "believers" and climate change "skeptics." They suggest that opinion on climate change has become a strong group affiliation marker, such that individuals think of others as part of their in-group if they hold the same opinion of climate change. In addition, part of the in-group identity of climate change skeptics is anger toward climate change believers.

Social norms only exist if they are shared with others, and they are most easily shared and communicated among groups of individuals who hold a common identity. This means that if you consider yourself an environmentalist, you will pay attention to what other environmentalists do and approve of. On the other hand, those who absolutely do not consider themselves environmentalists are unlikely to behave according to environmentalist-specific norms, even if those norms are obvious and clear.

People generally like to fit in with their social groups. Doing something out of the norm, or that we think respected others will disapprove of, is very uncomfortable.

When we hear about evolution by natural selection, we tend to think of morphological features (such as opposable thumbs). But in a similar vein, psychological tendencies (such as the desire to be part of a group) have often passed from generation to generation because they have allowed us to successfully adapt to our environment. Because of their deep roots in our brain development, these psychological traits are very hard for us to modify.

Many of the actions we take and the decisions we make are heavily influenced by social norms and social signals from others around us, but we rarely recognize this. Instead, we believe that we are independent-minded and not susceptible to what other people approve of and do. If you think about it, however, you probably recognize times you have done something because you felt social pressure. Social influence often leads us to do things we later regret.

In his book Influence, Cialdini describes scenarios where people fall prey to social influence without realizing it.

The most impactful messages about climate change present realistic information about the threat combined with suggestions for what individuals can do to effectively combat it.

"You get what you deserve" is an example of a belief associated with the "Just-World Hypothesis" (sometimes known as the Just-World Theory). People want to believe that there is an underlying morality or fairness in the universe; information that contradicts that belief can cause discomfort or denial.

The "social dilemma" of global climate change results from millions of people acting from self-interest: driving cars, flying to vacation destinations, and eating meat (the production of which creates methane, a very potent greenhouse gas). It is hard for people to give up such luxuries, especially when it isn't clear that doing so would solve the problem, or benefit them and their loved ones in the long run.

Can you think of ways to encourage people to feel more personally responsible for longer-term, group benefit?

Just like the fable of the frog who will jump out of a pot of very hot water if suddenly thrown in, but who will allow itself to be boiled to death if placed in a very slowly heating pot, people are not built to notice slowly developing problems like a changing climate.

In one study of undergraduates in Eugene, Oregon, differences in "environmental attitude" and "connectedness to nature" accounted for 36% of the variance in students' "environmental behavior," and these two factors were significantly positively correlated with sustainable behavior. Interestingly, personality differences accounted for very little of the differences in the student behavior.

When people have positive feelings and thoughts toward the natural world (e.g., other animals, forests, coastlines), they typically also have a sense of moral obligation to protect these beloved creatures and places. Such people are less likely to litter, more likely to recycle, and typically use fewer resources.

Evolutionary psychology focuses on how the human brain and behavior have adapted to environmental conditions. The benefit of this approach to psychology is setting up logical predictions based on what would be most adaptive for humans. Researchers can then test these predictions.

Read more at Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/in-defense-of-evolutionary-psycholo-09-08-26/

Humans are predisposed to respond to threats that are intentional, personal, and happening here and now.

Humans are rapidly approaching planetary limits in carrying capacity, which is the maximum number of organisms that can be supported indefinitely without environmental destruction and depletion of resources. Human industrial development has involved unprecedented large-scale exploitation of nature and disruption of ecological systems.

Unfortunately, modern technologies have a destructive potential far deeper and broader than anything that preceded them. Some scholars even propose the designation of a new geologic era, the “Anthropocene,” to signify the scale at which human activity is altering the planet.

Human beings respond to the environment around them as all other biological organisms do. At the most basic level, danger or discomfort makes individuals take protective action, and an appealing or comfortable opportunity causes them to move in a new direction.

Community-Based Social Marketing, a method for promoting sustainable behaviors, recognizes the power of external circumstances and recommends identifying and eliminating the barriers that make it more difficult or uncomfortable to engage in pro-environmental action.

McKenzie-Mohr developed his approach to behavior-change, called Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM), after observing the consistent failure of information-based campaigns targeting values, emotions, and knowledge.

CBSM is described in more detail further on in the article.

The list of factors that influence pro-environmental behavior is long, and includes many internal variables, such as values and beliefs. Research that looks exclusively at these internal variables, however, explains only a small amount of the behavioral differences between individuals, as noted in a study by Bamberg and Möser. Other factors, such as the social context or the immediate situation, strongly influence an individual's action.

Environmental damage has occurred throughout human history; humans have caused geographically isolated species extinctions and resource declines all over the world for centuries.

The collapse of the human society of Easter Island is one example. During the course of just a few centuries, inhabitants utilized all of their once-abundant trees in an effort to move giant effigies to the waterfront. Their diets suffered as did their ability to stay warm and cook food. Their Polynesian paradise has not yet recovered, remaining a land of scrub brush and hardship.

Even for those who have had little experience in nature as children, it is possible to develop a better understanding of, and connection to, nature. For adults, a deeper understanding of nature does not seem to happen automatically, however. It takes attention and awareness.

A small but growing group of studies have examined the impact of hands-on experiences outside such as pond restoration and urban gardening. Results show that these types of environmental education programs positively impact what students know about the environment, how they feel about it, whether they notice nature around them even in urban environments, and self-confidence.

Features of the immediate situation make certain behaviors more or less likely.

For example, moving the fruits and vegetables to the front of the cafeteria line results in children taking (and eating) more of these healthier options. When fruits and vegetables are offered after other, less healthy, foods, people take them less often. This small change in the situational context has significant consequences for the food choices people make.

People with different identities and beliefs, and even those who don't like each other, can be enticed to cooperate if they believe they depend on each other for success. These kinds of shared goals that inspire cooperation are what psychologists call "superordinate goals."

If someone appears biased or incompetent, this sends a signal to others that they are probably not reliable. Because early humans depended on others for their survival, they paid careful attention to how they were perceived by others. Modern humans retain this social sensitivity; most individuals are careful to display positive traits to others so that they are perceived positively.

For early humans, rejection by others meant that the group might withdraw its support, leading to almost certain death.

One of the best known behavior change strategies is Community-Based Social Marketing, created by social psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr.

Kahan and his colleagues found an unexpected result that supports the idea of biased thinking. They looked at individuals with strong skepticism about the reality of climate change and individuals with strong concern about climate change. In both groups, it was those with the highest ability to understand math and science who were also the most firm in their beliefs. Kahan and his colleagues suggest these individuals used their science skill to seek out evidence that best supported their pre-existing worldview. They were making mental effort, but it was biased toward their prior beliefs.

Freeform physical play in natural settings helps children to develop better motor skills. Playing in nature also inspires creativity and imaginative play, which has been linked to important life skills such as cooperation and problem-solving.

A critical part of many motivation theories, people have to believe that their efforts are connected to the outcomes they are concerned about. Otherwise, they feel like their effort will be wasted.

If many people are seen performing a new behavior, it will become the new norm.

Because bias is unconscious, we have a hard time knowing when and how it is influencing thinking. Though we may believe we are objective, rational thinkers, our already-existing ideas act as an unconscious filter and influence how we interpret all new ideas.

Social scientists call the most prominent worldview in any culture the "Dominant Social Paradigm." In Western-industrial cultures the Dominant Social Paradigm includes assumptions like:

• economic growth is always good (and always possible),
• human beings should use natural resources however we can for our benefit,
• individuals have the right to develop land for the purpose of accumulating personal profit, and
• science and technology will solve any problems that may arise as a result of our activities.

People can learn about how large systems work through guidance provided by someone with experience. In indigenous cultures, elders mentor younger generations, providing historical context and teaching methods for gathering information and interpreting it.

Whether we are aware of it or not, humans are constantly “reading” social settings to determine appropriate language, manner, gestures, and other behaviors. We learn a lot about how to behave by watching and imitating what others do. In fact, modeling by others is a primary influence on behavior, especially when situations are unfamiliar or ambiguous.

Decades of research on social influence show that the pressure to conform to a group, to behave as others behave, can feel very strong. People feel compelled to do as others do because they don’t want to stand out as being different.

Gifford (2011) identified several barriers that interfere with acting on climate change, including: thinking biases and limitations; social norms that promote problematic behaviors; habits; uncertainty about what to do about the problems; feeling like one's actions don't matter; and distrust of experts and authorities.

You've probably heard of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Freud believed that people defend themselves against uncomfortable emotions like anxiety with "defense mechanisms." This is an unconscious process that helps us to continue functioning in the face of troubling emotions.

The "Terror Management Theory" states that any information that makes us aware of our own mortality provokes profound anxiety. Perhaps not surprisingly, we don't like to think about dying.

For instance, if power companies regulated the amount of daily electricity that each household could use, or individuals were allotted a specific amount of gasoline each month, then a regulatory body like the government could control resource use. It is likely that people would quickly learn to conserve and use the resource more efficiently.

Children whose parents modeled respect and appreciation for nature, or those who hiked, camped, or otherwise interacted with "the great outdoors" often grow up with a concern for environmental protection.

Studies have shown that there are many unique combinations of mutations that can cause autism, similar to the case of mental retardation and epilepsy. Unfortunately, given that there are so many ways for autism to occur, it is difficult to track which changes can lead to symptoms.

Autism is associated with mental retardation about 70% of the time and that males are diagnosed more often.

Social class has no impact on the incidence of the disease, but there is not enough data to know if race or ethnicity influence the incidence of autism.

There is also no available data to support the idea that incidence of autism is changing over time.

Data supports the fact that autism is linked with several genomic regions and new regions are still being identified today.

Several research teams have worked separately to identify loci that could be responsible for autism. However, this has been difficult due to the high number of genes that could be involved and the high variability between affected individuals.

Previous research presented a new method for looking at the recruitment of different types of white blood cells to the site of an injury, while simultaneously identifying clusters of ligand-receptor couplings. This can be done in live mice.

From this initial study, PSGL-1 was identified as a promising neutrophil ligand protein.

Millepora hydrocorals can detect and attack gorgonians by growing on top of them.

In many ecological systems, there can be more than one "stable, final state" for a community, depending on the history of the community. In a more extreme example, a single barren part of the ocean floor could end up either coral-dominated or algal-dominated system depending on a variety of factors including fishing pressure and the first organisms to colonize it.

Rare disturbances like hurricanes could create patches of coral reef that are dominated by different species.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/10-0378.1/full

Some species of damselfish cultivate and defend lawns on algae, which serve as a source of food, on dead coral. Damselfish are known for being fiercely territorial and will fight off other species that enter their home territory.

Corals compete for space and light with each other as well as other organisms such as algae. Algae has the ability to grow much faster than coral and can quickly overgrow and shade coral if given the chance. Reef herbivores such as the sea urchin Diadema antillarum play an important role in keeping algae at bay, maintaining coral reefs.

Corals sexually reproduce by releasing large numbers of eggs and sperm into the water at once. This requires synchronized timing between multiple colonies and may only happen once a year.

Corals can also form colonies by asexual reproduction—coral fragments that break off of a parent colony can survive and grow into a new colony. New colonies are also sometimes formed by budding off of existing colonies.

Various studies describe the aftermath of tropical cyclones on coral reefs. Effects of storms seem to vary depending on the structure, form and composition of the affected reef.

None of the studies cited had intimate knowledge of the impacted reefs immediately before the disturbance.

Making robust ecological conclusions about the effects of a natural event, such as a hurricane, on an ecosystem requires thorough knowledge of that ecosystem both before and after the event.

Because Jamaican coral reefs were well-studied before, during, and after Hurricane Allen, this study is unique from previous studies of the effects of hurricanes on coral reef organisms.

Hurricanes hit the southern coast of Jamaica more often than the northern coast, and scientists have previously thought that this may be the reason for the observed differences in coral communities.

Differences include larger areas of dead coral and lower population densities of corals in certain reef zones on the southern coast.

Disturbances in the environment, such as storms and fires, can affect the state of an ecological community.

For example, traditional ecological knowledge dictates that when disturbance is very frequent or intense, all species in the affected area may become locally extinct—but when disturbance is very rare, the community may become dominated by only the most competitive species. An intermediate level of disturbance may, counterintuitively, maintain the highest level of biodiversity.

Prinz and colleagues comment on their experience as employees of a pharmaceutical company, which relies on preclinical research to decide whether to invest into the exploration and development of new drugs. Because companies find many preclinical research findings unreliable, they now often conduct their own research to reproduce the original findings before they decide to move on and invest large sums of money into the actual drug development. Only in about 20% to 25% of the cases did the company scientists report finding results of the reproduction that were in line with the originally reported findings.

Begley and Ellis are cancer researchers, who propose ways for research methods, publication practices and incentives for researchers to change so that research would yield more reliable results, such as more effective drugs and treatments. They argue that often new drugs and treatments enter clinical trials, which test their effectiveness to treat cancer in humans, before they reach sufficient standards in preclinical testing, leading to non-reproducible findings. To achieve more reliable preclinical results, they argue that more focus should be placed on reproducing promising findings in the preclinical phase.

Schmidt argues that, although replication is critical for scientific progress, little systematic thought had been applied to how to go about replications.

He suggests to differentiate direct replication (the repetition of an experimental procedure) and conceptual replication (the repeated test of a hypothesis or result using different methods).

Moreover, he summarizes five main functions that replications serve: to control for sampling error, artifacts or fraud, to extend results to a larger or different populations and to check the assumptions earlier experiments made.

Schmidt concludes that, although a scientific necessity, replications can be practically difficult to conduct, in particular because this type of work is not always easy to publish or highly regarded. Instead, he recommends that studies which include novel research questions could also include elements of replication of previous findings.